South by Southeast

by Blair Underwood

  But that wasn’t quite true. An escort in my price range would have been tougher to spot. Chela’s friend might be a streetwalker, or she might be working the clubs or hotel bars. A worker bee, not a Queen Bee. It’s a designation that has nothing to do with her looks, because I could see that the girl was a beauty, or had been, even if life had trod on her hard. Cute is only part of the story for girls like her.

  “An old friend from where?” I said, nailing the casual tone she’d been striving for.

  Chela wasn’t fooled. She raised her eyebrow, defiant. “Catholic school,” she said. “Our Lady of Mind Your Own Damn Business.”

  Marcela clucked disapprovingly from the kitchenette as she threw away our takeout containers. This was not going to be a conversation for witnesses.

  I whistled softly to Chela, nodding toward the dining area’s balcony behind a glass sliding door. “Let’s check out the sunset,” I said.

  “The sun sets in the west,” Chela said.

  “Humor me.”

  It was a little after six. Below us, families of sun-reddened beachgoers were streaming back to their cars, and the dating set was just beginning to arrive in heels and pressed shirts. In a few hours, the after-dark hordes would take over Ocean Drive.

  Chela was silent, staring at me as if she didn’t know what I wanted to talk about.

  “Is she one of Mother’s?” I said.

  Her mouth dropped open before she caught herself. “Who?”

  Now I stared. Waiting.

  Flustered, Chela flipped her hair away from her cheeks while the breeze tried to wrestle it back. “You’re such a jerk sometimes,” she said.

  “Why? Because I’m right?”

  “You’re not,” Chela said. “Sorry, detective. I knew her before I knew Mother. She did her own thing. An independent operator.” She didn’t conceal the pride in her voice.

  If I remember the story right, Chela had fallen into the company of streetwalkers who taught her the trade when she was at an age too young for me to ponder without a stomachache. Mother had been a major step up for Chela. Mother had let Chela go only reluctantly, when I threatened to take the old bat to jail if she stood in my way of giving her underage novelty a shot at some kind of life. I have a flinch response on the subject, seeing the aged madam beneath every rock and behind every bush, even on the other side of the country. But even if the girl didn’t know Mother, she was no one I wanted back in Chela’s world.

  A small flock of seagulls rose skyward north of us, six birds veering in perfect formation. Dad used to say that a flock of seagulls meant a storm was coming. No clouds marred the fuchsia sky yet, but South Florida thunderstorms don’t give much notice.

  “I know you don’t want to hear me . . .” I began.

  “True.”

  “But this is a bad idea, Chela.”

  “You don’t even know her!”

  I nodded. “What’s her name?”

  Chela paused, sensing a trap, as if I were a cop. “Maria.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know Maria. But I know what she represents. And I think you do, too. So even though you’re eighteen now, which makes you a grown-ass woman, I hope you’ll remember that sometimes old habits don’t die—they just go to sleep for a while.”

  Chela was so angry her face colored red. “Thanks a lot for the trust, Ten. If I come home late, just check out the alleys to see if I’m sleepwalking in kneepads.”

  She headed back for the glass door, where I could see Dad and Marcela on the sofa pretending they weren’t wondering what we were talking about.

  “I’m not just making this up to hurt your feelings, Chela,” I called after her. “Ask me what I was doing on those trips six months ago.”

  Chela stopped cold.

  I wasn’t supposed to talk about those trips; my lady friend with ties to the Cowboys In Action had told me that the people I’d been working with would disappear me if I did. Last I heard, there’s a price on my head in Hong Kong, and I don’t plan to visit to verify it. Some people might say I’d been working for a patriotic cause, but despite the labels and justifications, I’d seduced a woman under false pretenses. Even back when I’d worked for Mother, I’d never had to lie my way into anyone’s bed; my clients did the lying to their husbands and boyfriends. Mother had given me all the training I needed. It was piss-poor consolation that I’d almost died for my sins.

  Chela whipped around, lovely mouth twisted in a sneer. “Well, listen to Mr. Hypocrite.”

