Though I make plenty of money on a hit, and I’m not a huge spender anyway, Rinaldo has also been paying me to keep involved in more of the day-to-day business. I have a pretty good head for the numbers and organization of legitimate businesses for money laundering, and I’m learning more about the operations of those facilities as well. It makes for long days, but I’m all right with that.
Felisa has appeared more than a couple of times, and each time she does, I feel less at ease about her. I don’t like how close she is to Rinaldo. I’ve followed her a few times. She’s living in the building where I used to live, and Rinaldo has her set up with a bank account and a credit card. At the same time, I don’t think she’s just a gold digger. If she were, I probably wouldn’t care so much.
She’s interfering with Rinaldo and Lele. That I care about.
I try not to think about it. I try to tell myself it’s ultimately none of my business, but it still nags at me. I need to keep my mind off of the whole thing. I need a distraction. That would be good for me because it keeps me out of my own head, and that’s in everyone’s best interest.
What I really need now is to get laid.
I’m tired, no doubt, but I’m not completely exhausted. The last couple of nights have at least allowed for a few hours of sleep. The nightmares have taken a different tone. I keep dreaming that I’m in a firefight in the jungle, which is new. I can only assume the image comes from seeing the homeless vet on the street. The dreams are still horrific, but at least they’re something different.
Since the night of the bar fight, I haven’t been able to locate Alina. No one will give me any information on her whereabouts, and I’m starting to wonder if she didn’t take a month-long cruise in the Bahamas or something. All right, it hasn’t been a month since she was last in my apartment, but it has been three or four days. I still haven’t fucked her. When she had been there before, I had been content to get some sleep rather than do anything else, but I feel different now.
I want her. I don’t just want a hooker; I want that hooker.
She never even questioned the lack of sex, and I definitely appreciate that about her. I’d caught her eyeing me a bit in the morning when I drove her back to her corner, but she never asked anything. She never even brought up the nightmares again. I know she spent the night holding me until I fell back asleep, surrounded by the scent of lavender, but she didn’t make a fuss about it.
I’m grateful for that.
I cruise up and down the usual streets, looking for the one and only hooker I actually want to fuck, but she’s nowhere to be found. I do find Loretta and eventually get her to come over to the car.
“I ain’t goin’ with you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I say. “Have you seen Alina?”
“She’s my roommate,” Loretta says. “Of course I seen her.”
“Well, where is she?”
“She got picked up a while ago.” Loretta shrugs and looks down the street. “I been busy, so I ain’t been lookin’.”
So much for the vacation.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Do I look like her keeper?” Loretta puts her hands on her hips. “She’s got normal johns to take care of.”
Why do you even care if it’s her? One is as good as another.
I consider offering Loretta double to come home with me, but it’s not only a lost cause; it’s also rather demeaning. What’s worse than a desperate john?
While I debate with myself, Loretta walks off without another word. I glance up and down the street once more, but the only face I recognize is Ralph’s. He’s loitering around the back of my car, eyeing the Soccer Mom sticker.
I have to get that thing off the bumper.
I drive to the nearby gas station and fill up the tank. While it’s filling, I go around to the back bumper and try to scrape the sticker off. It’s really stuck on there, and all I manage to do is fray the edges a bit.
I buy cigarettes and hang around the door to smoke one. Then I go back inside and get an iced coffee, smoke another cigarette, and finally climb back in the car.
She has to be back by now, right?
The street corner is empty when I drive around the block. Loretta must have found someone she can tolerate. I take a short drive around the neighborhood before coming back again.
Alina’s still not there.
“Fuck her,” I mumble to myself. I shove my foot down on the accelerator and go look for action on another street. It doesn’t take me long to find an available whore. She gets in the car, and as I move into traffic, she starts talking.
“So, I’m Angela,” she says as she tosses frizzy red hair off of her forehead, “and I’m a Sagittarius! You wanna maybe get some dinner? I’m famished!”