The Blue Jungle (9)
A noir novella in 10 chapters. “How come everybody has a gun except me?”
Naomi is a struggling reporter in LA. Gangsters kidnap her because their boss thinks only Naomi knows what happened to his daughter.
He may be right: Naomi covers the porn industry, where all secrets lead to the king of sleaze, Bobby Feathers.
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And now…
THE BLUE JUNGLE: CHAPTER NINE
NAOMI
It took her a while to get ready. Lucas promised to keep a lookout in the lobby. She had described Bobby and Eriko, in case they passed through. Meanwhile she needed to make sure B.F. would let her in. The fact was, it was unlikely Bobby would welcome Naomi Sato to his lair, not after what had happened atop that Bangkok skyscraper. Naomi would be persona non grata.
But Risa Nakamura? Not the tentative, shaky version that had appeared at Sirocco, but the real Risa Nakamura, the sorceress who had unbottled Boon’s evil genie?
Risa wasn’t about to let Boon steal her glory. But Naomi didn’t want to risk it alone and texted him an update.
Okay, Risa. Over to you.
She propped her suitcase onto a toilet and closed the stall door. The only nice thing she had was the backless green dress Boon had given her. It would need some alteration. Using a pair of small, blunt-nosed scissors she kept with her toiletries, she sliced the sides of the bottom hem. It didn’t matter that it looked like a botched job. She cut the material high. All the way. And while her sober white panties wouldn’t do, she did have athletic underwear with a high, thin strap that peeked out when she shifted her hips.
What to do about the dress’s top, though? It showed a little cleavage, not that Naomi had too much to begin with, but was otherwise pretty square. The scissors went back to work. The result wouldn’t stress the imagination.
It took a while longer to wash herself as best she could in the bathroom’s sink. Her hair was an unsolvable disaster. She let it down and tried to comb it. Well, the cavewoman look would have to do. For a guy like Bobby it might be enough. She tripled the amount of makeup she’d normally wear, masking her eyes with dagger-like angles and brightening her lips maraschino cherry red. She pouted into the mirror.
Finally, shoes. Her heels were gone, ruined. She had canvas slip-ons, sandals and running shoes, none of which would work.
Well, Bobby wasn’t really one for foreplay. She went barefoot.
Outside, Lucas’s eyes popped. “Holy shit,” he blurted. “I mean, wow, Naomi, you look…I mean, amazing.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t feel amazing. She felt like the cheapest kind of date. Stop thinking, Risa barked.
“I’m serious. I mean it. You look incredible.”
“So you didn’t see them?”
“No,” he said, “no, I didn’t see them. Been eyes peeled all the way here.”
“Then let’s go.”
They walked toward the elevators, still with their luggage. The staff watched her openly, the slattern with the too-casual foreigner, both of them lingering for too long a time. As they approached the lift, one of the men from behind the reception desk intercepted them.
“Excuse,” he said. “Lift for guests.”
“I am a guest,” Lucas said.
“You check out.”
Naomi could have smacked herself. Should they have gotten a room? Was this whole thing going to collapse?
“We’re going to the VIP rooms on the third floor,” Lucas said, and Naomi was quietly glad she had accepted his company. Lucas reached into his bag and pulled out a casino chip. “It’s gonna be my lucky night, mate.”
The hotel manager eyed them warily. He didn’t smile. “I escort you.”
“Sure, whatever,” Lucas said. He put his arm around her. “Let’s go.”
The manager stepped into the next elevator car with them and pushed the button. “Upstairs, guests only,” he repeated. “Camera see.”
“No worries.” Lucas grinned down at the manager. The doors parted. They were on a banquet floor. The signage was Thai and Chinese, but Naomi could read the kanji characters. Peacock Room, Jade Room, names like that.
“This way,” Lucas said. “No poker but they got baccarat here.” He took her hand and led her toward the Peacock Room, the manager still at the elevator but watching them.
