Shadows in the Water

by Kory M. Shrum

  “Yeah, the sea turtles. All the straws we use end up in the ocean.” Venetti reached inside the black apron tied around her waist and pulled out a picture. She flashed it at Lou first and then King. A sea turtle was swimming around the ocean with a drinking straw stuck out of its nose. When she turned the photo over, it was the turtle having the straw removed, blood streaming from its nostril. “So sad, right?”

  “Tragic,” Lou offered, and King thought he saw real anger flash there, but it was gone before he could be sure. “Hey, do you think we can ask you some questions?”

  Lou smiled up at her. Venetti shrugged. “Sure.”

  Lou turned to King and waved a go-on gesture.

  “Ms. Venetti, my name is Robbie, and this is my—”

  “Partner,” Lou offered.

  “We want to talk to you about Greg Ryanson.”

  Venetti froze. All the muscles in her body appeared to stiffen to statue-like rigidity. Her eyes went from casual interest to round half-dollars, dilating with fear.

  Lou reached up and placed one hand on the girl’s forearm. “Easy there. We aren’t the bad guys.”

  “You can’t,” Venetti said. She was looking around and was none too subtle about it. “You can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” Lou asked. King saw the grip on Venetti’s arm tighten. Not enough to cause real pain, but it was a good grip. Venetti wasn’t going to cut and run, even if she wanted to.

  “Did he find me?” Venetti asked again.

  “No,” Lou said, her voice low and steady. “And he won’t because we found you first.”

  “Have you gone to the police?” King asked, sitting up taller.

  “I tried. I wanted to be a witness. For Ashley and Daminga...they deserved better.” She fell silent, probably as the memories of Ryanson began to surface. Then she said, “but the police are on his side.”

  “Why do you say that?” King prompted gently. He’d pulled a thin pad from his pocket and had a pen in his hand. He was ready to collect any golden nuggets falling out of this woman’s mouth.

  “I was halfway through the interview when I realized I was fucked. I was talking to a spy. I don’t know why I should be surprised. He owns everything.”

  A spy.

  “But how did you know?” King asked, his hand still hovering above the notepad. Thoughts swirled and collided in his mind, but nothing cohesive yet. He’d need a minute to put the words on the page properly.

  “Look at you!” Venetti said. She jabbed a finger at King and his little pad. King began to pull back reflexively. If she didn’t like the pen and paper, he would hide it. He’d simply memorize what she said and make notes later. He’d done it before. No amount of nodding or soft smiles reassured the naturally paranoid. “You’re writing down what I’m saying.”

  “I haven’t—” King began.

  But Venetti shook her head. “The man who interviewed me didn’t write down anything. And he kept telling me to lower my voice. And when he said he needed to call his superior to get the okay to proceed, I watched him dial the number. It was Ryanson’s number. I should know because I’ve memorized it. His and my mother’s in case I ever got into trouble but didn’t have my cell phone on me. Fucking pathetic, I know, but it’s true.”

  “You ran,” Lou said.

  “Why do you think I’m here?” she asked. She waved at the fast food joint behind her. “I asked myself, where is the last place Greg would look for me? Last place in the world? A vegan fast food place in San Diego sounded about right.”

  “Good choice,” Lou agreed. Her eyes were checking the dark around them again. Venetti didn’t seem to notice.

  “Right?” Paula said with a casual wave. “I didn’t even know what the word vegan meant. I had to look it up.”

  “What did he look like?” King asked. Who was the rat?

  “Medium height. Average weight. Dark hair and eyes.”

  Damn, King thought. That was half the force, at least.

  “When I came to the station, a man asked me my business and I told them I wanted to report a murder. They were helpful until I said Ryanson’s name. Then I was sent straight to the DEA detective. He wouldn’t even give his name. What kind of detective or cop or whatever he was, won’t give a name? Everyone else gave me their name.”

  “You sensed their involvement,” Lou said, chiming in again at the right moment and it was good one of them was focused on the momentum of the conversation because King was drowning.

