Guzman smiled and it made him more attractive.
“Thank you for the compliment. I understand now why your husband – pardon me – your ex was so devastated. You take a good picture, but you’re something else in the flesh.”
“Oh God, don’t tell me. You know Bill?”
“He’s been in here a few times. Not so much lately. He was in here the night before….the old man killed himself. And we talked a little bit about women. Men have a habit of doing that.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“You see, Evelyn. I can’t get away from him. It’s like he’s goddamned haunting me.”
“I’d say it was the other way around, Ms. Maitland. You know, of course, that he’s still in love with you?”
She looked up at him and read the expression, the judging look on his face. What the hell did Bill have that made so many take his side and automatically assume that anything bad that had happened was her fault.
“Not any more, Armando. Not anymore. He’s moved on, if that makes you as a fellow male feel better. Now, could I get a dry Auslese, if you have it in stock. And Evelyn, what are you drinking.”
When Evelyn had given the bar owner her order she looked at him with a sideways glance and said, “You’re a charmer, Armando, and you know it. That crap about not fishing in your own pond was BS, right? You’re showing solidarity with Bill. But why? He’s just a customer? Most guys would stab their own brother in the back for a great lay.”
He grinned and said, “You’re right. I don’t spend many nights alone when I don’t want to. But, what can I say? I just like the guy.”
When he had left, Debbie shook her head.
“What the hell can I do, Evelyn? I used to call him Saint Bill when I was being sarcastic, but there are times when I wonder. Oh, and what the hell was that kiss all about? You’re not switch hitting are you? I never picked up on that from you.”
Her friend smiled.
“I was just being mean. I do get tired sometimes of not being able to go anywhere without horny guys hitting on me. I want both of them fantasizing about the two of us when they go to bed tonight. Alone, I hope. And no. There was that time back in college, but….I like men too much.”
After Armando brought their drinks, the two women sat listening to music and sipping their wine.
“Not that I don’t welcome a night out, but why did you call me, Deb?”
“This has been a bad day. And last night was worse.”
Afterward, she felt like breaking down again as the unexplainable emotions from last night threatened to overwhelm her again. Crider put her hand over hers.
“You’ve been seeing Teller? Hasn’t he helped?”
“Oh yes. I’m not feeling semi-suicidal anymore. Or at least I wasn’t until last night.”
They continued talking and then, “That’s all fascinating, Deb, although I have no idea what’s going on, but let’s get to the important stuff. Getting any lately?”
Evelyn knew about Doug and Clint. So Debbie told her about the last man she done the horizontal tango with.
“Sounds nice. You said you had a good time. And then blew him off- no pun intended – for a second date. Why?”
“I don’t know, Evelyn. Honest to God, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m wonder if I really am losing it. Between the divorce and Doug leaving and Clint being more stupid than the law should allow and BJ and Kelly…”
“I know that would be rough. But it seems like there’s something else.”
She finished her wine and ran the liquid over her tongue.
“You ever hear that old song, from the 70s I think. ‘Is that all there is?’ Most depressing song ever written. I feel like that somehow. The sex the other night was good. Pretty damned good, in fact. But, when it was over…I just…it didn’t seem worth it to go out again.
“I mean, you know how it goes. You go through the flirting motions, then there’s the touching, dancing or whatever, and if you decide to go for it, you play with each other get him hard, spread your legs, he’s on and then off. And maybe he’ll do it again. And when it’s over, you give him a friendly kiss, go home to a lonely bed, and try to make the good feelings last.
“But you’re alone in that bed, dammit. At least so far and I haven’t found anyone I want to be in that bed with me.”
Evelyn gestured to Armando for one more refill and when he’d come and gone, she stared at her friend.
“Cry me a river.”
“What?”
“Debbie, you know I’m your friend, right? I’ve been your physician for eight years and your friend almost that long. And as much as I like you, I have to tell you girl, you’re full of shit.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you saying that? I know you went through a rough time with Alan. I thought if anybody would understand…”
“I do, which is why I’m finding it damned hard to come up with even a tiny bit of sympathy.”
“But-“
“Look, I know what you’re saying. You don’t have any serious love interest in your life right now, anybody you want to be important to you. And you’re horny and you go out of dates and fuck guys hoping they’re going to be the one that will ring the chimes and make you forget how lonely and lost you are.”
Crider downed most of her wine.
“And nobody is ringing the bell. Your last guy was fun, but nothing extra special. The sex was alright, but you’re missing something, right?”
Debbie nodded.
“Join the female, unmarried, half of the human race. When I found out that Alan was banging that bitch secretary of his and threw him out, I decided I was going to bang any guy I wanted to. I went through four of them. One of them was a cute guy in college. And another was a lumberjack type with a dick I couldn’t get my fingers around.
“Well, the cute college guy thought he was driving me crazy. I got one good orgasm and I had to fake a couple before he sent me to the emergency room with vaginitis. He just wouldn’t stop. And the lumberjack…Jesus he was good. I must have come a half dozen times just from plain old fucking. I thought I really was going to fall in love. And after he comes, he rolls over and goes to sleep. The stupid son of a bitch was actually snoring. That made me feel special.”