  The word hypocrite cut me; it fit my size just right. “I just want you to know how easy it is, Chela,” I said. “Wrong people. Wrong place. Wrong time. The next thing you know . . .”

  “Did you ever even find my mother, or was that just another cover story?”

  My tongue froze. I don’t think any question has ever hurt me so much. I had crossed new moral lines to find Chela’s birth mother—information about Patrice Sheryl McLawhorn had been the bait to lure me into a job I hadn’t wanted. My ethical sacrifice felt empty.

  “You think I’d lie about something like that?” I said.

  “Guess I don’t know what you would do,” Chela said. “You tell me.”

  I could barely keep my voice steady. “She’s living in Toronto.” I gave Chela both the home and work addresses, which I had memorized. “I’ve got no reason in the world to lie about one of the worst disappointments of my life. And if you’re gonna go that deep with it, what are your plans with Maria tonight? A cup of coffee? Catch a movie?”

  Chela’s eyes fell away. She’d never learned how to back down with grace. “No,” she said quietly. “She’s helping me get a fake ID. We’re going dancing at a club called Phoenixx. Sorry if you don’t approve, but it’s the truth. I’ll be fine.”

  The truth was Chela’s peace offering. At least I knew where she was going; half the cast lived at Phoenixx after hours, and I’d turned down invitations to hang out in the VIP room. I probably wouldn’t even go to spy on her. Probably.

  “If you even think you have a reason, call me,” I said. “And have the bartender open the bottle in front of you. Don’t even think about drinking anything that’s been out of your sight. Drinks get drugged.” I knew that from experience. A couple of years back, a drugged drink had nearly gotten me killed in a Florida swamp.

  “Thanks . . . Dad,” she said, lighter on the sarcasm than usual.

  I wanted to tell her that her mother couldn’t stand in our way unless we let her. And that I knew how much it had hurt when Chela had gotten her hopes up, only to let the mother who split and left Chela to be her grandmother’s nursemaid close enough to damage her again. And that I understood why she couldn’t flush Maria away, and maybe it was wrong to ask her to.

  But I didn’t say any of those things.

  My heart was still ringing from the word Dad. Any man who has answered to that name knows why a nest of wasps was stinging my stomach as Chela walked straight toward trouble.

  While Marcela and Chela rifled through her suitcase in Marcela’s room, I told Dad everything, even the part about the fake ID. Then I waited for his lecture.

  “Nothin’ you can do,” he said.

  “Like hell. And she’s living under my roof?” I sounded like Dad, circa 1980. We had switched scripts. “I’ll go in there and tell her she’s staying home tonight. Period.”

  “Better lock the doors and windows to keep her in,” Dad said, and flipped from the news to Judge Joe Brown.

  Chela had run away from every home she’d ever known, even Mother’s, so we were still surprised she had stayed with us so long. You lose the moral high ground when you spend years dodging the system, harboring a juvenile fugitive living under an alias. Chela was only a street name; none of us had gotten in the habit of calling her Lauren, the name her mother had given her. I suddenly wished we had. Instead, we’d kept her street name alive and well.

  The wasps stung my stomach again.

  Through the closed door, I heard Chela’s cell phone ring w
ith the screech of metallic rock. “She’s already here!” Chela yelled from the bedroom, panicked. “She’s downstairs.”

  “Tell her to come on up and wait,” I said.

  Much to my surprise, I heard Chela pass the message on.

  “She said thanks anyway, but she’ll wait outside.”

  Of course. I went back to the balcony and peered down until I saw Maria in the neon glow. She was smoking a cigarette beside a parking meter in a low-cut gold dress that looked spray-painted on. Her barely harnessed cleavage made men stare as they walked past her. If Maria had been anywhere except Ocean Drive, she might as well have been wearing a sign for the cops. Would she be working at Phoenixx?

  “Oh, hell no,” I muttered when I came back in.

