Midnight Taxi Tango (5 page)

Reza

T
onight it's Shelly.

If I were capable of having feelings since Angie disappeared, I might have some for Shelly. Not because she's finer than the rest of them—she is fine though; don't get it twisted—but because at the beginning of the night, when she crawls into the back of my Crown Vic all prettied up and glittery, she always catches my eyes in the rearview and asks me how I'm doing. Not in the concerned way but not in the throw-off way either; she really wants to know.

Anyway, I don't think she's into women, especially not middle-aged skinny butch ones with salt-and-pepper hair and angry lines in their faces and memories of vanished lovers tattooed across their sleepless nights.

And anyway, I'm not sixteen anymore. In fact, I'm not even forty anymore, and I'm not here for the quick thrill of teaching straight girls that what they really want is this, and this, and this. Been there, done that. Far too many times.

And anyway: Angie.

So I nod. Yes, there's a glint in my eye. I can't help that; it's who I am. But I keep it to the trivial bullshit, and then we roll out into the midnight streets of Bushwick to whatever fancy scum made the call tonight.

• • •

It's one of those suburban blocks. Trees and pretty old houses that Germans and Russians abandoned in terror when we Puerto Ricans started moving in a few decades back. This one is all dark with a well-manicured lawn and draped windows, just like all the other ones. In other words, it gives me nothing. If it were a face, it'd be a blank stare. I don't like it.

“You want me to come in with you?” My voice is raspy, disarming at first, but it turns out to be sexy when I'm whispering late at night. I put a cigarette to my lips and then take it out again because I quit smoking last week and I really mean it this time.

Shelly rolls her eyes in the rearview. “You're such a worrywart.” She finishes putting her lipstick on, atrocious pink against her light brown skin, and flutters her lashes. She's Trini, I think, mostly Indian; she's getting a master's in social work and has a set of tits that can call you from across a room, but her swagger's a little pressed, if you ask me. She's better when she just stays genuine.

I'd tell her that, but she might either slap me or fall in love with me. Probably both. Instead I just mutter, “Okay,” and look out the window.

When the ritual of mirror coquetry is done, Shelly clomp-clomps out my cab and up the porch steps. She rings the bell twice and then tries the door; it's open, and she walks on in.

I shake my head. This isn't how any of it's supposed to go, but what can you do? Johns will always be unpredictable and finicky with their creepy little preferences and peculiarities. And I'm just the muscle. My gnawing discomforts mean nothing, especially since they've been there since Angie went missing six months ago, so who cares if that plunging knell of despair is a little louder than usual? I blip the base that I'm here, and the scratchy reply is in Charo's
voice. That's one thing I've always respected about Charo: he runs the whole operation, both the legit end and this side of things. He keeps his eyes on the bank; he checks in with his employees; he must handle an absurd amount of cash every day, and still he sits in on the radio board when someone can't come in. I've known him since he was little, know his parents and his sick fuck of an abuelo. I know them all, and believe me—Charo's the only one worth a damn. We've had our disputes, but he gets it done.

Charo wants to know if I'm okay. Stupid question and he knows it, but I guess it's in his gentlemanly code to ask.

“I'm fine,” I say. “But I don't like this place.”

“Maybe,” Charo says, “because it's only a block or two away.”

I'm about to ask away from what, but then rub my eyes and sigh. How could I not realize? The house that Charo and I turned inside out and upside down looking for Angie stands around the corner from here. It was the last place she was seen alive, and we took it apart a hundred different ways and didn't bother putting it back together and found not a single trace of the girl. Nothing.

“Reza,” Charo says.

“Hm?”

“You want me to send you Miguel?”

Miguel's the biggest driver we got. No, that's not true: Carbrera is the biggest driver we got, pound for pound. But that's all lechón and batidos. Miguel is made of muscle. He's on the legit end, doesn't know jack about this side of things, in fact, so I guess all the other heavies are off on jobs. I used to think he was a wuss, all that muscle notwithstanding. He has an on-again off-again chick that he never shuts the fuck up about—Virginia? Vanessa? Vanessa—but outside of my team, there's really no one else I'd rather have my back in a fight. Except Charo himself, of course, because sometimes sheer wrath will take you farther than any workout video or Tae Bo bullshit.

