Friday (Serial) Fiction: Devils Walk Through Galveston, Ch. 8

It’s been a few weeks since we posted serial fiction on Friday.  I hope you are looking forward to the next installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston. Settle in for the Thanksgiving weekend.  And if you’re looking for something to give for Christmas, give a good book.  I’m more than happy to sign any copy you get to me.

The prologue, Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal), Chapter 2 (which introduced the police officers), Chapter 3 (the seduction of the initial victim), Chapter 4 (which follows the fleeing killer), and Chapter 5 (police begin tracking the killers), Chapter 6 (backstory of Eli, one of the key police officers), and Chapter7,  (the killers make their way to Galveston).  In Chapter 8, Searching through Houston’s underbelly.  I hope you enjoy it. Please read it and share (noncommercially).  Go to Amazon and get the book for the rest.

8.  Eli and Vincent out.  Night.  A reluctant prowl.

Vincent drove them in his classic Barracuda, north out of Houston into the unincorporated areas of Harris County.  A stretch of land between the city of Houston and its northern suburbs.  Old mineral land still producing oil and gas with the city surrounding it.  Cows walking over fields dotted with the gas well cap fire hydrants from which no water would flow.  Less than a mile from the interstate.  Twenty miles north of downtown.  Twenty miles south of oil company headquarters in the Woodlands.  Sort of a no-mans land of car lots, hotels and gentlemen’s clubs.  An occasional spa mixed in throughout the strip malls.

This was the Sheriff’s territory.  Laws reached here if problems were reported.  Little was.

The first rain-drops on the windshield.  The first lightning struck overhead.  Thunder close enough overhead to shake the car. 

Vincent turned the radio down, started the conversation:  “I’m glad you got the Lucchese’s.  The boots suit you.” 

Eli, pensive, not about fashion: “Thanks.  I didn’t think they’d work at first.  I like the couple of inches they give me.  They cost a ton.”

“You can write it off.  You needed to look like you have some money and know what to spend it on.  You needed a little cowboy, too.  Not much though.  You look nervous.”

“Not too much.”

“You’re not worried about the sheriff, are you?  This place never gets raided in the evenings.  Abject whoring takes place in the afternoons.  Or so I’m told.”

“I’m not whoring.”

“You’re not.  Just remember, if you’re in one of the private booths and the song changes in the middle, toss the girl off your lap.”

Eli laughed at the idea: “They enforce the three-foot law?”

“Not really.  It only counts if the girl isn’t wearing pasties over her nipples.  Which they don’t do at this club.  If the girl has bare breasts, she can’t officially be within three feet of you.  She can sit on your lap at the table as long as she has her breasts covered.  And all the three-foot law is down here is an excuse to haul you into the station.  In West Texas, they take it seriously.  Down here, it’s just to fuck with guys who they don’t catch with a girl’s hand in his pants but want to lean on a little.  The song change is a warning, though.” 

“What do you mean?”

“The club outfits all the bouncers, managers, bartenders, even the valets, with walkie-talkies.  They use them for legitimate purposes.  But they have a couple of buttons on them.  One has a specific tone.  Anyone sees the Sheriff’s vice squad, or someone they think is vice start to do a raid, they hit the button.  The d.j. will switch the song.  All the girls in the back jump off the guys laps.  Sometimes they don’t hear.  You have to toss them.” 

Eli incredulous:  “The Sheriff doesn’t know this?”

Vincent, laughing now, too:  “Of course he knows this.  He doesn’t care.  He doesn’t want to fuck with businessmen or lawyers who come in here.  Doesn’t want to get them in trouble for a little hand job or blow job away from their wives or girlfriends.  The Sheriff comes in here about twice a year or so when some concerned citizen – invariably another club owner pissed about business he’s not getting or a wife pissed about her dumbass husband who didn’t wash off the stripper perfume – complains about whoring in the club.  They come in and bust a couple of girls.  It makes the local papers.  Hopefully doesn’t make The Smoking Gun – though that does tend to increase business for the club when it tells everyone you can get a blowjob here.  But an occasional bust makes it look like the Sheriff’s doing something for the conservative folks who live out here.  But it makes it better for everyone else to let it go.”

Eli, trying to keep it together, trying to learn, asked: “Explain please.”

“Settle down.  A little bare breast on the horizon has you riled.”

“A little bit.”

