Darrell Bain - Ultimate Suggestions

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Ultimate Suggestions

by Darrell Bain

May 2002 Hard Shell Word Factory

Hard Shell Word Factory

www.hardshell.com

Thriller/Suspense

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser.

Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or

any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to

severe fines and/or imprisonment.

To Michael and Linda Bain

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Darrell Bain

CHAPTER ONE

^ »

THE HOUSE was old and creaky and was badly in need of painting, as was every

other house in the almost abandoned neighborhood. The once verdant lawn was

overgrown with weeds and bushes and the swimming pool, located in what was

once a well-tended back yard, was covered with a green scum. The place had been

easy to rent. Several years ago an oily, toxic mess had begun bubbling up from

underground, residue from an abandoned industrial disposal site which the

development had unknowingly been built upon. Most of the homes were now in

receivership, tangled up in a mess of legal maneuvering. Destitute squatters and a few

unlucky families who had nowhere else to go occupied those few which weren’t. It

was an ideal location for the manufacture of illegal drugs, which was what the two

men inside were occupied with.

The older of the two men, Benjamin Worthington, was clearly in charge. He sat at

a worn card table, rubbing his bald forehead while splitting his attention between a

chemistry text open before him and a tangle of glass tubing, retorts and mixing vats

against the opposite wall. A half full bottle of cheap whiskey and a glass occupied a

spot on the table by his left elbow. An overflowing ashtray by his right, containing a

forgotten cigarette, smoldered and threatened to ignite the pile of butts. He watched

as an oily yellow liquid swirled through one section of the tubing and dripped into a

shakily assembled retort holding another liquid substance, this one murky with

suspended particles. He didn’t like the look of the way the reaction was going. The

oily liquid had a faint off-color tinge, different from the appearance of previous

batches and the reaction in the retort seemed to be proceeding slower than it should

have—and the suspended particles weren’t precipitating; they were going into

solution.

“It doesn’t look right to me,” the other man said, for the second time. The words

were spit out with the jerky quickness of a person on an amphetamine high. A

nervous tic twitched below his left eye and he constantly fingered his thin mustache,

as if urging it to grow.

“I know it damnit,” Worthington said, trying to read the chemistry text and pay

attention to the reaction at the same time.

“It’s leaking, too,” Worthington’s subordinate said, pointing at a joint in the

tubing above the retort where a thin, almost inaudible hissing had begun. Bubbles of

a clear liquid were forming and breaking along the joint, disappearing into an almost

colorless vapor immediately afterward.

“It will hold,” Worthington said. “The reaction is almost over.”

“No it won’t,” the other man said. He paced frenetically around the leaking joint

then leaned down to sniff the escaping concoction.

“Goddamnit, I said it’s okay.”

“No it’s not. It’s fucked up.”

Worthington watched him sniff again, like the idiot he was, good only for

distribution once the product was ready. He was irritated, knowing his dealer was

right; the reaction had gone wrong somewhere, but carping at him wasn’t going to

solve the problem. He looked up from his text, feeling anger bubble up inside him.

Pushers shouldn’t use their own product. He stared balefully at the man then said,

“Listen, why don’t you go jump in that fucking swimming pool out there and drown

your fucking self? I don’t need your fucking comments.”

He went back to reading his text, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, then

cursed. There! Sonofabitch! Reading from the water-spotted pages of the old

textbook, he had misplaced a decimal point. No wonder! He looked back up. The

second man had disappeared. Good. He read back over the pertinent section of the

text, taking his time. This whole batch would have to be discarded, leaving only

enough reagents for one more run—and money was getting low. Only after he

closed the text did he become aware that he had heard splashing noises in the

background, long minutes ago.

The renegade chemist wondered what was going on, then got up to go look. He

unlatched the back door and went out through the weeds to the edge of the

abandoned swimming pool. The body of his dealer floated lifelessly, splayed-face

down in the green scum, supported by the heavy growth just enough to keep it from

sinking.

