by Frank Zafiro
I slammed my foot down on his throat, keeping it there as he gurgled and scratched at my legs. When he stopped struggling, I slammed my foot down several more times. Before leaving, I dragged Sammy next to the dumpster.
I left the alley, realizing that I might have just found my daughter’s killer.
Saturday, April 17th
1645 hrs
507 W. Corbin
TOWER
My pager went off in the middle of our game of hearts. I snatched it off my belt and turned off the sound. A phone number appeared on the LED screen. I recognized it immediately, but couldn’t remember who it belonged to. Then I realized it my own number at my desk in the detective’s division.
I looked up to see Ben and Teri both eyeing me with long faces.
“I’ve got to answer this. It’ll just be a minute.”
Laying my cards on the table, I went into the kitchen and dialed my number. It picked up on the second ring.
“Detective Tower?” the male voice asked.
“Yeah. Who’s this? Did you page me?”
“It’s Paul Hiero. I paged you.”
“What is it?”
There was a long silence. Then, “I got someone down here who wants to talk to you. It’s about your case. The Bingo lot girl.”
“Who?” I asked, but I knew.
“Toni Redding.”
“I already talked to her.”
“I know. She told me. But there’s been some…developments.”
“What kind?”
“It’d really be better if you came down here,” Hiero said.
I considered. It was the weekend and the last thing I wanted to do was police work. Reluctantly, I told him, “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.” I hung up the phone.
As I walked back into the dining room, I could see that they’d overheard enough to know I was leaving. I didn’t say a word, but went to my bedroom and pulled on my tennis shoes. I grabbed my shoulder rig and slipped it on, then clipped my badge onto my belt. On my way out, I grabbed my ID card.
When I returned to the living room, Teri was putting a Sprite in front of Ben. I raised my palms up in a shrug. “Duty calls,” I said lamely.
Both nodded that they understood, but the silence was cold.
“Can you stay?” I asked her.
She nodded. “No problem. I was going to ask you about that, anyway.”
“About what?”
“Staying.”
I opened the closet door and took out a windbreaker. When I turned back around, she was looking at me again. With a look I couldn’t quite place.
“What?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk to you about staying here.”
I slipped on my windbreaker. “I’ll pay you for it.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it.”
“What then?”
Teri took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about things. I already spend more time here than at my own place. You guys are my only customers and I like it that way. Your schedule and Ben’s schedule works pretty good with my school classes and everything.”
I patted my pockets for my keys.
“They’re on the table next to the front door,” Teri said.
“What are?”
“Your keys.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She was still looking at me, so I asked, “What are you getting at?”
“I was just wondering if…well, since things are going so well, and you have the extra room…maybe I could stay here.”
I was stunned. “You want to move in here?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I mean, I’m paying rent for an apartment I hardly ever use. I’m here or I’m at school. I’m hardly ever there. All my plants are dying.”
I stood still and didn’t answer. My silence must have prodded her to continue.
“I’ll pay rent, of course. And then it’ll be easier for you with work and all. You’ll always have someone available to take care of Ben.”
“You think Ben would be all right with it?” I asked her.
She smiled. “Ben loves me to death. I’m like the big sister he never had.”
I nodded. She was right.
“Let me think about it a little bit,” I told her.
Her face fell. “It was just an idea,” she said quietly.
“It’s probably a good one,” I assured her. “Just give me a little while to think about it.”
“All right.”
“I gotta go.”
“I know,” Teri said. “Duty calls.”
It was Saturday, so I parked in Lt. Crawford’s parking space right next to the building. The executive parking lot was almost empty anyway. I walked into the building and it was silent. With the exception of the Records division, which also supports patrol, the entire investigative division shuts down on weekends. If it was important enough, they’d call out detectives and pay them overtime to do the work, but the daily grind took a pause. I reflected briefly at how ludicrous it was to impose a nine-to-five order on a group of people whose adversaries worked twenty-four-seven. Such were the wisdoms of the department and its leaders, I guess.
I walked straight to my desk and didn’t pass anyone on the way. I immediately recognized the hooker, Toni, sitting in the chair next to my desk. She was facing away from me, but I knew it was her from her hair. It was cleaner than the last time I’d seen her and had a sheen to it that was almost beautiful. Officer Paul Hiero stood behind her, leaning on the cubicle partition. His hand rested on her shoulder and when he saw me, he pulled it away.
“Thanks for coming, John,” Hiero said.
“This better be good. You paged me out to talk with a witness I’ve already interviewed and wouldn’t tell me what it’s about. This better be worth it.”
“I think you need to hear what she has to say.” I looked at Hiero and wondered just how badly he’d messed up. That’s when I saw the bruising on his cheek and both eyes were blackened.
“How’d that happen?”
“Let my mouth overrun my ass in a bar after work the other night.”
