my dog. They had to die. No, ease off. Think. The white haired Russian. Who else? Israelis. Minutes after I spoke to Piper, the white van came hunting me. PIPER. Fuck. Piper.
“This stripper, is she your girlfriend?” Mikayla asked as we waited down the street from Club Xtasy.
“Did I fuck her? Is that what you want to know?”
“I don’t care who you have or have not fucked. What I want to know is will you be ok questioning her, or should I do it?”
“Questioning?”
“You know what that means.” She was right, I did. I thought about her question without answering. Mikayla had made it clear the only thing she hated worse than pimps were those she called collaborators, women who sold out their gender for personal gain. She had a simple worldview that only included three types of people, victims, bad men and collaborators. I knew it was much more complicated than that. Most of the world was populated by noncombatants, men and women who were just trying to make it from birth to grave with the least amount of pain.
At 2:15 the girls came out, with Doc standing guard from the top of the stairs. He watched until they were safely to their cars. Piper got into her baby blue Ford Falcon. When she pulled out I counted to twenty and then rolled out after her. I gave her a long leash, figuring she would be heading home. I wanted to brace her in a non- public place, limit the chance of the cops getting involved.
Ten minutes later, she was unlocking the door to her small Silver Lake house. I hit the door and pushed in before she could lock it.
“Moses, what the hell?” She gasped as Mikayla closed and dead-bolted the door.
“Who the fuck are you working for?” I was screaming. She reached in her purse. I slapped it out of her hand. A small canister of mace rolled out onto the floor.
“What happened downtown, Piper?”
“You tell me. I left a suit worth two hundred bucks in lap dances, drove down there, waited in that creepy neighborhood and you never showed. Who is she?”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, girl.” I wanted to grab her throat. Gripping her kitchen table, I tossed it across the small room. “I’m running crazy, real unpredictable. If I don’t get the truth this whole deal gets ugly fast. Who did you tell?”
Looking into my eyes, I could see fear taking hold of her. “What happened Mo? It’s me, talk to me.”
“Who did you tell?” I kept the intensity up, moving into her face.
“No one, Mo, believe me, no one.”
“Bullshit. Somebody knew and you’re the only one I spoke to.”
“I didn’t tell anyone, only Uncle Manny, he wanted to know why I was leaving in the middle of my shift.”
“Manny?”
“Yes, he told me not to tell anyone about you, that you were in trouble. What’s going on? Mo?” I could tell she was conflicted by fear of, and concern for me.
“I hope to god you’re telling the truth.” I said walking to the door. Mikayla raised palms as if to say what the fuck. “Let’s roll.”
In a flash the razor was in her hand. Piper froze.
“Step out of my way, Moses.”
“No. We’re done here.”
“What? She batted her eyes and you bought her story?”
“Yup. Cut me or walk away.” I balled up my fists. She would kill me no doubt, but I wasn’t going to make it easy. Behind me, I could hear Piper gasp. The razor whipped up, stopped an inch from my eye.
“Is she worth an eye?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” She held the blade for a moment then retracted it and folded it into her pocket. She walked out without looking back.
Piped leaned against the counter, breathing hard.
“I’m sorry, baby, I had to know.”
“Fuck you, Moses, fuck you. I’ve never been anyplace but in your corner.” She was looking at her feet.
“I know, but things are so sideways.”
“Just leave, Moses. Don’t come back.” Walking out, I knew I had broken a cardinal rule, I had gone against my friend. Chosen fear over her.
In the car, I wanted to ask Mikayla if she would have cut me. But I know she would have. She was hard- wired for destruction. Instead, I asked her why she hadn’t.
“Because she was telling the truth. I knew when I saw her looking at you with the razor to your eye. She loves you.”
“Not anymore,” I said, letting it sink into my bones.
Manny’s Chrysler was the only car in the parking lot behind the club. I knew he’d be counting out the night’s receipts, he never trusted anyone, not even me, to do the final count or the bank drop.
Sliding my key into the back door, I moved in quietly. Motioning for Mikayla to check the lap room, I checked the restrooms. The place was empty, which didn’t surprise me, the cleaning crew didn’t arrive until the next day and everyone else was long off the clock.
The office door was open a crack, leaking a sliver of light into the dark hall. As I moved toward the door, I pulled the Beretta from my waistband.
Uncle Manny looked up from behind his desk. His eyes widened only slightly, a mere flicker of panic crossed his face then was gone. “Keep your hands on the desk, Manny.”
“The cash is in the bank bag,” he said, trying to stare me down.
“You know why I’m here.”
“Yes, to rob me, you ungrateful son of a bitch.”
I slapped the pistol down across his face, opening a small gash in his cheek.
“Wrong answer,” Mikayla said, flipping the razor open.
“You want to cut me? So what?” Manny looked at the blade like it meant no more to him than a toothpick.
“Glendale Adventist,” I said to Mikayla, “Bed five fourteen. You’ll find an Arab there. Kill him.”
“Ok,” Mikayla shrugged and headed out the door. She got all the way down the hall before Manny broke.
“Wait, Moses, wait. Call her back.”
“I’m way past fucking around here, Manny.”
“Call her back, I’ll tell you what I know.” His shoulders slumped and he was suddenly a sad old man. I let her get ten more paces before I finally called out.
Coming back into the office, she looked put out at not getting to kill anyone. She leaned against a credenza behind Manny, flicking the razor open and closed.
“Tell me about the Israelis,” I ordered Manny.
“Who?” He looked genuinely confused.
“The motherfuckers you sent to waste me at the bus depot.”
“No, I called Dimitri Petravich. Moses, you must believe I had no choice. They threatened to kill my family. You saw what they did to my nephew, I had no choice.” Sweat ran down his forehead.
“You always have a choice. You chose to give me up.”
“I care for you like a son, if I thought they could succeed in harming you, I never would have told them. I knew you could take care of yourself, but my family…”
“You knew they had their girls whoring out of the club, didn’t you?” I had to change the conversation away from his sentimental crap before I started believing him. “How did they get their hooks into you?”
“They threatened to have me sent down as a terrorist. They have friends working for Homeland Security. All they need is a suspicion and I would disappear. Guantanamo, Spain, wherever they were hiding combatants. I would be gone. Who would care for my family? What was the harm? A man wants to get his cock sucked, a girl is
