“The fuck you want? Wanna break my arm? Shoot my other leg? Do it.”
“I got a little crazy.”
“Fuck you. Crazy? You sober, come to make bullshit amends?”
“Not even close. You lied to me.”
“No shit. That’s why I’m still alive. Titan don’t truck snitch bitches.”
“How did he take me torching his tug joint?”
“Ha. Yeah, that shit was funny.” He was smiling. “That shit wasn’t his.”
“Who owned it?”
“Fuck I know? Some Chinese. You needed an address, I gave you one.”
“Fair enough. Now it’s time I meet Titan.”
“Oh yeah, like that shit is happening. Fuck you.”
I pulled back my leather jacket, showing him the Ruger stuffed in my waistband.
“Titan, or we go another couple of rounds.”
“Fuck it. Stupid white monster. Your size gonna protect you? Shit.” I heard the distinctive ratchet of an automatic being charged behind me. “Video monitoring, dumb motherfucker.” Seems Jeremy kept me talking just long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
“Pat him down.” The voice at my back was deep and hard. Jeremy took the Ruger from my belt. I towered over him. He didn’t care. Swinging up, he slapped me with the heavy revolver. Blood sprayed from my cheek and I heard bone crack. I stumbled, didn’t go down. Wanted to. His second blow split my lower lip against my teeth. Blood rolled down my chin.
“On your motherfucking knees, bitch.” He pointed the .454 at my gut. I did not want to spend my life shitting into a bag. I did as told. I looked for some smartass comeback.
“We even yet?” was the best I could manage.
“Not even in the neighborhood of even.” He raised his hand to strike again.
“Enough,” the deep voice spoke and Jeremy lowered his arm.
Jeremy gave me his hardest eyes. “This ain’t over.” He was young, didn’t know it was never over.
“IS THIS THE man beat you down?” Titan was young and handsome in a clean-shaven, preppy way. His skin was light, freckled, what we used to call high yella. A fitted cardigan covered his muscular chest. Gym trained, not crazy prison buff. The condo was nice. A few too many statues and paintings of Greece, but nice.
“To be fair, he did hit me with a baseball bat first.” I was on the floor, my hands tied behind my back. Blood was running down my cheek and chin, disappearing into my Clash t-shirt.
“Where’s your partner, Pam Grier looking lady?” I shrugged. Titan looked at a big guy in a sleeveless shirt. He was the real muscle in the room. He nailed my chest with a size fourteen Timberland. I flopped back, wondering if the concussion had stopped my heart. It burned as air flooded back into my lungs. Dead couldn’t hurt like this, so I was betting on alive.
“Titan ax you a question.”
“Yes . . . he . . . did.” I pulled myself up to a sitting position. “Pam Grier?” I smiled.
“Yes, a dirty, gold Pontiac. Who is she?” Titan was cool, at peace, spooky almost.
“I Love Pam Grier. Foxy Brown, forget about it, right? Not sure Jackie Brown was as good—”
The Timberland kicked my lower spine. I fell face-first, no hands to break the fall, onto the hardwood floor. Titan moved closer. I could smell his cologne. Could see tasseled loafers that cost more than everything I owned. Not that that was saying much.
“Coeus. He has a heavy hand, or boot. You have two, three blows before he is bound to rupture something. You aren’t spitting blood are you?” I just stared at him. “Good. I find the idea of kicking a man until internal organs fail distasteful.”
“She’s just a lady, an aunt. She paid me to find her niece.”
Titan smiled, seemed to control the giant named Coeus with simple eye flicks. I was lifted into a chair and the rope around my wrists was cut. Blood screamed as it ran back into my hands. Pins and needles? This was nails and rusty screws. The room had a large desk, behind which Titan regained his seat. On the desk was a computer, stacks of ledgers, papers and a copy of the Wall Street Journal. I got the feeling it wasn’t a prop.
“You are no less close to slipping off this mortal coil, we clear?”
“Yeah, clear.”
“This aunty, she coming back?”
“Doubt it.”
“Then you are very deeply screwed. The car yours?”
“It was.”
“It’s a piece of shit.”
“But it’s paid for.”
“So is the steak I ate for dinner, and now it’s a piece of shit.”
