Savage code, p.27
Savage Code, page 27
part #4 of The Porter Series
Darcy’s mouth dropped open. “You piece of—”
Nico spoke back into the receiver. “You know what? Forget it. I’m coming down. You better have things fixed when I get there.” He hung up the phone.
Nico pulled out a wad of money from his pocket and dropped several bills on the table. “Handle this.”
He stalked away from the table, turning back after several feet. “And I know how much is there. You owe me a freebie.”
Porter moved down the hallway, feet quiet in his Chuck Taylors. The only lighting was from the emergency floodlights, a dual bulb arrangement near the ceiling. There were several doors between him and the staircase at the end of the hall. He stopped for a moment, deciding his next move.
Harsh stopped as well, seemingly content to hold his fire extinguisher and wait for Porter to figure out where they were going.
It didn’t take long before the choice was made for them.
Ahead on the left, the man Porter had seen through the window came wandering out of a room. Mercifully, he was wearing a towel around his waist. He looked around, as if confused, walking toward Porter when he saw him. “Hey, you know what’s going on?”
“Just a little power problem, we’re working on it.”
“Power problem?”
“Yeah, Nico doesn’t pay the bill. Sorry, man.”
The man turned back toward the open door. “Cecelia, I’m not paying for this. I want to be able to see what I’m doing. This isn’t what I pay for.”
When the angry john turned his back, Porter wrapped his forearm around the man’s throat and squeezed. The man struggled a bit, but soon went slack in Porter’s arms. Porter grabbed the unconscious man’s loose tie and dragged him back into the room.
Harsh followed and shut the door.
The thin girl—Cecelia—was at the sink scrubbing her hands. The light from several candles flickered around the room, off the walls and ceiling. She noticed Porter in the vanity mirror and jumped. “What? Who are—”
“Shh,” Porter said as he held his finger to his lips. “I’m a friend.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have any friends.”
“You do now. Wanna get out of here?”
“What… what do you—”
“Cuantos años?” How old?
“My friend wants to know how old you are.”
“Seventeen.”
“Mierda.” Shit.
“Where you from?” Porter said.
“Queens.”
“Where you really from?”
There was a pause. Finally, she said, “Riga.”
“Latvia?”
She nodded in the flickering light.
“Well, you don’t have to stay anymore. You wanna leave, now’s a good time.”
“But… if I run away, he’ll find me. Bring me back and hurt me.”
“Don’t worry about that. You can walk right out of here, take the roof and disappear. Or you can hang around until he wakes up.” Porter pointed to the man on the floor. For some reason, being choked unconscious had caused his erection to return, and the towel had fallen when Porter had dragged him up the hallway.
Porter handed Harsh a pair of the string cuffs, and Harsh rolled the man over on his stomach and zip-tied his hands behind him, and then stuffed a sock from the floor in his mouth. All in all, the unlucky john looked like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Without another word, Cecelia put her pants and shoes on, then grabbed a small bag from the chair. She walked past Porter, and Harsh opened the door for her to leave.
“Remember, take the roof.”
She nodded and stepped through the door.
“Wait,” Porter said.
Cecelia turned back.
“You don’t know where a teenage boy is, do you? You seen one around?”
Cecelia nodded. “Check the second floor. I think he’s somewhere down there.”
“You serious?”
“Of course. He’s always in there. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but he’s there.”
With that, the young girl stepped into the hallway. Porter followed her and watched as she half-walked, half-jogged to the roof access door and disappeared through it.
“Muy joven.” Too young.
“Tell me about it,” Porter said. “Come on.”
“Dónde?”
“Next floor down. With any luck, she’s right and Royce is down there. If he is, this might be a lot easier than I thought it would be.”
Harsh shook his head. “Eres estúpido.”
“Why am I stupid?”
“Nunca digas que es fácil. Ahora estamos hechizados.”
Never say it’s easy. Now we’re jinxed.
“Don’t be superstitious. We’ll make our own luck,” Porter said. But deep in the back of his mind, he wondered if Harsh was right.
Fifty-Three
Nico took the keys from the valet and dropped into his Porsche. The top was down, and the breeze blew across his face as he got out onto the street and picked up speed.
His mind lurched back and forth, between anger at the loss of the two premium cars earlier in the day, the fact that his lights were out at the building, and the fact that Darcy had worn that stupid lipstick he hated. He’d told her to stop wearing it, and he expected to get what he paid for.
Instead, she was just like everyone else who didn’t listen to him. The men at the apartment couldn’t get the lights working. What good were they if they couldn’t even do that?
The light at the intersection turned red. Nico considered running it, but he was stuck behind a box truck. While he sat, he focused on his main problem: respect. He wanted the people who worked for him to fear him, just like they did his uncle Tommy. No one talked back to Tommy. No one disobeyed what he said. And the old man never even raised his voice.
If Nico was going to be Don one day, he was going to have to figure out how Uncle Tommy did it. Maybe he’d start hanging out with the old man a little more, and try to learn a few things.
“Good old Tommy Blue Eyes,” Nico muttered under his breath. His uncle was getting up there in age, and there was no way he could be in charge forever. Someone had to be ready to step up and take the reins.
