compartment on the backside of the fridge and hand me one of the big glass bottles,” he says to Rory in a hurry as he hands him a key.
Rory turns the key in his hand a bit, and then leans far back in his seat until he can see the locked compartment on the backside of the fridge. He puts the key inside, turning it clockwise and the compartment opens showing four large wine bottles with plastic key chains strapped to their necks.
“Good, now hand me one of those bottles... Carefully.” Dimitri demands with a hushed urgency.
As Rory passes one of the wine bottles to his captor, he hears screeching tires approaching the limousine and he turns to see two silver Honda Pilots pulling to a fast stop next to their car. He then looks out the rear window to see a third Honda Pilot approaching them at top speed, also slowing down to a screeching halt a few feet behind the rear bumper of the Cadillac Limousine. His heart is pounding and his face is filled with tension as the SUV looked like it was going to ram them.
Both Chinese men who were at the Starbucks auction get out of the Pilot on their left and approach the car. Their familiar black suits cause Rory’s blood to run cold, and he notices that the larger man is holding up a cell phone while the smaller man is holding a sign with a ten digit phone number.
“Hey, Vince, your date from gaymatch.com is here,” Dimitri yells with a smirk as he starts to enter the number into his cell phone. “Should I give him a call?”
“Fuck you!” Vince shouts from the driver seat.
Dimitri smiles at him for the first time since they met, and Rory is stunned by his enthusiasm at the rise of such a dangerous situation.
“This is Dimitri,” he says to the man standing outside of their limousine. “Oh, you promised Lou Pi that you wouldn’t leave L.A. without a pint of blood to cure his lymphoma? How is that my problem?”
Rory watches the large Chinese man outside the window at his left. He is becoming red in the face as he talks with Dimitri, and is shouting something that Rory can’t understand.
“The price is fifty million for a pint and we can deliver to you tonight… I don’t give a shit what those little Harvard pussies said, the price is fifty million.” Dimitri negotiates boldly, turning the wine bottle over in his hand and peering at the label with fascination. “Look, we all agreed to the auction so we could avoid a war… Oh, you feel like the auction was rigged because someone from L.A. won? That’s bullshit, Sang, you ran out of money… A better offer? Let me ask the provider real quick. If he does offer you a lower price then I’ll write down the amount on a bottle of wine, but that will be our only discount… Yeah, give me one second.”
As Dimitri hangs up his phone and sets it aside, Rory sees several Chinese men get out of the other two Honda Pilots, keeping their hands to their sides like gunslingers of the old west. There are now ten men standing around the limousine that is stopped at the side of the road near a nail salon and fitness center. Dimitri grabs a notepad from the phone console and rapidly writes a message in big letters, and then he rolls it up into a small tube and places it under the strap on the neck of the wine bottle. Next he stands up in the limousine, opening the sunroof to place the bottle where the two men can easily retrieve it from the roof. Then he immediately closes the sunroof and sits back down, holding the plastic key chain that was strapped to the bottle.
“Okay, when I tell you, Rory,” Dimitri instructs, placing the key chain in Rory’s right hand, “press unlock twice and lock once, but don’t push anything until I tell you.”
Rory looks at the key chain in his right hand and notices the familiar design of a keyless entry device someone would use to open or lock their car doors. Dimitri watches with anticipation as the smaller of the two Chinese men retrieves the bottle from the roof of the car, then steps back and gives the note to his larger accomplice.
“Punch it, Vince; get us the hell out of here!” Dimitri yells at the driver, and the car begins to pull away slowly at first, then rapidly picks up speed, putting distance between them and their Chinese assailants. The sound of gunfire breaks out from behind the car, and Rory hears a few bullets striking somewhere on the steel frame.
“Do it now, Rory,” Dimitri orders in desperation, “press unlock twice and lock once!”
With the sound of bullets flying toward them, Rory immediately decides to do what he is told and taps the small plastic device three times. When he looks back, there is a controlled explosion that produces a great deal of debris and he sees bodies hit the ground at sickening speeds.
