“You are ‘qué pasa.’ I could not help but notice you back there.”
“And what did you notice?” she says in a coy tone. She can tell he is turned on by her looks, her long legs in those shorts, her fresh scrubbed skin and gleaming hair. She wears red lipgloss. It is the only makeup she has on. She does not need anything else.
Being this close to her, he likes her even more.
“I noticed your beautiful hair, for starters, Chica. Es muy bonita.”
Her friends roll their eyes, their hands hiding their mouths as they giggle.
“You want to stay with your girlfriends, or do you want to go party?”
She turns on her heels to her girlfriends and bids them farewell. They walk on without her, giggling and laughing.
“Let’s get something to eat,” he says, his appetite for all things increasing.
“Okay, Pappi,” she says, smiling. He likes that she already has a nickname for him. She makes him feel comfortable.
They walk down Calle Ocho to one of the other Cuban eateries. Once again, the smell of picadillo—a Cuban stewed beef, rich with tomatoes, cinnamon and spices, green olives and raisins—Cuban black beans and spices fills the air.
“You want to get something to eat, Chica?” he asks her. He has a nickname for her too. They are playing games with each other—like lovers do.
He can feel his temperature rising every time he looks into her eyes. He would take her right here on the street if he could. She has hair like his mother had—all those years ago. Before the accident. Before his entire world changed.
“But I saw you, you just ate.”
“Sí, but Pappi did not finish because I needed to come for you.” The way he says the word “come” is slightly suggestive. He cannot tell if she gets his joke. It seems to him that she does but she is hiding her amusement.
She is a tease all right.
“Sí, okay.” She is a bit pensive but willing to go along.
He opens the door to the restaurant and they are inside. A hostess seats them, inside this time, not in the patio area.
He orders a small plate of paella and they start to eat, sharing it. She looks at him, smiling with perfect white teeth through each bite. The earthy smell of saffron and spices and shrimp and rice fills the air. He takes two large bites and leans back in the chair to admire the look of her. As he does, he can feel a tightening in his stomach. A sense of urgency runs through him.
Patience, he thinks, patience.
She flips her long hair back over her left shoulder. “So, you from Miami? You seem to know Calle Ocho pretty well, Pappi.”
“I have been here most of my life. I love the food here. I identify with the Cuban people.”
“How so?” she asks.
“After Fidel, many came here with nothing. I have had times in my life when I have had nothing. But I always managed to get through it. Much like many of these Cubans. They are a proud people. As I am a proud man.”
“Sí, comprendo.” She understands what he is saying.
She flashes her smile again.
Such a flirt.
A waitress comes, and they order two Cuban mix sandwiches, two ultimate margaritas and double tequila shots of Patrón Silver.
This little party girl likes her belly full and she likes to party.
She weighs only about 120 pounds. He wonders what two tequila shots will do to her small frame and her self-respect.
Moments later, the Cuban sandwiches arrive. They are good. The Cuban bread buttered just so, filled with juicy slow-roasted pork, salty sliced ham, thin-sliced pickles and mustard, and cheese, then pressed on a sandwich press. The perfect combination of savory, salty, sweet and a bit of tang.
Delicioso.
The pork and the drinks and the girl combine for the perfect evening as they watch the Florida sun dip below the growing Miami skyline dotted with massive cranes. She does the shot. He gives her the other one and she downs it right away. She is laughing and having a good time. The alcohol is having the desired effect. Her eyes look a little glassy and her speech slows just a bit.
María excuses herself to go the bathroom. He watches her nice round ass as she walks to the back of the restaurant.
He discreetly leans over and puts his favorite date rape drug into her ultimate margarita. She won’t be able to taste or smell it when she returns.
She comes back and sits down, all smiles. He can’t wait to have her.
But patience is a virtue.
She is happily consuming the sandwich and the drink when her speech starts to slur, just a bit. “I feel a little funny.” She says it slowly, holding her palm to her forehead. “Maybe, it is the tequila— ¿Por qué?”
She puts down the sandwich. He can see her eyes glaze over. He facial muscles go slack all at once.
He enjoys the look of her as the drug starts to take effect.
He finishes eating and asks the waitress for the bill, handing her sixty dollars.
The woman says nothing as she brings him back his change. María looks wasted, but the waitress has seen this a million times before. A too-small girl with a too-large drink. And tequila shots.
María starts to curse in Spanish.
He pulls back her seat and takes her tiny arm around his big shoulder.
“It’s okay, honey, you’ve had a little too much to drink. We can go home now.”
She mumbles something.
He takes her out the door and onto the not-so-crowded street. It is the dinner hour, so the crowds have thinned a bit. In the distance, a South Florida thunderstorm is showing itself—all lightning, thunder and bluster. Big Tiny can smell the coming rain in the air. The smell of earth and greenness. He watches a lightning bolt temporarily light up the darkening night sky, followed by a thunderclap.
María’s tiny body is resting on him. Her eyelids are half-closed. She looks drunk. He can feel her breath, shallower than before. Looking down, he sees her feet hardly meet the ground. He will carry her where he needs to go.
