Everybody Pays (35 page)

“I want to go.”

“Yeah! Like I said—”

“I want to go to this Quitasol place,” the woman said. “It’s
big
money. Much bigger than this.”

The man reached over lazily and slapped her face. Hard. “You forgetting who’s running this show, bitch? Are you?” he demanded, slapping her again. “Remember what that coat hanger felt like?” he asked, his soft voice throbbing with threat.

“No, Maurice. Don’t do that! Okay. Whatever you say. I’ll go right over and . . .”

“You
are
a stupid fucking bitch,” the man said disgustedly. “You think they just gonna hand over that much cash? Now, we get some kinda ‘credit’ thing. So first we need a new address. For them to mail it to, see? Now go take a shower. Your fat ass is going back out on the stroll tonight. Man said you not leaving for another ten days or so, plenty of time to build up an even bigger stake. I’m doing you a favor, bitch. They could put whatever they slipped in my drink that first time they come here in yours too. And then you
never
come back.”

The woman turned and meekly walked away, in the direction of the bathroom.

A little past ten that evening, the woman, now dressed in a tiny red spandex skirt and a halter top, stepped into a phone booth and dialed a number in area code 312.

“He’s not gonna—”

“It’ll be okay,” the voice interrupted her. “Just finish your shift and come back whenever you usually do.”

“He always picks me up at—”

“Not tonight, he won’t be.”

The man Tanya was speaking to folded the cellular phone closed. He turned to the huge man seated next to him. “This call-forwarding is a great invention,” he said. “Looks like her pimp doesn’t want her to travel.”

“He’s still in there,” the huge man squeaked, looking across at an apartment building, “unless he went out the back way.”

“Walking? I don’t think so. His ride’s parked right over there. See it, on the far corner? The white Caddy with the—”

“Got it.”

“Be better if he doesn’t get found,” Cross said. “We don’t want the cops pulling her in for questioning.”

“None of the girls can even
see
you,” Cross told Tiger. “That’s all we need, have one of them start screaming.”

“Then how are you gonna explain me . . . ? Oh no, you’re not, pal! If you think—”

“Will you relax? Nobody expects you to turn tricks. And it’s legit, anyway. I mean, we deliver the girls to the house, we provide the security, just like Jorge set up. And we
stay
open. Twenty-four/seven, like we promised. So we gotta live on the premises. And have someone at the door. All the time. You just stay upstairs, nobody has to see you at all. Not until it won’t matter. Fair enough?

“I . . . guess.”

“You fly in direct. We got nobody on the ground. The
independistas,
they don’t exactly trust us, okay? Only reason I think they’ll do what they said is because it’d look better for them if they pulled it off all by themselves, see? So you just take a cab to the hotel, like you’re a tourist on vacation. It’s only about a half-mile to where we’ll be, and you already have pictures of it
and
the address. These communicators will work as long as the batteries hold out. Just buzz when you’re coming in and we’ll have the front cleared.”

“I should get there . . . when?”

“We’ll already be set up for two, three days by the time you touch down. Then it all comes down to timing. Buddha can’t move until they got the pad ready for him. And as soon as they do, everything jumps. No margins.”

“You really think it’ll work?” she asked.

“Which part?”

“Getting her out?”

“I make it eighty-twenty against,” Cross said. “But you can flip those odds when it comes to us.”

Fal walked the long, narrow strip end to end, his beloved Bedeaux-built Winchester .300 Magnum on a sling over his shoulder, heavy barrel down, eyes sweeping the ground. Ace and Princess followed behind—Ace with his machete, Princess with a thickly packed duffel bag. Every few yards, Falcon would point at a crevice in the rock, nod approval. Princess would beam like a child being praised for a perfect report card. Ace would pull a packet of putty-colored material wrapped in clear plastic from Princess’ duffel bag and tamp it carefully into each approved spot. It took them the better part of the day to finish.

Near midnight, at La Casa de Dolor, about three-quarters of a mile away from where the three men were laboring, a muffled
whoomp!
was heard. The ground shook briefly. Some of the guards joked about earthquakes, but the more knowledgeable ones surmised it was an aftershock from blasting at the huge mine about a dozen miles to the west. Everyone was aware that the regime was speeding the deeper excavations with dynamite.

The next morning, Falcon walked the course again. When he was finished, Princess began to remove the largest boulders. Some he carried; some he rolled. Ace blocked off sections of encroaching trees and dead limbs. After dark, Falcon carefully rationed out the gasoline. A long fuse was trailed into the pool of flammable liquid before the sun could reduce its effectiveness. The men stood back as Falcon struck a wooden match. The flame crackled all around the perimeter, but stopped at the firebreak Ace had cut behind it. Smoke rose into the night, almost undetectable. If anyone nearby caught a whiff, there were too many ways to explain such things.

“I can make that much in two weeks right here,” the bottle-blonde said, leaning back in her chair to take some of the pressure off her back. Every since the 48DD implants, her back hurt most of the time. But it was just like Reggie said—her prices got blown way up too.

“Lap-dancing? I don’t think so.”

“What are you, the IRS? Look, here’s the way it works, okay? I average two, three grand a night, cash money. Do the math.”

“I’m talking fifty grand
net,
” Cross said. “You pay for the space in that joint, right? And Reggie, he takes a piece . . . maybe a big piece.”

“Reggie’s my—”

“Whoever he is, he don’t know about your little gambling jones, right? He know you’re into Skillman for twenty large?”

“I can handle my own—”

“No, no, you can’t. See, I bought up your markers,” Cross said quietly. “And I want the money. Right now. Or I want you to take this deal.”

“
And
cancel the marker?”

“I
look
like a mark to you?”

“So what’re you telling me?”

“That you owe me twenty. That you do this two-week thing with us, you come back clean, thirty grand ahead. No way you’re gonna gamble down there. It’s all work, like I told you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll kick the habit.”

“Reggie . . .”

“You can have that part any way you want,” Cross said softly. “A little bonus. My man over there”—nodding in Rhino’s direction—“he can fix it so Reggie’s fine with anything. Or he can just fix Reggie. What’s it gonna—?”

“Just fix Reggie,” the woman said, reaching her hands up over her head and stretching backward to take off more of the pressure.

“Where did this come from?” the young woman asked the guard in formal, college-taught Spanish. She was thin to the point of emaciation, dull-brown hair hanging lifeless in limp strands.

“From a friend,” the guard said. “It is something like a giant vitamin, they said. It will give you strength.”

“And if I don’t take it?”

The guard shrugged.

The young woman dry-swallowed the pill. The guard watched her throat carefully. Then he approached, ordered her to open her mouth. He probed with a filthy finger, running his other hand up and down her throat. Then he sat down on the only bunk in the bare cell.

The young woman did not speak. But she looked a question at him.

“I am to stay here,” the guard told her. “With you. Until my shift is done. Then there will be another man. And another. That pill, it stays inside you, understand?”

“Yes. I won’t—”

“Don’t even talk. It does not matter.”

“I have to sleep sometime. Or sit down. I have to use the—”

“Use the floor,
puta.
For anything you want to do. We have to make sure it stays inside you.”