  Within a minute or two, Marcela and Chela emerged. Marcela’s lips were tight with concern, but she fussed over Chela at the front door as if it was prom night. Compared with her club date, Chela looked like a prep-school student in leather pants, heels, and a conservative black blouse that could be office attire. Marcela buttoned the blouse nearly to her chin and helped her adorn it with a string of faux black pearls. Not an inch of Chela’s skin showed, but that wasn’t much comfort. With dark mascara and blown-out hair, Chela didn’t need a fake ID to look twenty-one and luscious as a sugar-frosted Fudgsicle. The girl needed a bodyguard.

  “I’m gonna go down and introduce myself,” I said, and Chela gave me a look that said, Don’t you dare. I sighed and pulled out a couple of bills and pressed them into Chela’s palm. “Cab money. Don’t get drunk, and don’t get in anybody’s car, hear?”

  My wild imagination veered from date rape to international sex-slavery rings. I could barely keep a tally of everything I thought could go wrong.

  Watching my worry, Chela’s face melted into a soft smile. “Thanks, Ten. I’ll be fine,” she said, and kissed my cheek before she slipped out the door.

  I’ll have the rest of my life to wish I’d found a way to keep her at home.

  THIS CHICK LOOKS nothing like me,” Chela said, examining the ID she’d rented from a guy working out of his minivan below Fifth Street. She’d left fifty dollars and her own license behind as collateral. The woman in the photo was about twenty-five, with a narrow face and curly blond hair. “Isn’t this a white girl? Five foot four? Come on.”

  Maria was undulating snakelike to the throb of the bass that seeped through Phoenixx’s brick façade, leading Chela to the front of the line. Leggy women dressed in Cleopatra costumes strolled up and down the lines with drink shots on golden trays. Chela wondered how much waitresses at Phoenixx made a night in tips.

  “Relax,” Maria said. “That’s a Florida driver’s license with a hologram. That’s all they care about. He’ll barely glance at your face. You’re hot, so you’re in.”

  Chela was pleasantly stoned from the joint she and Maria had shared walking on the beach toward Fifth Street, and she remembered what she’d always liked about weed. Everything slowed down. Lights and colors were brighter. Music was crisper. The only drawback was the paranoia that made her keep staring at the photo, more and more convinced that she was about to get arrested. Signs outside the club warned about prosecution for using a fake ID. Her heart raced as they got closer to the velvet rope.

  “Are you sure?” Chela said.

  “Dios, who are you?” Maria said. “You were never such a baby.”

  Lillian Holly Jasper. Lillian Holly Jasper. Lillian Holly Jasper. The name printed on Chela’s ID tumbled through her memory. D.O.B. January 5, 1987. The signature was a mess. What if she had to give a writing sample?

  Chela wanted to tell Maria to forget it. She’d been bold in the old days, but Maria was right, easy living had dulled her edge. What kind of shit had Maria given her, anyway? A couple of hits, and she was losing it. Any door host would see how nervous she was.

  Maria suddenly held her hand. “It’s okay, chica,” she said. “I got you.”

  Chela’s head stopped spinning just as they reached the head of the line, where waiting customers glared at their brazenness.

  The door host was a pro in black slacks and a black sports jacket and white shirt, as if he was in the Secret Service. He had an earpiece like in the L.A. clubs. His pen flashlight made Chela’s heart sink. If he thought she was cute, nothing showed in his stern, bearded face.

  “Back of the line, ladies,” he said.

  “Can you call Hector?” Maria said.

  Chela tugged back, still holding Maria’s hand. “Why can’t we just wait?” she whispered. Why was Maria drawing attention to them and her lame fake ID?

  The door host sighed and peered back over his shoulder. He tapped at the window behind him, where a beefy Latino man was on a phone. The man’s face lit up when he saw Maria. He grinned and gestured to the door host: Let her in.

  The door host unhooked the velvet rope, the path to freedom, and Chela thought she might be spared the humiliation of arrest after all. But before either of them could pass, the host held out his palm. “IDs,” he said.

  Maria went first. She was only twenty, so she had a fake ID, too, but the woman on her ID was her cousin. Maria breezed by.

