William Whelan pulled the black cloth away and saw that her forehead had been cracked open and that black blood had seeped into her curly black hair. Her eyes were open. Mario Escalante, the Echo Park Loco behind him, winced in shock. “Jesus,” Mario said. William dropped the wet cloth and looked at her. Maybe it was that she could have been related to any number of the girls he’d been with in the brothels of Amman or maybe it had something to do with his broader suspicion that there was really just one woman with a world’s full of different faces, but William began to feel responsible for her lying there dead on the ground, all alone, with her head caved in.
This, he thought, will get settled.
“All those husbands gave their info into that website that helps you cheat on your wife and it got hacked,” Mr. Vasquez said and touched his wedding ring. “Their names were dumped to the press. You hear about that?”
Lucas Mullins nodded. “What a mess. It’s sad so many men think they need a service like that. People get confused. They think you get married you got to act a certain way.” Diana stood across the room in a black dress. She smiled. Lucas looked at the curve of her body, so clearly defined where she stood, sideways, before the white wall. “You ever see a Latina didn’t have a great ass?” Lucas asked Mr. Vasquez.
“I don’t know.”
Lucas smiled. He’d been through so many versions of this conversation before. He knew how to keep the man on the Path. “I say such a thing doesn’t exist. Even if she’s a mess otherwise, she’s got a nice ass.”
Mr. Vasquez travelled some far-off place in his mind. The House was quiet. An ROC bodyguard drank vodka on the couch and waited for his boss upstairs. Lucas looked at the wall clock. He had to meet Detective Marino soon.
“What matters is how you feel when the end comes,” Lucas said.
“I don’t want regrets about my life,” Mr. Vasquez said solemnly.
“Exactly. At the end, what’s going to matter most is how it went with women. The world’s a beautiful place. Its great gift is the memory of the women you were with. I don’t want to settle for less than my natural desire, that’s what I know.” Diana walked up to them. She smiled at Mr. Vazquez. “You ever meet Diana?”
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Vasquez said.
“You two should have a drink,” Lucas said and walked out of the room. Lucas passed by Peyton Thornton, his man on guard duty tonight, on his way out the door and he drove the short way from Kensington to his bar, the Turkey Jowl West. It was one in the morning and Braden Clark was the doorman. The dance floor was packed. Richie Glass was drinking with some friends he didn’t recognize in a booth. Esperanza was tending bar. William Whelan approached him.
“Those two Hajis are here. At the end of the bar, perving on Esperanza.”
Lucas looked and saw two Middle Eastern-looking young men sitting at the bar. Esperanza was leaning toward them and smiling.
William said, “The one in white’s the same guy who knew that girl who got her fucking head caved in last month. Tariq Kahn. The Locos know him.”
William, with Lucas’ permission, occasionally did muscle work for the Echo Park Locos, the Latin gang whose territory their bar was located in. This reinforced the peace between both groups and padded William’s pockets.
“I don’t know the other guy’s name, but it was Tariq that killed her. I guarantee it,” William said.
“It’s my first time seeing either of them here.”
“It took all my self-control I had not to beat Tariq senseless.”
Lucas patted William on the back and went to the bar. He watched the two men. Their eyes were fixed on not just Esperanza, but Claudia, Ana, and Luisa as well. His women. These were all Lucas’ Salvadoran beauties that worked at his bar some nights and at his brothel on others. It was an open secret among certain criminal circles in Echo Park, the girls in his House. As Lucas watched the two young men he could tell by the salacious nature of their gazes, Tariq’s especially, that they knew they were looking at professional working girls.
Detective Marino showed. He and Lucas went upstairs and did their business, which involved Lucas handing over some money and going over of a few details of their protection relationship. Marino left.
Later, Tariq and his friend had split up and Lucas sat down beside the friend.
“What’s the word?”
“Excuse me?” the friend said.
“I’m Lucas Mullins, I own this place,” Lucas said and held out his hand.
The young man stared at Lucas’ hand hanging there. He suspected racism. The young man thought that Lucas was singling him out because he might be a Muslim, and because of this, possibly dangerous.
“Maajid Hassan,” the young man said and shook Lucas’ hand.
“What do you think of my place?”
“It’s fine.”
“You’ve been here before?”
Maajid’s jaw was long and bony. His eyes were jittery. He seemed tense in his neck. “A few times.”
“Relax, Maajid. I just want everyone to have a good time.” Just then, Luisa Alfaro passed holding a tray of empty glasses. “Luisa, say hello to Maajid.”
