Shella Page 4

  Monroe told me not to come back there. He gave me a place to meet him in two nights. Told me the car he’d be in.

  I went out the next afternoon, bought the papers. There was nothing about finding a body on a roof.

  I don’t read much. Just the papers once in a while. To see if there’s trouble. Shella used to read to me, sometimes. It started when I got hurt. This guy was coming to watch Shella dance every night. He asked her for a date—she told him she didn’t date the customers. So he started calling her at work. The first couple of times, she took the calls. He scared her, with those calls. That’s hard to do to Shella, but he did it. Kept saying, if she wasn’t going to give him a piece of ass, he was going to take one for himself. Cut it off her one night. Told her he had a razor. I told her the guy was playing with himself, talking to her like that, getting off on her being scared. I tried to tell her how I knew, from listening to guys like him the last time I was locked up. Freaks, I know them. You just listen, they’ll tell you everything. He never came back to the club. I told Shella, just don’t talk to him on the phone, he’ll find someone else to give his terror to. She promised me. But she lied. I always knew when Shella lied.

  He was waiting for her, one night. In the alley behind the club, where she walked through to get to the car. A shortcut. I was there too. Every night, I was there. Ever since I found out she was lying.

  He didn’t know what he was doing, the freak. When Shella came through the mouth of the alley, he was breathing so loud I could hear him from where I was waiting. You couldn’t miss Shella, clicking in her high heels, white-blonde hair piled up on her head. Alone.

  The freak knocked some garbage cans together when he got to his feet. Shella didn’t run. Stupid bitch, Shella. She stopped, pulled something out of her purse. I could see the red neon glitter on the metal.

  “Come on, cocksucker!” she yelled at the freak. “Come and get it. I got one too.”

  He stepped out of the shadows. It looked like he had only one arm, the sleeve of his coat dangling empty. Nothing in his other hand. He staggered like he was drunk, mumbling like he was scared Shella was a crazy woman, going to hurt him for nothing. She made a disgusted noise, snorting through her nose. She only saw a crippled drunk, trying to find a quiet place to sleep. Dropped the razor back in her purse, spun around, and started to walk out of the alley. He flew at her like a giant bat, coat flapping around him. The angle was wrong—I had too much ground to cover. He almost had her from behind when I kicked his knees from the side. He went down against the wall, came back up fast. I went at him from the empty-sleeve side—felt the flash of something heavy coming at me, threw up my hand—the lead pipe cracked across the side of my hand, right into my face. I didn’t feel it until after I was done with him.

  Shella got me into the car, took me to the room. My left eye was closed, my nose was all flat, pushed to one side. It bled a lot.

  We couldn’t go to a hospital. Shella got ice from the ice machine in the hall, wrapped it in a towel, smashed it with the lead pipe. I pushed my nose back where it should be with my fingers and Shella put the towel with the crushed ice over my face, like a mask. She gave me some Percodan she had, and I got woozy—I’m not used to drugs.

  The lead pipe had tape all around one end, for a better grip. In the freak’s wallet, we found the number to the pay phone at the club.

  I was lying on the bed, on my back. We’d have to stay a while now. If Shella left the same night the cops found the freak in the alley, if they stopped the car somewhere and saw my face …

  She came over to the bed, carrying a chair in one hand, sat down next to me.

  “You should whip my ass,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “This is my fault. I didn’t listen to you. I was talking to him on the phone, every time he called. Told him he better leave me the fuck alone, I wasn’t playing. I thought he’d run away, I talked to him like that. But it made him mad. I didn’t want to tell you … what I did … so I decided I’d deal with him myself. Phone freaks, they never show up in person. Like flashers. I was on the train once, in Chicago. Late at night. This guy opens his coat and it’s all hanging out. He’s hard and all, getting off on it. I ran over and grabbed him, right by the root. Almost yanked it off, the motherfucker. I thought … I’m sorry, baby.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. Tired, not sleepy.

