Monsters
By
Karen Singer
Chapter 15 – Hidden Monster – Part 1 of 2
Early in the morning, two naked
women sat up on Brandy’s bed looking at the reports that Ralphie had collected
from the Chinese restaurant the day before.
“Okay,” Brandy said as she studied the paper in front of her. “Geovelli is the biggest boss in the
city. From what we’ve seen, his losses have
been light compared to the others.”
“If those numbers are
right,” Carol added. “I’m sure that
getting accurate numbers from any of them is difficult, and we know that what
we’re getting is probably a day behind.”
“True,” Brandy agreed. “I’m not sure we can trust any of the numbers,
but at the same time, they do give us some idea of what’s happening to each
organization.”
“Yeah,” Carol agreed. “And from what it looks like now, whoever is
behind it is trying to get rid of some of the smaller groups first.”
“Maybe,” Brandy replied. “Even though I think you’re right, I would
expect to see more losses for Vince Beastman than I’m seeing. Everything else suggests that they’re
targeting the smaller groups first.”
“I’m thinking that good ol’ Vince
is hiding some of his losses.”
“And I’m thinking you’re right!”
Brandy agreed. “One other thing about
Geovelli though that bothers me. From
what he told us, it sounds like everyone he’s lost so far had their throats
slit. None of the others mentioned that.”
“No. That was strange. But we talked to him first. We don’t know about any he’s lost since we
talked to him.”
“True. Good point.
We need to ask.”
“It could also be that since those
men were killed, whoever is behind it has tweaked their methods a bit so that
everyone now gets a kill shot.”
“That sounds very likely,” Brandy
agreed. “If I had a mercenary army, I’d
want them to work as quickly and efficiently as possible. From what we’ve heard, they’re doing a lot of
sniping now, so nobody sees them.”
“Yeah. Invisible.”
“Or almost.”
“Pretty damn close,” Carol
said. “Nobody’s gotten anything but the
barest glimpse of any of them.”
“And I’m betting they’re always using
two-man teams,” Brandy added.
“Military. For sure!”
Brandy turned back to the paper in
her hand for a moment. “Then there’s the
second biggest group in the city. Omar
Besinski’s men.”
“Romo’s rival.”
“I’m betting they’re rivals mostly
because Omar is the number two boss in the city.”
“He could want to be number one,”
Carol pointed out.
“I have no doubt that he does,”
Brandy agreed. “But I also have no doubt
that they’d all like to take Romo out and be number one instead.”
“So Besinski’s got to be high on
our list,” Carol decided.
“For sure,” Brandy agreed. She looked back at her list. “Then there’s Johnny Morrow.”
“The guy who hired you.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t
automatically cross him off my list of suspects. He is number three, so he’s got plenty of resources.”
“And he struck me as being
unusually smart,” Carol said. “At least
that’s the impression I got from him.”
“Yeah, me too. But to be a boss in this game you’ve got to
be smart. But at the same time Johnny
did seem fairly young to be in that position too.”
“Young, smart, and obviously very interested
in moving up the ladder to the top.
Probably willing to take chances and do almost anything.”
“For sure,” Brandy agreed. She looked at her list. “Charles Allingham is next.”
“We didn’t actually talk to him,”
Carol noted.
“No. Not yet.
But I did enjoy that last part of our trip last night.”
“I think we need to talk to him or
his men to see what they know,” Carol suggested.
“Agreed. Today?”
“Why not. The sooner the better. The only thing we really know about him, as
far as I see it, is that he’s probably heavily into blackmail.”
“I have no doubt he is.” Brandy
agreed. “Carol, you probably know this
better than I would.”
“What?”
“Could someone who has that much
blackmail experience, use that leverage to gain themselves a mercenary army?”
“Easily. And more than likely, whoever they’re making
the arrangements with would be bending over backwards to keep Allingham
happy. Not to mention if that were the
case, I doubt Allingham would be paying for their services in money.”
“Yeah. I can see that,” Brandy replied as she took
that information in. She looked back at
her paper. “Then there’s the number five
group. Vince Beastman.”
“Vince the Beast,” Carol said,
rolling her eyes at the name.
