Chapter 9 - Vengeance

Claude Valkenberg was worried.

He had good reason to be.

In fact, he had several pressing concerns.

His wife, a gorgeous woman he'd married as a celebration of having 'made it'-once he got rid of the bitch he'd married when he was young-showed signs of a roving eye. She made no secret of her disappointment in him and in his failure to provide the income and social standing she wanted.

Then his associates disappeared.

First, the Schwartz boys had gone. One vanished, the other dead of injuries he suffered during his capture on the Steele Ranch.

Then the Hammers had disappeared, right after they'd killed Marty Steele.

The Schwartz family was as good as gone; and the Olsens had been the latest-vanished without a trace. They'd just left everything and disappeared. He didn't have any idea if they were hiding from someone or if they had run into something they just couldn't handle-something fatal. He'd warned Olsen about using drug money. Well, screw him. It was his own problem...

They'd been run out of Dallas, leaving town with what they could carry, as the bank seized all the assets they could find-including his 'emergency walk-away' stash of about $3 million in small bills he'd skimmed from their operations.

Damn that Olsen! He said the scheme with the Black Angus bulls to finance the oil deal was rock-solid. When the bulls from the Steele Ranch showed up in Texas, the value of Olsen's bulls dropped to half what they'd paid. Since it was all 'leveraged', the house of cards came tumbling down. A lovely operation, ruined by such a little thing.

And, one more time, the Steeles had a part in it.

He didn't believe for a minute that they were responsible. How could they have been? But they sold those bulls of theirs at the worst possible time for him.

On the positive side, he liked New Orleans. The 'big easy' was his kind of place, where hustlers and gamblers were admired, as long as they were winning.

Still, it paid to be careful. With his 'partners' gone, he needed to be certain that something unexpected didn't happen to him. He hired a burly 'driver' for himself. The guy could drive pretty good, but was mostly a thug who'd thump anybody Claude told him to.

The ranch was a busy place. Mom was home, helping with the horses when she wasn't on the phone. (Her phone bill was prodigious. Every call was long distance and many were to relatives on the east coast.)

The two Indian ladies we'd hired to help with the horses were very busy indeed-and accomplishing more than we hoped, in our 'best case' dreams.

To top it off, George and Hazel were there, along with two couples they were entertaining.

Then Tom Shaliko and Gary Butler showed up.

It seems Hazel had called a meeting.

In the great room of their log cabin getaway home-total of about 6,500 square feet of 'rustic cabin'-we gathered.

"Adoré has done a fantastic job for us, taking our revenge for what was done to Martin... Your contacts were great, Tom... But, from what we're hearing, the last of them, the Valkenbergs, will be a tougher nut to crack. Since the rest of us have a stake in this, it seems to me that she shouldn't have to do it alone."

We all agreed that we would welcome the chance to help. Mom had let me participate a bit. But mostly, she was taking her own vengeance and I didn't feel it my place to interfere.

Mom obviously agreed with me. "I'm doing OK. Why not leave things as they are? I won't hesitate to ask for help when I think I can use some."

Hazel looked at her fondly. "Adoré-Dory-I'm so glad Martin married you! You've never disappointed me... This is a case, dear, when the rest of the family wants more of its share. And I think you're into a little more than you know.

"I know that I want some of my own revenge. And I think Rick does, too. Even George is pissed off at these people. He's found out about a few things they've done that have cost him a bundle... And, Dory, I've found out a few things I don't think you know about. I think this one needs to be a family project."

Mom said, "I'll reserve judgement on that. Meanwhile, I'm all ears, Hazel."

"OK. What I've learned is that both Anita and Claude have a network of their own. Their families are almost as extensive as ours-except theirs are amoral without exception."

Grandma paused, "Have you heard of the Gradlings?" Of course we had. "Well, Anita Valkenberg is a Gradling." That caused some eyes to widen. "And 'Valkenberg' is just another name for the Dykers." Another name most knew well.

