All Woman, A Jake Stone Thriller (Book Five)
By T.L. Peters
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 T.L. Peters
License Notes
This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To read more about the author and his other books, go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tlpeters.
“In this fifth volume of The Jake Stone Thrillers, Snowflake must battle a lethal foe with almost supernatural strength. This book features what has to be one of the most bizarre fight scenes of all time. At about 60,000 words and over 200 pages, this is the longest book in the series, which to date comprises nearly a quarter million words. I hope that Peters has another couple hundred thousand words in him. The evolving relationship between the often hapless Jake and the always dynamic Snowflake is just too rich and quirky to end now.” Theodora K.
“There’s no question that Peters is a master wordsmith.” Gerry B’s Book Reviews
Chapter 1
An early morning workout almost gets out of hand, and then a near calamity.
The dark haired woman stood Jake up with a fierce right cross to the chin and then bent him over with a hard jab to his belly. As Jake was struggling to catch his breath, she pivoted her lean hips against his thighs, slung her tightly muscled arm around his waist and flipped him over her small but sturdy back.
Jake landed with a deep and startled grunt on the hard dusty ground. He was trying to get up when she grabbed a fistful of his hair and spun him around and around. Finally she let him go and watched Jake whirl helplessly against a tall and rather tough cactus, which quickly bounced him backwards onto his rump. As he was plucking a painful thorn out of his bloodied arm, the woman leapt high into the air above him and landed with a hard elbow onto his throat, much like you might see in a professional wrestling match. But her maneuver was anything but staged, and for a moment Jake wondered if she had crushed his windpipe. Finally he was able to work up a cough, which assured him that his vocal cords were still functioning, if somewhat sporadically.
As he was doing this, along with much wincing and moaning, the woman stood up and walked slowly around him, much like a panther might stalk its beaten prey.
"Had enough?" she yelled, laughing.
"Never," Jake panted, flailing at the dirt and raising up a small dust cloud that for a moment obscured his face and left a brown smudge on his dry lips.
"But I really don't want to hurt you," she said. "Why don't you give up and save me the trouble of splattering you into the ground?"
"A little late for such fine sentiments, isn't it," Jake coughed.
"You know, of course, that I'm just warming up," the woman said, a tinge of severity entering her otherwise congenial voice. "Are you sure you want to try me again?"
"You're not woman enough to take me down again," Jake wheezed, shaking loose the last bit of saliva clogging his throat.
The woman threw back her head and gave out a hearty laugh. Then she turned quickly to Snowflake, who was sitting on a beige beach chair watching the match with an amused expression on her sun burnt face. Snowflake looked as lethal and devastating as ever, with her huge wraparound black sunglasses, her bright red bikini top and tight gray bottom, and in between her twelve pack abs bristling with a vibrant sort of inner power.
The woman kicking the snot out of Jake, who looked to be about half Snowflake's size, was dressed in shiny black Spandex from head to toe. The Spandex gleamed in the bright early morning Mexican sun and made her look almost metallic.
"What should I do with him now?" the woman asked.
"Pummel him until he submits," Snowflake said.
"Thanks a lot," Jake groaned.
"You asked for it," Snowflake barked, with a hint of amusement in her husky voice.
"And here I thought she was just a novice," Jake stammered.
"She is," Snowflake chuckled. "You're getting soft, Jake. Go get him, Maria."
The woman rushed to finish him off with a few sharp kicks to the head followed by what she hoped would be a devastating leg scissors clamped to his neck. But Jake had learned his lessons well from Snowflake. If you can't win fair and square, fight dirty.
He grabbed the woman's ankle before she could land even the first blow and yanked it toward him. She fell backwards, and instantly he crawled on top of her, somehow managing to avoid getting caught between her powerful thighs. With a nimbleness that surprised even him, Jake then pinned her wrists to the ground with his hands while pivoting his feet against her ankles. She struggled wildly but couldn't break free.
Snowflake frowned and shook her head, as her latest protege seemed to be in a bad way, and fighting a man no less.
"Go for the fingers," she ordered tersely.
Maria immediately clamped Jake's middle finger between her thumb and forefinger and bent it backwards. Jake screamed and managed to slide off her just as the bone was about to snap. She instantly lunged at him, and the two combatants rolled over each other again and again on the dusty ground. Snowflake seemed annoyed with all the wasted effort and told Maria to finish him off quickly.
"What if you were fighting more than one man?" she snapped. "Don't let your opponent take you to the ground. Stay on your feet and maintain control of the space around you."
Maria nodded obediently and tried to get up, but Jake latched his arms around her slender waist and squeezed her in a kind of horizontal bear hug. Even though she landed repeated karate chops on both sides of his neck, Jake was like a man possessed and wouldn't let go. Finally she knocked him away with a vicious head butt. Jake rolled onto his back side, his forehead mushy and bleeding.
