Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  I sort of hated myself for the glee that coursed through me at the thought, but I couldn’t help it. The court’s entire case rested on a ruling of whether or not Manny was competent enough to direct his own care. If his medical guardian were not mentally competent, and Manny was able to challenge it in court, then it would be infinitely easier to return his power of attorney to him. He couldn’t have an incompetent guardian, after all. That was the whole point.

  But was Arturo all there, or was his mind wasting away the same as his body was?

  I hated the fact that I had to even try to make this call, but I knew I couldn’t get ahead of myself. I had to rein it in. Think of this as a case. You have to be objective. Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way...

  I swallowed around my dry tongue. The room seemed warm, the air oppressive, and another burst of laughter came from the living room, reminding me that my time was short. Even worse, my bladder was telling me the exact same thing. I really did have to take a piss.

  Better get this handled then, genius.

  Suppressing a shudder, I leaned forward and placed my hand on Arturo Reyes’ shoulder.

  It was just as bad as it looked—bones encased in a bag of paper-thin skin. He wore no shirt, and his sunken chest barely moved as I gave him a gentle shake. At least he was warm. If his skin had been cold it would have been exactly like touching a corpse.

  He didn’t wake. Shit. I shook him a little harder. The television switched to a commercial with a loud, annoying jingle that sounded straight out of the early nineties. I shot it a glare then leaned further in.

  “Mr. Reyes?” I said, raising my voice as high as I dared. “Mr. Arturo Reyes?” I gave him another small shake, afraid his bones would break beneath the pressure—

  His eyes shot wide open, and those bony hands flew to my arm.

  I barely stifled a squeal of revulsion and fright, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if I had screamed, because Arturo Reyes began to babble at me in rapid Spanish.

  Vaguely familiar syllables flew past me, bobbing up and down in the lovely cadence of all Romance languages, but I couldn’t place them. I had taken Spanish in college, and I heard Spanish all the time in Los Angeles, but I hadn’t retained any of it, and now I cursed myself for letting what little knowledge I’d had slip away because Arturo Reyes was speaking very, very passionately about something, and I had no idea what it was.

  The television slipped into a used car commercial, and Arturo’s voice rose. Somehow I managed to catch the word Miguel.

  Miguel. His hands on my arm were like a trap. I wouldn’t have believed it of such a wrung out old man, and I tugged uselessly against his grip. “Miguel?” I repeated. “Your son Miguel?”

  His wide brown eyes grew wild and agitated, the whites showing as they rolled in their sockets, and his voice grew more and more urgent. Miguel’s name flew past me in a torrent of other words, and I tried to remember what the word was for son in Spanish. All I could come up with was niño.

  “Tu niño?” I hazarded. “Miguel? Tu niño?”

  But he shook his head and his hands tightened on my arm. He tried to rise by pulling himself up, but even though he was a wasted shell he had once been as big and tall as Manny, and he was still too heavy for me. He dragged me down instead. More words flew from his mouth until at last I caught one.

  Hermano.

  I may not have known much Spanish, but I had watched Arrested Development at least three times all the way through.

  “Brother?” I said. “Miguel, your brother?” Was he talking about...about Manny’s father?

  Then his eyes sharpened and narrowed as he seemed to see me for the first time.

  “Tiana,” he said.

  I frowned. Tiana? Was that a name, or a Spanish word I didn’t recognize?

  His grip tightened, and his thin-lipped mouth wobbled. “Tiana!” he cried. “Tiana, Tiana, mi amor, mi corazón, Tiana, lo siento, lo siento, lo siento...”

  Frantically I wracked my brain, trying to remember what siento meant, and then he started babbling again, words I couldn’t quite place, but then he began repeating one word over and over. A word that even I understood.

  “Lo lamento,” he said. “Lamento mucho. Lamento mucho, Tiana...”

  My eyes widened. He was...apologizing? To someone named Tiana? His...love? Ugh, why did I have to be a dumb white person who coasted along without learning another language? God damnit!

