Blood Trade, page 8
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You want to find out if your kid really is with the pimps. I say, cut out the middle man.”
He stopped in front of a yellow adobe house. Xochitl couldn’t help but think how, except for color, it was virtually identical to the one where Lance had presumably killed some drug dealers. She reminded herself that she hadn’t actually seen him shoot anyone. Lance got out of the car and walked around to her side, looked at her and said, “Get out.” When they got to the front steps, they found an old woman sitting in a rocker just outside the front door. Xochitl almost didn’t notice the sawed-off shotgun she held. Lance opened the door and went inside, pulling the Goth detective along with him by the arm. They passed through the dining room into the living room. He pushed her into the middle of the room and then plopped himself down in a shabby rattan chair in the corner, resting his chin on his fist.
This was déjà vu all over again. It was like being back in Israel’s crèche. Six women reclined on torn pieces of furniture or on the floor. Of course none of them were sucking blood, but most of them looked stoned out of their minds. They either sneered at her or ignored her altogether.
“You’re that crazy inked-up puta!” a man shouted.
Xochitl turned to see a skinny Hispanic man with a shaved head walking into the room from a hallway. She recognized him immediately—Eskimo. He was the biggest of the big three. He ran whores all over Vegas. He walked past her.
“I knew you were fucked up after what you did to Slither,” he continued, “but you’ve got some seriously giant balls coming into my home, bringing the cops…”
“I kind of expected a nicer house,” she interrupted.
“You want your whores in the gutter,” said Lance from his seat, “you’ve got to stay in the gutter to keep them there.”
Eskimo’s head snapped around and his face went noticeably pale.
“Lance… Lance, I didn’t see you there.” He formed his mouth into a crooked smile. “Do you want something? How about some coke… a little fluff? Piece of ass?”
“Maybe a cool beverage,” replied the cop.
Eskimo back-handed the closest whore so hard that she flew halfway across the room. “Get him a fucking beer!” She scrambled to her feet and into the kitchen.
“So, Lance…” Eskimo stared expectantly at the seated man.
Lance pointed to Xochitl, and then took the beer from the returning girl’s hand. She took a new seat by his feet and held onto him around the knee. She had a blue snowflake tattooed on her neck. Eskimo looked back and forth between the cop and the private detective. He was clearly more at a loss as to what was going on than she was. Finally Xochitl pulled out the picture of Daphna Sachs and held it out.
“I’m trying to find this girl. I want to know if you… if any pimp in town has her.”
The pimp took the picture and looked hard at it.
“Never seen her before.” He looked at the cop. “I could find if she’s turned out… as a favor to you, Lance.”
Lance shook his head as he swigged the beer. Then he swallowed. “No. This has nothing to do with me. This is between you and her.”
Eskimo looked back at Xochitl. His eyes almost implored her to explain what was going on, and then they turned cold. He sneered.
“Yeah…fuck it… fuck it. I’ll find out for you. A’ight. You’ll owe me one, you crazy fucking bitch. I’ll find out about your girl. Give me a day.”
“My office is at…”
“I know where you are. Everybody knows the gun-crazy, tattooed puta.”
“It’s nice when you make new friends,” said Lance, getting to his feet and handing his unfinished beer to the girl at his feet. “Come on.”
He took Xochitl once more by the arm and led her to the front door.
“Hey Lance,” called Eskimo. “We’re a’ight?”
“We’re cool, Eskimo,” said Lance over his shoulder. “Just don’t forget to pay your taxes.”
In something of a daze after leaving the pimp’s house, Xochitl stared out the cruiser’s window as Lance drove toward Glitter Gulch. She knew what Lance was doing. She wished she didn’t. He was collecting protection money from the drug dealers and the pimps… probably from everyone in town. And he was working for the mob—for Tony the Pipe. She really wished she didn’t know that. What she did want to know was why he wanted her. She came back to reality as the car came to a stop, not in front of her office, but a mile away at the Pretty Good Place, pay-by-the-week hotel.
