by Sean Black
Soothe guided Kristin past him and across the floor. Kristin’s heart was still racing. Being arrested was one of the cardinal sins of being a carpet ho.
A few minutes later they were back out on the street.
“Ain’t no thing,” said Soothe.
“I thought you’d be mad,” said Kristin.
“You got to be less direct, girl. Let them ask you if you want to date.”
“I’m sorry.”
Soothe looked her up and down. “Don’t be sorry, get it right.”
Soothe’s phone chimed with an incoming text. She checked it. Her face clouded a little. She didn’t say what it was or who it was from, and Kristin knew better than to ask.
“Come on,” said Soothe. “We better go make some money. Hanger gets back here and we ain’t got no cash to show him then you and me are both going to be in trouble.”
Kristin didn’t need that part decoded for her. Trouble meant a beating.
47
Andre came around the corner and strolled over to his car. He saw Lock standing next to it, arms folded. Turning, he started to run, only to find himself smashing straight into a wall of retired US Marine.
Ty folded his arms around Andre like he was giving a hug to a long-lost friend.
“Why you so jumpy, brother?” said Ty.
Andre tried to struggle free. Ty let him, keeping a precautionary hand on his shoulder in case he tried to make another run for it.
“Relax, we just want to talk with you for a few minutes. Or you can talk to the cops about trying to burn down that refuge. Your choice.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Andre as Lock joined them.
“Unfortunately for you,” said Lock. “We do.”
He held up his phone, angling it so that Andre could see it. On the screen was a still image of Andre’s car from the roadside security camera.
“That, my friend, is enough to convict you.”
Andre stared at it. “So why don’t you go to the cops?” he said.
Ty put a comforting arm around Andre’s shoulder, walking him over to the street. “We were hoping to avoid doing that.”
Lock could see the cogs turning in Andre’s head. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but he wasn’t entirely dumb either. In fact, he seemed suddenly focused.
“Get in the car,” said Lock.
Andre did as he was told, climbing into the front passenger seat of Lock’s car. Lock got in the driver’s seat. Ty climbed in back.
“How come you guys knew about the refuge?” said Lock.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lock let out a theatrical sigh. “What you did, that’s ten to fifteen if the DA really goes after you, which they will because this is what you might call a hot button issue. Not to mention the fact you’ve been recruiting girls for Hanger. Underage girls.”
Ty leaned forward between the seats. “You know what they do to guys like you in pen in California? Level one yard, you might be fine. Level two the same. But you land on a level three or four yard and they check your paperwork, you’re done. First chance someone gets, you’re getting marked up. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
“If you’re unlucky, then your Cellie gets given the job of making sure that he has the place to himself,” added Lock.
It may have sounded like an exaggeration, but Lock and Ty both knew this was the reality that awaited Andre if he was convicted. Convicts in California were old school when it came to any kind of crime that was sexual in nature, especially one that involved violence, coercion or a victim who was below the age of consent.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Andre.
Lock and Ty traded a look.
Lock reached over and opened Andre’s door. “Okay, have it your way.”
Andre didn’t move. He looked at Lock as if this was some kind of trap that was being laid, like there had to be a catch. It was strange how frightening an open door could seem under the right circumstances, thought Lock, which was precisely why he had opened it.
Andre left the door open. He didn’t get out either.
“No one died,” he said. “I saw that on the news.”
That comment provoked a laugh from Ty in the back seat. “Yeah, they probably won’t even bother investigating it in that case.”
“I don’t get why you even care?” said Andre. “If you’re not cops then what’s it to you?”
“That’s correct,” said Lock. “We’re not cops.”
“Who are you?” asked Andre.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Ty. “The only thing that matters right now is that we have the goods to send you to prison.”
“But if you give us what we want, then that doesn’t happen,” added Lock.
“And what is it you want?”
“We want Kristin Miller.”
“I don’t even know where she is.”
“Well then you’d better find out, or that footage is going to the LAPD, along with everything else we know about you trafficking a minor,” said Lock “Don’t think about skipping town either. Not unless you’re going to take your mom with you,” said Ty.
“Hey, she doesn’t have anything to do with this,” said Andre.
Ty laughed. “Neither did Kristin Miller’s mom. In fact, neither would Kristin have if she hadn’t had the misfortune to run into a low life piece of shit like you.”
“What’s it to be?” said Lock, extracting Andre’s cell phone from his pocket, turning it over in his hand and passing it back to him.
Andre massaged the bridge of his nose with pinched fingers. “Okay, let me think how I do this.”
“Take your time,” said Lock.
“Once I tell you where to find them, then you destroy what you have?”
“That’s the deal,” said Lock.
“Okay, I got it,” said Andre. “But he doesn’t always answer when I call.”
Lock and Ty stared at him. The silence grew. Andre made the call. Seconds passed.
“Hey Hanger, yeah, all good. Listen, I got a new girl.”
Hanger said something that neither Lock nor Ty caught.