Nico wanted it to be him. No one else was really family to the Don. No one else had seen the man almost every day for forty years. It was Nico’s job to lose.
Still, it made him mad that his uncle would disrespect him the way he had earlier in the day–sending his errand boy Carlo to come and talk business rather than coming into his office himself. Nico wasn’t sure how much disrespect he was supposed to stomach, but he was nearly at his limit.
He pushed the button to the display, and his phone dialed a number, the sound handled by the Porsche’s high-end Burmester speakers. As soon as the other phone picked up, Nico said, “You better have that power on.”
“Not yet, sir. We’re working on it right now.”
“Jimmy, I don’t have time to play games. Why isn’t the power back on?”
“Mikey went to go check on it right now.”
“What about the rest of you idiots? Huh? If there are four of you sitting on your asses, why send the dumbest guy to go check?”
“Like I said, Mikey went to the electrical room. I sent Terry to go check on the kid, and me and Big Mike are downstairs.”
“Listen, I don’t care who you send where. When I get there, you better have all this shit fixed, or I’m gonna be pissed.”
Nico hung up the phone.
Asking Uncle Tommy for advice was looking like a better plan by the hour. Maybe he’d put aside the disrespectful way he’d been treated, and call the old man in the morning.
Porter looked left and right when he came out of the room. He walked past several other doors in the hallway. Some were open, the rooms obviously empty. Others were closed, and he decided not to waste his time. Whatever was happening in the rooms would no doubt bother him. Get under his skin even, and he didn’t have time to right all of Nico Spirelli’s wrongs.
Porter pointed to the stairs and waved Harsh on. “Will you put that extinguisher down already?”
Harsh shook his head.
“You look ridiculous.”
As they got to the top stair, there was a noise—stomping feet, moving up the stairwell toward them. Porter motioned Harsh on, and the man moved past the mouth of the stairwell, flattened out against the wall. Porter leaned on his wall, waiting to see who was coming up.
A wiry man with a leather jacket came into view a few seconds later. It was too dark to make out much more than that. The floodlight from the emergency generator was further up the hall, and its spill of light wasn’t strong.
“What’s up with the lights?” Porter said.
“How the hell should I know? Am I a mechanic?”
“I don’t know,” Porter said truthfully. “Are you?”
“Just go back to your room. Let your girl take care of you.”
“Is Nico here? I’d rather ask about a refund.”
“Refund?” Leather Jacket laughed. “We don’t do refunds.”
“I’d rather ask him. Any clue where he is?”
“Look, he’s on the way. I can already tell you what he’s gonna say about a refund, so don’t even bother.”
“Maybe I’ll just—”
There was a wet thud, and the man in front of Porter dropped to his knees. He slowly leaned to the side, until gravity took him the rest of the way to the floor.
Harsh was standing there, fire extinguisher held like a baseball bat. “Demasiada plática.” Too much talking.
“I’d love to argue, but when you’re right, you’re right.”
Porter patted the man down and found a wad of cash in his front pocket, as well as a small pistol in his waistband. “I don’t need this. You want it?”
“No.”
Porter emptied the pistol and put the magazine in his own pocket, then dropped the gun on the floor beside the man. “You heard him, right?”
“Nico no está aquí.” Nico’s not here.
“Exactly. We should hustle before he gets here. Maybe this won’t be so bad.”
Porter headed down the stairs toward the second floor. If Cecelia the sex worker was correct, that might be the floor where they would find Royce. That would mean an end to the entire ordeal, and Porter couldn’t lie: he was ready to get the hell out of New Jersey.
Fifty-Four
Nico Spirelli cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder as he pointed to a bottle on the wall behind the clerk. “Gimme two of those.”
The man nodded and grabbed a large brown paper bag and retrieved the bottles, a medium-aged whiskey brand.
“What do you mean you still don’t got the lights on? I don’t expect that after twenty minutes you clowns can’t get this done.” He reached into the humidor on the counter and pulled out a cigar, tearing the plastic wrapping off with his teeth and jamming the stogie in his mouth.
“Mikey isn’t back yet. I’m sure he’s still trying to figure the whole thing out,” Jimmy said through the phone.
Nico shifted the cigar in his mouth. “Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy. I even stopped and got you guys something to drink. When I get there, we can hang out. I think the Knicks game is on. But the problem is, if you can’t get the power back on…” Nico pulled the phone off his ear and turned it toward his mouth. “…then we can’t even watch the game! Do you get what I’m telling you?”
The clerk raised his eyebrows at Nico.
“Mind your own business, raghead.”
“I’m from Queens,” the clerk said.
“Whatever.”
“You know I have to charge you for the cigar, right?”
Nico stared a hole in the man. “Jimmy, I need to take care of something. When I get there, I expect things to be handled. You got it?”
“Yes sir, we’re on it.”
Nico hung up the phone. “What did you say to me?”
The clerk looked at Nico. “What? I have to charge you for the cigar?”
“Yeah. That. Do you know who I am?”
The clerk nodded. “Yeah. You’re the guy who needs to pay for his cigar. I’m not running a charity here.”