  Chela tried to summon her acting skills from drama class, but her hand still trembled when she handed over her license. The door host spent much longer on hers, studying it closely with his light, holding it near his face. Turning it over. Feeling for imperfections. Chela tried to keep a smile on her face, but maybe she was only gritting her teeth as if she was in pain. She wanted to hide herself when he turned his flashlight on her face. I’m so busted.

  “My hair’s dyed in that picture,” she said. The lie itched in her dry throat. “Obviously.”

  He stared at her with steel-blue eyes. Laser eyes. “You look way better as a brunette,” he said, and waved her in.

  Something happened then. The tension uncoiled, and Chela suddenly felt as loose as the Kid again, catch me if you can. She winked at the poor moron. “I’ll remember that advice, gorgeous,” she said, and followed Maria with the Kid’s walk, swinging her hips, riding her high heels. Someone from the line whistled.

  “Save some for me, baby!” a man called out.

  When Chela turned around to blow him a kiss, three or four guys cheered.

  Maria’s eyes danced. “That’s more like it!” she said. “Where you been, girl?”

  Chela wasn’t sure where she’d been, but she was glad to be back.

  The club’s foyer was a dark tunnel painted in Day-Glo streaks, lit up like Picasso’s untamed dreams in the bluish glow of a black light. Overhead, nearly microscopic bulbs blinked secrets in Morse code. The driving bass beat shivered the floor. A steady breeze of chilled, purified air from the heart of the club greeted her with scents of life and motion.

  Chela’s heart and spirit galloped. She’d asked Bernard to take her clubbing at one of L.A.’s under-twenty-one clubs, but it was hard to explain a dance club to someone who had never been to one. Besides, no lame teen club could recreate the sound.

  “It’s so alive in here!” Chela blurted, too close to Maria’s ear. “I’ve missed you!” She hadn’t known that she had missed anything or anyone from her old life, but the realization dizzied her. She and Maria were survivors on an epic scale.

  Maria hugged her with one arm, and they walked like Siamese twins. “I’ve missed you, too, Chela! There’s so much to tell you . . .”

  The music swallowed their words. Maria opened her thin purse and pulled out a laminated photograph from the L.A. County Fair. A brown-haired princess, about two years old, stared back at Chela with big dark eyes. It might be Maria’s baby picture, except for the photo’s stamp from that same year.

  “That’s Esperanza!” Maria said.

  “Wait . . . she’s yours?”

  Maria nodded, face beaming. “My life! She’s with my aunt for now, but I’m gonna get a nice place soon, make her a home. Isn’t she amazing?”

  The dizzy feeling intensified. Maria had a daughter? The id
ea brought back the image of the shell of a Chevy Impala with dark windows and a stained old quilt draped over the backseat, stinking of pine-scented air freshener. Maria had hosted her parade of thirty-dollar johns in the Impala before it got towed from behind the little pastry shop off Sunset, which had the best powdered doughnut holes Chela had ever tasted. After Chela’s first time alone with a man in the Impala—ten minutes with her eyes closed—she’d gone straight to the Sugar Shack and washed away the taste of him with crullers and coffee with too much sugar. That became her ritual. “See how easy that was?” Maria had said. Chela thought about the old-fashioned sugar server her grandmother kept on the kitchen table, the one with patterns of linked strawberries, where Gramma treated herself to one teaspoon in her tea every morning—only one, because of her diabetes. Chela remembered the table for two she and her grandmother had shared, waiting for her mother to come home as she kept promising. Chela had waited for her mother until her grandmother died. And a few long, lonely, terrifying days after that.

  “How old is she?” Chela said.

  “What?” Maria said, because the music was howling in a gale around them. Cologne, perfume, sweat, and sweet alcohol danced in Chela’s nostrils.

  Chela bent closer to Maria’s ear. “How old is your daughter?”

  “She just turned three,” Maria said with the same proud smile, as if birthdays were all Esperanza needed from her.

  “When do you see her?”

  “What?”

  Chela wondered if Maria really couldn’t hear her or only didn’t want to.

  She cupped her palm against Maria’s ear. “How often do you see her? Your daughter?”