Thirty-three
At daybreak, John and Jennifer walked the mile and a
half to another, somewhat more affluent neighborhood. John kept up a
brisk pace despite carrying two suitcases, forcing Jennifer to jog at
times to keep up. “Haven’t visited the gym in ages,” he complained. “I
need a good work-out.”
“You’re in good condition for a man your age.”
John returned a displeased frown and strolled
resolutely on. He turned into the lobby of a run-down,
turn-of-the-century hotel and checked in, and then took an elevator to the
third floor with Jennifer at his heels. Again, the room was faded with
age, but reasonably neat.
John fished for his keys and headed back out the
door. “Let’s take another walk. I’ve got something to show you.”
The day was fresh and growing brighter by the minute
as the sun cleared the surrounding buildings and shown down upon the
city. Jennifer noticed a different breed of people out and about in the
morning air, delivery men and middle class people headed to work. They
were a group willing to look one another in the eye and smile when they
met on the sidewalk. John seemed bewildered and distrustful.
“I take it you’re a night person,” Jennifer said.
“What I want to show you can only be safely seen at
this time of the day. I’d be recognized at night.”
They turned a corner and she saw the sign from a
block away. Club Paradise. They started down a street lined on both
sides with flashier taverns and adult bookstores.
The doors to Club Paradise were open to delivery
people coming and going with sacks and boxes on dollies and hard carts.
John stopped alongside the double doors and gestured for her to look
inside.
Daylight filtered across an enormous arena of dance
floors and a section of tables, the back wall lined by a bar bigger than
she had ever seen in her life. She noticed that the decor differed from
one end of the floor to the other. One side was bright and blue, the
other dark and red, one side painted with clouds and angels, and the other
with demons and walls of fire.
“Welcome to Hades,” John said.
“It's just a game, right?
Nobody really believes that stuff, do they?”
John turned unexpectedly
serious. “Belief is a funny thing. Give a polygraph to most
adults and they’d fail if they said they don’t believe in Santa Claus.
Some fantasies get that deeply engrained. Most people don’t know
themselves which beliefs they profess or deny would fail or pass a lie
detector test. A place like this is mostly an excuse to misbehave.”
“Are we going to come here tonight?”
“No, but this is where our bait has been set. This
is where the sharks will nibble.”
They returned to the hotel at a slower pace, their
mood darkening. “We’ll be dealing with a sharper and more dangerous
crowd here,” John said. “We need to get our story straight in case
they talk about us and compare notes. I’m new to the business,
desperate for cash. Nobody needs to know more than that. I
picked you up in front of a bus station a week ago. You’re from back
east, say Pennsylvania, not too bright, uneducated, and untraceable.
If you have to tell a story, don’t
throw around too many proper nouns, people or places. Keep stuff vague
and uncertain. We’ve both been under a lot of stress lately, so we
won't be expected to be above board on everything.”
They continued on to the hotel in silence, but John
walked on by. “Let’s get something to eat.”
They ate a quiet late breakfast in clean restaurant
and then returned to the hotel. Jennifer dozed during the afternoon.
John woke her at dusk, smelling of soap and wearing a change of clothing.
“Make yourself up like you did last night,” he instructed. “Wait here for
me. I won’t be long.”
Jennifer applied the make-up with trembling hands,
sensing that the situation was growing more hazardous. She thought of
what Dimitri had done to Cathy, and especially to Valerie. She tried to
imagine the kind of people who had turned Dimitri into that kind of
monster, and what they had done to seduce him.
The woman John brought to the room stared at Jennifer
and shook her head. “Turn that cookie loose on my street, mister, and
I’ll slit her throat for you.”
An hour later, John brought back a man who only
glanced at her. “Five hundred bucks.”
“You don’t know Rosie? There’s a cut in it, more
than five hundred.”
The man studied Jennifer more closely. “Don’t know
no Rosie. Fifteen hundred. Let me have her. It’s a fair price.”
“Later, maybe.”
Just before midnight, John let a slip of a black man
into the apartment. He grimaced in revulsion, and said, “Yuk. That’s one
nasty little scag you got there, mister. I don’t want her.”
“Rosie wants her. I need an address. Field for me
on this and I’ll give you a cut.”