Luisa smiled. Maajid smiled back awkwardly. He wanted to please. He was insecure. Lucas realized almost right away that Maajid was a virgin. He must be in his mid-twenties and had never been laid. What a tragedy, Lucas thought.
“Could you bring us two shots of Pappy?” Lucas asked Luisa.
Luisa nodded and was off. Across the room, Tariq, in his white polo shirt, came out of the bathroom and made his way toward them.
“Two shots of what?” Maajid asked.
“Pappy Van Winkle. Bourbon from Kentucky. The good stuff. That’s where I’m from, Kentucky. What about you?”
“I was born in Pakistan, but I grew up in New York.”
Luisa brought the drinks. Lucas held up his glass. “To Los Angeles,” Lucas toasted and they drank.
Tariq sat. Maajid made no effort to introduce Tariq to his new friend. There was a silent moment between them. Lucas saw in Tariq’s eyes the stillness killers had. He was pent-up, capable of boiling over and seemed suspicious of any new face. “Have a great time tonight,” Lucas said and went upstairs.
***
Diana, on her knees, wrapped her lips around Lucas’ cock. It was early Saturday evening. Diana worked her standard blowjob technique with no exploratory variations, looking up at Lucas, her oval eyes open wide as her head bobbed up and down. Lucas sank back into his office chair. His mind drifted back to earlier this afternoon.
They were parked on Marathon in William’s green Bronco. It was William, Lucas and Mario, the Echo Park Loco, was in the backseat keeping his head low. Lucas rolled down the window and emptied the ashes from his corncob pipe. They were up the street from the house Mario knew.
“There goes that fool right there,” Mario said.
Lucas looked and saw Tariq and Maajid walk into the house. They were followed by a few cholos from the Locos set. Everyone went inside.
Lucas said, “So we know what? That these two go to a mosque and deal dope on the side? I don’t like Tariq either but I don’t see what we can do about it.”
“I ain’t trying to get blown up, fool,” Mario said.
“That was only them praying,” Lucas told Mario, then looked to William: “Diming Tariq for that girl doesn’t work because it puts heat on the Locos.”
“One time’ll get all up in our shit if you talk,” Mario said.
“Plus, you don’t know for sure that he did it, or if he did, why,” Lucas said.
“Tariq killed her,” William said with even toned confidence.
“Maybe you’re right, but what are we going to do? Clip both of them ‘cause you’ve got a hunch?”
“I’m telling you, boss, something has to be done while we have a chance. These guys are up to something.”
Back in his office, in the present moment, Lucas’ come flooded into Diana’s mouth. Diana leaned back. Lucas smiled at her gratefully. His head cleared. He realized then what he needed to do.
Two nights later Maajid came to the TJW alone. He was sitting at the end of the bar, drinking a beer. Lucas sat beside him.
“Maajid. How you been?”
“Fine.”
“Your friend Tariq’s not with you?”
“He had to work.”
“Seemed like an angry guy to me.”
“Tariq likes to talk.”
“He talk about my girls?”
“He has.”
“Tell me what he told you.”
“That these women are your sex slaves,” Tariq said judgmentally.
Lucas laughed his deep country laugh. It drew the attention of many people in the bar. All his employees seemed to have heard it before. “Sex slaves!” He said and called Diana over.
Diana sailed over. She wore another black dress. “Yes?”
“Maajid, this is my girlfriend, Diana Figueroa.”
Diana shook Maajid’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Maajid.”
“If he’s interested, I’m going to bring him over to the House around two.”
Diana looked from Lucas to Maajid and smiled. “I hope he’s interested,” Diana said and was off.
After she was gone, Maajid looked equal parts eager and confused. “What house do you mean?”
“She seem like a slave to you?”
“No.”
“Not every woman in the sex business does it because she lost some fight with society or because she’s being forced to by her master. Some women like to fuck just as much as we do. I don’t own sex slaves, Maajid. I run a brothel.”
“These women, they just do what you say?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if they don’t want to?”
“That never happens.”
Maajid looked around the bar. He focused in on Lucas’ women: Diana, Luisa, Ana, and Rosa. His dark eyes began to burn with wonder. Maajid is on the Path, Lucas thought.
“How do you learn how to say the right things to women?” Maajid asked.
“You want to know the first step?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t listen to a guy like Tariq.”
Maajid’s jaw tensed up. He pivoted on his barstool toward Lucas. “What do you want from me?”
Lucas smiled. Guy Harlan was bartender tonight. Lucas ordered two more Pappy Van Winkles. “My interest in you started as completely nonexistent. It began with your friend Tariq. I heard some very bad stories about him. Stories I believe. But you don’t seem like you should be hanging out with a guy like that.”