“Holy shit!” Vince exclaims with sudden satisfaction. “Did you see that woman hit the ground? It looked like superman punched her in the ass.”
“What woman?” Rory asks in shock. “You mean a pedestrian?”
“Yeah, she got tossed on her tits. That was some crazy shit!” He says with a smile. “Hey, Vince, we just used my own private family reserve on the Chinese.”
“Nice job, Dimitri,” Vince calls out calmly from the driver seat.
“Was the woman killed?” Rory asks with a shocked expression as he looks carefully back at the site of the explosion to see if she’s moving.
“No, I don’t think it killed her,” Dimitri says as he grabs his beer from the cup holder and takes a hearty swig. “Unless she took a piece of glass from the bottle in the back or the head; that probably would kill her.”
To his relief, Rory sees a woman in a white dress push herself up from the sidewalk on all fours, staying in that position as if to recover from the blast.
“Relax, Rory,” Dimitri orders with a smile, “my private reserve contains less than two pounds of C4 explosive, but it has a fruity fuckin’ kick.”
“I didn’t see the two guys from the Starbucks,” Rory says with confusion.
“You won’t see those guys without a high speed camera, that blast would have turned them into a crater. Anyone within four feet of that bottle is going home in a trash bag.” Dimitri replies with satisfaction. “Salute, Sang and friends, may you go to that place where people like you go. What a day, Rory, huh? You got sold on the black market and already busted your arson cherry. Now I think you’re ready to meet the provider, Anthony Pezzloni.”
IX. Anthony Pezzloni
After a few hours riding in the limousine, Rory notices that they have made it to the wilderness area near Lake Wohlford in Escondido, California. He recognizes the terrain and remote party areas favored by the wealthy and powerful. Their vehicle makes its way around winding paths, climbing the hills until they turn off the main road onto a dirt road that traverses about one-hundred yards, before dipping into a steep gully where the road leads to a steel security gate. He sits up straight in his seat as he notices the same symbol welded to the top of the security gate that he saw on the coffee cup at the Starbucks earlier in the day. The ornamental iron stands out above the security gate and he recognizes the deviant new anarchy symbol. This symbol is centered between two other marks that look like angled Ps with large loops and V-shaped tails jutting out at a forty-five degree angle on either side.
As he surveys the land, Rory notices that the nine foot security fence is joined together every fifteen feet by pillars of bricks; each equipped with two security lights facing away from the property. This fence stretches away from the gully on both sides of the car and disappears out of sight as the landscape dips down a few hundred yards way. When he turns the other direction, he notices Dimitri punching a code into his cell phone, and the security gate o
pens a few seconds later, allowing them to pass through under the brick pillars on either side. Once they are past the security gate, the road turns from rough dirt to a well kept concrete path. Soon the limousine pulls out of the gully and over the ridge, bringing a massive estate into view. The estate rises high up on a man-made hillside with terrain that juts up and down with small plateaus and valleys, making it impossible to quickly traverse the ground on foot or in a vehicle. The foliage is mostly made up of small evergreen trees and thick sections of grass planted in narrow strips. Every other section has cobblestone that encapsulates small plots of wildflowers. This gives the entire scenery a checkerboard effect of neat strips of grass mixed with symmetrical beds of cobblestone and wildflowers.
The narrow cement path is the only easy way up the hill, and Rory sees over a dozen security cameras covering just the front part of the property. As the car climbs the steep grade, it seems bogged down a bit, and Rory doesn’t remember the last time he drove up such a steep hill; it almost feels like the car is pointing to the heavens in preparation for a space flight. Upon entering the drive of the main house at the top of the hill, the path beneath them finally levels off and the car pulls around a magnificent marble statue that is the centerpiece of the circular driveway. After the car comes to a halt in front of the enormous home, Dimitri nods his head at Rory, gesturing for him to get out of the car. Rory opens his door and steps out onto the driveway followed immediately by Dimitri. His face is filled with awe as he gazes at a twenty-five foot