“They found the tarot de muerte card on the body of one of my best earners two nights ago,” Santiago said. He was a tall, aristocratic gentleman in his early fifties, his silver-flecked hair tied back in a shining ponytail.
“This ghost with the tarot cards is an old woman’s tale.” Kolya stopped pacing and gave Santiago a cold stare. These fucking Mexicans were worse than gypsies, with their superstitions and fucking saints.
“This old woman’s tale gutted Gaspar like a fucking fish.”
“Stop whining, people die all the time. What does this have to do with me?”
“Everyone knows he hunts for Russian blood,” Santiago said, trying to regain control of his emotions.
“Bring it on. I’ll show this killer of pimps how we handle punks in my house.”
“Bold. Do you want me to write that on your tombstone?” Santiago felt his old arrogance returning. To hell with the Russian, if he was too ignorant to see a scorpion in his boot, then he deserved the bite. The tarot de Muerte killer was bad for business, his pimps and their minions had refused to work until the killer’s head was on a stake. His best men had their ears to the ground. Sooner or later he would find him, and if this Russian son of a whore couldn’t be warned, then Santiago would use him like a tethered lamb when hunting mountain lions.
The barking and snarling dog woke Nika from her drifting state, she heard the sound of a car arriving and then a short time later, leaving. What time or even what day was lost to her as she lay in the dark. She still hadn’t eaten. How many days? The night the other girls had been taken to meet the men, they had returned late, none had spoken, their eyes were dull and distant. Svetlana brought them a large bowl of warm water and then locked them in; she hadn’t even looked at Nika. One by one they washed themselves silently. Nika noticed the water growing pink as Yumma scrubbed between her legs.
After sitting on her bunk and lighting a cigarette from a new pack, Yumma looked at Nika. “If you have to starve to death, don’t leave this room.”
“What did they do to you?”
Yumma didn’t answer. Instead, she lay back and blew a thin stream of blue smoke toward the ceiling.
Later in the dark, Nika could hear Guzel, the girl from Norilsk, snoring and whimpering. When they finally dragged her in she was covered in cuts and bruises. Her nose had been badly broken and was swollen and caked with blood. Nika had cleaned her up the best she could, cooing to her like she imagined a good mother would. The next afternoon, when Svetlana told the girls more men had come and it was time for them to earn their meal, all the young women lined up, heads down, eyes on the floor. Guzel stood on trembling legs and joined them. They reminded Nika of zombies.
“Well, my little princess,” Svetlana said to Nika, “are you ready to eat?”
Nika rolled away from the older woman whom she had thought for one foolish moment might be her savior.
Alone in the dark, Nika realized her hunger had faded and was replaced by a deep emptiness. Her strength was all but gone, she could feel herself growing lighter as every moment passed. Soon she would float up off the bed and drift past this hell into the clouds above.
Sunlight was burning through the thin stained curtain when I woke. It was early, too early. I had only been asleep for four hours. Morning wood was creating a tent out of my sheets. Anya’s face rolled across my mind. When this was over and I had returned her sister to her waiting arms, then, then I would take her someplace nice, quiet, away from the city. There I would tell her all I was and all I could be with a good woman. What was Anya doing at that moment… still sleeping? Was she alone or had Gregor joined her in the night? I got up quickly and took a cold shower before I let my mind turn me against my young Armenian friend.
Pounding my fist on the door, I roused Peter. He was groggy, and tattered like he had gotten less sleep than me. “Moses, what time is it?” He was holding the door open only a small crack.
“Time to rock-n-roll, let me in,” I said, pushing on the door, but he held it fast, “What, you got a woman in there?” His sheepish grin told me I had stumbled onto the truth. I pushed past him easily. On the bed, a naked young woman was deep in slumberland. I looked from Peter’s dipshit grin to the girl and shook my head sadly.
“What the fuck, huh?” he said.
“I’m going for some huevos rancheros. When I get back, have her gone and be ready to work.” It was then that I noticed the mirror with telltale white dust and a credit card. “How fucking stupid are you, huh, Pete? Tell me.”
