Holy Guacamole! (13 page)

We stared at each other, perplexed. “They only mentioned student visas,” I admitted. “But gracious, Jason, there are Mexican workers all over the city who probably don’t have green cards. They cross the river with something called a
mica
. It’s a visitor’s permit that allows them to stay for seventy-two hours. Then they work instead of going shopping or visiting relatives. Surely someone would like to hire a nice Russian girl as a—I don’t know—nanny or something. Maybe one of the maquiladoras needs a Russian translator. Anyway, I’ll go see the music chairman tomorrow. What’s he like?”

“Temperamental,” said my husband. “Volatile.”

“Well, that sounds like fun.” I sighed and brought in some vanilla ice cream on which I’d splashed a Mexican coffee liqueur and scattered chopped pecans.

“And Carolyn, much as I appreciate this dinner, I rather suspect that you took those two girls out to lunch to see if they could figure out who killed Vladik and then softened me up so you could bring up what we should do about them.”

There are drawbacks to marrying an intelligent man. Such men tend to see through one’s little attempts at manipulation.

“By the way, I have to fly to Austin tomorrow for a few days. I’ll call you tomorrow night when I get a place to stay, and you can tell me how Dr. Tigranian reacted to the news about his Russian students.”

Approaching Brazen Babes

J
ason packed his
suitcase and then went to bed immediately after dinner, leaving me with a huge mess in the kitchen. No wonder I don’t like to cook anymore. The next morning, after he had left, I called Dr. Armen Tigranian at the Music Department. I should have simply barged in. By asking for an appointment, I was put off until three that afternoon, although talking to him was an assignment I had wanted to get out of the way as soon as I could. What had Jason meant by
volatile?
I don’t care much for volatile people. You never know what they’re going to do.

To take my mind off what might turn out to be a confrontation with Dr. Tigranian, rather than a quiet discussion of what could be done for his ill-used Russian music students, I thought about their place of work and the man they worked for. If I wanted to find out anything about Vladik’s associates, Boris Stepanovich Ignatenko seemed to be my only hope. But was it safe or suitable for me to go there? Unescorted women probably didn’t. I don’t think there were any lone women watching the tassel-twirler in New Orleans. Obviously, I needed advice.

One might think of the police in such a situation, but Art Guevara was not the sort of person I wanted to talk to. Nor was he interested in anything I had to say except whether my canapés had induced sickness in the victim. None of the opera ladies or faculty wives would know any more about places such as Brazen Babes than I did. It was obviously a den of prostitution as well as a performance arena for exotic dancers. I remembered a terrible situation in which I’d found myself in Barcelona. I was actually offered money for my “favors.” Not a situation I cared to have repeated; yet going to Brazen Babes on my own might lead to just such a contretemps, should there be any patrons with a fetish for forty-something matrons.

So who did I know that would be knowledgeable about vice in El Paso? I sighed. Luz Vallejo. She had been a Vice lieutenant and could advise me about how and where to approach Boris Stepanovich Ignatenko. She would also be sarcastic about it. Still, better to endure a bit of embarrassment than to put myself in danger. I called her to ask if I could come by that morning. She swore at me. What an ill-tempered woman! Still, when I gave her a hint of my problem, she agreed to see me. She was probably laughing her head off.

When the proper Mrs. Blue called, my first impulse was to tell her to go stuff it. Then she mentioned Brazen Babes. The two of them in the same context caught my interest. The wonder was that she had ever heard of the place. And my knee was aching like a son of a bitch. A little diversion couldn’t hurt. I spend too much time around the house feeling sorry for myself, so I told her to come ahead, and she was on my doorstep in ten minutes.

“This is very considerate of you, Lieutenant Vallejo,” she said as soon as I opened the door. “I learned some particularly upsetting things yesterday while I was pursuing information on who might have been Vladislav Gubenko’s friends and enemies.”

She walked right into my living room, with me limping behind, and flopped down on my couch, the picture of perplexity, dismay, and surprised pain. My couch is a rustic Spanish number that doesn’t lend itself to flopping, or comfort, or visitors who want to stay very long, which is just why I bought it.

