Free American Tropic by Thomas Sanchez Page B

many.”
    “Fewer than two hundred. Down from tens of thousands. Turtles have been around a million years and we’re wiping them out. We’re snagging, tangling, drowning, hooking the last of the turtles every day with gill nets, drift nets, drag nets, and J-hook longlines.”
    “And the plastic bags?”
    “Don’t get me started! Billions of bags dumped into the ocean each year, choking, gagging, and strangling turtles to death!”
    “Goddamn shame.”
    “God had nothing to do with it. Man did it.”
    Luz cuts off Noah’s radio voice, her attention caught through her windshield by a man and a teenaged girl down the street, coming out of the Trouble in Paradise cocktail lounge. The man and girl walk away with their backs to Luz. She blurts out to Chicken, sitting next to her,“That’s my Carmen! She snuck out of the house!” Chicken licks his chops for more fritters.
    Luz starts her Charger and steers it onto Duval Street, following behind the man and teenager. The girl’s long black hair hangs down to the top of a yellow miniskirt hugging her bottom so tightly that her firm butt cheeks are prominently outlined. The man runs his hand over her butt as she walks.
    “I know my own daughter when I see her. I shouldn’t have let her paint those damn fingernails. I knew it would lead to no good.”
    The man and teenager turn suddenly off of Duval Street toward Grunt Bone Alley. Luz presses down on the accelerator pedal and speeds up. A fast-moving line of hooting college kids on loud mopeds shoots out from the alley. Luz honks her horn at the riders blocking her car, but the mopeds keep coming. She spots an opening in the line and guns into Grunt Bone Alley. The narrow lane is deserted except for cars parked along its sides. She pulls over and cuts her engine. She studies the parked cars. Chicken looks at the bag of fritters and whines. She pats Chicken’s head. “Shush. They’re around here somewhere.”
    In the dark distance of the lane, there is no movement except from a rusted 1961 Pontiac GTO parked in front of a row of garbage cans. The GTO slightly bounces on its tires. Luz keeps her gaze fixed on it. In the car’s back window, a man’s head suddenly pops up in silhouette. The head quickly disappears back down.
    “He’s raping Carmen in the back seat!”
    Luz jumps from her car and runs down the alley to the GTO. She yanks open the car’s back door and shines her flashlight beam in on a man’s bare white ass as his bodyhumps up and down on the teenager beneath him. Luz grabs the man’s hair with one hand and jerks his head around. She beams the flashlight into his eyes. “You’re under arrest for raping a teenager!”
    The surprised man yells, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
    “The girl’s only sixteen!”
    “Like hell! She’s eighteen!”
    Luz swings her beam at the girl spread-eagled on her back beneath the man. Her long black hair is tangled over her face. Her bare breasts heave from rapid breathing. Her skirt is pushed up and her panties are pulled down. In the dark V between her naked thighs glistens a worm of spilled cum. The teenager shakes the tangled hair away from her face. Luz stares at the face brightly lit in the flashlight beam. The teenager is not Carmen.
    The girl glares at Luz. “I can prove I’m eighteen. My driver’s license is in my purse.”
    Luz takes a deep breath. “No, you’re not eighteen. I recognize you. You’re the Munoz girl. I know your family. I was at your Quince party two years ago. You’re just seventeen.”
    “That was three years ago! I’m eighteen now!”
    Luz steps out of the car and looks at the man. “Pull your pants up, you chicken-hawk bastard.”
    The man gets out of the car. He shoves the still-hard stub of his prick beneath his underpants, hitches up his blue jeans, and winks at Luz. “I bet you wish you could whack off a piece of her yourself. She’s not underaged. She’s street legal. You can’t arrest me. Can’t do a