by Robert Cook
Closing her eyes, Tiffany lowered her mouth to him and began. After a short, active interval, Francisco pushed both hands into her hair and pulled her mouth onto him, forcing her mouth open and shoving himself into it, pumping, gagging her until his spasms began to erupt a few seconds later. Tiffany tried to put the humiliation out of her mind. She wanted to sink her teeth into him so that his spasms were those of pain. She tried to think only of the coolness of the snow in her nose. She wanted its sharpness, its ecstasy; what she felt instead was a foul, viscous mass that made her both retch and swallow.
“Swallow, bitch, swallow,” he groaned. “And look at me!”
Tiffany looked up at Francisco as she tried to swallow.
“How did I do, Frank?” she asked, after a moment. “Do I get the coke?”
“That is what is known as a good start, Tiffany,” he smiled. “You are still a long way from being done.”
Francisco stood, removed his clothes, and stood close, with his flaccid, sticky penis in front of her face. He reached down casually with his forefinger, scraped a hanging strand from her chin, wiped it inside her lower lip and said, “Get back to work, Tiffany.”
Tiffany looked at him. Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks as she reached for him and leaned forward to begin again. When Francisco again felt capable, he pushed her from him and onto her hands and knees. He dropped to his knees behind her and positioned himself as he pushed her knees apart.
He pushed her head to the carpet. “You must watch me, Tiffany, always watch me.”
She looked back and saw him stroking himself. He entered her with a lunge, and began to thrust rapidly. A few long moments later, he withdrew and shifted. Tiffany felt a sharp, strange push back there and recognized the imminent loss of her only remaining virginity; her final shred of dignity. There was a spontaneous moan, not from Francisco, but from with Tiffany. She pleaded.
“My dear, I would be pleased to stop if you’d like, but there will be no cocaine for you. Not tonight—not ever,” Francisco said, as he pulled back from her. “Would you like me to stop?”
She could only say, “No.” And it began.
She laid her head against the carpet and tried to relax through the pain as her forehead skidded back and forth on the rough carpet. Suddenly he groaned and pulled her hips back so she was tightly welded against him and she could feel his spasms begin. He reached for her breasts and squeezed both of them, hard.
Tiffany screamed again, new pain obliterating the old. He released her then, and slowly pulled from her. Tiffany lay with her head against the carpet, still exposed to him as she heard him get up and walk to the powder room. She heard water running, then the sound of him urinating. A few moments later, he walked back to her and kicked her in the ribs.
“Get up, bitch, and get out of here,” Francisco said, and threw her clothes onto her still-raised hips.
He walked to the desk and threw the packet of cocaine at her, hitting her on the cheek. Tiffany got slowly to her feet and began to dress. She felt on fire, physically and emotionally. She was so sore that the thin cotton polo shirt hurt her bruised and swollen breasts. She pushed the cocaine into the pocket of her shorts and limped toward the door, her thighs sticky and clinging to her shorts.
“Get out! Get out before I give you to my soldiers,” Francisco screamed.
San Jose,
California
EL Tecolete was a small tavern, located in the worst section of San Jose. It catered to Latino laborers who worked in produce and construction. There was just one large room, smoky, with a crude bar along one wall and several booths along another. There was no ladies’ room. A few whiskey bottles stood ignored and dusty behind the bar, largely untouched, on shelves made of crude planks.
The open middle of the room was crowded with men, talking in small clusters, roughly dressed and still dirty from the day’s work. Beer was the drink of the day, every day. The place was loud, with men jammed three deep at the bar, yelling at the bartender for cerveza. Spanish was the only language heard.
Cuchulain sat alone in a small booth at the back of the crowded room, nursing a beer. Dried sweat matted his hair. A soiled blue bandanna was tied around his head. Sweat had dried on his cheekbones, highlighting the shadows beneath them in the dull, harsh light, and salt crystals set a pale path in the furrow of the scar on his face.
