The Dark Side of Town

by Sasscer Hill

  Lost in her own nightmarish thoughts, it took her a moment to respond. “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, I’m hungry. Let’s get some lunch from room service. What would you like?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Fine, I’ll order for you.” I got room service on the phone and ordered a BLT for me and a New York strip, fries, and salad for Julissa.

  “I tried to run,” she said. “But Dajon saw me.”

  “Dajon?”

  “The Rastafarian,” she said. “Dajon told Darren, and Darren was so angry with me. You can see what he did.”

  Oh, I saw, all right. The bastard. So, the Rastafarian had a name. Dajon. What was I going to do now?

  I walked from the telephone desk to the couch and sat next to Julissa. “You’ll be safe here, until we can find a permanent solution for you.”

  She continued, almost as if I hadn’t spoken. “I took some clothes to the consignment shop, got some money. I bought a bus ticket to New York, but Dajon had followed me. He took the ticket, the money. Then he called Darren.” She shuddered.

  “This was yesterday?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I have a friend in the modeling business in the city. I thought I could hide there, get work. But look at my face now. I hate him.” Carefully, she lowered her head into her hands, whimpering as her bruised flesh pressed into her hand. “He used to be so good to me…”

  I so wanted to help this woman. I needed a plan. But sometimes it’s the little things that help the most. Sitting next to her, smelling her, I knew she hadn’t bathed in a while. Who would want to remove their clothes in a suite inhabited by Darren Onandi and a leering Rastafarian?

  “Would you like to take a hot shower while we wait for room service?” I asked.

  She considered it, started to shake her head, then appeared to find a bit of resolve. “You will stay here, keep the door locked?”

  “I will.”

  “I have no clothes.”

  She was taller than me, but skinny through the waist and hips. “I have some stretch pants that will fit you, and you can wear one of Calixto’s shirts.”

  The mention of Calixto startled her. She drew back, putting space between us.

  “He’s a good guy,” I said. “He’s staying here with me. He will protect you.”

  Her shoulders relaxed slightly, then she nodded. “Okay.” She stood and headed for the shower.

  By the time she came out, lunch had arrived, and after tentatively eating a few bites of steak, she begin to eat faster and faster, plowing through the crisp french fries like a starving woman. No doubt, she was starved for a lot of things—like freedom, love, and security. God only knew what Onandi had done to her sense of self-worth.

  When she was finished, I insisted she lie on the bed for a while. She did, and as I expected, she went out like a light. I used the time to power up my laptop and send a secure e-mail to Brian.

  Once we opened a secure link, Brian worked it so we had an audiovisual feed.

  “We should do this more often,” I said. “It’s like having you in the room with me.”

  Brian’s brows lifted above the top rim of his glasses. “Careful what you wish for, McKee.” He blushed slightly, as if embarrassed by his words. “So, what’s up?”

  I explained how Onandi figured in Rich’s past. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it earlier, but things got crazy right after that, and to be honest, I didn’t even think about it until now.”

  “Are you saying the daring McKee was daunted by her near-death experience?”

  He was in a rare mood today. “Anyway,” I said, “we didn’t go back through Onandi’s bank records far enough. My mother hooked up with Rich seventeen years ago. His company had already made him wealthy as sin. So if Onandi’s bank did invest in Horizons Unlimited, it could have been twenty or more years ago.”

  I’d given him something to chew on. The creases around his eyes puckered as he thought. “First thing, I’ll find out if Gorman’s company was always called Horizons Unlimited. Then I’ll track any business associated with him back to the first mention of Onandi or his bank. The nature of their connection might prove interesting.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” I remained silent a moment, and allowed my mind to drift back in time. Back to when Joan had left us for Rich. Part of me still hated the man. I remembered Joan saying how Rich was forced to make “shady moves” to get Horizons Unlimited sold. I had no doubt he was capable of shady moves and dubious associates, like …

  I grew still as a piece of the puzzle dropped into place.

  “Onandi,” I said. “The hedge fund! There’s a connection.”

