South by Southeast (12 page)

“So you believe the story going around?” he said. “Someone drowning girls?”

“Like I said, I knew Maria a long time. She couldn't swim.” Maria was afraid of water. She'd said it a million times. No way she had accidentally drowned.

He shook his head and crossed himself listlessly, a tired old habit.

“I need an ID,” Chela said again.

He looked at her with mournful eyes. “How old are you?” he said. “Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Is this the part where you change my life?” Chela said. Lectures from lowlifes who needed to straighten up their own shit got on her nerves. She was already in character, barely trying. Why had she been so timid last time?

“Hey,
amor
, I'm just tryin' to look out for you. With all the stories going around . . .”

“Just make sure the girl looks like me. Like, brown? A suntan, maybe?”

His eyes glinted in a way that made Chela think he might turn her away, but he gave her a smile that was half a sneer and vaulted himself to the back of his van.
“Quien hace lo que quiere, no hace lo que debe,”
he said. “My grandmother used to tell me that. You know what that means? ‘He who does what he wants doesn't do what he ought to do.' ”

Chela curbed the barb forming on her lips about what his grandmother would think about his illegal enterprise selling fake IDs to college kids. She needed to get back into Club Phonenixx. She needed to find Maria's friends, or Raphael, or preferably both.

She especially needed to find the man with the big nose. Maria had talked about making a play for him after Chela had turned him down—and what if he was the one who had killed her? The memory of that hideous face made Chela shiver in the warm beach breeze.

“Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman,” Chela said
diplomatically. “I'm not like Maria. I'm here on vacation with my family, and I want to get what happened out of my head.”

Julio nodded, satisfied. “Here ya go.” With his pen flashlight, he showed her a license picturing a girl slightly darker than her, short hair in tight curls. “This one's brand new.”

Ana Montes. Perfect. Chela wondered who she was, what her life was like. Her smile had never seen a day's trouble.

“Where do you get these licenses?” Chela asked him. It seemed far-fetched to imagine Julio killing women to steal their driver's licenses, but she'd seen stranger things on TV.

He clucked. “You'd be surprised at what people lose in the sand.”

Yeah, right.
Chela had more questions, but she didn't want to make him suspicious. Besides, her answers were at Club Phoenixx.

She reached into her purse to get the cash she'd liberated from her savings account, the getaway first-last-security-deposit stash Ten called her college fund.

“Keep that one—my gift,” he said, and crossed himself again. “I'm sorry for your friend. No matter what happened, at least you know she's with God now.”

Sermon by streetlamp. Chela tried not to smirk as she thanked him and turned to find her way back to the club where her oldest friend had spent her last night.

This time, the throbbing music and fevered lights flashing inside Club Phoenixx gave Chela a headache. Every whiff of cologne or perfume was too strong, the air hot and heavy, every face a menace. The club was also more crowded, a maze of bodies. She finally waded her way to the end of the blue-lighted bar where she'd hung out with Maria and her friends, but of course none of them was in sight.

Eerily, Maria herself seemed to be standing only a few feet from her, her face speckled with floating, glittering white spots from the disco ball overhead. No, it was only a woman who could have been Maria's sister, taller and chunkier. A lot of people would look like Maria tonight.

Where were those damn girls?

Chela's phone vibrated in her hand, and she hoped it was Maria's friend Mouse Girl returning her text. But it was only Ten calling. Again.

“Will you leave me alone?” she muttered, annoyed, although she didn't dare pick it up. It was 10:45. Now he would be suspicious; she hadn't turned her phone off the way she'd threatened, so it would ring several times before it went to voice mail. He might have called Marcela and asked her to look in on her, so she might already be busted. Ten's lack of trust might as well be a sixth sense. She had to hurry and get home.

The nightclub reminded Chela of a busy street scene from the movie
Casablanca
, which Ten had made her watch with him while he rambled on about how it was the best movie ever made. The clubgoers who weren't sacrificing themselves to the dancing gods were making their way through the crowd like schools of fish, holding their drinks above their heads to avoid spilling them in the endless traffic streams.

Impossibly tall, busty women danced on mounted platforms near columns strategically placed in every corner, balancing Egyptian-style headdresses as they swayed and gyrated like pole dancers, their bodies wrapped in flesh-colored Lycra that made them look topless. The flashing lights transformed them into mascara-smeared ghouls. Their dance held no joy or any real sensuality, and the choreographed gyrations resurrected painful memories. Chela had never been a stripper—she'd been too young to get hired anywhere, and she'd skipped straight to the streets—but she'd always seen her work as a kind of
dance, too.
Hey, baby, what's your name? Looking for a party? You here all alone?

And men's eyes followed her, just as they always had, even before she had understood the meaning behind the stares. Even here, swallowed inside a crowd, eyes tracked her movement with restlessness and false promises. “Your innocence, your freshness, is a treasure,” Mother used to say. “You remind us all of when we were young. Give them your body, your skill, your smile. But never, ever, what lies behind it. That is yours alone.”

Ten was wrong about some things. Mother
did
care. She was the only mother who did.

