by JB Salsbury
I spin on my heel and duck through the open doorway to Esteban’s office. Although the door is small, once inside, the space opens up with high ceilings, dark wood beams against white paint, and a masculine iron chandelier the size of a Buick hanging from the center.
“What?”
He lifts a brow and motions for me to take a seat in one of the two overstuffed, worn leather chairs. “Looks like the romantic getaway didn’t pan out. You look worse than you did when you left.”
“I’m fine.” I spit the words through my clenched teeth, which only confirms his observation. I loosen my jaw.
“You need to get laid, ese.” He leans back in his chair.
“What do you want?” Get to the point so I can get the fuck out of here.
“I got some information for you.”
A humorless laugh bursts from my lips. “Is that right? Because I called you last night and you seemed completely clueless.”
He shrugs, scratches his jaw, then frowns. “I don’t give information for free. You know that.”
“So you have something now. What do you want for it?”
He leans in with his forearms braced on the dark wood desk that looks as though it weighs a thousand pounds. “You have a delivery tonight. Your contact should be able to answer whatever questions you have.”
“Where at?” He rattles off an address, and I quickly record it to memory. “He got a name?”
“Tomás. Sancho will have the van loaded and waiting. Midnight. Sharp. Don’t be late.”
Whatever. I push to stand, feeling heavy with the stink of criminal on my skin. Mercy was right. I’ve sacrificed a lot to ensure her safety. It’s worth it. I thought up until now that I’d do it again if given the choice. But I have to wonder, in doing so, am I no longer the man she fell in love with? Have I given up the best parts of myself, the parts she saw a future with? Could she ever learn to love the person I had to become to keep her?
“Oh, and Emilio!”
I don’t stop on my way to the exit.
“Have Tomás hook you up with some pussy while you’re there. Tell him it’s on me.”
His chuckle follows me out from under the stairs where I mutter a fierce, “I hate you.”
FROM THE OUTSIDE, El Paraiso looks like any other Mexican nightclub—the neon sign shaped like a palm tree, solid rectangle structure with no windows, and techno music thumping out of the single door. Sancho nudges me forward, and I barely restrain telling him to fuck off.
I stride inside only to get stopped by a big fucking guy wearing too much cologne and sunglasses at night.
“I’m here to see Tomás. Esteban sent me.”
The guy steps aside and motions to a red velvet curtain off to the right that looks as though it’s being guarded by this guy’s twin. I head over, weaving through a few clusters of people drinking and dancing.
Frankentwin has his finger pressed to his ear, and when I get close, he sweeps the curtain aside and says, “He’s expecting you,” in Spanish.
Behind the velvet partition is a narrow stairwell lit only in black light. The bass from the club below throbs all around me, and as I reach the top of the stairs, it slows into something more sultry. I step through another set of curtains into a bar. This one is a much classier version of the nightclub below, like a VIP section. The dark wood bar isn’t overcrowded, so I push up to it and flag down the bartender. He’s dressed nicer than the staff downstairs, in a black button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
“Where can I find Tomás?”
The bartender flicks his fingers into the air, and seconds later, a woman pushes up beside me. She brushes her breasts against my arm, which would’ve seemed accidental if it were crowded. But with only a couple dozen people filling the space, it was very purposeful. I glare at her and step away to put some distance between us.
“I can take you to Tomás,” she says in Spanish and motions for me to follow.
I trail behind her across the dark room, and I realize she’s wearing a long, fitted dress that’s all netting in the back and she isn’t wearing anything underneath. Everything clicks into place.
This is what Esteban is giving me.
He’s giving me face-to-face time with someone in the prostitution game.
My eagerness wars with annoyance. As interested as I am talking to the guy, I hate that it’s happening in some kind of high-end whorehouse. Being here makes me feel like a scumbag. But then, most of what I do for Esteban does.
The woman takes me up a few steps to a hallway lined with doors. At the last door, she knocks twice then opens it into some kind of super-VIP space the size of an average bedroom. Three of the walls are painted a deep red. The fourth is a floor-to-ceiling one-way window facing the interior of the club. I’m assuming it’s there so whoever is inside can pick their companion for the night while remaining anonymous and stay hidden while they receive the services they pay for.
Overstuffed leather couches sit in the middle of the room with a bar on one wall and a flat-screen TV on the other. An older Hispanic man is lounging on one couch between two girls who look young enough to be his granddaughters. He doesn’t make a move to stand or greet me in any way other than to watch me like a hawk as I cross to sit on the couch opposite him.
“Tomás.”
He nods, and when he does, the white hair plastered to his head doesn’t move, as if it were made of plastic. “Emilio Vega. You look like your father.”
I recoil but hope I recover quickly enough for him not to notice. He’s speaking English, which must mean he doesn’t want the woman in the room to understand our conversation. “He asked me to drop off a gift to you.”
“Bring it around to the back and I’ll have my men take that off your hands.” He strokes the thigh of the woman on his left. She doesn’t even seem to feel it, her eyelids low and her head lolling to one side. “You’re welcome to help yourself to . . .” He grins at the woman who escorted me in here and then at each of the girls on his sides. “Anything you like while you’re here.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that. There is something I’m interested in.”
