Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  TWO

  The puta knocked just as Fernando came out of the john. He padded over to the door, but he didn’t open it.

  She’s a new one, he thought. Let her fuckin’ wait.

  He peered through the peephole in the door, and even through the fish-eye lens the girl standing on the other side began to change his mood. She was not blonde like Rebecca, and not tall and not stacked. She’s totally not my type, he thought, but the longer he stared at her through the peephole, the less enamored of his type he became.

  Fuck this waiting, he said silently. He opened the door, the girl slipped inside, and he locked and chained the door behind her. She looked him up and down for a moment, lingering around the halfway point long enough to make him glad that he was standing unclothed before her.

  “You look ready to have some fun,” she said, glancing from his nakedness to his eyes and smiling all the way.

  “I am now,” he said.

  “I’m Lizzie,” she said, extending her right hand in his direction. “I take it you’re Fernando.”

  “And if I’m not?” he said, taking her hand in both of his.

  “Then fuck Fernando,” she said. “I know a good thing when I see it.”

  He liked the way that sounded, and the way she looked when she said it. He even liked the blue Nike sweats she was wearing and the white sneakers on her feet—they made her look like an athlete on her way back from the gym or the rink, and the sports bag slung over her shoulder did nothing to dispel that image.

  Her grip was strong in his hands, and he found that he liked that, too. “Welcome,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping deftly around him and perching on the only chair in the room. “Please,” she said, pointing toward the bed. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  He stepped to the bed and sat down, leaning back a little on his hands to make the muscles of his torso taut.

  “So you called for Rebecca,” she said, still smiling a little. He nodded silently.

  “And they told you she’s out of town?”

  He nodded again.

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “Why don’t we take care of the service, and then I’ll go get changed.”

  Fuckin’ puta, he thought, his foul mood from before falling over him again. It always comes back to money.

  “Take what you need,” he said, nodding toward the roll of fifties next to the switchblade on the nightstand less than an arm’s length from her chair.

  She looked at the money and the knife, then back at him. “What’s the knife for?” she asked soberly, the trace of a smile gone from her voice.

  “It’s a habit, mostly,” he said. “I feel more comfortable with it than without it.”

  “I’m just the opposite,” she said. “I’m much more comfortable without it.”

  “Take it with you when you change,” he said. “You can leave it in the bathroom.”

  She thought that over for a minute. “Thanks,” she said finally. “It’s one-fifty for thirty minutes and two-fifty for an hour.”

  “How much is it for all night?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m already booked for the rest of the night.”

  Booked my ass, he thought.

  “One-fifty, then,” he said.

  She plucked three fifties from the roll and slipped them and the knife into the left pocket of her sweat jacket. “Just give me a minute to call the service,” she said. “Then we can get this party started.”

  This party has already started, he said silently.

  She rose from the chair, strode to the low bureau beneath the mirror, picked the receiver up, and began punching numbers. “This is Lizzie,” she said after a moment or two. “I’m at the Evergreen, Room One-thirty-two. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes. See ya.”

  You won’t be done in thirty minutes, he said to himself.

  She replaced the receiver and moved toward the bathroom. “Don’t start without me,” she said from the doorway. “I’ll be right out.”

  Don’t worry, you fuckin’ puta, he thought. I’m savin’ it all for you.

  He leaned back on top of the bed, rested his arms on the pillow which covered the second knife, and then propped his head on his arms.

  The Nike sweats were spilling out of the sports bag when she returned to the room, and the view of the girl provided by their new location almost changed his mood again. She was wearing something thin and red and slinky that pretended to cover her from the top of her shoulders to the middle of her thighs, but it was a sham all the way. He could see the hard nipples on her small breasts and the dark flash of her pubic hair when she moved.

  “You like?” she asked.

  “Si,” he said, almost in spite of himself.

  “That’s good,” she said, dropping the bag next to the bed and herself next to him. “You’re in for a real treat, Fernando.”

  I know I am, he said to himself.

  “I am?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can’t do anything illegal here, so the rules are we can’t touch each other. But I’m going to give you a show like you’ve never seen in your life. You won’t be able to keep your hands off that beautiful cock of yours, I promise you. If you like it, you can tip me what you think it was worth when we’re done. Fair enough?”

  Unbelievable, he thought.

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Good,” she said, almost humming it to him. “That’s very good.” Then she cupped her right breast in her left hand and began to caress the tip of it through the slinky red material.

  “God, I feel hot,” she said. “Just looking at you turns me on, Fernando.”

  Sure it does, he said to himself.

  “Do you like what you do to my nipples?” she asked, moving one hand to each of them and touching them softly.

  “Yes,” he said, surprising himself a little.

  “So do I,” she said. Then she stood on the bed with her back to the wall and placed one foot on each side of his head. He looked up her legs and watched her bring one hand to her genitals.

  “God, Fernando,” she said. “You’re making me so wet.”

