Muerte Con Carne (18 page)

I’m the man of the house. Me. And it’s up to me to take care of them.

His thoughts switched to Alma then. He touched his bandaged cheek and winced, squinted against the sun as he watched the officers pull the man from his car and pat him down.

The life in her belly couldn’t live, he knew that. He loved his sister, and he knew it would break her heart, but he had to do something and he had to do it quickly.

Tonight
, he thought.
Tonight I’ll scoop that fucker right out of her.

The officers forced the man to pop his trunk, both with their guns drawn.

Cristobal slid back into the driver’s seat, slapped the steering wheel one more time, then backed away.

His belly groaned.

He couldn’t wait for the dinnertime festivities. When El Gigante would defend his title.

***

“And what the hell happened to your leg?”

Felix eyed the bloody tattered fabric of his jeans. Hot pain sizzled in the puncture wounds on his leg. “A damn wild dog. Thing came out of nowhere and got me.” Felix pointed toward the house where the dog’s body lay bleeding and sprawled out in the dirt.

“Well, shit. Hardly looks like a dog anymore,” the thick officer said, then spat into the dirt.

The tall and skinny officer continued to rummage through the trunk.

“I told you, there’s nobody in the car. I’m looking for someone out here…she’s lost and-”

“Looking for someone, huh? And who would that be?” the officer said from the trunk.

“I’m out here looking for my girlfriend. She came out here and now she’s gone, and I’m driving around trying to find her.” Felix almost told them about the bodies in the abandoned house, but held his tongue. He knew it would only take up time, and precious seconds were already ticking.

The tall and skinny officer pulled his long torso out of the trunk, shut it, dusted his hands. “All clear.”

The thick officer nodded, crossed his arms. “What was your girlfriend doing out here? Can get dangerous around these areas.” He pointed to Felix’s leg. “Lot worse things out here than dogs, I can tell you that.”

“I know, and I told her that, but she…” Felix wanted to tell them the truth, that she was out here trying to get caught by them so she could expose the abuse, but thought better of it. It would get him nowhere, and he knew these people could do nothing to help him. “She’s thick-headed. Thought it would be fun to come exploring out here, and probably got herself lost.”

Where the fuck were you last night? When those fucking psychos were kidnapping her?

“Well this is no place to be messing around. All you’re doing is getting in our way and putting your own lives in danger.”

“Yes, sir. I understand that.”

“What’s your girlfriend look like? We’ll keep an eye out for her.”

Felix described her to the thick officer who seemed to be in charge while the tall, skinny one continued to scowl at him.

The officers gave the Taurus one last glance over before they got back into their SUV and drove off.

Felix didn’t waste any time. He knew it was only a matter of time before they found those bodies in that house, and when they did, they would surely come looking for him for answers. But he wasn’t worried about any of that. The only thing he could think about was getting back to the motel.

Getting back to his good friend Lindsey.

***

Felix walked into the office, the bell jingling its warning. Lindsey wasn’t there, but dancing light flickered against the wall down a slender hallway behind the counter.

A toilet flushed. “Just a minute,” came Lindsey’s gruff voice.

Felix jumped the counter. A door opened to his left, and when Lindsey’s face materialized from the other side of it, Felix planted his fist in the middle of it.

“Shit!”
Lindsey stumbled backward, cupping his bleeding nose. His face glowed red and he bared his teeth as he swung at Felix.

Felix turned his body to avoid the blow, but caught a knuckle to the ear. Lindsey growled as he stumbled into Felix’s stomach, slammed him against the wall.

Felix drove his elbow into the middle of Lindsey’s fat-padded back, then another between the shoulder blades. The man grunted, tried to shove off. Felix hit him in the back of the head, and when Lindsey fell down to his knee, Felix’s shoe caught the bottom of his chin.

The fat man stumbled back, cracked the back of his head against the wall. He clutched his face, his head, and moaned through his teeth.

Felix shook his throbbing fist and limped toward Lindsey, then winced as he knelt down in front of him. Fresh blood bubbled out of his bite wounds now, but he paid it no mind.

“Where is she? I know you know something, motherfucker.” Felix slammed his open palm against the back of Lindsey’s hand that was cradling his nose.