The first woman sits down next to me and leans her weight into my side. My instinct is to shove her away, but I don’t want to give away a weakness, so I pretend she doesn’t exist.
“I’ll have Yolanda show you to a room—”
“No need.” I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “What I want you don’t have here on site.”
He chuckles, and his smile slips a little. Just as I thought, his weakness is his pride. “I assure you, whatever your tastes, I can provide it.”
I was hoping he’d say that. I lock eyes on him, ready to search for any tell that what I’m about to say means something. Anything. “I’m looking for an Ángel.”
His eyes flare so minutely, I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been looking for it.
“You know where I can find one?”
His shoulders slump in what looks like an act of forced nonchalance. “Call them whatever you want, they won’t mind—”
“A healer. One who can bring luck, success, money—”
“If it’s innocence you’re looking for, I have plenty of young—”
“Pale skin, eyes, hair. A Ghostgirl.”
He blinks slowly.
“Only a man like you could find something so rare, am I right?”
He clears his throat and dismisses all the women in Spanish. When his couch mates don’t move fast enough, he barks, “Lárguense!”
They all scurry to the door.
Once it clicks closed, his eyes narrow on me. “What you’re asking for isn’t too hard to find. White women are not rare—”
“Don’t bullshit me. I have the money. Name your price, point me in the right direction, and we’re done here.”
He stands and I rise along with him, standing directly in front of him so he can feel our foot-plus height difference.
“All the talk of an Ángel who is capabl
e of the kinds of things you speak are rumors. That’s all,” he says.
“So you’ve heard them. If she does exist, you know where I can find her.”
“I have heard rumors. That’s it.”
“If they’re only rumors, then you’ll have no problem sharing them with me.” Rumors aren’t much to go on, but they’re a start.
His gaze darts to the tattoo on my neck. “Are you a religious man?” I don’t answer him, but he clearly didn’t expect me to as he continues. “There are rumors that these healings are the work of black magic veiled in Catholic symbols.” He crosses to the bar and pops the lid off a bottle of what I’m assuming is tequila. After pouring himself a short glass, he takes a mouthful. “If you search out this kind of magic, you may very well get more than you bargained for.”
Riddles. All of it. I shake my head, and my hands fist in irritation. “Do you have a location?”
“Rumors have placed it in just about every gentlemen’s club in Baja.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, praying to the Blessed Mother that she’d knuckle-thump this guy on the back of the head and get him to spit up what he knows. “And what do you think?”
“I’d check Zona Norte.”
I blink and shake my head. Zona Norte is the red light district in Tijuana. “Isn’t that a little too . . . obvious?”
He steps close, and his face is remote, emotionless. “If anyone asks me if we had this conversation, I will tell them it never happened.”
“Fine with me.”
“Good night then. And please tell Esteban to go fuck himself for me.” And with that, he walks out of the room, leaving the door open.
The three women saunter back inside, but I don’t give them the chance to proposition me again. I push past them to the door, down the hallway, stairs, and back out into the cool night air.
Sancho flicks his cigarette and pushes up from his lean against the van. “El Jefe will be happy to know you took your time in there. Tomás has the sweetest bitches, eh, ese—”
I shove him back against the van with my forearm to his neck. “Shut the fuck up. I didn’t touch any of those women.”
I would never do that to Mercy. I would never do that to myself. Prostitution is too sad to be sexy.
His gravelly laugh morphs into a smoker’s cough, and he raises his arms in surrender. I shove off him and circle around to the driver’s seat. I crank the ignition and lay my foot a little too heavy on the gas, peeling out of the parking lot to circle around to the cargo entrance at the back of the club. I hope this shit doesn’t take long. I always crave Mercy’s arms after these nights, but there’s somewhere I need to go before I go home. And I need to get rid of Sancho before I do it.
Thankfully, Tomás’s place has plenty of distractions.
Mercy
“OH, DON’T BE such a baby.”
I tug on Toro’s leash, and he throws all his weight into his back legs to keep from getting closer to the water. He’s the toughest, most intimidating dog on the property, yet he’s afraid of bath bubbles.
I blow at a strand of hair stuck to my sweaty face and release the tension on the leash. He lies down and looks at me with sad gray eyes.
“I know, buddy, but you stink.”
I pull again and get nowhere, then I drop the leash. I need a new plan. I spot a pipe coming up from the ground nearby. If I could get the leash tied on there, I could bring the soapy bucket of water to him.
Using a piece of carnitas left over from my breakfast, I lure Toro the few feet over to the pipe. When I get the leash tied on tight, I walk across the yard to the bucket of soapy water I made hours ago, giving it plenty of time to warm in the sun.
Toro tugs on his leash when he realizes what I’m about to do. I place the bucket near him then drop to my knees. After a little coaxing, he eventually flops onto his side and I scratch his belly.
When his eyelids close, I grab the sponge from the bucket and rub sudsy circles on his silver belly. His lids pop wide when he realizes he’s been fooled, but he slowly calms and allows me to continue.
