Gordita Conspiracy

by Lyle Christie

  “Hit her again,” Mahdi said, without the slightest hint of emotion.

  Mole brought back his hand to hit Ayala, but Seref held up his hand.

  “Wait! Stop! I know where he is!”

  “Don’t tell them anything,” Ayala said.

  Seref’s eyes darted nervously back and forth between me, Mahdi, and Ayala.

  “He’s out at a club.”

  “Which one?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Hit her again,” Mahdi said.

  Before Mole could swing, Seref spoke up.

  “Club Reina.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It sits right on the water about four blocks to the east.”

  “See that wasn’t so hard. All right, Simin—hit the woman.”

  “I did what you said. Why hit her?”

  “To teach you a lesson, young man.”

  Mole pulled back his hand and swung, but I reached out at the last second and caught it, stopping the gun barrel only inches from Ayala’s head. She could have easily blocked it herself but was too proud not to take the hit. I, on the other hand, was not too proud, nor was I going to stand for another senseless act of violence.

  “I think he’s learned his lesson, so there’s no need to hit her again,” I said.

  Mole glared at me angrily as we engaged in a subtle version of tug of war, our hands locked together like the horns of two battling rams. Overcome by rage, he ripped the gun free and pointed it directly at my head, his finger twitching as it rested on the trigger. Luckily for me, Mahdi’s phone rang, and he signaled for Mole to stand down. Mahdi turned away and spoke quietly on his phone for a few moments before hitting the end button and turning back towards the group.

  “All right, I’m going to the club with Ali and Paniz. You two stay here and keep an eye on the three of them. Don’t do anything until I call.”

  Mahdi turned and hurried out the door, leaving behind a very tense five-some.

  “I guess we have some time to kill, so why not try some more truth or dare,” I suggested.

  “OK, fine—dare. Now, why don’t you dare me to put a bullet in your head,” Mole said, sharing a laugh with Scar.

  It wasn’t exactly the kind of game spirit I was looking for, but it would do for the moment.

  “OK, Mole, you said dare, but I’m thinking you might be missing the point of the game, so I’m going to come up with one of my own dares for you, and, just so you know, it’s more fun if it’s sexual in nature.”

  He looked mildly confused as I took a moment to try and think of what I could say that would get the strongest reaction.

  “OK, I’ve got it!” I said.

  Ayala looked at me nervously, obviously worried I was about to make our situation even worse, but what could be worse than waiting to be killed by a couple of assholes?

  “You know, Mole, I’m really good at reading people, and I see your whole tough guy facade as an attempt to try and hide your real self—your soft caring self.”

  “Bullshit, I’m an asshole.”

  “It’s true, he is an asshole, and that’s what I like about him,” Scar said.

  “Yeah, he is, on the outside, but it’s a known fact that a lot of people who act out in a particularly violent and aggressive manner are often doing so in response to anger they feel with themselves when their actions conflict with their inner self.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mole asked in an annoyed tone.

  “I think that deep down inside you have different feelings—different desires—desires which are perhaps frowned upon in your culture, and I think that you, my repressed friend, might be secretly attracted to men.”

  “What did you just say?” he asked.

  “Come now, Mole, I’ve seen the way you look at Scar, and it’s a lot more than friendship. There was a real longing in your eyes, so, in that spirit, I’m daring you to come out of your dark Iranian closet right now by proudly kissing him.”

  His face started to redden with anger, so I had definitely struck a nerve.

  “Dude, you already said dare, so there’s no backing out. Now, come on, Mole, be the you that you’ve wanted to be, and then we’ll all hug and have a good cry.”

  His anger finally became too much for him to control, and he moved towards me and pointed his pistol at my head. Scar, who was quietly watching our little exchange, spoke up.

  “No Simin, you heard Mahdi! We are to wait!”

  “I don’t care. This asshole is asking for it.”

  “He’s just trying to provoke you into doing something stupid.”

  “Yeah, so maybe you should listen to your boyfriend,” I said, with as big a smile as I could muster.

  “I am going to wipe that shitty smile off your stupid American face.”

  “Simin!”

  Scar’s attempts to calm down Mole failed, for I had finally gotten him exactly where I wanted him—up close and angry. It would, of course, have been a lot more convenient if I had been standing, but life was all about adapting to whatever situations you encountered, which meant I had to work with the current orientation if I wanted to take his gun out of his thuggish little hands and use it to remove him and his friend from the party. The pistol was now directly in my face with the barrel of the 9mm pointing ominously between my eyes.

  “Seriously now? No kiss for Scar? Are you really going to continue denying your true feelings?”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Come on, I felt the way you got a little more handsy than necessary when you searched me for weapons out on the pier,” I said, goading Mole into action.

