Massage and Murder
By: Don Simkovich
Tags: Short Story, Stories, Crime Fiction, Short Fiction, Crime

Late night on the freeways in Los Angeles gave a sense of freedom. During the day, so many cars clogged the lanes that you had to crawl and the road was nothing but a tease.

Sara looked out the window. “Take the Alvarado exit.” She spoke in a monotone like she had seen this situation before, maybe even lived it out herself.

“Got it.”

I drove in silence with the lights of downtown Los Angeles shining in the background, looking very much like a movie set. The sight was definitely romantic, unless you were one of the thousands wondering how to pay rent.

The Alvarado exit was in full view and it struck me that beneath the overpass was one of the most densely populated homeless communities in the city. I headed down the on-ramp.

“Take a left.” Sara sounded drained.

I hit the left turn signal and when the light turned green, headed onto the street, past a dense collection of cardboard shacks and pop up tents.

“Up ahead, on the left.” Sara pointed to a motel. The sign read Hourly, Nightly, Weekly.

I pulled into the lot and stopped a few spaces from Emily’s car.

“Let me go in first,” Sara sighed, her purse slung over a shoulder.

“That’s not proper procedure, just like I shouldn’t be having you ride with me.”

She paused, wondering what I’d say next.

“Go ahead.”

She got out, headed along the first floor, past a stair well and stopped at a door, knocked, waited a second and then stepped inside.

I kept an eye for several minutes and got a report on my phone. The shooting victim was in the Intensive Care Unit, struggling to breathe. Sara reappeared in the doorway and motioned to me. Behind her, a woman who looked like Emily ushered a child, a boy, out the door and down the walkway to another room where the door opened and he went in.

I got out of the car, patted my holster, and headed to the motel room. Sara waited just inside the door and Emily sat on the edge of the bed, wiping away tears.

“I told Emily to talk to you. That it’d be okay and you’re just here to help.”

Sara was the mother hen, it seemed.

A sense of pain clouded the atmosphere.

“How do you know each other?” I asked, glancing from Emily to Sara.

Sara answered. “A friend referred her when I needed help at the bar. She’s been working a few shifts a week for me, a couple months now.” Sara leaned against the wall.

I directed my next question at Emily. “And you also work at the massage parlor?”

She nodded.

“I’m here to find out what happened tonight. I just need you to tell me what occurred.”

“Yeah, sure.” Emily was quiet.

“By the way, was that your son I saw just now?”

“Yeah. I don’t want him to know anything.”

I could understand why. The kid was too young to have that in his mind.

Emily sat with her arms in her lap, but when she wiped away another tear I saw bruising just above her wrist.

The kids’ schoolbooks and some toys were piled in a corner, and a chair covered in clothes was near the bed. “May I sit?”

“Sure.” Emily looked at the worn carpeting.

I pulled up the chair. “Emily, where you at the Bangkok Massage parlor tonight when a gunshot was fired?”

“Yeah.”

Sara rolled her eyes and filled the room with a disgusted-sounding groan and sigh.

“I’m going to listen carefully to everything you say, but first I want you to hold your arms out like this, please.” I turned my palms toward the ceiling and Emily copied my movement.

An ugly, dark streak was easy to see from her wrists to her forearms. Deep purple. Fresh bruises were spreading.

“Can you tell me how this happened?”

Emily struggled to hold her emotions in check as she described how the man started undressing and wanted her to get naked and do him a favor.

“Why do you think he called it a favor?”

“Because he had seen me three times already in the past month and claimed that he was my regular. He had always talked real sweet to me and wanted more than just a rubdown over his back, I could tell. But I never did. I said the rules didn’t let me, so I couldn’t.”

“And he accepted that?”

“No. Once, he laughed right in my face. Said he knew what the real rules were. The last time, he gave me a big tip after the session and said that he’d be back, and that next time I better relieve all his stress, and make him… happy.

“How’d that make you feel?”

“Scared. When he came in tonight he had a look — ”

I waited as the tears welled up. “A look? Why didn’t you refuse to go in the room with him?”

Emily huffed. “I guess you’ve never worked there. You don’t have a choice. You do what you’re told. Besides, he always got his way because he spent plenty.” She looked away, clearly embarrassed. “He reached for me — ”

I waited.

“He was rough and yanked me close. I told him ‘no’ but he grabbed my ass, my breasts, tits, whatever you want to call them. I pushed him away and then he was mad.” Emily was quiet. “I need the money.”

“He offered you money?”

“No. I work there because I need the money. A lot of the men are nice, usually don’t say much. He could be nice. Funny. But it was like he flipped. I got scared and started pulling off my dress, but then stopped. I was like, no way.

“Then what happened?”

Fighting back tears, she looked to Sara who encouraged her to continue.

“He came at me again, grabbed me here — ” she pointed to her forearms — “and it hurt real bad. He was holding so tight that I couldn’t pull away.”

“Did you call for help?”

The question triggered something inside Emily and she stiffened, shed a few tears, and then stopped. “I was afraid. Embarrassed. Didn’t want to the manager to think I was a problem. I didn’t know what to do. I was, like, freaking out.”

“Why didn’t you run out the door?”

“I tried and that’s when he pulled out the gun.”

“He had the gun?”

“Yeah. It certainly wasn’t mine. It was his and he was in a frenzy. Extra horny? I don’t know, maybe. I totally lost it, lunged for his arm and that’s when the gun went off. I was so scared that I ran.”

“Why’d you go to Sara’s bar?”

Emily glanced at Sara. “I was scared out of my mind, hers is the only safe place around here. Do you get it?” She sat upright, like a shot of adrenaline zipped through her. “I don’t shoot people. He pulled a gun on me. He was going to rape me. I’m not going to let anybody do that to me again.”

Memories became too much for her to bear.

“I get it,” I assured her.