CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - Pimped, Pumped and Penetrated

WHEN WE LEFT OUR HEROES, THEY WERE DRUGGED, KIDNAPPED, BOUND, AND GAGGED AND EDDIE WAS FORCED TO ENDURE ANAL RAPE AT THE, UH, HANDS OF SOME PERVERT IN A BAR.

EDDIE - Holy humiliation, this was really as bad as it gets - EVER! I was being pimped, pumped and penetrated and it reduced me to screaming and crying, like I never had before - like I never had before -

To add insult to injury, this monster was also spewing obscenities and verbal abuse at me, like "aw shut up, you fuckin' baby, you know you wanted this, and he'd punch me in the back, really givin' it to me all around. And I can also see Mike looking directly at us, also screamin', and that made me weep all the more, which made my attacker get at me even more so. I didn't say this aloud, but I remember thinkin', how could this guy hate me so much, he doesn't even know me, how could he wanna hurt me this bad. I know people hate gumshoes, I know people hate young boys, like my dad did, and...

HOLY DEJA VU!

I was 6 years old. My dad hadn't run out on us yet, although I was kinda wishin' he would. It was a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer. Nice day it was, I had the whole weekend ahead of me, wonderin' what was up. I soon found out. My dad was kickin' back a couple-a beers when he finally said somethin' to me, he says, "let's go".

"Where?"

"Over to my buddy's house - he's got some pretty cool toys he wants to show ya"

"Neat! Sounds like fun"

"Yeah, I think it will be."

So we both walk down the block over to his buddy's house, they kick back a few. Not a word about any toys. I piped in, "daddy says ya got some toys ya wanna show me."

The guy looks at my dad and laughs, "uh, sure, kid, uh, they're downstairs, come with me", and me and him and my dad all go down to the basement. The minute we walk in, the door is locked, and I'm slapped in the back of the head, fallin' to the floor. The guy gives my dad some money, "that is what we said, right?" "Right"
and he takes my pants off, slaps me around a couple-a more times, I'm cryin' tryin' to get out, but he overtakes me, pries my ass open and starts pumpin'. Pimped, pumped and penetrated. One hand over my mouth, 'cuz I'm screamin', the other hand on my ass and his cock inside it. I scream muffled screams lookin' for my mom. My dad's buddy was shoutin' at me, "shut the fuck up, your dad said ya wanted this!" He turns to my dad, "hey, this kid doesn't shut up, I want my money back".

When he's done, he takes some of the blood outta my ass and smears it on my face. My dad takes me back home, my mom sees me and freaks out. Dad said I started a fight with a kid down the street, my mom grounds me, she yells at me about what a troublemaker I am. I wasn't to leave my room until it was time to go back to school on Monday. The poor thing. If only I could tell her. I wanted to tell her. All I could do was scream, "mommy". I don't hate her for it. I never could. Bein' raped through the butt wasn't anything I ever expected, no one did. That's why I couldn't tell her until years later. I remembered the whole incident one last time, then shoved it outta my mind. But I felt right now was the good time to bring that back. It's like a voice in my head sayin' "are ya gonna let 'em get away with it - - AGAIN?" Pardon my french, but "HECK NO!". My legs were free, they were wide enough apart that I could bend 'em up to my chest to give me some good leverage while I kicked this guy right off me. He goes back, I turn and start swingin', left hook, right jab. He tried to get away, but realized not only is he up against Eddie Robinson, but the door to the cage was locked, so I grab one of his arms and just toss him all over the cage. I throw him so hard up against one of the walls that he falls right through the bars and into the crowd. They panic and start runnin' out. I jump down and land right on this bastard, and he begs me to stop but I tell 'im, "naw, I'm done with you, you're the least of my worries". I shout out, "that's for you, pop, whatever corner of Hell you're in!" I then go runnin' up to Mike to try to get him outta his bonds. He was all tied up with fishin' wire which had him danglin'.

MIKE - Felt like at least 50 feet.

EDDIE - No, Boss-Man, more like 5.

