The Death Box(34)
“Well, I can sure make you any of—”
“Wait, Michael. I’m curious. How has the Sazarac become my signature drink?”
Ballentine had served people for a year and had been in dozens of meandering, pointless, and often incomprehensible conversations, learning to handle people with skill and diplomacy. But somehow, with this guy, it was like being dropped in a box with the air drained out as the sides closed in.
“I … my mistake, sir. I should have asked if I could get you what you had the last time I served you.”
“And you recalled that as a Sazarac, Michael? It that my understanding?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure that’s what I recall.”
“What if it was a gin and tonic, Michael? Did you consider that?”
Ballentine slapped his forehead. “That’s what it was! I don’t know how I could have forg—”
The man shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t a gin and tonic, Michael. Not a gin and tonic at all.”
“The margarita, then?”
“Absolutely not.”
Ballentine frowned, perplexed. “What was it, sir?”
The man looked at Ballentine as if he were mentally challenged.
“A Sazarac, of course.”
Ballentine retreated into professionalism, bowing slightly and spinning away to the mixing station. “What is it about the guy, Alberto?” he said as he poured ingredients. “It’s like he’s from another planet.”
Fuentes lowered his voice to a whisper. “Mr Chalk has wealth, and when people bow to his dollars he believes they are bowing to him. It gives him the illusion of strength and the more he plays with people the stronger the illusion. Yet for all his dollars, Mr Chalk is a confused child, albeit a nasty one, I think.”
“Where did he get all this money?”
“His parents give him vast sums of money to not bother them. They have homes across Europe and he gets the United States as his playground. There is no communication between them but money.”
“That’s sad. It almost makes me feel for the guy.”
Fuentes shook his head and waggled a no-no finger. “Mr Chalk is a monstruo and you must feel nothing for him, because that’s exactly what he feels for you. Be pleasant and professional, give him what he requests and nothing more. And never, ever tell him anything about your personal life.”
“Why?”
“He will use it to wound you.”
Ballentine shot a glance at the guest, now smiling blankly into the air, if enthralled by a single, glittering thought.
“Monstruo, Alberto? What is that?”
“A freak, Michael,” Fuentes said. “The man is a freak of nature.”
I returned to the site convinced I was seeing a trafficking operation gone awry. Evidently the news preceded me, Roy pacing outside the white tent smoking a cigar. “Doc Morningstar just found a man’s sandal in the mix, clearly made in Honduras. Everything’s pointing to a single origin for the bodies, which screams human trafficking.”
“I’ve just come from a meeting with a specialist in the area, Roy.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard Victoree Johnson speak before. She’s big on public awareness, talks at libraries, social clubs, political get-togethers. Impressive woman who knows the ugliest aspects of the trade, which you’d expect.”
“Because she studies it?”
“Victoree was a slave herself. Haitian, sold by her parents when she was eleven. She was bought by a wealthy American couple to do housework. She did other things for hubby and the teenaged son. Oh, and the wife, too. Some family, right?”
“Jesus,” I whispered.
“They got tired of Victoree when she turned fourteen and gave her to a pimp who sold her to men who liked ’em with big eyes and little ages. She finally tried to run. But Mr Pimp wanted to teach a lesson to his other girlies so he carved out an eye and sliced off an ear, that’s why she wears her hair so long. Victoree stayed with the guy – what happens when being a piece of sexual commerce is all you know. He put her on the street doing mouth jobs at twenty bucks a pop, working from sundown until the last drunk john finally headed home. That was all Victoree Johnson knew for the next three years.”
“How did she get free?”
“She woke up one morning in a fourth-floor walkup and found her best friend dead on the floor, an OD. The friend looked so peaceful Victoree decided she wanted to go there. She didn’t have enough dope for a hot shot so she figured she’d dive off the fire escape. She had her hooking bag slung over her shoulder, some huge leather thing. Victoree drops two stories onto a freakin’ flagpole sticking off the building and snaps her spine. But the strap of the bag catches and holds because Victoree weighs about seventy pounds. She’s hanging up there like the ragged flag of everything that could go wrong until someone calls it in.”