Текст книги "Last Breath"

Автор книги: Jessica Clare

Соавторы: Jen Frederick
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Turning back to our intruder, I see he’s nearly passed out. “Sugar, run to the kitchen and get me a pan full of water and toss it in his face. He needs to wake up.” I figure these tasks will help her stay focused. When she returns from the kitchen, her breathing is under control and she doesn’t even hit him with the pan. He sputters awake.

“She doesn’t like you much, and I don’t want anyone else but her. I mean, come on, where am I gonna find someone who swings a chair leg like Babe Ruth?”

He doesn’t get the reference or he’s out of it because he stares at me blankly. “The fact that you’re a hired guy kind of bothers me because Gomes isn’t the type to hire out. He’s stingy. And even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t have the kind of coin to maintain a little army full of mercenaries like you. Who hired you?”

The intruder doesn’t respond, simply looks away. He’s obviously had some training, and it’s kicking in now because he decides that’s all the information I’m getting.

“Should I hit him again?” Regan asks eagerly.

“Nah. I think he’s too scared of your Mr. Freeze to give any more information, and we gotta get going.”

She looks disappointed.

“You got anything in the bedroom? Why don’t you do a sweep and make sure we’re not leaving anything behind?”

She sets down the pan and the wooden stick with some reluctance but heads into the bedroom.

Once I see she’s out of eyesight, I turn and shoot the motherfucker in the head. Twice. The sound of the gunshots brings Regan racing into the living room. “What did you do?”

“Put him out of his misery.”

The dismay showing on her face makes my insides shrivel a bit. Of course having sex with her is only fantasyland for me because there’s no way this diamond wants my black hands on her. I strip the guy down and take everything out of his pockets, including a bag full of bullets, a knife strapped to his leg, and a thick white vellum card with my address on it. I run my hands along the hems of his pants and shirt, searching for any hidden pockets or secrets but find none. Dropping the clothes in the tub, I soak the entire pile with alcohol and then light it up.

“Why are you burning his clothes? Haven’t you left clues all over this place? You aren’t even wearing gloves.” She raises her hands. “Neither am I. Oh my god, am I going to jail for this?”

“No, you aren’t because no one knows you’re here, sweetheart. And I don’t care if anyone knows I’m here. I just want our late night friend to be a little harder to identify.”

In the living room, I toss a sheet over the dead man, as if the white cloth can somehow hide my sins. But all the bad deeds I’ve done have marked me with permanent ink. My soul is tattooed over with the faces of everyone I’ve killed. I like to tell myself that they’re all righteous kills. But the truth is that from the first life you take, you become a different person. And guys like me don’t deserve a woman like Regan, no matter how much I might want her. On that depressing thought, I grab both our bags. “Let’s go. We need to find a new base, and then we’ve got an appointment in Morro Dos Macacos.”

Eleven

Regan

“THE WAY I SEE IT, BABY DOLL, we have three big issues,” Daniel tells me as he hands a wad of cash to the taxi driver that drops us in the middle of a disgusting slum and speeds away.

I’m sure the nickname is to distract me from the fact that we’ve been dumped in the middle of hell. I still fall for the bait. “Baby doll? Are you for real?”

“Oh, I’m real.” He gives me a roguish grin and winks at me. “One hundred percent prime specimen.”

I roll my eyes and shoulder my backpack. Daniel’s been needling me ever since we left the apartment. I know he’s doing it on purpose. It’s obvious. Normally he’s understanding and gives me space, but right now he nudges me with his elbow and calls me names like “sugar pie” and “baby doll.” I guess he figures if I’m riled up and want to choke him, I won’t flip out and go into another crying jag.

He’s right, too. I have to admit that I’m still freaked out. I’m trying to hold it together, but tonight Daniel executed a man in the middle of his living room. I turned my back for two minutes, and boom! Boom! The man was shot twice in the head. Daniel didn’t even blink.