  Arturo seemed to feel the same way because he began to say dios and madre and Maria, clearly praying.

  I had no idea what was going on, or who he thought I was, but it was becoming abundantly clear to me that I had what I needed. I didn’t need to do anything about Arturo Reyes, didn’t need to trap him in any way. He was already too far gone. If he were ordered to show up in court, he probably couldn’t even make it.

  I felt for him. Time and age and sickness were dismantling him piece by piece, and it was painful to watch it happen to another human being. But all the same I felt a terrible sense of relief.

  Manny, I thought, and just his name warmed me from the inside out.

  I could help him. There would be no huge courtroom showdown. His uncle was beyond hurting him now. It was just his cousins using him, without proper authority. That was why they shook him down, threatened to blackmail him, went through back channels—because legal channels would expose them.

  I hated thinking of the funny, sympathetic men I’d met today being so cruel to their own flesh and blood, but it had obviously happened. They didn’t have a leg to stand on in court, and they clearly knew it.

  I had what I needed. It was time to get out.

  Arturo Reyes was still clinging to my arm as though he thought I were a lifeline, but his eyes had become unfocused and he was staring off into the middle distance, his words slurring and fading into incoherence.

  Gently I pried his fingers from my arm, making soothing noises in my throat. I’d come here spoiling for a fight, ready to deceive and betray, but now I was filled with compassion for this broken human being, and I lingered with him as long as I dared, trying to calm him.

  At last he subsided onto the bed, his eyes sliding closed. He was delirious and old and of no harm to anyone, and almost absently I reached out and smoothed the hair from his damp forehead. A gesture of comfort from one person to another, and the muscles in my neck slowly unknotted as I realized my job here was done.

  I sighed, watching him fall quickly into his unquiet dreams.

  Poor man, I thought. Sleep well.

  There was something in my eye, making it water. Sniffing, I reached up and dashed it away.

  Right, I thought, my inner voice brusque. Time to focus on more pressing concerns.

  Like the bathroom.

  Yeah, now that my big mission had been concluded, my bladder was being very insistent that it be my second objective. Straightening up I turned around—

  —and there stood Yago Reyes at the foot of the bed, blocking my path, and the smile on his face was pure cruelty.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

  Yago didn’t say anything, just stared at me, his face plastered in a smile that made my skin crawl. His muddy eyes were stroking up and down my body, and I shuddered where his gaze touched, as though he had left a trail of slime wherever he looked.

  Should I play stupid? I thought. The alcohol was making it hard for me to make good decisions, and I realized that I didn’t really have to play stupid seeing as how I was stupid for stepping into the lion’s den and drinking poison of my own free will.

  Yeah. That was pretty fucking stupid. Might as well embrace it.

  “This, uh...I guess this isn’t the bathroom,” I said after a long moment. My mind was racing ahead, trying to figure out exactly how much danger I was in, exactly how fucked I was, and all I could keep coming back to was: so very very fucked.

  I hadn’t heard the door open and close over the sounds from the liv
ing room and the noise of the television set and, of course, Arturo’s babbling. Why hadn’t I locked the door? I should have locked the door...

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” Yago Reyes said suddenly, and I jumped at the sound of his voice, low but sharp, like the crack of a whip.

  There was really only one way I could answer that. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “Good,” he replied. “So you know that I’m going to have to think up a suitable punishment for you.”

  Punishment? Jesus. Before I could stop myself I blurted out, “You’re not my dad!” It was probably the worst comeback line in the history of banter, but I couldn’t help it. My brain was too preoccupied with other things.

  Other things like: what is he going to do with me? And: how can I get away?

  I’d known in coming here that the sort of money they were extorting from Manny was sleep with the fishes money, but I had brushed away that knowledge. I didn’t need to worry about that because I’d had a plan. I was going to follow it and everything would have been just fine if I’d stuck to it.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  I mean, given a certain amount of luck, it could have...

