Hardcore Prawn

  Hardcore Prawn

  By Jacob Rayne

  A Rayne of Terror publication

  Copyright © Saul Bainbridge (Writing as Jacob Rayne) 2019

  Cover design by Warren Design

  Part 1: Chilli con carnage

  1

  Mario Gonzalez hung up the phone, sighed, wafted cigar smoke away from his eyes.

  ‘Bad news?’ Sadie, his assistant – and bit on the side – said.

  ‘You could say that. Takings are down again. Another few months like this one and we’ll be out on our ears. One of my spotters just called to say Lopez is on his way over. That’s never good.’

  ‘I’m sure you can do something to pick things up.’

  Gonzalez shrugged, blew more smoke.

  The cloud floating around him stung his eyes, but that wasn’t why the tears had begun to roll down his cheeks.

  ‘We can’t let Lopez win.’

  Three minutes later, the door crashed open.

  Lopez stood there in the centre of the room, his trademark samurai sword in his hands.

  His hired goons – each of them built like a wardrobe – flanked him in their matching, flawless three piece suits.

  Lopez wore a blood-red tie – the same colour as his money, most folks said.

  You sure as shit didn’t want him sniffing around you.

  ‘We ain’t had our money this month,’ Lopez began, his forty-coffin-nails-a-day drawl bringing Gonzalez’s worst nightmares to life. ‘As you well know, it’s due on the first. My calendar tells me it is the third, so that means you now owe an extra two hundred.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gonzalez began. ‘We’re just not making enough money to pay you. We’re starving over here.’

  Lopez nodded, the tip of his samurai sword poked into Gonzalez’s flabby belly.

  ‘Sure as shit don’t look like you’re starving over here, jefe.’ His eyes were like a shark’s; cold, dead, black.

  Gonzalez gulped.

  ‘You know what happens next, but I’m going to remind you anyway. You go and get us the money right now, or I take someone’s head off. You gonna be able to do that?’

  Gonzalez gulped again. Sweat was beginning to roll down his brow. It felt like a stone fist was crushing his heart.

  ‘I need to see how much there is.’

  ‘There better be enough, put it that way, jefe,’ Lopez said.

  Santos, the biggest of the hired goons, smirked at this.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go,’ Lopez said, jabbing the tip of the blade into the small of Gonzalez’s back.

  Gonzalez moved into the back room where his safe was housed.

  Lopez watched intently while he keyed in the combination.

  The safe slid open with an ominous creak.

  Gonzalez was saddened by the meagre offering inside.

  While Lopez admired the ornate family crest on the wall, Gonzalez eyed the shotgun hanging on the inner wall of the safe.

  He contemplated using it for a split second.

  Decided it would only make his problems worse.

  He’d maybe get Lopez – he was fast with that blade, there were dozens of dead men who were testament to that – and one of the goons, but they had machine guns on them.

  He’d never take them all and they’d kill everyone he cared about before he did.

  Reluctantly, he left the gun where it hung.

  ‘What’s taking so goddamned long, jefe?’ Lopez said.

  Gonzalez pulled out the cash box.

  He opened it and pushed it over to Lopez.

  Lopez took the bundles of cash and began raking through them, counting under his breath.

  ‘It’s enough. Only just.’

  Relief flooded over Gonzalez.

  But his heart sank as Lopez smirked and revealed the kicker; ‘But there’s no extra for the late payment, jefe.’

  Back in the room with his family and staff, Lopez moved the gleaming tip of the samurai sword around each of the inhabitants.

  His sons, Eddie and José.

  His wife, Cassandra.

  His mistress, Sadie.

  His brother, Ramon.

  Josh, James, Rich, members of his staff. Good workers who he would need to keep the business running.

  ‘Who can you spare, jefe?’ Lopez beamed.

  His men grinned like jackals.

  Gonzalez shook his head. ‘I ain’t gonna choose. This is fucking sick.’

