BYLINE FOR PERIL
By Chet
CHAPTER THREE
The door to Cowle Photography opened once more, but Marcus Cowle expected this visitor to his humble little business on Damen Avenue.
“Are they all settled in?” Cowle asked, “all nice, peaceful and…quiet?”
“As lambs,” the man, just a touch over six feet in stature yet possessing ropy, bulging muscles layered upon muscle on his physique, nodded impassively. He stood there dressed in jeans and a black leather duster adding to the aura of one who wasn’t to be trifled with. Behind the reflective sunglasses his eyes were cold and evil, as imposing as the bleached white crew cut and goatee. “They ain’t going nowhere,” he stated directly, utterly confident of his skills with rope wound around the bodies of shapely young women. “Not until Sheik Rahim comes and takes them off of our hands.” The man’s name was Sterner, he had the disposition of a rabid werewolf and the ferocity of a battle-mad pit bull; that made him a most capable associate for Marcus Cowle.
“And Sheik Rahim puts a half-million dollars into our hands,” Cowle said with causal glee. “We have our fifth item in the back, all packaged up and ready for shipment.”
Sterner raised an eyebrow. “That quick?” He whistled in admiration. “You do fast work, my man.” He stood there silent for a moment, as Cowle observed him in puzzlement, then spoke. “Is she good looking?”
“Is she good looking? What the hell do you think? Of course she is,” this said with a frown from Cowle. “I’m going to snatch an ugly girl for someone with the financial resources of our gracious friend the sheik.”
Sterner nodded. “So you pulled the old famous photographer trick again.”
“Actually, this one was a gift, fell right into my lap,” he explained with a toothy grin, “some nosy girl reporter from Great Northern University who was looking for the Lawrence girl. Her name’s Samantha Grayson.” Cowle’s smile was much like that of a hyena gutting a carcass out on the African savanna. “She looks somewhat like that one girl, something Campbell, who was in all those slasher flicks.” He didn’t waste his money with movies, far too preoccupied with pursuits of a more lucrative nature.
Sterner knew whom Cowle referred to. The actress was a looker and if this Grayson chick was anything like her. Sheik Rahim is going to have himself some fun with her. He snorted like a bull facing a matador. “Too bad she won’t finish this story.”
Cowle nodded. “That’s what I already told her.” Nobody would ever know what happened to the lovely student reporter who had snooped around in the wrong place. In a few hours she, along with the business known as Marcus Cowle Photography, would vanish forever.
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Tyler McManaway knelt down into the huddle, looking at each of his comrades on the first offensive unit. “Okay, Red Dog 28 Waggle Zone Zip, on two,” he told his teammates, “let’s end this practice on a high note.” And I’ve got a hot date tonight.
They broke huddle, clapping their hands in unison as Tyler brought them up to the line. In the final minutes of the afternoon practice, as the sun hung lazily in the haze of the western horizon, the coaches had placed the ball on the ten-yard line to go through the repertoire of red-zone plays they would use against the Michigan State Spartans in the next game. It was a pivotal contest on the schedule for the Great Northern Huskies, many a year the perennial doormat of the Big Ten, had suddenly emerged as a force to be reckoned with and a contender for the conference’s slot in the Rose Bowl.
And of this resurgent brigade, Tyler Andrew McManaway was its on-field general, the sophomore with the rifle of an arm, the feet of lightning, and the reflexes of a magician performing sleight of hand tricks. A highly-coveted All-American local talent who had stayed home to play with the hometown program, turning his back on such powerhouses as Michigan and Florida State. Tyler had lead Wheaton-Warrenville South to back-to-back Illinois state titles, obliterating every existing passing record that had ever stood in the books. If that wasn’t enough, Tyler had the prime-time matinee looks of a GQ model-the wavy dark blonde hair, the boyish face and the mischievous blue eyes that sparkled when he flashed that championship smile that made every coed on campus swoon with delight. But Tyler only had eyes for one special person, an enchanting and captivating reporter for The Daily Husky with auburn tresses and the most beautiful, soulful brown eyes by the name of Samantha Grayson
Tyler crouched down behind center, surveyed the first-team defense arrayed against him. Even though they were his fellow teammates and brothers-in-arms come Saturday afternoon, they were just as determined here to stop Tyler and the offense from scoring. Tyler crouched down behind his center, Chad Hershberger, and surveyed the formation. For a moment he wanted to check the play and call an audible. But he’d hear it from the coaches afterwards.