“I took the two opera students he brought over from Russia to lunch yesterday. Poor things, they ate everything I agreed to buy them and still looked hungry, and they cried when I gave them some inexpensive little thank-you presents. During lunch they told me that as soon as they got here, Vladik moved them into a disgusting trailer park, gave them a car that rarely runs, enrolled them at the university, and then put them to work nights at a place called, as I mentioned, Brazen Babes.

“They have to dance partially unclothed on the stage and tabletops, and naked, for all I know, and he wanted them to have sexual relations with customers—all so that he could take their wages and tips in return for his help in getting them to this country.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “l never knew old Boris was into white slavery. Naked girls and pimping, sure. He gets arrested. The girls get arrested. Then they all go to court and swear nothing bad was going on, just artistic dancing. What a crock.”

“Then you know him?” she asked eagerly. “He’s the only person I’ve found who seems to have been friends with Vladik—they were business partners according to the girls—and who might know anything about Vladik’s death.”

“Hell, Boris might have killed Gubenko himself,” I said. Now this was really interesting. “Did the girls put out?” Mrs. Blue seemed at a loss for an answer. “Did they have sex with the customers?” I added in case she didn’t know what
put out
meant or was too embarrassed to answer.

“One did. Once,” she mumbled. “Then they refused. They’ve decided they’re lesbians. Small wonder. I gather that her father sexually abused the other one. They also refused to have sex with Vladik. I never realized what a detestable man he was, not that I saw much of him, but I don’t think Jason knew either. But then it’s not the kind of thing you discuss while waiting for an academic committee meeting to begin.”

“How old are they? Are they minors?”

“I don’t think so,” she answered. “They’ve been at the university for several years, and they have lovely soprano voices. Vladik evidently promised to make them opera stars here in the United States.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what we’ve got here,” I said, feeling invigorated, “aside from the possibility of murder: pimping and prostitution on the local level, and the feds could build cases for hiring illegal workers, who worked without work visas, failing to pay minimum wage or any wages, probably nonpayment of social security taxes and worker’s comp, nonpayment of income taxes. Too bad the girls aren’t minors. That’s a good bust. Statutory rape—probably—”

“But I don’t want you to have the girls arrested,” my visitor exclaimed. “They’re victims. We’ve got to get them out of there and into decent jobs so they can eat and live someplace while they’re going to school.”

“What’s this
we
business?” I asked.

“Well, of course I meant
I’ve
got to try to do that. I’m going to see the chairman of the Music Department this afternoon, and I’ll try to get some Opera at the Pass members to find them jobs, but there’s Mr. Ignatenko. He may hold the key to Vladik’s murder, or at least have relevant information and—and—” Her face turned pink. “And I don’t know how to approach him. I mean can I go into his club, or do I have to have an escort? Where is it? I’ve never even heard of it. And if I did go in, would it be dangerous?”

“In other words, you want to talk to the smut-bag Russian, but you’re scared,” I retorted.

“Of course, I am. That’s why I came to you for advice. You were a Vice lieutenant. Who else am I going to ask about such things?”

I stared at her, thinking, while she squirmed on my uncomfortable sofa. You couldn’t pay
me
to sit on it. Then it occurred to me that I was actually having fun. How long since that had happened? And I hadn’t noticed my knee since she turned up at my front door.

“Okay,” I said. “If you really want to talk to him without getting kicked out on your ass, or at least having it pinched, be here at, say, ten tonight. You’ll have to drive.”

“You’re going to go with me?” she asked, looking pathetically grateful.

“Yeah, if your husband will let you out of the house. Maybe he’ll want to come along.”

“He’s in Austin,” she replied, and gave me a big smile. “It might even be fun,” she added. “Going to Brazen Babes. Isn’t that a tacky name? What should I wear?”

Jesus Christ, I thought. I was chaperoning Mrs. Brady Bunch to a strip club, and she was right: It might even be fun. But not, I hoped, for Ignatenko. He probably didn’t see many prissy faculty wives in his line of work.

The Good Works of Opera Lovers

H
aving lost my
own brief and ill-considered optimism with regard to our proposed visit to Brazen Babes, I left Luz Vallejo’s house, puzzled at her sudden good humor. In her place,
I
certainly wouldn’t be looking forward to that undertaking. I
wasn’t
looking forward to it, although having someone to go with was a great relief. I might well have given up the idea if she hadn’t offered.