Anyway, I pull the switch and he floats back down to ground level. Havin' all my tools in my fightin' clothes back at the VIP room, I had to use the secret weapon Mike taught me this mornin', in that book, mind over matter. They say fishin' wire cuts real bad if ya pull on it tight, but I didn't care. The man I love was in trouble and I'll go through anything to get 'im out. First off, though, I broke the seal on his mouth, just tore right through it, to hear him say over and over again, "good boy, that's it". Good boy - those two words can get me through anything. I grab a piece of fishin' wire in both hands, wrap it around my fists, then start to pull. Gosh, this stuff was thick, musta been a million molecules in this thing, but molecules were meant to be broken. SNAP! It starts breakin' off. Bit by bit, I'm settin' Mike free; the handcuffs, the straps, the gag on his mouth, he's still wearin' the vest with the harness on it, but the string was broken off so he could move now, "that's all right, kid, I'm good, at least I'm free."

Rememberin' the perfume in the VIP room, "we gotta get hold-a that stuff before someone else gets their hands on it!" Somethin' made me pick up one of the bars near my former prison and me-n-Mike were off!

MIKE - we get to the VIP room, Eddie carryin' a piece of a steel bar, we see our clothes still lyin' on the floor. Eddie was amazed.

"Check it out, Mike, they didn't even take our clothes"

"No surprise, kiddo, these animals wouldn't know good taste if they fell over it."

We change back into our stuff. Eddie looks around to see where that poison perfume was kept. He runs into some closet space, looks around and brings out the whole stash. "Nobody else is gonna go through what we did, if I have anything to say about it."

"Good goin', kid! Ya think that's ev'rything?"

"It was all I could see in there, but now that we're back in our fightin' clothes, let's do some fightin'"

"I'm with ya all the way, kiddo."

"Hey, how's about usin' some-a this stuff on the bad guys, give 'em a taste of their own medicine."

"Now hold on a minute, son, we use that on them, we won't be any better than they are, we'd stoop to their level."

Thinkin' about it for a second, Eddie relents, "gee, I can see your point. You're right about that."

Bearin' a shit-eatin' grin, I chuckle and say, "no I'm not, not tonight anyway, let's get these bastards."

So off we were, anyone tried to get in our faces got a good blast. We work our way through to the ringleader of this nightmare, start beatin' the crap outta him for a while, ya know, sometimes it's too much fun to stop. Then, we had 'im cornered, the bouncer, I mean, the one who got us into this in the first place. "All right, ya jack-off, start flappin' your trap. If this wasn't your idea, then who the hell put ya up to it?"

"You'll never get a word outta me."

Eddie pointed the perfume bottle at 'im, "you better talk while you're still able to".

"All right, all right, all right! Please, I know what that stuff is like, I see half the guys in here get squirted with it."

"What the hell for?"

"It's somethin' they get off on, they wanna be dominated, they're into pain, for God's sake!"

Eddie just couldn't believe what he was hearin'. "You mean, guys come in here, wantin' this stuff?"

"Yeah, the effect only lasts a few minutes, then they get beaten up with clubs, chains, that sorta thing. I even had a guy wanna get shot with tranquilizer darts. They think they're a hot when they're sufferin'."

I never heard such sick crap in my life. But our little tour of this dump was over, now it's time to find out who set us up. Eddie nudged me to get my attention, "Mike, I think I got somethin'."

"What is it, kid?"

"When we drove away, on our way here, I looked back at Richie, ya know, just rememberin' an old friend, that sorta thing - then I saw 'im get in a Mercedes, it was a black car with a hood ornament, I knew it as a Mercedes."

"Good peekin' Eddie. Too bad ya didn't get the license plate."

"You spoke to soon, Boss-Man. I didn't memorize it on purpose, I just thought it was a little strange seein' a car like that in a neighborhood like that, and the license plate just happened to stick out."

"Really - why's that!"

"Cuz it said I OWN U 69 - we gotta go back and check it out."

"Sure thing, Eddie, but first we gotta call the cops and tell 'em 'bout this place." Then I look at the bouncer and tell 'im he's gettin' locked up for a real long time. I take out a pair of handcuffs of my own and slap 'em on 'im. He protested but I came back with, "Hell, I thought you'd like this sorta thing."

Cops come in, do a clean sweep of the joint, then we go back home, run a plate, and I discover to my horror that it belongs to our client, then somethin' else occurred to me. I swallowed hard, not so much for myself, but for Eddie, I knew he wasn't gonna like what I had to tell 'im.

"Eddie, that Mercedes belongs to the guy who hired us tonight."

"The heartless homophobe?"

"Yeah, and Richie did get in the car with 'im, which means......"

Eddie just looked at me kinda blank, then the look on his face changed a lot when he knew what I meant. "Oh, no way! The client lured us into this, and Richie went along with it?"