“Set! Blue eighteen, blue eighteen! Hut! Hut!” And on the second hut! Hershberger snapped the ball back into Tyler’s waiting hands, taking it and dropping back, then rolling to his right towards the sideline as his offensive line fended off the initial defensive charge across the line of scrimmage
As Tyler rolled out, he saw the huge form of number 97 shrug off the block of guard Harris Morehead as easily as brushing snow off his shoulders and sprint towards him. Tyler didn’t have to worry about getting hit, he wore the red jersey that told everyone: hands off.
Tyler lured the defensive end in a little closer, then with the delicate touch of a surgeon, softly lofted the ball up in the air and over his outstretched hands. The ball arced up, and then down, right into the waiting hands of flanker D.B. Bailey who had cut across from the other side of the field, gaining a precious step on his coverage man. Two steps later he was in the end zone.
The defensive player kept coming, slapping Tyler lightly on the shoulder pads. “Tag, you’re it,” he called out in a jovial mood. “Almost got that one,” he said, removing his helmet for practice was now over.
“Almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, thermonuclear warfare and the Illinois state lottery, Fiji,” Tyler told Albert “Fiji” Fatuamala. He was, quite literally, a mountain of a man, even at the age of nineteen his shoulders were massive and his chest large. He smiled, the pearly white of his teeth in stark contrast to his dark, mocha-toned skin. Everyone called him “Fiji,” even though he hailed from American Samoa, which was a long way removed from northern Illinois.
“I’ll make sure that it won’t be almost this Saturday,” Fiji replied as they began to jog to where the coaches were gathering the team for a brief after-practice pep talk. If that was so the Michigan State quarterback was in for a long day. “Looking forward to your date tonight with Samantha?” he asked knowingly.
Tyler smiled, rolling his eyes in acknowledgment. “Oh yeah, once she gets back from dinner with Amanda and Lauren,” those were Samantha’s roommates, Amanda Walker and Lauren Callahan, “we’re going out for a movie and coffee afterwards.” Speaking of Lauren, Tyler thought. “So, when are you going to ask Lauren out on a date?”
Despite his dark skin Fiji started to blush, everyone knew that he had a serious, and unrequited, affection for the adorable redhead with the willowy physique. Yet Fiji was too shy, despite his massive girth, and hadn’t quite summoned up enough courage to ask. “I don’t know…maybe after the Michigan State game, I guess,” Fiji evaded the particulars like a politician taking a stand on the issues.
“She likes you,” Samantha had told Tyler that fact.
“I know,” Fiji was aware of it too.
“Listen, why don’t you ask Lauren to go out and I’ll ask Samantha as well,” Tyler offered, “we can make it a double date.”
“That’s sounds good.” Fiji shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that would work.”
“I know it will work,” Tyler said. But later this evening he and Samantha would be flying solo. And he couldn’t wait for that…
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Samantha Grayson sat subdued and as quiet as a sleeping kitten in her dark, confining cell, sniffing back the tears that she had all but cried out of her dark brown eyes. She leaned her head against the wall, her constant struggles against the tight ropes had not loosened them one iota, but had only served to exhaust her body and drain her already fragile, battered spirit. She cursed herself for what she had done. This is all your fault. You got yourself into this. For the utter recklessness and stupidity that had ensnared her in this god-awful predicament; bound and gagged, locked in a closet, about to be sold off to some Arab sheik.
God Samantha, how could you have done this? She railed at herself. Samantha snorted through the thick cloth gag that made her jaw ache unbearably. She knew exactly how. You were after a big story and you rushed into it! She started to reevaluate how she should have proceeded in following the lead that had brought her to Cowle Photography and captivity at the hands of its nefarious owner, Marcus Cowle. Even though she would never get a second chance to rectify her previous mistakes.
She should have brought someone along, someone from the staff of the Daily Husky, a male friend to act as a chaperone and insure that no harm would befall Samantha while she sniffed out the lead. But she had plunged headlong into the story, taking a risk, and forgetting how dangerous the subject she was pursuing might be, especially in light of the fact five other coeds had disappeared.
And that risk had proven far too great with predictable results, and now Samantha Grayson faced peril in both a known and unknown quantity. What was known was that she was tied up tight with no hope of escape, gagged with a strip of thick cloth, waiting to be carted out to O’Hare Airport where she would be handed over to a sheik, loaded like cargo onto his jet, then whisked away to a place overseas and far away from Chicago and Great Northern University. What was unknown, and therefore far more frightening to Samantha, is what this Sheik Rahim had in store for her and the others. What cruel intentions filled his soul, once he had her in his domain as his sexual possession.
