All in the Family

The residence itself stood beyond the sugar cane fields, just outside of Palm City, and as Jack Mathers crept guardedly around its black threatening pile he sensed a disturbing menace.1

Vacant windows stared back at him as he stopped to reflect, while hot, tropical rain washed across his face. At the sound of footsteps splattering through the mud behind him, he turned abruptly and saw Alex Bannister, reporter for the Miami Herald.2

Jack Mathers pulled out a pocket knife. “I'll try to force one of these windows. Get set for trouble! Got a gun?”3

“No such luck!”4

“Okay, let’s do this anyway. Watch your step!” Jack fell noiselessly to work on the sash of the nearest window while his mind reviewed swiftly the odd events that had led them, at midnight, to this weird place.5

Two months before, having completed his enlistment with the Army and two tours in Iraq, he had walked out with his discharge and started a push to land a job with the Palm City police force.6

Rejected resolutely by the force, he was in a morose state of mind when he had wandered, that same night, into the Cafe Caliente and discovered Alex Bannister drinking shots of tequila.7

Alex laughed when he heard of his friend’s attempt to join the police force. “The police!” he grumbled. “You ought to be damn glad you didn't get it! The police here are in a chaos. Four wealthy girls vanished within a month, and they haven’t found clue number one or any trace of them!”8

It had been perhaps an hour later, while Jack was finishing his third shot that Alex had noticed the man with the scar leading a pretty girl toward the door of the Cafe.9

“That girl!” Alex muttered, gripping Jack’s arm. “That’s Myrna Lauter, daughter of the Internet mogul Elrod Lauter in Palm City! Worth billions!”10

Jack eyed the girl, noticed that her summer dress was in disorder, hanging so low in front as to reveal the bulging curve of one creamy breast. Her somewhat wobbly walk spoke, too, of tequila or worse, drugs.11

“There’s something odd about that,” Alex said. “That guy she’s with couldn’t be a friend of hers. Let’s follow them!”12

And acting on sudden desire the two men had decided to chase the pockmarked. The chase had led through the furious rain across Palm City and out into its black environs ending at last before this sinister structure.13

“They must be in there,” supposed Alex.14

“Yet the place is quiet and dark” A rumble from Jack cut him short. He snapped the pocket knife shut and began cautiously to raise the window.15

Jack hauled out a flask of tequila. “Take a shot of this first. We’re liable to get caught tonight, if nothing else!”16

Pocketing the flask, Jack dangled one leg over the windowsill and pulled himself in. Like a cat he dropped silently to the floor in the darkness while Alex worked hard in after him.17

“This place smells like a tomb,” whispered Alex.18

“How many tombs you been in?” Jack shot back then dismissed Alex. “Whatever’s going on,” muttered Jack, “they’re using this empty house as a blind and not even showing so much as a candlelight. Hurry up.”19

Jack led the way down the hallway of foreboding blackness feeling his way along the wall and testing cautiously every step he took. After several minutes of torturous caution the passageway ended abruptly and Jack’s probing foot encountered the bottom of a staircase. He turned to Alex, whispered in his ear, “You coming up with me?”20

“Let’s go. If Myrna Lauter is in some sort of trouble in here and we get her out, old man Lauter will come across with a big reward for sure.”21

But the ex-Army had already started up the stairs, one fist extended ready for trouble while his other hand slid along the wide railing.22

At the top they found another carpeted hallway and a closed door, at their right. Careful exploitation of the knob proved it was unlocked and a minute later the two men slid into the room like ghostly shadows and closed the door behind them.23

Jack struck a match and what its flickering light revealed caused him to stare in amazement.24

On a huge bed lay the white body of a beautiful girl, clad only in frilled panties. Her bare, jutting breasts rose and fell symmetrically in apparent sleep. The nude, shapely legs gleamed whitely as Jack, holding the match, drew near her.25

