Whatever You Desire Ch. 02

Gail got to her feet unsteadily. She had lost a high heel during the melee and she snatched it off the bed and almost fell over as she tried to put it on while standing one-legged like a drunken flamingo. She pulled down her dress to cover her bruised and battered pudenda feeling Julie's semen leaking out of her vagina and soaking into her snagged pantyhose.

Julie took Gail by the wrist and gathered her purse off the kitchen counter and pushed it into her chest as she bundled her to the door.

"You're pathetic Gail. Get on with your life and forget about me. Forget about us. This is the last time you play your mind games with me," Julie opened the door to her hotel room.

"Sally and I are going to have a baby. She loves me and I love her," Gail sniped.

Gail wasn't as drunk as she was when she arrived but she was far from sober.

"I hope you have wonderful life together," Julie pushed Gail out the door and closed it softly, resisting the urge to slam it shut.

"Fucking evil little pixie," Julie hissed as she headed for the shower.

Day Three

Julie's phone began to bark and she reached for it on the nightstand and looked at the time. It was early. The grudge-sex with Gail, the wine and busywork meant she hadn't gone to sleep until the early hours, which she was used to, but she wouldn't mind another hour or so sleep.

"You get the papers delivered to your room?" Tommy said without any ceremony.

"Sure," Julie yawned and swung her long legs out of bed.

"Check out the Times political pages then call me back," Tommy hung up on her.

Julie padded barefoot to the door, stopping briefly to put a coffee pod in the machine and turn it on. One copy of the New York Times and one copy of the local rag had been left outside her door by the night concierge. Julie picked them up and took them to the kitchenette where she poured espresso and took a sip.

Julie wrestled with the broadsheet until she found the political commentary section. There was a small column on page three below the fold under the headline:

WHAT IS SENATOR DE LORRAINE HIDING?

Senator Graham Milburn has accused Senator Raymond de Lorraine of hiding the truth about his missing son. Twenty year old Steven de Lorraine was reported missing just over a year ago and at first there was speculation that the Senator's son had been kidnapped. Steven de Lorraine was attending Camden University at the time of his disappearance.

Tragically, this reporter has learned that the missing person's case has been closed as the result of Steven de Lorraine being found deceased. Camden PD has refused to comment claiming that it is policy not to comment on ongoing investigations. Senator Raymond de Lorraine and his wife Judith were interviewed by homicide detectives and there is speculation that Steven de Lorraine was murdered.

Senator Graham Milburn has accused Senator Raymond de Lorraine of hiding sensitive information regarding his son's disappearance and death from the public because it is likely to affect his chances for selection as the majority whip and embarrass him politically. Senator Milburn and Senator de Lorraine have both been critical of each other in the past and the speculation raised by Senator Milburn is seen by Senator de Lorraine's supporters as an underhanded attempt to smear Senator de Lorraine at a time when he and his wife should be consoled and allowed to grieve privately.

Julie snatched up her phone and returned Tommy's call.

"What the fuck Tommy?" Julie gasped as she began to pull clothing out of the wardrobe haphazardly and lay it on the bed.

"Get your ass down here asap, the captain wants to see us and he isn't happy," Tommy hung up on her again.

She and Tommy endured a thirty minute tirade from Captain James McElroy the gist of which was that if he found out who was leaking information to Senator Milburn he would have their badge and lock them up and throw away the key.

"It wasn't either of us Captain. The case is being kept close-hold but the leak might not have come from inside the PD. The coroner's office, a nosy neighbour, someone who knew Stephanie Carter... the leak could have come from anywhere," Tommy defended himself and his partner.

"Whoever leaked the murder didn't give specifics as far as we know, the newspaper didn't speculate exactly what Senator de Lorraine might be hiding," Julie added and for once Tommy agreed with her.

"Get it solved Tommy and do it quick. And keep it tighter than a fish's asshole. No one, I mean absolutely no one, except you me and her are to be privy to anything to do with this case," the captain pointed his finger at Julie, sighed and waved them out of his office.

"What do we do now? We still don't have a suspect," Julie followed Tommy down to their makeshift office.

"Let's try that number we found on the card. Tech Services still haven't been able to find out where the burner was purchased or when it was last used. It's the best lead we have at the moment while the DNA is being processed," Tommy locked the door to their office behind him.

