Shella (8 page)

I nodded again.

“Only place he goes, only place we know, is this club. Over there, in this Chapinero. Looks like a storefront on the street, but the whole cellar, they use it for this club. He goes there alone, goes downstairs alone, anyway. Leaves his boys upstairs. He likes to dance, down there. Brings a broad with him, puts on a show. I got people, watch him. He don’t carry a piece.

“I send two shooters down there, couple of weeks ago. Another guy for backup. The two shooters get dead. The guy who comes out, he tells us, the place is all dark, little spotlights on the dance floor, that’s all. This Carlos, he’s dancing with some cunt, got his hands all over her. The shooters roll on him, bang-bang, they both get dead. The other guy, he didn’t see the whole thing, but when the lights come on, Carlos, he’s just standing there, nothing in his hands. Turns out they was shot in the chest, head-on. Like it happened by itself. No way Carlos does it, not like that.”

Monroe’s face looks at me. Just his face, not his eyes. “You got nothing to say?” he asks me.

“No.”

“You understand what I’m telling you? He shoots people without a gun, okay?”

“Okay.”

“This is the guy you got to do, Ghost. Here’s a picture of him. You do this, I’ll find this broad, Candy. I’ll hunt her down for you.” He looks at me with his eyes now. “We got a deal?”

“Yes,” I told him.

When Misty got home, I asked her, does she have to work every night.

“I don’t
have
to, baby. I mean, I could have a night off anytime, I guess, I just ask the boss.”

“Do you want to go someplace with me? A nightclub, like?”

“Sure! I love to party, honey. I didn’t think you … Where would you like to go?”

“This club I heard about. In Queens. It’s supposed to be nice.”

“Can we go tonight?”

“Next week,” I told her.

I took a train to the neighborhood the next day. When I bought the token for the subway, the lady gave me a map, different-colored lines, all the stops on there. It started out underground, but then it went outside. I got out, walked around. Like Monroe said, the whole neighborhood was Spanish—the restaurants, the drugstores, even the newspapers. I walked by the storefront. It looked closed in the daytime, the window was painted over. I could read the neon sign, even when it wasn’t lit. Bajo Mundo.

I couldn’t see if there was a back way out. People wouldn’t come to a nightclub on the subway, but I couldn’t see a parking lot either.

I walked around a little bit more. I wasn’t worried about people getting a look at me. Nobody sees me.

I went back the next night. The elevated-train platform looks down on the club. I stood there, looking down. Cars drove up. Fancy, sleek cars. A couple of guys out front, they would take each car, drive it off somewhere. Somewhere off the block—I couldn’t see where they went. Like at a country club.

I was counting the cars, trying to figure out how big the place was inside. It was about ten o’clock. The man I was looking for, I couldn’t see him. Maybe he didn’t come until late.

I felt them come up behind me, but I kept watching, over the railing. When they got close, one said something in Spanish. I turned around. The guy who was talking, he had a gun. They were wearing those sweatshirts with hoods on them. I was all the way at the end of the platform, dark there. Other people maybe a hundred feet away. I knew they wouldn’t do anything.

I put my hands up. The guy without the gun, he reached in my jacket pocket, took out my wallet. There was maybe three hundred bucks in there. He took it. The guy with the gun made a motion like I should turn around. I did that.

I heard them move away. One of them said something. Marry-con, it sounded like.

Just before midnight, three cars pulled in together. The man I was watching for got out of the back seat from the
middle car. He looked just like the picture Monroe showed me. The man held out his hand, and a woman took it, came out after him. They went into the club. Men got out of the other cars, stood by the door.

When other cars pulled up, those men watched.

Just before three o’clock, the same three cars pulled up in front. The man came out, the woman just in front of him. All three cars pulled away in a line.

I got my car out of the garage at the hotel the next afternoon, drove over to the neighborhood. I just drove around for a while until I found a parking space a couple of blocks away from the club. I read the signs. The car wouldn’t get a ticket even if it was there for a couple of days. I left it there, took the train back.

I was awake when Misty came back. I smoked a cigarette while she took her shower. She came out, wearing a pink silk thing that sort of wrapped around her.

“Do you like this?” she asked me.

“It’s pretty.”

She did a spin so I could see the whole thing. Sat down on the bed. Stretched like she was real tired from work.

I laid down on the bed next to her, looking at the ceiling.

“Can you get credit cards?” I asked her.

“Sure, honey. Someone’s always looking to sell them at the club. What kind?”

“American Express, Mastercard, Visa … any big card.”

“Fresh ones go for a yard. And they’re only good for a couple-three days. You know …?”

“Yeah.” You can always get credit cards. They rough them off in purse-snatchings, slip them out of pocketbooks in the ladies’ rooms … then they sell them. Most people use them to buy things. Then they sell the things. To the same kind of people they stole the cards from.

“You have a driver’s license?”

“No, baby. I mean, I got ID, but …”

“It’s okay.”

She rolled against me, put her head on my chest, reached down, started playing with me.

“What do you need, honey? Tell Misty, I’ll get it for you.”

“We need a car. For when we go to this club. A fancy, nice car. We’re going to rent a car, leave it there, understand? Go home in our own car.”

“Why don’t we just take a limo?”

“A limo?”

“Sure! We can rent one. Just for the night, okay? It doesn’t cost that much. Like a taxi, only fancy. Some of the guys, the ones who come to the club, they use them. When they’re ready to leave, they just make a call, the car’s waiting for them out front.”

“They’re like cabs, right? They have a log, write down where they take people?”

“I … guess so.”

“No good.”

I thought about it, turned it over in my mind. I don’t do things fast, except when I get right to them. Shella wasn’t like that, always impatient. She was always playing, not thinking how things would come out.

We had some money ahead, once, and she wanted to rent this little house, like a cottage, right near the beach. It was okay with me. Neither of us was working then. A vacation, she said it was. Nighttime, I would go out to the beach, look at the dark water. Sometimes she came with me. One night, she didn’t. When I walked back to the house, I saw the car was gone, no lights on. Figured she went into town—Shella got restless sometimes. I opened the front door, felt somebody there. I slid back out the door, closed it softly, didn’t click the latch. I went around the back of the house … couldn’t find where anybody’d got in. I found a good spot, where I could see the car when she came in. Whoever was inside, they’d have to come out sometime.