Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (11 page)

The shopkeeper took Victor's money, called out to a
barefoot boy of perhaps eight, and gave the boy rapid instructions in
Spanish while pointing at Victor. The boy listened without looking at
any of them, untied and reknotted his rope belt, scratched his ear,
then gestured for the three Americans to follow him.

"
Vámonos in el carro
,"
Ellen said, making an effort to roll the rr carro. Was that even a
word? She pointed to the limo, and the boy nodded enthusiastically.
"Oh, shit," she said, noticing the naked wheels. The car
had been out of her sight for only a few minutes.

"
What happened to the hubcaps?" she asked.

Raleigh and Victor passed the bottle back and forth
and seemed unconcerned at her distress as they sauntered toward the
big Cadillac. Ellen walked around to the driver's side and opened her
door. A quick glance down the length of the car confirmed her fear
that the thieves had made off with the whole damn set. She reached
down and flipped the electronic door locks. The boy climbed into the
front seat beside her and pointed off to the right.

"
Alli
,"
he said. There.

"
Ah-yee is right, kid," she said, wondering
what was going to happen next. One thing for damn sure, somebody was
paying for those hubcaps. Ellen thought back to the wad of bills in
Victor's pocket. Three questions instantly came to mind.
How
big a tipper is this guy? How well does he hold his liquor? And how
soundly does he sleep?

The boy's directions brought them to a street called
Avenida Revolucion. Bars of every flavor touted their attractions.
The Hula Room offered topless girls. The New York Club bragged of
live entertainment. The boy urged them forward until they reached the
bottom of the block. A flashing neon sign proclaimed THE BLUE FOX.
Two sweating locals passed out flyers to a group of American navy
men, easily recognized by their short hair and crisply pressed jeans.
Fat working girls in short, tight dresses leaned against the
windowless walls and smiled at passing traffic. Smoke and
tinny-sounding salsa music oozed from the open doorway.

"
Perfect," Victor said. Raleigh passed him
the tequila bottle, and he took a healthy swig. He offered the bottle
to Ellen. She declined.

The Cadillac's thermometer read l00 degrees, and that
wasn't even counting the humidity. COLD BEER was painted in white
letters above the doorway. Maybe just one, she thought, and only the
bottled stuff.

As the group passed through the flaps of floor-length
Naugahyde that served as the doors of the establishment, one of the
barkers pushed a flyer into Ellen's hand. The black-and-white
photograph was grainy, but she could still make out the heavily
made-up fat woman spreading her pussy open and curling her tongue.
Large, flabby breasts spilled over the woman's arms.

"
When's the show?" Victor asked.

"Twenty dollars," the doorman said. "Each."

Ellen hesitated. "Maybe I'll just wait in the
car," she said.

"It's too hot for that," Raleigh said.
"Come on in. Don't worry I won't tell."
 

"
Well," she
said, thinking how good just the one beer would taste. "Maybe
for just a moment." She deserved that much.

* * *

Raleigh followed the two of them inside. The bar
smelled of piss and beer. Even with the two fans turning sullenly
overhead, the humidity inside the dark bar was thick enough to push
him back. Three whores surrounded them instantly, the youngest of
whom looked about twelve, even with the makeup. Her Levi cutoffs
revealed more than they covered.

"
Want a blow job?" she asked. "I do
you at the booth. Twelve-fifty."

He pushed past her, taking Ellen's arm and guiding
her to the bar. The bartender turned to take their order. Raleigh had
a hard time not focusing on what passed as the man's nose. All that
remained was a twisted knob of scar tissue above two gaping black
nostrils.

"
Bueno
," the
bartender said, pointing the two obscene holes right at Raleigh.

"Tequila," he said, holding up two fingers.
"What you want, doll?" he asked Ellen.

"
Something cold and wet," she said.
"Something that'll fit easily in my hand and make me happy."

Raleigh responded by puffing out his chest. "I
think l got just what you need."

"Aren't you going to ask me if I want foreign or
domestic?"

"Believe me, doll," he said. "Buy
American." He pointed at the cooler behind the bartender. "And
one beer. You got that,
amigo
?"

The bartender wiped his bar rag across his face, then
flipped it back over his shoulder and reached for glasses and
bottles.

Raleigh turned his back to the man, leaned against
the ripped upholstery of the bar top, and assessed the security.

The midday crowd was limited to a dozen sailors,
three shabbily dressed dark-skinned local men, and five whores
working the room. The wooden stage was bathed in red and blue lights.
A blanket covered the large door to the left of the stage. There
wasn't a man or woman in the room he couldn't take. Any one of them
he could kill in twenty different ways with his bare hands, or an
opportunistic garrote. The cooler of beer held three dozen blunt
objects that could easily crush temporal lobes. He took a deep hit of
his tequila and sighed, feeling in control and the most relaxed he'd
been in days.
 
 

CHAPTER 9

Munch invited Mace St. John into her home, motioned
for him to take a seat on the couch, and then followed Asia into her
bedroom to locate the red shoes.

"
I need to talk to this man about some stuff,"
she told Asia. "You can come in and meet him after you get your
shoes on."

"Who is he?" Asia asked.

"
He's a policeman. Someone I met before you were
born. I haven't seen him in a long time."

"Why is he here?"

"That's what I'm going to find out. Wash your
face and hands before you come back."

"
Okay."

Munch looked long and hard at Asia, raising her
eyebrows and tilting her head. Asia had acquiesced a little too
easily.