  You’re pretty good, he said to himself as he watched the ministrations of her hand. She continued what she was doing for several quiet moments, and he continued to watch her. Then she bent slowly at the waist and lowered her head until he could feel her breath on his penis.

  “Stroke yourself, Fernando,” she said. “I want to watch you do it.”

  Why the fuck not, he asked himself. He reached down with his right hand and began to do as she had requested, watching her stroke herself above him as he did it. Then she began to blow her warm breath up and down the length of his penis as he caressed it.

  “Come for me, Fernando,” she said. “Let me see you come.”

  Why the fuck not, he asked himself again. He watched the flicker of her fingers above him, savored her breath on his genitals, and stroked himself until he climaxed. She stepped down from the bed, reached into her bag, and handed him a towel.

  “Nice, huh?” she said.

  He nodded. “Very,” he said, swabbing at himself with the towel. “Now you can blow me until I’m ready to fuck you.”

  She moved a step back from the bed and drew her bag up in front of her. “You know we can’t do that,” she said.

  “Sure we can,” he said. “People do it all the time.”

  “I explained that earlier, Fernando.”

  He reached beneath the pillow and extracted the knife with his left hand, releasing the blade as he did it. “And now I’m explaining something to you, you fuckin’ puta.”

  She reached into the bag, then let it fall away. He saw the .22 before the bag hit the floor, and he watched in disbelief as she clasped both hands around the grip and raised her arms until the gun’s unblinking eye was trained on his naked chest.

  “No, Ferna
ndo,” she said. “I do all the explaining here.”

  “This is supposed to scare me?” he asked, measuring the distance between the gun and the knife as he spoke. “You don’t have the cajones to use that thing.”

  “It doesn’t take cajones,” she said. “All it takes is a finger.”

  “Really?” he said. “How many people have you shot so far?”

  “Drop the knife, Fernando.”

  Sure, he said to himself as he rolled under the gun and slashed at her right arm.

  The gun sounded like it went off in his left ear, but he felt the searing impact of the bullet high in his shoulder. Then his blade drew blood, the girl screamed, the gun fell to the floor, and Fernando began to grin.

  “You shot me,” he said slowly. “I can’t believe you just shot me.”

  She made no reply, and neither of them moved until Morton started pounding on the door of the room. Then Fernando flipped the knife from his wounded side to the other and the girl darted to her right in an effort to get around the bed. She ran into a round kick that bounced her off the bureau, but when he closed in on her she came up with the phone in both hands and slammed it against the side of his head.

  The blow staggered him enough for her to slip away and reach the door, but the chain did its job when she tried to pull the door open. He could see Morton through the gap allowed by the chain, and so could the girl.

  “Help me!” the girl shouted.

  “Fernando!” Morton said. “What the fuck’s goin’ on in there?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Fernando said as he came up behind the girl. “And get the fuck away from my door.”

  The girl slammed the door in Morton’s face and made a try at releasing the chain, but Fernando wrapped his left arm around her neck and pulled her close. The fire in his left shoulder almost made him scream as he held her, but he liked having his strong arm free for the knife so he tightened his grasp and let the shoulder burn.

  “You should have just fucked me,” he said into her ear. “Only one of us is gonna like this better than fucking.”

  The puta made no response except to hang all of her weight on his wounded arm until he couldn’t bear it any longer. When he dropped her, she threw her right elbow into his crotch and twisted her way back to the door.

  The blow doubled him over, but not for as long as the girl’s escape required. She still had both hands on the chain when he came up behind her again, and this time he touched her with nothing but the knife. He made one swift incision, true and deep, and blood spurted from the artery in her neck.

  Go ahead, he said to himself, try to stop the bleeding with your hands. She clutched her throat as if she could read his mind, then she stumbled and dropped heavily to the floor. Fernando stood over her and grinned quietly while her fingers turned crimson and her life slowly leaked out of her grasp.

  THREE

  “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ,” Morton said.

  “Don’t even start,” Fernando said through a glare as he closed the door behind him. “Check my fuckin’ back for an exit wound.”

  Morton stepped around the girl on the floor and gave Fernando’s back a cursory examination. “Whatever went in the front is still in there,” he said.

  “Press on this,” Fernando said, motioning toward the towel he was holding against the wound in his shoulder.

  “Yeah, right,” Morton said.

  “It’s either that or pull my pants on for me, asshole.”

  Morton chose the towel, and Fernando slipped into a pair of shiny brown slacks. “I’m gonna need a doctor,” he said.

  “A doctor of psychiatry,” Morton said. “If you’re not crazy, you’re too stupid for words.”

  “Does that mean you’ll shut the fuck up if it turns out to be stupidity?”

  “It’s not what I have to say you should be worried about. Avina’s gonna go ballistic over this.”

  “Fuck Avina,” Fernando said. “She doesn’t have shit without me, and she knows it.”

  “Even she has a limit, wise guy. She’s not gonna bury a homicide just to make a bust.”

