Getting Ugly (2 page)

He hunted down some stray dogs the FBI had eyes on, a beefy motorcycle gang that was selling meth to anything with a heartbeat. Leon ran up against two tatted-up Neanderthals who laid down some serious firepower with modified assault rifles—crazy, urban warfare shit. Very sophisticated for bike riding tweekers. Leon crept up behind the beasts, dove through the air, and tackled them both to the street like he was Riggs in
Lethal Weapon
. In a blink of an eye, Leon had disarmed them both and was on his feet, Glock leveled at their skulls.

“People still talk about it,” Cooper wraps up with a swig of coffee.

“Thank you, sir.”

Cooper glances at Leon as if trying to communicate with his mind.
Last chance to run, kid.
Leon doesn’t receive Cooper’s telepathy, only wants to devour whatever information Cooper has thrown his way.

Cooper shrugs.
Fuck it then
. He leans forward and gets to the meat of the conversation. “This is a man hunt. The man? Possibly the single most terrifying thing ever rendered by sperm and egg. Goddamn horror show who will kill and rob anything breathing. I need a young, aggressive agent with a healthy set of nuts. Most people are afraid to touch this shit show. You one of those homos?”

Young Leon wants to do well, excel, exceed. “Healthy nuts, yes. Homo, no.”

Cooper hands Leon two, three-inch thick files. “Find this man. Bring him in to answer for the wicked he has done.” Disturbing, gristly photos spill out from the files. The files have only two words on them:
BIG UGLY

Leon lets a smile crack. He’s heard stories about Big Ugly, the white whale, the Big Foot of the law enforcement community. Leon blurts, “Yes, sir.” If he’d taken a moment from his race to impress Cooper to actually stop for a breath and look over the file, he wouldn’t be smiling or thanking anybody for shit.

He’d bolt for the door and apply to the nearest grad school.

Cooper knows this, but he also knows where Leon’s head is. He knows Leon’s type: a young, strong kid who’s blinded by a mix of ambition and cotton candy idealism, coupled with a not so great childhood. That cocktail has made and broken many a good man. Cooper feels some annoying need to offer a bit context. “Now, some consider this a fool’s errand given who we’re talking about. The levels of violence and so forth. It may take you some time. Might have to track this horrific cocksucker for months, maybe years. Can you do this for me, for the FBI?”

Leon doesn’t even pretend to think about it. “Absolutely, sir.” He smiles huge, completely forgetting about his wife, the one who will be left alone during Leon’s crusade. Cooper cracks a half-smile. The death of idealism always hurts Cooper.

It’ll pass.

That fateful day in Cooper’s office is now in Leon’s rearview.

That was then.

This is now.

Leon’s mind whips from that trip down memory lane to the present—his situation is problematic, at best. Today, Leon is beaten to hell, standing in the middle of a Mexican war zone.

He repeats firmly into his cell, “Cooper?”

Leon hears Cooper take a deep breath and then give an obligatory dramatic pause. He can almost see Cooper’s shoulders shrug. The pause drags out for what seems like days.

Cooper finally says, “It’s over. I’m being forced to end the hunt.”

Disbelief rockets through Leon.

Cooper’s words hit him like a spike puncturing his heart, draining his will. Hearing this news could only be matched by phrases like “inoperable tumor” or “no choice but to castrate.” He feels his brain slosh inside his skull. “What? We got him. He’s here. You hear me? He. Is. Here. Send in a team…”

Cooper’s voice is clear and cold, as if reading ink from a page. “I want you to know, you’ve served the FBI admirably. Please understand, there was no other way.”

“Oh bullshit…sir. I’m bringing him in.”

Just before Cooper hangs up he offers, “God be with you, son. I’m sorry.”

“Agent Cooper? Cooper!”

Dead air.

L
eon slumps, his back sliding down the wall of a shack that looks like it could crumble any second. He lets his cell drop to his side, his mind a swirling wad of confusion with no direction or place to go. Leon is a man without a country, his situation as bad as it gets. No back up, and the cavalry is not coming. His mentor, his hero, his surrogate father has abandoned him when he needed him the most. He has successfully tracked down the Devil, and in return Leon’s been left to tangle with him alone.

