Читать книгу Angel Doll - Arlette Lees - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

NIGHT OF SMOKE AND SHADOWS

My key goes to a corner room with a small private bath. It’s comfortable and clean. The pink and purple neon from the movie theater across Cork Street reflects on the ceiling. After I loosen my muscles with a hot shower I wrap a towel around my hips, some of the tightness gone out of my back. I’m on my way to bed when there’s a knock on the door.

Angel says, “Jack, it’s me.”

I open the door. She steps inside and I lock it behind her. An angry bruise decorates her cheekbone.

I tilt her chin up and examine the damage.

“What’s his hold on you?” I say.

She draws a trembling breath and I kiss her lightly on the temple.

“I’ve been with Teague since I was thirteen. He showed up with legal-looking papers when my parents died and said I had to go with him, that he was a distant relative. By the time I realized what was going on, I was trapped. He lives off of me and the other girls from The Blue Rose who work the streets.”

“What room is he in? This is the kind of riffraff I’ve been hired to deal with.”

“It doesn’t matter. He won’t be back until Monday after he’s gambled his money away.” Angel turns toward the door. The wind is up and rain rattles the windowpane. “I have to go. If I don’t meet my quota, there’ll be hell to pay when he gets back.”

I block the door. I remove one of the larger bills from my wallet and put it in her beaded purse. “You don’t have to do this. I took this job so people can be safe here.” She turns to me and slowly begins unbuttoning the pearl buttons on her blue dress.

“No, Angel,” and I begin fastening her dress.

She presses her fingers to my lips.

“Don’t say a word, Jack.”

The dress slides off of her shoulders with the soft whisper of silk. She steps out of her shoes and I realize how very small she is. Another subtle shrug and she’s wrapped in nothing but the pale translucence of her skin.

She reaches out and pulls the towel from my hips, takes me by the hand, and leads me to the bed. A tremor runs the length of my body. Her perfumed hair falls over my face, her body warm and firm against my chest. She’s far too young or I’m far too old, however you want to look at it, but the chemistry is too strong to resist and it’s been a long time since anyone has wanted me in this way. I moan deep in my throat, a sound like honeyed gravel.

Her soft, full lips find mine, but when I close my eyes it’s another time, another place, even another woman. I try to get Sandra out of my head but she drifts between us like a ghost. I’m suddenly twenty-three again and she’s seventeen. We make love on a hillside beneath a summer moon, exhilarated and terrified at our recklessness. Sandra was my first and only love, until I ruined it.

Afterward I light two Lucky’s and watch the purple smoke dissolve in the shadows of the room. Lightning flickers beyond the window and thunder rolls across the roof. Angel turns on her side, one hand in my hair, the other holding her cigarette. Her sandy blonde hair spills across the pillow.

“Are you married?” she asks.

“She’s divorcing me,” I say.

“Did you cheat on her?”

“Only with Jack Daniels.”

She looks in my eyes and I look away.

“I think you’re still married under the skin,” she says, kissing me on the cheek. I sense her sadness, but she covers it with a smile.

* * * *

I wake to a rainy morning. Angel’s gone back to her room. She leaves a comforting warmth in the bedding, a whisper of rose perfume on the pillow.

The pain in my back returns in spades, running down my leg and into my toes. I soak in the tub and imagine shoving billiard balls down Ganguzza’s throat.

It’s Saturday. We want to be together, but it won’t work as long as Teague is hovering in the halls of The Rexford like dry rot in the walls. Hank tells me a guy like that must have a past...a record...a warrant...something. He shows me his rental application. He’s originally from Kansas City. The rest of the information is sketchy.

“I hired you to weed out the riffraff,” says Hank. “Can’t think of a better place to start.”

“I know just the guy to help me with that.” I call Jim at the precinct. He says he’ll do some checking and get back to me.

Angel and I have pancakes and coffee at The Memory Lights Café on the corner of Shannon and Cork. She wears a blue plastic raincoat and matching boots, her sunny hair long and flowing and dotted with raindrops. I pay the check and we hurry back up the street to catch the new Jean Harlow movie.

We laugh, eat popcorn, and drink Coke. Today I’m happy. I don’t feel like a broken-down cop with a soon-to-be ex-wife who hates him. With Angel at my side I have a second chance to do things right, maybe even kick the booze. Then again, maybe not.