"What's the strategy?" Julie asked.

"I don't have one. We don't know if the number belongs to Stephanie Carter's pimp, her dealer or a john. It might be the number of her fucking hairdresser for all we know," Tommy speculated.

"I'll try to be as vague and innocuous as possible when I make the call and see what happens," Tommy said and Julie nodded.

Tommy looked at his notes and punched the number they had found on the back of the Fleur de Lis card into his phone.

"Here we go," Tommy pressed the call icon and put the phone on speaker.

"Yes?" a male vice answered on the third ring.

"Hey, I got your number from Stephanie Carter. She told me you have good stuff," Tommy tried to sound casual.

The phone went dead.

"Fuck!" Tommy hissed.

"What now?" Julie asked.

She was thinking that now was the time to tell Tommy what she knew about Fleur de Lis and take her lumps when he ragged on her about how she had obtained the information.

Tommy's phone vibrated and he stabbed at the answer icon.

"I'll text you an address. Be there at noon. Call me when you're there. Come alone and bring cash. One thousand dollars in small bills. Then you get the good stuff," the man said in short staccato sentences and then he hung up.

Tommy and Julie looked at each other.

"Noon. We have time to brief a team for backup. Maybe SWAT?" Julie speculated.

"Nope. You heard what the captain said. It's you and me," Tommy gritted his teeth.

"Jesus Tommy, we don't know what you're walking into," Julie whined.

"Then we better make sure we're prepared. We have three hours," Tommy stared at the phone.

It pinged and tommy picked it up and looked at the address on the screen.

"The warehouse district. Let's find it on the map," Tommy woke up the laptop and began to punch the address into the browser.

The address provided was a street in the warehouse district of Camden, intersected by rail lines and service roads leading to freight yards. It was surrounded by heavy industry and manufacturing. The area was also known to be a drug distribution nexus but as soon as the drug squad shut down one drug distribution centre, another popped up. No one was winning the war on drugs except for the criminals.

"We should have backup. We should at least have a team standing by," Julie pleaded with Tommy.

"I'll wear a vest and a wire. You'll be my backup. If it's just one guy I'll see what he's offering and make an arrest. If it's more than one guy I'll withdraw and we do it your way. I don't want anyone else to know about this. If we cock it up we keep it under wraps," Tommy said with determination in his voice.

They used the time as best they could. Tommy signed out two ballistic vests and they both carried backup pieces. Julie had opted for a skirt suit today, Tommy's comment about seeing some leg might have played a subliminal part in that, but in reality she had snatched the first thing she found in her wardrobe. She wished she was wearing her pantsuit but there was no time to change which meant that she had to put her snub nose.38 backup weapon in her purse rather than strap it to her ankle.

Tommy took their mobile phones down to Tech Services and had Phantom software installed on their devices. The software allows undercover officers to covertly record and broadcast conversations using a smartphone app and remote hardware instead of a physical wire on the body.

Tommy spent some time with Julie explaining how it worked and then they checked their weapons and headed out with a plan that Julie thought was close to being half-assed but Tommy was determined to keep the sting close hold.

Julie knew that Tommy was hoping that they might break the case but she was concerned about the risk. They went back and forth about contingencies while Tommy drove to the warehouse district. He let Julie open her window so the stink of Jack's old farts and cigarette smoke wasn't as cloying.

"You ever think about getting this city car cleaned and detailed? It smells like a college boy's dorm room," Julie made small talk to try to break the tension they were both feeling.

"You been in many college boy's dorms?" Tommy gave her a cheeky smile and she gave him a mew.

Julie noticed that Tommy was not averse to looking at her legs now and then but she still wished she was wearing her pantsuit.

At eleven fifty they pulled the city car over in a cul-de-sac at the address provided. They were surrounded by what looked like abandoned warehouses, some of them dilapidated. What concerned Julie was that there was only one escape route, the warehouses backed onto rail lines that were protected by a twelve foot chainlink fence topped with barbwire.

There were sightlines into their vehicle from any of the top floor windows of the warehouses but they only had a ground level view of the old buildings. It was the perfect place for an ambush. They both checked their weapons again ensuring they each had one round in the chamber.

