by DaveKearns
"And did you?" I asked.
"She was very pretty, my friend," Esto said. "And many women are weak for me, because of my looks. But my Celeste would pull my fingernails out if I even touched such a ripe young tomato."
I laughed again.
"But I know where to see the tomato if you would like to take a look for yourself. She told me to visit her at the Red Glove if I changed my mind. Maybe she would talk to you."
"I'd like that," I said. I wanted to ask her about what Bullard and his friends had done after Esto left. If she was there for the party, she might know something that would give me leverage on Bullard.
"It would be my pleasure to take you to this place," Esto said. "In spite of my pure heart I will do my duty for a friend. I could do no less." He made the sign of the cross on himself. "Let us hope my Celeste does not find out."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Esto left me alone in the office while he went to tell the head waiter that he was leaving for the evening. I got up and went into the kitchen. The dinner crowd must have been winding down because the door to the alley was open and the two cooks stood on the step outside, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly. I went over to one of the big stainless steel sinks and ran some cold water over my hands and then I splashed some in my face. I used one of the hand towels by the sink to dry off, and then I put the towel back.
Esto came back through the big double doors to the dining area and pointed toward the door to the alley.
"Vamonos," he said.
The two cooks stood to one side while we climbed into the Caddy and got out of there. We wound through residential streets for a couple of minutes, and then we were in the midst of a small business district containing a pawn shop, a camera shop, a consignment furniture store, and a nightclub with a neon marquee that said "The Red Glove." The parking lot was full, so we parked in the street. When I got out of the car I could feel the bass notes coming from the music in the club.
A rock anthem was blasting full tilt when we went inside. A weightlifter with a goatee and a leather vest with no shirt underneath blocked our way and asked for five dollars cover charge apiece. After Esto insisted on paying the cover charge we went into the darkened room. Pool tables off to the left were obscured by a dense haze of cigarette smoke. Straight ahead there was a bar about thirty feet long fronted by stools full of drinkers. At the end of the bar, the stage curved around the right side of the room. The stage was waist-high with mirrors behind it and a dozen tables in front of it packed with men pounding down beer and highballs and shouting to each other to be heard over the music.
A statuesque redhead wearing only a blue sequined G-string was just finishing up her routine on stage. She walked from one end of the stage to the other, moving with the beat, shaking her chest when the drums came in and then putting her hands behind her head and cranking her hips at the crowd when the drums came on loudest at the end.
She wasn't making eye contact with any of the drunken dreamers in the place, though. She was off in her own world, either stoned on something or wishing it was quitting time. Maybe she'd just taken it off so many times that she was too bored to care. Esto said he was going to the bar for drinks and I gave him a twenty dollar bill. He went over and stood by the cash register at the bar, trying to get the attention of one of the three busy bartenders.
A man in a jeans jacket was up against the edge of the stage trying to get the stripper's attention. He had a bill flattened out and leaned towards the woman, holding the bill out at arm's length. She bent at the waist and put her hands on the man's shoulders while he slipped the bill under her G-string. Then the man turned and let out a war whoop, accompanied by loud applause from one of the tables in the back.
Esto appeared at my elbow with a couple bottles of beer. He leaned close and yelled to be heard. "Let's find a place to sit down," he screamed. I was sure that my eardrums would be ringing from the loud music for days. Two men in denim and T-shirts stood from a table near the stage and left. We went over and took the empty seats before anyone else could make a move for them.
A stunning brunette came through the slit in the drapes and began working her way down the stage towards our end, cranking through what looked like aerobic dance moves in time with the beat from the music. Her skin was the color of dark cinnamon, and her muscles looked hard. She wore a shiny silver vest, a red G-string, and impossible blue stiletto spikes. I looked over at Esto. He appeared to be transfixed. The woman popped her vest off and threw it at the drapes. Then she turned up the energy a notch in her grinding, cranking dance moves.
She strutted down to our end of the stage before stopping in front of our table. After winking at Esto she began to writhe and twist as if she was imagining herself with a lover. She watched Esto's reaction the whole time with a piercing stare, and I would have laughed out loud if her routine hadn't seemed so authentic. I felt a stab of pain in my arm, but it was just Esto with that iron grip of his. He leaned across the table and screamed "It's her! My tomato!"
"I want to talk to her," I yelled back. The music was so loud that it was like shouting into a hurricane. Even screaming at each other it was almost impossible to hear what was being said. Esto got a twenty from his wallet, and then he stood up and held the bill out for her. She leaned over and blew a kiss at Esto, then stuck one hip out so he could slide the bill under the G-string. Esto pulled the string at her hip gingerly, slid the twenty dollar bill beneath, and then snapped the G-string like a rubber band. She gave him a devilish smile and he shouted something to her. She shouted something back to Esto and then leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head. She stood up and arched her back, smiling at me like I was her long-lost boyfriend. Then she fixed her gaze on me, gave me a wink, and strutted offstage with Esto's bill poking out the side of her G-string. I have to admit I was watching every move.
