The Goodbye Man (Red Market #1)

by A. Giannoccaro

  I put my lips to his ear, “What did you say to him?”

  The car sputters to life and we are immersed further into another city enveloped by crime and corruption.

  “The girl stays with me.”

  He places a kiss on my temple and rests my head in the perfect place over his heart as it thuds erratically under my touch, something still foreign. My eyes grow tired and I succumb to sleep.

  ***

  “Lettie doll. Wake up. We are home.”

  I hear shouting in the distance, children playing and yelling. Is that a gunshot? Where the fuck am I? The sweetness he had before isn’t present as the annoyance in his eyes grows when mine meet his.

  “Now. To safety, Lettie,” he sneers, yanking on my arm.

  Still half asleep and jet lagged, I seep out of the rusted car into an unknown land, greeted by graffiti-painted brick walls and children running around amuck and dirty. Trash litters the street and I can’t help but be jolted awake by eyes that stare at me like a meaty piece of flesh they can’t wait to bite into. Spanish chants boom loudly my way.

  “Faster,” Mateo barks, swinging the bags over his shoulder and throwing money at the driver. He grabs my hand again with his other and pulls me into a dark alleyway.

  My fears will always have the upper hand. I thought I said goodbye to that part of me, but the venomous ways of my past will always come back to haunt me, making me distorted and gross. I want to claw at myself as I see my twelve-year-old self being fucked by a man that was supposed to love me all because I was officially a woman. No, no. I cannot disappoint Mateo. He is my king. I bow down to no one, including the truths from my past.

  I blink back tears and bite my teeth together painfully so, trying to make my demons hide back under the surface. It’s just a matter of time before they won’t fade back into the dimness, setting me aflame from the mess that was made by the dysfunctional kingdom paved for me.

  Mateo takes a key out, unlocking a metal door in the alleyway and the creaking hinges bring me out of my stupor. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but when he flicks the switch of the lights on, my eyes deceive me. I did not expect to see a fully furnished living area in the middle of an impoverished part of town. I scan the room, noting a decent sized bed, couch, table, fridge, and door. Is there a real bathroom here?

  “I’ve wanted to tear into you since we got to 20,000 feet. Get naked.”

  And everything is forgotten as my tiny body is pinned up against the cold metal door. I bow down to you, King. I will be your dirty princess.

  Mateo

  I have tasted the sweetness of her, now I cannot go back to the salt of my past.

  The thing about having something for the first time is you cannot compare it to what came before. Before Lettie, no woman had moved beneath me. I had never felt how intense their orgasms were. No, before her I had nothing and now I cannot compare her to anything, nor do I want to. When she moved her sweet broken body against mine, I came alive for the first time ever. Sex will never be what it was, now I am addicted to a new high and I want more. I want to take her every time I look at her. I want to feel her, consume her, and be consumed by her. I know that she will never leave me. Caesar always said I would find a woman who could fix me. The cure to my disease was the thing that exacerbated his. She was the one thing that could crack his hard shell. I am still hoping against hope that he will be in Mexico when we arrive.

  Something lingering in my mind makes me think he won’t be, I think I just inherited the family business. Greedy people with money will always refuse to die if they can buy life; we will need to get up and running quickly.

  This city is filthy with crime, the perfect place for my empire to start over. Kidnappers, money launderers, human traffickers and drug cartels run the city. We will fit in perfectly, but we are also at risk from those very criminals. Lettie could be stolen from me so easily. I cannot let her out of my sight.

  With her body pinned against the locked door of our home, our home, I want her more than ever. I wanted her on the plane in the air. I was ready to fuck her in the taxi on the way here. Now I am impatient and needy, my cock is aching to feel her. My mind though it still was with me, wishes she wasn’t so alive. She has found something inside her, the way she sneered at me earlier was almost feral, and she is learning to fight. My Lettie Doll might just be able to survive me. She bucks beneath me now wanting me, needing me. When my hands slide into her pants and find the underwear I made her put on, I instantly regret it. I step back and the space between us hurts me physically, it pains me to let her go at all.

