The Devil's Music

by Stephen Mertz

  He said, “The heat can’t get a lead on Libra because the black community in this city ain’t that big and is localized enough to be kept in line by a few punks with guns. So people don’t talk. Folks be scared of Libra and his posse. They’re bad acting dudes and they’ve killed a few. With the group I put together, ain’t no one scared of punks.”

  I nodded.

  “Neighborhood Action Group.”

  “Damn right. We’ve had our ear to the ground in the hood where the cops and white folk don’t much go. We know who to ask, and this is what I’ve got. Libra’s whole caper with your little friend Chantel is all about Libra lining her up to be one of his whores, whether she knows it or not.”

  I said, “No one was twisting her arm when I saw her.”

  “You know how it’s done,” he said. “Runaways. Maybe underage, maybe not. Rebellious and looking for big city thrills and kicks. They catch plenty of thrills and kicks when Libra or one of his boys spots one but the good times are real fast and real hard.”

  “Too many runaways are rebellious and looking for kicks to begin with,” I said “They think they’ve bought into the hot nightlife, partying like there’s no tomorrow with well-heeled players like they’ve seen in the movies. Real glamorous for a week or so.”

  It was the proven process used by players like Libra to turn naïve young women and runaway girls into prostitutes. Of course in today’s permissive society, some gals don’t need incentive to sign up for what they think will be easy money. But at times, a player will spot some potential merchandise, usually very young stuff that just needs some tweaking to get her ready for market. It was a process said to have been devised in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen around the turn of the last century by Lucky Luciano, a dapper, vicious pimp who rose to become a Mafia kingpin.

  Get their bodies drenched with drugs like heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. “Show them good time.” Then Libra cuts off the supply. Quick, in some cases before the girl even realizes she’s become addicted did.

  Then it gets ugly.

  Then it gets real.

  Withdrawals. Cold turkey. The craving kicks in. She’s been pumped full of shit daily and will now do anything for another fix. Just one more fix! Please!

  Anything? Okay, you little dumbass bitch. Go out on the street and sell your body and give me most of the bread. We’ll take the first fix out of your first trick. But from then on, you pay like all the rest of the junkies. Tell anybody about this or even try to get away and I’ll have you hunted down and killed slowly as an example to the others...

  Isaac said, “Word is Libra has been playing Chantel like that, flaunting her around to his regular joints, players laughing behind her back at how their top dog got himself a sweet new piece of fresh meat. That girl’s so high and wired, she don’t even know her name. You showed up at that house on 35th right after Libra had his last high time with her. Word I got is he told people he was shutting her down today.”

  I said, “They cleared out of that house on 35th because that’s where she was going to be held.”

  “And you’re telling me you know where Libra moved her to.”

  Isaac nodded.

  “A whorehouse over by the rail yards. They’re fixing to hold her there until she breaks. The old gal who runs the cathouse pays Libra for protection, so she’s cooperating to avoid having trouble with him. You know that club down there, the Rio Grande? They’ve got her not far from there,” and he rattled off an address.

  I knew the area. A favorite hangout of mine, The Rio Grande, was in that vicinity; a blues bar where I’d most recently seen the great harp player, James Cotton. A memorable, robust evening. A warm, funky venue for the music. But yeah, a shady part of town.

  We reached the Lancia. Isaac paused, waiting for me to walk around and get in on the driver side to unlock his door. But I paused at the rear of the vehicle and popped open the trunk, which was empty except for the locked iron box where my modest armory was stored. I’d already fingered the combination and popped open the lid box when Isaac joined me.

  I extracted a .32 automatic from the box and handed it to him. He regarded the diminutive pistol with disdain.

  “You’re kidding, right? I shoot someone with this little thing, it’ll just piss ‘em off.”

  I relocked the metal box and slammed shut the trunk.

