Death of an Escort

by Nathan Pennington

"Are you sure?" I asked.

  "Yep," he said. "I was here when she got fired."

  "So, she did work here?"

  "Yep," he said. "Are you going to book a room?"

  "No," I said. "Can you give me Maria's address?"

  "Nope," he said and turned away from me.

  "Is that because you don't have it or because you don't want to?" I asked.

  He sighed. "Both."

  "Does anyone still work here who was a friend of Maria?"

  He looked back at me. "Yep."

  "Could you call one here for me?"

  He looked at me like I was asking way too much of him, but eventually he reached for the phone and mumbled something into it. Shortly a small Hispanic woman stepped into the tattered lobby.

  "Hi," I said. "You are a friend of Maria Vasquez?"

  She looked at me suspiciously.

  "I have something that I want to return to her," I said. I held up the button. "It's an expensive, handmade button. She lost it working here."

  The woman held out her hand. "I can take it to her," she said in clear English.

  "I'd really rather do it myself," I said. "Could you tell me where she lives?"

  She looked at me but said nothing.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's do it this way. Can you call her now and tell her to meet me at a grocery store?"

  She nodded. "Which one?"

  I named one that was close.

  "I will call her," she said.

  I thanked her and left.

  At the grocery store, I waited near the front entrance for anyone Hispanic looking.

  About ten minutes later, a very rusty car pulled into the lot. A Hispanic woman got out. She was about thirty or thirty-five years old. I walked over to meet her.

  "Maria?" I asked.

  "Si?"

  "I'm the guy who has the button." I held it out for her to see. She reached for it, but I pulled it back.

  She looked confused.

  "Before I give it to you, I want to ask you some questions."

  She shook her head no.

  "But you don't even know what I'm going to ask," I said.

  "No questions," she said, and she turned to leave.

  This was odd.

  "Maria, hold on," I said. But she kept walking. "Maria, you were there when Kelly Brandt died?"

  She walked faster.

  "Maria?" I stopped following her and she hurried to her car.

  I went to mine, and then I followed her without letting her know that. She lived close in an ethnic part of the town. Almost no one owned a house in this area. Everything was some kind of apartment. Even the houses that had been normal houses before were now duplexes with the first floor and basement separated.

  Every building needed some kind of paint or maintenance. She parked her car in front of a dingy building that looked very similar to the one that Carlie lived in.

  I parked my car, and I went up to the door she'd gone into. I knocked.

  Maria answered, but when she saw it was me, she started to close the door. I put my hand out and stopped the door from closing.

  "Maria," I said. "I want to know what you saw."

  She put her shoulder into the door and forced it closed suddenly. I heard the deadbolt snap shut.

  My cell phone rang.

  "Hello?"

  "Ray. This is Father Patrick."

  "Yes?" And then I remembered. I'd asked him to look into the website YouDisgustMe.com that had rape videos of Kelly Brandt on it.

  "I asked some family members to look into the matter you asked me about."

  "And?"

  "They found connections to an organization in Chicago," he said.

  "Oh," I said disappointed. That didn't help much.

  "There's more," he said. "The trail led to a restaurant in Chicago."

  "A restaurant?"

  "It's called MiMi's Pizzeria and Pasta," he said.

  "Okay?"

  "I also have some family in Chicago," he said. "And there is reason to believe that the restaurant has mob connections."

  "Mafia?"

  "Yes," he said. "Ray. You need to be careful if you go poking around there."

  "I'm Italian," I said. "I'll be fine." I wasn't really Italian. Believe it or not, I was actually German mostly by ancestory.

  "I think you should leave that one alone," he said.

  "Thanks," I said. We hung up.

  That got me to thinking. Maybe there really was a mafia connection with all this. That would explain why everyone was so close-lipped about everything.

  Say too much and you get whacked. Still, I had to look into this. There was no way not to. I'd be taking a trip to Chicago. It wasn't that far away. It only took about an hour to drive there.

  I filled up my gas tank, and I headed out right away. On my way to the Windy City, I thought about my strategy.

  It wouldn't really do to go charging into the restaurant and start asking about rape porn websites. That was probably a quick way to getting whacked myself.

  At the same time, I couldn't go looking up some made man in the family. It wasn't like they had a listing in the phone book. You didn't look them up like that.

  Which opened up the question, how I was going to find someone that would know anything? How would I do that?

  I had no idea, so I drove into Chicago. There I found someone at a gas station who knew about the restaurant. However, it wasn't anywhere close to where I was, and I had a forty minute drive to get to the part of the city where it was.

  Instantly, I could see that it had been a Pizza Hut building at one time. It had that odd roof shape where it's all normal until the top and it gets that pointy-Mohawk look.

  The building itself had been painted white, but the roof was red. A sign said the name was MiMi's Pizzeria and Pasta. I parked and went inside.

  Still I had no idea what I was going to do. I was totally winging this.

  Inside a woman greeted me. She showed me to a seat and gave me a grease stained menu. I guess that helped perpetuate the atmosphere. I ordered a small pepperoni pizza, featuring hand cut pepperoni and homemade mozzarella cheese. A small cola came with the pizza.

