She nodded and half whispered, “Leo would be alive if I hadn’t needed your arms so much that I came to L.A. tonight.”
Rucker said, “Stop that, Opal. You know that nobody bucks fate.” He turned and left the room.
—
At 4:00 a.m., Petra sat on the side of her bed, smoking a cigarette and planning. She had decided to let Pee Wee escape and to leave Shetani at first opportunity. She was convinced that he had become insane and was no longer worth her loyalty, respect, and trust. In fact, of late she feared for her life, she reminded herself. She’d go back to New York, to a wealthy white trick who adored her.
She’d put the street down. The trick would bankroll an escort-service front for well-heeled tricks. Her startup girls would be the ones she would steal from Shetani.
She stood up and smiled at her bewitching snow-blonde reflection in a door mirror. The crazy black sonuvabitch wouldn’t be able to fuck with her once she fled into the white world with the protection of powerful white men, she assured herself.
She felt sure that Shetani was asleep. She boldly left the house and went across an expanse of lawn to the gardener’s shack for a hammer.
Froggy, the gateman, had been sternly ordered by Shetani to sleep by day and report all movement on the grounds from midnight to daybreak. Froggy was distracted by a galaxy of fornicating she/he’s in a porn mag when Petra entered the shack.
He spotted her immediately and saw that she exited with a suspicious-looking hammer. Why would a ho need a hammer after 4:00 a.m.? Froggy asked himself.
Petra entered the house and got a pound of butter from the refrigerator.
Froggy dialed his sleeping boss, who answered with a snarl, followed by a verbal pat on the back when Froggy delivered the hot news.
Petra went directly to Pee Wee’s cell. “Girl, I’m sure glad you showed,” Pee Wee exclaimed as she sprang from her steel-slab bed to stand with shining eyes at the cell door. She reached for the hammer in Petra’s hand.
Petra withdrew her hand. “Pee Wee, I’m risking my ass to help you. Promise that you will take the chain, smashed lock, and hammer with you and throw them in some bushes down the road. And don’t try to split through the gate. Go over the fence where the tall hedges are. Promise?”
Pee Wee nodded excitedly. “Sure, Angel Blue Eyes. I promise.” She took the extended hammer. “Say, friend, how ’bout leavin’ the kitchen door unlocked, so I can sneak in my old room and pack some stuff in a suitcase? I also got a coupla C-notes stashed up there. Okay?”
Petra studied her for a long time before she said, “All right, but you’re a dead little bitch if he catches you.”
Pee Wee grinned. “Sister, I ain’t gonna fuck around up there…Say, I owe you for this. Lemme ask you a personal question.”
Petra nodded.
“Ain’t you ready to cut that crazy nigger loose?”
Petra smiled. “Yes. Soon. Now I’m getting the hell out of this basement.” Petra passed the pound of butter to Pee Wee and said, “This is the only grease for your body that I could find.”
Pee Wee said, “You’re so fuckin’ precious,” and grabbed the sleeve of her robe. “Sister, like I said, I owe you and myself, too. Why don’t I ice that bad motherfucker before I split? What do you think about that. Huh?”
Petra shook her head vigorously. “Escape, Pee Wee. Don’t commit suicide. Good luck,” Petra said as she turned away for the stairway.
Eavesdropper Shetani, in bare feet, raced silently up the stairway and went through the open door at the top of the stairs at the instant when Petra started up. His face was hideous with rage as he hurried to his bedroom to set a death trap for Pee Wee.
Petra locked the door with her key and went to her bedroom.
Shetani paced the floor of his bedroom, analyzing what he had overheard. He decided that Pee Wee intended to kill him before she got in the wind. He had to prevent her escape, in case she decided it was too risky to make a kill try. He started to dial the twins. But he had detected earlier a lack of enthusiasm for his plan to get rid of Pee Wee. Instead, he called Froggy in his gate cubicle.
“Hey, Frog. Get out and patrol the front wall with your shotgun. If you spot Pee Wee, stop her and bring her to me. If she runs, blow her away. Got that?”
Froggy laughed. “I sho’ do, Cap. Ain’t no way the bitch is gonna git by me.”
Shetani hung up and busied himself fashioning a blanket dummy to place beneath his bedcovers.