  “This is the bust of her fuckin’ lifetime. She’d trade her left tit for it, believe me. Besides, this ain’t no homicide.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Self defense,” Fernando said. “I have a bullet in my shoulder to prove it. Now clean out the bathroom for me.”

  “Clean out the bathroom? Do you realize how deep the shit here is? Our chances of wiping every trace of you out of here before we get company are, uh, how do you say it—fuckin’ nada, Einstein.”

  “Shut the fuck up and get my stuff out of the bathroom,” Fernando said. “If something was going to happen behind the gunshot, it would have happened by now.”

  “If we wiped this room all night, we’d probably still leave a print behind.”

  “Prints are not a problem,” Fernando said. “I ain’t in nobody’s computer. That’s what you get for hookin’ up with a solid citizen like me.”

  “That’s what we get for hookin’ up with a fuckin’ psycho from a country that never heard of computers,” Morton said on the way to the john.

  We’ve heard of computers, Fernando said to himself. We’ve heard of everything where I come from. He walked slowly around the bed, fighting off a dizzy spell on the way. He picked up the .22 from the floor and threw it in the suitcase on the bed, then he fumbled through the puta’s bag for a moment and did the same with his three fifties and the knife.

  “Where’s Jimmie?” he asked when Morton came out of the john.

  “What?”

  “You know, Jimmie? The moron you rode out here with?” “Yeah, I know Jimmie, but I’m not sure he’s the fuckin’ moron here.”

  “He’s not here,” Fernando said. “That’s why I asked where the fuck he is.”

  “Her driver started for the door when the gun went off,” Morton said. “Jimmie jumped him and ran him downtown.”

  “Call him,” Fernando said. “We need the driver.”

  “He’s not a problem. He never got a look at you.”

  “No wonder you’re not the agent in charge, Morton. You think too fuckin’ slow.”

  “Looking around the room here, I’d say I’m hearing this from someone who doesn’t think at all.”

  “Call your fuckin’ sidekick before he turns the driver loose,” Fernando said. “We need him to get to the service that sent the puta here.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Because they’re gonna remember that I called for Rebecca, and Rebecca’s gonna remember me.”

  Morton walked over to the bureau and picked the phone up off the floor. “There’s blood on this fuckin’ thing,” he said.

  Fernando touched the knot rising on the side of his head, but he didn’t feel anything slimy. “Make the fuckin’ call,” he said.

  “Do you still have the driver?” Morton said into the phone a moment or two later.

  “Good,” he said after a short pause. “Make him give you the location of the service before you turn him loose.”

  “You don’t have to tell her a fuckin’ thing,” he said next. “I’ll have our resident genius down there in a couple of minutes, and he can explain how he got shot by a fuckin’ whore and thereafter committed self-defense on her sorry ass.”

  Fernando had finished flinging his clothes into the suitcase on the bed by the time Morton hung up the receiver. “He’ll take care of it,” Morton said, “but this is gonna cost you.”

  “You’re already getting paid twice,” Fernando said.

  “It’s not enough for this kind of shit,” Morton said.

  “Whatever. Throw me my fuckin’ jacket.”

  Morton set the phone down on the bureau, but he was still wiping the surfaces he had touched when it started to ring.

  “Who the fuck is that?” he asked.

  “It’s time to go,” Fernando said. “Would you throw me my fuckin’ jacket?”

  Morton walked over to the mini-c
loset next to the john, plucked the jacket from a hanger, carried it to the bed, and draped it over Fernando’s naked shoulders. Then he closed the suitcase, lifted it off the bed, walked back past the bureau and around the girl on the floor, and opened the door.

  “Then let’s go,” he said. The phone fell silent as Fernando rose from the bed, slipped his bare feet into a pair of shiny brown loafers, and walked slowly to the door. He staggered slightly when he got there, and paused for a moment.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Morton asked again.

  “That was her people,” Fernando said quietly. “She didn’t call back when she said she would.”

  “Are you okay?” Morton asked.

  Sure, Fernando said to himself, I’m fuckin’ feeling great. He walked out the door, and Morton trailed after him without another word.

  FOUR

  “This is going to hurt,” the doctor said.

  No shit, Fernando said to himself. It’s been hurting since it happened.

  Then the doctor started digging for the bullet in his shoulder, and Fernando learned a little more about hurting than he had known before. He tried to ride on top of the wave as much as he could, but he began to regret refusing a painkiller before the probing ended.

  “This man belongs in a hospital,” the doctor said when he was done.

  “I heard you the first time,” Avina replied.

  “No, I don’t think you did,” the doctor said. “I’m not signing off on this bullshit.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to sign off on anything. I’ll take it from here.”

  “You’re still not listening. Do you realize how many ways this situation can turn to shit?”

  “It already turned. What we’re doing now is cleanup.”

  “You can’t clean up this kind of shit. Don’t you know that?”

  “Please,” Avina said. “It’s too early for your moralizing.”

  “No,” the doctor said. “It’s too fuckin’ late.”