Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 02 - Death in the Dark (5 page)

“I’m a new friend.” I dropped my hand seeing that she was not interested in shaking it. “I never knew Paty. I would have liked to have met her. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Malina nodded and mumbled a thank you.

I came back down the steps. “I’m sure you’re anxious to see the murderers brought to justice.” Her eyes widened and skittered around looking for danger. I followed her view and saw only the dirty street, the dusty windows and facade of the old municipal building and the lines of police cars. Malina’s arm shot out and she grabbed at my elbow.

“Please,” she said. “You are an American?”

“Yes, my name is Sydney Rye.”

She shook her head, urgency playing across her face. “We are in danger here.” Her eyes shot to the police station again. It looked lifeless, like something forgotten. “Please, can you help us?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I whispered back. If she hadn’t looked so scared this would have felt like a game.

“Here,” she opened up her purse and pulled out a card. Scribbling on it quickly she handed it to me. “Can you meet me here tonight? 8 o’clock?”

The card promised Margaritas by the yard and as many tacos as you could eat on Tuesdays. The logo was a sombrero-wearing mouse who appeared to be intoxicated. She’d written her phone number on the back. “Why?” I asked.

Malina lowered her voice even more. “I do want to see justice. Please.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will see you there.” Then she turned and hurried away from me. Several men pulling up in a police car swiveled their heads to watch her walk. I turned back to the building and, pushing the card into my pocket, ascended the steps.

Inside was stuffier and hotter than the street. Sweat dripped off the man sitting behind a desk in the full waiting room. Ramon and his mother were nowhere in sight. I must have missed them going in. The guy behind the desk didn’t raise his eyes from his paperwork so I just took a seat next to an elderly man wearing worn jeans and a grim expression. A fan in the corner of a dusty windowsill ticked back and forth doing little to ease the heat.

It wasn’t long before Ramon and Abedella came out. They looked stunned. Neither of them spoke as we walked back to the hotel. I didn’t ask any questions. Merl was waiting in the lobby. Abedella and Ramon went to their rooms without a word.

“How did it go?” Merl asked as we stood waiting for the elevator.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, they didn’t say anything.”

“Did you view the body?”

“They may have, I missed going in with them.” Merl raised his eyebrows in question. “I met Malina at the station.”

The elevator arrived. “Malina, the woman Abedella feels is responsible for Paty’s death?” Merl asked as we got on. I nodded. “I’d say Abedella is as responsible for Paty’s death as Malina.”

“What?”

“Look,” Merl turned his big eyes on me. “If Malina dragged Paty here I bet there was something pretty big pushing her. Neither of those two women are actually responsible for her death, that’s not what I’m saying. Just that it’s ridiculous for Abedella to accuse Malina. Everyone is responsible for this.”

“Or just, like, one guy?” I said with a shrug. “The guy who actually killed her. Not those around her who loved her.”

Merl sighed. “Obviously, you’re missing my point. Sadly, it was probably some cops/drug dealers who did it for a lark after a drug run.”

“I’m going to find them-”

Merl clutched my arm and yanked me to him. “And then what?” he whispered. “What will you do with them? Kill them? Murder?” I looked up into his eyes. “Well?” he shook my arm.

I leaned into him, pushing him backward. Merl almost stumbled but moved with me. I brought my hand up and rested it against his shoulder as we bumped gently into a wall. “Merl, don’t talk to me like I’m an insolent child. Don’t talk to me like I have not seen and done horrible things. This will not stand. Are we clear?”

Merl blinked his long lashes and nodded. I tried to back away but he’d slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me back close to him. He leaned his lips against my ear. “I prefer insolent children to murderers.” I whipped my head around and our lips were almost touching when he said, “You cannot create justice out of hurt.”

The elevator doors opened and Merl let go of me. I walked out into the hall. It was shabby with worn, brown carpeting and cheap wall sconces that flickered as trucks rolled by on the road outside. I showered, pulled on my jeans and a blue and white striped shirt. Slipping into my white canvas shoes I looked in the mirror. Another tourist, only with a few more scars.

I took a cab to the address on the card Malina gave me. The place looked deserted but had the smell of an often-visited bar. It was early still for a bar like this. The aroma of puke and stale beer was strong now but once you filled this place up with sweaty bodies it wouldn’t smell like something old and used up anymore. If anyone was sober enough to smell the place it would probably reek of pheromones. Lots of young kids dancing, drinking, and looking for someone to fuck. I’d never gone for clubs like this; my wild nights were in smaller spaces, with intimate dance floors that it only took five people to populate. I was one for the basement bar on a freezing winter night. Or a candlelit garden on a warm one. This kind of mass entertainment was too obvious for me. The kids who would come here tonight to flirt and fight followed the same drumming of their hearts as I did but I liked mine a little more elusive.

And that’s probably why I sipped at the beer I ordered. This place made me want to stay sober and get out, not drink up and get down. Malina puffed on her cigarette to get it lit. Smoke filled the air around her face. “I wish I could have done something,” she said, laying the lighter down on the table next to her almost-empty glass. “If I had stayed I’d have ended up like her. On the side of the road, tortured, gone.”

“Another?” I offered. She nodded. I caught a waitress as she hurried by and ordered another round even though my beer was barely touched. Nobody likes to tell a story drinking alone. “What happened to Paty?”

Malina looked up at me. Her almond eyes were bloodshot and the corner of one twitched. “You know it happens all the time here.”

“I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard.” She smiled but it wasn’t a nice smile. It was a
‘
you’ve got a lot of nerv
e
’ kind of smile. I sipped my beer. I could feel my face getting hot. The bar was humid and the crowd growing larger. “You know I moved out of there because I almost ended up like Paty.” She pointed her cigarette at me and it vibrated with the tremble of her fingers.