“This isn’t good,” she said.
“It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t feel fine to me. How am I going to get up there now?”
“You’ll just go up. No one’s going to stop you.”
“Because they think I’m a prostitute.”
“This is Cambodia. Or Thailand. Or whatever. I really don’t think that’s going to be a big deal. But first let’s play it cool.”
They entered the ballroom. It was full of cigarette smoke and crowds of Thais and Chinese around the tables. Young Cambodian women served as croupiers, all of them dressed in revealing cocktail attire. Enormous video screens filled one wall, broadcasting card games occurring somewhere else, and scrolling figures showing odds and bets. More gamblers sat there, smoking or drinking whiskies, shouting at the TV screens.
A few male eyes slid her way. They didn’t slide back.
“So now what?” she asked.
“Baccarat’s not really my game,” he said. “And besides, I’m skint.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I’m temporarily indisposed funds-wise. This chip is my last one.”
“So you’re, like, broke?”
“Time to teach some more English classes to rich Bangkok kids.” He looked back out to the hall. “Reckon we’re in the clear.”
Some gambler, she thought, but she said, “Let’s get this over with.”
He escorted her back to the elevators. “Gotta hand it to the blokes who created this place. Made a legal no-man’s land between two countries, sort of place that attracts not just your Thai punters but any corrupt businessman, especially your anonymous Chinese entrepreneur.” They reached the elevator bank.
“It’s bizarre how these casinos exist here, in the middle of nowhere.”
“That’s deliberate,” he said, pushing the button. “I wouldn’t mention you’re a reporter. People come here to avoid reporting income, avoiding publicity, avoiding people like you.”
The doors parted. They stepped inside.
Lucas shook his head as she watched the floor numbers rise. “Shame of it is, with a five percent rake there’s no way you can make money playing here.”
“That’s what you don’t like about this place? That it’s stacked against you?”
“I’m a poker player. If you’re going to do casinos, you ought to give me a fighting chance.”
They arrived: club floor.
“Presidential suite,” she said, seeing it written on a sign. The corridor was silent. The carpet exuded a sour smell. “Can you wait here? With my stuff?”
“Reckon.”
“If I need you I’ll…”
“Scream.”
“Yes.”
“Better make it loud,” he said. “You need a kiss for good luck.”
She intercepted his mouth with her palm. “My make-up,” she said.
“Oh yeah. Well, Naomi, good luck.”
“Thank you.” There was a mirror on the wall opposite the elevator bank. Risa Nakamura floated there. Naomi was scared but Risa looked determined.
Shoeless, she drifted silently toward the big set of double doors that loomed near the end of the hallway. The fire exit was at the end of the corridor. She might need that.
Remember, Risa, you’re here to beg. To beg Bobby to let her speak with Eriko, to beg Eriko to find a way to get her father to call off Mister Eight – to beg for her life.
Shut up, Naomi – let me handle this.
Risa hadn’t come here to ask.
She rang the bell, twice. Noises from inside, hard to identify. The door opened. It was a Thai man, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and she feared this whole thing had been a massive waste of time.
He said something in Thai.
“I’m here for Eriko,” she said, looking past the man’s shoulder at a living room – big sofas, glass coffee table, wide-screen TV.
But it was Bobby Feathers who materialized, also in shorts and a button-down, sleeves rolled up, purple feathers monogrammed on the breast pocket.
“Who the…Sucky-Fucky! You do get around.”
“I came for Eriko.”
He met her at the door and poked his head out. “Did you now.” His hiss like sandpaper.
“I’m alone.”
“No gun-crazy killers?”
“No, I told you—”
He lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I told you…”
“And I told you. You wearing a wire?”
She shook her head but he didn’t release her.
“Well, that’ll be easy enough to find out,” he said.
“She’s here, isn’t she?” The words came out muffled through the tunnel his fingers made of her mouth.
“More shit from her dad, is that it?”