Chela's phone buzzed again. Her moan of frustration was cut short when she realized it was a text this time—from a Miami number. Maria's friend Mouse Girl. But her relief was cut short when she read the message:
SEE U AT P
@12.

Midnight! Chela's fingers flew across her phone's display as she asked where she was, where the other girls were.
WHERE'S THE PARTY
?

Chela waited, frozen in place. No answer. Bad texting etiquette.
Bitches.
Mouse Girl was always cagey with calls and texts, revealing as little as possible.

Chela was alone in this damn club with no leads and no one to talk to. She remembered her lies to Ten again and felt shame.
But he lied to you, didn't he? That whole Hong Kong thing?
She still had no idea where he had been, and she didn't want to know what he had done. But a lie for a lie didn't make her feel any better.

Chela realized that the oppressive weight in her chest was sadness. Tears. Who was she fooling? She wasn't a detective; she might never know what had happened to Maria. Cops didn't care about working girls. Maria had a daughter, and she'd been saving money to finally be a mother to her. What would happen to her daughter now?

It was just then, when Chela felt the most hopeless, that she saw Raphael, like a mirage floating in the crowd.

He was almost exactly where he'd been when she'd first seen him, midway down the bar, a head taller than everyone else, scanning the room while he nursed a drink. She blinked to be sure, but she recognized his face, his height, his curly hair, even his style—loosely fitting Italian suit, dark blue this time, and an expensive one. Open shirt. Nearly hairless chest.

He was looking away from her, so Chela didn't think he had seen her yet. Good. That would give her time to plot her move. She hadn't expected to find Raphael on her own, alone. She couldn't just go up to him asking questions about Maria. Maybe she could get him to come to her instead.

Heart pounding, Chela ducked out of his sight, trying to think past her adrenaline surge.

She found her mark: a young guy with two buddies at the bar counter near her, all of them ruddy-faced from the sun. Maybe college kids. Two were too husky for her tastes, but the lanky one looked harmless. As soon as Chela spotted him, her stare made him look up at her as if she'd tapped him on the shoulder.

Chela smiled. She almost laughed when he glanced over his shoulder, convinced she must be smiling at someone else, but he recovered quickly and smiled back. She could have stayed planted and drawn him to her with smiles, but she didn't have time to waste, so she beckoned him with a bent finger. This time, he pointed at his chest:
Me?

Chela nodded and slipped her fingertip into her mouth.

When he approached her, Chela realized how well she had chosen. His gold chain wasn't gaudy, but it had easily cost a grand, and she couldn't mistake the scent of his AQVA Pour Homme Marine, which went for seventy-five bucks a pop. She hadn't smelled it in at least two years, but she would know it anywhere. Manicured fingernails. Well-kept shoes. The kid had money, or at least his family did. Damn, she was good.

He grinned. “Hi,” he said, and flicked loose strands of gelled
dark hair from his eyes. He looked Latino, like more than half the guys in the room. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Before you do that, I want to tell you a secret . . .” she said, and leaned closer to him, sure to keep her profile in Raphael's view if he turned her way. The kid's neck turned bright red. Excited body heat radiated from him.

“Sure,” he said. “I like secrets.”

“You might not like this one,” she said. “The truth is, you're really cute, but I'm only trying to make my boyfriend jealous. And he's sort of not a nice guy, so it wouldn't be good for either one of us if I take it too far. But if he sees me talking to you like this, he's sure to notice—and he'll remember what a good thing he has. It also doesn't hurt you for your buddies to see you making moves on me.” Carefully, she draped one arm across his shoulder. “Right?”

His grin melted. He gave a start, as if to move away . . . but he didn't.

“Which one's your boyfriend?” he said, recovering.

“Blue suit? A little down the bar?” This guy could scout him for her.

He made a face. “Dude's a little old for you, isn't he?”

Chela shrugged. “Maybe I like experience. Still want to buy me a drink?”

“I'd love to,” he said. “But I can't.”

“Why not?”

Wistfully, the guy brushed his finger across her chin. “Because he's coming over here.
Felicidades
. Your plan worked. Can I at least ask your name?”

“Chela.”

“I'm Enrique. I live in Coral Gables. I'm a law student at UM. When you're ready for a nice guy, let me know.” And he stepped away from her, vanishing into the crowd.

Enrique's tone hadn't been chiding, but his words stung. Hard.
She
was
ready for a nice guy. She already had one. What the hell was she doing here?

A tall figure, silhouetted, blocked the flashing lights from the dance floor.
Raphael.
He moved like a vampire, floating rather than walking.

Chela's mind went blank in his shadow.

STILL ON HOLIDAY?”
Raphael said.

The odd phrase confused Chela. With his accent, maybe she'd misunderstood him. She'd assumed he was Latino, but his accent seemed different now that she was paying closer attention. What kind of holiday? She didn't answer.

“Vacanza,”
he said. “Vacation. You said you were here on vacation.”

Italian, she realized. Raphael was European.
Duh.

Chela tried to wipe the confusion from her face. He was standing as close to her as Enrique had been, and her heart was pounding so hard she wondered how he couldn't feel the vibration. She fought the urge to bring up Maria.