Strings Page 4

  “Cash money, delivered directly to the Madam by yours truly. The man doesn’t do banks. Also doesn’t do phones. When he wants a girl, he sends a letter. It’s all very strange. He probably keeps all his money in a mattress.”

  Nina blinked. Must be a big goddamn mattress. She preferred to imagine Scrooge McDuck swimming in his mountain of gold coins. “Okay, how about this? I go in and trick roll him, grab all the money I can carry, and we both run. With the kind of cash this dude has, we could get far. Like Mexico. Or hell, maybe Argentina or Iceland.”

  Ramón shook his head. “You’re talking crazy, girl. The Cassinis will always be several steps ahead. Every time I bring someone all the way up here, I must check in every hour on the dot, or she sends the hounds. It’s a risk even being stopped like this now. I never spotted any tails on these trips, but no doubt I’m being watched on a GPS and will have to explain myself later.”

  This knowledge deflated her a little, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. “We can find ways around all that once we have money in hand. You hustled back in the day, right? This sort of thing should be up your alley.”

  “You don’t know anything about my old life, señorita. And trust me, you don’t want to know.” This wasn’t the voice of the joking grandfatherly man she’d come to know over the last few years. She’d dug deep enough to hit steel, and the sparks were in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know anything about that. But it seems so . . . possible that we could get away with this.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s possible. You going into that house and coming out a lifeless rag doll. Any man who can do what I’ve seen done to these girls is a man you ain’t gonna be able to overpower.”

  Nina filled with fiery anger. “Everyone always makes the mistake of underestimating me. Don’t you start.”

  “You think you’re the first one to use tough talk on the way to the Ballas house? This is why I’m giving you an out now!”

  “Your out is not really an out and you know it. Stop acting like you would be doing me a favor. You just don’t want another one of the Ballas girls on your conscience.”

  She could tell that hurt him by the way he winced. Good. He should feel bad. “They’ll hunt us until we’re dead,” he said. “These people don’t stop. Victor Cassini never forgets. I didn’t get this job because I applied for it. Victor and me go back a lot of years. I used to help him hunt down deadbeats until I became one of them, and believe me, I got off lucky.”

  She had always been curious about how exactly Ramón came by his arrangement, though she assumed that like the rest of the people under the Willow’s roof, he was working there under duress. “I understand your worries, believe me. For the last four years, I dreamed of escape, knowing I never could get up the nerve. But we have the upper-hand this time. We’ll have the money and the opportunity, especially if we stick together. The Madam is expecting this whole thing to go as planned, because in all the years she’s been dealing with this Ballas guy, nothing has gone wrong. She’s blinded by dollar signs. If we’re going to make any kind of move, I can’t think of a better time to do it than now.”

  Ramón gazed down at the seat for a few minutes, deep in thought. Finally, he sighed and rubbed his face with one gloved hand. “You could be right.”

  Nina smiled. “I know I am. And by this time tomorrow, we’ll be in the wind, hundreds of miles away from here.”

  “I don’t have a gun with me,” he said. “I’ve never been in that house. I wouldn’t know how to plan or carry out any kind of robbery.”

  “I can do it myself.” She thought of the few times she’d robbed johns, back during her street days when she’d been so broke she couldn’t even eat and knew selling her body was the only way to get enough cash to survive. Except she sometimes couldn’t bring herself to follow through with the actual sex, and it was a lot more lucrative to run away into the night with a stolen wallet. She only stopped when a friend who used the same strategy ended up getting caught and beaten death. A couple weeks later, she met Joey.

  “How do you plan to do it?” Ramón asked.

  “Do you have any eye drops?” She used to carry them with her regularly. A little bit added to someone’s drink, and they were either puking their guts or passed out in no time. Too much was lethal. In this case, she was fine with that.

  Ramón gazed at her for a moment. “We can stop for some before we get there. Just hope he wants to have a drink first.”