I hated the man, but I’m still shocked to my core. This is the third man that has died in the last two days, each effortlessly dispatched by Daniel, who makes it look as if he hasn’t broken a sweat. He’s a dangerous man behind all of his laughing grins and teasing names.

Weirdly enough, though, I trust him. If someone had to die, I believe it. I don’t think Daniel would kill anyone frivolously. He’s had lots of opportunities, especially when he saved me, but he tried talking his way in first. The gun is the last course of action.

That he’s had to pull out his gun so many times the last few nights tells me how much shit we’re in.

Daniel eyes the graffiti-decorated slums of Morro dos Macacos. “Home sweet shithole,” he says. “Stick close to me, baby doll. This is one place we do not want to get separated.”

“Enough with the ‘baby doll’,” I tell him but move a little closer. His arm goes around my waist, dragging me against him, and I’m about to protest until I see a few men lurking in the shadows nearby. All right, if I need to hang off of Daniel to make things look good, I will.

“So, where are we going?” I ask in my sultriest, sexiest voice. I try to give Daniel a heated glance in the hopes that it looks like we’re heading for a midnight rendezvous. I’m hoping no one stops to ask why the hell we’d be doing that here.

Daniel must’ve guessed the reason for my new attitude because he flashes me an appreciative look. His hand is still at my waist, but I know it’s resting on the gun he tucked under my shirt earlier. “I told you. It’s a surprise . . . but you’ve gotta be good.”

We pass by the men lurking in the shadows, and I do my best not to tense up. I play along instead, and trail a hand down the front of Daniel’s shirt. “Oh, I can be really good to you, baby.” Strangely enough, the urge to vomit at his touch is gone. I guess I got it all out of my system earlier.

“Damn,” Daniel says hoarsely, and I want to laugh at his expression. He looks as if the pretending’s getting a little too real for him. But I keep rubbing my hand on his chest, looking like a devoted, slutty girlfriend who can’t wait to get him home.

We pass by the men without incident, and Daniel’s arm loosens around my waist a few minutes later—a sign that the danger has passed, but our charade needs to continue. We walk a few blocks in the slums, which Daniel tells me are called favelas. They’re concrete cinderblock and rickety wooden houses all held together by garbage and spray-painted graffiti, and they pile on top of one another like cockroaches. I’m sure the rest of Brazil is pretty, but so far, all I’ve seen are slums.

“So,” I ask him as we walk, “you never did tell me the three problems?”

“Hmm?” He brushes a hand over mine absently, then pulls away as if remembering that I don’t like to be touched. Again, I’m surprised Daniel’s not setting off my puke trigger. Maybe our ugly little interlude this morning was cathartic, like a boil that needed to be lanced. It’s a gross mental image, but those are all I’ve got lately. “Oh, yeah. Three problems. One is that your sweet little ass has no papers. Two is that we can’t go to the embassy to get those papers for obvious reasons. And three is that pissant Gomes keeps pulling more guys out of the woodwork to go after you. Mr. Freeze wants you back and bad.”

“I don’t know why. I’m no one special.”

“Baby love, you are all kinds of special.”

“You are the worst at coming up with pet names.”

“It’s a talent of mine.” He grins at me and then gestures down the street. “There we go.”

“There we go, what?” I stare at the building and try not to panic. It honestly reminds me of the brothel. It’s a narrow three story red brick building. The windows have strings of laundry hanging out of them, and a nest of wires overhead shows the building has electricity. “Not in there, surely?”

“‘Fraid so,” Daniel says casually. “We’re going to hide under their noses for a few days. I’m going to pull a few connections, see what I can find out, and a partner is heading this way.”

He doesn’t look afraid of the shitty building, so I swallow my fear and let him lead me onward. I have a gun tucked into my pants, and I’m going to use every bullet before I let anyone drag me back into the brothel again.

