Tai Anne Roper

by Nicole Sutter

She slipped a pair of ragged, black leather gloves on. The fingers were cut off and they were reinforced across the knuckles with lead.

"We're closed!" One of the bouncer shouted at Iwana as she got out and set the locks and alarm on her truck. "Come back 'round ten!"

"Ah'm here t'see the owner," Iwana replied, walking straight for the short flight of concrete stairs leading to the wide, wooden double doors.

"Owner ain't here, bitch!" A leathered burly girl wth tattoos galore shouted. "Now beat feet!"

Seven of them. Four guys, three gals. Most overweight bikers, used to scaring the local population silly just by existing. Not used to somebody calling their bluff.

"Then I'll talk to whoevah," Iwana said, almost making it to the doors before a biker with faded leathers and a beer belly cut in front of her.

"Ain't no one here for you to see, bitch." he emphasized the point by jabbing her in her left breast with two fingers of his right hand. "Now blow."

Iwana looked up at him, her even white teeth in a dangerous grin. "You gots about two seconds to get yo' fingahs outta mah tit, mutha-fuck-ah."

The biker laughed, keeping his fingers where they were. "Or..."

An instant later he was screaming. Iwana had snatched his offending fingers up in her left hand and twisted, snapping them both at the joints. She punched him hard just under the sternum and then flipped him down the concrete stairs. He bounced nicely.

One of the burlygirls moved in first. Iwana dropped her to the ground with a left hook to the jaw. She then ducked as a biker with the baseball bat took a swing at her. She kicked him in ribs, bouncing him off a railing before landing a solid kick to the balls that had him rolling on the ground.

Iwana snatched up the bat and jabbed it into the gut of another leathergal. She swung it hard and caught her friend across the forearm hard enough to hear bone break and cause her to drop the switchblade in her hand.

Another lardass biker was blocking the doors. Iwana charged forward and drove the bat deep into his gut. As he went deathly pale, she leveraged the bat under his knee and shoved with all her might, using his own weight as a battering ram to break open the doors.

Iwana Binder entered The Brickyard.

"Knock, knock! Anyone t'home!" Iwana called out. She walked across the empty dancefloor.
From the bar area several more bouncers appeared. More came down the stairs and from the dark corners. What was left of the boys and girls out front sealed the door behind her.

Iwana did a quick headcount, but quit at fourteen. It was too depressing to go on.

"What the fuck do you want?" A voice called from the stairs.

"I want mah sistahgrrl!" Iwana shouted. "Tai Anne Roper! She was here last night, and if'n she isn't still here, then somebody DAMN shore knows where she is!"

***

Paige Torne grumbled at the persistant chirping of a cellphone somewhere in her bed that reminded her a demented cricket. She pawed throught the satin sheets til she found it and clicked on.

"What?" She listened. "Well fuck, Toss her out. Yeah, I'm gonna check on it right now." She clicked off the phone and clicked on the remote for the television, tuning into the remote feed. "Wake up, sextoy. Tell me who the fuck this is asking for you."

Tai Anne Roper groaned and shifted out from under the sheets. She blinked at the crisp, clear picture taken off one of the surveillance cams and grinned. "Iwana!"

"You wanna what?"

"Iwana Binder," Tai said. "My best friend in the world!"

"Fuck." Paige got up. "What does she want?"

"Me, prolly," Tai said, sitting up. her hair was a mess. "She was coming to SF today and prolly had a shit fit when she couldn't find me. She's also a sergeant on the LAPD, by the way."

"Oh, great!"

***

"Nobody knows any Tai Anne Roper!" one of the bikers on the stairs shouted at her. "Now get the hell outta here before we call the cops."

"Call'em!" Iwana said. She flashed her badge on her belt. "Let's see who they haul away."

"That's no SF badge," a burlygirl snarled. "It's not worth shit here!"

