young churchgoer, George Napier, had witnessed the slaughter and offered to bear witness in the trial. Everybody else at the Chilean’s knew better than to have seen anything. But George put his faith in God, and Betty told Ecks tohave a talk with the young man.
No one was supposed to know that George was a state witness. No one would have if it weren’t for one of Swan’s relatives who worked for the district attorney’s office.
Napier had a girlfriend named Lena. He was in the habit of spending time with her at her parents’ house off Flatbush in Brooklyn.
Ecks meant to talk to the young man, to scare him. He wanted to show him that he would never be safe or secret again. Maybe if Lena’s kisses weren’t so sweet and George had left at ten instead of twelve forty-five, maybe then Ecks wouldn’t have had time to think and the opportunity to kill rather than scare.
Those hours he spent waiting in the shadows he worried that the young zealot might get stupid and try to implicate him too. There was no one on the street or sidewalk when George came strolling out. He walked right past Xavier’s hidey-hole. His eye came out of its socket too. He died and Xavier went to fuck Betty Rynn, Swan’s girlfriend, as payment for getting her man out of a jam.
“You give me this right here,” Ecks told Betty, “and I promise your old man be outta jail by the end of the week.”
She gave it to him good. So much so that he suspected she liked him more than she ever let on.
Ecks parked down the block from the nameless West Los Angeles minimall. The street was empty and his suit barely soiled. He had almost been murdered, struck down by a moving car, killed one man, and maybe another. There was a witness who knew his name, his address. He was three years out from the rat-infested harbor that had been his life but now he could see his past looming on the horizon—and there were sinister shadows moving along the shore.
Shirley’s Den was a pink stucco bunker hidden by buildings on all sides. It had a drab green door, no windows, and no external lights. Regulars knew to stand at the door and wait. Newcomers were met by a man whom Xavier knew only as Sentry. Sentry was a big brown man who asked strangers what they were doing on his property. He stayed in a side shack monitoring the door, opening it for regulars and their guests—shooing away the rest.
Sentry opened the door for Ecks and he walked through wondering what he should do next. He had money and a fake passport. He knew some Spanish and had connections in Cartagena, Colombia.
Shirley’s Den was a large room, bright and tinted green. There were fifteen triangular shiny red tables and a large gray-and-green marble bar. Jazz, always jazz—representing every decade and style—played on the lifelike-sounding speakers. That night it was Sidney Bechet barking out “Bechet’s Fantasy,” giving Louis Armstrong a run for his money, if not his genius.
There were maybe a dozen customers in twos and threes scattered about the emerald-and-scarlet room. Winter Johnson was sitting in a corner looking like a rich man’s dog left out in the cold for the first time in his pampered life.
“Hello, Ecks,” a woman said. She was half the way through her forty-first year, auburn haired, plain faced and yet somehow provocative.
Shirley Henn was from Montreal originally. At the age of seventeen she met a French Canadian named Robert, who spelled his name phonetically—Robair. Robair and Shirley spent six weeks touring the American South, robbing pawnshops, banks, convenience stores, and anyplace else that could stack two dollar bills together. They killed nine people.
They
did. Shirley had been initiated in weapons, liquor, and sex by her adoptive stepfather—Jacques “Jack” Henn. She fired as many shots as Robair did and was probably a bit more accurate.
Shirley loved Robair like moths loved flame. She clung to his skinny side and often shivered when he said her name.
No one was supposed to know that George was a state witness. No one would have if it weren’t for one of Swan’s relatives who worked for the district attorney’s office.
Napier had a girlfriend named Lena. He was in the habit of spending time with her at her parents’ house off Flatbush in Brooklyn.
Ecks meant to talk to the young man, to scare him. He wanted to show him that he would never be safe or secret again. Maybe if Lena’s kisses weren’t so sweet and George had left at ten instead of twelve forty-five, maybe then Ecks wouldn’t have had time to think and the opportunity to kill rather than scare.
Those hours he spent waiting in the shadows he worried that the young zealot might get stupid and try to implicate him too. There was no one on the street or sidewalk when George came strolling out. He walked right past Xavier’s hidey-hole. His eye came out of its socket too. He died and Xavier went to fuck Betty Rynn, Swan’s girlfriend, as payment for getting her man out of a jam.
“You give me this right here,” Ecks told Betty, “and I promise your old man be outta jail by the end of the week.”
She gave it to him good. So much so that he suspected she liked him more than she ever let on.
Ecks parked down the block from the nameless West Los Angeles minimall. The street was empty and his suit barely soiled. He had almost been murdered, struck down by a moving car, killed one man, and maybe another. There was a witness who knew his name, his address. He was three years out from the rat-infested harbor that had been his life but now he could see his past looming on the horizon—and there were sinister shadows moving along the shore.
Shirley’s Den was a pink stucco bunker hidden by buildings on all sides. It had a drab green door, no windows, and no external lights. Regulars knew to stand at the door and wait. Newcomers were met by a man whom Xavier knew only as Sentry. Sentry was a big brown man who asked strangers what they were doing on his property. He stayed in a side shack monitoring the door, opening it for regulars and their guests—shooing away the rest.
Sentry opened the door for Ecks and he walked through wondering what he should do next. He had money and a fake passport. He knew some Spanish and had connections in Cartagena, Colombia.
Shirley’s Den was a large room, bright and tinted green. There were fifteen triangular shiny red tables and a large gray-and-green marble bar. Jazz, always jazz—representing every decade and style—played on the lifelike-sounding speakers. That night it was Sidney Bechet barking out “Bechet’s Fantasy,” giving Louis Armstrong a run for his money, if not his genius.
There were maybe a dozen customers in twos and threes scattered about the emerald-and-scarlet room. Winter Johnson was sitting in a corner looking like a rich man’s dog left out in the cold for the first time in his pampered life.
“Hello, Ecks,” a woman said. She was half the way through her forty-first year, auburn haired, plain faced and yet somehow provocative.
Shirley Henn was from Montreal originally. At the age of seventeen she met a French Canadian named Robert, who spelled his name phonetically—Robair. Robair and Shirley spent six weeks touring the American South, robbing pawnshops, banks, convenience stores, and anyplace else that could stack two dollar bills together. They killed nine people.
They
did. Shirley had been initiated in weapons, liquor, and sex by her adoptive stepfather—Jacques “Jack” Henn. She fired as many shots as Robair did and was probably a bit more accurate.
Shirley loved Robair like moths loved flame. She clung to his skinny side and often shivered when he said her name.
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