In the basement, his impulse to blow away Petra and Pee Wee had been blocked by a sudden horrific plan to punish them. He switched off all lights except the feeble red light behind the bed. He stepped back to check out his effort. He didn’t like the shapeless head section of the dummy. He went down the hall to a stable bedroom. He brought back a curly black wig mounted on a Styrofoam stand. He positioned it beneath the covers, with just the curly top of the wig visible. He smiled in satisfaction as he went to hide behind a massive leather chair by the foot of the bed.
He pulled a blue silk belt from his robe and doubled it for a failsafe garrote. His hellish eyes glowed like green phosphorus in the dim stillness.
In the basement, Pee Wee greased her tiny naked body with butter. Finished, she stared at the smashed lock and hammer. Why bother with them? she thought. Shetani couldn’t punish Petra dead, but what if she was forced for some reason to escape without killing Shetani?
She picked up the hardware. She dragged a battered steamer trunk to an eighteen-by-twenty-inch window. She stood on it and opened the window. She shoved the lock and hammer onto the ground beneath the kitchen. She panted and struggled for what seemed like ages before she slipped through the window.
Exhausted, she got to her feet and filled her lungs with air. Awash in blue moonglow, her naked black body shone like indigo satin. Her elfish face was twisted into a fright mask of murderous intent. Her fury was more poisonous than when she shot the German trick to death in Wisconsin.
She hid the lock in some bushes before she entered the kitchen, carrying the hammer. She would use it to ice him unless she found something better. She found a meat cleaver in a drawer. She dropped the hammer behind the refrigerator and catfooted up the stairway to the second floor.
She stood outside his bedroom with an ear pressed against the door. She felt faint with tension. She closed her eyes for a moment and gritted her teeth. She eased the door open and stepped into the gloom. She saw the top of his curly head exposed for the killing blow. Ecstasy shook her as she crept to his bedside, holding the glittering cleaver with both her hands. She issued a gut-deep, shrill, orgasmic cry as she violently hacked the curly head into halves. Her eyes were gargantuan as she stared at the Styrofoam fake.
The corner of her eye caught the flicker of his shadow as he swooped from behind the chair. She screamed and started to whirl to her right to hack him with the cleaver.
The momentum of his rush knocked her to the carpet on her face. He looped the belt around her throat. He laughed as her frail body thrashed and struggled against the garrote and his weight atop her. Finally, he flipped her over and looked into her blank, bulgy eyes.
He lifted her into his arms. He walked down the hallway, into sleeping Petra’s room, to kick off the first stage of punishment for her. He carefully placed Pee Wee’s corpse beside Petra, with the garrote deeply embedded in flesh around the throat. The tongue lolled out on the chin, fat and purpled. The face of the corpse was almost touching Petra’s. He draped one of Pee Wee’s arms across Petra’s chest.
Petra stirred when he turned on her bright ceiling light. He sat on the side of the bed. He gazed at the gruesome tableau for a long moment before he pinched Petra’s earlobe.
Her long lashes fluttered and unveiled her drowsy blue eyes, which suddenly became electric with terror as they focused on the face of Shetani. She flung her hand to her chest in alarm.
“Master, what on earth!” The breath to speak further was cut off when her fingers touched the arm of the corpse. Sh
e switched her eyes to the awful face of the body. She shrieked and catapulted herself up off the mattress, to a standing position against the headboard. She wrung her hands and gibbered like a Holy Roller speaking in tongues.
He seized her wrists and hurled her to the floor. He stared down at her and said sweetly, “Hey, mama ho, don’t be upset like a square bitch ’cause one of your favorite kids got fucked up trying to ice her daddy. Now sweet Master is going to punish you for crossing me.” He knelt beside her and took a .45 pistol from his robe pocket.
Benumbed by horror, she lay in a ball while he battered her body from head to ankles with the butt of the heavy weapon. He gagged her and tied her hands and feet with stockings. He ripped the phone line from the wall. Dripping sweat, he lifted her into bed, then carried the wee corpse back to his room. He went back to lock Petra’s door.
He woke up the stable and ordered them to pack for a trip back to New York. He wrapped the corpse in a blanket and put it in his closet.
