Predator Press
[LOBO]
“I’m not seeing you on the list,” squawked the voice over the gate radio.
With the heat flowing into the open window of the car, I stared at the large iron gates with mixed emotion about the delay. Turning my attention to the clipboard on the passenger seat, I flip a page.
“That’s not unusual given the nature of the visit,” I explain. “I’m a
PMS Pal. Is Antonio working? He is my contact.”
“One moment please.”
Restless, I check the gauges on the car. I’m driving a refurbished late model BMW -a car determined to not “stand out” in the neighborhood- previously used for undercover police work. And indeed it was pretty, but from the inside it was easy to tell how abused it was: the leather seats were torn, the carpet had numerous cigarette burns. But my immediate concern was the rising engine temperature; idling at the opulent security gate with the air conditioner blasting was going to be an issue if it continued much longer.
After several minutes, a rhythmic beeping droned and the gate slowly slid open.
“Please proceed to the delivery entrance,” a voice -different from the first- said in animated amusement.
“Thank you,” I said.
I’ve never actually been on these grounds before, but about a quarter of a mile down the drive a sign articulated the winding delivery detour of the palatial estate; this narrow road wound me to the back of the mansion to a small row of currently-unoccupied loading docks. A black man dressed in an immaculate white chef’s uniform grinned and pointed to some parking spots where I limped the languishing car to a stop.
I grabbed the clipboard and stepped out. Immediately I could smell the overworking car engine, and faint plumes of white smoke could be seen whipping under a barely-existent hot breeze.
“Antonio, I presume?” I says, offering my hand.
The man beamed a huge, blinding grin, and crushed my hand under his grip. “Your timing couldn't be better,” he offered in a thick Jamaican accent. “Mrs. Worthington is under the impression she is dining with the governor, and getting ready as we speak.”
Pressing a button on my keychain the trunk opens silently, and I examine the trunk contents. Wooden katanas, flash grenades, rubber clubs.
-Tools of the trade.
Familiar somewhat with Worthington, I forsake all except a well-worn large suitcase. Grunting as I extract the heavy bag, and close the trunk. “So where can I get ready?”
“Right this way,” says Antonio. “Mrs. Worthington is as prompt as she is meticulous. I think you have about fifteen or twenty minutes before she finishes her bath. My recommendation would be to wait for her in her bedroom.”
Most American clients, modest, would never allow this. But Worthington -Europian- had signed virtually ever waiver we had; she didn’t have any hangups about being caught in circumstances like that.
-But if you take my profession in an altruistic sense, this is the best way to do it.
“PMS Consultants sent a different guy last month,” said Antonio, making small talk. A wall of refreshing cool air washed over me as we entered the building.
“Yeah,” I says, making note of doors and windows -potential emergency escapes- as we wind through the massive house. “W-," I pause. "
Mrs. Worthington broke my clavicle last time.”
“Ah.”
“She’s tough,” I says. “Isn’t she an aerospace engineer or something?”
“Yes,” Antonio confirmed. “But she spends all her free time studying martial arts, playing tennis … she is very-” he paused, choosing his words. “Fit,” he concluded. We started up a large and ornate circular stairwell. “What brings a man like yourself into such work?”
“Terms of my parole,” I reply. “A few years ago I got a judge to consider this part of my community service. I‘ve been with
PMSP ever since.”
Antonio swung a set of double doors open. “This is the master bedroom,” he explained. “That,” he pointed, “is the door to her bathroom. She should be emerging from there in ten minutes or so.”
I haul the suitcase into the room and lay it on the floor. “Thank you,” I says, unzipping the main compartment.
Sensing a good moment, Antonio withdrew a small radio from his pocket. “This is Antonio. Please evacuate the premises. Code Sixteen.”
Antonio’s radio squawked.
"Antonio, please confirm. Code Sixteen?"
“Affirmative,“ he replied. “Code Sixteen.” Then, to me, “Do you require further assistance?”
