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Emilio hoped
the driver would not take this as an empty threat. He knew of no such tradition
in Mexico, but that didn't matter. He meant every word, and would personally do
the cutting. And enjoy it.

Fred gulped.
"Yeah. Loud and clear. No problem."

"Excellent.
Then you can look forward to being hired whenever Senator Crenshaw comes to
town."

Fred's
expression did not exactly reflect unbridled joy at the prospect. He said,
"You want to hit The Dog Collar now?"

Emilio folded
the stiletto blade and put it away. "Yes. Immediately."

As they drove
on in silence, Emilio hoped the
senador
had some plan for Charlie, some
solution for the threat he posed. For he was indeed a threat. In order to be
President, the
senador
first had to be nominated by his party. And in
order to secure that nomination, he had to run in primary elections in various
states. Emilio had studied all this in his civics lessons for his citizenship
test, and he'd heard the
senador
discuss it numerous times, but none of
it made much sense. However, one thing that did make sense was that many of
those primary states were in regions of the country where the right kind of
rumor could tilt a close race the wrong way. And if the primaries were going to
be as hotly contested as the experts were predicting, having a
maricon
son
might be the kiss of political death.

But there
seemed to be more to it than that. The
senador
seemed obsessed with
finding Charlie and keeping him under wraps. Emilio didn't understand.

What he did understand
was that whatever kept the
senador
from the White House also kept Emilio
from the White House.

The White
House. It had become Emilio's dream.

Not to become
President. That was to laugh. But for
Emilio
Sanchez to accompany the
senador
to the world's center of power, that
was the ultimate spit in the eye to the many throughout his life who had said
he'd go nowhere, be nothing unless he changed his ways.

But
I
never changed, Emilio thought. And look at me now. I
am the most trusted aide of United States Senator Arthur Crenshaw. I am riding
in a stretch limo through New York City. I have my pick of the women in the
Senate Building in Washington. I own my own Coupe de Ville. And I'm still
moving up.
Up!

Even now he
loved to drive his shiny Cadillac back to his native Tijuana and park in front
of the old haunts. Pay some street
tonto
to guard the car while he went
inside and watched their eyes go wide and round as he flashed his money and
rings and bought a round for the house.

In the span of
a few heartbeats the word would get around:
Emilio's back! Emilio's back!
So
that when he strolled the narrow streets the children would follow and call his
name like a deity and beg for his attention. And not far behind them would be
their mothers and older sisters, doing the same.

He loved to
drive by the St. Ignatio School where the priests and sisters had tried to beat
some religion into him and make him like all the other sheep they imprisoned in
their classrooms. He loved to stop in front of the adobe chapel and blow the
horn until one of those black-robed fools came out, then give them the
dirty-digit salute and screech away.

He knew where
his mother was living--still in the same old shack down in the Camino Verde
settlement where he'd been born--but he never visited her. They'd be ice-skating
in hell before he gave that
puta
the time of day. Always putting him
down, always saying he was a good-for-nothing
puerco
just like his
father. Emilio had never known his father, and he'd spent years hating him for
deserting his family. But after Emilio's last blowup with his mother, he no
longer blamed his old man for leaving.

That blowup had
come when Emilio turned twenty and
took the
bouncer job at The Cockscomb, the toughest, meanest, low-rent whorehouse in
Tijuana. His mother had kicked him out of the trailer, telling him he was going
to hell, that he was going to die before he was twenty-one. Emilio had
sauntered off and never looked back.

He proved
himself at The Cockscomb. He'd been fighting since he was a kid and he'd
learned every cheap, dirty, back-alley brawling trick there ever was, usually
the hard way. He had the scars to prove it. He was good with a knife--very good.
He'd stabbed his share and had been stabbed a few times in return. One of his
opponents had died, writhing on the floor at his feet. Emilio had felt nothing.

He started
working out, popping steroids and bulking up until his shoulders were too wide
for most doorways. He had a short fuse to begin with, and the juice trimmed it
down to the nub.

But not to
where he was out of control. Never out of control. He always eased the
belligerent drunken
Americanos
out to the street, but heaven help the
locals who got out of line. Emilio would beat them to a pulp and love every
bloody minute of it. Another man died from one of those beatings, but he'd
deserved it. Over the succeeding years he caused the death of three more
men--two with a blade, and one with a bullet.

He moved up quickly through the Tijuana sex world, from
whorehouses, to brothels, to chief enforcer at the renowned Blue Senorita, a
high-ticket bordello and tavern that catered almost exclusively to
Americanos.
Orosco, the owner, liked to brag that the Blue Senorita was a
"full-service whorehouse," catering to all tastes--strip shows, live
sex shows, donkey sex shows; where a man could have a woman, or another man, or
a young girl, or a young boy, or--if he had the energy and a fat enough
wallet--all four. For his first few years at the Blue Senorita Emilio had been
proud of his position--inordinately so, he now thought-- but the sameness of its
nightly routine, along with the realization that he had risen as far as he
could go and that
somewhere along the corridor of his years, when he'd aged and softened
and slowed, he'd be replaced by someone younger and stronger and hungrier. Then
he'd find himself out on the street with no income, no savings, no pension. And
he'd wind up one of those useless old men who hung around the square in their
cigarette-burned shirts and their pee-stained pants, sipping from bottles of
cheap wine and yammering to anybody who'd listen about their younger days when
they'd had all the money they could spend, and any women they wanted. When
they'd been
somebody
instead of nobody.

