Tales of the Gold Wookie, Part 9

While modest in size compared to some of the near-castles in the Hollywood Hills, the Hutt's home was still three times the size of her entire apartment building, and even larger than Mama Breha's house. Unlike the cozy Spanish Revival home Mama Breha favored, the Hutt's home was all clean lines and modern Art Deco boxes. Artie drove her through the gates and down a driveway lined with olive and fig trees.

“You sure you don't want anyone coming in with you?” Artie frowned as he pulled up to the front door. “Charel and Clarence are already there. Clarence got a job as her secretary, and Charel's working security.”

“Would all of you stop worrying about me? I'll be fine.” Leia leaned over and gave Artie a squeeze. “If something happens, I'll send Clarence or Charel out, ok? It's more likely we'll be coming out with Harry. When you see us, let us in, then step on it.”

Artie sighed. “I hope this works, kiddo.”

“It will.” Leia patted his shoulder, grabbed her purse, and headed for the front door.

A butler lead her in through a series of wide, airy rooms, all with tall windows that showed a sweeping view of Beachwood Canyon and Los Angeles. “Mrs. Hutt was called away suddenly,” the butler explained in a nasal oink of a voice. He was another one of those fat men in the green suits who had been part of Yasmin's entourage the night before. “A phone call from a client. She should be back in a half-hour.”

He flung open the door to what looked like a study, with shelves of books behind a wide, curvy walnut desk. There were several Alderaanian artifacts in the room, mainly pottery under glass cases and framed maps on the walls. She saw no weapons of any kind. “Would you like something to drink, or eat?”

Leia smiled as she settled in a chair. “I'll have an iced tea, please, if you have it. No sugar.”

“Sure.” The pig-goon swung open the curtains, letting the morning sunlight pour into the room. “I'll be back in a few minutes. Don't go anywhere.”

Her smile turned icky-sweet. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

The moment he left, she got up and peered out the door. Harry had to be in one of these rooms. She wished she'd asked the pig goon where Yasmin's bedroom was. It was most likely he'd be kept there. It made Leia's blood boil to know that her Harry was being used as a lapdog for a gangster's spoiled wife! He'd proved himself to be worthy of any Alderaanian Jedi...well, almost, anyway. Sure, he could be a scoundrel, but that was part of his charm.

She nearly ran headlong into Charel as he was coming around a corner. “Yikes!” His big, beefy hand went quickly over her mouth. “Sorry!” she gasped, though it was muffled through his hairy fingers. “Wasn't expecting to see anyone here.” He wore a white jacket, buttoned-up to his thick neck, and black trousers. Probably a houseboy's outfit, she figured, though he was a lot bigger than the houseboys usually were in the movies. “I'm looking for Harry while Yasmin Hutt isn't around. He's got to be here somewhere.”

Charel waved his hand at a stairway and beckoned her to follow him. “You found him? He's upstairs?” He nodded, thudding up the wide, circular marble steps with the black metal railings. Leia followed him, trying to be much quieter than he was. At one point, she could have sworn she saw a slender shadow in a green and red-stripped suit and familiar fedora, but when she looked again, the shadow had disappeared into the morning light.

They padded down the upstairs hallway, with it's pale desert cliff red walls and dusty tan carpets. The carpet was so thick and plushy, her heels made no sound. The only sound was her breathing and the “click-click” of a gardener trimming hedges outside. Charel finally stopped in front of final room on the very end of the hall. He pulled open the turquoise door, letting Leia troop in.

The room was Art Deco meets southwest meets Broadway, with a huge glittering chandelier, rich blue walls the color of a Los Angeles sky, more of those thick sandy carpets, and heavy curved wood furnishing, including a massive king-sized canopy bed that more closely resembled the beds of the English princesses.

Harry lounged lazily in the center of the bed. The pilot was stretched out under a silk sheet, naked to his torso. He was freshly shaven and scrubbed pink, his brown hair damp and slicked back. He gazed up when she and Charel came in, but showed no recognition at all...or much of any other expression. His chest, a mountain of well-defined muscles that put Clark Gable to shame, almost made Leia weak in the knees.

“Harry!” She somehow managed to scramble onto the bed as Charel went to the door. “It's me, Leia. I have to get you out of here.” He continued giving her that vacuous stare as she threw her arms around him. “What in the hell did she do to you?”

Harry's best friend growled as he peered around a corner. “I don't understand Russian, Char.” Leia traced the scar along the dazed pilot's cheek, then let her finger wander down his neck and chest. He shuddered a little, but otherwise said nothing. “Yasmin did this, drugged him or hypnotized him somehow. I'll bet she hypnotized the agent who went off the cliff this morning, too.”