She glanced around the interior of The Last Call. The band was going now and the mating dance was in full swing.
“I’m not going to say that I discovered that Alan was a super stud. But we were good together. He knew what buttons to push. He was there for me before and after he gave me an orgasm or two. Now, maybe, if we’d split for good and I’d have gone out looking seriously – probably – I would have found somebody I could have made a life with.
“But what I found out was, and if you were still dating you’d know this, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince. Or as the girls would say today, you have to suck a lot of frog dicks to find your Prince.”
“I know that…”
“No, you don’t, Debbie. That’s part of your problem. Look at yourself. Who were you with for the last 20 years or so?”
“Bill.”
“That’s right. The love of your life. The man you fell in love with and built a life with and had children with. And who were you with the first three or four months after you split with Bill?”
“Doug.”
“A tall young stud with a big dick that couldn’t get enough of you. I saw him one time. Deb, I have to tell you, I’d have licked the sweat off his balls if I wasn’t with Alan. And I’d definitely lick anything else of his that he wanted me to. The kid was pure, unadulterated SEX. He was the lover that most women dream about having, but never will.”
She gave Debbie an almost irritated look.
“And after you threw Doug out, who were you with?”
“Clint.”
“Yeah, handsome, intelligent, kind and compassionate and friendly Clint Abbott. Who you told me could fuck your brains out when he got going. A Best Friend with Super-Hot Benefits.”
She opened a small purse and put some bills on the table as she finished her drink.
“So, follow me here. You’ve had the love of your life, who gave you children and a good life for a long time, the Hottest Young Stud in Jacksonville to bang you like you’d never been banged before, and a Nice Guy who was really good in bed to make you feel better about your life in and out of bed while you were recovering from the loss of the first two guys.
“Deb, most women would kill to have known one of those three men, much less two of them. And you’ve had all three. Trust me, no woman is going to feel sorry for you at all.”
Deb stood up as Crider did. They’d walk out together which might discourage the wolves. They both waved at Armando who gave them a slight smile as they left.
In the parking lot, Deb said, “You’re right. I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I know what I had. What do I do now?”
Crider turned back to her and hugged her.
“Doug’s gone and not coming back and you said Clint is in Africa. You could go after Bill again – remember what Armando said – or you can start working your way through a long list of frogs and hope you strike it lucky.”
Debbie looked over her friend, her pretty, busty, happily married friend who had a marriage and a husband and a thriving career. Debbie had one of three. Of course, Evelyn and Alan hadn’t been able to have children, so maybe that balanced things a little.
She reached over and hugged her, realizing that she was one of only two people in the world she could talk with honestly now that Clarice was gone. And she could talk about things with Evelyn that she couldn’t with her mother because….because her mother was her mother. Even at nearly 40, there were things you didn’t want to talk to your mother about.
“Thanks.”
Evelyn kissed the side of her face before turning to open her car door.
“That’s what friends are for.”
THREAD TWO
November 5, 2005
Saturday, 11 P.M.
Ciudad Juarex, State of Chihuahua, Mexico
This section of Ciudad Juarez had been built centuries earlier. Succeeding waves of in-immigration from the rural fields had built house after house, block after block. Bars and merchant stalls and whore houses sprang up as this part of the city grew from the desert toward the previously constructed portions of the city from the 1800s. To the east could be seen the dark shapes of the Hueco Mountains, to the south the Juarez Mountains.
This high, stone fortress built by some wealthy Italian or Spanish immigrant had long been engulfed by smaller, humbler homes, shops, in a patchwork pattern of streets and roads. But the original square had been built to the pattern of enclosed medieval fortresses that could have been transferred block from block from Rome. The square stood three stories high with rooms on three sides. The fourth wall surrounded the 12-foot-high metal gates.
Inside those gates lived a small community of families who shared a common open courtyard in addition to a common well that had seldom, if ever, failed during the sometimes droughts. It had been dug very deep and constructed very carefully. In centuries past paid security guards had mounted patrols to keep the square closed to all but legitimate residents. Today there were still security men, but they carried automatic weapons and cell phones.
Looking at the high walls with metal scrollwork of angels and demons adorning the top, Frank for a moment could imagine he was back in Rome, or Naples, in more innocent times.
He and Bulldog checked their watches, waited for the time, and as gunshots rang out at the rear, set the explosive on the locking mechanism for the huge door and backed away as they set off the charge. It didn’t do a lot of damage. No huge hole in the door. But it left enough of a hole in just the right place that a small stolen tractor could very slowly push forward as the door swung backward.
Men with guns rushed to the front as Bulldog threw himself to the ground to the left, Frank to the right. There were three of them. Bulldog caught one with a blast that spun him around while the other two stood out to the night-vision goggles of the two armed men squatting atop the roof of the fortress as if they were painted with light. They went down before they even knew they were dead.
