Part 7 - Gretel: Dinner for Two and a Show

I didn’t give a shit what the package said — leather scented car deodorizer didn’t smell like leather. I’m not sure what the scent was, something artificially created to try to fool our feeble human brains into thinking about the leather in a new car. It didn’t work. I don’t even know why Ivan, or was it the Giant, insisted on hanging a set of fuzzy dice and a leather scented pine tree from the rearview mirror of his ride. It was a massive Caddy SUV, a stretch. Perhaps he was living the American Dream somewhere in his mind. None of it compared to what I knew his vision of the American Dream was — selling people into slavery, ruining lives, destroying families, murder, butchery, torture, addiction. All the horrors anyone could imagine.

I watched the purple pine tree-shaped freshener spin in circles as the Giant drove me to my destination. No doubt another classy meal in a dusty, soulless warehouse.

Warehouses were his thing. That, and human trafficking.

The ride allotted me some time to fabricate a lie about Ivan’s money, if he was to ask. I swallowed. This was either a dinner with a man I’d come to know more intimately than I would ever admit to in a debrief or the end of my life. I took a deep breath, flexed my hands to keep them from shaking. The shaking was harder to control lately, and he couldn’t see me scared. He couldn’t see me anything other than as murderous, callous and empty as he was himself. It was what kept me alive.

I was sure he was going to miss it — the money. Ask about it. Mention it. He was nothing, if not obsessed with every red cent. I knew he was rolling in the green, and a hundred Gs wouldn’t make or break him, but he was so tight he squeaked when he walked. I suppose fighting for scraps of bread growing up would make a man hold onto everything he got. He was a strange man, really. Head over heels for me, always telling me he was going to make me one of his wives and bathe me in gold and diamonds and vodka. Such a flatterer. I also found it odd that he chose to deal in the Asian market, sending as many white girls, and the occasional boy, to be sold to Asian men with a taste for white meat.

How long before I was part of a shipment? I squeezed my hands into fists, took a deep breath.

So far, I’d managed to stop two of his shipments and save some unknown number of people from disappearing into oblivion. Most people sold on the black market are never heard from again. The smugglers were good, rarely getting caught, but with the knowledge of these crimes becoming more prevalent in the States, there had been harder crack downs. No one really knew how everything worked, even me, being eyeball deep in it on both sides of the law. The traffickers were crafty, smart and don’t trust anyone, even among themselves. It was a hard game, trafficking, but it resulted in hard cash money. Big money. Money that bent rules and laws and ethics. It bent hearts and minds. It bent souls. It bent everything that touched it. The brown bag I ditched was just for information, although that plan had turned into a blackmail payoff that ended in murder.

It had bent me, too, and I couldn’t unsee it.

I wondered about myself, pictured my hands around Red’s throat. I’d meant to kill her, and had another killer not come along…well, I think I could safely say it was Red’s night to die. She deserved it though, trying to threaten me and my operation, my cover. I hated the thought of being a killer myself, but more lives were at stake here. She had no idea what she was sticking her simple, do-gooder ass into. And, as such, given what was at stake, given the outcome — the end of Ivan and his Giant, I wasn’t going to let the guilt get to me. She’d needed to go. Stupid, simple bitch. I finished powdering my nose and brushing my hair, a little spritz of cheap perfume in the back of the SUV, and I was hot to trot. Enough for Ivan. Enough for a man who loved long-legged brunettes who didn’t give a fuck if you broke someone’s spine right in front of them.

I could see the Giant crinkle his flat nose in the rearview mirror, then he sneezed, and sneezed again.

I smiled and sprayed the cheap perfume again. Fuck him.