Nico smiled and turned his back on the man. He lit the cigar with matches from his pocket, and took a big puff.
“Hey buddy, you can’t smoke in here—”
Nico turned back around, pointed a snub-nosed .38 at the clerk, and pulled the trigger. The spent gunpowder instantly mixed with the cigar smoke as Nico smiled at the clerk.
The clerk’s eyes opened wide with surprise, and he wordlessly clutched at his chest and stumbled backward into the counter. Moments later, he was on the floor, motionless.
Nico took several more drags from his cigar, and then stepped behind the counter. He yanked the tape from the single security camera aimed at the register. Then he grabbed the brown bag of booze and walked back to the public side of the counter again. He took two more puffs of the cigar, then dropped it on the floor and ground it beneath his heel.
“You can have it back. Tastes like shit, anyway.”
Porter stepped over the fallen body beneath his feet and led the way down the stairs. He stepped lightly in the near darkness, careful where he put his feet. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to die in New Jersey, but the thought of it happening because his big feet missed a step and he fell and broke his neck was unacceptable. He worked his way down until he was standing on the next floor.
Level two.
It was a mirror of the previous floor, with a handful of doors on each side of the hallway. The floodlight lit up the end of the hallway when he stepped off the stairs, making Porter felt naked and exposed, but there wasn’t anyone else there.
Harsh stepped out of the stairwell and stood next to him. “Cuál?” Which one?
“Beats me. The girl said he was somewhere down here. I guess we need to start knocking on doors.”
Porter walked up to the first door on the left, knocked twice, and put his ear to the door. After several moments of waiting, there was no answer; neither were there any sounds of passion emanating from the inside.
Harsh set his extinguisher down and turned the handle. The door swung freely and openly, revealing an empty room.
“Next.”
The two men did the same tactic with three more rooms, finding nothing but empty beds.
The fourth room was different. Before he even knocked, Porter could hear a gruff voice from inside.
“Say you’re stupid. Say you’re a moron.”
A muffled voice answered.
“Say I’m big, you hear me? Say I’m the biggest you ever had.”
More muffled tones.
Then, the sharp note of a smack. Flesh on flesh, with power behind it.
Porter nodded to Harsh and knocked on the door.
Moments later, a heavyset man with no shirt answered the door. “What?”
Porter looked past the man, and in the near gloom he could see a woman restrained to the bed. “Hi, sir. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk about the Lord?”
“What? Who the—”
Harsh stepped past Porter and filled the doorway. Porter looked left and right in the hallway, looking for any witnesses. There were none. When he turned back, the big john was on the floor, snoring, and Harsh was already in the room. Porter stepped in and closed the door behind him.
He walked over to the woman on the bed, who was wearing nothing but a thong, and reached up and pulled the ball gag out of her mouth. “You okay?”
“Okay? Of course I’m okay. What the hell did you beat up Frank for?”
“Actually, that was my friend over there. Feel free to blame him. But really, you should probably thank him for saving your ass.”
“Saving me? Frank’s my best customer, you idiot. Now he’s probably got brain damage and will forget he owes me five hundred bucks.”
Porter shook his head. “So you’re all right?”
“Yes, you idiot. I’m fine. Now untie me.”
Porter looked at Harsh, merely a darkened figure in the room. “Nico isn’t holding you here against your will?”
“Against my will? I’m a grown woman. We all gotta make a living. Who are you two, anyway? I don’t recognize you. Does Nico know you’re running around beating his customers up? I bet he’ll be pissed. Just wait until I tell him.”
Porter exhaled.
“Well? Untie me. Let’s go already.”
Porter reached out and slipped the ball gag back into the woman’s mouth. She tried to move her head and avoid it, but Porter was too quick.
“Since you don’t mind being tied up, I guess you can stay like that for a while. I’m sure someone will be by to get you later.”
He stepped over to Harsh and patted him on the shoulder, and the two men stepped back into the hallway, shutting the door firmly behind them. The noise of the working girl’s muffled yelling was barely audible in the hallway.
“How do you say Stockholm Syndrome en español?”
“Eso es suficientemente bueno.” That’s good enough.
Porter continued to the end of the hallway, bypassing the stairwell to the ground level. There was a door that looked like the one that had stood outside the electrical room. Porter looked at it for a moment, then put his ear to it. There was plenty of noise, but nothing he expected to hear at a brothel.
Porter knocked and moved out of the doorway.
A man answered, yelling from the inside. “You have a key, moron. Let yourself in.”
Porter looked at Harsh and shrugged. Then he knocked again.
The voice was louder this time. “I swear, you guys are about the dumbest people I ever met. Working with you is actually painful. It hurts my head.”
From the inside came the sounds of locks and deadbolts turning and opening. Then the door swung open and a thickly built man looked up at Porter.
“Hey. Yo, who the hell are you? Why are you knocking on this door? You get lost on the way to the idiot convention or something?”
Porter smiled and grabbed the man by his shirt. His broken hand stabbed with pain, but Porter ignored it. He pulled the man out of the doorway, close to him. Then he hip-tossed him into the hallway behind.
