The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  The bathroom door opened. A young, naked redhead named Rosa sauntered across the room. He supposed the hair was a dye job, though that shaved pussy offered no basis for comparison.

  “Yuck,” she said, waving away the smoke. “I hate cigarettes.”

  Nag, nag, nag. Julia used to bitch the same way about cigarettes. He’d actually quit for two years, though it had nothing to do with Julia. An uncle with oral cancer, and seeing him with his tongue and upper lip removed, was probably the only thing that had truly scared Jorge in his entire life. He got over it.

  Jorge exhaled a little longer than usual. “It’s my only vice,” he said.

  She went to the bureau and removed a brush from her purse. Jorge watched in the mirror as she combed through the tangles in her long, wet hair. He’d slapped her ass so hard that she’d needed a cold shower to take down the swelling. Jorge grabbed her clothes from the foot of the bed and threw them at her.

  “Time for you to get lost,” he said.

  She sorted through her clothing and pulled on her panties. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “I paid you up front.”

  Rosa pulled her dress on over her head and fastened her stiletto heels. “Sorry, pal. I still got welts on my ass. That doubles the price.”

  That kind of premium would’ve emptied Duncan McBride’s stolen wallet. “Your ass is not my problem.”

  Rosa glared from across the room, but he answered with a look so chilling that she immediately backed down. “Fine,” she said, and she started toward the door. Jorge rolled across the bed and beat her to it, startling her as he jumped up and leaned his shoulder against the door to prevent her from leaving.

  She smiled nervously. “You want to go again?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, if you have any friends who—”

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  Rosa swallowed hard. “Okay. But if you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

  Jorge grabbed her jaw tightly and forced her to look at him directly. “That’s exactly right,” he said, his expression deadly serious. “I know how to reach you. I know where to reach you. So if you walk out that door and send your pimp over here to collect ‘double the price’ just because I spanked your ass, I will hurt you. Understand?”

  “Okay,” she whimpered, barely able to talk. “Whatever you say.”

  He released the viselike grip on her jaw, unlocked the dead bolt, and opened the door. Rosa left with the haste of a freed hostage, and just as soon as she was gone, Jorge secured the door with both the chain and dead bolt.

  It was time to get down to business.

  He went to the nightstand and removed his .22-caliber pistol. It fit in the palm of his hand like a toy, a pretty good choice for killing varmints but, with such puny ballistics, the .22-caliber cartridge just wasn’t of much use in a gunfight or as any form of self-defense. But it was the choice for close-contact, execution-style killings: barrel to the back of the head, the low-caliber bullet entering the cranium and ricocheting off the inside of the skull, no exit wound, turning the brain to scrambled eggs. A .38-caliber or 9 mm round at close range might go in one ear and out the other, so to speak. A target could survive the hit, albeit with brain damage.

  Of course, all of this assumed that El Negro had a brain. Doubtful. Jorge had been watching him for days, and the guy was as predictable as clockwork. No changes to his routine, no extra look over his shoulder as he walked to the car he parked in the same spot in the same dark lot at the same time every night, no pistol in his belt or other show of firepower—none of the basic precautions that any man should take when having his way with another man’s wife, let alone putting her up in an apartment.

  Brainless.

  Jorge crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray, leaned back against the headboard, and drew a mental map of one last trip to Cy’s Place in Coconut Grove. A timid knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Jorge grabbed his pistol, stood at the locked door, and peered through the peephole. It was the redhead.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “I left my stuff in your bathroom. It’s by the sink.”

  Stuff. Jorge assumed she meant meth, molly, or whatever else she blasted up her nose to do the things she did God only knew how many times a night. “Go buy some new stuff.”

  “Don’t be a jerk! It’ll take you two seconds. I’m already in a bad way. I need it. You want me to dial nine-one-one so the cops can find me in a coma outside your door with three to five years of jail time sitting on your bathroom counter?”

  The fastest way to piss off Jorge was to threaten him. But with work to be done, the smart thing was to swallow his anger and just make her go away.

  “All right, all right,” he said, grumbling. “I’ll get your stuff.”

  Rosa stood outside the apartment door and waited.

  Hugo was just a few feet away from her, his back to the wall, two steps away from the door to Jorge’s apartment. It was a chilly enough night to wear a sweatshirt-style hoodie, and his hand was inside the pouch, finger on the trigger of his revolver. He hadn’t told Rosa that he had a gun, and she seemed clueless as to his intentions. Poor thing. Maybe things were different in Miami, but a streetwalker that stupid wouldn’t last long in San Salvador.

  Hugo had worked every contact in Miami’s Salvadoran community, real and virtual, to find Jorge. A conversation at a bar had led to a conversation at a chop shop, which led to a conversation with a small-time drug dealer, which led to a string of other conversations that finally led Hugo to the West Wind Apartments, a run-down joint that rented rooms by the month, the week, the day, or the hour, depending on the need. It was a typical three-story, vintage-seventies building, with external hallways that wrapped around the entire floor plan and apartments that opened to the outdoors. From the parking lot Hugo had staked out the corner apartment on the second floor. Twice in four days he’d watched the same redhead climb the external staircase to the second floor, enter apartment 201, and leave about an hour later. After the second gig he’d stopped her as she approached her car. She was walking with a limp, as if someone had just kicked her in the ass. She seemed in no mood for another job, but Hugo’s proposition was different. He offered double her normal charge, and all she had to do was call him the next time Jorge used her services, leave a vial of powdered sugar in Jorge’s bathroom when she finished, go back for it five minutes later, and let Hugo do the rest. Rosa took the deal.

