Tug

by KJ Bell

  “I have to go. Please, let me go.”

  “No, goddammit! I know you care about me. Talk to me or I’ll find out on my own, but you aren’t going anywhere.”

  He’s not going to let me leave, but I have to. I’ve already put him at risk. My brain is running haywire with thoughts of what Eduardo will do. The only thing I can think of to convince Tug to let me go, is to hustle him.

  “I don’t care about you. You’re a stupid man with a lot of money. You were an easy score. I was playing you to get to your money and move my family, but it’s not a game anymore.” The words are bitter and I hate myself for saying them.

  “You’re lying.”

  He won’t be easy to convince … he never has been. Time to hit hard.

  “Am I? Think about it! Why do you think I won’t move in with you?”

  “It’s not true. You’re not that good at pretending.”

  “I’m a hooker,” I say in a low, sultry voice, running the tip of my finger down his cheek and over his lips. “I do nothing but pretend. I can be anything a man wants me to be and you wanted me to be the woman who could help you get over Tori, and that’s exactly what I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Greed, baby, and your desperation made it so easy. You used me, too. It’s not like you care about me. We both got what we wanted.”

  “Get out!”

  His booming scream makes me flinch, but I grab my purse and escape his condo without looking back.

  About five minutes after she bolted from the loft, I calmed down and knew Maria hustled me so I would let her go, and foolishly, I did. How can I be gifted with brains, and, yet, utterly clueless when it comes to the heart? After the stunt I pulled our first night together, Maria left her job and didn’t know how she was going to pay her rent, yet she returned over two grand to me without hesitation. To take a stand about how the money made her feel. To prove her integrity. She loves me, and I let her go.

  I spend the remainder of the day and most of the night searching for a man named Eduardo with no last name, and turn up nothing. At 3 a.m., my phone rings. It’s the company investigator.

  “Aidan, it’s Sid. I discovered an Eduardo with ties to the Bay Area. I don’t know if it’s your guy or not, but I doubt you’ll be able to find him. His name is Eduardo Montez. An illegal, and head of the Torrente Cartel in the Bay Area. A punk kid who climbed his way up by knocking off his predecessors. No permanent addresses on file. I sent you a photo.”

  “Thanks, Sid.”

  I open the photo. The resemblance to Javier is proof that this is his father. How did Maria get mixed up with a guy like Montez? I send Maria a text.

  Tug: If you think I’m going to let you run, you’ve seriously underestimated my feelings for you.

  She doesn’t reply and I send another text.

  Tug: I know you’re story about playing me was bullshit. You love me.

  Still no response, and I’m worried she’s already left the country.

  Tug: I also know Eduardo Montez is Javier’s father. I will protect you. Please trust me. Give me three days before you disappear.

  Again, her response doesn’t come, and I’m just about to leave the house to find her when my phone vibrates.

  Maria: I can’t.

  Tug: Please. I’m begging.

  Maria: Let me go.

  Tug: No fucking way! I love you.

  The seconds tick away as I wait for her reply. I know she’s going to trust me. She has to.

  Maria: I love you, too. 3 days.

  Tug: I will be at your place by nine and I will make sure you’re safe. Is Javier with you?

  Maria: No, he wanted to stay with Drew another night.

  Tug: Is that safe?

  Maria: Eduardo won’t come to Mexico.

  Tug: Please try to sleep. I love you.

  Maria: I’m sorry

  Tug: I know. I’m going to handle this.

  I wake in the morning to a shock. Something is wrong. I hear voices in the house. One is Veronica, the others two male voices I don’t recognize, speaking in Spanish. What I hear sends me darting from the bed and searching for pants to put on. I feel legless as the men on the other side of my door continue to talk. Thank God Javier isn’t here. I struggle to shove my legs into my sweatpants and open the door.

  I make eye contact with Veronica, and her horrified expression confirms that my life has just changed drastically.

  “No!” I scream, my voice catching in my throat.

  “Oh, God, Maria. I didn’t know you were home. I would have woken you.”

