Lisette and the Cyber Geeks
by
Brian Sands
Chapter Nine
Finding Chérie
Lisette lay on her side upon the hard cement floor. Her body was colder than ever and there was no longer any feeling in her hands and legs, though pins and needles were shooting through her arms. Miss Wimple, the librarian from hell, with what was obviously her normal obsessive compulsive thoroughness did not trouble with tightening the ropes that already bound Lisette. Instead, she secured he prisoner with additional bonds, tying her wrists with thin cord above the place where they were already bound, and then doing the same for her elbows. The horrible woman’s voice came close to Lisette’s ear, muffled by the thick silk that covered her head and face.
"I’m taking absolutely no chances with you, little girl."
This was repeated several times.
I don’t need to be convinced, thought Lisette wearily.
"You will be checked regularly during our journey. I will loosen your bonds to allow circulation every twenty minutes ... and tighten them again. The pain and the numbness will force you to lie very, very still. You won’t get away from me! ... Let’s get started."
Lisette was expecting to be manhandled, dragged or lifted somewhere, but instead she heard the woman’s footsteps receding from her. She lifted her head and turned her face experimentally from side to side. The hood completely blotted out all light and deadened sound. She thought she could make out the distant hum of the air conditioning but could not be sure. It might be her imagination, for each movement of her head made the silk rustle across her ears so that all she could hear was her laboured breathing, the blood rushing in her ears, and the rapid beating of her heart.
The silk stretched taut across her face made it increasingly more difficult to breathe. The tape was still there, sealing her mouth and encasing her jaws so that they could not move, and she could only get air through her nose. With every outward puff of carbon monoxide a bubble of silk formed; but every inhalation sucked the silk into her nostrils and sealed them. And the close weave of the fibres did not allow for the easy passage of air. What was more, the silk was slowly becoming damp from her sweat, which threatened to seal up her nostrils for good.
Struggling was completely impossible, as Miss Wimple had meant it to be. All that Lisette achieved when she tried to fight against her bonds was a sort of trembling. I can’t get hysterical, she thought with a strange kind of relief. I’m too tightly tied up to have room for that to happen! She knew that panic and hyperventilation would kill her ... I can’t struggle, I can’t speak, or see, I can scarcely hear, or breathe. But what I can do is lie still. Very still, like that horrible woman says. I think I’ll be good at that after the next few hours.
But I can think. Maybe my breathing will take care of itself if I just relax and try not to fight inside this awful hood. She tried to remember what her old Yoga teacher had told her about relaxation. Allow her body to go limp, joint by joint, limb by limb.
She did not know it, but Lisette had an unusual sort of bravery.
*
The minutes dragged by. Lisette amused herself by visualising what she would do to Miss Dorothea Wimple once she was free. Her thoughts were not very nice, but they were diverting.
She was aroused from her reverie by a loud banging and clattering. This time, though she was fully occluded, Lisette recognised the sounds. Her captor must be wheeling a book trolley into the vaulted room. One wheel squeaked, a trolley needing a touch of oil and one of its castors reset. The sound told Lisette that the trolley was alongside her. This was confirmed when the woman grasped Lisette by the cord of the hog tie and dragged her across the floor a short distance. Lisette was then taken under her shoulders and hauled up and onto what must be the lower platform of the trolley, for large reference works. When the bound woman was settled there on her side, the trolley went into motion once again, accompanied by the squealing and juddering of the faulty castor.
Quirky thoughts passed through Lisette’s mind. I was archived in the compactor, and now I’m being wheeled somewhere else. She speculated whether she was destined for new acquisitions or for the inter-library loan office. Perhaps they would place her among the bound journals.
Her present ordeal, and in particular the lack of oxygen, was making Lisette hallucinate. She was aware of it. Strange thoughts and images passed through her head. En- ... dolphins? Endorphins? she thought numbly. Read somewhere that shaman and people who go in for deep meditation experience heightened senses of euphoria. They call it en- enlightenment. I wish I had some now.
It was not the difficulty breathing that frightened Lisette so much as being deprived of her sight inside the hood. She hated the claustrophobic feeling. Right at that moment, however, her captor was doing her a favour, for the racket being made by the trolley helped Lisette to keep in touch with reality. In the stygian night of the compactor all she had been able to hear was her own breathing and other bodily functions. Now at least something was happening. She was being moved from point A to point B. It meant that, no matter how helpless she was, and how hopeless the situation, there was a thin chance for freedom.
