Children of Chaos

by Greg F. Gifune

  “I’m naturally gifted in that area.”

  Janine rummaged through her purse a moment then placed a small booklet on the table. “I thought this might come in handy, it’s a brochure on the city of Tijuana. It has some helpful hints about crossing the border and also some good advice on moving about in the city—what to watch out for and whatnot—lots of useful information.”

  “Thanks.”

  She flipped open the pizza box to reveal a large pie loaded with toppings. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got it with everything.” She slid the two bottles of Jack to the far side of the table, pretending not to notice I’d already killed one and the other was halfway there. “And this,” she said, motioning to her place, “is called a salad. It consists of things known as vegetables. They’re good for you. Now sit. Eat. Be merry.”

  I did my best.

  Half an hour later we’d polished off the salads and a good portion of the pizza. We had some small talk but stayed clear of the elephant in the room.

  “Thanks,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin, “this is really nice.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “Speaking of which, who cares for Mrs. Doyle while you’re gone?”

  “She has a night nurse that comes in evenings.”

  “You don’t live on the grounds then?”

  “No, I have my own place over on Cottage Street.” She pushed her chair away from the table enough so she could get more comfortable and cross her legs. “I still rent but I’ve been investing and saving for awhile so hopefully when my fiancé gets back we can get married and buy a house.”

  “I owned a house once. My ex lives there with her boyfriend and our daughter now. But then I’m sure you already knew that seeing how you know everything about me except for maybe my freaking shoe size.”

  Janine leaned to the side and checked out my feet. “Nine?”

  “OK that’s just creepy.” Remembering her objection to my smoking, I got up, cracked the door a bit and lit a cigarette.

  Janine’s expression shifted. “I forgot to mention something,” she said in a more serious tone. I was learning that switching effortlessly from blasé to intense was one of her skills. She could turn on a dime. “Rudy Bosco quoted Connie Joseph the price of five thousand dollars.” She removed a phone from her purse and placed it on the table. “This is a prepaid cell that’ll work in Mexico. Rather than carrying additional cash, which could be dangerous, once you’ve secured Bosco’s services, call me and I’ll have the money wired to you. I have an account set up with a service that allows money to be wired internationally directly to a bank in Tijuana.”

  I nodded and blew smoke out into the rain. She was doing her best to play it cool and smooth but I could tell there were still a million details running through her mind. “Now that you mention it, I need a little more info on Jamie too. I want to talk to him before I go anywhere near Martin. Where do I look?”

  “Unlike Mr. Bosco, whose name you can drop pretty much anywhere and someone is likely to know or know of him, Jamie’s more a phantom there. The population in Tijuana has soared over the years. It’s around two million now, I believe.” She was back to choosing her words carefully. “It’s a tourist destination for sure, but it’s not just donkey shows and craziness like it’s often portrayed in movies. There are, of course, a vast number of local poor and destitute immigrants—you’ll see the shantytowns most live in, it’s difficult to forget that level of poverty—but there’s also a substantial middleclass there now and a good number of wealthy people. Like many cities, it has several distinct sides to it, the rich, the poor, the immigrants and the locals, the tourist areas and the darker sides few ever see. Jamie was found in the latter. When I met with him it was in a rather frightening bar that fronted for a massage parlor, which in Tijuana is simply code for a brothel. He seemed like a regular at that bar, so I’d start there. It’s hardly a featured attraction in the tourist literature, but I’ve made a note of the address and its name in the margins on the inside cover.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  She nodded quickly, uncomfortably. “Don’t thank me, Phil. I don’t enjoy having to facilitate this kind of thing, and I hope it’ll be the last time I have to. The last two times the results haven’t been very good. You be careful down there.”

  I smoked awhile without saying anything. I remembered her description of how destroyed Jamie was. If I was more together than he was, that was saying something. The rain trickled just beyond the door in a steady stream.

  Janine popped up to her feet. “Well, I should get going. I’ve got some things to do at home.”

  After one more drag I flicked the cigarette out into the storm. “Like what?”

  Her posture eased a little. “Is it that obvious?”

  “To somebody like me it is.”

  “What worries me most is I’m starting to get used to it. That and I’ve been having a torrid affair with my shower massage.”

  Rather than laugh, I placed a hand flat against the door and pushed it closed. “Being alone almost all the time doesn’t bother me like it used to. You learn to deal with it one way or another. But I’ve always hated eating alone.” I motioned to the food. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”

  She shrugged. “Hey, sitting on the couch watching reruns of Law and Order and eating Chinese out of a paper box gets old after awhile, you know?”

  “Yeah, I do actually.”

  Janine grabbed her purse and pulled her jacket from the back of the chair where she’d left it. Rather than put it on she held it down by her side as she closed the gap between us and extended her hand. “Good luck, Phil.”

  I took her hand, held it. Neither of us moved, but for those beautiful brown eyes blinking behind her glasses and the slow rise and fall of her chest.

  I let her hand go, and she just stood there, looking at me.