“Here’s how it is.  One, there needs to be a place for folks to get a little release.  Two, a shit-ton of business gets done at strip clubs.  Three, officers get their best information from strippers, whores, and Johns. Not high dollar men.  They don’t know shit we need to know.  They know shit we’ll never know and probably wouldn’t understand anyway.  And they have lawyers with watches that cost more than your house.  Strippers and massage geishas and whores know about all the criminals who roll through.  So do the low-level drug dealers.  And we can lean on them.  Uniform-wearing police work, your past life, is about busting smaller crimes, keeping the peace, serving warrants and being the foot soldier on raids and busts.  And about those trifling fucks who rack up overtime testifying on the hundred traffic tickets they wrote last month.  You’re a detective now.  When something bad, really bad, goes down, we go to the whores and small time drug dealers. They tell us about someone with too much cash and crappy shoes.  Bad men who don’t talk.  Bad men who just showed up in town no one’s seen before.  Bad shit happens in this town.  No one really gives a shit about a little prostitution.  A little weed smoked.  Vice cares about human trafficking, women who don’t want to sell themselves and got brought here from El Salvador or Thailand on a promise of a waitress job and find themselves stuck in some whorehouse as sex slaves.  Child prostitution.  Vice comes down severely on those motherfuckers.  Drug runners and gun runners.  Murders that happen outside the game.  We go after the big fish. The little fish give them to us with a little leverage.  The small-time dealers and willing whores.  Club owners and their managers who skim off a percentage of the trick.   When there’s a bad man in the club they don’t want their bouncers dealing with, HPD or the Sheriff gets a call, and there is no switch in the song when we show up.”

Eli understanding most of this, backing up: “What do you mean ‘murders that happen outside the game?”

“Some kid wants to make some extra cash dealing, enters the game, he bought his decrease in life expectancy for the extra cash and easy women.  We generally don’t give a shit if they chose that life.  We do give a shit if someone decides to start a war.  Kill too many.  If there’s some collateral damage.  We give a shit about collateral damage and folks who didn’t sign up for it.  Or abjectly homicidal sonsabitches.” 

“And the strippers?”

“I’m not Sherlock Holmes. Neither are you. And, this isn’t CSI.  Very rarely does someone shoot someone then slit his wrist and drop some DNA.  Rarely does someone jizz all over a crime scene.  How do you think we solve crimes?  Your average citizen won’t call in crimes and make themselves a witness.  Your average citizen would rather not go into witness protection.  And, we wouldn’t put them in witness protection anyway. We can’t relocate half the ghetto to some suburb in Utah.  So, we need to get information the best way we know how.  Something bad happens and we need information.  Whores, small time dealers, petty thieves, they know what happened.  We can lean on them to talk.  Show us which direction to go.”

“That’s why we’re here?” 

“That’s why.  To teach you to be comfortable with strippers.  And, you need to see some skin.  A man can only touch himself so many times before he’s looking at nasty fetish videos at home, all chafed.   I need to see some skin.  And, I truly like the company of strippers.  You will, too.  Some of them.  The Capitan doesn’t care if we come out here past our jurisdiction.  Neither does the Sheriff.  You just can’t create an awkward situation up the food chain if County Vice comes in to make a bust and they catch an HPD officer with a girl’s hand down his pants.  Next thing you know you’re in the back of the club while they brace the Johns and you have to tell them you are HPD in some sort of attempt at discretion.  That won’t go well.  So, listen for a switch in songs. And have fun.  Relax.  You brought cash?”

They turned right off the highway, saw neon and spinning flood lights a half mile in the distance.  Pulled into the parking lot and drove to the front of the club.  Eli got out and Vincent handed the keys to the valet, asked him to wash the car.  Took the ticket and went through the double doors to the metal detectors to pay the cover.  Vincent flirted with the dancer resting by the counter, bent over in a too-short schoolgirl skirt with a red thong peeking between her ass cheeks.  Picked up his wallet and watch on the other side of the detector.  Vincent bought a couple of cigars from the floor manager.  Eli followed and they opened the interior double doors to the pulse of dance music and smoke.  Low light and two waitresses resting by the two stairs down into the club. 

