“Go ahead,” Alison said.
Mandy exhaled sharply and picked up the photograph.
She gasped and placed it back onto the table and pushed it away from her, looking off to the side.
“I know her,” she said weakly.
Alison’s pulse quickened. “You do?”
Mandy nodded, still looking away. “That’s Kaya. She worked here until, like, February.”
Alison tried to contain her eagerness, not push the girl too hard. “Do you know her surname?”
Mandy was gazing into some other world.
“Mandy.”
Mandy faced her, suddenly looking even younger.
“Do you know Kaya’s surname?” Alison said.
“Yeah, it’s …” She screwed up her face. “White. Kaya White. It’s strange—you’re the third person to ask about her recently. I figured something might have happened to her, but this …”
“Who asked about her?”
“Some guy came in here only a few hours ago asking about her. I’d just started my shift, but I heard him talking to a couple of the girls. When I asked them who he was, they said they didn’t know, just that he said he was a lawyer. But they got the feeling he knew something about Kaya he wasn’t saying.”
“Do you know what he asked them?”
“First he asked about this rich guy that liked Kaya, and then asked a few questions about her. Nothing much. Like I said, it felt to the girls like he already knew the answers.”
“This rich guy, is he from Texas?”
“Yeah, and he looks like it too.”
Alison nodded. William Kane.
“Those girls the lawyer talked to, are they still here?” she said.
“No, they worked the day shift.”
“And what about the other person?”
Mandy looked puzzled. “Other person?”
“You said I’m the third person to ask about Kaya. Who’s the first?”
“Oh, yeah, so, day before yesterday a new girl started working here as a waitress—we all have to start as servers first, so they see we’re comfortable walking around in underwear and serving drinks, and sometimes we pick up extra waitressing shifts even when we’re dancers. This new girl, she was …” Mandy thought about it, crossing one fishnet leg over the other. “Different. That’s the word. I can’t be any more specific than that ’cause she was different in a very general kind of way. Beautiful, though. I’ve never given much thought to sleeping with a woman but damn, I’d let that girl take me home. She was Indian, I think.”
“Indian? As in the country?”
Mandy giggled. “Sorry, no, I mean Native American or whatever you’re supposed to say. Said her name was Dakota. She didn’t sound Native American or anything but she had that look about her, you know? And her accent wasn’t from around here. Hard to say where.”
Alison nodded. “Go on.”
“Anyway, I was working that day, which is unusual ’cause normally I work evenings, but there I was and this new girl starts talking to me. Nothing strange, just small talk, but then she starts asking about Kaya. When’s the last time I saw her, do I know where she lives, do I know why she stopped working here. I told her what I told you, that she stopped working here a bit after Christmas and that’s all I know. Me and Kaya were friendly but we never hung out, and I don’t know where she lived. No one here knows that kind of stuff about each other, it’s just not how it works. It seemed to upset this girl, Dakota, when I said that. I asked her why she wanted to know so bad and she said that her and Kaya used to be real close but they drifted apart, stopped talking. She said she was worried about Kaya and this is the last place she knew Kaya worked. For what it’s worth, I believed her.”
Alison sipped her margarita, wondering what this all meant. This Dakota girl probably had nothing to do with anything, just looking for her friend. But that lawyer …
“This is where it gets strange,” Mandy said, and Alison felt like saying, We’re long past that, honey. “A few hours into Dakota’s shift these three guys show up. Well, one at first, and she sits at a table with him. Then two more arrive. I didn’t see the whole thing, I was busy working, but I saw one of the men smack her, hard, and I think they were trying to take her some place before the security guards stopped them and she got away.”
“Take her some place?”
“I don’t know for sure, but something wasn’t right about the whole thing. And I guess why else would there be three of them if they weren’t there to kidnap someone?”
Mandy had a point.
“Thanks for telling me all that, Mandy. I appreciate it.”