“Ay, Pappi,” she manages to say to him, her voice barely audible.
He knows the perfect place to take her.
On a night like this, with rain coming, it is better than perfect.
No one will hear him.
In his grasp, she resembles a small sparrow that he can crush in his palm. Carried on wind and rain. He will carry her tonight to places she has never dreamed of.
Places of pure terror and sheer joy.
Just ahead, he sees his destination. The Tower Theater is one of Miami’s cultural landmarks. Built in 1926, it was state-of-the-art design in its time. Now it is a beautiful relic of the past. A relic of a time before Coconut Grove or South Beach. The Tower Theater’s multicolored art deco stucco exterior glistens in the rain.
Big Tiny, holding the girl, walks down one of its darkened side alleys. He likes the rain stinging his face. It has awakened his senses.
He likes the lightning and thunder. They will be his friends tonight.
Behind a green Dumpster, he knows there is a side entrance into the theater. It is locked, as he expects, but it takes him no time to push it open with his massive left shoulder. With two hits, Big Tiny feels the door burst open—giving way as if it is made from toothpicks. He has leaned María against the Dumpster. Now he grabs her and takes her inside. The Tower Theater’s interior is as ornate as the outside, done in gleaming gold paint and red tufted theater chairs.
Evidence of a bygone era.
Ahead, an elevated stage looms, complete with dusty red velvet curtains with long gold fringe and ornate gold tiebacks.
He looks at María. Her white T-shirt is wet now, revealing a white and red lace-trimmed bra.
Puta.
Only a whore would dress like this. He feels his body react to the sight of her wet skin and wet clothing.
Patience.
Big Tiny pulls the girl up the stairs onto a wooden stage. Floorboards creek under his heavy frame and dust flies up with each of h
is steps. His sparrow says nothing as he pulls her into the back of the stage behind the velvet curtains. There is dead silence but for the sound of the old floorboards and the rain outside. No alarm goes off; the place is deserted. It smells of oldness and dampness and dust, a kind of moldy smell. Big Tiny can hear another thunderclap and the rain coming down hard outside the theater. The air is still and stagnant.
With the cloaking sound from the rain and thunder, it is as if God has sanctioned what Big Tiny is about to do.
He must be patient a while longer and make sure there is no security or cops coming in response to the break-in.
Big Tiny waits for ten minutes, watching the time on his watch and watching María. He can see her chest move up and down as she breathes softly, her eyes closed to his penetrating stare. Her wet T-shirt stuck to her skin—revealing every sinew of her muscles, just where her ribs meet her belly, the way her belly curves in just so.
The time passes ever so slowly.
Patience. Patience.
Satisfied that no one is coming, he pulls María by her arms farther back into the stage area. Back here, huge props have been left, covered in dust. He finds a dark corner that suits his needs.
No one can see what he will do. No one must know except María. That is the way it must be with this one. That is the way it must be with his sparrow, his Chica.
He drags her body to the corner.
She does not know he is there.
He is over her, leaning down. He can hear his own breath, ragged, just before he kisses her. Even though she does not kiss him back, her lips are warm and soft and sweet. Her mouth tastes of salt and tequila. It is a good thing. This kiss. He feels an urge rise in him as his mouth lingers over hers.
His patience has run out.
He must have her now.
He pulls his favorite knife, and then his full body weight is on her and over her so fast.
There is a sound in his head. At first, it is distant and far away. But with his every movement, the sound is louder. Then he recognizes the sound.
They are back. The voices are with him again.
Take her.
He holds his knife to her throat and watches her face in the dim light. Her hands are holding his arms so tight. For a moment, she seems confused by her surroundings. She does not know where she is or what is happening. She sees the knife. She tries to scoot away, but Big Tiny’s body weight on her prevents her from going anywhere.
“No, Pappi, no. No, Pappi, no. No, Pappi, no, no, no.”
Big Tiny grabs her by her long hair and stands over her, pulling her up to her feet.
“No, Pappi, no.”
Big Tiny feels that his body is alive next to her. He can feel her warmth. Feel her pulse in his palm. He can feel a strength in his muscles, a tightness in his groin.
Big Tiny whips her around so he is behind her, her small back against his waist and his massive chest. One of his hands is on her tiny throat, the other holding his weapon. His fingers settle around her neck and squeeze. In a quick, fluid movement, he grabs her under her chin and lifts her head so that her neck catches a glimmer of light.
Outside, lightning and more rain.
Quickly, he draws his blade against the soft skin at her neck, moving the blade left to right, watching her trying to struggle. She reaches a hand up to his, trying to get away.
Blood spurts from her neck as he slices across it. A red river of life, flowing from her body. A tide that will soon slow. Her hand is at her throat, clutching it, trying to stop the bleeding. Her mouth is open. She knows what is happening. Fear is etched across her face. The realization that she is dying and there is no one and nothing that will save her.
Blood seeps between her thin fingers.
It is warm and smells of metal.
She is making gurgling sounds like he has heard many times before.
Big Tiny laughs at her.
He tears her clothes away.
Her breasts are small and firm and ripe—just a mouthful. Her firm brownish nipples are wet to the touch. Wet with her own blood.
