Moist

Ten

THE ARM LAY unwrapped on the kitchen table. The three men stood there staring at it, looking slightly awestruck and puzzled. They obviously weren’t used to limbs and organs like Bob was. Bob didn’t care about the arm. He held a bag of frozen peas against the lump on his head and gingerly sipped a Coke.

“I feel nauseous. I think you gave me a concussion.”

The ponytail guy smiled at him.

“Sorry, cabrón. Had to knock you out. You might be a kung fu master or something. Couldn’t take no chances, man.”

Bob understood. It made him feel a little better. He even felt slightly flattered: a kung fu master? Right on. But now he found himself in a strange position. Was he kidnapped? Were they going to kill him? Should he try to escape? He really didn’t know the answer.

The older Mexican guy took a rubber spatula and nudged the arm.

“I never realized he had so many tattoos.”

The white guy spoke.

“The police will know that there are tattoos on the arm. We have to find out where he got them done.”

The ponytail guy disagreed.

“First we need an arm.”

Bob twitched with alarm as the older guy turned toward him.

“He’s got two.”

Bob shook his head.

“No way, man! No fucking way!”

The older Mexican gave Bob a menacing look. Bob shifted gears.

“C’mon man, my arm does not look anything like that arm.”

Bob winced as the Mexican grabbed his arm and roughly jerked him so that his arm was next to Amado’s severed arm. Side by side it was easy to see that Bob was right. The severed arm was dark, hairy, and muscular. A man’s arm. Bob’s arm looked pale, sickly even. An intellectual boy’s arm. No amount of tattooing was going to change that. The Mexican looked at Bob.

“You a faggot?”

Bob shook his head.

“No.”

“You got a faggot’s arm.”

Bob didn’t respond. He didn’t agree, of course. The gay men he knew were extremely buff, muscular, and handsome. His arm didn’t look gay at all.

The older Mexican turned to the ponytail guy.

“Find him.”

Bob was amazed. The guy with the ponytail just nodded and split. Bob realized that this older, scary Mexican guy was some kind of juiced-up Godfather or something. Why else would a Mexican in a toupee have some clean-cut white guy hanging around with him and be bossing some tough young hombre around like he was a five-year-old? Bob was in some kind of shit. That much was obvious.

Amado sat up in bed watching television. He’d gotten into one of the soap operas, enjoying the backstabbing, lying, and cheating of the characters. It was familiar turf, though he couldn’t understand why young Jax didn’t take a fucking shotgun to that evil bitch Helena after what she did to Francesca. Maybe Jax just was some kinda fucking huele-pedos quebrachón. Amado would’ve shoved both barrels up Helena’s ass and pulled the trigger. Let the jodida pendeja have it. ¡Qué te jodas!

He often found himself shouting at the TV. Attempting to warn someone not to sell their shares in the overseas corporation because it was a trap. A scam. Don’t do it! ¡Cuidado! He’d scream and shout, sometimes waving his arm around frantically, trying to warn them, and then realizing he didn’t have an arm anymore. Still it felt like it was there. Qué raro.

He was happy to see Norberto when he came into the cheap motel room. Norberto was carrying a greasy brown paper bag. He handed it to Amado.

“How you feeling?”

“How you think?”

Amado opened the bag and was hit by a rich pungent aroma. He broke into a grin.

“¿Carnitas?”

“Carnitas pibil.”

“Qué bueno.”

Norberto sat down on the end of the bed and watched as Amado pulled one of the foil-wrapped tacos out of the bag and struggled with one hand to unwrap it. Norberto made no move to help.

“Do you miss your arm, man?”

“I dream about my fucking arm.”

“We got it, you know.”

Amado stopped what he was doing.

“What?”

“We got your arm, man. You should see it.”

“What’re you doing with my fucking arm, pendejo?”

“Keeping it from las placas, maricón.”

Amado glared at Norberto. Smart-ass little fucker.

“Esteban has my arm?”

“Sí.”

“Qué bárbaro.”

Amado shook his head and went back to unwrapping the taco. He eventually got the taco out and jammed half of it into his mouth. He chomped down on it, grease and salsa spraying out of his lips. Norberto smiled at him.

“¿Quieres cerveza?”

Amado nodded, a big smile on his face. He was moved by his friend who cared enough to bring tacos and beer. A tiny tear formed in the corner of his left eye. Norberto reached into a grocery bag and pulled out a cold can of Modelo Especial. He popped the can and handed it to Amado.

“Gracias.”

“De nada.”

Amado took a long pull on the cold beer and then let out a blistering belch. The air was suddenly scented with pork, chilies, and beer. Norberto turned to Amado, serious.

