Hummingbird (2 page)

‘My apologies for interrupting you boss but I have a favour to ask and a proposition.’

The Fat Man smiled at Jack and said, ‘I love you Jackie-Boy, you know that right?’

‘I do, thanks boss.’

‘How long have you been my right hand guy?’

‘Ten
years boss,’ Jack replied. He’d started working for the Fat Man on his return to the States from Afghanistan.

The Fat man nodded his head. ‘A long time, and how many times have you saved my life or killed for me to keep me safe?’

Jack shrugged his shoulders, he wasn’t being modest, he really didn’t know, there had been many, of that he was sure.

‘I can tell you, twenty t
hree times, and in all the years we’ve been together you’ve never asked for anything that I hadn’t already given you, so ask away Jackie, what can I do for you that it so important as to tear me away from the delectable Miss Boyd.’

‘I’d like to buy her debt boss.’

The Fat Man did a double take and then laughed loudly, when he had finished he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes and slapped one huge hand on Jack’s back.

‘You want her for yourself is that it?’

Jack nodded his head. ‘Yes, I want her; I like the look of her.’

The Fat Man smiled and said, ‘I thought she might be your type, she’s a stunner all right but I don’t want your money Jack
ie, you can have her to do with as you please with my blessing.’

‘
And the fifty thousand?’

The Fat Man waddled
across to the car and Nicky opened the rear door and the Fat Man clambered inside; the car shook with the Fat Man’s weight as he settled in to the plush interior. Nicky closed the door and moved around the car and got in behind the wheel.

The rear
passenger window glided down and the Fat Man said, ‘I’ll leave you to decide what you want to tell Miss Boyd in regards to her debt, but as far as I’m concerned the matter is resolved.’

‘Thank you boss.’

The Fat Man lit a cigar and blew smoke out of the open window and said, ‘I have other appointments Jackie that require our attention, you have five minutes, don’t keep me waiting.’

Jack nodded his head and went back into the jewellers.

Jack closed the door and he could hear Selena’s sobs as he walked
across the shop and behind the counter. He looked down at the love of his life; he could see she had wet herself and that her skirt was rucked up exposing her pubic area and that her large full breasts were exposed.

‘Open your eyes Selena,
it’s only me.’

Selena’s eyes snapped open and Jack offered his hand to her. She let her knickers go and slapped his hand away and scrabbled backwards and tried to get to her feet.

‘You fucking bastard!’ She screamed, ‘I fucking hate you, how could you let him do that to me, you fucking...’

Jack grabbed her by the left wrist and yanked her to her feet. She screamed as he spun her around and propelled her into the display case and bent her over the co
unter. He grabbed her long blonde hair in his right hand and twisted pinning her left cheek to the counter top. He pushed her legs apart with his left hand and pulled her skirt up exposing her ass; he tore the knickers from her buttocks and pressed himself against her.

Selena was sobbing as he leant over her and said, ‘I knew you were stupid Selena, but you’ve surpassed yourself here, I just saved your fucking life.’

Selena was panting and her breasts were hurting from where they were crushed against the glass counter-top.

‘Hurry up if
you’re going to rape me,’ Selena spat and she cried out as Jack pulled her left arm up behind her back.

‘I’m not going to rape you Selena.’ He let her go and stepped back from her. ‘
Get up and cover yourself, we need to talk and I only have a few minutes.’

Selena stood up an
d she pulled her skirt down covering her shredded knickers. She pulled her blouse shut and turned around to face Jack. She kicked her remaining shoe off and in her stockinged feet looked up in to Jack’s face.

‘
You have totally fucked yourself here Selena so sit down and let me tell you what’s what.’

Selena told him to fuck
himself but she sat on the stool behind the counter and put her face in her hands and wept through her fingers.

‘I’ll run away, or go to the cops, he can’t do this,’ she said and lo
oked up sharply as Jack started to laugh.

‘Listen to yourself Selena, run away?’ He shook his head in amusement, ‘You wouldn’t make it a day, he’d either send me or someone else
like me to find you and when we found you, and we would find you, he’d put you in a house and have his friends perform a “train” on you, and Selena he has a lot of friends.’

Selena’s shoulders heaved up and down as she continued to sob and Jack, tired of her
, pulled her hands from her face and lifted her chin to look at him. She tried to shake her face free but he held her tight, though she was surprised to realise that he wasn’t hurting her. She sniffed back snot and said, ‘I don’t know what to do Jack, and what the fuck are you doing here, how long have you worked for the Fat Man?’

Jack let go of her face and shook his head, ‘I’m not here to
answer your questions, just listen to me if you want to go on living.’ He pulled a tissue from his trouser pocket and held it out to her. She snatched it away and began to wipe her face but she muttered a thanks.

‘You can’t go to the police Selena, in this city he
is
the police, the boss is the commissioner of police’s bridge partner, and that “train” I mentioned, hell most of the carriages would be the boys in blue, you can’t run because he’ll find you. He’ll put you to work fucking customers from dusk ‘til dawn, and every day from here on out you’ll be incurring an interest rate of two fifty, even if he charges a hundred a fuck you’ll never pay your debt off, and they’ll fuck every hole you’ve got, sometimes more than just the one guy, basically you’re screwed.’

Selena let loose a loud sob and said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, I don’t know how I got in to all this.’

‘Of course you do, you borrowed money off of the boss.’

‘I know,’ Selena cried, ‘I needed...’