  “I’m willing to take my chances. If all else fails, I’ll break his sick fucking neck. Sounds like he deserves it.” She felt her confidence rising, but image of Rosie’s dead eyes stayed with her, gently stroking her doubt.

  * * *

  About an hour later, Ramón pulled the Town Car up to a rusted iron gate covered in twists of yellowing ivy. The house hunched deep in shadows that even the car’s high-beam headlights couldn’t quite cut through. Nina’s anxiety kicked up a notch.

  Knock it off, she scolded herself. Tree branches arched over the driveway, reminding her of skeletal arms. There weren’t very many leaves on those trees, and it was only mid-September. Still a little too early for them to drop, but nothing had been maintained. The trees were likely dead or nearly there. If the outside was this bad, how bad might the inside be?

  Ramón pushed aside a few strands of dead ivy and pressed a button on an intercom box that looked too old to work, but a few seconds later, the gate parted with a loud screech, and he guided the car into the inky gloom ahead. Vegetation flanked both sides of the narrow and cracked blacktop, all dead or near it. Ramón steered around potholes with the well-practiced grace of a regular visitor, reminding Nina all over again that her original destiny was to be another statistic in this place. He slammed on the brakes a moment later, and Nina looked up to see an enormous white possum sitting in front of them. Its pointed snout parted, revealing a mass of needle sharp teeth. Instead of running, it sat up on its hind legs and glared at them with blood-colored eyes. She’d seen a lot of possums while growing up in the sticks, but never an albino one. Not exactly supernatural, but rare enough to feel like a bad omen. It didn’t look very frightened or interested in running. In fact, it started walking toward them, and Nina cringed as if it might somehow jump through the windshield.

  “Just go!” she yelled. “Hit it if you have to.”

  “Calm down. I ain’t gonna run it over.” Instead, Ramón tapped on the horn and the thing dropped to its front paws and slinked off, its fleshy tail dragging along behind it.

  “See? He ain’t as scary as he looks. Just like me.” He laughed, but it sounded forced. “You doing all right back there?”

  Nina let out a whoosh of breath and sat back in her seat. “As well as can be expected.” This whole plan was not getting off to a very promising start if she was jumping at random critters in the road. Her nerves already felt like burnt ends of rope.

  As Ramón steered the car into a circular driveway with a defunct fountain in the center, Nina got a good look at the house in the blue-white wash of moonlight, and her breath caught in the back of her throat. After the creepy stories and the weird possum, this was too much for her to take. Maybe they could still turn back, find another way to run without the money. Rob a bank, live in homeless shelters. Whatever it took. No amount of money could make her want to go into this place. This mad, mad place.

  The house was Spanish style, like something one would expect to see in California rather than upstate New York. The color reminded her of dirty old bones, and several cracks marred the stucco exterior like black spider webs. But the worst part was the graffiti. Dozens of spray-painted symbols she didn’t recognize, save for the unmistakable pentagram over the door, covered the façade. Thick bars covered the windows, all of which were dark save for one on the left end of the lower level, which emanated a bluish flicker of light, probably from a television.

  “Dios mío. It gets worse every time,” Ramón murmured.

  Anger poppe
d to life in her gut like a flame. “How could you drive anyone to this nut house? What were you thinking? What’s going to happen in there? You know, don’t you?” The questions flew out of her mouth like sharp little daggers, and Ramón, in his old black coat and black driver’s cap covering a mop of salt and pepper hair, bowed his head and took it all. Finally, he turned to her with the expression of a hurt dog. Tears brimmed in his dark eyes, and Nina couldn’t help but soften a little. There was no pleasure in stomping a broken man.

  “I got no excuse for what I’ve done, but you have to believe I never wanted any of this.” He looked out the passenger side window as the house seemed to loom over the car like a hungry monster. “I still think of the first girl I brought up here. Her name was Angela, and I loved her. I would’ve walked barefoot over a pile of hot nails for her, and I think she loved me, too. She was getting older and looking for a new life. The Madam gave her the chance to walk free, like you. We thought it was going to be the end of it all. I never forgave myself.” His voice cracked on the last word, but the tears never fell, at least that Nina could see in the dark.

