6. Jace Holloway

Chapter 6

Jace Holloway

The photographer lived in an apartment near Chinatown, not far from where I lived. Getting an interview with him was a simple affair. He answered my email in a matter of minutes and set up a time to meet the next day. I didn’t tell him exactly why I wanted to meet with him. I found that sometimes catching people off guard led to some interesting finds.

I hopped out of the Uber, thanking the driver, even though he had put me through an entire ride of grating country songs about drinking beer and rolling around in hay or some shit. I tuned most of it out—at least tried to. I knew I should have taken the train but decided it’d be simpler to order a ride.

Lesson learned.

I walked past a busy tattoo shop and reached the photographer’s building, a run-down shoe store underneath the apartments. The keypad was scratched up, and a dick had been graffitied into the glass door. He answered after a couple of rings and buzzed me in.

The cramped staircase smelled like musty cheese and damp carpet. It reminded me a little of the apartment complex I’d been raised in. My parents had a home for my early childhood but lost it after my mom was fired from her job and began to secretly funnel the mortgage money into her alcohol addiction. When my father found out about it, it was already too late. The bank was knocking on our door. Foreclosure followed soon after.

That should have been the end of my parents, but my dad always had a good heart. He loved my mom to death and tried everything in his power to save the marriage.

So much for that. I sometimes thought we would have been better off if he’d just left her. I was too young to really understand any of it, but I certainly internalized the yelling and the crying. My cartoons and my video games couldn’t drown it out, no matter how loud I made them. It had scarred my psyche. By the time I entered high school and the hormones were really kicking in, the depression followed suit. It started like a subtle shadow at first before it started to consume me. It became hard to focus in school—hard to even care about it. My dad could tell something was wrong, but he was too busy trying to keep us both afloat to really help me fix it.

The depression ate off my soul. It gorged itself. An invisible, twisted, monstrous thing that wanted to eat me alive. And I almost let it.

I could hear a couple arguing through a closed door while another couple must have been banging above them, judging by the loud and uninhibited moans drifting into the hall. That’s what I loved about living in the city. The duality of life was on full display. Someone could be fighting for their lives, their relationships, thinking their world was seconds from ending while only feet away, someone was getting their brains fucked out by a man who they’d just met at a bar down the street. It was hard to imagine myself living in a small town with nothing but the same old stories playing out on repeat. It would drive me crazy. I needed variety, needed a thrill, and this city had plenty of that to go around.

I reached the photographer’s floor and walked all the way to the end. He was already waiting with the door open, leaning against the dented doorframe. A window looked out to a parking lot next door.

“You Jace?”

“I am,” I said, extending a hand. The photographer grabbed it in a tight grip.

He looked like the textbook definition of a NYC photog. He was thin, tall, with a mustache that he’d attempted to curl, but one side fell flat while the other appeared wispy. He had circular glasses that magnified his eyes by a factor of about a thousand, making him resemble a bug more than a person. The earthy scent of a freshly lit blunt drifted out from his apartment. It reminded me of one of my best friends in high school. A pothead with the kindest heart. She was one of the reasons why I didn’t succumb to my dark thoughts. I’d call her during the worst of it. She’d quickly offer me shelter in her house, where we’d smoke up a bong and melt into the couch, watching silly shows and movies together. I still talked to her every now and then, but adulthood had claimed her. She lived in Seattle with her wife and two kids. Her hands were full, while mine were still pretty empty.

“Stevie here. Nice to meet you. Come in, come in.”

Stevie led me into his apartment, closing the door and clicking two heavy locks into place. He motioned toward the messy stack of shoes by the door. I took the hint, slipping my sneakers off and setting them next to the pile. I followed him into the airy and sun-drenched living room. The parking lot next door meant the light wasn’t blocked by any nearby buildings. The space had a modern, industrial type of feel. The floor was a smooth gray concrete, making the red of the brick walls pop. The ceiling had exposed wooden beams running across its length. A thriving fig tree towered in a white ceramic pot next to the window where all his models sat and posed. A light box and a reflector were set up with a laptop stand directly next to them.

“Wine, beer, water?” Stevie offered.

“I’m good without, thank you.”

“So,” Stevie said, leaning back against a column that had been placed at the start of his living room. “You said you had questions for me?”

“I do. About two of the models you’ve recently shot. I wanted you to tell me what you know about them.” I pulled up the photos I had saved on my phone. “Ricky and Jesse. They were both found murdered, and I’m trying to figure out how they’re linked, if they even are.”

“Murdered, huh? Shit.” Stevie took the phone and analyzed the two photos. “Damn… I did good with these, huh?”

I held back an arched brow. Sometimes my face could channel the inner workings of a hyper-judgmental bitch sizing up an obliviously dumb bitch, which was trouble, considering my career relied heavily on having an unreadable poker face.

“Do you know if they knew each other?”

“Oh, these two? Yeah, they definitely did.”

I cocked my head at that.

“Ricky had been referred to me by Jesse. Apparently, they worked together. Seemed like good friends.”

“Did they say where they worked?”

“I didn’t ask. Don’t think it’s a traditional desk job, either.”

“Anything else strike you about them? Something they may have mentioned in passing?”

Stevie chewed on his nails. He spit one across the room. I internally cringed but, once again, managed to keep my composure. Even though I could almost feel the bead of sweat forming from the strain in my facial muscles trying to keep still. “Well, besides Ricky’s boyfriend slash manager, no, I don’t think so.”

“Ricky brought someone with him to the shoot?”