We approach the building, and there’s music blasting from a nearby apartment. The door is wide open, and people are lounging inside the grimy hallway. I’m pretty sure someone is shooting up in the corner. It smells like piss, shit, and, of all things, wet dog. Daniel walks in with a smile and heads for the nearest man. “Pereya.” he asks, and from the tone of his voice, it’s a demand to see someone, not a question.

The man studies Daniel, his clean-cut looks, and glances at me. I sidle closer to Daniel, in case. Then he holds his hand out.

Daniel says something friendly in Portuguese, but he brushes his jacket back as he does so, revealing his gun. “Get me Pereya,” he says again. “Now.”

The man nods and disappears into the building.

A few moments later, another man comes out, all smiles. He’s wearing a Manchester United jersey, despite the fact that it’s a British team, and a baseball cap. He has a scraggly goatee that’s so long it’s been braided, and he grins at Daniel and throws a hand up. “My man.”

“Pereya. How’s it going?” They exchange an intricate handshake as if they were bosom buddies.

“Can’t complain, can’t complain. Got your stuff inside.” Pereya looks me up and down. “Sweet little honey.”

“She’s mine,” Daniel says casually, as if I’m not my own person. I want to protest, but Daniel’s arrogance brings safety so I’ll let him take the lead. He’s leaned closer to Pereya, asking, “The doc too?”

Pereya nods, touches the side of his nose with his thumb, and glances around.

“Yep,” Daniel says to the unspoken question.

“Come on, then.” He gestures to a couple of the men loitering in the doorway, and they shuffle outside. Bodyguards, perhaps. Pereya looks at Daniel and nods his head, acknowledging a back room.

Daniel grabs my hand and begins to head back, but Pereya shakes his head. “Just you, Hays. No chickies.”

Panic swirls, but Daniel gives my hand a squeeze and pulls me closer. He clearly doesn’t like that idea either. “You didn’t hear me, Pereya. I said she’s mine. She’s staying at my side. You got a problem with that?”

Pereya considers me and mutters something in Portuguese, then shrugs and leads us to the back room.

It’s surprisingly clean, the back room. There’s no windows, and the only light is a bare lightbulb that flickers overhead. Pereya lets us into the room, shuts the door behind us all, and then pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket. There’s a short wooden table in one corner of the room, and Pereya heads there. He drags it over to the side, revealing a trap door with a padlock on it, unlocks it, and flips it up. Under the floor, there are two military crates, also padlocked. He hops down into the crawlspace and opens the first crate. “What’s the order of the day, Hays?”

“I’m thinking a GPS tracker if you have one. Couple of semi automatics. More bullets. Maybe a nice grenade for shits and giggles.”

Pereya grunts and unlocks the case, revealing a veritable armory stored in the boxes. My eyes widen. Did we come here to get more guns? How many more do we need? Pereya digs through the stack of arms and pulls out another handgun. He offers it to Daniel, who inspects it with a clinical air.

The room’s quiet. Oppressively so. I lick my lips, nervous as Pereya drags gun after gun out of the case, along with boxes of bullets and cartridges.

Daniel looks over at me. “You want anything, baby doll?”

“For you to stop calling me baby doll,” I say in a sweet voice. Then I add, “Maybe a couple of knives.” I want to be armed to the teeth.

“You heard the lady,” Daniel says, and I catch a drawl in his voice. Southern, or that’s part of his act, too. “Got any knives?”

Pereya pulls out a couple of small knives in leather sheaths. “For your girlfriend. She can slide them in her boots.” He gives my ugly sandals a skeptical look.

“You got boots for her?” Daniel asks.

“Size seven,” I offer hopefully. I like the idea of getting boots and filling them with weapons. “Maybe some jeans, too. Size two.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Pereya says, tossing stuff into a pile at Daniel’s feet. “Give me until the morning.”

“Doc?” Daniel asks again.

“Soon,” Pereya answers.