“Point taken.”
Titan snapped his fingers and held out his hand palm up. Jeremy moved clumsily and gave him the Ruger. “Did you come here to kill me, or are you looking for suicide by pimp?”
“Neither. I’m looking for a girl. She’s lost. Not in the life, got snatched. Rumor is you have her.”
“Rumored where?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m tired, my face hurts, my guts hurt, back hurts. I need to see a dentist, and to cap it all off, cherry on this cum pie, is . . . it’s boring.” The preppy pimp’s face was tight as a drum. “Boy, do you have any interest in seeing another sunset?” I had his attention.
“Boy? That is bold. Please . . .” He rippled his fingers, encouraging me to continue.
“The kidnapped girl, her aunt was LAPD. Mistake one. Witness saw the girl in your Escalade downtown, that’s two. But the big bitch, one that is going to put your ass down, is when you used a rocket launcher to try and take me out. That shit got some very powerful, very outside of oversight cops looking for you.”
“I did what?”
“Want to play dumb? Really?”
He looked at me, then out the window. The street was coming to life with squares heading off to jobs that didn’t require packing guns or threatening pimps.
“They know I’m here. The girl’s aunt will tell them. Odds are I will be dead before they haul ass here, but this? All this? It goes away, and you go from Titan to some AB’s prison punk.”
“Get Athena.” Coeus was gone and back in less than a minute. Athena was a tall, leggy woman with a tight dress, neckline cut to her belly button. Her breasts were unnaturally perky, fake but fine work. As a titty bar bouncer I’d seen my share of tits, and hers were real works of art. Funny, death staring a man in the face and he takes time to notice breasts. Just proves the power of flesh.
“Athena, I ever rape a girl?”
“You crazy, baby?”
“Man here called me a gorilla pimp, said I been dragging girls off the street.”
“That’s bullshit, Daddy.” She shot me a hard stare. “A man can’t steal what is freely given, Titan taught me that. You run him down I will cut you.”
“Easy, Athena, no need killing over a mistake. Send in Eos.”
“Sure, Daddy. Are we good?”
“We are golden, now go on.” I watched her swish out and wondered what hold he had on her. Her affection looked and felt real. Eos was another stunner, same perfect tits created by the same doctor. She gave the same praise of Titan and his loving ways. It was all one big, happy family. He took care of them, and they took care of him.
Hera, his bottom girl, was older than the rest. She was diamond hard. She’d been with Titan from the jump. She slept in his bed. She was the queen to his king. She was the one the other women feared. “I don’t know who has been filling your head with malicious defamation, but it is bullshit. My man is a good man. Do you know whose name is on the deed here? Mine. Mine. You think he do that if he was a rapist thug?”
After Hera left, Titan sent Coeus and Jeremy out. He fired up a fat joint, didn’t offer me any. It smelled rich and sweet as a woman’s love.
“Moses. The prophet, the seer. Tell me what my future looks like.”
“Fucked. Unless I walk out of here.”
“Hmmm, I have shown you my world. I suspect you know I wouldn’t do that if I was going to take your head. You think I took this gir
l?”
“Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Dress this up any way you like, but you make money off those ladies’ pain. No baby ever woke up and said, ‘I wanna suck a stranger’s dick and give my cash to some punk with a stupid Greek monster’s name.’ Given a chance, I’d burn your shit to the ground, leave you king of an ash pile.”
He released a stream of golden smoke, eyes cold and deadly. “Motherfucker. In my house? Talk to me like that in my house? You want to die? I call Coeus and he won’t stop stomping this time.”
“Cut the bullshit, tough-but-loving-pimp act. You’re a kid, and this game just got adult real fast.” Eyes locked on his, I picked up the Ruger and slipped it in my belt. “You don’t have the juice to come after me with military ordnance. Timeline says you called them in. Who?”
“Who? Fuck you. Who?” He was genuinely confused, and it wasn’t the pot.
“Then it was your boy, Jeremy. Only way it plays. Did Jeremy tell you about the tug and rub joint I torched? Didn’t, did he? He told someone, because they came after me.”
