It was just a boring Thursday night in the Cantina. Saint Paddy’s day passed without any major catastrophe. The party was green and everyone smiled and had a good time. Life at Bandit’s Cantina had mellowed. Even the bouncy lesbians got along.
Nyla took a night off and hired a bartender from Wilmington to stand in for her. She was a short, Hispanic woman, Juanita, on the verge of breaking out of the historic end of middle age. Here frilly hair was dyed the maroon color of custom cars, but she had a friendly upbeat air about her, and her tits were giant bubbly mounds. She loved to wear low-cut, tight tops and push-up-to-the-moon bras. She had pudgy cheeks, squinty eyes, long fake eyelashes, and she barely stood 5’2″, so every patron stared at her jiggling cleavage all night long.
She smiled, joked with Marko, who wasn’t impressed, and moved around the bar efficiently. She made Bloody Marys like a sous-chef labors over an exotic sauce. She hand-squeezed lemons, sprinkled pepper and exotic spices, labored over celery, delivered a squirt of Worcestershire sauce, then ice, special Bloody Mary mix and plenty of vodka. She picked massive glasses that could have been Jacuzzis for elves.
The lackluster night witnessed only a few patrons, but a big broad entered the fray, a pal of Juanita’s. She was a giant, 300-pound Mexican chick, with massive tits and arms the size of Buster’s legs. The brothers at the bar gawked, but she smiled and made fun of skinny Frankie and Clay.
The big mama, Maria, made her way to the jukebox and plugged in a series of soul tunes, and suddenly the Cantina was a-buzz with warm feelings and a touch of romance. Isaac Hayes melted the candles on the Cantina tables. Then another woman from Wilmington entered the saloon. She was younger, hot-looking and Maria shook her fist at the girl.
“I hate you skinny chicks,” she said with a broad smile.
Clay actually sat up straight on his ceremonial barstool location and tried to make small talk. This Hispanic broad had a wide delightful smile and bright eyes. Her auburn hair with highlights enhanced a figure capable of stopping a thundering train in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Clay recognized something in her eyes, openness, a forgiving nature, a sexual appetite, and there was the telltale lack of rings on her left hand. He gazed at her bountiful cleavage, then at the average-sized purse she place gently on the bar. It was patterned with a series of outlined hearts. Could Candida be looking?
Big Maria and Juanita decided it was time for a Thursday party and started to blow up balloons, tie ribbon tassels and let them float to the ceiling. Every time a patron walked in the door Maria would say, “Finally, you?re here, the party can start!”
The night warmed to the sounds of Luther Van Dross and the Impressions. The buzz was upbeat when a young Hispanic pushed open the door and threw his jacket on the adjacent table, knocking over a candle, and spilling hot wax across the checkered cloth. He was the first patron who didn’t bring a smile to Juanita’s face. She grimaced immediately and pointed her finger at the dour little man as he approached the bar.
“No trouble here,” she said in English. “I’m going to watch you.”
“Bullshit,” Diego said, sliding up to the bar next to Candida. He grabbed a balloon tassel and thrust it at her.
“A gift of peace,” Diego said staring at her cleavage and licking his lips. “It could be you and I tonight.”
She turned back to Clay and smiled. “You were saying?”
Clay looked in her eyes and read the body language in the bar, like a gambler reads the cards in his hand. He assessed the 5’6″ bearded forbidding face and the message from Juanita. His last wife left him high and dry. In five minutes, Candida lit a fire in his dour life, and he didn’t want anyone to pour a bucket of water on it.
He smiled back at her, and picked up the conversation as if nothing happened. Diego ordered a Gold Cadillac Margarita, grande, and a shot of Cuervo Gold on the side. He was small and compact, but his face was wrinkled and scarred. He didn’t smile unless to push buttons with a broad. He was as dry as a popcorn fart and angry at the world.
“Why are you a fat bitch?” he snapped at Maria. “Don’t you ever want someone to lick your pussy?”
“You don’t plan on getting laid tonight, do you?” Maria said without batting an eye.
“I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last woman on this stinking planet.”