The SUV came to a stop about fifteen minutes later. The Giant stepped out of the driver’s seat and held the door open for me again. I slid across the leather bench seat and stepped onto the damp pavement in front of Warehouse 23, a pair of lights spilling their beams over the ten-foot-tall numbers. Several men moved around the perimeter carrying machine guns, eyes focused into the night. They knew who I was and didn’t pause a beat as I approached, Gigantor following closely behind me, no doubt watching my ass as I took each stride in the stilettoes, I wore. Everyone else did. And today would be no different. Short black dress that barely covered my ass. Low cut so my braless tits threatened to spill out into the night. I was sex on heels, and I was well-known as Ivan’s personal whore.

I entered the warehouse, the metal door creaking behind me, and Ivan stood waiting to greet me. He flung his arms open to embrace me in a hug, a kiss on my cheek to show me affection. It was as much as he did. No smile. No warmth to him. He was an automaton, a husk of a human being. If he didn’t have the power to destroy, he wouldn’t even exist.

“Ivan! So good to see you, darling,” I said as I kissed his cheek in return. A cold piece of flesh. A cold fish.

“Gretel, always stunning. Always a gift to have you in my company.” His accent reminded me of a bad vampire movie. A bad movie, but he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if he knew who I was. And in the most creative way possible. I’d seen his handiwork before. The scent of burnt flesh still lingered in my nostrils when I wasn’t prepared to block the memory out.

He took my arm and led me to a cleared area of the floor, stacks of boxes and crates all around us. I have to give the guy credit, the table was perfect — white linen, candlelight, roses, fine china, crystal. He meant business when he ate. He insisted on dining with class, the one time he let anyone see a true vision of himself, how he wanted to be seen. He once told me he could fully appreciate the blessing of a finely set table after having to wrestle pigs for food so he wouldn’t starve. Before. I almost liked the guy at times — or maybe I felt sorry for him — he was charming and told a great story, but he was… His morals ran to protecting those that are his but condemning perfect strangers. They were cattle to him, a commodity to turn a profit. He was also a little too skinny for my taste, but I put up with it because I felt the means justified the end, even if I had to fuck him. Even when I choked on his cock.

He pulled my chair out for me at the table, gentlemanly criminals. If only some of the guys I’d met outside of work had manners. A girl can dream. I sat and unfolded my napkin, placing it in my lap while Gigantor spilled some wine into my glass.

Ivan sat across from me and lifted his glass. “To us, my love. And to many more profitable interactions.” He held his glass out towards me.

“To us,” I replied, clinking my glass against his.

“But, before we eat,” he stopped mid-toast and leaned forward, “I want to show you something.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his cronies brought out a girl, her hands bound behind her back, a rag stuffed in her mouth. He slammed her to the floor, her slender body, naked and unaccustomed to this type of treatment, hit the concrete with a sickening thud. A wail of terror, of fear, of pain, rose from the pile of flesh there. My heart raced, staring down at the slender form, quivering not more than ten feet away, and every fiber of my being told me to go to her, to soothe her, to help her. I knew her. She was — I knew her — one of his girls. No one. Just no one at all. Just. She’d poured his drinks. Poured mine. She was nobody. Nobody. Nobody, except someone who’d spoken to me, shared her story, told me what she’d known.

Did he know? Did he know that I’d seduced her? Did he know that I’d fucked her the first night, licking her cunt there behind the bar where she spent her nights pouring cheap vodka into shot glasses for Ivan’s crew of ex-Russia special forces and military — the scum he hired, brought over to terrorize everyone who stood against him? She’d cum again and again, and with each orgasm, her tongue had loosened, until she’d spilled everything she knew and even put her tongue to use in better ways.

Ivan looked at me, studying my face — did he know? Was my cover blown? I tried to keep my cool as the Giant pulled her limp frame to the table and slammed her face down on it, shattering the semblance of a high-end meal. Her glazed eyes stared at me. She was flying so high she didn’t know where she was or what was happening. I recognized the look, the dilated pupils, the faraway stare, as if she couldn’t even see me, understand what was happening to her.

I had to say something. “Uh, what is this and why is she ruining our dinner?” I couldn’t let on that I knew her other than what we’d both know — she made a viscous vodka martini.