  “Right now that’s all I’ve got to spare.” I drew back the lapel of my jacket so he could see the .44 where it wrote in its shoulder holster. “Betsy stays with daddy. Anyone who tries to shoot me up is in for a hard time.” I let the lapel drop back into place and the weapon was again concealed. “We’ve got you covered if it gets hairy. And if it does, you don’t want to be unarmed.”

  “It’s a damn throw-down gun,” he grumbled.

  But he went ahead and slipped the .32 into a pocket.

  A throw-down gun is kept at hand by men whose reality is the kill-or-be-killed law of any jungle. Doesn’t matter what side of the law they’re on. The way it works is: you respond with deadly force in a situation. Come to find out the one you gunned down wasn’t armed and the first responders are racing to the scene, sirens screaming. Remember, you could be on either side of the law. Fatally shooting an unarmed person never looks good no matter who you are. And so, to cover the crime, you pull out your little throw-down gun which you travel with for just such an occasion. You throw down the gun near the body of the person you’ve just killed; maybe press the pistol against dead fingers for good prints, if you have the time. And there you are. I saw him draw that .32 and let him have it! See how easy that was? Instead of gunning down an unarmed person, you’ve now defended yourself against a trigger-happy, gun-wielding thug.

  Happens more often than you might think.

  I was traveling with fast company with Isaac which, given the circumstances, was fine with me. No telling what we were heading into on this latest tip. Isaac might have a classy, upscale woman but at the same time the guy was proving to be well-versed in the down and dirty ways of the mean streets...

  17

  The traffic was growing heavier on South Broadway, the first wave of the rush-hour, but in due time we cruised past the address we were looking for. It wasn’t far from 8th Avenue and Osage Street, a stone’s throw from the busy rail yards. More than fifty trains a day moved through Denver’s massive railyard. Its sounds and smells were unmistakable.

  For the most part, these run down areas of the city adjacent to the rail yards were industrial complexes. Warehouses, mostly. Here and there, pockets of the remnants of residential neighborhoods, most of them having deteriorated into vacant slums.

  The address we wanted was the only well-maintained property on its block, sandwiched between a row of vacated storefronts and a junk dealer’s corner lot that had a high metal fence with barbed wire at the top and a mean, noisy dog to protect the junk stored inside the fence.

  The address we’d been looking for was a two-story wooden frame house that, like the neighborhood, had fallen on hard times but it looked respectable enough in contrast to its neighbors. A peaked roof. A front porch, and an aged white picket fence around a well-kept lawn. The curtains were drawn in every window. An old oak tree stood in the front yard. Flowers bordered the walkway from the front porch to a gate in the fence.

  I made another pass around the block. This was not a neighborhood of idle pedestrians. It was getting around quitting time for the average working joe. A Mexican worker, or hell maybe he was the owner, was shutting a chain-link fence gate, closing up the adjacent corner property. As we tooled on this second run, he made sure the gate was secure and boarded an idling Chevy pickup. He drove off in the opposite direction, the only vehicular traffic we saw.

  I slowed down to give us another look at the house.

  I said, “Notice anything unusual?”

  “Kind of quiet for a whorehouse,” Isaac noted. “Seems like a few old boys would be stopping by.”

  “Sure does.”

  I coas
ted the Lancia to the curb around the corner, to be on the safe side in case anyone was paying attention. My license plate had already gotten me in trouble once that day.

  We left the car and approached the house on the sidewalk. The train sounds and diesel fumes from the rail yard provided a cacophony for the senses, giving the moment an edge, our footsteps marching crisply up onto the porch of the house.

  I said, under my breath, “Here we go.”

  My knuckles gave a tap-tap on a glass partition of the front door. A wisp of a lace curtain on the inside clouded any clear view of the interior. There was no discernible response from inside the house.

  Isaac said, “What the hell, man. It’s only a whorehouse.”

  He grasped the front door handle before I could say anything, gave it a sharp turn and briskly stepped over the threshold, into the house. A heartbeat later, we stood side-by-side just inside a reception area each with his pistol held ready before him.

