Authors: Eric Pete,Carl Weber

The Family Business (26 page)

BOOK: The Family Business

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Rio

“Oh my, they do look pretty scary, don’t they?” As hot as he was, I’d just determined that Martino was a damn punk. He looked terrified by my two Mexican friends. “You sure they’re after you?”

“Do those motherfuckers look like they belong in a gay bar?” Martino replied. “Of course they’re after me. They work for the guy I’m spying on. That son of a bitch I got on the inside must have ratted me out.”

As scared as he was, I wasn’t about to alleviate his terror and tell him that Alejandro’s men were really after me. He was a gift from heaven that had suddenly fallen into my lap, and he could quite possibly get me home and back into LC’s good graces without even breaking a fingernail.

“Christ Almighty,” he said in a voice made breathless with fear. “They’re gonna kill me.”

“Not if I can help it. I haven’t even had any of that tasty dick yet.” I stood up from my bar stool. “C’mon, I’ll get you outta here.” I pulled Martino along. Usually, I relished being the center of attention, but at a time like this, I wished my hair weren’t dyed quite so blond. It made me too easy to spot in here.

I faked a sudden move to my right, somewhat shielding Martino in an effort to play along with his notion. Both of Alejandro’s men bit on my action, waking from their dazed stupor and flinching to attention. They were trained too well, neither one overcommitting as they maintained their spacing to keep me pinned in their sights.

Rather than waiting for me to make another move, Martino panicked and darted out from behind me, heading toward the back of the club. With his distraction, they pivoted toward the potential new threat to them. When this happened, the one to my left suddenly fell over, clutching his chest. His surprised partner reacted to the unseen threat the only way he knew how, by whipping out his gun. This sent the whole club into a panic and stampeding for the front door. I now had a wave of bodies momentarily between me and Alejandro’s remaining man.

I ran out the back door a few seconds behind Martino. I found him scrambling down the alley, and I screamed for him to wait the fuck up. When he saw it was me, he gladly halted for a moment to catch his breath.

“What happened back there? I thought you were right behind me.” He stood panting, hunched over with his hands on his knees.

“I ... I held them off. Got the drop on one of ’em,” I said, sucking wind and lying my ass off. I didn’t know what happened to the one that keeled over, but I wasn’t complaining. “But the other one is still coming.”

“Thank you.” He stood erect and loosened his collar. “If they found me, then that means everything’s blown up. I gotta get back to my hotel, grab my shit, and get back to New York.”

“Well, they’ve seen me helping you, so I’m leaving if you’re leaving!” I said, doing my best damsel in distress for his benefit. All that was missing was for me to bat some false eyelashes.

“C’mon,” he said.

When we turned to resume our escape, two shots landed near us. I yelped, feeling flakes of brick separate from the wall and ricochet across my cheek, leaving bloody scratches on my pretty face. It was the other one of Alejandro’s men, storming down the alley in pursuit. He was still aiming at us, and I was sure he did not intend to miss again.

“Run!” I yelled.

There was another shot, and then Martino grunted in pain. I looked behind me to see that he’d been shot in the lower back. He reached out his arm toward me.

“Go... let’s go. I’ll be all right,” he urged, grimacing in pain.

With me yanking on his arm, Martino got up to a pretty good pace.

We ran as fast as we could toward the end of the alley, quickly cutting across a parking lot and then into a neighborhood bustling with pedestrian traffic. I hoped we could get lost, at least temporarily, in the crowd. We dipped into another alleyway so Martino could catch his breath.

“Do you have a gun?” I asked, figuring it was somewhere on him based on his job description.

“No. Stupid on my part,” Martino replied as he reached toward his back to check how bad it was. “It’s back at the room. No one knew I was going to be here. I didn’t think I’d need it. Just trying to enjoy a little downtime, like I said.”

His trembling hand came out with a good bit of blood from his wound.

“We need to get off the streets. Is your hotel nearby?” I had to get this guy to a safe place and get him talking before he passed out from blood loss.