“Yeah, I know I haven’t mentioned her before. I didn’t know if it would work, but I think she’s ready to meet you.”
Another pause.
“Yeah, white, real pretty, like a surfer girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes.”
Lock knew that no matter what was happening right now or how nervy Hanger might be that Andre was dangling a unicorn in front of his mentor.
“Where you at?” Andre asked. “Uh-uh, okay. Yeah, I’ll send you over a picture and we can hook up when you’re back here.”
The call over, Andre placed his phone face down on his leg, his foot tapping out a beat of pure anxiety.
“They’re in Vegas. Hanger’s headed there now.”
“Vegas is a big place,” said Ty, unimpressed.
“Hanger has a crash pad in Paradise City. I can get you the address.”
“That’s more like it,” said Ty.
Lock and Ty watched Andre take off down the street in his car, no doubt to find somewhere he could stash the vehicle. Not that it would help him if they went back on their word and handed the footage over to the cops.
“You trust him?” said Ty.
“I trust him to want to save his own skin,” said Lock.
“He could still call Andre back and give him a heads up.”
“He could, and then we could give the cops what we have.”
“And what about when we have the girl back?” asked Ty.
“What about it?”
“Well, do we destroy what we have on him like we said we would? Or do we give it to the cops?”
Lock bit down on his lip, pensive.
“Let’s see if we can find her first,” said Lock.
48
If they knew about the car, Andre assumed the cops might too. It was going to be hard to deny he had anything to do with the arson if it was p
arked in his driveway.
Selling it was out of the question. If things did go badly, then getting rid of it would make him look guilty. No, he needed somewhere to stash it for a while. Someplace that no one would see it from the street.
He drove out to Simi Valley. His buddy had a body shop out there. He could leave it there for a while until things cooled down, with no questions asked. He was fairly sure that the body shop dealt in all manner of vehicles, not all of them legally acquired.
When he got there, he slipped them a hundred and left it in back, the car cover providing an extra level of concealment. It wasn’t great, but it was the best he could do for now. The best thing would have been to throw it into a compactor for scrap, but there was no way he was going to do that to such a beautiful automobile. In any case, he had worked hard to buy it. A lot of girls had been handed over to Hanger to pay for it.
Relieved that the car was gone, he climbed into an old Toyota that his buddy had said he could use until he came back for his Buick. He stopped at a McDonalds, grabbing a coffee and a cheeseburger.
There was a cute girl behind the counter. Normally he would have gone to work, feeling her out. She was light skinned Latino with long black hair and deep, brown eyes. She was shy too.
He thought about getting her Instagram, maybe even her number, but he couldn’t focus on a new acquisition with all this going on. He took his coffee and burger and sat by the window and tried to work through how he was going to get himself out of this, or at the very least not get dragged any further in.
The two guys would be back. That was for sure. He wasn’t convinced that they’d harm his family. It had seemed more of a hollow threat than anything. But was he prepared to take the chance?
He took a sip of coffee and decided that he wasn’t. It would be better if he gave them what they wanted. The only problem was that giving them what they wanted meant risking Hanger’s wrath.
Hanger was violent. Andre didn’t doubt for a moment that if he discovered that Andre had ratted on him that he would come looking for revenge.
He took a bite of burger and stared out the window as a car full of high school girls rolled up and got out. It was, he thought, as if the universe was taunting him, offering up a bunch of distractions when he knew he had to keep his mind clear.
Ten years in prison was a long time, he reminded himself. Maybe he could give the two men a fake address in Vegas, the building next door or something. When they called him on it, he could claim an honest mistake.
Would they buy it, though? He doubted it. They’d either hand over what they had to the cops, or worse, they’d come back to his home.
The high school girls came in and walked to the counter, a couple of them checking him out. He kept his head down and his eyes on the window.
Give up Hanger or go to prison? His dilemma wasn’t going anywhere.
He pushed away what was left of the burger, no longer hungry. There had to be a way to pacify those two psychos while not risking Hanger’s wrath.
He picked up his coffee and walked back outside. As he opened the driver’s door of the Toyota, it came to him. It wasn’t a perfect solution, far from it, but it was all he had.
Play both ends to the middle, he told himself. He pulled out his phone, tapped out a text with the address of Hanger’s pad in Vegas, and pressed send. Once it was gone, he deleted it so it no longer showed on his phone, a gesture that was borne more out of superstition than any fear someone would see it.
Next, he took another sip of coffee, called Hanger, and told him some of what had happened. Two guys had appeared out of nowhere. They knew everything. They were looking for Kristin.
As Hanger probed him on what they looked like, Andre conveniently left out the part about giving them Hanger’s address but said that Hanger needed to be on his guard. They had told him they knew Hanger was in Vegas, and they were looking for him. They said it like they meant business.
“Oh, and they were armed, bro,” he said. “Said that if they saw you, then they were gonna kill you.”
Hanger wrapped up the call. Andre leaned his back against the car and blew out a big breath of air.
