South by Southeast

by Blair Underwood

  After twenty years in Hollywood, being a screw-up was my biggest claim to fame. The reputation wasn’t fair, but I’d been buried by the FBI’s need to take credit for my work—and more shadowy agencies’ need to pretend I hadn’t had help from a spy named Marsha. Most people still knew my name better than they knew my face, which was for the best.

  The hotel was modestly sized, built to imitate the older art deco hotels that were blocks closer to the water, colored in bright peach.

  I could have asked Dad’s advice, but I had “gone dark,” in Marsha’s words. I wasn’t just on my way to interview a person of interest in a potential murder case—I had a chance to beat the hell out of a scumbag who had put his hands on Chela. Lucky for me, my Glock was in its gun case back in my closet in California. I wanted my gun for all the wrong reasons.

  A chorus of voices in my head told me to slow down and think it through—Dad, Chela, April, even my agent, Len—but I hadn’t been thinking straight since I’d seen Chela’s face when she came home.

  I strode across the lobby to an open elevator door with such purpose that I was a shadow. A family of four crammed in behind me, but no one seemed to know I was there. The food in my grease-spotted bag made the elevator car smell like egg rolls.

  A video monitor built into the wall streamed the next day’s weather forecast in English and Spanish, against idyllic beach backdrops and ads for the hotel’s lounges. Speakers played techno at a low volume while snippets of Chela’s night with Raphael battered my memory. How many men had touched her? “Raffi, will she travel?” one had said. She’d left out the worst of it, but she’d told me enough.

  Rational thought broke through only after I reached the fifth floor and began my walk toward room 515, where Chela had been told to meet the pimp. I followed arrows around corner after corner, making a plan.

  I would listen at the door. If I heard a party, I would knock with my delivery routine, try to talk my way in, assess the situation. But if the room was quiet, if Raphael was alone . . .

  My hand itched for his throat.

  The hallway was as silent as a tomb. As I’d expected, room 515 was in the corner of the hotel reserved for suites, sharing a wing with suite 513. That side of the floor wasn’t as crowded, but I would still have to be careful about loud noises. I glanced behind me; no one in the hall. Careful to keep away from the peephole, I pressed my ear to the door.

  Nothing. I didn’t hear music or a TV. I vaguely smelled marijuana despite the NO SMOKING sign displayed on the door.

  I couldn’t do my delivery routine if he was alone, I realized. He would know he hadn’t ordered food, so he could send me away without opening the door. So come up with something.

  I knocked.

  He must have been near the door, because I didn’t hear footsteps before I saw a shadow flicker across the peephole. I had ducked to the side of it.

  “Hello?” he said. Was Maria’s killer on the other side of that door?

  I roughened my voice and tried a Latino accent. “Raffi!” I said, chiding. “Raffi, Raffi, where is she?”

  Locks turned. “How did you—”

  Raphael flung the door open, and we stared at each other.

  “Hey, Raffi,” I said with an easy grin. He was tall enough to make me look up.

  Human nature made him mimic my smile, but it faded slightly. He thought he knew my face, because he never looked alarmed or concerned. His mistake.

  He didn’t see my elbow coming before it cracked him across his lower left jaw. I snagged my skin on one of his teeth, but he had the worst of it. He jaw might not be broken, but the night was young. Judging by his hairline, he could be as old as forty.

  Raphael stumbled back two steps and tripped over his feet, landing flat on his ass. Maybe no one had ever hit him with bad intent. He was wiry, with thin limbs and a long neck. He reminded me of an insect on its back.

  Before he could stand, I kicked the door closed behind us and straddled him in a chokehold. When he dug his nails into my skin to pull against my arm, I wrenched my grip more tightly. It was dangerous to have him in a chokehold. Killer or not, he had touched Chela.

  His eyes widened, his face red from panic and oxygen loss. “Who . . . who . . .”

  I leaned close to his ear, whispering. “I’m a father, asshole. One of your girls?” My voice almost cracked. I loosened my grip slightly so he wouldn’t black out, and so I wouldn’t accidentally twist the other way.