  My hands suddenly found the small of her back, and I pulled her into me. As we kissed she dropped her jacket and purse to the floor, fell into me, into the kiss, her arms wrapped around my shoulders then neck, her breasts soft but solid against my chest. Together, we toppled over onto the bed.

  Her sweatshirt came up and off, her breasts round and full, barely contained and exploding from a black push-up bra as she straddled me. Riding forward then back, she ground into me, bowed her head then snapped it back, swinging the ponytail around and collapsing onto me with her full weight. Smothering me with her stomach then breasts, her breath hot along my throat and her tongue wet and warm in my ear, I slid my hands up and cupped the halves of her ass, steadying her as her crotch rubbed mine.

  Janine arched her back then sat up atop me. Tossing her glasses aside and unhooking her bra in front, she let the cups fall free as she ran her hands across them, up along her throat and onto either side of her face. Soft moans escaped her as I sat up and suckled her breasts, her nipples thick, stiff and sweet between my lips.

  She held my head in her hands and pulled me in tight against her, her breath coming now in short rapid spurts and her body trembling against mine.

  From the corner of my eye I saw us in the mirror on the far wall, fumbling out of our clothes and looking less like lovers than two mismatched frightened souls who’d found temporary refuge from the storm. We’d escaped the rain, but there was no sanctuary from the tempests inside us both.

  Night kept falling, the rain kept coming, and in the same lonely town where I’d once lost everything, just for a little while, I got it all back.

  SEVEN

  Daylight bled through a slim opening in the curtains. Though I don’t remember actually waking up, at some point I became aware that I was lying on my stomach and drool that had collected in the corner of my open mouth was running free and trickling onto the pillow. I coughed a little then raised my head enough to wipe it away with the back of my hand. For once I was grateful to be so spent and sore. With a contented moan I flipped over onto my back and reached out for Janine. My hand found wrinkled sheets instea
d.

  I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around. The rain had stopped. The pizza box, plastic salad containers, paperwork and brochure were still there.

  Janine was gone.

  Images of her dressing quietly in the still-dark early hours ran through my head. She was probably embarrassed and already regretting what she’d done. Or maybe she just hated those awkward mornings-after and even more awkward goodbyes as much as I did. I could still smell her on me, taste her on my tongue, hear her whispering and moaning passionately, see and feel her there with me, her nude body soft and warm and glistening with perspiration. I lay there awhile and remembered being inside her—between her legs, in her mouth, between her breasts—how we’d made love frantically and almost violently, our hands and lips and tongues all over each other. And I remembered the way her big brown eyes gazed at me with such ruthless need, passion, and a distant though ever-present hint of sorrow. I remembered myself in those amazing liquid eyes, emptying all my loneliness and lust into her, trading it for her own, my demons exorcised by her flesh and the urgency with which she wrapped herself around me. I held on just as tight. Like without her I’d die, and I just may have.

  Then, with the lights turned low and the storm weakened to a gently falling and soothing kind of rain, we cuddled together, exhausted and wet. I didn’t speak or even think about anything other than that exact moment in time, that precise instant when all was tender and quiet, sated and right with the universe. I stroked her face and hair, her breath slow and steady on my chest, her hand delicately resting along the base of my throat.

  I’d been divorced for a decade, and while I’d been with several women since, Trish’s memory had invaded my thoughts each and every time. Maybe because I still loved her—or had convinced myself I did—or maybe because I’d never really felt anything with other women like I’d felt with her. But this time was different. She hadn’t even occurred to me until I came awake the next morning, alone again with my ghosts and their tireless demands.

  I hadn’t had sex in months, and even after a hot shower I was still feeling muscles I’d forgotten I had. Grappling with a bevy of conflicting emotions, I changed into fresh clothes, checked out and drove to a Western Union office a few streets over, where I wired fifteen grand to my checking account back home, twenty thousand to Trish as a surprise deposit for our daughter’s college fund, and then, as promised, mailed a thousand in cash to Gillian. The remaining four thousand I decided to bring with me to Mexico. I’d been told my expenses would be reimbursed, but in the interim I’d need cash, and quite possibly, a good amount of it.

  An hour later New Bethany was lost in my rearview, returned to the past, where I hoped this time it might stay, and I found myself sitting in a coffee shop in Boston, near Faneuil Hall and not too far from Government Center. I still had three hours before my flight to San Diego, and rather than spend more time than necessary wandering around Logan Airport, I’d found a place where I could kill some time and go through the paperwork and notes Janine had provided.

  I wondered what she was doing just then.

  Pushing away her memory, I focused on the job. What would one of my characters do? How would I have them go about tackling something like this? I was no investigator—I rarely even wrote about cops or private detectives as anything other than peripheral characters—my crime novels tended to center on criminals and their crimes, not the police assigned to catching them. So with private detectives on the brain, I flipped through the documents until I came across Connie Joseph’s early report. A paperclip secured her business card to the upper right corner of the cover page.

  A few weeks after dropping the case she suffered a nervous breakdown.