"Give up?" Jake chortled wistfully.
"You've got to be kidding," the woman shot back.
Seizing her sudden advantage she jumped up and tried to kick him in the jaw, but Jake grabbed her foot and flipped her backwards. He then stood up panting and grunting as she once more struggled to her feet.
"Last chance," Jake panted, bending over a little to catch his breath.
"Fat chance," she replied defiantly.
Bodies crouched and arms outstretched, the two fighters stalked each other in a slow and methodical dance. Finally Maria saw an opening and snapped his head back with two quick jabs to his chin. Jake responded with a back fist to her cheek and a snapping frontal kick to her knee cap. She began to limp badly, and Jake tried to kick her other knee with the goal of incapacitating her. But she was too quick for him.
She swept her leg behind his and flipped him backwards. This time she aimed an axe kick directly for Jake's Adam's Apple in a frantic effort to end the fray quickly. Had Snowflake not intervened by catching the woman's leg before she could land her blow, she might have killed him.
"Take it easy, Maria," Snowflake said, giggling as she eased the still flailing woman onto the ground. "He's my guy, after all. If he needs to be taken out of commission, I'll be the one who does it."
Lying flat on his back Jake squinted into the bright tropical sun, rubbed some dust from his eyes and then raised up on one elbow.
"What are you talking about? I had her just where I wanted her."
"Spoken like a true man," Snowflake chuckled.
"How did I do?" Maria asked, ripping off her head covering and shaking loose her thick black hair.
"Amazons rule," Snowflake replied pleasantly, extending a helping hand to Jake, but Jake was tucking in his shirt, checking out the functionality of his limbs and otherwise still busily trying to put himself back together. Snowflake then turned cheerfully toward Maria. "See what a few weeks of martial arts training will do for you. Another month, and nobody but me will be able to stand against you."
"The young woman does have talent," Jake said, eyeing their recently hired servant with admiring eyes. "I think it's her quickness more than anything."
"And her strength too," Snowflake added, smiling at Maria. "Don't underestimate her strength. Just because she's small doesn't detract from her explosive power."
"I feel so good, so alive," Maria said, stretching her taut arms high over her head. "Who would have thought that when I took this job cleaning house for two strange gringos, I would soon be transformed into a new woman?"
"You're a walking billboard for the power of our fitness facilities to change lives," Jake said exuberantly. "That should really whip up business."
"Always thinking about money," Snowflake snorted.
"You're the one who's always squawking about how we barely have enough to pay the bills," Jake replied, grinning slyly.
"I never squawk about anything."
"Sure you do," Jake replied. "You're always moaning about something."
Snowflake
suddenly reached down, grabbed Jake behind the shoulders and hoisted
him onto his feet. But instead of helping him dust off his jeans and
gray flannel shirt, she quickly got him in a crushing head lock and
began scraping her knuckles over the top of his skull.
"What
are you doing?" he screamed, panting for air. "You're
hurting me."
"Take it back," she said huskily.
"I take it back," Jake grunted submissively after a few more seconds of excruciating pain.
Snowflake whirled him around a few times for good measure and then tossed him on the ground at Maria's feet.
"Here, you can have him again," she offered pleasantly.
Maria immediately clamped Jake's head between her wiry calves. Snowflake studied the young girl's grappling technique and then nodded approvingly.
"You could snap his neck simply by jerking your legs sideways an inch or two," Snowflake offered with clinical dispassion.
"But you don't want me to hurt poor Señor Jake, do you?" Maria asked, her dark eyes shining like bottomless pools.
"Well, I guess not right now, so long as he behaves himself anyway," Snowflake laughed as Maria finally let Jake slide out from between her legs. "Instead, I want you to drive in with him to Monterrey to pick up some groceries. We're running low on fruits, and I think I'd like a nice filet of salmon for dinner tonight."
Jake lurched fitfully away from the two ladies, rubbing his sore neck as he scrambled like a frightened bug along the hard ground. When he had put sufficient distance between himself and his two tormentors that he felt reasonably safe from another capricious attack, he slowly cranked himself back up onto his feet, wobbling somewhat in the dry Mexican breeze.
"Here I am partnered to this superwoman for how many years now, and all I am to her is an errand boy," he said, seeming to address the broader universe in grand rhetorical style.
"And a rather unreliable errand boy at that," Snowflake pointed out cheerfully, combing her highlighted blond hair with her sturdy fingers.
"I am so looking forward to the wedding ceremony," Maria added, her crisp voice lilting with an amiable crescendo. "I can't believe that you two waited so long to make it official."
"Cold male feet," Snowflake replied, grimacing congenially at Jake as he continued rubbing the soreness out of his neck. "And he thinks I'm so tough on him, when I thought I was being extraordinarily generous. Instead of forcing him to agree to a formal ceremony on my terms, which I could have easily done," she said, flexing her sleek bicep for emphasis, "I did him the favor of letting him come around on his own. It just shows how good natured and easy going I am."