  “They come to me,” he said. “Ask her what she makes. It might be more than you!”

  Arrogant sonofabitch. My eyesight faded, and the room seemed to wheel. Since I didn’t want to go to prison, I released his neck.

  Instead, I vaulted over him and sent my knee into his groin, hard. My palm pinned his mouth shut, barely muffling his yell. A second strike might have done permanent damage, but I couldn’t do it, even as much as I wanted to make him hurt.

  When I stood up, he didn’t move from his fetal position on the floor. His eyes were glazed. He was dignified about his pain, but he would remember me.

  I quickly surveyed the suite to make sure no one else was hiding in the wings. The upscale hotel suite had fur-lined scoop chairs and metallic cabinets. The array of liquor bottles on the bar indicated that Raphael was prepared for a party.

  “We need to come to an understanding real fast,” I said.

  “Get out,” Raffi said through gritted teeth. “I don’t hold anyone. Take her home.”

  He didn’t move, but his eyes darted toward the nightstand. I stepped over him to fling open the metal drawer, and something clanked inside.

  A shiny .22 automatic lay beside the hotel’s King James Bible. If Raffi had answered the door with his gun, the night would have been a different story. I grabbed the gun and noted from its weight that it was loaded. I was careful to keep it at my side, not trusting myself enough to point it in his direction.

  “You want this?” I said. “Come get it.”

  “We are just talking. We don’t need a gun.”

  “Oh, but I like the gun.” My voice scared even me.

  I knelt, keeping the gun’s barrel pointed at the floor. I was well out of reach if he tried to surprise me with a sweep to take it. Only a fool gives up the advantage of a gun by moving too close to his prospective target. But I wanted him to see that I wasn’t sweating, and if one of us was going to die today, it would more likely be him.

  “You like running underage girls . . . Raffi?”

  His face turned brighter red. “That’s a lie,” he whispered solemnly.

  “My daughter’s sixteen, dickwad.”

  Raphael seemed to realize that Chela was my daughter, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Chela was tall, but she still had a baby face. It was easy to believe my lie.

  I pulled the slide back with a snick, jacking a round onto the floor but putting another in the chamber. I smiled. “Ooh. Boy Scout. Likes to be prepared.”

  Raphael licked his lips. His eyes dimmed with grim understanding. “Signore,” he said slowly, “you have some very wrong ideas about me.”

  “Tell me about Maria.”

  “Who?”

  “Maria, my daughter’s friend. I need to know why she’s dead. The first lie that comes out of your mouth . . . in fact, since you’ve already lied, I’ll show you.”

  This needed to be personal. I pocketed the gun and knelt down, smiling like a long-lost uncle. Grasped his left index finger with my right hand.

  “Make a wish,” I said, and pulled back until it broke.

  He shrieked, and I muffled that scream with my left hand. “You have nine left. If you’re gonna lie, make ’em good ones, because I promise you’ll remember them. Nine fingers, Raffi. But only two testicles. Think of the testicles, Raffi. Think of them hard. Because by the twelfth lie? Only memories will remain.” That sounded good. Almost a Hallmark moment.

  For three long seconds, Raphael didn’t speak. Then: “I knew her.” Raphael tried to mask his pain, but I hea
rd it in his voice.

  “The night she vanished. What happened?”

  “Signore, she is a streetwalker I did favors for. She came to me. They all come to me. I introduced her to a few men, mostly travelers. Lonely businessmen.”

  “What about the pilot?”

  Chela had mentioned that Maria was seeing a pilot who had promised to fly her to Jamaica. Raphael’s eyes narrowed, surprised at how much I knew. “Another lonely boy,” he said. “He saw Maria. He saw many girls.”

  “Give me a name.”

  Raphael looked dismayed, but he didn’t pause long. His eyes never left my face. “He could not have killed Maria. He is in Europe this week. He’s my pilot, and he’s made a run to Rome and Prague.”

  “To bring you girls?”

  Raphael ignored my question. “You can look at the flight logs. Will that make you happy? He has not been in Miami all week.”

  If that was true, it explained why Chela had never seen or met Maria’s mystery man.