“What? So I did a little blow, big deal.”
I walked out before I did something irreversible. I wasn’t his father or his priest or even his friend. He was a tool and if he didn’t work out, I’d drop him in a second.
At a small family restaurant, I got a steaming pile of eggs, pinto beans and fresh salsa served on top of fried homemade tortillas. It filled the hole in my gut and only cost three bucks. Two strong cups of rich black coffee later, I was calm enough to face Peter.
“This is the only way I know to get a story, total immersion.” Peter was drinking the cup of coffee I brought him. He was dressed and the girl had vanished.
“Total immersion? Is that what we’re calling it now? How old was she? I’m guessing sixteen.”
“Fuck off, she was nineteen.”
“And you’re what, forty?”
“Thirty-eight. What’s your point?”
“If you don’t get it, I can’t explain it.”
“You sanctimonious son of a bitch, I bet you’re just pissed that I got laid and you didn’t.” He shot me a smug little smile.
“Did this deep research uncover any news?” I asked, not expecting much.
“I found out Anthony’s is a legal brothel slash dance club. You buy a drink, pick a girl, and if you want to take her out, you pay the house a twenty dollar bar fine,” he rattled off like a Dictaphone spitting back the facts. “Most of the working girls in town either work out of there or have in the past. None that I talked to have seen any Russian girls working. But after a few lines and half a bottle of Herradura Anejo, the girl you found in my bed let slip that she had heard of a house on the other side of Gringo Hills that is owned by a group of Russians. She didn’t know what they do, but the rumor is they’re criminally connected to the Santiago family, Baja Cali’s numero uno pimp crew. That’s about it, but then again, I started late. What did you find out?”
Damn, he was good. I was glad I’d decided not to kill him earlier.
We spent the day driving around Ensenada, getting a feel for the neighborhoods. Gringo Hills was set into the steep mountains to the north of town. Large homes dotted the cliff line, with panoramic views of the bay and the city below. On the flat top of the mountain was a gated community, complete with razor wire-lined eight-foot walls and armed guards to keep out the riffraff. It was the perfect getaway for gringos who wanted a Mexican experience without all those damn Mexicans ruining it. A paunch-bellied uniform watched me roll past the main gate, behind his mirrored glasses, I’m sure he was thinking a truck like mine shouldn’t even think of entering unless it was by the service gate. The whole deal reminded me of our compound in the Root. Up until that truck crashed our gate and blew up the barracks, we thought barbed wire and a few guys with M16s could keep us safe. We learned a hard lesson that day: no wall is big enough to protect you from the man who doesn’t give a fuck about the outcome.
“Hitler, si, verdad. My mother named me Hitler.”
“Your mother didn’t name you Hitler.” I was leaning against the wall in front of Anthony’s, talking to the door man. He was about my age, not as big, but still I doubted many men didn’t listen when he talked. He was built solid, his worn suit coat bulged tightly against his muscular forearms. A small pot belly hung over his silver cowboy belt, but that just meant he liked his burritos or maybe cerveza.
“She did. Adolpho,” he said.
“That’s a good name.”
“Si, but to you, Ingles, it is?”
“Adolph, I guess.”
“Si, Hitler, no? Adolpho, Jose. Asesino on this shoulder, santo on the other. All night they fight for my soul.”
It was mid-afternoon, Peter had gone back to his room to catch a few winks before our nocturnal hunting. I decided to blow off my meeting with the tip boy. Ensenada was small enough, or at least the tourist area was, if I needed him again it wouldn’t be hard to find the little scammer. Anthony’s opened at four and stayed that way until four AM or the last of the gringo dollars stopped flowing.
I passed Adolpho a pint of brandy from my jacket pocket. After checking to be sure his boss wasn’t in sight, he took a long pull and passed it back. Using my tongue to close off the flow, I mimicked drinking. It would have been so easy to let the warm liquor pour in, who would know? Who, except me and maybe the girl I was looking for, if I got back in the jug and fucked this gig up.
