House of the Rising Sun (14 page)

Ray squinted at Tony in mock confusion. “Are you getting promoted?”

“Somebody fucked up. Somebody didn't want to get his hands dirty running this place, used too much of a laid-back management style. Turns out Vinnie might have to pay back that three hundred large out of his own pocket.”

Ray shrugged. The news surprised him, but he really didn't care if Old Man Carlos thought his brother had screwed up or not. So long as no one was demanding that he kick in to replace the stolen cash. “Vinnie can afford it.”

Tony snorted. “Vinnie couldn't afford to buy a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“What are you talking about?” Ray nodded toward the casino floor. “This place is a cash cow. He lives in a penthouse apartment. His brother practically owns New Orleans, the underside of it anyway. Vinnie can afford it.”

“I'm telling you, Vinnie doesn't have a pot to piss in.”

Ray's cop instincts told him this was something that might be important. “Why not?”

Tony glanced around the room, making sure no one was close to them. He looked at Ray. When he spoke, his voice was hushed. “That school his boy went to was expensive, big-time expensive. Whatever was left over after that, his wife ran through it like Vinnie had his own printing press.”

Ray nodded toward the money cage and the closed door to the counting room. “Why was there so much cash?”

Tony shrugged, but his expression said he knew more.

“Did you skip a pickup?” Ray asked.

Tony held up a pair of fingers. “We skipped two of them that night.”

“Why?”

“That wasn't my call.”

Ray stared at Tony. “Whose call was it?”

Tony aimed a finger at the ceiling, toward Vinnie's penthouse.

“Why?” Ray asked.

Tony shrugged. “I don't know. Ask him yourself.”

“I will.”

The clock above the stove showed 8:00
PM
. Jenny Porter realized she was going to be late for work. She slipped on her slut suit, got it zipped in the back, and was starting to look for her keys when someone knocked on her apartment door.

Looking through the peephole, she saw the top half of a grossly obese man dressed in a suit. She didn't recognize him, so she shouted through the door, “Who is it?”

Though his voice was muffled, she heard him say, “Ms. Porter, my name is Hiram Gordo.” He was holding a business card up
near the peephole. “I represent a group of medical providers. I need to speak with you. It's quite urgent.”

Now she understood. It was about the money. It was always about the money. “I can't talk right now. I'm getting ready for work.”

“It's very important, Ms. Porter,” the fat man said. “It'll only take a few minutes.”

As Jenny opened the door, Hiram Gordo waddled inside and handed her his card. She took it but didn't look at it. Gordo gave her a long look, his eyes lingering on her legs. He extended a pudgy hand. “It's very nice to meet you.”

His hand was cold and clammy, like grabbing hold of a fish. Instead of meeting her eyes, he stared down the front of her blouse. He wouldn't let go of her hand. Finally, she pulled away from his grasp. Jenny suddenly felt very uncomfortable. “You didn't buzz, how'd you get in the building?”

He looked at her face for the first time. “I met one of your neighbors who was coming out. After I introduced myself, he let me in.”

She wondered what the point was of having a secured building if anyone off the street could walk in unannounced. “Like I said, I've got to get to work.”

He gave her an oily smile. “This will only take a minute.” Then, with a nod at the sofa, he said, “Mind if I sit down?”

Jenny shook her head. “I'm afraid I don't have—”

But Gordo ignored her. He plopped down and wiggled himself into the cushions, then patted the spot next to him. “Sit down, please.”

Jenny folded her arms across her chest. “I told you I'm on my way to work. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go.”

The fat man leaned back. “Ms. Porter, as I said, I represent a group of medical providers.”

“Which ones?”

“Mid-City Medical Center, Stafford Nursing Services, and
Medico Equipment Rentals.” The names rolled off his tongue like a used-car salesman. “You owe them a total of forty-eight thousand dollars.”

“Are you some kind of collection agent?” She glanced at his business card in her hand.
HIRAM L. GORDO, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
.

She had not known many lawyers, but the ones she had known looked a lot more . . . respectable. “You're a lawyer?” she said.

“My firm specializes in the collection of bad debt.”

“Bad debt?”

He gave her a thin smile. “It's a term we use for debts that are more than ninety days past due. I don't mean to be offensive.”

“I'm not offended,” she said. “I don't care what you call it, but I'm not paying them any more money.”

“Ms. Porter, my clients, in the spirit of cooperation and fairness, went to the trouble of working out a very reasonable payment plan for you, but you haven't been making your payments.”

“Nine hundred dollars a month isn't what I call reasonable.”

He ignored her. “My clients have sent you letters of delinquency by certified mail, they've called you, they've done everything possible before contacting my firm for collection. However, now that it's been turned over to me, I intend to collect.”

“I put my mother in the hospital so they could help her. Instead, they killed her.”

“Ms. Porter, that's a matter that you should take up with an attorney who specializes in malpractice. My only concern is the unpaid debt.”

“You think it's fair what they did?” she asked. “They let my mother die, and they charged me seventy-five thousand dollars to do it.”

“That's not why I'm here.”

“I know why you're here. It's because those sons of bitches
care more about collecting bills than they do about helping sick people.”

“I don't think that's fair or even accurate.”

“No, of course you don't. You're just here to collect the blood money.” Jenny felt her emotions starting to take control. “You're worse than them.”

“Let's get back to your problem,” Gordo said. “Normally, I give notice by certified mail. If after thirty days I haven't received payment, then I file suit.”

She stared down at him. “You file whatever you want. I'm not paying them any more money for killing my mother.”

