As the sun set over the Los Angles Harbor, Bandit’s Cantina took on a celebratory aura. The gang finally relaxed, as if the evil matron in a boarding school was transferred to another facility. Kenny, the junkman, was thrown out on his ass, never to return.
Left behind was Cinderella, a delightful Hispanic youngster with gigantic tits and a smile capable of melting chrome. Her eyes filled with tears as the underwater welding students returned after ousting her slumlord.
“No mi casa.” She stumbled and slumped into a chair, just as Nyla was refilling glasses with strong Cadillac Margarita mix and the Chinaman burst into the dining room with a fresh round of happy hour hor d?vours.
The Mexican busboy, who the Chinaman rescued from the streets and trained in the Cantina galley, ran to her side, speaking in her native tongue, assuring her she had come to the right place. Mandy and Tina followed suit, with Sheila nodding and pointing to various alcoves in the Cantina where she could crash.
“No trabajo ahora,” she muttered as tears ran down her dusky brown cheeks.
“I’ll speak to the boss,” Marko said. “I don’t know if we need another waitress. Maybe Nyla could use a barback, and she could help tidy up around this joint. Ask her if she has any belongings in Wilmington at Kenny’s junkyard?”
The Chinaman’s helper and his wife, Maria, asked her, but she had nothing, except a few clothes she didn’t care about.
The red phone behind the bar interrupted the conversation. It was Bandit from upstairs. Marko answered it.
“What’s up boss?” he asked.
“It’s mudcheck time,” Bandit said and the line went dead.
Marko knew the drill. Over the years, Bandit and the Cantina crew helped folks out, but it backfired from time to time. They quickly developed a prospect period, coupled with heavy security. Every man, woman or child needed to prove themselves before the door was opened all the way.
Marko sat down with Jose and his wife. “You know, we need to check her out,? he said of the newcomer. ?Find out about her past, family, whatever. Tell her that if she wants a shot, we’ll give it to her one step at a time. She will be treated with honor and respect, but she has to prove herself, or we’ll send her down the road.”
Jose and Maria endured similar criteria when they were allowed to come around the Cantina and work with the Chinaman. They immediately went to work on little Cinderella with the big boobs. Marko towered over their small shoulders. Not one of them stood more than 5’4″.
So Cinderella told her tale while Maria translated. The barrios of Mexico City weren?t the safest place for a young girl whose breasts were budding into adolescence. The dirty, smog-filled streets were rife with drug dealers and pimps, always on the lookout for fresh meat to sell into slavery and prostitution.
As the child blossomed, her mother saw the street slime leering at her daughter?s seductive form as she played in the streets. She knew her daughter was a major score for the gang member who could snatch her and sell her into white slavery or prostitution. So, she began saving funds and trying to find a safe, trustworthy, shipping connection to the States. But pitfalls and notorious traps lurked around every corner. It was difficult to save any money with her meager earnings. She tried to pay off the policia to watch out for Cinderella, but they were as corrupt as the gang bangers, demanding more coin, then extorting from her and threatening to take Cinderella themselves. Her mother worked in an American product assembly plant, making a meager salary, which was very hard to come by, in a town where cleaning ladies, street cooks and laundry jobs were the vocational staples. The class structure was limited to two levels. There were a handful of very wealthy. The rest of the population was dirt poor.
Then Kraft Foods opened a product assembly plant, and she begged for a chance at a regular job. They printed and assembled shipping containers, eight hours a day. The facility was clean and well-organized. Fans blew overhead and cooled the massive warehouse.
But while she worked, she couldn’t keep an eye on Cinderella. She was hopelessly sequestered at work each day, away from any contact with her daughter. She prayed constantly and forced Cinderella to stay in school as much and as long as possible, but then she graduated from high school and the funds weren’t available to send her to a trade school or college.
To top off her anxiety over her daughter, hormones flourished along with her body, and Cindarella hooked up with a boyfriend, Jesus. He had long curly hair, big dark eyebrows, and his smile was quirky and insincere. He was from Del Casa de Diablo. That was here mom’s way of saying he came from a bad home. Of course, Cinderella didn’t heed her mother?s warnings. She was swept off her feet with puppy love, and Jesus didn’t make any attempt to ground her in reality. He played the doting boyfriend until the summer rolled around and hormones flared. Her mother?s worries and suspicions grew. The cops quit coming around. Jesus? clothes were pressed and new, yet he had no obvious means of employment and didn’t mention family ties.
