South by Southeast (20 page)

A knock came at the door. Two knocks, a pause, and two more knocks. A code.

I raised my finger to my lips, warning Raphael not to speak. He squirmed, but he obeyed. Immediately, his cell phone vibrated on
the nightstand where I'd found the gun. I shook my head no. I was glad the ringer was off, or the person at the door would have known Raphael was in his room.

Careful to keep an eye on my patient, I snatched up the phone and pushed the button to silence its vibrations.
PRIVATE NUMBER
, it read. After a moment, I heard footsteps retreat from the door.

“There will be others,” Raphael whispered, hoping I would leave him. Praying, probably.

“Let's talk about Phoenixx,” I said. “You're tight with the management. Who else besides Hector?” Chela had told me every name she could remember, and Hector was the guy at the door who had let her and Maria in.

“They are . . . friendly to me,” Raphael said.

“I want security footage. I want to see who Maria was with and what she was doing at Phoenixx that night.”

“That is not possible! They would never agree.”

“Somebody better agree,” I said. “
Tonight.
Or it'll be cops asking instead of me. You and your girls are the last people to see Maria alive, Raffi. I will wreck your world if you get in my way.”

Raphael stared at the floor. “Let me make some calls,” he said.

“No,” I said. “You're coming with me.”

RAPHAEL MOVED LIKE
an old man, wincing and hissing. His bottom lip was swollen, starting to bruise bright red. We'd wrapped a torn pillowcase around his right hand, but those fingers would definitely need splints. He was lucky he could walk.

His limo driver kept his eyes on me in his rearview mirror. I don't think the driver believed Raphael's claim that I was a client, but he didn't ask questions. Raphael and I didn't speak during the ride. It took all of my concentration not to think about him touching Chela. With those hands. I wanted to break the rest of his filthy fingers. Maybe his neck.

Raphael was nervous and fretful. I'd confiscated his phone to keep leverage on him, and it vibrated constantly in my pocket. The sound of each missed call made him run his left hand's fingers through his hair and curse in Italian.

I'd kept the little .22 in my pants in case I would need it. I could get popped on a concealed weapons charge, but I didn't want to be unarmed if Raphael signaled for backup at Phoenixx. The first night I'd met Chela, I'd been jumped by a pack while I tried to investigate a murder, and I could feel history ripe to repeat itself. People get killed every day for less than I had done already.

It was only ten on a weeknight, so Club Phoenixx was barely awake. Raphael moved through the club like a dolphin at sea. I kept a step behind him. Nods and waves got him past the velvet rope, past the VIP lounge, and into the nightclub's bowels, where the sound of pounding techno was reduced to a low growl against the walls.

In the security booth, a bank of twenty LCD flat-panel monitors laid the club out for us in pieces. Cameras covered the front and rear entrances, the bars, the dance floors, and the VIP room we had just left. Maria's killer might be on video, but he would be hard to find.

“No chance in hell, Raffi,” said the blond-haired woman behind the desk Raphael tried to negotiate with. She sounded like a Brooklyn transplant, in her thirties. She reminded me of Brittany Summers but without the implants. “I don't know this guy. It would be my ass if J.D. even knew I was in here talking to you, much less this guy.”

“You said you have an hour,” Raphael said.

“Maybe, I said.
Maybe
an hour. I'm gonna risk my job for a maybe?”

Raphael gave me a
well I tried
shrug, but my stare told him to try again.

“I double my offer,” Raphael said to the woman. “Give us one hour. My friend is looking for his stepdaughter. He came a long way. One of my girls thought he saw her here.”

The security woman, whose shiny name tag identified her as Joan, cast me a sidelong glance. She didn't believe the story. Most likely, she thought I was a cop.

“Joan,” I said, “if she's not taking her medication, she might hurt herself or someone else. I just want to be able to call my wife and tell her I saw her, and she's okay.”

The Liar's First Law: the more specific the details, the more convincing the story. We would never get access if she knew we
were trying to view the tape as part of a murder investigation that might be linked to her club.

“We don't let in anyone underage,” Joan said, a disclaimer.

“She's twenty-one,” I said. “She just needs her meds.”

“Yeah, well, you should be careful with the company she keeps,” Joan said, glancing toward Raphael.

“No shit.”

Joan studied Raphael and seemed to grasp the significance of his bruises. She gave me a small, approving smile.

“Enough talking,” Raphael said, impatient. “Will you help us or not?”

“Fifteen hundred,” Joan said. It was twice his last offer.

“Yes, yes, it's done. Hurry.” As Raphael fumbled out his wallet and managed to extract neatly folded bills, an unwelcome thought came to mind:
Did Chela get paid?
If she had, she wouldn't have told me. My stomach filled with rocks. I would be as glad to be rid of Raphael as he would be to get away from me.

Joan popped her gum. “It's a lot easier to ignore people than it is to find them. I gotta get somebody to do the desk for me. Then we'll search on the laptop.”

Joan asked us to wait in the hall while she called for a replacement. She didn't want her boss to find us loitering in his command center. I leaned against the corridor's exposed concrete wall, close enough to Raphael that he wouldn't try to take off.

“After this,” Raphael said, “you walk away?”

“And leave your fingers in peace.”

Raphael glared. “And give me my phone.”

“Make me,” I said.

We stopped talking.

In five minutes, a broad-shouldered, crew-cut man named Hector came in to relieve Joan, sipping a fountain drink from Pollo Tropical. He nodded a “whassup” at Raphael as he walked by. I wondered how much Raphael spent greasing Club Phoenixx and
how many other clubs he had in his palm. Chela had told me that Hector was friendly with Maria, and probably the other girls, but I made a mental note to interview him later.