  Shit. Who was I kidding? It had been stupid to come here and now I’d veered off course and had landed in dangerous waters. Here be dragons.

  There were no plans for this sort of thing. No plans for the complete and utter dissolution of the previous plan. I was paddling blind through shark infested waters, and there was nothing left for me to do but improvise, just like Manny would.

  “What kind of punishment?” I asked. I tried to stand up taller, so that he wouldn’t know I was starting to shake with adrenaline.

  His wicked smile widened. “Oh,” he said, “I don’t know. I suppose I could kill you. Or kidnap you. Sell you to someone who wants a pretty white woman to do whatever he wants...”

  My blood was curdling in my veins. “You don’t mean that,” I said, but my words were weak.

  Of course he would. I knew he would. I’d seen the worst of Hollywood walking through the doors of our firm, the worst people grasping and clawing at whatever money they could take. Horrible human beings who clamped onto the wallets of their vulnerable relatives and sucked the money out, like butt-vampires.

  And he was telling me these things. Which meant that he thought he well and truly had the upper hand. Yago Reyes truly thought he had the resources to make me disappear—and who was to say he didn’t?

  “There are people who know where I am,” I blurted. “You can’t kill me.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not. But you would fetch a nice price. But only if you’re good at sucking cock or taking it up the ass.” He tilted his head and my stomach turned over, encouraging me to vomit up every last drop of my drinks. “Maybe I should try you out...” he mused.

  I gagged at the thought. “Fuck you. I won’t let you. Let me go right fucking now.”

  He grinned. “No.”

  Oh god. Oh god, oh god. He really wasn’t going to let me go. He wasn’t fucking around. I had to get out of here. I had to escape somehow. But he was right in front of me, between the footboard and the wall, and though he was shorter than Manny he was much burlier than I was. I could never overpower him on my own.

  Then I sucked air through my teeth. “This is stupid,” I said. “I have a witness.” And I pointed to where Arturo Reyes slept in the bed.

  Yago threw back his head and laughed. “Do you now? You didn’t notice anything...odd about him? You’ve been back here for an awfully long time, bonita. I know you spoke to him.”

  Violently I shook my head, hoping my ignorance might save me. “He only speaks in Spanish. I don’t understand Spanish! I didn’t understand a word he told me!” My breath was picking up, my fight or flight reflexes kicking in. There was a trembling in my legs, a shaking that I couldn’t stop. I was going to have to do something, and I had no idea what.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Yago said. “He knows English perfectly well, but he’s managed to forget how to speak it. The price of drinking too much and growing old.” He shrugged. “It happens. But now that you know he isn’t lucid, I’m going to have to do something about you, or you’ll ruin the nice set-up I have going. You’ll run off to Manny and tell him all about how his uncle could never stand up to the court’s scrutiny, and then where would I be? You are a problem now...but luckily I know plenty of people on this island who know all about solutions.”

  His face grew thoughtful as he tilted his head. “Your cell phone,” he said abruptly. “Give it to me.”

  I almost told him I didn’t have one, but then I remembered that I’d been texting Sonya all afternoon. And of course he’d been watching. Lips thinning, I opened my purse and dipped my hand inside, searching for its smooth polymer shell.

  My fingers brushed over plastic baggies instead.

  The drugs.

  I’d forgotten them, briefly, and a flare of hope ignited in my chest. They were something...right? An asset of sorts, and I needed all the assets I could get right now. There had to be something I could do with them to get me out of this situation, right?

  Sell them? No, not sell them to Yago, of course. Not even give them to him, because if he knew I had them he’d take them anyway. Think, Rose, think.

  I found my cell phone partially buried under a cheap baggie of white powder, twisted and closed with a twist tie and marked only with an “H.” Heroin. Underneath was meth and coke...Maybe I could get him high and then escape? That could work, right?

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Yago took a step forward. “Your phone,” he said. “Give it to me.”