As her fingers returned to his handsome face, she remembered seeing Snow White with Luke and her best friend from college Winter at the Carthay Squre Theater downtown the year before. She'd scoffed at it as a child's fairy tale then...but Walt's Folly might help her now. The creator of Mickey Mouse certainly had one good idea. She leaned over and kissed him as passionately as she could.

He remained limp in her arms for a minute or two...but after a moment, his strong arms wrapped around her torso and pulled her into the kiss. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charel avert his eyes and make for the door entrance. The big navigator was probably going to keep a look out for Yasmin.

At this point, Leia didn't care if Yasmin suddenly appeared with every piggish lackey from here to San Francisco. She wasn't going to let Harry out of her sight again. “Harry,” she managed to breathe, “it's ok. I found you. I won't let her hurt you.”

“Wh...where am I?” Harry squinted dazedly. “Is it really you? Why are you a blur?”

“Yes, it's me.” She hugged him hard. “It's someone who loves you.”

“Leia!” He leaned in for another passionate kiss. “I don't remember...anything. They dragged me out of that box about a week ago. Yasmin treated me like I was some doll she'd gotten off the shelf at Bullock's. I fought...but then...” he shook his head, as if to clear it, “I don't really remember what happened. She brought out some big jewel on a necklace.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. “That rock...it was green, but it kind of looked like the one on Luke's Sword of Light thing. Same cut...”

“The Sword of Wisdom!” Leia took his shoulders. “Harry, that rock is a khyber crystal from the Sword. That's how she's making all these big deals, how she got Oola to drive off a cliff. She's using the Sword to manipulate everyone's minds.” She helped a wobbly Harry off the bed, wrapping a silk blanket around his bare torso. “Come on. We have to get out of here...”

The low, throaty female chuckle stopped the duo in their tracks. Harry groaned louder and clutched Leia. “Shit. I know that laugh.”

“Well, hello there.” They swung around to find Yasmin standing in the door. Two of her greenish goons flanked her. Roberto Fettara held a gun on Charel's barrel-shaped chest. Yasmin fingered the green stone affixed to a gold pendant on a long chain around her neck. It glistened on her pale yellow summer suit. “Fancy finding you in a room where you don't belong, Dr. Skylark. There's no artifacts here. That room is downstairs, in the west wing.”

“How could you do this?” Leia firmly took Harry's hand. “That jewel belongs in a museum. It was never intended to be used to force smugglers into selling you cheap antiques, or to turn a man into your own private toy!”

“Look, Yasmin,” Harry protested, “I was on my back to your place when I got a little side-tracked. It's not my fault!”

“I've heard that before, Harry dear.” She chuckled his chin. “You're staying here, under lock and key, until tonight's ceremony. Your big friend will be locked in the room down the hall.” Her goons forced Leia and Harry's hands apart, pushing Leia towards the door. “As for the eminent Dr. Skylark,” her feral grin showed every bit of those ferocious blinding teeth, “leave her to me.”

Leia was dragged to a room in the western wing of the house, just off the main entrance. It was more like a museum, with Alderaanian artifacts of every stripe – weapons, armor, strips of leather that may have been headdresses, pottery, blowpipes used to shoot poison darts, arrowheads, jewelry – were under well-lit glass shelves and cases. Her fingers itched to inspect each and every one of them. She would have bet her degree that every object in the room was part of an illegal smuggling deal.

“Yes, this is the collection I wanted you to catalog.” Yasmin went around a heavy stone slab that was obviously being used as a desk. “Too bad you couldn't have done what you were told and waited for me. We could have worked together, Dr. Skylark.”

Leia gave her a smirk Harry would have approved of. “I was never very good at following orders.”

“Perhaps it's time you learned.” Yasmin settled her shapely rear in a tight-fitting, heavily padded pale blue Schiaparelli suit with sword-shaped buttons. “You know,” she added as she slowly pulled off her sky blue cotton gloves, “I'm going to have to do something with you. I can't get rid of you. Too many people know about you, including that reporter brother of yours. He was calling me this morning, asking me questions with that feral lady boss of his. Too many questions.”

“That's his job,” she snapped. Three men shoved her into a chair and bound her hand and foot with silk ropes from the drapes. “Maybe if you'd do something legal, like not murdering people and trying to mess with their minds, he wouldn't be bothering you.”

“I didn't murder Oola.” Yasmin pulled off the necklace, playing with the chain. “She was getting too close to my plans. I merely asked her what she knew, then planted a few suggestions in her empty little head. She said quite a mouthful.”

“I'm sure.” Leia tugged harder at the ropes on her wrists and ankles. “Look, let me go. You don't know what you're doing. You're not a Guardian. The Sword hasn't chosen you. It's chosen...someone else. I can feel it. It's calling them.”