"
I will," Asia said, putting extra emphasis
on the second word.

Munch returned to the living room. Mace St. John had
spread four photographs across the coffee table. She sat down beside
him and looked. Three of the pictures showed her limo from a slightly
aerial viewpoint.

"Where were these taken?" she asked.

"
Apartment complex security camera."

"Welcome to 1984, Big Brother," she said.

"
You recognize this guy?" he asked,
pointing at a photograph of Mr. Disco with his hand raised in
apparent greeting.

"
Yeah," she said, "that's the guy I
picked up at the Beverly Wilshire. Raleigh Ward called him Victor."

Mace consulted his notes. "He was the
foreigner?"

"
Yeah, heavy accent, and he seemed kind of out
of sync."

"
How so?"

"His clothes were like out of the seventies. And
he had a weird way of looking at people, at me, the two floozies."

'
Weird how?"

"
l don't know, like he'd just arrived on the
planet—like he was looking at some kind of zoo species he'd never
seen before. Kind of creepy, really."

"What about the two women? The floozies?"

"
I don't mean to put them down. They were okay,
I guess. Just two party girls out for a good time."

"
Pros?" he asked quietly.

"
Could be," she said, casting a nervous
glance toward Asia's room.

He pulled out two more pictures from the manila
envelope. "Are these the women you met last night?"

She looked at the photographs and felt her stomach
flip. "Are they dead?" she asked, staring at the open-eyed,
slack expressions, already knowing the answer.

He nodded.

"
Yeah, these look like the same girls. Was this
the case I heard about on the news this morning?"

"
After you left the building on Gower, you took
Raleigh Ward straight back to his place?"

"
Yeah."

"
And you left this Victor character with the two
women?"

"
That's right."

'
What was Raleigh Ward's state of mind?"

She thought back to the terrible expression on
Raleigh's face, remembered that when he rose up to get the money out
of his pocket, she'd seen a gun holstered on his belt. "Were the
women shot?" she asked.

"
I can't comment on that," he said.

"
Raleigh was packing. "

"I know, you included that in your report. Was
he agitated when you last saw him?"

"
More like devastated?

"
Go on."

"
He made a call on the way home. Some woman, I
think. He wanted to go see her, but she turned him down."

"
You could hear all this?"

She forced herself not to shift in her seat. "Yeah,
I could."

"Then what happened?"

"
He paid me and went home. I tried calling back
whoever he'd been talking to."

"
You did? How?"

"
I pushed redial on the phone."

"Why?"

"
I was worried about him. He seemed so bummed
out, and he was drunk. I was afraid he was going to, I don't know,
maybe off himself. I thought maybe whoever it was on the phone might
like to help."

"
And what happened when you called?"

"
She hung up on me. I think she thought it was
him calling back."

"
And then you left?"

"Yeah."

Asia entered the room. She'd clipped three plastic
animal-themed barrettes randomly across her mop of Shirley Temple
curls. She'd also changed into this week's favorite outfit: plaid
shorts and a bright yellow shirt.

Mace quickly stuffed the pictures of the dead women
back into his envelope.

"
Asia," Munch said, "this is Detective
St. John."

Asia clasped her hands behind her back, crossed her
feet, and looked downward. Well, this is a first, Munch thought.

"
Pleased to meet you, Asia," Mace said.

"
Hello," Asia replied, barely audibly.

"
Nice shoes," he added.

She looked up then. "Mommy said she met you
before I was born."

"
How old are you?" he asked.

Munch watched the exchange in incredulous and
mounting panic. How was it that the conversation had zeroed in
immediately on just the mine field she hoped to avoid? She'd had her
dealings with the detective a little over seven years ago. Lord
knows, she hadn't been pregnant then.

"
Six and a half," Asia said. "I'll be
seven in—"

"
The limo isn't here," Munch blurted out.

"
Where is it?" Mace asked, turning to her.

Asia took a step in front of Munch, placing herself
between Mace and her mother. She put a look of resignation on her
six-and-a-halfyear-old face, an expression that had taken Munch
twenty-eight years to earn, and sighed before she said, "Fucking
Ellen took it."

Mace made a small choking sound. When he looked over
at Munch, his eyes had a twinkle in them. "Who's Ellen?" he
asked.

"
A friend of mine," Munch said, feeling her
eyes bulge as she stared at Asia with a mixture of shock and
annoyance.

"
Derek told us," Asia said.

"
And Derek is?" he asked, addressing Asia.

"My ex," Munch said, louder than necessary,
hoping to get everyone's attention back on her.

"
Your daddy?" Mace asked Asia.

"
No," she assured him. "My daddy is in
heaven." She accompanied this statement with a solemn glance
skyward. God, Munch thought, this kid is good. Scary how good.

"
Derek lives across the street," Munch
explained. "He manages the four-unit apartment building. Before
that he lived with us and helped run the limo company."

"
So you guys broke up and he moved across the
street?" Mace asked. "That must be a strain."

"
Actual1y, I helped get him the job," Munch
said.

"That was nice of you."

"I don't hate the guy," she said. "I
just didn't want to live with him anymore?

"
He never got out of bed," Asia added.

Munch blushed. Unbelievable what those little eyes
and ears picked up.

"
So are you saying this Ellen took the limo
without your permission?" Mace asked.

"
Apparently when Asia and I were out this
morning, Ellen took a call. Derek helped her wash the car and stock
it with ice and drinks."