Henchmen (7 page)

The address Jessica’s dad had written down is for a rental house up in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill. It’s an ideal location for anyone working at Kirtland Air Force Base or teaching at the University of New Mexico.  Living in Nob Hill also gets you close to Central around UNM, which is an ideal place to find hookers and crack.

The rental is a standard-issue raised one-story house designed in the eclectic (read strange) style of the rest of Nob Hill: falling down around itself, yet still costs a small fortune.  The house looks like it has tenants, though, which is a good sign. Hopefully one of them will be Delano Hayha.

Out front are a couple cars, a rusty Toyota and a nicely restored Mustang.  The Toyota’s windows are down, which is the universal sign for “nothing of value in here” around these parts.  The stairs leading to the front door shift from side to side when we walk up them.

Yes, stairs on a one-story house.  It’s Nob Hill, what are you gonna do?

The doorbell doesn’t work, so I bang on the door and resist the urge to yell, “Police.”  There’s some shuffling, a crash, some muttering and finally the door opens.  The kid who opens the door takes one look at Jessica and says, “We said we wanted you later tonight.”

She looks at me.  I look at her and shrug.  We both look back at the little douchebag who opened the door, standing there in his too-tight TapOut shirt and designer jeans, hair gelled up into a fauxhawk. 

“She’s not a hooker, dipshit,” I say.  “We’re looking for her dad.”

This part of Nob Hill doesn’t usually host college students, it’s far too pricey.  Between the Mustang out front and the kid’s designer clothes, though, it dawns on me that daddy is paying for this place and junior is living the dream.

“I could be your daddy, baby.”  He reaches out to stroke her face, and she slaps his hand away.  Stupidly, he gets excited.

“Ooh,” he says. “Feisty. I like that in a woman.  You know what else I like in a woman?  My dick.”

Charming lad.  Sometimes I weep for the future. Then I remember my folks said the same thing about my generation.

I sigh.  I was hoping the two of us together would be sufficient, but I should’ve brought Jacob along.  His mere presence tends to ratchet down situations quickly.  Jacob looks mean, but he’s actually pretty damned nice.  On the other hand, I have seen him head-butt a horse when he was drunk.

“Listen ass-clown,” I tell the kid, “we just want to find her dad.  Do you know anything about the guy that used to live here?”

He sneers.  “No.  And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you until she bribed me on her knees.”  He reaches for her again and she pushes his hand away.  Without warning the kid slaps her hard across the cheek.  She’s so shocked it doesn’t occur to her to beat his ass down.  The way I see it Eve gave me orders to take care of this girl, so I punch the kid in the head and down he goes.  I may not look like much, but I’ve got a wicked punch.

“Fucking hell!” Jessica yells, rubbing her cheek.  “I can take care of myself.  We needed him awake!  How is going to help us now?”  She’s pissed, but damned if it didn’t feel good to hit that guy.

“Fuck him.  Come on, maybe there’s a roommate.  There are two cars out there, after all,” I respond.

The place is furnished in “late-college modern”: milk-crate bookcases, beer signs and posters of half-naked women.  A couch propped up by a textbook adorns the street wall.  The neon colors in the beer signs really bring out the stains in the carpet and the poorly patched holes in the walls.

Someone screams, and a glass breaks. Standing there in front of us is a young woman in shorts and halter top.

Is this the roommate?  Maybe, but I’ve never met a woman who will let you put up beer signs and posters of half-naked women in the living room.  She’s standing there like a deer caught in headlights. Milk from the glass she dropped is dripping through the floorboards into the basement below. She has a huge shiner on her right eye.  Looks like the guy cooling his heels on the floor had a thing for hitting women.

I admit it’s probably a bit alarming to walk into a room and find two strangers looking around and your man-boy flattened out on the ground.  Still, that milk is going be a bitch to get out of the rug.

Jessica puts her hands up and slowly walks forward.

“Look,” she says quietly. “We’re not here to hurt you; we don’t want anything except information.  Then we’ll leave and you’ll never hear from us again.  Please, I need your help.”