  Lopez’s grin widened. ‘No, you gotta choose. Or I take all of ’em and leave you to pick up the pieces.’

  Gonzalez sobbed.

  He glanced around the room a few times.

  Reluctantly, head slumped, his body language that of the utterly defeated, he pointed to his mistress.

  ‘You are making an important decision here, jefe,’ Lopez said. ‘Let’s see you make it like a man, not a fucking pussy.’

  ‘It’s got to be her,’ he said.

  ‘Mario!’ she screamed. ‘I just found out I’m pregnant. It’s a girl. You always wanted a daughter, didn’t you?’

  Cassandra, Gonzalez’s wife, scowled at him.

  ‘My oh my, this is awkward, jefe,’ Lopez beamed. ‘You sure you don’t want me to take out this chica?’ He aimed the blade at Cassandra. ‘Y’know, save you some fucking earache?’

  Gonzalez scowled at him. It felt like the world was crashing down around his ears.

  ‘Don’t kill her if she’s pregnant,’ Eddie said. ‘Take me instead.’

  ‘Eddie,’ Cassandra hissed.

  ‘It’s ok, Mom,’ Eddie said.

  ‘It’s not your decision to make, kid,’ Lopez said. He looked over to Gonzalez. ‘Say, jefe, this is really getting interesting.’

  ‘Please, Mario,’ Sadie pleaded.

  ‘Do you want to see if you can feel a kick?’ Lopez chuckled. ‘Before her fucking head comes off?’

  ‘Are you really pregnant?’ Gonzalez asked.

  She nodded frantically, her eyes wide and white.

  ‘She’s fucking lying,’ Cassandra spat. ‘Trying to save her own skin.’

  Sadie looked guilty at this accusation.

  ‘I guess we’ll never know,’ Lopez said. ‘Are you sure?’

  Gonzalez thought about it for a second. Nodded.

  ‘OK,’ Lopez grinned. Then he handed Gonzalez the sword.

  ‘Wait! Mom, do you have a pregnancy test in the bathroom?’ Eddie said. ‘Then we can see if her story checks out.’

  Cassandra eyeballed her son.

  ‘There should still be a spare in there from last time,’ Gonzalez said.

  ‘Can I go and get it?’ Eddie asked Lopez.

  Sadie broke down. ‘Don’t waste your time. I’m lying. I just don’t want to die.’

  Lopez smiled and raised his eyebrows to Gonzalez.

  ‘You’ve got till the count of five, jefe. Or we empty our guns into everyone in here.’

  Gonzalez shut his eyes for a second.

  ‘One.’

  He opened them, doing his best not to look into the weeping eyes of his lover.

  ‘Two.’

  He drew the sword back.

  ‘Three.’

  Closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

  ‘Four.’

  Swung the sword with all his might.

  The blade was sharp; going through the neck with ease.

  Sadie’s head hit the floor with a thud.

  She remained kneeling for a second, blood spurting from her neck stump so hard it hit the ceiling fan and was hurled around the room.

  Then she fell onto her left side, blood forming a vast gleaming pool beneath her.

  Lopez watched until her heart had ceased pumping the blood out onto the bare floorboards.

  He smiled. �
��Something real relaxing about that, ain’t there, jefe?’ he said, smacking Gonzalez on the shoulder.

  Gonzalez dropped the sword, fell to his knees and hurled all over the floor on the other side of the room.

  The others were all crying or shielding their eyes, except for Eddie, who was staring at the body with an expression of utter horror.

  Lopez tutted and picked the sword up from the floor.

  He used his tie to wipe the blood from the handle and the blade, then placed it back into the ornate sheath on his left hip.

  He bent and picked up the head, gripping it by the hair.

  Grinning from ear to ear, he rolled the head across the floor like a bowling ball.

  Gonzalez recoiled in disgust as it stopped in his lap.

  Grimacing at the warm blood on his hands, he flung it away.

