Where did we leave Vanessa?

Our beautiful vamp, Vanessa, was last seen with the thugs, in the back of their van...

Chapter 9

 “I’m leaving you alone with her, but don’t do anything stupid,” Mitch said, turning the van’s motor off.  “I’m going to get Mike.  So keep your dumb hands to yourself.”

“No need to get mean, Mitch.  I just thought that since Mike sent us to get her, we should just get her, and not try to get any of the whoring money out of her.  I didn’t mean to piss you off.”  Vanessa had been listening to Derek whine and Mitch grumble for what seemed like hours.  Mercifully, Derek had stopped pawing her, and Mitch had given up on trying to double-time his boss, at least for now.

“Well, we wasted enough time arguing about this.  It’s almost four, and we have to turn her in at four.”

“You make her sound like a library book!”  Derek laughed.

“What would you know about library books?”  Vanessa heard the van door slam.

“Okay, sleeping beauty, you can open your eyes,” Derek said.  Vanessa complied.  No sense in faking any longer, especially since he knew it was a sham.  Derek opened the remaining buttons on her dress and laid it open.  “Now that’s some library book!”

Vanessa didn’t struggle.  Under the dress she had only her bra, having lost the thong in the ladies’ room at the lawyer’s office.  Nothing had worked out right, and now Derek here was going to get lucky.  It wasn’t fair.  She sighed.

“It’s not that bad,” Derek said, lifting her bra and letting her breasts bounce free.  “Oh, my god, you are beautiful.”  He stroked her breasts.  Then he ran his hands over her mound, and parted her legs.  “Come on, Vanessa, don’t just lie there like you’re dead.” 

Vanessa shrugged.  “The drug.  It makes me sleepy.  I have headache.”  It was true, and anyway, she knew she wasn’t in any real danger.  It wasn’t like he would stab her, or choke her if she didn’t obey.  He was going to have his way with her, that was obvious, but he wasn’t going to hurt her if he could avoid it.  The big problem is that she was too woozy to get away, and eventually he would turn her over to Mike.

“Not tonight, dear, I have a headache?”  Derek thought that was supremely funny, and was momentarily distracted from his rapacious task.  Vanessa propped herself up on an elbow.  The interior of the van, now stuffy without the motor on to run the air conditioner, spun around. 

“Oh, no.  I am going vomit.” 

“Don’t you dare!” Derek scooted quickly away from her.

“Oh, I think sicking.”

Derek opened the back hatch of the van. Tepid but new air rushed in.  It made her feel a bit better immediately, even if it was carbon monoxide-laced garage air.  She looked around.  They were in the deepest recesses of the casino’s underground parking lot, where only the employees ever parked.  She pulled her bra back down where it belonged, and pulled her dress shut. 

“Don’t do that!  We were just getting started.”

“Poor Derek.  But at least you stood up to Mitch.  I’ll make sure that you’re rewarded for that.”

“Please, Vanessa.  Don’t tell Mike.  Don’t say a word about Mitch trying to get the money.  He didn’t mean it, and I don’t want him to get in trouble.  Really!”  Derek’s gloriously handsome face looked even better in distress.  His perfect black eyebrows, usually gracefully arching over his dark eyes, were knit together in a movie-star version of concern, and his rich, full lips were pouting slightly as he worried about Mitch’s fate.  He climbed out of the van, and stood next to the vehicle while Vanessa put herself back together.

“Tell you what.  You just keep your hands to yourself, and we don’t have to talk to Mike about anything.  You did job, you got me here, you will not get in any trouble.”

“Thank you, Vanessa.  I really appreciate it.  I really need this job, you know.  I’m saving up to go to acting school.  I want to go to Hollywood, but I’m going to need a lot of money until I get discovered, so I just can’t afford to get fired.”

“Don’t worry.  But if you need money so much, why didn’t you let Mitch see if he could scare me into giving you some of the money from the back-door business?”  That was the casino euphemism for the little venture that Mike and Vanessa had concocted to generate some extra cash.  It hadn’t worked out too well, but that was hardly Vanessa’s fault.  She had brought in some lovely girls, and she certainly was pretty enough to lure the men back and do the commerce.  It was just that in today’s world, in the suburbs, the gentlemen didn’t want whores, and the ladies wanted too much of the money. 

Derek ducked his head away sheepishly.  “I knew you were awake, and I didn’t think you were going to fall for Mitch’s plan, and besides, I was hoping that since, well, if I kept him from badgering you, that maybe you and me, well, we could have a little real fun together.  Not just back here in the van, you know?  Unless you’re really committed to Mike, of course.  I don’t want to get in the way of that?”

“Sure, Derek,” Mitch’s voice came from the gloom.  “You thought it all through in a split second, didn’t you?  You’re the genius of group.  Of course she’s not committed to Mike, she ran away from him, didn’t she?  She would have gone along with the plan gladly.  And you would have your money for that chicken-shit little acting school you got into in LA.  Amazing Academy of Dramatic Arts!  Sounds like a scam to me.”

“Don’t you dare insult me! Or my school!”  Derek shouted.  Patches of red appeared on his high cheekbones, and his square chin jutted forward.

“Too bad you’re straight, Derek,” Mitch taunted.  “You’ll never make it with those pretty-boy looks unless you’re willing to sleep with the director!”  Mitch put himself between Derek and the van.

“Stop that, you little boys!  Why are you trying to have a fight?  Mitch, you stole me to take to Mike.  So take me to Mike.”  Mike would be better that the dueling security guards.  At least he was an adult.

“There’s a problem.”

“Is what, the problem?”

“Mike’s gone.”

Derek and Vanessa stared at Mitch.  “What do you mean gone?  Like gone home for the night?  It’s not barely four!” 

“Gone.  Gone to the hospital.  He got taken away in an ambulance around two this afternoon.  No one knows what’s going on.”

“So, we won’t get our money?”

“Will you shut up about the money, Derek?  I’m sure Mike will make good.  And besides, you got a little private nookie from Va-Va-Vanessa here.  What’re you complaining about?”

“So, Mike is gone.  He is in hospital.  So now, I am leaving this van.  Your party is over.” 

Neither man tried to stop her as she put her high-heeled shoes back on, straightened her dress, and walked away from the van.  Letting herself in by the employee door, she went straight to Mike’s private office.  She switched on the light.  His chair was turned over, his silver cake-cutting knife, a souvenir of his first marriage, lay on the floor beside the chair.  And on his desk was a spread-sheet, showing all of the income, expenses, and debts of the casino. 

Vanessa pulled the chair upright, put the knife back, and sat down in Mike’s chair. She didn’t even glance at the ringing phone.  She fished a calculator out of his left hand drawer, and took up the spread-sheets.  They were her favorite form of fiction.