  It worked, and he pulled back the pistol and prepared to slam it against my head, but he hadn’t counted on me being ready and catching it mere inches before it impacted. Even better was that it was no longer pointed at my head, nor at Ayala’s, which meant I could attempt to take it away. I immediately twisted it back towards his body, aware that his finger was trapped in the trigger guard, and the motion broke it with an ugly snapping sound that sent him down onto his knees screaming in agony. I pulled the pistol free, stood up, and moved away from the couch in order to make myself less of an easy target for Scar, who was luckily still coming to terms with the events unfolding before his eyes. He was therefore caught completely unawares as I leveled the pistol at his head.

  “Forget about it, Scar! There’s no need to die today,” I said.

  “I’m not the one who’s going to die,” he said, as he raised his pistol to shoot.

  I fired first and put two bullets in his head—one on each side of his scar with the final effect looking a bit like a morbid division symbol. A sudden simple mathematical formula came to mind. One asshole’s forehead divided by two bullets and a really bad decision equaled one dead asshole. This just left the Mole, who was still on his knees and holding his broken finger with his other hand as he looked up at me with terror in his eyes.

  “It’s not very fun being on this end of the gun, is it?”

  He didn’t answer and instead just continued to stare.

  “I believe I owe you something,” I said, slamming the pistol into his jaw.

  He fell backwards but struggled back up onto his knees then held his hands out in front of his face.

  “Wait, don’t kill me! I can help you.”

  Ayala stepped forward and kicked him square in the face, knocking him back to the floor.

  “We don’t need your help,” she said.

  He squinted up at us, his eyes watering as blood started to seep from his nose.

  “No, please!” he pleaded.

  “Don’t worry, we’re leaving you alive, so that Mahdi can take care of you himself.”

  He looked confused for a moment until the realization set in that his boss might not be too happy with his job performance. Ebrahim Mahdi was not exactly the type of man to forgive failure, so killing the Mole would be too merciful in my opinion. His boss’s punishment would be far worse than a quick death by b
ullet.

  “Nighty night,” I said.

  “Wait!” he screamed.

  I smiled and punched him in the jaw as hard as I could, and the blow knocked him out cold. Ayala grabbed the sashes from the curtains on the nearest window, and we trussed up the Mole and left him on the floor of the living room. Seref, who had been quietly watching the events unfold, stood up and joined us looking a bit unnerved, which was not unexpected, considering he had likely just witnessed his first homicide—albeit justified.

  “Who are you people?”

  “We’re the good guys.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The bad guys.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You were never here, so, go downstairs, forget about the whole thing, and let the morning crew deal with it. By then we’ll be long gone,” Ayala said, as she walked him to the door.

  He paused and turned back.

  “But…”

  “You’re obviously still in shock, but remember, Seref, you were a hero tonight, and you saved us all, now, where did you say that club is?” she asked.

  “It’s just up the street, and it’s called Club Reina—You can’t miss it.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, ushered him out the door, then turned back to me.

  “I think he’ll be OK,” she said.

  “Good—you up for some dancing?” I asked.

  “Absolutely, but I better check in with my people and give them an update.”

  Ayala pulled out her phone and made a call while I started getting our things together. By the time she was done, I had everything packed and sitting by the door.

  “All right, I’m ready,” she said.

  “Good, let’s go save that fucker.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Staying Alive

  WE TOOK THE elevator downstairs and headed out through the lobby and past Seref, who was still looking a bit shaken. I gave him a reassuring nod, then we walked out to the car, loaded up, and merged into traffic. Club Reina was four blocks away, and, just as Seref said, it was hard to miss with its neon sign and loud dance music spilling out onto the street. We pulled to the side of the road to survey the scene and saw that it had a long line of people waiting to get admitted by the rather large and intimidating looking doorman, so it was obviously a popular place.

  “Fuck, I hope this nightclub isn’t like the ones I used to go to in college.”

  “Why?”

  “They generally only let the hot girls in, in which case you might end up having to go in on your own.”

  “You never know, the doorman might be gay.”

  “Unlikely. Take a look,” I said, pointing out a group of scantily dressed young women giggling as the doorman motioned them inside.

  “Let’s drive by the front and get a closer look,” Ayala said.

  I pulled back out into traffic, and, just as we passed the front of the club, I spied Mahdi and two of his thugs only a couple people back from the front of the line.

  “At least Mahdi and his goons still haven’t gotten inside,” I said.

  “Yeah, and perhaps there is a fire exit or back door that we could use to bypass security.”

  “Good idea. Let’s have a look around back.”

  We continued past the club then pulled into the alley that bordered its far side and parked and exited the jeep to do a little recon. There was a large outdoor area in the very back of the club that extended out over the water but, like the front, had several security guys keeping careful watch for gatecrashers like us. I looked back up the alley and saw a fire escape along the side of the building and had a thought.

  “If not in, maybe up,” I said, taking Ayala by the hand and leading her directly underneath the ladder.

  I lifted her onto my shoulders and held her aloft while she grabbed the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder and slid it down to the street. She started climbing, and I followed right behind her and quickly discovered that I had a perfect view up her dress, specifically her lovely backside which was being nicely bisected by her black thong underwear. She must have realized the awkward nature of our positions, because she paused to look down at me.

  “How’s the view?” she asked.