“Esteban needs you, man.”

“Needs to kill me.”

“No. Stuff’s come up. It’s important.”

Amado looked at Norberto and realized that things had changed. Norberto had moved up in the world, taking direct orders from El Jefe, Esteban himself.

“I thought you were mi vato.”

“It’s not like that, man. Esteban needs you. He’s not gonna kill you.”

“That’s what he told you.”

“That’s what I know.”

Amado studied Norberto. He figured that the punk was probably packing a nine, or worse, that fucking.38 snubby he liked to carry because he saw it in a movie and thought it looked real cool and vintage.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

Amado shrugged.

“Vale.”

Esteban was watching Chivas play Morelia on Channel 55 when Norberto and Amado walked into the safe house. Martin was talking to the delivery guy, Bob something, in the kitchen, trying to learn more about how to keep the arm preserved. The last thing Esteban wanted in his house was some fuchi arm stinking up the place. Esteban stood to greet Amado.

“Cabrón. ¿Qué onda?”

“You tell me.”

The two men stared at each other. Esteban suddenly felt unsure of what he was supposed to do. It was a feeling he was unaccustomed to. What had Amado been up to at Carlos Vila’s? Was it bad enough that Amado expected him to kill him? Esteban realized that he would have to deal with Amado one way or the other after he was clear of this mess. Sloppy murderers and freelancers were a liability. But he wasn’t going to do anything about it right now. Right now his main concern was to keep out of jail. So he just stood there looking at Amado. Finally Norberto broke the tension.

“Amado? You want to see your arm?”

Amado turned to Norberto.

“Yeah.”

Bob couldn’t believe it when the one-armed dude came into the kitchen. Bob knew it was the arm’s owner because this guy was covered in similar tattoos. Women with huge erect tits, men taking them from behind. Voluptuous and busty women with wild tangled hair going down on muscular biker-looking guys, sucking their long hard cocks. And that was just what he could see on the guy’s one arm and poking out of his shirt around his neck and chest. It was like the Kama Sutra for Hell’s Angels scattered all over the guy’s body. Bob was fascinated. He wanted to say something to the guy, but he was mean-looking, not scary like the older one, just mean, and Bob really didn’t want to be punched in the stomach again, or hit on the head, or worse, so he didn’t say anything. He watched as the mean-looking one-armed dude opened the cooler and lifted out his arm.

It was a moment. Sad. Touching. Here was this guy staring at his arm like it was a long-lost child. Bob studied the mean guy’s face and saw his eyes well up with tears. Then the older scary guy finally said something.

“Joder, that must’ve hurt.”

The mean dude looked at the scary guy, but didn’t say anything. He just reached down and touched his arm. He first felt his fingers; then, turning the arm over, he stroked the forearm. Softly, like he could still feel it.

“Get me a drink.”

The guy with the ponytail looked at the scary guy, who nodded. Then he went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of tequila. The one-armed dude sat down and knocked back a shot.

Bob pointed to the tattoo of the beautiful woman getting eaten.

“She’s beautiful.”

The mean dude nodded.

“Felicia.”

Bob lit up. It all came out in an excited blurt.

“You mean she’s real? This is a real woman? Do you know where she lives? Can I meet her? Do you have her number?”

The white guy, the scary guy, the ponytail guy, and the mean dude all turned and looked at Bob like he’d lost his mind. But Bob didn’t care, this might be his only chance, so he kept talking.

“I mean look at her. Just look. Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman in your life? She’s… she’s… she’s just the bomb, man.”

The mean dude burst out laughing. It was a loud, deep, joyous laugh. He laughed until tears sprang from his eyes and he almost choked. Bob watched and, as the laughter continued on and on, he started to get nervous. Maybe he’d put his foot in it this time. Finally the mean dude got control of himself.

“The gringo’s in love with Felicia.”

The mean dude took his glass and poured some tequila into it. He slid the glass over to Bob.

“Drink.”

Bob knocked back the tequila. It burned, in a soothing kind of a way. Bob looked at the mean dude.

“So you know her?”

The mean dude gave Bob a serious once-over, laughed again, then extended his hand.

“Amado.”

This was how Bob became introduced to everyone. Amado, Norberto, Esteban, and Martin. Bob felt better knowing their names, but he wasn’t sure if they’d given him their real names or some kind of fake names so that if he went to the police he would pass on misinformation. But then, on reflection, Bob felt worse because if those were their real names, that meant they were probably going to kill him so he couldn’t give their names to the police.

Morris was desperately spinning shapes into place, clicking the keyboard in a trance. He didn’t even look up when a delivery arrived from the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center. The delivery man, a teenage Latino in elaborately baggy jeans and a Che Guevara T-shirt, looked at the screen and snorted derisively.