During the interview with Jose and Maria, Cinderella often mentioned motorcycles. Each time she did, her eyes sparkled and a smile crossed her face. It seems Jesus invited Cinderella to the coast at Guadalajara for the weekend and her mother forbade her to go, but when the weekend came, she was gone. Friday afternoon, her mother returned from work on the cluttered city bus to find a small note pinned to the door. Something about going to the beach for the first time.
That was the last she saw of her daughter or the boyfriend, although she thought for sure she spotted him getting in a black sedan with tinted windows. She reported her missing daughter to la policia, to surly officers who didn’t give a shit. She spent a month’s wages combing the streets of Guadalajara to no avail.
Jesus had an easy moneymaking gig. He hit on girls like Cinderella constantly, befriended them, did all he could to get them to fall in love and make love. Then when their romance was warm and cozy, he offered to take them away for a romantic weekend. It all started out peaches and cream and fun, with a serene drive to the coast, some drinks and good seafood. Then the story faded. Cinderella awoke in a barred adobe room with only a few clothes, drugged and shackled to a bed surrounded by a dirt floor.
Jesus wined and dined each girl, and had his way with her if they were willing. If not, he slipped them a mickey, had his way anyway, and then delivered them to a remote compound somewhere on the west coast between Guadalajara and Mazatlan.
She awoke with a start. Cinderella’s mom trained her extensively for such an occurrence and told her exactly what would happen. Some girls would be gang-raped and killed. It was like a prostitution training camp. Some would succumb to the game and become players. Some would fight back and be killed or tortured. Some would become drug addicts and used until there was nothing left. She could only attempt to survive. Her mom told her the game, and she contained all the hot physical tools.
A couple of scurvy looking uniforms unlocked her heavy rustic door and shoved it open. An official looking gent wandered in wearing a white cotton suit and dress shirt. He pulled up a chair beside her bed and lit a cigarette. He explained the drill, and in no uncertain terms told her that she was going to be a prostitute, cooperate fully, or die and be buried with so many other worthless bitches in the desert. He didn’t offer her a glass of water, the use of a toilet, a chunk of bread, a cigarette, nothing. When he finished, he put the cigarette out on her ankle.
“You have one hour to think it over, puta” he said as she whimpered and pissed herself. He tore her top away from her jiggling boobs and gawked at them. “You have the tools to make good money and have some fun.” He turned and left the room.
Her leg stung, but suddenly reality stormed over her like a tsunami. She didn’t pay much attention to her mom’s ramblings as a youngster, but suddenly she was faced with all the lessons she?d listened to half-heartedly. She had come face-to-face with no-bullshit, life and death decisions. An hour passed like the last hour for a death row inmate, except she had a choice, the inmate didn’t. As it turned out, Saxon motorcycles was owned by several very successful property developers who were building luxury condos on the coast of Mexico, and they invited several motojournalists, including Bandit, to experience Mexico on the back of their new models. What a ride! They dodged tarantulas and federales to the coast to find luxury condos and terrific food, while riding the entire line of tough-looking metalflake Saxon motorcycles. After a tough day on a hot saddle, the Saxon gang set up a diner, then a ride to a remote compound on the outskirts of Acaponeta, Mexico. The tanned gringos on sparkling new glistening flamed choppers rolled into a full-blown whorehouse and the party began.
Bandit immediately spotted the young Mexican with the giant soft mambos near the pool. She was as gorgeous as the sparkling clear water lit-up in the night. It was dark, except for large candles, mood lighting, the clear starry nights, and the reflections off the Saxon Choppers. Tequila flowed, but Bandit, a security-minded gent, made his way through the throng of young girls to the small one with the torpedo hooters sitting with her short legs dangling in the pool.
Bandit sat down beside her, his dusty boot resting next to her succulent ass on the water’s edge. She was a delight for sunburnt eyes.
“Habla English?” Bandit asked.
“Muy poco,” she returned, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m not much good at Spanish, either,” Bandit said. “So what gives? You don’t seem to be into the party. Are these bad guys? Hombres malos?”
“Si,” she said.
“How long have you been aqui?”
“Un dia.”
The party was in full swing, girls were performing lap dances (including one very interesting routine with a banana), and getting the guys wound up. Bandit pulled his condo key out of his pocket and slipped it under the girl’s soft leg.
“Como se llama?”
“Cinderella,” she said and looked up at him.
