Harbor Nocturne (10 page)

Kim said, “If we got to, we
deal
with Armenians, no problem.”

Hector had decided to take the good with the bad and cope with all of it, because he was making almost six grand a month, tax-free, even on bad months. And there was the little house in Encino, the only caveat being that sometimes, if Markov phoned and said there was a need to entertain an important client, he’d have to clear out for the evening. Then Hector would have to pick up a masseuse or a dancer from Club Samara and drive her to his house to do whatever the special client wanted her to do. Hector would stay in a motel on those nights, and the next day he’d either send his bedding to the laundry or throw it away, depending on how it looked.

On only one occasion had he been asked to stay home during the private party. Markov had sent him a Russian client to handle, and Hector knew that this one was a real Russian because he’d had to pick him up at LAX when he got off a flight from Moscow, and deliver him straight to his suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. He called himself Basil and, after that night, he drank all the vodka Hector had in his house, and he fucked one of the Asian masseuses, who Hector had had to summon on short notice. It was a night that Hector would never forget, because Basil, who Markov spoke of with great deference and respect, was without a doubt the weirdest son of a bitch Hector Cozzo had ever met in his thirty-two years on earth.

Markov had warned that Basil had very peculiar tastes and told Hector to be enthusiastic about anything that titillated this man, who was about to become a primary investor in a Los Angeles business deal being brokered by Markov. After the massage and sex was over that evening, and after Basil got good and drunk and the masseuse was alone in the bedroom getting high on Hector’s cocaine, he found out exactly what else it was that titillated the Russian.

Hector would never forget that moment when Basil took him into the living room and showed him a photo album he carried in his briefcase. He had dozens of photos of amputated limbs! Arms, hands, legs, feet. Hector was half-expecting to find a beheaded corpse, but he never saw that. He was shocked, but he had to pretend that the sickening pictures fascinated him as well.

Basil’s English was poor, but he made Hector understand that he would love to have a girl sometime who was an amputee. He made it known by whacking at his left arm and leg with a karate chop. And then he emitted a drunken cackle that gave Hector an electric shiver from his neck to his tailbone.

Hector’s brief education in apotemnophilia came when, for the first time, he delivered the massage parlor’s collections directly to Markov at Club Samara. They met in the back office that afternoon, and Markov thanked him profusely for showing Basil a good time and for making him feel welcome in Hector’s Encino home.

Hector had been employed by Markov for only a few weeks at that point, and he wanted very much to make an impression on his employer. Markov slowly and methodically explained to Hector what the amputation paraphilia was all about and, sadly, how Basil was afflicted with it. He smiled a lot as he explained it and said that Hector had nothing to fear from Basil.

His employer said that Basil was the only son of a Moscow billionaire and that Basil had acquaintances in Moscow and Berlin and Amsterdam who shared his affliction. He told Hector that one of them had undergone an amputation of a healthy arm nearly to the elbow, and that the person, whose gender was not disclosed, had become a kind of legend to the others.

Markov paused when he saw Hector turn a bit pale. “Do not be too shocked,” he said. “This is of little concern to us.”

And then Markov explained that because of his need of the Russian’s money, he had investigated and found a Dr. Maurice Montaigne, who lived in Hollywood and who had done all sorts of underground surgeries in Tijuana before and after his medical license was taken away. Markov had had a long consultation with Dr. Maurice, who, he’d learned, was a crack cocaine addict, and the doctor had promised Markov that if he ever did another “elective amputation” in Tijuana, he would arrange for Mr. Markov’s Russian associate to talk to the patient before and after the event.

Hector repeated the phrase to Markov: “An
elective
amputation?”

“Yes, Hector, very much elective,” Markov answered with his straight-razor smile. “We have to overlook certain peculiarities in the world of business. And we must keep Basil happy or he will take his father’s investment elsewhere.”

Before Hector left his employer that afternoon, Markov said, “If ever you encounter anyone, male or female, who may have undergone an
unusual
amputation, please inform me. I have learned that this kind of person enjoys displaying the surgery, and a massage parlor is a place they frequent. I mention this because Basil shall be coming to Los Angeles once a month for the next year or so, and I must keep him as entertained as possible.”