“No. I’m in love with her.”
He lightened his grip. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Ask her. We had one night together at my place. That’s how she found you, Bobby. She got your card off of me. I met her right after I interviewed you, just like I meet all of the Japanese girls in L.A.”
He finally released her chin. The pain remained, like fingerprints. She rubbed her jaw.
“Then come on in,” he said, moving into the suite. “You’re just in time, Naomi, because now’s your chance. But you’re going to have to share her.”
He parted a set of sliding doors that led to the bedroom, flooded with tungsten lights. There was another Thai man there, snapping photographs. She walked in and saw what she saw, and she screamed Lucas’s name.
Bobby Feathers loomed over her. He had only struck her once. She wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, that kind of physical force. Perhaps he didn’t and her legs had simply crumbled.
“I don’t like to hit my girls,” he rasped. “But screaming like that, it offends me.”
The suite’s door opened and the two Thai men stumbled in from the hallway, dragging Lucas between them.
“Don’t hurt him,” Naomi pleaded. Any semblance of Risa Nakamura had vanished.
“Your boyfriend?” Bobby said.
“Naomi,” Lucas said, looking defeated – the Thais must have roughed him up. “I came running.”
“Hey Romeo,” Bobby said, “I’d love to have you watch her in action but you’ll have to wait till we publish online.” He nodded to the Thais and one of them revealed a revolver that he gripped by the snubby barrel to chop the back of Lucas’s neck. The Australian collapsed between them.
“Lucas!”
Bobby put a hand on her shoulder, to keep her seated on the floor, while they dragged Lucas toward the sofa.
“Use those cables to tie him up,” Bobby instructed. The Thai with the revolver placed the weapon on the glass coffee table with a clank and reached for the videocamera’s wires. “And stuff a towel in his mouth, in case he wakes up.” He winked at Naomi. “Maybe he’ll get lucky, catch your money shot.”
“There’s not going to be one,” she said.
“Your lesbo lover’s all teed up,” Bobby said, his face glowing as brightly as a full moon. “So let’s get sucking and fucking, geisha girls.”
“Never,” Naomi said.
He squatted to her level. “You judging me, Naomi?”
“Those aren’t adults,” she said.
“What’s an adult? We’re sending boys too young to order a Bud over to Iraq to blow them terrorists to paradise.”
“Those are children!”
“Says who? We’re not in a country here. No government has claimed this little piece of land. That girl’s had her first period. That boy’s cock is long and hard. They can make babies. Who says they’re children?”
“I say.”
Bobby stood up. “Says you, Suzy Wong. Hey, peaches, what says you?”
Eriko appeared between the sliding doors leading to the bedroom, a slender caryatid of cream. She wore absolutely nothing, nothing at all, except a violet dildo strapped around her waist. It hovered above her clean-shaven sex like a missile.
In Japanese, she said, “I’m going to be the biggest thing on the Internet, ever.”
“You’re a monster,” Naomi hissed. “How can you do this?”
Eriko’s smile just lacked fangs. “You mean do a sex video with two Cambodian kids? Bobby wants money. I’m going to be the star my daddy always wanted me to be.”
Bobby couldn’t follow the Japanese. “So are we getting back to work or what, baby?”
Naomi asked him, “So…this whole thing was Eriko’s idea?”
Bobby stepped back and kissed Eriko on the cheek, like a proud father. “She’s one smart cookie. You know the industry, Naomi. Adult video is riding high now but the Internet is changing everything. Just last week Explicit released a two-minute clip for free. For free, can you believe it? But that’s the future, I can see it coming like an incoming wave – no, not a wave, a tsunami, right Eriko, baby? Who’s gonna pay now?” He slapped Eriko’s rear. “So we go niche and up the value chain. What’s not going to go free? What customer segment will always have to pay, no matter what – and pay big to get what they need?”
Naomi picked herself up. “It’s sick, Bobby. You’ll never get away with it.”
