Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy)

by Don Donovan

  "Save the description. Get on with the story."

  Right then, two twenty-something guys came into the men's room, apparently energized over two girls they had just met in a joint across the street. That place was too loud for any getting-to-know-you stuff, so they convinced the girls to accompany them to the Grand Café. Trey and I paused while they each took a piss and continued yakking. One of them, it turned out, was married, but according to him, "It was a blessing Paula couldn't come down for the reunion. She had two showings this week in St Petersburg." The other guy swore Paula would never find out about any of this.

  We stood around through all of this, Trey and I. They washed their hands and finally got out of there. Trey used the time to get his breath back.

  He said, "Anyway, as you might imagine, I was very generous with this first girl, Cinnamon. But when Sharma caught my eye, I became infatuated with her, too. And just as generous, I might add."

  "You mean you were paying both girls to fuck them."

  "It was … it was more than that. Much more. They were kind, attentive, and very, very sensual. And I only saw them individually, never together. Eventually, though, they found out about each other and became rivals for my attention."

  "And for your money," I said.

  "Well, yes. That too." His voice was losing its rasp, gradually returning to full strength. "Sharma urged me to take up with her exclusively and, recommended that I — for lack of a better word — dump Cinnamon."

  "Dump her?"

  "Yes. Sharma was most insistent."

  This was beginning to sound like a fucking soap opera. And frankly, it was pulling me in. "So did you? Dump her, I mean?"

  "Logan, you should've seen this girl. No man in his right mind could dump her. She was every fantasy come true."

  "So what did you do?" He really had me.

  "It's not what I did, but what Sharma did. I told her I couldn't bear to treat her friend so poorly. She'd been so good to me. And good for me."

  "How did Sharma take that?"

  Trey said, "One night she made a phone call — in my presence, I might add — to an individual of, shall we say, questionable repute. She told this man Cinnamon needed to 'take a long trip', was how she put it."

  "Long trip?"

  He gestured with his hands, as if trying to get it across to me. "Yes. You know. A long trip. You know."

  Of course I knew. I just wanted to hear him say it. "No, I don't know," I said. "Tell me."

  He moved closer to me and whispered, "Sharma wanted him to kill her."

  "And you heard her say this?"

  "I did. The phone call was over before I got a proper grip on what was happening, before I could do anything about it."

  I said, "Did you?"

  "Did I what?"

  "Do anything about it."

  Pain remained in his gut. He clutched it and groaned.

  I repeated, "Did you do anything about it?"

  "I implored her to call it off," he said. "I tried to get her to phone him back, but she told me not to worry about it. She assured me I wouldn't regret it."

  "So did the girl go on this 'long trip'?"

  "Yes. A few nights later, I saw on the local news where she was killed in what the reporter said was a carjacking gone wrong."

  "Did you get the guy's name? The guy she called?"

  "She called him Ranger. That's all I know."

  I cracked a smile. "Just so I'm clear here. Because you're holding this over her head, she'll give me five hundred a week in return for a job at the Wild Thing? Provided I smooth things over with Mambo."

  Trey nodded. "That's about it."

  I took a long pause. Trey took a full breath. My voice softened. "Make it a thousand. And you're cut off from any more betting with Mambo."

  He started to straighten himself out, running a hand through his hair, massaging his hurting stomach one more time with the other hand. "A thousand?"

  "That's the deal I'm offering. She pays me one grand a week from now on. And here's the story I'm giving Mambo. You're on a payment plan. The vig is four points a week. That's a little over thirty-two hundred. You miss a payment and it's added to the principal. Believe me, Trey, you don't want to miss two in a row."

  I even managed a sincere smile as I said that last thing. I didn't like saying this any more than he liked hearing it, but I had to come back to Mambo with something, and this was a pretty typical plan, given the circumstances.

  "Shit, a thousand dollars is a ton of money for her. I don't think she —"

  "Listen to me, Trey, I'm cutting you a break here, so work with me. You know what happens when you don't pay Mambo. I'm trying to allow you an easy way out. One where you can keep your teeth."