Hector felt woozy and feverish. He asked Markov, “How would I know if an amputation was unusual, sir?”

Markov replied, “If it occurred at a Tijuana clinic, especially if it was performed by a Dr. Maurice Montaigne, we can assume that it was . . . unusual.”

There were things in Hector Cozzo’s life that he’d compartmentalized, and memories that he’d repressed, and that had been one of them. Still, recalling his employer’s instructions, he had mentioned to a key masseuse at each of the massage parlors in and around Hollywood that if any of the girls ever got a client who happened to be an amputee, they should ask where the surgery was performed. He promised a reward for such information. He hadn’t bothered to mention the name Maurice Montaigne to anyone, because he thought it highly unlikely that he’d ever have to deal with this nightmarish crap again. And Basil’s later encounters at Hector’s home with various masseuses and dancers had not ended with required peeks at Basil’s photo album.

When Hector had once asked Basil if he would prefer to have the girls brought to his suite at the Four Seasons when he came to Los Angeles, Basil had become irritated and said, using mangled English idioms, “I am lonesome wolf who do not make shit where I am sleeping. I shall not fuck wolfess at my hotel.”

“Got it, Basil,” Hector had replied. “
Mi casa es su casa.
That means I’ll bring all the wolfesses you can handle to my crib and you can shit on my bed and even on the wolfess if you want to. No problem.”

Now, remembering that first encounter with Basil at his house, and the languorous Asian masseuse he’d supplied for the Russian, he was distressed that even a flash of recall about that night could creep him out. He hated and feared everything about the man, from his purported vast wealth to the white streak that blazed across his hair from the widow’s peak to the crown. And he especially despised the way the drunken Russian freak had cackled while showing his horrible photos. Hector was sure that Basil was insane.

Hector Cozzo did remember the last troubling question he’d asked his employer that day. He’d said, “Mr. Markov, Basil would never, you know, want to . . . do something like that to someone, would he? Like, make an amputation really . . .
happen
?”

Markov had chuckled and said, “Basil is a very rich man with a very unfortunate condition, Hector, but he is not Jack the Ripper.”

The phone call came after Dinko’s breakfast, which consisted of one slice of toast and a half-eaten fried egg with two cups of coffee.

“I only hope you were not smoking marijuana,” Brigita Babich said to her only child when he got up from the breakfast table and put his dish and coffee cup into the dishwasher. “I hope it was just booze that makes you look like hell this morning.”

“I don’t smoke that crap anymore, I told you,” Dinko said. “Jesus! You think getting a thirty-day suspension from work didn’t teach me something?”

“There’s been way too much methamphetamine use on the docks, Dinko,” she said. “So of course I’m gonna worry about you. After the trouble you had with your car . . .”

“Not that again,” Dinko said. “Can’t you let it go?”

“If there’d been anyone in the parked car you hit, you could be in prison now,” she said.

“I spent the night in jail. I totaled my car. I paid a fine that almost coulda bought me a new car. I got my insurance dropped. I did my probation. Damn, why not crucify me in Point Fermin Park after Mass next Sunday?”

“It was the marijuana, Dinko,” she said. “Drinking and driving is bad enough. Smoking dope and driving is suicidal behavior. I just hope—”

“I’m going back to bed,” he said. “I got a headache and you’re making it worse.”

“Take a shower and you’ll feel better,” she said.

Back in his bedroom, he heard the cell phone on the nightstand chiming. Later, upon remembering this call, he realized that if his mother had kept ragging on him about smoking weed, he would’ve missed the call. It turned out to be a very impulsive call, and maybe she would not have left a message. And she might never have called again. He had always believed utterly in coincidence and fate.

“Hello.” There was silence on the line for several seconds and he repeated, “Hello?”

A soft voice said, “It is Lita.”

“Lita!” he said. “I never thought I’d . . . what happened? Is something wrong?”

“I have hope that you can come to me for little while? I am feeling very much like I wish to talk with you.”