“We also need a place to stay tonight.” Daniel says, pulling out a wad of money from his pocket and peeling bills off. “Though I think it goes without saying that no one saw us here.”

Pereya gives us a skeptical look, then shrugs again, as if he doesn’t care. “Got a room upstairs. I can toss my old lady out of it for the night, but it’ll cost ya.”

“Not a problem,” Daniel says smoothly, flipping more money out of his stash for Pereya.

I look around at this room. No windows. Only one door. And we’re close to the front of the building. I point at the floor. “We want this room.”

Pereya looks at me like I’m crazy. “Ain’t no bed in here, chickie.”

“Bring us blankets and pillows,” I tell him. “I like this room.” It’s true—I wouldn’t feel safe upstairs in a room full of windows. In this place, we can barricade ourselves for the night . . . and we’re close to the exit if we need to escape.

Daniel’s giving me a half smile, as if he’s wondering what I’m thinking, but he doesn’t argue. He looks over at Pereya, pulls out a few more bills and then offers them to the man. “Think you can set us up for the night?”

Pereya takes the money without even looking at the amount. He simply pockets it and begins to put his guns carefully back into their cases, locks them, and then shuts the trap door and padlocks it. “Be back in a bit with your bedding,” he tells us, leaving me and Daniel in the room.

WHEN PEREYA RETURNS HE BRINGS an older woman with kind eyes. She’s carrying a black bag.

“Hello, I’m—”

Daniel cuts her off. “No names.”

Pressing her lips together, she nods and opens the bag. “I’m going to take blood and urine samples. I can have your results back in an hour.”

I don’t know if I’m relieved or terrified to see the doctor. Both, I suppose. I’m afraid of what she’ll find swimming in my system after all the “clients” I’ve had. But . . . I also want to know. So I let her examine me thoroughly, not flinching when her touch becomes as invasive as any client’s. She asks me personal questions without judgment on her face and takes blood and urine. Daniel’s there the whole time, at my insistence. I don’t think I’d be comfortable with a stranger touching me if he wasn’t there. He keeps his face averted out of respect for me, though.

Then the doctor leaves to run tests, and I sit in the room, waiting, my arms wrapped around my torso as if I can hug out the fear tumbling through my body.

The call comes back quickly. Daniel listens, speaks a few words into the phone, and then hangs up. “All clear,” he tells me.

I want to collapse with relief. “Nothing?”

“Nothing. No STDs; no bun in the oven. You’re right as rain.”

I stare at him. Right as rain? I didn’t catch anything, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be “right” again. Still, I’m relieved beyond words that I’m not a walking stick of hepatitis. Small blessing, I suppose, that Freeze was such a hygiene freak.

“I told you that they used condoms. Even when I blew them.”

“Can’t believe Gomes sold you. What a stupid, greedy fuck. If I don’t get to him, Mr. Freeze will.” He sounds disgusted, as if he can’t believe the stupidity.

I slide to the floor, my knees feeling weak. I’m sitting close to a load of weapons at Daniel’s feet, and he’s casually picking through them as I watch. I glance around the room once more. “You sure this place is safe?”

“Not at all,” Daniel says. “But the devil you know, and all that.”

I know how that feels. “Good point.”

Daniel stuffs a few of the new guns into both of our bags. “So why do you like this room?”

“Two things: no windows and close to the front door.”

He grunts, not looking at me as he organizes his new stash of weapons. “So you’d rather be close to the front door than have a bed?”

“The way I look at it, everyone here is dangerous,” I say. “If I was in a zombie apocalypse and I wanted to be safe, I’d pick a room with no windows and close to the ground floor. You don’t want to be upstairs in case of an emergency.”

Then he looks at me, and his gaze is amused. “Zombie . . . apocalypse?”

“Yeah,” I say. “So? I like horror movies. They’re under-appreciated gems of filmography.”

