The Feeder (2 page)

She hesitated for a moment, and then stepped around the cart, reaching for the passkey hanging at her hip as she moved toward Camille’s door. “Okay, I open. I open. You no need room cleen?”

“No room cleaned. Thank you.”

I prayed Camille hadn’t fastened the security chain on the other side. I stayed close to the door, hand on the knob as the maid inserted the key, ready to grab it as soon as it cleared the latch to prevent her from swinging it open. The door opened a few inches and I slipped my toe between the door and the jamb as soon as there was enough space. I quickly reached into my jacket pocket and found one of the twenty dollar bills I had hastily crammed in there after paying the cabbie. I pressed the bill into her hand, forcing her to take the money rather than swing the door open.

“Gracias,” I said with a sweet smile and a flirty wink. “Muchas gracias.” I thought I detected a hint of a smile on her stone face this time.

My sister and I had a look that disarmed even the most hard-boiled individuals, male or female, and we had both mastered the art of using our looks to our advantage. I waited until the maid had disappeared back into the room she was cleaning before I checked to see if the door was chained. It wasn’t. I slipped into Camille’s room with my armload of towels and closed the door behind me.

Camille lay on the bed, motionless.

I flung the towels off to one side and rushed to her, groping at her neck for a pulse.

I found one. She wasn’t dead.

Her face was a translucent bluish-white, which wasn’t far from her actual skin color. She had always shunned bright sunlight and tanning beds, favoring the frail waifish look to the golden tan of the native California blondes. She had sort of a Gwyneth Paltrow-gone-Goth look about her.

She was alive; possibly passed out in a drunken stupor but not likely. If all she’d had was alcohol, she would probably be awake by now, nursing a hell of a hangover.

The syringe and spoon on the bedside table next to an empty tequila bottle told the rest of the story. A tiny zip-lock bag containing a small amount of beige powder I assumed was heroin sat next to the spoon.

“Camille!” I slapped her cheeks gently, then harder. No response. “CAMILLE!” I shouted into her face. Nothing. “Oh, fuck, oh fuck, c’mon!” I breathed. “Please!”

I sat her up, draping her arms over my shoulders and hugging her around the waist. I carried her to the bathroom, where I dumped her as gently as possible into the bathtub before turning the shower on cold.

It worked.

She moaned and sputtered, turning her head to the side to avoid the icy spray. I shut off the water as she started to come around.

Her eyelids fluttered open and I gazed into her gorgeous blue eyes, which were identical to my own aside from the dilated pupils and bloodshot appearance.

Camille frowned when she saw me.

“Whatthefuck…?” she mumbled.

I didn’t know whether to hug her or slap the stupid out of her. I decided to hug her because she looked as if she’d had enough slapping for one lifetime. A huge bruise darkened one side of her face, from her eye down past her cheekbone. It looked like she had taken one hell of a punch there.

She shoved me away and punched me on the shoulder, fully awake now.

“Fuck!” she yelled. “Why’d you put me in the fuckin’ shower, ass-nuts? A simple, ‘wake up’ woulda been fine.”

I stammered, adrenaline still coursing through my system, “I-I thought you were… you were…”

“OD’ing? Oh, for the love of Liza! Drama queen much?” Camille shook her head in disbelief. “In a dead sleep, yes, but not dead yet.”

I sheepishly helped her out of the tub and handed her a towel. She glared at me as she wound it around her head in a turban, still ranting.

“Ooh! You’re such a fucktard sometimes. You just going to stand there or do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Um… happy birthday?”

Camille struggled out of her jeans, which she had been sleeping in. As I helped her pull her soggy t-shirt over her head, evidence of long-term violence became clear. Somebody had been using my sister for a punching bag for quite some time.

I dashed into the other room to grab another towel, which she wrapped around herself. She slipped out of her panties, wrung them out and hung them over the edge of the sink to dry.

Finally she turned to me and fell into my arms, burying her face in my chest.

“Sammie,” she whispered.

“Cammie.”

“I told you not to come.”

