rojo

“You’re not going to stop this?”  Said the static voice.

“No.”

“What is wrong with you!”  Pressed the Cuban of five foot nine, a six o’clock shadow and matte black eyes.

Carlos lifted his blue gaze as if awakened from a nap.

“You, is what is wrong with me.”

The Cuban shifted his feet and sneered his lips beneath the wide mustache.  “Without me, you would be Unknown.”

“Yes, I would.”

Fernando stomped across the new carpet towards the liquor cabinet of plain heavy wood and imported drinking glasses. All liquors remained in their original bottles.

“You are ungrateful.”

“And you are nervous.”

Fernando did not turn his back full to the other who had yet to move anything but his ice gaze.

“I will take the girl.”

After a loud gulp of Southern Comfort that made Carlos roll his eyes, the Cuban smiled huge, teeth white except for one cigar stain on one front tooth, the one closest to his right eye tooth. His hair was short and slicked in a fifties glaze.

“Forgive me,” he bowed, “you are above condemning, amigo.”

Carlos looked at him through what appeared to be lazy eyes.

“Descuiadado.”

“ME? You are calling me careless?”

Without warning the Frenchman slammed both hands to the heavy wood desk.

“YOU allowed the Indian inside!”

“He checked out clean!”

“Of course he did! He is with the FBI! How could you be so STUPID!”

“You did not call me stupid a year ago!”

“That is where you are wrong mon ami. I told you specifically there is to be no shedding of blood. It is a sign of weakness!”

“You are saying now I am weak?”

“You are STUPID! You forget who your leader is. You are not the leader, Fernando Grutterra.”  He stood to his feet very slow. The Cuban’s eyes followed the other upward to his six foot one and a half inch height.  “Perhaps it is your hope.”  Carlos stood there as a man more beautiful than most walking the streets below, deadlier than any of them.

Fernando swallowed down the rest of his whiskey. It burned more than usual sliding around in his throat.

Carlos stepped methodical towards the Cuban even Cuba didn’t want.

“Believe me, comrade,” the Frenchman continued, “you do not want me dead, I will then be a spirit that will haunt you far beyond your grave.”

Fernando tried to grin for there was nothing left in his glass to drink.

“I will take the girl,” Carlos stated again, “you will not go near her or so much as think of it.”

“Is that a threat?”   The Cuban made an attempt to stand tall.

“It is a vow.”

His kiss was more absorbing than usual, contralto, still and silent, his touch moved her in waves, it had only before this night, promised to. He would not let her breathe as she was accustomed, as if he knew he could change intimation, with his own. He told her in a whisper he’d loved her for a hundred years. Hands to chest, she pushed from him and caught his dark black eyes just as they looked away from the window. She asked, “what is it Jackson?”

With the back of his fingers he touched her face so gently she felt tears come to h