Gamma Blade - Tim Stevens Page 0,5
Didn’t like it in his women, certainly, except on their heads, which was why he insisted on complete denudation elsewhere. He himself shaved his head. He stipulated that all his male employees do the same.
But facial hair, well-tended and tasteful, was the mark of a man. Brull allowed it.
The grunting, sweating pig, Fuentes, staggered before his desk. If Elon and Pedro hadn’t held his arms, he’d have collapsed onto the carpet. His slack, repulsive mouth, with its flailing tongue and shitty yellow teeth, spewed drool on the edge of Brull’s desk.
Brull ignored it, even though his skin crawled, and even while his mind calculated how often he’d need to wipe the wood before he was satisfied the contamination was gone.
Twenty times, he decided.
He folded his hands on the leather desktop and smiled ruefully and said: “You’ve been a naughty boy, Carlos.”
Fuentes released an explosion of words in Spanish. Brull held up a hand, turning his head away.
Pedro slapped the side of the fat man’s head, rocking it back.
Brull said, “Please, Carlos. You know my rule. This is America. English only. ”
Fuentes looked dazed. He peered at Brull, trying to regain his focus. Brull nodded encouragement.
Fuentes said, “Please, Mr Brull. I pay you nex’ week. Four days, most. Tuesday. No later.”
Inwardly, Brull recoiled. The man’s accent was atrocious. He’d been living in Miami for probably a quarter century. Yet, despite all of the opportunities the United States had given him, he hadn’t bothered to perfect the lingua franca.
He made Brull ashamed to be a Cuban.
Brull said, still in the same affable tone: “The problem we have, Carlos, is that I needed four thousand dollars today. May twenty-second. Not next week. Not Tuesday, or even tomorrow.”
“Nex’ week! Nex’ week!” Fuentes began to blubber. “Monday! Monday morning you have the money! Please, Mr Brull! I -”
“Okay,” said Brull, quietly. “Monday morning. I’ll allow that. Shall we say nine a.m.? Give you a chance to have a good night’s sleep before. And let’s make it six thousand. Because I’m a reasonable man, and I believe in giving a hardworking small business owner a break.”
In the few seconds’ silence that followed, Brull could have sworn that Fuentes’ eyes swiveled through three hundred and sixty degrees in his head.
“Six thousand?” The man’s voice cracked. “Six? Mr Brull, I cannot -”
Pedro slapped him upside his head again. A flick of blood from Fuentes’ mouth lanced onto the carpet. Brull winced.
“There’s no need for that,” he chided.
He stood up. On the other side of the desk, Fuentes recoiled.
“Relax, Carlos.” Brull patted his hands in the air, palms down. “I’ve stated my terms. There’s no need to worry. I’m not going to hurt you. You can go now.”
Fuentes’ eyes stopped roving. He watched Brull, like a caged animal anticipating a sudden trick.
Brull nodded briefly to Elon and Pedro. They released the man’s arms. Fuentes lurched, but held his feet.
He stared up at Brull through his rheumy eyes.
Brull spread his hands.
“Carlos, man. You’re free to go. No games. Just walk out that door, and I’ll see you Monday morning.”
The man’s shirt was untucked at the back, his gait was awkward because of his urine-sodden pants, and his sparse hair was in disarray. But, after a quick glance at Elon and Pedro, he turned and began to stumble toward the door of the office.
Brull gazed at Fuentes’ back. He didn’t smile. He reached for the cell phone on the desk in front of him and thumbed it on and sent the text message he’d prepared earlier.
However desperate Fuentes was to get away from the office, to put as much distance as he could between him and his tormentors, he couldn’t help but reach instinctively for the phone in his pocket as it emitted the familiar ting of an arriving message.
He paused, halfway through the door, and stared at his phone.
Brull watched his motionless, ungainly form.
The seconds passed.
Two.
Three.
Fuentes began to shake. It wasn’t the hand tremor of nervousness. Rather, it was the full-body convulsion of a man wracked by abject, unremitting terror.
One word escaped his mouth: “No.”
He turned, staggering as he did so. Now, Brull thought, his saucer-like eyes didn’t resemble those of a caged animal so much as those of a man who’d just gazed into the pit of hell itself.
The text Brull had sent contained no words. Just a short, five-second video clip.
Brull had memorized the clip, frame by frame. It showed a little boy, seven years old. Ordinarily he would have been cute, with his chubby cheeks and cowlick