Frankie balled her hands into fists and took a step toward him, shouting, “I’m trying to figure out just how goddamn stupid you are! You come in here, cops all over the place, looking like a faggot or a fucking serial killer, with those gloves, your bandanna and your pissy little knife. I should slap the shit out of you right now, then tell the cops you tried to rape me.”
Victorino had to smile at the woman’s cojones.
“Me?” he said easily. “I’m the stupid one? They found pieces of one of my girls in your bigass alligator today. What you call that fucking lizard, Fifi or something? On your property. It was just on TV, bitch, and you’re calling me stupid?”
He bounced the razor in his hand, not believing how the gringa was handling this. No wonder his soldiers were spooked by the woman.
The woman’s face changed. “You’re kidding me, on television news? You’ve got to be shitting me. What did they find?”
Victorino told her. “Bones of a human hand. You pretend you don’t know that? Had a fucking ring on the finger! A woman’s hand.”
Now Frankie’s resigned expression read Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.
“Half an hour ago,” Victorino continued, “I was sitting at Hooters, enjoying some chicken wings with my boys. Why you think I hurried over here, leaving behind all that fine food?”
He held up the box cutter. “You better listen to what I’m saying, chinga. You and your jelly-boy boyfriend disrespected the V-man. All the times I was nice to you both and this is how you thank me? Now I got no choice but to leave a few marks on that body of yours. As a warning to other dumbasses. Cut off an ear, then slice my initials into your face, that might get my point across. Or maybe cut one of those big titties and listen to the air leak out.”
He pointed the razor at her, wanting the woman to pay attention to the blade. But she didn’t. Instead, Frankie was suddenly preoccupied, thinking about something else, acting like the V-man wasn’t even in the room.
Victorino raised his voice. “You hear what I just said to you . . . puta?”
The woman made a waving motion with her hand. “Quiet,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out how to handle this.” After a moment, she added, “And don’t fucking call me a puta.”
Jesus, this wasn’t going the way things usually went when Victorino waved a blade in a girl’s face. He was staring at the woman and he couldn’t believe that her face showed no fear. Instead, when Victorino reached to grab her elbow, the woman yanked the elbow away and got madder.
“Keep your greasy hands off me. Haven’t you got any damn sense?”
Victorino took a step back, his grin fading, then moved between the woman and the door, thinking she might run for it. Hoping she’d make a move, actually, which would give him an opening. He’d forgotten how goddamn big Frankie was, so he might have to tackle her, get her on the ground, then stuff something into her mouth before going to work with the box cutter.
But the woman didn’t run. She returned to her packing, throwing clothes into the suitcase. “You have any idea how much shit I have to do?” she said. “The cops are bringing in equipment to drag the pond, you dipshit. Two or three hours at the most, the boat, or whatever it is they use, gets here. Next thing, they’ll be banging on this door. One of your idiot whores OD’s, falls in the water, who you think they’re gonna blame? They’re gonna blame you, dipshit. And I’ll be here to give them your name unless I can get this cook-shack cleaned up and get our shit out of here. So leave me alone!”
Jesus. This woman had balls. Hell ... maybe she really did have balls. Hard to tell with the sweatpants she was wearing. Victorino had never thought about getting a look at the lady’s goodies before, but now it crossed his mind.
He stood there, thinking about it. Two or three hours before the cops went to work dragging the lake?
They had some time.
He let the woman see him retract the razor and put the box cutter into his jeans. “Where’s your asshole boyfriend?” he asked. “That jelly boy should be here helping you, not letting you do all the work.”
Frankie said, “Don’t even mention that prick’s name to me.” Then she nodded toward the hallway and told him, “Out there in the main room, I’ve got two more suitcases. Go get them. And hurry up.”
Victorino didn’t like that. A Latin King captain didn’t take orders from some gringa. Even for her to try to give him orders was offensive. On the other hand, it wasn’t likely that an old white woman knew crap about the respect a pandillero captain deserved. And the woman did have nice-looking chichis.