Esto shouted at me again. "She says she'll meet us at my car in a few minutes."
I nodded, ready to get out of there. I figured if I stayed much longer I'd need to talk to the dancer using sign language.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Esto and I finished our beers and went back out to the Cadillac. My ears were ringing as if I had gone target shooting with no ear protection. Esto seemed electrically charged.
"Did you see that?" he asked. He held out his hands like he was supporting a pair of big melons. "She is a goddess, is she not?"
"I saw. I saw," I said.
"I think she loves me!" he said.
I rolled my eyes. "What did you tell her?" I asked.
"That you wanted her, what else?"
"I just want to talk to her," I said. "I didn't say I wanted to have sex with her."
"It’s always better to eat a meal than to read a menu," Esto said. "This time the meal costs one hundred dollars. But well worth it."
I checked my wallet. I had four twenties, a ten and two five's. Perfect. I was spending my last cent on a prostitute I had no intention of sleeping with.
"She's beautiful beyond compare" Esto said. "What a shame for the money go to waste!"
"I just want to talk to her, Esto… Michelle… Remember?"
Esto thought about it. "You have much willpower," Esto said. "It's a great gift for a man to possess. I myself am like an unbridled horse at times. Willpower is not enough to control a wild mustang."
Esto turned on some soft guitar music while we waited. I put my head back against the headrest and sank into the leather seat. When I tried to remember everything that had happened that day my mind boggled. I had started the day at the film shop. Then I found two corpses in the desert. I was jailed by a murderer, beaten in the drunk tank by thugs, and then dumped by a girl I had barely started dating. Now I was headed for an arm’s-length rendezvous with a prostitute.
I was bone tired but I needed information on Bullard, and Esto’s tomato was the only hope I had. Everything I had on Bullard up to that point was circumstantial. I needed something I could use to nail his hide to the courtho
use door.
My head hurt from the fist fight in the jail, and the drinking I had done since Esto bailed me out had left me thick-headed and tired. I fell asleep in the car while Esto puffed contentedly on a cigar.
I awoke when Esto opened the door on his side of the car. He climbed out and tilted the backrest to his seat forward so the leggy stripper I had rented could get in. She wore jeans that looked as if they had been spray painted on and a scarlet tube top that seemed stretched to the limit. She slouched against the upholstery in the back seat and shot a phrase at Esto in Spanish. She was watching my face while she said it, and her words had some kind of challenge in it. Esto got back into the driver's seat and closed the door.
"What did she say?" I asked.
"She wants to know if you want to do it here or back at her place. She say her place is more comfortable."
"Tell her I want to go back to her place." Esto spoke to her and the woman replied in Spanish again. She leaned forward, resting her right arm on the back of my seat while she gave Esto instructions on how to get to her place. Esto put it in drive and we started rolling.
Then her left hand slipped down my shoulder and slid across my chest like a hot snake. I tried to tell her I just wanted to talk, but she wasn’t listening. When her hand headed south for my zipper I caught her hand in a firm grip and spoke to Esto.
"Tell her I just want to talk to her. Tell her that’s all."
Esto spoke to her and she said something back to Esto. "She say that's what they all say at first, but they always change their mind when the clothes come off. She wants to know if she’s going to get paid or not," Esto said.
"Tell her I understand, but I just want to ask her a couple of questions, and she will get paid," I said. Esto translated, and she asked him another question. Esto answered in Spanish and then she said something back, giving me a puzzled look before she sank into the darkness of the back seat.
"She wants to know if you are a policeman," Esto said. "I told her that you are a friend of mine, and no policeman. She say that's good, that she thought you were too good-looking to be a policeman."
There was a flash of light in the car as she lit something and then the heavy smell of a clove cigarette fought it out with the stink from Esto's cigar. I wondered if I would ever smell fresh air again. I rolled my window all the way down and leaned my head about halfway out into the breeze. Esto pulled to the curb a minute later and shut off the engine.
Esto and I followed her up the sidewalk to her apartment. I don't know if it was because of the spike heels or because she wanted to make a point about what I was missing, but she moved her hips from side to side in those tight jeans so hard that Esto laughed and punched me in the shoulder.
She had a small apartment on the first floor of an eight-plex. She tossed the remainder of her cigarette into the bushes and unlocked the door, then waved us inside. She shut and locked the door behind us, and then she said something to Esto. The three of us were standing just inside the front door of her apartment.
The kitchenette was straight across the tiny living room, and a table with two chairs was to the right. Off to the left was a hallway with two doors that I took to be the entries to the bathroom and the bedroom.