  The reception area had been done up in a classic bordello burgundy motif. Plush couches with lots of plush pillows. Softly lit for the gentleman to appraise the merchandise before making their selection and continuing upstairs to the private rooms.

  Except, there was no merchandise.

  No madam.

  Nothing but a ghostly silence. And oppressive silence that didn’t belong.

  I touched Isaac’s shoulder to get his attention and spoke in less than a whisper, for his ears alone.

  “There’s only two ways this plays. Everyone has cleared out because something bad happened--”

  He finished for me, “Or it’s a trap.”

  I thought about the house on 35th Avenue. I thought about that morning in front of Denny’s.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time today,” I said. “Here’s how we do it. I spotted an alley entrance when we cruised by. Give me a twenty count to get around to it. Then, we advance inside the house from both ends. Try not to shoot me.”

  He said, “I’ll try to remember.”

  It was hard to tell if he was joking.

  I left him there, stepping outside and hustling briskly along the side of the house, making for the alley. The air was becoming noticeably cooler in the first lengthening shadows of late afternoon. I walked holding the .44 down at my side, against my leg, so as not to draw anyone’s attention. An unnecessary precaution. I saw a vehicle pass through the next intersection down the block but the street fronting the house remained untraveled by vehicles and pedestrians. Not unusual, really, given the time and the neighborhood.

  I went down the alley to the side entrance of the house. Three wooden steps, worn smooth by the years, led up to a screen door. There were no lights on inside, so I couldn’t see a thing through the screen door. I tried the screen door handle. The door was unlatched. I stepped inside.

  The numbers had been ticking in my mind in the moments since Isaac and I had parted company. Number 20 logged mentally as I was easing the screen door shut behind me, not making a sound in case this was all the a trap.

  The kitchen was bathed in cool shadows. No one there.

  I passed through an archway into a hallway that bisected the house. The floors were polished wood. There were erotic etchings and such decorating the walls. Further down, the hallway opened up at the foot of a staircase leading to the second floor.

  Isaac stood waiting there.

  He said, “Nothing.”

  I cocked my head to indicate the rest of the house.

  “Same.”

  We proceeded up the stairs without comment. I took point, relieved that Isaac fell in several steps behind me so that we did not present a clustered target if it was an ambush. Like me, he ascended those stairs with his back pressed to the wall and his gun held in a two-handed grip, ready for instant target acquisition as if we were a well- rehearsed team.

  We gained the landing at the top of the stairs. I indicated with hand gestures that we would split up. A hallway bisected this second level of the house. Closed doors lined either side of the hallway. Keeping his back to the wall and his pistol held up and ready, he advanced cautiously in one direction while I prowled off in the other.

  Five bedrooms and a bathroom. Behind each door was an identical bedroom: small, barely furnished, a bed, straight back chair and nothing else. The air up here was stale, musty.

  I was breathing shallowly, every sense alert. No one jumped out of a closet or from under a bed to shoot me. That was a relief but I was beginning to wonder what the hell.

  Isaacs’s voice called from the far end of the hallway.

  “Kilroy. In here.”

  Something in his voice made me forget about threat of an ambush. The house held complete stillness except for our presence. I proceeded cautiously, past the landing and the doors he’d left open. They were more identically furnished rooms, designed and equipped for sex and nothing else.

  I found Isaac in the last room on the right. He sat on the edge of the bed with his back hunched forward and his elbows on his knees, his head hung low like a forlorn athlete who’s just lost the game.

  The room was identical to all of the others... except for the girl's dead body.

  Chantel still wore the red party dress. It was scrunched up around her hips-- maybe by someone’s groping hands or maybe simply by the twist and turn of her body as she’d tumbled to the floor. She hadn’t found any underwear between the time of her death and when I had encountered her that afternoon at the house on 35th Avenue. Her hair was a mass. She was lying between the bed and the straight-backed chair where johns could drape their clothes. She lay on her side, staring up. There was a blue tinge to her lips and fingertips.

