AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 72

The Des Barres Penthouse in the Des Barres Building on the Des Barres Block.  King rat’s cage in the zoo of city life.  Metropolitan deliverance.  The Des Barres
fourteen-foot ceilings, the Des Barres marble foyer floor, the Des Barres mahogany walls; gleaming Cuban mahogany stolen from a 19th century London merchant’s bank.

Two dudes.  One with his pin stripe suit coat off, armpit gun showing, playing pinball against the right mahogany wall, his big body bent over the machine, bumping it with body-English.  His leftover partner in crime was kicked back & barefoot on the palace-couch in a weekend T-shirt and lava-colored Hawaiian swim trunks, watching his 2” color TV propped on his tummy.

They were both gloriously bored.  Nothing ever happened.

The quiet, electric glide of sliding elevator double-doors, so quiet they were almost not heard over the beeping & buzzing and dinking of the pinball game.

The elevator door that was not supposed to open, that would not even come up to this floor without a key to signal in the elevator and the switch closed up here.

Reed charged out of the elevator with Boyd’s 9mm pistol in his left hand, pointed at the TV, and the zoo-gun in his right hand, pointed at the pinball.

“Move, and you’re dead!” Reed shouted.  Then he shot the pinball pin stripe in the side of the neck with his airgun.  Reed’s first shot missed and stuck into the wood paneling.  But the second shot zapped the guy’s neck.  The man’s hand shot upward, jammed to a stop, and then inched to his neck to feel the dart.  He touched it.

“If he moves, kill him,” Reed told Liz.  “If he makes a noise, kill him.  If you don’t like his face, kill him.”

Liz ran up toward pinhead-pinstripe and thrust out her gun toward him and snarled: “Pull it out, fuck-head!  Go ahead!  Pull the gun, sucker!  Go ahead!”  Her eyes were cocaine crazed and awfully angry (at Reed for pulling her fangs).  The pinball ball thumped against the bumpers, butted over to the side rail, and sank into the multi-ball trigger, unleashing an orgy of silver pinballs bouncing and pinballing all over the triple-level tilted universe.  Powerless pinstripe was a wide-eyed unmoving numb terror, hands heedfully AWAY from his holster, away from the flippers.

Reed shot the TV with his third poison dart.  “Don’t even think of changing the channel,” Reed told him.

Thirteen seconds later, the TV was off the air, and the pinball was Tilt, Game Over.

Reed ignored his howling headache, and scanned the scene.  This wasn’t inside the penthouse.  The front door was a gilded gold gargoyled monstrosity.  If Reed had any thoughts about Eric Des Barres being strictly legit, the armed guards ended it.  Discipline here was incredibly slack.  The pinball machine stuck out like a hammered and banged-up thumb, in this otherwise elegant hallway.

“Hey, that was fun, BB!  Let’s do some more!  Get down and party!  And gimme some fucking bullets.”

“Put away the gun, and put on the Ma Bell uniform,” Reed said.  He glanced up, saw the closed-circuit video camera mounted up in one corner.  “Smile.  You’re on Candy Camera.”

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Byron Reed in his Bulldog Security uniform, hat crisply worn at the jaunty angle of gauze disguise (never mind that his shoulder-length hair broke-and-entered the dress codes), guiding and escorting Liz, all gussied up as a Ma Bell mommy, repair briefcase in her wired little fingers.

Reed and Liz no-nonsense-walked thru.  Bulldog Security escorting telephone repair.  The furnishings were pricey, almost a decorating game: and behind Door #3, the genuine Chippendale!

Up came a black & white butler roused from his nonessential clean-ups to challenge the couple.  “Excuse me!” he snapped, blocking their progress, presenting his bulk directly in their way.  “May I help you?”  I.E.: What the hell are you doing here; how the hell did you get in here?

Reed thought they were in the living room, but beyond through a wide door, he could see part way into a much larger comfort area.  A second butler was visible on the fringes doing busy-bee business, glancing up curiously.

“Please take me to Eric Des Barres,” Reed said.  “I have an urgent personal message for him, and she is here to repair his phone system.  One of the phones on this floor is shorting out the system.”  Liz had wandered off a few steps; she was eyeballing the other way into the larger living room, getting a load of the furnishings.

“I see,” the butler said, not seeing at all.  “Please wait right here, while I check on this.”  He waved at a nearby pink sofa-set.  “Please have a——”

“That won’t be necessary.  Here’s my authorization.”  Reed’s 9mm handgun was out and pointed at the butler’s guts.

Slowly, the butler agreed.  “Yes . . .”

Reed realized that he had made a tactical mistake.  There were better ways.  “You understand, pal, that I’m not trying to make a move, or anything,” Reed told him, trying to confuse, reinserting his gun back into his guard-coat.  “I work for the man too.  I just have to talk to him fast.  So lead the way, and no time for red tape.  Get it?”

Reed could scan the arrival of suspicious hesitation on the man’s face.  Liz wandered back over to Reed and the guy.

“PAL!” Reed said tiredly, with exasperation, leaning forward, grabbing him by the neck, and whispering into his ear, “there’s reporters down there who want to know why supermodel Courty is being held up here against her will!  Do I have to draw you a fucking picture?  Take me to him, you little shit!  NOW!  Before all fucking hell breaks loose down there!”  Reed back off, raised his voice, and hooked his thumb in Liz’s direction.  “Then show the repair person where all the phone extensions are.”

