Free Break the Skin by Lee Martin Page A

for Air-Ride Transport, and for a while he was flush with cash. Carolyn spent it as fast as he could bring it home, and before long he’d had enough of that.
    Still, after the divorce became final, he couldn’t get her out of his head. He even called her up sometimes and took her out to dinner. If he only had a way of making more money, he thought he could satisfy her and everything would be the way it was when they first fell in love.
    He saw his chance when I introduced him to Slam Dent. All he had to do was haul those stolen cows to Kansas. Slam had the tractor trailer, and Pablo knew how to drive it. He’d make enough extra cash to win back Carolyn’s heart.
    From time to time, he sent her flowers, bought her jewelry. They swore the divorce had been a mistake. They started talking about getting back together. She said that if they did, she wanted a new ring. A Hearts on Fire diamond ring—a Seduction Solitaire. To mark her sweet surrender, she said. New day, new luck, new bride, new love.
    I suppose that’s why Pablo decided to cross Slam Dent around the middle of June. Maybe he was thinking about new beginnings, and he saw a chance for a bigger payday. Maybe he wanted that extra share of the profits to help buy that ring, so he took the bank draft made out to him from the auction barn in Kansas, cashed it, and instead of giving half to Slam like he was supposed to, he pocketed the whole thing. He didn’t know that the Rangers would soon be on his tail, and he didn’t know that Slam would be ready to get his money back by force if need be.
    Now Pablo was a fugitive from the law and a target for onepissed-off Mr. Virgil Dent. Pablo would call me once in a while, but he wouldn’t tell me where he was. “Just checking in,” he’d say, and I’d tell him Carolyn was still pounding on my door trying to find him. “He’s my one true love,” she’d say, “and now he’s going to end up in jail or dead.”
    Pablo couldn’t help it. He’d made a choice and crossed over into a world full of danger. He’d stolen for Carolyn’s sake, but now he was reluctant to talk to her except through me. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he said during one of his quick calls, and I could hear in his voice that he meant it. He couldn’t give her much thought because she was the least of his worries. She wouldn’t kill him, but Slam Dent just might.
    One day in September, maybe a week before I found this man I named Donnie, Slam came into my shop. He had on his snakeskin cowboy boots, tight Wrangler jeans, and a freshly ironed white shirt with a bolo tie. He’d folded the shirt cuffs back, and I could see the last tat I’d drilled into his right forearm—the head of a longhorn bull, one eye closed in a wink. Slam , said one horn. The other one said, Bam!
    “Baby, you been missing me?” he said.
    “Not for a second.”
    He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You can’t lie to me. I remember how much you liked the old Slam-Bam. Ain’t that right, Baby? You know you were crazy for it. Still are, I expect.”
    “In your dreams.” The sex with Slam had always been rough and selfish, and nothing I ever wanted again. “You think you’re a big man, but you’re just dirt. That’s all you’ll ever be.”
    He closed his hand around my arm, and his nails, untrimmed and sharp, dug into my skin. “You tell your brother,” he said, “we got business to finish.” Then he bent down and kissed me on my earlobe, let his lips linger there, just the lightest kiss, before he took the lobe in his mouth and bit down. “I mean it, Baby,” he mumbled with my earlobe clamped tight between his teeth. “You tell him I’m not to be fucked with. You tell him I got six ways to Sunday to hurt him, and, Baby, one of those ways is you.” He pulled away from me then, and he used his finger to wipe alittle dab of blood from my ear. He poked that finger to my lips, pressed hard until I had no choice but to open them. “Love you, Baby,” he