“Goddamn,” Worthington breathed to himself. “I will be goddamned.”

Excitement raced through his body like a jolt of electricity. His brilliant mind

made the connection immediately. There was nothing wrong with his brain; he had

once been a first class chemist at the University of Houston until a series of sexual

escapades, compounded with clandestine manufacturing of illegal substances in

order to pay off his ex-wife to avoid having her press child-molesting charges

against him had lost him his tenure. His life had gone downhill ever since. But now—

Now. What would customers pay for a substance so hypnotic that a simple

suggestion could induce suicide? And what else could he use it for? A series of

sexual fantasies raced through his mind like a speeded up pornographic film. He

smiled, gloatingly to himself and went back inside and began dismantling the

chemistry apparatus. There was just enough money to rent another place. Then

another thought occurred to him: soon, he wouldn’t need money, nor anything else,

not if the drug worked as well on other people as it had on his subordinate—and he

knew just who had an excess of cash and would like to try it.

“BUT WHY NOT?” Gene Wilson asked, having to raise his voice over that of

the lead singer, who was belting out a jazzed up rendition of The Tennessee Waltz.

Gene didn’t care much for it; he preferred the original. It had been one of his favorite

songs ever since hearing it played as a child on the old stereo his parents still kept

even though it no longer worked. They used it as a wall table now, next to the big

easy chair where the answer phone lived.

Francis Stafford didn’t answer for a moment, trying to phrase a reply in her mind

that wouldn’t offend Gene. She hated having to do that but it was becoming more

and more of a habit the longer she lived with him. In the three months since she had

moved in with Gene it had become apparent that he was a controller, always wanting

his own way. And he was jealous, inordinately so. A little jealousy was flattering,

Francis thought, but he carried it to extremes. Finally framing her answer, she leaned

across the table so that she didn’t have to shout.

“It’s too soon to think about marriage. Ask me again in a month or two.” That

answer was simply putting off the inevitable, Francis knew. She wasn’t going to

marry him, and in fact intended to move out sometime soon, but she didn’t feel like

getting into an argument now.

Gene’s face clouded up into a petulant frown before he forced a grin. He took

her hand and used it to hold her in position for a moment, head and shoulders leaned

forward, the gentle, slightly mischievous smile that he loved so much lingering on her

face. She looked beautiful to him, with her mop of curly auburn hair and bright hazel

eyes, along with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, which he liked and she

hated and tried to conceal with makeup. It wasn’t just her beauty which held him,

though. Any man is attracted to beauty, he thought, but he was really in love with her

personality. Francis was so caring, yet so at ease with herself and who she was that

it wasn’t immediately obvious. And she was thoughtful, always doing little things to

please others, especially him. One day she would surprise him with a small gift. On

another day she might spend the whole of one of her days off shopping for just the

right consumables then cook a gourmet meal just for him. Her beauty, though, was a

two-edged sword. He couldn’t stand the thought that other men might have

possessed her or might still want to. It drove him to questioning her about her

previous lovers and her activities outside their home past the point of curiosity,

especially since her job as an Emergency Room nurse frequently had her working

unanticipated overtime and unexpected odd shifts. Maybe I’ve been a policeman too

long, he thought. I’m always suspicious. He knew it was a failing, but seemed unable

to do anything about it.

When Gene failed to reply, Francis withdrew her hand and picked up her

wineglass and drank the last little bit.

Gene sipped his own wine, a house Chablis which really wasn’t bad at all. He

lifted the bottle from the table and made pouring motions rather than having to shout

across the table.

Francis shook her head and pushed back her chair. She came over to his side of

the table and leaned over him. “Be back in a minute,” she said.

