River of Glass Read online

  “I’m about to cross a line.”

  JAMES DECKER, our Not-so-Good Samaritan, worked out of an office that didn’t exist for a company made of thin air. His car wasn’t in the garage, but the Miata was. While Mean Billy stood behind me looking like a constipated grizzly, I held up my license and knocked on the door. An attractive brunette in a red jogging suit answered. “May I help you?”

  I waggled the license. “Could you tell me where Mr. Decker is, please? It’s important.”

  “He isn’t in. What’s this about?”

  “It’s better if we talk to him directly. It’s . . . of a personal nature.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Have you been tested for STDs lately?”

  “Of course not. We’ve been married for eleven years.” She crossed her arms across her breasts. “I’m not going to stand out here in the rain and talk about this.”

  “I’m not trying to alarm you. I’m just trying to find Mr. Decker, make sure he gets everything checked out. And you too, of course. Assuming you and he are still . . .”

  A red spot bloomed in the center of each cheek. “I don’t know who you are or who’s been telling you these lies, but I assure you, that’s all they are. Lies.”

  “Our sources are very good, Mrs. Decker. The young lady doesn’t want trouble, just a modest settlement.”

  Her shoulders stiffened, then slumped. “I guess maybe you should come inside.”

  She closed the door behind us, and while we dripped on her carpet, she crossed her arms again and said, “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “A young woman has accused your husband of certain . . . indiscretions. She says she has a venereal disease she could only have gotten from him. If you could just tell me how to reach your husband, I’m sure we can get this all straightened out.”

  “He just left for the office.”

  I handed her a notepad, and after a brief hesitation, she scribbled an address.

  I said, “It’s better if you don’t let him know we’re coming. Makes his responses more authentic. If he knows ahead of time, I can’t say anything in my report about how he seemed genuinely surprised. Harder for me to testify that he’s telling the truth. You know, for the settlement.”

  “Of course.”

  She was muttering to herself when she closed the door behind us, and I thought, not without satisfaction, that even if Decker survived the day, he might not survive the night.

  Back in the Silverado, Billy gave a dry chuckle and said, “That was just plum cruel.”

  “It’s better than he deserves.”

  “Was that the part where we crossed the line?”

  “No, that part comes next.”

  The address Mrs. Decker had given us was for a swanky office building in Belle Meade, a short drive from their house.

  Billy said, “Tell me again why we’re doing this.”

  “Because the police are tied up with the Executioner, and Sun is probably going to kill Khanh. If he hasn’t already.”

  “Because she isn’t marketable?”

  “That, and she’s been a pain in their collective ass.”

  “They could sell her for domestic service.”

  “Let’s hope they think of that.”

  We took the stairs to Decker’s office, our damp footsteps muffled on the plush carpet. Good acoustics, I noted. Sturdy walls. Lots of soft surfaces to absorb sound. The people who worked here liked their privacy, which was just as well for us. I was looking forward to a little privacy myself.

  I pushed open his office door and said, “Hello, James.”

  He was sitting behind a big polished desk with a state-of-the-art computer on it. He pushed his glasses up with his middle finger and said, “You again? I already told you—”

  “A pack of lies. So let’s start over, Decker. Let’s start with a dead girl in a dumpster. Or maybe we should start with Karlo Savitch and Harold Sun.”

  His hand moved toward the edge of his desk. Panic button underneath, I guessed. Or maybe a pistol. I pulled the Glock and pointed it at his head. “Hands on the desk.”

  Sweat beaded on his upper lip. “I . . . don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Billy walked around the desk and pulled the chair, with Decker in it, to the middle of the room. Safely away from the panic button. “Lie number one,” Billy said. “Can I shoot him now?”

  “Not yet.”

  A dark stain appeared at Decker’s crotch, and the air grew sharp with the smell of ammonia. “I have money,” he said. “Lots of money. Just tell me what you want.”