“About what?”

“Your friend.”

“Hector Cozzo?”

“That is right.”

“Is someone there so you can’t say what it’s about?”

“That is right.”

“I can be there in maybe an hour or a little longer.”

“Thank you,” she said, with a quiver in her voice. “Please come at eleven o’clock.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, opening the nightstand drawer, where he kept a pen. “Go ahead, gimme the address where you’re at.”

She gave him the address of a liquor store on Hollywood Boulevard east of Western Avenue, where Thai Town and Little Armenia overlapped. She said she would be standing in front of the store, and before hanging up, she added, “I am sorry for this. I do not have nobody else.”

He was surprised how fast his heart was beating, and he was stunned to hear his own voice say, “I’m
glad
you called, Lita. Very glad.”

Dinko took a shower, shaved, and put on clean cargo pants and the newest polo shirt he owned, the yellow one that the salesgirl had assured him would somehow also complement his blue eyes and make his light chestnut hair appear a bit golden. He’d always been such a doofus when it came to cute salesgirls. He slipped into his new deck shoes and told his mother that he might be home late.

“Where’re you going?”

“To town,” he said.

“Where to town?”

“Hollywood,” he said.

“Why in the hell would anyone be going to Hollywood in the morning?” she asked, but he was already out the door.

Shanghai Massage looked far more depressing in the daylight hours, Hector thought, after parking in the limited space at the rear of the business. He used his key to enter through the back door and could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner, and voices jabbering in some gook language. One thing about Kim: he got his money’s worth. He made the girls he’d smuggled into this country do the work of masseuses, whores, janitors, and any other job he could find for them.

Ivana was mopping the floor in one of the massage rooms with her hair tied back under a bandanna when she saw Hector head for the lobby. She followed him and closed the door that led to the corridor.

He lit a cigarette and looked in vain for an ashtray under the counter, but she said, “Is okay. We got to sweep and mop anyways.”

“So what’s the big problem that I had to come running over here?” he asked. “Something about a girl? What, somebody thinks they can jist quit and not pay off their obligation?”

“Is the thing down at the harbor!” Ivana said, turning involuntarily to make sure the door was still shut.

“What thing at the harbor?”

“The people. All the ones that perish from the cargo ship? You do not know? The big container box is at the storage place when they find bodies inside.”

“I got a little bit loaded last night. I ain’t heard nothing,” Hector said.

“Twelve girls and one man. They die from breathing gas, and the police they find bodies yesterday. And one of dead girls is the sister of Daisy. She was coming on the cargo ship, and now she knows the sister is dead!”

“How does she know her sister was among the dead?”

Ivana said, “She is knowing the smuggler and the ship he uses, and when it arrives. And she wait all week for Mr. Kim to get the girls from outside the container box. It is them, no question.”

“I don’t know Daisy, do I?”

“Is the new name she chooses. Tall Korean girl who dances at Club Samara? She is home today with grief.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hector said. “The tall Asian dancer. I remember using her on a couple of parties for somebody.”

“You mean Mr. Kim? He calls here today and asks if we seen you. He is showing anger.”

“Oh, shit,” Hector said. “My voice mail.”

“You must talk with Suki,” Ivana said. “I get her.”

While Ivana was gone he checked his phone and saw another message from Kim. The big slope was gonna break his neck! Hector lit another cigarette with the butt from the first.

Hector couldn’t remember which one Suki was. After a while, the names, the faces—they all ran together in Hector’s mind. He just had to make sure that somebody semihonest would report exactly how many massages each girl had done and what kind of massage they had given, and that job had gone to Ivana. They got to keep half their tips and 5 percent of the massage fees, but the rest went to Hector Cozzo, and from him to Kim, and on very rare occasions to Markov himself. With Kim’s approval, because of Ivana’s job as manager and snitch, Hector had forgiven some of her debt for her passage to America and her current living expenses.

“Tell to Mr. Hector what you hear from that new Mexican girl that is living with Daisy and Violet,” Ivana ordered the frightened girl she led into the lobby.