“That’s disgusting,” Tracy hissed.
Ashwin set his camera down. “I’m disgusting? You should have seen yourself, girl. Sucking and swallowing like a regular pro. You’re a slut, Tracy. A good looking one, sure. But still a slut. Pure and simple.” He handed her the stick with the bottle neck mounted on the end. “Here, bend over and do it yourself. Stick it up your ass.”
The stick wavered in her hand and she wondered if she could manage it. Maybe doing it herself would be less painful; she dreaded the thought of the glass sliding through her flesh. Instead of bending Tracy squatted down and with the stick propped in the soil, she positioned the smooth end of the bottle neck into her anus. She lowered herself and felt the muscle stretch.
The glass slipped in easily enough but she hesitated when she felt the rasp of the ragged edges. She sucked in. “I can’t,” she cried in anguish.
Ashwin stepped forward. “Let me help.” And placing his hands on her shoulders, he applied his weight, ramming her down.
Tracy screamed and rolled to one side, sprawling with the stick still protruding from between her buttocks.
Ashwin reached down and plucked it out. “And now we’ve all seen you in action, you’re expendable,” he added.
“What do you mean, expendable,” Tracy cried with trembling lips.
“You’re a slut,” he repeated. “We’ve all fucked you. You’re old news, Tracy. And there’s plenty of fresh cunt to be had.”
“You don’t mean– Please.”
Ashwin ignored her; turned instead to his men. “Throw her into the Pigpen. We’ll have her for dinner tomorrow night.”
“No!” Tracy barked, her jaw taunt, her blood turning to raw adrenaline. “You can’t. I did everything you wanted,” she cried. “You gave me your word.”
Ashwin feinted surprise. “I only said that the next time you shit out the plug, you wouldn’t have to put it back. And if it’s not out by tomorrow, I’ll cut it out. We wouldn’t want anyone swallowing a chunk of glass.”
Tracy came up on her knees. “My God. Please!”
Ashwin turned to his men. “Take her. I can’t stand a whiny bitch. And when you butcher her, for christ-sake, don’t spill the contents of her stomach.”
Jack Namath had used more acronyms that a computer geek. Irene sat, flipping through his notebook, trying to make sense of it all. His writing was horrible and to make matters worse, it seemed he usually scribbled with the book propped on a knee. But Irene needed the distraction; anything to take her mind off Ashwin Franks.
Sissy stopped by to say that Brad was resting comfortably, for once, and had even taken some broth. Irene had smiled. She knew Brad was stoned outta his ever-livin’ gourd, but she was not about to criticize. Brad was poised on the threshold of death and anything that eased him across, quietly, was welcomed. But Irene had wondered if Brad was the focus of Jack’s investigation. So for the first time since Jack had placed the notebook into her hands, she had screwed up her courage and flipped the pages.
It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
From the dates he had scrawled in the margins, she knew he had arrived on Cracker-Jax Key about four months ago. And that he was involved in some sort of joint operation. She scanned his notes trying to decipher his shorthand.
She got the sense that Jack had been frustrated in the beginning but had a hunch the BB was pivotal. It is an expense; recoup losses? he wrote. Irene quickly put that bit together: The Bikini-Bus was pivotal and the Casino had to recoup the financial outlay of running and maintaining the aircraft. Jack needed information on O-S. Operating System, as in computers? Irene prodded her brow with two fingers. But why the hyphen?
Then something jumped off the page: Cay Is. That could only mean Cayman Island. He referred to P-R. It was a public relations junket, Irene knew that, but again the hyphen mark; and the airport was B-S.
She skipped forward. M-C was the man on the ground. Had there been a Master of Ceremonies at the Casino? An announcer for the volleyball games perhaps; or maybe the wet tee-shirt contest? She would ask Bev. And W-C was on the inside at Primo’s Bar. Water closet? Why would Jack care about the plumbing?
Irene had more questions than answers.
But then it was as if someone had hacked away a piece of her heart: I got close to A-A, Jack wrote. She has access to the cockpit, P and CP… one is involved. Spent night with A-A and she will help. My eyes and ears on BB.
Irene felt the pit of her stomach open up.
Jack had slept with someone. Someone who had access to the cockpit: It could only be Alex. But her last name was Macy. So again, why the hyphen and the second A? It appeared that Jack had won Alex over and was using her to spy on the pilot and co-pilot: Captain Peterson and Bev Bane.
Irene was sickened, snapped the notebook closed and held it in her lap.
Alex and Jack. Together.
