himself up and tried to see in by way of a minute crack down the edge of the drapes. He saw nothing. He sidled along to the centre of the window and peered in through the small aperture where the drapes hadn’t quite met.
Instinctively he dropped back down.
‘ One of Bussola’s bodyguards,’ he whispered to Myrna. ‘He’s sitting reading. I couldn’t see anything else.’
Myrna helped herself to a quick look, confirming Kruger’s observation. The guy was reading a hard-core porn magazine.
Kruger pointed to the next window, some ten feet along the catwalk. Myrna nodded. Again on hands and knees they set off. Myrna stayed right up Kruger’s ass and almost kissed it when he suddenly stopped in front of her and rose to listen at the next window.
This time he could clearly hear voices.
He could not see into the room, but there was a crack of light where the drapes met carelessly in the middle and the possibility of a view. This time, instead of chancing a look for himself, he reached up, using his hand rather like a periscope, and pointed the night eye into the room.
What he saw on the TV screen nearly made him fall off the fire escape.
Although the most common method of using cocaine is by snorting, it is alleged that the subsequent rush is not quite as intense as that produced by mainlining. But Tracey knew that if the purity of the drug was high enough, the buzz was just as good.
The coke she used that night was first class.
She opened her purse, unzipped the small inside pocket and removed a twenty-dollar bill she had already prepared. It was rolled up tight as a straw, both ends expertly folded over after the required’ amount of the finely grained white powder had been sifted inside the tube.
With extreme caution, Tracey unfolded one end of the note and inserted this end into her left nostril. She closed the other nostril with her thumb to bring about better suction.
She tilted her head back and snorted.
Immediately her nostril froze up, showing just how pure the stuff was. Before the real buzz hit her, she quickly shoved the note up her other nostril and sniffed up the remainder of the coke from the tube, instantly freezing that one too.
She gritted her teeth as tiny particles of the drug were taken down her passages to her throat; other particles of it were transported by the small capillaries in the mucus membrane and delivered speedily and efficiently to her brain.
The rush slammed into her seconds later. Like an express train smashing into her cranium.
She staggered, dropped the twenty-dollar bill and grabbed the wash-stand to steady herself.
Her eyes rose to her reflection. She no longer saw the scrawny, drug-abused female; instead there was a transformation. She was beautiful again. Full of confidence and sass, raring to confront Charlie Gilbert and Mario Bussola. The two men who had promised so much and given so little.
Kruger angled the TV screen in the palm of his hand to enable Myrna to see the picture properly.
She stared down at the tiny set. Horrified, her face creased into a mask of anger. She looked quickly at Kruger. ‘The bastards,’ she uttered. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘ Call the cops, I imagine,’ he said. His heart rate had increased in pace to about a million beats per second. He stared back down at the sordid tableau which was being delivered to him by the latest in hi-tec. ‘Kelly?’ he hissed into his radio. ‘Are you receiving this picture?’
‘ I was, but its gone blank for some reason. I’m trying to get it back, but there’s interference on the screen from somewhere,’ she responded desperately.
‘ Get it fixed and get it recorded,’ Kruger ordered her, knowing there were video-recording facilities in the comms van.
‘ Yes, boss.’
‘ And call the go damned cops and tell ‘em to break their asses gettin’ here.’
‘ Okay, boss.’
‘ Cops could take for ever,’ Myrna said. ‘We can’t let this go on, Steve. If that’s not rape and that kid is older than ten years, my name’s not Myrna Rosza.’
‘ PI’s watch — they don’t get involved,’ Kruger baulked.
‘ Not in this case, Steve. Otherwise we might find ourselves accessories to murder.’
‘ Yeah, you’re dead right.’ He looked at the TV screen again and made a decision — but before he could translate it into words and action, something else happened on-screen and he gasped, ‘What the hell’s this?’
Tracey crept out of the restroom and stepped quietly down the hallway towards the foot of the stairs, feeling as though she was walking on air. She paused briefly, checked over her shoulder to ensure that the door to the telephonists’ room was still closed, then began to slowly climb the stairs. On the landing at the top she was faced with one door, which she opened.
Beyond was a sparsely furnished room, with simple, whitewashed walls; it had been a storeroom previously. There was a door in the opposite wall next to which sat Bussola’s second bodyguard, an overweight guy with a heavy moustache but hardly any other hair. His ample ass was stuck in a plastic stacking chair, his nose in his porno mag. At the sound of the door opening he looked up and an expression of vague annoyance crossed his face.
He thought it was his buddy from downstairs and was ready to give him a roasting for leaving his post.
The sight of the thin, waif-like girl puzzled him.
‘ I’ve come to see Charlie Gilbert,’ Tracey said.
‘ Who?’ As he said the word he remembered it was the name of Bussola’s pal. ‘Get the fuck outta here,’ he said, dismissing her with a gesture.
‘ No.’
He stood up and walked towards her. Tracey timed it right, ducked to his left and darted to the door, skimming past him with ease. He made a grab for her but ended up embracing himself.
Before he could stop her, she was through the door.
The bodyguard swore and roared at her.
The commotion caught the attention of the two naked men in the second room, but the third person in the room continued to struggle to try and free herself from her ordeal.
Bussola was situated at the rear of the young girl, slamming into her. He yelled angrily, ‘What the hell’s going on? Get her outta here, you fool!’
Gilbert was positioned at the other end of the girl. He held her head down in a vice-like grip, forcing her to fellate his flaccid penis. He simply looked up, unconcerned at the interruption; his eyes were glazed over a drug- induced euphoria.
Tracey didn’t hesitate.
She flew across the room at Gilbert, screaming, ‘Bastard! Bastard!’ Her arms flailed like some sort of medieval instrument of war.
Then she was on Gilbert, punching and pounding him madly, five years of hatred which had been growing inside her like a malignant tumour, now given a cathartic release.
Gilbert rolled with the blows. Other than to raise his forearms defensively, thereby letting go of the girl’s head, his brain was unable to coordinate a proper response; within seconds Tracey had punched him over a dozen times around his head and chest.
However, Bussola, who always kept a clear head, disengaged his cock from the girl’s anus and threw her roughly to one side. She sprawled awkwardly to the floor where she immediately scuttled to one corner of the room, cowering, shivering with fright and pain.
Bussola and his overweight bodyguard both laid hands on Tracey at the same time. They dragged her away from Gilbert and flung her against the wall, her light weight proving no problem for them. The bodyguard moved in and laid into her, landing a devastating punch on the bridge of her nose. Her coke-frozen nostrils flattened as easily as crushing an empty match-box. She gurgled, blood gushing down her face and chest, and sank to her knees,