Titan took a long drag off his joint, held it in. Old school. When he finally released it his decision was made. “Came up together. Solid. Weak, but solid. Fuck.” He yelled into his cell phone for Coeus and Jeremy to get their asses in there. In a blink Coeus was though the door. The 9mm looked like a toy in his hand.
“Where is Jeremy?”
“Said you wanted him to make a drop.”
“How much?”
“All.” The gravity hit Coeus, his eyes cast down. “I’ll go after him.”
“Where? Where the fuck will you go after him? Get the fuck out of here. Out.” He looked me over, slowly. “You are one fucked up old white man.”
“No lie.”
“And you are my only chance of seeing my cash.”
“Looks that way, too.”
“Fuck you. Hundred and fifty large. Ten percent you get it back. Twenty you bring me that treacherous bastard.”
I nodded. Didn’t agree, just nodded my acknowledgment of the offer.
“You gonna call off the cops?”
I punched in Rollens’s number. It buzzed and buzzed. Finally I got her voicemail cheerfully asking me to leave a message, when the room exploded in shards of glass, plaster chunks, wood and blood.
CHAPTER 22
Silence. Smoke. Coeus crawled back, broken, pistol still in his hand. The front window and a healthy section of wall were missing. The desk had me pinned down, had taken most of the blast. A 4x4 chained to the front gate leapt forward, ripped it out. Sparks flew as it scraped the parked cars and cement. Two white panel vans skidded in. Six men in black jumpsuits and ski masks ran toward the condo. They were precise, clean, military.
I curled up as small as possible, not that easy at my size, but I tried. I pulled a shattered chair and painting over myself and gripped the Ruger. I could see the room through a crack in the oak desk. Two men leapt into the room, rolled and came up sweeping with machine pistols. Coeus tried to raise his 9mm. A machete swung down severing his hand at the wrist. Blood sprayed. The soldier in black didn’t move out of the way. The second blow sheered off Coeus’s other hand. Next went one leg at the knee, then the other. It was so fast and clean that Coeus didn’t bleed out. He was alive when they took his head off.
Past this horror show, men were herding freaked-out hookers into the vans. They all had their arms tied behind their backs. Some of them were bleeding.
A soldier moved toward me, looking at the pile of debris and the desk. I took shallow breaths. His partner found Titan covered in plaster from where a section of ceiling had fallen on him. He pulled Titan up by the shoulders. The man near me turned to look at the funny black man in whiteface.
I roared like a bear when I rose up, lifting the desk off my back. From three feet the Ruger blew a hole big enough to take a section of his spine clean off. The man crumpled on his useless legs. The second shot hit the soldier holding Titan, his ski mask turned to bloody pulp. Red splashed on white. The pimp was modern art carnage. I screamed. He didn’t listen. He was mentally gone. I lifted him over my shoulder and ran deeper into the condo. My plan was to keep running and killing until I was free or dead. I made it up a flight of stairs and across a hallway before the shot hit me.
A shotgun blast from behind lifted me up and tossed me onto a silk covered bed. The buckshot made a mess of Titan’s torso and head. I rolled across the bed and placed a .454 slug into the shooter’s flack vest. It may have been Kevlar, but it did nothing to keep the punch from driving him off the landing and out into space. Deaf as I was, I never heard him land, but my guess is it was wet.
Titan was staring into another world. I threw a vanity stool through the window and was gone. The roof wasn’t pitched very steep. Thank the lack of snow for that. I ran across the three we assumed were Titan’s. A gap of eight plus feet stood between me and the next set of condos. I really wished I’d practiced long jump in high school instead of getting stoned, but then you never really know what skills you will need until you need them.
Giving myself a good run-up, I leapt into space. Even as I left the roof, I knew I was fucked. Not even close. I fell into a bougainvillea-covered lattice. Splinters and thorns tore my clothes and flesh. A plastic picnic table scrubbed what was left of my momentum. Lying looking up at the blue sky, it occurred to me this right here might be a good fucking time to call it quits. All my life people had been trying to kill me. Hell, I’d done the best I could to kill myself. Why not let this moment be it?
PUSSY.
“Easy for you to say, you dead Russian bitch.”
Ukrainian. They have that girl. They must die.
“And the next?”
They die too. All until you.