"So," Hazel continued, "you can see that when we take care of Claude and Anita, we better make sure their families can't tie anything back to us-even suspicion-or we'll never end this vendetta."

Everyone was fully alert now. We had a much bigger problem than we realized and grandma was proposing we finish it off cleanly.

After some general discussion among the group as a whole, George said, "I'd like to bring our guests into this. They are good friends who are fully aware of what's going on. I think they can help. They're willing. I trust them. If you agree, I'll invite them to join us."

Again, a bit of discussion-the consensus was that George trusted them and thought they'd be helpful. It was enough.

Frank Albers and Witt Charpenning were brought in and introduced to everyone. They already knew who most of us were, though we'd never heard of them before.

Hazel said, "Frank and Witt's wives have graciously absented themselves from the house. They're down at the ring, watching Robin work with the horses. While they have an idea about what's going on, they won't pry or spy." Grandma grinned. "They're ladies and nice people. They're friends."

George took the floor.

"Frank here is a senior officer in the Secret Service. He's done his time on the White House detail, but prefers being a law-enforcement officer to being a bodyguard. Presently, he's in charge of the New York office where he divides his time between possible threats to the persons of high level government people and chasing various scoundrels who violate the country's currency and other financial laws."

We took a moment to assimilate that.

"Witt is a bit more of a maverick. He heads the security office of Wells Fargo Bank, having left government service in disgust several years ago. Witt's people are the best I've ever seen at spotting crime of all kinds, if there is any kind of paper trail. And they are also the best there is when it comes to physical security-whether of a place, a person, or a valuable item on the move."

"I'm sure they're great guys and very good at what they do, George," Uncle Rick said, "but how does that help us?"

George grinned. It was not a pleasant smile. "They have, like us, had their problems with Valkenberg-and the Gradlings and Dykers. If they can help us, without doing anything illegal, they will. (They don't consider sharing information illegal, regardless of what congress may decree.) And of course, kicking around ideas about how they would handle a 'hypothetical' situation, between friends, is not a problem at all, but rather good professional training and something they do all the time to stay sharp."

Mom had a 'hypothetical' all ready to go.

"You obviously, from what George said, know more about Valkenberg's present location and situation than I do. Given what you know, purely as an intellectual exercise, you understand... ?"

They nodded. They understood. And mom would pump them, later, for details.

"If your objective were to completely terrify the Valkenbergs, and then, only after they had been completely terrorized, demoralized, and humiliated, snatch them-in such a way that there was absolutely no link back to you-how would you go about it?"

Mom was asking for a plan for what she intended to do.

Frank and Witt just smiled tight little smiles, no teeth showing. They knew precisely what she was asking.

Witt started.

"First, I think I'd work on terrorizing and demoralizing. Little things-not harmful, in themselves, but that demonstrate an ability to take their lives on a whim. Things like car bombs that only burn up the electrical system-with a lot of smoke; dead animals in their beds-placed there, preferably, while they are sleeping... Notes left on their pillows... There are any number of things along these lines that would make somebody jumpy."

Mom liked it.

"How about phone threats and things like that?"

"Not a good idea. There are too many records of telephone calls. It just isn't worth the risk."

Frank had ideas, too.

"Witt has a low and devious mind. I like him...

"Of course, the genre of ideas he's suggested lead to others. But I had a thought about the humiliation part. Claude has this little hobby: He likes to be tied up and have a woman do him while he's helpless. I think a video, in living, breathing, sweating color might be edifying to his 'friends' in New Orleans."

Mom liked that a lot, too. "Can such a video be found?"

"For a little cash in the right place, it can be produced."

"How about Anita?" grandma asked.

"Well, Anita is a bit different. She's as cold as they come. Oh, she talks the talk all right, when she's trying to seduce a man. But Anita never gets out of control. And Anita always looks after Anita, first, last, and always. So what I would suggest is to put her in a situation where she's completely subjugated. Where she first loses control over her body, then over her emotions and will. I'd reduce her to slavery, in such a way that she becomes a laughingstock-even an embarrassment-to her former 'friends'."