Butler blink.  He looked at Liz, all duded up in crisp Atlantic Bell telephone repairwoman coveralls.

“NOW!” Reed barked.

“I think you’re too late,” the butler blurted.  “I think Mr. Des Barres has already left for The Lowlander.  But we should be able to raise him on the radio.  Please follow me.”

Reed and Liz did, looking questions at each other.

Reed asked, “What do you mean, he may have already left?”

“He was going to fly out by helicopter.”

“Is Courty with him?” Reed asked.

“I believe so, yes.”  They intercepted another male servant, in transit.  “Sean, has Mr. Des Barres left for The Lowlander, yet?”

“Yes, about five minutes ago.  But he’s on his way back.  He forgot something, I guess.”

The first butler turned back to Reed.  “I’ll take you to up to the helipad.”  He remembered Liz, and stopped the other butler from moving off with his duties.  “Oh, uh Sean, would you please take care of this; she’s here to repair one of our telephone extensions, would you please help her?”

Attendant acquiescence.  Liz shot Reed a helpless but eloquent fast look: Now What The Fuck Do I Do??

“Come along,” the first butler ordered Reed.

Reed followed the butler up toward the heliport.  Gradually, Reed became aware that someone was following him.  He started to turn around to have a glance, and two big men grabbed his arms, and stopped him.

“Who the fuck is this guy?” big Aragon wanted to know, as he lifted Reed off the carpeting by grabbing his left arm.

The butler turned around.  “Why, he’s——”

Philip said, “Three’ll get you five, it’s Byron Reed.”  Phil lifted the handgun out of Reed’s pocket.  “What’s this?”

The butler asked, “You mean he’s not——”

Phil said, “Bulldog Security?  No.”

The butler added, “There’s a telephone repair girl here too.”

Phil snapped, “Aragon, take care of it.”

The big Mexican let go of Reed, and ran down the hall.

Phil told the butler: “Go tell Johnny and Burt to get their asses over here fast!  Then go to Security and Surveillance, and tell them to fucking WAKE UP!  We’ve got intruders on this floor!  If they don’t have videotape of this asshole, I’m going to bust some heads!  Move your butt!”

There was a most discernible movement of the butler’s diminishing butt.

Byron Reed felt himself being professionally frisked.  He was trying to move his mind into gear, to Do Something, but he was so pathetically exhausted it was all he could do just to turn around and stand on his feet and look at the man talking to him.  He recognized Philip, Des Barres’ best thug, the black-belt bodyguard, the ugliest man on Eric’s payroll.  The ugly face looked speculative and somewhat angered.  “It’s gonna be interesting to learn how you got this far.  Yeah, it’s gonna be very interesting.”

Reed was programmed for completion.  He was ludicrously tired, wounded beyond Rambo-recovery.  But there was not a give-up in him.  Reed smiled.  It was a lazy, diabolical smile, with the absolute confidence of a madman.

“You gonna tell me how many men you brought up here with you, or do I break some of your bones?”

“Go for it.”

Phil might have perhaps done just that, if not for the kicking, screaming, blaspheming, swearing interruption of Elizabeth Ma Bell being dragged along the hallway.

“What the hell?” Phil said.

“Let go o’ me, elephant fart!  Ouch!  Go find a dick to suck, shit head!”  Liz kicked at Aragon’s shin.  He yelped in pain, and whacked her in the head, knocking her sprawling, down by Phil’s feet.  Liz hugged her head in pain.  “Commie Christ!  Damn it!”

Phil was about to do something drastic, when Eric Des Barres came down the stairs, and walked into the hallway toward them.  “Phil!” he shouted, “what’s this I hear about——”  And his voice stalled as he recognized Byron Reed.  His eyes went wide.  Automatically, he raised the cocaine ciggy to his lips and dragged.  “Byron . . . Reed!  Why aren’t you dead?”

Liz sat up and said, “’Cause Brain-Leak here’s too stupid to die!  What’s your excuse?”

“You,” Eric said.  “I remember you.”

“Good for you!” Liz snapped up at him.  “Wha’d’ja hafta do?  Tie your dick in a knot to remember?”

Eric gaped at the girl.  Then he roared: “Phil, what the fuck is going on here??”

“I don’t know.  Somehow these two got in here.”

“HOW?!” Eric roared.

“By submarine, mail-order brain,” Liz threw at him.

Eric agape again.  He shook his head and roared his way out of it: “HOW, Phil?  How did they get in here?!”

Aragon cringed, and a servant coming this way prudently decided upon a discreet detour.

“I don’t know yet,” Phil told him.  Calm disgust.

“Well Fucking Find Out!” Eric roared.

“It’s in the works.”

Another roar: “Are You Bullshitting Me!?”

Another disgusted, calm counter: “Of course not.”

“Tie them both up,” Eric suddenly decided.  “I’ll take them both with me.”  Des Barres turned around and started walking away, back to the helicopter.

Phil slowly said, “Des Barres, I suggest instead that you——”

“Just fucking DO IT!” Eric shouted, without turning around.

COURTNEY, Chapter 73
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47