Without the two-day growth of beard on his face, he would have looked more Native American than Hispanic. He wore a tattered denim shirt with two buttons missing at the top, exposing a thatch of matted chest hair and a primitive crucifix hanging from a thin gold chain. Shirtsleeves rolled halfway to the elbows exposed wide wrists above gnarled, calloused hands and an intricate, tangled pattern of veins tracking up from the wrists. Cooch wore jeans faded nearly white and torn just below the right knee. Scuffed, steel-toed work boots, one crossed over the other, stuck out beneath his booth.
Cuchulain earlier had walked onto a construction site in North San Jose and easily found work, loading bricks from a flatbed truck onto a wheelbarrow, then wheeling them a few hundred yards to masons who were laying a wall. No one had asked him for a social security number nor had him fill out employment forms. When he had been asked for his name, he had said, “Paco.” One name was enough. The work was physically hard and tedious. On his breaks Cooch joined casually in the talk of his fellow workers about soccer, women, and working in the US.
Except for the union men working in masonry and electrician jobs, the workers all seemed to be Mexican, who picked up on his accent and chatted with Paco about life in Puerto Rico. No English was spoken. The burly foreman, Enrico, had paid him forty dollars in cash at the end of the day. As he was paid, the foreman had asked—almost ordered—him to come by for a drink after work, at El Tecolete, a few blocks from the site.
At the bar conversation paused, then resumed, but at a lower pitch as men parted for the foreman. Enrico gazed around the room at the bar and the booths, nodding occasionally, then spotted Alex in the corner. The foreman was a big man, six feet or so, and wide. His stomach bulged over his beltline, but he moved with the easy grace of an athlete, balanced on his feet and carrying his weight well. Two men walked just behind him. One was short and thin with a narrow mustache, slitted eyes, and a knife scar running for several inches from his left eye down a cheek among pitted remains of either old acne or healed smallpox. The other man was large. His eyebrows and cheekbones had the ragged, humped tissue of a boxer. The top of his head was lumpy and shiny—bald with a greasy half donut of black hair that wrapped his ears and fell to his shoulders in a long, tangled shower. His failed personal hygiene was evident by the collar of a once-white shirt.
“Ah, my friend, there you are!” Enrico boomed. Several men in the crowd looked at Alex, then leaned to whisper to their friends.
The foreman slid into the booth across from Alex, the thin man quietly beside him, hands beneath the table. The larger man thumped in beside Alex, crowding him. Alex turned his head and looked at him coldly, causing the big man to give him a wide smile, exposing one stained gold tooth in front, along with the rest of his ragged, decaying teeth that were yellowed to the shade of late-summer wheat. His rancid breath was no surprise.
The foreman smiled easily and leaned across the table to him. “So, chico, how did you like the job today? Good money, easy work, and no taxes for the gringos, eh?”
Alex looked at him coldly. “It was hard work and bad money, but I like the no-taxes, and I need the job. It’ll do until I find what I’m looking for.”
The foreman’s face darkened and the smile vanished. “Ah. Another pretty-boy smart mouth who doesn’t like to work! Maybe you want to work in the gringo men’s store and be a fancy boy, eh? You can get all dressed up in fancy clothes and say, ‘Yes, sar, no, sar’ before you go into the back room and let them line up to fuck your ass! Is that what you want? If it is, my associates and I would be glad to fuck your ass bloody, cabron!”
He shifted and leaned his bulk
back, then smiled again, coldly. “I neglected to tell you that there is one small tax, amigo. You owe me twenty dollars for first-day work processing. It’s the paperwork, you know. Then five dollars a day for insurance, to keep you from getting hurt. It is not much, and you can give me the twenty dollars now.”
Alex rested his elbows on the table, and put his chin lightly on his folded hands. He turned slowly to look at the man beside him, then at the thin man across the table. Both looked at him expectantly, smiling coldly. The room grew quiet, with much of the crowd watching, nudging and whispering to one another. Cooch looked finally at the foreman, the flesh around his eyes bunching and his breathing audible in the room.
The face of Alex’s father flashed in his mind and his words of advice: The most important rule is ARF, “Always retaliate first.” Don’t hesitate and wait for the bad guy to start the fight. End it before it starts, and err on the side of being too violent.
“And if I don’t?”