Gene nodded and watched her as she walked toward the alcove hiding the

entrances to the restrooms. As always, he couldn’t help but notice how other

males—and some few females—looked at her. She was tall and slim, yet carried a

figure which had all the necessary curves and then some. When she walked, her hips

swayed with a motion that evoked a sense of sensual grace rather than overt

sexuality. Gene watched her until she turned into the alcove, thinking of how lucky

he was to have found her—and how close he might be to losing her. Almost daily

now, he sensed a distancing in their relationship by Fran and it made him sick. He

could hardly bear the thought of losing her. He felt a surge of jealous animosity as he

watched admiring eyes tracking her movements. He tried to dispel it by thinking of

how his college marriage had fallen apart soon after he went to work for the Houston

Police department, mostly, he thought, because of his ex-wife’s liberal attitude

toward the role of the police in contemporary society. He was unable to admit to

himself that his present attitude toward Francis was the same as it had been with his

wife.

They had met while he was a patient at St. Luke’s Hospital in the huge medical

center which took up a goodly portion of southwest Houston. A bullet wound in his

leg from an encounter with a teenage hoodlum had put him there, which in retrospect

he had considered the best thing which ever happened to him. That was when he met

Fran, a nurse in the emergency room trauma center. She had seen enough of the

malignant effect of drugs in her own line of work for her attitude toward the

perpetuators to jibe pretty well with his own. And she was a caring individual, which

he had played on. They began dating and within a couple of months were living

together. He had cooked up this night out to again ask her to marry him. He was

puzzled and resentful that she still wouldn’t accept his proposal. He poured more

wine and idly brooded while he waited on her to return.

FRANCIS SAW with relief that there was no one waiting in the alcove other than

a middle-aged man with a bald forehead and thin, humorless lips standing near the

entrance to the restrooms. He was dressed in slacks and a mismatched sports coat.

For just an instant Francis wondered what he was waiting for but the thought flitted

away. The wine was imparting a sense of urgency to her bladder. She turned right

and pushed through the door to the women’s room. There was a stall open and she

finished her business quickly.

While she was washing her hands, she decided to suggest that she and Gene call

it a night. Poor Gene. He tried so hard to please her that she would never tell him that

she would rather have stayed home to talk rather than go out. Not that it would have

made a difference. The dinner had been fine, but she could have done as well or

better and the little band was playing bad music too loud and too frequently for the

intimacy she preferred when dining out. Between the loud music and the wine, she

was beginning to get a dull headache. She wondered if Gene would get mad if she

suggested that they leave now? He’s probably already mad, she thought, after me

turning him down again. But she wasn’t comfortable with the thought of living with

him for the rest of her life. In fact, she admitted to herself, I’m not really comfortable

living with him now. She pondered briefly on what to do about the situation then

discarded the thought. It was too late and she had too much wine to think clearly.

Leave it alone for now.

The middle-aged man was still standing in the alcove when she came out of the

women’s room, shifting his feet nervously. He looked past her then said, “Miss?”

Francis stopped, annoyed but generous enough with her thoughts to give him the

benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had a daughter in the women’s room, still in one of

the closed stalls and was wanting her to go back in and check on her. She stopped

and turned toward the man. He raised his right hand, an unlit cigarette clutched

between his first two fingers.

“Could I trouble you for a light?” He brought the cigarette almost into her face.

Just as she was about to tell him that she had left her lighter back at their table, she

saw his thumb, partially hidden behind his fingers, make a peculiar stabbing motion.

It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she thought she saw a misty, almost invisible

vapor emerge from the tip of the cigarette. Francis felt an ephemeral dampness

envelop her face just as she was drawing in her breath to speak. An odor like old

vanilla tickled her nose. She was startled at the sudden smell and the tightness she

felt in her lungs as she drew in more air, still intending to speak to the man. The

additional breath of air brought on a momentary dizziness, like the first deep drag on

a cigarette after a long shift where she was too busy to go outside to smoke.

Reflexively, she put out a hand to steady herself, touching the man’s shoulder.

“Don’t scream. Don’t say anything to anyone,” the man said softly, glancing

warily around to be certain that he wasn’t overheard.