“Fuck that shit. I’m here.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t feel like waiting another year to see you.”

“I’m sorry. I never should have called you.”

“I’m glad you did, since I can’t call you.”

“I’m sorry.” Camille began to cry.

I stroked her back. I hated it when she cried, but she had always been a crier.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, kissing the bruised side of her face. “I’m here now.”

Camille didn’t seem comforted by the fact that I was there. Instead, she began to cry harder. “I’m sorry, Sammie.”

“Quit apologizing. I fuckin’ hate it when you do that.”

“I didn’t want to get you mixed up in my shit. I just wanted to hear your voice.” Camille sniffled and wiped a smear of snot on my shirt.

I didn’t care. I was just relieved she was alive and relatively well, considering the circumstances. I took her shoulders and held her at arm’s length so I could look at her face.

“Who is he, Cammie?”

“Never mind. Stay out of this.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“I will find out. Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter. I got away and he won’t find me here.”

“Did you call the police?”

Camille’s eyes grew wide with terror. “Fuck NO! And you can’t! Please promise me you won’t call the cops!”

“I can’t promise that.”

“You have to.”

“Why?”

She ducked her chin and stared at the floor in the corner of the room.

“Because he
is
the police.”

“What? Are you shitting me?”

She shook her head sadly. “He’ll find me eventually. This is just a little vacation from frustration. But he’ll find me. He always does.”

I took her chin in my hand and lifted her face to mine. “Look. I’m here now, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. He won’t get you, I promise. I will deal with this asshole.”

Camille shook her head frantically. “Sammie, you have to go home. I don’t want you involved in this. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. They’re all dirty, every last one of them.”

“Who? The police?” I wasn’t completely surprised, but I got the feeling my sister was over dramatizing the whole thing.

“You can’t trust the cops. They’re like the mob. If you mess with them, they’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

I sighed. I recognized drug-induced paranoia when I saw it. Getting Camille clean was going to be a long haul but first I had to get her out of there. I picked up Camille’s hand and stroked it, noticing a purple bruise on her knuckles. I hoped she’d given the bastard a black eye before she left.

“I’m going home,” I said, “but not without you. I’m getting you out of here.”

I was shocked when Camille nodded in agreement. I’d thought I was going to have a fight on my hands.

“Okay,” she said, “but I’ll need something else to wear. You soaked my only clothes, dickhead.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me to pack a bag when I left. I was so concerned with getting my ass to LA that I had traveled with nothing but the clothes on my back.

“I’ll go find you something. I saw a surf shop up the block. They should have some clothes there. You get yourself cleaned up and then we’ll get the hell out of here.”

Camille stepped into the shower, under warm water this time. I slipped her room key into my pocket and ran up the street to the
Board Members
surf shop I had seen on my way in. I searched the racks of brightly patterned board shorts until I found a pair in Camille’s size with a blue and pink floral pattern that wasn’t too gaudy. I selected a fuchsia T-shirt to match and also found a long-sleeved gray and pink hoodie that would fit her. Camille would approve. She liked pink. I wanted to conceal her bruises and the track marks on her arms as much as possible before trying to put her on a flight. I hoped she had some makeup with her at the motel.

I returned to the motel room with the bag of clothes in one hand and a steaming latte in the other and let myself in with the key. The shower was still running, so I sat down to wait while calling the airline from my cell phone to find a flight for us. After I hung up the phone, the shower was still running. I knocked on the bathroom door.

“Hey, hurry up. I got us a flight but we need to get outta here now. Got you some clothes.” There was no answer, so I went inside and slid the frosted glass door aside. The shower was empty.

~ Chapter 3 ~

The Odie-Hole

Camille was gone.

Her soaking wet clothes were still on the bathroom floor where she had tossed them when she undressed. I ran back into the bedroom. The small bag of heroin still lay on the nightstand beside the spoon and syringe. I knew no junkie would leave voluntarily without her precious dope. Someone had taken my sister against her will.