The foreman’s face flushed, then he leaned forward and said softly, “If you don’t, my associates here will…”
He stopped speaking abruptly, as Alex drove his left elbow back into the face of his seatmate, feeling the nose give way just before a cheekbone collapsed. He then drove his hand across to the thin man, the web between his thumb and forefingers driving into the larynx as his long fingers probed for the porous bone structure just behind the jaw and the ear. He squeezed hard and felt bones crackle and fold. The thin man’s eyes widened from the pain as he gasped for air from the throat blow, then passed out.
Alex immediately drove the elbow back into the other cheekbone of his seatmate, breaking it as well, then clasped his hands and raised them in the air triumphantly. The three separate moves had taken less than five seconds.
“Caramba! One-handed, yet! I will receive applause now,” he announced loudly. Alex smiled a wide, evil smile to the crowd and nodded his head in half a bow. He could hear a few hands come together tentatively in a terrified parody of applause. “Si, Si! Gracias, amigos!” Alex said loudly, nodding and smiling like a flamenco guitarist.
He resumed his icy stare at the foreman. “It was rude of me to interrupt you, senor, but your fat friend had his hand on my thigh, and I am not a fancy boy. His little girlfriend over there seems to have had a knife. It’s on the floor now.” He leaned forward and whispered to the foreman, “You will find this hard to believe, I know, but there are people—strong people—who would have fear in their hearts for themselves and for their families if I thought they had called me a fancy boy.”
Sweat beaded the foreman’s face, and his mouth moved, but no sound came out. Alex continued his cold stare, waiting. The room was still, the only sound gurgling and moaning from the burly man beside Alex trying to breathe through his pain, as viscous ribbons of blood fell and spread across his chest. The thin man’s forehead still rested on the table. Finally, the foreman stammered, “There has been a mistake. I have made a terrible mistake. My apologies, senor.”
Alex shook his head sadly. “Senor, you have offended me. I come to you in peace to do honest work for honest pay with you as my leader, my benefactor, my jefe even—and you betray my trust. You threaten me. You call me a fancy boy. In front of all my new friends here, you talk about doing things to my virgin ass that are clearly forbidden by the Church. Just as the Inquisition of our forefathers brought heretics to the faith, I know in my soul that it is my job to counsel you as to the path to salvation. I think I will have to introduce you to Lola, my fat friend.”
Cuchulain put his right forearm on the table, palm up, and pulled his sleeve above the elbow. Among the distended veins of his forearm was an old, obviously amateur, tattoo of a Spanish dancer with a flowing multi-colored skirt. As Enrico looked down at it, Alex’s left hand snaked out and with the large knuckles of his middle finger and forefinger grasped the skin of Enrico’s upper lip, just below the center of his nose, and squeezed. When the foreman reached up to pull his hand away, Alex squeezed much harder, paralyzing him with the pain. He eased back and pulled the foreman’s head down to look at the tattoo. The pain forced tears down Enrico’s cheeks.
Alex opened his right hand on the table and said, “Put your left hand, palm up, into this hand, and I will release your lip.”
As foreman put his hand into Alex’s, Alex closed his fingers around it, then released the foreman’s nose. Many in the crowd crept forward. The foreman was not a favorite among them, and several had suffered beatings for one offense or another at his direction.
The foreman was becoming increasingly terrified, sure he had met the devil. “What…What are you going to do?” he stammered, now afraid to resist. He had forgotten completely about his employees, lying bleeding in the booth with him.
“Lola is going to dance for you, and you are going to watch. You see, my fat friend, Lola is a magic tattoo. When you see her dance, you will ask forgiveness for all your sins, and then go and sin no more.”
Alex grinned wildly, allowing his eyes to widen and dance, leering at the foreman. “Okay, Jefe, here we go! Watch Lola closely as she dances!” Alex started singing in a loud, off-key voice, “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets…”
He sang and began to squeeze the foreman’s hand. As the pain grew, the foreman grabbed for his left hand with his right, but Alex caught it in the air and slammed it hard, down onto the table, then held it there, increasing the pressure on Enrico’s left hand. As he squeezed harder, his muscles flexed and moved, causing the tattoo to writhe almost like a cartoon on his arm. Lola’s hips and slim feminine torso swayed as Alex manipulated his grip, the muscles rippling in his forearm.