“The records show that you've already paid twenty-seven thousand dollars, but it's been almost a year since your last payment. All I'm asking is that you resume making your payments.”

“I'm not paying your clients another fucking dime.”

“You're not going to have a choice, Ms. Porter. When I sue you, I'll get a judgment, and then I'll file liens on your property, garnish your wages, whatever I have to do to serve my clients.”

“Go to hell . . .” She glanced at the card. “. . . Mr. Gordo.” Jenny pointed to the door. “And get out of my apartment.”

Hiram Gordo sprang to his feet, surprising her with his speed. She tried to step back, but the back of her legs bumped the coffee table and stopped her. The lawyer grabbed her arm.

Jenny tried to pull away, but his fat fist held her tight. “Maybe we can . . . work something out that's mutually satisfying to both of us.”

She looked into Gordo's swollen face, at the thin line of sweat beaded above his upper lip. “What do you mean?”

The putrid stench of his breath washed over her face as he pulled her closer to him with his right hand, while the fingers of his left hand stroked her arm. “I mean maybe we can do something for each other. Quid pro quo, as it were.”

She jerked her arm free and upended the coffee table as she
backed away from him. “Get out!” she shouted, jabbing her finger at the door.

Gordo smiled again. “You don't really want me to leave, do you?”

She exaggerated a glance at the closed door to her bedroom, trying to draw his attention to it. “I live with someone.”

The fat belly jiggled as Gordo laughed. “You live alone, Ms. Porter.”

Again she looked at the closed door and wished there really were someone in there to help her throw this pig out. She kept backing away, still trying to bluff. “If you don't leave right now, my boyfriend is going to come out here and kick your ass.”

“My investigator has been watching you.”

“Watching me,” she said, suddenly sick to her stomach.

“I thought it would be a good idea to know more about you.” His face cracked into a smile. “I know you live alone, I know where you work, and I know what you do for a living.” He chuckled.

“You're looking for a freebie?”

“Forty-eight thousand dollars, Ms. Porter, it's a lot of money. I can help you.”

She backed toward the kitchen, thinking of things she could use as weapons—knives, forks, the steel pot sitting on the drain board.

Gordo followed her.

“Help me with what?” she asked. Keep him talking. It would give her time to think.

“I can get you an extension,” he said, stalking toward her. “Maybe work out easier payments.”

“And what do you want?”

Her back bumped into the wall between the den and kitchen. Gordo laughed, then reached out and caressed her cheek. “I think you know what I want.”

He grabbed her arms and pinned them against her sides. He
leaned forward and kissed her. Jenny twisted her face away and ducked. She tried to slide under his arm, but he held her against the wall with his big belly.

With her back braced, Jenny drove her right knee up into the fat man's balls. The lawyer grunted but didn't let go of her. Near panic, she again slammed her knee into his crotch. Another grunt, but the fat man still wouldn't let go.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, felt his thumb pressing into the hollow just behind her collarbone. He was trying to drive her to the floor.

“You can do it on your knees if you like,” he said.

Jenny twisted her neck and sank her teeth into his thumb. She tasted his blood in her mouth. Gordo screamed, a high-pitched wail, like a young girl. As he jerked his hand away from her shoulder, Jenny twisted under his arm and dashed into the kitchen. He stumbled after her. “You bitch!” he screamed.

She made it to the countertop next to the stove just as he grabbed a handful of her hair. Gordo yanked her head back, but Jenny's hand closed on the handle of a steak knife, part of a set of six, the handles sticking out of a wooden block. He pulled her back and down, trying to drag her to the floor, but she kept her feet under her and didn't fall. Instead she spun toward him and stabbed at his chest. He saw it coming and twisted away at the last second. The blade stabbed through his sleeve and dug into the flab of his upper arm.

He backhanded her across the face and jumped away, grabbing at the hole in his jacket. Jenny held the knife in both hands, the point up, aimed at his face. “Get out of my house.”

Gordo glanced down at the blood seeping between his fingers. Then he looked at Jenny. “You stabbed me, you crazy bitch!”

Although she was at least five feet away, she jabbed the knife at him. “I'll stab you again if you don't get your fat ass out of my apartment.”

“What the hell's wrong with you?” He looked astonished,
like they had been playing a game. “You're a whore. You fuck for a living, yet you won't do it to help yourself get out of debt? I've had housewives fuck my brains out over a five-thousand-dollar credit card debt they didn't want their husbands to know about.”

They stared at each other across the floor of the small kitchen, both breathing hard. Gordo looked at his arm again. “I can't believe you stabbed me.”

He lunged at her.

Jenny hacked at his face. She missed, but the fat man stumbled backward to get away. She rushed after him, thrusting the steak knife at his eyes and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

The blubbery lawyer turned and ran. She chased him to the edge of the kitchen, then stopped, afraid to get too close to him. At the apartment door he turned. “This isn't over.” He nodded toward the bloody hole in his sleeve. “You're going to pay for this.” Then he threw open the door and bolted out.

“What's the matter, you afraid to be seen with me?” Ray said.

Jimmy LaGrange nodded. “Yeah.”

“Every time we meet it's somewhere new.”

“Maybe that should tell you something.”

“Like what?”

“Like I don't want to meet with you,” the detective said.

Ray glanced around the park. They were near Lake Pontchartrain, not far from his boathouse apartment. The late-afternoon air was warm, and for a change it wasn't raining. November in New Orleans and people were still out in shorts, some walking dogs, everyone enjoying the nice weather.