Stephen Cannell - King Con

Beano and Steve exchanged nervous looks.

"Okay. Let's say for now, I'm interested," Tommy went on, "so let's go take a look at this field."

Victoria had followed them to the warehouse in Livingston and watched as everybody got out and went inside, leaving Dakota and the bodyguard in the limo. She had parked the Winnebago up the street, then checked on Roger, who whimpered when she touched his hind end. "Sorry, honey, but it's not bleeding, so that's good." Then she moved to the back of the motor home and got the spandex dress that she had worn at the jewelry store out of the small wardrobe closet. She grabbed the plastic heels and started to change.

She knew she would have to find a way to disable the gorilla standing guard if she intended to rescue Dakota. The man was huge, and she was afraid that unless she distracted him, she could never control the situation. She decided that the sexy dress might give her some added advantage. She had been remembering a Trenton street villain she'd prosecuted several years ago. He was a 120-pound creep who was actually a collection agent for a loan shark. He had put hundreds of slow-pays in the hospital using a simple trick. He would wear leather gloves, and inside the palm of his right glove, he would hide a flat, curved, heavy metal sap. He would disable his victims with one slap to the side of the head. Her E.N.T./M.D. expert witness had testified that a sharp hard blow to the ear, even by a 120-pound man, could easily explode the capillaries in the inner ear, causing the victim to lose all of his equilibrium.

Victoria searched the motor home and finally found a white golfing glove in one of the drawers. She slipped it on her right hand. It was loose but it sort of fit. She kept looking in the drawers for some tool Beano might use for roofing scams or to make the wheelchair dice brackets. She found a toolbox in the outside storage compartment. Inside was a small metal rasp for filing wood. It was about four inches long and one inch wide, and it weighed almost two pounds. She shoved it down into the glove. The metal file stuck out too far, but maybe, with the purse over her arm, the huge bodyguard wouldn't notice. She hoped he wouldn't be near the car, and that she wouldn't have to use it. She'd been a state junior tennis champion and her forehand was awesome, but she'd never actually hit anybody before. Her Prosecutor's brain instructed her that this would be a felonious assault and battery. Then she remembered the troubling sound of Dakota's voice and pushed all those thoughts away, grabbed her purse, and moved out of the Winnebago. She hurried up the street until she got to the fence that bordered the warehouse. She could see that the bodyguard had left the front door of the limo open for air and that his big leg was dangling out, his foot tapping on the pavement as he listened to country music radio. Tanya Tucker was singing about a lost love.

"Hey!" she called out to him.

In a second Keith stuck his head out and saw Victoria standing there, looking through the gate. "Hi," he said, getting out of the car and moving over to her, smiling.

"My car broke down. I need a phone… Can I use the one in your limo?" she asked. "I'll pay for the call."

Keith eyed her platform heels, the micro-mini exposing her sexy legs. He grinned and moved closer.

"You're too cute to be out here walkin' around alone," he leered, turning on his NFL groupie-catcher smile. Keith was feeling horny; just being close to Dakota had got his juices flowing, but he knew if he touched her before Tommy said okay, he would end up dead. This girl was a whole other story.

"Gate's over here, come on, I'll let you in," he said.

She followed him along the fence until they got to the gate, and he let her in. "'Course, I can't really let you use the phone in the limo," he leered, "but that wasn't what you had in mind anyway, was it?"

"Yes," she insisted, "my car broke down." She was sizing him up. He was huge, six-four at least, and over 250. She wondered if the little Trenton street villain had ever used his glove sap on a mountain of gristle like the one towering over her.

"How 'bout we have some fun?" he said, grabbing her and holding her shoulders with both hands.

"Slow down, honey," she said as he pawed at her. She was within striking distance now, as he fumbled to open the front of her dress. Almost without thinking, she swung her right hand, a powerful forehand winner. The two-pound rasp caught Keith Summerland smack on the left ear. He let out a howl, went backwards, and dropped to his knees. She stepped back in horror and for a brief moment watched as he held his head, moaning. Then she stepped around him and ran across the asphalt toward the limo, pausing on the way to kick off the damn platform shoes. Victoria reached out and opened the back door and peered in at Dakota. She looked horrible: A light film of sweat covered her swollen bruised face.

"Oh, my God," Victoria whispered, "what did they do to you? Can you walk?"

"Don't know," Dakota said. "Pull me out."

Victoria reached in, took Dakota's hand, and pulled her out of the car, then walked with an arm around her, steadying her as they left the lot. Dakota glanced over at Keith. He was struggling to get to his feet, dizzy and totally out of it. He didn't see them leave.

"Let's go," Victoria said, hurrying Dakota away and up the street to the Winnebago. "I never hit anybody before," Victoria added.

"Good… start…" Dakota mumbled. Once they got into the motor home, Victoria settled her on the sofa next to the wounded terrier. Dakota was looking at Victoria with new respect.

Twenty minutes later, Victoria found the small, one-story Livingston Hospital. The E.R. attendants took one look and got Dakota on a gurney, rushing her into Emergency while Victoria picked up Roger-the-Dodger and carried him gingerly inside. She filled out the admitting slip for Dakota, using her own mother's maiden name, Barker. Then she got a nurse to take a look at Roger.

"What happened to him?" the sympathetic woman asked. "He looks like he's been shot."

"I don't know. I found him outside her house. I think her boyfriend may have beaten her and shot the poor dog," Victoria lied, wishing she was as good as Beano at spur-of-the-moment bullshit.

"I'll get Dr. Cotton to take a look at him," she said.

Two hours later Dakota was rushed into Emergency Surgery. Her spleen had been leaking blood into her abdomen for at least twelve hours. Her blood count and blood pressure were so low, they were life threatening.

When the doctor came out after the surgery, he looked worried. "She lost a lot of blood. She went into cardiac arrest on the table from low BP. We removed her spleen, pumped her full of plasma. She's been stabilized, but… I don't know…"

"How long till you can tell?" Victoria asked.

"I let God sort out the close ones," the doctor said. "I've called the police. She was obviously beaten, so I'm going to need your statement. They're on their way."

"I'll be glad to talk to them," Victoria said, but she knew she had to get out of there before the police came. Once they started asking questions, they'd sense her complicity. She needed to get Roger, so she wandered the sterile linoleum corridors, asking for Dr. Cotton. She finally found a plain-faced young woman M.D. in a doctors' lounge, holding Roger-the-Dodger and talking softly to him. His entire back end was now bandaged in white adhesive.

"Is he your dog?" she said accusingly, as Victoria moved into the small room.

"No, my friend's dog."

"This dog was shot," the doctor said angrily. "A large caliber, from the look of it."

"Oh," Victoria said. She wanted to get the hell out of there, so she reached out and took Roger out of the doctor's arms.

"I shouldn't have sewn him up. I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian, but I love animals and I couldn't leave him like that. He needs a vet's prescription-some strong antibiotics for possible infection," she lectured. And then mercifully, her beeper went off. "Excuse me, don't leave," she said and moved out of the room.