Monsters - Chapter 9 – Monster Questions – Part 1 of 2

Monsters

By Karen Singer

Chapter 9 – Monster Questions – Part 1 of 2

Carol sat in the backseat of the taxi next to Brandy.  Her mind however was more on Ralphie than on the job ahead of them.  Ralphie had been a true sight by the time Brandy had sent him out of the room with a short list of things to do.  The pink and white adult sized little girl dress, complete with petticoats, white tights, and pink Mary Jane shoes with a big bow on each toe looked ridiculous on him.  She had watched with great amusement as Brandy had put locks on each of his shoes then two more small locks on the back of his dress so there would be no way he could remove any of it.  And underneath it all, a thick diaper that could often be seen below the hem of his dress as he moved.  She knew that Brandy would be checking later to see how wet that diaper was.

And then Brandy had given him a short list of things to do and sent him out of the room.  She could literally see the tears of humiliation threatening to run down Ralphie’s face by the time she kicked him out the door.  His first task, find a nail salon and have the red color on his long acrylic nails changed for a baby pink color that would go with the outfit he was wearing.  After that, she had told him that there were a number of adult baby shops in town and he had to go into each and every one of them and look at everything carefully.  She would be questioning him later as to exactly what he found in each one.  She told him to buy anything that caught his eye, but he had to buy at least one package of diapers from each store.  The thickest ones he could find that had little girl designs on them.

Carol laughed again at the thought of what Brandy was doing to him, and especially at the remembered sight of him as he had left the room.  He had once been a pimp in Chicago.  Now look at him.  Retribution indeed!

The taxi dropped them off in front of a large office building where Omar Besinski had his offices.  From the reports, they knew that Besinski was the second largest criminal organization in town, but it was beginning to rival the size of Romo’s.  Brandy lowered the black mask over her head before she and Carol got out of the car.  She noted six men standing out in front of the building.  Three of them were ones she had seen up in Johnny Morrow’s office.  He had said he would be here for this meeting too.  But the man they needed to talk with was one that belonged to Omar.  To see him, they were going to have to go through both Omar and Johnny.

There were no guns out this time, but Brandy noticed how nervous Morrow’s men looked.  One of them nodded toward Carol and Brandy and led them inside.  Carol chuckled a laugh as three of them walked in front and the other three walked behind.  She could take all of them out in seconds.  She had no doubt that Brandy could too.  They rode up the elevator to the top floor.  The men surrounded them up there on all sides.  Carol figured that the new positions would only make it easier to take them out faster.  She did her best not to laugh and just walked along with Brandy toward the far end of the hall.

They entered an office where there were more men waiting.  Brandy noticed most of them were carrying guns, but nobody had pulled one out.  They better not!  She had spent the entire journey through the building trying not to rip the men around her apart.  She was almost proud of herself for not moving a muscle against them.

“Retribution.  Death.  This way.”

They looked to see Morrow standing in another doorway.  They headed for him and the men who had been surrounding them stayed away.  Inside the office, there was another man.  An older man who was bald on top with the rest of his hair going grey.  By his looks, Carol guessed he was eastern European.  His name, Besinski, seemed to confirm his eastern European looks.

Omar Besinski looked at the two women who had entered his office, but despite the mask covering one of their faces, his eyes went directly to Carol.  Morrow had told him that the one with the mask would be Retribution.  He had heard all about her.  But worse, he also knew something about the one that everyone called Death.  “Death.”  He looked over at Brandy.  “And Retribution.”  He looked back to Death.  “Is it true that you took out an entire Nicaraguan regiment and killed a hundred and twenty men?”

Carol rolled her eyes.  “I think that story gets worse every time someone tells it.”

“You killed a hundred and twenty men?” Brandy asked.

“I’m pretty sure there weren’t that many.  It just seemed like it at the time.  I was only after the general, but all his men seemed to get in the way.  By the time I finally got to him, I was so pissed off that I cut both his hands off him while he was still alive for my proof of death, before I cut his heart out.”

“Cool!  You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”

Carol shrugged.  “What’s to tell?  I got…pissed.  I was also PMSing at the time so maybe that had a little to do with it.”

Brandy smiled.  “Yeah.  Some of my favorite bits of fun seem to happen around that time.”

“If you and I ever have our periods at the same time, we’ve got to get together.  It should be a blast.”

“Absolutely!”

Omar and Johnny were looking back and forth between the two.  Omar finally focused on Brandy.  “And you,” he said.  He started to laugh.  Then he pulled open a drawer in his desk and pulled out large wad of money.  He set it on the desk in front of him.  “That’s for you.”

“Me?” Brandy asked.  “What for?”

“For providing me with the biggest laugh I’ve ever had.  And I’m still laughing.”

“Biggest laugh?”

“Yeah.  When you branded all of Romo’s men, you used my branding iron.  Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!”  He started laughing again at just the thought of it.

“Romo did say you used his rival’s branding iron,” Carol mentioned.

“Yeah,” Brandy replied.  “But like I said, it was just the first opportunity I ever had to try one.  I was curious.”

“Let me know the next time you get curious about something.  I want to be there,” Carol told her.

“I will if I can.”  She turned to Morrow.  “We’re not here to talk about us.  We just want to talk to someone who saw what happened.”

