“I love you, Wayne,” she’d whispered.
“I love you, too,” he’d said.
“I don’t want you dating other girls anymore.”
“You want to go steady?”
“Yes. Say you won’t go out with anyone but me. Please.”
“I won’t go out with anyone but you,” he’d promised.
It had been a tough promise to keep. Wayne had more girls in his life than he could handle. It had started right after his arrest for murdering his mother’s boyfriend. Two girls from his highschool who’d never given him the time of day had posted naked photos of themselves on his Facebook page, while another had sent him a sex video on his cell phone. On the video, she had fondled herself while purring his name over and over.
Amber was different. She’d slipped a letter into his locker at school, and asked him to go out. On their first date, they’d sat in her car in a parking lot, and talked for hours. Right then, he’d known she was special.
The door opened, and his captor entered the room. He was a big Cuban with graying temples and cloudy, expressionless eyes. He wore shiny black boxing shorts and no shirt. His upper torso was ripped. In his hands was a device that looked like the blood pressure machine in the supermarket that the old folks lined up to use.
“How do you like the movie?” the Cuban asked.
Ladd didn’t answer. He still hadn’t figured out the Cuban’s deal. He wasn’t like the demented killers in the slasher movies. His voice was soft, and he had a funny little smile that never seemed to go away. He was also a cook, and had made chicken and yellow rice for lunch, which had tasted pretty good.
The Cuban knelt down beside his chair.
“How do you like the movie?” he repeated, raising his voice.
“It’s sick,” Ladd said.
The Cuban’s eyebrows rose like question marks.
“He’s hurting her,” Wayne said.
“That doesn’t make you want to have sex?”
“No.”
“Would you like to see something else?”
“Yes.”
“What would you like to see?”
“Does it have to be porno?”
The Cuban laughed without any sound coming out of his mouth.
“Something where the sex is normal,” Wayne said.
“Very well.”
The Cuban’s hands began to undo Ladd’s pants.
“Hey – cut it out!” the teenager said.
He pulled Ladd’s pants and underwear down to his ankles.
“Look what a big dick you have,” he said. “That is very good.”
“What do you mean?”
“The girls like you, yes?”
Ladd swallowed the rising lump in his throat and nodded.
“You have sex a lot, yes?”
Ladd felt like the Cuban was reading his thoughts.
“Sometimes.”
“That is very good,” the Cuban repeated.
The Cuban wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Ladd’s penis, and pumped it up so it was not too tight. He turned on the black box attached to the cuff, and several colored lights on the front panel started to blink. He patted Ladd on the shoulder.
“Take this thing off my face,” the teenager said.
“I cannot do that,” the Cuban replied.
“If I sneeze, my eyeballs will pop out.”
The Cuban considered it. “I am going to put a new movie on. Promise me you’ll watch it, and I’ll take the device off.”
“I’ll watch the movie. I promise.”
The Cuban removed the metal device from Ladd’s head and tousled his hair. It was the strangest thing. Wayne sensed that his captor liked him.
The Cuban walked out of the room. Moments later, the movie on the TV changed. Ladd felt something drop in his stomach. The new movie had been taken with a jittery hand-held camera, and showed a bearded man in hunting clothes chasing through the woods after a screaming young girl. The music coming out of the speakers changed as well. The Stones’ Midnight Rambler, Mick Jagger singing about sticking a knife down a woman’s throat.
Ladd averted his eyes. From out of nowhere came the Cuban’s booming voice.
“I’m watching you!”
Ladd refused to look at the TV.
“Do it right now!”
The Cuban didn’t sound friendly anymore. Ladd forced himself to accept the terrifying situation he was in. If he didn’t comply to the Cuban’s wishes, the Cuban would hurt him. That was how it worked in the slasher movies, and it was no different here.
“Look at the fucking film!”
Ladd made himself stare at the TV. The hunter had torn off the girl’s clothes and was tying her to a tree. The machine attached to the blood pressure cuff let out a loud beep. He looked down at his crotch. His penis had gone limp.
Ladd knew it was the wrong reaction. The Cuban hadn’t strapped a cuff on his dick for it to go limp. The Cuban wanted his dick to go hard. That was the game.
Give the Cuban what he wants, and maybe he won’t hurt you, he thought.
Ladd looked at sickness on the TV while thinking about Amber, and their last night together. He got an erection despite of everything. The machine let out another beep, this one much louder than before.
He imagined the Cuban in the next room, smiling to himself.
Chapter 6
Sky Tell Communications was one of four regional phone carriers doing business in Broward County. According to Google, the company made its money leasing pay phones to convenience stores and shopping malls. The company’s owner, a Russian named Dimitri Tursenev, was also on Google, and had spent six months in prison for running hookers through a string of strip clubs he owned on South Beach.
With Vick now running the investigation, Linderman had offered to contact Sky Tell, and trace Mr. Clean’s early morning phone call. Normally, that would have meant calling the company, invoking the Patriot Act, and requesting their phone records. Only the owner’s background was a red flag, so he’d driven to company headquarters in Lauderdale Lakes, and punched the buzzer while showing his badge to the surveillance camera over the front door.
“Yes?” a female asked over the intercom.
“FBI. Open up,” Linderman replied.
Static came out of the box like crowd noise at a football game. There was no shade over the front door, and beads of sweat marched down his back.
“Do you have a subpoena?” the female asked.
“No. Make me get one, and I’ll turn the place upside down.”
The door buzzed entry, and he walked down a hallway to where a nervous receptionist sat at a desk. Her hair was dyed a color you didn’t find in nature, and she had enough rings in her face to hang a shower curtain.
“Who’s in charge?” he asked.
“May I see your ID?”
He held his laminated identification card in front her face.
“Now,” he said with emphasis.
“I called Dimitri. He’ll be right out.”
The door behind her opened. A large, balding Russian dressed in black came out, his left foot hobbled by a plaster cast.
“Dimitri Tursenev?” Linderman asked.
“That is me. What is this about?” the Russian asked timidly.
“I’m conducting a criminal investigation. A suspect in a case made a phone call from one of your pay phones this morning. I want to know who he called.”
“You want to see my phone logs?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
Tursenev visibly relaxed. He opened his arms as if greeting an old friend.
“Of course. Step into my office.”
Linderman followed him through the door. The FBI had followed a wave of Russian mobsters who had swept into the United States during the past decade. With briefcases filled with cash, they’d bought homes and businesses and taken on the American dream, some succeeding, others failing miserably. Tursenev – bloated, poorly dressed, his face more confused than proud – appeared to be one of those failures.