“Good,” Maria said. “I can work the rest of the room, and you can burn in your own dismal hell.”
“Are you guys gonna drink and party,” Juanita said, “or piss and moan all night? What did I tell you, Diego?”
“Who the fuck cares what you say,” Diego spat back. “You’re too old, ya piece of shit.” He downed his shot and followed it by drinking half of his giant margarita.
What was building toward a joyful party evening soured. Then the squeal of brakes jostled every patron as an all-black Softail with highbars and Bartel’s shotguns slid to a dramatic stop in front of the Cantina. The pipes revved a final blistering note and the bike shut down, then the big oak door burst open.
It was the infamous Agent Zebra, a long-time Bandit riding partner who ran off to be a screenplay writer in Florida.
“Where is that bastard?” Zebra hollered, tossing his black leather gauntlets on the table next to Diego’s jacket.
Zebra, a Kansas-born, bull-riding, hay-bale tossing, pure white farm boy, was tough, strong, and loose cannon with the firing pin always cocked. He stood just over 6 feet, was thick as a mule, trained constantly, and always carried an H&K 45 with three extra 9-round clips. Bandit only knew of one man who could handle Zebra: Marko.
“He’s in Thailand, sailing,” Marko said of Bandit’s whereabouts.
“Bullshit,” Zebra spat. “He’s not sailing, he’s testing the whorehouses in Phuket. Gimme two shots of Jack Daniels.”
Juanita looked at Agent Zebra in his all black leathers as if Zorro strolled in the door and tossed his cape over his shoulder and cut a “Z” in her blouse. He was a sight, like a blonde masked marauder from heaven. Only Marko knew better. He shook his head, looked at Diego, and knew there was trouble in paradise.
Agent Zebra left home after graduating from high school and attended a big city college for a degree in journalism. He wasn’t accustomed to big cities and found himself on the wrong side of the tracks one night, where he was mugged and beaten half to death by a gang of thugs. The beating set off something in his masterful mind, like lighting the fuse on a truckload of dynamite. He healed, then trained like a starving dog for a year, and returned to the ghetto area to extract his revenge.
Ever since that time, he packs and is anxious to feel the heat, and too often, he likes to light the fuse. As he approached the broad bar, he also sensed the body language, the air of concern in the bartender’s eyes and the source of her anxiety.
Diego sat on the stool on the right of Candida. Clay was nestled on the left. He sat on the corner stool and saw Zebra approaching. Diego downed another shot of Cuervo Gold, reached over, and pulled Juanita’s top out to reveal her big dark nipples.
“You may be old, but they’re still soft as butter,” Diego said.
Juanita slapped his hand away.
Diego stood abruptly, and drew back to unleash some serious damage on the middle-aged female bartender, when something caught his arm, spun him around and suddenly he was face-to-face with the broad smiling muscular white boy in all black leather.
“I need a place to sit,” Zebra said, smiling from ear to ear. “So kind of you to offer your stool.”
“Fuck you white boy,” Diego snapped, but was planted on the next seat over before he could focus his inihibrated eyes. “I was sitting there,” he stammered.
Marko watched from the corner of the room, his hand hovering above his own 9mm Browning. Zebra was a fight looking for a venue. It was just a matter of time.
“Gimme another Margarita and make it strong this time, bitch,” Diego snapped. “Fuck it, gimme two shots of Gold.”
“I told you to be cool,” Juanita said, but she knew her words held no water with the little violent man.
“Fuck you, bitch,” Diego said, and turned toward Zebra. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“You say bitch once more, and I’m going to be the surgeon who cuts your heart out, punk,” Zebra answered softly, and took a swallow of Jack Daniels. He needed no liquid courage. In fact, the opposite, He needed whiskey to slow down.
“What the fuck did you say to me, puta madre?” Diego was beginning to fume.
Juanita slipped two large shots of Quervo Gold onto the counter. Diego snatched one, tossed the lemon at Juanita and downed it, without the easing qualities of salt or Lemon.
“I love to cut gringos. I hate all you motherfuckers.”
Zebra turned his back to Diego in defiance. Candida looked up at the broad-shouldered biker and their eyes met for the first time, like turning on the switch to a magnetic field. Suddenly there was a connection.
