Charlie Hustmyre: House of the Rising Sun

It had been his place first, before she moved in with him. Then after he went to prison, she had thought about giving it up but decided to keep it. Why not? French Quarter apartments weren’t easy to find, and it was within walking distance of the bar where she had worked at the time. It was even closer to the Rising Sun, so when she had gone to work at the House it made even more sense to keep the apartment.

She spun the taps on in the tub, making the water as hot as she could stand it before flipping the lever that turned on the showerhead. She eased one foot at a time over the side of the tub and slipped under the blast of water, pulling the shower curtain closed behind her. Inside it was safe and warm, and she felt like she was shutting out the whole damn world.

Every morning after she left the House, the first thing Jenny did when she got home was take a shower, always staying under the hot water for as long as it lasted.

For a full ten minutes Jenny leaned forward, palms pressed against the wall below the showerhead, her head hanging under the water as it cascaded through her hair, leaving it draped in thick strands along both sides of her face. Then she tilted forward a bit more and let the stream blast the back of her neck, rolling it first in large clockwise circles, then circling it to the left as she tried to work out the knots.

Only after the water had washed away some of the tension did Jenny start scrubbing. Using a long-handled wooden brush with stiff bristles, she raked her back, her shoulders, and her arms. Then she sat down under the steady stream and did the same with her legs and feet. She scrubbed until her skin felt raw, but even then she still didn’t feel clean. As Jenny stood up, she let the last of the warm liquid wash over her like rain and imagined it rinsing away all the filth.

When the water turned cool, she shut it off. Sliding the shower curtain aside, she stepped out of the tub and pulled a thick towel down from a wide shelf. As she dried herself, she thought about Ray.

After their encounter this morning, she had seen him again, just past six o’clock, right after the cops finally cleared out. She had been up on the second floor, trying to get away from everyone downstairs, when she saw Ray slipping out the emergency exit. She had seen him leaving through that door before and knew he was going to climb the outside fire escape to the roof. This time she thought about going after him, about trying to talk to him again, but she didn’t. There was no use in it. Too much had passed between them to ever go back to the way it was.

A few minutes after Jenny spotted Ray climbing to the roof, on his way to do whatever the hell he did up there every morning, she saw Tony Zello practically skipping down the stairwell. She figured he was coming from Vinnie Messina’s apartment on the fourth floor. Judging by the big, shit-eating grin on Tony’s face, she also figured he had been successful in convincing his boss that the robbery wasn’t his fault.

Tony slowed when he saw Jenny leaning against the bar. He stepped out of the stairwell and strolled toward her. “Shane really fucked up this time.”

Jenny kept her back against the bar and tried hard to look unconcerned. “How’s that?”

“Are you kidding me?” Tony threw an elbow over the bar, dangerously close to Jenny’s shoulders. It bugged her, but she didn’t move. He did stuff like that all the time. Because they used to sleep together, he seemed to think she didn’t have a right to personal space anymore, that he could walk up and violate it anytime he wanted.

“We did that asshole a favor,” Tony said. “We gave him a job and put him in charge of security. Then he let four guys come in and knock us off.”

“Four guys with guns, Tony.”

“Twenty years we been in business here, and you know how many times we been robbed?”

She didn’t know but had a feeling she was going to find out. Tony held up his hand and made a circle with his fingers and thumb. “Zero. That’s how many.”

Jenny stood up straight as she felt her anger rising. “What was he supposed to do?”

“What we pay him for.” Tony stood up straight. “If he had any balls, he would’ve stopped those cocksuckers.”

“Stop them with what, a mean look?”

Tony turned toward her and shrugged. “When Old Man Carlos calls me, I’m gonna tell him straight out, Shane blew it.”

She knew Tony was talking shit, still trying to impress her with what a big man he was. “Why would Carlos call you?”

“Business. The Old Man calls me just about every day.”

She pointed to the stairs. “Weren’t you just up on the fourth floor making sure Vinnie didn’t think it was your fault?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody cares what Vinnie thinks. Carlos is the boss. Only reason he lets Vinnie run this place is because they’re brothers, and it keeps Vinnie from fucking up anything else.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“He’s like the Queen of fucking England.”

“Are you calling Vinnie a queen?”

Tony snorted and shook his head. “What’s she really do? The Queen of England, I mean. She don’t do nothing. She’s a figurehead, just like Vinnie.” He tapped a finger against his chest. “I run the House.”

“That’s going to be a surprise to Vinnie. Finding out that you think he’s an English homosexual, and that he works for you.”

Tony jabbed his finger in her face. “You keep your mouth shut, or you’ll end up on the street, selling your pussy on Tulane Avenue like any other crack whore.” Then he reached down and scooped her crotch.

Jenny knocked his arm away. “Keep your hands off me.”

Tony stepped even closer. “That’s not what you used to tell me.” He dropped his voice into what she knew he thought of as a smooth, sexy baritone. “How about you go home and get cleaned up, and later on I could drop by.”

Jenny looked Tony straight in the eyes. “You want to screw somebody, why don’t you go home and screw your wife?” She turned away from him and walked toward the stairs.

Because Jenny had known Tony for years, she knew how his devious little mind worked. As a class-A brownnoser, he wasn’t going to let any of the shit from the robbery fall on him. He would suck up to Vinnie, then go behind Vinnie’s back to his brother Carlos and bad-mouth Vinnie, subtly but effectively. It was a dangerous game playing the two brothers against each other, but if anyone was weasel enough to pull it off, it was Tony Z.

As Jenny finished drying off, she wrapped the towel around her head and stepped to the vanity. The naked reflection staring back at her from the mirror above the sink made her want to cry. On the outside she looked basically the same as before Ray went to prison: five foot seven, with a slender waist and soft curves. She had the kind of body men wanted-and would pay well for-but she could see past the roundness of her hips and the swell of her breasts, she could see the hollowness inside, she could see the degradation she had wrought on her soul.

Jenny shook her towel-wrapped head, forcing the self-pitying thoughts from it, and turned her focus back toward Ray. Since replaying her conversation with Tony in her mind, she knew she should warn Ray that Tony was blaming him for the robbery. If Ray was going to defend himself, he needed to know what was going on. But would the stubborn Irish son of a bitch listen? And even if he did listen, and understood the danger, would he do anything about it? Since coming home from prison, Ray didn’t seem to care about anything anymore, especially himself.

Jenny unwound the towel from her head and dried her hair. When she finished, she tossed the towel onto the vanity and stepped into a pair of pink panties. Then she slipped on an extra-large man’s T-shirt. The gray shirt had a dark blue star-and-crescent, the symbol of the New Orleans Police Department, silk-screened onto the left breast.