  Ryanson owned the DEA? And the local police department?

  “It was smart to run,” Lou said. She didn’t look away from Venetti as if she knew doing so would break the trance and send the girl running again.

  Venetti nodded. “I wasn’t going to be another dead bitch at the bottom of the bay.”

  King could see Lou’s interest was apparently piqued. “Does he kill a lot of girls in Houston and dump their bodies in the ocean?”

  Venetti laughed, a hard cough-like sound. “Who knows how many of those bodies have been swept out into the Gulf of Mexico by now.”

  King saw a gleam in Lou’s eyes. If he didn’t find a way to reinsert himself into this conversation and take control of it, Lou might slip off and kill the senator before he’d had any chance to gather a single piece of evidence that’d be admissible in court.

  He could hear himself saying sorry, Chaz. But I took care of it. Or rather my new pet mercenary took care of it.

  “Yeah, he’s a real piece of work.” Venetti wrapped her arms around herself. “The fucked-up part was I really liked him, you know? Most of the girls were only interested in his money or the drugs. And we all thought he was handsome. But I thought he was sweet. How messed up is that?”

  Lou gave him a sharp glare which King could read perfectly. Any time you want to jump in, Mr. Detective.

  But he couldn’t get over the idea a senator owned an entire police department and at least one DEA contact. There were always snitches, of course. But this was different. The infection was spread far and wide or Venetti was unlucky enough to have found the one corrupt cop.

  He didn’t think so.

  The girl was talking again. “He was rich. He was gorgeous. He had this classy vibe going on that none of my exes had. And he liked to give gifts. Even when he was mad, he never hit me or anything. He was always ready to party. He made me feel like the only thing that mattered to him was that I had a good time.”

  “Until he tried to blow out your brains and dump your body in the bay.”

  “Pammy, order up!” A boy called from the window. It broke the spell. Venetti blinked several times and then went to the window for the two baskets. One with a bacon cheeseburger and fries and the other fries only. She went back a second time for a bottle of organic ketchup.

  “How did you find me?” Venetti asked. She seemed to remember who she was and why she had run.

  “We’re not with Ryanson,” King answered, finding himself on familiar ground again. He’d spoken to witnesses on the run before, and this fear was always the same. That if they could be found once, they could be found again. Therefore, it was time to go. “We’re trying to build a case against him. We want to prosecute.”

  “Prosecute,” she repeated the word. “That’s the word they used in the station when I told them what happened. “The spy had asked, do you want to prosecute?”

  “Do you?” Lou asked, taking a huge bite of her burger.

  “What happened to Ashley was—bad. I’d want someone to do the right thing if it was me. But I don’t see how dying is going to make it any better. Men like that always walk. The men with money and power—I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. They’ll kill me first. My only choice is to keep running if I want to live.”

  “No.” Lou’s voice was a mountain. Insurmountable.

  “If you know where I am then...”

  “He doesn’t know,” Lou said. “Even if he found out, he can’t get to you faster than I can.”

  Venetti turned to Lou t
hen. She stared down at her, mouth hanging open. Catching flies, his mother had called it.

  King was looking at Lou too.

  “No offense, lady,” Venetti said. “But you’re crazy. You can’t be faster. Nothing travels faster than money.”

  “Do you want to get out of here before ten or what?” the boy called from the drive-thru window after a couple in their Subaru drove off with their evening meal.

  “I’ve got to help close up,” Venetti said. “Stick around and I’ll tell you what I know. But I can’t testify.”

  They watched Venetti disappear back inside the squat, tangerine building.

  “Twenty bucks says she runs,” King said, chasing a handful of fries with his soda. It was flat, and the sweetness was off. But the fries were good. Of course, it would be hard to fuck up fries.

  They ate in silence. King thought of his Plan B. He would take Venetti’s statement. He’d get all the details he could on Ryanson and his wrong doing, and then he’d look for another girl. One who would testify against the senator. It might take them longer, but they could build the case.

