By Walter Agnew Moore II

Lobo sat shotgun in the shiny green taxi, and the driver gunned it out into the street.

"Where you wanna go, friend?"

"The Hotel Nue—"  Lobo caught himself before he said the entire name of the dump he was staying in down by the bus station, the Hotel Nuevo Leon.

"The hotel WHAT?"

Lobo eyed the radio.  "Bus station."

"Sure thing."  The cabdriver picked up his mike and keyed it.  A woman's voice crackled.  He spoke.  "Espinosa.  Central de Buses."

She crackled back something, the driver said "Bueno," then picked up speed again, taking the eastern route around Loma Larga, the big ridge that separated El Escarabajo from the rest of Monterrey.

Lobo thought back to Marisol.  When she had admitted that she was pregnant again, and that this time she was going to have the baby, he had stood taller.  He would show them all what a man was.

After the ultrasounds, old aquaintances would look at him twice when he would walk into a room.  A light was shining inside of him that the others could see.  He would have a beer, then leave the bar sober.  He would see a little girl looking at a toy store window, and he would smile, connected to her.

Lobo leaned back in the taxi seat with his feet braced against the floorboard to stop his legs from shaking.  He relaxed them when one leg felt like it was going numb, then tensed them again.  It was something to do.

He spoke to the driver:  "Say... you can't give me one of those cigarettes, can you?"

The man gave the pack a flick, and after Lobo took one of the extended cigarettes, the driver popped up a flame on a Bic lighter, never once slowing down around the curves.

Something wasn't right.  El Escarabajo was supposed to be a safe place where the cops didn't come barging in.  Juan had an understanding with the right people, it was all business.  And even if he had not, his customers were not people to be bothered by armed goons busting in—sure, they might be clueless little college kids—but their dads were things like judges or politicians or factory owners.  Even in the states the cops used a light hand on people like that, and power was far more raw and honest here.

No, the cops wouldn't have come... unless Juan had called them himself.  That didn't make sense either—Lobo had no doubt that the Laredo cops had some kind of brothers-in-law-enforcement deal going with the Mexicans.  Neither side would let somebody like Lobo just go around popping cops.  But who was that cop, that Lawson dude back in Laredo, who was he to Juan?  Nobody.  And he wasn't even dead.  Well, probably not.  And even if he was, who else tipped off the Monterrey cops that Lobo was in El Escarabajo, so that they would know to go there?

Lobo couldn't see the trap, but he could smell it.

The taxi pulled up in front of the huge Monterrey bus station.  Lobo paid and tipped the man, then crossed a lane of traffic and went in the door of the station.  He chose a snack vendor at random and strode casually towards the stand, looking at his watch.  He waited in line between two other people, then looked at his watch again, and left the line to go walk out a different exit to the street.

The taxi he had arrived in was long gone.  Lobo walked back across the busy four-lane street that felt like a tunnel with the exposed subway line overhead and disappeared into the red-fronted Gigante supermarket.

Lobo roved around in the meat section.  He was hungry enough, he felt like buying some hamburger meat and eating it raw.  He's heard they ate it like that, over in Germany or Europe or one of those countries.  This was the first time it had ever seemed like a good idea, but he was worried about the state of his stomach.

He picked up a box of saltines and a liter bottle of water and went through the check-out line with its maniacally quick and efficient clerk.  She had tired eyes and a dingy red apron.  She's just going to get more tired, thought Lobo.

Marisol.  His girlfriend's name popped into his head.  She was the last card he had left to play.  Even if her brother was rotten, he had to trust her.

There was plenty of time left on his calling card.  Lobo dialed her number from the pay-phone inside the entrance to the Gigante, standing close to the phone with his crackers and his water in a plastic bag crackling on the floor in front of his feet.

The phone was ringing on the other end, and he waited for the recorded message to start again.

Instead, she picked up.

Lobo jumped forward, talking, blurting out:  "Marisol! It's me, Lobo, listen, it's serious, I need—"

"Lobo?  Lobo?  Who is this?"