"And the rest?" Tom asked.

"Well," Witt said, "that depends. They'll surely try to tighten up their security once the demoralizing attacks begin. Between us, we can keep them close to insolvent, so they can't afford very much security. Then, the strategy would be classic 'divide and conquer'. Get them apart, then separate them from their bodyguards, and they're duck soup."

And so it started.

Claude had wasted little time finding the upper tier establishments that catered to off-beat appetites. The next time he indulged his little fantasies, he was captured in color. Even the sound quality was excellent.

Just to avoid poor picture quality, he was taped in two different houses, tied to a bed, whimpering about how he'd been a bad boy and pleading for the woman to beat him, and then sheath his erection.

The fact that the women in the films were pretty seedy and obviously merely the whores that they were, made the films tackier and more humiliating.

At a bachelor party for the son of one of the leaders in local society, the films appeared for the first time. It was obviously an amateur effort and there was a lot of laughter and bawdy suggestions about how to do it better. When Valkenberg's face was revealed and most of the men there recognized it, the laughter doubled.

The next day, an acquaintance asked if it wouldn't be more fun with the woman tied? Valkenberg didn't understand the question. But later, another man he'd been trying to interest in investing in a scheme mentioned that he couldn't see giving a broad that much control. "You let them get the upper hand in anything, they'll end up cutting off your balls... Especially if you're tied up with something, right Claude?"

He began to get the idea that his little secret wasn't so secret. He also found that potential investors he'd been courting were much more distant than they had been. One even flatly said he wasn't interested... and don't bother him again.

That same day, his car exploded, when the driver started it.

It wasn't harmful, just a loud bang and a big cloud of smoke and the wiring burned up. The shop fixed it in a day.

But he knew it could have been a real bomb.

Adoré really liked the idea about the dead animals in their bed. She'd seen The Godfather, and loved the scene with the horse head. So she enlisted Tom's help. Through the network between Indian tribes, they established a working relationship with a group in Louisiana and Alabama. These guys were real 'Rambos', with lots of military and para-military training-and real-life experience.

It was easy to bypass the security system and enter the Valkenbergs' apartment in the middle of the night. Once inside, they quietly placed a dead pig, with its stomach sliced open and entrails hanging out, on the bed between the sleeping couple.

While they were at it, they set a few minor booby-traps and put some labels on things that were sure to make their victims think twice about the most common household items. For example, they labeled the milk bottle, "Poison", with a big peel-and-stick label. And Anita's face cream had a label saying "Acid".

Claude's electric razor would give off a cloud of yellow smoke when he plugged it in. And the shower spewed purple water for the first several minutes it was turned on.

Anita spent the entire day screaming, it seemed to her, as she discovered one thing after another. Claude screamed at his driver/bodyguard, who promptly quit.

"Hey, man. I didn't hire on for this heavy shit. Get yourself another target. It ain't gonna be me."

Then he rapidly found that every decent security agency in town knew all about him and demanded cash up front. He finally found a couple of thugs who said they'd handle the bodyguard chores.

Appealing to the Dyker family didn't help. They found it humorous... as long as none of them were threatened. Anita's family, the Gradlings, was even worse. One of her cousins, the only one who would take his call, said, "I heard about your porn-star career, Claude. Has Anita seen your epic adventure yet? If she gets smart and leaves you, we'll see about finding a cousin to take her in." And the phone was hung up in his ear. The rest of the family hung up on him as soon as they heard who was calling.

Three days later, Anita tried to start her car, which she'd parked very carefully in the secure, locked parking garage under their apartment building. When the car wouldn't start, she eventually looked under the hood.

Then she started screaming, and kept on screaming until a security guard heard her, and led her away.