“What happened?” I took another sip of my beer, feeling the coldness run down my throat and into my gut.

The waitress came back with our drinks and Malina pulled on her cigarette, then looked up at the young woman in a tight white shirt and even tighter short shorts. “Gracias,” she said, flashing a broad, happy smile. She could have been an actress, I thought. A great one. The waitress smiled back and then headed over to a table of recently arrived college kids. Malina watched her move across the room. One of the young men made a rude gesture at the waitress and Malina’s grip tightened on the cigarette. “She is risking her life living in this city. We all are.” She turned back to me. “Even you,” she said, her mouth set in a tight line.

“You were going to tell me about why you moved.”

She sat back and took a slug of her fresh drink. It was a pale yellow and on the rocks. “Paty believed that if she worked hard enough and played by the rules then she would come out on top. She thought that a company like Boeing would recognize her talent and eventually whisk her away to America.”

She smiled and a tear escaped. Swiping at it, Malina continued, “You know many of us dream of that rich man who will marry us and take us some place wonderful. Paty felt that way about Boeing. She thought it was her ticket out of here. It turned out to be her grave.” Malina pushed her half-finished cigarette into the ashtray and immediately reached for another. Her long fingernails were painted bright red and in the half light of the bar they looked coated in fresh blood. “I couldn’t just keep working in that factory, waiting to die,” Malina said, louder than she meant to. The boys over at another table fell silent and looked at us for a moment. Malina laughed and flashed them that smile. They grinned back and elbowed each other in excitement.

“You see,” she said leaning across the table, lowering her voice. “I know the power I possess. I am not a, how do you say, small violet.”

“Shrinking violet,” I said.

“Yes, I am not a shrinking violet. I did not belong in that factory. Walking home in the dark. Living in a shanty town. Paty was foolish for staying. I tried to make her come with me.”

“What do you do now?” I asked, having already guessed.

“I get paid, nobody rapes me, do you understand? I am the one in charge.” Her eyes glowed with the passion she felt in this fact. “No man takes from me.”

“So you moved out and started working in a different field,” I said delicately.

Malina nodded. “I offered to pay for her to live with me.” Malina’s eyes filled with tears again. “She was my best friend.” Her chin shook. She sucked on her cigarette and tried to shake the grief off.

“I’m very sorry.”

“She was just so damn stubborn.” Malina’s fist came down hard on the table making our drinks jump. “You know her father was a monster. She couldn’t do what I do.”

“A monster?” I couldn’t picture Abedella’s husband being anything but sweet like her.

“That is why Ramón is like he is.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a glaze to her eyes now, the second drink was almost empty and she finished it off before speaking. “Her mother was a sad drunk, same as mine. She’d just cry at the end of the night. I have heard my own mother cry herself to sleep, hiccupping,” she said with disdain, “more times than I saw Paty’s father turn violent. But I knew he hit sometimes. I’d seen the bruises on Mrs. Alvarez and guessed what they were from. Sometimes Paty would miss school and when she did come you could see the fading color where his fingers had gripped her arm.” Malina reached up and rubbed at her bicep.

“But he hit Ramon the most. Ever since he was a little boy, I understand. And when Ramon was big enough he fought back and he won.” Malina smiled at me. The waitress came over and Malina ordered another drink. I finished off the rest of my beer and nodded for another. The waitress left and Malina leaned across the sticky table toward me. “Ramon, he beat his father and kicked him, crying, into the dunes.” She sat back and pulled on her cigarette. “Mr. Alvarez, he came back the next day with a bat and beat Ramon so badly that he was never the same. A month in the hospital, his head all wrapped in gauze. It was terrible. Ramon was Paty’s hero, her older brother, and after that, she was his caretaker.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“At least Abedella got some sense into her after that. She would not let Mr. Alvarez home. He got very sick. The guilt, you know, I think it did something to him. He died in the street. I saw his body, you know? It took two days for the city to take it away. Paty saw it, too, and her mother. They refused to take it away. Said he was not theirs anymore.”

“How old was Paty when that happened?”

“12, both of us, 12.” Malina smoked her cigarette in silence until the waitress returned with our drinks. She took away our empties and Malina started talking again. “She was planning our escape from then on, you know? It’s all she talked about from the time her father died until she did. The only reason I can speak English is because of Paty,” Malina laughed. “She always made me practice, in our house we only spoke English. On the assembly line, everywhere. She said that if we wanted to move up in the world, we’d need English to do it.”

“Smart,” I said, sipping at my fresh beer.

Malina shrugged. “Not smart enough.”

A large crowd of college kids entered the bar laughing and yelling. They filled the room and we heard them calling for shots and yards of beer.

“Paty was promoted you know, just three, maybe four, weeks ago. We went out for dinner to celebrate.”

“How often did you see each other?

“All the time. She wanted me to come back to the factory and I wanted her to come and live with me and we were both mad about it but we tried to just not talk about those disagreements. We practiced our English. You know it felt like our special, secret language in a way. I know that is silly, but to us, it was special.”

The waitress arrived with a tall glass filled with a thick drink topped by a slice of pineapple and a bright red maraschino cherry. “Del senora en la barre,” she said to Malina placing it in front of her. Malina turned to the bar where a young man in a collared shirt and cargo shorts raised a shot to her and then downed it.

“One of my regulars. You will excuse me for a moment.”

“Sure.”

I sipped my beer and watched her approach the kid. He was drunk and so was she, both of them unsteady on their feet as they made it to the dance floor and ground up against each other. I shuddered at the thought of making my living by prostituting myself. Malina must hate it; for all her bravado, she must be slowly losing her soul. Then again, she may have lost it long ago. Maybe listening to her mother cry herself to sleep or running into the sand dunes to escape Paty’s raging father sucked it out years ago.