The rooms were insulated but were not, like the tower walls, absolutely soundproof. He placed his ear against the intricately carved oak door. He could not hear the screams now, but a man was yelling in the room. The words were not clear; the tone was. It was threatening and angry.
He tried the doorknob. It turned, but the door would not budge. He hesitated. For all he knew, the two inside, if there were only two, might not want to be disturbed. If they turned on him because he was interfering in a matter strictly between lovers, he would be embarrassed. On the other hand, he was not easily embarrassed, and he would feel that he had been remiss if he could have prevented a crime.
He knocked hard on the wood three times, then kicked it twice. A woman started to scream, but she was cut off.
“Open up in there!” Burton shouted, and he struck the door again.
A man shouted. It sounded like, “Go away, motherfucker!” but Burton was not sure.
He took his beamer from his jacket and cut a circle around the lock. When he had pushed the knob and the lock through, he stepped to one side. It was well that he had. Three shots boomed, and three bullets pierced the thick wood. The man— he supposed it was a man was firing—had a heavy handgun, perhaps a .45 automatic. Burton yelled, “Come out unarmed! Your hands on your head! I have a beamer!”
The man snarled a series of curses and said that he would kill whoever tried to come in.
“It’s no use! You’re trapped!” Burton said. “Come on out, hands to your head!”
“You can—”
The man’s voice was cut off by a thud and a clatter. Then Star Spoon’s voice, high and trembling, said, “I knocked him out, Dick!”
Burton pushed the door in and sprang in, beamer ready. A large naked black man was lying face down on the thick Oriental rug, blood on the back of his head. A gold statuette, smeared with blood, lay by his side.
He swore. She was naked, and her face and arms were blue with bruises. One eye was beginning to swell up. Her clothes were scattered in shreds over the room. She ran weeping and sobbing to him, and he held her shaking body close to his. But, seeing the man push himself up from the floor, Burton released her. He picked the .45 automatic up, reversed it, and slammed the man on the back of his neck. Without a sound, the man crumpled.
“What happened?” Burton said.
She had trouble getting the words out. He took her to a table and poured out a glass of wine. She drank, though most of it ran down her chin and neck. Still crying, she choked out a story, most of which he had guessed. She had been on her way to the stairwell when the man had stepped out of the door ahead of her. Smiling, he had asked her name. She had told him and then had tried to get by him, but he had grabbed her arm. He wanted to party, he said. He had never had a Chinese woman before, and she sure was a doll. And so on.
Star Spoon had struggled as he pulled her into the room. The man’s whiskey breath sickened her when he kissed her. When she had tried to scream, he clapped his hand over her mouth, slammed the door shut, hurled her so hard she fell on the floor, locked the door and ripped her clothes from her.
By the time Burton arrived, she had been raped three times.
He made sure that the man was tied up, got a tranquilizer from the converter, and gave it and a glass of water to her. He put her into the shower and then held the douche bag while, still trembling and weeping, she washed herself out.
After he had toweled her dry, he ordered some clothes from the converter, helped her get dressed, and put her down on a sofa. He used the computer console to call Turpin. Turpin, hearing the report, scowled and said, “I’ll fix that son of a bitch!”