  But that isn’t what Chaz is paying you for, a little voice said. Chaz wants you to bring Venetti back. You’re hooked, Robbie Boy. Better detach now or you’re going to choke on this lure.

  When the boy stepped out at 9:45 and locked the door, Venetti crossed the parking lot toward them. Before she even reached the table, Lou was up on her feet, gesturing toward her, beckoning Venetti to follow her around the side of the building.

  King started to rise, but Lou held up a hand in a halting gesture.

  “We’ll be right back,” Lou said, her eyes were dark water in the light of the streetlamp, her skin a soft tangerine color. “Finish your drink.”

  They stepped behind the building, which was a soft gray in the colorless light now. The two women were out of his range of vision, and he didn’t like it. But he’d learned long ago the best way to gain trust was to give it. Lucy had begged him to let Lou learn how to work a legitimate case, and he knew unless he wanted to buy a plane ticket back to New Orleans, he had only one way home tonight.

  He’d reached across the table and begun to finish off Lou’s fries when the two girls reappeared. Lou’s face was hard, unreadable. Courtney’s cold glare firmly in place.

  Venetti, however, was grinning, eyes wide and her hair blown back like a kid who’s just exited the most exciting rollercoaster. Venetti rushed over to King and placed both hands on the picnic table, slapping them down like a player tagging home base.

  “I’ll do it! I’ll testify.” Her ecstasy was palpable and her words rushed out of her in one breathy exclamation. “What do you want to know?”

  16

  In the back room of the corner market where King liked to buy his late-night sushi rolls and vinegar chips, Lou and King stepped out from behind a crate of 7-UP bottles. Without a word, the pair opened the back door quietly and slid into the vacant alley, closing the door to the market behind them. On this side of the door, the exit was a smooth metal slab without a handle, looking more like the sort of steel plate one would hammer into their head rather than seal an entrance.

  King placed one hand over his rioting belly and placed a forearm against the brick alleyway. He’d never get over the 90-foot-drop feeling. When he was sure he could speak he said, “You gave her your phone number. I don’t even have your phone number.”

  “It’s not a phone number.” Lou turned over her wrist and pointed the black face of a wristwatch at King. She clicked a button and the hour changed. A world clock, he realized. Displaying her time via GPS, in military time. After another click, a bright green ZERO appeared on the screen. “No messages. If I have one, it will buzz. Then I go. Depending on the time of day or my situation, response time varies. But it isn’t registered or traceable like a phone.”

  “How the hell did you get it?” he asked. He thought this question was better than: who the hell would page you?

  “Aunt Lucy. I refused a phone and she wanted a way to call on me, in the event she couldn’t...” she searched for the word. “Reach me any other way. I think she got it from Germany. It has a global SIM card.”

  “I want the number,” King said, remembering the business card she’d given Venetti. “In case, I need to page you too.”

  Lou forked one over. He let go of the brick wall for support and accepted it with two fingers.

  It was a slip of cardstock. Cream with black numbers. No name, only the 11-digit call number, including country code.

  King frowned at the plain scrap of paper. “You’re displaying a shocking amount of organization for the rough brute your aunt told me about. Rogue gunslinger. A vigilante with business cards. And you handled Venetti as if you’d interviewed a hundred girls before.”

  Lou’s gaze slid away. She wasn’t uncomfortable. She was searching the area again. King knew there was nothing he could say that would make this woman squirm.

  “You weren’t talking,” she said when her eyes met his again. “We were there to ask her questions, and you kept shoveling fries in your mouth.”

  He barked a surprised laugh. “I was assessing the situation. And preparing my attack.”

  “She’d be packed and halfway to Sacramento by the time you stuffed the cannons, Captain.”

  “You milked her like a cow.” He couldn’t let it go. She was proving impossible to read and he didn’t like it. “How did you learn to do that?”

  He could read anybody. Anybody. All he needed was one meeting and a serious conversation. But trying to get a handle on Lou was like trying to hold water. The tighter he squeezed, the quicker she slid through his fingers.