Mandy downed the remaining whiskey and hopped to her feet in that energetic way of the young. “No problem, just catch whoever did it. Kaya was a sweet girl.”
She turned and strode through the dressing room doors without looking back.
When Floyd opened his eyes, he was looking down at his legs straight ahead of him on the floor while something wet and warm hit the back of his neck. He lifted his head to see the gigantic redneck with a hand around his dick poking out through his jeans, piss streaming out of it. He tried to lunge at the man but something tightened around his arms, which he now realized were behind his back. Lowering his head again he spat and closed his eyes while the hot piss that reeked of alcohol and ammonia splashed over him.
“Yeah, I figured that’d wake you up,” the cowboy said.
The piss trickled to its completion and the cowboy zipped himself back up.
“Now, what was that you was saying ’bout my nigger blood?”
Floyd glanced behind and saw that his hands were tied to one of the legs of the bed with what looked like a cable, becoming aware now of the ache in his biceps. He summoned all of his strength and pulled as hard as he could. His arms barely budged.
“Fuck you want with me?” he said, panic swelling inside him as possibilities vanished by the second.
The cowboy slipped a hand into his jacket and took out the longest knife Floyd had ever seen. It gleamed under the light as the cowboy moved his hand, the tip looking sharp as a spear. Floyd felt vibrations down his spine.
“Well, all your talk ’bout niggers got me thinking. What if niggers’re black all the way through? What if niggers got black hearts pumping black blood through their black nigger bodies? I think it’s worth finding out.”
“Hold up, hold up, you don’t need to lose your fuckin’ mind here man, Jesus.”
“Don’t say the Lord’s name, you ain’t one of His. In the Bible it’s written ‘So God created mankind in His own image.’ It ain’t talking ’bout niggers.”
Who the fuck was this nut and what was Eddie doing with him? Floyd pulled his arms again, gritting his teeth, his head about to burst.
The cowboy stood over him, one leg on either side of Floyd’s.
“Could be there’s a way you can keep your skin. But it depends on you.”
“What you want?”
“Answers. If they’re good enough, maybe I’ll go get me a whore ’stead of spending my evening cutting up a nigger.”
Floyd looked up at him, the man’s face a mile away. “What you wanna know?”
The cowboy took a wallet out of his pocket and tossed it on Floyd’s lap. It was Floyd’s wallet.
“Floyd Hibiscus. That’s a strange name, even for a nigger. What’s your part in all this?”
“I was wondering the same about you.”
“What you want with Eddie?”
“Boss wants to talk to him.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“Someone, trust me on this, you don’t wanna fuck with.”
“Answer the question.”
“Saul Benedict. Runs this city and everyone in it.”
Floyd watched the cowboy’s face, hoping for hesitation, but instead the man grinned horribly, yellow teeth baring down at Floyd.
“‘We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.’ Proverbs sixteen nine. You’ve been deli
vered to me, Floyd Hibiscus.”
Motherfucker was crazy. Floyd straightened his fingers and wrists and tried to push them through the knot. Too tight.
The cowboy got on his hunkers and held the knife under Floyd’s face, the blade swaying like a cobra.
“It was you killed my brother.”
His brother … Jesus Christ, he meant Bill Kane. Floyd froze, the words ringing through his head, all of it clicking into place.
The cowboy looked into his eyes. “And that Eddie, he did it with you. That’s the truth, ain’t it?”
Floyd shook his head, his mind racing. “I don’t know what in the hell you talking ‘bout. Eddie owes the boss money, that’s all I know.”
The cowboy looked at the blade, waving it under Floyd’s chin, the tip nicking his skin.
“That’s the truth,” Floyd said, pressing his head against the bed. “I don’t know anything ’bout no—”
The cowboy pulled his hand back and thrust it forward. A burning pain erupted in Floyd’s chest. He screamed and looked down to see the knife sticking out under his right shoulder, a golden “R” glistening on the hilt.
The cowboy stood up and let Floyd ride it out.