Maajid coughed apologetically. “What did you hear?”
“That he hurts women.”
Maajid blinked twice. “Everybody’s always suspicious of you if you’re Muslim. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Probably not. I don’t care either,” Lucas said.
Their bourbons came. Maajid took a drink. “Tariq’s a passionate person. He’s very religious.”
Lucas saw Maajid’s reluctance to speak but he also saw that Maajid felt guilty about something. Yes, William was probably right about everything, Lucas thought again. Not only had Tariq killed that woman in Echo Park, smashed her head in, but these two were up to something much more serious. “What about you, Maajid?” Lucas asked. “Are you very religious?”
Maajid looked down at his empty bourbon glass on the bar. The Pappy was flowing through him and he closed his eyes in satisfaction. Lucas ordered him another. Maajid looked up and spoke to Lucas in a tone of childlike anticipation. “What did you mean about us going to a house later on?”
Lucas nodded. “The House is a place I keep near here. We should go. Diana will be there. You liked Diana, didn’t you?”
Maajid finished his drink. “Why do you want to take me?”
“Because I’m a nice guy. Let me ask you something. Where’d you lose your virginity?”
“Why?”
Lucas signaled for another drink. “Because a man’s really from where he loses his virginity. That’s how it was always explained to me. You said you were from Pakistan, but is that where you first got your tip wet? Or are you from New York?”
Maajid stared at Lucas expressionless. His mind was so overstuffed he didn’t know what to say, or even what sort of face to make. “You are a strange person,” he said eventually.
Lucas smiled. “So tonight will be it then?”
Another glass of Pappy came. Maajid drank it, once again, all again at once.
***
“The women in your family, do they wear those big black sheets with eyeholes in them over their heads?” Lucas asked.
They were at the House. Maajid, who was sitting at the bar, looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost two in the morning. Lucas stood behind the bar. Braden Clark watched the door. There were no other clients in the lounge. Diana was upstairs in one of the bedrooms, getting ready.
“No,” Maajid said. He was drinking ice water. “I mean, some relatives in Pakistan do, but I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”
Lucas stepped around the bar and took a seat beside him. “No wonder those guys are so mad all the time when that’s all the donanny they have to look at.”
“The what?”
“Donanny. Pussy.” Maajid thought about this for a moment and then looked at Lucas like he might be right. Lucas patted Maajid on the back. “Is that why you never got laid, because you’re a Muslim?”
“Most parents want their children to be married before they have sex.”
“Not mine. My old man did what I did. Always told me that getting married to my mother was one of the hugest mistakes he ever made. She took off and this was how he made a living while he raised me, doing what I do now.”
“Do you make a lot of money doing this?”
“I make a lot more than you and Tariq make with doing those rag-tag dope deals with the Locos. They’ve been stiffing you.”
Maajid’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know about that?”
Lucas ignored the question. “You ready for this?”
“I’m nervous.”
“That’s all right. With women it’s important to always be a little nervous.”
“Diana is your girlfriend?”
“We’re not jealous types,” Lucas said. Maajid looked confused again. He was interacting with a man who dealt so casually with emotions that he didn’t understand. “You know you can’t just walk up there, jump on her, and shove it in. You got to get her pussy to open up, like a flower blooming.” Maajid stared fearfully at Lucas, as if that combination of words was something he had never heard before. “Diana will show you what to do. Don’t worry.”
A little over an hour later, Maajid walked back downstairs. He stepped slowly into the lounge. His neck muscles seemed loose and his eyelids looked heavy. William Whelan now stood by the window across the room.
“How’d it go?” Lucas asked.
Maajid paused for a long time. “It was relieving,” he said eventually.
“You remember my friend William?”
Maajid looked at William. William looked stern and red-faced. His military buzz cut had the feel of a recent trim. “He works at your bar,” Maajid said about William, but not to him.
“You must be something special, kid,” William said.
Maajid looked at Lucas fearfully. He was wondering what William was up to.
“What William means is that Diana is our best girl. And he’s right. You are special to us.”
“Why?” Maajid asked.
“William doesn’t just work at the bar. I let him do muscle work for the Locos on the side. Maybe you don’t remember him. But he remembers you when you and Tariq would buy weed from them. The Locos.”
The relief that Maajid felt faded. “And?”
“There’s a dead woman. Cops never found the guy who did it.”
“Her name was Renata Ayaan,” William said. “It was on the news. She was a waitress in Silver Lake.”
Lucas looked at Maajid for a long spell. “Did Tariq kill her?”
“What?”
“We’re your friends here and we need to know. We need to know if something needs to be done about this guy. Tell us the truth.”