  “Go to the bathroom and undress, Lettie Doll. I need you.” I growl the words as I shove her towards the bathroom door and start to unbuckle my belt. Her eyes are twinkling with raw lust as she looks back over her shoulder at me. I know there is no window in there, no way to escape or leave so I feel safe letting her go alone. I usually follow her to the bathroom. I let out a breath as I slide my jeans to the floor. I hate change, the chaos it brings with it unsettles me. The door behind me creaks open as I pull my sweaty shirt over my head. This place is muggy and hot. I feel her walk into the room, she is magnetic and I am the lump of metal being pulled to her with unbearable force. I freeze on the spot as her hands touch my back. Her skin against mine is still something I am not used to. The feeling of her breasts against my hot body makes me shiver as she presses into me while her arms snake around me and pull me further into her. My heart beats faster… the pounding in my temples hurts as her touches remind me of just how alive she is. Maybe it is time to embrace life instead of glorifying death so much. Her warm breath on my skin and her fingertips whispering over me turn my mind against me and I want to kill her, make her still and unmoving. Her touch is welcomed but it is unwanted too, it tears me apart and helps me at the same time.

  “Lie down, Mateo. Let me show you.” I don’t want her too. I want to take her and use her to satisfy this burning in me, but I cannot stop my body from listening to her. I walk the few steps to the bed. She stays stuck to me the whole way there, forcing my body to move where she wants it to go. With her lips pressed to my back she says words that break me. “This is what I am good at, Mateo. Let me show you what love can feel like. What real sex can be like.” Her little hands shove me and I stumble onto the bed face first. She was made to tempt men, to pleasure them. She has done this to many others before me. The rage starts as a small fire in the pit of my stomach and a switch goes off inside me I cannot listen to her anymore. She is mine and I need to teach her that right now. Pulling her down to the bed, I lose my control and my hands throttle her small neck as I move her to the top of the bed we are going to share. “No, Lettie Doll. Let me show you. You are mine.” An evil smile toys at her lips and a little monster is born in those dark eyes. She goes limp beneath me, not from my hands stealing her air. No, my little doll submits to me and lies there still and quiet so that I can take what I need from her body. I kiss her lips and she lets me without kissing back, I touch her and she stays deathly still. The only thing moving is her chest with the breaths she struggles to take as I strangle the life from her body. I force myself to let go when I know she is going to do what I need her to do. Oh, my Lettie Doll, so fucking perfectly broken. I am too needy to wait, to let her enjoy it. I slide in between her thighs, the space made just for me to fit. Her eyes have glassed over and they don’t meet mine, my doll has gone away somewhere in her mind. When I slam my cock into her there is no resistance, her body is wet and waiting for me. My dolly cannot stop the way she wants me even when she plays dead, her pussy tightens around me as I fuck her harder - angry that she is still alive in there. As my mind and body fuck her, I am slowly pushed under the water of my own madness, her body only moves with the force of my thrusts. A new feeling bursts through me as I wish for Lettie to return, the empty eyes and stillness cannot satisfy me even when it is all that I desired only minutes ago.

  “Come alive for me, Lettie,” I whisper in her ear as I pull her body t
o mine, slowing the pace of my cock in her. She lets her eyes meet mine. The confusion in them stabs me with the same pain I would feel from a butcher’s knife to the chest. “Love me, my sweet doll.” I kiss her softly now, the anger evaporating from me as she kisses back, her arms pulling my body even closer to hers. Why have I run from life for so long? Hidden away behind lovers that could give me nothing like this. Her body begins to move with mine, a slow rhythm that is pleasure and torture all in one. My hair is pulled as her fingers run through it forcing me to kiss her harder. Sex with Lettie is a life-changing act. Every single time I am with her a part of me dies and is reborn. I never had this; teenage encounters where you learn this the hard way, I simply had a need and countless corpses to satisfy it. There were no kisses, or finding first base. Until now, I never knew the pleasure of feeling a woman want me. As I empty myself inside her, I find the sweetest release as her orgasm shakes through her. She wants you, Mateo. Someone actually wants you, useless boy.