Maybe it was just the “one woman talking to another woman” thing.  Maybe it was the quiet voice and calm demeanor. Or maybe it was the fact that I stayed back and didn’t make a threatening move.  Whatever the reason was, the roommate relaxes slightly but noticeably.  Good thing, too - she didn’t seem to be breathing, and the last thing we need right now is two people flat out on the floor.

“Who are you people?” she asks, eyes darting back and forth between us.

“My name is Claire,” Jessica says calmly and quietly, “and this is Tyrell.”

Tyrell? Oh, fuck it.  I can roll with being a Tyrell for a bit.

“What’s your name?” Jessica asks.

“Amber,” the woman mumbles.

“Amber.  My dad’s name is Delano Hayha.  He used to live here but he’s disappeared.  Did he leave anything behind?”

Amber shakes her head.  We need to leave soon - her eyes are about to bug out of her head.  She may actually explode.

“OK. Calm down. It’s all good.  Do you rent this place?” I ask.

She points at the guy on the floor.

“He rents this place?”

Amber nods her head. 

“Okay. Do you know who he rents it from?”

Without taking her eyes off us, she backs over to a desk and quickly grabs an envelope and hands it to Jessica.

“Lobo Fandango Rentals,” she reads.  “Up on 9000 Spain NE.  Know where that is?”

“Yeah,” I say, “It’s up in the Heights.  Not too far.”

“Can I keep this?” she asks Amber, who has now started shaking.  The boyfriend is starting to groan now, too.  It’s time to get moving.  Amber nods her head to keep the envelope and we start backing out.

I’m glad we parked around the block.  Amber’s shock should keep her from calling the cops immediately. Although, what’s she going to report, anyway?  A couple of nondescript white folks thumped her boyfriend and took an envelope?  The cops around here won’t do a damn thing about it, because it’s just college kids doing college things, and who cares?  There weren’t any drugs involved, so it’s not worth their time.

We quietly walk out and drive away.

According to the web browser on my phone, Lobo Fandango is a one-person business.  It’s wholly owned, operated, and run by a guy named Silvio Goodman, who is apparently a self-styled real-estate magnate.  Silvio seems to think he’s Trump without the bad toupee. He doesn’t realize that Trump handles multi-million-dollar real estate deals while Goodman’s deals mostly involve screwing over broke college students.

Silvio’s even got a picture of himself on his web site: a short, stocky guy with thinning hair and arms crossed across his chest like he’s trying to look tough.  Some short guys can look tough - or at least worthy of respect - but this guy isn’t one of them.  He’s trying way too hard to look like he’s success personified, leaning on his stock 350z like it’s a damn Ferrari. 

Lobo Fandango is located in a formerly swanky part of town. Goodman’s running the business out of his house and probably using the business to write off part of his house payments on his taxes.  The Z is parked in the driveway, so that’s a bonus for us.  By the way, the vanity license plate on Goodman’s Z spells “DOLLERZ.”

What a babe magnet this guy must be. 

The house is your typical gaudy oversized house, owned by gaudy people who think the décor in Tony Soprano’s house was high-class.  He’s got the requisite neatly trimmed lawn complete with pink flamingo.  The door mat spells out
Bienvenido. 
I wonder if he’s trying to look quaint or just say welcome to the large native Spanish-speaking population in town.

When we get the door, Jessica turns and says, “Can we get some information from this guy before you knock him out?”

I hold my hand up in my best imitation of a Boy Scout salute and say, “I won’t smack him unless he really needs it.”

She sighs, almost exasperated and says, “Let me handle this one.”

Damn. Knock out one stranger who wasn’t a threat, and you’re marked for life.

She has to ring the doorbell twice before the Lord of the Manor deigns to answer the door.  He’s shorter in person than I expected, maybe 5’5” or 5’6”.  He looks at me and frowns.  Then he looks at Jessica and smiles, suddenly quite happy to assist us.  There must be certain aspects of being a woman that come in handy, most notably the fact that men get really stupid around pretty women.  I’m sure it’s not all sunshine and roses, but being able to completely warp desperate men with a smile must come in handy.

The inside is as tasteless and bland as the outside; he’s decked the joint out in pastel carpets and framed Nagel posters.  It’s like
Miami Vice
never went off the air.  I think I’ve seen some of the plaster statues Goodman has in those Sky Mall catalogs they give out on airplanes

“What can I do for you today?” he asks her, a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m interested in the property at 420 Hermosa,” she asks.