If Don arrives ... in the nick of time. I’d settle for one strong man against a whole posse of heroes.
The vehicle screeched to a halt and comparative silence reasserted itself, suitable for a library. Lisette was seized roughly by the hair at the back of her head and her silk-encased face raised. She guessed that the librarian’s own face was within centimetres of hers. The woman’s voice sounded against her ear once again.
"We are now in the basement, little girl."
I wish she’d stop calling me that, thought Lisette angrily. Anger, she was finding, was a good means of keeping fear at bay.
"I’m going to have a nice hot cup of tea, which means I shall leave you for an hour. When I return, I will have selected the best of the packing cases from our storeroom. You will not be travelling in style. On the contrary. You will be stuffed in with a very large supply of shredded documents. The layers of paper will insulate the world from any sound you might possibly still be able to make."
The woman lowered Lisette’s head back to the shelf.
"I’m telling you this because I want you to know what discomforts are in store for you, and for you to know that you have absolutely no hope of escape. It was so easy tying you up in that flimsy silk you’re wearing. No thick clothing to get in the way of my ropes. If you’re hating it now, just think how much worse it’s going to be!"
The woman’s a sadist, thought Lisette bitterly, as well as an obsessive-compulsive. But she’s a compulsive talker too. She loves gloating over me. That could be her weakness. Maybe she’s just a little too confident, a little careless beneath that finicky exterior. But she hasn’t been careless in the way she’s tied me. Lisette flexed her fingers. Her wrists could not move at all in the tight cords binding them together.
She had chosen the blue silk dress because it was a hot day. The billowing skirt and sleeveless bodice were light and cool on the car journey to Lower Bodley, but the lovely garment and tan stockings complementing it gave no protection against the coarse ropes. She remembered Donald’s advice about appropriate apparel when on a dangerous investigation. But who was to expect that the municipal library of this sleepy hollow by the winding river would conceal a monster like Miss Dorothea Wimple, Head Librarian and Torturer?
Lisette listened to the sounds of footsteps receding in the distance, and sighed with relief when she heard a heavy door of some sort crash shut with a hollow reverberation. At least she was no longer subjected to that woman’s tongue or her rough-handling, not for awhile anyway.
Oppressive silence reigned again. Lisette still felt cold, but the surface on which she was lying felt like wood and was not as chilling to the touch as the metal of the compactor. An old wooden trolley, she thought. She had seen them in rows when she entered the library.
Although she had tried before, Lisette again lifted her head and tried to call for help.
"Hmmmmp ..."
She was as amazed at how effectively the tightly wound tape reduced any noise she could make to a faint strangled whimper. No one outside the room would hear her. For that matter, it was unlikely that anyone inside the room would be able to hear her either.
But, astonishingly, someone was there who did hear. A hand took Lisette by the shoulder, coming so unexpectedly that she jumped, as much as her bonds allowed. A familiar voice spoke, low, close against her ear.
"Hold on, kid. You’ll be out of this soon."
Lisette’s heart leapt. Donald? My god, if it is, I’ll start believing in the efficacy of prayer!
As these thoughts ran confusedly through her mind, Lisette felt herself being lifted out of the trolley by arms that circled her body and the backs of her legs, tenderly instead of wrenching at the hog tie ropes as the Wimple woman had done. She was carried somewhere fast. Lisette was reminded again of Donald’s strength, unusual in a man so dapper. They seemed to pass through a doorway. She could feel the change of internal temperature on her bare arms and legs. They were in a warmer section of the library, perhaps coming out of the basement with its numerous vaults. They halted.
Lisette was lowered onto her side to a carpeted floor where she lay while the cords linking her wrists to her ankles were cut through. Her rescuer continued until all the ropes had fallen from her arms and legs. She was then picked up once more and placed in a wooden chair.
Lisette sat still, her arms hanging uselessly by her sides, as the draw-strings were untied and the hood of heavy black silk was peeled off her face and head. She blinked in the soft light of their surroundings. Donald Caisson’s dark eyes were looking into hers, an expression of deep concern on his face. Lisette and Donald were bathed in the glow of a muted night-light, in some corner of the library. Lisette identified it as a small reading-room, one of several she had passed a little further down from the wooden trolleys.
