Butterfly Girl Read online

“I know right? Is this heatwave ever going to end? Did you know that an elderly woman in my building died? Can you imagine? It’s so hot that people are actually dying.” As if in answer, the AC unit kicked on, working way beyond its capacity, but doing it without complaint.

  Down the corridor towards the washrooms, I spotted trouble, and my spidey-sense tingled mildly. This wasn’t trouble with a capital T. More like with an F, as in Eff Bomb. Eff Bomb was one of Pandora Box’s regulars, the type of fella that gives a joint atmosphere. He was harmless, a low-level street thug with delusions of grandeur, but was connected. If you wanted it, Eff Bomb could get it. For a price. He wore his pants low, well below his ass, and his boxers were on full display to anyone who cared enough to look. I don’t know how he managed to walk without falling on his face. He sure as hell couldn’t run, which made it a poor wardrobe choice for someone who lived on the outskirts of law and order.

  Eff Bomb was talking to one of the frat boys. His body language screamed suspicious, which was funny, because Eff Bomb thought he was being subtle. Anyone with a working set of eyes in their head could see that he was selling pot. I only had one eye, and I could see it. Pandora’s Box was a clean establishment. No drugs, no prostitution, no exceptions. If I turned my head from a little pot, next thing you know, the place would be overrun with it. Then the heavier stuff creeps in. It really is the gateway drug. Life was easier before it was legalized.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, slipping my authoritative voice on like an old work glove.

  “Fuck, Heck,” Eff Bomb said, pointing a bony thumb at the frat boy. “I ain’t lookin’ for no fuckin’ trouble. This fucker just wants a little of the fuckin’ good stuff. You know what I fuckin’ mean?”

  “You know the rules,” I said. Eff Bomb quickly tucked the plastic baggie into the pouch pocket of his hoodie.

  “I fuckin’ know. Fuck. I’m fuckin’ sorry. When the fuck can I come back?”

  “Let’s give it a week.”

  “Fuck. Fine, Heck.” He looked apologetically at Frat Boy and gave him a ‘what-the-fuck-ya-gonna-do’ shrug and headed towards the door. I called the doorman, T-Bone, on the radio and let him know not to let Eff Bomb in for the next week. He was in a time-out. Then I turned towards the frat boy. He was a beanpole, all height but so skinny I swear he’d disappear if he turned sideways. I could smell the booze on his breath, and he was wobbling like a Jenga tower on the verge of falling. He tried to return to Pervert’s Row and pretend that nothing happened. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

  “Not so fast,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You’re done. Time to go home and sleep it off.”

  “C’mon, man. I just wanna have some fun. I didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “It’s against the rules,” I said.

  “Fuck you, Popeye. I’m not leaving until I’m leaving.”

  “You’re leaving now,” I said, letting the personal insult slide, and applying more pressure to his shoulder, directing him towards the door.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He pivoted away from me, turned and threw a punch. It would have hurt if it connected, but I anticipated it and blocked it easily. I spun Frat Boy around, pinning his arm behind his back. He whimpered as I duck walked him towards the front door. His friends laughed and heckled but didn’t feel the need to come to his aid. T-Bone saw our approach, opened the door and cleared a path. Frat Boy was pushed through and fell onto the ground in a twist. If this kept up, we’d have to install a safety mat outside the door.

  “Go home. Sleep it off.”

  The doorman patted me on the back. “I’ll keep an eye on him. He won’t be coming back in.”

  “I know.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty, handing it to T-Bone. “Put him in a cab. See that he gets home.”

  T-Bone raised his eyebrows. “Boss? You don’t gotta do that. He’s not your responsibility.”

  “Make sure he gets home safe.” I was young once, and I made my share of mistakes too. No sense in letting any harm fall to Frat Boy. He’d wake up in the morning with a doozy of a headache and a hard lesson learned. That seemed like a good investment for twenty bucks. I turned on my heel and went back inside. The rest of the night was textbook. Frat Boy's friends didn't give me any trouble. They clearly learned from his misadventure.