  “What happened to her?” Nina asked.

  He uncovered his eyes and sniffed. “She came out, but she was gone in her head. Muttering under her breath, eyes all blank and dusty. For a long time, I couldn’t understand any of it, but then one day I got my ears up real close to her mouth and I heard it. Daddy needs to eat, daddy needs to eat . . . Over and over again. The other girls would all say different stuff, but similar. Little bits from the freak’s act in there, I suppose.”

  Nina spoke with a dry mouth. “What happened to her after that?”

  “Like all the others, she was shuffling through the house muttering one day and then gone the next. I don’t know where the Madam takes them. I guess she doesn’t trust me to handle that end of things. She already thinks I’m too soft on you all. But I begged her to tell me what happened to Angela, and I earned a beating within an inch of my life for the trouble. My guess is they’re put down like old dogs.” He mimics a gunshot to the head with a sad click.

  They couldn’t keep sitting in the car. Nina had to decide, and the longer she talked about this madness, the less likely she was going to go into that house and face whatever was in there, even if she didn’t plan to let the freak touch her before she rolled on him. The only thing keeping her backbone intact was all that cash, ripe for the taking. Her new life. She wouldn’t be able to stretch her share of the money forever. Eventually, she would have to return to work, but she could use some of it to open a little bar on some remote Mexico beach, mixing mojitos and mai tais while wearing a bikini, her skin tanned dark enough to make her look like a native. She would leave all her pain and mistakes to the vast Pacific. Nothing in this house could be bad enough to scare her away from that dream. Her mother always told her that the only way out of anything was to go through it. After five years of this life, there wasn’t much “through” left.

  Ramón exited the car, came around, and opened her door for her, as he had countless times over the years when he would take her to more legitimate clients outside the brothel. Only now his eyes were shiny with his fresh tears, and he looked ashen in the moonlight. “You can still change your mind and take my first offer. Even now.”

  “Not a chance. We’re still doing this. Be ready to come get me. It won’t be very long.”

  Ramón nodded, but he didn’t appear to be convinced. “I’ll be here when you come out. God be with you.”

  Nina stepped out of the car and closed the door. After a deep breath, she turned to face the decrepit mansion. Ornate stone planters flanked either side of the door, filled with plants that had long ago crossed the line into compost territory. In one of them, Nina saw something that most certainly wasn’t a plant, and she nearly turned and ran back to the car in defeat. It was a woman’s high-heeled shoe. Red, with the peek-a-boo cutout favored by so many girls at the Weeping Willow. Or, rather, by the men who visited them. The shoe looked scuffed and shriveled, like it had been there awhile.

  Nina held firm. She would not run. This wasn’t just about the money. She would meet the sick freak who lived here and give him a nasty surprise, like a stiletto heel through the eye. Only the Madam would miss him, or at least his money.

  She walked up the steps, giving the pentagram above the door a cautious glance before pressing the button for the bell. An atonal chorus of bells erupted on the other side of the heavy red wood. Maybe it was the still air or the overall dread running through everything right now, but it reminded her a of dying woman’s screams.

  She heard another sound from inside the house. Something rolling toward her on wheels, perhaps even skates. Then the latch clicked and the door popped open, leaving a small gap, and the rolling sound commenced again, moving deeper into the house this time. No one welcomed her, but the invitation was clear. She put her hand on the old brass knob.

  Not too late to turn back, she thought. Hightail it back to the car now, before Ramón pulls away.

  But she’d made her decision already. Put on your big girl panties and get this thing done. That was her mother’s voice this time, from their last phone conversation when Nina cried and begged to come home. She’d confessed everything: the drugs, stealing from the mob, about being forced into a brothel to pay it off. But she wouldn’t have her daughter back until it was all finished. Janie Quick was a hard woman who had about as much pity to spare as the Sahara had water. Nina doubted she could convince her to leave that nasty trailer and run away to Mexico on stolen whore money, but she needed to get through this first.

