Free The White Angel Murder by Victor Methos Page B

neither good art nor bad, but the eclectic mix gave it a certain randomness that made it appear tacky.
    The living room was a large space with three flat-screens up on a single wall, all turned to the same channel. It was a vampire show and on the leather sofas that took up most of the room were two partially nude women; one black, one white. They were wearing bathing suit bottoms but no tops and the stale air of marijuana smoke was thick.
    “ I’m looking for Hunter.”
    “ He’s in the pool,” one of the girls said without taking her eyes off the televisions.
    Stanton saw the sliding glass doors and went outside. The pool was large and lit with underwater lights on each end. Hunter was splashing around with a woman, both of them nude. A male was passed out in a lounge chair on the side of the pool, a small line of cocaine laid out on a mirror he had placed on his chest.
    “ Johnny boy!” Hunter yelled out. He stuck his tongue in the girl’s mouth and said something that made her giggle before climbing out of the pool and wrapping a white robe around himself. The initials “MHR” were stitched in gold lettering over the heart. “Hungry, thirsty, horny?”
    “ I’m fine, thanks. I brought the cash.”
    “ Straight to business, huh? Well at least come inside and watch while I get drunk.”
    They walked inside and to the kitchen. Hunter opened the fridge and scanned up and down, unfamiliar with what was in there, and noticed a bottle of cognac.
    “ Who the fuck put my cognac in the fridge?” he yelled to no one. He poured it into a wine glass and drank half before motioning to the living room. He plopped in between the two girls and put his arms around them. “Interesting little cookie this Francisco.”
    “ Can we talk in private?”
    “ Oh don’t worry,” he said, pushing the heads of the girls together lightly, “they’re empty as rocks. Ain’t you girls?”
    “ Asshole,” one of them said.
    Hunter took a drink and grinned. “They got him set up on Cleveland Ave in a little shitty apartment. The name of the apartments is the, Boca Del Ray. His name’s Hector Garcia and he’s a footsoldier with the Sureños. They sent him in for the prostitution the gang’s been running. Prostitutes are a much safer business than drugs. Most pimps are low level guys out there by themselves. Sureños think with their rep they can muscle everybody out and have it to themselves. They’re probably right too.”
    Stanton wrote everything down in his pad and then took out two thousand in cash in an envelope.
    “ No no,” Hunter said, “on me. For the gun thing.”
    “ Thanks. Consider us even.”
    “ Even Steven.” He began pushing the girls’ heads into his lap. “You sure you don’t want to stay?”
    “ Positive.”
     
    *****
     
    Stanton sat in his car outside awhile, staring at the information in his notepad. He had to move forward cautiously; if the crew Francisco was running with even suspected that he was working with the cops, much less was a cop, it would be instant death. No words exchanged, no explanations given. Just a bullet in the back of his head when he wasn’t expecting it.
    He pulled away and got onto the Interstate, taking his time to get to the Cleveland/Lincoln Avenue exits. The area was primarily apartment high-rises and low-income tenements. It was segregated into three different districts: white, Mexican, and Russian. He remembered a case he had out here. A wife had shot her husband after she found a receipt from an escort agency in his pants.
    The Boca Del Ray was a square, cream colored building with a large front porch and a keypad entry. Two young Mexicans were on the porch smoking. They saw him and Stanton could tell from the looks on their faces they made him for police before his car even came to a stop in front of the building.
    He got out and looked around. In heavily populated gang turf there were scouts everywhere. Their job was to alert the street’s enforcer; the person