  After the last patron had cleared the building, we began the closing routine. I put the last of the chairs on the tabletops after Alice sprayed and wiped them down with a sanitising cleanser. "How'd you make out tonight?"

  "Not bad. Some of those boys were Georges. I should be able to keep the power on for another month," she said, with only a hint of levity. When you work at a strip club for as long as I h(ave, you learn the lingo. Georges were generous tippers. The girls doted on them, parting them from their hard-earned dollars. Most of the girls were already gone, but a couple were still lingering, waiting for rides or paying their house fees.

  “Everything alright?” I asked.

  Cinnamon looked up from her iPhone, her face cast in a blue-white glow. “Everything's fine. Just waiting on Steve. He’s late as usual.”

  “What about you, Lex?” Lexus was the youngest girl working at Pandora's. She was just eighteen. She may as well have had a tattoo stamped across her forehead that read: Daddy Issues. She was a nice kid, but just that. A kid. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t break my heart a little each time, I saw her.

  She gestured towards Cinnamon. “Cin's gonna drop me off at my place, Momma Bear.” That was a pet name she’d given me because I mother her. I didn’t mind. Someone had to. Hazel came out of the dressing room. Her hair was pulled into a loose pony and she wore jeans and a sweatshirt that was clearly for comfort rather than high fashion. It suited her more than thongs and stilettos.

  “Can you order me an Uber, Heck?” She asked.

  I took my phone from my pocket and pressed on the app. She slipped me a ten. "You know, you could actually do this yourself if you had a phone. I hear that you can buy them everywhere nowadays."

  She lit a DuMaurier, and a gray plume of smoke escaped from her mouth. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out an old flip phone. "Can't. It's a condition of my parole. This is as cutting edge as I can have.”

  I knew that, but I didn't know why. It was a secret she guarded like a dragon guards its treasure, and she didn't want to talk about it. Any attempts to get her to open up were met with a white-hot anger. It was an issue I wouldn’t press, despite my curiosity. Let's see; a stripper, a single mom, and an ex-con. Hazel had alarm bells and red flags going off all over the place. That should have been enough to keep any sane man far, far away. Never stick your dick in crazy, wasn’t that the expression? And yet?

  And yet, there was something about her that was undeniably attractive. Sure, she was sexy as hell, but there was something else too. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. A horn sounded, and Cinnamon and Lexus headed for the door. I held it open for them.

  “Have a good night, ladies," I said.

  “Good night, Momma Bear. ‘Night Haze,” Lexus said as she jumped into Steve’s old Honda Civic. The muffler was shot, and I could hear the car as it sped down the road. Hazel and I stood under the dim lights.

  “Why are you on parole?” I asked, pushing comfortable boundaries. She gave me a hard glare, but it dissipated as quickly as her cigarette smoke.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Heck.”

  It was worth a shot. “You in tomorrow?”

  “On a Friday night? That’s my bread and butter.”

  “There’s an Evangelical Fellowship conference this weekend. You can count on those old hypocrites to tip heavy,” I said.

  “Hallelujah,” she said with feigned enthusiasm. “I’m not in on Saturday though. Me and Jaimie are going to the zoo. We’re gonna check out those pandas. See what all the fuss is about.”

  “Where is Jaimie?”

  “She’s at home. My neighbour watches her while I’m at work.
She’s a college student. Doesn’t do anything but study anyway and she could use the extra cash. It’s not like I can count on her father. Eddie is…well, things aren’t great with us right now.”

  “You guys on the outs again?”

  “I don’t know. When are we ever not on the outs? Everything is status quo, I guess.”

  “Whatever will be, will be,” I said. I wanted to be supportive, but I also wanted her to kick him to the curb. Hazel could do better than Eddie.

  “I suppose they never were good with us.” She took another drag from her smoke. “What can I say? I like the bad boys.”

  “Speaking of bad boys, what happened between you and the guy you kicked in the nuts?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I need to know in case it comes back at us.”

  “He reminded me of someone I knew once. Someone I didn’t get along with.” Her hands gripped her elbows.