  ‘That is a feeling I want you to remember,’ Lopez drawled, fixing Gonzalez with a glare. ‘The weight of a young woman’s death on your conscience. We’ll take an extra hundred a month from now on. Don’t be late, jefe. Or heads will fucking roll.’ He laughed at his own joke, as did his goons.

  Their feet left trails in the blood.

  ‘I’ll give you a tip,’ Lopez said. ‘If I were you I’d dump that body in the river off the West Pier. The current’s so fast it’ll take it out to the sea before you’ve got back in your car.’

  Gonzalez just stared in mute horror.

  ‘Now make sure you remember this lesson, jefe.’

  2

  A few months later, Gonzalez’s takings were down ever further.

  His ranch had once been the most popular in all of Mexico, but Lopez had come along and gutted his business.

  Gonzalez was still struggling to keep the wolf from the door.

  He was desperate now, he couldn’t lose the business; everything his great-grandfather had worked hard to establish.

  And if they didn’t make the payment again, he’d be forced to decapitate another of his family or close friends.

  The farm was only a few years from being into its hundredth year.

  All that heritage, gone in a few lean years.

  And it hadn’t taken those fickle-ass customers long to desert him.

  He bowed his head, put his hand to his eyes to catch the falling tears.

  His family heritage, his livelihood, his children’s future business.

  And now their lives.

  All at risk.

  Mere weeks from disintegrating.

  He went out to clear his head.

  The lowing of Miguel, his prize bull, greeted him like mocking laughter.

  He shook his head wistfully, lit a cigar and walked towards the neon lights of town.

  As he walked, he heard the strains of a mariachi reimagining of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell suddenly blare out.

  It took him a few seconds to realise it was his ringtone.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, seeing his eldest son’s name on the screen.

  ‘Dad?’ Eddie said.

  ‘Yeah, what is it?’

  ‘Where are you? I got something you need to hear.’

  Gonzalez pulled up a seat in Lomino’s Lounge, a neon haven from sobriety.

  He chased some of his despair away with a shot of tequila, then sipped at a Dos Equis.

  His fingers picked at the edge of the label.

  Eddie came in, a grey workout vest on, sweat stains soaking the chest and back.

  Always showing off his arms, that kid, he thought with a smile, the first in a long time.

  ‘You coulda showered first,’ Gonzalez scowled.

  ‘I couldn’t wait to tell you this,’ Eddie beamed. ‘It’s gonna be the answer to your prayers.’

  ‘What is?’

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening in.

  Then he began.

  ‘There’s this guy at the gym. He’s the one who gives me the edge when I’m working out.’

  Gonzalez slapped him upside the head. ‘I told you not to touch that shit. You don’t know what it’s doing to you.’

  Eddie scowled. Another glance over his shoulder. ‘Anyway… as I was saying. He makes this shit to order. We call him El Cocinero.’

  ‘The chef? Gonzalez said, brow furrowed.

  Eddie laughed to himself. ‘Yeah, cos he’s always cooking some new shit up.’

  Gonzalez shook his head, tore another strip off his beer label. ‘Get to the fucking point.’

  ‘Well, he can make just about anything… performance enhancers… growth hormones… you name it. And I was wondering if we could use it.’

  Gonzalez furrowed his brow a second, squinted into the mirror above the bar. He’d thought he’d seen one of Lopez’s men in the corner by the smoke-stained jukebox.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Say instead of cooking something up for me, we use it on the cows, y’know, enhance them a bit.’

  Gonzalez shook his head. ‘No way, man, that’s opening us up for all kinds of shit.’

  ‘Worse than going out of business? Worse than having to pick another one of us to fucking decapitate?’

  Gonzalez said nothing else, just downed his beer and walked out without a backwards glance.

  He’d tended to his herd after that. Then he’d gone over the books again, on the brink of despair.

  Eddie’s words popped up in his mind.

  He pushed them away, but they kept popping back up.

  After a sleepless night, he called Eddie.

  ‘I knew you’d call,’ Eddie said.