  Isaac lifted his eyes to me. Damn if there wasn’t a tear rolling down one of his cheeks.

  He said, “Overdose. She’s not cold. Didn’t happen that long ago. Someone could have stayed. Someone could have called an ambulance before they all scattered. Shit.”

  I said, “Libra let her go too far. He must’ve been so high himself, having so much fun, he didn’t want the party to end. Bad call on his part. This is where he was going to stash her until she was ready to be put to work. But after he left, or maybe while the punk was still around setting things up, the girl fell over dead.”

  Isaac brushed away the tear with the back of his hand.

  “Lowlife scum. Doing something like this to an innocent human being. Even a wild child doesn’t deserve to end up like this.”

  “No one does. Did you know her?”

  “Naw.” His expression returned to a stony mask, unreadable except for its hard coldness that was mirrored in his voice. “Just another statistic. This is why my group organized. Folks have to take a stand or drugs will tear every community apart just like they killed this girl.”

  There was nothing to add to that.

  I lowered myself to one knee for a closer look at what remained of the girl I was supposed to find. My throat was dry. My mouth tasted of bile.

  I hadn’t expected it to end like this, to be written off as a party girl junkie’s death. Like Isaac said, another statistic in a long pathetic line. A dumb kid who made bad choices, sure. But that didn’t make it her fault...

  She’d died with the look of a scared rabbit, with her eyes open. I looked into those eyes. Had Chantel died with a final realization that taking one last line, one shot, one snort, one toke too many was now robbing her of everything? Or was she too far gone to care? Had reality simply faded to black? The expression on her face, the look in her eyes, showed panic. And why not?

  But it no longer mattered now... for her.

  Those eyes.

  Her eyes wouldn’t leave mine!

  Or was it the other way around?

  They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but this girl was dead.

  They also say the soul is eternal.

  I don’t know about any of that. I don’t know what happened at that moment with me looking into Chantel’s eyes. Call it an epiphany. Maybe the remains of the poor dead girl b
efore me had nothing to do with it. The rational, logical explanation is that this precise moment elicited crystal clarity in my perception of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours since Carl Hensman and I had undertaken the task of trying to locate Stomper Crawford.

  Like the snap of cosmic fingertips, like the flick of a bright light on the dark corner, like a sudden gust of wind blowing random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together perfectly, I saw as clearly as I saw Chantel’s unblinking eyes making contact with mine.

  Isaac said, “Kilroy, you okay?”

  I took a moment to choose my words. How do you verbalize something like I’d just experienced? Easy answer: you don’t.

  As tenderly as I could, I reached down and used my thumb and index finger to close Chantel’s eyelids. Isaac was right. She hadn’t been dead for long. The body was still warm.

  Isaac and I stood together and stepped into the hallway.

  I said, “Everything just fell into place for me in my mind. Don’t ask me how. It only makes sense if you look at it the way I’m looking at it, and it just came to me.”

  “Care to share?”

  His hard was back in every way. This couldn’t be his first experience seeing an OD up close.

  “I’ll lay it out for you soon enough,” I said. “Right now we’ve got to think about getting you out of here.”

  “You mean getting us out of here.”

  “No. You split, I stay. Too many people know about me looking for this girl. If her body is found by someone else, it won’t look good for me in a lot of ways. So we’re going to avoid that. The sooner I call the authorities in on this, the sooner I’m off the hook and the more room we have to swing.”

  “You’re back to we. That’s good. What have you got in mind?”

  “Get yourself back to Carl Hensman’s. Maybe your girl Michelle can come and pick you up when you find a payphone. Stay at Carl’s and keep your father there with you. I’ll make it over there as soon as I can. We try to get clever with this,” I indicated the body in the room, “and we’ll both of us go down hard.”