Getting Ugly Read Free

when he needed him the most. He has successfully tracked down the Devil, and in return Leon’s been left to tangle with him alone.
    Is this what the Thai Place Guy felt while watching his guts slip from his body?
    The Mexican locals scatter as if it had started raining razor blades. Leon’s confusion swells as he watches the people bolt in every direction, scrambling to avoid being anywhere near him, like rats that instinctively sense the ship is sinking. W
hat do they know?
His stomach twists with the fear that comes from being the last to know you’re completely fucked.
    A fist bursts through the thin wall behind Leon’s head.
    Thick, well-manicured fingers wrap around the back of his neck, like a mama cat snatching up her kitten. The unseen force yanks Leon through the wall and into the dilapidated Third World home. In a single motion Leon is thrown helicopter style, arms and legs spinning. He lands in a tumble-roll across the dirt floor.
    Dust dances as Leon skids to a stop. He manages to squeeze off two blind shots. Prays he hit something, anything. Nicked a vital organ…please?
    Nothing.
    Silence.
    Tiny dots of daylight shine through the bullet holes, with thin slivers of light creeping through where the walls don’t completely meet up with the roof. A cockroach sprints across the dirt floor.
    A John Lobb loafer steps on the roach with a moist squish, its high-dollar companion stomping Leon’s gun hand with a twisting crunch of ligament and bone. The Glock slips out from his helpless fingers. Scrambling for the gun, Leon is met with a beatdown delivered by a master of ass kicking.
    A blizzard of punches, kicks, chops, flips, elbows, palms of hands—all really unpleasant shit. Leon fights back, giving him hell, but only lands every fourth or fifth fist or foot. It’s not enough. Leon is fighting a beast way outside his class. Like the house of straw against the big, bad wolf, this piggy is in deep shit and sinking fast.
    A Colt held by the figure shrouded in shadow jams into Leon’s eye socket.
    The dark figure speaks. “Hola.”
    Leon cannot, will not, give this man the satisfaction of knowing his fear. “Hi.”
    “Sucks when friends up and fuck you.”
    “That it does.”
    The dark figure readjusts his grip then continues. “What have I ever done to you? How long have you been on me?”
    “Two years, five months, eight days.”
    “Seriously, when are you going to cease with the shit?”
    “Maybe tomorrow.”
    “But not today?”
    “Unlikely.”
    The dark figure playfully exaggerates a sigh then pulls back the hammer. “Buenos días, my little dead Fed.”
    Leon spits out a pulpy tooth. “Fuck you, Grande Ugly.”

Part II
    a few shitty years later.

4
    I t’s a moist, sticky night inside a pay by the hour motel room.
    Dirty, pink flowered paper clings to the walls. Even the room seems to sweat. An open window lets a breeze into this horrific excuse for living quarters. Graffiti marks the walls—something about big dicks and your mother—beer cans fill the bathtub, and what looks like old, dried-in blood stains on the carpet. A brown couch squeaks as if a jackrabbit were screwing an unwilling Tasmanian Devil.
    A wiry twenty-something, Brobee is half-dressed in a
Wonder Pets!
t-shirt, camo cargos down around his checkered Vans. Brobee huffs and puffs with a much, much older hooker riding him with the enthusiasm of a comatose cowgirl.
    He’s working way too hard.
    She’s bored-to-tears.
    The hooker glances at her ancient Swatch, slightly bouncing up and down. “You’ve got five champ.” Brobee goes faster, face beet red.
    The door busts open, ripped out chain lock dangling impotently from the doorframe.
    Three mean-spirited gents step in. Rasnick leads the charge, with two Eastern Bloc thugs named Vig and Oleg backing him up. Brobee’s eyes go wide, but keeps at his squeaky sex. He’s still on the clock, dammit.
    Brobee knows Rasnick is a forty-four-year-old enforcer who’s gone as high as