Angel’s, was what she told him. Angel’s.
Markham parked his SUV in a lot about a block away from the club—recognized it immediately from the silver Mylar banners that hung vertically along the length of the building like angel wings. Despite its renovations, he could tell that the club had once been a pair of connecting storefronts. However, what stuck out to him the most was the orientation of the “dead” space—the parking lots, the sidewalks, the narrow alleyways between the buildings. Lots of places to hide and watch.
Angel’s took up nearly the entire block. Billed itself as a “nightclub complex” and sported a marquee over the front door that read:
HOME OF RALEIGH’S FINEST FEMALE ILLUSIONISTS.
Markham stepped inside and found a map on the wall to his left—color-coded with sections labeled bar, dance floor, patio, video bar, pool hall, and theater.
He approached the bar.
“Can I get you something?” asked the bartender. He was muscular, bald, and wore a tight black T-shirt. Markham quickly scanned the room—eight patrons, all male, two at the bar, the rest scattered at the tables. Half suits, half casual.
“Is the manager or the owner around?” he asked.
“You got a two-for-one special, friend,” the bartender said, smiling. “I’m Paulie Angel, and welcome to my home.”
Markham flashed his ID and introduced himself.
“I see,” Angel said, nervous. “Perhaps we’d better talk in the office.” He signaled over Markham’s shoulder. “You’re up, Karl,” he said, and a man rose from one of the tables and stepped behind the bar.
Angel led Markham out the back and across an enclosed courtyard. Once inside again, they quickly passed through the pool hall and entered an office at the end of a narrow hallway. Markham had taken in as much as he could, but what stuck out to him the most was the obnoxious neon sign at the opposite end of the hallway:
Starlight Theater
“All right,” Angel said, settling in behind his desk. “What can I do for you?”
Markham sat down and slid him a copy of Jose Rodriguez’s senior class photo. “You recognize this man?” he asked.
“Sure. That’s Ricky Martinez.”
“Ricky Martinez?”
“Yeah. She used to work here as one of our performers, only for a few months, though. Called herself Leona Bonita. Kickoff slot in our Wednesday and Saturday shows. I haven’t seen her in a while, though. Left her shit in the dressing room and never came back for it. That happens sometimes with the younger girls. Tried calling her, but number is no longer in service. Stuff’s pretty much been picked through. What’s left is still back there. Something happen to her?”
“His real name is Jose Rodriguez,” Markham said. “Seventeen years old. Found murdered two months ago.”
“Jesus Christ,” Angel gasped. “What happened?”
“Mr. Rodriguez and a man by the name of Alex Guerrera were both shot in the head and later discovered by police near a cemetery outside of town, their bodies impaled up through the rectum and planted in the ground.”
The nightclub owner gasped, and Markham slid Guer- rera’s mug shot across the bar. Two years old, from a petty-theft conviction in Texas. “You recognize him?”
Angel shook his head, dismissed the photograph and went back to Rodriguez.
“You said she was seventeen?”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus,” Angel said. “I hired her myself. Checked her ID—Ricardo Martinez, it said, I swear. Said she was a college student; was going to be a fashion designer and made her own costumes. I—how come we didn’t know?”
“The confusion about the names, for one; but also because the police initially kept the details from the press. Rodriguez and Guerrera were thought to have been the victims of a gang-related drug hit; their deaths, the display of their bodies were very similar to what’s been going on in South America. Consequently, there’s been a conscious effort among law enforcement not to give this kind of thing too much media traction.”
“But you said it’s been two months. You’re just getting around to us now?”
“It appears that Mr. Rodriguez’s sexuality, as well as his alias of Ricky Martinez, was kept secret from everyone except a handful of people. He was terrified that his family would find out that he was a homosexual, but he was also a very smart young man. In addition to questioning his friends, the original police investigation looked into Rodriguez’s cell phone records and his computer activity with the hopes of getting a lead on the drug angle. Nothing there. Consequently, there was also nothing there that tied him to this establishment or his secret lifestyle. The phone number he gave you was most likely a prepaid cell deal that his parents weren’t aware of. I’ll want that phone number and any records of his employment here if you still have them.”
The nightclub owner nodded. He stared down at the photograph, upset.
“Two more men have been found murdered in the same fashion,” Markham said, producing another pair of photographs. “You know either of these gentlemen?”
Paulie Angel glanced quickly at the picture of Randall Donovan—shook his head and said he knew him only from the news reports about his murder, about his supposed connection to Colombian drug money. But when he saw the second photograph, the nightclub owner let out a moan and held his head in his hands.
“Please don’t tell me,” he said. “That’s Billy Canning, isn’t it?”
“You know him?”
“He and his partner were regulars here for years. Disappearance was in the news. Police questioned me and some of the other club owners in town after it first happened. Questioned Stefan, too, from what I heard; thought he might have had something to do with it, they said, but we all knew it wasn’t true. I know they were having problems, and we all thought maybe that Billy just bolted, that maybe—but what happened? Where’d they find him?”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you that just yet. Murder has not been made public, investigation still in its preliminary stages.”
“I understand.”
“But Donovan and Guerrera, you’re sure you’ve never seen them here before?”
“Yes, I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean they’ve never been here. Well, perhaps the Hispanic gentleman. You can ask Karl and the other bartenders if they ever saw him. Can ask our performers, too—there’s a show tonight. But this Donovan? No, now that I think of it, I ’d have to say definitely not a patron.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I pride myself on keeping a hand in things,” Angel said confidentially. “I’m here seven days a week. Of course, I can’t say I know everyone who frequents our establishment. But a guy like Donovan, well, I think if he’d been in here I ’d know.”
“Why?”
“He was well-known in Raleigh, even nationally they said on the news. Sure, a lot of those family types—the ones with the kids and the golf clubs and the reputations—they like to keep their real tastes hush-hush. But even before I learned of Donovan’s murder, I never heard anything in our circles about him being gay.”
“I see.”
“Again, I’m not saying I’m an authority on the subject. But, here in Raleigh—in the grand scheme of things, I mean—the circle is pretty small. Word gets around, especially about the high-profile ones.”