The woman held her hand out to me in the universal expression of "Give me the goods."
"She wants the money now," Esto said.
I pulled the money from my wallet and handed it to her. She stuffed the bills into the back pocket of her jeans. Then she said something short to Esto in Spanish before reaching down with both hands and yanking the tube top off over her head. Esto’s jaw dropped. She turned on her heel and went down the small hall and into the bathroom.
"She say she like to take a shower first when she can," Esto said. His grin was luminous.
"Christ."
She shut the door and I heard the sound of running water in the shower. Esto and I sat on the ragged sofa and waited. After a while I put my feet up on the small coffee table. My eyes burned from sun exposure and Esto's cigar. I rubbed my palms together until they got hot and then I closed my eyes and held the hot palms against my eyelids. It seemed to help, but not much.
Esto lit another of his cigars. I was too tired for small talk and he seemed to be content to just sit there and smoke.
The stripper came back into the living room wearing a shiny blue silk robe cut to mid-thigh. She seemed to barely notice us as she went across to the kitchenette and got a glass of water. She downed it and put the glass back in the sink. Then she dragged one of the chairs from the kitchen table over to where we waited on the sofa and sat down, crossing her legs. She said something to Esto and he translated for me.
"She want to know if you want it here with me watching or back in the bedroom," Esto said. "She say she not shy."
"Tell her I want to talk. Here, Esto. Tell her I mean it about just talking. Ask her about the party at Bullard's house. Help her remember."
Esto spoke to her in Spanish for a while and then a look of disgust came over her face. She began speaking emotionally, waving her hands and talking to Esto in a high-pitched voice. She went on for several minutes without pausing before she stopped to light another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table.
Esto turned to me when she stopped talking, and he had a worried expression. "She says those men at Bullard’s house were very bad men, my friend. She say they talked about bringing something heavy across the border. She say she overheard one of them talking of killing farmers in Mexico whose property they crossed."
I let out a long breath and Esto continued. "She say that she and her other friend who is a dancer were treated badly. She say that because she is a prostitute does not mean a man can beat her for entertainment."
''Tell her I'm sorry about what happened to her," I said. "Ask her if anything else happened."
Esto spoke to her in Spanish and she went off again for several minutes, becoming so agitated I thought we were going to have to restrain her. She held her hands together as if they had been tied and she started crying. Then she spat on the floor and went back into the bathroom, slamming the door.
"She say that other men leave in middle of night when they tired of slapping her and her friend around. Then Mister Bullard lock her friend in closet and tie her to bedpost in his bedroom. She say he had money spread all over the floor. She say he was very cruel to her. She say when she told him she tell the police about it he showed her his badge and then he beat her again."
"Jesus."
"She also tell us to get out and not come back," Esto said.
Chapter Forty
Esto dropped me at Brick's house, and I went up the stairs to the porch. A street light painted the front yard in shades of gray. The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up, and it felt like my nerves were electrically charged. When I opened the glass storm door I could see that someone had splintered the frame by kicking the front door in. I felt like I was ready for anything at that point, though. I stepped inside with my fists clenched, ready to fight.
I hit the light switch, and if I thought I was ready for anything, I was mistaken. There were fat streaks of red on every surface. It looked as if someone had uncorked a bag of blood and spun around, letting centrifugal force paint the walls. Bands of the stuff six inches wide spattered the television console, the drapes, the sofa, and the carpet. Even the ceiling had blood on it. A wide stripe of it had hit the light fixture on the ceiling and the blood glowed red on it.
A wet, fertile, cloying smell permeated the air and I knew that the source of the blood was still there in the house somewhere. I had the horrifying feeling that it was Rosalie's blood on the walls and ceiling and that I would find her crumpled body around a corner. I started checking the rooms, looking for the source.
The kitchen had gotten the same treatment as the living room, with red streaks spattered on the cabinets and linoleum. Big red footprints were visible on the floor.
I followed a big smeared stripe down one wall
of the hall that led to the bedrooms and the guest bathroom. The hall carpet was soaked, with a pool in front of the bathroom door. I knew I had found the source. I hit the light switch in the bathroom and the red bulb came on, lighting Brick's darkroom in that awful crimson glow.
Colonel, Michelle's dog, was impaled front to rear on the shower rod and hanging over the tub like a pig at a luau. His feet stuck awkwardly into the air and his head hung down with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. The arteries on his neck had been cut. One bloody eye was open. I felt like crying.
I pulled down the shower rod, and Colonel's body fell to the tub with a hideous thud. When Colonel's head hit the edge of the tub, something round popped out of the dog's mouth and it bounced on the linoleum floor a couple of times before it rolled to a sticky stop at my feet. My hands were so bloody at that point that I picked the thing up without thinking about it. Then I realized it was the golf ball that Rosalie had become so attached to.