“Camille!” I yelled, running out the door. I ran to the street and looked one way, then the next for signs of my sister’s abductor. The motel parking lot was deserted except for two vehicles that had been parked outside other rooms when I arrived. The street was empty.

I burst into the motel office. El Bitcho was still on duty behind the desk.

“Did you see anyone go to 102 while I was out?” I demanded. I really wasn’t expecting to learn anything from her, but I was desperate. I could at least ask her to connect me to the police.

To my surprise, she nodded. “Yeah, but I’m not gettin’ involved in dat shit.”

I whirled from where I had been looking out the office windows for some sign of something. “What do you mean?”

“The cops. They say they gotta warrant, I give ‘em the key. I’m not gonna argue.”

“What?” I roared. “The police came?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, did they say what they wanted?”

The woman looked more scared than pissed off at my questioning. “I tole you, I don’ ask that shit. They wanna a key, I give ‘em one.”

“Did you see a warrant?”

“I don’ ask. I don’ wan’ no trouble.”

“So you’re telling me that the cops came and arrested my sister, and you gave them a key to the room?”

“Yeah. I don’ wan’ no trouble.”

“Did they say where they were taking her?”

El Bitcho shrugged. “Jail, I guess.”

“Fuck!” I screamed, slamming both palms down on the countertop.

As I stormed out of the office, I could hear El Bitcho muttering, “I don’ wan’ no trouble…”

I scanned the wide expanse of beach, which was empty except for a few distant figures of people, scattered at random spots along the shoreline. I couldn’t believe Camille was gone.

Arrested. For what?

He is the police.

Camille had told me that. She had said the police were dirty and compared them to mobsters. I thought she was just being paranoid.

Maybe she was. She was a drug user. Maybe she’d gotten busted and was on the run because of a drug charge. But it had happened so quickly it seemed more like an abduction than an arrest.

He is the police!

I remembered the bruises on my sister’s face and body. A
cop
had done that? It didn’t feel right. The bruises looked like a mixture of fresh ones and old ones, maybe up to a week old. It did not match the typical injuries one sustained from resisting arrest. She looked like a victim of domestic violence. She had seemed genuinely afraid of this asshole. She’d even been afraid for me, even though she knew I could take care of myself.

If you mess with them, they’ll fuckin’ kill you
.

What the hell kind of trouble had my sister gotten herself into?

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

A text message.

I didn’t recognize the number but as soon as I saw it I knew it was from Camille.

The message read:

dont reply its only way ul b safe bye odie

I returned to the room, heart pounding. Camille was alive, and she somehow had a cell phone. I hadn’t seen a cell phone anywhere in her room. She had called me from the hotel phone. She didn’t call often, but she had my cell phone number memorized.

Her wet clothing had been left behind. The only thing missing was the pair of panties she had wrung out.

I paced back and forth from the door to the bed as I tried to analyze it in my head.

Camille had been arrested, or apparently abducted, by someone from the police department. Evidently she was naked except for a slightly damp pair of panties. I had to assume she was in a car, either an unmarked one or a police cruiser.

Naked.

Police didn’t typically arrest naked people and carry them away in a car in view of the public without offering them some sort of cover – a towel, a blanket…

A jacket.

I began to form a theory. I’d always had a knack for imagining likely scenarios and most of the time my analysis wasn’t far from the mark. I should have been a detective.
A cop
.

Suppose, just suppose… the cell phone she was using belonged to her abductor? Who would abduct/arrest a woman and then allow her access to his cell phone?

Someone who knew her
.

Someone who knew her well enough to allow her to grab her panties on the way out… to offer her his jacket to cover her nakedness and avoid attracting attention. Cell phones were often found in jacket pockets.

I slumped to the bed with my head in my hand and a painful lump forming in my throat, gazing at the cryptic message one more time.

I analyzed the text message.

‘dont reply’
supported my theory that she was using her abductor’s phone to send me a secret message. If I replied, he would find out and she would be in deeper trouble than she already was. Okay, so replying was out of the question, but I took a moment to save the number in my address book for future reference.