"I have to admit," Jake stammered admiringly. "Despite your faults, you're all woman."
"Me too," Maria chimed in. "I'm all woman now too."
"Yes," Jake said, grinning. "You too. I am surrounded by superior females. What else is new?"
"And it's a good thing you are," Snowflake pointed out. "Otherwise you would never behave yourself. Now get moving before I decide to let Maria have another go at you."
Jake saluted theatrically as the three began to walk briskly back toward the large stucco white mansion jutting out of the dry barren landscape like an oversized mushroom in a forgotten patch of dirt. Snowflake went right away to her second floor office to check the books for her growing fitness and martial arts business, while Marie changed clothes in her room next door. Jake lumbered downstairs to the basement to take a shower and wash off the grime and blood so he could figure out where he needed to put the band aids, always a necessity after a match with Snowflake, or with any one of her growing hordes of accomplished female martial artists.
Jake was surprised that Maria had taken so quickly to the rigors of hand-to-hand combat. Her small frame, however, belied an inner fury that seemed to find perfect expression in taking down a much larger man. Soon, Maria would surpass him in skill, and only Snowflake would present her with worthy opposition.
But perhaps there was someone else who could offer Maria, and even Snowflake, a challenge, Jake thought as he recalled the massive green-eyed blond whom he had seen massacre more than a dozen men in nearby Monterrey. It had been over three months now since the carnage had taken place, and Jake had not heard another word about this mega woman.
He had even made discreet inquiries in some of the seedier parts of town. But, oddly, no one seemed to know anything about a six foot seven inch beauty terrorizing the city, who had arms like tree stumps and shoulders as sturdy and hard as a brick wall. Everyone had heard of the massacre though and wondered what it meant. Drug dealers usually killed with guns, not with their bare hands as this woman had accomplished with such lethal efficiency.
This kind of carnage was unusual for Monterrey, a thriving modern city located in northeast Mexico at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental and surrounded by mountains and canyons and the deserts beyond, where Jake and Snowflake had chosen to start their new life. But lately the drug cartels were trying to gain a foothold here as well, and street violence was increasing.
Jake had still not told Snowflake about the bloody incident. She was so happily busy with their growing business and with making plans for their upcoming wedding that he didn't feel like ruining her fun. Perhaps it would all just blow over with time, he thought.
Maria met him in the spacious walled courtyard in front of the mansion, and they quickly climbed into his dull gray jeep for the couple hour drive into town. Maria had once again assumed the demure and industrious look of a dedicated local servant girl with her dark pretty eyes and her slender gracious frame. She was wearing a sparkling white blouse and a yellow braided dress that waved daintily around her slim ankles as she walked.
She was wearing glasses now too, narrow black frames which made her appear all the more serious and professional. This prompted Jake to recall one of his many childhood fantasies, that of a librarian slowly taking off her glasses before transforming herself into an Amazonian tigress. Maria would make some young man very happy one day, Jake concluded.
They had driven about twenty miles along the narrow two lane paved road when Jake noticed a dusty cloud swirling off in the distance. The cloud slowly approached, but Jake didn't think anything of it. It was probably just a convoy of ranchers returning home after checking their bountiful herds of cattle and sheep. Maria was so preoccupied jotting down the list of needed groceries and supplies that Snowflake had just given her that she didn't even notice the grimy cloud sweep onto the highway about a half mile ahead of them.
As the dust began to dissipate in the hot sunshine Jake was able to make out five SUV's, all black and all coming directly toward them in a sparkling caravan of burnished metal and tinted glass. Jake began to feel uneasy, but there was little he could do to avoid them. It was probably just his imagination, he thought, although he kept a close eye on the vehicle in front and mentally calculated what he would do if whoever was driving the large black SUV suddenly tried to cut him off.
Unfortunately for Jake, the occupants of the caravan had planned their attack more carefully than Jake could have anticipated, even if he had known it was coming, and in a few seconds the SUV's had completely encircled Jake's jeep. Jake tried to whirl his jeep through a small gap between two of the vans, but the opening quickly closed. Maria had jumped out of the jeep before Jake could bring it to a complete stop and was already running to confront the men quickly emerging from the SUV's.
They were all dark haired burly fellows in black suits, white shirts, red ties and black sunglasses. Jake counted upwards of twenty men in this marauding gang of thugs as Maria proceeded to flatten two husky Mexicans with precise and powerful round house kicks to the head. Then three even brawnier fellows scampered up from behind and threw her to the ground.
Jake jumped out of the jeep to help her, but a sharp jolt to his temple sent him reeling. He looked up just as the heavy heel of a man's shoe crashed into his nose and knocked him senseless. He heard Maria screaming for help just before he passed out.
