Chapter 13 #2
“Leelee, I told you I’d get you all the money by the end of the week.
I just got a job.” I hear Estrella say from inside the room.
I’m curious to figure out what the inside of this space looks like.
I gently move this Leelee woman to the side so I can look in the space.
It’s the size of a large bedroom with sheets dividing it into three.
Each of the three girls is set up by a window.
I’m surprised to see that she doesn’t have a legit bed but instead what looks to be one of those portable cots used in hurricane tents after a bad storm.
Her stuff is still packed in two duffel bags and there’s a small shower caddy with her personal items on the window sill. This is how she’s living.
“Oro? Give me a second. I’ll come out.” She slides her feet into a pair of slippers and hurries to meet me out in the main room.
I stop the door from closing, looking to the Leelee woman. “How much does she owe you in rent?”
“Two hundred and forty dollars.”
My eyes open wide. That’s fucking highway robbery. She pays eighty dollars a week for a cot in a corner.
I don’t question the woman. Instead, I reach into my pocket, pull out my wallet, and peel off four hundred dollars. “That’ll cover what she owes and the next two weeks.”
“Oro, no.” Estrella hisses at me.
“Hush.”
Leelee doesn’t hesitate. She snatches the money from my hands and goes back to her space.
Estrella storms out of the small room and shuts the door closed behind her. “You didn’t have to do that. Coca said I’d get paid at the end of the week. I’d be able to cover what I owed.”
“Now you don’t have to worry about that. It’s not that big a deal.” I shrug.
“It is a big deal. You’ve made it very clear how you feel about me. I don’t want to have to owe you anything.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I’d do the same for someone on the street. It’s my attempt at good karma. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
She puffs a breath out of her nose. I can tell she wants to argue more but doesn’t.
“What are you doing here anyway? Did something else happen?”
“No, nothing else happened.” There’s no way I’m going to tell her that the man she shot died.
As long as she doesn’t ask about it I won’t have to lie.
“I just needed to ask more about this Sina woman that you are so stuck on. I had Pooh do some background on her, but we can’t find much simply because I don’t know much.
Do you have a last name for her or who she’s working with? ”
“Why do you need to know who she’s working with? I’m not trying to go find her. I’m trying to make it so she forgets about me. Wouldn’t it be better to just do what I can to avoid her?”
“I would like to think so, but that doesn’t seem to be working out for you.” I chuckle with no joy behind it.
“I don’t know her last name. She was working with the Fuertes, but I don’t know if they are completely in bed together or if she’s just having them do a few favors for her. She does most of her business with the girls she has.”
That’s different. “She’s got a group of women to do her bidding?” Usually it’s a man behind these big organizations. I guess it would make sense that a woman would be behind a large one and we wouldn’t know about it.
“Women, men, cops, priests, politicians. She’s got everyone in her fucking pocket.” Estrella shakes her head and drags her hand through her hair.
“Wait a fucking minute. Priests, cops? What the fuck are you talking about? Why are they helping her?”
“She’s got dirt on all of them. Sina likes to say she is the one who can make anyone’s darkest desires come to life. Some of these high-ranking figures have some really sick desires.”
Slowly, my brain starts ticking away and pieces fall into place. “What of the cops? What does she use them for?”
“To get rid of people who don’t do what she wants. You’d be surprised how simple it is for someone to plant evidence on someone. I watched a woman with three small children be taken away on bogus charges simply because she wouldn’t entertain Sina and what she wanted.”
“Bogus charges? What kind of charges?”
“Drug trafficking, assault, rape. Whatever works for Sina’s needs.”
Drug trafficking. That rings a bell in my mind.
Just a few weeks ago, there was an older man who had been part of our community for all his life.
He was a good man, had a shop where he handmade wooden furniture.
I never saw him get in an argument with anyone, and then one day the cops showed up and dragged him off to jail for peddling coke.
It didn’t make any sense. It just wasn’t something that he would do.
“Do you know any of the people that she actually pulled this off on?”
“A few.” Estrella focuses on me, trying to see what I’m getting at.
I pull out my phone and pull up a picture of the older man. Vado and the rest of us tried to figure out what was going on, but the cops were very tight-lipped about it. There was nothing that we could do.
When I show Estrella the photo she nods right away. “Yeah, he’s one of them. Sina was trying to get him to furnish some apartments she’s got for her girls.” The hesitation lets me know that I need to dig deeper into that.
“What girls?”
“Oro, I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to get away from her.
I can’t be involved. I don’t want to end up like him.
I don’t want this.” She shakes her head again and gets up from the couch where she is sitting.
Before she has a chance to make her way back to her room I grab hold of her arm and turn her back in my direction.
“No, fuck that. You’re not going to run away from this. You’re going to talk about what you know. I don’t care how it makes you feel. You don’t get to just ignore what’s going on.”
Her eyes open wide and she snatches her arm away from me. “Ignore? You think I can ignore what the hell is going on? I can’t. I also know I can’t stop it. She’s just like him. Sina is just like him and it’s my fault. I didn’t help when I had the chance and now she’s just like him.”
“Maldita sea, what the fuck are you talking about? Who the fuck is him?” I shout at her, not giving a damn that the people in the rooms might be able to hear what we are talking about.
She clams up. Her lips are pressed together tight as she shakes her head from side to side quickly. Like a child.
“You selfish bitch. Everything is always about you. You haven’t changed at all, have you.
If you’re not the center of attention, you can’t have anything to do with it.
You think of no one but yourself. These people might need help, and because it’s going to put you out, you don’t want to get involved.
I’ve never met anyone so self-centered.”
She goes so still, I can’t even tell if she’s breathing.
“Selfish? You think I want this for myself? That I want to take Sina’s place? Is that what you think of me?” Her voice comes out in a whisper.
“Prove me wrong.” I keep my eyes trained on her.
“I already have. I already proved you wrong, and you don’t even realize it.” She drops back down on the chair, tears streaming down her face, before she looks back up at me.
The room hums. Pipes tick. Then she says it. “I saved you.”