Don’s strong fingers took Lisette’s chin and tilted her head back slightly.
"Hold still, old thing," said the man gently, "I’ll be as careful as I can, but this stuff’s the very devil to get off!"
Slowly and with great delicacy, Donald Caisson found a corner of tape and began peeling it off Lisette’s face. The tape, which was one long strip, came away layer by layer. The topmost layers were removed relatively painlessly, although some edges pulled at Lisette’s cheeks and the fine hair at the back of her neck. When he came to the last layer, Don took a deep breath.
"Those stories about pulling tape off quickly might be accurate as far as some hospital practice goes, but in this situation you’d be in agony if I tried it. Grit your teeth, dear, and hold on. I’m taking this off as slowly as I dare."
Lisette closed her eyes. Tears pooled under her lids as the tape was stripped, first from the back of her neck, then from her cheek, across her mouth and lips to the other cheek where the tape had initially been fastened. With the fingers of one hand, Don followed the drawing away of the tape, pressing Lisette’s skin so that it was not torn or pulled into a grimace.
At last the tape was off. Lisette raised a hand and gingerly stroked her tingling lips with her fingers. She felt the sticky residue of the adhesive.
"Come on." Don picked her up in his arms. "We’ll tidy you up when we get home."
"M- Miss Wimple ...?" They were Lisette’s first words.
"Is in another part of the library drinking her tea, as she told you ... She’ll keep. My main concern is to get you out of here."
Lisette nodded, and threw her arms around Donald’s neck. She looked deep into his eyes and said in a stage whisper, "You’re ... m- my hero, you know."
"Yers, well ... plenty of time to talk later."
*
The physical and mental toll of her ordeal was not readily apparent to Lisette until she was laid gently into the back seat of her own car. She felt her soft cashmere travelling rug as Donald Caisson laid it over her body and wrapped it around her, then she knew nothing until she awoke in her own bed.
For a long moment, Lisette could not remember where she was or where she had been. The familiarity of her room was reassuring. Then came the memory flooded back to her: of her drugging, to awaken bound and with her mouth taped up in the dark of the compactor in the bowels of the library.
She shrank back in the mattress and pulled the bedclothes around her. The movement apprised her that she was wearing one of her lace and silk nightdresses. She looked down. It was the pink nightdress.
More memory returned. Being dragged from the compactor and dumped on the floor like a fish sent slithering from the net. Then the additional bonds around her wrists and ankles. Then the rough bundling of her helpless body onto the trolley and the noisy ride through the archives rooms. Then that horrible woman gloating. Suffocating next under the silken hood. Then ... Donald Caisson’s firm, strong hands lifting her and carrying her to safety. His fingers caressing her face as he peeled the stocky tape from her lips ... Where was he now?
As if in answer to her unspoken thoughts, the door from her living room opened and Donald Caisson entered. He wore dark blue trousers, a black shirt of fine cotton, and a dark navy reefer jacket. In his hand he held a mug of something steaming. The aroma made Lisette’s taste buds give a leap. As she pushed herself upright against the pillows piled behind her, Don sat on the edge of the bed.
"How are you feeling?"
"N- Not too bad, Darling ... What’s that?"
"Soup ... from your kitchen."
"It- It smells wonderful."
"Then drink up ... Take it steady though. It’s hot."
"Looks like the thick vegetable soup I bought the other day."
"The very same ... Most nourishing thing I could find in your small collection of cans."
"I- I don’t go in for tinned food much, Don ... Mmmm, that’s good ... I like to make soup au naturel."
"Naturellement," replied Don with a grin. Then, after a long pause, during which Lisette took two more luxurious sips of the reviving liquid, he added, "You’re making a great come-back after that terrible experience."
"I never gave up hope that somehow you’d find me ... How did you do it?"
"First of all, you left a very clear message about where you were going, and the address. And I waited until past the time when you were reasonably expected to return. I filled in that time profitably, by the way. I’ll tell you about that in a moment. Then I became gravely worried. You know, these people play for keeps. And when you didn’t return I drove immediately to Lower Bodley. Left my car in a nearby supermarket parking lot and, when I saw your Renault in one of the library parking bays, I feared the worst. It was already dark and I had no trouble getting into the place. Ahh ... certain years of experience, let us say."
