Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
“Why don’t you crawl back up your own ass,bolillo?” straw hat said in Spanish, teeth flashing and eyes crinkled in amusement. His partner coughed a laugh.
“Does your little mother know you talk like that,” the white guy said back in fluent Spanish. He even used a Guat accent. A twist of the knife.
Straw hat reached back under the tail of his shirt. His hand stopped, fingers stretched, tips touching the rubberized grip of the 40mm tucked in the band there. His eyes were locked on the white guy’s right hand.
Somehow a nasty black automatic had materialized in the gabacho’sfist. One second his hand was empty. The next there was a pistolo in it, its basilisk eye staring unblinking into straw hat’s heart.
“You two are going to keep your hands where I can see them and turn around,” Isaac said, closing the gap between them. He jerked his head to the laborer who got off the ground and first walked, then ran back toward the lunch wagon and his tools.
The steel toe of his Timberline driven behind their right knees dropped the two from the Escalade to the dust one after the other. He had the handguns out of their jeans and tossed them aside. Expensive models like their clothes. A Sig Sauer nine and a Kimber in 40mm. Straw hat tried to lever himself onto his side. Isaac put his boot on the man’s skinny ass and turned his leg sharp. Straw hat let out a sound like a puppy might make and laid his palms flat on the ground again. Isaac continued his search turning up a pair of clasp knives and a hammerless .32 revolver tucked in the partner’s boot. The keys to the pimped out SUV were on a ring with a mini-Maglite. Two packs of Kools. A wad of hard used fives, tens and twenties in a rubber band. Another, smaller, of clean fifties in a silver and turquoise clip. A fancy pill case of gold that rattled when he shook it. The Alabama driver licenses in their wallets told him that they were Daniel Eckenrode of Birmingham and Sean Tobey from Huntsville. Straw hat and his partner were pictured on the laminated cards. Isaac put the wallets in the pocket of his windbreaker and stepped back.
“You can get up now,” he said returning to English.
Straw hat picked up his hat and brushed it off and took his sweet time adjusting it to the right angle on his head. The partner was fussing over a tear in the knee of his black jeans. Isaac waited until he had their full attention.
“You boys get in your fancy ride and pull on out of here. I see you on this site again and it won’t end well for either of you.”
“You gonna call the police on us?” Straw hat smiled.
Isaac didn’t answer directly. He stood looking out over the torn up ground of the build lot. Some machines stood idle near deep footings dug for units Ten through Fifteen.
“Lot of holes around a place like this. Lot of ground to be leveled,” he said and drew down the bill of his ball cap to hide his eyes.
“What about our wallets?” The partner speaking for the first time.
“I didn’t see any wallets. Or guns,” Isaac said and tossed the ring of keys into straw hat’s hands.
He stood watching the pair walk away. They were out of sight when he picked the handguns up from the dust using a bandana from his pocket.
Isaac returned to his truck in time to see the Escalade pull off the site onto the through road in a cloud of yellow dust. The young laborer was already off to his job. The guy at the lunch wagon was lowering the awning, getting ready to head out.
On his way home Isaac stopped at one of those mail service stores with the cute name. He dropped the handguns into a padded pouch along with the wallets minus the three hundred or so dollars he found inside and carried the package to the pert little peanut of a girl smiling at him from the counter.
Two days later a deputy at the Perry County Justice Center opened a package machine-addressed to the sheriff. She dumped out three loaded handguns and two wallets onto her desk. Further exploration found the drivers licenses of a Mr. Eckenrode and a Mr. Tobey with the grim faces of two gentlemen of Latino extraction glaring from under the lenticular plastic.
Finals were over.
She had no idea how she did. Truth was, she didn’t give a rip. They were over and she was free for the next week.
She joined some of her friends for a pub crawl. Girls she met in the first semester at USF and stayed friends with into her freshman year. They started at places near the school and moved south through the night closer to the city. They lost a few girls along the way. One passed out after too many Jell-O shots and was taken back to the dorm by another. Some other girls paired off with some guys they knew. She was down to two gal pals and feeling it, really feelingit, when they reached the place called Skip’s in North Tampa.
It was at the ass end of a strip mall anchored by a shuttered Winn-Dixie. The only places open were a coin laundry, a check cashing place and a dollar store. Though they were all dark at this hour. Skip’s was dark and cool and the crowd was maybe Hispanic or whatever but certainly foreign. It smelled of stale beer and a tinge of ganja coming from a back room. The music was Euro techno-pump and drowned out the sound from the big screens showing soccer games above the horseshoe bar.
The trio of college girls never had to pay for a drink. Cuervos were being shoved over the bar to them, paid for by persons unknown. She scanned the dark for their benefactors and saw a guy smiling back at her from an upholstered booth. He looked like a cute guy in some vampire show her little sister watched all the time. He was sitting with two other guys who were almost as cute. He nodded to her and she downed her shot before walking over to join him.
Soon it was all best friends forever as her girlfriends matched up with the other two, less cute, guys. They all had accents but dressed well and didn’t smell. And they paid for everything with a wave of a hand to the waitress and bartender who seemed to know them. She never saw any cash on the table. These guys were regulars. These guys were players.
It was all fun and adventurous but free drinks and a few gypsy kisses were as far as she was going to take it tonight. She had a fiancé back in Huntsville and no plans to infringe on the understanding they had. But a little slap and tickle wasn’t cheating, right? Just boys and girls, honey. Her panties were staying right where they were tonight. Tomorrow she’d wake up with a banging tequila hangover and a tongue made of gummy felt. Two Advil washed down with a glass of orange juice, a shower and maybe a nap and she’d be former Miss Sheffield Park High School again. For now, though, it was her night for the good life.
The cute guy was charming and funny. Not as handsy as she expected considering the bar tab he was running up since the girls slid into the booth. Everything was a joke. Even when she asked his name he’d make a joke of it.
“I’m Brad Pitt, you did not recognize me?”
That made her snort. He smiled and told her if he knew she was so unladylike he’d never have asked her over. That sent her into a series of snorts. She slapped a hand over her mouth and roared into the palm of her hand. He was so funny. Everything was funny. Everything made her laugh now until she could hear her own pulse in her ears. It was louder than the drumming beat of the music. It was getting harder and harder to keep her head upright on her neck. She was still fully conscious, maybe a little furry around the edges, but fully aware. A weakness crept over her. She went to stand but her legs wouldn’t respond. She braced her palms on the table to raise herself up and they bent under her weight like rubber. She collapsed onto the tabletop.
She felt his breath on her ear. That funny, sexy accent with words meant just for her.
“I know a place. Another place. A better place.”
She wanted to laugh but she was too weak now even for that.
“I like Wendy’s best,” said Merry, her mouth full of a double with cheese.
“You do?” said Isaac.
“You know why?”
“I don’t, honey.”
“It’s run by a girl. It’s the only place run by a girl. McDonald’s. Burger King. Carl’s. Arby’s. All boys.”
“Arby is a boy?”
“Sure he is. Who’d name a girl Arby?”
“What about Dairy Queen?”
“Their burgers suck,” Merry said. Case closed. No arguing with the logic of a nine-year-old.
“Well, okay then,” Isaac said and stabbed some fries into their shared puddle of ketchup.
“Know what we had for dinner last night, Daddy?” Merry said.
“Well, I know it wasn’t Dairy Queen burgers.”
“Lobster.” Merry pulled a face that crinkled her freckled features.
“Maybe I should come and live at your Granpa’s.”