Samantha whimpered into her gag, a moan partly of fear and mostly of regret. Of all the terrible things that might soon happen to her and a life cut short, of all the things she had wanted to do with her life that would now be denied. Samantha’s life was destined to be brutish, nasty and short instead of long, fulfilling and enlightened.
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“I can’t believe she’s out working on a story,” Amanda Walker continued to grump about Samantha Grayson as she sat in the front seat of Lauren Callahan’s sporty forest green Neon, threading their way through the last of the rush hour traffic on the infamous Kennedy Expressway. Her friend, as fantastic as Samantha was, could have such a one-track mind when it came to working at the Daily Husky, forgetting she had other commitments to fulfill while tracking down leads and doing interviews. “She knew we were going out to dinner.”
“Well, she is doing what she loves to do,” Lauren pointed out ever helpfully, her bright emerald eyes cautious as she gently eased the Neon into the right lane to get off at the exit for North Avenue. “And that’s important in life, I guess. Doing what you want to do. You don’t want to get stuck doing something you hate. Because that would be bad, and bad is not a good career move.” She paused. “And you’d have to change majors until you found something you did like.”
“Only you can think of it that way,” Amanda smiled at Lauren’s off-hand observation, nestling back into the seat. “I know, the paper and reporting is important for her,” she couldn’t really be angry with Samantha, there to console her when Amanda had performed miserably at the NCAA Cross-Country Championship the previous autumn on the UW-Parkside course. That’s going to change this year, Amanda thought, with her recent win quickly becoming a favorite to place in the top-ten. Amanda grinned as another thought wove its way through her mind. “She wouldn’t have forgotten if she was going out to dinner with Tyler.”
“No, she wouldn’t have forgotten that,” Lauren giggled as she turned the Dodge Neon right onto North Avenue and headed west towards Wicker Park. Tyler McManaway, the star quarterback, was so handsome. “She definitely would not have forgotten that.”
Amanda glanced over at Lauren with a playful glint in her eyes. “So when do you think Fiji is going to ask you out on a date?” The two always ate together at lunch and studied together at the library. But Albert “Fiji” Fatuamala, Tyler’s roommate and the mighty, solid anchor of the defensive unit, had yet to ask Lauren out.
Lauren blushed, her cheeks turning red. “I hope it’s soon, he’s so shy. It’s really so cute, he’s like a big cuddly teddy bear.”
“Yeah, one who rips the arms off of the other team’s quarterback,” Amanda noted. She pointed. “There’s Damen Avenue.”
“I see it,” Lauren said, catching the green light at the six-way intersection and turning south onto Damen. She saw it immediately after she had made the turn. The blue Dodge Stratus parked on the street. “There’s Samantha’s car.”
“And there’s Cowle Photography,” But no other sign of Samantha. Amanda spotted the darkened storefront, which raised immediate suspicions deep inside, as Lauren pulled into the next open spot two cars down from Samantha’s car. “What is she doing here?” Lauren shrugged her shoulders as she turned off the engine. “God, I hope she isn’t in trouble.”
“I hope so too,” Lauren added, her emerald eyes troubled. The pair got out of the car and walked across the street, up to the front door of the store. Amanda peered into the darkness.
“Do you see anything?”
Amanda squinted. “No, nothing,” she told Lauren. Then she saw a lumpy, and unsettlingly familiar, black form resting by the couch. “Wait!”
“What is it?”
Amanda turned back to Lauren, her eyes glowing with trepidation. “It’s Samantha’s handbag.”
That was not good. Samantha had to be inside, yet there was no sign of Samantha. “Let’s call the police!” Lauren’s tone was panicked.
“No, let’s try the back,” Amanda took Lauren’s hand, pulling her towards the alley. “Samantha’s in trouble, I just know it! We have to help her!”
“But what if we get into trouble too?” Lauren asked plaintively, yet she didn’t resist as Amanda tugged her towards the alleyway.
The alley was forbiddingly dark and dreary, reeking of stale, rotting garbage. “I hope there aren’t any rats down here,” Lauren moaned, knowing she’d scream loud if she saw one scurry across the cracked brick pavement. The pair slithered quietly down the alley until they reached the back door of Cowle Photography.
