by Mia Gold
The petite Asian woman, who gave Ruby a pleasant and curious smile when she glanced her direction, wasn’t a suspect, at least not in this crime. Ruby looked away, only to notice in her peripheral vision that the woman was still looking at her.
I’m attracting attention already.
The Hispanic woman, a girl with luxuriant hair reaching down her entire back and who looked no older than the bartender, started texting.
I hope she isn’t texting about me.
Damn, this might be harder than I thought.
Did I really expect the two murderers to hang out here after what happened? They’re probably lying low for a while. I’m surprised anyone is here at all.
She wondered what Room 226 looked like right now. Was it still sealed off with police tape, still a crime scene where the CSI folks were checking on everything? Or had it already been photographed, sampled, and cleared, leaving it to the cleaning staff to wipe away the blood, change the sheets and mattress, and open it up to tourists and their paid companions for the evening? Had Bridget’s tragedy already been erased?
The woman sitting nearest to her, the petite Asian woman, looked her up and down.
“Hello,” Ruby said, tensing somewhat. She was here to make contact, but now that she seemed about to, she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“Hello.” Pause. “New in town?”
Ruby’s mind raced. Had this woman been here the last time she came in? No, she didn’t think so. And she didn’t think she’d seen her at Caribbean Dreams either. She had a streak of dyed red hair along her bangs that made her easily recognizable.
Ruby couldn’t be a hundred percent sure about all the other women, however. While she looked very different than her last appearance here, she worried she might be recognized. The bartender had spotted her pretty quick.
This is a bad idea.
And that woman is waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, pretty new. I came here to the Bahamas to work as a bartender and it didn’t pan out. Carlos took me under his wing.” That brought a derisive little laugh from the Asian woman. Ruby continued, feeling even less sure of herself. “He’s promised me plenty of opportunities here. I did a bit back home. Never had anyone to take care of me like Carlos, though.”
The woman’s face remained impassive. “Yeah, I figured you were new. New enough not to know that you address him as Señor Cazador.”
Oops.
“I guess I’m on probation,” Ruby said, emitting a fake laugh. “Better not slip up again.”
She tapped her nose. The woman nodded.
“Glad you’re not totally in the dark.”
Actually I am.
“So when does this place get going? I know it’s early, but it’s pretty dead in here, isn’t it?”
“The runners have been told to hold off for a couple of hours. Any strays coming in will get taken upstairs as quick as possible.”
“I see,” Ruby said, although she didn’t. Were “runners” procurers working in the resorts? Were “strays” guys who just happened to wander in?
The stocky German returned, holding up a room key like a fisherman who had just landed a prize swordfish. The woman he had been talking to slinked out of her chair and walked over to him.
How can she walk so sexy in those heels? Ruby wondered. I can barely walk at all.
Ruby felt a pang of jealousy. Her brief flirting with fame and her muscular development had made most guys back off, feeling intimidated. Those who were attracted to her had a fetish for muscles and tough girls, and didn’t see her for her.
One of the Bahamian women got up and minced over to the drunk at the bar. The guy didn’t even notice her until she ran a hand up his arm and whispered in his ear. The drunk’s face registered confusion, then delight. He stumbled out and came back a moment later with a room key, which he promptly dropped. The woman picked it up for him and helped him through the door back into the lobby.
“Hopefully that’s the last,” the Asian woman said. She sounded relieved.
Now Ruby was thoroughly confused. Wasn’t the point to get as many guys in here as possible?
The youthful bartender caught her eye. He had begun to tremble, and kept wiping sweat off his face with a napkin. Once he looked over at Ruby with a pitiful expression, then turned away. His phone buzzed and he checked it, wincing as he did so.
On unsteady legs, he moved over to the glass door between the bar and the hotel lobby and lowered a blind.
Ruby’s senses went on high alert. The women kept glancing at the bartender and one another, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
“What’s going on?” Ruby asked the Asian girl.
“Señor Cazador needs to give us a lesson,” she replied in a somber voice.
“He’s coming here?”
That was good and bad. She could bag him and hopefully make him talk, but what she really needed to do was talk to those two girls who had been in the hotel room.
The Asian girl with the red streak in her hair nodded, looking somber. “The girls you replaced got some education coming.”
“Education?”
She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “Good for you to see. Hard, but good. Will make you understand things.”
The bartender walked to their side of the room, avoiding Ruby’s gaze. He went to the nearest picture window and drew the blinds.
“What’s going on?” Ruby asked, thoroughly alarmed now.
I should get out, but the murderers are coming. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. If I cut and run now, I might never be in the clear.
The bartender moved to the next picture window and drew the blinds there as well. The Hispanic woman a few tables away began to sob quietly. The Bahamian at the table next to her knocked back her drink and rubbed her temples, grimacing.
If it’s only Carlos coming, I can take him. Even if he has one or two thugs along for the ride, I can handle it. Calm down.
Ruby took a long pull from her drink. She began to unobtrusively limber up as she looked around the room, preparing for the fight she knew would come. No other exit. The tables were small and light but made of good quality solid wood, not particle board. They would make handy weapons. The chairs were also of real wood but a bit too light and dainty to have serious stopping power. Each table had a small vase with flowers. Nice projectiles. There were, of course, the bottles and probably a knife or two behind the bar, but that was on the other side of the room.