  “You want me to …?” she asked, trailing her fingers along my cock. It was soft, small.

  “No.”

  She gave me a little kiss on my chest. Got up and went somewhere.

  When she came back, I was the same way. I could feel her sit in the chair next to the bed. “Would you like me to read to you, honey?”

  I said “Sure.” I don’t know why I said that.

  It was one of those romance books she was always reading. Paperbacks. I listened to her read, watched the story in my head. It was a stupid story, something about a princess. Her father wanted her to marry the son of some other king, make some political deal. She ran away. She got captured by some pirates. They had her tied up in a chair when the pirate captain came in. She started giving him orders when I fell asleep.

  Shella fed me hot soup the next morning. Washed my face with a hot towel, gave me another Percodan, made another ice mask for me. I laid down, resting. She asked me, did I want her to read to me some more.

  I told her okay.

  She went to work that night. She said, if the cops took her, she wouldn’t tell them where she lived. If she didn’t come back, I should figure she was locked up.

  She came back, though. Said the cops didn’t even question the girls in the club.

  Shella got a bunch of different books. She’d get them at the drugstore, off the racks. All kinds. She read to me every morning, every night when she got back to the room.

  I got better every day.

  One night, she asked me what was my favorite. Of all the books she read to me.

  I didn’t like the sex books. Or the westerns. The mysteries, like with clues, they were too complicated, too silly. I thought about it. The Sherlock Holmes stories, I told her. When she asked me why, I told her because the stories were short. When she was at work, I thought about it. Why I liked those stories. They were so close, always together, Holmes and that doctor. Watson. Friends to the end. Real partners. Even when Watson got married, he was with Holmes. Holmes, he was ice-cold. Always did the smart thing, figured stuff out. But in one story, I forget the name, he told some guy, if anything had happened to Watson, the guy was dead.

  There was lots and lots of those stories. Some were longer, like books.

  Shella read to me all the time when I was getting better. Even after we left that town, when my face was healed, she would read to me sometimes. Like a treat.

  There were still plenty of the Sherlock Holmes stories left when I went down in Florida.

  I met Monroe a little after midnight. He gave me the address: Pike Slip, off South Street. It was under a big highway on the East Side, slab of concrete like a parking lot, but no cars came there. He was in a black limo, like he was coming from a party. I saw it pull in from where I was watching. The glass in the back windows was black like the car.

  I stepped out so they could see me. The back window came down. I walked over.

  “Get in, Ghost,” Monroe said.

  Inside, it was like a living room. All leather, even a wood bar that came down from the back of the front seat. Just Monroe in the back seat. I could see two men in the front, sitting behind a screen, facing front.

  “You ready to work?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a businessman, okay? I got a lot of business. There’s this guy, Carlos. Carlos the Colombian, they call him. He don’t know how to do things—he’s a fucking animal.”

  I don’t care why people do things. Everybody’s got a reason—it doesn’t change anything, why they do it. But I didn’t tell Monroe that. I learned, from doing this a long
time, I learned not to say anything. I just let people talk until they tell me what I need. Sometimes I nod, like I’m listening.

  “We told this fucking guy, we told him he can’t move weight in this town without the say-so. He’s got prime stuff, I’ll give him that. All we wanted was a taste, just a slice off the top. I told him nice, there’s plenty for everyone, don’t be greedy, you know?”

  That’s when I nodded. So he’d finish.

  “He fucks with his own product, thinks he’s Superman, nobody can take him down. Goes everywhere with this fucking army. Way I heard it, he’s got himself a deal. With the federales. Walks around like he’s got immunity. Never gets busted. Anyway, you can’t get to him where he lives. Wherever the fuck that is, someplace out in Queens, Jackson Heights. Chapinero, they call it. Spanish for something, maybe their home town. It’s all Spanish out there, wall to wall. You speak any Spanish?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, it ain’t the money, Ghost. Everybody’s got a boss. Even me, I got to answer to people. I’ve been paying the slice myself. For a couple a months now. You understand what I’m saying? I slice his action off the top, they slice mine. They don’t care how I get it, I got to get it. They know he’s moving weight, they expect me to slice it. I tell them I can’t move on this guy, they move on me. That’s the way it works, right?”