“No. It's fine. I'm strapped and there's nothing wrong—just us being paranoid. No te preocupes, Charo.”

I'm sure he shrugs at this point, probably lights a Conejo. Then he says, “Suit yourself, Rez.”

I roll down the window and let the Brooklyn night in.

• • •

I usually clean the Vic to pass the time, but I ran her through thorough last night and once-overed her with a rag earlier, and now she's immaculate, even by my standards. My suit pants are pressed and spotless; the perfect line runs down the center of each leg and stops just above my steel-tipped alligator shoes. The matching gray vest I'm wearing hangs just right over the Glocks tucked securely under each arm. There's a dagger strapped to my ankle, and the bigger hardware in the trunk. May seem like a lot to you, but I still have some habits left over from the Bad Years and one of them is Never Be Outgunned. There's a gold crucifix around my neck and a locket that Angie gave me that sometimes brings me comfort and sometimes nightmares. I never take it off.

The radio's playing old salsa, the good Cuban shit that's so true and raw they can only play it late at night on one of those 88.whatever college stations. I take the cigarette out of my mouth again and replace it in its gold case, shaking my head. I'm not thinking about Angie.

I'm not thinking about Angie.

The doctor Charo made me go to said, “Try not to think about Angie so much.” Might as well've told me to try not to have an arm. But I try. The song wants to take me elsewhere, but Angie's smile keeps wrenching me back. And then the emptiness her smile left behind. And then the frantic search. And then the feeling of gnawing desperation. And then giving up.

And then giving up.

Which I never really did, probably. Give up.

On Angie.

Even though Charo has told me to again and again.

Probably I dozed off, because a muffled scream wakes me from some kind of dazed stupor.

Fuck.

I'm out of the car, breaking toward the doorway, accosting the night air for any hint of another scream, anything.

It sounded like Angie.

Everything sounds like Angie when I first wake up.

On the porch, I stop. This is no way to move. I'm wide-open to attack. I'm barreling forward recklessly. This is not me. There may not have been a scream at all. My haunted head. There may have only been silence, like right now. I stand perfectly still on the front porch. Cars are passing on nearby streets. The Jackie Robinson isn't too far from here; it cuts through that big old cemetery on the border of Brooklyn and Queens.

No one is screaming.

No one is screaming, but something skitters over my foot in the darkness of the porch, and I jump back so fast it almost sends me toppling down the stairs. One of my guns is out by the time I regain my footing; it's pointed at where my foot was, but whatever it was is gone. It looked like a thing I hate more than death itself, a thing I would prefer not to even mention, thank you very much. And if it was that thing, there are more of them. There are
always
more of them. That's the rule about that thing. Many more. Seething, writhing masses of more. I reholster the Glock, walk back to my car, resist the urge to jump in and drive straight into the house, madman-on-a-rampage style, and come out firing. Instead I go into the trunk, bypass the secret compartment with the heavy guns, and dig through a duffel bag until I find a can of bug spray. It seems ridiculous, I guess, but like I said, I'll never be outgunned. Not by no killers and certainly not by no six-legged
hairy monstrosities. No, sir. I get a flashlight too, and then I walk onto the porch again and test the door.

It's open, and I slide ever so quietly inside.

• • •

Everything is in its right place in this standard American front hallway. There's an old staircase, coats on the coatrack, an open door leading off to the kitchen, a few closed doors on the way. It's dark, but some hazy streetlight comes in through a window. I can make out the old-fashioned swirly motifs along the wallpaper leading up the stairs. It's dusty in here, and the air is thick with mold. But nothing moves. No one screams. No creatures crawl across the walls. I don't lower the spray, and my gun hand twitches slightly, ready. The kitchen is the same; so is the living room. Everything's just so, and that's how I know something's off. It's all been carefully placed there, but no one lives here. The place is dead, a mask.