“Tetris?”

Morris didn’t even look up.

“I know, I know, it’s old school. But it’s a rad game, man.”

The teenager wasn’t buying it.

“My dad likes it.”

“Dude, Tetris challenges your brain. It’s like a spatial-relationship road-race disaster movie.”

“Yeah, right. Sign this. Then you can go play Pong.”

Morris didn’t look up from the screen.

“I can’t.”

“I got places to go.”

“One more minute.”

“Nope.”

“Dude, cut me some.”

“Nope.”

The delivery man waved his clipboard in front of Morris, almost obscuring the computer screen. Morris grabbed a pen off the desk and tried to sign the clipboard with his left hand without looking.

“This it?”

“Down two inches.”

“Here?”

“Close enough.”

Morris scribbled his name.

“Thanks, man.”

“No sweat.”

The delivery man left. Morris continued to play. He didn’t notice that what he’d just signed for was a well-developed human fetus in a jar. The fetus floated in solution. Morris concentrated on his game.

Bob was now pretty toasted. He and Amado had killed the bottle of tequila and were sipping beers. Amado had his shirt off and was giving Bob vivid descriptions of each and every tattoo on his body. There must’ve been a hundred of them. When Bob expressed his admiration, Amado told him that he hadn’t even started commemorating women in ink until he’d notched his first hundred on a leather belt. Bob looked at Amado as if he were some kind of rare athlete, someone who had accomplished what few could ever achieve.

Bob thought about his own slight string of conquests. A paltry six or seven. Never torrid one-night stands, always those first tentative meetings, the courtship, and then the relationship. Sure, there had been passion, but nothing worthy of a permanent place on his body, nothing worth the pain of needles and ink, nothing he could call art. Bob longed for something like that. He wanted to abandon himself to animal passions. He wanted to thrust wildly with a voluptuous woman who felt the same way he felt. Bob didn’t want to worry about orgasms or foreplay or any of that. He wanted to be inspired to fuck wildly and to inspire someone else to do the same.

Bob watched as Amado drunkenly tried to reattach his arm. The arm dropped to the kitchen floor with a sickening thud. Juice, Bob didn’t know what else to call it, oozed out and smeared Amado’s shirt. Amado picked up his arm from the floor and looked at it.

“I miss my arm, Bob.”

“I bet you do.”

“Never lose your arm, Bob, nunca.”

Bob nodded.

“I know you didn’t lose yours on purpose, and I bet your arm knows it too.”

Amado considered that.

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

Amado’s voice caught; it looked like he might cry.

“I never thought about how my arm might feel. I never thought I’d see it again.”

Amado was now letting the severed limb sit nonchalantly in his lap. He looked down at it.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Amado picked up his arm and cradled it like a newborn. Bob was quiet. He didn’t know what to say so he just let Amado make his peace with his arm. Bob could see the Godfather, Esteban, sitting on the couch in the living room talking with Martin, the white guy. Norberto, or Norbert as Bob had called him, had drunk a few shots with them and then retired to a back bedroom to catch up on his sleep.

Bob stood up and patted Amado on the shoulder.

“I’m going to the bathroom. When I come back, let’s remember the good things you did with your arm. Let’s celebrate that.”

Amado looked up at Bob with big wet eyes.

“You’re a good man, Bob.”

Bob went to pee.

Esteban watched Amado and the gringo drinking and laughing like it was Cinco de Mayo. Let them laugh. They’d both be dead soon enough. Martin was still arguing with him, wanting him to spare the gringo. ¿Por qué? Was it because they were both white? Martin never said anything when Esteban had some fucking cholo whacked. Now he’s got some white guy to deal with and Martin is begging, putting everything at risk.

Esteban realized that Martin had a point. A dead white guy, carjacked while on the job, would be on the news. Once something made the news the police had to pay attention. Having the cops nosing around, asking questions, was never good.

Esteban knew all this, but his guts told him to kill the guy. Loose ends were a bad thing. You let a guy live and you empower him to testify against you in court. That would suck. The last thing Esteban wanted to see was this fucking scrawny slacker gringo standing up in federal court testifying about how Esteban kidnapped him. White people always thought they were better. Esteban didn’t know what gave them that idea, it was such bullshit.

Esteban was smart. As smart as any white person, he was sure of that, but he didn’t want to let his emotions get in the way of clear thinking. He knew that Martin had a point. So he agreed to let Martin have a talk with the guy, gringo-agringo, and see if he’d cooperate.