  Ordinarily, she would have slipped into one of her sultry personas to make the client feel desired, but those theatrics were in another galaxy right now. With quivering knees, staring at the blackness just inside that cracked door, she swallowed and cleared her throat.

  “I’m Nina, from the Weeping Willow. Hello?”

  She pushed the door open the rest of the way, but there wasn’t anyone there to greet her. Just more darkness tinted with the bluish flickering light from some other part of the house. She couldn’t hear anything, though. Nina turned to the car and waved Ramón on. It felt like a stab in the gut, but she gave a resolute nod and stepped inside. The door, like the mouth of a monster, swung shut behind her with a thundering echo.

  The first thing she noticed, apart from the darkness, was the smell of old urine and filth, so much like the subway trains she and Joey used to ride back in her city-dwelling days that she had a brief fit of nostalgia. But there was something more here: the sweet reek of food gone over. She was now grateful for the darkness, though she knew her eyes would soon adjust, and she would eventually see just how bad this place was. Her mind turned to the roaches, perhaps even the rats that might be infesting this dump, and a tickle traced up the back of one leg. She yelped, brushing at her calf, telling herself it was just a random tingle brought on by her overworked mind. She was hyper-alert and edging closer toward panic as she brushed at her arms and ran her hands through her hair just to make sure. Her heart thudded like a trip hammer.

  Stop! It’s just a dirty old man living in a nasty house. Probably just gets his kicks putting on a whole haunted house routine and scaring the shit out of the whores on his dime.

  “Hello? Is anyone here?” Her voice echoed in the cavernous foyer.

  An orange colored light came on to her left, and she turned to see a tall, square-shouldered silhouette of a man standing in the arched doorway to another room. Nina couldn’t make out any other distinct details, but she could see the skin of his cheek. Something wasn’t right with it, but it was so hard to tell what.

  “Mr. Ballas?” She stepped toward him.

  “Mmmm . . . No. I’m the butler. And you’re a good girl. A very pretty good girl.” He uttered a low giggle that felt like a thousand tiny worms crawling on her skin. His jaw was moving as he spoke and laughed, but the sound wasn’t coming from his mouth. It was somewhere overhead. Nina thought of a ventriloquist d
oll and shuddered. Only pitch darkness loomed overhead. The dim orange light had no hope of reaching ceilings so high.

  She took a deep breath and slid on one of the masks she kept on hand, one that helped her with the sketchier clients. “Oh I’m definitely a good girl, baby. You ready to play?” She pushed away most of the quiver in her voice. Considering the circumstances, it was downright Herculean.

  “Come this way, good girl.” He gestured in the direction he wanted her to go, a casual enough thing Nina wouldn’t have ordinarily noticed, but the movement of his arm was odd. She couldn’t figure out why it bothered her until a distant memory popped into her head from when she was eleven or twelve. Her Uncle Richie, who had been a prop maker for a community theater troop, took her to a dress rehearsal for one of his shows, a musical of Pinocchio. She sat next to her uncle on a scaffold above the stage as he and another person secured the rigging attached to the actor who played the puppet. She later watched the whole show alone in the audience. Even though she knew how it worked, the way Pinocchio’s limp arms and legs flailed around as he walked and danced frightened her so much she eventually had to cover her eyes. Even though the actor’s face and arms had been painted to look like wood, he didn’t look like a puppet. He looked like a reanimated corpse. When she told her uncle this after the show, he’d laughed. “Yeah, he looks a little creepy, don’t he? But then, the story’s a little creepy too when you think about it. Puppets coming to life and all. No one really wants that to happen.”

  Those words never felt truer than they did as Nina watched the butler’s limbs move. When he turned to lead her, she also realized he wasn’t walking. That explained the sound she’d heard when he answered the door. He was rolling on some sort of cart. It’s a dummy propped up on that thing. Someone’s pulling him along and moving his limbs.