  ‘I haven’t decided anything yet. I just want to talk to the guy.’

  ‘El Cocinero is waiting for your call.’

  ‘Stop calling him that. It’s fucking stupid.’

  Eddie laughed. ‘I think this is going to be the answer to our prayers, Dad.’

  ‘I sure fucking hope so.’

  Anton Rivera was a sculpted wall of muscle It was clear he spent even more time in the gym than Eddie.

  He had mirror shades on. A backwards black baseball cap.

  Veins popped out like worms in his arms – what was it with these gym guys and their sweaty vests? Gonzalez pondered, furious – and his neck was like most men’s thighs.

  He shook Gonzalez’s hand, seemingly trying to crush it in his grip, but Gonzalez was stronger than his thin frame suggested. He returned the grip and then some.

  Rivera seemed surprised and impressed.

  ‘So what can I do for you, Daddio?’ Rivera said.

  ‘Firstly, you can never call me that again.’

  ‘Relax, Dad,’ Eddie said.

  Gonzalez eyeballed him.

  ‘So, my son tells me you make steroids.’

  ‘Not just steroids, all sorts of good shit.’

  ‘And will any of it work on animals, namely my bulls and cows?’

  Rivera shrugged. ‘I dunno, man. But from what my man Eddie says, you’re willing to take the risk, right?’

  Gonzalez thought about it a second.

  ‘What effects does it have on humans?’

  ‘Increased muscle mass, increased libido, I mean I can tinker it to pretty much whatever you want to achieve. We could test it on one, see if it works.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Four hundred for a sample. Two gs for a full weeks’ course.’

  Gonzalez looked at him, furious.

  Eddie shook his head. ‘It’s the future of the business, Dad.’

  Gonzalez thought about it for a second. ‘Ok, I’ll try a sample, we’ll see what happens.’

  ‘Goes without saying you don’t tell anyone about this.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Rivera.’

  ‘I know, man. I’ll get cooking, see what I can do.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Gonzalez went back and forth on what he was doing. It felt wrong to him.

  His gut was telling him not to to
uch this with a barge pole, but he was desperate.

  The phone call came.

  He met Rivera by the gym’s back door. The money sat in a brown paper bag which he had clutched to his chest like a newborn.

  Rivera gave him a small glass vial containing a clear liquid.

  ‘Give half of this to start with. Give it a few days to kick in, then try the rest. Anything funny happens, you call me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Gonzalez thrust the vial deep into his pocket.

  It felt like people were looking at him funny, as though they knew his secret.

  That would be the final nail in the coffin.

  The locals would never buy from him again.

  He got home without incident.

  He locked himself in his office, took out the vial and stared at it intently.

  You shouldn’t be doing this, his mind told him.

  And he knew it was right.

  He put the vial in the wastepaper basket underneath his desk.

  A few days later, Gonzalez went over the books again.

  They told a very sorry tale.

  They didn’t have long in the game.

  Lopez was going to make him decapitate another of his loved ones if he didn’t make the money somehow.

  Put up or shut up time, he thought.

  And again, his thoughts went to the small vial in the wastepaper basket.

  He tipped some of the crap out of the bin, dismayed to find the vial wasn’t there.

  ‘You looking for this?’ Eddie said, holding up the vial. ‘I saw you’d binned it and I thought I’d save you a lot of grief.’

  Gonzalez snatched it from him.

  ‘You have no business going through my things.’

  ‘You’re doing the right thing, Dad.’

  Gonzalez went down to the paddock and put one of the needles into the solution. He took all of the liquid in.

  ‘Not that much,’ Eddie said, shaking his head.

  Gonzalez pushed half out of the syringe.

  ‘That’s better.’

  He approached Miguel, the prize bull.

  Miguel snorted angrily, as though he knew what was happening was a bad idea, but Gonzalez had known him for all of his life and managed to soothe him.

  He pushed the needle into Miguel’s side, reassuring him again when he winced.