Dirty Money Page 9

  Frank and Niño’s voices carried through the night air. I couldn’t tell what they were saying anymore, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to break from the plants on the other side before they turned the corner. And they were close. I started running faster. Jackson stumbled, but I kept him moving. He didn’t look happy about being dragged, but he clutched his gun and picked up his feet.

  They were almost to the corner, but we were faster.

  “No, these are only females,” Jackson said loud enough for them to hear as we tumbled onto the path. Boy was smart. “We can’t have the male plants or they’ll pollinate.” He acted like we’d been discussing pollination for hours. Fascinating.

  “Wow. So the sticky stuff?” I struggled to keep my breathing even.

  “Yeah, it’s the females trying to get pollinated.” Jackson sighed. “I wish chicks in the real world were like that.” He sighed again, but this time I could tell he was just panting discreetly.

  Running was hard.

  “They are, junior.” Niño came up close enough for his presence to be obvious. “But you’re such a momma’s boy they don’t want shit to do with you.”

  “Leave him alone.” I used my I’m-in-charge voice. It didn’t work.

  “Sure. When he’s dead.” Niño shrugged like it might not be that long.

  Jackson scoffed, “You’ll never outlast me.” In a rare show of bravery, he stood up for himself. Sort of. “But I’ll smoke a bowl for you when you’re gone.” He puffed out his chest. “Then I’ll piss on your grave.”

  Frank started laughing and clapped Niño on the shoulder. “Better find someone else to pick on.” He was better at playing the game.

  “Fuck off.” Niño shrugged off Frank’s hand.

  “It’s so cute when you act like you’ve got balls, Niña.” I smiled at him. It helped my popularity when I called him a girl. “Maybe you can borrow one of mine sometime.”

  “See? I told you it had balls.” Frank nudged Niño.

  “Hey,” Jackson protested. “Show some respect.”

  Damn. That weed must have had special powers or something.

  “It’s cool, man.” I grabbed the strap of his AK and pulled him forward with me. “We’ll see you guys at camp.”

  “Can’t wait.” Frank grinned in a way that made my stomach turn as he nudged Niño up the path.

  I was so fucked.

  *

  Marco was already passed out when I climbed into our tent later that night. I crawled into my sleeping bag and tried to force myself to sleep. It didn’t work. Nights were bad. If I slept, I saw her. Not just her, but him raping her. And that wasn’t pleasant.

  If I stayed awake, I thought about my best friend and what he’d looked like the last time I’d seen him. In those drifting moments when I was approaching sleep, I’d start wishing I could see her again. And as I started to nod off, I’d think how good it would feel even if she slapped me because at least she would be touching me.

  In the morning, I would only feel pathetic for wanting her. Still.

  Twice, I’d tried jacking off, but nothing happened. Thinking of her just made me cry, and thinking of other girls just made me bored. After I made it through the boredom and the tears, coming was the last thing on my mind. And I still couldn’t sleep.

  When I finally crashed that night, it was fucking late. Immediately, I slid into the dream. By now, I knew the end, but I couldn’t stop it. There was only one difference now. Right before I shot her I could hear her, like she was next to me, blaming me, telling me it was my fault. She was a bitch even in my dreams.

  The scream didn’t wake me, but the hand clamped over my mouth did. It was dark and all I could see were white teeth. I frantically tried to push off the body angled over my chest, but I couldn’t move. He was so heavy.

  “Stop it,” he whispered.

  I kept moving, trying to push him off. This was how I was gonna die.

  “Cooper. It’s Marco. Stop fighting me.”

  The familiar voice finally penetrated my fucked up head. I didn’t even register the name until after. With difficulty, I managed to stop fighting him, but I continued to shiver.

  “You cool, homie?”

  I nodded. He removed his hand.

  “Was I screaming again?” I asked him, my voice low.

  “Not yet.” Marco sat back on his own sleeping bag. “Just moanin’ and twitchin’ and shit.” He shook his head. “Whatever you’re seeing, I don’t ever wanna see.”