§§

They’d been sitting for about twenty minutes.  The manager had walked over to shake Vincent’s hand, ask about the cigars.  Vincent motioned for him to lean in.  He did and they whispered in each other’s ears.  It was friendly.   Eli knew who the manager was from his dress and demeanor.  The manager introduced himself to Eli and they shook hands, told him that if he needed anything, to have the girls get him.  He didn’t offer to comp their drinks.  They all knew better.  Eli and Vincent sat back in their seats and watched the girls on the three stages.  Smoked their cigars and nursed neat whiskey.  Neat so they could tell at all times how much they’d been drinking.

Ten minutes passed.  Two songs and a different girl on the main stage.  Vincent turned, motioned his head toward the manager, now at the bar, and told Eli quietly:  “It’s fine. We know each other.  He knows we’re HPD homicide so wanted to know if anything was up, anyone we needed to talk to or look for.   I told him no, we were just getting out, showing you around.  He said to have a good time.” 

Eli and Vincent still nursing their first drinks when she walked over wearing a too short skirt and bikini top a little too loose over her thin frame.  Asked if they wanted company.  They did.  She looked them over and decided to move toward Eli, motioned for him to let her sit on his lap.  Another dancer saw this and came over to sit on Vincent.  The waitress saw this and came over to take the girls’ drink order.  All like clockwork.  All part of the initial flirtation. 

She introduced herself with a stage name, Arie, or Aris or Ariel.  Eli couldn’t tell and she didn’t care right now.  Eli knew better than to ask her the real one.  She asked how he was doing.  He said “fine.”  He wasn’t.  It had been too long since he’d held a woman in his arms, felt a woman’s skin on his hands.  She sensed this. Started small talk.  She asked where he was from and he said Houston.  She said the same.  She asked if he and his friend worked together.  He said they did, that they had just become partners a few weeks ago.  She asked what they did.  Eli looked at Vincent, who leaned over, his girl on his lap so she could hear, too.  Told the girls that they were Houston Police Department homicide detectives.  That nothing was up.  They were just out for the evening.  Then one more song with the girls on their laps, quiet among themselves.  When the girls’ drinks ran out, Vincent’s girl asked if he wanted a dance.  He told her to come back in half an hour, for real.  He would get a few dances from her then.  He needed to talk to Eli for a few minutes first.  The girl on Eli’s lap heard, too, and got up to go.  She asked Eli if he wanted her to come back. Vincent told her, yes.

As the girls left, Vincent pulled his chair closer to Eli, both facing the stage, the ash tray between them.  Told Eli:  “The girls want to know if you want to be lied to.  They’re trying to figure that out.”

Eli, confused: “Why would I want to be lied to?”

“That’s most of the game here.  Guys come here to get lied to, told they’re handsome, made to feel like their lives and jobs and petty hobbies are interesting.  The girls will ask your interests and then talk to you about them.  The good ones know just a little about a whole lot of things so it can make it seem like your cello playing, if you happen to play cello recreationally as an adult, is the most normal yet interesting thing in the world.  She will tell you she played cello as a kid.  She will know who Yo-Yo Ma is.  She won’t know much else.  If you want to be lied to, you let her talk and don’t ask her further details.  Most guys come here for the lies, to get away from their wives and kids and not talk about their problems.  It’s all good so long as you can forget the lies as soon as you get out the door.  You can’t and it gets really expensive.”

“I take it we aren’t going to get lied to.”

“You need to be lied to more than most any man I have ever met.  If you go to Chicago or Vegas or somewhere far outside town, absolutely, get lied to.  If you have problems you don’t want to talk about, being lied to by a pretty girl sitting on your lap is great.  It’s most of what you pay for.  But plenty of guys don’t need to get lied to.  Don’t want it.  Don’t care.  The dancers were trying to figure it out.”

“Who wants the truth with a stripper?”

“A guy who knows he’s got it, or doesn’t care.  Someone who comes here for business only or to think or just to see some skin.  There are those guys.  Guys who have a really pretty girlfriend already but like the company of other girls.” 

“So I’m not supposed to get lied to.  How do I stop that?”