Chapter 2
Jake squinted groggily into the bright late day Mexican sun. At first he wasn't sure quite where he was or what had happened to him. Having lived with Snowflake for so long, he was accustomed to quick blackouts occasioned by an overly rambunctious karate session. For a moment he even thought he was back home in the courtyard where he and Snowflake often worked out together on sunny days. But the vast brown dusty haze of the desert around him suggested that his recent bout with unconsciousness had not been the result of a friendly encounter. Then he remembered the assault on his jeep by the mysterious caravan of SUV's and vans.
He sat up and looked around. His jeep was nearly forty yards away, its scorched metal carcass still emitting light plumes of smoke from various gashed out holes and crevices. The caravan of marauding attackers was gone, as was Maria. Besides his, there were no bodies lying around on the ground. This was unusual, Jake thought. Typically after a brawl of some sort with various of his enemies, even a battle in which he had not acquitted himself very well, he at least would have managed to take down one or two of his assailants. But then Jake recalled what had happened to him. He had been sucker punched in the side of the head. Maria had flattened a couple of them, but then she too was taken to the ground. But what had happened next.
Jake tried to recall whether the assailants had killed her, or simply kidnapped her. But he couldn't remember. Probably a kidnapping, he thought. Why would they kill a poor servant girl, especially in such an elaborate and heavily manned operation? Kidnappings for ransom were common in Mexico. They probably wanted a hefty payment from this seemingly wealthy pair of newly arrived gringos. But if so, why hadn't they kidnapped Jake too?
As was his customary practice when waking up from a severe beating, Jake wiggled his toes and fingers to make sure that he had suffered no incapacitating spinal damage. Then he rubbed the many small aches out his legs and his neck while trying to determine if any parts of his body were especially sore. All he noticed though was a bad headache.
He placed his fingers gingerly on the side of his head, but there was no warm fresh ooze of blood as he had feared. He scraped at the crusty skin along his temple and above his ear with his fingernail and then studied the nail carefully. It was now spotted with dull flecks of dried blood. It could have been worse, Jake thought, far worse. For a moment he wondered again why his attackers had let him live. But he reached no persuasive answer. Then he cranked himself onto his feet and looked around once more.
Jake found himself surrounded by a dusty haze of glimmering light suspended over a vast brown plain, dotted with a few lonely cacti and some scrub bushes trembling in the hot breeze. Then he looked at his jeep still belching smoke and an occasional hot flame. Too bad, he thought. It was his favorite vehicle. His attackers must have wanted him to walk home.
Then it struck him that after they had knocked him out, the thugs must have dragged his body safely away from his jeep before setting it on fire. He had only been able to run a few feet from the jeep before being clobbered. Not only had they spared his life, they had taken pains to preserve it. An unusual courtesy, Jake mused, especially for Mexican kidnappers.
Jake looked up at the bright orange ball receding over the horizon and estimated that he had been out cold for about six hours. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone but, not surprisingly, it was gone. His wallet though, stuffed with the equivalent of 200 United States dollars, was just where he had put it that morning. So, he thought wryly, these were honest kidnappers. That was also unusual for Mexico, or any other place for that matter.
Jake considered what to do next. Snowflake should be expecting them back soon. If they didn't show, and she couldn't reach him on his cell phone, Snowflake could be expected to promptly climb into her bright white Hummer and come looking for them. If so, she should be appearing over the horizon any minute now.
But Jake worried that perhaps she was distracted with all her various financial flowcharts and spreadsheets detailing the progress of their business. Snowflake had taken to micro managing their fitness and karate enterprises and could recite break even points and obscure cost breakdowns for each facility at a moment's notice. She claimed, sometimes with a hint of indignation in her voice at what she regarded as Jake's overly scrupulous business ethics, that such close supervision was necessary, because profit margins in the fitness business were a lot leaner than in the more lucrative criminal enterprises that she used to run.
But so long as Snowflake was happy, and so long as what she was doing wasn't overtly illegal, Jake was satisfied. The only potential cloud on his horizon, up until this most recent assault and kidnapping, were vague whispers by Snowflake just before they fell asleep about starting a family. Jake had nothing against kids, although he was hard pressed to come up with anything in their favor either.
He was hoping that Snowflake was simply being afflicted by occasional bouts of sentimentality brought on after long and wearying days of exercise and that she would soon move on to other ambitions. She had, after all, never expressed any interest in having kids before. But, of course, Jake knew that if Snowflake really wanted to have a baby, she would have one, whether he cooperated with her or not, because it had been his long experience that Snowflake tended to get what she wanted.
Ambulatory now and starting to feel a little hungry and thirsty, Jake saw no point in waiting around for Snowflake to show her lovely face and decided to start the long trek home on his own. The road stretched in a straight line toward the darkening horizon, with little eddies of dust occasionally sweeping over the cracked and battered pavement.