“I’m gettin’ horny for some whore pussy,” he said eventually. “Lie to me again and the next one goes in your black heart. You shot my brother, correct?”
Floyd shook his head, gasping. The blade in his chest was blocking his breath.
“It was … Eddie … we was just … collecting … Eddie fucked up … got scared … an accident.”
Floyd could sense the man above him, his head too heavy to lift.
The cowboy said, “I know a thing or two ’bout killing and there ain’t no way to kill someone by accident. You got to work at killing. You brought your guns to my brother’s home. You threatened his life with those guns. You took his life with those guns. All that after stealing from him for years. There ain’t no lies before God.”
Floyd said nothing, just hung there, his body getting weak. There was no talking to a man like this. He closed his eyes and waited for the redneck to finish him off. In his mind he saw his wife with the baby he’d never given her, and right after it he saw Sawyer and his flannel shirt open at the neck, his blond hairs sticking up out of it, and he felt confused by this pairing of images but didn’t have the energy to care, beginning to drift now, a warm darkness replacing his pain.
He’d just about passed out completely when he heard a splintering of wood to his left, then the harsh pop of a pistol going off somewhere above him.
They checked into a fancy hotel downtown for no reason other than it was where the cab driver stopped and asked if here was okay and Eddie said it was as good as anywhere else. He and Dakota walked up the steps and through the rotating doors into a reception area that was small but elegant, dark wood panels for walls and a waterfall streaming gracefully behind the woman at reception. Eddie asked the woman if they could get a couple rooms and when the woman told him the cost he could hardly believe it and asked the woman could she repeat that when Dakota said to her, “We’ll just take one room,” and Eddie looked at Dakota and she looked back at him, giving nothing away until she smirked and placed a hand on his chest and said, “You’re funny,” and he was left wondering what, exactly, she had meant by it.
They had a look at the hotel room, which was as nice as Eddie had expected. Dakota showered and changed her clothes, Eddie trying not to glance at her when she came out of the bathroom in her bra and panties and put on tight black jeans and a short leather jacket over a black top.
“Feeling colorful I see,” Eddie said.
“Dark times, Mr. Vegas.” She raised an eyebrow jokingly, her hair and skin appearing a shade darker.
They hadn’t been alone until now, so they hadn’t talked about what had happened at the motel, but Eddie expected Dakota to ask him about it any minute now and he wasn’t sure what he’d say. How do you explain why you’re being pursued by not just a couple thugs but also a seven-feet-tall cowboy from hell, one talking about his murdered brother and the others waving guns around trying to kidnap him? He could barely make sense of it himself.
At Eddie’s suggestion they wandered down to the windowless hotel bar and drank overpriced drinks under the gentle glow of blue neon. They sat on the same long cushioned seat, and after a couple drinks Dakota’s face shimmered before him like a spirit.
Eddie knew what she was going to say before she said it: “Who’d you piss off so badly and how’d you do it?” No beating around the bush with this woman.
“A terrible man called Saul Benedict. He thinks I owe him money.”
“Thinks?”
“He’s wrong.”
“How does a man like him get something like that wrong?”
“That’s the thing, a man like him is never wrong. Men like him do whatever the hell they want with no one to stop them. He says I owe him fifty large and that makes it a fact. But not to me.”
“How’d you get mixed up with someone like that?” Someone like that. Assuming he was any different.
“I worked for him.”
She frowned. “Doing?”
“Intimidating people and moving product, mostly.”
“By product you mean …”
“Cocaine.”
She let it settle.
“Moving it where?” she said.
“To meeting points with the dealers who sell it on the street. I’d collect their earnings, count it before giving them more product.”
“Did that man today do it with you?”
“Floyd, yeah, we did most jobs together. Also, another guy, called Sawyer, the guy you spilled the drinks on in the club—which was genius, by the way—he was the driver in case we ever needed to make a quick getaway. Man, you should see Sawyer drive. He can do things with a vehicle that I thought only happened in the movies.”