“Well, yeah,” I says. I flip open the case to the smell of perspiration, rubber, and Kevlar. I have formulated a possible surprise attack plan: hanging from the high lighting fixtures, and dropping on Worthington as she crosses under -so in addition to the standard protective gear, I dig for spools of cable, hasps, and hooks. “If you don’t mind, some of the gear ties in the back. I can do it myself, but the suit is safer if I put the gloves on before some of the other padding.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
Well practiced, I soon have all twenty-two pounds of rubber gear on. And just in time -we both hear some activity from behind the door. Pulling the final leather straps and buckles tightly behind me, Antonio’s apprehension became somewhat palpable.
“I really must be going now,” he says.
“Yes,” I agree. “And thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“No thank
you sir,” says Antonio. “Your visits have really changed things around here.”
“One more thing,” I says. “You don’t know where Mrs. Worthington’s purse is, do you?”
Antonio looks puzzled. “No.”
“It’s standard procedure to neutralize the purse in advance when possible. Just in case of mace, pepper sprays, and so forth.”
“I wish I could help you, but-”
“It’s fine,” I shrug, pulling the fitted steel grid mask down over my face. “Off with you now,” I smile, showing my mouthpiece.
“See you next month, sir. Good luck.”
“Indeed,” I says, fist bumping him with my thickly-padded glove.
Once the master bedroom doors clicked closed in Antonio’s exit, I ponder my circumstances further. I could, for instance, hide behind the drapes-
Suddenly, the bathroom door flung wide.
-And Worthington entered.
Worthington, an attractive, curvy woman in her early thirties stood about 5’8”, three inches of which were high heels. Freshly “made up” and in a smart-looking red suit coat, she entered the bedroom a full three steps before she spotted me and froze.
Her purse, a small pocketbook hanging by a spaghetti strap, hung on her shoulder.
“You!” she snarled through lipstick-reddened lips.
So much for the element of surprise, I thought. Still hoping to catch her off-balance I rushed at her, the now-useless climbing hasps and hooks clanked noisily as I charged. And it
worked with some success: I got three quick jabs in -each rendered impotent my unwieldy armor alone- and her small face disappeared each time behind the comically large gloves. The first punch changed her face to shock and smeared makeup. The second, her eyebrows furrowed in steely determination.
-The third, crazed and unabashed rage.
Both her hands dove into the tiny purse, but I knocked it away. This preoccupation was not without price however, and her foot -now high-heel free, crashed solidly across my temple.
Padding or no, I can’t take much of that, I thought.
This bitch kicks like a mule. Off-balance, I reeled as she delivered a series of vicious blows -any one of which would have been crippling without the protective gear. I tumbled noisily through the splintered bedroom double-doors and into the hallway.
Wobbling quickly to my feet, for an instant I thought maybe it was over -but then I heard a blood-curdling shriek the likes of which I will never forget. Fists closed high and protective, muscular legs cut and ready, she padded through the fragments of wood, plastic, and glass and closed the distance between us.
Reflexively, I grabbed at a stone-looking vase. But the gloves betrayed me, and I couldn’t get a grip -all I could do was guide it to a clumsy fall between us, and it shattered. Still, she was barefoot.
Perhaps this would buy me a few precious seconds-
Scrambling for footing, I could hear her feet and fists whipping in the air. I whirled and a lucky elbow caught her square in the abdomen mid-somersault, winding her. Holding her awkwardly with a gloved paw, I leaned on her with all my weight in effort to force her into submission. It was then I felt a strange popping sensation in my neck -Mrs. Worthington had taken a shard of the vase, worked it over my shoulder pads and under my helmet
-and was
slicing through the padding to my throat.
In a desperate flail that would have made my Sensei laugh, I swung wildly. Worse, I think I screamed. My helmet, mask, and shoulder pads, now unsecured, fell away -and in a strange moment of quiet confusion I realized I no longer had her in my grasp.
In fact, I had no idea where she was.
The purse! I thought quickly.
Diving back into the bedroom, sure enough there she was, the tiny purse’s contents sprawled all over the bed. A small wallet. Pack of Marlboros. A lighter. A box of Kotex.
-A 38 caliber handgun.
Now guns are strictly off-limits, and an explicit violation of
PMSP service terms; pointing my right forearm at the bedroom window, I punch the big red 'PANIC' button on my belt -this is supposed to fire a grappling hook where, in theory, I would swing outside and be lowered to presumed safety.