  “The truth,” I said.

  “I told the police the truth,” he said. “I was nowhere near when that girl died. I even let them take samples from my car carpet.”

  “Because you’d already replaced it. That’s the only thing that makes sense. And your buddy who alibied you? One of the guys from your website?”

  His tongue flicked across his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What website?”

  “I’ll pull it up for you. Billy, cover him?”

  “Sure thing.” Billy gave Decker a cheerful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He leaned forward, and rain dripped from his beard and onto Decker’s forehead.

  I went around the desk and pulled up the site. Tapped in the password Jay had given me. The color leeched from Decker’s face as I turned the screen toward him and read the text aloud. I said, “This is your work, right? You’re the . . . You’re the procurer?”

  “No, no. I . . .”

  Billy said, “He’s told so many lies, I can’t even count ’em. Can I shoot him now?”

  “Not yet.” I turned back to Decker. “Tell me about the dead girl. And you’d better tell the truth, because my friend is very good at knowing when people are lying.”

  Decker’s voice cracked. “I told you before, I don’t know anything about that girl.”

  “You dropped her off at an office near Vanderbilt, and right after you dropped her, Karlo Savitch killed her.”

  “No, I—”

  Billy raised his pistol, and Decker stopped short and clapped his hands over his mouth. Billy said, “Try again.”

  “Okay, okay.” Decker wiped tears from his cheeks with his palms and sat up straighter, apparently determined—finally—to die like a man. “She escaped. Nobody ever did that before, but there was a storm, and it knocked out some of the sensors, and also, a tree fell so that, if she could get across the moat, she could climb up it, get over the wall.”

  I looked at Billy and back at Decker. “The moat? Like with alligators and a drawbridge? That kind of moat?”

  “The name’s a joke. It’s not water. It’s glass. Twenty feet of broken glass, all the way around the walls, so even if they get away from the holding cells—” At the look on Billy’s face, Decker squeaked and rushed through it. “If they get away, they can’t get across the glass. Please, I’ll tell you what I know. Only, I can’t go to jail.”

  Billy thumped him on the head. “Pray you live long enough to worry about jail.”

  I thought of the dead girl, shards of glass in her feet. “You keep them barefoot.”

  Decker’s gaze swung from Billy to me. He gave a nervous titter. “Karlo says . . . said . . . it’s the best way.”

  “Karlo was in charge?”

  “No, Karlo was a beast. His expertise is . . . was . . . torture. Psychological, physical . . . he keeps, I mean kept, the goods in line.”

  “The goods?” Billy snarled.

  “The women. I mean the women!”

  I said, “So Karlo is the punisher, and you’re the procurer.”

  “No! Sun’s the procurer. I’m just the marketing guy. I just find the customers.”

  “Big cog in a nasty machine,” I said. “Without customers, there’s no business.”

  He swallowed hard. “We just provide a service. If we didn’t do it, somebody else would. And, like Sun says, we give them food, a place to stay, bett
er than they’d get at home.”

  “Better than this?” I took Tuyet’s picture out of my pocket and shoved it in his face. “Look at her face, how happy she looks. Is she ever going to laugh like this again? You fucking—”

  I turned away so I wouldn’t shoot him. Waited for my voice to steady. “So the girl escaped. What was her name?”

  Head down, he whispered, “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s call her Li. Li’s a good name. Li walked barefoot across twenty feet of glass because she had it so much better than she did at home. And then she climbed over a wall—”

  “More glass,” he whispered. “Embedded in the top layer. Works like razor wire, only it doesn’t freak out the neighbors.”

  “Climbed over a glass-covered wall and walked . . . how far?”

  “I don’t know exactly, seven miles, maybe more.”

  “Why did she get in the car with you?”

  “I don’t have much to do with the goo—, I mean the girls. She wasn’t my . . . my fantasy type, so I wouldn’t have . . .”

  “But you worked there.”