He told me where his hotel was, and we scurried across the intersection, hustling past a hamburger joint and a dry cleaner. I kept looking over my shoulder, and so far, it looked like Alejandro’s man hadn’t spotted us. All the couples out strolling on this warm night had provided cover.

As we passed the high-end boutiques, I did my best to act as if we were drunk lovers window-shopping. I pretended I was hugging him, when I was really just trying to bear the big lug’s weight. By the time we’d reached Melrose Avenue, fear of dying in a hail of bullets had gripped me in near paralysis, yet I pressed on. I had no choice. If our reduced speed didn’t allow Alejandro’s man to catch up, the trail of blood drops running down Martino’s leg might.

My brothers and sisters were better at this sort of thing. Me? I just went haphazardly along tonight, trying to outthink a professional killer while not giving in to the panic ripping my gut apart. As we crossed Melrose, I decided to take a wild right on Rangely Avenue. We used the tree-lined residential street to give us some cover, hoping every car, tree, bush, and shrub would afford us some protection if he was still following.

When I saw the hotel, I could still hear the police sirens back around The Pink Lion as they fanned out over the area. I considered getting us arrested, as it would get Martino the medical attention he needed and would get me out of Alejandro’s reach for a minute. But I quickly dismissed that idea, because I was sure Alejandro would have someone on payroll on the police force, and then I’d be without whatever information Martino possessed. And I did believe he possessed some.

I led Martino into the hotel and up to his room; then I quickly got us behind closed doors. Inside the room, I removed his shirt and had him lie on the bed while I wet a towel to wipe the bloody wound. I didn’t really know what the fuck to do, but I talked a good game to keep him from panicking.

After double-checking the locks on the door and peeking out the curtain, I struck up a conversation with a semi-delirious Martino as I went about trying to tend to his wound.

“Why you out here, baby? Least you can do is tell Rio why that man’s trying to kill us.”

“He ... he works for Alejandro Zuniga,” he said through teeth gritted in pain. “I—I gotta call in. Let ’em know I’m safe ... thanks to you. Give ... give me my phone.”

“I’ll get your phone in a minute, but you need to lay still, okay? I used to be a nurse. Let me take care of this,” I urged. Of course, I’d never been a nurse a day in my life, but it sounded good. “Your boss let you come out here with these crazy mofos?” I asked as I tended to the blood steadily trickling from the hole in his back. We had only so many clean towels, and the comforter was already ruined.

“Yeah, I got somebody inside their organization. Paying him for info. Found out the beaner’s shippin’ crazy shit to these niggers back in New York,” he said.

Humph. Guess his delirious ass didn’t know that just because I was gay didn’t mean I suddenly wasn’t black. My previous crush on this fool was now officially over. Not only was he on the down low, but he was also a racist who liked to fuck black men. What kind of self-hating faggot was he? I made a mental note that if this racist faggot survived, I would make sure to literally bite his dick off.

“Hold still. I think I can get it out.” I dug a finger into Martino’s wound, acting like I was searching for the bullet. Really I was just punishing his racist ass. He let out a loud grunt, which brought a smile to my face. “Sorry,” I said, containing a giggle. “Shippin’ shit? Like stolen car parts?”

“Nooooo. Drugs. Coke. Heroin. Heavy shit, Rio. But get this. Niggers didn’t get their shit,” he said, laughing even through his pain. “My boss used the info I got out of the beaner over here, and he jacked the shipment once it got back east.”

“Niggers
and
beaners
ain’t comin’ after you and your paisans over it?” I asked. Incredibly, he totally missed the irony in my tone.

“Nah,” he answered. He was so proud of the work he’d done for his boss that he suddenly seemed to regain some strength as he explained, “No one knows we knew about the shipment, so each side thinks the other’s lying. We’re turnin’ them against each other, and then we just wait to pick up the pieces. Some beautiful, wicked shit my boss thought of. When it’s over with the niggers, our guy out here will be in charge of Zuniga’s old operations on the West Coast. And I get more trips out here to keep an eye on things.” He turned his head to try to look at me. “You wanna move out here with me? We could go out and party every night. Fuck ’n shit, and nobody would know.”