For a split second Tommy recalled what Senator Raymond de Lorraine had said about how it might be more convenient if Stephanie's murderer never made it to trial.

They checked that the Phantom software was working correctly, Tommy talking conversationally with his phone in his jacket pocket while Julie listened. The signal was clear and the conversation was recorded.

"Will you still have a signal inside the warehouse?" Julie asked.

Tommy shrugged and just then his phone vibrated and he answered it.

"The old Wellington warehouse. The office out back. Bring the money; leave the cooze. I've got the good stuff," the voice sounded like it had been put through a synthesizer.

The Wellington Furniture Company had ceased manufacturing furniture in Camden over twenty years ago and now imported their stock from South East Asia for pennies on the dollar. The warehouse to their right looked like it hadn't been used since.

"Ok, this is it. If you hear gunshots come a running and call for backup, otherwise keep your tidy little ass in the car and make sure everything is recorded," Tommy reverted to his old gruff self.

Julie guessed it was nervous tension and she just nodded.

The big main doors that trucks used to enter and leave the warehouse were securely locked but the pedestrian access door had been prised open long ago and stood ajar. Tommy checked his weapon for what must have been the twentieth time and stepped into the gloom. He gave himself a minute for his eyes to adjust.

The main warehouse floor was deserted except for some old furniture probably used by the homeless or teenagers looking for somewhere to party. Empty booze bottles, cigarette butts and drug paraphernalia littered the filthy floor. There were signs that someone had lit a fire in a rusty old forty-four gallon drum.

"I'm in," Tommy whispered, his feet crackling on broken crack pipes and syringes.

The only light came from the rays of sunshine shining through several holes in the roof and the dim yellowish light coming in through the few filthy windows where the boards had been ripped free. He could make out what he believed to be the office at the back of the warehouse through the gloom. He saw a mattress pushed against the far wall surrounded by used condoms shrivelled up like small dead jellyfish. A pair of panties bunched up in pantyhose lay tossed aside beside the makeshift bed.

"I'm heading to the office. I think I see someone," Tommy whispered.

In the car Julie was chewing her lip.

As he approached the rear of the warehouse Tommy saw a sign on the partially open door that said Dispatch Office confirming what he suspected. As he got closer he could see that someone was sitting in a chair in the middle of the floor.

He got closer still and saw that it was a woman with long blonde hair. She was tied to the chair with her back to him.

"Our suspect has a hostage. She's tied to a chair in the office," Tommy said evenly, although his heart was racing.

Tommy's instincts took over and he abandoned caution and ran into the office and straight to the woman tied up to the wooden hard-backed chair.

He ran around the chair so that he was facing her and realised too late that he was looking at a mannequin. The female dummy was dressed in a cheap dress, a cheaper blonde wig and her face was crudely made-up. Tommy heard the crunch of footwear on the filthy floor and reached for his weapon but it was too late.

He felt the sting of the needle on the side of his neck then his knees buckled and his sight grew dim. A shadowy figure took Tommy's gun from his holster and shoved it in his pants then he pushed the mannequin aside. The rope around the mannequin's chest was in fact loosely tied; just a prop.

The figure manhandled Tommy into the chair and ripped off his jacket and his ballistic vest. He used the same rope to tie Tommy into the chair so that he didn't collapse. This time the rope was no prop.

"Don't worry detective. The injection I gave you won't kill you or even knock you out for a little while. I want to ask you some questions," the shadowy figure was dressed all in black and wore a black ski mask and soft leather gloves.

"Fuck you," Tommy's voice was a whisper and to him it seemed indistinct and far away.

He hoped that Julie had heard him and was on her way or calling the cavalry.

The man hit tommy in the stomach with a roundhouse punch and Tommy doubled over, held in the chair only by the rope.

"Be nice detective. All I want to know is how you know Stephanie Carter," the masked man asked.

Tommy's head felt like it was filled with cotton wool, his throat was parched and he was dizzy. His belly felt like it was on fire.

"She's dead," Tommy replied.

He didn't want to tell this man anything but he found that his free will seemed to have deserted him.

"How did she die?" the man asked.

"Fuck you," Tommy managed to overcome the almost irresistible urge to tell the truth.

This time the blow crashed into his cheek and Tommy's head lolled to one side.