“Come on,” said Lance, getting out once again.
“I’ve got to get home,” said Xochitl.
“Come on.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think we should do anything anymore.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not after your precious body this time. We just need to talk. Come on.”
She followed him through the darkened lobby and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Unlocking the door of room 211, Lance led her inside. The room was red—red walls, red curtains, and red comforter on the bed. It didn’t look any too clean. In addition to the bed, there was a small table with four chairs and a red loveseat.
“Why do you have a room here? Don’t you have a house with a wife in it?”
He turned around smiling, and then punched her in the solar plexus. She dropped to her knees and tried to suck in some air.
“Next time I tell you to come in, you won’t make me repeat it three fucking times!” he shouted, pacing around her like a tiger in a very small cage.
Xochitl rolled to her right and popped back to her feet. She aimed a pair of kicks at his face. He blocked the first, but the second sent him flying across the room.
“You’re not going to… touch me anymore.”
To her surprise, he was laughing when he got back to his feet.
“I make the rules. And you still owe me.”
“I could kill you,” she said.
“I know you could. That’s why I like you so much.”
He crossed the room in two quick strides and swung at her. She blocked and hit him with a kidney punch, dropping him to his knee. He punched her in the thigh, knocking her legs out from under her, and then he laughed again.
“And I can kill you too.”
“Go ahead.” she hissed. “I don’t care.”
He climbed to his feet. Taking her face in his hand, he pulled her to a standing position and pressed her against the wall. He grinned.
“It’s funny, you know. Those who think they have nothing to live for, are the ones who have the most to lose. You might not care if I kill you, but how about that pretty blond vampire you live with? She’s already got a target on her. If it wasn’t for me, she’d already be history. That’s just one more favor you owe me. If I’m not keeping her under my protection, she gets dropped in our favorite manhole, in pieces.”
He squeezed his fingers together, squishing her face.
“Or how about that fat fuck you let draw all over you? Wouldn’t it be terrible if something happened to him? Or maybe your new friend, the FBI agent?” He let go of her face. “Now get the fuck out.”
Xochilt backed away to the door, opening it without turning her back to him. Stepping out into the hallway, she almost collided with a woman who was apparently just preparing to knock. She was a tall, curvy redhead, a little on the heavy side perhaps, but with the excess weight in all the right places. Her red sequined dress was stretched tight across her body and her cleavage threatened to swallow anyone who came too near.
“You’re early,” Lance told the woman, who stared at Xochitl. “Oh, don’t mind her. She’s just a business associate.”
“Sophia Meade, meet Xochitl McKenna.” He grabbed the redhead by the elbow and yanked her in the room so quickly that she almost got whiplash. Then he gave the detective a thin smile. “Don’t forget what I said.”
Chapter Seven: A Day with Dominic
Xochitl walked up Second Street and crossed Clark, only a few blocks from home, when she heard it—the cry of the wolf. No, no, no, no; that wasn’t right. The last night of the full moon had been the previous night. It couldn’t be a werewolf. The howl came again. It couldn’t have been more than two hundred yards away— just to the north and east of her. Damn it all to hell. She hadn’t brought any silver rounds with her. Why would she? She heard the wolf howl again. It was subtly different. It was hunting now. It had found prey.
She sprinted a hundred yards to the front of the Catholic Church, where she stopped and stared. Even in the light of the single street lamp and the sodium bulb attached to the building just below the large cross, she could see wave upon wave of yellow and purple flowers across the newly planted beds in front of the church. Ranunculus: a mixture Buttercup and Monkshood. What idiot gardener had planted them? Normally landscapers in Vegas put out little flowering annuals right about now. No sense spending a lot of money, because the plants would wither under the desert’s summer sun. But Ranunculus were perennials, so while they would grow just fine in the springtime here, it was just wasteful to see them dry up and die in July. And who would plant Monkshood in a churchyard? Monkshood, also called Aconite, Devil’s Helmet, Blue Rocket, Leopard’s Bane, Women’s Bane… Wolfsbane.