  A warm feeling fills me at that thought, no one wanted me before. Caesar tolerated me because he had a responsibility to his sisters. I was never wanted, not even my own mother wanted me. I am sure she would have killed me many times over.

  “Did you feel that, my doll? I have never had that before you; your pleasure is mine from now on. All fucking mine.” She holds onto me, her body still coming down from the high we created together.

  “I will give you everything, Mateo,” she breathes out as I roll myself off of her. “Can I go clean up?” Her voice is weary as she asks me; usually I won’t let her leave my sight.

  “No.” I pull her close and let sleep steal us away, we need to recover from our flight and get to work.

  ***

  Starting over isn’t easy. Everything may be set up and ready but filling these new beds isn’t going to easy. I am not Caesar. I cannot charm them into giving up their lives, there is no shortage of whores and worthless souls in this city, but getting them to come to me won’t be easy. Hugo has the doctors, staff and building set up and ready to begin work almost immediately. I have a meeting with a local clinic where we can perform operations under the radar for a fee. I lie next to Lettie, staring up at a new ceiling and contemplating how I am going to do this all without Caesar. She feels so perfect with her head resting on my chest, but here she will have to be with me at all times. Here she isn’t safe at all. I am going to have to make her understand that she will have to work with me because I am going to need her. I don’t want to kiss other girls to steal their lives away. I only want to kiss Lettie. We need to get up and go meet Hugo at the new factory. I know that when I do switch my phone on it will be filled with missed calls and messages from him. I should have been there hours ago, but hours ago I needed something else. “Wake up, Lettie. We have to go to work.” I shake her gently out of her deep sleep.

  “You go. Let me sleep, Mateo,” she mumbles, half asleep still.

  “No, Lettie. Here you stay with me. Always. This city is not like Hunts Point. No one is safe here.” She sits up slowly, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She looks so young, yet her eyes tell a story that ages her beyond her years. “Let’s go shower quickly, then we can go.” I push her with me as a slide to the end of the bed to get up.

  An hour later, the two of us walk through the door of my new office, Hugo following us in and we start to work on a new plan. The giant of a man sits opposite me and Lettie sits next to me on the floor, as has become habit. One I like a little too much. Hugo’s eyes dart between us and he shakes his head a little but remains silent.

  “I am in talks with local kidnappers about bringing in some bodies. We won’t be able to pre-test so they’ll be random, but we will have some parts to go out quickly,” he tells me, getting straight to the point. We need to get things going. It has now been a week since we shut down and people are getting upset, the wrong sort of people.

  “Are we ready to go otherwise? With the clinic and the facility here?” We should be, but I need to know for sure.

  “Yes, the clinic is going to cost us a heap though, so we need to find another or set up our own again and fast.” He is right and I know it.

  “Start making it happen. We are not short of funds, so let’s donate a new facility to community.” He stands up to leave the office, not a man for small talk.

  “Any news from home?” I ask as he is about to leave.

  “Interpol and local police are on a manhunt for Caesar. The facility was searched and stripped bare. They went to the apartment but there was nothing to be found, Mateo. We are safe here for now, but I suggest a new plan B get set up within the month to be safe.” Always have an escape plan. Caesar taught me that from the very beginning. Always.

  “You think they know we are here?”

  “Not yet, but this city is not quite as silent as the one where we were.” He is right, I need to get in with the local rot to be secure here. We will have to pay for the bodies until we work out a way to get them ourselves here. My sixth sense tells me we are still in a whole heap of shit and that this is just a temporary stop.

  “Set it up to meet with some suppliers then, I want to get the ball rolling as we have already taken too long.” He nods before closing the door on Lettie and me. My mindset has to change from follower to leader, I need to make the hard decisions myself now. Paying the local kidnappers makes sense since they are already established in the art of making people disappear here.