“Did you hear me?” she said. “Run and get those suitcases.”
“Hey, you about to get your face slapped, lady,” Victorino replied. “You want a favor, you ask the V-man nice. You say ‘please’ and you say ‘thank you.’ Or you can kiss my Mexican ass.”
“Okay ... please get my goddamn suitcases. And be quick about it—unless your Mexican ass wants to go to jail.”
When Victorino returned to the room carrying the suitcases, he asked about Squires again, saying, “When’s your boyfriend coming back? Does he know the cops are here? That would piss me off, my man running away with all this shit going down.”
“That asshole isn’t a man—he’s an overgrown mama’s boy,” Frankie snapped. “You know what he did? He ran out on me early this morning. He stole fifty-nine thousand dollars cash from our box and packed his shit. Then the dumbass stuck around long enough to take some little teenage brat with him.”
Victorino said, “Teenage?” not following but very interested in the cash the lady had just mentioned.
“Some underage little bitch!” the woman yelled. “I know because some state asshole officials were nosing around here an hour ago, asking about a missing kid. Harris figured the cops were going to arrest him, so he ran and took along something to play with. But I’ll find him. I know exactly where he’s going and I’ll catch him there.”
Victorino was trying to unsnap one of the suitcases but having a tough time. “A white girl?” he asked, curious because he had heard that Frankie enjoyed chulas a lot more than the redneck.
“No, some little Mexican brat who everyone thinks is a boy. But not me. I knew better—even Harris didn’t believe me when I told him. She’s probably not even thirteen yet, but you know what a perverted asshole Harris is. So he apparently figured it out.”
After thinking about it for a second, the woman sounded fairly perverted herself, adding, “Her name’s Tulo-something. You remember her? Kind of pretty, with a Dutch-boy haircut with bangs, and always quoting the Bible. But a cute little ass on her.”
Victorino said, “A girl, you sure about that?”
Frankie ignored him, too busy packing to listen.
Victorino said, “Maybe I know the one, a skinny kid, got here ’bout a week ago. Kinda tall, for a Guatemalan, and real quiet. Had a fucked-up haircut, like someone used a bowl on his head.”
“Not a he, a She—a sneaky little tramp of a girl,” Frankie said. “I knew it right away.”
The V-man was employing his thoughtful-businessman expression. “A little chula, huh? I’ll be go-to-hell. That Guatemalan puta lied to me. I’m gonna have to do something about that.”
The woman made a snorting noise.
“And Harris, too. The way I’ve been losing chulas lately?” the V-man said. “I’ve got to cut someone’s balls off for this, then stuff them down his goddamn throat! My homeboys will be laughing behind my back, wanting to steal my shit, everything I’ve built. I take this personally.”
Folding a blouse, Frankie told him, “I don’t give a damn how you take it. You’re gonna have to wait in line if you want to kill Harris and that little wettail.” Then she stared at the bed for a moment before saying, “You haven’t figured out how to open that goddamn suitcase yet?”
The V-man was doing his best, getting frustrated with the cheapassed little gold snaps, as he replied, “I won’t kill the little bitch. But I’ve got to find he
r and make an example. I’m a businessman. Killing a girl that age, where’s the profit?”
Frankie slapped Victorino’s hands away from the suitcase, saying, “A regular genius, that’s what you are. A regular Wall Street tycoon,” as she popped the locks with her black fingernails, then returned to her packing.
The V-man was thinking, Smart-ass white bitch, but pretended to be unruffled, not pausing as he continued, “Wall Street or Main Street, business is still business—when you get to be a man in my position. You say she’s, what? Twelve, maybe thirteen? That means I own her for four or five more very profitable years. It’s sort of like owning a fine racehorse, understand? Or a nice limo you rent out.”
Frankie said to the V-man, “You mind moving your ass?” then pushed by him to get to the closet. No ... a table, where she found a lighter, then stood tall in front of the window and relighted a joint that the bitch didn’t bother to offer him.
