Vivi laughed flirtatiously, something she’d had Peaches coach her on because my woman did not subscribe to the whole catch more bees with honey school of thought. “Yeah? How about you, me and Billie Jean be friends?”
“Billie Jean? Sounds kinky,” Guapo said, a smile in his voice that I knew he would soon regret.
The sound of the shotgun cocking came through loud and clear. “Billie Jean wants to go first. Ah, ah…not so fast asshole. State your business before Billie Jean gets to your dick first.”
“Easy, chiquita. I’m just looking for a friend of mine, Marisol Luna.”
“I’m not your chiquita and I’ve never heard of her.”
“She’s been here for weeks. Maybe you don’t know everyone around here?” He was taunting her, probably thinking she was nothing more than a piece of biker ass.
“I know everyone who matters and if your friend is a biker bunny, then she ain’t worth knowin’ and she ain’t here. If I was you, I’d get going before things get uglier than your mug.”
“Mouthy bitch,” he grunted. I swore it took everything within me to stay up on that rock with my gun aimed at Carlito’s head, just in case shit went sideways.
Vivi laughed. She fucking laughed like this was all some joke. “I’ve been called worse, Guapo.”
“You know me?” He sounded confused. Vivi must have nodded because Guapo kept talking. “Then you know I’m not some one you want to fuck with.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Guapo. I heard Gunnar took you out pretty easily, twice, and that guy is all talk.” She laughed at what I could only assume was an incredulous look from Guapo.
“I can hear you,” Gunnar grumbled which only produced more laughter from Vivi.
“Just give up Marisol and this will all be over. El Jefe won’t stop until he has her back.”
Vivi sighed and I could hear the sound of the shotgun being set on the bar. “How well do you know your Jefe? I mean really know him?”
“We have known each other since we were children. Mi padre raised him like he was his own.” The emotion in Guapo’s voice paid true to Vivi’s theory about the enforcer.
“Yes, Cadre, right? Funny thing about the way he died, right? A late night car explosion after visiting his mistress, something less than a handful of people knew about.”
“Felicidades. So you use Google.”
Vivi laughed again. “Google, that’s cute. But you know what Google didn’t tell me? That the police captain down in Tamaulipas, Captain Martinez, confirmed what even you probably suspected. Carlito was behind the bomb in your padre’s car.”
“Liar!”
“You wish I was lying because you know what this means. What you have to do, but I’d just as soon have the Reckless Bastards kill you all. I’m just saying I’d be pretty fucking pissed off if I’d been playing servant and errand boy to the man who put a bomb under my dad’s car just so he could take over the cartel, which technically speaking, should be yours.”
Guapo barked out a laugh. “And I’m just supposed to believe you, some whore to a motorcycle gang?”
“I don’t give a shit what you believe. What I know is that I spoke to Martinez myself, at his gorgeous estate in Montecito. You know where that is? It’s where Oprah lives, pretty swanky digs. I wonder where he got the cash.” Vivi did an excellent job of playing this fool and I couldn’t wait to show her how proud I was.
“A dirty cop in Mexico is no surprise.”
“Maybe not, but it got me to thinking. Martinez was a young guy when he left Mexico, barely forty so how did he accumulate so much cash in so little time? I did some digging though, well a lot of digging because that’s kind of my thing. I’m just a club whore on the side, you see,” she rambled briefly. “This is what I really do.”
There was silence for a long time and then an audible pained groan. “You forged this,” Guapo accused. She must have given him the papers we’d discussed earlier.
“Nope. This is straight from the bank. I even left the routing numbers visible because I wouldn’t expect a professional sadist to take my word for it. And before you even ask, yeah, that’s a number to one of the Salinas accounts.” Vivi took a deep breath and from the sound of it, she must have set the small tape recorder on the bar and hit play.
“Everyone knew it was Carlito because he came into the station, just sixteen years old, with a picnic basket full of cash and one request. Make the bombing look like it was the job of another cartel. So we did. We killed one of the Aztecas Negros foot soldiers and put his fingerprints on what was left of the bomb. He was dead and everyone bought the story.”
“Turn it off!” Guapo was good and riled up now. Emotional. And my girl was alone with him. There was another long, tense silence before he spoke again. “You are sure about this?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. The last deposit was just ten days ago. Every two weeks for the past nineteen years.”
“Aaaah!” The sound from Guapo was visceral, the rage palpable. “If you are lying, if this is some ploy, I will come back and skin you alive chica.”