Heavy Traffic Ch. 20

"Mr. Steele, my wife will be joining us in a few minutes and if I hear one word out of your mouth in her presence that doesn't reflect gentlemanly respect for a lady, then your tongue will join the rest of your appendages in the sewers of Atlanta. Do we understand each other?"

The voice was calm, and while not exactly cold, it held firmness that DeMarcus had never heard another man use in speaking to him. Bravado failed DeMarcus Steele. Adrenalin fueled fear could manifest itself only in his voice, "If you come near me, I'll call the poleese outside."

"They won't come," the man replied in the same calm, even tone. "They work for me. I have paid off-duty police officers to guard your room since you arrived here. I have also been paying for your room and medical care, which will cease tomorrow when you receive your medical release. Then my taxes will be paying to keep you alive in prison."

DeMarcus had to call this dude's bluff, "Help! Police! Help me!" he screamed as loudly as he could. He could see one of the policemen step up to the doorway window and glance inside, then laugh and turn away. He was about to yell again when another shape appeared at the doorway window, opened the door and entered.

As the overhead lights came on, DeMarcus blinked at the sudden brightness, but more so at the person who had turned them on. A smiling Amanda Wallace closed the door and walked towards the man near the window, addressing DeMarcus as she passed the foot of his bed.

"DeMarcus, why all the fuss? I was just checking with your nurses on your condition before visiting with you." Reaching the strange man, she kissed him and said, "You two get introduced yet?"

"Not formally," Sean said. "The last time we met, Mr. Steele was in no condition for formal introductions."

"Well then, allow me. Sean I would like to introduce my friend DeMarcus Steele. DeMarcus, I would like to introduce my husband, Sean Wallace."

"You," whispered DeMarcus. "It was you dat did dis to me wassint it?"

"No," replied Sean, "I did not do this to you."

"He didn't, DeMarcus," Amanda said. "Sean wanted to kill you and make it look like an accident. He's very good at that you know. However, I told Sean that I considered you entertaining, and your associates needed an incentive to change their own wicked ways, so Sean agreed to spare your life."

Seeing the confused expression on the face of DeMarcus Steele, Amanda took Sean by the hand and led him to the foot of the bed to stand beside her.

"I suppose you don't remember much of our evening together DeMarcus, so let me bring you up-to-date..."

DeMarcus glanced from Amanda's eyes to Sean's and knew at once that this man was not the pussy everyone had told him he was. If DeMarcus had arms and hands, he would have pulled the covers up over his head to hide from the sight of this man's piercing eyes. Unfortunately, he was forced to bear the look of the beast from his dreams.

"I assume you remember picking me up at the airport and the drive to your house?" asked Amanda.

When DeMarcus just nodded, she continued, "What you didn't know DeMarcus is that I had this with me during the entire drive." Amanda removed her nine millimeter automatic from her purse and held it for DeMarcus to see. "I could have shot you at any time prior to leaving the car at your house."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because she was saving you for me," answered Sean.

Amanda kissed Sean on the cheek before returning the pistol to her purse and addressing DeMarcus again, "I told you that Sean was already pretty mad at you, yet you never gave humiliating me a second thought. You never considered how seeing me being treated like a dog would affect Sean. In fact, you never expected to see Sean because you thought him a coward. Isn't that right DeMarcus?"

"You were supposed to be the bait that lured him to me," said DeMarcus. "I expected to see him eventually. How did you find us so fast?"

"I won't go into detail on the technology," said Sean, "but suffice it to say that Amanda was tracked at all times. Stephan Mota also assisted me with the location of your house."

"Mota?" Did he have an accident too?

"Not yet," said Sean. "Mr. Mota suspected what I was doing and made a deal to save his life. He has abandoned his operations here in Georgia and retired to an undisclosed location for health reasons."

"Anyway," said Amanda, "where was I? Oh I remember... You made Sean madder than I had ever seen him. I was afraid the kick to your head he delivered had killed you, but fortunately I could still feel a pulse from your unconscious body."

"You kicked me in the head?" DeMarcus asked Sean. "The doctor said that the blow that caused my concussion was probably due to me being hit by a car or some other large machine-powered device, like a robotic arm in a manufacturing facility."