From the smell of the smoke, the V-man guessed it was shit his pandilleros had sold her. Fine Mexican weed laced with cocaine. Yes, the woman was inhaling deeply, smoking what the homeboys called a banano, so no wonder she was so jazzed.
The V-man kept talking, saying, “I start her out by selling her virginity five or six times to some of my best clients. Top dollar. Dudes down here from New York, Chicago, real-money players who the V-man deals with only personally. Then put the chula to work, doing private parties. Buy her some clothes, show the bitch how to use lipstick and protective condoms ’cause pregnant chulas, they very hard to market. Maybe next year, on the street. Or six months, depending on how she holds up. Unless one of my clients wants to rent her full-time as a maid or a cook—I’m still making money on that.”
The woman stood and looked at Victorino for a moment as if an idea had just come into her mind. “Do you know who that dead hand belonged to?”
“The one in the alligator?” Victorino said. “It was one of my chulas. Had to be.”
Frankie asked him, “What makes you so sure?”
“Three of my ladies went off, left their shit, their money,” Victorino said. “Hell, they even left their shoes and never came back. Not all at once, of course, but I ain’t dumb. Went off and left their fuckin’ shoes, I’m saying. Even a crazy woman wouldn’t go off and leave her shoes. Why you think I come straight here when I finally got me some proof? You two been fuckin’ around with my chulas, everyone knows that. But I figured you was selling them on the street—”
“Harris killed them,” the woman interrupted.
Victorino stopped talking and tried to read the woman’s face. Was she telling the truth?
“You got my attention,” he said slowly.
“I just told you, Harris murdered all three. Maybe more—I was never around when he did it. He’d get screwed up on blow or triple his testosterone dosage by accident—he’s always forgetting his needle days—and that just makes him even crazier. Or he’ll drop a handful of D-bombs, which makes him even worse.”
The woman continued, “You want to cut someone’s balls off for disrespecting you? Harris Squires is the guy you’re looking for—if you can find his balls. Because of all the juice he shoots, he’s got a dick the size of a Vienna sausage.”
Victorino enjoyed that so much, he had to smile. He found it encouraging, just the two of them alone, suddenly sharing secrets, in this brand-new double-wide that smelled pretty good, like carpet, marijuana smoke and fresh vinyl.
He said to the woman, “All three, huh? You sure of this?”
“I just said it. Pay attention, I don’t make a habit of repeating myself.”
“He fed ’em all to that bigass alligator?”
The woman said, “Harris and some buddies loaded that stinking animal into a truck, drunk as hell, playing Crocodile Hunter one night, and brought the gator here to scare your wetbacks. We planned to sell this place to developers once his asshole mother dies—if she ever does. All the legal bullshit from pissed-off renters would have slowed things up. To Harris, the boy genius, it seemed like a smart thing to do.”
Victorino was giving it some thought as he said, “That pendejo snuffed out three of my ladies, huh?” not loud, letting the woman know that he was angry but cool about it, a professional boss man who knew how to deal with situations such as this. “How’d he do it? Use a gun? He don’t have the balls to take his time and make it enjoyable.”
The woman said, “He’s got a thing for rough sex. It’s the only way he can get off. He’d load their drinks with Ecstasy, then choke them while he was banging them. Or maybe they just OD’d on their own. How would I know?”
That’s exactly what Victorino was thinking: How could the woman know these details unless she was involved?
It also crossed his mind that a woman her size, with all those muscles, she might even be talking about herself, not about her boyfriend. He had heard the rumors that Frankie liked doing women even better than men. It was because of all that steroid shit she shot into her body.
Victorino motioned to the kitchen. “That shit you cook up, it makes a dude’s thingee shrink?” Because the woman ignored him, he decided to add, “Think it would bother you watching me cut Harris’s little thingee off?”
That got the gringa’s attention. Frankie Manchon gave the man a weird look like she’d love to watch him cut Squires’s nuts off.
Man, this was one scary lady. But kind of sexy, too. It was the way her blue eyes got a real shiny, eager glow....
