I couldn’t talk to Nusaybah, not right now. Wasn’t sure if she would talk to me at all.
So much hate was in her eyes the one and only time I’d ever seen her, rightfully so.
I’d hurt her friend on that day, my anger deep and never-ending, out of control.
But when money was on the table, people would sell their souls, would sell out their friends.
It wasn’t for Nusaybah but because of another woman that I had come back to this sordid place.
A woman who used to be one of her coworkers, her red light glowing in the gloom on this street.
I paused and stared up at what used to be her red-lit window. Hundreds of people were out, not nearly as many as the numbers walking Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus, but more than the number needed to make the street feel crowded. In the din of the afternoon children were out and about, playing on streets that smelled like piss and sex, the neon signs from the strip clubs high overhead. Men were on lunch breaks, some slipping into the narrow doorways that led to leased pleasure, some leaving those dens of satisfaction, checking their watches as they adjusted their white collars and black trench coats, heads down as they mixed in the crowd and hurried back to work, wedding rings untarnished. Children, vendors, women passing on bicycles, shop owners lining Berwick Street, all unaffected, none noticing or protesting the XXX video store that had pictures of hard-core gay sex in its windows, this world desensitized to prostitution and amoral acts. As was I. I had grown up like this, had lived in brothels from North Carolina to Montreal, had visited whores from Rio to Amsterdam.
I took out a picture I had in my inside pocket. Thelma and Andrew-Sven. Only her name was Catherine now. I had come back to the red-light district to knock on some doors. To talk to the whores who had been here over a year. I needed to talk to the ones who were here when Thelma first arrived with the boy.
Thelma
. In my mind she was still Thelma, even though she no longer used that name.
My heart knew her only as the woman who I had killed for, the woman who made me this way.
It remained a struggle to accept that she had shed the skin of a whore and become Catherine.
This was like being an archaeologist. I came to dig for answers to the past. I saw the edges of bones buried underneath a world of dirt, but I had to remove the dirt to find out what type of skeleton was being hidden. I wanted to ask those who knew her when she was here, find out if she’d arrived in London with the boy. Or without the boy. I had returned to the land of Charles and Camilla to ask questions.
Pinned to the dilapidated wooden doors, taped on the stained walls, all over the red-light district were handwritten signs advertising models. Russian models. African models. Polish models. French models. Asian models. Some here as part of the slave trade, their pimps in the avenue guarding the doorways. Some here because of the economics in their homeland, this being their best option.
They were all here to model—
model
being the euphemism whores used in the U.K.
A rail-thin girl appeared, cigarette in hand, her brows dark, her hair the same color. She was young, barely a woman. She stepped out into the street, her eyes on me.
The whore inhaled her cigarette and as she exhaled she asked, “Blow job or full service?”
Her accent was Yugoslavian, clothing simple jeans and trainers, her sweater modest and red. I followed her into the piss-smelling hallway.
I asked, “How long have you been working here?”
“Long enough to be better than the Africans. And I am better than the Asians. Come to my room and we can talk. No pressures. Tell me what you need and I will tell you how many pounds it will cost.”
With Death on my heels, I didn’t have a lot of fucking time.
I showed her a picture of Catherine and the kid. My bête noire and my life’s only concern.
She inhaled her cigarette, her expression not changing, my problems not being her problems.
I asked, “You know her?”
“Maybe I remember her.”
“Either you fucking remember her or you don’t.”
“My memory . . . sometimes it gets to be really bad.”
I pulled out three hundred pounds, the equivalent of six hundred U.S. dollars. The equivalent of more rubles than that Yugoslavian had ever made standing up or with her legs closed. Wanted to get to the point, didn’t have time to bullshit, not with trouble stepping on my heels.
“Don’t fuck around with me. Understand? You know her?”
“My memory, it is getting better now.”
“Fuck you.”
I turned around, headed away.
She called out. “Wait, wait.”
I faced the whore again.
She dropped her cigarette, crushed it out on the concrete stairs with the bottom of her worn trainer, the scent from the cigarette blending with the aroma of old orgasms, with the stench of layers of piss and cologne and perfume that had permeated the chipped and peeling paint on the tattered walls.
She took the picture, looked at Catherine, looked at the kid, sighed, took out another cigarette.
She said, “This is Sven.”
“Andrew-Sven. That’s the kid she had with her while she was here.”
“I remember them.” She nodded. “And I remember you. You beat her with your fists.”
My jaw tightened. “That wasn’t me.”
“That was you. I gave her my gun to shoot you with if you ever came back to try to harm her.”
“I need to ask you about the kid.” I took a breath. “The kid that was here with her.”
“And if I do not tell you, will you beat me too?”
I paused. “No.”
The whore lit her smoke, then motioned for me to follow her, her pace aggravating and slow.
Hand in my bag, I spied behind me, searched and made sure no one was following me.
No one other than them, the ones who watched every step that everyone made.
The ones spying down on the world through the eyes of CCTV.
Three
a thousand lies
Frustrated and anxious.
I took Cannon Street toward Bank, hiked across the bridge toward London Bridge tube, walked Borough High Street, and stopped in front of a row of flats and businesses. I had died inside one of those rooms. I wasn’t sure which building, but I had met Death in one of those rooms. Standing there haunted me. But I had to face that fear. That other stress. There was a lot in London I had to face.
My cellular rang and my uneasy hands grabbed my phone. It was Konstantin.
He said, “The safe house is ready.”
“Might not use it.”
“You okay?”
“Have another place in mind. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Do I need to head toward London?”
“You finished your work in Suriname?”
“Problem solved.”
I paused, staring across the Thames. “I can make it here another day.”
“Stay on top of soil.”
“Doing my best.”