  This woman was full of mysteries. I wanted to press her further, but the expression on her face told me to drop it. A car approached. I checked my phone and confirmed it was her Uber. “See you tomorrow,” I said.

  She blew a kiss. I pretended to catch it and put it in my pocket. I know. It’s lame, but she smiled so I count that as a check in the win column. I watched, making sure that she got into the car safely. Once it pulled away, I closed and bolted the door and headed towards the back office.

  Pandora’s Box was owned by a southern gentleman named Beauregard Henry, but everyone called him Regards. I know what you’re thinking, but Regards Henry wasn’t your typical strip club owner. He was a feminist. At least as much a feminist as a strip club owner could possibly be. He wouldn’t allow prostitution on the property. Sure, some of the girls took calls on the side, but there wasn’t any overlap. He set up a counselling program. A lot of the girls had emotional problems. Or addiction problems. Or both.

  Regards was making money off the backs of these girls. And every other part of them as well. He may as well help them be the best people they can be, if they wanted his help. Not everyone did. He explained it like this; the girls were like butterflies, beautiful but frail. If you touched their wings, the dust rubbed off and they couldn’t fly anymore. They were still beautiful, but they were damaged. It was wrong to harm them, especially when they couldn’t fly. He wanted them all to fly.

  I knocked on the office door. Regards looked up. “Still here?” He was counting money, and there were stacks of cash in neat bundles on his desk. He filled out a deposit slip as he counted his way through each denomination, starting with hundreds and working his way down. Strip clubs were a bit of an anachronism. There were some debit and credit purchases, but cash was king. It made me more than a little nervous. People did bad things for less money, but he was old school and insisted on doing the books himself. He would be in the office for at least another hour. Then he would put the money in a bank envelope and drop it in his safe. In the morning, Brinks would come and get it. He had his routine down and that’s what bothered me. A man with that much money lying around shouldn’t have a routine. He never took any of my suggestions to heart.

  Regards was pushing fifty and started to look it. He was a little round around the middle and had the beginnings of a double chin. His salt and peppered hair was brushed back, and he smelled heavily of an expensive aftershave. It probably had a French name that I couldn’t pronounce, like Chiotte or Désespoire. He had expressive eyebrows that moved like fuzzy caterpillars, telegraphing his emotions. I bet that made him a lousy poker player. I made a mental note to find out. Regards was one of the good guys. I should take him up on one of his offers to join his regular poker nights.

  “Just calling it a night. It was quiet, but Hazel dropped a guy tonight. We’re okay on it. He put hands on her first.”

  “Again?”

  I could read the words he didn’t say. If Hazel weren’t a draw, she would be a liability. She was as coarse as sandpaper. Some men agitated her to violence. I’d noticed the pattern. They were affluent, young, cocky. And drunk. It was a combination that set her off as surely as a match sets off a bundle of dry tinder. “He assaulted her,” I said.

  “Is she alright? He didn’t harm her?” His voice was slow and sweet and smooth, like a dollop of molasses.

  “She’s fine. She can handle herself. It might be a day or two before his balls drop back down,” I said.

  “I reckon he’ll think twice before he puts hands on a woman again. Still, I’ll have to talk to her. Every time she does this, she exposes me to lawsuits, and she puts herself into danger. We have systems in place to protect her. To protect all the girls. I can’t have her out there beating up the customers. It’s bad for business.”

  *

  I lived in the upstairs apartment. Regards had a helluva time renting it out. Not many people wanted to live upstairs from a bar, but I didn’t mind. It cut down on the commute, that’s for sure. I left through his office door. It closed behind me, locking as it did. I came out into an alley and walked towards the rickety stairwell that led upstairs.

  On the street, I could see the red and blue of flashing lights, not entirely an unexpected sight in this neighbourhood at this time. What was unexpected was the cop leaning against the hood of the unmarked cruiser. He was wearing an off-the-rack navy suit with a tie loosened around his neck. I knew him from way back. We were even friends once.