“Fuuuuck!”

“Tell me where she is or I swear to god I’ll fucking kill you right now.”

Lindsey pulled his hand away from his face, studied the blood on his palm for a moment before wiping it on his shirt. “I don’t know shit.
How the fuck would I know where she is!
”

A moan. From behind him.

Felix turned toward the sound. The light was still flashing on the wall, and Felix could see from the hallway that there was a room back there.

Another moan. Female.

“Don’t you dare, asshole. This is my place…you have no fucking right to-”

Felix hit him again, caught him with a hard left on the jaw. Lindsey dropped to the floor, clicking his teeth when his face hit linoleum. He writhed slightly but wasn’t going anywhere.

The moan came again, and this time Felix was sure. That was Marta’s voice.

“Marta?” He hurried down the hall. “Marta, is that you!”

It was her. And him. On a monitor mounted to the wall. Felix was on top of her, hips thrusting. Marta’s fingers dug into his back, her legs wrapped around the back of his thighs as she cried out in ecstasy.

A worn-down, flattened recliner sat in front of the monitor. A one man theatre. A plastic container full of jerky strips lay beside a bottle of lotion on the floor beside it.

Felix saw red in that moment. He wasn’t aware he had moved at all until he was already halfway down the hallway. Lindsey had managed to lift himself to all fours, blood dribbling from his nose and pooling beneath him. When he saw Felix coming, he stood up on his knees and put his hands out in surrender.

“Wait…wait a minute…”

Felix hit him so hard he lost his own balance and crashed to the floor beside the fat man. Gurgled choking sounds sputtered from Lindsey’s throat, but Felix jumped up and hit the son of a bitch again.

“Where the fuck is she?
Where is she!
”

“I…I don’t know. I swear to god…I have nothing to do with…I don’t…”

Felix lifted Lindsey high enough to get a hold of his head. He locked it into a headlock and dragged the man stumbling toward the back room. Lindsey’s legs kept giving out on him as he tried to keep up, and Felix dragged him into the room, flung him into the recliner. Lindsey’s body rolled over it, knocking it onto its side before he crashed to the floor.

“I knew it, you sick fuck. I knew you were watching us.” Felix shook with rage, and he wanted nothing more than to show Lindsey pain. To hear the motherfucker scream. He stepped over the fallen recliner, lifted Lindsey’s head by a fistful of hair, made him look at the monitor. “What is it, huh? You get sick of watching her on your TV? You wanted the real thing, right?”

Lindsey shook his head and whimpered.

Felix threw the fat man back to the floor, stomped toward the monitor and tore it off the wall. The screen went black, Marta’s moans of pleasure cutting off and the only sound in the room now his own pounding pulse and Lindsey’s blubbers of pain.

The monitor crashed to the floor and Felix leapt onto Lindsey’s back, turned him around so he was straddling the fat man’s stomach. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

“I told you I don’t know shit!” He spoke through bared, bloody teeth. “I admit it…I took the laptop. Sold it. I’m sorry…I didn’t know-”

Whack.
Lindsey cried out when Felix’s knuckles flattened his nose again. A fresh, warm splatter of blood sprayed Felix in the face, and he wiped it away, grabbed Lindsey by the fat dangling under his chin.

“Who’d you sell it to? Where are they?”

Lindsey’s eyes looked tired, his lids hanging drowsily and nearly shut. Rattling breaths popped through the mess of his nose.

Felix tightened his grip on the bulge of fat in his hand, dug his nails in.

Lindsey’s eyes widened and he hissed. “I don’t know, man. Some fucking wetback…that’s all I know.”

Felix hit him again, then again. Lindsey went still, blood bubbles boiling from his nostrils. “You fucking heard the screams…
you heard her!
And you stole the fucking laptop for what…a couple hundred bucks?
Is that it, motherfucker?
”

His fists collided with the bloody meat of Lindsey’s face, the sound wet and messy when his knuckles hit. And he kept hitting him, screaming as his arms flailed.

“You helped them kill her, you fucking piece of shit!” Whack whack whack. “You fucking helped them kill her!”