He could see no
future in Tijuana. Nowhere in all of Mexico. Perhaps America was the place. But
maybe it was too late for him in America. He would be turning thirty soon. And
how would he get in? Damned if he'd be a wetback. Not after practically
managing The Blue Senorita.

The featureless
corridor of his future seemed to stretch on ahead, with no exits or side
passages. Just a single door at the far end. Emilio promised himself to keep an
eye peeled for a way out of that corridor.

Charlie
Crenshaw turned out to be that way.

Emilio hadn't
realized that at first. The pudgy, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy had looked
terribly young when he stumbled into the Blue Senorita that night ten years
ago. He'd been roaring drunk and obviously under age, but he'd flashed his
money and spread it generously, and everyone had nudged each other when he
bought doe-eyed Jose for an hour.

When the
maricon's
time was up, Emilio had let him out a side door and stood watching to make
sure he got good and far away from The Blue Senorita before he forgot about
him. But at the mouth of the alley the kid was jumped by three young
malos.
Emilio
hesitated. Served the little
maricon
right to be beat up and robbed, but
not on The Blue Senorita's doorstep. The local
policia
wouldn't care--
Orosco paid them plenty not to--but if the brat got killed there could be a
shitstorm from the States and that might lead to trouble from the capital.

Cursing under
his breath, Emilio had pulled on his weighted leather gloves and charged up the
alley. By the time he waded into the fight, the kid was already down and being
used as a soccer ball. Emilio let loose on the
malos.
He crushed noses,
crunched ribs, cracked jaws, shattered teeth, and broke at least one arm. He
smashed them up and left them in a bleeding, crying, gagging, choking pile
because it was his job to look out for The Blue Senorita's interests, because
he wanted to make sure these
malos
never prowled The Blue Senorita's
neighborhood again.

Because he
liked
it.

He dragged the
unconscious kid back to the side door and checked out his wallet. He learned
his name was Charles Crenshaw and that he was only fifteen. Fifteen! Hell to
pay if he'd been kicked to death out here. He shuffled through pictures of the
boy with his parents, posed at different ages before different homes. As the
boy grew, so did the houses. The most recent was a palace.

The little
maricon
was
rich.

And then Emilio
came to a photo of the boy and his father standing before a building with a
shiny
crensoft
sign over the
reflecting pool set in the front lawn. CrenSoft . . . Crenshaw . . . the rich
boy's father owned a company.

As he stared at
the wallet, thoughts of blackmail, and even ransom tickled Emilio's mind. But
those were just quick fixes. They would change nothing. Perhaps there was
another way. . .

And somewhere down the long, featureless corridor of his future,
he saw a red
exit
sign begin to
glow.

Emilio threw
Charlie over his shoulder and carried him back to his apartment. He placed a
call to the family, told the father where Charlie was, and said to come get
him. Then he sat back and waited.

The father arrived
at dawn. He was taller than Emilio, and about ten years older. Every move,
every glance was wary and full of suspicion. He had another man with him;
Emilio later learned he was the father's pilot. When Emilio showed him
Charlie's battered, unconscious form, the father's face went white. He rushed
to the bed and shook the boy's
shoulder. When
Charlie groaned and turned over, the father seemed satisfied that he was only
sleeping it off. Emilio noticed him checking to make sure his son's watch and
ring were still where they belonged.

When the father spoke, his voice was tight and harsh.

"Who did
this?"

"Tres
malos,"
Emilio said. His English was
not very good then.

"Where are
they?" the father said in fluent Spanish.

Emilio ground a
fist into his palm. "Worse off than your son."

The father
looked at him. "You helped him? Why?"

Emilio
shrugged. He'd been practicing that shrug all night. "They would have
killed him."

"Why would
they do that?"

"He's an
Americano
who looks rich. Plus he's a boy who likes boys. They figure sure, he's easy
to kick over."

The father's
eyes turned to ice. "And are you a man who likes boys?"

Emilio laughed. "Oh, no, senor. I like the women. If I want
to play with a boy"--he patted his crotch--"I got one right here."

The father
didn't smile. He continued to stare at Emilio. Finally he nodded, slowly.
"Thank you."

Emilio helped
him and the pilot carry Charlie to the car outside, then handed Charlie's
wallet to the father. The father checked the credit cards and the bills.

"I see
they didn't rob him."

"And
neither did Emilio Sanchez. Good-bye, senor."

Emilio played
his riskiest card then: He turned and walked back into his apartment building.

The father
hurried after him. "Wait. You deserve a reward of some kind. Let me write
you a check."

"Not
necessary. No money."

"Come on.
I owe you. There's got to be something I can do for you, something you need
that I can get you."

Emilio took a
deep breath and turned to face him. This was the big moment.

"Can you
get me a job in America, senor?"

The father
looked confused. As Emilio had figured, the rich
Americano
hadn't
counted on anything like this. He was dumbfounded. Emilio could almost read his
thoughts:
You save my son's life and all you want in return is a job?

"I'd think
that'd be the least I could do," the father said. "How do you make
your living now?"