I didn’t believe him, but turned my attention to Toni, who’s left side of her face was bruised.
“What happened? You run your mouth, too?”
She started to open her mouth to respond, but I held up my hand. “Wait.” I pointed to the empty interview room. “Let’s talk in there.”
Toni rose reluctantly and shuffled toward the room. She cast a slow, backward glance at Hiero. He took a step to follow her.
“Wait here,” I told him.
I turned away and strode into the interview room. I slipped off my windbreaker, letting her see the badge and shoulder holster. I wasn’t wearing a suit and tie and she needed to see some official emblems to put her in the right frame of mind.
“What happened to you?” I repeated.
She looked up at me, her eyes filling with tears. “What’s it look like? I got the shit kicked out me!”
“I can see that. Did a john do this?”
She shook her head.
“Your pimp?”
“I don’t have a pimp,” she said, frustrated.
“Then who?”
Toni sighed and looked down at her hands again. They continued their random twitching.
“I’m not going play twenty questions, Toni. If you’ve got something to tell me, then let’s have it.”
“It was some guy I’d never seen before. He acted like he wanted a date, but when we got into the alley, he started asking questions about Fawn.”
“Do you think he killed her?”
She shook her head again. “This guy wanted to know if she was working and who she was paying off. I tried not to say anything, but this guy scared me. So I told him.”
“Told him what?”
“That the BSC collected from me and from Fawn.”
“The Brotherhood
is running girls?”
She nodded. “Everything west of Altamont, they take a cut.”
“What about that big guy that used to run things? Rolo?”
She shrugged. “Pushed east of Altamont.”
“Into the secondary market,” I noted. “You pay off the Brotherhood to work the corridor?”
“Yeah. Everyone does.”
“Including Fawn?”
“Like I said. Everyone.”
“They supply dope, too?”
Toni fixed her eyes on mine.
“The BSC collects from the working girls and then supplies these same girls with their dope?”
She nodded.
“What else did you tell this guy?”
“I told him about Fawn working and paying the BSC.”
“You tell him about Fawn doing dope?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember if he asked.”
I slammed my hand down on the desk. Toni jumped.
“You told me before she wasn’t doing dope.”
Toni sighed. “She wasn’t doing smack with me. But she was already gone on crack when she started down there. Some kid got her hooked on it. That’s what she said, anyway.”
“She tell you his name?”
She shook her head. “No, she called him M. M this and M that, all the fucking time.”
“You ever meet him?”
“No. I know he’s black and skinny is all. She never described him more than that.”
“So why was she working for the BSC?”
Toni rolled her eyes at me. “Jesus, how long have you been off the street?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She didn’t want to work for Rolo, so she worked in BSC territory. Sometimes she paid them, sometimes she dodged them. She didn’t need them, ‘cause she got her crack from M or some guy M knew.”
“You telling me this back when we first talked would’ve been really goddamn helpful.”
Toni shrugged.
“What else did this guy want to know?”
“Who collected for the Brotherhood.”
“And who’s that?”
“Sammy G.”
“He collected from you and Fawn?”
“And the others.”
“What’s his real name?”
Toni looked at me, incredulous. “It’s all over the news.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sammy G. is dead.”
I leaned back in my chair, the hard drive in my head grinding. “Dead?”
“I thought you’d know. They found his body a few hours ago.”
“When did this other guy approach you?”
“Same day you let me go. That night.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, working out the timeline. First this guy gets information from Toni, then the guy she fingers turns up dead.
Or was he the killer, trying to cover his tracks?
Why kill Sammy G, then? Did he see something?
I shook my head. Just what I needed. Another mystery.
“What’d he look like?”
“White. About your age, I guess,” Toni said, with a shrug. “I didn’t pay much attention at first. They all look the same after a while.”
“Try a little harder.”
Her brow furrowed. “I dunno. Medium height. A little thick in the chest and neck, maybe. Remember that mafia guy in New York? The one that they busted a few years ago?”
“Gotti?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. Who’s the one that snitched on him?”
“Sammy Gravano,” I said. “Sammy the Bull.”
“Yeah. He reminded me of that guy.”
“What color were his eyes?”
“I dunno.”
I took in all that she had told me. She watched me as I stared at her and thought. After a few moments, she looked away. After glancing back at me a couple of times to find me still staring at her, she finally asked, “What?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Huh?”
“You didn’t come in here to do your civic duty. Last time you talked to me, it was to beat a solicitation rap and keep us from finding the heroin in your panties. What’s it for this time?”
She drew a wavering breath and met my eyes. “I see sometimes on these cop shows where a witness comes forward, you know? And the cops have a fund, like a special fund, where they can give that person some money, enough to catch a bus out of town and get started somewhere fresh. Somewhere safe. So I was thinking –“
“Unbelievable,” I said and stood to open the door. “Sit tight.”
