Hell Bound: The Search for Jillian Ingalls

Chapter 3

Willis shrugged. “I suppose it means…”

“Do not suppose,” Diaz said, not unkindly. “I will tell you, and please excuse me if I speak plainly. This contract is a modern euphemism for voluntary s****l servitude, a sort of indenture where one person gives up all rights and personal choice to another. The fact that your Jillian Ingalls has entered into such an agreement suggests much about her character, and about the person to whom she has committed.”

“That would be my father, Christopher Hurst, the bastard.” Willis caught himself and made a rueful face. “That’s not entirely accurate, to be honest. I’m the one who was born out-of-wedlock, not him.”

“You can both be bastards; in your case, an accident of birth, for him, a matter of choice, perhaps.”

Willis grunted, half-laughing at the bitter truth, but unable to still the unpleasant crawling tension in his gut. Dominant would define his father well enough, and he was certainly a bastard, no doubt about that. But, as Diaz had pointed out, if Jill had reached such an agreement with the likes of Christopher Hurst, then maybe the bastard son really didn’t understand her at all, or the things that drove her. It was one of those puzzle pieces that he’d never quite been able to find a space for, and had ignored, more or less.

Diaz turned his dark, sympathetic eyes back to Willis. “We are speaking of a very deliberate agreement here, one made after much searching in the soul, and with much passion. Neither person would reach such an accord alone. It requires great commitment on both sides.” He lit a cigar and looked through the smoke at Willis. “Who is this girl, John? What is she to you?”

“She’s…just a girl,” Willis replied uncomfortably.

“A girl who signs herself into s****l slavery is not just a girl,” Diaz said.

“One of these days, you’ll have to tell my how you know so much about this stuff,” Willis growled. “I’m starting to feel like an alter boy in a whorehouse—as if there was a whole undercurrent of issues that everybody knows about but me.”

“Few people but those who participate would know of such things. Now, be honest with me, please. This woman, Jillian Ingalls, you were close to her, yes?”

“Apparently not,” Willis said dryly. “She never said anything about this.”

Diaz nodded, waiting.

Willis sighed. “All right, Enrique. She is my father’s step-daughter, not related to me in any direct way. And she did have some kind of arrangement with the old man—something kinky—rough s*x, bondage—whatever. I knew about that, but not about any contract.”

“She is related to you by marriage,” Diaz said reproachfully “You have lain with your sister, John Willis, at least in the biblical sense. I am Catholic, and we have strong beliefs about such things.”

“We can argue at a later time about whose sister she is or why she signed her life away like this. Personally, I don’t give a s**t about all that.”

Diaz looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment, as if weighing his words carefully. “As you say, compadré, but for me, this is a family matter; father, daughter, son. You see my problem?”

Willis fumed, trying to explain. “Look, Enrique. This isn’t about incest. Forget that, and forget that Jill banged her step-father and her step-brother, neither of whom is related to her by blood. None of that matters right now. What does matter is that she ran away with me on the spur of the moment, and now she’s been taken away by a stranger. Taken, Enrique, as in, not of her own free will. One was a choice, one was not. I want to find her, and the rest simply doesn’t matter…”

“Ah, but it does matter,” Diaz said, cutting him off with something very like sadness. “This is important.”

“Of course it’s important,” Willis snorted. “Jill wouldn’t even be out here if it weren’t for me, damn it. And she is such a dumb little b***h when it comes to men…”

“Present company excluded, I presume?” Diaz interjected gently.

Willis frowned, letting his worry show. “Look, this girl lives in a fantasy world, and it’s a pretty weird place—weird and dangerous. In her mind, rough s*x means love, and the more of one, the better the other. Her mother pretty much abandoned her and went off to Europe while Jill was in college. She and my father…” he shrugged helplessly. “Well, let’s just say that she’s had no supervision, and no one to care for her practically for her entire life, and my old man represented something she needed a whole lot, even if she didn’t know it at the time.”

“Now we are making progress.” Diaz pushed the humidor across his desk toward Willis. “Have a cigar, my young friend, and I will share with you some things that I have learned.”

Willis went through the process of trimming the heel of his cigar and lighting up with a wooden match. Diaz got up from his desk to make coffee, leaving Willis to his own thoughts for a few minutes. But, when the big Mexican returned, he was all business.

“First, you must understand that people are very sensitive about such things as we are discussing, and very protective. This kind of lifestyle, this dominance and submission, is not just about tying people up and hitting them, as you might see in the magazines or on the Internet. In reality, it is about power and control, and is deeply s****l in nature—and deeply personal. Such emotions are powerful and you do not intrude on them lightly. Think of it as prodding the hornet’s nest with a short stick. If you are gentle, then the insects will be curious. If you are clumsy, they will attack, and you will be too close to avoid the sting. Is this clear?”

Willis scowled. “In other words, Enrique, you are advising me to be my normal, sensitive self.”

Diaz ignored that. “I would prefer to talk you out of this course of action,” he said, waving the Dunn letter toward Willis. “You understand that your Jillian Ingalls may not wish to be found, do you not? In fact, if her handwritten note is taken at face value, then I must think that she does not. I am experienced in these matters, and I must tell you that in my view, this note was written freely, rather than forced. There is no visible tension or fear in the handwriting; it is smooth and even, suggesting calm.”