On her person she had the brick inside her handbag, and her stiletto heels. That stripper at Caribbean Dreams had knocked a guy out with one of those. Swift hit with the point straight to the forehead. A good move. Ruby had never thought she’d learn a combat technique from a stripper.
Of course, her own hands, knees, elbows, and feet were her real weapons. They had gotten her through more fights than she could count.
Just one guy, she told herself, forcing her muscles to relax. Maybe two or three. And they’ll underestimate you. That’s your secret weapon. They always underestimate you.
Just don’t get hit in the head or it’s lights out.
The roar of a powerful engine made her look out the far window, just as the bartender moved to draw those blinds as well. A gleaming red Hummer with tinted windows pulled up. As the bartender closed the last blinds, a motorcycle pulled up alongside, ridden by a burly Anglo man with a chest-length beard spreading down the front of his leather jacket.
The blind closed, and Ruby heard more engines pull up, more and more until it sounded like they were in the middle of the Los Angeles freeway.
On impulse, Ruby downed the last of her drink. She needed that sugar and she sure wished there was more in it than that.
The engines revved, reaching a crescendo, then shut off all at once. The only sound heard now was the quiet sobbing of the Hispanic prostitute, and a low moan coming from one of the Bahamian women, head on the table, face buried in her crossed arms. The other women sat still as statues in various p
arts of the room.
The door opened, the bearded motorcycle rider practically filling the doorway. He entered, staring at Ruby. He was followed by another man, and another. They were of all races and dressed in all ways—Hawaiian shirts and shorts, motorcycle leathers, business casual, full suits—and appeared to have any number of professions. And yet all looked muscular and tough, and all had a pitiless gleam in their eyes.
Ruby counted a dozen.
Taking up the rear, pushing two trembling women before him, came a slim, lithe Latino man dressed in a tan slacks and red silk vest and wearing a fedora. He had a hard, angular face, and the coldest eyes Ruby had ever seen inside or out of the ring.
Ruby stared for a moment at the women—a six-foot mixed-race beauty with amber eyes, and a five-six curvy Bahamian whose earrings, bracelets, and necklace were all green.
Then her gaze moved back to the Hispanic man who took up the rear. The man who looked obviously in charge.
He closed the door behind him and locked it, then turned his gaze to Ruby as the other men ranged themselves to either side of him.
She had no doubt she was looking at Carlos Cazador.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“What do we have here?” Carlos Cazador asked. His voice came out cool and level, with just a hint of an accent.
“I-I warned her to go away,” the teenaged bartender said.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Carlos said without taking his eyes off Ruby. The bartender wilted.
Ruby figured honesty, spiced with a bluff, would be her best chance at survival.
“I was hired to investigate the murder of Bridget Hansen. Those two women you got there are prime suspects. The police are on their way.”
An Anglo man in a suit and tie replied in an Irish accent. “If the police were on their way, we would have heard of it. You’re all alone, wee birdie.”
Carlos jabbed a finger in her direction and made a humorless smile. “I heard of you. You’ve been all around town, sniffing into my business. Didn’t find out much, though. I run a tight ship. My crew is loyal, and when they’re not …” he smacked his Bahamian captive in the back of the head. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees.
Ruby sprang to her feet, nearly toppling over herself in her high heels. Her thigh burned from the graze of the assassin’s bullet. She ignored it.
“Who told you about me?” she demanded.
“Lots of people. I got eyes and ears everywhere, and friends all around the island. But enough questions. I don’t feel like asking none and I sure as hell ain’t going to take any from you. You came at a good time. I was about to punish these two bitches for crossing a line.”
The mixed-race woman turned to him, grasping his elbow. “No please, Señor Cazador, I’ll—”
A backhand sent her sprawling next to the Bahamian woman. Slowly, making a show of it, Carlos pulled a Bowie knife from a sheath hidden beneath his vest.
The two women at his feet began to plead, crawling around on the carpet at his feet like whipped dogs. One of the henchmen, a squat Mexican in dress shirt and slacks, laid out a waterproof tarpaulin over the carpet and pushed them onto it.
“Wouldn’t want to stain the carpet,” Carlos explained.
Looking at the shaking, crying pair, Ruby felt a pang of pity. She had no doubt that these were the murderers, but they didn’t deserve this.
“Why are you doing this?” Ruby asked, her voice coming out strangled, hoarse.
“Punishment. Got to maintain discipline.” Carlos smiled briefly, as if embarrassed. “Plus, I like to add to my collection. It’s a … hobby.”
“It’s a good collection, boss,” the Mexican reassured him. Carlos smiled.
“Punishment for what?” Ruby had an idea, but she wanted to hear it from his lips.
Carlos shrugged. “Might as well tell you. You ain’t gonna have the chance to talk. I’m punishing them for killing that tourist bitch. We rob johns all the time, but murder is over the line. Causes problems.”
“I swear it was self-defense!” the mixed-race woman wailed.
“Give them to me,” Ruby said. “They’ll end up in jail for years. You’ll never have to deal with them.”
