Accidents Happen
*** 1 ***
The Porshe's speedometer clocks past 80 as I blast down the expressway, 8 lanes of asphalted bliss. Those NASCAR geeks got nothing on me. Racing around a track is no big challenge, the real deal is making it through the last remains of rush hour traffic when you're already an hour late.
Tonight I have a meeting with Escobar at 9pm sharp. He is one of my distributors from the heart of LA. He has a hardcore crowd into heroine, imitating all their favorite brooding stars and shooting up the best the city's underworld has to offer. The only problem is, Escobar hasn't been a good boy. He's been skimming the profits and taking some of the shit for himself. A dealer whose an addict, the worst kind of businessman.
His biggest mistake was thinking he could keep it from me. I don't fuck around when it comes to business. Customer service is my specialty. My clientele demand the best, and I deliver. When someone tries to undercut that business, whether they are the competition or one of my own people, then they have to be dealt with, in a way that sets an example for any future assholes that don't know who they are dealing with.
I mixed Escobar up a special heroine cocktail, laced with cyanide. He always shoots up as soon as he gets his hands on the stuff, and the worst collateral damage that could occur would be that one of his cheap sluts might get a dose too. It would just send the message that much more clearly to anybody else who thinks of screwing me around. I had to get home to pick the special package up and make it to the meeting. I couldn't be late delivering my last goodbye to him.
My cell phone rings and then the challenge rises to the next level as I top 90, flipping the phone open and shifting gears. It just doesn't get any better than this. "This is Leo."
"Hey baby," its the soft purr of Mandy. Sweet Mandy, the first bitch I've been hooked up with that wasn't some whore trying to advance herself. Sure she was a junkie, but that wasn't why she stuck with me. When I met her, she'd been singing at some shithole bar that was just one step past a strip club. When I saw her deep green eyes and thick red hair, I just had to have her. Now she was all mine, and I made sure to do whatever it took to keep her happy. When I could.
"I been waiting on you...where you at?"
"I'm flying babe, headed your way."
"Good," she coos. "I want you."
Mandy, every guy's dream. Tall, slender red head that loves sex. It's just sometimes, business comes before pleasure, and it's really hard to make that argument when she's standing in some piece of lingerie from Victoria's Secret with that pouty look of disappointment when you tell her no.
"Babe, I'm running late..."
She's quiet a minute. "Then we'll make it fast. I just need to feel you inside me Leo, I need you to fuck me."
My dick is getting hard already as I listen to her, think about her. "Damn babe...what are you wearing?"
She laughs, soft seductive music, "Nothing...see, I'm ready for you."
Traffic is thinning, and I press the accelerator down further, topping 100. "Listen babe, you gotta deal, you just have your sweet ass ready when I walk in the door."
"I will. Oh I will. I love you Leo, be waiting on you. Bye."
"Bye," I say flipping the phone closed and taking my exit in one smooth motion. Now I am distracted by the thought of just mindlessly pounding away at her beautiful body. It'll be a nice prelude to finishing off Escobar.
A few more minutes and I'm making the final stretch of my driveway, hopping out and headed for the door. As I stick my key in the deadbolt, I loosen my tie, thinking of what's to come. How will she welcome me? I hope she isn't in the mood for hide and seek tonight. The house is too big and my time is too short. I remember when she was waiting for me in the jacuzzi one time, buried beneath foaming bubbles, candles spread around the bath shedding a golden glow across the room. That had been a nice evening.
The door opens and I step into the living room. A large scented candle burns on the glass coffee table, and I see her. She is naked, the dancing light of the candle casting provocative shadows across her body. She lays face down on the floor, one arm at her side, the other reaching out in front of her. At first I grin wondering what her game is, but then something hits me as wrong, and I feel my gut clinch.
On the table I see a hypodermic, empty, it's needle glinting in the dim light. I start to feel sick. It's not the first time she's gotten into my shit. We've had that talk before, but I've never punished her for it. It's a privilege when your man is in the sort of business I am. Besides, I always have enough to go around. But Escobar's cocktail. I had hidden it so well in my closet. I should have known. Mandy could sniff out drugs better than a trained LAPD K-9. She probably thought it was all a game.
My fingers lose their grip on my keys and they clatter to the floor as I walk slowly towards her. Long red hair spills over her shoulders and back and onto the floor. The smooth line of her back is milky white, broken up just above the curve of her ass by the colorful tatoo of a red rose. Her long legs are slightly parted, and I smell the puddle of piss between them before I see it's yellow stain on the soft white carpet. It's all like a surreal painting, like she is an angel floating on a white cloud. I manage to find my voice and whisper her name as I look down at her, "Mandy?"
She doesn't answer, and I kneel to touch her head, brushing the long hair from her face. Lifeless eyes stare back at me, their once vibrant green color now hazed over by a glaze of death, Her face and lips are tinged blue, the tip of her tongue sticking slightly from her mouth, pain etched on her features. I close my eyes, hoping it is all a bad dream, then open them to find her hollow stare again.
I lay beside her and run my hand over her smooth back, finding it cool to my touch. I look into her unseeing eyes, wondering what thoughts filled her head as the cyanide starved her body of oxygen. "Mandy...babe...I'm sorry...so fucking sorry."