Playing it casual, I chatted Adolpho up, told him I was a bouncer in the States. We shared stories of our lives babysitting beautiful women. He told me he drove a cab when he wasn’t at Anthony’s. Like most honest working men, it took two and three jobs to keep a roof over his family. He didn’t share with his wife the nature of the club’s real business. “Wives, they don’t understand a man getting paid to watch pretty women all night,” he told me.
“I wouldn’t know, I was only married for a short time. And she never understood anything about me.”
“They are not in la vida to understand us. They are here to give reason for working and a safe place to retirada when the war gets too malo.”
“I wish someone had told her or me that, would have saved a lot of cash.” Truth was, my home with Jen was a battlefield, not a sanctuary. She had married me to piss off her blue blood father, but when the reality of living with a drunk hood got too real, she checked out and ran back to the Westside. Last I heard she was engaged to an agent at ICM, and more power to her. I wished the gold plated bitch all the happiness she deserved.
I stood back while Adolpho hurried to the curb to help a stunning woman in a scoop-necked evening gown out of a car. He bent his head, watching her fine ass wiggle into the club, “Calabazo, mango de manila.”
“Forget about it,” I let out a long sigh. “You ever get to sample the produce?”
“Once, when it was muy lento, storm kept the gringos away, they had a fiesta. Puta on the house. Oye, but only that once.”
We watched a silver haired American go in and ten minutes later walk out with a lovely Lola on his arm. They went around the corner and into Motel 49. “Bit long in the tooth to be getting his diver dunked, isn’t he?”
“No, senor, see?” He pointed across the street to a farmacia, in its window was a large bright sign happily advertising Viagra and US made condoms.
“Viagra has been good for business?”
“Chingalo! Best invention since pussy, no? One old hombre, he fuck five girls one night, verdad, by the end he no could walk so good, but his miembrillo is muy fuerte.” He pumped his fist in the universal sign for a woody.
Tipping the pint up, he drained the last of my hooch. “You ever see any Russians around here?”
“Si, Russians, Germans, a few French, come from the cruise ships. Mostly Americanos. Why you want to know?”
“Truth?”
“Si, truth.”
“I’m looking for a girl.” I knew he might sell me to the Russians. I had no reason to trust he wouldn’t, but I did. “A Russian girl, thirteen.”
Adolpho shook his head sadly, “Is no good, nina, she is in Ensenada?”
“I think so,” I said. He struck a match and flamed a cigarette. Looking past me to the traffic rolling by, he mulled over this news.
“Ok,” he turned his tired eyes on me, “these Russian cabrones, you don’t want to fuck with them, but you must, si?”
“Looks like it.”
“You know they probably cut out your guts, feed them to the pigs?”
“I think they’ll try.”
“They don’t try. They do. This girl, she is tu familia?”
“No.”
“And still?”
“She’s in trouble.”
“Si, big trouble,” he wiped his brow with a white handkerchief. He didn’t know exactly where they lived but he had seen them driving around town in big black cars. Once or twice they had come to the club to drink and fuck. Whenever they came, they brought young strapped men who stood by the door and watched them. One of the girls told Adolpho that the older man had his bodyguard in the room while he was getting laid. When he was spent, he gave the girl to the guard. She said they were both rough riders and paid her an extra fifty not to wear condoms. They had laughed saying that they were stronger than any disease.
“I will ask, quietly, see if anyone knows how to find them,” he said, “but you be careful. They have eyes on the street.” He shook my hand strongly as we parted.
The wings of the pelican burned orange and golden in the dying rays of the sun as it descended into the Pacific. Fishing boats and pleasure crafts bobbed at their moorings in the calm bay. Hard to believe two hundred feet away, some geezer was getting his dick sucked by a chica who was just trying to knock out the rent with the only swag she had to barter.
I walked through the lengthening shadows toward Motel 49. Pushing the dresser against the door, I dropped onto the bed. Closing my eyes, I tried to figure my next move. Somewhere, not far from where I lay, a baby girl was in desperate straits and I didn’t feel any closer to finding her. Maybe I had been looking at the problem from the wrong side. I was acting like a John, looking for tail, but these cats had their own supply of gash. If I was them, what would I need?