  He nodded, mostly out of fear that I meant what I said. I added, "Besides, she'll pull down three or four dimes a week in that joint if she's any good at all. And judging from the looks of her, she won't have any problem scraping it together. And with what you've got on her, she'll do whatever you say."

  This is it. The ideal solution. Mambo probably saw it all coming, anyway. He won't mind. Now just nod your head in agreement, Trey, and we can all go home happy.

  Then he said, "I just don't know if I can swing it, you know?" No, Trey. Don't go there. Don't! "She said she'd go five hundred if I got her the job, but I'm not sure —"

  Another right to the gut, just as he was getting his wind. He wasn't expecting it and it sent his ass all the way to the floor. Shit, I hated doing that.

  Just like I hated saying, "She better go along with it. And if you try to sneak her out of the Wild Thing before you're paid up with Mambo, you can kiss your kneecaps goodbye."

  I had to show him I meant business, that there was no turning back, so I reached into his pocket and came out with his money clip. A quick glance at the cash showed me around seven, eight hundred. I put it in my pocket.

  Trey was still on the floor. I saw a small pool of piss nearby. His pant leg was soaking it up. I threw his empty money clip down at him and said, "I'll speak to LeeRon. He'll start her next week. You tell her I'll be by every Saturday night for my money."

  12

  Logan

  Monday, June 27, 2011

  10:45 PM

  ON MY WAY OUT OF THE GRAND CAFE, I decided to take Sharma with me. Rather than let Trey break the news to her about her new deal with me, I figured I could make the case better. She was giving herself a touchup out of her compact when I got back to the table. Not that she needed any more makeup on her.

  "Come on, let's go." I took her arm before she could drop her compact back in her purse.

  At first, she didn't put up any resistance. I felt like she was almost glad to be leaving with me. I led her toward the front door where she pulled me to a stop. She said, "Where we going?"

  "We're going to find you some work down here."

  She looked back toward the bar. "Where's Trey?"

  "He took sick. He won't be coming."

  "Sick? Is he okay?" Her worry came across as sincere, like she really cared about Trey's health. She still looked back toward the men's room as we moved toward the exit.

  "He'll be okay. But he asked me to take you to this club we were talking about earlier."

  "I don't know. I think we should wait for him."

  "Don't worry about it," I said, maintaining my grip on her arm.

  I hustled her out and headed down Duval Street. Things were pretty busy. After a short time, she finally got it that Trey wouldn't be joining us. She settled down and went with it.

  Lots of people in town for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. A group of noisy college kids on rented mopeds stampeded down the street like screaming rats running toward a restaurant dumpster. The clear night and warm temperature made for a pleasant walk, even though we had to make our way around groups of slow-strolling tourists. The street was awash in bright light from shops and restaurants. Music poured from the bars. Night action filled the air. Sharma checked it all out and smiled
.

  "Wow, Key West is one pretty cool place," she said. "I should've been coming down here all along."

  I threw her a smile. "Hard to believe you've never been here."

  She returned the smile. I liked it. "I don't know. Maybe because it's so close to Miami. Whenever I wanted to get away, it was always, you know, someplace like New York. Or Vegas." She spoke while we walked and she soaked up the pulsating surroundings, only looking at me every now and then.

  "Vegas? Not a bad little getaway," I said.

  "Well, it was always with someone, you know? Usually a guy."

  "A guy? You mean, like Trey?"

  "Oh, no. Trey never took me out of town. It was always other guys. But you know, I wish he would have."

  "Why's that?" I asked.

  "I don't know. I guess because I like him. He's very sweet and kind. And very generous, too."

  We continued our leisurely walk down Duval. "Do you actually have feelings for him?"

  Her eyes turned upward in a faraway gaze and her face relaxed. "I don't really know. Maybe I do, you know?"

