Denial Of Service 3: The Ukrainian Connection Read online

“Besides buy new luggage, you mean? Look, I can only think of a single other thing you can do: Give her something of equal or higher value than what she wants out of you.”

  “Like what?” Martin asked.

  “As I see it,” I said, “you only have one thing of value, don’t you?” Martin stared back… I don’t know if he was in denial, or just being obtuse, so I just said it. “Your business.”

  “What?” he said. So now I knew: Obtuse.

  “Yup. Let her have it… give her all your tapes. Give her the rights to all future sales. Make her realize that she can make so much more on that stuff than blackmailing you.”

  “Well… that’s crazy!” Martin said, throwing up his hands. “What am I supposed to do for a living, dude?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said coyly. “Maybe… something legitimate? Like yoga films with adults… with clothes on?”

  Gail screwed up her face. “Who’d buy that?”

  “Yeah,” Martin insisted, “there’s a reason we did it the way we did it!”

  “But it was illegal,” I shot back, feeling like I was talking to children now. “Hell, you’re better off giving that s**t away than continuing to sell it!”

  “And what about Es?” Martin asked. “What if she continues to sell it?”

  “What of it?” I said. “If they’re all hers, then it’s her head in a noose if someone turns her in. And incidentally,” I added, “ you will be in the perfect situation to do that, if she double-crosses you after the deal. Make sure she knows that. What do you think she’s more likely to want to do?”

  Gail was starting to get it. “To just sell the stuff and make easy money.”

  “Right,” I said. “And in the meantime, Martin can start producing… oh, I don’t know. Have you ever considered grownup porn?”

  Martin shrugged. “Well… yeah, sure, I’ve considered it. But you need a hook these days, to rise above all the junk that’s out there.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said. And as quickly added, “ Uh , from what I’ve heard of the market. Anyway, it’s your job to find your hook: Exotic locales. Cheap locales. Weird sets. Girls with accents. Costumes. Something…”

  “Whoa, hold on,” Martin interrupted me. “I almost forgot one thing.”

  He looked at Gail, and I saw her eyes widen. The color drained out of her face. Her mouth hung open, and I thought for a moment she was gonna pee herself. Instead, she said one word: “Veronica.”

  “Veronica,” Martin echoed.

  “Veronica?” I said.

  “Veronica,” Gail replied, drawing out the last syllable in an annoying fashion.

  “All right!” I snapped. “Before I have to start combing through my Elvis Costello catalog, somebody explain the big deal with Veronica!”

  “She—” Martin started, then his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed, and started again. “She… she’s…” Another long pause, and another gulp, before he finally got the next word out, making it sound like acid on his tongue: “Ukrainian.”

  Oh, yes, you know I paused for effect. Then I said: “Ukrainian.” I looked at Gail. “Ukrainian?”

  “Ukrainian,” Gail replied, drawing out that last syllable again.

  “Stop that! Look, what’s the big deal about Veronica’s being Ukrainian?”

  “Don’t you know anything?” Martin said at once. “Everybody knows, when it comes to business, there are three things you just don’t mess with: Mother Mary; Mother Nature; and mother-f***ing Ukrainians!”

  “Cute,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with—”

  “Veronica was one of my performers,” Martin explained. Not.

  “I gathered,” I said. “And I repeat, what’s—”

  “She was underage,” Gail said.

  “Duh!” I shot back. “Don’t make me say it again!”

  “She found out what we were doing could get her arrested,” Martin said.

  “And?”

  “And she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get her arrested.”

  “And?”

  “And so… she made me sign a waiver, forbidding me to sell the assets without her permission.”

  “And if you do?”

  “If I do…” Martin gulped again, and Gail looked like she was going to be sick. “If I do, I’ll… I’d have to… I’ll have to…”

  “Just say it, for God’s sake.”

  “…I’ll have to have sex with her.”

  Yes, that’s what he said. I looked at Gail, to confirm I had heard what he’d said, and the look on her face confirmed it nicely. I looked back at both of them, unimpressed.

