Page 116 of The Slayer
Tino gave him an annoyed look. “I use deodorant.”
“I’m just saying I heard things about Italians.” Chuito laughed as he took another drink.
“Motherfucker—”
Chuito dropped his head to the table and cracked up before Tino could finish.
“I keep my shit clean,” Tino went on. “I even manscape. I’m the cleanest motherfucker in Garnet.”
Chuito was still laughing, and he realized he was going to end up sleeping on Tino’s couch. “I got to stop drinking after running.”
“Puerto Ricans can’t hold their liquor like Italians.”
“You just told me you manscaped. You’re fucked-up too.”
“It’s a common courtesy,” Tino went on. “No woman wants to suck on a hairy dick.”
“Tino, no.” Chuito hid his face in his arm, trying to block that horrible image. “Ay Dios mio.”
“You don’t manscape?” Tino asked him, completely oblivious to personal privacy the way Italians were apt to be.
“Would it bother you if I didn’t?”
“Yes, it’d insult me as a man,” Tino said as if he meant it. “You’d let a chick suck on your hairy dick? That’s rude. It gives men a bad name. That’s ten thousand times worse than sweating all over a fine suit ’cause you don’t like undershirts.”
Chuito was still laughing, the booze making it funnier than it probably should be. “No one’s sucking on my hairy dick.”
“Then that’s a whole other issue,” Tino growled as if he was still insulted as a man. “What is your deal?”
“I manscape,” Chuito admitted rather than own up to the rest of it.
“Thank God,” Tino said, clearly appeased and forgetting the rest because he was completely fucked-up. “I was about to buy you a buzzer to go with the undershirts.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ironically, the next day, not one redneck flashed a shotgun at Chuito when he ran past. He became part of the scenery. They barely noticed him. They just kept on doing whatever the hell they were doing and didn’t see the Boricua fighter who ran past the same time that day as he had nearly every other day for the last two weeks.
They got lazy.
Just to test it, he turned around and walked back, faking a stitch in his side. It was snowing. He really did not want to be out in this shit. Usually he used the treadmills at the Cellar during the winter.
Now he was stuck running through the rest of the winter in this mierda.
Just to cover his ass.
That chafed worse than the holster.
Talk about paying back debts.
The Conners’ shady investments paid off in a way they would never know. Taking a chance on sponsoring Chuito had gotten a Miami Boricua to run in twenty degrees just so Wyatt wouldn’t go to prison.
Chuito stopped at the trailer park. He leaned over and grabbed his side as he looked at the front door to Vaughn Davis’s place.
Then, as he stood there, the door opened, and a tall, heavyset man Chuito had seen more than once walked out. He was one of the motherfuckers who favored shotguns. He lived at the meth house down the way, and Chuito got the impression most drugs in Garnet funneled through him. The drug dealer paused on the porch and called out, “Hey, Rocky, do you fight in meat lockers when you’re done running?”
Chuito arched an eyebrow and kept his hand on his side as he straightened up. He used the excuse to study the lock on the trailer again, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Where’s your shotgun?”
The drug dealer laughed. “Where’s your .38?”