Jake walked along methodically swinging his shoulders and arms and going through various other contortions in an effort to loosen his muscles. He still felt a little tight from the beating and didn't at all like the sensation.
He remembered with some chagrin his days as a practicing lawyer when he was always uptight and stressed and didn't think anything of it. But those sad days were long gone, he hoped anyway, and now all he had to deal with was an occasional fit of violence, usually emanating from his companion, Snowflake. But Jake could handle a certain amount of bloody chaos every once in a while, he thought, so long as Snowflake didn't decide to wreak any extraordinary violence on his person and was otherwise around to save the day when others did.
Jake had walked for about an hour when he noticed a glint of sharp light approaching him from the far distance. The light slowly became even brighter and then crystallized into a flashing white hunk of metal, which Jake immediately took to be Snowflake's Hummer.
He moved to the side of the road, just in case he was wrong, and began to jump up and down and wave his arms, more from a sense of joyful relief than any desire to be spotted. He was alone out here in the desert, and this was the only road. If it was Snowflake, how could she miss him? But Jake was always happy to see Snowflake, especially after he had just gotten into a jam, and on this occasion too he expressed his relief with his accustomed good humor.
As the Hummer slowed Jake spotted Snowflake behind the wheel, her thick and powerful arm propped along the edge of the door. She was wearing large silver sunglasses and a black nylon sweater that brought out every ridge and curve of her many layers of tightly wound muscle, and her hair was pulled back into a no nonsense pig tail.
Snowflake was ready for action in other words. This was how Jake most enjoyed seeing her, and he raced up to the door and gratefully kissed her hand. She responded by ripping off her sunglasses, grabbing him behind the neck, pulling his head into the car and kissing him hard on the mouth. Then she shoved his face away and ordered him to get in. He scurried around the front and hopped into the passenger seat beside her. He couldn't help peeking at her taut and rippling calves and thighs stretched out alluringly beneath her cut off jeans.
She looked him over closely.
"What happened?" she barked, apparently deciding that he wasn't in too bad a shape.
"You tell me," Jake sighed. "We were driving along, and this caravan of SUV's jumped us. We didn't have a chance."
"What happened to Maria?"
"They took her."
"Were they men or women?'
"All I saw were men."
"Was Maria alive?"
"She was the last time I saw her."
"How long have you been out here?"
"About seven hours or so."
"And you didn't recognize any of them?"
"Not a soul."
Snowflake frowned and then straightened up and jostled her shoulders as though she were preparing her body for an imminent fight. Feeling suddenly overwhelmed by her strident physicality, Jake leaned over and kissed her right bicep, which was gyrating wildly as she began clenching and unclenching her fists. The feeling of his soft dry lips landing on her hard sweaty muscle was so pleasant that he kissed her noisily a few more times. Then he leaned back and peeked again at her powerful legs.
"Aren't you going to ask me if I'm all right?" he said half seriously and half jokingly.
She let her eyes flick over him again.
"You seem okay."
"What about my head?"
She grabbed his chin and yanked it one way and then the other.
"It doesn't look too bad. We'll get you cleaned up soon enough."
"Easy for you to say."
"Did Maria defend herself?" Snowflake asked, staring severely out the front windshield as though she dreaded the answer.
"She was doing all right until a bunch of them jumped her from behind."
Snowflake shook her head.
"I told her that a fighter must be constantly aware of her surroundings. She must have eyes in the back of her head."
"But Maria's only been at it for a few weeks now," Jake said, pleading their servant's cause. "I'd say she's doing pretty well. You should have seen her clobber two of the guys. Combined, they must have outweighed her by four hundred pounds."
"She has as much fighting talent as anyone I've ever seen," Snowflake said, still peering stone faced out the front window at the fading desert light. "Too bad she's not a little bigger, but she can make up for it with quickness."
"Is she really that good?" Jake asked.
"She clearly has the potential. It simply needs to be nurtured. We must get her back, Jake."
Jake leaned over and kissed her bicep again. Suddenly Snowflake pulled him onto her hard and increasingly massive chest and hugged him tightly. Snowflake was getting a little bigger in the upper body as she aged, a development which Jake was not at all displeased with. Were it not for the fact that he began rapidly to lose his breath and then his consciousness, Jake might have enjoyed the sensation of having his face so roughly crammed against her breasts.
But Snowflake, sensing his rising distress from all his vague murmurs and whimperings, let him go just before he blacked out completely. As he was panting for air and wincing and blinking repeatedly to get his vision back into normal focus, he asked her what they were going to do now.
"First we go home and get you cleaned up and put some ointment on your cut. And then we drive to Monterrey."
"What are we going to do there?" he asked hesitantly.