  “There’d better be a lot more to it than that,” I said.

  “There is,” Gail said sickly. “She’s a black widow.”

  “A black widow?”

  “A black widowwww…”

  5: Curse of the spider woman

  Okay, I admit it, I was surprised when Martin opened the door to the part of the basement he called “the studio,” and turned on the lights. I expected to see fake dungeon walls, ratty cots, wall racks of weird sex toys that would scare—well, Gail—and I didn’t know what else.

  Instead, I saw a taping studio. A white room with one of those corner-smoothing things against the wall, big lights on stands, two microphones on boom stands, three beefy-looking cameras on mounts, a desk with a computer seated on it, and some cabinets by the door. Another door, just by this one, had a plaque with the universal man and woman icons that usually meant “bathroom.”

  “Surprised, aren’t you?” Martin said. “See? No dungeon walls, ratty cots, weird sex toys or whatever else you were expecting.”

  Ah. I wondered how soon my thoughts would start leaking. That was probably a good sign. “So, okay, looks legit enough. Even though it isn’t. Where’s this tape you want me to see?”

  “Actually, I’ve got it on the hard drive,” Martin said, walking over to the computer desk. He booted up the computer, and one of three portable drives he had sitting next to it on the floor. Then he sat down, logged onto the PC, and started combing through files. In a moment, he seemed to have found what he wanted. “Okay, take a look.”

  He double-clicked on the file, and a viewing screen filled the monitor. And on it were two people, a man and a woman… excuse me, a boy and a girl. The boy looked like he could have been 21 or more… but the girl…

  The… girl…

  No… that wasn’t a girl… it was a… human spider! This girl was doing the yoga poses with the boy, both very close and intimate, without being… intimate. And it was a good thing, because I probably would have had to leave the room. That’s because this girl was waif-thin, almost skin and bones… and based on her poses, clearly a contortionist, to-boot. She had short-cut black hair and the kind of heavy makeup that kids do, and… I dunno, there’s something about contortionists that’s just plain freaky… but when they are built this thin, they just look… supernatural!

  After a moment, I heard Gail say, “ Breathe, Mike.”

  I did. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t. And when I did, I said, “Okay, that’s just wrong. Turn that off!”

  Martin did as ordered, and said, “Now do you see how serious this is?”

  I tried to imagine Martin—hell, anyone—trying to have sex with that… that… I swear, my mind was yelling, La-la-la-la-la-won’t-go -there-la-la-la-la! Then something occurred to me. “Hold on… that tape is how old? A few years?” Martin nodded. “Well, she can’t possibly still look like that! …Right?”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Gail admitted.

  “She’s lost weight,” Martin said.

  I swear, I wanted to throw up. Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything in hours.

  “It gets worse,” Gail said.

  I pointed at the now-mercifully-dark monitor. “What could be worse than that?”

  “There’s something about Veronica,” Martin said, and choked on his own words for a moment.

  Gail continued for him. “Veronica has this…
physiological… we don’t know what it is. It’s been said that no doctor has ever found out what causes it. But within a year of having sex with her, your…” Gail swallowed in discomfort. “Your junk just goes bad.”

  “Bad?” I repeated. “ How bad?”

  Gail did not want to use the words. Slowly, she raised her hand to her throat. She extended a single finger, and used it to do a back-and-forth motion under her chin.

  I gulped. “ That bad?” Martin looked like he was about to faint. If he did, there was a good chance I would’ve joined him. “So… uh, okay, you get yourself to Mexico, and—”

  “Don’t you understand?” Martin said. “She’ll come find me! She’s got friends! Ukrainian friends! They’ll find me! She’ll make me have sex with her!”

  “ Oh, God… That would be worse than death!” Gail wailed, and I wasn’t sure I could say she was overstating things. “ He can’t sell out! He just can’t! What she’ll do to him… it’s just not right!”