  “Sorry.” Nearly every night, he’d woken me up the exact same way. The only nights he hadn’t were the nights I didn’t sleep. “Thanks for waking me.”

  Marco pursed his lips and nodded. “The guys can’t know, you know?”

  I did know. Waking yourself up screaming every night ’cause you’ve got bad dreams is a sign of weakness. I couldn’t show weakness. Now more than ever.

  He hesitated a second then, “You wanna talk about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Gotcha covered.” Maybe he meant in the future. Marco got back in his own sleeping bag. He was out in five minutes.

  I didn’t go back to sleep that night.

  *

  “How’s it looking?” I grabbed the lantern off the table and moved it so Jackson could see inside the bag he was holding.

  “Awesome.” He pulled the bag open wider and angled it toward the light. “The guys are pros, you know?” He opened another bag. “No stems, no seeds…”

  “No sticks. Yeah, I feel you.” I wasn’t in the mood for Snoop and Dre. “How much longer?”

  “Another day and we can send off the first half to be cured.” Jackson tied the bags he’d opened back up and restacked them.

  “And I can get out of this hole?”

  “As soon as we’re finished. And it’s not a hole.” He punched me, but it wasn’t too hard.

  “Right.” I turned off the lantern and we went to join everyone in the center of camp.

  “Looking good?” Marco asked when I sat next to him.

  “Apparently, picking weed is an art form and these guys are artists,” I said.

  “It’s what they do.” He shrugged. “I got a message from Vito.”

  “And?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate.

  “He might want you to stay here for another harvest. Or two.” He didn’t make eye contact.

  Fuck me. I should have let Reese kill me. Or gone home to my mommy. Or maybe I should have called Austin. He would have come to Mexico, put cartoon Band-Aids on my wounds, and kept me out of bar fights.

  “I guess I won’t have to kill myself then. Frank will do it for me.” I was gonna hurl.

  “That’s the spirit.” Marco tried for an English accent. “Keep your chin up.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by a shower of cards and grown men yelling at each other.

  “Don’t fuck with me, boy.” Niño shoved a fat finger into Esteban’s chest. Five guys rushed to stand behind Niño, while the rest of the camp backed Esteban. Enforcers and pickers facing off. Great. May as well start a gang war. If they did, the DiGiovannis were gonna lose.

  “I ain’t cheating, culero,” Esteban shouted back. “You’re just losing.”

  Marco and I didn’t even look at each other as we got in the middle. He started dragging Esteban back. I shoved Frank out of the way and pushed against Niño’s chest until his back was to the camp table. That way no one could get behind him.

  “Chill, man.” I fisted my hands in his shirt so he was forced to look at me. “Be cool. It’s just a card game.” Behind me, I could hear Marco shouting in Spanish. Probably saying the same thing I was.

  “Get the fuck off me, bitch.” Niño tried to push me off, but his back was bent over the table and he had no leverage.

  “I will when you calm the fuck down.”

  “I don’t take orders from you.”

  I was going to disagree, but Frank chose that moment to haul me off Niño. I knew I was fucked when he pulled my arms u
p and locked his hands behind my head. Niño heaved himself off the table and took the opportunity they’d been waiting for with a solid punch to my stomach.

  I’d been there before and wasn’t going to play like that again. Frank started laughing so I figured he was distracted. I dropped to my knees and slid out of his grasp. I was so done with this shit. When I came up, I threw back my elbow and connected with Frank’s face.

  “I’m gonna drop you like a bad habit, douche bag,” I told Niño. He kept smiling so I punched him. He came back with a solid right hook. We started dancing. Back and forth like a good schoolyard fight. He swung; I ducked. I swung; he stepped back. When he connected again it really pissed me off. My head got warm and started to throb.

  Why did all these mobsters wear gigantic pinkie rings? We were in a jungle. Who the hell did he need to impress?

  A trickle of blood gathered in my eyebrow and slowly ran down my cheek. I stopped dancing.