“There’s now law to disobey here,” Bobby said. “Put in a server and set up electronic payment site, with the help of a bank on a delightful Pacific island called Narau where they don’t ask questions. Cha-ching.”
“I’m getting cold,” Eriko said in Japanese, shifting to return to the bedroom. “Let’s start.”
“How could this be your idea,” Naomi snarled at her.
She smiled. “Because I want to show my daddy what a good little girl I am. Everything he did to me – I learned. He’ll watch and see.”
“That’s the difference between you and me,” Naomi said, and it all came out – her father, running away, burying one life beneath another. She was crying and she didn’t care. Never in her life had she ever wanted to do to another person what her father had done to her. She had wanted the opposite but just never figured out how.
“You’re such a whiny bitch,” Eriko told her.
Yep, Risa sneered.
Bobby clapped his hand. “Show time, girls! Come on!”
Naomi wiped her eyes. “I’m not going in there with her and those kids,” she said to Bobby.
He shrugged and picked up a video camera. “Then my associates here will rape you and I’ll charge ten bucks a download.” He raised the camera to his eye. A red light blinked beneath the lens. “One thing’s for sure, Naomi, someone’s tearing off that dress right now.”
The Thai men were on her. Bobby weaved back, bent forward, ooh-yeahing. They had her pinned to the floor. They rolled her over. She screamed into carpet pile. The muffled burst could have been her brain’s way of obliterating all sensation. Hot rain. The hands up her dress ceased jerking her panty’s strap. One guy flopped over, as if to lie down beside her, and more hot rain oozed from the cavern where his forehead used to be.
She turned on her back, away from the corpse, and saw the other Thai guy running toward the bedroom. A heavy physical presence filled her view, huge and draped in black, moving with the gargantuan glide of a Godzilla.
Mister Eight filled the entrance. His gun, elongated by a suppressor, commanded the sweep of the rooms.
Bobby fell back onto the sofa beside the unconscious Lucas, and raised his hands in surrender. Eriko fled to the bedroom.
Mister Eight walked into the living room.
“Who the fuck are you?” Bobby demanded.
The other Thai came at Eight in the air, leg extended, howling. The flying kick was fast and surprising. The assassin didn’t have time to shoot. He raised his arm and guided the kick away. The Thai ended up with one foot penetrating the TV screen.
Then Sumo shot him. Nothing chivalrous, just pop, right into the man’s back, between the shoulder blades, splattering his insides across the wall.
“Yattsu-san,” Naomi pleaded in Japanese, “please don’t kill me.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to weigh the pros and cons.
“Please don’t kill me,” she begged. “I found Eriko for you. I did everything you asked. Please don’t kill me!”
The double doors to the bedroom were only partly open. Mister Eight pushed them wide. The two Cambodian children, a boy and a girl just making their way into puberty, shivered on the bed, clutching at pillows like shields.
No sign of Eriko, but another door leading to an en suite bathroom was closed.
Mister Eight trained his weapon on the kids.
“Don’t, Yattsu-san,” Naomi said. “They’re children.”
He hesitated and then returned to the living room.
“Who sent you, her daddy?” Bobby demanded. He found his courage and stood up. “You work for Okada. I mean, Okada-san. What do you want, money? You want in on my deal here, is that it? I’m a businessman, we can negotiate.”
Sumo paused, as if to hear Bobby out.
“Buddy, it’s kinda hard to haggle when I don’t even know who I’m dealing with. My name is Bobby Feathers and I’m the founder and CEO of Explicit Videos. Your girl in there,” he said, wagging a finger toward the bathroom, “is dynamite. Dy-no-mite. Talk about an entrepreneur. You…it’s your turn, pal. Just, just tell me what you want.”
Naomi said in Japanese, “He’s the one who’s making kiddie porn with Okada-chan.”
