”You know, I could sue you for keeping me here so long. I should call a lawyer.”
”True, but you would have to be able to get to a phone first.” Nicole fingered her nightstick to emphasize her point. Cassidy’s face faltered for a moment, which brought a little smirk to Nicole’s face. “Let’s start from the top again.”
”Fine,” Cassidy groaned, “here’s the story again.” The officer unpaused the tape recorder.
”We were in Los Angeles, looking for wild pokémon and happened upon Ash Ketchum and Misty Waterflower, kissing on the hillside, near the Griffith Observatory. I shot them with the tranquilizer pistol I had, then we flew them in a helicopter to a secret Team Rocket base on an island. Butch and Ash got into a fight and Butch pushed Ash out of the helicopter, thereby killing the little twerp. Now, Ash had been deemed ‘untouchable’ by Giovanni, but that didn’t bother Butch in the least. That’s when I noticed something…something was different about Butch – something bad.”
Cassidy paused, seeming to relive the moment. Nicole remembered that she had done that before. She made a mental note of it, then Cassidy continued her story.
”After we landed, Butch said something to Misty. She turned around and verbally accosted him. Nothing vulgar and she wasn’t yelling either. But the line that caught my attention was when she said to Butch, ‘Ash was more of a man than you could ever hope to be, no matter how long your miserable existence lasts.’ Heh, boy, did that piss him off. I had to hold him back from killing her too. He wasn’t thrilled about that either. After we dropped her off at the jail, we went through another cave to report in…we never made it to the desk.”
*** *** *** ***
“How in bloody hell could you do that to me?!” Butch’s rough voice, scarred from heavy chain smoking, echoed in the small empty rock chamber, which was off the main traffic path to the administrative desk. He deftly lit up a cigarette and took some heavy drags from it. His chiseled face was tense with anger. As he took another puff, she casually glanced over his lean physique. Despite how thin he looked, she knew he worked out a lot and was quite strong. Also, she had seen him without his shirt on numerous occasions and was delighted by the eye candy. His thin chest hair told of his natural hair color; it was dirty blond, unlike the dyed, dark aquamarine color on his head now.
“Do what, Butch?”
”Deny me the pleasure of killing that scrawny little bitch!”
”Butch, you’re in enough trouble because you killed Ash Ketchum. You may remember that Giovanni had other plans – more important plans – for him.”
”Aw, who gives a damn what Giovanni’s plans are. Screw the old man! And screw you too! The next time I want to do something, I’m going to do it, whether you like it or not!” With that, Butch slapped her face hard.
The sting of the slap surprised Cassidy, but with lightning reflexes, she slapped him right back. This behavior was not unusual between them, but she sensed that something was different about this clash. Butch had killed someone. He was feeling very powerful right now and it scared her a bit. Butch saw that glint of fear in her eyes for the briefest of moments.
And that was all he needed.
He slapped her again, causing her to fall to the ground. Flicking away his cigarette, he pounced on her and struck her again. Clothes were ripped away from her as she lacked the strength to fight him off. She started to scream, only to be forcibly muffled by Butch’s hand. He forced her legs open and there was a searing pain. She screamed again, but no one could hear her. The searing pain burned intensely as he continued thrusting maniacally. Moments later, the rape was complete. Butch laughed evilly, delighting in his triumph over Cassidy’s dominance of him. For Cassidy, there were no tears. Only the cold set in.
*** *** *** ***
”And that’s when Butch raped you?”
”Yeah,” Cassidy replied, her eyes blank, in a faraway stare. “A couple hours later, news of Giovanni’s arrest came out over the public address system. We later received a coded message from him through his lawyer. We were to eliminate Jessie and James, by any means necessary.” She stopped and looked at Nicole sullenly, then the familiar, arrogant smirk returned to her face. “Of course, you would never have been able to decode it. It would have involved an actual command of the English language, which you donut-gulping, coffee-swillers don’t have.”
”Perhaps,” the cop muttered, then with blinding speed, her nightstick slammed onto the wooden table with a thunderous clap. Cassidy screamed loudly in surprise. Nicole gave her a smoldering glare as she reached over and pushed the pause button on the tape recorder. “But you are in the lions’ den right now and my tolerance for your bullshit has worn very thin. So lay off the insults and finish your damn story or I’ll start bashing fingers, which would make it impossible to dial a phone.”
Looking a bit shaken, Cassidy managed to regain her composure and quickly nodded in agreement. Nicole pressed the pause button again and the tape resumed recording. Cassidy continued her story as the cop returned her baton back to its holster.
”Well, we set off to search for them, but could find nothing after about three months. The rapes continued, but it was mostly out of frustration of not finding them. He needed to take it out on something…or someone.”
”Finally, we realized that they must have gotten some sort of amnesty because their testimony came up a lot during the Boss’ trial; God bless the news media and their non-stop ‘GiovanniWatch’ for that. So we started with the LAPD and got an immediate jackpot.”
Nicole blinked in surprise. Cassidy had not mentioned that the last two times she told her story.
“Who gave you the information?”
”Butch handled it,” Cassidy replied. “I didn’t care. But we had them and their deaths would be assured.”