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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
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FALCO
Irina had just exploded with her third orgasm. My second one came two minutes later. Every muscle on my body felt sore. This woman made me feel things like no woman ever had.
Irina rolled to her side and used her elbow, arm and hand to prop her head up, facing me. “You are incredible, Officer Jackie,” she said, chuckling.
“No one calls me Jackie, anymore,” I said. “Not since high school.”
“No? What do they call you?”
“Only a few people I know call me by my given first name, John,” I told her. “Almost everyone just calls me Falco.”
“What about Billy and Manny?” she asked. “Don’t they still call you Jackie?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Billy is in prison. He has another five years left on his sentence.”
“Oh no,” she replied. “What happened?”
“He murdered a biker who was beating up on his mom,” I answered.
“I’m so sorry. You two were so close.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t too surprised. You got a first hand look at his temper when you were fifteen. It got worse from there.”
“What about Manny?”
“He died four years ago. Liver cancer.”
“I am so sorry for your loss,” she said.
“Shit happens,” I replied. “I miss them both.”
“I like the name, ‘Jackie,’” she insisted. “You will always be my Jackie.”
“’Jackie’ is fine by me,” I said.
I had been avoiding the elephant in the room for far too long. I was extremely curious about her recent history.
“Irina, would you mind telling me, how is it that I found you in a homeless community?”
The smile that had been twinkling in her eyes dimmed immediately, “I left a man a year ago,” she said. “I ran away with nothing. He’s been looking for me ever since.”
I looked at her, somewhat incredulously, “You didn’t say you left a boyfriend, or a husband. You said, ‘a man.’”
She nodded, “It’s a long story. I hated him.”
I felt like shit, making her relive the pain she had been suffering, “I’m sorry.”
“After Social Services took me away when I was fifteen, I was put into another foster home across town, but that monster kept following me.”
“Mr. Cohen?”
She nodded, “Eventually they arrested him but his lawyer got him out. The state moved me to Memphis for my own protection, gave me a different name and put me back into their system. I was a troubled teenager after that, I’ll be the first to admit it. I was in four different foster homes in three years, each one worse than the last.”
“Oh my god, Irina, I’m so sorry. Whatever happened to Mr. Cohen?”
“He died more than ten years ago—heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I didn’t shed a single tear. I lived in fear around that man.”
“Did things get better?”
Tears were coming down her cheeks as she ran down the story.
“No,” she continued. “The state told me that I would be deported to Russia when I turned eighteen. I was not born in the US, nor had I become a citizen.”
“We could have fought that,” I told her.
“I was seventeen, Jackie, I didn’t know.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I ran away three months before my eighteenth birthday.”
“Where did you go?”
“At first, I went back to Franklin . . . to look for you, but . . .”
I sighed, “We had moved by then. We were in Knoxville for a few years before I came back.”
“That explains it,” she said. “I was by myself and didn’t know who to turn to when I found out you and your family left Franklin.”
“So, what did you do?” I wondered.
“I ended up in Nashville. I was despondent. I could not find a job without a green card or proof of citizenship. I ended up getting a job as . . .”
She paused, her face reddened with shame.
“Go on,” I said. “Irina, it won’t change anything. I know what you were going through. I will not judge you, I swear.”
She nodded and sniffled, “I became an exotic dancer at Fantasy Land.”
“Fantasy land?”
I knew the club’s reputation. It was an awful place. They lured young girls, barely eighteen, into stripping and ran an illegal prostitution ring for high rollers. They matched the youngest girls with rich older men. I could only imagine what she had been subjected to.
My heart sank hearing her story. The owner of the club was a real piece of trash named Philo Mancini. I’d never met him but heard all about him. He had a long rap sheet: drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling. His name was even bandied about with regard to sex slavery, though no one ever proved it.
“Did they force you into . . . prostitution?” I asked.
“Only once,” she admitted, tearfully. “There was a high roller, a very wealthy man, who came into the club. It was all very secretive. He was probably sixty. The club owner, Philo, asked me to sleep with the man and offered me five hundred dollars. I said no, but he made it clear that it was not a request. The man took me upstairs to Philo’s private office. He got rough with me, broke my jaw and gave me a black eye. Philo heard the commotion and barged into the office, catching him in the act of beating me. He went into a rage and killed the man with his bare hands, right in front of me.”