Francis let her breath out without making a sound, even though she hadn’t been

intending to scream; the man had not made any threatening gestures but simply

asked for a light. The momentary dizziness was already fading away. Seconds later it

was entirely gone, along with whatever she had intended to say. She no longer had

the desire to use her voice. She started to walk away.

“No, come with me,” the man told her.

It seemed perfectly natural to Francis that she should accompany the man when

he told her to come with him. She walked along by his side, silent but comfortable in

his presence, with no thoughts of Gene, waiting back at their table for her return.

Going with this man seemed much more important now.

The man led her to his car, an old off-white Mercury Marquis and pulled out his

keys. He pointed the popper attached to the key chain and pressed it with his thumb.

The door locks snapped open. “Get inside,” he said.

Francis opened the passenger door and slid into the seat, closing the door behind

her. She pulled the seat belt over her chest and attached it, as naturally as if it were

Gene in the driver’s seat beside her rather than a total stranger.

The man started the engine and drove out of the parking lot and onto the

boulevard. As soon as he had merged with the traffic, he spoke again. “You

probably want to forget about that cigarette I was holding, don’t you?”

Francis nodded but still didn’t speak. It didn’t seem like the thing to do.

“You can talk now. My name is Benjamin. Call me Ben.”

“All right Ben,” Francis said.

“And you still want to come with me, don’t you?”

“I sure do, Ben,” Francis said. Traveling in the car with Ben made her feel secure

and comfortable.

“And you like me, don’t you?”

Francis considered the question for only a moment before deciding that she did

indeed like her new acquaintance. “Of course, Ben. I like you a lot.”

“That’s great,” Ben told her. “You probably want to do anything I ask, don’t

you?”

What was he going to ask? Francis wondered. Not that it mattered. She was

suddenly eager to fill any request he made. Francis turned her head to look directly

at her companion. “Of course, Ben. Whatever will make you happy.”

Francis waited impatiently, noticing that Ben’s hands seemed to be trembling with

nervousness even as they gripped the steering wheel. His voice was shaky when he

did speak. “A blow job while we’re driving would make me happy. You’d like to do

that, wouldn’t you?”

“I sure would,” Francis replied, smiling. She punched the seat belt restraint

button even as she turned her gaze to Ben’s crotch, the bulge of his erection

showing plainly under his pants. Eyeing it with all the anticipation of a three-year-old

child preparing to unwrap an all day sucker, she reached for his fly, eager to get

started.

It works! Worthington thought. By damn, it really works!

GENE WAITED fifteen minutes, lost in gloomy thoughts of Francis’ refusal to

marry him and how happy she had made him before he began to get impatient.

Francis was really taking her time. Probably fooling with her hair, he thought. Her

curls were unruly, especially in the springtime humidity so common to the Gulf

Coast. He poured another glass of wine, but now he shifted uncomfortably in his

seat as he sipped from the glass, checking his watch every few minutes to see how

much time had passed.

Once he got halfway to his feet, intending to go look for her then changed his

mind and sat back down. Maybe she had started her period and was using the extra

time to take care of herself. He hoped not; that would spoil whatever might still be

salvaged from their night out. At any rate, he felt the normal male uneasiness, if not

outright embarrassment, at the thought of intervening in an emergency of that type,

which was the only reason he could think of for the delay.

Gene drank the last of the wine and looked at his watch again. Ten-thirty seven.

She had been gone a little over a half hour and now he was definitely getting uneasy.

Had she met some man who attracted her and was busy talking to him? The thought

was obnoxious.

He pushed his chair away and stood up. He hesitated briefly then make up his

mind and began walking toward the restrooms. Once in the alcove, he hesitated

again, unsure of how to approach the matter. He couldn’t just barge into the

women’s room; he might wind up being arrested and made a prisoner in his own jail.

He let a woman with a small child in tow pass by him then stopped an elderly lady

right behind them.

“Ma’am?”