After leaving the interview room, I met Hiero’s worried eyes and held them as I walked back to my desk.
“What’s up?” he asked me as I sat down in my chair.
“What’s up?” I parroted. “I think this is a little more serious than ‘what’s up,’ don’t you?”
He continued to meet my stare, but I could see his hand trembling in my peripheral vision. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“How deep are you in with this girl?” I asked him quietly.
“Deep,” he said.
“She thinks we’ve got some kind of fund set up to relocate witnesses.”
“What?”
“She said she saw it on TV.”
Hiero sighed. “I’ll explain it to her.”
“All right.” I rubbed the stubble on my chin. “She should stay somewhere safe and off the streets for a while. Until I figure out who this new guy is and what he’s up to.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Hiero said.
“I don’t want to know.”
He hesitated, moving his right hand slightly as if considering offering a handshake. Then he rose slowly from his seat and walked carefully to the interview room. A few moments later, he walked out with Toni, his hand gently in the small of her back.
As they disappeared from view, I turned back to my desk and pulled out Fawn Taylor’s file. I stared at the tab with her name and the report number and didn’t open it right away. A single question was burning in my mind.
Who the hell was this guy?
Saturday April 17th
Palms Motel, Early evening
VIRGIL
I lit my last Camel and inhaled deeply. I’d been watching the Brotherhood of the Southern Cross clubhouse for five hours and no one, not a member, a prospect or junkie stopped by. There were no bikes in front of the club house. Everything had come to a screeching halt.
Earlier in the day, someone found Sammy G’s body and called the cops. They closed down everything.
From my window, I could see the cops crawling all over the area. They even tried to do a dog track, but the stupid pooch ran almost around in circles trying to catch a scent. The dog handler must have finally convinced the guy in charge that it was a worthless attempt.
Everything and everyone went underground as the cops searched for evidence.
That all changed, though, when the last of the cops left the area.
First, the girls came tentatively back to the street. One by one, they seemed to appear out of nowhere, their bodies went up for sale but the market hadn’t reappeared yet.
The hookers were followed closely by the dealers and the crack heads. They clustered in the doorways of defunct or closed businesses. Guys and girls with the shakes quickly found their suppliers. One short black kid sprinted across the street for a hit of crack. He didn’t step off of the sidewalk before he fired up. The dealer who sold him the junk screamed at him to move and the kid did as he was told, awkwardly trying to hit the remaining rock in his pipe as he ran.
A short time later, the citizens who like to play in this wonderland made their separate ways down. They stopped their cars alongside the girls and the dealers, buying whatever they needed to make it through the night.
But none of the BSC ever came back. I finally had enough of watching nothing and decided to walk back downtown. I wanted a change of clothes
and to sleep in a decent bed.
I slipped out of my motel room and walked down the stairs to the first level. It was dark out and the streetlights illuminated the night. Standing with her back to the railing of the stairwell was a young girl, probably seventeen. She had a pretty face with dull eyes. She had plastered gel or something into her red hair to slick it back.
She wore a black mini-skirt, pink shirt and scuffed-up black, leather jacket. Her pink shirt said Hello Kitty with a Japanese styled cat in the middle. Around her neck was a large silver cross that hung from a black choker.
“Hi,” she said after pulling the cigarette from her mouth.
“Hey,” I said and started to walk by.
“Wanna date?”
I stopped and turned back to her. “What?”
She shrugged half-heartedly. “Wanna date?”
I pulled out Fawn’s picture and showed it to her. “Ever see this girl?”
The girl shook her head.
“What’s it gonna be, pops?”
After slipping the picture in my pocket, I pulled out a couple of twenties and handed them to her.
She looked up the stairs. “Which room is yours?”
“No room. Take the money. Go watch a movie or something. Just get away from this for a little while.”
As I walked away, I heard her mutter, “Whatever.”
Sunday, April 18th
2114 hrs
East Sprague Corridor
TOWER
The warm weather from just a couple of days prior was nothing more than a memory. I started to roll up my car window, then stopped. Instead, I set the heater on low and switched the fan to the floor. Cool, fresh air drifted in through the window, but the lower part of the car remained warm. It was a setting I had used for many years on patrol on nights like this.
The weak yellow street lights of East Sprague failed to light the doorways and alleyways as I passed them. I wanted to find the guy that probably killed Sammy G. I doubted he was the one who killed Fawn or Serena, but he knew something about it. His actions were too close to the case and too brutal for him not to know something.
I was working off the clock because if I told Crawford what I knew, all sorts of things would happen. My cases would get task-forced and I’d be lucky to even be a part of it. If I was right and it was the same guy that killed both Fawn and Serena, more girls would die while the task force battled to figure out who was in charge.