“Look, you have to act self-assured.  If they ask about what you do, tell them.  If they ask what you are interested in, what you like to do, tell the truth but don’t get deep into it.  Ask about them, their lives, kids, boyfriends.  Guys who want to be lied to don’t do that.  Those guys want to believe that she’s really going to medical school during the day.  You obviously can’t tell them about active investigations.  You can’t get caught up in lies they tell.  You’re here to meet them, get used to talking to them.  Get used to getting the truth from them.  You need a reputation as a customer, a cop, who doesn’t need their lies.  Who respects them and will listen to them.  Deep down, these women want money and they want to be listened to. This is a business.  It is all about them making money.  You have to understand that and know how the money flows, how they make it, to make sure they don’t get pissed at you for wasting their time.  Note I told her to come back in half an hour.  Because I will get a couple of dances from her.  If I didn’t want a dance, I would have told her that.  Earlier sitting on our laps was advertising.  They want to know if they can make the sale.  Don’t waste their time, ever.  Treat them like business women, but also like ladies.  They don’t get much of that in here.  Just settle back.  And, don’t stare at any girl walking by if you don’t want her to dance for you in the back.  That’s like teasing.   You stare at them walking by, they come over.  They come over, they want to make $20 per song on a dance.  If you aren’t going to pay it, you are simply wasting their time that they could be dancing for someone else. Don’t bullshit them.  But know they don’t work all the time.  They need breaks.  If you listen, they’ll talk while they are on a break from dancing.”

Half an hour passed.  The cigars were smoked and put out.  The girl who’d been on Vincent was on the third stage, finishing the rotation.  Vincent went up and tipped her a ten, asked her to come back when she was finished.   And to bring the girl for his friend.  The song ended and the dancer went to the dressing room.  She used a wet towel to wipe down the sweat.  Put on fresh perfume, too much.  Found the girl who was with Eli.  The two walked out together.

Eli’s girl sat in his lap and leaned her head on his shoulder, asked if he was married.

Eli told her, “Divorced for six months.”

She looked him in the eye and said, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.  I don’t miss the fighting.  I miss the boy.”

“You have a son?”

“She does.  I sort of have a step-son.  I don’t get visitation unless she lets me.  She’s letting me so far.  It’s good for the boy, good for me. Gets her free babysitting and it makes the boy happy.”

“That sounds like it hurts.  I have a six year old son.  I don’t know what I’d do…”

She, quieter now to not freak out anyone walking by, hesitantly: “So, you’re a cop?”

Vincent, leaning over to her, quietly: “Homicide detective.”

She asked Eli: “How long have you been one?”

“A cop?  Eight years.  I got on homicide two weeks ago.” 

“You like it?”

“It’s odd being out of uniform, driving an unmarked car.  It’s different work.  Vincent, my friend over there, is explaining it to me.  I feel like a rookie all over again.”

Vincent, listening in over his conversation about boxing, pausing, telling Eli’s dancer: “He’ll get it. He’s smart.”

Vincent, leaned over to Eli’s girl, handed her a twenty dollar bill and said: “Give him a dance.  Make him buy two more.”

§§

She got off Eli’s lap and took him by the hand.  Led him to the back of the club where there were a series of small rooms on both sides of a narrow hallway.  The rooms were about six by six, with no doors.  In each room, a chair sat in the corner on the entry-sidewall.  In it you couldn’t be seen by someone just walking by. But easy to poke a head in.  A semblance of privacy. 

Eli put his wallet and keys on the little table on the far corner.  She put the second chair in the doorway and placed her skirt on top of it, to show other dancers the room was occupied so they wouldn’t look in. 

She sat on Eli’s lap in her g-string and bikini top waiting for the song to finish.  Told him to relax.  Told him it was her first week.  She had been a waitress for two years at another club near the Galleria, but needed more money.  Had a house payment that was getting difficult to make.  A son who wanted to play peewee football.  So she came to this club to dance but didn’t like it.  Too many men trying to take liberties she wasn’t willing to sell, wasn’t ready to give.  She put her head on his shoulder.  He clutched her back, massaged her gently.  She felt safe.  That was new for this place.