“Philo Mancini murdered a man, right in front of you?” I asked. “You saw it?”
Her eyes widened in horror as she seemed to relive the moment.
“And you couldn’t go to the police because you were illegal and afraid of what he’d do to you . . .” I continued. “Did Philo at least take you to the hospital?”
She shook her head, “No hospital. Philo knew a doctor, a regular at the club. He reset my jaw and then brought me into his office to treat me without a medical record. When Philo picked me up from the doctor, it was at that moment, he told me I owed him for the medical bills, that I belonged to him. He told me I was his property to do with as he pleased.”
“What happened after that?” I asked.
“I began living with him, but not as a girlfriend. It was more like a sex slave. He was always sure to remind me that I was still illegal. He kept telling me if I ever left him, I would be deported. He treated me well for about a month, then problems began.”
“What problems?”
“He was jealous and controlling. He wanted me in the club as his arm candy but went into a rage if any man even looked at me. At first, he only took it out on the men. Later, he began to blame me. He said I was encouraging them. He started to hit me. He no longer allowed me in the club. He made me stay home. I was not allowed to drive or leave the house. He’d come home drunk and start calling me a slut. He’d hit me and then it began getting worse. He started . . . raping me in brutal ways.”
That explained the old injuries. I pulled Irina into me and held her tightly, feeling like complete shit to have even asked her about it.
“So, I ran away,” she continued. “No money, no car, no relatives, no place to go. I tried to get a cash job at another nightclub as a stripper under a different name, but all the owners were afraid of what Philo would do to them if they hired me. Finally, one place gave me a shot. Philo’s men found me the very first night. I was lucky to have escaped that night. I’ve been homeless ever since, for over a year now.”
I felt so badly. Irina had chosen a life of poverty and emptiness to avoid having Philo keeping her captive.
“Jesus, Irina, I’m so very sorry you’ve had to endure so many heartaches,” I said. “I promise you will never have to live like that again. We’ll figure it out, I swear to you.”
She smiled again, and ran her fingers through my hair, “I have always loved your thick, beautiful brown hair,” she said. “The three months we spent together as teenagers was the very best time of my life. There were days that those memories were the only thing that kept me going.”
“Why didn’t you ever look me up?” I asked. “I mean, later, like in the last few years?”
“I tried once,” she said. “I found you online after you became a police officer in Franklin, but I was so ashamed, Jackie. I was no longer the girl you knew. I was nothing but a cheap stripper . . . I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
I pulled her, still naked, on top of me and covered both of us with a blanket. I kissed her, warmly and passionately.
Forty-five minutes later, we were sitting at my tiny dining room table eating Ball Park Hotdogs and chips and drinking a red blend. She was dressed in my sheer silk robe, tied loosely to her waist, her ample cleavage exposed and her nipples stretching the smooth material.
“This man you saw murdered, did you know his name?” I asked.
“Jimmy something,” she said.
The name ‘Jimmy’ rang a bell with me. I thought for a moment when it dawned on me. No, I thought, it couldn’t be him . . . could it?
“You said he was about sixty?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he have jet black dyed hair combed straight black and wearing large black framed glasses?”
Irina froze, mid-bite, “Yes, how did you know?”
“And this took place around two years ago? Do you remember the date?”
“I remember it was on Valentine’s Day,” she said. “I was to be his Valentine’s Day present.”
I felt the blood rushing from my face.
“It was Crazy Jim,” I said. “Jimmy Gallo. You saw Jimmy Gallo being murdered.”
Jimmy Gallo was a crime boss in New York who disappeared without a trace on Valentine’s Day two years ago. He was last seen in Nashville, where he owned a few car washes thought to be fronts for his money laundering. He was presumed dead but the crime was never solved. He was never seen again. Now, I know why.
“Did he have anyone with him, like bodyguards?” I asked.
“No, his wife was in town with him,” she said. “He made a big deal about secrecy that he was there with Philo. He wanted no one to know he was there.”
That explained why Philo wasn’t killed by Gallo’s men.
“What are you thinking about, Jackie?”
I smiled at her, “I think I just figured out a possibility to solve all your problems.”
I picked up my cell off the table and dialed. Nico Mayson answered.
“Nico, I need some guidance from you,” I said. “I have a hell of a story to tell you and need to figure how to take the next step.”
“I’m in bed with my wife,” he replied. “Is this a good story?”
“It’s gripping,” I promised.