The pimp shook his head. “They know too much, and being so quick with their knives showed I didn’t break them as much as I thought. Now I’m going to break them for good.” Carlos Cazador’s eyes glittered. “But first I’m going to break you.”
Rage began to simmer deep in Ruby’s gut. She kicked off her high heels in order to move better and picked up her purse, feeling the heavy weight of the brick inside.
“That’ll be the day.”
Carlos gestured with his knife at the two trembling forms on the tarpaulin. “After tonight I’m going to be down two girls. You come along playing the part, thinking you’ll learn something. Well, you’ll learn something all right, by playing the part for real. Zeke, you go first.”
The biker stepped forward. The girls and the bartender stared at Ruby with pity in their eyes.
“Take a good look, everyone,” Carlos said. “Because after Zeke goes, every man here is going to take a turn, except that shrimp of a bartender. He don’t have it in him. That’s all right. There’s thirteen of us. Think you can take thirteen, girl? Actually no, make that twenty-six because we’re each going to take seconds. That’s an order, boys.”
“Yes, sir,” Zeke said, licking his lips and stepping forward, his big hands reaching for Ruby.
She swung her brick-laden purse, connecting with the side of his head. He fell like a sequoia to a logger’s chainsaw.
Carlos turned red, eyes sparking. “All right, clever girl. Now we all get three turns. Get her!”
Two more men rushed forward. One of the prostitutes screamed. The bartender ducked behind the bar and the girls scattered, overturning furniture.
Ruby raised her purse for another swing, and found she held only the strap. The slim strip of leather hadn’t been designed for brick swinging.
In a flash she ducked down, grabbed both her high heels, and leapt up. The two lead men came at her at the same time. She dodged to the left to get out of one’s reach for the moment, and smacked the nearest one in the center of the forehead with the high heel.
The man’s eyes crossed and he toppled backwards. Ruby was impressed. Briefly she wondered if high heels had been a secret weapon of the Shaolin monks.
But she had no time for historical musings. The other guy swooped in on her with a clumsy but potentially deadly right hook. She ducked and hit him in the groin with one of the heels.
She rose as he fell and found once again that she had disarmed herself. Both heels had broken on impact. Maybe those Shaolin monks didn’t use high heels after all.
“Get that bitch!” Carlos Cazador bellowed.
Now everyone ran at her all in a rush. She grabbed the vase from her table and tossed it, but her intended victim was too quick and managed to duck. Next Ruby grabbed the table and heaved it at the onrushing mob, taking out two men at the same time and tripping up a third coming up right behind them.
Ruby retreated until she had her back to the wall. A ruddy-faced Anglo tried to slam a fist into her face but she caught it, twisted, and shoved him into the man next to him. As those two tried to untangle themselves, she connected with a right cross on the jaw of the next man to come at her, dropping him.
She ducked a blow from the next opponent, a hard swing that missed her head by an inch and drove her fist into his stomach. A jarring pain went up her forearm. This guy was tight, so tight that her punch, which should have had him doubled over and puking his dinner, only made him grunt and swing at her again.
If you can’t bludgeon them, flip them. Ruby dodged, grabbed his forearm as it flew by, extended her leg, and tripped him.
They were too close to the wall for her to flip him onto the floor, so instead he went head-first into a watercolor of a beach scene, sliding down to the floor with his head and shoulders framed by a soothin
g sunset.
Ruby turned to get the next opponent, only to feel a strong pair of arms grab her around the middle like a vice. She stomped on his foot, checked herself before delivering a headbutt that would have hurt her far worse than him, and swiveled to knee him in the groin.
He turned away at the last moment, protecting his private parts. Even so, the force of Ruby’s knee against his hip made him let go and try to regain his balance.
His injured foot made that impossible, and he fell into the arms of the man behind him.
Ruby would have liked to have knocked them both down while they were unable to fight back, but a squat Latino with murder in his eyes slammed a left hook into her side.
Right where her cracked ribs were just beginning to heal.
Pain lanced through her entire body, causing her knees to buckle. She just managed to keep to her feet and fend off a punch to the head.
She could do nothing about the guy body slamming her into the wall.
At the last instant she hunched her shoulders and tucked her head to keep it from smacking against the wall, which would have knocked her unconscious or worse.
It still knocked the wind out of her, weakening an already aching body.
The Latino, who Ruby recognized as the man who had lain out the tarpaulin, kicked her legs out from beneath her and she landed on her back, once again hunching her shoulders and stiffening her neck to avoid disaster.
The gang closed in. Someone pawed at her legs, lifting her evening dress. She lashed out with a kick that broke bone. A palm strike knocked away a leering face, and then the first hand that pressed on her chest got rewarded with a dislocated finger.
But there were too many, and they were too strong, and she was too injured. Strong hands pinioned both her arms. After losing another member to a well-placed kick, the gang managed to immobilize her legs as well. The rest of the group, at least those who could still stand, gathered around close, glaring down at her with hate and lust.
A low cough stopped them from advancing further. The crowd parted. Carlos Cazador stepped up to her, stopping just out of reach of her legs, both of which were held fast.