AS SHE DRIFTED away I heard sirens coming. Weak, but building. Would drive off the kill squad. It would bring cops. I’d spend my life in a cage. Death I could take. Not a cage. Been there. It sucked. Wasn’t going back.
IT WASN’T PRETTY or graceful, but I climbed over the dumpsters behind the condos. I stuck to back alleys. When I found a vacant lot I rolled in the dust, then the bloodstains just looked like I was in serious need of a bath. I finally found the Pontiac, no Rollens. Cops rolled the streets. I was seriously fucked.
CHAPTER 23
“I knew you’d be back.”
I was soaking in a tub with water that had turned a deep brownish red. Sunshine rolled in. She let her eyes roam over my body, shamelessly.
“I was out of options.”
“That is bullshit, darling. Man like you always has options. You chose me. Either that or you don’t care if you bring this heat down on me.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Hush. Or you knew I could handle whatever bullshit came down the road. Or, and I like this one, you missed me. Had to see me again.” Rolling behind me, she shampooed my hair, massaging my scalp. I could feel her hands slipping slowly through my carefully constructed defenses. She traced a finger over a scar running across my skull. She stroked the scar splitting my eyebrow. She lifted the Saint Jude medal.
“Patron saint of lost causes,” I said. “Friend in Mexico gave it to me.”
“And how has it been working?”
I gave her a good looking over. “Pretty damn well.”
Her finger followed the bullet scars that ran down under the water. She was leaning in, giving me an ample view down her silk nightgown. Her breasts were full. They sagged a bit with age, and that made them all the sexier. I’d had my fill of perky fake tits; she was real.
“You can touch me,” she said, her voice husky with building lust. Cupping her breast in my hand, I let my thumb trace a circle around her deep brown areola. Brushing over her nipple it plumped, responsive to my touch. As it swelled she let out a small groan. “Take me to bed.” It was an order, a request, a question. I stood and let the dirty water drip off me. I took the handheld showerhead and washed the last of the blood and dirt off. She didn’t take her eyes off my erect
ion.
“I don’t know . . .” I looked at her, lovely, and the chair that held her.
“How? We’ll work it out. Lean down.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and I lifted her up into my arms. She was light. I ran my arm under her knees. Time had atrophied her legs. She let her neck rest on my mine, whispering, “You could be the one, Mr. McGuire.”
“One?”
“Yeah.” She had me set her on the bed. I helped her out of the nightgown. I stood back and just took her in. She was a full-grown woman, strongly built. Her shoulders were defined by thick muscles dropping down to soft breasts. A jagged scar bisected her belly, pale against her dark skin. It had been a long time since I had let myself feel lust. Looking at her, it felt clean, the correct response to this beauty.
“Pull the comforter up.”
“I’m enjoying the view.”
“I can see that.” She looked down at her unmoving legs. “They used to break men’s hearts.” I wanted to say something about how they looked good to me, but we both would have seen the lie. She made me want to play it straight. I started to cover her.
“No, stop. We gonna start this, let’s do it clean, up front.”
“You about to tell me you aren’t into guys?”
“No, I been with women, but I like dick just fine. I want you to look at this. On her lower abdomen was a small mound with a two-inch opening in the center, a colostomy bag attached. “It’s called a stoma.” She had tattooed sunrays around it, making body art out of her pain.
I started to speak, having no idea what to say. The bag needed changing. She showed me how to help her. I got her cleaned, new bag in place.
“If you want to run for the door, I get it.”
“Why the fuck would I make a stupid move like that?” I kissed her forehead. Her lips. Her belly. The tattoo around her stoma.
She pulled herself up to sit against the bed’s backboard, near the edge. “Come here. No, standing. Yeah, like that.” I stood facing her. She took my cock and stroked it. Softly, she licked the tip. Grabbing my ass, she pulled me deep into her mouth. She gagged but kept going. I grabbed her hair. I pulled her onto me harder and faster, could feel the pressure building. I held back as long as I could. In a rush I came. It had been so long. So long. My knees went weak. She was grinning up at me, lips still suckling. I started to cry and laugh and moan. Somewhere deep in my chest a cage opened and the pain I felt for what I’d done to Nika started to flutter away.
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