“My name is Jim,” Zebra said and extended his hand. “You’re lovely.” The tone of his voice switched from icy saw blades to warm syrup over pancakes.
“I’m Candida,” she said standing and extending her soft hand. “Thank you.”
“Why did you come to this hole in the harbor?” Zebra said. “You should be strolling along the beach in Santa Monica.”
“This is upscale from where I live in Wilmington,” Candida said. “I only came over here because Juanita is standing in for the regular bartender.”
“I know a little place along the Palos Verdes Peninsula,” Zebra said. “I would like to take you to dinner. Do you ride?”
“Sure, I ride,” Candida said batting her eyelashes.
“What a crock of shit,” Diego stammered, nearly to the boiling-over stage. He snatched Buster’s beer bottle and took a swing at the back of Zebra’s thick skull.
Before it reached its mark, Zebra twisted toward the bar, caught the longneck, and snatched it from Diego’s grasp, snapping it free.
“No, thanks,” Zebra said. “I don’t drink cerveza.”
Diego winced from joint pain and jumped back, knocking over his barstool. He fumed as he reached behind his back, under his vest and grabbed the ivory handle of a Colt hunting knife with a 6-inch blade. He yanked it into the open and the glinting reflection of the Cantina’s overhead ceiling fan light danced across the back of Zebra’s black leather vest.
“No one fucks with Diego,” he snarled. “I’m going to gut you like a fish.”
Zebra was a bucking bull caged in civilization. He relished the opportunity to kick open the cage and go to town. Marko watched him spin to meet his assailant and started to move from his vantage point, but Zebra was unleashed. He grabbed his barstool, snatched it off the wooden deck, and stormed Diego, swinging the stool like a Dodger about to hit a home run. The second swing caught Diego’s knife arm and drove the blade across the room to the deck.
Zebra didn’t stop swinging until he knocked Diego off his feet.
“Get up, punk,” Zebra said, gritting his teeth and still coming.
As he closed on the stocky Mexican he tore off his vest and his leather shirt, tossing them on another checkered table. Zebra had just one tattoo and a scar around his left arm from a chain saw accident. He almost lost his arm at his father’s ranch.
Diego scrambled to his feet and grabbed a chair, but it was too late. Zebra hit him with a right paw, immediately knocking him to the deck again.
“Get up, punk!” Zebra snarled.
With a broken jaw, Diego stood once more. A left and another right broke his nose. The man went down again.
“Get up, punk,” Zebra said, still storming forward. “You think you’re bad? Let’s be real bad.”
Diego tried to stand and Zebra kicked him the nuts hard enough to nurture the bad ass forever. Diego was done, but Zebra kept coming. Just then, a crack split the night air.
“That’s enough,” Marco said after firing his 9mm into the ceiling, careful to miss Bandit’s apartment upstairs. “Goddamnit, now I have to patch the roof again.”
Zebra stood straight up and released his grip on his Beretta locking blade knife. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he knew if Marko hadn’t stopped him, Diego would be dead.
“Time for you to leave,” Marko said to Diego who struggled to his feet.
“But I’m not done with my drink,” Diego spit blood as he spoke.
An audible clicking sound filled the Cantina. Juanita stood behind the bar with Nyla’s double-barreled coach shotgun, both hammers cocked.
“Set 20 dollars on the table and don’t ever come to any bar where I work again,” Juanita said, staring down the barrels to Diego’s chest.
Diego looked at the angry woman, the muscled Zebra glaring and at Marco holding his warm 9mm semi-auto. He dug in his denims for 20 bucks, set it on the table and departed, leaving a trail of blood on the floor.
Juanita handed Candida a clean bar towel and the young Hispanic hottie approached Zebra’s broad back with the towel in hand. As she touched him, he turned to face her.
“Thanks,” Zebra said. “Let’s fuck and we can put that towel to good use.”
Candida blushed as he pulled her toward his naked torso. “But where?”
“I know just the place,” Zebra said looking up the stairs to Bandit’s apartment. “I’m glad that bastard ain’t around.”