"Ah'm LAPD," Iwana snarled back proudly. "And all you assholes knows JUST what the fuck that means! It means I don't take shit offa a bunch of fuckin' ex-cons and biker trash. And it means Ah don't start nuthin' Ah don't finish!"

"You strapped?" someone else shouted.

"Ah'm packin'," Iwana said. "But if someone comes at me barehanded then that's how Ah fight'em! If they come at me with a stick, Ah'll take it away and shove it up their ass! And if thet come at me with a deadly weapon, then Ah'll cap'em. But not before."

***

"Better give me up," Tai said.

"She that good?" Paige asked.

"She won't quit," Tai said simply. "She won't leave this place til it's a smoking ruin, believe me!"

"I do." Paige put the phone to her ear. "Okay, show her in. We'll take her out in the elevator."

"WHAT!" Tai jumped off the bed. She was still wearing the latex leotard, her hands and elbows were still strapped behind her and Mr. Wigglesworth was still secured within her. "What are you going to do to her?"

"When she gets in the elevator we'll hit her with knock-out gas," Paige said. "Then she'll be joining you in some of your bondage videos. She looks like prime stuff."

***

"Okay," one of the bikers shouted to Iwana. "Looks like your lucky day! Boss just showed up and wants to meet you! Follow me."

Iwana nodded and dropped the baseball bat on the floor. She started across the dance floor to the stairs. That's when her cellphone chirped.

"Scuse me." Iwana stopped and clicked on. "Yeah?"

"Sergeant Binder. you don't know me, but I've already saved your ass once today." Male voice. Hard. Neutral accent. "When you were with Fiendly and Wenche on the 18th floor of the Sir Francis, and I put three bullets through those plate glass windows as a diversion."

"I remember," Iwana replied. She hadn't said a word of that to the cops, but she'd had a feeling that whoever had helped her out would soon let his presence be known. "But I'm kinda busy right now. Call me back."

"You're about to be kidnapped," the voice continued. "You'll be taken to an elevator and given a dose of knock-out gas. Then you'll find Tai Anne... but you'll be a captive like she is."

"Then she is here?" Iwana looked around at the bikers surrounding her.

"Somewhere. She's in no danger, I promise. But if you want to help find her, you gotta get the hell outta The Brickyard. Now."

"You comin'?" The biker asked. He beckened to an elevator in the corner. The doors opened, waiting for her.

"And how the fuck do I know I can trust you?"
Iwana hissed ito the phone.

"Because I risked a lot to help you earlier today. Other than that, you don't." The voice paused. "But I am a friend of Tai Anne's. And I love her too."

"Once I get outta here, I wanna have a face to face. Seeya." She clicked off.

"Well?" the biker asked.

Iwana smiled. "Change of plans. But as 'Da Ahnold' says, 'Ah'll be back.'"

Iwana turned and headed back for the doors, finding the way blocked by a half dozen bikers. She noticed some where now armed with black, side-handled police batons, while others had wooden ax handles.

"Do we have a problem?" she asked.

***

"Stop her, don't let her leave..." Paige was still speaking into the phone just as it was kicked out of her hand, landing on the carpet across the room.

"What the fuck?" Tai was standing beside her.
"How'd you..."

"I'm sorry, Paige," Tai said. "I understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, but I can't allow you to take down Iwana."

Paige smirked. Tai still seemed nicely secured. "And how you gonna stop me?"

"Ever see a movie called 'Billy Jack'?"

"Yeah, on cable a few times. Why?"

"Remember that scene in the park, where Billy Jack tells the evil rancher that in about a half second his right foot will be striking the right side of the rancher's face --very hard-- and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it?"

"Yeah."

A half second later, Paige was slammed into the paneled wall, unconscious. Tai flexed her right foot and leg and walked over to the locked door. She studied the lock and turned her back to it, using her fingers to turn the deadbolt and work the knob. Then she was out in the corridor.

***

"We can't let you just walk outta here," one of the bikerbabes said to Iwana.