  “You wrapped that up neat and clean,” I said. “Maybe too neat.” I grasped his middle finger. “Odd how this finger doesn’t really have a name. Thumb, index, ring, and little finger. But this one is just sort of the ‘fuck you’ finger. And you know what, Raffi?”

  “Wh-what . . . ?” His eyes bulged from their sockets.

  “Fuck you,” I said, and wrenched.

  He screamed, then began to babble. “Look, he is young. He still lives with his parents. You want a name? Oscar Reyes. They are a good family on Fisher Island. Anyone you talk to will tell you he’s in Europe. He probably does not know Maria is dead—not yet. Their friendship was casual. He likes interesting girls, but he is not a killer.”

  “Who else was she with?”

  Raphael bit at his lip. Blood drooled from his mouth, and he looked as if he might faint. I hoped he would. I know so many interesting ways to wake a man up, and I’ve always believed it good to polish one’s skills. Perhaps he saw this in my eyes. “She is a street prostitute, signore.”

  “Was,” I corrected him. “She’s dead, remember?”

  Raphael began to cry. The slightest tickle of sympathy scratched at the door of my control. “I . . . I need a doctor.”

  “I’d say so,” I heard myself say. “Right now, an emergency room physician could handle it. Why not go for the gold?” My smile would have chilled dry ice. “Who else was Maria with?”

  He spoke quickly. “I am not a pimp, a magnaccia. The street girls hound me for introductions. My own girls advertise on Craigslist. They see two or three men a week. That wasn’t Maria. Maria was an alley cat. My clients come for film festivals, book fairs, international art festivals. They want a woman they might bring on their arm, who is not empty-headed, who will not steal from their wallets. Maria was beautiful, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

  That was the same assessment I’d made of Maria from a distance. “I get it. Go on.”

  “Maria was not a match for my clients. Only Reyes, from time to time.”

  “But she had her eye on somebody that night. Give me his name.”

  Raphael tried to roll away from me, but I stopped him with my knee. “Alley cats watch anything that moves.”

  I almost broke another finger but stopped myself. Variety is the spice of life, I thought. Instead, I hit him squarely across the mouth with my bare knuckle, my left cross, the same spot I’d hit with my elbow. I wasn’t surprised when I saw a thin smear of blood on his teeth. I hauled him to his feet as if he was weightless and hurled him into a chair. He landed with a thud, blinking, face gone pale with shock and fear. I shook my hand to get blood back in it.

  “Give me a name,” I said. “This is the last time I ask politely.”

  Raphael glared. “I do not know his name.”

  “Bullshit. Shall we try another finger? Personally, I can’t wait to get to your balls.”

  Raphael stared at me as if wondering if I was insane. Hell, so did I. “I made a mistake with your daughter, signore. One mistake. You will maim me for that?”

  “If you don’t tell me his name, you’ll be typing with your tongue.”

  Raphael raised his right hand to wipe his mouth and winced. The fingers were already swelling. “He calls himself Juan. Everyone is Juan or John, Mr. Garcia, Mr. Smith. Some clients give me real names if they use a credit card, but Juan uses cash. He has been coming to the clubs for a few weeks, almost every night. He is in Miami on business. The girl I introduced to him said he has a boat. She spends time with him there but comes home unharmed. I do not know where he docks.”

  A boat would be a good place to drown someone. And to let a victim drift.

  “Which girl?”

  Raphael closed his eyes, preparing to betray a confidence. “Her name is Victoria.”

  Still keeping him in my sights, I wrote down the telephone number he gave me for the escort who had spent time with the man Chela called Mr. Big Nose. Then I laid Raphael’s phone back on the nightstand and punched the numbers without putting the call through, to see if the phone number was real.

  His phone offered the owner’s initial above the number I’d input: V.

  “I’ll talk to Victoria,” I said.

  “You are ruining me,” Raphael murmured.

  “What about Maria?” I said. “Did you introduce her to Juan?”

  Raphael shook his head. “No. That night, he wanted another . . .” Raphael paused, and I could almost hear him thinking about Chela. “He wanted a more sophisticated girl, one who was much more beautiful, more refined. She was a very intelligent girl, with the best breeding.”