The bitterness of betrayal rose like a cobra, but Irene wasn’t sure why she should feel cheated. The incident was history. At the time, she hadn’t even met Jack. And Alex was her friend. But she and Alex had shared the same man and the thought of Jack and Alex sweating it out on a hotel mattress was galling. Jack had purposely seduced Alex to pump her for information and Irene was starting to look at her own relationship with Jack in a whole new light. Even if he were dead.
Irene found Alex sitting alone on the rocks. She was tearfully gazing across the water. “What can we do? We have to get Tracy out of that pen.”
Irene climbed up on the rock and the two women sat back to back. “I know. It’s time we made a stand. I need a weapon and an opportunity.”
Irene felt Alex stiffen. “You’re going to kill him?”
Irene picked up a stone and tossed it. “I wish it were that easy. Kill Ashwin for sure, but I’m more afraid of Dirk. We need to get them both, alone together.”
Alex’s voice was tinged with surprise. “We? You’re asking for my help?”
“I don’t think I can manage it on my own,” Irene continued, “and we need a knife.”
Alex shook her head. “I don’t think I’m capable. To kill like that. Be that cold and impersonal.”
“Not even for Tracy?”
The women were abruptly cloaked in silence, each rolling in their own thoughts.
Irene finally broke in. “You and Jack. I know some of it.”
Still sitting back to back, Irene was aware of the tension lifting Alex’s shoulder blades.
“Aw geez,” Alex exhaled. “He told you?”
Irene stepped over the question. “It would help me to know the whole story.”
Alex leaned forward and clasped her knees. She lay a cheek across a forearm. “He caught me in a weak moment. I’m sorry, Irene,” Alex wrestled with a sob, “I was my fault. It should never have happened.”
“What shouldn’t have happened? How did it start?”
“How does it ever start– I was lonely, felt abandoned by the man I love and was very, very tired. Rob was overseas and never there for me. And Jack understood my frustration. We had dinner and we talked. He was a good listener. The more I talked the more I wanted to open up to him. I guess the wine helped. It seemed like the most natural thing, to follow him back to his hotel room. I’m sorry, Irene.”
“You spent the night with him.”
“Yes. He took me into his bed. He was kind and thoughtful and I let him have all of it.”
“But after, he wanted more.”
Alex slumped. “Yes. He used me for information. He suspected Captain Peterson.”
“And that day, when you knew there was something more in her flight-bag than underwear, it was Jack you called. Not the DEA.”
Alex nodded. “I got the woman arrested and out of my life. But the thing I don’t understand is…” Her voice trailed off.
“Yes?” Irene prodded.
“Well, that should have been the end of it. Right? Jack had his arrest and I figured I’d never see him again. But he was still hanging around the Casino. It didn’t make sense.”
Irene went watery inside. “And he was still coming to you for sex.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex repeated in a quiet wail of dismay. “We were both sleeping with the same man, Irene, up until the very end. I knew it was wrong and I should have stopped it. But I didn’t. I was with him every chance I got.”
Irene thought the legs had been scythed from under her. “Did he ever give you a wine bottle?” She had to ask.
“It’s in my flight-bag,” Alex whispered back. Abruptly, Irene’s love affair was cheap and tawdry.
Ashwin was working his stew-pot with the ladle he’d found in the plane’s galley. He was sifting the light broth, looking for meat. There were a few choice chunks at the bottom, enough for the men, but the girls would have to make do. He had been far too generous the last couple of nights. Leaving the girls with a whole thigh had resulted in an influx of protein that had resulted in a communal burst of energy that Irene had channeled toward the construction of a shelter.
He would have to learn to be more careful, Ashwin thought as he surveyed his dwindling herd.
With the first women he had been content to take only thighs and buttocks. That was the easiest cutting but while he didn’t relish gutting the carcasses, he needed ribs, shoulders and arms for the pot. He checked the Pigpen and the shapes of the two women slumped on the ground. Tracy lying on her side to ease the burn and a woeful Darlene with her back against the bars, her wrists bound in wire. She had a meaty body and would provide for a few good days.
But hell, he hated to give her up.
Darlene had been great, working hard to please him once she realized resistance was futile. And Darlene had surprised him with her sexual prowess. She had helped position him on hands and knees then reached under and milked him while tempting his anus with a fingertip. And when he was ready, he had lowered himself to where Betts was waiting below. Those two were like a sex tag-team and he hated to break them up. But he didn’t have to think about that just now; now that he had Tracy’s fine body in reserve.
He returned to stirring the pot. There wouldn’t be much left over for the girls, he concluded, but that gave him an idea: Make the bitches fight for their dinner. The winner goes to bed hungry. The loser gets to eat with the men. He chuckled to himself, he was having so much fun.