He glanced at Dakota and saw he had her full attention, kept going. “Yeah, this one time—see, before I ran with Saul and the guys, I was self-employed—”
“Oh, you were?”
“Professional thief.”
“Ah.” Amusement in her eyes.
“Hotel rooms mostly, but I did some jewelry stores now and again. Did a bank once.”
Surprise in her eyes now. “You robbed a bank?”
Eddie smiled, couldn’t help himself. “It’s not as glamorous as you’d think. It was just me so I wasn’t going for the safe or anything like it. I needed quick cash. If you wanna rob a bank, and you’re okay with a small return, just slip a note to the teller that says you’ve got a gun and will start shooting up the place if the teller doesn’t put as many bills as will fit in the envelope you’ve got with you. Then when she grabs the cash from the drawer—the tellers are always female from what I’ve noticed—tell her no marked bills, none of the cash from the bottom of the drawer. The tellers are told to give up the money and offer no resistance—they have to give it to you. She was a nice girl, my teller, didn’t seem to mind. I even said to her, ‘First time being robbed?’ She nodded, then giggled a little. I couldn’t believe it.”
“She didn’t push the button under the desk?”
“They’re instructed not the push it unless the situation has become potentially violent. Takeover kind of thing. The last thing anyone wants is a shootout.”
Dakota looked at him intently. “Would you have started shooting?”
He smiled. “Honey, I didn’t even have a gun.”
“You’re a piece of work.” But she was smiling.
“So anyway, how I met the guys—”
“Wait, you said hotel rooms?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s there to steal in a hotel room?”
“Oh, baby.” He slapped his hands together. “Everything. Hotel rooms are the only places you need to rob if you do it right. You do the expensive hotels with the rich guests, get a room for yourself, and in the middle of the night you sneak into other guests’ rooms and take their cash
and jewelry while they’re sleeping right there. They’re loaded, it doesn’t mean anything to them, and they don’t even have to wake up. A victimless crime. I used to travel around the country staying in all these fancy hotels. Made quite a bit.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“I met the guys, started working for Saul. But I think really I stopped ’cause I was lonely. I liked the thought of being a part of something. I’d watched too many fuckin’ gangster movies, tell you the truth. Plus all that traveling. Anyway, when you’re a thief, it’s only a matter of time before you get caught. Every pro knows that. It’s just most of them are addicted to the thrill of it.”
“But not you.”
“Not me. I’d grown tired of it, actually. And now I’m sick to death of all this gangster shit too, the hostility, the confrontation, all the dumb fucks getting so worked up over what they perceive as disrespect. Honestly, after a while feels like a bunch of kids in the schoolyard who never grew up. And, sometimes things go too far, bad things happen …”
Dakota was staring at him.
“Anyway, so, when I met Floyd—actually it’s a pretty funny story. He was in one of the hotel rooms I was fleecing—”
“He was in one of the rooms?” Surprise in her voice, loving it.
Eddie chuckled. “Yeah, with his wife. She kept telling Floyd she wanted a weekend away, so, eventually, Floyd booked a five-star here in L.A. The wife goes, ‘What? You booked a hotel in L.A.?’ and Floyd says, ‘You said you wanted to get out of the house.’ Floyd’s a funny guy.
“I snuck into Floyd’s room that night, late, nearly four a.m. When I shut the door behind me there wasn’t a sound except for the breathing of someone asleep. I should have spotted that right away—that I heard just one person breathing. Two people sleeping has a rhythm to it. Next thing I know a deep voice says, ‘Don’t move, motherfucker, ’less you want twelve holes through you.’ A bedside lamp came on and there he was, sitting on the edge of the bed in a white vest and boxer shorts with little watermelons all over them. A gift from his wife he told me later. I said, ‘I knew you people had a thing for watermelon, but that’s taking it pretty far,’ messing with him. He said, ‘Try telling the wife that.’”
Nobody Move Page 8