"I won't take credit for it beyond this room, but yes I kicked you unconscious," admitted Sean.

"Now I can finally tell the police who did this to me," said DeMarcus. "Let's see how you like being in jail..."

"That's not going to happen, Mr. Steele." Sean stuck out his tongue, pointed at it, and then pointed at DeMarcus. He could see that the message was received. Amanda saw it too.

"Oh DeMarcus, don't let that happen. A severed tongue is such a messy thing to bandage," she said with a smile.

Sean removed his cell phone from his pocket and said, "Then there's this video showing what happened to you and who did it."

He started the video playing and positioned it so that DeMarcus could clearly see the screen. It was a heavily edited version of the film that Sean had made, using the same video equipment that DeMarcus had arranged to video tape his planned treatment of Amanda. It showed only the relevant sections of the event he had wanted to capture. There was no sound of the event, with a music track overlaid onto the video.

After five minutes, the video had ended and DeMarcus was at least five shades lighter than he had been when the video had started.

"All of them?" he asked. "Why would they do that to me?"

"They understood it was you or them," said Sean. "This video is also the reason that your three associates disavowed any knowledge of what happened to you, and so willingly testified against you in court. First, the video shows them dismembering your body, which would land each of them in prison for the rest of their lives. Then there is the image of what was left of you to remind them that the same is still possible in their own futures if they ever cross me again. Finally, if you still think you can blame me, there are the numerous Secret Service logs that will show that Sean and Amanda Wallace were having dinner with the President of the United States the evening that your injuries occurred."

"What happened to the sound?" asked DeMarcus. "That song sounded familiar, but there weren't any words."

Amanda giggled, "I'm sorry, that was my little attempt at humor. It's an instrumental version of a song I thought that you would appreciate considering the events. Do you remember a song by a girl group in the Sixties called "My Boyfriend's Back?"

Recognition of the song came to DeMarcus and he couldn't hold back a smile of admiration for Amanda Wallace. Damn, she really did have balls!

He turned his attention back to Sean Wallace, "So you never touched me after you had kicked me in the head?"

"For the most part," said Sean. "I performed the cauterization as each limb was removed. The process is a bit more involved with dismemberment than with simple surgical amputation, so I didn't want to trust it to your associates."

"Don't tell me that you're some kind of doctor or something," DeMarcus said.

"As a Force Recon Marine, I received Navy Corpsman training. I still carry a Corpsman's medic satchel with me when I go hunting. I've helped several hunters who have either shot themselves or been victim of a stray bullet while hunting. Everything I needed to care for your wounds was in that satchel."

DeMarcus remembered the scenes from the video, showing his arms being removed whole from the shoulder sockets and his legs from the hip sockets. No bones had been cut, but the limbs had been totally separated from the joints, with the tendons, ligaments, cartilage, muscles, arteries and veins being cut as required for the limb to be removed whole. That's why there were no stumps left.

"I applied the sterile bandages once Sean had stopped the bleeding," admitted Amanda. "While my preferred specialty was as a Pediatric nurse, I did have an extended rotation in the surgical unit, so I insisted on helping with the bandages and Sean allowed me to. You may not appreciate it, but Sean's approach probably saved you a great deal more pain. For example, he left enough skin to cover the wounds but didn't suture the skin so the hospital would be able to monitor for infection."

"Not that it mattered," spat DeMarcus. "The doctors told me that my medical plan didn't cover pain medication so all they would give me since I woke up was aspirin."

"I was your medical plan, Mr. Steele, and the doctors never told me that they were giving you aspirin," said Sean. DeMarcus saw the disappointed look and took comfort from it. Sean Wallace had obviously wanted him to experience the full pain of his injuries, but the doctors had gotten around their instructions.

"Okay," said DeMarcus, "I know how I ended up in this condition, but I would still like to know why? Why not just kill me like the Ellis's and Kim?"

Amanda looked to Sean, who simply stared down at DeMarcus Steele for a full minute before answering. "First, of course was the fact that Amanda asked me not to kill you," said Sean.