“Let me check this out for you.” He sits behind an enormous, ornate desk and moves some papers off his keyboard.  He two-finger types a few things into an archaic computer, and waits while it makes a wide variety of clicking and chirping sounds. 

I wander over to look at the bookcase.  It’s stocked with expensive-looking books - a few classics, but mostly real-estate books, self-motivation texts, and other crap.  I grab a copy of “The Book of Five Rings for Executives” and start flipping through it.  The classic treatise on sword fighting distilled into executive-speak.  I briefly studied Kenjutsu, and have read the original version of “The Book of Five Rings.” For some reason, I’m always vaguely insulted when I see one of these classic texts converted into a self-help book for lily-assed middle managers.  I know I shouldn’t get myself worked up about it, but, dammit, ruin your own texts. Go rewrite Zig Ziglar, or something. Leave mine alone.

He looks up and frowns. “That property is already rented.”

“Yeah, we know,” I say.

Jessica shoots me a look, and sits down all prim and proper in the chair in front of Goodman’s desk.  “We’re … I’m interested in previous renter.  Delano Hayha.”

Goodman goes white.  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Please, I need to find out what happened to him.”  She’s giving him the damsel in distress treatment, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

“It’s time for both of you to go now.  I have a very important business meeting.”

Jesus, dude. At least try to not look completely guilty.

He stands up, walks around the desk, and holds out his hand to Jessica.  Silvio is a true gentleman to the end. She shakes her head and says, “We’re not going anywhere until we find out what happened.”

“I don’t have anything to tell you.”  He’s getting nervous.

I rip a page out of his book.  Damn, it feels good to do that.  “Actually, it’s probably a good idea if you did tell us.  It’s not like we’re asking for anything important, right?”

He looks from me to Jessica.  She no longer looks prim or proper, and there’s an angry look creeping into her eyes.  The last time I saw that look, my newly acquired knife had to be cleaned.

“I’m not scared of you.  You can’t do anything to me,” Silvio stammers.  He’s scared, maybe not of us, but he’s scared.

“We don’t really want to do anything to you,” Jessica says.

“Speak for yourself,” I say, ripping some more pages out his fake “Book of Five Rings”.  He’s never even opened it. He just keeps it around so he can feel tough.

Goodman’s shaking a bit now, eyes darting back toward his desk.  “You can’t scare me with this good-cop, bad-cop bullshit.  Just get the fuck out, now.”

I know this guy has a serious Napoleon complex, but no real-estate agent gets like this over a previous tenant.  When we got here, I doubted this idiot would know anything, but now I’m guessing he’s neck deep in something.  I’ve met plenty of guilty people in my previous life - hell, I’ve been one of them - and he’s got the terrified look that comes from interacting with forces bigger than himself.  Usually you see this look on people working with the Mafia, but I’ve seen it on people in trouble with the government, too.  Goodman’s got a look people get after they run into people they didn’t quite understand, and got in bed with those people over before they fully understood the consequences of their actions.  He’s hiding something, and he’s more worried about being caught by them than he is afraid of us. 

But fear is a powerful motivator, and it’s time Goodman paid more attention to the immediate threat.

“Oh, you misunderstand us,” I say.  “This isn’t a good-cop, bad-cop thing.”  I point to Jessica. “This is bad news,” then point to myself, “and worse news.  Just answer the fucking question, and we’ll walk away quietly.”

“Fuck you!” he yells, and tries to run around his desk.  Jessica hooks his leg, and he stumbles into the edge of the desk. He bounces off and trips himself.  She laughs, and he goes bright red.  He tries to get up, and she kicks him in the jaw without even getting out of her chair.  Goodman goes down again.

I walk over to him and stand on his fingers.  He screams like a little girl and slaps at my feet.  Jessica squats down in front of him.  “Delano Hayha is my father.  I’d very much like to know what happened to him.”

“He didn’t pay his rent, so I kicked his goldbricking ass out!  I had every right!  It was in the contract!  Would you get the fuck off me?”

I think for a second.  “No, I can’t move right now.  When did you kick him out?”