  “Papa!” I run to his room just as the EMT covers him with a sheet.

  “Maria!” Tug calls from the front room, but I can’t go to him. I lean against the wall and sink slowly to the floor. My papa is dead. He went all alone in the middle of the night. After I left Tug’s, I went to Tori’s to pick up Javier. He wanted to stay with Drew, so I drove around for hours, thinking about my future and came home after Papa went to bed. I didn’t even bother to check on him when I got home. I was too upset. Was he in pain? Could I have saved him?

  “Oh, thank God, baby.” Tug storms into the room and kneels in front of me. His hand curls around the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the EMTs leaving the room. “I saw the ambulance and police and thought …”

  “He’s gone. My papa is gone. I couldn’t save him.”

  “No. No.” He holds my face firmly in his hands. “You took care of him. He knew you loved him.”

  My hands reach up and wrap around Tug’s wrists. I want him to let go of my face, but he won’t budge. I can’t look him in the eyes.

  “He wants to be buried next to abuelita, but I can’t go back there. I don’t know what to do.” He lowers his hands, and I drop my chin, putting my head on his chest.

  For a few minutes he lets me cry, and then says, “Hey. Look at me. I will make it happen.” I lift my head. “We’ll hire security for the funeral. He deserves a resting place next to his wife. It will be okay.”

  He’s so perfect and sweet and kind … and so wrong, so very wrong. I touch his cheek, shaking my head.

  “No, it won’t. It will never be okay. Eduardo’s men will shoot your security, and he will take Javier to get what he wants.”

  He grabs my hands and yanks them to his chest, his gaze so sincere I don’t want to look.

  “I promise you, I will never let that happen.”

  More than anything, I want to believe him. I want to think this wonderful, protective guy is stronger and more powerful than the man I left behind, but I know differently. I’ve seen Eduardo’s rage firsthand, and Tug doesn’t stand a chance against him. I force a tiny smile and thank him. My body feels weak. I’m tired from always being strong, from taking care of everyone else. Right now I want someone to take care of me. I want to let Tug take care of me, and handle things in my life that seem impossible.

  He takes my hands and pulls me up.

  “Go get dressed. I will deal with this, and then I’ll take you someplace where we can talk.”

  I nod, words too difficult to get out, and return to my room, where I lie on the bed, absorbing the tremors rolling through my body.

  My sweet papa is gone.

  We go to Tori’s to pick up Javier and then drive to the Center. Once Javier is distracted by the other kids, I pull Maria into a quiet room. She sits in a chair and stares absently at the wall. The tracks of dried tears etched on her cheeks crush me. She lost her grandfather and probably isn’t ready for me to push her, but I have to know what I’m up against. What secret would make her turn her back on us to protect it?

  “Tell me the truth so I can help you.”

  Her lip curls slightly. “Tell you the truth, like how I thought getting involved with a gang banger at fifteen made me cool?”

  I grab her face and force her to look at me. “Yes. I love you, and I want to hear all of it.”

  She pushes my hands away and sighs, drawing her legs up to her ches
t. “Papa owned a farm in a little town south of San Jose. I never knew my dad. My mother and I lived with my grandparents and helped out on the farm. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was loved. When I was eleven, my grandmother died. When I was twelve, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the day I turned thirteen, she died. Papa and I couldn’t manage the farm on our own, and the bank seized it. We moved to a community in Oakland where an old friend of Papa’s owned an apartment he could afford on Social Security. Needless to say, Tijuana is nice in comparison.”

  She stops and takes a breath. The next part of the story is what I need to hear, and I wait patiently for her to continue.

  “At fourteen, I met a boy, a stupid older boy who made me feel beautiful. I craved attention, and he gave it to me. I didn’t care about what he did for the cartels, or that he was a gang-banging, low-life. I wanted to be with him and cling to the happiness I hadn’t felt in so long because it helped me to breathe. I felt reborn. It had been one week, and I was in love. Eduardo was not. I said I wasn’t ready, and he said he didn’t give a fuck. I tried to leave, and he stopped me. I lay down and took it. He opened the door and told me to get out. That was it. My first time. I didn’t bother to cry, because when he fucked me, I understood the harsh realities of life for the poor and the weak. I changed that day, believed I was some hard-core gangster, as if our time together were an initiation into hood life. A life I was naïve enough to believe I wanted.”