  “Of course,” he said, his face flushing with excitement. “That makes perfect sense.” He grinned at me. “Our intrepid detective, undeterred by her dip in the dell.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Just find something.”

  “Yes, master.” He disconnected, and my screen went blank.

  * * *

  By 5:00 P.M, I’d updated Gunny on our suspicions about Onandi’s connection to the hedge fund. As I shut down the computer, Julissa wandered into the parlor. She looked better, her almond-shaped eyes less shadowed. Even her lips looked fuller, her mouth more relaxed. Food and sleep have a tendency to restore, something I needed to remind myself sometimes.

  “Fia,” she said, “you’ve been so kind to me. Thank you.”

  “We girls have to stick together, right?” I said.

  She smiled for the first time. Damn, she was beautiful. Then the brightness that had briefly touched her face dimmed. She folded her arms across her middle. “You should know Darren has another man up here. Someone worse than Dajon.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, or the way her voice rattled as she spoke of this man. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Kamozey.”

  Why was this name familiar? I closed my eyes. It was the night when Calixto, Turner, and I had driven away from Lake Desolation. I’d been so exhausted, but even so, I’d started thinking about Percy’s murder. Something had bothered me that night, leaving me with a prickle of unease, as if I’d forgotten something.

  It finally came to me. At the garden party, I’d overheard Onandi threatening Dajon, with the name Kamozey. What was it Onandi had said? “You want me to tell Kamozey you screwed up?” His words had left the Rastafarian’s voice weak with fear.

  And there was something else. Something Onandi had said to Rich, but it still wouldn’t come to me.

  “I’ve heard that name. Who is he?”

  “He is a horrible man. A killer. He makes Darren’s enemies disappear.”

  “He’s here? In Saratoga?”

  “Yes, he came yesterday. Dajon is not a nice man, but he is a puppy next to Kamozey. Kamozey is why I risked running.”

  “Okay,” I said, not liking the way her fear was mounting. No one knows you are here, Julissa, and Onandi didn’t recognize me without the makeup and clothes. Only Calixto will know you’re here. They won’t find you. Just don’t leave this room!”

  She wasn’t going to like me disappearing to have dinner with Calixto, but I needed to talk to him without her present. The less she knew about us going after Onandi, the safer and less worried she’d be. But when I told her I had to leave, her eyes widened with alarm.

  “The restaurant’s close by,” I said. “I won’t be gone more than an hour.” I grabbed an Adelphi notepad and pen. “Here, this is my cell number. If you need me, you call me, okay?”

  “All right.”

  I hated leaving her. She’d been through so much, but my conversation with Calixto needed to be private. “I’ll bring you back some dinner. There’s a bar inside that cabinet”—I waved toward an ornate marble-topped chest—“you should make yourself a drink, watch a movie or something. Relax.”

  Yeah, that was going to happen.

  31

  Just past seven that evening, I entered the Brook Tavern, a wood-frame, Victorian-era es
tablishment on Union Avenue. Inside, polished floor planks and walls paneled in warm-toned wood glowed from the soft light of overhead lamps.

  Standing in the entryway, I spotted Calixto sitting in a high-backed booth in a far corner of the dining room. One look at him and I could feel the blood rush inside me.

  How could I keep reacting like this? I was thirty-two years old for God’s sake. Not to mention there was an abused woman hiding in my hotel room, or that I moved beneath the oppressive weight of an unsolved murder. Either one should dampen anyone’s libido. Except, they didn’t.

  Seeing me, he rose and waited until I reached his booth. He put one arm around me in a brief hug, then touched his lips to my cheek, letting them linger a moment too long.

  “It’s a big table,” he said. “Sit next to me.”

  His side of the booth backed against an outside wall, making it unlikely we’d be overheard. I sat, careful to keep my thigh from pressing into his and quickly launched into my news that Onandi was in town. I related his suspected connection to the hedge fund, and what had happened with Julissa.

  When I described her condition, his face darkened. “No woman should be treated like that.”