“I'm aware of that.” She let loose with that throaty purr of a laugh again when Leia's eyes widened in surprise. “What? You thought I was just a gangster's trophy wife? I've done research, Dr. Skylark. When my husband made his deals with those thieves from Guatemala, I made a few calls, looked up a few books. I've done extensive reading on the artifacts of Alderaan and how they work. I don't care if the damn jewel is calling for its mother. It does what I want it to do.” She dangled the necklace, letting the late morning sunlight from the windows behind her glint on the crystal. “And so will you.”

“You're crazy.” Leia glared at her. “You can't control the Sword. It's not your magic. It's not calling you.”

“Oh no?” She leaned in a little closer, swinging the crystal slowly back and forth. “Perhaps you could tell that to Oola Twylar. I never liked that girl. I'd suspected for a long time that she was after information. Found her snooping around in the office at the Club yesterday. We took her downstairs, and I let her look into the crystal. She spilled every secret...including that she knew about the Sword and what I planned to do with it.”

Beams of watery green light shot off in every direction as she twirled the pendant. “She was completely under my control by the end of the night. My boys really enjoyed it. You'd be surprised how many positions a body can take when under mind control.” Her cruel shark jaws turned up into a near-parody of a smile. “It was too easy after that to persuade her to take her car and drive it off a cliff far enough to not implicate any of us.”

Leia growled. “You're crazy! And what does this have to do with me?”

“You can't have a similar accident. Not if I don't want your brother and that libelous paper of his crawling all over the club and my home.” She raised the pendant at eye level. “No one would notice, if you told me what you and your brother are up to...and where I can find the other two swords.”

“I thought you were working with Vader.”

“Him?” Yasmin snorted. “I just told him what I wanted to hear. There's no way I'm turning treasures like these over to him and that crazy Empire. Oh, I know what they're doing over there in Europe. It's killing a lot of my business. I can't get through half my regular European channels because Nazis and Imperials and who knows what else keeps invading them.” She swung the pendant lightly. “Now, Dr. Skylark, you will look into the pendant.”

Leia shrugged. “I don't feel anything.”

“Look deeply into it. Deeper, my dear doctor.” She came closer, swinging the pendant right at level with the girl's eyes. “That's right. Get lost in those colors, those beautiful, brilliant colors. Let your mind go. Don't think, dear. Don't think at all. Just lose yourself.”

The colors...they were penetrating her mind...no! She shook her head, trying to focus and clear the rainbow fog out of her brain. A pale green light, so pale as to be barely visible, swirled softly around her hands, then her arms. It finally moved across her chest and up her neck, landing in her eyes. The Sword knew her. It wanted her, not this dark witch who controlled it.

“NO!” The light dissipated as Leia opened her eyes. Yasmin had leaped back, just in time for a beam of green light to sizzle across the room. It left a smoking hole in a wall near the doorway as Barry Fortune entered. The light had just barely missed his natty light navy pin-striped suit.

“Um, is this a bad time, Yas?” Barry's eyes were wide. The beams of sunlight flashed on top of his shiny, pink bald head. “We can come back. There's a blond kid out here from the LA Daily Star who's begging for an interview. I can kick him out, if you want.”

“No.” Yasmin smirked. “I think we could use that young man. Let him in, Barry.”

“Sure, doll face.” Barry stepped aside as Luke entered.

Leia wondered if her goofy brother swiped the elegant suit from Laurence's wardrobe. It was all black, from the tip of his fedora to his shiny oxfords. He looked more like he was going to a funeral than to an interview. His ever-present notebook and pencil stuck out of his pants pocket. Otherwise, no glimpse of her brother's usual laid-back attitude could be seen.

“Hello, Mrs. Hutt.” Luke frowned when he saw his sister. “Is this how you greet all your guests?”

Yasmin's gave him her throaty chuckle. “Just the ones who annoy me.”

“My name is Mr. Luke Skylark, reporter for the Daily Star.” He shook her hand, but his eyes never left Leia. “I came here for an interview, but I suspect this may be a bad time.”

“Not at all.” Yasmin gave him that gleaming toothpaste smile again. “I have someone who, er, deals with reporters who feel the need to visit me.” She nodded at Barry. “Go get Tony. He's my...public relations specialist.”

Luke ignored her and took a chair as Barry Fortune ducked out the door. “So, Mrs. Hutt,” he began as he whipped out his notebook, “witnesses at the Twin Suns Club last night claim you and two of your men were among the last to see Oola Twylar last night before she went off a cliff.”

“Yes, we were. It's a terrible thing, what happened to that poor girl.” She sighed. “But I don't see what we have to do with a showgirl who committed suicide.”

