“You’re wrong about that, Pops. I’m nothing like you.”
Pepé smiled through blood and broken teeth. “I say we just alike, white boy. So go ahead and do it. Pull the trigger. I ain’t scared to die. I’ll catch up with your white ass in the next life. You can believe that.”
“So it’s fair to say you don’t want to tell me anything about Angel?”
“Who?”
“The girl in the picture. You named her Angel.”
“Right, right, Angel. That’s the name I have for my dick. The one I made your mother suck on before I—”
Holly swung the gun at Pepé again. Harder this time. Pepé’s neck twisted and he slumped down into the seat. Holly grabbed his hair and yanked him back up. The retired gangbanger drooled blood down his chin and the front of his shirt.
“Errgg . . . just do it . . .” he said through a broken mouth.
“Not yet, Pepé. There’s someone I want you to talk to.” Holly let go of the gangster’s hair and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped in a number and held the phone to his ear. When someone answered, he put the phone on speaker and laid it on the table next to the picture. A child’s voice came from the phone in frantic Spanish. All the attitude melted from Pepé’s face, replaced by panic. He yelled back at the phone in Spanish. Holly tapped the phone and ended the call. “Carlos is your sister’s kid, right? He’s the reason you got out of the game and relocated here in Titty City. He’s a cute kid. What is he . . . nine?”
Pepé sneered at Holly. “I’ll fucking kill you, white boy.”
“No, Pepé, you won’t. But if you tell me what I want to know, I won’t let my friend hold your nephew underwater in a motel bathtub.”
Pepé struggled to get up and make a run at Holly. Holly easily knocked him back down.
He had nothing left but to beg. “Please don’t hurt that boy,” Pepé said. “It would kill my sister. He is all she has.”
“Then talk to me. Just a conversation, then I call my friend and everyone goes home happy.”
Pepé slumped back down, defeated. He looked at the picture on the table. “I don’t know her, man. I ran a lot of girls. It was a long time ago.”
“Look real hard. She might have had blond hair then. She got her face cut up real bad.”
Pepé leaned down closer to look at the picture again, then looked at Holly. “Yeah, I remember her now. Angel. What about her?”
“You remember the night she got cut?”
“Yeah, some john did it. Motherfucker cut her up real good. I sent her packing. She wasn’t any use to me no more. But I didn’t do that shit to her, man. I helped her. I got her fixed up after that shit happened.”
“Who was the john?”
“I don’t know, man, I didn’t keep records of that shit.”
Holly leaned back on the fridge. “Why didn’t you retaliate? Do you normally let johns affect your money like that?”
“Hell, no. I tried, but that dude was protected.” Pepé rested his forehead in his hands.
“Protected by who?”
Pepé was clearly done holding back. “The Englishman.”
“I need a real name, Pepé.”
Pepé just sat there, holding his head. Holly tapped the barrel of his gun on the table. “Think about little Carlos,” he said.
Pepé looked up. “His name is Wilcombe. Oscar Wilcombe.”
“Who’s he?”
“I don’t know the motherfucker,” Pepé said. “He just a rich white dude that threw me a lot of business. He was always using my girls for parties. Entertaining other rich white dudes. The dude that cut up your girl was a VIP for Wilcombe.”
“Wilcombe.” Holly let the name roll around on his tongue. “Did Wilcombe make it right?”
“What you mean, man? I told you what happened. Call your boy off my nephew.”
“I mean, did he pay you for the damage?”
“I don’t remember, homes.”
“Yes, you do. Did he pay you or not?”
“Shit, man, yeah. Yeah. He paid me twenty-five bills.”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars to write it off? You let the john skate for twenty-five hundred bucks?”
“Yeah, man. It was business. That’s all. Now call your boy. Let my nephew go.”
“I’ll ask you one more time: What was the john’s name?”
“I told you, I don’t remember.”
“No, you didn’t. You said you didn’t know who he was. Now you’re saying you don’t remember. There’s a difference.”
“What the fuck, man. It was a long time ago. Just make the call.”
“No. Not yet. Something still doesn’t add up. If this Wilcombe only paid you two and a half grand to walk away, then there’s more to the story. That kind of money would cover one of your bottom bitches, maybe, but not someone like this.” Holly tapped the barrel of the Glock on the photo of his mother. “This one would have cleared that much in a few weeks. She was an earner, fresh off the bus. You hadn’t even begun to spin her out when some asshole in a motel cuts into your profits and gets to walk away for under three grand? No way. Why did you let this Englishman off so cheap?”