  “Maybe we can get her to New York,” I said. “She has a friend there, a model. That’s Julissa’s world. But Onandi has her passport, and she can’t get a work permit without it.”

  “Hold off on that for now, Fia. You did the right thing, giving her a safe hiding place, but let’s take one thing at a time. Let’s nail down the relationship Onandi does or does not have to Savarine’s hedge fund.”

  He paused, his gaze meeting mine. “You have good instincts. I am inclined to agree he may be your ‘puppet master.’”

  “And I’d bet the farm he murdered Percy,” I said.

  I told Calixto about the new player in town, and the little I knew about Kamozey. “I sent a message to Brian before I left, asking him to run the name. He’s studying Onandi’s bank records from seventeen years ago, as well.”

  Calixto nodded. “Muy bueno.”

  “I’d suspect Kamozey’s the killer, but he wasn’t here in Saratoga that night. I think Julissa would have known if he was. Of course, there’s always the Rastafarian, Dajon. Just because he was stoned out of his mind doesn’t mean he didn’t take a knife to Percy.” I felt my lips curl at the memory.

  Just then, our waitress showed up, and Calixto told her we were a bit rushed.

  “We would like to order drinks and dinner now,” he said, before turning to me. “May I order for you?” When I nodded, he glanced back to the waitress, “Did I see Whistle Pig on the bar when I walked in?”

  “Excellent choice,” she said, her smile revealing a lot of white teeth. Her eyes were practically gleaming with dollar signs.

  How expensive was this stuff? For that matter, what was it?

  “Two,” Calixto said, “on the rocks.”

  After he ordered the scallop special, the waitress left, and a short time later the bartender delivered two highballs filled with amber liquid the color of bourbon. I took an exploratory sip.

  “This is wonderful. Is it bourbon?” I asked Calixto.

  “Rye whiskey.”

  Growing up in the Baltimore area, being a horsewoman and a cop, I thought I knew a lot, but I realized more and more, my knowledge of the finer things was lacking. Of course, when your mother takes the money and leaves you behind …

  “It’s really good,” I said. “I’ve never heard of it before. Guess I know a lot more about feed grain than grain alcohol.”

  “You have everything you need,” Calixto said. “You have the perseverance of a bulldog, the tracking ability of a bloodhound, and the heart of a Thoroughbred. I wouldn’t want my partner any other way.”

  I was half-stunned by the compliment. It meant so much more than if he’d said I was beautiful or clever.

  “Thanks,” I finally said. “You’re not too shabby, either.” I took a large swallow of my drink and focused on the tablecloth. I could feel his eyes on me.

  “Meloy called this afternoon. He received a copy of the coroner’s report on Percy.”

  Straightening, I twisted slightly and stared at him. “Tell me.”

  “Percy was knocked out by a blow to the head before his throat was cut open. The coroner’s take on the murder weapon is revealing. Apparently, the cuts and incisions into the skin, bone, and cartilage indicate a combat knife was used. One with a fully serrated blade, about four-and-a-half-inches long. The entire knife was probably ten inches.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind in case I find a stray knife in my mother’s garden.” I said, trying to lighten my mood. But I couldn’t keep my fingers from touching my throat.

  “I know, querida, it was a terrible death.”

  He paused a moment and we both took a healthy swallow of whiskey. “But even more telling,” he continued, “is the way the wound was inflicted. The coroner believes the killer was either amateurish or enraged. The way the neck was sawed open was excessive and unnecessary.”

  I thought back to my cop days. “I can understand why he’d say that. If Percy was unconscious, the killer could have simply turned his neck to expose carotid artery and given it a quick slice. That would have done the job faster, and a lot more easily.”

  I took another sip, set the glass down, and began to think out loud. “Even if the killer was a novice, he still had the sense to cover himself and his clothes with plastic. Of course, he could have seen serial killer movies. Or read that type of novel. He’d know they’re always carrying plastic bags and sheeting in the trunk of their cars.” And duct tape, rope, and handcuffs.