"I think I can guess!"
"Yers. Well, that place is a warren, but I heard a trolley being wheeled along. There’s no mistaking that sound ... You know, there’s a theory that a man with a mallet stands at the end of every conveyor belt and attacks trolley wheels at random as they come to the end of the line. It’s part of an international conspiracy to add frustration and stress to the lives of global citizens so they’ll spend money on mind-numbing drugs. This theory, or a version of it, is only expounded after several strong drinks at dinner parties."
Lisette laughed. "Oh Don, you’re kidding!"
"I swear on oath ... Anyway, it wasn’t hard to find the room where all the noise was coming from. I listened to that woman talking to you. The faint sounds you were making through your gag and the hood made me very angry, and I was about to come down on that bitch like a ton of bricks when she left the room. That was when I took the opportunity to snatch you back."
"I- I remember that part. Then I don’t remember much more, after you took that horrible stuff off my mouth."
"You were out like a light the moment your head hit the back seat of your car."
"Did- did you put me to bed?" Lisa indicated her pink nightgown, now unconsciously slipped at one shoulder and with the lace edge framing a very deep décolletage.
"Erhm, yers."
"Well, you did a good job ... What about your car?"
"I fetched it later that morning. Took a bus down."
"That morning? What time is it now?"
Don glanced at his watch. "Um, about 8.30am ... The next day ... You slept the clock round," he added in reply to Lisette’s look of disbelief.
"But ..."
"Hey, kid ..." Don took Lisette’s shoulders. "Know what you’ve just been through? Most women would be in hospital for days after being tied up the way you were. I can only put it down to youth and fitness, and maybe a touch of innocence. And bravery. A lot of it!
"I- I don’t ..."
"Don’t argue with the doctor! Lisette Ruisseau ... Lisa Rivers ... You are some woman! ... And that reminds me ... I paid our young friend Doc a little visit. Roughed him up a bit, and turned his grubby room upside down. He wasn’t very happy about it, but most of the time he was asleep. And I found this ..."
Donald Caisson slipped something flat and square from his pocket and placed it in Lisette’s lap. It was a compact disc in a square case.
"Look at it later," the man continued, "When you’re feeling more rested. It’ll keep. You’ll find it very interesting, and I want to know what your thoughts are about it. But for now, get more sleep."
Lisette picked up the CD.
"If it’s that important ..."
Don took it from her hand and looked at her sternly.
"I’ll tie you down to the bed if you don’t cooperate!"
"No ... Don, I’ll do what you advise. I- I feel so tired all of a sudden."
"That’s the idea!"
Caisson placed the CD on the bedside table, took the empty soup mug from Lisette’s hands, stroking her fingers as he did so, and began to leave the room.
Lisette called after him, "I’ll hold you to that."
Donald Caisson stopped at the door. "What?"
"To tie me down to the bed. I think that will be fun."
"You’re crazy!"
The man moved through the doorway. As he closed it after him, he paused and turned.
"I’ll remember that, Lisa Ruisseau!"
*
Late afternoon of the same day, Lisette was sitting at her table making diagrammatic notes to sum up the puzzling case. The trail to Chérie Chalmers’ whereabouts was cold. Lisa had exhausted the list and found that all the people involved were criminals of some ilk or other. She asked herself the same questions she had pondered two days earlier. Were they separate groups working against one another, or were they part of a single whole, a large organisation or cartel? She guessed that if she revisited the different addresses - properly armed of course - she would find the premises empty, vacated in haste. That would be a gain of sorts. But it brought her no closer to rescuing a woman who had obviously been kidnapped and, if her own experiences were any indication, Chérie almost certainly would be suffering restraints, gagged and hooded as she had been. And several days in that confinement was hard to contemplate.
Lisette shivered. Her fingers traced the gauze of the bandages around her wrists where the ropes had abraded the soft skin. The bruises at her upper arms and on her legs were beginning to fade, but were still good warning signs for her to keep out of it. Maybe let the Revenue police handle it. But how useful would her own organisation be, with a mole somewhere among its personnel?