  Ten minutes later the pizza came. The waitress had a low cut blouse on, and when she bent down to set the pizza on my table . . . well, I got a good view down her shirt.

  The way she looked at me afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if she did that on purpose.

  Anything for a bigger tip, I guess.

  That was it. That inappropriate view the waitress gave me, it totally gave me the plan I needed.

  Now, I knew how to get to someone higher up in the mob. Quickly, I ate the pizza. Without question, it was fantastic. And the price was much lower than I expected.

  After eating and paying, I hurried out to my car. I'd driven through a seedy part on my way over to the restaurant. I headed back right that way.

  My gun was with me and loaded, as always.

  I entered the less desirable section, and I turned off the main road and headed deeper in.

  This wasn't a recommended strategy, but I figured it was the fastest way to get to who I wanted to talk to.

  I saw a woman standing on the curb. She had a thong on, and that was all she wore on her lower half. Her shoes had heels that had to be at least six inches tall.

  Her top was revealing and clashed in color scheme with the little bit of material she had covering her lower section.

  I slowed and edged the car over towards her. I rolled the window down.

  She walked to the car and bent down so she was looking inside. "Hey Sweetie," she said. "Want me to get in?"

  "Come on," I said.

  She opened the door and got in. My wife would have a fit if she knew I had a hooker in the car.

  "I see you got out-of-state license plates," she said. "So, if you're not familiar with the area, there's a good place up the road." She pointed ahead.

  "What is it?"

  "Motel. Good rates," she said distract
edly. "And I'm going to need cash before we go up to our room."

  "How much?" I asked.

  "What do you want to do?" she asked.

  "Ah, just the regular," I said. Like what? Did she have a menu or something?

  "If you can get it done in twenty minutes, it will only be $50," she said.

  Pulling into the dirty motel parking lot, I reached into my pocket and took out some money. It was money from the payment I'd gotten from Macy, and I had no intention of letting the hooker keep it, but I handed it to her. We got out of the car.

  Lying on the pavement outside my door was a broken hypodermic needle. Further away lay a discarded condom.

  I followed her inside.

  "Hey Jewel," the old woman said behind the check-in counter. "How long do you want?"

  "30 minutes," she said.

  The woman handed a key to the hooker and looked at me. "That will be ten dollars."

  I handed her a ten, and then I followed "Jewel" down to a room. She unlocked it and let us in.

  The room stank of old cigarettes.

  "Give me a minute to get ready," she said and started to step into the bathroom.

  "Wait," I said. "Come out here for a minute."

  "Sweetie," she said. "I'm not ready. Give me a moment." She locked herself in the bathroom.

  Great. Just great. Probably she'd come out naked. That was going to be distracting. Great.

  Less than a minute later, she came out. Her thong was still on but nothing else was. She extended her hand to me. In it was a condom wrapper.

  "Let's do it," she said without enthusiasm and moved to the bed.

  I grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back. Then I clamped my hand over her mouth. I caught a glance of her face in the mirror. She looked terrified.

  Chapter 18

  "I've got a gun," I said. "Don't make me use it, okay? Scream and you won't be making any more sounds afterward."

  She looked wild-eyed.

  "Nod if you understand."

  It took a minute, but she nodded.

  "Good," I said. I let go of her mouth. "Get your top on."

  She looked confused, but she went back into the bathroom and came out more dressed. "What's going on?"

  "Who's your pimp?" I demanded.

  "My pimp?" She sounded confused. For the first time I realized she was probably high on something.

  "Yeah, I need to talk to him."

  "I don't think that's a good idea."

  I took the gun out. She let out a stifled scream.

  "I'm guessing you don't want to get hurt," I said. "The only way you're going to walk out of this room without losing blood is if you take me to your pimp. Now." I cocked the gun.

  "Okay," she said. "I'll call him." She went over to the phone and dialed. It was a short conversation. The pimp sounded like he didn't want to meet with her in the middle of the day, but she was persistent.

  She got off the phone, and we left. She directed me through more decrepit parts of this section of the city, and we made it to a three story brick building. It was packed in tightly between other buildings on either side, and it looked like the exterior hadn't seen a scrub brush in one hundred years.

  Neon colors of paint had been sprayed in weird designs over the ground floor level, and there were no windows either.

  You could see where they had been, but now they were bricked up.

  "He's in there," she said.

  I looked over at it. "Who else is in there?"

  "I don't know," she said.

  "Go get him," I said.

  "No way," she said. But she immediately glanced down at the gun, which I'd kept out. "Whatever," she said.

  She got out and walked across the street.

  Ten minutes passed. I started to think that she was going to stay inside. I really didn't want to go in there alone. Who knows what I'd run into?

  But finally, a scrawny dude came out. The prostitute was a good six inches taller than he was. He was wearing black leather pants and a jean jacket. It was too warm for a jacket, but he was wearing one anyway.

  He looked around, and she pointed over at me. Looking nonchalant he ambled across the street. The hooker stayed behind. Crap. That meant I wouldn't be getting the money back from her.

  He leaned down and looked into the car.

  "What the fuck's up with you?" he said.