The woman stopped, wondering why the young man was speaking to her, then

realized what it probably was. She looked around for his girl child as she answered.

“Yes?” She frowned. There was no child present.

“Ma’am, my wife went inside almost forty minutes ago. I’m getting worried.

Would you mind checking to see if she’s having problems?”

The elderly woman replaced her frown with a smile of assent. “Certainly. What

does she look like?”

“She’s tall, has curly auburn hair, and is wearing a black cocktail dress.”

“All right. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Gene said, feeling relieved. Fran must still be inside,

not talking to some stranger or old boyfriend met here by accident.

A few minutes later, the relief turned into a burgeoning anxiety when the woman

came back out.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “There is no one inside matching your description.”

Gene had trouble believing her. “You’re sure?”

“Yes I’m certain. Maybe she stepped outside for a breath of air. Why don’t you

look there?”

Instead, Gene made a round of the nightclub, checking each table and all the

seats at the bar, thinking that Francis might possibly have run into one of her friends,

got to talking and forgot the time. She was nowhere in sight.

He examined each of the couples on the dance floor, even while knowing in his

mind that she wouldn’t be there either. Unlike most women, Francis didn’t

particularly care for dancing, one more of the traits which so endeared her to him.

Panicked now, Gene began asking each of the waitresses if they had seen her,

giving each of them a hurried description. He soon found out that they had all been

too busy to notice. By this time his wanderings were beginning to draw curious

stares. He ignored them and kept up his search and questioning until he was certain

that Francis was nowhere inside.

He began recalling cases of abducted women he had had to deal with, many of

them never seen alive again. A dreadful collage of corpses he had viewed, some

dead for weeks or months before being found, skittered through his mind. He tried

to push the images back down into his subconscious but they persisted in popping

back up, like unwelcome relatives coming again and again to visit. But God! Women

weren’t abducted from public restrooms, far removed from an exit! It was in parking

lots and while walking or jogging that they usually were taken.

Gene suddenly thought of the old woman’s remark. Had Francis gone outside to

their car for some reason? He hurried out to the parking lot. His car, a three-year-old

Taurus sat innocently where he had left it, doors securely locked. Bewildered, the

panic now rising inside him like a gut full of bad food trying to escape, he ran back

to the entrance of the club. But wait, there was one place he hadn’t checked: the

cashier’s booth and hostess station.

The cashier was unhelpful. She brushed him off with an irritable manner that

brought him close to rage, remarking in a snide voice, “I can’t take time to keep up

with wayward women.”

Gene turned to the hostess, who had been listening. She spoke up before he

could repeat his description of Francis to her. “A black cocktail dress, you said?”

“Yes,” Gene said eagerly, “and curly auburn hair. She disappeared an hour ago

now. Have you seen her?”

“I think so. It seems like about an hour ago. She walked out with a man in a loud

sports jacket and green trousers.” The young woman smiled superciliously. “I

noticed because they didn’t look like a typical couple.”

“What do you mean a typical couple? Goddamit, that was my—” Gene had

unintentionally raised his voice and the oath had burst from him like the yelp of a

frustrated greyhound which had stumbled at the beginning of the race and was trying

to catch up with the pack.

The hostess stepped back from him and looked around, a sign of alarm

beginning to appear on her face.

Gene caught her reaction and forced his voice back to calmness. He apologized.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to speak like that. Please help me. Can you describe the

man?”

“I’m very busy.”

By this time, Gene was too upset to care about how busy anyone was—and too

confused. How could a man possibly have forced Fran to go with him? A concealed

weapon, maybe? It almost had to be. There was no reason on earth she would have

left without at least telling him why. And in any case, he could think of no reason for

her to have left without him, in the company of another man. Unless—no, surely not.

Just because she had refused his proposal again, that didn’t mean she would have

left him sitting and gone off with someone else. Would it? He pulled out his badge

Darrell Bain - Ultimate Suggestions

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