"That left me with finding a way to accomplish my objective with you still alive. You see, I couldn't leave you in a condition to ever pose a threat to Amanda or any other person ever again. I considered blinding you, but there are too many ways that a blind person can still function, so I dismissed that option. I considered ways to destroy most of your cognitive abilities so you would not be mentally capable of posing a threat, but short of a traumatic brain injury - which posed unacceptable risks to the life I had agreed to spare, the alternatives would have taken too long."

"I can see your dilemma," DeMarcus said sarcastically, "but why castrate me too?"

Sean stared at DeMarcus in confusion for only a few seconds before the tensing of Amanda next to him caught his attention. He could feel a radiated heat from her as she turned red with embarrassment.

"Sean, I am so sorry," she said as she turned to face him. "I meant to tell you, but when you came back from retrieving the car, we became so focused on getting to Samuel and Lily Baldwin that I never had the chance..."

Sean smiled at her reassuringly, "It's okay, now's your chance. What happened?"

Amanda glanced briefly at DeMarcus before providing her explanation to Sean. DeMarcus could listen, but her tale was for Sean's benefit, not DeMarcus'.

"I was still bandaging his right hip socket when you decided to go get the car from where you had parked it. His associates were secured in the sitting positions on the floor where you had placed them watching me. As I was wrapping the bandages, I kept brushing against his scrotum, which drew my attention to the rest of his genitalia. I thought about what he had planned for me, but even more about what he had done to Mickey, and all the equipment was still there..."

Sean pulled Amanda into his arms and hugged her as he said, "Prevention. I understand."

Amanda pulled back and looked up at Sean. "I wish I could say in my heart that I was motivated only by wanting to prevent him from ever raping another woman, but I knew that he was already denied that possibility by the condition he was in. I hated what he had used his sex organs for, and wanted him to know that they were despised objects. My motivation was not as pure as yours Sean. I'm sorry."

Sean pulled her back into his arms and they held each other at the foot of the bed as DeMarcus just stared at them. There was a knock at the door that drew Sean's attention. Seeing the face in the window, he held up one finger indicating he wanted the person to give him a minute.

"I'll be right back," Sean said as he released Amanda from his embrace and walked to the door. He opened it only a crack and spoke briefly with the man on the other side before closing it and returning to Amanda at the foot of the bed.

DeMarcus addressed Sean, "Do you know what Jun Kim did with Kimberly? I wouldn't want her to see me in this condition, but I'd like to know if she was okay."

Sean considered the question before answering. Steele might not like the answer, but he was the one who asked the question.

"Jun Kim sent Kimberly to work at a whorehouse in South Korea. When I learned of this I requested that the U.S. Embassy attempt to get her sent back. Embassy personnel picked her up and interviewed her at a consulate office. She was free and under no duress during this time. The report I was provided indicated that she wanted to remain there. She stated that she is being treated like royalty and believes that she has found her calling in life. She is studying to learn both the Korean and Japanese languages and is apparently in very high demand among several prominent customers of the whorehouse."

DeMarcus merely nodded in acknowledgement of what he had been told.

"We need to get going pretty soon," Sean told Amanda. He turned his attention back to DeMarcus as Amanda wrapped her fingers into his.

"Mr. Steele, as I mentioned earlier, you will be released from the hospital tomorrow. Now is the time for us to discuss the final reason why I spared your life."

"I got the message. You wanted to prevent me from ever being a threat to another person and you wanted me to suffer..."

Sean interrupted him, "Prevention definitely, suffering was a side effect of that. No, Mr. Steele, the final reason is to allow you to make amends for what you have done."

The confused expression on DeMarcus' face was comical, but Sean and Amanda avoided laughing at him.

Mr. Steele, you have hopefully learned that no matter how smart, powerful, rich, or mean you may be, there will always be someone who is stronger, more powerful, richer and meaner than you. I'm not talking about me besting you, although that is a worldly example that you probably understand, I am talking about the omnipotence of God."

DeMarcus seemed to be considering Sean's words, but the light was still out where full understanding was concerned.