“That’s not Myrna Lauter,” whispered Alex, as he peered down on the tumbled mass of black hair and the slightly parted, full red lips. 26

Jack placed a rough hand on the soft bare shoulder and shook her gently, getting no response. He tried again, shaking her forcefully but the only result was to cause her beautiful breasts to quiver alarmingly.27

Striking another match he pushed back the girl’s eyelids. “Drugged!” he said.28

“My God!” muttered Alex. “I wonder if there’s any more around?”29

Jack skulked out to the black hall again. A little further down they discovered another room and forced a similar entry. There, in a similar bed lay a second girl, even prettier than the first whose only item of clothing were a pair of silk pajamas.30

The voluptuous curves of this sleeping girl caused Jack’s hand to tremble as he felt for the throbbing heartbeat.31

As in the first case, the girl was not Myrna Lauter and proved, too, to be heavily drugged.32

Jack passed a huge hand across his sweaty brow. “My God!” he roared, “I’d like to get my hands on the rats behind this!”33

The door of the bedroom swung open with a boom, a white ray of light penetrated the darkness and centered on Jack’s face. 34

Jack saw the grimacing facial appearance of the pockmarked man mirrored behind the light and in the same fleeting look saw the muzzle of an automatic that was pointed threateningly in his direction. Other men were sliding past the pockmarked one into the room, one of them a huge man, bare to the waist.35

They reached Alex first. One of them swung something through the air in a cruel arc that crashed on Alex’s head with a sickening thud. Jack watched his friend crash to the floor while large man, doubling up his colossal fists, quickly approached him.36

“Wait!” commanded their leader. “Don’t kill him just yet.” Turning to Jack: “Who the hell are you? And how did you get in here?”37

Jack’s face hardened. “I’m after Myrna Lauter. I’m taking her with me.”38

“Oh, your not taking nobody anywhere. But you are going’ on a long journey. The old man put you up to this?”39

“What’s it matter who?” Jack delayed. 40

“So that’s the way it’s going’ be, huh?” The man with the gun turned to the large man. “Tie him up,” he ordered , “and take him downstairs. Give him the works—make him talk!”41

The giant lashed a leather belt tightly around Jack’s wrists then wrenched him out of the room and down the stairs. “Keep the door shut, too!” shouted scar-face. “If he screams, cut his tongue out!”42

Into a damp moldy former pool Jack descended with his captor. Rats and roaches scurried away before their approach and as the giant switched on a flashlight Jack saw the tail of a snake slithering out of sight.43

Jack’s fettered wrists were tied high above his head to a rope that was suspended from a nearby deck. As he swayed helpless, the giant ripped the shirt from his back and fashioned a rawhide whip, tipped with steel prongs.44

“I’m going to rip the skin off with this here whip,” came the throaty voice from behind him. “Then I’m going to pour salt in the cuts and leave you here. Then the snakes will find you and crawl and slither in and out of you. That is, unless you tell the boss what he wants to know!”45

Jack’s lips constricted. “Go to hell you big bastard!”46

An instant later the whip sang through the air and slashed the white man’s bare back. Jack hardened in agony while the steel points came around again and scorched his flesh.47

His brain raced at top speed. The moans from the giant, as he brandished the whip, told him his torturer must be standing not more than two feet behind him.48

Jack gathered the muscles of his legs tightly together, pressed his toes on the ground, then in one motion lifted both his feet high and lashed out brutally behind him.49

With a savage delight he felt his heavy boots sink into the giant’s stomach, as the big man with an tormented huff plunged back to the floor. Frantic with misery Jack braced his arms and gave a powerful tug on the half-rotten rope from which he hung. It snapped and he plummeted to the ground ripping frantically with his teeth on the belt that held his hands together.50

Before he could get the belt loose, though, he saw the giant crawling to his feet. Jack took a swift step forward and as a soccer player kicks a ball, so Jack’s foot came up and shattered the big man in the mouth.51