“I don’t care,” Willis said again, hearing the truculence in his own voice.

“Of course,” Diaz said, looking sad. “We Latinos appreciate this kind of thing, as well. It is your duty to find her. However, you must understand that Mr. Logan Dunn is not just some small-time skip tracer. He is a professional of the highest order. If the owner of Jillian Ingalls has gone to the trouble and not inconsiderable expense of hiring such a man, then you must recognize that he will be very difficult to find, unless he allows it, or you manage to locate someone to help you.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Willis said.

Perhaps, but truth can be an ugly thing,” Diaz said thoughtfully. “In my business, I see that kind of pain every day.”

“I can handle it.”

“That you can, my stubborn young friend.” Diaz sighed. “All right, I know of someone, a man called Emerson Spalding, who, I believe, will certainly have knowledge of your Logan Dunn. Spalding owns an upscale S M club here in Los Angeles where some of the moneyed fetish people hang out, and the money people are the ones who can afford to keep the likes of this bounty hunter in business. I believe it is to them that you must take your questions.”

“An S M club?”

“Sadism and masochism,” Diaz said delicately. “And a very exclusive club it is, too.” He looked sharply at Willis. “Do you even own a tuxedo, my young bull? This is not a jeans and leather bomber jacket kind of place.”

“Will he see me, Enrique?”

“Perhaps, although they prefer couples, at least in the club. Do you know of a woman who might…?”

“They stole my woman, damn it. Now, can you help me, or not?”

“You may wish that I had not,” Diaz said in a cautionary tone. “But, give me a couple of days, young bull, and let me see what I can do.”

Rainy Night at Rolands

Willis figured he might as well get drunk while he was waiting. He didn’t have any kind of plan, of course, but it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Somehow, the worst of it was that he hadn’t even known that Jill’s middle name was Beth. He should have known that, shouldn’t he? He worried at it like a dog with a bone, and the more he worried, the more pissed off he got.

Sitting in his apartment with a bottle certainly wasn’t going to help, that much was obvious. A few hours after returning from his visit with Enrique Diaz, Willis took his revolver out again. The gun was brutal to shoot, but had the power to crack an engine block, which, he thought sardonically, would come in very handy should he ever be attacked by an engine block.

Spilling the cartridges out of the cylinder, Willis practiced for awhile on the draw and presentation from his boot holster. His heart wasn’t in it, but he did it anyway, more from habit than intention. He disliked the boot mount, but conceded its convenience when concealment was more important than immediate availability. Finally, he reloaded the stumpy little gun and snapped it down into the holster, hoping that he would never have to use the thing.

He took a quick shower and dressed in leather pants and a white shirt and checked himself in the mirror to ensure that the pistol didn’t show. There had been a time in his life when arming himself had been no stranger than putting on trousers. It had been years since he’d felt the need, but Jill’s predilections and then the sudden invasion of his personal life left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. Outside forces made the decision for him to tool up again. He hated that, but not enough to ignore his instincts.

The weather had turned to s**t again, appropriately enough, blowing hard off the beach and spitting rain so cold it felt like sleet. He went to Roland’s Pub, homing in on the soft glow of blue and pink neon in the windows with the certainty of a moth to flame.

“Hey, Johnny,” Roland said from behind the bar.

“You haven’t seen Jill, have you?”

“Since you asked me the last time?” Roland said. “Nope, but you can tell her from me that she’s fired as a goddamned cannon.”

“Well, give me a tequila shooter and a beer,” Willis said, taking a seat. “And keep them coming.” He wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation, and put down four shots before looking around.

The place was more crowded than it had a right to be at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night; young, blue-collar types with the girls in jeans and halters and cowboy boots and lots of long-neck empties scattered over table tops. The juke-box was playing George Strait and a couple danced slowly in the darkness, oblivious to their surroundings. It looked to Willis like they were going to need a room pretty quick, or at least the back seat of somebody’s car.

One woman sat alone in a back booth, elbows on the table, reading a hard back book spread open on the table in front of her. Willis walked past her on the way to the toilet, noting a flat, European style box of cigarettes with a gold lighter sitting on top, and an empty martini glass. She had a flag of rich brown hair pulled back over her ears and pinned at the crown of her head, and wore big hoop earrings.

Returning a couple of minutes later, she looked up at him through rectangular reading glasses with red frames. Inadvertently, their eyes caught. She gave him a slight smile of acknowledgement, not looking away, and he nodded back.

“I know you,” she said. “Stone Cold Johnny Gold, the motorcycle racer.”

“That’s what my sponsors call me.”

There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t quite think what it was. She fixed a look of polite inquiry on her face.

“What do your friends call you?”

“Lots of things, but not Johnny Gold, or I’ll have to spank you.”

“Well, now, Not-Johnny Gold,” she said with some amusement. “There’s an interesting pick-up line if I ever heard one. I’m Amy Cavanaugh, and you have my attention.”

There was enough of that southern, corn-pone honey kind of drawl in her voice to make him smile, and she smiled back. He did, in fact, race motorcycles on the national circuit and had managed third in the rankings after the last season. However, bikes didn’t get the fame and glory that cars got and his face really wasn’t all that familiar with the general public. He was surprised to be recognized.