Bull Mountain (21 page)

CHAPTER

P
EPÉ
R
AMIREZ

P
ANAMA
C
ITY,
F
LORIDA

2014

Headlights punched through the polyester curtains. The sound of crunching gravel outside mixed with loud mariachi music announced that the owner of the trailer was
coming home. The man in the mask took several deep breaths and sank deeper into the faux-leather recliner. He stroked the barrel of the Glock 17 in his lap and coaxed his heartbeat into a calm and relaxed rhythm.

The trailer’s owner stumbled through the door into the darkened room, a cyclone of noise and marijuana stink, a sweet, earthy smell clinging to everything it touched like melted wax.
The mark was a gangster from the old school. His tattoos identified him as one of the Latin Kings. He wore khaki chinos drooped way past his ass cheeks, showing a good six inches of powder-blue boxer shorts, and a wifebeater thin enough to see every cut line of muscle underneath. He also toted a massive black pistol tucked into the front of his pants. How the weight of it didn’t drop his pants
to the ground was anybody’s guess.

The old gangbanger made his way into the kitchenette and pulled the chain of the wall-mounted lamp that illuminated the entire place. The man in the mask’s eyes adjusted to the light, and he watched the O.G. pull the enormous hand cannon from his britches and lay it on the kitchen table.

A fucking .44 Magnum.

This guy thought he was the Mexican Dirty
Harry. The man in the mask allowed himself to smile. He didn’t have one of those. He let the gangster open and close the small fridge a few times, waiting for something new to appear, before deciding on a half-empty bottle of Montezuma. He poured damn near two inches of the contents down his gullet and steadied himself on the counter. When he turned to make a concerted effort to reach the bedroom
he noticed the man in the mask sitting in the living room recliner. He also noticed the Glock 17 in his lap. The man in the mask smiled under his balaclava and watched the older man’s face go solemn as every possible escape scenario played out across it.
Can I get to my gun on the table first before this intruder can pick his up from his lap? Is my safety on? How many steps to the front door?
Can I rush the man in the chair before he has time to shoot? Are my homeboys still outside, toking down?
In the end, he decided to play it cool and maybe talk his way out.

“If you are here to kill me,
ese
, you better just get it done. But prepare to be hunted down like a fucking dog in the street. I’m connected, homes. I got respect up and down the coast. You ready for that kinda trouble,
white boy?”

The man in the mask uncrossed his legs, picked up the gun in his lap, and held it loosely pointed at his mark. “Forgive me, Pepé, if I’m not too impressed by an old spic gangster living in an aluminum trailer in the middle of spring-break land. You gonna call up a bunch of date-raping frat boys to throw their checkbooks at me?”

Pepé heard his name. This wasn’t random. He flicked
his eyes to the massive gun on the table. Only three feet, but it might as well be the span of the Grand Canyon. The man in the mask waved his gun. “You don’t want to do that, Pops. By the time you reach it, pick it up, and click the safety, Pepé Ramirez will be nothing but bad tattoos and strawberry jelly. Besides, don’t you want to know who I am? Why I’m here with my own big-ass gun?”

“Fuck
you, man.”

Agent Holly sighed and took off the mask. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Fuck me. I’m sure you’ve got a laundry list of people who want to kill you. I could be anybody.”

“Why don’t you stop talking and just do it already?”

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Holly stood up, gun trained on his mark, and motioned to the breakfast nook. Pepé hesitated, but he sat.

“Here, why don’t
I take that out of the equation so we can focus.” Holly picked up Pepé’s gun and tossed the heavy chunk of steel onto the recliner. The last bit of hope drained from Pepé’s eyes, leaving behind two empty dead sockets as the gun bounced on the mahogany seat. “The truth is, it doesn’t matter who I am. I’m not here for me.” Holly produced a small photograph from the pocket of his black BDUs and placed
it on the table in front of Pepé. “I’m here for her.”

Pepé didn’t look at it. He just dug his eyes into the man with the gun.

“Do you remember her?”

Pepé dug his stare in deeper. Holly gave it right back and leaned in a little closer. “Look at the picture before I put a bullet in each of your fucking kneecaps.”

Pepé looked down at the picture of a woman sitting in the grass with
a small boy. He studied it closely before hawking up a big wad of snot and spitting on it. Holly moved like a blur. A white-hot blast of pain exploded in Pepé’s face as Holly belted him with the Glock. Pepé was used to pain but hadn’t experienced it in a long time. Not since getting out of the game. It leveled him.

“Okay, man. Fuck. What do you fucking want?”

Holly pulled Pepé’s head up
off the table by his obviously dyed, greasy black hair. He yelped. “Ow! Goddamn it,
ese.
What do you want?”

Holly let go and picked up the picture. “I asked you a question, you disrespectful piece of shit.”

“What? What fucking question?”

Holly held the photo within an inch of Pepé’s face. “I asked you if you remembered the girl.”

Pepé looked again. “She look like every other bitch
whore I ever ran.”

Holly pressed the barrel of his gun against Pepé’s forehead hard enough to leave a mark. He put the photo back down on the table and spoke calmly. “This is your last chance, homes. Show me a little respect and answer my questions, and maybe you come out of this alive.”

Pepé swallowed a mouthful of the blood. “Who you fucking kidding,
ese
? It don’t make no difference
if I answer your questions or not, and you know it. I come in here. I see you sitting in my chair, in my place. Don’t even have your gun in your hand. Sitting there without a care in the world. Like we good buddies. You wear that fucking mask like it’s suppose to hide something, but it don’t hide your eyes. You got a killer’s eyes, homes. That’s why I knew right away, one of us was going to die. You
a fucking killer through and through. Just like me,
ese.
”

“You’re wrong about that, Pops. I’m nothing like you.”