All the same, Lisette’s heart went out to Chérie Chalmers. She had never met the woman. She could not therefore call her a friend. But she was a colleague and obviously in terrible danger. What would the gang do with her when its objectives were achieved, whatever they were, and whichever gang it was that held Chérie? No, she, Lisette Ruisseau, had to do something. But what? That was the question.
The CD Donald Caisson left for her to investigate had completely slipped her mind!
Lisette ran into her small office with its home computer and pressed the "on" switch. As the machine booted up, she fetched the disc from her bedroom. She placed it in its slot and pressed a key, the disc disappeared and a moment later its icon appeared on the desktop. Lisette double-clicked the icon. A long list of document files appeared on the screen. She read the titles of what evidently were comic books, European bandes dessinées. They were a mixed collection, ranging from the ever-popular Tin-Tin, Asterix, and Natacha, to more arcane - exotic and erotic - works. Titles and parts of titles scrolled past her eyes: "Gosh, why did I get up this morning?: a Tara story," Miss Bondie by Chris, Filou, Stanton, John Willie, Nutrix, Alazar, L’Enfer des Bulles (1968), Faux Projet by Brian Sands adapted from the novel Dangerous Inheritance by Mignon Marceau. Lisette wondered, had she met that woman at a party once? She opened several files at random and was captivated by some of the artwork. What a fascinating strip by that fellow calling himself Noir, she thought. She could imagine herself in some of those predicaments, had in fact experienced being bound and gagged .
The obvious question kept nagging at her mind. Why was the gang, or cartel, so interested in these comic - and comix - strips? She remembered her first theory. Yes, that must be it. They’re using the consignments of these bandes dessinées as a cover for drug smuggling. That had to be the answer. The bastards!
The phone interrupted her ruminations.
"Hullo?"
Lisette half expected it to be Donald, checking up on her. But a woman’s voice spoke at the other end.
"Is - Is that Miss Rissoo?"
It was a soft, hesitant voice, a middle-aged, or perhaps an elderly woman, mispronouncing Lisette’s family name.
"Yes. I’m Lisette Ruisseau."
"Oh. Miss Rissoo," continued the woman, who appeared determined to miscall Lisette’s name. "I’m phoning on behalf of Cherry Charmers. She says she wants to talk to you."
"What? Chérie?" Lisette ignored the woman’s difficulty with French names. "Can I speak to her?"
"Oh, I’m sorry, but she’s out for a while ... Shopping. She says it’s perfectly safe. I don’t know what she means, but she says that you will understand."
"I think I do."
"Can you come? I’ll bake some nice scones."
"Well ..."
"Oh good. She said you’d understand," the woman repeated in a relieved tone.
"Can you tell me your name, and your address please?"
"Oh ... oh yes, of course ... Silly of me. Let’s see. What do you want first, my address or ...?"
"I think it would be nice to know your name."
"Yes ... yes, of course. It’s Gamms. Ah, Mrs Alvina Gamms."
"And your address?"
The woman told her, speaking at painstakingly slow dictation speed. Lisette looked at the wall clock as she took down the address.
"O-kay ... It should take about an hour to get through the city traffic."
"That’s all right, dearie. Take your time. Missy Charmers is looking forward to seeing you, but she’s out at the moment."
Mrs Alvina Gamms rang off.
Strange, thought Lisette. Damn, she disconnected before I could ask how she knew my phone number. I suppose Chérie gave it to her. But Chérie’s supposed to be kidnapped!
On the surface, Mrs Gamms appeared bone fide, but so had all the others, and this time Lisette was not taking any chances.
She dressed in a grey business suit, a knee-length skirt, and a jacket over a loose fitting white cotton shirt, spotless and crisp from the laundry. Before slipping on the shirt she took off the unsightly bandages from around her wrists. Donald had treated them with a good healing cream and the worst of the abrasions were now only thin marks. The cuffs of her shirt covered them.
Into a hidden compartment of her handbag she slipped a small pearl handled Derringer pistol. It was a woman’s gun, with two rounds effective at short range, which was the only distance she would have to use it. At a glance it passed as an antique, but it was a working model.
As a final precaution, before she left her apartment, Lisette phoned Donald Caisson’s number and left a message on his record bank setting out in detail where she was going and how long she expected to be away.
"I could be walking into another trap," she ended, "but it’s just possible that Chérie escaped and is in hiding, and this Mrs Gamms - who seems to be a muddled and simple soul - may be boarding her with no knowledge of the case. I think it’s important that I investigate. The links to Chérie are already broken and this is the only lead."