When Bob returned from the bathroom Amado was passed out on the table. He was snoring loudly, a line of drool running from the corner of his mouth to the floor. Bob sat down and watched him sleep. He didn’t seem so mean in his sleep. He just seemed like a guy who’d lost his way in a new country. Lost his way and then lost his arm. Bob felt for him.

Martin came over and sat with Bob. Martin needed to talk to him about something important. He wanted to tell Bob a story so he’d know why they had carjacked him and what they were planning to do with him. While Esteban watched fútbol on the television in the living room, Martin recounted the events of the last forty-eight hours that led up to Bob’s abduction. Then Martin made Bob an offer.

Bob couldn’t believe his ears. Not that he’d ever wanted to be a criminal or involved in a criminal enterprise. Frankly, the idea of jail had always been too frightening for him to even consider breaking the law. But here was a smart guy, a guy with a law degree, a guy who did his undergrad work at Yale, a guy just like him only more handsome, successful, and with better clothes, asking if Bob would work with them on one job. They would pay him ten thousand dollars and all he had to do was deliver the arm — technically a different arm — to Parker Center.

“A ten-thousand-dollar bonus for doing what you’d normally do.”

Bob thought about it. He had a moment of indecision. But there was something about Esteban — the same thing that made him scary — that gave Bob confidence. The more he thought about it the more excited he became. Martin waited for an answer. Finally…

“I’ll do it. But…”

Martin was taken aback.

“Bob, you’re not really in a position to negotiate.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

Martin nodded.

“Okay. What do you want?”

“I want to meet Felicia.”

“Who’s Felicia?”

Bob lifted Amado’s arm off the table and pointed to the tattoo.

“That’s Felicia.”

Esteban was surprised that Bob came around so easily. He could see that Bob, like Martin, was attracted to the glamorous aspect of the criminal life. Caucasians can be so naive. They think being a gangster is all fast cars, beautiful women, and cash. They watch too many movies. Esteban knew firsthand how much work was involved in maintaining a successful life of crime. The long hours, the late nights, the constant anxiety. Most of the older members of la familia had developed angina from the stress. An unlucky few were rotting away in jail somewhere. Others had just dropped dead from massive coronaries while pumping some whore. Viagra deaths, he called them. The drug turns your explorador into Superman and leaves the rest of you a saggy old abuelo trying desperately to keep up. Wheezing and huffing, hardly enjoying it at all. It was tragic, grown men acting like teenagers, but still Esteban figured that it was better to go out having fun with a woman than being shot in the head while sitting in your car.

The scrawny gringo came into the room holding a can of beer. Esteban gave him the glare and was satisfied to see the gringo look away. Esteban cleared his throat.

“You understand what this means?”

Bob looked first at Martin, then back to Esteban.

“I think so.”

“You’ll become an accessory to murder, and that is some heavy shit, my friend.”

Bob hesitated.

“I’m not going to kill anyone.”

Esteban could barely conceal his irritation. The nerve some people have. Thinking it’s easy to just go kill someone. Like anyone could do it. Even Amado, who had years of experience, bungled a simple hit.

“No. You’re not going to kill anyone.”

Martin interrupted.

“But you will be an accessory. I want you to understand that.”

Bob nodded.

“I understand.”

“You could go to jail.”

Esteban gave him the look.

“If you go to the police, we will kill you.”

Bob was almost annoyed.

“I get it.”

Esteban watched as Bob stood and pondered the possibilities. You could almost see the wheels turning in his brain. It wouldn’t have surprised Esteban if Bob had asked for a piece of paper and pencil so he could draw a line down the middle and write the pros on one side and the cons on the other. Americanos have no huevos.

But Bob surprised him.

“If I get to meet Felicia, it’ll be worth it.”

Esteban laughed out loud.

“You believe a woman is worth the risk?”

Bob nodded. He had never been so sure of anything in his life.

“She’s not just any woman.”

Esteban shook his head in amazement.

“Just so you understand.”

Bob sat down on the couch next to Martin. Martin slipped into business mode, closing the deal.

“The deal is we’re going to give Bob here ten thousand dollars and a night with Felicia.”

“And what does Bob give us?”

“He will deliver the arm, the new arm, and tell everyone that he’s been distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend and that’s why he’s late.”

“Did you break up with your girlfriend?”

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a fight.”

Esteban sat back and sighed.

“I hope it was a good fight.”

Bob nodded.

“Pretty good.”

Martin chimed in.

“We could drive by and you could finish it off. I mean, really break up with her. That way the story would stick.”

Bob was enthusiastic.

“I’d like to do that before I see Felicia. You know, make it official and all. That way it wouldn’t be like I was cheating on her.”

Esteban just looked at the two gringos. Carajo. What a fucking mess.

“We still need an arm.”