“It does seem a little odd.” Luke was scribbling furiously. “My boss and I have made several calls this morning. Everyone who knew her, including her roommates at the Anchorhead Arms Apartments and her fellow employees at the Twins Suns Club, liked her and are shocked at her death. They say she was bright, beautiful, and inquisitive, always asking questions.”

“Yes, she was always asking questions. More than a few employees wondered if she was a reporter sniffing around for a story or a spy for the other nightclubs on the Sunset Strip.” The beautiful blond gangster sighed. “You just can't get good help nowadays.”

“Mrs. Hutt,” Luke narrowed his eyes, “I want the full story. Rumors of your activities have been swirling around for years now, ever since your husband's time.” He nodded at Leia. “You've been doing everything from peddling drugs to smuggling antiquities.” The young man stood as he waved his hand at the Alderaanian artifacts behind him. “Even I can tell that those artifacts are the real thing. You're no professor or archaeologist. There's no way you could have gotten them legitimately. They'd cost a fortune.”

Yasmin stood, her smile now forced and sharp. “You're just as much of a nuisance as your sister.” The swarthy man with the thick dark mustache who came as she crooked her finger was the fattest creature Leia ever saw. He was more the size of a sumo wrestler than an average human being. His mud-brown suit threatened to pop off at any minute. “Oh Tony, I'd like you to take care of a little problem for me.”

“Sure, Mrs. H,” he grunted. Luke tried to make for the door, but he grabbed him by his collar. “Where should I take care-a him?”

“Outside would be preferable, in the garden.” She sighed. “Eliza will be upset if she has to clean another mess off the carpet like the last time you tossed out a reporter.”

“Will do, Mrs. H.” He got as far as the door with Luke before the young man aimed a solid kick at his knee. He let out a howl and dropped him. Luke stumbled briefly, just long enough for two of Yasmin's guards to make a grab at him. He squeezed between them, letting the duo run headlong into each other.

“I've got to get to Artie!” Luke leaped over two tropical floral couches, nearly tripping over a hassock as he darted to the sliding glass doors. “Maybe I can cut through the garden...”

“No, you don't.” His nose made contact with a mountain, throwing him back and making him see stars. “You not goin' anywhere 'less I say so.”

“Wait!” Luke put up a hand. “You're constricting the freedom of the press!”

“Uh,” the mountain scratched it's chin, “I don't know what that mean.” He made a grab at Luke again, but Luke ducked into the garden. “Hey, I can't throw you out if you out!”

Luke grinned as he scanned the garden, with it's elaborate rock work and towering palms and bougainvilleas. “Hey ugly, you're so dumb, you couldn't catch Mickey Mouse!”

“Oh yeah?” The big goon put up his fists, swinging them at Luke. “Watch me!”

Luke jumped away, trying to slow him down as he searched for the biggest rock he could lift. “Hey, lil' runt,” the giant puffed, “stay still so I can smash ya!”

“No thank you.” Luke just managed to wiggle his lithe body around his right fist. “I like my face where it is!” He hopped onto a bench, lifting the biggest rock he could over the man's head. Yasmin, three of her bodyguards, and Barry Fortune arrived just in time to see him slam the rock down over the man's head. Barry Fortune had a squirming Leia by her arms.

“What did you do?” Yasmin glared at him as two of her men went to the massive goon's side. “Tony's my brother-in-law! If he's has a headache for the next week, I'll never hear the end of it from his wife.”

Leia grinned ear to ear. “Nice work, brother.”

The sibling in question was breathing hard, but he shared her grin. “Yeah, I guess I did do good work.” He jumped off the bench and went right to Yasmin, but the other two goons grabbed him. “Is this how you treat every reporter who wants an interview with you, Mrs. Hutt?”

Yasmin's white teeth glinted in the soft late-morning sunlight. “Only the ones who annoy me.”

One of the fat guards in green who held Luke fingered a gun with his other hand. “You want us to take care of these two troublemakers, boss?”

Yasmin rubbed her finger down Luke's chin, ignoring Leia lunging for her. “This one is rather cute. Maybe I'll keep him. After a session at with my favorite jewelry, of course.” She finally turned to Barry Fortune, her smile making her look rather like a female shark on the prowl. “Mr. Fortune, we're going to do the ceremony again tonight. Perhaps the God doesn't mind having two sacrifices? There could be two gods, a god and a sister goddess, and they're hungry for the love of two attractive mortals like these.”

Barry stroked Leia's arm, pulling away from her sharp kick. “I think she's too pretty to put under mind control.”

“We'll find a use for her. I still need to question her about the locations of the other two swords.” She ran her finger under Leia's chin, lifting it to her face. Her blue eyes were ice-cold, but her red smile was a flame in the pale sunlight. “And you will talk, Dr. Skylark, after the party is over. Oh yes, you will.”