As she bleeds out, she can do nothing to resist him.
He is groping her breasts, his face and hands now covered in her blood.
He loves the taste of it. The taste of her.
His sparrow.
His Chica.
He is over her, on her, nuzzling his face into her long hair, now matted with her blood.
He finds her nickname comes to his lips over and over, so he can whisper it in her ear, “My Chica, my Chica” over and over.
By the time he says her nick name a third time, she is gone. Her muscles slacken. Her dead eyes are open to the rafters now, fixed on the ceiling, yet seeing nothing. He is grunting, satisfying himself with her small, tight body. She is better than he expected. She is so good, and his need is so strong, that he rapes her lifeless body a second time over beating drum of the rain outside.
When he is finished with her, the voices are there in his head.
This one is different.
He has a strange feeling that the voices are right. He does not know why. Perhaps she had something to teach him or something to say to him. Perhaps there was more to her than just her body.
This one is different.
As Big Tiny looks down at María’s lifeless body, he asks her, in a deep, remorseful voice. “Did you wish for things you will never have now? Was there hope for a future life?”
In an instant, Big Tiny knows the answers.
Yes, of course she had hope before she met me.
The voices in Big Tiny’s head laugh at the irony of it all.
He shakes his head to clear his thoughts of these things. He does not want to listen to the voices anymore as they mock him. He does not want them to mock his Chica. She was too good for that. He will protect her from the cruel voices and their cruel words.
He kneels and moves close to her. He clutches her small hand in his for some time. He cannot help but stare at her face. He wants to remember it and this time with her.
He wants to stay with her like this, but he knows it is time to go.
Slowly, he gets to his knees, stands. He straightens up his back by pushing his huge shoulders back until he feels his right shoulder blade pop. He pulls up and zips his pants. Puts on his shirt, buttoning each button ever so slowly.
There is no rush.
He has time.
He feels like he is in a trance, standing over the corpse. Fixing the image of his Chica in his memory. Like he does for each of them.
She is different.
Big Tiny does not know why, but he knows the voices are right.
Suddenly, the voices are gone. A moment of lucid sanity. Where it is just Big Tiny and this broken-down girl. He feels powerless now that she is gone.
* * *
He is standing there when a flash from outside and the low, distant rumbling of thunder bring him back to the present. For a moment, he thinks it is another storm coming in, then realizes it is the sound of a truck outside.
Shaken back into the present, he knows he must move her body to salt water. Salt water will erase any evidence, like it has the others. Salt water and the creatures that live in the Everglades’ Alligator Alley.
Walking briskly in the beating rain to his car, Big Tiny notes that the street is all but deserted. The rain is too much. At ten thirty at night, people are waiting for it to pass before coming back out into the streets. Big Tiny’s timing is perfect. He gets into his Audi, turns the ignition over in the black Audi A5 and pulls it into the alley, careful to turn the vehicle’s lights off and parks next the busted theater door. He retrieves the girl’s body.
She looks like a child to him now.
Different than before.
He lifts the sparrow’s tiny body over his left shoulder.
Big Tiny double-checks the alley for any activity and then he takes her outside. He wraps her body in heavy plastic and loads her into the trunk.
Her eyes are sti
ll open.
My Chica, soon you will be in the water.
He does not bother to look back as he drives away.
CHAPTER TEN
Sex and beauty are inseparable, like life and consciousness.
—D.H. Lawrence, “Sex Versus Loneliness”
Thomas Pierce can’t wait to get to Isabella that night. He wants to cocoon with her in their big king-sized bed among down-filled pillows. He wants to forget about Dr. Catherine Powers and the firm for a while. Forget about work and business and marketing. Forget about the Operation.
But Isabella is not in a good mood. In fact, as soon as he walks in, he can tell she is in a seriously pissed-off mood. It is written all over her face, which wears an expression that can best be described as a snarl. As she walks into the house, she slams the door behind her. And when Isabella is upset, she takes it out on everyone and everything around her. Today is no exception.
Tonight will not be a good night for Thomas Pierce.
Isabella practically spits at him when she walks in. “That little bitch Alexandra, I should have had Big Tiny cut out her throat and eat it right in front of the rest of the girls.”
Thomas has no idea what she is talking about as he removes the jacket from a three-thousand-dollar wool suit, loosening his tie.
“Forgive me, Isabella, but what the hell are you talking about?”
In response, Isabella picks up a heavy lead crystal vase and throws it at him.
He ducks just in time to watch it fly over his head and hear it shatter against the hallway wall. Crack. Crystal pieces fly all over the floor.
“What the hell!” Pierce says, exasperated. “What is going on with you?”
Ten minutes ago, he had been calm, wanting to be with Isabella all night. But now everything is different. She is totally out of control.
“I had a little bitch get in my face today. One of the new girls we just brought in from Ukraine. She had the nerve to disrespect me in front of the other girls and Big Tiny and the boys.”
Thomas Pierce almost doesn’t want to ask, but he can’t let it go. That natural curiosity that made him a lawyer bubbles to the surface. “And what did you do?”
Dying Declaration Page 7