  Swallowing hard, I hesitated for one second more before pulling it out of my purse and handing it over. When he took it from me, his fingers brushed against mine, and they were hot and slightly damp. I didn’t even try to hide my revulsion as I shied away.

  His gaze now was, if anything, even more intense as he watched me take a step back. Unable to stop myself, I glanced around, looking for escape routes, but there were none unless I wanted to cut myself to ribbons leaping through the window.

  Yago stepped toward me, and I realized, suddenly, that he was going to grab me, here, now.

  “What are you doing?” I said. I couldn’t help myself. It just came out, my incredulity my shield against the horror of the situation. “If you come one step closer I’ll scream!”

  “You might,” he said. He tossed my cell phone over his shoulder and I winced when it landed in some pile of unwashed clothes. “But the door is locked. I wonder who will win the race? Will my drunk brothers in the living room hear your cries and knock down the door in time? Or will I get my cock inside that tight little cunt? I wonder which will happen first...?” Then he reached down and rubbed the heel of his palm over his crotch, and to my utter shock and horror I realized that he had an enormous erection.

  He was crazy. Utterly, completely crazy. There was no way he could make me disappear...could he? No way he could just kill me and no one would know about it...could he? His intentions were abundantly clear. I had to get out of here. Frantically I grasped for something to keep him talking, to give me time to think, to plan, to think, dammit!

  “You’re not going to rape me in here...” I said.

  His smile curved more. “And why not?”

  My eyes darted to the bed. “Well, your father’s right there...why would you want to do something like that in front of him?”

  He snorted, and it was a wet and disgusting sound. “My father,” he said with scorn, “hasn’t been able to hold his own dick for years. He won’t know what’s happening, and even if he did, I doubt he would care. If he knew you were Manny’s little fuck-toy, he’d cheer me on.”

  My heart hurt. “Why?” I said. “Why does he hate Manny so much? Why do you?”

  “Oh, I don’t hate him,” Yago said. “I just want his money.”

  Somehow that was even worse. At least if he had hated his cousin, Manny would have
mattered to him.

  My hands tightened around my purse straps as I took a step back, away from the advancing Yago, then another and another, until I felt the hard edge of a bedside table nudge my spine, and the ceramic sound of a wobbling lamp met my ears. My teeth clenched. Do something! I hollered at myself.

  And then there was no more time for planning, because Yago chose that moment to reach out and grab me, pulling me to him.

  I screamed. Of course I screamed. Bone-deep fear welled up in me and panic clouded my mind. I couldn’t let this happen to me. I just couldn’t.

  Yago’s hands were on my upper arms, his fingers digging into the flesh there, and I tried to twist away, jerking against his hold, but he was strong, as strong as Manny. His muddy eyes stared down at me, his ugly face filling my field of vision, becoming the whole world. The reek of cheap cologne clogged my nose and I wanted to vomit from the stink of it.

  “Let me go!” I screeched, lunging backwards against his grip.

  “Why should I?” he said. “You came here to fuck me, didn’t you? To keep your precious Emmanuel from going back to the crazy house? You can’t change your mind now...” His lips smashed forcefully into mine, and my teeth cut into the insides of my mouth with the pressure.

  My god, I thought. He’s insane. What was he going to do with me? What did he think was going to happen? Did he think he was going to rape me and I’d be quiet about it? Did he think he was going to murder me and get away with it? Did he truly think he could make me disappear? This house was my last known location, and any minute now Sonya would text me and I wouldn’t text back, and she’d know there was something wrong...Even if the drunk crowd of Manny’s cousins outside in the living room couldn’t hear my screams, Sonya and Carter would surely hear my silence.

  Rough fingers tangled in my hair, pulling strands back and stinging my delicate scalp. His other hand was roaming my body, touching me...touching me in places that he should never have been allowed to go. Places he didn’t deserve. My skin crawled at the feeling, but no matter how hard I struggled I couldn’t break his hold.