  “Not with the girls.”

  “So she didn’t recognize you, and you were able to get her in the car.”

  “Normally, they wouldn’t. It’s part of Karlo’s training, like at first, they’ll ask some guy for help, and he comes across all sincere and like he’s going to get her out, but then it turns out he’s in on it. It’s like a test, and if they fail, Karlo gets to . . . has to . . . punish them. By the time it’s over, they think everybody’s in on it. They wouldn’t go with you if you were the Pope himself.”

  “But she did.”

  “All my life, I was able to sell things. Sandra, she’s my wife, says I could sell wool to a sheep.”

  Billy said, “You sold her on getting into your car.”

  “She—”

  “Call her by her name,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s Li.”

  “Um . . . Li kept saying an address over and over. It was kind of near my house, and I couldn’t take her back to the compound, because Sandra expected me at home, so I called Sun, and he said go ahead and take her there, but drive her around a little first. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “You didn’t ask why?”

  “I didn’t want to know.”

  “But you did know. And you did it, even though Sandra was waiting.”

  “It would have been twice that, if I’d taken her back to the . . . the compound.”

  “So you dropped her off, and Karlo killed her. And then you realized you had a dead girl’s blood all over your car.”

  Billy pressed the pistol to Decker’s forehead and growled, “How about now?”

  For the first time, I thought he might actually do it. For the first time, I thought I might actually let him.

  Decker squeezed his eyes shut. Held his breath.

  Billy’s finger hovered near the trigger.

  “Not yet,” I said, grabbing Decker by the collar and hauling him to his feet. “First, he’s going to get us inside.”

  40

  We hustled him outside and dashed through the rain to the Silverado.

  “They aren’t going to let you in, in this,” Decker said, pointing to the truck. “Or wearing that. And you think they aren’t going to notice that I’ve pissed myself?”

  “Stand out here a minute longer,” Billy said, “and they won’t be able to tell piss from rain.”

  “Okay, new plan,” I said to Decker. “We’re taking your Mercedes.”

  We stopped at Burlington clothing store, and I left Billy guarding Decker while I went inside for a suit, two expensive raincoats, both black, and a new pair of pants for our hostage. “Don’t kill him while I’m gone,” I said, which under other circumstances, would have been a joke.

  I came back out in my new duds and tossed Decker the bag with his pants in it. Looked at Billy. “Your turn.”

  He came back in a gray suit and oversized raincoat, tugging at his tie. “Now I remember why I don’t wear these.”

  Billy slid into the back seat behind Decker and said, “I know you’re thinking in your little perv brain that, when we get there, you’re going to give your friends some secret signal, and they’ll take us out and save your sorry ass. That’s a dangerous way to think.”

  “I’m not thinking that. Seriously.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, because at the first sign that your piece of shit buddies know something’s up, I promise you I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “That’s not fair. I—”

  “I don’t care if it’s fair. You want to talk about fair, we can start with all those women you’ve been helping rape for years.”

  “I get it, I get it. I swear to God, I’m not going to double-cross you guys.”

  “Maybe you better leave God out of it,” Billy said. “I got a feeling He’s not very happy with you right now.”

  THE SMARTEST thing to do would be to wait for the police to finish with the Executioner situation. The second smartest thing to do would be to wait until dark. But either choice meant a delay of hours, and Khanh might not have hours to spare. I tried not to think of the hours that had already ticked away while we tracked down the source and enlisted Decker’s reluctant assistance.

  Did Sun really think I would walk away? It strained credulity, but why else would he give Ashleigh back? Buying time, maybe, while he worked out whether to try and preserve his little empire or cut his losses and run? Or maybe just buying time to run.

  I texted Malone and Frank the address of the compound where the women were being held. When I put the phone back in my pocket, Decker said, “They’ll kill you, you know.”

  “You can dance on my grave later. For now, I want to know everything about that compound. Cameras, security, entrances, exits, how many guards and where they’ll be. Everything.”