"'Fraid so, kiddo - 'fraid so"

Eddie thought about it for a sec, then started gettin' angry. "I just thank God I got rid of the crumb when I found out he was turnin' tricks. Him and the homophobe, those two deserve each other! Hey, ya feel like another good round-a fisticuffs? It's Saturday night and ya know what Elton John said about Saturday Nights!"

"Yeah, when he used to be good!"

"Let's GET 'EM!"

We get to our former client's house and walk up to the door. I stop just before we ring the doorbell.

"Mike? What gives?"

"Ya think we shoulda called first? I mean, it's only polite."

I take out my cell phone and call this sick sack-a crap.

"Hi, there, Detective Batz here. I think I got a good lead on your son's whereabouts....uh-huh....yep, that's right. Oh, and by the way, thought you'd like to know, two very pissed off gumshoes are about to break down your front door"

Eddie lunges right at the door and tears the hinges off. The creep goes runnin', with me-n-Eddie right on his tail. We nail 'im, and we wail on 'im, then we hear some kid in the other room, "dad, what the hell's goin' on out there?" Me-n-Eddie lay eyes on the prick. It's Richie. Eddie is furious. Richie starts movin' back, but my very own Jesse Owens is on his back in nothin' flat. In between punches, he's shoutin' "you set us up! You knew what was gonna happen to us all the time! Why the heck did ya do it?"

I had a couple of questions for the old man, "so who's photo was that really? Another one of yer johns, maybe some pretty boy ya had wasted?"

"No, of course not. That's a photo of my nephew."

Back to Eddie, "aren't ya gonna answer me? That's the least ya owe me!"

"Okay, okay. Look, Eddie, that guy really is my dad. Your guy, Mike, whoever he is, he busted him 10 years ago for pedophilia, but he didn't do it! He was cleared a couple of years later with DNA tests, but he couldn't get his life back in order, so he had his face changed. Then he decided he wanted to get even, so, yeah, he set the whole thing up. He owns the Bears Den."

MIKE - I look at the crumb, "hey, this kid on the level?"

"Yes, I admit to the whole thing. Detective Batz, you had absolutely no idea what you did to my life. Not that you'd care even if ya found out."

"You were really innocent."

"I kept trying to tell you that, I hired very expensive lawyers to prove that, but the jury still found me guilty, based on your testimony. I was very hurt, my whole life was over. I was compensated upon my release from prison and I used some of that money to alter my appearance. Then I started a whole new life, assumed a new identity and got back on my feet, bought the Bears Den, and decided now was the time to get back at you."

"Well, I hope you're happy with yourself. My boy was locked up and some asshole really ripped him a new one. Ya gonna compensate 'im for that? Kid's probably scarred for life, he might not ever get over it."

"Ya speak too soon, Boss-Man."

"Huh?"

"It's true. How I was able to knock that guy off me, I flashed back to when my had sold me to some crumb down the street for $20.00. I didn't think I'd ever get over that, I tuned it out for years, but that thug brought it all back and, well, I faced that whole awful memory for the first time in years. Knockin' that thug senseless was like knockin' my dad senseless. I think it helped. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to sit for a few days, but it helped."

Jesus Murphy I couldn't sink in what I was hearin'. "Why didn't ya ever tell me?"

"Too painful"

"Yeah, but this is ME, you're talkin' to, ya know"

"Too painful. But now, I'm gonna be okay. I think it was seein' you helpless across the room, lookin' at me. It made me think of when I was gettin' pumped just a few houses away from mine, with mom at home there. My dad said I was fightin' and she grounded me, and I took it all in. I couldn't think of her heartbreak if she ever knew what was happenin' to me. She may have thought I was bein' bad, but it was better than her thinkin' of her own son goin' through somethin' like that."

Richie chimed in, "what's lookin' at Mike got to do with it"

"Mike's the only one on earth that I care what he thinks of me, and he saw me goin' through it, and I wanted to show 'im I wasn't gonna take it lyin' down, so I wailed the hell outta that thug, broke loose, and set us free."

MIKE - Eddie and Richie made eye contact, they were lookin' at each other for what seemed like a real long time. Eddie looked like "how could ya do such a thing" and Richie looked like he wanted to recreate old times. HA! Over my dead body he will. He actually had the gall to try to reach out and touch my boy, who stepped back and put up his dukes, "don't you touch me, you traitor! I can't believe I ever saw anything in you!"

"But, Eddie, please, I didn't want you involved. I asked my dad why you had to be dragged into this, I told him you were innocent, you weren't even there then."