Daniel shakes his head, grinning. He doesn’t say anything else because Pereya has returned with a sulky woman in tow. They give us several pillows, a few blankets, and some questionable-looking sheets. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve slept on worse recently. I take them from her and begin to make a bed in the corner of our little fortress room while Daniel and Pereya talk for a moment more. A bag of junk food and some sodas are exchanged.

Then, the door closes behind us, and Daniel throws the lock and pushes the squat wooden table in front of the door to make a clumsy barricade. He returns to my side and sits next to me on the makeshift pallet.

He nudges me with his elbow. “I wasn’t giving you shit back there,” he says. “It’s actually pretty smart to suggest we stay here. I was surprised, is all.”

I nudge him back with my elbow, a shadow of my playful old self returning at his compliment. “When in doubt, look to the zombie apocalypse.”

Daniel chuckles, and it turns into a yawn. I suddenly remember how tired he was before I started getting crazy on him. He’s exhausted, and I need him healthy and on his feet in case we have to mow down any other bad guys, get into gunfights, or whatever assassins do. “Why don’t you sleep?”

“I can take watch,” Daniel says. “I sleep light anyhow.”

“I can watch, too,” I tell him. “I have guns. And a knife. And apparently a grenade for shits and giggles.” I elbow him again playfully.

“You think you could shoot someone if they came through that door, sweetheart?” No more “baby doll” now. Daniel’s done teasing me into irritation. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“Sure,” I say blithely and pat one of the dirty pillows, inviting him to lay his head down there. “I’ll pretend that whoever comes through has been infected with a virus that turns them into a brains-eating monster.”

Still, he hesitates, clearly torn.

“There’s a crack under the door,” I say, pointing at it. It’s about an inch high. “I’m going to be watching that all night anyhow. And I’ll scream ‘Zombies!’ if I think there’s any trouble. All right?”

He rubs his face slowly, his eyes hollow. “All right. But if you get tired, wake me up.”

“Get some sleep,” I tell him. Strangely, being bossy to him is making me feel a bit more like my old self, too. Give a girl an ounce of power and all that. But I pat the bed again. “I’ll even tuck you in.”

“How can I resist that?” Daniel says and climbs into the bed fully dressed. Within two minutes, he’s asleep, despite the constant noise outside. There are people talking and walking around upstairs, and I tense at every creak of the boards. Daniel went to sleep with his hand on his gun, so I’m guessing he still doesn’t feel a hundred percent safe. But he’s got to sleep at some point.

I take my sandals off and pick up my gun, making sure the safety is on. Then I creep toward the door and lay down flat so I can watch through the crack underneath.

Twelve

Daniel

WHEN I WAKE UP FOUR HOURS later, I have a raging boner and an armful of warm woman. Regan has once again rolled over and plastered herself all over me. It’d be nice if it’s because she wants me, but her subconscious is probably screaming for her to hold on tight to the buoy in the water. I’ve got something to hold onto, sweetheart, my sleepy, subconscious self mumbles. Just like earlier, I slide out from under her, but this time she stirs and grips me harder, her knee sliding up my legs to rest under my balls, which are straining toward her flesh. A little rub, Danny boy, they beg.

I can’t give my package the good slap that it needs, and I’m a little afraid that if I even come close to touching it, my wood won’t go down until I find some place to jack off. Lusting after this girl is thirty kinds of wrong. If she had any idea about the thoughts that ran around in my monkey brain, she’d bash me across the face with the chair leg. And I’d let her.

Because I can’t stop thinking about how her plush lips form a perfect “O” when she’s thinking—or how her legs seem to be endless acres of smooth flesh. When we walked up the steep path to Pereya’s, my gaze wandered to her ass, the firm globes pressing against the fabric of the knit skirt as she climbed. I finally took the lead because I wasn’t going to be able to walk if I kept looking at her.