  Part of me wanted to believe her. Wanted to think she could actually put aside her stripper cynicism — whereby every man who walked into a strip joint was an irredeemable sucker, not to be taken seriously, just to be taken. But part of me knew she'd been around the track a few too many times to believe in romance and its endless possibilities.

  "Have you always been a dancer?" I said.

  She nodded. "Since I was around eighteen."

  I took a good look at her. Here was a girl far beyond the prime of stripperhood. The trade primarily attracts young girls, eighteen to twenty-five, who are often looking to become prostitutes, but don't want to work the streets. It's through the strip joints they make valuable contacts in the escort business, and every so often, one of them will score a good spot with a high-end service. That's the brass ring. The big-money clients can provide a girl with enough dough to sock some away, so that when retirement beckons, they're not destitute.

  And that retirement beckons long before Social Security time — in fact, long before the girls know what hit them. Around thirty or so, delicate wrinkles make their first ever-so-subtle appearance. The skin around the face shows slight signs of loosening, and all those hours in the gym can't seem to get rid of that tiny bit of weight gain, those three or four pounds.

  Worst of all, the newer, younger girls in the service catch the attention of the high-roller clients and the thirty-year-old moves silently down the list without ceremony. Pretty soon, the phone stops ringing altogether. At that point, the lower-end services are her only out, and when that ride is over — and it's over spectacularly fast — it's either the streets or back to the strip joints on a one-way ticket down the slide. The big "gentlemen's clubs" won't take them, because all the young hot girls want those spots, so only the lower end, rough trade joints will open their doors to them. Even then, the end is clearly in sight.

  And all this presupposes the girls are able to stay away from drugs, which many — if not most — are not. The speed, the coke … it all promises to make them feel good again. To make them feel like, yes, they can still do it all. To allow them to turn their backs on reality, to pretend they can vanquish Father Time.

  The girl might think, Sure, I had a good ride with that big escort service, and I can damn sure get back there again. I can get these two-thousand-dollar-a-night guys again. I'm still pretty. My figure is still hot. My tits aren't drooping — well, not so you'd notice. I see a couple of tiny lines around my eyes, and there's that teensy bit of looseness on my neck, but a little plastic surgery and I'll be good as new. Sure, I can get back there again.

  Then the drug wears off and she has to take another hit. Eventually, heroin is always waiting for her right around the corner. Some girls are able to avoid it, but not all. Its alluring call is, to some, simply irresistible.

  For some reason, though, I got the clear impression Sharma missed out on the escort service train ride, or maybe she never went to the station at all. Maybe stripping was what she always wanted, you know, being on a stage, under lights, having a bunch of drooling guys throw money at her. Whatever, I didn't know. In any case, here she was north of thirty — so I supposed — certainly looking older, and a little overweight. How much longer before her face and figure waved the white flag and caved in to advancing age?

  I returned to our conversation.

  "So you always went out of town with other guys?" I said.

  "Oh, there was a couple of times there when me and Cinnamon went up to Destin together."

  She looked at me while I raised my eyebrows as if to say, "Oh, really?" and then she added with a note of reassurance in her voice, "You know, they got the best beaches up around there."

  I gently pulled her to one side to avoid getting plowed into by a couple of loud, stumbling drunks. "So you went to Destin with … who again?"

  "Cinnamon. She was a dancer, too. At Honey Buns. We were best friends a couple of years ago. Actually, I met Trey through her."

  "Oh, really?" That one just popped out without the eyebrow-raising.

  "He was one of her regular customers, you know? Came in for two or three nights every time he was in Hialeah, which toward the end there, was about every two weeks or so."

  "Toward the end? What end?"

  Sharma hesitated. She tried to cover it up as though she were clearing her throat, but it didn't work.

  Her eyes went down to the sidewalk and she said, "He … he quit seeing her."

  "Quit seeing her?"