  “Okay, I got it,” Jorge said through the door. “Back away so I can see you head to toe in the peephole.”

  Rosa took two steps back and dipped her knee like a cancan dancer. “How’s that?”

  She stayed put, waiting for Jorge’s reply, but as she waited she did the one thing Hugo had coached her not to do: she glanced in Hugo’s direction, as if seeking direction or approval. Her assignment was to act as if Hugo wasn’t there. He hoped Jorge hadn’t picked up on her slip.

  “Hold one second,” Jorge said through the door. “I got a phone call.”

  The obvious glance had not gone unnoticed. Jorge knew something was up—knew that the redhead had not come alone. He opened the vial that contained Rosa’s “stuff.” He sniffed it. Then he tasted it: powdered sugar. The whore had set him up. That was probably her pimp standing in the hallway outside his door, waiting to collect the premium that she charged men like Jorge who pushed it too far.

  Son of a bitch.

  Had Jorge been holding a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, like the Glock he carried in San Salvador, he would have shot right through the closed door and sprayed Red with a good twelve rounds of copper bullets. But .22-caliber ammunition probably wouldn’t even make it through the door, and even if it did, taking out Rosa that way would mean letting her pimp off the hook.

  “Hel-low, I’m waiting,” Rosa called in a singsong voice from outside the door.

  “Just a sec.”

  The wheels turned quickly in Jorge’s head. He knew Rosa wa
s dumb as a stone, but her pimp was at least street-smart. He hurried to the bedroom, switched the camera phone to “selfie” mode, essentially turning the screen into a mirror, and went to the open window. He had the corner apartment, so if he could angle the camera just right from his west-facing window, he could see around the corner and get a look at whoever was standing near the north-facing door. He extended his arm out the window as far as possible, and the image appeared on his screen. As he’d suspected, someone had come with Rosa. He zoomed the image and caught a glimpse of the man’s profile.

  Hugo!

  The rush of adrenaline was almost more than Jorge could contain. He had everything he needed to pull this off, his smartphone in one hand and the pistol in the other. He set the alarm on his phone to blare with the sound of an old car horn in thirty seconds, and he left the phone on the windowsill. He counted the Spanish-language version of “one-Mississippi” in his head—un maldito segundo, dos maldito segundos—as he walked back to the front door.

  “Okay, Rosa,” he said as he removed the chain.

  Veinte y cinco maldito segundos. Twenty-five damn seconds.

  “Got your stuff.”

  Veinte y siete maldito segundos.

  The alarm blared as he yanked the door open, Hugo’s head jerked in response to the alarm, and that split second of distraction was all the advantage that Jorge needed. He led with his pistol, pressed the end of the barrel to the base of Hugo’s skull, and squeezed the trigger.

  The hot spray of crimson blowback on Jorge’s hand was the first sign of success, as the little bullet bounced around inside Hugo’s brain like a hyperactive pinball, ricocheting off the inside of his skull in all directions until the gray matter between his ears was reduced to mush. Rosa screamed and ran as Hugo fell to the concrete in a lifeless heap.

  Jorge grabbed Hugo’s gun, ran around the corner to grab his phone, and kept on running, leaving behind the few possessions he’d brought with him from El Salvador, leaving behind the piece-of-shit excuse for a human being who’d followed him from El Salvador.

  Chapter 49

  The Saturday before Monday’s hearing was a workday at the Law Offices of Jack Swyteck, P.A. Jack needed to prepare his client for both her direct testimony and cross-examination, but before that, he met with both Julia and Beatriz.

  “With resignation syndrome out of the case, there’s less need for Beatriz to testify at the hearing,” said Jack.

  They were in the sitting area of Jack’s oversized office, with Jack in the armchair and mother and daughter on the camelback couch.

  “Why is there any need at all?” asked Julia.

  “Proving that you’re afraid to go back to El Salvador is a lot easier if you were a victim of domestic violence in the past. Simone Jerrell is not going to concede that point. We have to prove it. We don’t have any photographs of you with bruises, no police reports, no recorded phone calls to nine-one-one. All we have is your testimony. Unless Beatriz corroborates it.”

  “You want that psychiatrist to hypnotize Beatriz in court?”

  “No. I don’t want to put Beatriz on the witness stand at all. At most, I would ask the judge to let us call Dr. Moore as a witness and play the tape recording of her session, where Beatriz referenced her father’s attack on you.”

  Julia glanced at her daughter, considering it. “I guess that would be okay.”

  “There’s a downside,” said Jack. “If Dr. Moore testifies about her session with Beatriz, Simone Jerrell would likely call Beatriz to cross-examine her.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” said Julia.