Bobby’s knee burst into a pink cloud and he was down, sobbing, rolling, clutching his leg. Mister Eight picked up the video camera. He furrowed his eyebrows as if trying to figure out how to scrub the machine’s memory.
“You fucking asshole!” Bobby shrieked.
Mister Eight asked her in Japanese, “What do you want me to do with him?”
“Me?” Her brain couldn’t process the idea that the assassin was seeking her opinion.
Bobby: “Naomi, come on, help me out. He shot me!”
“Is there any reason for him to live?” Sumo asked.
She looked at Bobby wriggling on the sofa, blood pouring through the fingers holding his leg.
“Naomi, baby, this – tell him – all a big mistake. You want a scoop? I’ll give you an exclusive. Everything you want. Money too.”
Risa felt like she could take the horror of this room into her two hands and compress it down into a little box, a dense package of unpleasantness that could be placed in a drawer. And that she could push the drawer shut.
Why not say to Sumo, No? No reason at all.
Lucas groaned on the sofa, waking up.
Naomi said, “He can’t hurt you, Yattsu-san. You’ve already killed enough. You’ll find Eriko locked in the bathroom.”
Sumo walked to the bed and, using the sheets to protect his hand from the heat, unscrewed the suppressor and tucked it in his jacket pocket.
“He’s with that psycho from the rooftop,” Bobby said. “Are all Jap gangsters this crazy?”
Sumo stuck his pistol in his pants and lumbered to the bathroom door, out of Naomi’s view. She heard him kick the door in, and a girl’s muted scream.
“I need a doctor!” Bobby gasped. “You’re not the only ones with problems you know. I’m in fucking pain and I need…who are these guys?”
By the time Sumo reappeared with the naked girl over his shoulder, arms and legs kicking, the room had changed again. Standing over the corpses of Bobby’s two hired thugs were three Thai men gleaming in tailored summer suits, crisp shirts, polished shoes, and sober ties. And their leader, Boon.
“How come everybody has a gun except me?” Bobby complained.
“Put the girl down,” Boon said in English.
Sumo looked at the mouth of Glocks, and then at Naomi. And she knew he knew. She had betrayed him. And now Boon was stabbing her in the back.
“Eriko will still return to her father,” Naomi told him in Japanese, hoping it was true.
“Put me down you fucking gorilla…my father’s going to throw you into Osaka Bay piece by piece…”
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” Boon said. “There’s four of us and one of you.”
Sumo put his gun on Eriko’s naked torso, the feel of steel making her scream.
“No, Yattsu-san,” Naomi begged.
“You don’t want to do that,” Boon said. “We’re all here for the same thing. To get that girl to her father.”
“Good luck with that,” Bobby spat.
Sumo stepped forward and the Thai men fell back. Eriko’s limbs beat at him but he didn’t flinch and he didn’t let go.
Naomi slowly reached out to Boon and put her hand on his oustretched arm, pressing his gun lower. “Let them go, Boon.”
“That girl’s worth a lot to me.”
“Only if she’s unharmed.”
He pushed her onto the floor by Bobby’s bleeding leg. “This is my country, my family, my rules, you ungrateful cunt.”
“Then you’d better do something,” she said, “because they’re getting away.”
Sumo had maneuvered himself and the girl to the door.
Boon howled, spun, guns up, all his men’s guns up, Sumo pointing back at them, the girl’s white ass and legs his shield until he let her go, both hands on his piece, Boon not caring. Bang bang bang bang bang.
Three GQ Thai guys sprawled in the unlikeliest positions.
Sumo spread-eagled in the doorway, mangled beyond recognition.
Boon looking down in shock at the crimson spreading across his chest, his own weapon lost amid the carnage – and then turning to Naomi, and the smoking revolver she was still aiming at him.
“You bitch.” His last words before he slid over.
By the time she found the wits to reach the doorway, Eriko was long gone.
Don’t miss the story’s conclusion in Chapter Ten!
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