Iwana laughed. "You punk-ass bitches couldn't stop me from getting in here, so what makes any of you think you can stop me from leavin'?"

The circle tightened around Iwana. Up in the control booth for the sound system, somebody turned on some techno-beat.

"Now hold it right there!" Iwana called out. "If we're gonna dance, then give this girl something she can dance to!"

The DJ nodded and killed the techno-beat. A second later Pink's CD single 'Get the Party Started' was blasting out of the speakers.

"That'll work." Iwana ducked the fist of a bouncer and kicked another biker in the leg, snapping the kneecap before driving her elbow into the ribs of her first attacker then putting a backhanded fist into his nose.

Iwana caught a chair in the heel of her boot and sent it sliding across the floor, tripping a biker and sending him crashing to the deck. She snapped an elbow and relieved a bouncer of his side-handled baton.

Iwana caught an ax handle in the crook of her baton and twisted it out of a biker's hands.

It spiraled thru the air as she landed three kicks to his belly, chest and face that put him down. She drove the baton into the guts of another burlygirl, relieved her of the baton in her hand, and head butted her into oblivion.

***

Running down the long corridor, Tai Anne Roper stopped and did a couple of deep knee bends. That goddamn Mr. Wigglesworth who was still trapped deep in her cunt was making a pest of himself.

Still squatting, she leaned into a wall and squealed through another orgasm.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Tai looked up, her face blazing almost as red as the red latex 'tard she was wearing. It was Crowe T. Grackel.

He snickered as she got to her feet and approached him.

"You gonna cry some more?" Grackel chuckled. "I see you don't mind being a sextoy for Paige or Kunta or Taffy, but when I tell you the truth, when I tell you what you *really* are, you can't handle it."

"Outta my way, asshole," Tai whispered.

Grackel sniggered and flipped open a pair of steel handcuffs. "I know what you really are. You aren't a woman, you aren't even a sextoy. You're nothing. That's your name. That's what you are, nothing."

Tai stopped. Breathing hard. Trying not to cry.

"Now, nothing... get down on your knees and kiss the boots of your Master!"

"HIIIIII-YAAAAAH!" Tai Anne Roper lashed out with a perfect karate kick that caught Grackel right in the balls. Then three lightning fast bodykicks to the stomach, chest and face. She finished with a whirlwind spin kick that knocked him upside the head, shattered his horn-rimmed eyeglasses and sent him into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

"Ohhhhh... my!" Tai wiggled her hips as Mr. Wigglesworth rewarded her with another gush. She looked at the unconscious Grackel. "It was good for me, babe. Was it good for you?"

***

Armed with a side-handled police baton in each hand, Iwana slipped into a Shotokan Dojo defensive stance, turning in slow half-circles as she continued for the door. She was breathing hard and fast, half-moons of sweat showed under her spandexed breasts and her face was dripping wet.

Eight of her opponents were out of the game, unconscious or sidelined with broken bones. Seven were left.

"Okay," the head bouncer shouted. "Let's take this bitch! Rush her!!!"

Nobody moved.

"Fuck this shit," One of the bikers announced. "I ain't goin' to the hospital for no nine-twenty an hour."

He dropped his ax handle and went out the front doors. Three others followed him.

The head bouncer hopped the stairs and scooped up the ax handle. He charged Iwana, swinging wildly. She duck and bobbed, moving in to hook the side-handle of one baton under his knee while driving the other into his gut. He hit the floor like a ton of bricks. She rapped him across the the back of the skull to keep him there.

She resumed her defensive stance, the pounding music the only thing to be heard. The others dropped what weapons the had and backed away.

A long moment later, Iwana straightened up and tossed her batons on the floor with a clatter. She spat on the floor, turned her back on the others and walked out the doors, getting in her Ford Big Ass Truck and driving away in a rooster-tail of flying gravel.