*
Mrs Gamms lived in a small terrace house on the wrong side of the tracks. Some of the neighbouring dwellings were in poor repair, with unkempt residents watching glumly from their front porches. Other houses appeared to have no tenants and were in an even worse state of disrepair. This applied to the two abodes on either side of the Gamms residence.
Lisette parked her Renault by the curb, walked through the small front gate and up a path set with broken paving stones to the front door. No one else was in sight in that part of the street. She knocked. There was a long pause before she heard the shuffling sounds of someone approaching in what must be very down-at-heel slippers. The door opened and a small round face peered out cautiously and gazed up at Lisette with myopic eyes.
"Yes?"
Lisette introduced herself.
"Oh ... come in ... come in," the woman muttered vaguely. "She’s waiting for you."
Seen in the round, Mrs Alvina Gamms was even more unprepossessing than her face suggested. She was a small, squat woman with stocky white legs, a little bandy, that protruded from a faded print skirt and apron with capacious pockets, from one of which protruded a moth-eaten duster.
The woman waddled ahead of Lisette down a narrow passageway until she came to a door. Further down the hallway Lisette saw a kitchen, its table laid with knives, forks and ragged napkins. Lisette noted that, although the house shared the same external dilapidated appearance as the other houses in the street, the interior was spotlessly clean. The wooden floors of the hallway she was treading shone with wax, and the napkins in the kitchen, though frayed, appeared crisp, starched and clean, and the cutlery was sparkling.
"Here’s the lawyer woman," said the house-proud Mrs Gamms, "Ready and waiting, my dear."
She ushered Lisette through the doorway. The room was lit by a single desk lamp and, in the gloom, made deeper by her sudden entrance from the better lit hallway, Lisette saw the figure of a woman sitting in a wooden chair, her hands gripping its armrests.
"I’ll give you more light, dearie," added Lisette’s host, "No doubt you have a lot to talk about."
"Thank you."
A switch clicked and a single light in the ceiling came on. It scarcely added to the general poor illumination. Lisette stood frozen to the spot, trying to penetrate the features of the woman before her that were half hidden in the shadows. The woman sitting in the chair facing her appeared to be the same woman in the photographs. As Lisette drew closer, she became convinced that it was Chérie Chalmers. There was no mistaking the almost platinum blonde hair. Then Lisette stopped abruptly and a small cry came unbidden to her throat.
Chérie was looking back at her visitor with eyes round and frightened. Lisette saw why she had not yet spoken. A broad band of black silk was tied so tightly between Chérie Chalmers’ jaws that it held her mouth wide open. At the same instant, Lisette saw that the young woman’s wrists were fastened to the chair’s armrests by straps that were as thin as a small cat’s collar, so thin that they had escaped initial detection. They looked very tight, nearly disappearing in the flesh of Chérie’s wrists. Additional, and equally thin, straps passed around Chérie’s waist and upper body to hold her fast to the chair. Her ankles were secured similarly to each of the front chair legs by more straps.
The prisoner was clad in a thin white silk slip that appeared to be the only item of clothing she was wearing. Its bodice of fine lace barely contained her full breasts and the translucent hem fell only to mid thigh, revealing shapely but strong calves. Lisette summed up the young woman as someone who worked out a lot in a gym or maybe aerobics classes. She was also an elegant dresser with exquisite taste in clothes, as becomes a woman lawyer.
Chérie Chalmers was undoubtedly a very helpless prisoner.
Mrs Gamms chuckled at Lisette’s back, her vague fluttery demeanour now replaced by an almost strident harshness.
"Thought you could fool us, dearie? Our little organisation, like some banks, has branches everywhere. We knew that you was snooping around, so I laid a liddle trap. You fell for it. Well, you’re keeping your appointment with the lady ... "
Lisette turned and took a step towards the woman, who no longer looked as short and dumpy as before.
"No, don’t try to be a clever dick, Miss Lisa Rivers."
Mrs Gamms with lightning speed produced a small automatic pistol from the pocket of her apron. Lisette pulled up short.
"I think ‘hands up’ is the right command at this point," the woman said icily.
Lisette slowly raised her hands.
ã Brian Sands 2004