Sexy, yeah, the V-man decided, in a real dirty way, which might be fun. Victorino was thinking maybe he should take a few seconds and lock that outside door so the two of them could enjoy their privacy.
That’s exactly what he did.
But then she spoiled it.
“Take off those fucking rubber gloves,” she told him. “They make you look like a janitor.”
That did it. This woman needed to learn some respect.
He said, “You say your jelly boyfriend drugged three of my ladies and killed them? You think that’s a big deal? Like he’s a badass or something?”
Frankie tried to interrupt him, probably with some smart-ass remark, but Victorino kept talking, saying, “I’m a fucking Aztec, chinga. You understand what that shit means? One time, I cut a dude’s heart out, the thing still beating in my hand. That’s the last thing this dude saw—his eyes wide open, staring at his fucking heart. That was before I cut the dude’s neck open. Cutting his neck was my way of being kind to the dude, understand? Because he had been my loyal brother up until an unfortunate thing he did. But I got no personal relationship with you and your redneck boyfriend. You hear what I’m telling you?”
The woman was listening now, looking at him with her shiny blue eyes, but not showing much.
“But when some woman disrespects me, what I do is I start cutting pieces off her body until she begs me to stop. Then I feed those pieces to the damn dogs and make her watch them eat her ears, her fingers, maybe a chunk of her tongue if the fool has a big mouth like you.
“Rednecks use alligators? My boys and me, we prefer dogs. Pit bulls we keep for the fighting ring. And it’s been a while since any of them got some white meat. Do you know what I’m saying?”
The woman took a moment before she replied, “Yeah, you’re a hardass and you like talking about it. You made your point.”
Victorino wasn’t so sure, so he pulled up his left sleeve to show the woman his Diablo tattoo, eight teardrops beneath it, six blue, two red. “Know what these are? These are my stripes. In the Kings, you don’t wear this paint, chinga, unless you earned it. Take a look for yourself.”
For some reason, that impressed the woman, and Victorino realized that she wanted to prolong this talk of killing. It made her breasts stick out, her breath coming harder, as she took a step to get a better look at his arm.
“Why the different colors?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen sloppier tats in my life. You want some good work, I’ve got a man in Key West who’s an artist.”
Frankie touched Victorino’s arm, her black stiletto fingernails with glitter on them denting his skin. “These tattoos, they look like your guy used a sewing needle and Easter-egg dye.”
The V-man jerked his arm away, saying, “That’s ’cause I did ’em myself! The blue is for six dudes I wasted, two in Chicago. Both of them Crips—but here I am.”
He tapped at the red teardrops. “These the ones you need to pay attention to. One of my girls doesn’t obey me, I give her one warning only.” And he took out the box cutter.
Yeah. Frankie was impressed now, her chest moving faster, her blue eyes bright. She came closer, her arm lifting toward him, and then—Whap! The slap caused Victorino to drop the razor, he was so surprised, and the next thing he knew the woman was on him, trying to claw his eyes out with her fingernails. Yelling at him, too, saying, “You think you’re man enough to get my panties off? Do you? Huh? Do you, you skinny little shit? It took three of my cousins my first time—and they were Vermont studs, not wetbacks.”
She kept repeating it as she flailed at him, her voice low and hoarse, breathing fast, as Victorino got behind her, then spun her down on the bed.
And for a while, that was all Victorino remembered.
An hour later, 6:30 p.m., the V-man was in his pickup truck, following the woman’s Cadillac convertible to Harris Squires’s hunting camp, where she’d promised they would find the redneck, the money and the pretty little girl who’d been pretending to be a boy.
Before leaving, Frankie had unpacked a bottle of Crown Royal and a baggie of grass that one of Victorino’s soldiers had sold her. In their vehicles, they each had a plastic cup and a joint—sweet-smelling bananos, fine weed laced with coke. By now, they were both feeling good.
Victorino certainly was. The woman was a goddamn animal in bed. He’d never experienced anything like it in his life. No other woman had come close to doing what Frankie had done to him. And, man, Victorino had, by God, gotten off on it, feeling crazy wild afterward.
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