Page 20 of The Slayer
Chuito took the cookies and turned to close the door.
“Oh, is that the Puerto Rican flag?” She reached up and touched the tattoo on the back of his neck. “What doesBoricuamean?”
Chuito paused and took a deep breath, because feeling her fingers against such a sensitive spot affected him. “What do you think it means?”
She shook her head, her blue eyes wide and bright against her pale skin. “I have no idea.”
“It means I’m Puerto Rican.”
“Right.” She nodded. “That would make sense.”
“I’m going to close the door now,” he told her and started to close it to illustrate his point. “Gracias for the cookies.”
She reached out before he could. “If you need anything—”
“I don’t need anything,” he assured her as he pushed her hand out of the way.
“But if you do.” She tilted her head, following the narrowing space between them. “I’m right here. I have baking supplies and measuring cups and—”
Chuito closed the door in her face.
He stood there afterward, listening.
She huffed on the other side, sounding hurt. “That didn’t go well,” she whispered, obviously to herself.
He just waited rather than answer her.
When he heard the other door open and close, he turned around and searched for a telephone. He needed a landline, and he found a portable in the kitchen.
Thank God.
He called his cell phone, getting the number. He texted it to his mother, telling her to make sure Marcos had it. He couldn’t beg her and tell her to make sure he had it right now because he needed something normal in this crazy place.
He would just have to wait.
Then he grabbed the coffee tin before he could change his mind and dug the plastic bags out of it. He dumped it all in the toilet, and it was like standing there having a funeral in a cloud of cocaine that was billowing up around him and sinking to the bottom faster than he could save it.
He broke out in a sweat when he flushed it and had to sit down on the bathroom floor next to the small shower with his head in his hands and the room swimming.
There was nowhere in this town to buy blow.
He was certain of it.
He’d done it.
Those stupid gringos all thought they were giving him a chance of a lifetime. They didn’t know he’d just put himself in prison instead. A gringo prison, with scary cop guards and jack shit to do but work out and look at the walls around him.
And it was fucking snowing.
He’d been trying to get caught for the past six months. Stealing cars in broad daylight. Fighting in the most deadly underground rings possible. Dealing in the gringo neighborhoods, the ones with extra heat.
He had done absolutely everything save drive up to the Miami PD and turn himself in, because he couldn’t handle the remorse anymore. He couldn’t stand that his cousin was in prison for being caught chopping cars Chuito had stolen. The guilt was too much, and he already had a fuckload weighing heavy on his soul.
Then Clay Powers showed up and offered him something worse than getting arrested.
At least there was blow in prison.
Chapter Eight