  That put me in a bad mood. I grabbed his jean coat collar and started to haul him in through the window over top of me. He tried to resist, but was taken by surprise and it was too late by the time he started resisting.

  I had him jammed into the passenger seat, but he was in upside down. His head was wedged down where the floor mat was. Struggling he tried to right himself.

  "Dude," he said. "Dude."

  I drove away.

  "You're going to be so busted up for this," he said. "You are so dead, man."

  Several blocks down the road I brought the car to a stop. There was a vacant lot here. Tall, dirty brick buildings rose up all around. Not many people were on the street.

  But right where I stopped, there was no building. Just tall, mostly dead grass.

  I got out and got him out too. The first thing he did was take a swing at me. I ducked and drove my fist into his stomach.

  That calmed him down. He bent over and tried to suck air in. I dragged him into the empty field.

  "Hey," I said to him. "Let's make this easy. Who do you report to?"

  "What?" he managed to get out.

  "Who do you report to? Who is over you?"

  "What are you, man? A cop or something?"

  "Talk to me or I'll hit you again," I said.

  "Oh, man," he said. "This isn't good."

  I hit him. He flopped over, and his lip was bleeding now, and it was more than a trickle.

  He reached into his jacket and came out with a small gun. "I'm going to kill you, dude."

  He shot, but I was already dropping to the ground. The shot didn't get me. I hit the ground and that made my small surgery wounds hurt.

  His gun was something tiny. Mine was not. I pulled out my Beretta Px4 Storm. It shot .40 S&W bullets and holds 14 rounds.

  He started to get up, and he saw what I was holding. He also saw that the business end was pointed right at him.

  "Let's talk. Let's talk," he said.

  "Drop your gun and let's get back in the car," I said.

  He hesitated and I ripped off a shot to the side of him. I heard it plug into the brick building behind him.

  "Fuck me," he said and dropped the gun.

  "Up and let's get in the car."

  He did so, and we drove away. The gun fire would attract attention. I didn't want that. Besides, he was disarmed now. So the situation would be safer.

  I locked the car doors.

  "Try to get out, and I'll shoot you," I said. "Now, I still want to talk to your boss."

  "I haven't got a boss," he said and wouldn't look at me.

  "Did you ever hear of organized crime?" I asked.

  He didn't answer.

  "Usually prostitution is a big part of that. It's all about revenue, right? So, when I find a hooker and the hooker has a pimp, I expect to find someone in charge of the pimp. Got that? Even more so, seeing as how we're in Chicago."

  "They're going to kill you, man."

  "Give me the info," I said.

  "Dude! And they're going to kill me too." He sounded whiney.

  I made a left-hand turn. "I need this info."

  "Why, man?"

  "I'm investigating something."

  He looked more scared.

  "No, I'm not a cop," I said. "I promise. I'm investigating privately."

  "They will kill you," he said forcefully. "You and me. You can't bust in there like this. This is so wrong. I'm going to kill Jewel. Kill her!"

  "Get a grip," I said. "Leave the woman alone. She was acting under duress. She did what she did to stay alive."

  "That's no excuse," he said.

 
; "Are you saying I have to kill you?" I took another left turn. More or less I was going around in a circle.

  He buried his hands in his face.

  "It won't work," he said finally. His voice was calmer.

  "What won't?" I asked.

  "If I take you to my boss, he won't know anything. You'll have to do the same with him to get to his boss. And again and again. There are a lot of levels."

  "Okay?"

  "Partly it's setup to stop screw-ups like you from penetrating," he said and stared out the window.

  "So, you're saying I should shoot you? Because you're being uncooperative."

  He looked at me. "You're not listening, man! They will eventually kill you and me. I'm trying to keep you alive here."

  "Tell me who you report to. You won't be brought into this," I said.

  "It doesn't work like that. You've already screwed up. Jewel knows that we're talking. Word will get out. Then I'm a goner."

  "Look guy," I said. "You have officially worn my patience out. I haven't got the slightest problem blowing your head off and finding another pimp to talk to."

  He swore for a minute straight. One word after another incoherently.

  "You are going to be responsible for my death no matter what I do," he said finally.

  "If that's true," I said. "Then you better move after you tell me who your boss is."

  "Okay, okay. Can we make a deal?" he asked.

  "Lay it out," I said.

  "Look, I know who someone is near the top. I'm not supposed to, but someone slipped up and I heard something, okay?"

  "I'm with you," I said.

  "Okay. I can tell you who and where. You've got to promise me that you'll kill him after you get whatever you want from him. Swear to it on your momma's grave."

  "Why do I have to kill him?" I asked.

  "'Cause he knows that I know about him. He's a smart dude. He'll figure it out and have me killed, man. But if you do him, then it's all cool."

  "Even if I did promise it, how would you know I'd keep my word?" I asked.

  "You've got that look in your eye, man. You've killed before. I can tell. I've seen that look. And I know you're ready to kill again. What's it to you? Do it as a favor to me for the information."

  I pulled the car over to the curb in front of a liquor store with barred windows. "Start talking," I said.

  "We got a deal, man?"

  "Yeah," I said. "We've got a deal." And I meant it.