Lobo hung up the phone, picked up his bag, and walked out on the sidewalk.  He turned right and walked along the tunnel formed by stands selling belts, purses, toys, and by the awnings overhead.  He had to step over a small Indian woman looking up at him while her child lay against her leg.  He took the box of saltines out of the bag and dropped them on the sidewalk next to her without pausing to listen or turning to see.  He rounded the corner to the right again, walking up the dark narrow street to the Hotel Nuevo Laredo.  He uncrumpled the bag from around the water bottle and let the light flimsy plastic drift down behind him, idly fiddling with opening the bottle.

He stopped and hurled the bottle across the street.  Thoomp.  It hit on the side of a parked car.  Lobo cursed as walkers in the shadows sing-songed back:

"FUCK!"

"...guey... calmate, guey..."

"calmese, calmese..."

"guey..."

It had been a man's voice on Marisol's phone.  No wonder she'd been avoiding him, it was the oldest story in the book.

Lobo stood next to the building breathing deeply.  He could see the Hotel Nuevo Leon a couple of blocks ahead on the left.  Closer to him was a corner popsicle stand of the La Michoacana franchise and, closer yet, some kind of bar with hand-lettered red words against lemon-red paint, lit up by exposed yellow light bulbs.

"Hey friend," said the man in the door of the bar.  "You look like you could use a drink.  American, yes?  You come drink with me?"

Lobo crossed the street and walked inside.  There were several wobbly tables, and the man led him to one and had him sit down.  In the back of the bar were stairs going up into the darkness, and a stage where a drummer and a guitarist haphazardly backed up the vague singing of a tall light-haired man.

The doorman leaned over the table.  "What to drink", he said in English, "You like beer?"

"Yeah," replied Lobo in the same language, "a Sol."

"And girl?  You maybe like girl?  One girl?  Two girl?"

"Why the hell not.  Yeah.  Girl.  One.  One girl.  Bargain plan."

The doorman spoke rapidly to another stocky man in a white dress shirt, who then leaned and spoke to a woman in a blue jeans-dress, and then they both bustled her over to sit in the spare seat beside Lobo.

"See?  Girl!"

Lobo leaned back, put his arm around the back of her chair, and looked her over.  Medium-length dark hair with a light-brown highlight in it, a round, almost oriental face, no Playboy Centerfold maybe but nice proportions peaking through that dress.  Not bad, not bad.

She smiled and said, "Hello.  Do you speak Spanish?  I don't speak English."

"Yeah, Spanish is fine."

"Good.  Hello.  My name is Nelly.  And you?"

"Jason."

"Pleased to meet you, Yay-son."

The doorman walked:  "Another beer, sir?  Something for the lady?"

"Sure man.  Yeah.  One for me, and whatever she's drinking."  Lobo knew he was most likely buying a 5 dollar Coca-Cola for the woman.  Fine.  Let her have two if she wanted.

Nelly said, "OK.  Now we have met, we must arrange what we will do, where we will go, and how much it will cost."

"How much is it?"

"Do you have your own room?"

"Yeah."

"How far is it?"

"Right next door, the Nuevo Leon."

Nelly thought about that, and looked at Lobo's dirty black t-shirt.  "Well, it normally costs 1,500 pesos."

150 bucks.  "Get outta here", said Lobo in English.

"Pardon?"

"No way, 1,500."

"You can put it on your credit card."

"I lost my credit card."

Nelly sipped her orange-juice-and-orange-juice through a straw, then looked off to the side.  The stocky man in the white shirt was watching them, his chin lifted up.

Lobo said, "I'll give you 400 pesos, and you get it when I say we're done.  You need to take my offer, or I'm going to get up and walk out and then your pimp will kick your ass for running off business."

Lobo felt sure of his bargaining position and fairly noble as well.  Forty bucks, that was a week's wages to some of these little factory-town girls.

Nelly took another sip.  "I don't usually do this for just anybody, but you seem nice.  I could go with you for 600.  But just regular sex, no funny stuff."

"No funny stuff, sure," said Lobo, "And you don't run out the door to leave the first time I come, no, you stay and do it twice if I feel like it.  And then you get the money, 500."

"...OK..."

"Let's go."

"Well, I have to get 200 right now just to leave the building.  You can pay the other 300 when we are done.  But for me to go, you must pay at least 200 at the bar."