“According to your people, he’s
made most of his money in prostitution.
In the last five years he’s managed to somehow take over a large portion
of all the prostitution in the city.”
“He’s got drug ties too,” Carol
remembered from what she had read. “But
we don’t know where he gets his drugs from.”
“No, but I don’t think that matters. According to the reports, he’s lost men, but
not that many.”
“Yeah, according to what we’ve seen
so far. Lozano, Allingham, and Morrow
have lost the most.”
“Yeah, but Lozano is the smallest
organization, and it’s obvious that they’re trying to remove him first,” Carol
noted.
“He’s also more of a drug lord than
the others. Most of his money comes from
drugs run up from Mexico.”
“Drugs and prostitution,” Carol
replied. “Maybe someone wants his drug
trade.”
“I would if I were any of the rest
of them.”
“Yeah. For sure.
I wonder,” she said as she started considering something.
“What’s that?”
“Lozano is heavily into supplying
drugs. I’m wondering if he’s had any problems
with his pipeline since all this started.
Or is someone just trying to kill off him and his men.”
“Good question. We need to ask.”
“Yeah. He may be the smallest organization in the
city, but his drugs could be bringing in more money than anyone knows.”
“Could be,” Brandy agreed.
“So where to today?” Carol
asked. “Allingham?”
“Allingham, and I think
Beastman. They’re the only two bosses we
haven’t talked to.”
“Allingham is more likely to be
interested in killing us than talking to us,” Carol pointed out.
“True. We need a way around that.”
“We could just go around him and
question his men.”
“I think we need to do that
anyway,” Brandy agreed, “but I think I want to meet Allingham personally and
see what he’s like. I’ve met all the
others. Let’s see how Allingham stacks
up.”
“We haven’t met Beastman either,” Carol
pointed out. “And according to Romo,
he’s not the friendly type.”
“Let’s tackle Allingham first,”
Brandy decided. “He’s higher up on the
list than Beastman. Besides, since he
planted the bugs in my room, I’d really like to have a more personal chat with
him.”
“But because of what we did last
night, how are we going to manage it, unless we just go in with guns out and
shoot anyone who gets in our way. Mind
you, I don’t mind doing that at all. I
can think of at least six times that I’ve done just that in the past, gone up
in a big skyscraper and took out everyone who got in my way, just to reach my
targets and take them out.”
“You really do have a fun life,”
Brandy noted.
“Sometimes. But the rest of the time it can be boring as
hell. So, do we take out whoever gets in
our way?”
Brandy considered it. “No.
We’d probably make the headline news.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Carol
said as if she didn’t care. “We just do
it in such a way that even the security cameras won’t show who we are.”
“But for now, I think we should
avoid going that extreme.”
“Call your friend Morrow and ask him
to arrange it like we did the others?”
“Yeah. That might be a good suggestion for a start,
but because he’s going to want to get back at us for last night, I’m thinking
we may need to be a bit more cautious.”
“Absolutely! Okay, then how do we approach him?”
“Brandy considered it for a few
moments. “I’ve got the start of an idea. You may like it, but you might not.”
Carol tuned her head to look at
her. “Why?”
Because a lot of it may depend on
if your people can get us something. And
the other part may depend on how good a shot you are.”
Carol smiled. “Have I ever mentioned that I love
guns!”
“You might have mentioned it. And then there’s the part where you’re going
to need that dress and the wig again.”
“That part I’m not so happy about!”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“Blue!” Brandy ordered.
Ralphie knew it was no use
arguing. “Yes, Miss Brandy he replied.”
“Now get out of here.”
Ralphie turned and hurried out the
door. His first task of the day was to
find a totally different nail salon and have his pink nails changed to
blue. Blue didn’t even go with the dress
he was wearing that day. Thank God he
wasn’t wearing one of the little girl outfits again with the diapers. His life was humiliating enough! After that, Miss Brandy had ordered that he
had to go shopping for a new dress.
Worse…something he could wear out on the street corner to pick up men.