Is this what the Thai Place Guy felt while watching his guts slip from his body?

The Mexican locals scatter as if it had started raining razor blades. Leon’s confusion swells as he watches the people bolt in every direction, scrambling to avoid being anywhere near him, like rats that instinctively sense the ship is sinking. W
hat do they know?
His stomach twists with the fear that comes from being the last to know you’re completely fucked.

A fist bursts through the thin wall behind Leon’s head.

Thick, well-manicured fingers wrap around the back of his neck, like a mama cat snatching up her kitten. The unseen force yanks Leon through the wall and into the dilapidated Third World home. In a single motion Leon is thrown helicopter style, arms and legs spinning. He lands in a tumble-roll across the dirt floor.

Dust dances as Leon skids to a stop. He manages to squeeze off two blind shots. Prays he hit something, anything. Nicked a vital organ…please?

Nothing.

Silence.

Tiny dots of daylight shine through the bullet holes, with thin slivers of light creeping through where the walls don’t completely meet up with the roof. A cockroach sprints across the dirt floor.

A John Lobb loafer steps on the roach with a moist squish, its high-dollar companion stomping Leon’s gun hand with a twisting crunch of ligament and bone. The Glock slips out from his helpless fingers. Scrambling for the gun, Leon is met with a beatdown delivered by a master of ass kicking.

A blizzard of punches, kicks, chops, flips, elbows, palms of hands—all really unpleasant shit. Leon fights back, giving him hell, but only lands every fourth or fifth fist or foot. It’s not enough. Leon is fighting a beast way outside his class. Like the house of straw against the big, bad wolf, this piggy is in deep shit and sinking fast.

A Colt held by the figure shrouded in shadow jams into Leon’s eye socket.

The dark figure speaks. “Hola.”

Leon cannot, will not, give this man the satisfaction of knowing his fear. “Hi.”

“Sucks when friends up and fuck you.”

“That it does.”

The dark figure readjusts his grip then continues. “What have I ever done to you? How long have you been on me?”

“Two years, five months, eight days.”

“Seriously, when are you going to cease with the shit?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“But not today?”

“Unlikely.”

The dark figure playfully exaggerates a sigh then pulls back the hammer. “Buenos días, my little dead Fed.”

Leon spits out a pulpy tooth. “Fuck you, Grande Ugly.”

a few shitty years later.

I
t’s a moist, sticky night inside a pay by the hour motel room.

Dirty, pink flowered paper clings to the walls. Even the room seems to sweat. An open window lets a breeze into this horrific excuse for living quarters. Graffiti marks the walls—something about big dicks and your mother—beer cans fill the bathtub, and what looks like old, dried-in blood stains on the carpet. A brown couch squeaks as if a jackrabbit were screwing an unwilling Tasmanian Devil.

A wiry twenty-something, Brobee is half-dressed in a
Wonder Pets!
t-shirt, camo cargos down around his checkered Vans. Brobee huffs and puffs with a much, much older hooker riding him with the enthusiasm of a comatose cowgirl.

He’s working way too hard.

She’s bored-to-tears.

The hooker glances at her ancient Swatch, slightly bouncing up and down. “You’ve got five champ.” Brobee goes faster, face beet red.

The door busts open, ripped out chain lock dangling impotently from the doorframe.

Three mean-spirited gents step in. Rasnick leads the charge, with two Eastern Bloc thugs named Vig and Oleg backing him up. Brobee’s eyes go wide, but keeps at his squeaky sex. He’s still on the clock, dammit.

Brobee knows Rasnick is a forty-four-year-old enforcer who’s gone as high as he’s going on the career ladder. It probably bothers him, sure, but what are you gonna do? He does his thing, makes a so-so living, dances when the boss says boogie, and buys lottery tickets. Right now his boogie partner is Brobee.

Fucking Brobee.

Rasnick shields his eyes from the horrific intercourse as calmly he asks, “Brobee, where’s the money?”