“Sure did. A big guy, muscles that practically ripped through his suit. Big ol’ asshole, too. Barely said hi. Kept micromanaging every little pose and photo we took. Oddly enough, Jesse talked about him, too. I think they’re both dating him, from what it sounded like. But it was Ricky who happened to be his fave, judging by the special attention he got.”

I honed in like a great white scenting blood from miles away. “Did you get a name? Any identifying information on this guy?”

“I got a name, yeah. Called himself Gio. Don’t know the last name, though. Don’t know much at all, actually. Sorry.” Stevie looked away, avoiding my gaze. He chewed his thumb so close to the quick that blood pooled at the end of his fingertip. I walked around him into the living room. He was holding something back. I could sense it. Was he scared?

I had to prod harder. “You sure? It sounds like you already know quite a bit. What else can you tell me about this Gio guy?”

“He was intimidating. He was clearly strapped—he kept putting a hand over the pistol at his hip. For no fucking reason, either. Just swinging his dick around, is all. Pissed me off.”

“And scared you?”

“Yes. And scared me.” Stevie stiffened. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his torn-up jeans. I moved toward the window, standing underneath a strip of warm sunlight. There were large black-and-white photos of tasteful male nudes on the walls. He was definitely talented, if not a little sketchy. “Ricky seemed scared, too, for whatever it’s worth. He, I don’t know, had a haunted look sometimes. I’d catch it in a few of the shots. He’d flick it off once I pointed it out to him. Like he’d put on a mask. But it was always when he’d look over at Gio that the gaunt, ghost-ish face would take over. It was weird.”

A thought struck me. “Did you get any shots of them together?”

“Fuck no. Gio wanted to stay far away from the camera.” He looked away again. What was this guy holding back?

“Did he say anything to you? Anything that personally scared you?”

Stevie rolled his neck. Rubbed the bridge of his nose. Sighed. He walked over to the couch and slumped into it. “He took a call while he was here. He stepped away for it into my bedroom. I couldn’t hear most of what he was saying, but when he came out, he pointed to Ricky. Said they had to go. We still had an hour left of the photoshoot, but Ricky didn’t question him. As they were leaving, Ricky asked if it was another job.”

“So Gio is his boyfriend and his pimp?”

“Maybe. But that’s not what stuck out to me. It’s what Gio said after. He said, ‘No, it was a call from Don Valdoni.’ It sounded very… Mobbish to me.”

My eyebrow finally couldn’t take it anymore. It arched like the Brooklyn Bridge. “Mob? Really? You sure you haven’t been watching too many true crime shows?”

“Listen, I get it—sounds off. But when he said that, it all started to make sense. That’s exactly how he carried himself. Like he was part of the Mob. Someone who doesn’t care about laws and consequences because it’s all beneath him. Maybe you should talk to my friend. Her name is Allecia Norison. Here’s her number. She had a few questionable boyfriends—one of them might have been involved with Gio and his crew. I… I don’t know. But I don’t want to get involved with any of it, okay? I’m not looking to find my dick floating down the Hudson.”

A lead was a lead, no matter how outlandish it may have sounded to begin with. I didn’t have any personal experience looking into the mafia, but there was a first time for everything.

I’m so far out of my league it’s almost comical.

I tried to challenge that thought, just like how my therapist taught me to do. It was a learned skill that took practice.

I was hired for a reason. I closed plenty of cases when I worked as a cop. I have the smarts and the drive. I can do this.

I hope.

Fuck it. I’d deal with self-doubts and confidence issues later. For now, I had to dig for any more information, even though it appeared we were getting to the bottom of this well.

“Did Ricky say anything after that?”

“Nothing.” Stevie stood up, looking at his gold wristwatch. “Listen, I’ve got a model coming here in thirty minutes, and I have to prep. I think I told you enough. Whatever was happening, there was probably some fucked-up shit. That’s all I’ve got for you.”

Stevie was done. I could tell from the way he looked over my shoulder at the door. I wasn’t here to push. I could end up needing him sometime in the future, and it was best not to burn any potential sources .

“Right, well, thank you for meeting with me. If anything else comes up, you have my number.”

“I do.” Stevie paused, his eyes narrowing. “You know, if you ever want to get in front of the cam?—”

“I’m good,” I said. Spotlights were never my thing; neither were photos. I hated taking them. My mother would have to bribe me with a week’s worth of candy just to get me to take my school pictures. Seeing myself reflected back at me always felt off. I didn’t like it.

I left the photographer’s apartment, walked back down the staircase where the couple fighting had quieted down and the couple fucking had only gotten louder.

Damn. It must have been some good dick. The kind you ride until you’ve had your fill, then get back on for seconds after chugging a glass of ice-cold water. Whenever my sex drive was actually revving, I found that I liked to think I had a dick like that. Bottoms always left my house with shaky knees, flushed cheeks, and drunken smiles on their faces. They’d text the next day looking for more, sometimes begging for it.

Unfortunately, the guy from the bathhouse never traded numbers with me, or he’d probably be back for seconds, too. And damn, did I want to give it to him. It had been nearly a week since that night, and I still jerked off thinking about him. Even my Lexapro couldn’t keep my dick down.

Maybe I’d swing by there again today. Wouldn’t hurt. And if I bumped into him again, then I’d ask for his number. Make it a regular thing.

I stepped out onto the busy street when my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Caleb, the police officer. All it said was a single word, “Fuck,” with a link attached to a news article.

The headline read: Serial killer dubbed “Nevermore” hunting NYC streets.

I dropped my head back and looked up at the cloudy sky.

“Shit.”