  So many nasty things were running through my head at that moment, not the least of which was a plague-carrying spider-woman forcing herself on a guy, that I could hardly think. In fact, even breathing was proving to be challenging. “Well,” I said, “suppose you gave Esmeralda everything but Veronica’s tapes? Like she’d even want them…”

  “ Of course she’d want them,” Martin whined. “Do you know how valuable Veronica’s tapes are?”

  Ever have one of those moments when you were sure your eyes were about to pop out of your head and go rolling across the floor? I was so there. “You can’t be serious! She’s popular? She’s practically an alien! And I mean an Alien alien!”

  “You don’t know the biz, dude,” was Martin’s reply. “It takes all kinds…”

  Actually, I do know the biz. And he was right, of course : The most popular stuff on the web is always the deviant stuff. And that Veronica… well, watching her willingly couldn’t get much more deviant. My eyes presently stopped popping, and visions of rotting junk presently started dancing in my head. I can tell you, it was not a happy dance.

  “What am I gonna do?” Martin moaned.

  Gail looked at him sympathetically. Then she looked at me. “There must be something we can do to help him?”

  I tried to think a moment. But lord help me, I could only come up with one thing.

  “Get me to a Starbucks,” I said, “before I pass out.”

  6: Desperate plans

  I was trying my damndest to enjoy my grande double-shot skim milk espresso with room, nestled like a scared child hiding under his blankie in the little corner table of one of the few Starbucks that are mercifully open at four in the morning. Problem was, it wasn’t working. Visions of Veronica the Lethal Ukrainian Spider Woman kept popping unbidden into my head, and it was making it as hard for me to concentrate as a male barista trying to outsing Mariah Carey. (Trust me, I know whereof I speak… pray to whatever Gods you favor that you never, ever find out which Starbucks, or which barista, I’m talking about. )

  Listening to Martin and Gail wasn’t much easier on my nerves. Between his moaning about Veronica, and her grousing about Esmeralda, I was beginning to lose it. No, edit, cut that, and paste: I had lost it an hour ago, and I was still unable to find it again.

  “Okay,” I finally announced, “this really isn’t helping! Can you guys try to think of something that would scare Ukrainian mobsters and spider-people? I’m having a lot of trouble concentrating, here.”

  “I don’t know… bigger Ukrainians?” Gail suggested.

  “Having to go back to Ukraine?” Martin ventured.

  “Okay, not bad… but not helpful,” I said. “We don’t have bigger Ukrainians, and we don’t have anything on them that would deport them. What else?”

  Martin shrugged. “Italian mobsters?”

  “No,” Gail said quickly. “Ukrainians are more afraid of the people in this place, than they are of Italian mobsters.”

  “Huh?” I blinked.

  Gail nodded at the counter. “Homophobic. Most of them are die-hard old-school Catholics.”

  “Oh.” I drained my coffee on that tidbit, but could see no way to solve this problem by throwing gay Starbucks baristas at Ukrainian mobsters and women who looked like Death ‘s ugly sister. And I was about to say so…

  When, suddenly, I thought of a way.

  “Martin,” I said abruptly, “how long has it been since Veronica saw you?”

  “Uh,” Martin mumbled, thinking. “Couple years, I guess…”

  “Good. Gail: Can you find us a great makeup person? I mean, really , really realistic good.”

  After thinking a moment, Gail said, “I know someone who owns a shop in town—”

  “Perfect! Get ahold of ‘em, and tell ‘em—guy or girl?”

  “Guy.”

  “Better than perfect! —tell him we need him for an emergency job, today. And tell him we might need him a few days.”

  Gail’s face began to light up. “You have a plan.”

  “Yes, I do.” I looked Martin up and down, sizing up the possibilities. “It’s a long shot, but it’s probably the best shot you’ve got. Gail, get me back to Pete’s place.”

  I wish I could say it was odd showing up at my brother’s apartment, the place where I also crashed when I wasn’t with Gail, at six in the morning, after being out all night. Fact is, hanging out with Gail regularly kept me out all night, usually humping like crazed rabbits at her place, before she’d drive me here, kick me out of the car at speed, and go to work. So in this case, the only thing unusual about my coming in at six in the morning was that Gail came in with me, followed by Martin.