“Gimme fifteen,” Joan told Hector, and we followed her down the hall with a laptop under her arm. She led us to a semi-furnished break room with a vending machine and microwave. She set up her laptop on the table, avoiding the food stains. Phoenixx's glamorous exterior hadn't penetrated the bouncers' break room.

“When am I looking for?” Joan said.

“Friday. Eleven o'clock,” Raphael said efficiently. He remembered the exact time he'd last seen Maria. A businessman's mind at work, or maybe he had reason to remember.

“Our video's digitized,” she said. “Where am I looking?”

“The VIP room?” I said.

“Rear bar,” Raphael corrected. He knew better than I did. “North end. Near Xavier.”

“Ho Central,” Joan said. In other words, the usual spot.

Four screens emerged on Joan's laptop screen, and she focused on one, racing through time stamps. Raphael saw the women before I did, pointing his left index finger. “There,” he said.

Joan enlarged the image to full screen. I followed Raphael's finger to the right side, where two or three women were gathered in a corner well lighted from the bar. Two more arrived—Maria and Chela. The images were slightly grainy in infrared black and white, but I knew Chela's hair. Her arrival in the circle looked like a homecoming.

My little girl was stunning. No wonder Raphael remembered exactly when he'd seen her.

But I pointed out Maria. “The one in the sparkles,” I said. “That's her. I want to see everything she did.”

“You're kidding, right?” Joan said.

On the video monitor, Raphael approached Chela and Maria.

“Stop it there,” I said. “Go slow.”

I forced myself to let my emotions go dead as I watched Raphael propositioning Chela. I looked for signs that he was using intimidation on the girls, noting how they behaved in his presence. As soon as he'd shown up, all of the girls started smiling and posing, hoping to be noticed. But he had eyes only for Chela.

On the screen, Raphael pointed Chela's attention down the bar.

“Show me where he's looking,” I said, hoping to find Mr. Big Nose. From Chela's description, he'd been sitting at the same bar but farther down.

“Thought you wanted to watch Maria,” Joan said. I was surprised she knew Maria by name, but I tried not to show it.

“I do. But there's a guy she might have gone off with.”

“Try the second register,” Raphael said.

“There's some obstruction in that angle, but we'll try,” Joan said.

I leaned in closer to the image Joan produced. Club Phoenixx was packed, and so was the bar. I'd hoped his face would stick out, but so far . . . nothing.

“Where was he?” I asked Raphael.

With a sigh, Raphael leaned closer to the screen. “There, I think. At the bar.”

As soon as Raphael pointed him out, the man was obvious: wide build, wild hair, sunglasses. I couldn't see the monstrous nose Chela had talked about, but close enough. His back and profile faced the camera. While everyone around him was in motion, he stood stock still, staring toward the women. Staring toward Chela. He barely seemed to breathe.

“Closer on him,” I said, pointing. “And slow.”

Joan froze the footage and zoomed closer to the man, trying to bring his face into focus. The image blurred and sharpened as
she worked the controller. “You're not paying me enough for this, Raffi,” Joan murmured.

Frozen on his profile, I could see that his nose was bulbous, perhaps misshapen. Mr. Big Nose, indeed. Something about his profile jumped out at me.

“I want a copy of that image,” I said. “That guy.”

“Thought you were looking for your stepdaughter,” Joan said, trusting me less and less.

“I am. Let's go back to the bar.”

Chela chatted with the women for a while, but soon after her contact with Raphael, she looked nervous and eager to leave. What had he said to her? Chela and Maria seemed to argue, and Chela abruptly walked away. Maria followed.

“Can we keep them in view?” I said. “Maria and her friend?”

“Not the whole time, but if I know where they're going, I can try to follow them.”

“The nearest exit,” I said, guessing. “Her friend wanted to go.”

Joan worked the footage like an air traffic controller. A camera caught Maria and Chela hugging right before Chela exited. Had Chela wiped away tears? Rage tightened in my chest; I wanted to knee Raphael in the groin again. I was glad when Chela vanished, safe at home.

For the next hour, Joan searched footage to track Maria's movements. Raphael helped her pinpoint the instant when Maria had come to him to ask for a meeting with Mr. Big Nose, and her disappointment in his answer was obvious despite her frozen smile.

Maria spent a bit more time with the women in the corner, but they dispersed when Raphael left. They had hoped to impress him, and their show was over when he was gone. He didn't seem like a strong-arm pimp, but it could be hard to tell.

Mr. Big Nose sat like a statue at the bar. He listened without moving when Raphael came and whispered to him and sat frozen for two long minutes after that until he stood up to walk away.

“Where's he headed?” I said.

“The VIP room,” Joan said. “Same place I bet Maria's going.”

The camera angles were much tighter in the VIP room, since there were fewer people to track. Mr. Big Nose's face was clear, and something about him was suddenly familiar. Had I seen him before?

“I want that image, too,” I said.

The encounter came within twenty minutes of Chela's departure. Maria approached Mr. Big Nose in the VIP room at 11:33, girly and flirtatious, her shiny purse clutched under her arm. I glanced at Raphael:
Did you see this?
He only shrugged and shook his head.

This encounter might have gotten Maria killed, but I couldn't pinpoint why. Mr. Big Nose's familiarity gnawed at me. I might know him, but he felt all wrong.

A disguise,
I realized.

On the video, Maria's smile lit up the room. Most of the men were staring at the way her dress clung to her ass, but her smile was her most memorable feature.

“Your daughter's pretty,” Joan said. “Your stepdaughter, I mean.”

At first, Mr. Big Nose seemed to dodge her, retreating to a plush chair with his drink. But Maria came at him again, and this time she ended up sitting on his armrest, crossing her legs at indelicate angles.