“See, this isn’t so bad, is it?”
He rolls onto his back, and I continue to give the dog a bath on the grass while I try not to think about what time I heard Milo come in last night.
Even more, I try not to think about what he smelled like. The powerful scent of women’s perfume followed him into the shower and was left on his clothes that were shoved deep into the hamper.
“That’s a good boy.” The words sound sad as I bathe the dog.
Despite being a canine, he has become my closest friend. My only friend.
I miss Laura and the way she could read my face and know when something was wrong before I did. I miss Miguel and his shy smiles and thoughtful expressions of concern. I miss Julian and how he’d drag me to the television every night for another Disney movie. The hollow ache in my chest intensifies when I think of all I left behind—
The slam of the back door sends Toro to his feet, and he shakes hard, spraying me with soapy water.
“Ugh!”
He barks as Milo crosses the yard toward me. He’s wearing black workout shorts, black Nikes, and he’s shirtless. His skin shines with sweat, making his tattoos wink in the sunlight and his hair is damp around his face.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.” He stops close enough that his big body blocks the sun, turning him into a big, looming shadow.
“It shouldn’t have been too hard to find me.” I stand from a kneeling position just as easily as I always have. Old habit I suppose. I wipe my face with the hem of my T-shirt. “It’s not like I’ve been hiding.”
That’s not entirely true. After our fight in the bathroom, I’ve been avoiding him.
His eyebrows drop low over his eyes. “Yeah, I know you weren’t. It’s just . . .” He shrugs his big shoulders. “I miss you.”
I know what he’s referring to. This morning when he pulled me into his arms, like he does every time he crawls back into our bed, drawing my lips to his neck where I used to find comfort, I pretended I had to use the bathroom. When I got back to bed, he was sound asleep and the sun was already up, so I went downstairs and let him be.
“Are you hungry?” He points over his shoulder toward the house. “I could have Maria make us lunch on the patio.”
“No, thank you.”
“You feeling okay?”
I refuse to lie to him, so I don’t answer.
He drops his chin and rubs the back of his neck. “Right. I don’t like this, Güera.” He flicks a finger toward the space between us. “All this . . . distance.”
“You’re the one who’s put it there by not being honest with me.”
He locks his hands behind his head and looks up for a few seconds as if praying to the Holy Mother for patience, then he stares at me. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Toro jumps up and plants two dirty paws on my shirt, mouth wide, tongue hanging out, and his nose covered in mud. Great. I guess the bath was a total waste, although he does smell better.
“I’m going to go get showered and then I have to run out for a bit, but maybe we can have dinner together tonight?”
“That sounds good.” I squat to pet the dog. I’m already filthy, so I let him trample on me and flop down between my legs.
Milo seems hesitant to leave but eventually jogs back to the house.
“What am I going to do?” I ask my four-legged friend, who answers with a sneeze that sprays me with dog snot. “Gross.” I laugh at his big goofy smile then lean down and whisper into his horn-like ear, “When I get a chance to get out of here, I’m taking you with me.”
He wiggles on his back as if he’s agreeing and happy to leave this life of servitude behind to find freedom with me.
Milo
THE SUN HAS already set by the time I race into the kitchen after getting home. I spent hours walking the streets of Zona Norte, talking to everyone from prostitutes to pimps and drug dealers. I swindl
ed, begged, and paid for information, but as soon as I mentioned the angel, they all clammed up or played stupid.
They know something. They all do. What’s the big fucking secret?
One prostitute told me to ask a man they call El Tiburón, explaining that he’s been a part of the industry since before most of them were born. It took way too long to track him down, and once I did, he strung me along, offering me every kind of sexual combination imaginable only to be a dead end too. Despite his never-ending list of diversions, I could see in his eyes that he knew more.
I’ll go back tonight. After Mercy falls asleep, I’ll go back and use more force to get him to tell me what he knows.
Maria is wiping down the counters when I call to her in Spanish. “Dinner already served?”
She whirls around with her hand to her chest then pulls on a wire that pops an ear bud from her ear. “Milo, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Did everyone already eat?”
“Yes. I’d be happy to make you a plate?”
“Did Mercy eat yet?”
She frowns a little and shakes her head. “No, she never came down for dinner.”
“Can you make two plates and bring them up to our room please?”
“Yes.”
She goes to the fridge to pull out leftovers, and I hang a sharp right at the staircase and leap four stairs at a time to the top. Our bedroom door is closed, and for a second, I wonder if I’ll be waking her up. These last couple weeks, she’s been so distant and going to bed earlier and earlier. Part of me hopes she is asleep so that I won’t have to suffer through the disappointment I’ll surely find in her crystal-blue eyes. I hate that my absence makes her feel as though she’s been forgotten. If only I could explain how close I am to finding where she was held in Mexico. If only she knew that everything I do, I do for her.
I push through the door, but the room is empty. The balcony doors are open—maybe she’s out there. The cool ocean breeze licks across my face, but there’s no sign of Mercy. I check the bathroom, the closet. She’s not here.