  “Spectacular! Can you see my boner from up there?”

  “No, but I thought I heard something hitting the rungs of the ladder.”

  “Yeah, it’s like having a baseball card in the spokes of your bike.”

  We continued up to the second floor and found an open window, and, inside, spied an empty office with rather swanky accoutrements and a futon. Odds were pretty good it belonged to the club manager, and he used it to provide some real VIP treatment to his favorite female guests. We stepped inside then moved to the door and listened for a moment before opening it to find a deserted hallway. We slipped out and followed it to the stairs, but, halfway down, ran into a man and woman on their way up. She was pretty and dressed in a rather revealing evening dress while he looked every bit the cliché of the typical sleazy nightclub manager with his perfectly disheveled hair, tight dress slacks, and partially unbuttoned silk shirt that showed off his hairy, swarthy chest. Both of them stopped to look at us, and he immediately gave us an intimidating glare, though it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as his musky cologne, which was so thick and pervasive that it was making my eyes water. He said something in Turkish, but we just stared, so he tried again in a new language that both Ayala and I spoke fluently—namely English.

  “This area is only for staff,” he said.

  Ayala shuffled past me and stood only one stair above the fragrant philanderer, whose eyes were instantly drawn to her striking beauty. It certainly helped that she was wearing a tight dress, and it’s plunging neckline was making an excellent show of her cleavage, which was hovering like forbidden fruit just in front of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry—my friend and I were just looking for the bathroom,” she said.

  The manager’s demeanor changed, and he smiled and took hold of Ayala’s hand and introduced himself.

  “I see—well, I’m Mustafa, and it’s very nice to meet you, and, for your information, this is my club.”

  “I’m Katarina—it’s nice to meet you too, and might I say you have an amazing place here.”

  “Thank you.”

  The woman beside him cleared her throat and nudged him, signifying she was ready to move on, probably to the futon we had passed on the way in.

  “I’m sorry, but Mustafa is busy at the moment, so you’ll find the bathrooms downstairs in the main hallway just beyond the dance floor,” she said, a bit curtly.

  “Well, thank you,” Ayala responded.

  The girl dragged Mustafa up the stairs, but he paused to deliver some final words.

  “Um, perhaps I can come find you later.”

  “Sure, I’ll be in the bar,” Ayala said, with a suggestive little smile.

  The woman gave Ayala a spiteful glare, but Mustafa smiled dreamily before turning and continuing up the stairs. He had completely forgotten about the fact that we were trespassing, which proved yet again that there was nothing quite as effective as a beautiful woman to cloud a man’s judgment. This was probably the reason why so many female spies were often more effective than their male counterparts. The penis was a powerful tool of manipulation when placed in the right hands—namely, a woman’s, and this fact made me wonder about the relationship between men and women in society in general, or more specifically if men were unknowingly the puppets while the women were secretly the puppet masters.

  We continued down the stairs and into a crowded lounge area. The music wasn’t very loud, so this was obviously one of the side rooms where people could converse away from the heart pounding bass of the dance floor. We moved through the crowd and looked for Farid and his gaggle of blondes but saw only an endless parade of unfamiliar faces. Ayala motioned towards the door, and we moved into a crowded hallway that led to the main dance floor. I felt like a salmon swimming
upstream to spawn, but instead of traversing rushing torrents of water or hungry bears, I had to navigate through drunken club goers. They moved in a slow but effective crawl, and Ayala and I had to wade through a sea of flesh scented with sweat and every imaginable perfume and cologne before at last reaching the main dance floor. It turned out to be as crowded as the hallway, and every square inch was occupied by undulating people—all of them moving in time to the lights and music in a perfect display of controlled chaos. Ayala, looking a bit worried, leaned in close so that she could be heard over the music.

  “It’s not going to be easy to find Farid in this mess,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s going to be a real motherfucker, but at least it’s going to be just as hard if not harder for Mahdi and his men, as they don’t exactly seem like the type to frequent nightclubs.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  We needed a better vantage point, so Ayala and I made our way to an elevated section off to the side of the dance floor and took over a spot by the railing that had just been vacated by a young couple. There, we began surveying the crowd, which was no small task, as humans had a natural tendency to have their attention be drawn to bright colors, movement, or unusual shapes. Therefore, finding someone in a crowd like this took training and discipline, and I began by methodically searching the room, breaking it down into a grid, and then visually combing each zone before moving on to the next.

  Only a short time into the task, Ayala tapped me on the arm and pointed to the far right corner, and there was Farid dancing his heart out and looking like the dark hub of a wheel of bouncing blond hair. At last, he had achieved his ultimate dream, though it was tragic that a number of his countrymen were currently conspiring to take it all away. Ayala and I moved down to the dance floor and were only ten feet away when Farid suddenly turned and walked off, probably heading to the bar or the bathroom. We followed and had to squeeze past person after person until reaching the main hallway, where the sound of music diminished and the crowd thinned enough that we could see Farid a little ways ahead. The bar was the other direction, so he was definitely headed to the bathroom.