The song started and she got up, turned around and faced her back to him.  Pushed her ass out. It was spectacular.  Laced her fingers behind her back and untied the bikini top.  Dropped it on the chair and started to dance for him, facing away.  Slow at first, swaying her narrow hips.  She backed into him.  Rubbed her cheeks from his chest to his hips.  Turned her head and smiled at him.  Eli traced the line of her spine with two fingers.  Quiet and intense.  She turned around and placed his face in the curve of her neck.  He breathed in her perfume.  She wore Obsession.  Eli ran his fingers along her thighs, told her she was beautiful.  Told her the truth, whispered it into her ear.  Cupped her head lightly with both hands and rubbed his face along her hair.  She ran a hand across his shirt, felt the muscles of his chest, his flat stomach.  Lost for three minutes in a winding embrace.  The song ended and she paused.  Looked him in the eye.  He nodded, agreeing to twenty dollars more, and they continued as the next song started up.  Continued through two more in light sweat and sinew.  Crossing legs and arms.  She sliding over him, running her nipples over his cheeks, tracing his face with the backs of her fingers, tracing his arms with her palms.  And Eli whispering constantly in her ear, tracing her body’s braille, memorizing every inch of her skin, every curve of muscle and bone he touched, the light off her caramel skin.  Inhaling every breath she breathed as her mouth crossed in front of his.

The last song ended and the d.j. called for her next at the main stage.  She pulled off him reluctantly.  Sighed and gave him a light kiss.  Stood, addled.  Walked looking down the few steps to gather her clothing as Eli stood.  He gathered his wallet and held out three twenties as she put the skirt and top back on.  She picked up his cell phone and handed it to him.  She said her real name was Mya, not Ariel.  She told him to program in her cell number.

Eli, confused, asked, “You want me to call you when I’m coming back?”

She said “yes and no,” to call her whenever, when he was coming in so she’d know, and to call her if he wanted to meet outside, quietly saying: “No one has ever paid that close attention to me.”

And Eli: “No”

Mya quiet, looking away: “It’s true.”

“That’s a damn shame.”

She looked back up at him, asking, “How did she let you go?”

“I drove her away.”

“No, not if you ever did that, treated her like that.”

“No.  There wasn’t enough of that.   Wasn’t enough of me.”

She leaned in for another gentle kiss, a brush of lips.  She turned and pulled back the chair blocking the door.  Led him out.  When Eli got to the table, Vincent was there, smiling.  Mya stood while Eli sat.  Leaned down and told him to call her.  Walked toward the door next to the main stage.  Waved at the d.j. in the booth as Eli watched her go.  Vincent watching Eli, chuckling: “That went well.”

Eli smiling, said, “It did.”

“What did you learn?”

“That girl is dangerous.  Wonderful and dangerous.”

Vincent tapped the table, said, “She looked sweet.  She’s not dangerous.  That, son, that wasn’t a lie.  I hope you got her number.”

“She put it in my phone.”

“Good.  Let’s go. I paid the tab.” 

They walked out of the club and Vincent handed the valet ticket back.  The Barracuda rolled up washed and detailed.

Out of the parking lot and toward the highway.  Vincent tapped the wheel, staring ahead and told Eli: “We have work tonight.  They found a body in Galveston.”

Eli confused: “Why do we care about a body in Galveston?”

“One, damn near everything that starts in Galveston makes its way up I-45 to Houston.  Two, this one is fucked up.  This one has legs.  The Rangers called, and now we have to go in to talk.”

§§

Galveston police were called in to a Victorian house on Broadway late that afternoon.  One of the old houses from Galveston’s best days at the turn of the century.  The husband, a rich plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyer, was in court.  A neighbor woman came over and found her, throat slit with almost no blood left in the body.  Most pooled on the floor.  Husband’s shotgun on the floor next to her.   No shots fired.  Smooth, bloody boot prints on the kitchen tile, the floors of the house and the walk outside.  The boot prints stopping on the grass by the sidewalk.  The refrigerator door open and a warm half-drunk carton of milk on the kitchen island.  The back lock busted and door ajar.  No fingerprints on the carton.  Just smudges of dried sweat.  No gloves.  No prints on anything in the house.  The husband said there was some cash from the bureau gone.  Some diamond earrings, too.  They called it in to the station.  The police asked about her car that wasn’t in the garage, asking if he’d stolen it.  The husband said it was in the shop, she’d been given a ride home by the dealer. The car was going to be finished tomorrow.  Lab techs were sent out to dust the place.  Nothing but smudges and some lines from the mid-finger area on the bureau and jewelry box.  The Texas Rangers sent their man for Galveston County out.  There were other murders like this one on the wire.  The Rangers looked deeper and found even more.  Grisly murders with a knife and no traces.  No prints and smooth boots.  Others from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, El Paso a year ago.  The Ranger from El Paso County coming in.  A manhunt to begin.  Someone had to hang for this.