The featureless corridor of his future seemed to stretch on ahead, with no exits or side passages. Just a single door at the far end. Emilio promised himself to keep an eye peeled for a way out of that corridor.
Charlie Crenshaw turned out to be that way.
Emilio hadn’t realized that at first. The pudgy, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy had looked terribly young when he stumbled into The Blue Senorita that night ten years ago. He’d been roaring drunk and obviously under age, but he’d flashed his money and spread it generously, and everyone had nudged each other when he bought doe-eyed José for an hour.
When the maricon’s time was up, Emilio had let him out a side door and stood watching to make sure he got good and far away from The Blue Senorita before he forgot about him. But at the mouth of the alley the kid was jumped by three young malos. Emilio hesitated. Served the little maricon right to be beat up and robbed, but not on The Blue Senorita’s doorstep. The local policia wouldn’t care—Orosco paid them plenty not to—but if the brat got killed there could be a shitstorm from the States and that might lead to trouble from the capital.
Cursing under his breath, Emilio had pulled on his weighted leather gloves and charged up the alley. By the time he waded into the fight, the kid was already down and being used as a soccer ball. Emilio let loose on the malos. He crushed noses, crunched ribs, cracked jaws, shattered teeth, and broke at least one arm. He smashed them up and left them in a bleeding, crying, gagging, choking pile because it was his job to look out for The Blue Senorita’s interests, because he wanted to make sure these malos never prowled The Blue Senorita’s neighborhood again.
Because he liked it.
He dragged the unconscious kid back to the side door and checked out his wallet. He learned his name was Charles Crenshaw and that he was only fifteen. Fifteen! Hell to pay if he’d been kicked to death out here. He shuffled through pictures of the boy with his parents, posed at different ages before different homes. As the boy grew, so did the houses. The most recent was a palace.
The little maricon was rich.
And then Emilio came to a photo of the boy and his father standing before a building with a shiny CRENSOFT sign over the reflecting pool set in the front lawn. CrenSoft...Crenshaw...the rich boy’s father owned a company.
As he stared at the wallet, thoughts of blackmail, and even ransom tickled Emilio’s mind. But those were just quick fixes. They would change nothing. Perhaps there was another way...
And somewhere down the long, featureless corridor of his future , he saw a red EXIT sign begin to glow.
Emilio threw Charlie over his shoulder and carried him back to his apartment. He placed a call to the family, told the father where Charlie was, and said to come get him. Then he sat back and waited.
The father arrived at dawn. He was taller than Emilio, and about ten years older. Every move, every glance was wary and full of suspicion. He had another man with him; Emilio later learned he was the father’s pilot. When Emilio showed him Charlie’s battered, unconscious form, the father’s face went white. He rushed to the bed and shook the boy’s shoulder. When Charlie groaned and turned over, the father seemed satisfied that he was only sleeping it off. Emilio noticed him checking to make sure his son’s watch and ring were still where they belonged.
When the father spoke, his voice was tight and harsh.
“Who did this?”
“Tres malos,” Emilio said. His English was not very good then.
“Where are they?” the father said in fluent Spanish
Emilio ground a fist into his palm. “Worse off than your son.”
The father looked at him. “You helped him? Why?”
Emilio shrugged. He’d been practicing that shrug all night.
“They would have killed him.”
“Why would they do that?”
“He’s an Americano who looks rich. Plus he’s a boy who likes boys. They figure sure, he’s easy to kick over.”
The father’s eyes turned to ice. “And are you a man who likes boys?”
Emilio laughed. “Oh, no, senor. I like the women. If I want to play with a boy”—he patted his crotch—”I got one right here.”
The father didn’t smile. He continued to stare at Emilio. Finally he nodded, slowly. “Thank you.”
Emilio helped him and the pilot carry Charlie to the car outside, then handed Charlie’s wallet to the father. The father checked the credit cards and the bills.
“I see they didn’t rob him.”
“And neither did Emilio Sanchez. Good bye, senor.”
Emilio played his riskiest card then: He turned and walked back into his apartment building.
The father hurried after him. “Wait. You deserve a reward of some kind. Let me write you a check.”
“Not necessary. No money.”
“Come on. I owe you. There’s got to be something I can do for you, something you need that I can get you.”
Emilio took a deep breath and turned to face him. This was the big moment.
“Can you get me a job in America, senor?”
The father looked confused. As Emilio had figured, the rich Americano hadn’t counted on anything like this. He was dumbfounded. Emilio could almost read his thoughts: You save my son’s life and all you want in return is a job?
“I’d think that’d be the least I could do,” the father said. “How do you make your living now?”
Another of those rehearsed shrugs. “I’m a bouncer at the whorehouse where your son spent much of his money last night.”
The father sighed and shook his head in dismay. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” he whispered to the floor. Then he looked back at Emilio. “That’s not much of a resume.”
“I know the value of silence.”
The father considered this. “Okay. I’ll give you a shot. Apply for a work visa and I’ll fit you into plant security. We’ll see how you work out.”
“I will work out, senor. I promise.”
The father kept his word, and within a matter of weeks Emilio was patrolling CrenSoft’s Silicon Valley plant, dressed in the gray uniform of a security guard. It was deadly dull, but it was a start.
Charlie came by one day to thank him. He said he remembered being attacked by the three punks, but little else. Emilio found the boy very shy--he must have needed a tankful of tequila to work up the courage to walk into The Blue Senorita--and completely normal in most ways. As the years went on, Emilio actually grew fond of Charlie. Strange, because Emilio had always hated maricones. In truth, Charlie was the only one Emilio had ever really known. But he liked the boy. Maybe because there was nothing swishy about him. In fact, no one in security, or anywhere else in CrenSoft, seemed to have the vaguest notion that Charlie was a maricon.
Which was probably why the father called on Emilio to find Charlie the next time he ran off. Each time Emilio brought the boy back, the father offered him a bonus, and each time he refused. Emilio was waiting for a bigger payoff.
That came when the father sold his company. The entire staff, including security, went with the deal. All except Emilio. Mr. Crenshaw took Emilio with him when he built his mansion into a cliff overlooking the Pacific between Carmel and Big Sur. He put Emilio in charge of security during the construction, and when it was finished, he kept him on as head of security for the entire estate. The Senador called the place Paraiso. The papers, the architectural magazines, and the TV reporters compared Paraiso to San Simeon, and people from all over the world came to gawk at it. It was Emilio’s job to keep them out. He was aided in the task by the fact that access was limited to a single road which wound through rough terrain and across a narrow, one-car bridge spanning a deep ravine with a swift-flowing stream at its base.