I took a black cab to Bloomsbury, had the taxi drop me off by the museum. After I was sure no one was following me I doubled back, made my way to a hotel called Myhotel. Fake I.D. and credit card in hand, I checked in, requested the same room I had stayed in months ago with my friends. Hedonistic lifestyles were good while they lasted, but they couldn’t last forever.
I went online, read
The New York Times
’s theater section. Checked out the mixed reviews for
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
. Directed by Debbie Allen. Starring Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad, James Earl Jones, Giancarlo Esposito. And Lola Mack was filling in for Anika Noni Rose.
Lola Mack.
We had been in this room months ago. I stared at the bed, remembered what we had done that night I had rescued her from being broke stranded. And what had happened when the knock came at the door. I remembered Mrs. J. Remembered the invaluable lesson she taught Lola. Six months since I had heard from her too. She had a daughter who needed her attention and I had bigger issues.
My enemy in Detroit, I had her name in Google Alerts, had her set at Comprehensive and As-It-Happens. As soon as news about her hit any newspaper, any blog, the Web, any video, any article, any mention anywhere in the world, that information was sent to several of many e-mail accounts.
I clicked the link that came up in the alert, and that link led me to a Web page for the
Detroit Free Press
. Did the same for
The Detroit News
. I’d had the chance to shut her down before her power had grown, taxpayers’ dollars lining her pockets. Now I wished I had taken her out, should’ve been smart and put her in the ground, just for the peace of mind. She had learned too much about me. Too much.
In between killing her husband and ordering assassinations, she had been busy.
The widower. The single mom. The working woman. The new mayor of a threadbare town.
The woman who hired hit men to do what she was afraid to do herself.
Immediately after she had gone home and found her husband’s dead body, she had turned up at a press conference in a bloodstained blouse and told the story of how she had come home from a religious retreat in Seattle and found her preacher husband assassinated in her basement, told how she had held her dead husband’s cold body in her arms and prayed to God. She had manipulated the assassination she had financed, showed up on the news with her husband’s blood on her blouse. Had dipped her hands in his blood and smeared it on her blouse and went to talk to the media, tears in her eyes.
Another self-absorbed opportunist.
Said she vowed to find out who killed her husband and would pick up the torch and continue his work, would continue to help bring Detroit back to what it used to be. She had won the people over.
She lived for the press.
When she walked into a room people crowded her and all hell would break loose; people begged and yelled to be acknowledged with a simple hand wave or nod of the head. Atlanta. New Orleans. Detroit. Chicago. Anywhere she walked she was surrounded by security guards and bodyguards, like she was more popular than the most popular. But I knew that security was because of me, because of the war she refused to let end. That husband killer was a combination politician and televangelist, the new face of change and tragedy, twice as popular as another woman who was the new face of domestic abuse. Detroit had a publishing deal to put out a nonfiction and a spiritual children’s book, was set to release those two books and a CD that was supposed to be confrontational, inspirational, moving, and unexpectedly humorous, trying to outdo her competition for media attention. She was going to start her own cosmetics line and create a line of hats for women. She had been a bona fide media whore.
Fame and money changed people. Could make good people bad. Made bad people worse.
I read about the new mayor of Detroit and her rumored affairs, alleged sex with a married member of her staff. There was a lot of talk about her preferring her bed partners to be married. Said she belonged to an elite group of swingers. A lot of talk, but no confirmation on her sexual habits. Rumors she went on television and addressed, asked her god to forgive and heal those who chose to spread falsehoods, chastised her invisible enemies for saying despicable things that could damage her children, and moved on. It also said her elite protection group had run amok. She had become more than a preacher’s wife, her husband dead because she had had him assassinated. She was the mayor. She had position and power. She had access to taxpayers’ money and a police staff. Both newspapers said there were lots of cover-ups, just like with her predecessor. Her bodyguards making over 100K a year, somehow magically padded up from their 40K-a-year salary. Any suspicions over her husband’s death were answered by outrage and a reinforced alibi; she let the world know she was at a church conference in Seattle when her husband was assassinated, the blame being thrown on the politicians in the city.
The rumor was that anyone investigating any of her alleged wrongdoings was immediately fired. Anyone in a position of power who asked too many questions was relieved of command. Whistleblowers vanished overnight. Some said they went into hiding. Some said they were somewhere in Kalamazoo or Flint, buried in the ground. Some said her enemies had been dismembered and buried all over.
She was quoted: “Don’t get me confused with the last mayor. We allowed him to spend over nine million dollars of our taxpayers’ money to hide his mistakes. And on a trial that cost the city millions of taxpayers’ dollars. That was a lot of jobs we could have had for the people in our city. More police officers and more firefighters. Sexual text messages on city-furnished cellular phones can end a lifetime of dedication and civil service. Extravagance can destroy the city I love the most. I am not that mayor.”
She was right. She was worse.
Next I plugged into accounts I had in the Cayman Islands. I’d gone there with my hedonistic traveling companions to check on my money. Last year I was close to being a millionaire. Now more than half of that was gone. Getting rid of real estate in a buyer’s market had cost me. But I didn’t have a choice. I’d been exposed. Taking care of Catherine and Sven, being on the road living an exotic and first-class hedonistic lifestyle, all of that dug deep into a man’s pocket. I could survive with what I had left, could make it a long time if I moved to an island and resigned myself to a simpler lifestyle, maybe moved to Barbados and got a small condo in the St. Lawrence Gap. But that would take up at least half of what I had left.
Rain falling, I was up, heart racing like my thoughts, sweating to the point that I had a bout with nausea and the shakes. Every time I closed my eyes it felt like someone was in my room. No one was there. Kept getting up, checking the locks, and spying out the window, my mind moving like a tornado.
I spent the darkest hours sitting in a chair, facing the door, gun in my hand, finger on the trigger.