CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was on the floor, chin aching, two dull spears digging into my back, staring up at the wood beams and dull white plaster of my ceiling. The two men came in and spoke Spanish, and then the young girl departed, and the door was closed. The bigger of the two men, the one who had punched me, looked down at me. He had on a short leather jacket, white T-shirt, jeans, and a Boston Red Sox cap worn sideways. I had been generally aware for the past few years that the latest fashion trend was wearing caps backward, but when did this sideways trend start?
His thick neck was seemingly secured by a number of gold chains, and he had a thin, almost two-inch-wide beard that ran to his chin and from ear to ear. He rubbed at his hand and said some words in Spanish.
The other man came over to look down at me. He was dressed nearly the same—his T-shirt was blue and his baseball cap was for the long-maligned Chicago Cubs. His face was clean-shaven and it seemed each ear was fitted with a diamond stud.
“Yo,” he said, speaking with a faint trace of a Spanish accent. “What are you doing down there, man?”
“Looking up at my ceiling,” I said. “It was replastered a few months ago, and I’m seeing where a few spots were missed.”
He said something to his larger friend, and they both laughed, but I failed to see the humor in the situation. I was trying to recall where my weapons were, and I ran down the list in my mind: 9mm Beretta upstairs on my nightstand, 12-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun on a foam pad underneath my bed, and .32 Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol in a drawer in the kitchen.
Oh, and there was the stainless-steel Ruger .357 magnum revolver that had been seized some time ago by the Secret Service, and which they still hadn’t returned.
If I got out of this current predicament, perhaps I would write a stern letter to the Boston office of the Secret Service.
Perhaps.
The smaller man—smaller only in comparison to his massive friend—squatted down next to me and said, “Hey, for real. What are you doing down there?”
“Your friend put me here.”
“Not my friend, my cousin.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Missed the family resemblance.”
“You comfortable down there?”
“Not really.”
“Ramon!” he shouted, followed by a quick Spanish phrase—once upon a time I could read Russian and understand it spoken, if spoken by a five-year-old child and who was droopy and about to fall asleep, but that was the limit of my language skills—and Ramon came over and picked me up. I mean, he didn’t help me up, or drag me up off the floor by grabbing my arms.
No, he picked me up and put me down on the couch.
I let out a breath.
My back was still aching and my jaw was right there with me. Not-Ramon pulled up a chair and stared at me, and stared. “What’s that, running from your back?” he asked.
I twisted and saw both tubes were visible. “Drainage tubes,” I explained. “I had surgery and the tubes are draining out blood and fluid, going into those little plastic pouches.”
He nodded seriously. “Shit, yeah, I should have known that. A friend of mine, not a cousin, his name was Julius, he got shot in his junk, you know? Had this tube running out of his Johnson, draining blood, piss, and every other liquid imaginable.” He leaned forward, peered some more. “You get shot, bro?”
“No,” I said, now having an idea of who these two gents were. “Surgery. Cut out two tumors.”
He whistled. “That sucks. You gonna get that radiation, that chemo shit, make your hair fall out?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Uh-huh.” He rubbed his hands together. “Sorry, I was rude back there. The name’s Pepe.”
Neither of us offered each other a hand. “Oh, I thought the rude part was when Ramon slugged me.”
Pepe shrugged. “Wanted to get your attention, bro. Heard some old guy say that years back. When you get a stubborn mule and you wanna communicate with it, you start off by whacking it in the head with a baseball bat or something. I wanted your attention.”
“You certainly got it,” I said. “So what can I do for you?”
“I’m sure you can think of something … am I right?”
“Sorry, I’m not in the market for your little bluebird heroin.”
He grinned at that. “Our business plan sure is working, if an old guy like you knows our brand.”
“Why a bluebird? I thought a hawk or an eagle would be more appropriate. Bird of prey, something like that. Show how tough and rough you guys are.”
“No, no, no,” he said. “You got that shit all wrong. We’re not selling violence, man, we’re selling stuff to help you through the day, help you through the night. Bluebird of happiness, you know what I mean?”
“I guess I do now,” I said. “Tell me, Pepe, I’m enjoying this cross-cultural exchange we’ve got going on here, but what are you looking for?”
He smiled. “I think you know.”
“Felix Tinios.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Pepe said.
At the sound of Felix’s name, Ramon rumbled over to the couch and spoke loudly at me, face coloring. He looked like one of those trained Russian bears who never went beyond his first lesson on the tricycle because he tore off the head of his trainer.
Pepe spoke sharply and Ramon shut up. “Sorry ’bout that,” he said. “Ramon … he got something personal going on with that Felix guy.”
“I can see,” I said. “Well, if you were here about an hour or so ago, you would have met him, face-to-face.”
Pepe shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Not yet. You see, I don’t know much about the man. Can you help me with that?”
“For real?” I asked. “I thought you knew him pretty well, back the last time you and