Pepé smiled through blood and broken teeth. “I say we just alike, white boy. So go ahead and do it. Pull the trigger. I ain’t scared to die. I’ll catch up with your white ass in the next life. You can believe that.”

“So it’s fair to say you don’t want to tell me anything
about Angel?”

“Who?”

“The girl in the picture. You named her Angel.”

“Right, right, Angel. That’s the name I have for my dick. The one I made your mother suck on before I—”

Holly swung the gun at Pepé again. Harder this time. Pepé’s neck twisted and he slumped down into the seat. Holly grabbed his hair and yanked him back up. The retired gangbanger drooled blood down his chin and
the front of his shirt.

“Errgg . . . just do it . . .” he said through a broken mouth.

“Not yet, Pepé. There’s someone I want you to talk to.” Holly let go of the gangster’s hair and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped in a number and held the phone to his ear. When someone answered, he put the phone on speaker and laid it on the table next to the picture. A child’s voice came from the
phone in frantic Spanish. All the attitude melted from Pepé’s face, replaced by panic. He yelled back at the phone in Spanish. Holly tapped the phone and ended the call. “Carlos is your sister’s kid, right? He’s the reason you got out of the game and relocated here in Titty City. He’s a cute kid. What is he . . . nine?”

Pepé sneered at Holly. “I’ll fucking kill you, white boy.”

“No, Pepé,
you won’t. But if you tell me what I want to know, I won’t let my friend hold your nephew underwater in a motel bathtub.”

Pepé struggled to get up and make a run at Holly. Holly easily knocked him back down.

He had nothing left but to beg. “Please don’t hurt that boy,” Pepé said. “It would kill my sister. He is all she has.”

“Then talk to me. Just a conversation, then I call my friend
and everyone goes home happy.”

Pepé slumped back down, defeated. He looked at the picture on the table. “I don’t know her, man. I ran a lot of girls. It was a long time ago.”

“Look real hard. She might have had blond hair then. She got her face cut up real bad.”

Pepé leaned down closer to look at the picture again, then looked at Holly. “Yeah, I remember her now. Angel. What about
her?”

“You remember the night she got cut?”

“Yeah, some john did it. Motherfucker cut her up real good. I sent her packing. She wasn’t any use to me no more. But I didn’t do that shit to her, man. I helped her. I got her fixed up after that shit happened.”

“Who was the john?”

“I don’t know, man, I didn’t keep records of that shit.”

Holly leaned back on the fridge. “Why didn’t
you retaliate? Do you normally let johns affect your money like that?”

“Hell, no. I tried, but that dude was protected.” Pepé rested his forehead in his hands.

“Protected by who?”

Pepé was clearly done holding back. “The Englishman.”

“I need a real name, Pepé.”

Pepé just sat there, holding his head. Holly tapped the barrel of his gun on the table. “Think about little Carlos,”
he said.

Pepé looked up. “His name is Wilcombe. Oscar Wilcombe.”

“Who’s he?”

“I don’t know the motherfucker,” Pepé said. “He just a rich white dude that threw me a lot of business. He was always using my girls for parties. Entertaining other rich white dudes. The dude that cut up your girl was a VIP for Wilcombe.”

“Wilcombe.” Holly let the name roll around on his tongue. “Did Wilcombe
make it right?”

“What you mean, man? I told you what happened. Call your boy off my nephew.”

“I mean, did he pay you for the damage?”

“I don’t remember, homes.”

“Yes, you do. Did he pay you or not?”

“Shit, man, yeah. Yeah. He paid me twenty-five bills.”

“Twenty-five hundred dollars to write it off? You let the john skate for twenty-five hundred bucks?”

“Yeah, man. It
was business. That’s all. Now call your boy. Let my nephew go.”

“I’ll ask you one more time: What was the john’s name?”

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“No, you didn’t. You said you didn’t know who he was. Now you’re saying you don’t remember. There’s a difference.”

“What the fuck, man. It was a long time ago. Just make the call.”

“No. Not yet. Something still doesn’t add up.
If this Wilcombe only paid you two and a half grand to walk away, then there’s more to the story. That kind of money would cover one of your bottom bitches, maybe, but not someone like this.” Holly tapped the barrel of the Glock on the photo of his mother. “This one would have cleared that much in a few weeks. She was an earner, fresh off the bus. You hadn’t even begun to spin her out when some
asshole in a motel cuts into your profits and gets to walk away for under three grand? No way. Why did you let this Englishman off so cheap?”

“You and me got different ideas about cheap, white boy.”

Holly jabbed the gun barrel in Pepé’s eye, and the Mexican shrieked in pain. “I’m not in the mood for glib, Pepé. Now, again, why so cheap?”

Pepé wiped at the streak of blood coming from
his eye.

“Okay,” Holly said, “allow me. I’m just spitballing here, so you feel free to jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m thinking maybe this guy in the motel was a bigger deal than you let on, maybe too big a fish for you to fry, and this English fuck knew it, so he gave you whatever he wanted you to have, and you were happy to get it. Is that what happened?”

Pepé sat silent.

“This is your last chance to tell me everything, Pepé, or I’m going to smash that phone, and little Carlos—”

“Burroughs,” Pepé said.

Holly repeated it slowly. “Burroughs?”

“Yeah. Some baller from up in Georgia. I didn’t even know they had ballers in Georgia. Backwoods motherfucker. He was too well protected for my boys to get involved, so I walked. Cut my losses.”