A quick dash to the left brought him through a front door leading to steps. A sudden movement to his right brought his Sig Sauer 1911 around and he fired a blast before he realized the man trying to get back inside his doorway was too old and unarmed to be one of the ones he was hunting. As the old man fell in the bloody door, Frank turned his attention back to the stairs. Too late to worry about him now.
A dash up the first story and then the second brought him out onto a landing face to face with two men. The one furthest away was tall, thin and cradling an AR-15 pistol with a night sight. The closest was a fat giant, at least seven feet tall and must have been close to 400 pounds. But he was slow and the Kel-Tec automatic pistol he was swinging toward Frank was easy to block.
Frank dived into him and hugged himself to the big man, burying his Sig Sauer barrel first into his gut. The big man shuddered and jerked backwards just as the bullets from the man behind him began to hit him and drive him forward. For a few seconds it was a tug of war between the bullets hitting him from the front and those hitting him from the back.
Finally Frank threw him to one side and stepped out to the face the second man. The second guard began firing his AR-15. Frank felt the bullets and heard them passing by his face and ears. But he took the time to center himself and then pull the trigger of the Sig in a squeezing motion to minimize recoil.
Frank watched the first bullet strike him in the right eye, spinning his head around so the second bullet hit off center around the temple. But it was enough. He folded and fell backwards losing his grip on his weapon. The Sig Sauer had good stopping power and relatively light recoil. He’d tried others in the past, but he’d settled on the Sig for most of his jobs. He carried a Ruger SR45 as a backup if that was needed.
When he was sure the second man was down and no one else was coming, Frank took a second to run his fingers over his skull and face and take an inventory. He hadn’t been hit. Sometimes you didn’t know for a little while.
The door behind the second guard was closed. Leaning away from the door, Frank touched it gently. It swung open and he dropped to one knee while backing away from the opening. This old building was sturdily built, but modern high powered weapons might go straight through it.
He waited but no fire came. He gingerly touched the door with the barrel of his pistol. The door swung open wider. He darted a glance inside. For a moment he thought he’d made a fatal mistake. Felipe Vargas sat at a round wooden table. Bundles of Mexican cash lay in front of him. A Colt LE 6940 semi-automatic rifle lay on the table beside his right hand.
Vargas looked up at Frank standing just outside the doorway. But instead of grabbing the Colt, he pulled his hand away and stared through the doorway. He reached out and pushed something across the table in Frank’s direction. Looking around very carefully, Frank surveyed the room and then stepped inside. He slowly approached the table at which Vargas sat.
Vargas picked up the piece of paper and as Frank got closer, he saw it was a color photograph. Vargas leaned back in his chair with his hands in clear sight and turned the photo toward Frank.
It was a young girl, maybe four or five. Long black hair. A pretty little thing.
“My daughter, senor. She is only five. I know money will not help, but she is a child. She is all I have. I know the men you work for have ordered my death. But, this is all business. I got greedy and made mistakes. But the money is hidden and I can get to it. Alive I am more valuable than dead. If you could just let me talk to them. I know I can work something out.”
Frank kept his Sig centered on Vargas’ chest.
“You did get greedy and they have ordered your death. And they’re not the type of men to change their minds.”
“But it will profit them to keep me alive, and I have bee
n a good producer in the past. I can make up my payments. Please let me talk to them.”
Frank looked at the sweating man at the table.
“We didn’t discuss it, but they may be interested in money. Get up and walk out in front of me. We have a short wave radio below. No guarantees, but if you’re persuasive enough, they may allow you to deal.”
As Vargas stepped in front of the taller man, Frank stepped behind him, centered the barrel of the Sig on the back of Vargas head and fired, once, and then again, so both bullets penetrated his skull before the forward motion knocked him off his feet. His body jerked once, then twitched and was still as blood gushed out around the shattered skull.
Frank began gathering the cash on the table. In addition to providing proof of the kill, the Cartel would appreciate the return of cash. The thought of pocketing any of it didn’t even occur to him. Good customer relations were also the basis of return business.
Bulldog stepped into the room.
“You are a fucking idiot.”
“I love you too. I especially love the way you always take the lead in going into these places.”
“That’s why you get a bigger share, Frank, and don’t change the subject. Why the fuck didn’t you just shoot him in the head.”
Frank pointed to the bleeding body.
“It might have escaped your notice, but..”
“When you walked in, Frank. When you walked in. Why do you always play around with them before you cap them?”
Frank shrugged.
“I let him die thinking he had a chance. I let him die with hope. Why not?”
“Because you’re not a fucking priest. It’s not your business to let them die with hope. It’s your business to fucking kill them.”
“What’s the harm?”
Bulldog just shook his head, as if in disbelief.
“Frank, he had a Colt rifle in his hand. An automatic weapon. With bullets in it. He could have gotten lucky. Or you might have gotten distracted and let a guy hiding somewhere in here get a lucky one in.”
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