Jake had a good idea what she was planning, but he wanted to hear it from her own lovely lips. As deeply as he had come to know this vibrant and beautiful Amazon, she was still fully capable of surprising him. This, however, was not one of those occasions.
"We're going after the Choque cartel," she snarled, her green eyes flashing like hard slits of tarnished metal. "They have to be the ones behind this."
The Choque cartel had recently acquired control of most of the drug smuggling and gun running in the northeast portion of Mexico around Monterrey. Lately, the cartel had been challenged by rival gangs from other parts of Mexico, and deadly street battles between heavily armed factions had broken out in some of Monterrey's more notorious slums. Even though they had connections on both sides of the fray, up until then Jake and Snowflake had taken pains to stay out of it. After all, drugs was no longer their business.
"Are you sure?" Jake asked plaintively.
"Who else would have the boldness and daring to pull off such a well planned attack?" Snowflake was right again, and Jake couldn't help kissing her bicep one more time. Then he slowly ran his lips up along her shoulders before ending the encounter with a few noisy smooches to the thick bands of muscle stretching down along her neck. Usually Snowflake would grin almost girlishly whenever he kissed her neck, but this time her face remained hard and tight. Jake leaned back and rubbed his mouth clean of her sweat with the back of his hand.
"Are you really sure that Choque and his thugs would waste their time kidnapping a servant girl? After all, they have plenty else on their plate at the moment."
"Who else around here would have the resources for such a major operation?"Snowflake muttered dryly.
Jake thought again of the caravan of SUV's blistering across the dusty plain.
"Maybe the Army, maybe the government, maybe some other gang trying to horn in on their action. And what would the Choque cartel want with Maria anyway?"
"Ransom money," Snowflake shot back. "Even with all their drug profits, they're not
above getting their hands dirty in more conventional rackets."
"True enough," Jake replied, pausing to scratch a few more slivers of blood off his rapidly scarring head wound. "But if they wanted ransom, why didn't they take me too?"
She glanced over at him, for the first time a bit of uncertainty entering her eyes.
"Maybe they wanted a witness left to tell what happened."
"I don't know why they would," Jake said, stretching his arms in front of him and yawning, "especially if they intended to follow up with a ransom note. And plus, do you really think anyone in their right mind wants to pick a needless fight with the great and famous Snowflake? It's crazy."
A slight grin rolled over her lips and then quickly vanished into a fierce glare.
"These thugs think they're more than a match for any woman. I'll show them what a fatal mistake they're making."
Jake shook his head slightly as Snowflake gunned the engine and swung the Hummer around. He wanted to make a suggestion as to an alternative course of action, but he preferred if she cooled down a little first.
They arrived home in less than half the time it had taken Jake to cover the same distance. She was all woman, Jake thought again as he surveyed the long sloping curves of her arms and shoulders.
Jake then looked around the courtyard to see if they had any company. Sometimes a few of the aerobics and kick boxing instructors from their local gym, which was just a few hundred yards from their house, would stop by for a late snack and gab session with Snowflake. Snowflake had become much more sociable in recent years, and Jake attributed her greater openness to a desire to instill a stronger sense of loyalty in her employees. But that night the huge house was empty.
Snowflake herself washed Jake's wound with a warm damp towel and then dabbed a cotton ball soaked with isopropyl rubbing alcohol over the cut to sanitize it. The puckery liquid didn't sting him nearly as much as he had feared, and Snowflake was soon salving the wound with a thick wad of antibiotic ointment. She then neatly covered it all with an extra large and brilliantly red adhesive bandage, the kind that a loving mother might apply to the scraped knee of her little toddlers She then kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Good as new," she said. "Now let's go."
"Can't it wait until morning?" Jake said, yawning. "I'm a little beat."
"If you don't want to come along," she replied sharply, "I'll go by myself then."
Jake didn't mind her impatience. He was long accustomed to it. But he quickly realized that it was now or never if he wanted to offer his little suggestion.
"Why don't we go to the police first?" he said hesitantly.
Snowflake glared at him as though he were either out of his mind, or he himself was working for the Choque cartel. Either way, Jake did not feel comfortable with the impression he was leaving and quickly attempted to clarify.
"I know it sounds crazy, but the cops might know something. I still don't think this smacks of the Choque cartel. It's small potatoes for them."
"The Mexican police are even more corrupt than the cartels," she replied stiffly. "Do you want us to start bribing them the way we did with the cops down in Bolivia? I thought you were all gung ho about staying clear of local politics, now that we've become honest citizens."
She stressed the words, honest citizens, with a deprecating sneer which Jake chose to ignore.
"That's exactly what I mean. They're so crooked that they might have a guess as to who might be behind this. Maybe it's someone new in town."
"And if they do have a suspicion, why would they tell us?"
"I'll leave that part to you," Jake said, grinning at her broad shoulders and thick upper back. "You seem to have a way of persuading people as to the correctness of your point of view."