There was a scream! It was right around the corner. Xochitl raced as fast as she could around the building. Her pistol was in her hand even before her mind registered that a werewolf was standing in front of her. It was not in its wolf form, nor in its human form. It was in that half humanoid, crouched shape that made it seem like a refugee from a B movie. With horribly misshapen limbs and patchy fur, it gave the impression of disease or… a curse. Its long snout dripped saliva down upon the body of a woman lying below it.
Skidding to a stop on grass still wet from the night time sprinkler, she emptied all seven rounds into the werewolf. Glocks were great for shooting at convenience store robbers, but when you wanted stopping power, nothing beat a .45. The wolf staggered back three steps. He took one step forward again as Xochitl dropped the clip to the ground and slammed another into place. Seven more shots right into its body. The creature fell to the ground. It looked at her and roared, not very wolf-like but scary as shit. Then as the Goth detective shoved her last clip in and pressed the slide stop with her thumb, the beast jumped to its feet and turning, loped away, up Bridger Avenue.
Xochitl watched it go as she walked over to the woman lying prone. She kept an eye on it until it turned off into an alley and out of view. Then she reached down and rolled the woman onto her back. She was a pretty woman about Xochitl’s age—probably a tourist who had wandered too far away from the lights of downtown. She had several deep scratches across her face and probably on her body, if her torn clothes were any indication, but when Xochitl checked, she had a strong pulse. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she called 911 and asked for an ambulance.
The whole thing took a couple of hours. The ambulance arrived, as did the fire department paramedics. Xochitl thought about reporting it as a mountain lion attack, as the cats did sometimes wander into town from the nearby mountains. Considering that this was the center of the city though, a dog attack seemed more likely. She was sure to add that it had been foaming at the mouth. The woman didn’t look like she was injured enough to be cursed. You had to be close to death for werewolfism to take hold. On the other hand two painful shots would not only protect the woman from rabies if she happened to get bit by a squirrel in the next few weeks, but were about 50% effective in preventing werewolf infections. Better safe than sorry. Finally she had to answer questions from the fire department and from a chubby female animal control officer who clearly thought the entire city revolved around how many stray dogs were in the downtown area. As the detective finally left the grounds of the church, she angrily stomped a path through the flower beds.
As she crossed First Avenue, Xochitl found a woman lurking around the front door of Sin City Detective Agency. A statuesque blonde, the woman wore a white mini-dress with black polka dots and a pair of white platform boots with open toes revealing white toenails also dotted with black spots. Hearing the detective’s footfalls, the woman turned around revealing the thick coating of makeup that marked her as a stage performer from one of the Strip shows. Xochitl nodded to her as she unlocked the front door, and then held the door open for her. Once inside, words fell from the woman’s mouth as though she was unable to stop them.
“Are you the detective? I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have to find somebody to help me. It all just seems like a nightmare. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. I mean, who ever thought something like this would happen. I know I didn’t. If I had, I never would have moved to Vegas in the first place. I could have stayed right where I was.”
“First things first,” said Xochitl. “Who are you?”
“My name is Evan—Evan Clark.”
The detective peered at Evan’s neck and cleavage as she walked around the desk and sat down behind it.
“You are a chick, right?”
“What? Yes, of course. Oh, my name. It used to be Evelyn, but I changed it. Evelyn is so old-timey.”
“Yuh-huh. So… Evan, what seems to be the problem?”
“I think Martin is in trouble.”
“And who is Martin?”
“He’s a friend of mine, well… you know he’s a little bit more than a friend.”
“He’s your lover?”
“No. No, he’s a friend. Maybe you would say he’s more like a fan. He likes to come watch the show. I work at Foxy’s in the Sixties Mod Bods. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
“No.”