“If I knew Rosie, I’d be messing with some truly sick
bastards, my man. I’d have to go fifty percent to bother with the risk.”
“I was going to offer ten,” John said. “I’ll go
twenty.”
“Man, you know we’re going to settle at thirty. Make
it thirty and let me collect something up front and I’ll ask around for
you.”
“Twenty-five and get it done tonight.”
“Twenty-five percent of what? Do you know the bad
asses you’ll be dealing with? They’ll make you an offer and if you
refuse, we’ll both wind up in an alley with the rats feeding on our
faces.”
“I’ll take what they offer and you get your cut up
front," John said. "I gotta unload her tonight. She’s too conspicuous.”
The black man shrugged. “It won’t take long. Stick
around. And think about what I said. Five hundred for an outright sale.
It’s a hell of a lot safer.”
John watched the man leave. “Damn, that was quick.”
“Nasty little scag?” Jennifer was indignant. “Did I
do a good job with the make-up, or what?”
John chuckled. “What make-up?”
Jennifer threw a pillow at him. “You’re going to
have to be especially nice to me when this is over, Mr. Cantrell. And
please don’t ask me back to this part of town for a visit. Not unless
someone nukes it first.”
“Our friend was right about the danger of dealing
with Rosie’s kind," John said. "I’m risking our lives. We’ll get separated, and I
can’t guarantee that I can get us both out in one piece.”
“Why do you think the risk is worth it?” Jennifer
said, alarmed, but without doubting that John was doing what had to be
done.
“Not so much worth the risk. Just inevitable.
Something to be dealt with. Because of what they did to Dimitri, the way
they lit a fire under him that he couldn’t control, the things he said,
the way he killed. Someone seriously twisted that bastard. There are few
forces in the world evil enough to do that to a man.”
“You know who they are,” Jennifer said with cold
chill.
“I know we can’t walk away and hope to
survive it. Something seriously bad is going down. Either we pin a face
on it and negotiate with it, or it takes us out. I’d say that I’m sorry I
got you mixed up in this, except that it was none of my doing.”
“Do you really think you can negotiate? You don’t
even have a gun.”
John shrugged. “Guns are for keeping trouble at a
distance. I’ve always found that trouble is best handled close up. Close
up, you’re dealing with human beings like yourself. Negotiation is always
the best way to go, even among bad-asses. They don’t always need to die, and trying to kill
someone can backfire. Nobody’s bullet-proof.”
Jennifer said nothing, chilled by the predator that
was now her only ally in life. She felt like a kitten cradled in the arms
of a gorilla she had once seen in a zoo.
“I keep going over it in my head,” he said softly.
“I don’t want to involve you in this, but if someone wanted Evelyn Haxx
dead, they would have hired someone to pull it off quietly and
discretely. Evelyn or any one of you girls. Dimitri was a diversion, a
distraction. Whoever is behind this wants us to make assumptions and take
appearances at face value. They don’t want us looking too deeply into why
the target needs to die. We need to find out why.”
“We don’t know who yet,” Jennifer reminded him.
“Who includes anyone who gets in their way.” John
sighed heavily. “It’s still your call, kid. Call your own
shots and I won't give you an argument."
“Is this what you would have done for your sister?"
The questions startled him. “Putting her life at
risk to save it? It’s a moot
question. She never gave me the chance to do anything for her.”
The black man returned with a friend at two in the
morning. The newcomer had glasses and looked like an accountant. “Strip
her,” he ordered. “I want to see what she looks like.”
“She’s a feisty bitch,” John said. “I don’t want her
bruised worse than she already is. Take my word for it. She’s got meat
on her bones, and she’s got it distributed in all the right places.”
“Three thousand,” the accountant said. “She goes
with me now.”
“It’s a deal, if I can hear it from Rosie herself. I
trust Rosie to be discrete. I don’t want to get busted for this.”
“How do you know about Rosie?”
“I know her from a satisfied customer.”
“Give me a name.”
“Dimitri.”
"I know three Dimitris."
"Only one of them is a
Carvelli."
If snakes could smile, they’d look like this,
Jennifer thought to herself. The man eyed her knowingly and turned away
in silence. John shoved her out the door behind him and followed.