  I nodded again.

  “Only place he goes, only place we know, is this club. Over there, in this Chapinero. Looks like a storefront on the street, but the whole cellar, they use it for this club. He goes there alone, goes downstairs alone, anyway. Leaves his boys upstairs. He likes to dance, down there. Brings a broad with him, puts on a show. I got people, watch him. He don’t carry a piece.

  “I send two shooters down there, couple of weeks ago. Another guy for backup. The two shooters get dead. The guy who comes out, he tells us, the place is all dark, little spotlights on the dance floor, that’s all. This Carlos, he’s dancing with some cunt, got his hands all over her. The shooters roll on him, bang-bang, they both get dead. The other guy, he didn’t see the whole thing, but when the lights come on, Carlos, he’s just standing there, nothing in his hands. Turns out they was shot in the chest, head-on. Like it happened by itself. No way Carlos does it, not like that.”

  Monroe’s face looks at me. Just his face, not his eyes. “You got nothing to say?” he asks me.

  “No.”

  “You understand what I’m telling you? He shoots people without a gun, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “This is the guy you got to do, Ghost. Here’s a picture of him. You do this, I’ll find this broad, Candy. I’ll hunt her down for you.” He looks at me with his eyes now. “We got a deal?”

  “Yes,” I told him.

  When Misty got home, I asked her, does she have to work every night.

  “I don’t have to, baby. I mean, I could have a night off anytime, I guess, I just ask the boss.”

  “Do you want to go someplace with me? A nightclub, like?”

  “Sure! I love to party, honey. I didn’t think you … Where would you like to go?”

  “This club I heard about. In Queens. It’s supposed to be nice.”

  “Can we go tonight?”

  “Next week,” I told her.

  I took a train to the neighborhood the next day. When I bought the token for the subway, the lady gave me a map, different-colored lines, all the stops on there. It started out underground, but then it went outside. I got out, walked around. Like Monroe said, the whole neighborhood was Spanish—the restaurants, the drugstores, even the newspapers. I walked by the storefront. It looked closed in the daytime, the window was painted over. I could read the neon sign, even when it wasn’t lit. Bajo Mundo.

  I couldn’t see if there was a back way out. People wouldn’t come to a nightclub on the subway, but I couldn’t see a parking lot either.

  I walked around a little bit more. I wasn’t worried about people getting a look at me. Nobody sees me.

  I went back the next night. The elevated-train platform looks down on the club. I stood there, looking down. Cars drove up. Fancy, sleek cars. A couple of guys out front, they would take each car, drive it off somewhere. Somewhere off the block—I couldn’t see where they went. Like at a country club.

  I was counting the cars, trying to figure out how big the place was inside. It was about ten o’clock. The man I was looking for, I couldn’t see him. Maybe he didn’t come until late.

  I felt them come up behind me, but I kept watching, over the railing. When they got close, one said something in Spanish. I turned around. The guy who was talking, he had a gun. They were wearing those sweatshirts with hoods on them. I was all the way at the end of the platform, dark there. Other people maybe a hundred feet away. I knew they wouldn’t do anything.

  I put my hands up. The guy without the gun, he reached in my jacket pocket, took out my wallet. There was maybe three hundred bucks in there. He took it. The guy with the gun made a motion like I should turn around. I did that.

  I heard them move away. One of them said something. Marry-con, it sounded like.

  Just before midnight, three cars pulled in together. The man I was watching for got out of the back seat from the middle car. He looked just like the picture Monroe showed me. The man held out his hand, and a woman took it, came out after him. They went into the club. Men got out of the other cars, stood by the door.