I stand up with a sigh, tossing off my jacket and running my hand through my hair. Now I am really going to be late. Escobar will have to wait tonight. I can't run off with a dead girl in my living room. I bend back down and roll her over, and she flops onto her back, her small, upturned breasts bouncing with the sudden movement. "Shit," I say, looking down at her. I shake my head and reach down, grasping her ankles.
As I drag her down the hall, her arms reach out behind her, her hands softly curled, her red hair covering the death mask that used to be her face. I leave her in the main bedroom, on the floor, pulling the blanket off the bed and tossing it over her. One bare foot pokes out from under it and I just turn and shut the door.
Walking back to the living room, I look at the stain on the carpet. I hope it comes up, I just had that carpet put in last year. I never should have left Escobar's special shit in the house. I pull out my cell phone and flip it open, scrolling through its menu. I stop on a listing that is "S" followed by a period. Scorpion. He's a Colombian, the kind of guy you call when you don't have anybody else to call. I hit the dial button.
*** 2 ***
The cool night breeze blows across the deck of the trawler, carrying the salty smell of the ocean with it. Scorpion lights a cigarette, cupping his hand to protect the flame of his match from the wind, shedding light on his scarred face. He is broad shouldered and dark, wearing black jeans and a black sleeveless shirt. Dark tattoos of snakes and flames cover his exposed arms, and he grins at me, his teeth yellow.
"Mi amigo, what did I tell you about hooking up with a junkie?" His voice is robust, with a menacing undertone.
"I just should have stashed that stuff somewhere else..."
He shakes his head and fixes me with his dark gaze, his short black hair whipping around in the wind, "You should have finished her off long ago. A man like you...a businessman like you...can't get too attached to his toys."
I glanced over at the bundle nearby on the deck. My blanket, one foot still sticking out of it, toe nails painted a red so dark it looks almost black. "She was a good girl..."
He shakes his head. He is much older than me, maybe in his fifties, hard to tell. "An unnecessary distraction. And as for Escobar, you should have dealt with him more directly. I hope you have learned a lesson."
I think a moment. What the fuck lesson is he talking about? Don't leave your cyanide laced heroine that you are going to give to a two timing dealer laying around where your junkie girlfriend can find it? I can't seem to find any cosmic wisdom in his point, but I nod anyway, feeling sick. I can't tell if it's from Mandy, the trawler bouncing across the ocean, or both.
Scorpion shouts to the cabin "This'll do fine!" and I start to feel more queezy. "Uncover her," he says to me.
I walk over to the body, unrolling the blanket from around it. She's even colder now, her body looking unreal in the ship's light, like some prop from a movie. Not Mandy. Something else. All the color seems drained from her now, her eyes more heavily clouded.
Scorpion pushes me out of the way, "You like the way she looks amigo? Maybe you want one last go at her before we feed her to the sharks?"
His grin is wicked, and the glint in his eyes makes me think maybe he is voicing a fantasy of his own. I look down at the corpse that used to be Mandy, "That's fucked up man."
"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," he says laughing loudly. He bends down, wrapping a steel cable around her slender ankles. Glancing over his shoulder, he gives a thumbs up, and I hear the whir of the winch and see the body hoisted into the air. Just as her hands raise a few inches from the deck he motions for the operator to stop.
I look at her again, suspended upside down before us, her breasts dangling strangely, the cable of the winch biting deep into the flesh of her ankles, her hair hanging down in a tangled red mess. She is suspended above the deck like some prize, some bounty.
Scorpion steps past me, raising a bladed, hooklike knife. "We have to make sure the sharks come for her. Never make assumptions amigo. They'll fuck your world up more than anything."
"What are you going to do to her?"
He just winks and turns around. Hooking the blade into her crotch, with all his strength, he tears it through her flesh, cutting her open to her sternum, her congealing blood and guts spilling onto the deck. The stench is awful, and the body becomes a thing, a piece of butchered meat. I turn away, trying to breathe, then I am falling and my hand hits something soft, wet and cold and I am gagging, puking. Crawling away, trying to get it from my mind.
I vaguely hear a splash and Scorpion yelling "Wash down the deck!" I feel the cold
blast of water from the hose and reach the rail, trying to pull myself up. His strong hands help me up and turn me to face him.
"You okay amigo?"
"Yeah," I croak, looking over his shoulder. No signs remain. Just the empty deck of a trawler.
He pats my shoulder, "See Leo, all fixed up now. No need to worry."
In my mind, I can still see her hanging there, and I'm afraid I'll see her like that in my nightmares for a long time.
"You're gonna have to snap out of it amigo, if you are going to make it in this business." He lights a fresh cigarette, tossing the match into the ocean. "Accidents happen ya know?"
I nod, hanging over the rail, looking into the ocean. I see movement under the water, and what looks like a dark stain on it surface. Am I just imagining it, or are the sharks already starting their work? I look at Scorpion, and he just grins his yellow toothed grin at me. I owe him now, and I begin to wonder what the payback will be. For now, I manage to wipe thoughts of Mandy from my mind, but I know she is waiting there to come back up sometime, just like the bile that creeps up my throat now. I have business to do.
"Thanks Scorp, I owe you one."
He just nods as if it is no big deal, but I know one day he'll call in his favor. For now, he chooses to make small talk as the trawler turns around and heads back towards the glowing neon of LA as if nothing unusual has happened. As if he spends every night gutting pretty red heads like fish and dumping their mutilated remains into the Pacific. "So, tell me about Escobar..."
Copyright by TLOD (2001).