“Yes,” Maajid said. “He did.”
“Why?”
“He knew many bad sins about her, many offenses against Allah. She was guilty of great shame.”
“What’s she to him?” William asked.
“Just an apostate.”
“A what?” Lucas asked, confused.
“It means she quit being a Muslim,” William said. “In countries where Haji’s run the government they can kill you for that.”
Lucas looked to Maajid with genuine shock, like this was one of the most disheartening things he’d heard in a long time.
“He’d seen her around the neighborhood,” Maajid said. “They were friends for awhile. I think he pissed her off about something. Tariq probably told her she wasn’t faithful enough and she told him to get lost.”
“But he kept following her around” Lucas said.
“And he beat her fucking head in?” William asked.
“Yes. That’s what he told me.”
“You have any hand in that?” Lucas asked. “You help him get away with it?”
“He told me after he did it. Tariq likes to talk.”
“Is that the kind of guy you want to be, Maajid? A guy like Tariq?”
Maajd looked at the floor shamefully. William was noticeably angry but kept still. Lucas walked across the room and stood close to Maajid.
“Maajid, I don’t want you to worry. You did the right thing.”
“You were just using me?”
“You need to think about how lucky you are right now.”
“Are you going to kill Tariq?”
Neither of them answered. William clenched his fists in anger.
“Are you going to tell the police?”
Lucas smiled. He stared at Maajd with pride. “You, Maajid, are a man from Los Angeles, California. That’s what you tell people from now on when they ask.”
Maajid thought about that for a moment and nodded. He liked the sound of it.
The sun rose. William drove them to the Brite Spot on Sunset. Richie Glass met them there with a girl named Maribel he was dating. They ate a large breakfast. To Maajid’s relief they did not talk about the murdered woman. It was a fine time. Maajid thought back to his night with Diana. He felt like he was floating. That is was what heaven must be like, Maajid thought. But he was not in heaven. He was still on earth, with white men. After breakfast, Lucas drove him back to his car at the Turkey Jowl West lot. Maajid knew what Lucas was hoping he would say, but he did not say it. “Diana was very nice. Please thank her again for me” was all he said.
Maajid drove to Silver Lake Reservoir and parked along the north side. He walked to the path and moved along it slowly. Joggers passed him by. At the grass he saw two white women in bikinis lying down on towels, sunbathing. They were close to the fence. One faced the sky and the other faced down. The girl on the left had black hair, the one on the right blonde. Their scent carried on the wind. They were coated in all sorts of lotions and oils.
***
Lucas told Detective Marino, “The kids name is Tariq Kahn.”
“What about him?”
Lucas and Marino were out in the back smoking alley of the Short Stop. Lucas’ girls liked to come here for the dance floor. The Short Stop, an old Echo Park bar, was a former cop hangout, back during another era of LAPD history, before Rampart. Marino didn’t like coming here because it reminded him so much of how he’d seen the world change. Lucas smoked his corncob pipe. Lucas said, “Tariq and his buddy hang out at the Turkey Jowl West. We got suspicious about him, so we talked to the buddy. A kid named Maajid. Maajid gave everything up. Tariq’s a killer.”
They were close to Sunset, away from the other kids. Marino spoke softly regardless. “Who’d he kill?”
“A woman named Renata Ayaan in Echo Park. You remember that?”
Marino nodded. “Got her skull bashed in. They never found the guy.”
“Renata’s boyfriend bought weed off this Tariq creep and Maajid. Tariq had a thing for her. She wasn’t interested, so he followed her for a while, then killed her and said his religion gave him permission. He thought she deserved it.”
“His religion gave him permission? What does that mean?”
“The money they make off these weed deals is going to their mosque, which, according to Maajid, is planning some serious Jihad shit.”
“So you’re giving me, a city police, a Muslim terrorist?” Marino, so often numb to most aspects of his work, was suddenly genuinely interested in this conversation.
“When I look at this kid Tariq, I don’t doubt for a second that he would be capable of something like that.”
Marino thought. “What type of Jihad shit?”
“He’ll tell you when I give him over.”
“Why’d this kid tell you all this?”
“He’d never been laid,” Lucas said. “I let him fuck Diana and he gave it all up,” Lucas clicked his fingers. “Just like that.”
“When can I talk to him?”
“Seems to me like this is a big win for you, the kind of thing that cools down any investigation into local corruption. You’re talking about national news, stopping a plot like this.”
“That’s probably true.”
“I’m thinking this should, at the very least, buy me a few favors. I sell pussy and I sell bourbon, Detective. I’m not out to destroy the world. I’m out to make it more tolerable. Guys like Tariq are a serious problem to all of us any way you look at it.”
