“This is your bar?” I say in surprise.
“Yep.” She yanks the keys out of the ignition. “Well, technically it was my cousin’s, but he’s not around anymore.” She pauses before opening the car door. “Look, I know it’s not much, but you’re welcome to stay for a couple of days while you sort your shit out. Stay for as long as you like. Whichever. It’s cool with me.”
“Thank you,” I say, humbled by her generosity. I’m a stranger to her—a Trojan horse crammed full with secrets about the very men she hates. If I remembered what guilt felt like, I’d be experiencing a ton of it right now. “I don't have much money, but I’d be happy to work something out with you.”
She follows my gaze to the faded cherry-red awning flapping above the chairs and tables, stamped with a Spanish name I can't translate.
“Have you ever worked in a bar before?”
A faint smile tugs at my lips. “It’s kinda funny you should say that.”
“Parcera, if that’s a yes, I’m taking away your passport!” she warns me. “It’s only myself and Samuel running this place, and he’s about twenty years past his expiration date.”
I laugh and a warm sensation filters down through my body, like spring melt after a freezing-cold winter. I was searching so hard for oblivion when I should have been looking for an ally.
I go to climb out of the car.
“Wait,” she says, gabbing my arm to stop me. “I don’t know who or what you’re running from, but take as much time as you need, okay? No one’s going to find you in Santa Perdida. Perdida means lost in Spanish, and everyone who ends up here is a lot of that. Most of Colombia can’t even find it on a map.” She lets go of me and snatches up her cigarettes from the dash. “On the downside, there’s no Internet and about a minute of free cell signal a day.”
“Sounds perfect,” I say, wondering why a free spirit like Vi would want to hide herself away as well.
“Cool, you’re hired. First drink is on the house—”
“To celebrate our second deal of the day.”
“Right.”
We shake on it and cross the dusty sidewalk together. The humidity isn’t quite as intense here, but it’s still a dead weight pushing down on my chest.
Vi goes to open up, and then stops. “Mierda! Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” I move closer to see what’s caught her attention.
“Look.” She pushes at the door without unlocking it, and it swings freely. Inside, the terracotta tiles are littered with overturned tables, broken chairs and bottles; and the strong punch of spilled alcohol has us both reaching to cover our noses. “Someone trashed my bar,” she says angrily. “That’s what’s fucking wrong.”
11
Joseph
We keep a safe house in Miami. It’s an empty apartment in midtown that cost us two million and looks like a shade of pastel blue threw up all over it. It’s standard real estate for this city.
I pull up outside just as dawn is declaring victory over a total bitch of a night. I sit there, engine idling, taking savage swigs from a half-empty bottle of whiskey; watching as the colors of a new day spread like wildfire until the whole of the sky is ablaze.
There’s no spun gold, though. That color is nowhere to be found. I’ve looked in every bar, every club, every hospital, bus terminal, airport, and I’m so fucking done…
I almost laugh at myself then.
My mouth almost stretches into a grin around the top of the Jack Daniel’s as I take another swig. I’ll never be fucking done when it comes to her; the same way I’ll never stop reaching for my chain. It’s not comfort hanging around my neck, it’s penance. It’s the sum of all the blood I’ve spilled. The metal crushes my skin the same way all the fucking shit in my heart crushes my organs.
There are so many unspoken words inside of me right now, and no fucking release for any of them. Like those I said to her the night I freed her from her cage. The ones she can't remember… Still, I’ll carry the burden of my promise until her pain separates from her past like crude oil and water.
I sit there, drinking, until the whiskey bottle is empty. Until all my thoughts are hemorrhaging into one another, creating a continuous band of noise that’s somehow easier to tune out. I make a quick scan of my surroundings, purely out of habit—noting the lone jogger and the old dog walker—and then I’m exiting the SUV and letting myself into the apartment building.
My hands are still stained with my crimes. I can’t remember when I last slept or when I last ate, and I’m feeling the aftereffects of both as I enter the apartment, letting the door slam shut behind me. Gray carpets, gray walls, three-thousand square feet of open floorplan and no furniture. The blinds are down, and weak sunlight is carving white stripes into the wooden slats but it’s still dark as fuck. The whiskey’s dulled my senses. I don’t hear the click of the gun until it’s bearing down on me in all its grim greeting.
“I bought you breakfast,” rumbles a deep voice. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Is it a bullet or a bagel?” I don’t bother reaching for my own weapon to return the favor. If he wanted to kill me, I’d be dead already. “If it’s not toasted, I’m opting for the bullet. No one should have to put up with that shit.”
Dante chuckles, and lifts his muzzle to the sky, clicking his safety back on. He’s leaning against the long stretch of white island that separates the kitchen from the living area, ankles crossed—his presence by far the darkest shadow in the room. “You Americans and your culinary kinks,” he muses. “My wife has the same affliction.”
“Then your wife has decent taste in food, if nothing else. What the fuck are you doing here, Dante?” Truth be told, I’m more than surprised to see him.
“You look like shit,” he observes, tossing me a warm paper bag. “Not like you to pull an all-nighter.”
“Not like you to step foot in a country where the bounty on your head is bigger than the GDP of Peru,” I fire back. “Not unless you have business here, which I believe we concluded yesterday. Nor when your wife has recently given birth to your first child.” I open up the bag and the sweet scent of the bagel is more sobering than a cold shower. “Damn, this smells good. I don’t know whether to kiss your ass or your gun.”
“Gun would be preferable… I’m here on her request.”
The bagel pauses halfway to my mouth. “How so?”
“First, tell me why I had Rick Sanders bitching at me late last night.” He slides his gun into the front of his jeans. The man in black is the devil in disguise. I’ve seen him do the kind of sin that turns saints into killers. “He’s a not happy drug dealer, Grayson. Did you finger his girlfriend or piss all over one of his clubs?”
“He’s an asshole,” I say, wrapping my mouth around something other than a bottle of whiskey, and one that tastes a hell of a lot better.
“Yes, but he’s a clever asshole who saved our lives last year,” says Dante, switching his tone to a shade cooler than ice. “We've been through too much together to let your dick get in the way of things now.”