J. Kerley - The Apostle

“There’s a bottle under your seat,” I told Belafonte. “Grab it.”

She reached down and found a half-full pint of bourbon. “You’re going to drink?”

“Pop the cap and bring it to your lips. You don’t need to open your mouth, but we need to look like we’re partying. Hurry. If we’re made they’ll slide back into the shadows. Or Matthews might pull them off the street.”

She screwed the cap off the bottle, appeared to take a hit. She passed the bottle over and I did the same and pulled to the curb beside a small alley. Across the street a woman of Latina extraction – girl, really – in gold lamé shorts, a top little more than a black bra and net hose studied us. I gave her a wink and took another pull from the bottle. She waved with three coy fingers.

“Now what?” Belafonte whispered.

“According to Juarez, these are some of Matthews’ girls, and that means he should be in one of these bars.”

“Why then are we here?”

I kept my eyes on the hooker as if appraising her, talking to Belafonte with as little lip-motion as possible. “I don’t want to brace him on his turf. I want him out here.”

“How’s that going to happen?”

“I’m gonna run a play on these folks,” I said.

“A play?”

I winked, time to show the kid how the pros did things. “Stay put, watch how it’s done. I’ll have Shizzle-boy out here in two minutes.”

I half climbed, half fell from the Rover, recovered and meandered toward the hooker. “Hey, babuh,” I slurred. “My fren’ and I are looking for a li’l spice.”

A smile below the street-wise eyes; in this area I figured alley stand-ups and front-seat oral was more the norm. “I can party with y’all,” she said. “Two hundred an hour.”

“Hunh-unh,” I said. “I just need you to tell us where we can find a pretty white lady. We’re not into spicks.”

“You ain’t into what ?”

“But you ain’t too shabby for darker meat. Tell you what, I’ll give you ten for a hummer … as long as my lady can watch.”

The eyes turned to slits. “Get the fuck outta here, asshole.”

“Don’t be mean, chica,” I said. “What else you got goin’ on?”

“FUCK OFF!”

“I’ll make it fifteen. Where you from, little mama? Haiti? Honduras? Fifteen bucks is like, what, a year’s pay over there?”

“GET LOST!”

I was betting one of Matthews’ other products had run to his hidey-hole to report a problem. I backed the girl against an abandoned storefront.

“Twenny, chica … all right? But you gotta do my lady, too.”

She tried to slip by to my right, I was in front of her. Darting left did the same. I was a fast drunk. I saw her eyes look past my shoulder and go from scared to relief.

“Yo, muthafucka,” said a voice from behind me; Shizzle, no doubt, out of his hidey-hole and protecting the merchandise. I spun. He was tall and in full-length leather topped with a wide-brimmed white hat, furious that I’d pulled him from the comfort of his brandy cavern.

I was about to cool him out with the shield but my eyes burst into flames. A fist caught me in the throat and sent me to the pavement on hands and knees, rolling away when a kick caught me in the gut and knocked out my breath.

“Muthafucka, you gonna be pissing blood for a week.”

Gasping for wind, I was too concentrated on warding off the next kick to try for the piece in my waistband. Plus I was near blind.

“Excuse me?” I heard a polite feminine voice say. It was followed by a sound reminiscent of a hammer striking meat and a simultaneous scream. Shizzle Diamond’s hatless head slammed the pavement beside mine and kept screaming, rolling on his back and pulling his legs to his chest.

I blinked through tears to see Holly Belafonte silhouetted against a streetlamp, a collapsible nightstick twirling through her fingers like a drum majorette in a holiday parade. She helped me to my feet. Matthews was still on the concrete, teeth clenched in pain. It seemed the hooker had pulled pepper spray from her purse and blasted my eyes. Belafonte had trotted over armed with the nightstick kept in her purse, and whipped it behind one of Shizzle’s legs. It hurt like hell.

I held my shield in Matthew’s face, then dragged him by his shirtfront into the alley where I patted him down, tossed the belt knife to Belafonte, and held the pimp against the building.

“You ain’t vice,” he said.

“FCLE.”

Confusion. “A state guy – why?”

I leaned close enough to let him smell my breath. “A pity the fabric burned but not the skin, T’Shawn. You left two perfect finger prints on her body, bud. It’ll go easier if you start talking.”

His eyes went wide and the pimp persona dissolved into cold-sweat fear. “Body? B-body? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?”

“You know, bitch.”

“NO I DON’T! TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”

“You beat Kylie to death and set her on fire.”

“I D-DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, MAN. SHE’S DEAD ? OH JESUS. OH MY FUCKING GOD …”

I didn’t see knowledge or evasion: I saw stark terror. Ten years in the detective game, the last five so experienced from the first five that I knew the scumbucket had no idea what I was talking about.

“Tell me about Kylie,” I said, the hands loosening on his shirt.

“I-I ain’t seen her in four days. I figured she booked.”

“I think I believe you,” I said. “So right now I need the whole ugly truth, T’Shawn. Anything less, I’ll take you downtown and sweat you all night. Your choice.”

He’d probably have done a go-right-ahead bit if I’d been MDPD, but the FCLE had arrived in his squalid little world, which meant things were serious.

“Anything, man,” he said. “But you gotta know, it wasn’t me.”

I asked questions, he provided answers. Matthews had found Sandoval on the streets seven months back, drunk. He’d brought her to one of his two cribs, babied her. He also traded out the booze for H and put her on the street.

“What’d she do before she got to Miami?” I asked at one point.

“She never talked about that, man. Never. Like she’d shut it off. Bad shit at home, maybe. You wouldn’t believe what got done to some of these girls when they lived at home.”

In the end Matthews knew almost nothing of Sandoval; little more to him than an ATM, and as long as she kept pumping out money, he was fine with it. I shot a glance at Belafonte. Her eyes were expressionless but her nose looked like a sewage field was nearby.

“Beat it,” I said, releasing the pimp. Matthews ducked low past me and went to pick up his hat but Belafonte was standing on it. He gave her a wide berth and retreated down the street as we climbed back into the car to press onward into the unrevealed world of Kylie Sandoval. I took a deep breath and rested my head on the steering wheel. My cheek was sore from the punch and my side ached from the kick.

“Quite the interesting play,” Belafonte said, giving me my first-ever sample of what amusement sounded like in her voice. “Your take on Richard III, perhaps?”

“My kingdom for a nightstick,” I sighed.

I dropped Belafonte off at her car and headed to Viv’s. The place was deserted and my heart sank. I gave her a call.

“I’m running a half-hour late … be home in twenty minutes. I’ll make a food grab on the way in. Miguelito’s?”

“Olé.”

Viv arrived minutes later with burritos, chips, salsa and guacamole from a favored tacquería. She grinned as she scampered by to warm the chow and I used the time to admire Vivian’s slender form bending to put the food in the oven. She wore a simple blue skirt over improbably long legs and a gray blouse. The kicks were dark athletic shoes which looked out of place, but were the requisite wear for long hours of hard hospital floors.