I'm standing in the kitchen looking out the window into the backyard when I see it. I can stand so still I almost disappear, and it makes every tiny movement crisp, shrill even. A tree is waving around outside, making a wild shadow show on the far wall. A digital clock on the microwave blinks 12:00; a car passes. And: something scurries across the floor and disappears under the fridge. I don't freak out. I don't. I let the freak-out wash over me and pass; it's only a jittery tremble now, and I'm about to take a step forward when another one of 'em shoots out of nowhere and makes its silent, frantic sojourn to the fridge. It pauses a couple times along the way; before it's gone, two more appear.

Even in the darkness I can tell there's something different about them. They're pale. Instead of that dark maroony swirl glinting with light, these are pinkish.

Anyway, maybe there's something rotting in there; they're making their way to a wretched feast. Maybe. I
swallow a little bit of vomit that found its way up into my esophagus and inch toward the fridge, my finger shuddering against the spray button.

There's nothing in the fridge but an unfortunate brown stain that's dark in the center and spreads into lighter, crusty circles. At any second, a thing will fly out from under there and up my pant leg, I'm positive. I step back from the fridge, carefully, and take it in. My brain knows there's something wrong, but my eyes can't decide what yet. It's one of those old antiquey ones, all bulky and aqua blue, and it stands next to the door coming in from the hallway. The front steps climb straight alongside the hallway, so the landing on the second floor should be right above my head and . . . there should be a basement. All these old houses have basements. There should be a door along the hallway wall that leads under the front steps. But there isn't. I stare harder at the fridge.

I know what I'm about to do and I already hate myself for conceiving of it. But there's no other way. I place my half-gloved hands on either side of the fridge and with two quick moves tip the thing onto one side and then lurch it forward at a diagonal away from the wall. About fifty shadows skitter out around my feet, and I catch my breath, dancing backward, point the can down, and push hard on the trigger button. They scramble away in a frenzy, and I'm left panting, sweating, and cursing as quietly as I can. I still myself, will my terror back into the iron box I keep it tucked away in. Breathe. There's something behind the fridge. Something besides ungodly insects, I mean.

Shelly,
a voice whispers in my head. But all I hear is
Angie.

It's a small door, wood-carved and old-fashioned, but just a brass hole where the knob's supposed to be.

Fuckers.

I want to hold my breath, but I know that'll only make things worse when something awful happens, and I'm positive something awful is about to happen. So I breathe, reluctantly,
deeply, as I reach my finger into the hole. The door swings open with a creak, reveals more darkness. And I'm actually relieved I finally have real cause to unholster this Glock and point it into the emptiness as I step-by-step it down some old stairs.

• • •

The wall doesn't crawl to life when I swat it with my hand. It's solid and cool, not even the bumpy decay I was expecting in my less wild nightmares. I flick something and a fluorescent glow blinks on from the ceiling. It reveals a recently remodeled basement: shiny white walls and gray carpets, even that fresh-paint smell. A couple of boxes are stacked in one of the corners, and the floor is covered with children's toys. There are stuffed animals, plastic trains, and action figures. It makes me nauseous, so I try to keep my eyes away from the toys as I work the perimeter of the room, checking the wall for irregularities. There are none: everything is solid-sounding, support beams right where they should be, paint even. I shove the boxes over to the side, and there behind them is another small doorway. This one is just big enough to fit through if I duck, and it has a doorknob.

I realize I'm sweating. And my breathing's not quite right. None of which is usual for me. I won't go into details, but the Bad Years put me in the face of every imaginable form of death, my own and others', and I'm one of the only ones who made it out of that time alive. Charo's another, but even he had it relatively easy compared to what I got mixed up in. They say Death walks just a few feet to the left of every man. Fuck that. Me and Death are kissing cousins. But right here, right now? I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. Besides the obvious things. I guess I'm still not right. Maybe I'll never be. Or maybe it's the skittering death monsters, whose absence from the basement is somehow even more unnerving to me than their abundance in
the kitchen. Or maybe it's those toys, which have no business being in a place like this.