  “I can’t promise you it won’t if we call Dr. Moore as a witness.”

  Julia looked at her daughter, and the answer was plain to see in Beatriz’s expression.

  “Then the only witness will be me,” said Julia.

  “I can’t say I disagree with the decision,” said Jack. “I just want to make sure that we all understand what one witness means: if the judge doesn’t believe you, or as a practical matter even if he has his doubts, the case is over. You lose.”

  Julia seemed to understand the mountain she had to climb—alone. “I’m okay with that,” she said.

  “Beatriz, it looks like you can go home,” said Jack.

  “There’s one other thing that the three of us should talk about,” said Julia. “What happens to Beatriz if I lose?”

  “Mom, no, I—”

  “We need to have a plan,” said Julia. “Jack, I heard about this special-status program for children. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “It’s called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status,” said Jack. “I’ve been thinking about a backup plan, too, and this is one thing to consider.”

  “How does it work?” asked Julia.

  “We would file a petition in family court on behalf of Beatriz. We’d have to prove that she was abused, neglected, or abandoned by her parents.”

  “Is it abandonment if I get deported?” asked Julia.

  “That’s the argument I would make to the judge.”

  “Abandonment?” said Beatriz, her eyes wide with fear. “You can’t abandon me.”

  “Of course not,” said Julia. “You would stay with Tía.”

  “No. No!”

  “We don’t have to decide this now,” said Jack.

  “I think we should,” said Julia. “We have an offer from Ms. Jerrell.”

  “Voluntary deportation,” said Jack.

  “Right. What if you tell her we’ll take that offer; I’ll go voluntarily, if the department will give Special Immigrant Juvenile Status to Beatriz?”

  “No, Mom! I don’t want that!”

  Julia’s proposal was a creative one, at least when viewed through a lawyer’s lens. But it was going to be a tough sell to her daughter.

  “If you get deported, I’m going with you!” said Beatriz.

  Jack rose. “Would it be a good idea if I left you two alone to talk for a minute?”

  “No,” said Julia, rising. “I think I should leave Beatriz with you for a minute. This is her future. She should hear from someone other than her mother.”

  Julia left the room and closed the door.

  Jack’s mouth opened, but he had no idea what to say. It was strange how the mind worked, but Jack suddenly recalled the day Righley was born, when Jack had spent the night in the hospital room with Andie, only to be awakened at two a.m. by an elderly night nurse, who switched on the light, wheeled in the bassinet, and, borrowing Ed McMahon’s classic introduction of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, announced, “Heeere’s your baby!” The nurse disappeared without another word, leaving the three of them—the three of them—alone for the first time and for the rest of their lives.

  With Julia out of the room and an angry teenager glaring at him, her arms folded tightly, Jack got that same “Shit, now what?” feeling.

  “Is that your friend?” asked Beatriz.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Up there on the wall. Theo. That’s him, right?”

  Her gaze was fixed on the framed newspaper article near the window, with the eye-catching headline, “Groundbreaking DNA Evidence Proves Death Row Inmate Innocent.” The story was so much a part of Jack’s personal and professional life that his mere glance at the old newspaper seemed to bring the printed words to life: “After four years in Florida State Prison for a murder he did not commit, twenty-year-old Theo Knight—once the youngest inmate on Florida’s death row—is coming home to Miami today.”

  “Yeah, that’s Theo,” said Jack.

  “I think my mom likes him. Tía says she always goes for the bad boys and then acts surprised when they turn out to be bad.”

  Jack’s first instinct was to jump to his friend’s defense and point out that there was no comparison between Theo and Beatriz’s father. But Jack understood Beatriz’s anger toward her mother more than Beatriz would ever know. If he wanted to get self-analytical about it, how logical was his own childhood resentment towa
rd his mother for dying before he’d gotten the chance to remember her?

  “Your mom loves you, Beatriz. That’s why she left us alone to talk about what’s best for you.”

  “How could being away from my mother be the best thing for me?”

  It was suddenly clear why Julia had left the room, and it was equally clear who had planted the seed in Julia’s head about a better life for Beatriz without her mother. This time, when Jack opened his mouth, the words came.

  “Let me tell you a story,” he said.

  And tell it Jack did, even though it had been so long since he’d told anyone the story of his own roots as the child of an immigrant. He told her how Abuela had faced the same decision when Jack’s mother was a teenager, when Fidel Castro had come to power. He told her how most Cubans had rejoiced at the fall of the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, until anyone who disagreed with the new despot was given two choices: prison or the firing squad. He told her how thousands of parents had made the painful decision to spirit away their children, and specifically how Abuela had stayed behind in Cuba to live under Castro and had put her own daughter on one of the last planes out of Havana so that her daughter could live a better life in Miami.

  Beatriz listened, and Jack talked. And for the first time in his life, despite all the jokes about his bad Spanish, and despite the “C+” his grandmother had given him on their trips to the grocery store and other lessons in Cuban culture, Jack felt Cuban American. Best of all, Beatriz seemed to get it.