***

Tai Anne Roper turned a corner and breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted an elevator. But there were no buttons to push, only a steel keycard slot to one side.

She stood there, sweat and girljuice dripping off her body and running off her latex 'tard and stockings, when the elevator *dinged* and the door opened.

Out stepped Jessica McClintock.

Tai and Jessica just stared at each other for a long moment. It took a few more seconds for Tai to realize that Taffy Chu and Kunta Kintare were right behind Jessica, looking quizzically back at Tai.

"What are you doing running around loose, kitten?" Taffy asked.

"You're Tai Anne Roper!" Jessica said.

"Jessica McClintock, I presume," Tai replied.

"Now that everybody knows each other," Kunta said, taking Jessica by the shoulders and steering her into Taffy's arms. "What's say we do this the easy way. Surrender to me, Tai."

"I can't, I'm too close," Tai replied. "Can't you just let me go? I really don't want to hurt anyone!" Well, that was kinda a lie... she had gotten a big thrill out of beating the shit out of Grackel.

"We can't let you escape," Kunta said. "But don't worry. You aren't going to hurt anyone either."

Tai dropped to one knee and cut loose with a a hard leg sweep on Kunta that should've landed her on the floor. Instead it was like trying to kick down an oak tree.

Kunta made a grab for Tai's ankle which she avoided by rolling backwards and hopping to her feet. She launched a spin kick that was high and hard and aimed right for Kunta's face.

Kunta snatched Tai's right leg out of the air. Tai suddenly found herself hanging upside down in mid-air, being held at the ankle one-handed by the amazonian Kunta Kintare.

"Gotcha, little one!" Kunta laughed. Tai continued to wiggle about upside down like a landed fish as Kunta pulled her wide leather belt off her pants and bound Tai's ankles together. She then laid her bellydown on the carpet and drew her legs back till her heels were touching her forearms.

She secured the belt, keeping Tai in a strict hogtie that barely let her wiggle. Kunta then stuffed the dangling ballgag back into Tai's mouth and secured it tightly.

"You two check on Mistress Paige," Kunta said. "I'll secure the karate kid here."

Taffy and Jessica nodded and hurried off down the corridor. Tai grunted as Kunta hefted her up onto her shoulder and carried her off.

***

A few blocks away from The Brickyard, Iwana Binder's phone chirped again.

"Yeah?" she answered.

"You being tailed?" It was him. Her mysterious benifactor.

"No. Where are you? Ah wanna meet."

"Close. Where are you?"

"9th and Folsom."

"Make a right on 9th, go past Howard, turn right on Natoma."

She made the turn. The streets were pretty deserted. This was mostly warehouse and office space with a few loft apartments scattered about.

"Turning onto Natoma," Iwana said.

"There's a parking garage at 1911 Natoma. Go in and park. Take the elevator up to the fifth floor." He clicked off.

1911 Natoma was a newer office building. Black glass and steel with only a few tenants. Iwana parked her pickup, locked and set the alarm, and took the elevator up to five.

When the doors dinged open, she had her Colt Python out with the hammer cocked back. The entire floor appeared to be deserted, with no tenants. Just empty officespace with acres of carpet.

She looked around. She noticed some equiptment set up on the south corner. Computer monitors, recording devices and various blackbox spystuff. A couple of grungy teenagers dressed in loose fitting fashion were at the monitors, drinking cokes.

Iwana approached them. Looking out the window, she saw that they were directly overlooking The Brickyard, one block over.

"Hello, Sergeant Binder."

The kids ignored her and the voice. Iwana swiveled about, gun leveled. She saw a handsome looking man in his forties or so with longish brown hair and a nice smile. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket over a Rocketeer tee shirt and jeans. His hands were open.

"Away put your weapon! I mean you no harm!" He said in a pretty good Yoda voice.

Iwana grinned and let the hammer down, holstering her piece. "Okay, you know me. Now who are you?"

"I'm Jeb Stuart," he replied. "And like I said before I'm a friend of Tai Anne Roper's."