  As we closed the front door, we heard a toilet flush. A moment later, the door to the hall bathroom opened, and Pete came out. He was fully au naturel, and when he saw us, he merely yawned, clearly not concerned that he was starkers in front of his brother, his ex, and an old acquaintance. “Oh… morning,” he said tiredly. “I think there’s cereal in the cupboard.” Then he turned, and trudged back to the bedroom.

  Before he closed the door, he said, “Nice to see you again, Marty.”

  Something about that moment bugged me. I looked at Gail, and she looked at me. “Tell me,” I sighed, “he’s not on any of Martin’s tapes.”

  Gail shook her head. Thank God. That was an image I would not have been able to handle , on top of everything else.

  “When you think your makeup guy is up,” I said, “get him here, with his bag of tricks. I’ve got some documents to rustle up in the meantime.”

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Gail asked me, as I stepped gingerly past the detritus littering my Borg alcove, formerly known as Pete’s dining room, and sat down in front of my Toughbook.

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s either this, or shopping for Samsonites.”

  7: The set-up

  My plan might not have been the most concrete one, because it depended way too much on timing. Nevertheless, I couldn’t see much choice in the matter. Martin seemed pretty sure Veronica and her boys would be showing up at his place any moment, looking for him, so it made sense to get him out of there long enough for me to do my work. I had to prepare a new website, spoof some dates, and make it look like it had been around for awhile, to support my story. Then I had to concoct some paperwork. Fortunately, with tools like Photoshop, it was easy to create things like logos, and with apps like Word and Acrobat, it was as easy to create forms and documents. I did it all in an afternoon, aided by the Gods Copy and Paste, knowing that very little of it needed to stand up to detailed scrutiny.

  One thing about the web is, everybody uses it to check things out. Another thing is, most people don’t really look too deeply into the websites themselves… they tend to accept whatever they see at face value, if it looks honest enough. Notice I said “honest,” and not “professional.” These days, a lot of amateurs, and pre-professional talents, use the web to post information or drum up business. If a website looks like it was put togethe
r by someone who is for real about what they are doing, it does not even need to look professional. Just honest. It can be harder to pull off, but the right touches tend to sell the illusion.

  That morning, I told Martin to call Esmeralda, and make the offer of the entire collection. Naturally, she agreed, and Martin looked positively ill when he hung up. In fact, I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to need Gail’s make-up guy after all… he was halfway to what I had in mind, without any help.

  At about one, Gail’s makeup guy showed up. Pete let him in, and when he knew the guy wasn’t looking, rolled his eyes in amusement. That’s because the guy looked as stereotypically gay as you can look without a prescription… which, to my mind, was perfect. He came in wearing tight black slacks, a mustard-yellow shirt, a cream scarf tucked into the neck, and a hairdo that looked like it would have left the stylists at Cuts laughing their asses off for hours.

  “This is Kyle,” Gail introduced us.

  “Pleased to meet you all,” Kyle said, and I thanked my stars and garters he didn’t lisp too much. I mean, selling is one thing, but too much is too much. “Who am I here to work on?” He looked at me, Martin and Pete eagerly. “Can I pick?”

  “Him,” Pete and I said and pointed at Martin simultaneously.

  “Sure,” Kyle grinned, giving Martin a stronger once-over. “So, what are we going for? Younger look? Euro-trash? Red carpet? Vampire?”

  “Vampire?” Martin repeated.

  “Oh, it’s all the rage,” Kyle told us. “Everyone wants to look dangerous.”

  “We want him to look dead,” Gail said.

  Kyle looked at her. “Come again?”

  “As in ‘dead man walking’,” I elaborated. “Sick as a dog. Get it?”

  “I… think so…”

  “Say,” I asked Kyle. “Ever make up yourself?”

  “Sure.”

  “You could use some work, too.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “You look way too healthy yourself. By the way: Can you act?”

  Kyle leaned back and extended his arms dramatically, wrists hanging appropriately, and smiled. “My good fellow: Did you think I was born this way?”