The car traversed smoothly over the road. The full moon overhead provided some natural lighting while the light of the other cars around us allowed us the ability to see the cacti to the side of the road. The coconut car fresheners swung back and forth from the rearview mirror, spreading its scent around.
Milo sat in the passenger's seat, looking out the window. I could see his tongue run across his teeth. I realized that everything he did I found cute. I had chosen the SUV for this trip, so we were both comfortable. He had been nervous when I told him we had to go meet the boss. This meeting could be the starting point in inducting him into the cartel. I had feelings about him actually joining Río Dorado, none of them good.
I didn't see him as weak in the least. With what he had let me learn about him, his parents raised him to be strong and independent. He had adapted to be mentally strong because that was what his environment called for. His parents taught him that intellect was just as important as being physically strong in the world. That lesson gave Milo the ability to think his way out of dangerous situations, but I didn't want him in those situations.
"You okay?" I placed a hand on his knee, capturing his attention. He rubbed his hand over mine and laced our fingers together.
"I'm fine. I'm just trying to figure out how I got here. I'm going to a gang meeting to meet your cartel boss. I'm a writer, so this feels more like a story than reality. I don't know if that makes sense. I can't get out of my mind right now." He looked over at me briefly before looking outside the window again.
I felt bad for him while also wondering if that was how his mind constantly worked. I couldn't imagine looking at life as if it was happening to me and not the other way around.
"What's your favorite song," I asked. He turned to me, his eyes squinted and his mouth upturned in a smile.
"Teenage Dream, by Katy Perry," he answered.
"Why is that your favorite song out of all the songs produced and released in the world?" He shrugged his shoulders before looking up at the ceiling of the car. "Something about the feel of the song speaks to me. It's about someone who sees you for who you are and embracing the parts you don't want to show. It's also about that stupid and idealistic view teenagers have on life."
"What's yours?" If it wasn't for the car's self navigation, we would have crashed already since I spent most of the ride so far looking at him. "Novocaine, by Frank Ocean. The beat gets me first, then he talks about getting what he wanted and feeling numb. I'm grateful for everything I have been able to earn. But if we are being honest, I feel nothing when I look at all I have. I live like a king but have no one to share it with." I squeezed his fingers between mine.
"I don't know if this makes sense. I feel like I'm rambling about some bullshit." I said.
"Play it for me. I've never heard of it," he said. I told the car's artificial intelligence to play the song, and we began bobbing our head to the beat. It was barely eight, and the ride was only thirty minutes longer, give or take a few minutes if we encountered traffic. We were listening to the song for the fourth time in a row before I heard something I was not expecting.
"Novocaine, baby, I want you," Milo sang. I looked over when I heard his singing voice. It was clear and soft, resting on a high register. There was some breathiness he forced to mimic the original melody, but I could hear the power behind each note he hit.
"You have a beautiful voice," I said, turning the music down. He waved his hand at me. He hated getting compliments, and I hated that he felt that way.
"Sing something else." If I kept him focused on giving me a performance, he wouldn't know that we were getting closer and closer to the safe house.
"Love me now, when I'm gone, love me none."
"Love me none, love me none, numb, numb, numb, numb." He sang softer.
"You should sing for me more often," I told him.
"Why don't you speak in Spanish," he asked out of the blue. He was a master of conversation diversion. The question caught me off guard since few people asked me that.
"It's an assimilation tactic. Río Dorado, always has a majority of dual citizenship members. Most of us are at least bilingual, but we hide it to make it harder for others to make the connection. I use English so much that I've lost some grasp I used to have on Spanish," I explained. The answer satisfied him, and he began nodding his head to the music again.
The car alerted me we were close to the destination, and I removed it from the auto-navigation mode and began manually driving us to our destination. The safe house was off of the road where there were no lights to guide you. I had been to the building enough times to know exactly how to get there in the dark. Milo stopped singing along and looked out the window. I don't know if he was thinking or focused on the nothingness around us.
I turned down a path shown by three cacti planted only a few inches from each other. The car vibrated as we traversed the uneven surface of the road. I could see the safe house from fifty yards away. It was a structure the color of the surrounding sand. There were cars parked out front. The building was unremarkable, about the size of the average garage and only a single story tall.
Bootleggers built the structure a century ago, they would use it as a place to rest while smuggling alcohol from below the border. Deandre had bought it five years ago and told us to use it as a place to hide, if we got into a turf war or something along those lines. The last time we used it was for a meeting much like the one we were about to have.
