Payback

'Quienesustedtrabajandopara?'

'El me matarasiyo le digo!'

'Que le hacepensarqueva a vivir Si usted no”

'What y’all sayin’?' Bobby asked.

'I told him I’ll kill him if he doesn’t tell me.'

'Oh, that’s good, Nick. Really original,' Bobby said with a laugh.

'This is taking too fuckin’ long,' Mike said. 'Nick, hold his arm.' Nick grabbed Julio’s arm and Mike shot him in the hand. Julio screamed and cursed in Spanish.

'Where the fuck is my wife?' Mike shouted.

'Dondeesta la mujerqueustedrapto?' Nick demanded.

'Yo no se!' Julio screamed.

Mike shot him again, this time in the kneecap. 'Where the fuck is she?' Mike yelled.

'Don’t you see these boys ain’t playing with you?' Bobby said to Julio. 'I know you understand what I’m saying to you, and I know you understand this,' he said and shot Julio in his other kneecap. Once again, Julio screamed and did some more cursing in Spanish.

'Dondeesta la mujerqueustedrapto?' Nick asked him again.

'Yo no sedonde, pero Sal la tomaron a Nueva York.'

'He says he doesn’t know where, but Sal took her to New York.'

Mike took his foot off Julio’s stomach and started to walk away. 'Bobby.'

'Say goodnight, Gracie.' Bobby raised his gun and shot Julio twice in the head.

Mike turned to Nick, 'So, Mister I-speak-Spanish-French-Italian-Japanese-several-Arab-dialects-and-a-little- German, can you pilot this ship?'

Both Nick and Bobby laughed. 'Carver 404, twin Mercruiser engine; cruising speed, seventeen knots; max speed, twenty-five knots. Yeah, Black, I can pilot the ship.'

'Good. Take us out to sea so we can dump these bodies,' Mike said. 'We’ll take care of things down here.'

While Nick went on deck to take the ship out to sea, Mike and Bobby cleaned the room of blood and wiped down any area that might have their fingerprints, just in case the doctor decided to report what he had been involved in that night to the police.

Once they were finished cleaning, Bobby came up on deck and sat down next to Nick. 'I’m gonna learn how to sail one of these things so next time I can be up here chillin’, enjoying the night air, and you can be the cleaner.'

Nick laughed. 'It ain’t that hard, Bobby. You want me to show you?'

'Nah, not tonight,' Bobby replied as he yawned and stretched. 'You know we ain’t sleepin’ no time soon, right?'

Nick nodded his head slowly then turned to Bobby. Despite what Bobby said about the shit being over, there was something Nick felt he had to get off his chest.

'Look, Bobby, I’m sorry.'

'For what? ’Cause I can’t sail this ship?' Bobby joked.

'No, about Camille.'

'Listen, Nick, I can’t be mad at you for fuckin’ her when she set the pussy out for you. She was a ho, and I shouldn’t have gotten so strung out on her. I mean, shit, the bitch fucked Freeze and Mike then she fucked me, throw the pussy at you from the first time she saw you, and she wanted to fuck Wanda. And those are just the ones we know about.'

'I didn’t know that until I read that journal she was keeping,' Nick said and laughed. 'You’re right. She was a ho.'

'It’s me who could be sayin’ sorry to you. I should have never pulled my gun on you. I’ve regretted that shit every day since. I should have never let a woman, any woman, come between us. You’re like my brother, Nick, so let’s just put that shit behind us. Cool?' Bobby stood up and extended his hand.

'Cool,' Nick said and accepted his hand.

Mike came up on deck and joined Bobby and Nick. 'How far out are we?'

'About ten miles,' Nick responded.

'That’s far enough. Come on, Bobby.' Mike and Bobby carried the bodies up on deck. They weighted the bodies down with whatever they could find and tossed them overboard. Once they were done, Nick turned the ship around and headed back to the dock.

Chapter Six

Bobby got behind the wheel and started the car. They went to check out the address of the woman who owned the boat, but the house was in darkness.

'Where to now, Mike? Back to the airport?' Bobby asked.

'Not yet.'

'Where you wanna go then?'

'Let’s go see Hector. He hangs at a club called La Covacha. It’s on Twenty-fifth Street.'

'Hector?' Nick questioned. 'Hector Villanueva?'

Mike nodded.

'I remember that guy,' Nick said.

Back in the day, Hector Villanueva used to buy from Andre Hammond, who controlled most of the drug traffic in the area. Mike worked for Andre as enforcer, collector and at times, his personal bodyguard. Even though he did business with them, Andre hated Puerto Ricans, so he was killin’ Hector on price. Mike did Hector a favor and introduced him to Angelo Collette. Angelo and Mike were in the same homeroom class in high school. Back in the day when they were both freelancing, they did a few jobs together. They robbed a few jewelry stores, took down a payroll or two. Now, Angelo was a very important man. After Mike introduced Hector to him, Hector started buying his product from Angelo at a better price than Andre had been giving him.

Mike was forced to call in the favor when Shy had business with Hector and he was being tough on the negotiations. Mike was able to get Hector to do business with Shy. At that point, Hector considered their business together concluded, but he and Mike had something else more personal in common.

'You think Hector has something to do with this mess?' Bobby asked and glanced over at Nick.

'Not really,' Mike replied casually. 'But you never know.'

'Yeah, right.' Bobby laughed. 'You just wanna fuck with Hector, see if you can go up in Nina while we’re down here, don’t you, Mike?'

'I remember Nina,' Nick said. 'That was one beautiful woman. Seeing her would be enough reason for me to go fuck with Hector.'

'No, I just wanna ask him some questions.'

As Bobby drove off, Nick thought about the years he had missed. He glanced in the backseat at Mike and then over at Bobby. He was glad to be able to close the door on that part of his life, after all these years, to finally say that he was sorry to Bobby. Maybe now he could take Shy’s advice and forgive himself for betraying Bobby and fucking Camille. Even if she was a ho who was fuckin’ everybody.

It was 2:30 in the morning when Bobby pulled up in front of La Covacha, one of the most popular spots for Latin music in Miami. Once they were inside, Bobby went one way while Nick and Mike went another.

'Nice place,' Nick said as they wandered around the club looking for Hector.

'Yeah, it is a nice club. It almost burned down in the mid-nineties,' Mike said over the music. They went out to the open-air part of the club, which was under a thatched roof.

'How you know so much about this place?'

'I came here few times with Nina before I knew she was married to Hector.' Mike paused. 'She really liked this place.'