The puzzle of Mr. Freeze concerns me. He obviously wants Regan back, and Gomes was a greedy fuck for letting her out of his sight. Even for twenty-five grand. Sick people get fixated on things sometimes with no good explanation for it. In her late stages of Alzheimer’s, my Grandma would only drink out of a certain plastic cup. She’d throw a fit if someone offered her some other container. Apparently Regan was that plastic cup to Gomes’ rich patron.

Thinking about Regan being mistreated by Gomes and his pals is as deflating as a pin in a balloon, but I’m grateful. The last thing I need is for Regan to encounter the rod in my pants and then look at me for the rest of our time together like I’m one breath away from throwing her down. The last of my erection wanes away, and I’m left feeling awkward and anxious. Twin emotions I haven’t experienced since I was fourteen and about to take Marybeth’s virginity in the back of my Ford pickup. Even then I was more excited than anything.

I pull back her fingers that are wrapped around my waist, and she whimpers in her sleep. “Hey, sweetheart,” I say. This only causes her to snuggle closer, putting her nose and soft cheek in that angle between my shoulder and neck, fitting perfectly, as if I was made for her. And that erection I thought I’d killed off comes raging back. From a fucking nose rub. I swear to God, the minute I am done here, I’m going to find a willing woman at a bar in Dallas, and we are going to fuck until I’m so raw my dick is red for a week.

Needing her off of me, I use the nickname she hates the most and inject as much asshole into it as I can. “Baby doll, I’m all for a morning fondle, but I prefer the hand to the knee.” Then I lightly slap her butt for emphasis. She jumps off me like a cat doused in water.

“What was that all about?” she asks, brushing hair out of her eyes with one hand and rubbing the spot on her ass where I slapped her with the other.

My hand tingles from the contact with her butt. It wants to make contact again. I want to make contact with every part of her. Turning around I bend over to gather the blankets, using the housekeeping as an excuse to hide my erection. “Just waking you up, baby doll, and letting you know that I’m all up for a romp around the floor here, but I hope you don’t mind being on top. Ever since Afghanistan my knees are for shit.”

My back’s to her so I can’t see her face, but I assume she’s seething. At least she’s awake.

“Why do you say stuff like that?” she asks in a quiet voice which, shit, is not what I was going for. Now I’m feeling bad on top of crappy.

Holding the thin pillows and bedding in front of me, I face her. There’s a look of speculation in her eyes as if she’s trying to decode me. “I was concerned you might jack my manly bits into my throat, so I wanted to make sure we had a clean separation.”

“Nice.” Her nose—the one that fits perfectly into my neck—wrinkles up. I’m rank. Maybe I should’ve let her sniff me more because that would be enough to send any girl into a fit. I’ve got dirt, blood, and who knows what other bodily fluids from two dead men on my clothes, and I haven’t showered in…I count back. Three fucking days.

If I was with my team, we would’ve joked about the smell, saying that if you aren’t riper than a rotten peach then you haven’t been outside the wire long enough. I’ve gotten soft in the years since I’ve been out. Sleeping in a “Ranger grave” is common enough during deployment that blankets and pillows should be a luxury, but the services of a paid assassin pay pretty well and I’ve gotten used to feather beds and down comforters, not to mention hot showers.

I lay the bundle onto the wooden table and then stare down at Regan. My tired mouth speaks before my filter can catch up, “You are really fucking beautiful, you know?”

I’m grateful but surprised when she shakes her head and laughs disbelievingly. “You know my boyfriend Mike said I looked like a colt. All legs, no torso.”

“Shit-for-brains-Mike? The one who couldn’t give you an orgasm? You actually listen to what he says?”

Regan’s face falls. “I should’ve never told you that. You think I’m a weirdo.”

Leaning against the table, I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re the weirdo because he can’t give you an orgasm?” I don’t even tell her about the other stuff I know, like how he’d sleep through her masturbating right next to him. And how he hasn’t called, not even once, to find out where she is. Nick told me that he’d considered shooting Mike because he was taking up space in the universe that could have been given over to someone who actually gave a shit.