Snowflake's glare gradually morphed into a pensive stare. She then began reluctantly nodding her head.
"Okay, I guess it can't hurt. We must still leave now though. I don't want any grass to grow under our feet, not with Maria's life on the line."
Jake nodded and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She then good naturedly picked him up in her arms and carried him back to her Hummer as Jake smothered her face with kisses. Jake felt a little ashamed engaging in such intense amorous activities so soon following the apparent kidnapping of one of their most loyal and beloved employees. But whenever Snowflake hoisted him up against her chest, cradling him like a baby, Jake knew that she wanted to be kissed. And as Jake always liked to tell anyone who would listen, what Snowflake wanted, she tended to get.
After she deposited him in the passenger seat and then climbed over his pulsating body so she could get behind the wheel, Jake tried to kiss her bicep again, which was now bulging with a vibrant and comely intensity. But a sharp poke of her hard elbow into his ribs dissuaded him from any additional ongoing physical contact. And like the good and wise little fellow Jake had come to be under Snowflake's close supervision, he sat back in his seat and closed his weary eyes. Soon he was sound asleep as the Hummer raced back down the lonely road toward Monterrey.
Chapter 3
Snowflake decided to let Jake sleep in the Hummer while she made some discreet inquiries of her own. She knew he wouldn't like her rummaging through their old underworld contacts. But she was sure that the cartel was behind Maria's kidnapping, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.
Moreover, they had roared into Monterrey around two in the morning, long before the chief of police made his daily entrance at the downtown lock up. And if Snowflake was going to waste her time with the police, she had no desire to do so kibitzing with mere functionaries. She wanted to go to the top, and if the chief couldn't satisfy her, she would be done with the whole lousy bunch of them.
She parked the car along a lonely street and then checked the bandage on Jake's head. It was still in place, and she could detect no sign of infection. She would change it for him when they got home. Jake needed so much attention. It was a shame that he wasn't strong like her, but she loved him just the same, for all his frailties.
Suddenly she wished that she had left him at their mansion where he could recover in peace. He would just get in the way here. Since they'd launched their new and far more sedate life together in Mexico, she had watched him get even softer than he used to be. He was far more subservient to her than he once was too, far more willing to go along with whatever she said. She generally liked that quality about him, but now was no time for submissiveness.
She sometimes wondered if Jake could ever regain his old verve and vibrancy. He had rescued her from certain death, not once, but twice. She still marvelled that any man was capable of saving her. But maybe that was all she could expect from him. He had shot his wad, so to speak, and from now on he would simply be her servile mate and helper. She would take care of him though, no matter what, except, of course, if he betrayed her. But she doubted that he could muster the nerve to ever double cross her again. In any event, she still loved him and was disposed to look kindly and with a merciful spirit on his many weaknesses.
After kissing Jake on the cheek and making sure that all the windows were up and the doors locked, she threw back her sturdy shoulders and headed for the door of Diablo's Hacienda, a notorious local hang out for petty thieves and small time crooks. Its patrons were largely the underclass of the local underworld. To survive this collection of unseemly thugs had to keep their ears to the ground, and so they mostly knew what was going on in the city and its environs. Snowflake could count on them to give her reliable information. None of them was even a remotely competitive match for her on their best day, and they knew it.
Snowflake swaggered through the front door and looked around. The bouncer, a beefy Mexican with oily black hair and dark roving eyes, immediately stepped in front of her. But with one glare from her steely green eyes, he backed off right away. Snowflake's reputation had obviously preceded her. The fact that she had strategically flexed her biceps to their best advantage didn't hurt either in dissuading the bouncer from taking her on.
She strolled up to the bar and ordered a straight whiskey. Snowflake regarded alcohol as an unhealthy habit, but when circumstances required her to indulge she preferred the strongest drink possible.
She recognized the bartender, a dried up middle-aged fellow with scraggly hair and a nasty slant to his mouth. Her eyes followed him as he brought her the glass and set it in front of her meaty chest hovering with menacing intensity over the bar. She noticed his hands trembling slightly as he set the glass down. He had apparently recognized her too, Snowflake concluded cheerfully.
"On the house," the bartender said in broken English.
"My servant, a nice local girl, was kidnapped yesterday out in the desert," Snowflake snarled, unwilling to cut the guy even the slightest break. "Who did it?"
The man glanced away.
"I don't know, Señora," he said, his frail voice trembling.
She downed the drink in one long satisfying gulp. Then she burped like the most uncouth male ruffian, wiped her sleeve over her mouth, reached over the bar with her other hand and grabbed him by the lapel. Then she yanked him across the bar and set him down in a heap of jiggling arms and legs at her feet. The maneuver had been executed with such speed and alacrity that the other patrons didn't even have enough time to scatter. Instead, they looked on with wide and astonished eyes as the bartender, on his knees now, pleaded for his life.