The curtain comes down on the double feature. It’s after dark and we’re back on the sidewalk. The neon lights from the marquee turn the raindrops pink and silver. Across the street in a recessed entryway down from the hotel, a ruby eye glows from the shadows. It could be some Joe ducking out of the rain for a smoke. It could also be Teague watching us. I’d walk over and check it out if I were alone, but Angel is chattering about the movie, asking if she should bleach and bob her hair like a Hollywood movie star. Why ruin the moment by starting a ruckus? Teague’s not going anywhere. Neither am I.

Our evening comes to an end. Angel puts on a pink taffeta dress, matching shoes and a string of dime store pearls. She stands in front of the mirror, puts on earrings and a dab of perfume. She catches me watching her and smiles.

“Don’t go,” I say. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I’m just going to say good-bye to the girls.”

“Be careful. Come to my room when you get back.” She turns from the mirror.

“Oh Jack,” she says, her head resting on my chest, “they say you can’t fall in love this fast, but....”

I hold her at arm’s length. Her eyes are bluer than rain.

“What do they know?”

We stand inside the doors of the lobby waiting for the taxi. I give her money for fare and kiss her on the curve of her neck. She laughs and says it tickles. She’s beautiful when she laughs, when the sadness goes into hiding. The taxi pulls to the curb and she skips out the door. When I walk back through the lobby I can still smell her perfume.

Back in my room the phone rings. Hank patches Jim Tunney through. He says to go through the back entrance of the building next door. It was called The Zebra Room before Prohibition. Now it’s the speakeasy where cops and attorneys get tanked. I leave a ten in my wallet and put the rest of the bills in the top dresser drawer with my gun. Who needs a gun? I’m having drinks with a cop.

The doorman points to a red leather booth in the corner of the room. A bucket of beer and two chilled mugs sit on the table. I can tell from the look on Jim’s face that he’s got something for me.

“You dug up some shit on Teague,” I say, sliding into the booth.

“And the deeper I dig, the darker it gets.”

“So, what’s his resume?” I say, filling my mug. I shift my weight on the bench. That’s all it takes to ratchet up the pain in my back. This isn’t an injury that’s going to resolve itself overnight.

“He was in Kansas City until four years ago,” he says. “Big-time pimp. Seems that every hooker who wanted out of his stable ended up in the river with their hands tied behind their back. Same thing if they had the audacity to get pregnant or pick up some unfortunate disease. Believe me, you don’t want to know the gruesome details.”

“So, how come he’s not behind bars?”

“He skipped town and drove west before homicide had a solid case. Dead girls don’t talk and the live ones are afraid to.”

“Where does that leave us? Are you saying he’s untouchable?”

“He’s wanted for questioning in the homicides, but there’s no law says you have to talk with the police. He was, however, a no-show on a court date for pandering, so they put out a bench warrant.”

I light a cigarette and pour another mug of beer.

“Maybe you could have him extradited.”

“I can call Kansas City. I bet we can rattle his cage.”

“Angel wants out. He’s not going to take it well.”

“I’ll get on it first thing Monday morning?”

We smoke up the room and finish another bucket of beer. I pay the tab and cross the alley to The Rexford. I’m buzzed and my throat’s raw. A day in Santa Paulina and I have a job, a girl, two friends and an enemy. What more can a guy ask for? I walk into the lobby. Hank is in the middle of the room headed toward the door.

“Jesus, Jack. I was just coming to get you. All hell broke loose about a minute ago. It’s Angel. Teague worked her over real bad. Her clothes are ripped. She has a terrible bite on her arm. I tried to steer her next door but she’s already gone up the elevator.”

I hobble up stairs I’d normally have taken two at a time, three on a good day. I reach the second story landing, calling her name.

The door to my room is open. Pearls from her necklace are scattered across the floor. The dresser drawer is upside down on the bed. My money is gone. My gun is gone. Angel Doll is gone.

The floor vibrates beneath my feet as the elevator returns to the lobby. I scramble down the stairs and stumble into the wall. The nerve in my back is on fire.

Hank is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“She jumped in a taxi going west on Cork.”

“Where the hell to?”

“Probably the midnight train to L.A. You’ve got maybe fifteen minutes before it pulls out.” Hank hurries over and reaches behind the counter. “Jack,” he calls and tosses me a set of car keys. “It’s the black Ford Coupe out back. Go west on Cork. A mile after you cross the bridge, turn right on Depot Street.”