As the giant extended his length on the ground again, Jack tore the belt from his wrists and grabbed the whip. In a white heat of fury he chased the sneaking man, beating him savagely about the head until he collapsed, a beaten heap of unconsciousness.52

Jack straightened up, gulping for air hard. He had a weapon now, he told himself, but what he needed for that mob upstairs was an automatic.53

Grasping the whip he climbed the stairs silently and came out in the kitchen only to face a weasel-faced man that spun about as he opened the door. “Well, well, well” mumbled the weasel as he dove for his gun.54

The automatic belched fire just as Jack threw himself forward in a low dive. The slug buzzed past his head and Jack secured his fingers on the others pants.55

The gunman was a little too quick. He kicked out cruelly, caught Jack on the chin, then backed hastily away raising his gun for another shot.56

For an instant Jack stared up that smoking muzzle and saw death while a sudden shout and the sound of running feet coming down the hallway told him another killer was approaching to pump lead in him from behind.57

Quickly Jack moved. A single electric bulb that served to light the room, hung perched from the ceiling a dozen feet from him and a little above his head. The long whip in his hand shot out like a bolt of lightning, its steel prongs shattered the bulb, and in the darkness Jack leapt to the floor again, and rolled toward the door.58

The gun bellowed but the bullet plowed safely through the woodwork, and Jack gained his feet as two men brushed past him and went on, cursing the abrupt darkness.59

He found himself once again in that black narrow hallway. Speeding along it on his toes he obtained the stairs and bounded up three or four at a time. At the top, he ran flippantly down the corridor as from the floor below he heard the mumbled imprecations and moving feet of his hunters, coming after him with flashlights and guns.60

At the far end of the hallway he saw a door and without added consideration pushed it open and dropped in. A shocked shout behind him brought him around suddenly, his whip raised for action.61

Jack grunted in amazement. Before him, a girl sat on the edge of a bed staring at him with wide-open green eyes. Jack’s glance roved quickly over her lithe young body, dressed in a white silk blouse. Two firm curving breasts pushed the frilled edge of the blouse notably outward, while her elegantly shaped legs, bare from her thighs downward made his blood tingle even in that moment of danger.62

The wavy golden hair that bunched about her pretty face stimulated a memory in Jack. “Myrna Lauter?”63

“Yes. And you are?”64

“Jack Mathers. I’ve come to get you out of this!” Relief flooded the girl’s face. “They put something in my drink,” she whispered animatedly. “Brought me here, then took my clothes off.65

“They’re going to send me to the Middle East—as a white slave!”66

“Like hell they are!” growled Jack.67

“They’ve got other girls here!” Myrna went on, fear crawled back into her eyes. “They lure them here, steal their clothes and dope them to keep them quiet. They try to collect ransom from their parents. If they refuse, they send them to the Middle East, they hate Americans there. The man with the scar told me—”68

“It’s okay now,” interrupted Jack suddenly. His ear had caught the traipse of feet coming up the staircase. “Those guys are after me right now! If they find us, they’ll kill us!”69

Glancing around hastily he saw that except for the bed the room was devoid of furniture. The girl, watched him with fear in her eyes as the steps in the hallway grew nearer, she saw him calculating the space under the bed.70

“You won’t be able to hide under there,” she told him. “You’re too big. They’d see you for sure.. Get in bed behind me. They won’t look there!” And she threw the covers wide.71

Jack slid his painful body in beside the soft, white body of the girl. Outside, doors were banging as the search for him continued.72

“They’re searching the other rooms first,” she whispered.73

Slowly as the minutes passed and no one came in their room Jack relaxed and realized for the first time that the warm feminine body beside him was jammed tightly against his, seeking comfort and protection.74

He could feel the warm flesh of her legs against his while her soft breasts nestled affectionately at his chest. She moved somewhat and threw a white arm about his neck. The abrupt coil of that nimble, living body so close to him, sent the blood pounding in his temples.75