  “I did not milk her.” Lou wrinkled her nose. “I don’t waste time. Mine or anyone else’s.”

  “Is that a personal code?” he asked, wondering if she’d written herself a manifesto somewhere, perhaps tacked up in her apartment.

  “One I wish everyone subscribed to,” she said. She was looking bored again and at least that part King had gotten right, because she stepped away from him and started walking. He had to jog a little to catch up.

  They came around the corner and a wall of warm summer heat hit them the same moment as the bright French Quarter lights fell on their face and shoulders. They faced Madame Melandra’s Fortune and Fixes. Lou didn’t go inside.

  She feels safer in the dark, he realized. Even the soft glow of Mel’s chandelier and the flicker of candle flames in the window were too much. Thick shadowed alleys and obscured doorways were as comfortable as worn chairs with their coffee stains and ass cheek imprints to her. His eyes slid over the sidewalks of the crowded quarter. At this hour, it was in full swing. A lot of noise. A lot of bodies. But Lou didn’t seem to mind.

  “You took an unnecessary risk,” he said. He lingered on the curb with her so she would not be forced to go in. “The fewer people who know about your talents, the better.”

  “She’ll keep my secret,” Lou said, letting her eyes wander down the street.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because she wants to live. And if she was the kind of girl who liked to talk, she’d be dead now.”

  King couldn’t argue there. Talkers ended up dead sooner rather than later. Of course, he could think of one exception to this. Brasso’s mouth ran like a steam engine, and yet he was as free as a wildebeest.

  Lou flicked her gaze up to meet his. “Do you care what happens to her once you’re done with her?”

  He flinched as if slapped. Her black water eyes held the twin flames of the streetlight overhead. Her dark hair was haloed with a ring of gold. “I don’t want her to die.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Don’t you believe some people should be protected?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Truly defenseless people. People who are preyed upon by the weak bastards looking to extort or abuse them. Capable people can save themselves. There are enough of the first in the world, why waste my time on the second?”

  C
ertainly no hero complex, he thinks.

  “Is that what you want to do now that the Martinellis are gone?” he asked. “Will you use your abilities to save the truly defenseless?” He used air quotes.

  Her eyes bore into his. The gaze so heavy it made the hair on the back of his neck rise. For a moment, a crazy moment where his front mind clicked off and his reptilian brain slithered into the driver’s seat, he nearly pulled his gun. He wanted to pull his gun. Maybe the air quotes were a bad idea.

  She hadn’t moved.

  Her expression hadn’t changed, and yet the overpowering sense of danger welled inside him.

  Her voice was shockingly soft when she spoke. “I have to go. Your landlady is giving me the finger.”

  King turned to look into the shop and found Mel standing there in full gypsy garb, her braids pleated over each shoulder. She wasn’t flashing the middle finger salute. She was making the sign of the cross, touching each bare shoulder then her forehead.

  King turned back, ready to offer reassurances, serve as Mel’s character witness, but he was alone on the sidewalk.

  Lou was gone.

  Mel’s arm brushed his. “Who are you looking for Mr. King?”

  “A girl,” he said. “But I think you scared her off.”

  “That was no girl,” Mel said and reached into the folds of her skirts. She pulled out a pack of Camels and lit one with her Bic. She dragged hard on the filter and then blew the smoke out of her nose, reminding King of those cartoon bulls he watched on Saturday mornings as a kid. “She was the angel of death.”

  The angel of death.

  He didn’t even argue.

  His adrenaline had spiked under Lou’s cold stare and now it crashed. His stomach hollowed out. His head buzzed between his ears.

  He was starting to think he’d like to smoke a joint before he called Brasso and told him about Venetti. But maybe the call should wait until tomorrow altogether. Or even, the day after.

  If he was too quick in his turnaround, Brasso might wonder how he managed to track a girl to the West Coast so damn fast. Finding Venetti and getting to San Diego should take some time for an old man with no leads.