"Be fucking nice!" the man hissed.

"Murdered," Tommy whispered when the man pushed back two of Tommy's fingers to the stage where he thought they would pop.

"By who?" the man asked.

"By you asshole," to his surprise, Tommy managed a snigger.

The man pulled Tommy's nine millimetre from his waistband and put it against Tommy's head.

"I can make it look like suicide. You cops eat your guns all the time," the man sniggered right back at Tommy.

"Fuck you," Tommy spat blood and the man eased back the safety.

Julie was a good shot but the office was shrouded in shadows and she didn't want to hit Tommy so took a few steps closer until she was at the office door. Her low heels crunched on a piece of broken glass and the masked man turned her way and emptied the magazine in her direction.

Julie dived for cover and luckily landed on the filthy mattress. She rolled over and returned fire through the doorway but aimed deliberately high so as not to hit Tommy. The masked man dropped Tommy's pistol and wrenched his own pistol from a shoulder holster and fired back at her and Julie kept rolling until she was up against the office wall.

She heard running footsteps and a door slam and she rolled into a crouch in the open doorway with her pistol aimed where the man had been standing but he was gone. She heard a high powered car engine fire up and the screeching of tires. As much as she wanted to follow in the masked man's footsteps, even if only to get a tag, she didn't. Her first duty was to Tommy.

His head was bowed and he seemed comatose and Julie put her hand on Tommy's neck and felt for a pulse. His pulse was steady and then Tommy coughed and whispered something.

"What Tommy?" she leaned in close to him.

"No hospitals, no cops, keep this to ourselves," Tommy seemed to have exhausted himself speaking those few words but he whispered something else.

"What?" she leaned in again.

"You're a lousy shot sweet cheeks," Tommy managed a faint smile before the darkness swallowed him.

*****

Getting Tommy back to her hotel room had been a logistical nightmare. She tried to half drag -- half carry Tommy to the car which became too difficult because Tommy was a dead weight so she resorted to using a fireman's carry. She'd been terrified that the gunfire would attract attention and that a squad car would arrive at any moment. Luckily the noise of the gunshots which had sounded thunderous inside the cavernous warehouse hadn't travelled far.

The Grand Hotel had an underground parking garage and Julie parked the city car as close as possible to the elevator then waited until she was certain that the car park was devoid of other guests before she dragged Tommy into the elevator and held him upright as the elevator crawled its way up to the uppermost floor where her suite was situated. Her excuse for Tommy's condition if a hotel guest or one of the staff entered the elevator was that he had drunk too much but luckily they had the car to themselves all the way to the top.

Inside her room she dragged Tommy to the bedroom and conducted a cursory examination. Every fibre in her being told her to take Tommy to Camden City Community Hospital and to inform Captain McElroy what had happened but she had made a promise to Tommy and unless it appeared he had sustained life-threating wounds she would keep it.

Tommy's cheek was bruised but his breathing was steady. He was not bleeding as far as she could tell so he hadn't been hit during the crossfire. She undressed Tommy, checking for any other injuries as she did so. All she found was the bruising on his flat stomach where his assailant had punched him. His breathing remained steady. It appeared that he was in a deep sleep.

What else she found was disturbing. Tommy was lean and muscled, his skin pale except for his arms, legs and face which were tanned. His chest was scarred by little pockmarks of silvery flesh. Julie had investigated cases reported by the Child Protective Service involving criminal abuse. She recognised the scars as cigarette burns. There were other old scars on his torso and his upper arms and legs. Experienced child abusers knew how to hurt kids in such a way that their injuries did not show.

She softly circled the scars with her fingertips and choked back a sob. It looked like Tommy had been systematically abused as a child. She used warm soapy water to wipe down his body, leaving on his underpants for modesty. He had a substantial package in his briefs and she blushed when she cleaned his lower body.

She put a sheet and blanket over him and brushed the thick dark hair out of his eyes. Instinctively she leaned down and kissed his cheek.

The man who had tied up and assaulted Tommy had told him that the injection that he'd given Tommy wouldn't kill him and Julie had to take that on its face value. When she was reasonably assured that Tommy was not going to die and that he had no critical injuries she left him to sleep off the drug and took some time to evaluate the situation.