“Don’t you dare delete it! That’s our evidence!” Savannah reached down and hauled the weeping girl to her feet. “What are you doing, taking pictures of women’s naughty bits? You’re not into girls; I saw you smooching Mr. Universe out there a few minutes ago. And you sure looked like you meant it.”
“I…I…it isn’t that big a deal. I mean, it’s just some silly pictures and—”
“Are you kidding me?” Savannah wished she had a bacon-greased skillet in her hand. “There’s a sixteen-year-old girl who’s afraid to leave her house now because you took some of your ‘silly’ pictures, posted them on the Web, and turned her into an overnight porn star.”
The woman didn’t answer, just continued to sob.
“She’s been downloaded thousands of times in the past few weeks. How do you think that makes her feel? How do you think her parents feel? I’ll warn you right now, girlie, her daddy wants a piece of you.”
Tammy was holding the camera phone, watching her X-rated footage over and over again and shaking her head. “How can you do this to another woman…violate someone’s privacy like this?” she asked her. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to,” she said, snuffling. “Really, I didn’t. He made me.”
“Who made you?” Savannah asked, already knowing the answer.
“Vittorio.”
Savannah glanced over at Tammy and nodded toward the cell phone in her hand. Tammy caught her meaning and discreetly flipped on the phone’s camera, pointing it in their confessor’s direction.
“Vittorio made you take pictures of naked women in public showers?” Savannah stated…for the record.
“Yeah. He made me. Really he did.”
“And how, exactly, did he force you to do this?”
“He told me that if I didn’t do it, if I didn’t love him enough to do that one little thing for him, he’d break up with me.”
Savannah gave her a long, steady, piercing look, until finally, the young woman broke eye contact and stared down at her wet shoes, shame and fear all over her face.
“You think I’m disgusting,” she said, crying softly. “You think I’m worthless, total crap, giving in to a guy like that.”
Savannah weighed the thoughts and emotions sweeping over her. “No,” she said, “I’m disgusted by what you did. I’m angry at you for hurting other women, but I don’t think you’re crap.” She sighed, removed one of the handcuff manacles from the girl’s wrist and attached it to the shower’s cold-water handle. “You’re the one who thinks you’re crap,” she said, “not me. Somewhere along the line somebody told you that you’re worthless, and you took it to heart. That’s the problem here. Otherwise, if you loved yourself, and some jackass like Vito suggested you do such a thing, you would’ve told him to turn those barbells of his into suppositories and then dive off the end of the city pier.”
Savannah turned to Tammy. “Watch her till I get back.”
“Sure.” Tammy nodded, as always, too eagerly. “And can I dry off and get dressed?”
“No, you have to keep wearing that shower curtain until the CSI unit gets here and fingerprints it and swabs it for DNA.”
Tammy’s big eyes widened and mouth opened and closed several times before she finally said, “You are kidding, right?”
Savannah chuckled and shook her head as she walked away. She wouldn’t go back to being young again for anything in the world. Having the odd wrinkle and cellulite bump was a good exchange for bits and pieces of accumulated common sense.
When she exited the locker room, she was relieved to see that both Dirk and Vittorio the Magnificent were still working out. But when the young man saw her, he got a wary look on his face. He set down his barbells, picked up his towel, and tossed it over one shoulder.
Donning an unconvincing pseudo-nonchalant expression, he began to stroll toward the men’s locker room door.
Savannah hurried over to Dirk and said in his ear. “It’s him. Mr. Biceps.”
“The big guy?” Dirk asked.
“Yeah.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them was averse to a little hard work in the call of duty, but Savannah had to admit she didn’t blame Dirk for this momentary lapse in enthusiasm. The guy was enormous, not to mention young. And she could usually tell which ones would give them a hard time, resist, run, fight, or all of the above.
Vito looked like a resistor.
As he walked toward the men’s shower room, he had a swagger to his step that announced to the world that he was, indeed, an “alpha male.” Or at least that he considered himself one, and that was an attitude that frequently caused problems. Law enforcement officials had ways of dealing with the Alpha Vitos of the world, but they often went home nursing bruises and sprains after dealing with them.
And Savannah had gone home and soaked battered parts of her body in hot Epsom salt baths too many times in the past to relish the thought now.
“Slip me your cuffs,” Savannah said. “Quick.”
“Why?”
Dirk wasn’t a materialistic sort of guy, but the half a dozen things he owned, he guarded like a rottweiler with a supper dish full of chopped sirloin.
Savannah elbowed him. “I used mine on the bimbo. Hand them over now.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re gonna take that guy down by yourself….”
“I’ll get the job half done. The rest is up to you.”
“This I gotta see.”
He followed her as she headed toward the men’s shower room, where their quarry had just disappeared.
At the door, she turned back to him and held up her hand. He stopped and she mouthed, “One minute,” to him. He nodded.
She reached for the zipper on her sweat suit top, gave it a tug downward, three or four inches, and went inside alone.
Other than one naked little fellow in the back of the room, who scrambled for a towel at the sight of a female entering the locker room, the only other occupant was Vittorio. He had peeled off his T-shirt, and Savannah didn’t have to fake the light of lust in her eyes as she looked him over.
To get a gander at a body that good looking, a gal usually had to go to a strip club on “Ladies’ Night,” pay a cover charge, and be prepared to stick bills in some pseudo-fireman’s G-string.
He gave her a suspicious, and somewhat hostile, look as she hurried over to him.
“Hey,” she said, “my boyfriend and I are having an argument about you, and I’ve gotta ask you something.”
She walked across the small room and stood quite close to him, making sure he had a clear view straight down the front of her sweat suit.
Savannah would be the first to admit she was a few pounds over what the charts suggested even a tall woman should weigh. But she would also be the first to point out that at least ten pounds of that excess was in her bra, and therefore, not altogether something to be scoffed at.
And Vittorio seemed to agree.
He was obviously enjoying the pectoral view as much as she had been.
Enjoy it while you can, you dirty little peeper, she thought. Where you’re going, you’re not going to see any real girlie parts for a long time.
“You and your boyfriend