King of Swords

She and Julita dressed up in rubber nurse's uniforms and gave those sick fuckolos the times of their lives. For a year, Carmine made serious bank. But then, in February 1979, it had gone pear-shaped. Kitty gave an enema wrong and ruptured a guy's intestine. He died in the apartment. Carmine took the body away and got rid of it. When he went back, Julita and Kitty had split. They'd taken their clothes and the $1,250 the guy had paid them. He'd been looking for them — specifically Julita - ever since.

He got out of the truck and walked over to the supermarket.

It was a big sprawling place which didn't just sell food, but clothes, plants, electrical tools, TVs and even minor car parts. Everything was in Spanish, from the signs to the canned music to all the conversation he heard around him.

He headed for the meat section.

It took him a while and two double-takes to recognize Julita, first because her hair was bunched up under white netting, second because of the uniform they had her working in — a shapeless dark blue dress with red and white piping — and third because she'd put on a whole heap of weight. Her hips were broader, her ass bigger, her calves were about the size as his waist and she had the beginnings of a double chin. She couldn't have been more than twenty-five when she was working for him. Now she looked ten years older.

Mamacita had lost all her sexiness.

He watched her from a distance, as she stacked plastic trays of juicy red steak on a shelf from an overflowing shopping cart. She finished what she was doing and pushed the cart along a little way and then started filling up the shelves again.

When her back was to him, he walked up and greeted her the way he always had.

'Hoa, chica?

She froze in mid-motion. He saw her shoulders expand :i little as she took a deep breath before turning around.

It was her all right. Her face had got broader and she looked tired and pale, but those eyes hadn't changed much.

'How d'you find me?' she said. She didn't look worried r scared like he'd expected her to, just looked him up and down from his paint-spattered boots to his hair.

'It's a small world, baby.' He smiled, wondering why she 11 ad n't commented on his appearance, let alone failed to recognize him.

41 ain't workin' for you no more, Carmine,' she said.

'I can see that.' He laughed, nodding at the shopping cart.

'You really landed on your knees, girl! Not that you wasn't tilrciicly on 'em.'

' I t:'s better than what I used to do,' she said.

“If you say so.'

3ť5 'What do you want?'

'My $1,250.'

'All the money you make off them stupid hos and you comin' after me for a itty-bitty $1,250?'

'So $i,2 5o's itty bitty, huh? Means you got $1,250 to gi'

me.'

'I ain't got no $1,250 to give you,' she said. 'Fact, I ain't even got twelve dollars and fifty cents to give you. An' I ain't got zip to give you no how, 'cause I'm outta that life.

You know why I left? It wasn't just 'cause of what happened to that old pervert, it was 'cause I was two months pregnant.'

'For real? You keep it?'

'Them.'

'You had twins?'

'Girls.'

'DayumP Carmine didn't know what else to say. It explained the extra pounds. Now, when and if— it was real rare, because contraception was strictly enforced - Cards got pregnant, they were made to have abortions. Well, the earners were. Spades, or Clubs on the slide to Spadedom, were just cut loose.

'Who's the daddy?'

'I dunno,' she said. 'Some trick.'

'How'd that happen?'

'How d'you think?'

'But what about them pills I got for you?'

'They were making me fat.'

Not as fat as you are now, he thought, but didn't say it.

Truth was, he didn't know what to say. Congratulations, was the way it went, but he'd never congratulated nobody on nothin', 'specially not a ho on havin' no kid.

He was stunned, and a little disappointed. OK, he hadn't really come here for the money. It was sweat of a ho's back to him. Truth was, he'd felt a little hurt when Julita had upped and gone like that. He'd wanted to know why. A little

part of him had liked her, because in a certain light, dancing up there, before she started losing her clothes, she'd reminded him a lot of Lucita, his father's girlfriend. All right then, he had been a little sweet on her, sweetest he'd ever been on any ho. He'd had a few good times with her outside business hours. She was fun to be around - great sense of humour, made him laugh; sometimes she did this thing where she stopped talking and just looked at him with those eyes of hers that told him so many sweet things. He loved that. And he loved listenin' to her fuckin' those tricks. She just talked that sweet espanol — 'Si, papi. Siii, papi. Siii, siiii, mi amor' - and that got them, and him, all the way off. He'd even come close to fuckin' her himself a couple of times, when they'd had a few drinks and were fooling around, but the prospect of his mother findin' out had pulped his wood.

Still, in another life, he probably would've wifed her. And they'd-a had twins too — good-looking ones at that.