  There was an office address and phone listed, as well as the number for her cell. Unsure of where the address was, I asked a waitress and she told me it was a small side street sandwiched between Chinatown and the theater district. Since it was only a few minutes by cab, just for the hell of it I dialed the office line on my cell. I got a recording saying it had been temporarily disconnected. The cell listed went directly to voicemail, and an electronic voice told me to leave a message after the tone. I hung up instead.

  She was not the same person she was when she left.

  What the hell had Connie Joseph seen out there? She’d never even made it to where Martin allegedly was, so what happened to send her back here so broken and terrified?

  Determined to find out, I paid for my coffee, gathered my things and headed for to the street to hail a cab.

  * * *

  The street was narrow and lined with older tenements and walkups. Though a few were fairly well maintained, most of the buildings were in rough shape and had seen better days. Just off a busier drag of cheap eateries, nondescript retail outlets and aged parking garages, the street was relatively quiet, and but for a lot surrounded in chain link fence that housed a small rundown hut of an office and an array of totaled vehicles, it was a residential area. Though the business card had listed this as her office address, odds were, like a lot of independent private detectives, Connie Joseph worked from home.

  I asked the taxi to wait, stepped out onto filthy pavement and looked up at the dilapidated two-story building before me. Narrow steps led to a small vestibule just inside the front door. The place smelled like an old attic. A pair of intercom buzzers on a panel indicated there were only two large apartments here, one up and one down. Another panel, which listed the tenant names on white cards secured beneath a sheet of scarred plastic, was mounted on the wall alongside two mail slots. The first floor card read: Fitzgibbons, but the second slot was empty. Closer inspection revealed that not too long ago there had been one there too, but it had been torn free, as the slot was still caked with remnants of glue and small traces of paper from the back of the card. Janine had said no one was sure if Connie Joseph was even still in the business, but I decided to try the buzzer anyway.

  To my surprise, through a crackling speaker above the buzzers, a female voice answered with a dull, “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking for Connie Joseph.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Ms. Joseph?”

  “Who are you?”

  I pressed the button again. “My name’s Moretti. I’ve been hired by Bernadette Doyle to find her son Martin in Mexico. It’s a case you worked on previously, and I was hoping to talk to you about it for a few minutes.”

  Static answered, and for a moment I thought I’d heard the last of the dreary voice on the other end. But just as I was about to head back out to the cab, she said, “Top of the stairs.”

  Several rickety and creaking stairs later I stood on the second floor landing. To my left a tiny section of hallway led to a dingy window facing the brick sidewall of the adjacent building and an alley below, and straight ahead stood a door. I didn’t realize it was ajar until I attempted to knock. I lightly tapped it with my knuckles anyway, but no answer came so I pushed it open a bit farther and stuck my head in. “Ms. Joseph?” My voice echoed back at me, and as I stepped through the threshold and into the apartment I realized why. The entire place was empty. No furniture, no curtains or drapes, nothing hanging on the walls, no carpeting, just bare floors, walls and windows.

  I moved deeper inside. The front room was large, with two windows facing the street. I walked along the aged floors, craning my neck in an attempt to see around a hallway into the kitchen and another room to the side of it. “Ms. Joseph?” I said again, louder this time. “Hello?”

  The kitchen was empty as well, but for a few appliances. Beneath a ceiling fan, a woman probably in her late forties or early fifties, with a tangled shock of short but thick and wild bleached-blonde hair, sat in the center of the floor. Though it wasn’t cold, she was wrapped in a threadbare blanket.

  “Connie Joseph?”

  She nodded, peering at me as if she could just barely make me out. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot, but what struck me first were the dark circles under those eyes. I’d nev
er seen anyone saddled with bags so black. It looked as if she’d smeared them with greasepaint. In contrast, she wore no makeup or jewelry, and her skin was deathly pale. She looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept in days, and while under better circumstances she might’ve been fairly attractive, she had a naturally hard look to her, a toughness that seemed to enhance her femininity rather than detract from it. Her lips were chapped and bloodless, her clothes—a hooded sleeveless sweatshirt and a pair of jeans—looked like she’d been wearing them a long time and were in need of a good washing. The soles of her bare feet were black, and I noticed a ladybug tattoo on the outer ankle of her right leg. Despite her present condition, she looked to be in good shape physically for a woman her age. She had a rather athletic build, and while I’d expected someone in her line of work to be a bit more physically intimidating, it looked like on better days she could handle herself if need be.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Her lips curled into a spiteful grin but she offered nothing more.

  On the floor next to her I noticed half a bottle of vodka, a semi-automatic handgun and an open box of bullets, some of which had spilled onto the worn tile. A gun in the possession of someone under such massive duress made me nervous, so I stayed where I was and let my eyes scan the rest of the kitchen.

  The only indicators anyone still lived there was an overflowing garbage bin in the far corner, and a section of counter space where a series of prescription drug bottles lay scattered next to a stack of unopened mail.

  Connie watched me, one hand holding the blanket around her and the other nervously fingering a silver cross hanging from a chain around her neck.

  “Do you still live here?”

  “Sold everything off,” she said. Her voice was a bit deep and didn’t really fit her, and the tone was even duller and raspier than it had been on the intercom speaker. “Got no use for any of it now.”

  “Moving?”