“No? Well, it’s a 1960s go-go review. Martin started coming to watch it about three months ago. I started talking to him one day, and he’s really nice and kind of lonely, so he started buying me things.”
“What kind of things?” asked Xochitl. “Food? Jewelry?”
“Yes, Jewelry and some clothes… and a car.”
“Okay, I get it. So what makes you think Martin’s in trouble?”
“He didn’t come in all last week and that’s unusual. Then he finally does come in Saturday night with two guys he says are friends from out of town, but he looks terrible. After the show, he gave me some flowers and there was a note in them.”
“Do you have the note?”
“Oh, yes.” The go-go dancer reached into her bosom and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She handed it to the Goth detective who unfolded it and read three short sentences scrawled in obvious haste. “Help me. I’m in trouble. Don’t call the police.”
“So you read this and your mind made the mental leap to ‘Martin’s in trouble,’” said Xochilt. “Impressive.”
“Well that and the two guys he was with were vampires.”
“How do you know?”
“They come into Foxy’s all the time. After a while you just know them, you know?”
“Did you call the police?”
“No,” said the dancer, her eyes large and round. “Martin’s note said not to. Besides, what are they going to do?”
The door to the back opened and Novelyne stepped into the front office. She tapped Xochitl on the shoulder, indicating that she should get out of her seat. They changed places.
“I heard it all from the other room,” she said. “I’ll get the information. Let’s start with a description of Martin.”
She looked expectantly at the client.
“Well he’s really old,” said Evan. “I don’t know… like fifty, maybe.”
Xochitl’s cell phone rang and she stepped into the back room before retrieving it from her pocket and answering.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Me who?”
“It’s Dominic Zielinski, um… Agent Zielinski.”
“I know who it is,” Xochitl laughed. “I’m just fucking with you.”
“Oh… yeah. I was just wondering if you wanted to have lunch.”
“I like lunch. I try to eat it almost every day.”
“I meant would you like to have lunch with me.”
“When?”
“Why don’t you meet me at my hotel room at noon? Room 318 at the Stratosphere.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the time—8:13.”
“I’ll be there, Dom.”
“It’s Dominic. Actually it’s Agent Zielinski.”
“I’m sorry,” said Xochitl. “I didn’t mean to insult…”
“It’s alright. I was just fucking with you.” His over-enunciated profanity gave the very clear impression that he seldom used it.
Sticking the phone back into her pocket, Xochitl climbed the stairs to her room. She was exhausted but not really sleepy. There wasn’t much point in trying to get two or two and a half hours of sleep. She stripped and bathed, then looked in the mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes.
“You could smuggle drugs in those bags under your eyes,” said Novelyne from behind her.
“Don’t worry,” said the Goth, pulling out her make-up bag. “I can cover them up.”
“You won’t be able to cover them up, even with that horrible white paint you use. You would need at least five pounds of Plaster of Paris and a trowel of some kind.”
“Ah, but you see, the idea is not to try and cover them with white,” said Xochitl as she continued to spread Goth white over her skin. When she was finished, she painted dark circles—far darker ones than those created by her physical state—using black makeup. The effect was frightening, but Novelyne had to admit that she could no longer see the dark circles under Xochitl’s eyes.
“Did you get all the information we need?” she asked her secretary.
“Yes. And a $1000 retainer.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Apparently she really likes this Martin guy. He’s not much to look at, if you ask me.” She held up a photograph of a smiling man.
Xochitl pushed past Novelyne and went to the dresser only to find out that she was out of clean clothes. She didn’t have any underwear and the clean clothes she had were all things that she no longer wanted to wear. Throwing on her sweats, she left for the Chinese Laundry on Gass, retuning forty minutes later with a neatly tied box full of folded clothes and several outfits on hangers, covered with plastic. She pulled out her white long-sleeved shirt and matched it with a black pleated skirt, a black necktie, and white thigh-high socks.