  “Come, Lettie Doll. I want to go look around,” I say, as I push my chair backwards to stand. I need to be familiar with the layout of the building so that I can make sure things run smoothly without us losing too many organs. We walk through the strange building. The layout is so different and it feels all wrong. The new waiting area is laid out in four rows not two, the empty white beds taunting me with memories of lovers with one foot in the grave. The silent void should be beeping with the almost end of their lives. Instead, it is so quiet, as our footsteps are the only noise in the cavernous room. Lettie’s hand squeezes mine as we keep walking. The new harvesting theater is set up and ready to go. I stand in front of the electronic doors looking into our future and the empty beds surrounding me are an agonizing reminder of my past.

  I want them filled with new bodies, but I fear I won’t be able to stop myself from loving them and betraying her. You are a sick man, Mateo. She wants you despite all your faults and you are already planning to hurt her.

  Arturo

  Detective Arturo Fuente:

  There isn’t such a thing as purity or goodness.

  Corruptibility was like a slave to the city he was tired of saving, until he was given a reason once again.

  He could bury the demon from his past once and for all.

  The stench of this city isn’t something I can ever get used to. I walk around with a permanent smug look on my face with no real reason to continue working with a badge hidden in my pocket. Being a cop in the god-forsaken shit country is like having a target on your back if you haven’t made a deal with the devils. You must choose wisely, how bad you want to burn.

  I see things, many things that I turn a blind eye to. You have to learn to survive when you are surrounded by hell. You get used to the fire. After so long, you feel useless without it. I have seen women get raped by drug-addicted fucks, but since they belong to certain cartels that pay enough for me to be oblivious to their ways, I do. I am not good. There is no such thing. People may try to pretend that there is, but it doesn’t exist. There is nothing in this world that is made up of perfection. Everything is flawed. Imperfect and fucking ugly.

  I just have more ugly in me than others. I embrace it. It fuels my ability to survive in this hellacious place that I am paid to watch over. For five years, I have worked under Mexico’s Interpol office, specifically looking into the Red Market organ trade. Most people think that it doesn’t exist, but I know all too well it does. At least when a whore from the street is raped, she is fucked enough on crack not to feel it when she is torn apart.
She’s thrown back onto the streets to lick her dirty wounds.

  The people that I try to save are scattered about in dirty coolers. Their pieces will never be whole again. They are sucked from this disgusting world and I know a man that takes them. A Spanish fuck that I have dreamt of strangling since I heard of his purchasing of the warehouse in Izapalata three years before. He has become, an obsession, if you will. Caesar fucking Salguero. Slime. He took something of mine that I will never be able to get back.

  Fuck the Interpol laws. Stupid Mexican government thought I lost my mind when I tried to tell them that Caesar was running a Red Market operation from his cozy New York City warehouse after Fatima went missing. They blamed her drugs, or lack of interest, along with my obsession and threw it on a shelf. I continued to do my homework. Lots of it, but every single time I went to my superiors with it, they dismissed me. Now the goddamned joke is on them. His perfect little paradise has been ransacked and his secrets are set free. Now, I sit outside of his watcher’s shithole apartment until he comes out. I will press him for details until he has no choice but to crack.

  The thing about people here is, no one remains loyal. Give an honest man enough money or leverage to betray their glorious master, they won’t think twice about doing it. Threaten the health of their family, you will have them by the balls.

  There isn’t such a thing as good people. I may try, for the pieces of those that are in others, those that were never given a choice, but I am not a good one. I simply survive.

  I pop open the glove box and retrieve a fifth of tequila, twisting the lid and bringing the glass to my chapped lips. My black and grey moustache is growing over my lips and my sweaty smell is overpowering the car. I can’t remember the last time I showered. The thought of nailing this piece of shit is all that I have been able to think about the past three days since I got the call from my boss. Sleep means nothing when you have the chance of catching the devil. Years of destruction in the making will soon come crumbling down and I will be the man that gets to watch.