Sammy didn’t go out on the lake, though. He instead cast his makeshift reel into a prone Erica Granger’s rectum, one ball after the other. He wore thick gloves and managed not to cut himself as he guided the custom-made anal beads deeper within. She was squirming in unadulterated agony long before he prodded the fourth one home, so all that protruded was a few inches of fishing line, which he twirled around his finger like dental floss. She looked like one of those talking dolls with a cord in the back, though in this case each yank was another scream. It took more effort than he expected to jerk them free. He’d make a few inches of progress and then the hooks would catch on something more resistant in her digestive tract. It was like trying to run through sticker bushes dragging a parachute. He was too mesmerized by the tiny tearing sounds and the emerging hooks—dragging yellow and purple strands and clumps—to even notice that Erica had died somewhere between the removal of the second and third ball. It was for this gross insolence that she was humiliated when it came time to dispose of the body. They found one section of her cadaver from waist to thighs with an added bonus—her head secured between her legs with ten-penny nails, tongue staple-gunned to her vulva.
It would almost be worth the loss of his chance at a six figure income to work similar magic on Angelique.
“Sammy?” Von brought him back to reality.
“Eh? Oh, yeah . . . the phone.” Sammy punched in the number Angelique gave him.
A man answered, sounding rather infuriated. “Yes?”
“Is this Edward Rochester?”
“Who’s this?”
“I’m the guy asking the questions. Are you Rochester?”
“I am.”
Sammy raised a thumb. Von and Greg brightened like kids waking up on Christmas morning. Sammy turned his back on them so he wouldn’t be sickened and placed a hand on Angelique’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Okay,” he continued. “I believe you’ve made the acquaintance of a certain Angelique?”
“That would not be incorrect.”
“Great, then we have something in common.”
“What’s this about? Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“No, although five minutes from now you’re probably going to wish that’s all it was.”
“Maybe I will, if you actually manage to get to the point by then.”
“I’ll give you the condensed version. I’ve got Angelique, and I’m offering you the opportunity to buy her back for three million dollars. If you say yes, I’ll give you further instruction. Assuming everything goes smoothly, you’ll get her back good as new. If you say no, I’ll do a job on her that would make the attractions at a freak show puke their guts.”
“I see. And will you throw in my dick at half price if I act now?”
“I didn’t make that call to your wife, although in all fairness to my associates, they thought that the one in their possession came from you. It was an honest mistake that anyone could have made.” Not liking Rochester’s smart-ass method of negotiating, Sammy attempted to get a little rise out of him. “Your wife wasn’t disturbed in the least, by the way.”
“No, she wouldn’t be. It was a different story when she found out I was unharmed.”
It wasn’t the reaction Sammy had hoped for, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. There was more than one way to skin a twat, though, as they said (or at least he did). He made no reply to Rochester and merely held the phone to Angelique’s head. “Talk,” he commanded.
“Eddie, please help! They’ve got all these women down here to torture them and they want me . . . they want me to . . . to smoke with …” Here her convincing plea dissolved into incomprehensible histrionics as panicked sobs overtook her. If he’d draped a paper bag over her head, she probably would have gasped a hole through it.
Sammy removed the phone from her ear and brought it to his own “You still think we’re playing a game, Henny Youngman?”
“No,” Rochester said after a moment of silence.
“Well, you were right the first time; it is a game. Just not the kind your little bitch can afford to lose. Now then, did I get to the point fast enough for you? Welcome to the next level, motherfucker.”
“Has she been hurt?” Finally, some actual concern.
“She broke a bone in transit, but she’ll live to suck another day.”
“I want to think about it.”
“She’s not a used car, Ed. She’s a D-cup brunette with an ass that won’t quit—”
But allegedly would smoke, under the right circumstances, he thought.
“—unless we don’t get our three million dollars. No more glory hole loads down the hatch, at least not from you. There’ll be thousands from us before we put her pretty little ass outta biz, though, you can bet on that. And probably millions more after that.”
A white lie . . . Sammy would have thousands and millions more, yes. Von and Greg would be outta luck and outta biz, though. His basement, his rules.
“So think about that as you mull it over—” Sammy reached for an adequate insult and remembered something Von said earlier. “Fag face. You have twenty minutes.” Sammy ended the call and then turned it off altogether for the time being. It was unlikely anybody would be attempting to triangulate its position so soon, but as Von said, it pays to be careful. It might pay three million dollars.
He turned to relay the news to the dysfunctional duo.
“Shiiiiiiiit,” he said, clenching the phone in his hand hard enough to dislodge the back cover and send it clattering to the concrete.
They were gone.
The instant Sammy’s back was turned, Greg and Von crept up the stairs at Von’s behest. They could find out later what came of the phone call, but this might be the only unescorted chance they got tonight at the attic. Once clear of the basement, Von stealthily eased the door shut and then they were through the kitchen and up the stairs like a shot, all but trampling one another on the last flight. Even now they could hear the faint, strange laughter which had tantalized them throughout the evening.
Sammy’s secret.
“If it’s Slut Necro Lambda’s twin sister, I got dibs on that backdoor,” Greg proclaimed.
“Hell with that,” Von said promptly, elbowing his cohort to all fours. He reached the top of the dim corridor first, although he was prevented from going in when Greg clamped his arms around his legs.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hugging me,” Von said. “I’m tempted to drop-kick your ass down the stairs anyway. Have you lost your mind? We don’t have much time before Sammy realizes we’re gone.”
Greg reluctantly withdrew and hauled himself to his feet. Von tried the door.
“Locked,” he reported glumly. He stared the door down defiantly. “You son of a whore.”
“Cussin’ it ain’t gonna help,” Greg said.
“Eat a dick,” Von replied absently, then remembered. “Another one, I mean.”
Greg shoved him. “Why don’t you grab you another one through a glory hole?”
Von ignored him. “Question is, do we break it down? He may have a good reason to lock it up. This could turn into a huge problem that we don’t need tonight.”
“But what if he’s only locking it cause it’s his best work and he’s too selfish to share it with us?”
“That would be pretty low of him,” Von concurred, conveniently forgetting about how they never invited Sammy to take a ride on that body they found on the road awhile back or share in any of the spoils of Geisha Hammond, or how they’d had every intention of not only cheating Sammy out of millions of dollars but possibly killing him to have it all to themselves.