I parked close to the building and got out, waiting for Milo to step out and walk to the door. His hands were shaking with anticipation, so I grabbed them and felt the clamminess. He looked up at me as I brought my lips to his forehead. "Nothing will happen to you while I'm around. You know that, right?" He nodded his head but averted his eyes. With a soft hand, I pulled his chin up so he had to look at me. It was important that he knew he was safe with me.
When our eyes met, I held his gaze, just to see if he believed what I had said. He squeezed my hands and nodded. I dropped his hands and did a special knock, three knocks followed by two after a ten second pause. The door opened and Tony stood in the doorway; he gave me a nod and stepped out of the way, allowing me inside. Milo grabbed my hand and followed me.
Deandre designed the space as a studio apartment. The floors were concrete to keep the space cool with no need for power as that would strain the solar panels. The walls were painted black, making it impossible to see anything when the one window was closed and the light off. There was a full-sized bed opposite the wall where a small kitchen stood. In the center of the room was a large round table that sat ten comfortably.
I thought I would have been among the first to show up, but there were five others at the table. The other lieutenants sat waiting on me along with Deandre. Behind them stood their head hitmen. Since this was my territory Isaac who acted as my head seller, and Soraya, the woman in charge of smuggling, sat on the bed.
Río Dorado had five major regions; South California, Southern New Mexico/Arizona, Louisiana, the Florida Pan-handle, and all of Texas, which was my domain. We only sold heroin, which we worked out as a way of not stepping on bigger cartels in the region.
I walked over to the table and took a seat and had Milo sit next to me. My counterparts stared at him down. As I sat, I felt the gun in the waistband of my jeans.
"Took you long enough." The comment came from Afifa, a Qatari-American who looked like she would be more comfortable in a library than a trap house in California. Her voice as always was harsh. When she spoke, it felt as if she was yelling at you while also whispering. "I'm twenty minutes early," I said in a bored tone, getting a vein to bulge on her forehead.
She was about to say something, but Deandre held up a hand. "There is no need for pointless arguments. We have serious shit to talk about," he said.
I nodded in agreement. "Why are we here," Marmaduke asked. He was a tall, Samoan man who did not speak much. His region was Florida.
"The FBI is focusing on us. I've been told that our person working on the inside has found out that they have created a dedicated team focusing for us. They are looking for me, and the people at the main leadership positions. We need to do more than change the way we distribute things. We need to see what we can do to get them off our case. Diversion is the word I'm looking for. We have to provide them with something that's bigger than us so they will divert resources to that cause. We've done it before and we can do it again. Maybe, we can get some of our competition taken out this time."
The drug world operated on a dog eat dog basis. If you weren't willing to climb into the gutter and fight along with us, then you would get yourself left behind. We all nodded in agreement.
"I don't know what we can do this time. The government captured El Chapo so we can leave breadcrumbs like we did last time. Also, we can't risk information coming out about our involvement."
"We can link with our IED friends and get a few of them off the streets. I know of a few plans for Chicago that are being worked on," Fanuco, a slow talking Brazilian guy suggested. He had a thick New Orleans accent that was smooth as butter paired with his baritone. Bombs had killed his family, so he hated them. In some of our passing conversations, he was outspoken about his hatred for killing without direct contact. He called it cowardly.
"Terrorism works, but wouldn't that draw too much attention? They would research information like that. No organization would take that information and move on it without it being properly vetted," Milo spoke up. He trained his eyes on the table and mumbled. I wondered how he knew information like that. It sounded like something you would learn from experience.
"Who are you, and how do you know that," inquired a childlike voice from the side of Fanuco. The small blond woman named Opal, the lieutenant of New Mexico, asked. She removed her hand from the table and pulled a gun out, aiming it at Milo. He looked up, unimpressed by the action. Milo was different. The same determination and fearlessness from the meeting at my house was on his face.
"My name's Milo, I'm Aurelio's boyfriend and a possible new member. I also studied criminal justice in college for a little while before I choose not to become a pig. If you don't want me to say anything that's fine, but it would be nice if you would put the gun down." He said in a way that made it clear he would not give another warning.
I had two responses; mental and physical. Mentally, I imagined another layer being revealed to his personality. Physically, I got aroused by his tone and the energy he was giving off. It reminded me of myself when I was younger, except I was drunk most of the time.
