Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

“No, of course you don’t. You’re just here to collect the blood money.” Jenny felt her emotions starting to take control. “You’re worse than them.”

“Let’s get back to your problem,” Gordo said. “Normally, I give notice by certified mail. If after thirty days I haven’t received payment, then I file suit.”

She stared down at him. “You file whatever you want. I’m not paying them any more money for killing my mother.”

“The records show that you’ve already paid twenty-seven thousand dollars, but it’s been almost a year since your last payment. All I’m asking is that you resume making your payments.”

“I’m not paying your clients another fucking dime.”

“You’re not going to have a choice, Ms. Porter. When I sue you, I’ll get a judgment, and then I’ll file liens on your property, garnish your wages, whatever I have to do to serve my clients.”

“Go to hell…” She glanced at the card. “… Mr. Gordo.” Jenny pointed to the door. “And get out of my apartment.”

Hiram Gordo sprang to his feet, surprising her with his speed. She tried to step back, but the back of her legs bumped the coffee table and stopped her. The lawyer grabbed her arm.

Jenny tried to pull away, but his fat fist held her tight. “Maybe we can… work something out that’s mutually satisfying to both of us.”

She looked into Gordo’s swollen face, at the thin line of sweat beaded above his upper lip. “What do you mean?”

The putrid stench of his breath washed over her face as he pulled her closer to him with his right hand, while the fingers of his left hand stroked her arm. “I mean maybe we can do something for each other. Quid pro quo, as it were.”

She jerked her arm free and upended the coffee table as she backed away from him. “Get out!” she shouted, jabbing her finger at the door.

Gordo smiled again. “You don’t really want me to leave, do you?”

She exaggerated a glance at the closed door to her bedroom, trying to draw his attention to it. “I live with someone.”

The fat belly jiggled as Gordo laughed. “You live alone, Ms. Porter.”

Again she looked at the closed door and wished there really were someone in there to help her throw this pig out. She kept backing away, still trying to bluff. “If you don’t leave right now, my boyfriend is going to come out here and kick your ass.”

“My investigator has been watching you.”

“Watching me,” she said, suddenly sick to her stomach.

“I thought it would be a good idea to know more about you.” His face cracked into a smile. “I know you live alone, I know where you work, and I know what you do for a living.” He chuckled.

“You’re looking for a freebie?”

“Forty-eight thousand dollars, Ms. Porter, it’s a lot of money. I can help you.”

She backed toward the kitchen, thinking of things she could use as weapons-knives, forks, the steel pot sitting on the drain board.

Gordo followed her.

“Help me with what?” she asked. Keep him talking. It would give her time to think.

“I can get you an extension,” he said, stalking toward her. “Maybe work out easier payments.”

“And what do you want?”

Her back bumped into the wall between the den and kitchen. Gordo laughed, then reached out and caressed her cheek. “I think you know what I want.”

He grabbed her arms and pinned them against her sides. He leaned forward and kissed her. Jenny twisted her face away and ducked. She tried to slide under his arm, but he held her against the wall with his big belly.

With her back braced, Jenny drove her right knee up into the fat man’s balls. The lawyer grunted but didn’t let go of her. Near panic, she again slammed her knee into his crotch. Another grunt, but the fat man still wouldn’t let go.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, felt his thumb pressing into the hollow just behind her collarbone. He was trying to drive her to the floor.

“You can do it on your knees if you like,” he said.

Jenny twisted her neck and sank her teeth into his thumb. She tasted his blood in her mouth. Gordo screamed, a high-pitched wail, like a young girl. As he jerked his hand away from her shoulder, Jenny twisted under his arm and dashed into the kitchen. He stumbled after her. “You bitch!” he screamed.

She made it to the countertop next to the stove just as he grabbed a handful of her hair. Gordo yanked her head back, but Jenny’s hand closed on the handle of a steak knife, part of a set of six, the handles sticking out of a wooden block. He pulled her back and down, trying to drag her to the floor, but she kept her feet under her and didn’t fall. Instead she spun toward him and stabbed at his chest. He saw it coming and twisted away at the last second. The blade stabbed through his sleeve and dug into the flab of his upper arm.

He backhanded her across the face and jumped away, grabbing at the hole in his jacket. Jenny held the knife in both hands, the point up, aimed at his face. “Get out of my house.”

Gordo glanced down at the blood seeping between his fingers. Then he looked at Jenny. “You stabbed me, you crazy bitch!”

Although she was at least five feet away, she jabbed the knife at him. “I’ll stab you again if you don’t get your fat ass out of my apartment.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” He looked astonished, like they had been playing a game. “You’re a whore. You fuck for a living, yet you won’t do it to help yourself get out of debt? I’ve had housewives fuck my brains out over a five-thousand-dollar credit card debt they didn’t want their husbands to know about.”

They stared at each other across the floor of the small kitchen, both breathing hard. Gordo looked at his arm again. “I can’t believe you stabbed me.”

He lunged at her.

Jenny hacked at his face. She missed, but the fat man stumbled backward to get away. She rushed after him, thrusting the steak knife at his eyes and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

The blubbery lawyer turned and ran. She chased him to the edge of the kitchen, then stopped, afraid to get too close to him. At the apartment door he turned. “This isn’t over.” He nodded toward the bloody hole in his sleeve. “You’re going to pay for this.” Then he threw open the door and bolted out.

“What’s the matter, you afraid to be seen with me?” Ray said.

Jimmy LaGrange nodded. “Yeah.”

“Every time we meet it’s somewhere new.”

“Maybe that should tell you something.”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t want to meet with you,” the detective said.

Ray glanced around the park. They were near Lake Pontchartrain, not far from his boathouse apartment. The late-afternoon air was warm, and for a change it wasn’t raining. November in New Orleans and people were still out in shorts, some walking dogs, everyone enjoying the nice weather.

The two former partners sat on opposite sides of a picnic table. Ray said, “What’d you find out?”

LaGrange slung his attache case onto the table. He pulled out a thick manila folder. From inside the folder, he slipped a computer printout of at least a dozen pages and slid it across the table to Ray. “Scooby’s rap sheet associates.”

Ray flipped through the list of everyone Michael Salazaar had ever been arrested with in New Orleans. He started to count the names.

“Fourteen,” LaGrange said. “I highlighted the ones who got picked up with him for felonies.”

“Thanks,” Ray said.

He studied the printout. Under each name was a section containing basic identifying information, including race, sex, date of birth, and last known address. Nine were highlighted in yellow. Below the identification section was a list of charges.