For the first time, their eyes met and his piercing green eyes bored into sad dark eyes screaming for help. She leaned forward and wrapped her petite arm around one of his large legs and held it close, as if she found a long lost teddy bear.
“This party could get crazy,” Bandit said, and pointed at his eyes. “Keep close and your eyes open.”
There was one other editor who was taking it easy. He was short, stout looking guy who had a military security background. He kicked back and watched the crowd of a dozen riders, and an equal number of women frolic in the dim lights. As Bandit strolled toward the bar, he paused by Chris and knelt down.
“Quite a compound, eh?” Bandit said.
“Yep, we’re surrounded,” Chris said and sipped his Margarita.
“We may need to make a flashy exit,” Bandit said and stood up. Chris seemed to know exactly what to do. The motorcycles were strewn around the compound and outside the gate. Chris got up, finished his Margarita, and started to rearrange the bikes. Within a couple of minutes, the guys from Saxon started to help him move the motorcycles just outside the gates beside the Saxon truck.
The Saxon leader announced an hour later that time was up and the crew had to roll. As the guys mustered, some getting dressed and stumbling out of small dirt floor rooms, Bandit stuck close to Cinderella as he counted the crew, then leaned down close to her quiet features and handed her a 100-dollar bill. He touched her leg near his key.
“Follow the motorcycles,” he said twisting his writs, mimicking the throttle on a motorcycle. “Stay here, no matter what happens. Comprende?”
She nodded hopefully.
He stood up and walked over directly towards the biggest security guard of the bunch. “Where’s the head?”
“In the back,” the guard snarled and pointed around one of the dusty adobe buildings. Bandit could imagine what a pit the place looked like in the sunlight, but at night with some well-place lighting, a couple of paper decorations, enough women and margaritas and the joint was a castle, except for the stench. He found the pungent outhouse, took a leak, picked up a can of gas, and continued around the building to the opposite end of the U-shaped compound where the bar was. He poured two gallons of gas against the back wall of the bar and through the open window, set it ablaze and ran to the opposite corner.
The bar was aflame and security ran to assist. Bandit ran to where the trashcans resided beside the exit and grabbed one.
“Hey, guys let’s help.”
He dumped out one of the plastic containers and ran to the pool. He scooped as much water as he could carryt and ran toward the saloon, tossing it at the flames. The guards were impressed with his efforts and soon the flames were quelled. During one run, on his return to the pool he scooped up the girl in the trashcan and dumped her outside the gate. Then he returned to the fire.
With the fire out, the Saxon rep gave the saloon owner a couple of hundred bucks to help with the damages, while the guys returned the buckets and trash cans to their rightful locations. They were heroes to the security team and the girls as they mounted their colorful scooters and motored back to the coast where the condos reflected the moonlight against ten floors of sliding glass doors and the rippling Pacific. The smell was fresh and clean as they pulled into the parking lot and locked up the flashy new scooters.
Gradually the riding writers finished their final beers and smokes and wandered off to their luxury rooms. The night was clear as Bandit leaned against a concrete wall overlooking ocean and watched the moon’s reflection dance on the water. He caught a Saxon rep heading to his room.
“Terrific party,” Bandit said. “Thanks.”
“Do you need anything before I turn in?” the young man offered.
“Did you bring any extra bags?” Bandit asked. “I bought some trinkets to take home.”
“I’ll check,” he said. “We brought a bunch of stuff to give away, so we may have something.”
They dug around in the back of the Saxon van and came up with a big cordura gym bag, almost the size of a sea bag.
“Yeah,” the young gent said. “This was used to bring all the t-shirts we gave away.”
“Thanks,” Bandit said. “This may work perfectly.”
He returned to the wall and gazed out at the Pacific as the Saxon rep locked up the truck and roamed off to his room. The night turned quiet. There was no traffic and the nearest town was a couple of miles away. He thought about the girl, and if she would make it or return to the compound. Bandit was never against prostitution; in fact, he favored it, but not the forced variety. He pulled a Jack Daniels flask out of his vest and took a snort. It had been a helluva day.
“Hola,” a small voice whispered at his back. Cinderella stood, covered in dust and dirt with her hand outstretched. She was holding his room key.
“How about a warm bath?” Bandit asked, picked up the bag, and led her to his condo. She was dazzled by the interior.
The next morning, Bandit met the young Saxon rep at the van first thing with his bags, one in particular. He carefully positioned the heavy bag deep in the van and protected it with other bags. That was the last he saw of Cinderella, three years ago.