Opal held the gun steady, unsure of how to respond to someone daring to speak to her that way. I reached for my gun and put it on the table and stared at her. She glared at me and huffed.
"Everyone put their guns on the fucking table, I don't have time for this," Deandre ordered. Afifa, Marmaduke, Fanuco, and the crew members placed their guns at the center of the table. We had created a mountain of metal.
"What he said was a valid point. The feds would want to dot every I and cross every T. Do you have a better idea?" He softens his tone and gives Milo all of his attention. And just as intended, Milo blushed under his gaze. I had seen the movie a hundred times before. I ground my teeth and placed a hand on Milo's shoulder. Deandre rolled his eyes at the action.
"Have you considered lying low for a month or two, if there is no crime happening what would they be able to say to justify wasting money on a small cartel like this one, anyway?"
"Two months," Marmaduke exclaimed.
"Could we even afford that," Afifa asked.
"We could, the falcons pockets would get tight but if it meant that they don't end up in jumpsuits, I think they will adapt. We could release some stored resources to get them through. But what if someone moves in on our territory we already had to claw our way back to where we were," Fanuco asked. I looked to my crew, who had been part of the old guard. Restarting was normal to them. They had come up when things only got earned through bloodshed, along with hard work.
"We can get customers easily, we aren't selling insurance. There will be new customers waiting for a dealer every day, and if we have to fight for our place again, that's just what we must do," I answered.
Fanuco and Afifa were not killers by trade like Marmaduke, Opal, and I. Afifa was a finance person who wanted to take control of her region, so she poisoned the previous lieutenant. Fanuco was a seller, hence his seller mindset. Rumor was he needed help to kill his predecessor. The rest of us had killed many to be sitting in the room.
"It's settled. I want operations stopped until further notice, have this done by the end of the week, and that goes for the fronts. I want them running clean," Deandre ordered. His eyes met everyone in the room to make sure we heard and knew to comply with what he had said.
"Yes sir," the group said in unison.
"Keep it tight. I don't want a single fucking slip up or that's your fucking head. You are all dismissed aside from Aurelio and his little buddy." They all looked pissed to have made the trip for a conversation that only lasted fifteen minutes. That was the boss always showing you that his time was more important than yours.
My underlings looked at me for the go ahead, I nodded and they departed along with the rest of the people after retrieving their weapons. The other lieutenants all nodded at me before making their departure. It took one hundred and twenty seconds for the room to clear out, and then we were finally alone.
"You're an interesting little man," Deandre said, he raised himself from his seat and took one on the opposite side from where I was sitting which put Milo in between the both of us. He looked uncomfortable under the gaze of Deandre, but quickly covered it up and put on a brave smile.
"I am not little, I'm also not interested. I'm smart, smarter than most of the people who sat at this table just a few minutes ago. That leads me to believe that you aren't as intelligent as you would like everyone to think since you would have knocked those idiots off by now." Milo looked him dead in the eyes as he spoke. Deandre smiled, liking the challenge he had always liked to see if he could break someone down, make them submit to him.
I liked this side of Milo when directed at Deandre. If he had been as aggressive with me when we met at the bar, he would not have made it past a one-night stand. He had the gift for flowing through a conversation and molding his personality in a way that fit the situation. He had not become someone unrecognizable. I could see the shyness underneath while also seeing him in a way that he knew he didn't need to be with me.
"You're a little firecracker, I see why Aurelio keeps you around," Deandre said. His arm reached over Milo and went to my shoulder where he squeezed. Milo looked at Deandre first, and then at me and realization dawned on him.
"So you two are you together," He asked. "It's been awhile since we were together. We just don't match well together, we're too similar." That was as honest as an answer I could give.
"I just wanted to introduce myself to you personally. I'm Deandre, Leader of the Río Dorado. Nice to have you on board. I'll be keeping my eye out for you." He rose from his chair and patted Milo on the shoulder before he left the building. When the door shut, Milo exhaled.
"You okay boyfriend," I said with a large smile. That immediately calmed the tension. He rolled his eyes at my tone, "It was the easiest way to describe what we are," he replied. The rosy undertone let me know how embarrassed he was to be having the conversation.
"Well, I'm glad you feel comfortable calling me your man," I said. I stood up, feeling my right leg fall asleep. Milo followed my action and followed me out the safe house.
"I think we could both use a drink," I said, as we stepped into the dark. He groaned, making me laugh. In the back of my head, I had many questions.