  When other cars pulled up, those men watched.

  Just before three o’clock, the same three cars pulled up in front. The man came out, the woman just in front of him. All three cars pulled away in a line.

  I got my car out of the garage at the hotel the next afternoon, drove over to the neighborhood. I just drove around for a while until I found a parking space a couple of blocks away from the club. I read the signs. The car wouldn’t get a ticket even if it was there for a couple of days. I left it there, took the train back.

  I was awake when Misty came back. I smoked a cigarette while she took her shower. She came out, wearing a pink silk thing that sort of wrapped around her.

  “Do you like this?” she asked me.

  “It’s pretty.”

  She did a spin so I could see the whole thing. Sat down on the bed. Stretched like she was real tired from work.

  I laid down on the bed next to her, looking at the ceiling.

  “Can you get credit cards?” I asked her.

  “Sure, honey. Someone’s always looking to sell them at the club. What kind?”

  “American Express, Mastercard, Visa … any big card.”

  “Fresh ones go for a yard. And they’re only good for a couple-three days. You know …?”

  “Yeah.” You can always get credit cards. They rough them off in purse-snatchings, slip them out of pocketbooks in the ladies’ rooms … then they sell them. Most people use them to buy things. Then they sell the things. To the same kind of people they stole the cards from.

  “You have a driver’s license?”

  “No, baby. I mean, I got ID, but …”

  “It’s okay.”

  She rolled against me, put her head on my chest, reached down, started playing with me.

  “What do you need, honey? Tell Misty, I’ll get it for you.”

  “We need a car. For when we go to this club. A fancy, nice car. We’re going to rent a car, leave it there, understand? Go home in our own car.”

  “Why don’t we just take a limo?”

  “A limo?”

  “Sure! We can rent one. Just for the night, okay? It doesn’t cost that much. Like a taxi, only fancy. Some of the guys, the ones who come to the club, they use them. When they’re ready to leave, they just make a call, the car’s waiting for them out front.”

  “They’re like cabs, right? They have a log, write down where they take people?”

  “I … guess so.”

  “No good.”

  I thought about it, turned it over in my mind. I don’t do things fast, except when I g
et right to them. Shella wasn’t like that, always impatient. She was always playing, not thinking how things would come out.

  We had some money ahead, once, and she wanted to rent this little house, like a cottage, right near the beach. It was okay with me. Neither of us was working then. A vacation, she said it was. Nighttime, I would go out to the beach, look at the dark water. Sometimes she came with me. One night, she didn’t. When I walked back to the house, I saw the car was gone, no lights on. Figured she went into town—Shella got restless sometimes. I opened the front door, felt somebody there. I slid back out the door, closed it softly, didn’t click the latch. I went around the back of the house … couldn’t find where anybody’d got in. I found a good spot, where I could see the car when she came in. Whoever was inside, they’d have to come out sometime.

  The car pulled up a couple of hours later. The door opened and I could see someone inside. Not Shella. Small, dark-haired. Whoever it was closed the door, started for the house. I stepped behind him, locked my forearm around his throat, kicked his ankles, took him down. I smelled perfume, felt long hair. A woman.

  “Make a sound, I’ll break your neck,” I said, quiet. “Who’s inside?”

  “Candy,” she whispered. “She lent me the car. Don’t …”

  “Who are you?”

  “Bonnie. Her friend, Bonnie.”

  “You work at the club?” Her body was slim, slender like a boy’s. Whatever she was, she was no dancer.

  “Upstairs. I work the phones. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Where’d you get the car?”

  “Candy lent it to me.”

  “When?”

  “Nine o’clock. She brought it out to me. I told her I’d have it back by midnight—she’s gonna drive me home.”

  “It’s after midnight.”

  “I know. She’s gonna beat my ass.”

  I didn’t get it when she said it. I walked her over to the front door. “It’s open,” I told her. “Just walk in, call her name. If she’s in there, by herself, there’s no problem.”