He took a shower and put on fresh peach silk pajamas. He knew that Petra was in no shape to run, so he injected a load of skag. He relaxed on the bed and planned how he would kill Rucker and force Petra to structure her own death.
—
In the middle of an interrogation of Opal by homicide detectives, Opal’s brother in New York called Rucker’s home with the news that Mother Rebecca Lenski had passed away. The second heavy emotional blow, after the shooting of her nephew, was more than even strong Opal could bear. She became so distraught that Rucker checked her into Cedars-Sinai for treatment and rest.
At eight-thirty, still sleepless, he reported to Hollywood Station to discuss with homicide detectives Crane’s hookup with Petra and his involvement in Leon’s death.
Commander Bleeson joined the meeting. In the course of discussion, he mentioned that a pair of New York homicide detectives were flying in with murder-arrest warrants for the Brooks twins. A reliable eyewitness in Harlem had come forth who had seen the twins riddle Cecil “Tree” Lewis with a machine gun and an automatic pistol in Tree’s backyard marijuana garden. The murder of Tree had been requested of Shetani by his skag suppliers, the Mafiosi Angelo and Joey, for Tree’s robbery of Mafia-protected drug dealers in Harlem.
Weary Rucker left the station and drove home to try for some rest.
Inside the Shetani house of death, the Brooks twins sat in the living room, listening to Shetani briefing the stable. He sat in his thronelike royal-purple chair, with his bejeweled fingers tented beneath his pointed chin.
The girls, in casual traveling clothes, sat around him, surrounded by their luggage. Diane, a trusted Jewish sexpot with long, luxuriant sable hair, sat on the floor beside Shetani. He spoke softly.
“Sweet things, Petra is out of town, taking care of some business for Daddy. Diane will be looking out for you on the trip back to our hotel in the Apple. Listen to her like you did to Petra. The seats in the large van are soft and cozy. Diane will have medicine galore, and what a ball everybody’s gonna have seeing beautiful America. You’ll be drinkin’ champagne and shootin’ China white and watchin’ porn movies in ritzy hotels along the way.”
They cheered. He shaped a nonhideous smile. “And since the trip is a holiday, I’ll punish the bitch that turns a trick.”
They laughed and cheered lustily. He raised a palm to silence them. “Froggy is driving, with Diane as backup. Me and the twins will probably be home when you get there. I’m gonna miss you all a lot until I see you again. Now, hit the fuckin’ road and have fun.”
They descended upon him with hugs and kisses before they split. The twins, seated on a sofa across the room, watched him light a water pipe to smoke crack.
Eli cleared his throat. “ ’Scuse me, Cap, but me and Cazo sure hope you changed your mind overnight about wastin’ lil Pee Wee.”
Shetani smiled. “She escaped last night. I’m glad the jinky bitch is gone.”
Doubt wrinkled Cazo’s brow. Cap, you mus’ be jivin’. Ain’t no way that lil sister could beat that cell.”
Eli cut in. “Yeah, Cap, ain’t no way. How she do it?”
Shetani fingered the .45 in his robe pocket. “Get out of my face and find the bitch and ask her how she did it.”
The tone of his voice and the sudden ferocity in his face told them he’d killed her. The twins looked at each other and stood. Cazo said, “Okay, Cap, maybe she’s hidin’ in the house. We’ll find her and ask her how she did it.”
Eli’s face was grim. He said in a low, deadly voice, “Cap, we goin’ be upset like a motherfucker if Pee Wee got wasted.”
They hurriedly left the room.
Shetani sprang to his feet and went to an end table beside the sofa. He opened the drawer and took out a small ring of keys. He went to a tall gun cabinet and removed a huge padlock from its door. He went upstairs. He stood at the top of the stairs and peeped at the twins, moving in and out of the stable bedrooms. He watched them try Petra’s locked door before they tried his locked door.
Eli said, as he put his shoulder to the door, “Let’s look in there.”
Rage ached Shetani’s guts, that they, his lackeys, would challenge him this way. He leveled the .45 to blow them away for desert burial with Pee Wee and Petra, but some imperative block paralyzed his trigger finger.
With the gun still leveled at them, he hollered, “Freeze, lard asses, and reach for the fuckin’ ceiling!”
They spun away from the door to face him and reached. “Cap, you ain’t gonna blow away your homeboys that you knowed since kindergarten,” Cazo whined as Shetani walked toward them.