"I would never imply that I received some divine message where stopping you was concerned, but I do believe that God has used select men to exact his judgment upon those He found offensive for whatever reason. The Bible is full of examples of God often selecting the most unlikely men and women to take his battle to the oppressors, sinners, or opponents of his chosen people. I have no way of knowing if God will decide to work through you in some fashion, but I do know that He would need you alive if He was to choose to do so. The only decision you need to make Mr. Steele, is whether you want the opportunity to be chosen?"

"I don't understand," whispered DeMarcus.

"Let me try to make things clearer for you. If you are transferred tomorrow to the U.S. Penitentiary, you will be defenseless. Your chance of survival will be slim to none, and the time you are alive there will be filled with abuse at the hands of other prisoners. You know this."

"My lawyer will get me some protection..."

"Don't be naïve, DeMarcus," said Amanda. "You must know by now that Sean and I have influenced everything from your medical treatment to the selection of the Federal judge who presided over your trial. Do you really think that your attorney would be able to protect your life in a Federal prison if we didn't want it to happen?"

DeMarcus didn't say anything. He just stared at Amanda Wallace, seeing once again the vindictive side of this beautiful woman. He wished he could have met her under different circumstances where they would not have become enemies. Sean Wallace was one lucky dude.

"You have another option," continued Sean. "Outside your room right now is my friend and the Pastor of my church, Bernie Calaway. He is prepared to sit with you, for the rest of the day if necessary, listening to you seek absolution and forgiveness. If you convince Bernie that your faith in God is stronger than your hate of your fellow man I will make certain that instead of the prison tomorrow you will be transferred to a half-way house where you will be housed for the rest of your life. You will be protected and cared for, but more importantly, after theological counseling you will be allowed to participate in the Prison Ministry. This will allow you to share your experiences with others, helping them to learn the lessons you have learned."

"My momma used to take me to church," said DeMarcus, almost as if trying to convince himself of a decision already made.

"Regardless of the decision you make, Mr. Steele, know that I will always be monitoring you. Sparing your life will not dissuade me from making you suffer further if you cause concern to me, Amanda, or anyone else. Whether you respect me or not, believe me or not, fear me or not - you need to have faith in something. I encourage you to select the Lord for your faith. It will grant you more peace than having faith in what I can and will do if you force me to."

Sensing correctly that the conversation between Sean and DeMarcus was over, Amanda said, "Goodbye DeMarcus. I can't envision any circumstances where I will speak with you again, so I truly hope you find peace in the Lord as Sean has suggested. Pastor Calaway is a wonderful man, and I'm sure he will assist you with a journey of faith if you give him the chance. Sean and I have to leave you now. We have a plane to catch. We were married on Saturday two days ago, but we postponed leaving on our Honeymoon until we had a chance to meet with you."

Sean put his arm around Amanda's waist and began to lead her from the room. DeMarcus seemed to come to his senses when he asked, "What do you mean you just got married? I thought you two were already married?"

Amanda paused, causing Sean to also pause as he was steering her towards the door. She turned to DeMarcus and said, "But DeMarcus, I told you several times that Sean wasn't really a husband to me. Don't you remember?"

"I thought you meant..."

Amanda didn't wait for DeMarcus to finish as she turned and left the room arm in arm with Sean.

***

"So how many children do you think we should have?"

Sean didn't hesitate. He had been anticipating this question from Amanda since their wedding, "More than one, but less than twenty five."

Amanda laughed so hard that she couldn't hold her drink steady and had to set it down before spilling it. Fortunately she hadn't had any of it in her mouth or it likely would have come out her nose.

They were on the balcony of their suite in the Four Seasons Lodge at Koele on the island of Lanai, overlooking the reflecting pool and Pagoda. They could catch glimpses of people playing Croquet on one of the lawns in the distance, but the Banyan trees provided them with enough seclusion for their purposes, which at this moment involved drinking Mai Tai's and relaxing before dinner.

"Why limit the number to twenty five?" teased Amanda. "Why not fifty or one hundred?"

Sean reached across the space between them and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his finger linger on her ear lobe for a few seconds.

"Because we only have twenty five girls to act as babysitters," he replied.

"If you're basing the size of our family on the number of potential babysitters, then you need to also consider Beth, Carol, Wendy and possibly Nina, Emily and even Jeannie."