  As he laid it out, it became clear that the bulk of Sun’s security was aimed more toward preventing escape from within and discovery from without than toward defending against an assault. Security cameras and a chain-link fence around the perimeter of the property kept out hunters and curious neighbors, while the smaller inner compound was hidden at the heart of a hundred and twenty wooded acres fifteen minutes from downtown.

  Decker and his vetting system were their protection against infiltration. He brought them in slowly, monitoring their computers, reeling them in one small illegal digital transaction at a time. By the time a member was enrolled, he was culpable enough to be trusted. First-time entry was always through Decker. After that, each customer was given a photo membership card, which doubled as a key card for the outer gate.

  The prisoners were contained by fear, despair, more security cameras, and the twenty-foot glass moat that lined the walls. Customers—“our members,” Decker called them—would be at a minimum on a weekday, and the on-site staff was small. For each of the three eight-hour shifts, there was a guard for the inner gate, a “concierge,” a chef, one guard manning the security cameras, and fourteen more guards whose sole purposes were to make the customers feel protected and reinforce the prisoners’ belief in the ultimate power of their captors.

  Add Sun to the mix, and that made nineteen.

  If we were lucky, Sun’s men were amateurs who would throw down their guns and surrender at the first sign of a fight. But you couldn’t depend on being lucky.

  Since the escape, an additional fail-safe had been added. The guards outside and the guards manning the security monitors checked in with each other via two-way radio on the half-hour, which would give us a thirty-minute window after neutralizing the guards on the monitors.

  It would have to be enough.

  We stopped at the home improvement store, and I ran inside for two twenty-by-twenty heavy-duty industrial tarps, twenty-five microfiber washcloths, a pack of fourteen-inch industrial zip ties, rope, two rolls of duct tape, nineteen five-inch smoke alarms with lithium batteries, and a two-story fire escape ladder with antislip rungs. />
  I dumped them in the back seat, shook off the rain, and said to Billy, “We’re agreed on this, right? We’re here to get the women out. The police can worry about the rest.”

  “That’s the plan, but you know what they say about plans.”

  “Man plans, and God laughs.”

  “I meant the one about the mice, but that’s a good one too.”

  41

  While Billy covered Decker, I squinted through the windshield and crept along Briley to the Brick Church exit. Turned and turned again. Missed a street sign obscured by the rain and did a U-turn in the parking lot of a boarded-over filling station. A few more turns, and Billy hauled Decker out to unlock a chained security gate flanked by No Trespassing signs. Billy shoved Decker back into the front seat, and I pulled through the gate onto a gravel road called Timber Creek. Alongside it ran the real Timber Creek, dark and swollen, churning with whitecaps that threatened to overflow its banks. We came to a dip in the road, and I eased the Mercedes through two inches of swirling, muddy water.

  Decker had said he could sell wool to a sheep, and it seemed to be true, because he sold the gate guard on Billy and me. Maybe it was fear of Billy that inspired him. Maybe it was just that a sale was a sale to him, no matter what it was. His success with the guard seemed to fortify him, and he sat up a little straighter.

  The guard, a friendly looking guy in his midforties winked and waved us through. “Have a good time, boys.”

  We passed between a double row of small bamboo houses with thatched roofs, three on each side. Billy smacked the back of Decker’s head and said, “What are those? You didn’t mention those.”

  “Those don’t matter. There’re no guards there, they’re just theme huts. That one’s the geisha fantasy. That one’s the Japanese schoolgirl or anime fantasy. That one’s bondage and discipline. They each have a wet bar and big-screen TV with on-demand, in-house video, but other than that, the decor is designed to support the fantasy. Big bucks.”

  I said, “Do the women live in there?”

  “No, a member gets a fantasy package and picks the actress he wants from the catalog.”

  Billy growled. “That’s what we’re calling them now? Actresses?”