Lobo stood, and Nelly went with him to the bar and explained the deal.  Lobo paid the 200 for her to leave, plus the bill for the drinks.  The drink prices must have seemed daringly high for this neighborhood, but they almost made him laugh, the half-heartedness of the mark-ups.  Then every man who wasn't a customer came running up saying, "Propina, propina", nickle-and-diming him for tips.

Finally, he was out in the street walking towards the hotel with Nelly warm against his side.  She felt like Marisol.  Lobo leaned over to kiss her, and she drew back and looked at him.  They stood without a word, then started walking again.

In his room, Nelly turned and looked at him.  "Do you have anything to drink?"

"Like what?"

"A little wine, a whiskey, or just a bottle of water."

"No."

"Can you order something for me from the downstairs desk?"

"No.  Here's a glass..."  He went to the sink, "... and water."

"Thank you.  Now, will you let me use your shower?"

"Suit yourself."

Nelly closed the bathroom door, and Lobo heard the ring of the curtain pulling closed, the splattering of the shower.  He picked up the untouched glass of water and sipped it.  Marisol had never been able to handle the idea of drinking tap-water either.  Lobo whistled air out between his teeth and gulped down more water.  He heard the shower stop, and kicked off his shoes and socks, undid his jeans and let them drop, followed by his underwear.

Nelly walked out of the bathroom wrapped in his new blue towel, her hair pinned up.  She started rooting in her purse, talking to him:  "Do you have condoms?"

"Don't you?"

"I think so, yes, come here... now, what is this?"  She winked, taking hold of his erection poking out from under the hem of his t-shirt.  "What is this?"

"It means I'm ready to fuck you," murmured Lobo.

"I don't like that word.  You shouldn't say that word.  I'd rather you said you wanted to 'take' me."

"Fine.  Let's 'take'."

"Here," she said, "Lie on your back, here on the bed."

She got him ready with a minimum of effort, then climbed on top of him.  She was pretty with nothing on, and she rocked smoothly back and forth with him inside her.

Lobo realized they had been going at it for a couple of minutes and all that time he had been day-dreaming about something else, he couldn't remember what.  Nelly had her eyes closed, leaning over him, he was hard, but he felt less than if he had been watching a porno tape.

Lobo rolled her over on her side, held her tight with his arms around both shoulders, and sped up the rhythm of his hips so he could go ahead and come.

They lay there side-by-side for a minute before she spoke:  "So why are you in Monterrey?"

"I needed to find my girlfriend."

"Why?"

Lobo didn't answer, instead he slipped an arm behind her, and brushed his hand over her breast.

"So, your girlfriend, I guess you didn't find her?"

"She wouldn't pick up the fucking phone."

"She's probably got another guy,” said Nelly, twisting a little up against him.

"Yeah, maybe she does."

He smelled the perfiume on her shoulder while he caressed both breasts with his hands.

"Maybe," she said, "Maybe she's just really stupid."

Lobo rolled her over onto her back and got on top of her, weight on his knees and elbows, his legs between hers, kissing her dark brown nipples.  It was the first time she had moaned, and she kept moaning as he did it.  He moved up to kiss her neck under her ear, along her jugular, nipping it with his teeth.  His new erection brushed against her, and she stopped him just long enough to reach a hand into her purse on the nightstand and change the condom, then she lifted her legs a bit and he was inside her again, this time totally concentrated in the moment, full of strength and energy.

Nelly whispered, "take me take me take me" in time to his ear.

Then she broke rhythm and tensed up, and he came.

"Are you sleepy?" she said, sitting up next to him.

"Hmm?"

"I said, are you sleepy, Yay-son?"

"No.  I'm not sleepy."

"Well, you looked like you were asleep."

Lobo sat up in the bed next to her and yawned.

She said:  "You told me about your girlfriend.  Now I'll tell you about my boyfriend. ere's his picture."

Lobo took the creased picture, a scanned photo on printer paper of a fair-haired man with a slight pot-belly under his pastel blue golf shirt, 40-ish, bright white wall behind him and a cloudless sky above.

"His name is Dan.  He's a Gringo, like you.  This job, I meet Americans, Russians, French, even Chinese.... ugh.  Dan is nice, and slender, like you, and kind to me.  He is from Miami, and everytime he comes to Mexico, he comes to see me, and he is the only one I see for however long he is here.  He speaks good Spanish, his wife back in Miami is Puerto Rican."