  “Had enough, bitch?” Niño slowed; his fists dropped.

  “No.” I kicked him in the balls. Hard. Then the leg. Once, twice, until his knee buckled and he went down. I kicked him again. My boot connected with his ribs this time. Next, I aimed for his stomach. He curled up on himself. I kicked him again. Then I straddled him and just started punching.

  I waited with each hit for someone to pull me off, but no one was there. Any second now, they’d come. I punched him again. Carson was too busy with his charmed life. Blood ran from Niño’s nose. Derek probably hadn’t even noticed I was gone. Niño coughed and blood sprayed my face. Ryan hadn’t picked me. Niño’s cheek started to swell. Ryan had chosen his sister. I couldn’t feel my hands, like I wasn’t even punching. Reese was a liar. Niño wasn’t even fighting back. Reese was a bitch. Niño’s eye started to close. Reese had left me to die in this jungle. A bone snapped. The small, silent crack was deafening. Reese didn’t want me.

  No one was coming to stop me. No one was coming to save me.

  I stopped hitting Niño. He didn’t move except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Blood ran freely down his face, into his hairline, matting his four-day beard. When it came, his breath was a pink tinged mist.

  I grabbed an AK and went into the night. Quiet calm followed me as I walked away. Like the hush of death, of fear. It was a funeral without the body.

  *

  All night, I patrolled. Slowly circling each field then taking the path to the next one. I passed a couple other guys patrolling, but they either silently stepped out of the way or, in one odd case, actually hid. That guy was so off the payroll.

  I stumbled into camp the next morning and nobody said a word. One guy waited until I sat down then took off. He returned with Marco following him. Calmly, Marco poured two cups of coffee and approached me. I took the tin mug from his outstretched hand.

  He didn’t say anything. In English. But I caught the name of a saint. He took my right hand between his. The cracks in my skin were filled with burnt crimson flakes that rubbed off at his touch. I winced at the pressure. My hand was broken. It was so swollen it had to be.

  “Are you insane?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing.” All night, nothing. Right then, nothing. That was my life, nothing.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  I didn’t think. I just did it. Marco helped ease the open cuff over my hand. The collar was dark and stiff with my old blood. The rest of the dried spray was from Niño.

  Marco ran his hands along my neck and shoulders, under the straps of my ribbed tank top, along my jaw. His fingertips caught the chain of my St. Christopher. I tucked it back under my shirt.

  “It’s just the one on my head and my hand,” I said.

  He kept checking anyway.

  “Here, boss,” Frank interrupted Marco’s examination. His eye was all kinds of black. He set a first aid kit next to Marco. “You need anything else?”

  “A bowl of warm water.” Marco barely glanced at him.

  “Right. How ’bout you, boss?” It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. “Anything for the pain?”

  “Nah.”

  Frank ignored me and rooted through the first aid kit until he found an ice pack. “This will help.” He cracked it and placed it, quite carefully, on my hand. “Keep it elevated. And take these.” He poured a couple pills into my other hand.

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Frank nodded and sauntered away.

  “Your little display was very impressive,” Marco let me know.

  “Apparently.”

  “Scared the shit out of me.”

  “Pansy.”

  “Anyone ever tell you your eyes are fuckin’ freaky?” he asked all conversational while he dug through the first aid kit.

  I shrugged. I’d gotten sexy and I’d gotten unreal. I’d gotten a lot of things, but never fuckin’ freaky.

  “When you were pounding Niño, it was like you weren’t even in there, homie. Like you were possessed or something. And your eyes got brighter, like glowing or some shit.”

  “Trick of the light.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I was barely there. It was only a blur. All I really remembered was waiting every time I drew my hand back for Ryan to grab me. Each hit, I hesitated to give Ryan time to pull me back into myself and away from the mindless beating.

  Frank returned, which saved me from further responses.

  “Anything else?” He set down a bowl of water with a strip of cloth in it.