  “Move on,” I said, my voice dead.

  Raphael rushed on. “When this girl refused Juan, Maria asked me to introduce her. But I said no. Some of the street girls think she tried to talk to him anyway.”

  “Or maybe you saw her with him,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t like her trying to score your john behind your back.” One of Chela’s theories was that Raphael might have killed Maria for trying to cut him out of her deal.

  Raphael looked baffled. “Why should it matter? I do not follow these girls. Signore, I am not a pimp. What she does, who she sees, this is not my concern. I do not have time enough in the day to count how many men a girl like Maria was with. Twenty a day!”

  Raphael probably was exaggerating his lack of concern, but his words rang true. Chela told me he had warned her to stay out of the clubs, grooming her the way he’d described.

  “Tell me what Juan looks like,” I said.

  Raphael’s description matched the one Chela had given me, but it still wasn’t nearly enough to help me recognize him. I also asked for more details about the girl who had been with him, which he gave even more reluctantly. He had known her for a year, a steady earner. She charged clients fifteen hundred dollars per night, and Juan was happy to pay her price.

  A knock came at the door. Two knocks, a pause, and two more knocks. A code.

  I raised my finger to my lips, warning Raphael not to speak. He squirmed, but he obeyed. Immediately, his cell phone vibrated on the nightstand where I’d found the gun. I shook my head no. I was glad the ringer was off, or the person at the door would have known Raphael was in his room.

  Careful to keep an eye on my patient, I snatched up the phone and pushed the button to silence its vibrations. PRIVATE NUMBER, it read. After a moment, I heard footsteps retreat from the door.

  “There will be others,” Raphael whispered, hoping I would leave him. Praying, probably.

  “Let’s talk about Phoenixx,” I said. “You’re tight with the management. Who else besides Hector?” Chela had told me every name she could remember, and Hector was the guy at the door who had let her and Maria in.

  “They are . . . friendly to me,” Raphael said.

  “I want security footage. I want to see who Maria was with and what she was doing at Phoenixx that night.”

  “That is not possible! They would never agree.”

  “Somebody better agree,”
I said. “Tonight. Or it’ll be cops asking instead of me. You and your girls are the last people to see Maria alive, Raffi. I will wreck your world if you get in my way.”

  Raphael stared at the floor. “Let me make some calls,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “You’re coming with me.”

  RAPHAEL MOVED LIKE an old man, wincing and hissing. His bottom lip was swollen, starting to bruise bright red. We’d wrapped a torn pillowcase around his right hand, but those fingers would definitely need splints. He was lucky he could walk.

  His limo driver kept his eyes on me in his rearview mirror. I don’t think the driver believed Raphael’s claim that I was a client, but he didn’t ask questions. Raphael and I didn’t speak during the ride. It took all of my concentration not to think about him touching Chela. With those hands. I wanted to break the rest of his filthy fingers. Maybe his neck.

  Raphael was nervous and fretful. I’d confiscated his phone to keep leverage on him, and it vibrated constantly in my pocket. The sound of each missed call made him run his left hand’s fingers through his hair and curse in Italian.

  I’d kept the little .22 in my pants in case I would need it. I could get popped on a concealed weapons charge, but I didn’t want to be unarmed if Raphael signaled for backup at Phoenixx. The first night I’d met Chela, I’d been jumped by a pack while I tried to investigate a murder, and I could feel history ripe to repeat itself. People get killed every day for less than I had done already.

  It was only ten on a weeknight, so Club Phoenixx was barely awake. Raphael moved through the club like a dolphin at sea. I kept a step behind him. Nods and waves got him past the velvet rope, past the VIP lounge, and into the nightclub’s bowels, where the sound of pounding techno was reduced to a low growl against the walls.

  In the security booth, a bank of twenty LCD flat-panel monitors laid the club out for us in pieces. Cameras covered the front and rear entrances, the bars, the dance floors, and the VIP room we had just left. Maria’s killer might be on video, but he would be hard to find.