The foreman let out a long, sustained howl of pain, head back and mouth open. The small bones in his hand could be heard snapping. Others gave way, as his hand gave up resistance. Enrico passed out with a sigh, slumping forward slightly, his chin on his chest.
Alex ignored him, continuing to squeeze and break for a few seconds, laughing merrily, and glaring wide-eyed and wildly at the silent crowd that had gathered closer. He pointed at the tattoo and shouted, “Look at her go! Isn’t that fantastic?” He started again, loudly and off key. “Whatever Lola wants…” then stopped suddenly, Enrico’s hand mashed and pulpy in his grasp.
Alex pushed the hand away and turned to face the crowd. He held his right forearm high like a posing bodybuilder and made the tattoo dance once more, his huge forearm working the muscles in it. He forced himself to giggle. “Anyone want to dance?” he said in a high pitch as he leered at the crowd.
Alex lowered his forearm and slowly turned to the flaccid, bloodied men in the booth beside him, raising his hands as if he just discovered them, looking up wide-eyed in a gruesome parody of surprise. The room was still. The bartender stood slack jawed at the front of the crowd, holding a sawed-off pool cue limply at his side.
Alex turned and pushed the big man beside him hard, off the seat and to the floor, then bent over him to run his hands over his clothes. He then reached for the thin man, grabbed him by the hair and shirt, and jerked him cruelly to the floor. This time Alex came up with a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, which he showed to the crowd as he raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. He pulled the slide back, ejected the magazine, and examined the weapon. Apparently satisfied, he released the slide, reseated the clip with a snap, and slipped the weapon under the waistband of his jeans and pulled his shirttail out to cover it. With his toe, he reached under the table, slid out a knife, and kicked it toward the small man, shaking his head in mock sorrow. Finally he reached for Enrico and pulled him out of the booth, stacking him on the other two and going through his clothes. He fished out a fat money clip and leafed through it. He stuck several hundred-dollar bills from the wad into his pocket. The remainder he tossed casually on the floor in front of the crowd, then turned to them. He was cold now, no longer gay and laughing. There was no resistance coming from any corner of the room.
“Compadres, I put before you payment as thanks for not talking to the pol
ice about Lola or me,” he said, pointing to the money clip. He raised his right forearm and allowed the dancer to writhe for them again. “This will be the payment if you betray me to them, or to anyone else. Lola will be unhappy. She could take your manhood.”
Alex walked to the door. The silent crowd parted. Several men crossed themselves as he walked by. He walked through the door, then moved quickly to his right against the wall and waited. The crowd could be heard growing more animated, but no one came out. He moved briskly down the street for several blocks, then turned suddenly left and ran down an alley. Midway, he waited several minutes, his back pressed to a shallow doorway, the Sig Sauer now in his hand with a round chambered and his thumb on the hammer, but no one entered the alley from either side. He thumbed the safety on, stuffed the pistol back in his waistband, and trotted to the end of the alley, then turned right, walking calmly. In the next block, he stopped in the shadow of a wall, and quickly dialed a public telephone.
“Mac.”
Alex sighed. “It’s done, Mac. I did the Lola gig like we planned. It was a little hairy, but not too bad. There were no heavies there. You’re sure the Paco legend is still clean?”
“It’s in place, Alex. There are a lot of people around and about who remember Lola and Paco, and you always just disappear. If someone asks in-depth, they’ll hear stories that will curl their hair. Any collateral damage?”
“If no one has a heart attack, no one should die, but there’s an opportunity for a talented orthopod and probably a face surgeon. Not that I care, but that’s the way it worked it out. Listen, I’m clean now, but I hope I’ll get some visitors tomorrow at work, if we dangled this right.”
Mac said crisply, “Elliot is briefed and moving, and Epstein is full bore. Jerome is out there and has found a place. The warnings have been sent to Colombia about the dangers of this kind of operation. Stay on the east side of any obstacles at the construction site.”