Illegal

FIFTY-NINE

The teenage girl with the black curly hair threw her head back and made a sound somewhere between gargling and drowning.

Her idea of an orgasm, Simeon Rutledge thought. Probably watched too many telenovelas on Univision. Taking her doggie style over a bale of straw, he continued thrusting, but his heart wasn't in it. He slapped her butt once, twice, three times. Firm as a honeydew.

She looked back over her shoulder, her tongue darting out and licking her lower lip. "Ride me, jefe! Fuck me hard!"

Where was she coming up with this shit? His mind wandered to the broken pump on Irrigation Culvert Number Three.

Jesus, was there anything more pathetic than a lackluster fuck?

He didn't blame the girl. She moaned and whooped and wailed and chanted, "?Dios mio!?Dios mio!?Dios fucking mio!"

Put a lid on it, chica. Nobody's that good. Not even me.

Not that he wasn't damn proud of his virility. Funny thing about sex, the more you do it, the more you want it. The less you do it, the easier it is to do without.

That panocha pie he'd been breaking in at the club had stirred up the juices. Marisol. Passive when drugged, she'd turn into a hellcat, he figured, given enough time.

Just now, his member was barely at half-staff, but Ana or Anita or Angelita-he never quite caught her name-was caterwauling like a coyote.

This morning, Rutledge had not planned on a barn-banging. But Beatriz, the girl's mother, an assistant crew chief who'd been working for him for twenty years, brought her around when he'd been checking out the south peach orchard. Elegant Ladies, fat and firm with a pink blush, were at their peak in the summer heat. Rutledge twisted one off a tree and bit into it, the sweet juice streaming down his face. That's when he saw Beatriz's daughter. Canvas shorts and a sweat-stained T-shirt with no bra, boobs undulating as she hip-swayed through the rows of trees.

Do their mothers teach them this shit or is it in their genes?

Maybe it was the intoxicating aroma of the fruit or even the memory of banging the girl's mother back in the Reagan years.

In the same barn.

Over a different bale of straw.

Slam, bam. Gracias, ma'am.

Back then, Beatriz had just arrived from Chihuahua and looked as if she'd walked the whole way. But she had the wide hips, the slim waist, and the pendulous breasts that Rutledge favored. Humping el jefe got Beatriz out of the melon fields and into the shade. She probably thought the same magic would work for Ana or Anita or Angelita.

"She's only sixteen and a virgin, jefe."

"Sure, Bea, and I'm the King of Siam."

But he took the bait. The girl had the same round breasts and oversize nipples as her mother. Same big ass, too. In twenty years, with five kids, she'd have to turn sideways to make it through the doorway of the double-wide.

Now the girl was wriggling her butt and tightening her pussy, trying to get him to come. But his mind was elsewhere and his dick felt as if it had been anesthetized.

His cell phone rang, and he plucked it from his shirt pocket while squeezing the girl's ass with the other hand. Enrique Zaga. Shit. Now what? Did Chitwood kill another pollo?

Rutledge slid out of her. She looked back over her shoulder."?Una segunda vuelta, jefe?"

He hadn't come, but she was offering seconds. With as much passion as a waitress refilling your iced tea.

"Give it a rest, chica."

She bounced up and walked naked to a refrigerator by the stalls. Rutledge hoped she knew the difference between lemonade and horse semen. He pulled up his jeans and sank back into the bale of straw.

"What's the problem, Z?"

Zaga apologized for bothering him, then said flat out, "We had some visitors in Hellhole Canyon."

"Chitwood's asshole friends?"

"Worse, Sim." He summarized Chitwood's confrontation with a lawyer from L.A. and a Mexican kid looking for his mother.

"I don't think they'll cause trouble, Sim," Zaga said, "as long as we get the boy back with his mom."

"Fine. What's her name?"

"Marisol Perez."

"Shit."

"What, Sim?"

"She's training at the club."

"So?"

"I'm the one breaking her in, and she ain't exactly a volunteer."

"Jeez, Sim. Still thinking with your dick at your age."

Rutledge silently cursed himself. "You're right, Z. Dammit, you're right."

The men had known each other all their lives. Raced horses at the county fairgrounds. Got drunk together. Banged the same girls. Zaga was his most trusted employee.

Rutledge knew there were plenty of women who took to the indoor work at the Hot Springs Gentleman's Club. Some gave rub-and-tugs. Some sucked and fucked a select group of lobbyists and legislators who drove down from Sacramento. If you sensed a woman was trouble, you could ship her to the Midwest to pick sugar beets. Or throw her in the back of a truck and drop her off in Tijuana. Once in a great while, you'd come across some pain-in-the-ass who wouldn't let it go. Rutledge remembered a Honduran girl, a blow-job artist who worked at the club for six months before deciding she'd been coerced. She'd come after him with a carving knife. Her carcass ended up fertilizing a cornfield.

"Damn stupid of me," Rutledge confessed. "All the willing panocha around here, and I gotta rassle me some."

"Aw, shit, Sim. Like your daddy used to say, what's done's done, and what ain't ain't."

Sometimes, Rutledge thought, Zaga admired Jeremiah Rutledge more than he did. Jeremiah had been many things. Philosopher. Philanderer. Poker player. And one vicious S.O.B. when riled or drunk, which was six days out of seven, Sundays being reserved for Church, followed by humping a couple migrant girls. In some ways, Rutledge thought, maybe the peach didn't fall too damn far from the tree.

"Forget about letting the woman see her kid," Rutledge said. "Especially with a lawyer involved. Last thing I need now is some rape charge."

"I hear you, Sim."

"I don't suppose that idiot Chitwood got the lawyer's name."

"Got his card. J. Atticus Payne. Office in Van Nuys."

Rutledge thought a second. "I met a lady cop named Payne down in L.A. She's with that asshole Cullen Quinn."

"Small fucking world."

"Tell Javier to get everything he can on the lawyer."

"I dunno. Javier's been taking that chief-of-police shit real serious lately. Not into personal favors."

"Just tell him it's for me. I need a full background check and risk assessment."

Zaga chuckled over the phone.

"What now, Z?"

" 'Risk assessment.' I was just thinking, if it was your daddy talking to mine, he woulda said, 'Amancio, git your shovel and dig a hole in Levee Five. Ah got some varmint to bury.' "

"Times change." Rutledge echoed his lawyer's words without completely believing them. "Soon as you can, let me know what Javier finds out. And Z…"

"Yeah, Sim?"

"You keep your daddy's shovel handy, okay?"