  “Or,” Calixto said, “the killer was a professional, but filled with rage and a desire to inflict the worst possible damage in the shortest amount of time.”

  I flashed on Percy’s flopped-back head, all but severed from the neck. Don’t go there, Fia.

  With exquisite timing, the waitress showed up with our food. It wasn’t rare meat oozing with blood, but still, after the details of Percy’s death, I had to pause a moment before I could take a bite of the scallops. We got through the meal, ordered coffee, a takeout for Julissa, and were out of the tavern by eight.

  On the sidewalk Calixto said, “I’d like to talk to her.”

  “You should.”

  Since I’d come in a cab, I climbed into Calixto’s XK for a ride back to the Adelphi. As the Jag powered away from the restaurant, I thought about the three thugs currently residing in the hotel.

  “When we get there,” I said, “it might be better if Onandi or his men don’t see us together. One of them could be in the lobby. The less they know or think about Mr. and Mrs. Coyune, the better.”

  “You’re right, of course. I will drop you off, then park. And, since someone could be watching from the lobby, you will take the elevator to the wrong floor, yes?”

  “Of course. I’m not leading anyone to Julissa.”

  After climbing the steps from the third floor to the fourth floor, I opened the stairwell door, and looked left and right. The long corridor was empty. As I passed by Onandi’s suite, I heard male voices and smelled cigar smoke. So much for the hotel’s nonsmoking rule. I sped down the hall, and when I reached our suite, was glad my key card wouldn’t open the door. It meant Julissa had turned the bolt from the inside. This erased the vague, but nagging fear I’d had that Julissa might have disappeared.

  I rapped gently and called her name. “It’s Fia,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  She let me in, quickly closing and bolting the door behind us. I handed her the plastic bag holding her take-out dinner from the tavern.

  “Scallops,” I said. “Eat them while they’re hot. Then we’ll talk.”

  She did, and a few minutes later, Calixto arrived. After they exchanged a brief greeting, he remained standing, and I knew by the way his eyes darkened, and the vein in his temple pulsed, he was inventorying the damage to her face. One of his hands closed into a fist.

 
If I’d been Onandi, I would have left town.

  “I am sorry for your trouble, Julissa,” he finally said. “Fia tells me you have a friend in New York you were hoping to contact.”

  “Yes, I used the room phone to call her while Fia was gone.” She threw me a worried look, as if she might have made a terrible mistake. “I thought it would be safe?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Onandi doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “But, what about the maid? She knows someone else is staying in the room. If Onandi asks…”

  “He won’t,” I said. “He’s bound to think you ran away.”

  Though Julissa had eaten less than half her dinner, she stood, slid the container of food back into the plastic bag, and dumped it into the hotel’s hand-painted trash can.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t finish this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. Damn, she was tense.

  Calixto settled into one of the room’s upholstered chairs, and smiled at her, his relaxed body language suggesting she do the same.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Who is this friend?”

  “We went to school together in Jamaica. She knows about Onandi. She wants me to stay with her in the city, thinks she can get me work.”

  Except you have no papers.

  “But,” Julissa said, “I don’t even have the money to get there, and Onandi has my clothes.”

  Calixto gave her an open palm shrug. “No problema. We will take care of that.”

  Julissa’s lower lip quivered and she grimaced like she was trying not to cry.

  “I’ll have a car and a driver take you to New York tomorrow. I will give you cash, and,” he said when she started to protest, “you can pay me back once you have work, yes?”

  He sat with his long legs crossed, his Lucchese boots gleaming with polish, a half smile on his lips. Julissa nodded, fingering tears away from her eyes, while I restrained an impulse to throw myself on Calixto.

  “Bueno,” he said. “It is decided. Fia, could I talk to you on the balcony for a moment?”

  I rose from the couch, walked through our bedroom, and after opening the French doors, I stepped outside. Resting my hands on the railing, I watched the street traffic below. In the bedroom, Calixto cut the light, probably not wanting us silhouetted on the balcony.