  She stops and heaves a breath. Her eyes are red and swollen but without tears. I pace the floor, angry and wanting to murder this Eduardo. My feelings for her haven’t changed, but I’m pissed at the people around her who made her believe this was all she was worth. I know she has more to say and I only hope I can handle it.

  I stop pacing and rub my face. Her hand reaches for me, but I pull it back. She hangs her head and I know she thinks I’m upset with her. “I’m not mad at you, but I can’t sit still until you tell me everything.”

  Her gaze falls to her lap as she continues. “I was quite the cool hood-rat, even carried a small pistol with me. I thought I was Eduardo’s old lady, and I would garner the respect of everyone in the neighborhood. But I didn’t gain anyone’s respect, and I wasn’t Eduardo’s old lady. I was a whore and treated as such. Eduardo and any guy in Eduardo’s gang was entitled to have me, and I let them take me because I mistook the gang for family. I was one of them. I belonged and that was what mattered most to me. Turns out Eduardo did have an old lady, and she found out about me. She and three of her friends used me for a punching bag, and Eduardo watched and laughed the entire time. Papa took me to the hospital, and that’s when I found out I was pregnant. The day I gave birth, I had no idea who Javier’s father was, and I didn’t care. He was mine, and I loved him. The older he got, the more he looked like Eduardo. I knew Eduardo was his father, but I never told him.”

  Fury courses through my veins and I breathe slowly to control it. I need her to finish so I know how to deal with Eduardo for good.

  “Did he find out? Is that why he’s trying to find you?”

  “Eduardo doesn’t care about my son.”

  “Then what?” I ask, doing my best to remain calm. “No more ‘hustle’, Maria. Tell me what he wants.”

  “I stole from him. Papa had a heart condition and needed surgery. I found a good doctor in San Diego to do the surgery, but it was expensive. I knew Eduardo kept a stash of heroin in his place. With a plan and a gift, I went to see him, knowing his recklessness could help me. I let him snort cocaine from my breasts, and I seduced him. Two days later, when he finally crashed, I stole two blocks of heroin and split. The idiot kept it under his bed. I took Papa and Javier to Mexico, and sold the heroin for a hundred thousand dollars. And I spent every dime on Papa’s surgery and follow-up care. I got close to six extra years with him, and I would do it all over again.”

  “But now, because of the press you’re fucked. Eduardo will find out where you are and come for you. It’s not safe. Jesus, Javier was at Tori’s last night. What if he found them, or worse what if Torrente did?”

  She shakes her head and holds her hand up. “No, we’re safe in Mexico. Eduardo would never admit to Torrente that someone stole from him. The cartel would cut off his head.”

  My obvious disbelief must be evident, because she nods with wide eyes.

  “The stuff you see in movies happens in real life. Torrente would do it and send his head to his mama in a box. These people don’t play. Eduardo is a bragger. He told me many stories, probably to scare me, but it’s how they do things. I knew he would cover the debt to Torrente and then come looking for me, but wouldn’t risk going into Mexico and getting caught by border police. He’s a wanted felon and in the U. S. illegally.”

  “What about his friends, others in the cartel? They could find you.”

  “No. Eduardo would never admit what happened to anyone. The lack of trust in their circle is how I’ve gotten away with it this long. He would never risk Torrente finding out. Stealing from the cartel or being stolen from because you acted foolishly — like by thinking with your dick— will always get you killed. He’s the only one who knows and he won’t risk coming to Mexico unless Torrente himself asks him to.”

  “But you come to the States all the time.”

  “I take a risk every time I go. Papa needs medical care. I need the job at the restaurant, and I need to spend time with you.”