  “Hector,” he said.

  “Zaki.” Detective Zaki Hosani stuck out his hand like a prize fighter delivering a body blow to the breadbasket. I stared at it for a couple beats before taking it, more out of self defense than social convention, and we shook. It was a pretty good compromise considering my first instinct was to knock his teeth out.

  “I tried your door earlier, but there was no answer.”

  “I was working.”

  “I gathered as much,” he said.

  “You always were a good detective,” I said. He let it go unchallenged. “What do you want, Zaki?”

  “I need your help.”

  I snorted. “I’m busy,” I said, heading towards the steel staircase. Zaki grabbed my shoulder.

  “Gracie Telford,” he said.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “I’m listening.”

  “There’s been another murder. Just like Gracie.”

  2

  Hector

  I got into his cruiser and buckled in while Zaki slid into the driver’s seat. He flipped on the cherries and lights as we sped away. There were all sorts of equipment mounted to the dashboard; lights and buttons that were more at home on a spaceship than a mundane car. The radio crackled to life as dispatch assigned calls to other officers and the odour of stale coffee wafted around, a reminder of past stakeouts. I grabbed the ‘oh shit’ handle and held on for dear life. I haven’t been this scared in a car since that night. Since Gracie. It all comes back to her.

  “…and it’s a similar MO,” Zaki said.

  “What? I wasn’t listening.”

  “Where did I lose you?”

  “At the beginning. I was thinking about Gracie.”

  He turned east onto Bloor Street and continued, “This newest murder has a lot in common to Afghanistan. It’s scary how alike they are. It looks a lot like Gracie Telford.”

  “How much is a lot?”

  “Identical.”

  I ground my teeth together. “How is that even possible? We’re talking about two murders an ocean apart. Besides, you got your man. Remember? Frank Bello?”

  “I know.” We drove in silence for several minutes. “You’re looking good.”

  “I try to keep active. How’d you find me? Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

  “Jesus. I looked you up a while back. I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit. You know, to apologize,” Zaki said.

  “You’re an asshole. You haven’t changed at all.”

  He hung a right onto Church Street towards the Gay Village, rainbow flags hung from the streetlights. T
hat made sense. If this is murder is anything like Gracie’s, then sexuality played a part in it. My stomach lurched. I didn’t want to see what was at the end of this rainbow. It sure as hell wouldn’t be a pot of gold.

  “So?”

  “So, what?”

  “Where’s my fucking apology?”

  “Are you serious? You’re gonna make me say it?”

  Self-consciously, I ran my hand across the eyepatch covering my ruined eye. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  “Fine. You’re right. I owe you that much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way it all went down back in Afghanistan. We were partners. I should have had your back.”

  I was quiet, letting those words sink in. I waited to hear them for years, and now that I’d heard them, they weren’t enough. “I don’t accept. I knew I was being petty but screw it. I lost my reputation, my career, and my mother-fucking eye. Sorry wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.

  “Jesus. You are an asshole.”

  “Kiss my ass.”

  We approached a cruiser with its lights flashing, blocking the street. Zaki brought the car to a stop and we both got out. “He’s with me,” Zaki told the uniformed officer. The officer standing on duty raised the yellow tape, and we both ducked under in tandem.

  “Where’s the body?” I asked. Zaki gestured towards an alley beside a bar. It was called Manhole. Great name for a gay bar. No ambiguity there.

  “That alley leads to an abandoned lot. There was a lot of garbage strewn about, as well as needles and used condoms. It was used by addicts and prostitutes to conduct their affairs. Used to be a church back in the day, but they tore it down. Probably going to be another fucking condo. Like this city doesn’t have enough.” He led the way and I followed. The police set up floodlights, washing the crime scene in a brilliant blanket of white. The coroner was snapping photos. Behind us, on the other side of the tape, a group of onlookers gathered, but they were far enough away so as not to be a nuisance. Some of them had their cell phones out, trying to get a pic. Nothing like a dead body to get likes on your Instagram.

  “A lot of potential witnesses here,” I said.