Free Fierce Bitches (Crime Factory Single Shot) by Jedidiah Ayres

1. Politoburg
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Maria is upset. Her chubby fingers, trembling, can’t cover her mouth sufficiently to smother the sobs. Wakes you up. Judging by the light coming through the gaps in the tin roof, it’s near nine. The atmosphere is like an amniotic sac.
        “What is it, for fuck’s sake?”
        Her reply is lost on you. She sounds like a Pentecostal Rosie Perez, frothing and speaking a hundred miles an hour. Four months here and you haven’t grasped the language. Haven’t even tried. You aren’t planning on sticking around.
        “English. Speak English por favor .” Hysterical shrieks. “No, forget I said anything. I need a smoke.” You fish through your clothes beside the bed mat, till you see the cigarettes on her table. Clothed only in sweat, you stand and strike a match. She still sounds like a maniac, running in circles around the room. You grab her by the shoulders to slow her down, and speak very deliberately.
        “What...is...your...problem?” She slaps you hard across the face and chest and you slap her back. She grabs your clothes, tosses them outside the hut and pushes you after them. Fine with you. You haven’t paid yet.
        The dust clings to your damp parts. In this heat, that’s pretty much an entire outfit. You collect your clothes and carry them under your arm as you start toward the cantina.
        You’ve been to Mexico once before, but this time had fuck all to do with Sammy Hagar and margaritas. This was all dust and rocks and heatstroke, skin turning to leather and sunshine so intense, your balls disappear when you squint. The Sierra Madres hemming you in sounds good for a movie, but actually makes you feel like a fish in a bowl.
        You make your way barefoot toward the only road around, trying like hell to extract some nutrients from your cigarette. The dog carcass from the day before has been disappeared from the roadside and you make a mental note not to chance Ramon’s stew today.
        A debris cloud still hangs in the air, which means an automobile instead of a mule cart has come by recently. That could indicate a couple of things: A. Extra shipment this week or B. Trouble in paradise.
        A half-dozen tin shacks like Maria’s pock the desert in no particular pattern. Thrown up without a thought to symmetry or community. A crowd gathers outside the furthest, next to the cantina. The cloud settles behind a black Cadillac, which means the answer is in fact B.–Polito sent his muscle to settle something.
        The crowd is comprised entirely of women, the whores who live here at the whim of Harlan Polito - who is decreeing judgment from on high back in the States. Also here by his will is a small group of gringos; roughnecks, punks and psychos who do dirty deeds for money and pleasure. You belong to this group. You stay here till the man sends for you to return to the bosom of society and contribute again.
        No one seems to notice your nakedness as you approach, not even Metcalf, who comes out to meet you.
        “Dude.” Metcalf, the near retard you’re reduced to socializing with these days, is trying to relay gravity with his tone.
        “S’up?” you offer in his native tongue.
        “Dude.”
        “Yeah, I got that part, what’s...”
        “No, Dude. Dick...”
        Dirty Dick, the oldest, most senior of the gringos. A stone cold killer. You all look up to him. He’s a legend back home. Killed five men, bad motherfuckers all, in one hit. Disappeared after that one, years ago. No one knew if he was dead or relocated. No one but you. Nearly plotzed when you’d met him here. Retired. Kicking back in old Mexico, getting stoned, getting pussy, getting fat.
        “Where’s Dick?”
        As you speak, the crowd parts and two beefy guys in black suits–the uniform of a Polito dipshit henchman–haul a dead man by his arms, his heels dragging in the dust, from the cantina to the back