"That's right, he did. I admit it, I told him that's just the way things were - guilt by association."

Eddie straddled up to our client and snarled through gritted teeth, "yeah, speakin' of all things guilty",

he then thrust out his arm and pointed right in his face, "YOU'RE the guilty one in this case and you and your son here are goin' straight up the river."

I chimed in, "come on, guys, let's go, there's no sense in puttin' this off".

"Well, all right, but may I retrieve something from my bureau?"

"Go ahead, but I'll be watchin' ev'ry move".

I'm not sure I shoulda let 'im, so I stayed close to 'im, watchin' ev'ry move, just like I said, but then, HOLY CREEPS, A BOTTLE! A PERFUME BOTTLE!

Eddie shrieked, "HOLY SLEIGHT OF HAND!"

Richie tried to stop him, "no, dad, don't do it again" and got in the way just as the creep was gonna spray me, and the kid caught it in the face. He goes down, I leap on top of 'im, and the struggle begins. I hear the sprayin' on both sides of my head, I'm duckin', Eddie jumps into the struggle, too, and as the creep was about to try to blast us again, he gets HIMSELF in the face.

I call out to Eddie, "EDDIE! CUFF 'EM NOW WHILE WE STILL GOT 'EM!"

"Right as rain, Boss-Man!" and he slaps the hapless duo with cuffs. Of course, we give 'em a few minutes for the drug to wear off, then it's off to the pokey for the two of 'em. When he regained his power of speech, the crumb had this to say.

"All right, I'll plead guilty to luring you both into a trap, having you tied up and kidnapped, but I knew nothing about the sexual assault. That wasn't part of the plan."

All I could do was roll my eyes and chuckle, "yeah, okay, whatever! Listen, pal, you've been down this road before, it's up to a jury of your peers to decide your innocence or guilt. But just like last time, I'll be right there to spill the beans on this little caper of yours. We're not just the arresting officers, we're the guys ya did this to, and we're very popular in law enforcement circles, and no one on the Job's gonna be too happy to hear any of this".

MIKE - There was a trial, me-n-Eddie went and testified not only as law enforcement officers, but as his victims, his hostages, his captives. Eddie didn't wanna say anything about his dad at first, but our mouthpiece thought it might be a good idea, so he did.

I think about the last time, with the DNA and all. All the science in the world can say anything it wants. You can have technicalities up the ying-yang - It's just a pile-a chemicals. In my heart of hearts, deep in the recesses of my soul, I know I sent a guilty man to prison. It's never easy watchin' someone's life fall apart the way his did, but he was the one who destroyed it. He was the one who destroyed a little boy 10 years ago. He was the one who caused a lifetime of pain and misery for an innocent family, robbed a little boy of the God-given innocence deserved by every child. He was the one who destroyed his own son, forcin' him into a life of prostitution, forcin' him to go along with his sick, twisted scheme of revenge against a man who fought long and hard to do the right thing, to avenge the permanent scarrin' of one child, and to prevent such a Godless fate for other children. That sick, twisted lust for revenge was also spilled onto another innocent man, a young boy who stays by my side through all my ups and downs. His innocence was also threatened, but he hung on for dear life. He knew there was somethin' better out there and he lived long enough to see it through. Yes, it is a very sad thing to see someone's life go down the tubes like that, self-inflicted or not, but it was also a great victory.

Several days went by afterward, when I had the idea to research my old cases and I found this one. I had what was then the address and phone number of this man's first victim. I thought it might do him some good to know he could at last go on with his life, and I wanted to show him another victim of this cruelest of all cruel acts had done the same. It took a little doin', but bein' the fine detectives we are, we made it through. The boy's mother didn't want to bring this up any longer, but we pled our case, we were only bringin' good news to the family. I won't disclose his name due with respect to his privacy, but I told 'im that even though his attacker was found not guilty due to DNA tests, I know in my gut that he was guilty, as guilty as he was this time around. I also introduced 'im to Eddie. We promised this kid that he could have any kind of life he wanted, the world was his oyster. A bad man threatened to ruin his life, but a good man blew that threat outta the water.

Me-n-Eddie each had nemeses we wanted to forget about, but we had to rise to the challenge when they both reared their ugly heads, sharin' in common the ugly, unholy act of sending two innocent children to a private Hell. We rose to the challenge and won. We won. We know we always have, we sometimes don't know if we always will, but sure as our names are Batz & Robinson, PI's, we're always gonna give evil what for.