CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

Michel Giovanni drank beer as he drove away from the downtown area. He had sized up the shelter that Selene operated before calling her. It was smaller than the one she had run off to back in the day. The women coming and going did not interest him at all. He only wanted to know where Selene spent her time when she wasn’t at the house she shared with that asshole named Quinn Herrera, or playing devoted neighbor while they did their daily community patrols.

Michel was pleased that he’d gotten under Selene’s skin, even though she’d tried to sound tough and in command. She would be thinking about him, what he knew, and what he didn’t know about the local strangler. At the same time, she would be looking over her shoulder, wondering when he would come to collect and reclaim her.

Michel grinned wickedly.

You have good reason to be concerned on both counts, baby. Your troubles have just begun. And they won’t end till you’re mine again.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he reached his destination. The area was a part of Bluffs Bay that seemed far removed from The Woods, but a place Michel was all too familiar with. It was home to many of the city’s streetwalkers, drug addicts, gang bangers, and other lowlifes. It hadn’t changed much since he moved to California.

Michel parked in front of a dilapidated tenement and finished off the can of beer, before he headed inside. He dodged broken glass and used hypodermic needles along the way.

After climbing three flights of stairs, Michel knocked on door 328. He heard a baby crying and two adults yelling at each other before the door opened. A husky African-American man with cornrows and a half moon scar on his right cheek stood there.

“What?” he growled.

“I’m looking for Samali,” Michel said tentatively.

“You found him.”

“I’m Michel. A friend of a friend said you could hook me up with—”

“Oh, yeah,” he cut in. “Wait here...”

The door closed in his face and Michel started to have second thoughts. Maybe this wasn’t the way to go. But his reservations quickly disappeared when he realized there was no turning back. The more he got involved, the more he would need protection.

A couple of minutes later, Samali came out holding a brown paper bag. “Let’s walk down here,” he said.

Michel followed him to the end of a long hall and out to a back stairwell. He watched as Samali opened the bag and removed a semi-automatic pistol.

“You got the money?”

“Yeah.” Michel took out the two hundred he’d counted twice and folded, passing it to him.

Samali didn’t bother to count it. He stuffed the wad in his back pocket and handed Michel the gun.

“We never met,” Samali said gruffly.

Michel had no desire to argue, though he certainly knew where to find the man if worse came to worse.

“Yeah, no problem.” He started to stuff the gun in his pants, then thought better. “Mind if I take the bag?”

Samali grinned. “I ain’t got no more use for it.”

Five minutes later, Michel was back in his Cadillac putting his plans into motion for shaking up this town like never before and getting what he wanted for his trouble.