“About nine years ago.  He stopped paying his rent!  I went over and he was just sitting there, staring off into space.  I told him to get his ass out by the next day, or I’d be back with the police.  I came back and he was still just sitting there, so the cops escorted him off
my
property.”

What kind of slumlord remembers a tenant from nine years ago?  Something happened to drill Delano Hayha into Goodman’s mind.

Jessica looks pained.  “Did it occur to you to call for medical help?  I mean, if he was just sitting there staring off into space, something must’ve been wrong.”

“That’s not my problem.  I need to make money, and he wasn’t paying me what he owed.”

Wow.  I thought I was callous.  “You dirty, saprophyte motherfucker.”

“You ass,” Jessica says to Silvio.  “You could’ve tried doing the right thing.”

“I did do the right thing!  I made money off my property.”

“Aiyah,” I say.  I picked that up watching some movie and have been using it ever since.  It’s such a perfect word.  In case you’re wondering, it’s a traditional Cantonese sigh of disgust.

“Fine,” Jessica says.  “What did you do with his things?”

“I auctioned them.”

“Motherfucker,” Jessica says.  She looks at me “Do you happen to have that knife on you?”

“Of course I do,” I say, pulling the knife out its sheath behind my back.  I spent some time earlier polishing it to a mirror finish, and honing the edge to a razor.  I make a show out of letting the sunlight glint off it before handing it to Jessica.  She holds it up and looks at her reflection in it. I have to hide a smile when she adjusts her hair slightly before squatting back down in front of Silvio.

Goodman’s eyes go wide as dinner plates.  There’s a kind of primal terror about being cut that hits right at the cold part of your stomach.  I’m honestly more afraid of being cut than being shot; I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.  When you get shot, it does a lot of damage all the way through your body - but it’s over quickly.  When you get cut, it takes time to die.

I look down at Goodman. “You sold every fucking thing that guy had?”

“I kept a locked box.  They were looking for it, so I figured it was important.”  He promptly shuts the fuck up, like he’s said something that he shouldn’t have.

“They,” she asks him.  “Who are
they
?”

He’s purses his lips like if he squeezes them tight enough, no more secrets will spill out.

Jessica holds up the knife. “Let me explain something to you, slick,” I say. “She will cut you up, and smile while she does it.  Since time is of the essence, I’m thinking she should start with your face.”

I look over at Jessica and raise an eyebrow in question.  She shrugs.  “Why not start with an eye?” she asks.

“Good point.  No pun intended, Sil.  Ever seen what happens to an eye when it gets punctured by a knife?  Your eye is mostly water surrounded by a membrane.  It’s kind of like a water balloon.  Puncture it and you can guess what happens,” I tell him.

Jessica smiles and says, “Pop.”

Goodman has stopped struggling.  Faced with the choosing between a possible situation with “
them
,” whoever they may be, and a couple of crazies right in front of him, he’s kind of freaking out.  Fear is a wonderful thing. 

At least, it’s a wonderful thing to share with other people.

He gulps the biggest gulp I’ve seen, closes his eyes and says, “In the top right drawer, in the back, under the papers.”  Apparently the local horror has outweighed the faceless horror.

Jessica opens the door and pulls out a dull gray, seamless metal box.  There’s a tear in her eye as she cradles it to her chest.  “I haven’t seen this in years.”

“Take it and get out, you sick fucks.”  Apparently Goodman’s not so terrified that he can’t speak.

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” I tell him.

“You’ll never get it open.”

I twist my foot and hear the bones in Goodman’s hand pop and grind.  I think I just broke a couple of his fingers.

“Is that the only thing left?  Do we need to need to break or cut things to get the whole story?”

“That’s it. I told you. I sold the rest,” he spits through gritted teeth.  Tough little bastard.  I’ve seen people break down and cry over a hangnail. This guy got his hand ground into hamburger, and he’s just gritting his teeth.

Jessica hands me back my knife, kicks Goodman in the head, and walks to the door.  From a pure security point of view, it would be best to kill this guy and keep the loose ends to a minimum.  Murder tends to bring more police attention than assault, though, so I let him live.  Goodman’s gone limp, so I chuck his name plate in the trash and follow Jessica out the door.