  She slowed down her walk and didn't take her eyes off the sidewalk. "Trey became my customer. Truth be known, he'd been leaning in that direction for a while. Leaning toward me, you know? Cinnamon introduced us one night in Honey Buns and I could tell right away he liked me, liked the way I looked. You know how a guy gets when he sees a girl he craves?"

  "I know."

  "Well, that was Trey. He craved me. Used to come in, tip Cinnamon a couple of hundred, then turn around and make a date with me for afterwards." She slowed her pace of walking and looked at me directly. For the first time, I saw the hustle in her eyes, the desire to drain wallets. "Pretty soon he started coming up to Hialeah when he knew Cinnamon would be off. He'd come in just to see me. Always got a lap dance, tip me a bunch, then we'd go back to his hotel, you know, after my shift."

  "Back to his hotel?"

  "Yeah, but hey, I'm no fucking hooker. I liked the guy, you know? I still like him. And why not? He's been very good to me. But just because I give it up doesn't mean … well, doesn't mean there's any kind of, whaddya call, a … pro quid arrangement, you know what I mean?"

  "But now Trey is all yours."

  "Well, yeah, you could say that."

  "Let's turn down here."

  We turned a corner onto a quiet side street. All the Duval Street racket faded into the background and a few steps later, we turned again into a dark, sticky alley. A chain link fence and some tall, thorny vegetation ran along one side, facing a row of aging one-story structures on the other. They were a couple of rooming houses and a few shabby apartments and whatnot in these low, dirty buildings, but you'd never know exactly what they were because you couldn't see shit back here. The indifferent, yellowish glow from the nearest streetlamp didn't even bother trying to penetrate this darkness. The only light came from a small, flickering sign, exhausted from years of unappreciated use, its pink neon announcing the entrance to the Wild Thing.

  "This?" She made a face. "This is where you're finding me work?"

  "Don't jump to conclusions. It may not look like much on the outside, but it's a good spot. You can pull down serious money in here."

  We opened the metal door and AC/DC music bled out into the alley. We went in. The anorexic girl inside the door said, "Five dollars each."

  "We're here to see LeeRon. He back in the office?"

  She looked over at the black-clad bouncer, Alexander. I knew him. Big, tree-stump arms folded in
front of him, spotted with tattoos. Jailhouse tats, inked with a primitive needle, posing as art. The customary spider web, someone's name I couldn't make out, and what looked like an attempt at an Iron Cross were only a few of them. Eyes like tiny blue ball bearings peered out of slits cut into his oversized shaved head. He nodded at me and waved us through.

  The stage was well-lit and two girls pranced around on it, nearly naked. Both had rubber tits and too many tattoos, and the music was entirely too loud, but the big crowd didn't seem to mind any of it. Those near the stage held cash in their fists, leaning forward and trying to position themselves to stuff some of it in the girls' G-strings. When they couldn't reach the girls, they just threw the money at them, cheering as the girls bent down to pick it up. The two female bartenders, both cuter than the strippers and far sexier-looking in their revealing two-piece outfits, kept the watery drinks coming as fast as they could. Sharma surveyed the place with care and took it all in approvingly with the watchful eye of a seasoned pro.

  "Laid out nice," she said over the music. "Lots of room for the guys to tip you."

  I leaned into her ear and said back at her, "You can do real well here." She looked around again and nodded.

  "How does anyone ever find this place? Way back in that alley and everything."

  "Everybody knows where it is. The locals all know. Taxi drivers, pedicab drivers, hotel people … they all know."

  She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. "They have this kind of crowd all the time?"

  "You figure it out. This is the end of June. Very slow time of year. And they're packed."

  She smiled. I could almost hear her calculating the money she would make.

  We walked past the bar to a red door. I opened it and we entered the office, a drab but clean room with a couple of couches and a big metal desk. Bullet holes studded the wall behind the couch, the result of a bloody incident one night about a year ago. An old safe stood behind the desk and a flat-screen TV on the wall was tuned to the Marlins game. LeeRon sat at the desk doing paperwork.