Diana, taking a break from dancing, walked out to them. She saw Detective Marino standing there and smiled at him. “Hello, Carl,” she said.
“Diana, you look lovely as always.”
***
The wall was covered with details about LAX: routes, times of day when various parts of the airport would be most crowded, etc. But the brothers weren’t focused on their mission today. Today their focus was on a news story.
French authorities had finally arrested Salah Abdeslam, the driver in last year’s Paris attacks. Salah, who had driven bombers to the stadium, was supposed to have blown himself up as well but his discarded suicide vest was discovered in a Paris trashcan and he had disappeared without a trace for months. Now that he was caught, the media was reporting that the information leading to his capture had come from sources Salah knew inside the gay community of Paris, a community of which he allegedly was a well-known member. Beneath the large black and white flag adorned with Arabic lettering that covered the wall furthest from the window, away from any prying eyes, the faithful brothers debated whether or not Salah was really a homosexual or being framed as one by some shadowy and powerful adversary:
“Salah was arrested with three AK-47s,” Tariq said. “These must have come to him from our brothers, who would not help him if he lay with other men. The story was created by the Kafir.”
“It is not that difficult to get a weapon,” Ahmed said.
“Salah the warrior is not a faggot!” Tariq screamed.
Fadi and Abdel nodded, in agreement with Tariq and as always, moved by his towering passion. All four of these men had thought a great deal about what the media would say about them one day, after their goal was acquired. At no point during the meeting did any of them observe that Maajid was not present.
A blast came from the front door and the door, off its hinges, was smashed in. FBI agents rushed forward, guns drawn. They wore full tactical gear and screamed directions. All four suspects raised their hands in surrender. They lowered themselves to the floor and were arrested.
Later that night, Maajid watched this story on the news. Details emerged about the suspects and the explosives that they planned to detonate at LAX. He went to the TJW. Everyone talked about the story. In private, Lucas congratulated Maajid. Maajid, as he drank, began to realize that his life was not always dictated by God’s plan, but most often decided by himself. Then he looked around the Turkey Jowl West for women.
There were quite a few.
***
Maajid, his feet wet, marched down Kensington Street in the night. He moved with determination, drunk, but still knowing his path, even in the dark. He made it to the three-story Victorian house that overlooked Echo Park Lake and was surrounded by the tall black metal gate. The House. Between the bars he could see lights on inside through the windows. Maajid reached in his pocket for his cell phone. The battery was dead. He growled and banged on the gate. He shook it so they would hear him. It clanged and echoed. A dog barked. William Whelan came out. He opened the gate and poked Maajid in the chest. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
“I want to see Diana.”
“Did you, since the last time I saw you tonight, get enough money to see her?”
“Where’s Lucas?”
“He’s busy. I’m running the House tonight.”
“Call him.”
“Go fuck your mother!”
“After what I did?”
“That’s gotta be the tenth time I’ve heard that shit from you.”
Maajid swayed. His eyes were jittery. The rain returned and began to fall on them. “I’ve got to see her.”
William sighed. “Look, I know you got a late start—”
“Why do you always have to bring that up?”
“Get ahold of yourself.”
“After what I did,” Maajid said.
“What does that mean? That we owe you for doing the right thing?”
“Yes!”
William thought about Renata Ayaan. Maajid made that right. William knew more war was coming. People like Maajid gave him hope, the only hope he had. Maajid was the future if there was one. “Don’t talk like a snitch and do not think we’re going to carry you forever. Go to the Turkey Jowl West. Look for a girl that will fuck you for free. Eventually you’ll find one. One day you might even find a wife. Think about that.”
Maajid stood still. The anger on his face faded. Something inside him seemed to click. He began to think about tomorrow, when he would be restored and when he would try all this again.
Peyton Thornton walked out through the gate. “What’s going on?”
“Abu here’s trying to take a piece of ass from Diana on the arm.”
“Again? I’ll him call a cab.”
“No, I’ll do it. You stay here.” William looked at Maajid. “You’re lucky Lucas likes you, kid,” William said and walked into the House.
Peyton waited with Maajid in the rain. In his heart the failures of Maajid’s day left him and he thought again of his first night with Diana. He remembered then that he had many years of his life left to live, an ocean of time laid ahead and his home for it was a city where phenomenal occurrences had always been possible.
“A wife,” Maajid said to himself, softly. “Maybe even a son someday.”
Author Bio
ANDREW MILLER is a crime novelist, screenwriter, and essayist living in Los Angeles.