"Funny she never told me about you."

"There's alot she doesn't tell you, Sergeant," Jeb replied. "But then you already know that, don't you?"

Iwana nodded at the kids manning the spystuff. "And what's all this?"

"After Tai disappeared I set up a few 'listening posts' about town. One here. Another at McClintock's place at the Sir Francis."

"So you were listening in --probably from a high rise across the street-- when Fiendly and his bitch tried to take me down." Iwana looked at him. "And you also gave me a way out. Thanks. Ah owe you."

Jeb shrugged. "I thought you could use a nudge."

She nodded at his setup. "These toys are very state-of-the-art. You a fed?"

"Close. Ex-'company man'."

"Sweet. How did you get involved with all this?"

About six weeks ago, another friend of mine --a noted journalist-- asked me to dig up some dirt on Matthew McClintock," Jeb said. "I did so. And I've also been keeping my ear to the ground for anything new. Yesterday I was suprised to get a call from Tai. She told me she had been hired by McClintock to find his missing daughter. She wanted info on him."

"And did you give it to her?"

"Everything I had," Jeb said. He handed a file to her. "You might want to read through it too."

"Thanks," Iwana said. "But Ah don't give a fuck about Matt McClintock or his incredible disappearin' daughter. All Ah care 'bout is mah sistahgrrl."

"Unfortunately, Tai Anne is inexorably linked to the missing girl now," Jeb replied. "You aren't going to see Tai again, until this mess with Jessica is unraveled."

Iwana sighed. That was not what she wanted to hear.

"Look, as I said before, Tai Anne is my friend too. She's why I'm here."

"I believe you," Iwana said. She looked around. "So this is what you do? Use your old CIA skills to spy and get dirt on people?"

"Basically, yes." Jeb said.

Iwana nodded at The Brickyard. "And what about that place?"

"A conumdrum wrapped inside a riddle," Jeb answered. "I set up here after Tai asked me about this place yesterday. So far I'm jacked into the landlines and about 15 percent of the surveillance cams."

He changed the feeds on a couple of the monitors. Iwana recognized the interior of The Brickyard.

"I saw your fight with the bouncers. Quite impressive!" Jeb grinned. "I also picked up the mysterious owner ordering that you be given knockout gas in the elevator."

"Who is the owner?"

"Don't know. A woman with a sexy voice."

"Lady Ashtoreth?"

"Maybe."

"How well have you infiltrated The
Brickyard?"

"So far I only have a few cams. Tilly here is working on hacking into some of the other freqencies. Right, Tilly?"

"Righto, Mistah Jeb!" The punkette girl replied.

Iwana nodded at the two kids. "I take it these two aren't former 'company men'?"

"Not quite," Jeb smiled fondly at them. "These are two of my 'Market Street Irregulars'. Street kids, cyberhackers, skateboard punks... they all work for me. They are my eyes and ears from North Beach to Noe Valley."

"So what do you know?" Iwana asked.

"Precious little," Jeb replied. "But that might change. I'm picking up a friend of mine from SFIA in a couple of hours. She has new info on who's really after Jessica McClintock."

"Joseph Weskler?" Iwana asked.

"Very good, Sergeant!"

"And Ah'll hazard a guess that your friend is a BBC infobabe named... Drew Thrasher."

"Two for two," Jeb said. "Why don't you settle down and read that report on McClintock. Get up to speed on what's happening. I'll be back with Ms. Thrasher and we can discuss the situation over dinner."

"Later." Iwana dropped the file on the table. I have one more hot lead I have to check out. But I'll meet you back here in... three hours?"

"Works for me." Jeb paused. "I also wanted to tell you that I like your style. Especially how you handled yourself with Fiendly and Wenche, and just now with those bouncers. It's gonna be a real pleasure working with you, Sergeant."

She held out her hand. "Iwana."

He shook it. "Jeb."

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