“Not this minute, coon ass. I’m gonna put you salty cocksuckers in jail to cool off. Move!” Shetani said harshly as he waved the gun.
The twins led the way to the basement door. Shetani threw the key to the door onto the floor. He ordered, “One of you niggers unlock that door and switch on the light.”
Eli lowered his hands, picked up the key, and unlocked the door. Cazo switched on the light. They paused and turned toward him. Cazo pleaded, “Cap, ain’t no reasons to lock us up. We ain’t gonna git outta line no more.”
Shetani fired a thunderous round that gouged out a hunk of plaster a couple of inches above Cazo’s head. The twins scampered down the stairway and into the cell.
Shetani reached through the bars to get the long, heavy logging chain off the concrete. He threaded it twice through the cell and cell-door bars before he affixed the giant padlock.
“What you goin’ do with us, Cap?” Cazo asked plaintively.
“I don’t trust you niggers anymore. I’ll think of something,” Shetani said as he turned away for the stairway.
He went to his bedroom and unlocked the door of his closet, where the corpse of Pee Wee lay. He had a compulsion to make sure she was still there, and dead. She was. He made sure his dope kit and an envelope of China white was beneath a pillow before he left the room, with the door unlocked.
He let himself into Petra’s room. She lay, still gagged and bound hand and foot and on her back. She mumbled through the gag and stared at him through slits in her battered face. He gazed at her and smiled at the thought that she would be dead within the hour if she failed a deadly test.
“You gonna be sweet and behave yourself?” he crooned as he bent to nip an exposed nipple with his teeth.
She moved away and nodded yes. He freed her. He had ripped off her nightgown during the beating. Now her body was ugly with masses of blue-black bruises. She stood and moved shakily to a mirrored dressing table. She sat down and took a dope kit from a drawer. He watched her use a hand mirror to inject China white into the hidden space between her vulva and lower inner buttock. She winced when she reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table. She extended the pack toward him. He joined her on the padded bench, and they lit up together.
He whispered into her ear, “Please forgive your sweet daddy for being mean ’cause you hurt his heart by crossing him for Pee Wee—huh, sugar pet, please?”
She managed a slight smile with swollen lips. She realized that she could never be free and safe so long as he lived. She glanced at scissors on the tabletop and fantasized a heart shot. But she feared his feline quickness.
“Sure, Master, I forgive you,” she said, so softly he had to strain to hear her.
“Are you still my slave forever?” he asked, with his eyes probing the depth of hers. He saw hatred and bone-chilling coldness, like the bleak winters in her native Norway.
“Sure, Master, forever,” she whispered against his mouth as she kissed him.
Suddenly he got to his feet, and she recoiled violently. He frowned. “Hey, you’re not afraid of me, I hope.”
She flashed a twisted little smile. “No, Master, I’m just nervous and sore.”
He tattooed her with feathery kisses as he tenderly applied cocoa butter to her entire body. “Pet, it’s a beautiful day, and sun will be good for your body,” he said sweetly. He threw a short pink terrycloth robe upon her shoulders and carried her to poolside. They sat in silence for several minutes, soaking up sun and listening to radio jazz.
“Hey, pet, how about stretching your legs a little for me,” he said as he searched his robe pockets.
“Sure, Master, I’d be delighted,” she said as she stood beside him.
“I want to get right. Get my works, under the pillow in my room.” He watched her leave and walk into the house.
She went directly to the kitchen. She took a pinch of rat poison from a half-empty box left by former tenants beneath the sink. She was breathless with excitement and fear as she hurried upstairs to his bedroom. She got his kit and sat on the side of the bed. She shook as she mixed the rat poison with the skag in the kit. Her heart was rioting, and she felt dizzy with tension. For a long moment, she was afraid that she would faint if she stood.
She got to her feet, feeling an unprecedented euphoria that soon she would be free and safe.
His cruel eyes narrowed as he watched the suspicious vivacity in her battered legs as she walked toward him. She dropped the kit on his lap and sat down. He used a bent spoon, a match, and a tiny bottle of distilled water to quickly prepare a bit of the poisoned dope for shooting. He drew the contents of the spoon into a syringe. He sucked at the needle point to clear air bubbles.