Brobee responds with hump-altered speech. “Look, Rasnick. Bro. Dude…” More squeaking. Oleg and Vig pull guns. The hooker gasps in between bounces. Rasnick’s eyes never leave Brobee. “You lost twenty K on women’s lacrosse.”

Vig chimes in, “Who the fuck bets women’s lacrosse?”

“What kind of shithead…” starts Oleg.

“That kind of shithead,” Rasnick says. The room goes silent save the squeaking. Brobee is still at it. The kid’s dedicated to getting his money’s worth.

“Could you stop fucking her for five fucking seconds?” asks Rasnick. The squeaks stop. Bouncing hooker stops. Rasnick takes in a breath. “Tell me you have the money. Please tell me that I didn’t make Oleg and Vig come down here for this sad-sack sex show.”

Oleg and Vig could be twins—they’re not, but they could be. Walls of former Soviet Union beef with tight crew cuts and Russian prison tats from neck to nuts. They’d joined up with Rasnick about a year ago, and things have gone well. Oleg and Vig are happy employees as long as they can drink the good stuff, get mouth-sex from time to time, and inflict pain on a daily basis.

Brobee looks over the situation and knows it’s not favorable. His options are limited at best. Unfortunately, run like hell or certain death are the options Brobee usually faces. He thinks that a smart guy would find a better way to live. And he will, starting tomorrow. Tomorrow is personal inventory day for Brobee. Just gotta get
to
tomorrow, and right now that’s a problem.

He tosses the naked hooker towards them with a yelp.

Rasnick and company are knocked off balance as they open fire. Their blasts crater the walls, taking out fistfuls of drywall. Brobee does a two hop, penguin walk with his cargos around his ankles. The pounding bullets barely miss as he takes a bare ass dive out the window.

Brobee hits the trash cans ass first, his tailbone screaming as his lower back locks up. He spins from the cans as Vig and Oleg hang out the window looking for a shot. Brobee manages to pull his pants up and gain speed as they open up on him. He runs like he’s never run before, bare feet slapping hard on the pavement. Brobee remembers hearing something about how running barefoot is better for you, had read the first paragraph of an article about that somewhere. Thinks,
This is the start, the start of a new Brobee
.

He’ll almost definitely take up barefoot running, eating right—well, better at least—and he will, without question, poke fewer hookers.

A
cab pulls into LAX.

Brobee tosses a few bills to the cabbie. It’s not enough. The cabbie screams as Brobee storms into the airport.

Always keeping his head on a swivel while he waits in line at the American Airlines ticket counter. He takes an opportunity to cut in line as the family in front of him wrestles with a stroller and three kids. At the counter a chipper ticket agent asks, “Where will you be traveling this evening?”

“Next flight the fuck outta here. Doesn’t matter where,” Brobee fires back as he slams down an AmEx he stole from a Persian guy he knows who churns out credit cards using stolen identities.

On the plane, Brobee starts seat dancing with headphones planted on his head, his cocktail sloshing all over his hand. He flips off the window in rhythm with Katy Perry. Other passengers pretend not to notice.

Hours later he lands at some bumfuck airport just north of nowhere. Brobee didn’t even bother really checking where he was going, and he didn’t recognize the name of the place on the ticket—someplace that starts with a B or an M, maybe in Montana…perhaps Idaho. He’d had to change planes three times, and he’s hammered out of his skull from the Jack and Cokes.

Brobee walks through the parking lot, looking over the available vehicles as if he was shopping for a new ride. The booze is starting to fade and he lost his ticket at some point. He still has no idea where he is. Could be Oregon. Could be Canada. Could be Sweden. There are woods in the distance, with mountains. Brobee selects a slick, old school Cadillac and smashes a brick through the passenger window.

The freshly stolen Caddie weaves and winds down a serpentine, country road that’s completely surrounded by thick walls of trees. The headlights cut through the dark, foggy night. Inside the Caddie, Brobee has the 10-speaker, 2 subwoofer, 200 watt sound system booming classic rock. He’s enjoying Golden Earring so much he doesn’t notice the red blinking fuel light.