  “That’s good for now.” Marco squeezed the cloth so it wasn’t dripping. “This’ll hurt,” he told me.

  I swallowed the pills melting in my hand then nodded.

  He was right. It stung like hell. Maybe ’cause the water was so hot. Once again, I felt the trickle of liquid gather in my eyebrow and run down my face. Warm droplets that shimmered red caught in my eyelashes. I moved to wipe them away, but Marco stopped me.

  “Your hand is dirty. Don’t touch your face.” Who was he? My mother?

  “And yours are clean?” I was going for angry, but it didn’t work.

  “I did my weekly scrub this morning.” He showed those pearly whites.

  “Swell.”

  “Hey, that was almost sarcastic.” He wiped at the cut on my forehead again. “Does that mean the princess is waking up?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “This cut is all fucked up and jagged,” Marco said as he continued bathing it in hot water. “Is it from Niño’s ring?”

  “Yep.”

  “Could I get some longer responses? Like maybe full sentences or words with more syllables?” He dabbed around the cut with a dry cloth then he rubbed some gel shit on it that stung like a bitch.

  “How’s Niño?”

  “That’s not exactly what I was thinking.” Marco placed a couple butterfly dressings on my head. “He’ll be fine. His ribs are fractured. I taped him up. And his nose is broken, but nothing else. We reset it. Oh, and you knocked out a tooth. I thought that only happened in cartoons.” He smiled like it was funny. “Give him a couple days and he even might be able to open his eyes and chew food without weeping.”

  Well, now I felt better.

  “The guys all think you’re God or something now.” He pulled the ice pack off my hand. “You know there’s no way to tell if the bone is displaced.” Slowly, excruciatingly, he prodded the bone below my pinkie where all the swelling was. “I’m just gonna splint it and suggest you not hit anyone for a while. Maybe I’ll tape these together too,” he mused while extending my ring and pinkie finger. It felt not good.

  “Maybe you could skip the narrative and just fucking do it.”

  “And maybe you could skip the tantrum and shut the fuck up, honey.”

  I listened.

  Chapter Eight

  Marco had been gone five days. He’d left with the first shipment of weed to make sure none of it fell off the truck before or after curing. I’d offered to
go, but my lack of ability to speak Spanish had me benched. Again.

  Frank had been following me for a week, since the morning Marco had patched me up at camp. It was like I’d gotten a new puppy. Anyone who wanted to talk to me had to go through Frank. If I wanted food, he prepared my plate. He played guard so I could bathe. He even cleaned my gun.

  It was annoying the hell out of me.

  Jackson and I were stacking and counting sacks of weed to check the numbers when Frank ran up with one of the pickers.

  “Boss, we got a problem on the east field.” Great, that one was the farthest away.

  “What kind of problem?” I kept stacking bags.

  “Two guys, maybe three.” Frank was all out of breath. “Cesar saw them and they shot at him.” He clapped a hand over Cesar’s shoulder.

  “Fuck.” I tossed the bag I was holding to Jackson. “Jackson, see if you can get a hold of Marco. We might need a truck outta here if anyone’s been shot.”

  “Truck’ll be here tomorrow anyway.” He shrugged.

  That boy didn’t care about anything but his product.

  “Just fucking do it. And prep whatever medical supplies we have.” The look I gave him must have worked because he started nodding and took off in the opposite direction.

  “Let’s go.”

  “You got ammo?” Frank asked as we ran.

  “I think so.” I checked the pockets of my cargos. There was a magazine in each pocket for my H&K. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Frank had two AKs strapped over his shoulder. It didn’t bode well. I picked up the pace.

  We stayed on the path until we could hear gunfire, then we veered into the half picked rows.

  “Rico,” I called when we were close enough to see our guys.

  “Get down,” he called back before firing off another round.

  Frank tackled me before I could even comprehend what was said. Good timing too, because the plant I was behind was cut in half by a spray of bullets. We crawled the rest of the way toward Big and Rico.

  “This is the shittiest cover ever,” I told them like they didn’t know.