“Milo,” I said, “you can fuck in the burning sands of the Sahara. People always fuck. Always find a way.”
“Got any more stories?”
A failed experiment. I took no pleasure whatsoever in relating a sexual adventure. “Yeah, but you only get the one. Now it’s your turn.”
He grips the wheel with his knees to steer while he cracks his window and lights a smoke. “I would if I had any. I don’t have that much experience. I’ve had two semi-long-term relationships, three or four short-term, and no one-night stands. I have the feeling I’m a lousy fuck, just don’t know what I’m doing.”
Moreau says, “It’s hard to be a lousy fuck, unless you have a problem with premature ejaculation or are impotent. Let’s face the facts. Sex consists of heat, lubrication and friction. If those things are all in order, your sexual performance is probably at least adequate.”
“You’re a man of the world,” Milo says to him. “You must have some good stories.”
“I haven’t had a girlfriend for more than twenty years. I have sex exclusively with prostitutes. And never the same woman twice.”
This intrigues both Milo and Sweetness. Their heads turn toward him. “Why?” Milo asks.
“Relationships and the emotions they entail are time-consuming and a distraction from weightier matters. However, like most men, I enjoy sex. A business transaction has no complications, and I have no concerns such as yours. The experience is solely about my pleasure. And why never the same woman twice? It guards against ennui. I never sleep with African women, because the AIDS rate is so high. I most prefer Southeast Asian woman. They tend to be beautiful, accommodating, and I find their vaginas interesting, reminiscent of elephant skin. There’s something both exotic and erotic about it. I seldom engage prostitutes there anymore, either, though, for the same reason. AIDS is a danger.”
There’s something exotic about Moreau himself. He’s a strange man. I’ve never met anyone quite like him.
“Sweetness, that leaves you,” Milo says.
Sweetness reddens and takes a long pull from his flask. “I don’t have any stories.”
We’re all quiet for a moment. We take his meaning and don’t want to embarrass him further. Not even Milo.
“I’m between a rock and a hard spot,” Sweetness says. “I’m in love with Jenna. I don’t want to be with anyone but her, but I can’t do anything about it. She’s my third cousin once removed.”
Milo and Moreau burst with laughter. I bury my face in my hands in disbelief. Milo loses control of himself, has to pull the car over to the side of the road.
Sweetness drinks more, fights back tears. His face is the color of strawberry jam.
I reach over the seat and put a hand on his shoulder. “If she’s that distant a cousin, it’s not incest. There’s no danger of a genetic-related birth defect.”
He looks back at me, blinks, unbelieving, afraid I’m teasing him. “Really?”
“If I fucked Mirjami,” Milo says, “my aunt’s daughter, our child might have eight arms and three heads. But you have no worries.”
He takes this in for a while. “Still, she’s only sixteen.”
“She’s of legal age,” I say, “and you’re only twenty-two. That’s between you and her, and you and your conscience.”
“For what it’s worth,” Milo says, “cousin or not, I would fuck the daylights out of Mirjami if she let me. That’s why God made birth control.”
“I wonder if Jenna has feelings for me too,” Sweetness asks.
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you,” I say. “I think it’s safe to say that she does.”
He looks at me, imploring, looking to me for truth, wisdom and certainty. “Are you sure?”
I nod. “Pretty sure. I think you can count on it.”
His laughter diminishes to a chuckle, and Milo pulls out onto the highway again. I get a mental image of tiny Jenna and huge Sweetness. They take off their clothes. He must have a dick that would put Moby Penis to shame. She flees naked into the night, terrified.
The oddity strikes me. My killer, my Luca Brasi, and I have just had our first father-and-son talk.
“May I see your cane?” Moreau asks.
I hand it to him. He turns it over in his hands, examines it, admires it. “It is quite unique. At least, I have never seen such a thing. It must have been made for a very rich man, most likely royalty. The lion’s-head handle must be close to a half pound of gold, plus the jewels are large and high-quality, and it is the work of a master craftsman. How does it function?”
He hands it back to me. I smack the bottom tip of the cane hard against the car floor. The lion’s mouth snaps open to near a hundred-and-eighty-degree angle. Sometimes I carry it with the mouth open because it offers more surface area to hold on to, and also because I like the feel of the razors against the skin of my fingers. Of course, I can’t shift my grip without drawing blood.
“The teeth are daggers and the edges razors on both sides. The two canine fangs aren’t for cutting. They’re spring releases. When pushed backward and depressed, the springs engage and the mouth clamps shut. So when swung like a baseball bat, the canines hit the target and the lion bites.”
“Ingenious,” Moreau says.
I’m curious about him, and suspicious of his motives. He’s a spook for another government. He likely has an agenda that I haven’t even guessed at. “Tell me about Mexico,” I say.
“It is a miserable shithole.”
I feign the practiced smile. “I meant about what you did there.”
“As I said, as with all commodities, narcotics distribution is a global enterprise and delicately balanced. Many nations depend on drugs for the economic stability of their countries. The U.S. and Mexico among them. The balance was disturbed in Mexico and many thousands died in a war for control of the trade between the Sinaloa cartel and the Juarez gang.
“It reached a crisis level so acute that the U.S. would soon have to invade Mexico, the drug trade truly would be halted, or at least severely damaged, and the economies of the two countries along with it. What made the situation unique is that the vast majority of the drugs pass through a tiny area, the border crossing of the twin cities of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. Through this funnel-which, ironically, the U.S. supposedly created as part of its War Against Drugs-dope passes into the States. Money and weapons pass into Mexico. To control this crossing is to control the drug trade.
“The answer, of course, was for one side to win the war and halt the killing. Some colleagues and I analyzed the situation and decided Joaquin Guzman Loera’s Sinaloa cartel was the best candidate, having exported more than two hundred tons of cocaine and a vast amount of heroin into the United States over the past decade. Their army was killing many people, but the wrong ones. We assisted them in killing the appropriate rivals, and trained their best soldiers, bringing them up to Special Forces standards. Sinaloa won the war, the death toll dropped significantly, and the economies of both countries remain intact. Mission accomplished.”
“So you were an assassin,” I say.
“In Spanish, an assassin is an asesino. Not a person of importance. I held the title of sicario, an executioner.”
“What’s the difference?”
He scoffed. I was a babe in the woods. “The number of zeros in my monthly pay.”
“As a French advisor, Guzman paid you as well?”
He grimaced, losing patience with me. “Of course I doubledipped. He also gave me the heroin I gave to you. A parting gesture of thanks. He was most grateful. He made last year’s list of the world’s top billionaires.”
We entered Turku. I changed the subject. “Can you acquire false passports for me?”
“Of course, but does ‘false’ mean fake or registered in the country of identity?”
Kate, Anu, myself, Milo, Sweetness, and then I think: Jenna. Sweetness might refuse to leave without her in a romantic hissy fit. “Six, registered, and preferably diplomatic.”
He laughed. “My friend, you may be overestimating my capabilities.”