“No, because I told you all the stuff and…” she waves towards my crotch, “other stuff.”

I don’t need for her to notice my other stuff because it’s swelling in hopes that she pays real close attention to it. I need to get her out of sight and out of mind before I start telling her that I’m not going to be a tool that she uses to get off. What I’d like to say is that the next time my touches are going to be personal and when she gets wet, it’ll be because of my up close attentions.

Worried that she’s a distraction to me, I cast around for a place to stash her. In Morro Dos Macacos everyone is armed—from the residents to the police force that regularly marches through trying to clean up the slums so that Rio is respectable for the world stage. Regan could easily get hit by a stray bullet, which to my way of thinking would render this whole escapade worth about a Benjamin ripped in half. Meaning, less than nothing.

Mentally I check off the things we have to do. First, we need identification and passports for Regan or she is never leaving Rio. Second, we need to get to the airport and send Regan home. Third, I need to find the hacker. Fourth, I need to find my sister, and then the Hays siblings get on their own plane and return to their ranch and never, ever leave it again. But before all that I need to hustle up to the hill and meet my informant, the one that Pereya found that might have information about Naomi.

Running an agitated hand through my hair, I order her, “Stay here. Be right back.”

Upstairs, I find Pereya sleeping like an innocent next to his wife. My knife hand itches, and I place my palm against my ankle so I can feel the outline of the sheath against my hand. Pereya has sold me ammunition and given me a place to stay. I don’t need to threaten him with a knife across the throat. Not yet at least.

I give him a few alternating taps on the side of his face, and when I see his eyes pop open I cover his mouth. When the warm saliva and tongue hits my palm, I wonder why I don’t wear gloves more often. Resisting the urge to pull my hand away, I whisper in his ear, “Need one more thing from you before I leave.”

Pereya nods and I release him, swiping my hand across the fabric of my pants. A wet wipe will be in order as soon as Pereya gives up a source. “I need to know of a good paper maker.”

“Lots of them in the favela, but none that are good. You’ll have to go to Ipanema. See a mermao by the name of Luiz Soto. He can hook you up.” Pereya holds out his hand, and I slip him another hundred. It’s an expensive tip.

“So about the girl,” I begin to say, but he holds up his hands.

“No way.” He makes a shooing gesture with his fingers. “She needs to go. Take her down to Copa. No trouble there. There’s os homi by the Rio.”

“Pereya, I can’t leave Regan at the Rio by herself even if there is a police station next door. Let me leave her here.” I pull out more bills and start flicking through the stack. “How much?”

“How much for what?” Regan says behind me. I turn and the expression on her face saying I’ve betrayed her.

“I’m not leaving you behind,” I say, but my words are belied by my fat wad of cash. I feel more exposed here than if I were a john on a street corner with my pants around my ankles and the police headlights shining on the glossy wet of my dick that was polished by the mouth of the street vendor. Officer, I was not soliciting. I was taking a piss and my dick fell into this young lady’s mouth. All a misunderstanding.

The stricken look on her face says that I’ve struck a blow deep, harder than the guy I capped in the apartment we’d left. Cursing, I take her arm and drag her down the stairs, pretending to gain a little privacy. Pitching my voice low so that I can at least make it difficult for Pereya to hear our business, I tell her my plan. “We need to get papers, and out there,” I gesture over my shoulder toward the street, “you’re more likely to be endangered than here in Pereya’s home. People leave him alone on both sides because he’s got quality product. So he’s like the armory in Switzerland. You come in, take out what you need, and leave. It’s safer here than anywhere. You’re safe with his arsenal.”

She doesn’t hear one word I’ve said. “You’re leaving me behind,” she repeats.

“I’m not. I’m taking a detour, and then I’ll be back.”

“All those things you said earlier, they were to pacify me, right? Tell the little victim what she wants to hear.”