Sunday Night Dinner

A dingy old bar down in a ghetto of Recife. Leon and PJ, if you had asked them, wouldn't have been able to tell you how they got there, or where they had met Carlo. That was the name they'd been using on him. He was sitting across the table. They weren't too sure if it was actually his name. He answered to it.

Drinking cheap mexican beer, it wasn't even cold, tasted like piss, but it staved off the crushing hangover that loomed over the young men. Carlo was telling Leon about his soccer days. Leon was too gone to do anything but listen. PJ wasn't there yet, instead he was trying to meet the eyes of the pretty young waitress that had been serving them. She wasn't so young and not really very pretty but to PJ. Except he kept dozing off. When the officers came in they went straight to the table. There were two of them. They kicked the table over without saying a word.

Two bottles smashed into shards on the floor and warm piss turned the dirt into muddy foam. Leon and PJ were too drunk but they still jumped. Carlo was out of there. The officer with the moustache went after Carlo while the one with the stubble had them on their stomachs. It was a beating and both were black and blue.

They were tied up and then they carried Carlo out. One of the officers held his feet while the other grabbed him by the shoulders. When the one with the moustache came back in with Carlo he had a bag in his left hand. He held up like second prize. Leon thought he had remembered two but he couldn't see straight enough to be sure.

There were cold steel bars on three sides and a mud and concrete wall on the other. There must have been 15 of them in the cell, most of them as drunk. They sobered up pretty quick though. Looking pretty out of place in their clean t-shirts and PJ still had his Teva's on. Carlo hadn't moved during the wagon ride and they hadn't seen him since.

Jesse got the call around the same time PJ got his first boot. He was there in Rio when Leon took it with his guard down. They liked Leon.

Jesse was good at what he did. He hadn't gotten to where he was by losing a bargain. He made sure not to look too wealthy or they'd smell him ripe and he'd be out a wad. He put on a tacky hawaiian shirt and a pair of speedos under his pants before he left La Guardia. He took the pants off in Rio. He looked like a schmuck, but not a rich one.

Both of the officers were feeling pretty good about themselves and they went straight to the strip from the deal. Jesse left with a mostly full clip and a couple young punks. PJ was just glad he got there when he did. Leon would never be the same.

- posted by Sigurd8/09/2004 10:09:00 PM