Jack interrupted her. ‘I’m not interested Selena but I am here to offer you an easier way out.’

Selena looked up at Jack.

‘How?’

Jack picked up a pen from the counter and found a
scrap of paper and scrawled a telephone number on it. He slid the piece of paper across the counter and Selena looked down at it, she then looked back at Jack.

‘
That’s my mobile number, call me on it by midnight tonight and we’ll discuss a proposition.’

Selena snorted. ‘Let me
guess, I can pay my debt off by doing you?’

‘You wish.’
Jack chuckled, ‘I will have my phone on until midnight, if you don’t call me by midnight the number will be turned off and you’ll never hear from me again and you’ll be back to square one. Not one minute late Selena, call me, don’t call me, it’s your choice, but if you call me then you will listen to what I have to say.’

‘But what do you want?’

Jack started for the door.

‘
Whatever it is it’s got to be better than what the Fat Man has planned.’

Selena was about to fire
back a retort but Jack was already closing the door on her. Selena looked down at the scrap of paper and then scanned the mess on the counter and floor and the state of her appearance. On shaking legs she crossed to the door and locked it up and began to cry even harder.

She realised the
scrap of paper was in her clenched fist and she opened her fingers and looked at the scrawled phone number.

‘It can’t be any worse t
han what the Fat Man has in mind.’

                                                                      *****

Selena didn’t even bother clearing
up the mess; she walked through the partitioned area at the back of the store and climbed the stairs to the one bedroom apartment that she lived in above the shop.

On
ce safely locked inside her rooms she stripped out of her clothes and scraped the pile together and carried them through to the kitchen, she dumped them all, along with her shoes in to the waste bin and went back through to the small living area. She located an unopened bottle of bourbon; a gift that some family member had bought her for Christmas the year before, she poured a heavy measure in to a clean glass and swallowed the contents in one, the alcohol burned her throat bringing tears to her eyes, and then the warmth spread through her belly.

She poured another large glassful and naked walked through to the bathroom where she
started to run a tubful of water; a long soak would help wash away the filth of the encounter with the Fat Man.

Selena
caught sight of herself in the floor to ceiling wall mirror and she turned to face her doppelganger and offered up a bitter smile, she saw her hand was still shaking as she raised the glass to her lips; she took a sip and cast her glance over her reflection.

Selena
had just turned twenty seven, was five foot four inches tall, slender with large breasts and a shapely ass, her blonde hair came down over her breasts covering them and she looked at her face reflected back in the mirror; she had often been told that she was the spitting image of the “Sports Illustrated” model Kate Upton, right down to the pale blue colour of her eyes, and she was intelligent enough to know that they were right, she did look a lot like Kate. Selena sipped the bourbon and kept the amber liquid in her mouth as she continued to look at her reflection.

How the hell did it come to this
? She thought.
You know how, you borrowed money to help your brother, the same brother that then up and disappeared
, another inner-voice piped up and she thought about the Fat Man and how he had made her feel.

Selena
spat the mouthful of bourbon against her reflection and watched as the alcohol ran down the mirror’s smooth surface.

When the tub was full she switched off the faucets and stepped in to the hot water, she pushed her hands through the heaving soap bubbles and pulled them over her breasts and she reclined back in to the water and closed her eyes;
I’ll stay here and think until the water grows cold.
Selena
took another sip of the bourbon, already the alcohol was having an effect and she let her thoughts turn to Jack.

She hadn’t seen him for two
years; their break-up had been messy.
And that was my fault too
. She recalled how he used to make her feel; protected and loved, and not for the first time since the split she questioned her own sanity,
I just fuck everything up that I touch
.

Selena
put a wet face-cloth across her closed eyes and sighed, she couldn’t think of a way out that didn’t involve her either being at the bottom of the river with fishes feasting on her eyes or working for the Fat Man getting fucked several dozen times every day by different men and she could see that that was the least attractive of the two options.

An hour late
r she climbed from the bath and on slightly tipsy legs she staggered through to the kitchen dripping water as she went, Selena found the scrap of paper and carried it over to the phone mounted on the kitchen wall, she picked the handset up and dialled the number, it rang a dozen times and she feared that Jack would not answer and then where would that leave her, but on the fourteenth ring it was picked up.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m in....what do you want me to do?’

                                                                      *****

Luis Hamer had shit himself
twenty minutes ago and the smell was getting to be unbearable and Jack wished that the boss would just order him to end the dumb fuck’s life but Jack knew that wasn’t going to happen; the Fat Man enjoyed the fear he saw in others’ eyes far too much to end the pleasure prematurely.

Jack dipped his fist back in to the bowl of ice and used a clean cloth to wipe the blood from his knuckles
; the blood belonged to Luis and Jack looked across the empty warehouse at the Fat Man.

The boss nodded his head and Jack watched the ripples roll down the Fat Man’s body.

‘Again.’

Jack walked over to the wooden chair where Luis was cable-tied and naked.

‘Pu-pu-lease Jack,’ Luis pleaded through very bloody lips, Jack noticed that several of Luis’ teeth were now in the skinny man’s naked lap and Jack shook his head.

‘Sorry Luis, but I work for the boss not you.’

Jack slammed his fist in to Luis’ cheek and he heard the bone fracture, he cast a glance over at the Fat Man, Jack could see the boss’ right hand was inside his pyjama bottoms and Jack knew what the boss was up to; the Fat Man got off on the pain of others.