It was the strangest thing. In the middle of a loud, rambunctious game of darts with guys named Tuzigoot and Duji at The Bum Steer, I suddenly found myself walking out the side door and up some metal steps to the next floor.
I was like a man possessed by an alien overlord. Must…walk…up steps…And I swear on my mother’s grave, I did not remember that up there was the apartment of Pippa Lofting, WITSEC witness for the prosecution.
Duji and Tuzigoot seemed to know it, though. I was wondering why all the catcalls. “Hey, Fox! Nail her for me too!” “You go get her, you foxy bastard!” “Give her a moustache ride!” That last was from Wolf Glaser. I suspected him of having many more bad euphemisms up his sleeve. He was happy because Tracy had been hanging onto his arm for a few days now since hooking up at the outdoor range. The bowl-headed Tobias was nowhere to be seen.
But once I was in the upstairs hallway, I saw a stranger at her door. I hung back, peering around the corner at the guy. His handsome face and bearing stuck a cold knife into my gut. I didn’t identify the feeling as jealousy until later. Who was this fucking guy? As a federal witness, she really shouldn’t be talking to anyone. Maybe he lived in the same building.
“Okay, I’ll check back with you in a week or so,” said the guy, turning to leave.
“Sounds good, Randy,” she said.
I took the stairs two at a time, then straddled my scoot in the parking lot. The guy loped—yes, he actually loped, he was that leggy and graceful, like a runway model—to some bunkmobile of a Toyota. Randy. His asinine name matched his idiotic car, and my sicario soul threw daggers into the side of his head as he drove off.
It was only then I realized I was jealous. I had one makeout session with a girl, and I was jealous? Of some guy named Randy? I never wanted a hookup, and certainly not with a mark. I could somehow squirm out of killing her without making myself look too bad, but a fling? What the fuck was wrong with me? I had advised her to create her own story. Well apparently I was busy creating mine without the consent of my own ego.
Pippa’s impish nose got to me, I told myself. The fact that we’d both adopted literary surnames must mean something—or nothing. I liked that, although she should have been laying low and keeping a low profile, the sassy girl had taken the bull by the horns and gotten a job more to her scientific liking. Her Texas drawl, as though she had marbles in her mouth, got to me. She was a strong, brash woman who somehow also needed my protection.
And I was supposed to kill her.
I knew I should just select one of the Bone Lickers, “sweetbutts” who hung around The Bum Steer hoping to have their ego boosted by being reamed by a biker. I got off my scoot to go back inside and grab Wolf, tell him we needed to do some more surveilling around the Ochoa ranch. But my phone chimed with a call I was required to answer.
Ortelio Jones.
“Ese, Fox!” He was either high or had just made a shit ton of money. “Just checking in. Want to see how the tuxedo rental business is going. órale!”
I had a story all prepared. “I haven’t been able to find her, but meanwhile I’ve been given an assignment by a powerful motorcycle club up here. It involves the Ochoas.” I knew that would sidetrack Jones.
“As in Ruben Ochoa? Qué cabrón!”
“The one and the same. We’ve got eyes on them, but if you want me to hit a couple, it’ll take a few days because their security is very tight.”
Ortelio Jones wasn’t so full of chuckles anymore. He seethed, “Si. I want you to hit that gilipollas Ruben Ochoa. And his pinche guey son Abel too. I’ll text you some photos so you get the right guys.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I had to grin mechanically and nod at Tuzigoot and a singer named Russ Gollywow, exiting the club to get on their scoots.
“OK, done. Now I want you to keep looking for that slut whore Flavia Brooks. How many tuxedo rental businesses can there be?”
“Got to go.” I thumbed the red hangup button. It was common in our trade to hang up like that. Other work sometimes snuck up on you, and you had to stop talking immediately.
I sighed deeply. I’d bought a little more time, and could possibly earn more stripes if I hit those Ochoas. Do both Jones and The Bare Bones a favor. But eventually Jones would come back to the little problem of the mouthy Flavia Brooks who had dared to squeal on a cartel she’d somehow become involved with. I was getting drawn in by Pippa Lofting’s story. I always said “it’s impossible to hate anyone whose story you know.” I wanted to know how she’d gotten mixed up with the Joneses making meth in Corpus Christi. Were they holding something over her head? Her sister’s safety, maybe? That was their method.
“Hey! Fox! Are you coming with us on the Winnemucca run day after tomorrow?” yelled Tuzigoot, about to start his engine.