That should do it, he thought. Let them take each other out. The high school girls were coming back out. He noticed one of them was hanging back.
All the others were looking over at him, giggling and talking amongst themselves. All apart from the one at the back of the group.
Ignoring her friends, he walked over to her.
“Hey, you’re really pretty,” he said.
She didn’t look up, just stared down at the ground.
“Can I get your number?” he asked her.
49
Lock read off the address from the text message. He plugged it into Google Maps and angled his phone screen so Ty, who was driving, could see it on the map.
“Yeah, that’s close to where I lost the black chick driving the BMW.”
“He could be lying to us,” said Lock.
“No way of knowing until we get there.”
They were on the I-15, with just over a hundred miles to go until they made it to Vegas. They’d stopped once, to load up on coffee and donuts, and to fill the gas tank, but Lock wanted to get there.
Ty eased up on the gas pedal as they sped past a California Highway Patrol sitting at the side of the road running a speed trap.
“Think we should call it into the Vegas PD?” asked Ty. “They could go take a look. They’re going to be faster on the scene where they are.”
That had been Lock’s first thought, too. From what he knew about law enforcement in Vegas they were, unsurprisingly, well versed in dealing with trafficking cases. But there was a snag with asking them to go check.
“Yeah,” said Lock. “But if they send a couple of uniforms in and they don’t find her, then we have a problem. Might be better to have the element of surprise.”
“I hear you,” said Ty. “And we’re assuming this isn’t some wild goose chase.”
“That too,” said Lock. “If we need, we can call them.”
“Once we find her, you’re taking a step back from this stuff, right?” Ty asked, side eyeing Lock.
“I don’t think Carmen’s going to give me much of a choice in the matter.”
“Can’t really blame her.”
“Oh, I’m not,” said Lock.
“That beating you caught really seemed to shake her up.”
“There’s a bit more to it than that.”
Ty looked over at him. “Oh, yeah?”
“We’ve not really told anyone yet, but seeing as you’re as close to family as I have, we have some news.”
Ty raised an eyebrow. “We? Is this news what I think it is?”
“Don’t tell her I said anything, not until she says something anyway, but, yeah, Carmen’s pregnant.”
Ty broke into a huge grin. He raised a hand and high-fived Lock.
“Aw, brother, that’s amazing. Congratulations. When’d you find out? You know what it is yet? Is it gonna be a little Ryan or a little Carmen?”
“It’s a little girl,” said Lock.
Ty shook his head. He was still smiling.
“I can’t believe it. I’m going to be a godfather.”
When Lock didn’t say anything, the smile dropped.
“You are asking me to be one of the godparents, right?”
“Of course,” said Lock.
Satisfied, Ty turned his full attention back to the road. Neither of them said anything for a few moments.
“I can’t believe it,” said Ty. “You’re gonna be a father.”
“I know,” said Lock.
“How you feeling about it?”
“I’m happy,” said Lock. “But I’ll be a lot better when we have this kid back home.”
“I hear you.”
“And what about the clean up?” said Ty.
Lock knew what he meant. What were they going to do with Hanger? There were a few scores to settle, if that was the
way they decided to go. “I think we leave that to the cops. We may have already pushed our luck. I don’t want to end up facing a judge over some piece of garbage like that.”
“But if we walk in there and he pulls a piece?” said Ty.
“Then we do what we have to do.”
50
When Hanger walked in, Soothe was busy plumping the cushions on the couch like some demented housewife from a 1950s TV show. She’d snorted a little something a couple of hours ago so she could keep going. Whatever it had been cut with was making her jittery as well as wide awake.
She hadn’t been looking forward to Hanger’s arrival. Babysitting Kristin meant she hadn’t been able to make nearly the kind of money she usually would have. On a good night she could have made a couple of thousand dollars, maybe more. Between her and Kristin, they had made less than four hundred. There was no way Hanger would be happy with that.
“Sit down,” she said, patting the couch. “Let me fix you a drink.”
He didn’t say anything, but he sat down as she mixed him a Scotch and soda and brought it over.
He took it from her.
“Where is she?” he said.
“Oh, she’s taking a nap. You want me to go get her?”
“No, leave her be.”
He wasn’t saying much. That made her nervous. She didn’t want to look at him directly because that could set him off. Instead, she snuck glances, trying to work out what kind of mood he was in. Usually, she was pretty good at getting a read on him. That was a big part of being a bottom girl, working out what your pimp wanted, maybe even before he knew himself.
Today, her sixth sense wasn’t working. He was quiet, withdrawn, but not in a way she recognized. Maybe it was the drugs she’d taken, or maybe it was just the craziness of the past few days, but when he looked at her, she didn’t like it. He looked like Hanger, but something had changed, and she didn’t know what.
Once, years ago, she’d come close to being killed by a trick. The worrying part was that the guy had seemed completely normal. Then he’d flipped, just like that, and before she knew she’d been trapped in a car with him, fighting for her life.
