Mutt eBook
Page 10
Patrick took a long, deep breath. Everything that had happened to him, the events leading up to him and his mother moving to this fucking town, all up to his current predicament, rolled through his mind. He heard his father’s voice, felt the man’s strong hands on his shoulders, saw his corpse lying in the coffin, the bullet wound filled with putty and smoothed out. Saw his mother crying, uncontrollable, and he didn’t know how to help her, how to make her feel better. They had no money. They moved to this goddamn place. Then there was Harry, a good man. Patrick felt the man slapping the side of his head, heard his voice telling him to dodge, to turn his hips, saw his bleeding form quivering on the ground, the look of shame and disappointment on his face. The dead, beaten boy, Julius’ body lying in a pool of blood, Chuy’s body lying in a hole, dirt slapping his face.
Fists raining down on him, Krystal’s body on top of him.
Simon hitting his mother, over and over, tearing her shirt. The bullet spraying his brains across the apartment floor.
Krystal screamed again, but Patrick had eyes only for Jesús. He took another deep breath, squared up, put a fist on either side of his face.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about, esé.” Jesús cracked his knuckles, and burst forward.
He jabbed: left, left, right. Patrick parried them, slapped the fists away, then thrust a fist and connected with his opponent’s forehead.
Jesús’ head snapped back, but he laughed, slapped himself on the head twice, hopped up and down. In another instant, he was attacking again. He threw a hard right, and Patrick dodged left, caught Jesús on the side of the head with a left hook.
But though the man’s head rocked, he was quick with two stabbing punches to Patrick’s ribs, stealing his breath and making him stumble back. The back of Patrick’s thighs hit the desk, and before he could throw himself forward for his own attack, massive, frothy jaws snapped shut around his ankle and held him there.
“Ahhhh… fuck!”
Patrick bent down to attempt to pry the dog’s teeth loose, but his face was met with Jesús’ knee. He flew backward on top of the desk, momentarily lifting the dog in the air.
“Come on, chino. Show me some of that Bruce Lee shit, ay?” More laughter followed.
Patrick grimaced as the dog shook its head. He tilted his head back and screamed again, slapped the desk with a flat palm as if in submission. Something hard and cold touched his skin, and he looked over to find Ralph’s tattoo gun beneath his hand, the needle glinting in the light, black ink staining the tip.
Jesús looked toward his men, shouted something in Spanish that caused them all to cheer, and when he turned back toward his desk, Patrick was already swinging.
The needle stabbed into El Rey’s left eye, popped it like a ripe grape. Blood squirted, ran down Jesús’ arm as he pressed his hand to it.
Patrick swung again, stabbing Jesús in the neck. He pressed harder, as hard as he could, brought his free hand up and slammed his fist into the back of the tattoo gun like a hammer.
The gangsters in the room were dead quiet, could only watch as their leader was murdered in front of them. Even Krystal was silent.
Jesús fell to the floor, gasping, kicking his legs.
Patrick, dog still attached to his leg and destroying the meat of his left calf, forced himself to his feet. The dog growled, pulled, and Patrick screamed in return, but remained focused on his task. He leaned forward, grabbed the back edge of the desk, and pulled all of his weight down. The desk teeter tottered, the heavy wood making it difficult to tip over, but Patrick yanked again, bringing the desk’s front edge down on top of Jesús’ face.
There was a wet crunch, and El Rey’s legs kicked some more, slipping in blood.
Patrick bent at the knees, grabbed the lip of the desk, lifted it, and slammed it back down.
Jesús’ legs didn’t kick anymore after that. A pool of blood spread across the floor, soaked into his clothing and stained his inked skin.
Patrick, still screaming, still shaking his leg as the dog tore into him, reached under the desk, yanked the tattoo gun from Jesús’ neck, gripped it with both hands, and drove it down into the back of the dog’s neck.
The dog yelped, snorted, but still wouldn’t let go.
Patrick stabbed down again and again, ripping open the dog’s hide, splashing blood over his own face. When the dog finally let go, he stabbed it a few more times to make sure it wouldn’t attack again, then threw the tattoo gun toward the horde of Los Locos watching all of this.
“Huh? What now, huh?”
Nobody could move. Every one of them stared at Patrick now, but there was no more anger, at least not the same anger he saw in their eyes only minutes before. Now there was a hint of fear, and when Patrick hopped to his foot, dragged the injured leg behind him, and slowly made his way toward Krystal, they all backed up.
The pain in his leg, his face, his entire body, was nearly too much to bear, and all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball right there on the floor and sleep. But he pushed himself, finally reached the bed, reached out with quaking hands and undid the straps.
When he pulled the gag out of her mouth, all she could do was cry. He lifted her gently from her back, pulled her close, and held her there.
He didn’t know how long they sat there together, Los Reyes Locos behind them, watching the whole time. She pulled away, stared into his eyes, smiled. “Y-you… you are El Rey now.”
Patrick shook his head, turned back to look at the men, and he could see they were thinking the same thing. Some nodded at him, others spoke under their breath to each other. “But… but I’m not—”
He saw the expression on Krystal’s face change less than a second before the metal collided with the side of his head. His body went limp and he bounced off the floor, just barely had enough strength left to roll himself over.
Jaimé stood above him, chrome pistol in his hand, the barrel pointed right at Patrick’s face.
“Lo siento, esé. But Los Reyes Locos needs to go back to how it was, back to the way it used to be.” He faced the men, hit his chest with a hard fist. “Si?”
Some answered back with enthusiasm, others seemed confused.
Jaimé turned back toward Patrick. “Thank you for killin’ that piece of shit, but we can’t have no chino runnin’ things. It’s my time, esé.”
“You can’t… he killed Jesús! Not you, puto!” Krystal said.
Jaimé reached over and slapped her, the pistol still pointed at Patrick. Krystal fell backward, held a hand to her cheek. “You know this bitch ratted you out, right, chino? She told Simon what you told her, started this whole shit.” He laughed. “You think this bitch liked you? That she needed you to save her?” He shook his head. “She wanted to get fucked. Loves that shit. You know how many movies we put this bitch in, esé? Shit. This bitch is as crazy as Jesús was.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed, stood on the bed as if ready to attack.
Jaimé swung the gun toward her, shot her once in the head. Krystal’s body flew backward off the mattress, crashed to the floor. Patrick couldn’t see her from where he lay, but he grimaced, tried to sit up, but Jaimé kicked him back down.
“There’s no place for her any more. And you? Chino or no, I liked you, esé. But things gotta change. I was there at the beginning. One of the founding members, with Octavio. And it’s time to go old school again.”
Jaimé cocked back the hammer, aimed the gun back at Patrick’s head.
Patrick shut his eyes, the only sound the pounding of his heart and the chanting from the gangsters now swarming into the room.
“Los Reyes Locos! Los Reyes Locos!”