Jack’s arm went unexpectedly around the slim waist, pulled her throbbing body firmly to him, while his lips found her warmly-red ones in a passionate kiss.76

Clinging to the girl, Jack failed to hear the door open softly.77

“So!” hissed a voice. “There you are!” 78

Jack raised his head and stared again into a flashlight and a gun muzzle. The pockmarked man that held it had murder in his brown eyes. He turned to two hard-faced men who stood just behind him with drawn guns. “Take the girl out of the way,” he ordered. “And shoot this bastard right now.”79

The two henchmen moved forward, seized Myrna and hauled her violently from the bed. Scar-face moved his weapon up on a level with Jack’s eyes. “One right in the center,” he grinned fiercely. “Not to worry, I never miss!”80

His short, stubby finger coiled about the trigger, began to squeeze. Jack had risen to a sitting position in bed, one hand behind him holding a pillow. With one frantic heave he brought the pillow around and hurled it on the pockmarked man’s gun hand, a split second before the gun howled.81

The redirected bullet tore through the bed beside Jack as he tensed his muscles and made a airborne leap for scar-face. His dropped his head using it like a battering ram into the man’s solar plexus while another hand shot out and jerked the gun away.82

The two men thumped the floor together while pockmarked face’s two cronies had pocketed their guns to hold the fraught Myrna, released her and dived for their hip pockets.83

Four years of target practice in the Army was behind the muzzle of the gun Jack brandished. It belched furious fire in two straight streams and two men fell to the floor, dead.84

Scar-face wriggled out from under Jack just in time to get a crashing blow on the skull from the butt of Jack’s gun.85

Jack ripped the bed sheets in strips, bound up the man hand and foot and left the room with Myrna Lauter hugging to his arm. “I don’t think there’s any more of these boys left in this place,” he mumbled. “That giant dude in the pool won’t come to for a long while yet, if ever. Let’s look for my friend Alex.”86

Down the dark hallway Jack found the room where Alex had been knocked out. It was empty. He swore softly. “Those rotten assholes!” he muttered. “Why’d they do this to him?” 87

Alex was dead, his throat slashed from ear to ear blood staining his shirt and the floor in front of him.88

He spun from the girl’s sight, not wanting her to see his tears, and with the girl at his heels, started down the stairs. Before he was halfway down the light in the lower hall was switched on abruptly and Jack stared down at a tall, gray haired man stylishly clothed who had whipped out a gun and aimed it at him.89

Myrna Lauter uttered a little cry and stepped back, clutching at Jack, “Daddy!” she gasped.90

“Daddy?” repeated Jack. 91

“Daddy!” cried Myrna. Words tumbled from her terror-stricken lips. “He tried to force his way in my bedroom the other night! The pervert! I ran away. He had those men pick me up and bring me here. He’s behind all this!”92

Jack’s eyes narrowed hazardously.93

“You little slut!” cried the man at the foot of the stairs. “You’ve signed your death warrant! And this lunatic’s too! If you think I’m going to let you go free after this you’re dumb and crazy!”94

The girl backed off screaming as Lauter drew a steady cool bead on her. Jack stepped swiftly in front of her and as he did so caught a glimpse of a man creeping out of the living room into the hall, just behind Lauter’s back.95

As Lauter’s hand squeezed on the trigger, Jack saw an arm steal around him and with one swift motion knock aside the gun.96

All the reserve strength left in the Jack’s went into that last leap as he flew down the stairs and swung a hard fist to Lauter’s jaw.97

As the Lauter’s knees sagged, Jack punched again and the gun dropped from unconscious fingers, while across the fallen millionaire Jack stared at the now heartbroken Myrna.98

Myrna Lauter’s arm surrounded Jack tightly. In the affectionate touch of her body Jack felt the promise of a reward that would prove far more interesting than that offered by a position on the police force99