“Do you remember my story about the rats? The ones that came out at night and crawled over me and my brothers as we slept? How I would try to stay up, to be vigilant, to catch them. Well, I didn’t fall asleep this time.” He glared at me, I looked him in the eye, unsure what he was trying to tell me, but I wasn’t bruised and full of drugs and naked and gagged and about to die. He didn’t know. And she had served her purpose.

I fluffed my napkin, slid it across my lap and reached for my wine.

I’d been certain he knew about me, but he’d never acted. He’d never hinted. He’d never said a word. Why didn’t he just shoot me? Why the show? Maybe he was just trying to scare me.

Gigantor approached the girl from behind, unzipping his pants. Her face slid in the butter as he thrust into her, still her eyes remained blank, as if she was no longer there, where once she’d been so full of life, so vocal, cumming for me again and again.

Ivan sipped his wine and looked at me. He knew, didn’t he? How? It was like being back at the witch’s house, my brother being made a meal by some lascivious old man. I had to escape, but had nowhere to go this time…

This time I did the only thing a girl could do. I sipped my wine, watching the girl’s glazed gaze. I grabbed a roll from the basket and tore it open, picked up my dinner knife, managed to get a dab of butter from the dish and smeared it on the warm bread. I opened my mouth and bit a large piece off and chewed. Ivan laughed.

The giant fucked her. I ignored him, cut into my steak. And before I’d finished, she was gone, dragged away, and the dinner was, well, normal, uneventful and yet delicious. If nothing else, the man appreciated good wine and a good meal. And a good blow job. I sucked his cock the moment he signaled that the Giant should wait outside. And then Gigantor drove me home, the taste of his cum lingering.

I sat in the back of the SUV, downing water, trying to get the taste of old, Russian murdering scum out of my mouth.

I wanted to sleep, to forget, to let the images of that girl go. Her eyes and how they reflected nothing. It had been an exhausting night, and I wanted to fall right then and there, to let the tears come, to acknowledge to myself that I would never see her again, but there was business left to do. And I was a professional, no matter how horrible, how disgusting the life I led. There were breadcrumbs to follow.

I had to find out what the locals had on Red’s murder. I needed to retrieve my bag of cash. I needed Ivan to trust me just a little longer. I was so close. I was so so so fucking close, wasn’t I? After three years? After giving away, no — slashing, cutting off, hacking off parts of my soul until I could watch a young woman, a bartender I’d used to get information, be drugged, raped and…I didn’t want to know. Would she end up trafficked? Locked in some local dungeon and subjected to the horrors of someone who saw himself as Ivan? Just dead and dumped in a dumpster?

I was so fucking close. I wasn’t ready to stop, to quit, to compromise. I just needed to forget her eyes.

I showered away Ivan’s scent and threw on some jeans and a tee shirt, grabbed my leather jacket and headed out into the darkness, my stomach roiling. The job wasn’t done, and until it was done, I was Ivan’s whore.

I was glad I’d traded my contacts for my glasses when I had arrived at the precinct. My eyes were burning from lack of sleep. I recognized Wolfe, the guy hanging with the pigs at the crime scene, standing at the top of the steps, his flask to his lips. Breakfast of champions, I guessed. I didn’t make eye contact with him as I walked through the doors, flashed my ID and was let through the security door into the dick zone.

I froze when I saw two of the pigs questioning someone I knew.

She glanced my way, but I didn’t think she knew who I was since I was civil looking. I made my way across the room and sat at a desk near them so I could overhear what was being said. She was just finishing her statement, and I caught the end of her telling her tale about Wolfe and Red arguing. She got up and headed toward the exit, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She was up to something. Follow the breadcrumbs. I got up after her and walked out only to see her get in a car with a bear of a man. I glanced over my shoulder to see Wolfe still hanging there, smoke in his hand, the flask back in his pocket. I had a feeling the man was going to be pissed off in just a few minutes.