Felix’s hands were numb up to the middle of his forearms. A hot throb pulsed in his knuckles, and he stared at the blood painting them as he panted over Lindsey’s still body. The man’s face was covered in blood and teeth fragments, his lips busted open, swollen, and trickling blood into the gaping mouth. Felix picked shards of teeth from his skin, flexed his hands as he stood.

He thought for sure he’d killed the guy until a wet whining sound seeped out from somewhere in the mess of Lindsey’s face. He let his head fall to the side so he was facing Felix, who now stood by the hallway.

“F-fuck you…” He propped himself up on one elbow, the blood switching course and running down his face instead of to the sides.

Felix couldn’t believe the guy could move at all. “If I don’t find her, I’m coming back here. You hear me? I’m coming back here to finish what I started.”

A wet chuckle rattled out of the Lindsey’s face. “You won’t…won’t find her. Not out here.” Another laugh as he grabbed his crotch with a bloody, shaking hand, spat a red wad on the floor beside him. “At least I got to…to w-watch her before she went, huh? Fine p-piece of ass she was.”

A hearty, smoker’s laugh followed. Ripples ran across the fat on his bulbous belly.

“You motherfucker!”

Felix rushed him, dove on top of him. He was hardly aware of the rapid motion of Lindsey’s left arm, then felt the sting and twist of pain at his side. His breath caught in his throat and he gasped, then brought his fist down into Lindsey’s face fast and hard.

The man grunted, his head whipping back and smacking the floor. Felix hit him again, and this time, a shockwave of pain rode his side, up into his ribs. He shrieked, fell backward off the man’s writhing body. Quivering fingers reached up to his right side, collided with something hard.

The knife was stuck in to the hilt, and he pulled it out slow, hissing and gasping as the blade slide from his flesh. The blade wasn’t long, about the size of his pinkie finger, but it went deep enough to make it hurt with every breath he took.

He grimaced as he rose to his feet, pressing his palm to the wound. The smart thing to do would have been to just leave, get the fuck out right then and there. But the rage bubbling inside of him dwarfed the pain in his side and the bite wound on his leg, and he limped across the room and picked up the monitor, his eyes still showing him images of Marta pinned beneath him, rocking with the rhythm of his thrusting. Safe. With him.

He lifted the screen high and smashed it into Lindsey’s head. Black fragments of glass rained over Lindsey, stabbed into the tattered skin of his face. The monitor was above Felix’s head again, then thrown back down onto the fat man. With a heavy stomp, Felix smashed the back of the monitor, pressing it down into the soft meat beneath.

The knife’s hilt was squeezed in his fist, and every inch of him wanted to jab the metal into the jiggling flesh of the man beneath him. Open him up to see the black inside. But he threw it instead, hit the underside of Lindsey’s red stomach with the handle and sent more ripples across the belly fat. Felix turned, started to make his way around the counter, but stopped when he saw the black metal barrel shining from under the register. He pulled the shotgun free, and knowing nothing about guns, could only hope it was loaded.
Just point and shoot, just like in the movies.

Fresh tears spilled down his face as the ghosts of Marta’s pleasure moans filled his head. Each racking sob was a bolt of pain in his stab wound. He slid back into his car, pulled his mangled leg in and placed it on the floorboard, tossed the shotgun into the passenger seat.

Felix knew who had her. The man’s face flickered in his mind, sat on the steering wheel in front of him like a hologram cast by his eyes.
I’ll find you. No matter how long it takes, I’ll wait for you.

He drove around the corner, parked the car across the street from the store. The car fit almost snuggly in a small alley between two crumbling structures that may have once been businesses. Metal scraped against brick, but Felix kept backing in until he was sure the old man inside of the store couldn’t see him. And he had a perfect view of the parking lot, could see the picnic table and the spot where the trailer had been parked just yesterday.

He killed the engine and waited.

12

“Alma!” Cristobal hammered at her bedroom door with his fists. “You’re gonna miss it if you don’t come out.”

Marta sat in a metal foldout chair in the living room, a chain wrapped tightly around her body. Too tight. Each breath pressed her chest and stomach into the metal links. She tried to move her arms but they were locked snug behind her.

“Well stay in there then!” Cristobal slammed his knuckles into the door one more time before he stomped across the hall and into his own bedroom.