I wanted to slap this silly-ass fool. “Doesn’t seem like it’s gonna happen now, Martino, since Zuniga’s men came after you in the club. Remember? They shot at us.”

“Y-yeah, you’re right. Damn,” he said, his voice trailing off as either the blood loss or shock began to take over. “Our guy musta gave us up and told his boss everything. That’s how those Mexicans knew to follow me out tonight. Aw. Everything’s fucked now.”

“That bastard.”

“Yeah. As much money and pussy as we supplied him with. We should cut off his dick and feed it to the dogs. I... I really gotta call my boss, I think. He’s gonna be pissed.”

“What’s the guy’s name?”

“My boss? We call him Mr. Dash. Respect, y’know,” Martino rambled, his eyes barely open now. I couldn’t believe how much information he was giving up so easily. I figured he must be in shock.

“Noooo. The guy inside Zuniga’s organization. That double-crossin’ bastard who sent them to kill you. What’s his name? If I get out of this alive, I’m gonna kill him myself.”

“Oh. We call him Road Map.”

I mean, this was just too damn easy. I felt like a detective on some television drama the way I was getting this dumb ass to spill his guts—figuratively and literally.

“Road Map? What the fuck kinda name is that?”

“He got jacked-up skin,” Martino said with a groan as he tried to laugh. “Face look like a ...”

“Road map?” I said, completing his sentence for him.

“Yeeeeah, you got it. Now... hand me my phone. I‘ma send somebody to help get us outta here. Just won’t tell ’em about us or where I was at. I’ll say you were a Good Samaritan ’n shit.”

Yeah. A blond, gay brother in the hotel with the supposedly straight Martino. Like they wouldn’t kill my ass on sight if I let him send his boys over. Now it made sense to me why he was so loose with his tongue. He probably figured telling me wouldn’t hurt, because I wouldn’t be around to share it with anybody.

I took his phone, looking through numbers in the directory first. Then I placed a call of my own.

“Hey, O. It’s me.”

“Rio? Thank God. You need to get as far away from Alejandro and them as you can. Pop just had both his brothers killed. In retaliation for Uncle Lou’s death.”

“Uncle Lou’s dead?”

He hesitated, then said quietly, “Yeah, man. Lou’s dead.”

“Oh, shit. So I guess I’m next.”

“Not if I can help it. Now, I need to know exactly where the fuck you are, man. I got Paris on the ground, looking for you.”

“Hotel Beverly Terrace on North Doheny, room three forty-eight,” I said. “And tell her to hurry. The block is hot, O, and they’re out to get me.”

I hung up. Once I got out of immediate danger, I’d call Orlando again and tell him everything I’d just learned about the Italians setting us up.

“Who was that?” Martino asked, a surge of consciousness allowing him to raise his head.

“I just called your people for you and told them where we’re at. They said for you to lay still and they’re on their way.”

“Damn. I owe you my life. Still wish we coulda fucked tonight.”

“Yeah. That woulda been some incredible shit,” I said with an eye roll.

With a crash, the door flew open. Shit. Martino’s blood drops must have led him right to the hotel. I tried to use Martino’s phone again, but our pursuer pointed his barrel dead at me.

“No... w-wait,” I stuttered as I slowly lowered the phone. Martino groaned as he tried to turn over in our direction. “He ... he needs medical attention.”

With rolled-up sleeves exposing the extensive ink down his forearms, he brought his aim in Martino’s direction. He fired two shots into Martino, killing him on the spot. Before I could yell or scream, he turned his gun back toward me.

This was it. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know when the fatal shot was coming.

“If it was up to me, I’d kill you right now,” he hissed. “But Alejandro wants to see you. You’re one lucky fuckin’ maricon.”

BOOK: The Family Business

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