hands on his wound. “Won’t it be easier if Vic and I are gone before they show up?”
Leticia thought if over for a second, then said, “What’s
“I take Vic and go, and you and I will see each other back at the hotel.”
“Can you guarantee that she won’t tell anyone about us?”
“Yes.”
“Then come get her.”
“I’ll be coming with a gun in my hand. I’d better not see one in anybody else’s. If I do, I’m going to shoot, and I’ll start with you.”
She laughed. “You’re sexy when you talk all rough and tough. No weapons in anyone’s hand, I promise. Just a couple friends standing by to make sure you don’t put
I cracked open the door to the stairwell. No bullets blazed up at me, so I crept on down.
By the time I got there, the door to a stockroom was open, and so was the one leading out into the public part of Rhonda’s store. I crossed the stockroom glancing this way and that, waiting for someone to pop out from behind the stacks of cardboard cartons. Nobody did. I started through the other door.
That was when I realized it might have been a whole lot smarter to demand that Leticia send Vic up the stairs to me. But I was stressed, and that can screw with your judgment. Or maybe Leticia had slipped a little persuasive magic past my guard. Either way, it was too late now.
The back of Rhonda’s store was an open area with long newspaper-covered tables where people could sit and do crafts. Painted plaster molds hung all around the walls. Most were religious-praying hands, Bibles open to the first verse of the Twenty-Third Psalm, the Virgin Mary-and painted sloppily in the bright crayon-box colors a little kid would pick. Rhonda made those herself while inhaling one Virginia Slim after another, trusting God to protect her from the Florida Clean Air Act. As a result, the smell in the air was a mix of cigarettes, paint, and potpourri.
Rhonda was sitting in her usual spot. She didn’t look good. Pushing three hundred pounds, with a brassy, spiky, brittle dye job that was usually black at the roots, and paint stains all over her meaty hands and smock, she never did. But now she was trembling, and her round face was sweaty and green, like she might throw up. She looked at me like she wasn’t a hundred percent sure who I was.
Raul was standing near her, and Leticia and two sopranos were along the walls. There could be a dozen more hiding in the aisles between the tall racks of arts-and-crafts supplies. I just had to hope not. Vic sat handcuffed to a wooden chair. Her face lit up when I came in.
Leticia waved a hand at her. “You see, she’s all right.”
“Get the cuffs off her,” I said, aiming the Smith and Wesson at Leticia. Then I noticed a faint whine in the air. Maybe something in the AC, or noise outside on the street.
One of the sopranos pulled a key out of his pocket and dropped to one knee beside Vic. The whine kept whining.
I glanced at Raul. “Pablo’s shot in the stomach. You should help him.”
The eyes widened in Raul’s ugly, pimple-dotted face. He turned toward the stockroom door.
“Please wait,” Leticia said. “I need you here just a tiny bit longer.”
“Right,” said Raul. “Sorry.” He turned back around.
“You can let him go,” I told Leticia. “I really don’t want to kill you.”
She shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”
I realized the soprano in charge of getting the cuffs off Vic was taking his time about it. I started to tell him to hurry up, and then, although that little background noise still seemed as faint as ever, it suddenly spooked me in a way it hadn’t before.
I visualized the Thunderbird. The sound jumped, except that really, it had been loud all along. It was just that magic had kept me from hearing it that way.
There was another soprano near me, and he was singing up a storm. I spotted him out of the corner of my eye at the same instant that I really heard him. I felt the charge of mojo in his voice, too, like an itch inside my ears.
I guessed his song hadn’t made him
When he popped into view, it startled me, and I may have hesitated for a split second before following through on Plan A. At any rate, by the time I fired, Leticia was already diving out of her chair onto the floor, and the love monkeys were scrambling to put themselves between her and me. I didn’t hit her or anyone.
Vic screamed. Then Mr. Invisible grabbed my arm and jerked it sideways so the automatic wasn’t threatening anybody. I used the palm of my other hand to break his nose, then wrenched myself free.
He took a swing at me, and I jumped out of range. And bumped into the wall. Something hard and heavy slammed down on my head, then crashed to pieces on the floor. It was a plaster Jesus. I’d jolted Him off his hook.
And He’d gotten even by knocking me slow and stupid for a couple seconds. Seconds I didn’t have to spare. Before I could get my shit together, the sopranos were all over me, holding me while Raul hammered punches into my ribs and guts. He kept it up until Mr. Invisible twisted the Smith and Wesson out of my fingers.
Then, standing up, Leticia said, “That’s enough. Search him.”
Raul did, and even a hypnotized bulked-up gorilla couldn’t miss the Baby Glock when it was right there in my pocket. Both guns ended up on one of the tables beside a glass jar full of paintbrushes.
“Good,” Leticia purred. “Now Billy and I can have a
Leticia got right up close to me. Close enough for me to smell her perfume and feel the cool brush of her breath. “I know I said I like it rough,” she said, “but actually shooting at me was a little much.” She smiled. “I guess we should have had a safe word.”
By that time, the pain from the beating had faded a little, and I could wheeze out some words. “You win. I won’t go back to the hotel.”
“Oh, of course you will,” she said. “But from now on, you’ll play to help me.”
“Fine. Just don’t hurt Vic.”
“Oh, Vic, Vic, Vic! I think you need a more positive motivation. I’d like for us to be partners and friends, not just for the length of the tournament but forever.”
I realized she was talking about turning me into a slave.
She laughed at whatever it was that came into my face. “I promise, you’ll like it, and we don’t even need another drop of your blood. There are better ways.”
She shifted in even closer, so that the whole length of her body was touching mine, and moved a little to the side. She ran the tip of her tongue around the inside of my ear, then gently sucked and nibbled at the lobe. And my God, it felt good. It didn’t even matter that I’d just taken a beating, or that I understood she was trying to cripple my mind. I started drowning in it right away.
The sopranos and Raul stared at us, fascinated, wanting what I was getting, but not pissed off about it. Apparently the hex they were under kept them from being-or at least acting-jealous, no matter what-or who-the boss lady did.
Not that I was giving a lot of thought to their reaction. Like I said, what she was doing felt too good.
In between licks and nips, she told me she loved me, and whispered all the dirty, wonderful things she wanted me to do to me, and for me to do to her. I could have it all, if only I’d love her back.
A part of me was trying to. More than that, to adore her and go down on its knees to her like she really was some kind of goddess. I still knew she’d tried to drive me insane and kill me, that she was trying to break me now, but with every moment, it got tougher to remember what any of that meant or why it mattered.
I called up the Thunderbird. I looked past Leticia to Vic’s raw, puffy tear-streaked face. Both things helped, but I was only putting off the inevitable. Leticia was still going to take control of me.
We were just about there when I made the only move I could think of. I pictured the silver bird one last time. But instead of imagining it hanging like a shield between Leticia and me, I threw it on top of Rhonda.
I figured Leticia’s mojo worked best on people who liked girls. And I’d always had a hunch that Rhonda fell in that category, but maybe not. Maybe she didn’t like anybody. Maybe she got off rolling around in money. At any
