Complicado (Queen of the South, My Season 6)

Part 20 - Tres Tequilas Y Un Mezcal

Pote watched Kelly Anne get in the bathroom and close the door behind her. He exhaled deeply and felt his craving for nicotine. But the memory of how his lungs had struggled under the water hit him, so he called room service and ordered each a sandwich and a hot drink.

An hour later, Pote tucked Kelly Anne in the bed, gave her a long kiss and told her to 'stay put'. She had known that the man she had married hid a beast inside him and that the beast came out when things got rough, so she held her fear at bay and told him to 'be careful'.

Pote used his thin blade knife to open the door of a blue sedan parked in a side street and after fidgeting with the wires for a few seconds, drove off in the direction of downtown. He had been to Fianarantsoa with George for soccer tournaments twice and knew that the southern sketchy neighborhood was where he needed to make a stop. The cash he had brought with him burned his pocket as he entered a sleazy bar, full of bikers and other weird looking scum, put a $US100 on the counter and told the barman that it was his tip if he assisted him with buying a gun with a silencer this afternoon.

The Lancaster mansion was decently big and Pote spotted only two guards at the front as he drove by. The fence was not electric, just white and pretty.

Pote left the car in a side street, then walked around the property fence until he found a spot low enough to let him climb over. He took the guards out one by one using the gun with the silencer on. The place looked deserted now if not for the black SUV parked in front of the main door. Just as he approached, hiding behind one tree to the next, a parking door to his right rolled up and a small Toyota with a black woman, still wearing a maid's uniform, drove off.

He sneaked into the garage before the door rolled back down and in less than a minute was on the main floor of the house. The door to what looked like an office was wide open and Pote could see a tall fair man in his early 50s going through some papers, comfortably seated behind a wooden desk, sipping an amber liquid from a glass.

Pote walked in and the man got startled. He glared at him as Pote said pointing to his moving hand: "Don't even think about it, cabron!" Pote's hand was on his back, ready to draw and the man froze.

"Who are you?" Lancaster snarled.

"You tried to run me off the road today, asshole... and you don't know who I am!" Pote snarled back.

The man pretended he had no clue, which made Pote squint: "" l'll oblige you: I'm the husband of the blond real estate agent ...the pretty one who was asking questions about this property in the central registry. How's that?"

"Did Dumas send you?" Lancaster said, assuming an important pose.

"Hmm...if you think about it real hard...yeah...Dumas sent me...Just like he sent the investigators in Fortaleza and in Goa, that you had killed!" Pote shook his head.

"What do you want?" Lancaster seemed to think for a second and then snarled back.

"I want you to pay back the dough you made Dumas pay you for the polluted land, Cabron! It's a serious amount!" Pote was getting antsy as the conversation seemed to drag on.

Before he could react, Lancaster's arm swung up and a blunt object hit Pote in the head and made him lose his balance for a second. But the anger still simmering under the surface had not let go, and Pote grumbled throwing himself over the desk and getting hold of the man's arm and twisting it hard.

The hand fight that followed was vicious as Lancaster obviously was a trained fighter, light on his feet, but he underestimated the strength of Pote's arms and most importantly the anger that the fleeting image of unconscious, or maybe dead, Kelly Anne still had on him. The blows that were exchanged left cuts and bruises on both their faces, and soon they were both bleeding from broken lips and teeth.

"You dirty Spaniard!" Lancaster puffed as he circled back.

"Que?", Pote had never been wronged in this respect.

His fist landed in the Englishman's stomach as he grumbled: "I forgot my sombrero, pendejo...that's why you ain't clear where I'm from!"

As Pote toppled him and kicked him several times to ensure he was immobilized, he added: "Te equibocas...mucho...(You're very wrong)...I'm a mean Mexican sicario... and now you and I are gonna have a little fiesta ....and share some tequila...to get to know each other...or would you rather have a mezcal, Cabron?"

Pote wiped the blood off his mouth, pushed the bottle of whisky that the man had been drinking from on the floor and turned to take out the tequila bottle he had seen in the side bar.

Lancaster sprang forward, which was a mistake because Pote drew his gun so fast that he himself couldn't say when he shot the man in the knee. Then he turned back to the bar and got out the tequila bottle ignoring the screams that filled the room.

"I'm like the tequila, Cabron!...mean and Mexican!", he kept talking as he poured two glasses. "Everyone likes me, but if someone abuses me... I become their worst nightmare!"

===

Teresa's cell rang and her heart went to her throat the moment she saw it was Pote. She hadn't spoken to him since Switzerland, and she felt her hand shaking.

"Pote!" She sounded breathless.

"Ese pendejo Lancaster esta muerto, Teresita!" Pote sounded mean and angry. "I killed him, I just finished him...se acabo (it's finished) ....And now... I'm gonna clean up here...before I bring Kelly Anne to go through the papers in his office!"

"Thank you, Pote! "Teresa could hear her heartbeat in her ears. "Are you both all right?"

"Nothing that some more tequila can't fix!" he said with his heavy-duty tone. "So, that you know...this pendejo ran us in the lake...Kelly Anne...she almost drowned!"

Teresa could feel her stomach liquify and her knees give in. But Pote went on: "So, I gave him a nice Culichi death...we drank some tequila together...then I got me some of his teeth ...maldito hijo de puta... before I sent him to meet his maker!"

Teresa closed her eyes and took a deep breath as James pressed her shoulder to make her sit down on the couch and took the cell from her hand.