"What is he, rich?"

"It has nothing to do with money.  I always forget about the money when I am with Dan.  I go out with him because I love him.  He said that, some day—"

"—some day he'll leave his wife in Miami and stay here with you in Monterrey," Lobo butted in.

"Well, they have problems, and, when we are together he, he knows at least I love him... and he is thinking of moving his main office here, so when that happens..."

"Ha!" barked Lobo.  "I saw that shit-hole you work in!  Even if Daaa-aaan," he sang the name, "comes down here, I can tell you, you better not get your hopes up—he'll have some little princess of a mistress that he can take out in public and impress the other high-class people."

Nelly's mouth dropped open.  "Why are you saying that to me?  That's not nice, that's cruel, you were so nice a minute ago..."

"That's got nothing to do with it, whether I'm nice or not.  Can't you see that you dreaming about this guy is a waste of time?  It's a joke!"

Lobo saw that her eyes were suddenly dark and shining, wetness starting down over her cheek bones.  He went on:  "Oh yeah, Nelly, you of all people ought to be a little more realistic.  A hooker who believes in fairy-tales!  Dan's probably already got a mistress, and he just sneaks off to see you whenever she's busting his balls or when she's on the rag!  He knows you're not going to give him any shit, you've got nowhere else to go, and you're all in looo-ooove..."

She was sobbing out loud now, just a little.  Lobo assumed it was from sadness.  Her voice caught in rhythm to her breathing as she said:  "Why are you treating me like this?  Why are you so cruel?  Do you hate me?  Do you think I'm stupid?  You have no right!  Don't you care?  I was nice to you!"

"Shit," said Lobo.  He was already walking to the bathroom, scratching his bare ass and peeling off the condom,  dropping it on the carpet for the maid to clean up.  He didn't need this female bullshit.  He just needed to piss.

Nelly yelled from behind him:  "Now I see why your girlfriend ran off with another guy!  Good for her!  I hope she's fucking him right this minute, he has to be a better man than—"

Lobo stopped at the bathroom door and slowly turned around. He was quiet and barely breathing, and when Nelly saw his eyes she choked off whatever insult she had been about to toss off next.  She huddled on the bed, small.  She knew that something horrible was going to happen next, and there was no escape.  She was lost in those strange blue eyes that were towering over her.

Time had stopped for Lobo, and he considered his options with mathematical clarity.  He could have his hands on her throat whether she fought back or not, and then choke her or snap her neck. But that would lead to complications.  He could just punch her off the bed or throw her down the stairs.  That wouldn't make it necessary to deal with a dead body, but she'd probably run straight to her bar all bruised and bloody, and then the pimps would be bugging him for compensation for damaged goods.

No, considered tactically, there was nothing to be gained by retaliating against this smart-mouth slut, this nobody.  At least she had sense enough to shut the hell up.  Now to get rid of her.

"Nelly," said Lobo, watching her with a crooked smile while reaching into his pants on the floor and pulling a 200 peso note from his wallet, then holding it up next to his face, "Here is the rest of your money.  I am going to go take a piss, and if you and all your shit are not out of here when I come back out of the bathroom, I am going to grab you by your hair like this—" he clenched his fingers on the back of an imaginary head "—and I will pound your pretty little face into that wall there until your nose is broken flat, and then you will be so fucking hideous that you will have to make a living giving blow-jobs from underneath a table."

"200? You still owe me 300!"

"Your nose," said Lobo, "broken flat."

Nelly froze.  He turned and went to piss.

Lobo half-listened to her scuttling around behind him in the room.  Good, she knew he meant business.  That was how you had to be.  He was just too damn nice to Marisol, that had been the problem.

When Lobo was finished in the bathroom, he went back out.  Nelly was gone, probably getting dressed down in the stairwell.  The image of that was funny.  It served her right, though; some people, it was so clear how they brought their shitty lives down on themselves.

Lobo wasn't the least bit sleepy now.  He felt really good.  Hell, he might even go pick up another girl a little later.  He took a shower and dried himself with the damp towel that Nelly had used, then got dressed again.  He felt like a walk and some food and another drink.

Something would turn up.  He was starting to feel at home here.

He started whistling.  It was a happy little tune.