Several sticks of round, red, items labeled 'dynamite' were lying on the engine of her car. And all the electrical wires were pulled out.

Up in the apartment, she screamed at Claude, as she beat on his chest with her fists. "I don't care what it takes, or who you have to buy off. You take care of me, or I'm outta here! You promised! Now it's pay-off time, buster. Do what you have to, but keep us safe."

"I'm trying, honeybunch. I really am. I just don't know what this is all about. As soon as I find out, believe me, I'll take care of it. Just like I did that Marty Steele..."

Slightly placated-she knew all about that and approved-Anita said, "See that you do. I'm getting real tired of this shit. You made lots of promises. I want to see action."

Claude guaranteed that she would-having no clue how he would keep this latest promise.

Joe D'Albert was a pimp. He was big, hard-muscled, black, and really knew his way around a woman's body. Joe very rarely had to punish one of his girls by beating her. All he had to do was threaten to cut her off. Joe's method of keeping girls in line was addicting them to sex-with him. He wasn't merely very good: he was exceptional.

Adoré arranged for another little 'surprise' for Anita. It was enough. Anita ran, leaving a note for Claude that she'd had it and was 'going home to mama.'

She 'ran' right into a trap.

After three days in a tiny basement room, with cement walls, a faucet and a drain in the floor, and a ceiling light that never shut off, Anita was ready for anything.

What she got was Joe D'Albert. Joe took her to a nice room, bathed her, caressed her, and finally took her. He kept her for forty-eight hours. Anita was a cold woman, but she wasn't frigid. After Joe, she'd never be frigid. She knew that women were multi-orgasmic, in theory. Now she knew what that meant. Joe did his best to keep her in a constant state of orgasm.

She'd performed shamelessly for him. Anything he suggested, she jumped to do. She'd taken him missionary and doggie style. In the mouth and up the ass. She had no idea that the whole thing was captured on film-and wouldn't have cared if someone had told her. Nor did she know that the edited film would soon find its way into 'X-Rated' video rental stores all over New Orleans and the south-eastern part of the country.

After she'd eaten and slept, Joe engaged in another marathon session with her. Again, it was all taped. By the time he was finished with her, Anita was a sex addict and pure slut. She'd take anybody, any time, in any orifice.

When she turned up at the apartment, Claude had just about given up on her. He didn't believe the note, but when she didn't return, he started to.

Anita attacked him and forced sex on him. When Claude was spent, unable to continue, she threw on some clothing-whatever came to hand-and left, to find a more capable partner.

In the saloon on the corner, she found two horny guys and brought them home.

Claude wakened to find two guys he'd never seen before screwing his wife, one at each end.

He yelled, screamed, chased them out, and slapped Anita silly. It was the first time he'd dared to hit her.

Anita wasn't really paying attention. She was too busy trying to coax an erection out of Claude's trousers to worry about the fact that he was hitting her.

Finally, he let her suck him. It quieted her.

"Where were you, these past few days?" he asked, as his cock stiffened in spite of himself.

"Joe," she muttered around him. "Big Joe... Mmmmmmm," she hummed, feeling his renewed interest in her mouth.

"Who's Joe?" Claude demanded. He had to pull her face away from his crotch, and move up to mount her, just to get her to pay attention.

"Wonderful Joe," Anita murmured. "Big Joe."

"How big?"

"Big! At least ten inches. And... my god... did he... know... how... to... use... it!" she gasped, as she strove against her husband's body for the stimulation she craved.

Like many people, she didn't realize that it wasn't the size of Joe's equipment-which was not much bigger than average, actually-but that he really knew how to turn a woman on and keep her turned on. Joe could totally satisfy three jaded whores in one evening and never come himself. It wasn't size; it was technique.

By design, neither Valkenberg was aware of that.

Claude was able to get her off twice before his tired equipment spurted feebly and he was done.

Anita was tired, but still horny.

She left the apartment, in search of stiff cocks.