  “What in the hell were you thinking? He could have found you.”

  “I had a plan to pay him back and beg him to forgive me. I went to school and waited tables, barely squeaking by, let alone saving any money to pay Eduardo back so I didn’t have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life and worry about Javier’s safety. When I met Del, she got me a job at the club, and I hoped I could save the money and in two years be able to pay him back, but Papa’s Alzheimer’s kicked in, and the care for that was costly. I’ve been short on time for far too long, and now I’m out. I have a whopping twenty grand or so. He’ll never accept it when I owe him two hundred thousand.”

  “Your plan sucked, and you’re not giving him a fucking dime.” I say with more irritation than I intended. Her earlier statement about selling the heroin for a hundred thousand comes back. “I thought you sold it for a hundred grand?”

  “I did, but it was worth two hundred.”

  I was going to offer to pay it, but after hearing what Eduardo put her through, that’s out of the question. He’ll kill her regardless. A man like Montez isn’t inclined to take the money and let her live. Forgiveness isn’t in the cartel’s culture, nor is it in mine. I refrain from telling her that her plan was naïve at best. Eduardo doesn’t have to be honest with anyone about what Maria did to him in order to put a hit on her. I have no idea how she’s avoided him this long. Her name coming out in the press is going to lead Eduardo right to her unless I do something immediately. The information she shared about him not coming to Mexico, unless summoned by Torrente, gives me and idea. “I have a plan.”

  “Tug, don’t do anything. You have no clue who you’re messing with.”

  “Trust me, I’ll be okay. A man in my position has many resources. I’m a genius, remember?” I smile, trying to loosen the tension. It doesn’t work. She’s wound so tight I’m afraid to touch her. “He’s going to pay for what he did to you.”

  “This isn’t a math test, Tug. Eduardo will kill you. Please.”

  “Listen to me. I need you to have irrevocable trust in me right now.” She nods, but I feel her hesitation. “I will protect you with my life if I have to. Go into the kitchen and hang out with Liv. I’m going outside to check on Javier.”

  I step outside and see Juan, exactly who I was looking for. Before escaping to the Center, he was in deep with the cartels, running his own crew down south.

  “Hey, ese, what’s up?” he says, as I get closer to him. “You ain’t been around in a while.”

  “I’ve been busy. How about you? How’s school? Are
you going to graduate?”

  “Yes, sir, and I’m looking at colleges.”

  “Good,” I say, feeling an immense amount of pride in Juan. “I meant it when I said if you finish college, I’ll hire you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “I came out here to ask you something. What can you tell me about the Torrente cartel?”

  He steps back, waving his hands in front of his body. “Ah, man, that they’re heartless criminals and dangerous. That’s what I can tell you.”

  “You know anyone who can get me in to speak with Torrente?”

  “Nah, man. Come on, you know I don’t hang with any of those fools anymore. I got plans.”

  “I know you do, and I’m not asking you to contact any of them, but I was hoping you might point me in the right direction. One of their members messed with someone I care about, and I would like to take care of it with Mr. Torrente personally.”

  “Shit, man, this is about your lady. Run. Run fast, ’cuz this lady is gonna get you killed.”

  “Too late to run, but thanks for the warning. If you think of anything, let me know.” I refuse to feel defeated. I’ll find a way to get to Torrente. As I turn to walk away, I hear Juan.

  “Ah, right. Listen, there’s this vato. Works out of the pharmacy. They call him MadDime. Torrente supplies him. Do what you need to, but leave my name out of it.”

  “I will. Thanks, Juan.”

  “Man, you crazy. I don’t know why you’re thanking me. You’re messing with some crazy mofos.”

  I walk away and call Sid to contract some crazy mofos of my own to pay MadDime a visit. As ex special forces, these friends of Sid’s have the necessary skills to get MadDime to talk. Next, I phone an old friend and fellow genius, particularly when it comes to hacking into highly protected computer systems. Reese and I went to college together, and he owes me a favor — plus, he’ll eat up the challenge I’m about to offer him.