“Not that it will help you much,” Omar replied.  “But yeah.  Hold on a sec.”  He picked up his desk phone and called a number.  “Send him in.”

A moment later, the office door opened and a man walked in.  He eyed the two women carefully, especially the one in the mask.  He said nothing to anyone.

“George,” Omar said.  “Tell these two ladies what you saw when Nico got offed.”

George continued to eye the two women suspiciously before he spoke.  “I didn’t see much of anything,” he told them.  “I was in the…uh…one of our places of business,” he continued.  “I stepped out into the alley and saw two guys running around the corner into the main road.  When they turned, I noticed the automatic rifles in their hands.  I heard one shot, then they ran back into the alley again and right past me.  But the guys had their faces almost completely covered.  The only thing I could see were their eyes.  I didn’t have a gun on me, but the first one ran at me anyway and knocked me down before they kept going and were gone.  The whole thing didn’t last ten seconds.”

“Interesting,” Carol said.  “They could have killed you, but they didn’t.”

“No.  And I’m very glad about that!”

“I’m sure you are,” Carol replied.

“Let me ask you this,” Brandy said.  “You said they had their faces almost completely covered so you could only see their eyes.  How did they cover their faces?  Were they both the same?”

“Yeah, come to think of it.  They both had some kind of black cloth wrapped around their heads.  All the way around, I guess a couple of times, so that only their eyes were showing.”

“Were they wearing gloves?”

“No.  Not that I remember.”

“Were they black?” Brandy asked next.

“No.  I could see that much easy enough.  No.  they were both white.”

“What were they wearing?” Brandy asked next.

George shook his head.  “Just…clothes.  You know.  Uh…I noticed they were both wearing boots though.”

“Boots?  Good.  What kind of boots.  Like cowboy boots?”

“Nah.  Not like that at all.  Black.  Like military boots.”

“Military boots!” Carol exclaimed as she now took up the questioning.  “You said they were carrying automatic rifles.  “How do you know they were automatic?”

“I may not have had a gun on me then, but I know my guns.  I was in the army for four years.”

“So if you were in the army, then did you notice how they carried their weapons?  Were they both the same?”

George looked at her suspiciously.  He looked over at Brandy, then back to Carol.  “Yeah.  Like she asked about how they covered their faces.  Both of them held their guns the same way too, across their chests.  We did that a lot in the army.”

Carol glanced over at Brandy for a moment before asking her next question.  “Did you see them take the shot?”

“No.  They were around the corner when it happened.  I didn’t actually see it.”

“So you don’t know which one actually did the shooting.”

“I’m guessing it was the first one, the shot came almost as soon as the second one turned the corner.”

Carol nodded.  “So it was quick.  And then they ran back and were gone.”

“Yeah, but not before they knocked me down.”

“Like I said before.  They had the chance to kill you, but they didn’t.  Which means they were only supposed to kill one person and that’s all.”

“Thank God!”

Brandy asked the next question.  “Did you hear them say anything at all?”

“Nope.  Not a thing.  It was in and out.  Quick.”

“What did you do next?” Carol asked.

“Me?  I ran to the street to see what happened.  I saw Niko lyin’ there dead with a hole through his forehead.”

“Through his forehead?” Carol confirmed.

“Yeah.  A damn good shot!”

“Sounds like it.”

“What did you do next?” Brandy asked.

“Me? I grabbed my phone and called…uh…my supervisor.”

“You didn’t try to chase them?”

“Are you kidding?  They were gone and I didn’t have a gun.  I ain’t got no death wish.”

“Did you talk to the police?” Brandy asked next.

“Hell no!  I got the hell out of there.”

“Is there anything else you want to add?” Carol asked.  “Anything at all that you noticed about them or about what they did or how they acted?”

“Nope.  It was all so quick you wouldn’t believe it.  Seconds!”

Carol nodded.  “That’s what I thought.”  She looked over to Brandy.  “Any other questions for him?”

“None I can think of.  That was more information than I thought we’d get.”

“Yeah.  For sure!”

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Ralphie looked up at the store front.  He had done this a million times in the last few years.  That didn’t make it any easier.  Especially with the way he was dressed now.  He had been forced to ask the hotel concierge for directions to the nearest nail salon.  And then he had also asked the concierge to call him a taxi.  Waiting out in front of the beautiful hotel as all the people streamed passed him was another exercise in humiliation.  Every last one of them looked him over.  Many of them laughed at him as if he was an attraction.  And one middle-aged woman stood next to him and asked if she could have her picture taken with him.  He literally was a Las Vegas attraction.  He had climbed into the taxi as fast as he could the moment it pulled up to the curb.

As always, every head in the nail salon turned to look at him as soon as he walked in.  He asked to have the color on his nails changed.  Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait.  He was shown right back to one of the nail techs.  Most nail techs were oriental.  Vietnamese, in Cleveland.  This one was oriental as well.  In fact, all of them in the place were.  No surprise, his nail tech was doing her best to stifle her laughter.  He sat.

“What can I do for you today?” she asked, then started laughing at him again.

“I need to change my nail color to something that will match my outfit better.”

She started laughing again.

Getting his nails done was so much fun!

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