He really hated his life. He’d give anything to get out of it. But every time he tried, Miss Brandy found
him faster than he could believe. Of
course, after the first time he tried to run away, she had takin him to a
doctor…of some sort…and had a chip implanted in his hip. Deep in his hip. So that she could use an app on her phone and
could find him anywhere, anytime. That
still didn’t seem to keep her from checking up on everywhere he went…all the
time. She loved keeping him under her
thumb. And the consequences of him
messing up in any way at all were…worse than death! She had a decided talent for being cruel.
He rode the elevator down to the
lobby. Time to start asking about nail
salons. If they stayed in Vegas much
longer, he had no doubt that he’d be changing his nail color again.
---
§§§§§§§§§§ ---
“If I told you I hate you, would
you believe me?”
“No.”
“How about if I told you I hate
this wig.”
“No.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I think I look rather cute in it.”
“Absolutely.”
“How about if I told you I hate
this dress?”
“That part I’d believe. But look at it this way, at least you get to
play with your gun.”
“Yeah. That does kind of make up for it. You do know I don’t like men, don’t you?”
“You might have mentioned it a
dozen or so times,” Brandy replied.
“Would you rather do this with Ralphie?”
“Huh! Are you kidding?”
“Then stop complaining. Besides, this was your idea, not mine. I just planned on you watching my back while
I talked to them.”
“Yeah. I know.
But I’ve done this before. Doing
it this way, I can stay close and they’ll never see me.”
“We hope!”
“Yeah, but like I said, I’ve done
it before.”
“So now we just have to wait for
Allingham to call.”
“And you’ve got to get dressed.”
“That will take me two minutes,
tops!”
“I’m dying to see you in…”
The room phone ringing cut her off. Brandy answered it. “Yes?”
“You’re the one that Morrow called
about? The one who made a mess of my
desk and hurt my men?”
“When you say it like that,” Brandy
replied, “I almost think you’re more concerned about your desk getting a few
chips in it than you are about your men.”
“I can get more men. My desk is an antique!” Allingham replied.
“I would have never known. Think of it this way, now it has more
character. You’ve seen those shows where
they take new furniture and beat it up to give it more of a distressed look. Think of it like that. I’ve added character and memories for you.”
“And I’ve added you to my shoot on
sight list.”
“I’m just glad I made an
impression. I really wanted to do
something to you, personally, last night, so remember, you’re still on
my list too.”
“You’re dead!”
“Not yet I’m not. And if I were you, I’d be very careful when
you do try to kill me. Now are we going
to meet or not? And I don’t know if
Morrow passed it on or not, but I’d really like to talk with any of your men
that were around when some of your people were murdered. They’re the ones I really need to talk with.”
There was no reply to her question. Just silence.
“Do we meet?” she asked again, “or
do we just forget about you and the fact that other than Lozano, you’ve lost
the most men, and all signs are pointing to whoever it is wiping you off the
map right after they finish with the Mexicans?”
Again, there was no reply.
“Okay,” Brandy said. “I’ll keep in mind that you’d like me dead, and
you don’t want our help in figuring out who’s trying to wipe out every criminal
organization in the city. Goodbye, Mr.
Allingham. And just remember, the next
time I find my room bugged, you’re going to die!”
“Wait!”
“For what?”
“We’ll meet.”
“Why couldn’t we just get to that
when I first asked?”
“Because I still want you
dead. But I’ll allow you safe passage up
to my office…this time.”
“Sorry. No way.
It’s not that I don’t trust you, but…I don’t. Not the world’s biggest blackmailer…which I
am a bit envious of by the way. No. We’ll do this on common ground.”
“Common ground?”
“Yes. Like…a park!” she said pointedly going with
the scenario that Carol had wanted. “I
hear Las Vegas is loaded with some very nice ones. I want a park, but I’ll let you pick which
one and where.”
Allingham laughed. “Fine with me. I’ll set it up and call you with the details.”
“I absolutely can’t wait,” Brandy
replied sarcastically. “Don’t make me
wait too long!” She hung up the phone
and looked to Carol. “He’ll let us know
where and when.”
“I hope we don’t have to wait all
day. I’m still dying to see you in my
red riding suit with that red wig and mask.”
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