But instead of the explosive compression of gas required to fire the emergency cable, nothing happens.
I jam the button again.
Nothing.
The C02 tank is ruptured.
Fuck.
Mrs Worthington at this point has the .38 in hand, and is fumbling for the safety. With no other recourse I crashed into her full-force like a giant two hundred pound rubber grizzly bear -the petite woman went sprawling, the handgun spinning off into the corner of the room. Everything seemed in slow motion as I clawed for purchase on the carpeting to the weapon. And indeed I got to it first, but with the gloves all I could do was fumble at it. Worthington issued another shriek, and the end table for the massive bed -oak, I think- came crashing down on my skull. This is followed almost immediately by the sharp crack of one of the heavy television armoire doors swung open against my head, once, twice ... the third time a hinge broke, and it dangled twisted and unservicable. I don't know what the next thing was -a DVD player or a large clock radio- but it hurt like hell and blinded me in a shower of sparks on impact.
It was at this point the emergency cable -with the CO2 tank I errantly thought ruptured- engaged and the grappling hook fired, wrapping tightly around a peg on a huge bookshelf. Small, powerful motors engaged automatically, and I felt myself helplessly dragged backwards, deeper into the bedroom. Worse, one of my useless climbing hooks has snagged on the armoire; slowly pulled in the opposite direction by the steel cable, I twist and thrash helplessly as I'm slowly lifted off the floor. I hear a wooden creaking sound, the unmistakable groans and cracks of heavy wood under enormous stress. My eyes follow the cable -my arm pulled excruciatingly toward where the grappling hook attached- to see that the top of the bookshelf, a few feet away,
has begun to tilt precariously toward me.
But now my experience and advance planning finally paid off. Fearing a circumstance such as this -one where my emergency cable could snag and theoretically tear me apart- the motors are programmed to cut out at a certain level of high tension. Still programmed to support my full weight however, I dangled helplessly in the air between the bookshelf and the battered armoire.
The brief surge of professional pride, however modest, was cut short by sounds of frantic activity. Squinting, I look cautiously up to see Worthington, one arm seeking leverage behind the enormous bookshelf.
Oh no, I shake my head.
Oh yes, she nods in furious determination.
After the deafening crash, there's a moment or two I think I lost consciousness -I'm certain I would be dead were I not fortunately pinned under two thousand pounds of Anne Rice hardcovers. Thusly momentarily safe, I began tearing at my gloves with my teeth. Vision blurry, I am only vaguely conscious of the large red stains on them.
Is that lipstick? Or is it my blood? Worthington, as if to answer, grunted as she cast the bookshelves aside in adrenaline-fueled effort, and delivered numerous savage kicks to my armored-yet-aching abdomen. Accidentally triggering my emergency belt switch again, the
other cable fired and secured itself to the overelaborate baroque bed headboard. Covered in Anne Rice books and bookshelf remnants, I am slowly but inexorably dragged once more.
Attempting again to stand, I caught the edge of the bed in an effort to regain my footing on the treacherous floor -now covered in broken glass and wreckage. Hearing the faint
slap, slap, slap, of her bare footsteps approaching I somewhat errantly thought she was closing for another series of bone-crushing blows: anticipating the limited places where she could step without shoes I wheeled again, catching her full weight and throwing her firmly on the bed. It was at that point I heard an all-too-familiar metallic
click-click and realized my miscalculation: while her reckless lunge failed, her primary goal was to scoop up the gun en route.
The .38 boomed, and I slumped to searing pain as she thundered the gun empty into my chest and abdomen.
-I was done.
"That was
awesome," Mrs. Worthington breathed heavily. "Much better than last month."
“Yeah,” I groaned. “You broke my clavicle in May. They hadda send another guy.”
"Well he was a
puss," she panted. Grabbing the Marlboros from the shrapnel-addled floor, she collapsed noisily on the debris-riddled bed next to me. Wincing and waving fruitlessly at the newly-conjured cloud of pale gun smoke and dust she asked, “Cigarette?”
“Sure,” I wheeze. “Thanks.”
She flicked the lighter. “Do you guys wear bullet-proof vests with all your clients?”
“Only you,” I lie.
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