Page 85 of Dirty

The man spat at the floor. “No se, pendejo.”

Crip pulled the trigger. The man’s legs buckled, and he fell into a pile beside the first man.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Crip pointed the pistol at the third man’s thigh, and without warning, pulled the trigger. The man screamed and fell to the floor in agony. In response, Crip pointed the barrel of the pistol at his head.

“Donde esta el jefe?” he seethed.

The man clenched his bleeding leg and moaned. “Cual queres? Hay dos?”

“El mero chignon,” Crip said. “El hombre que secuestro el bandido.”

“En el edificio junto al mar,” the man said.

I thought he said he’s by the sea in a building, but I wasn’t certain.

I’d felt apprehensive and half-sick since we entered the home, but upon recognizing what the man said, my heart filled with sliver of hope.

“What’d the fucker say?” I blurted.

“He knows where Cholo is,” Crip growled. He motioned toward the floor. “Get a tourniquet on his leg. He’s going with us. Keep him alive, I’ve got plans to use him later.

“What about this one?” I asked, motioning toward the last remaining man.

Without a word, Crip pointed the pistol at face and pulled the trigger. “Don’t trip over that piece of shit on the way out.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Cholo

“Half a meelyun dollars ees not crumbs, pendejo,” Tattoo said as he paced the floor in front of me. “And, I weel torture you for half a meelyun days just for fuhn. It makes me happy.”

Dressed in silk slacks, dress shoes, and a white wife beater, he paused, smiled from ear to ear, and then motioned toward his partner, who was standing beside him holding a hammer.

“Where’s my mahney?”

Wearing nothing more than the blood-stained boxer shorts I’d worn for the last two days, I’d been moved into a folding chair. Held in place by the third man, I provided no resistance.

I simply couldn’t muster the energy.

I was slowly letting go, and I knew it.

I turned my head to the side, spit on the floor beside the man with the hammer, and then locked eyes with Tattoo.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

He glanced at each of his accomplices and then began to laugh like a madman. After he caught his breath, he looked at me.

His eyes thinned to slits.

“Eet was two or maybe three years ago. I took a hammer and smashed a man’s toes, one then another, until he had no toes left.” He pressed his hands to his knees, lowered himself down to my level, and then cocked an eyebrow. “Then, I hit him in the head with eet until he had holes in his skull. His brains leaked out on the floor, but he leeved long enough to tell me what I wanted to know.”

I realized my feet were flat on the concrete floor.

I imagined the hammer smashing my toes into something resembling hamburger. My stomach began to knot up, and then it started to convulse.

My eyes fell closed.