Amanda grasped the doorknob and turned it; the door creaked open. “I still think we should call the police,” Lauren shakily whispered her advisement into Amanda’s ear. Despite that the pair entered the building.
The room was dark as night, and Amanda felt clumsily for a light switch to see where they were.
A hand clutched her wrist with the strength of a steel vise and voice out from the darkness asked a sinister query.
“Looking for someone?”
Amanda was about to scream when a hand clamped down over her mouth and an arm pinned her arms to her sides. She heard Lauren yelp in surprise before her cry was muffled, now knowing with despair that Lauren had been right. They should have called the police. Now they were in the same trouble as Samantha; whatever that peril was.
The light flickered on and Amanda saw that she was in the clutches of a monster of a man; there was no way she could break free of his bear-hug of an embrace. She glanced over at Lauren, struggling against the grip of a thinner man that was just as unbreakable.
The thin man spoke. “Now please stop fighting, or we might have to hurt you,” he told them. Amanda looked over at the terrorized Lauren, her emerald eyes glazed over in fright. What can we do? With that the two coeds ceased their squirming and stood docile in the grip of their captors.
“Lie down on the floor, hands behind your backs,” he ordered as they guided Amanda and Lauren down onto the carpet, complying with the demand, putting their hands behind their backs. “Try to scream and we will hurt you.” With that the hands were removed from over their mouths.
Amanda and Lauren remained quiet, didn’t scream, didn’t utter a single peep. The thin man nodded over to the burly man in the leather duster. “Get the things to make sure our new guests don’t make any trouble for us.” The other man nodded and went off to the other room, leaving the thin one to watch over the two girls.
Amanda swallowed hard, looking over at Lauren whose green eyes were a portrait in fear. God, that was so stupid! Amanda cursed herself. They had probably seen her peering through the front door and had waited for them to do exactly what they wanted and stumble into their trap. The other man returned, dumping the pile of rope and strips of cloth between the two women lying on the floor.
Amanda’s dark eyes widened and Lauren moaned at the sight. This is not good…
The two men each took a long strand of rope and knelt down over the two, the thin man tying Amanda’s hands and the bigger one lashing Lauren’s wrists. Lauren gasped in pain as the nylon cord bit into her flesh.
“What have you done to Samantha?” Amanda finally demanded, her voice uncomfortably shaky, as her elbows were bound, cinched cruelly so they almost touched. Then more rope was looped around her chest above and below her round breasts to force them out in an obscene fashion that her captor obviously relished. “Where is she!”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” the thin man said ominously as he tied Amanda’s ankles, then her knees. Amanda grimaced as he stroked the nylon hose on her legs, grunting in protest of the action. She turned to look at Lauren, now bound up in a similar, and likewise inescapable, position.
“What…are you going to do with us?” Lauren asked the more important question of the evening. The continued survival depended upon the answer.
“Oh, I really don’t know,” the thin man said, picking up a wad of cloth. The muscular man with the bleached white crew cut and goatee did the same. “But I am tiring of this conversation.”
With his hand he forced Amanda’s mouth open. “Noooommmmph!” Amanda cried as the cloth was jammed between her lips and shoved back beyond her teeth. She heard Lauren squeal before her outburst was muffled as well. The thin man took another cloth strip and wound it twice about Amanda’s head and pulling it back between her teeth, holding the wadding in excruciatingly painful place. Amanda screamed through the fabric, barely hearing anything audible at all.
The two men stood up and looked down upon their handiwork. “So you want to know what I did with Samantha? Do you?” Amanda and Lauren, bound and gagged on the floor, exchanged frightened glances. “Well, I’ll show you what I did with Samantha...”
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Inside her closet prison Samantha heard the frantic sounds of a desperate struggle and muffled screams, then an unsettling silence. She waited in fear. What’s going on out there? Minutes later the door opened and the light again burned her eyes. Marcus Cowle.
Cowle reached in and physically hauled her out, Samantha whimpering in protest as she was dragged back into the studio. “Surprise, you’ve got company.”
Company? What does he mean by that? Samantha wondered as she was dumped down onto the carpet. Samantha rolled over…and came face to face with the bound and gagged forms of her roommates, Amanda Walker and Lauren Callahan, staring back at her in desperate uncertainty.
Then Samantha remembered.
Oh my God! The note! She recalled in heart-wrenching dismay the Post-It note she had left stuck to the monitor of her computer back at the Daily Husky office. Amanda and Lauren had found the note and had come here. And now… What have I done?
Now she wasn’t the only one in mortal danger.