"You misunderstand my intentions," Snowflake growled, slapping him sharply across the cheek. "I am here for information. Give it to me, and you will be fine."
"I have no information, Señora."
"You're lying," she barked. "I hate when people lie to me."
"It's true, Señora. I know nothing about it."
"The bartender at a joint like this knows everything," she snapped, latching her fingers around his throat. "You know that I could kill you now with one flick of my thumb."
"I know, Señora."
"Then who are you more afraid of than me?"
"No one, Señora."
"Then why don't you tell me what I ask?"
"Because I truly don't know, Señora."
Snowflake didn't believe him for a second. There was something holding him back. But what could it be? What could be more frightening than Snowflake, especially when she had her vise-like fingers around his scrawny wrinkled throat. Perhaps he believed that, like Jake, she too was getting soft. Maybe he believed that teaching all those Mexican peasant women how to do jumping jacks and push ups had worn down her machisma, her feminine virility, which everyone knew was more than equal to any man's paltry notion of masculinity.
Snowflake scanned the large room once more. Old paunchy campesinos in tattered jackets and slender young lounge lizards in silk shirts and tapered trousers were looking on with a mixture of horror and wonder. Maybe too much wonder and not enough horror, Snowflake concluded impatiently. Would she have to break this poor bartender's neck to get their attention? Just then limped forward an old man with a fluffy gray mustache, a bulbous nose from way too many years guzzling way too much booze and palsied quivering hands. He took off his worn maroon-colored beret and held it plaintively in front of him. Probably an old anarchist of some sort, Snowflake thought
"Forgive him, Señora," the old man croaked, "but we are all very frightened."
"Frightened of whom?" Snowflake snapped. "You'd be wise to be frightened of me instead."
Snowflake was trying her best to appear hard and brutal and unyielding, savage even. Savagery usually came to her easily enough. But she was experiencing some unexpected feelings of guilt and remorse. Maybe the bartender was right in his quick estimation of her. Maybe, under Jake's weak male influence, she had gotten a little soft. But she couldn't allow that to get in the way. In the short time that they had been together, Snowflake had come to love Maria, much as if she were a wide-eyed and diligent little sister instead of a mere employee. Snowflake would never forgive herself if she allowed what she considered to be her natural generosity of spirit to get in the way of saving her devoted little friend.
Snowflake twisted her thumb against the bartender's Adam's Apple. When he began to scream, Snowflake immediately eased up on her grip. She was not a murderer, after all, no matter what they all thought of her. She only killed when she had to.
"Frightened of whom?" Snowflake snapped again at the old drunk.
The old man took another hesitant step toward her.
"Perhaps it would be more accurate to ask," he said haltingly, "frightened of what?"
Snowflake's patience was being badly tested. Why did most men have to be so pathetic all the time? Would they never learn?
"Get to the point."
"There is someone new in town," the old fellow drawled. "We don't know where she came from, but she..."
"She," Snowflake broke in, immediately thinking of her mother, Arianna, and her sister, Sandy. But they were both dead. She was sure of that now. "Who do you mean by she? Who is this woman who makes you shake and quiver?"
"You are that woman always," the old man said, bowing slightly.
"Quit kissing up and answer my question," Snowflake replied angrily.
As the old man's knees began to buckle, two younger men grabbed him under either arm and held him upright until he could again stand on his own. It was a pitiful sight, and Snowflake began to regret having been so hard on the old guy. But Maria's life was at stake, and these characters were all con men anyway. Even now, they were probably just playing her, the old man too. He was probably the worst of the lot.
"She appeared a few months ago with no relatives, no friends, no past. It was as if she had strode right out of hell. She says nothing. She just kills."
Snowflake rolled her eyes. These peasants were so superstitious. Just then she noticed that the bartender had passed out. She picked him up with one arm and set him on the bar. Just to make sure he wasn't dead, she slapped his cheeks lightly until he woke up. Then she reached out and grabbed a glass of some murky looking brown liquid from the quivering hand of a rather startled young man, probably beer Snowflake mused disgustedly, for she hated beer, and poured the grimy liquid down the bartender's throat. He coughed, sputtered and gasped alarmingly before smiling broadly and thanking her for the drink.
"You people are too pathetic for words," Snowflake snarled.
She turned again to the old man, who with every passing moment seemed more slouched and trembling than the moment before.
"Now what is all this nonsense about some devil woman?" Snowflake shouted. "Speak plainly, or I'll beat the living crap out of the whole lot of you."
As if on cue, all the patrons stepped backwards from the bar, like a feeble wave retreating from a grimy beach. Only the old man and the bartender, who had in the meantime salvaged an abandoned drink and was in the process of guzzling it, stayed put.
"Make fun of us if you wish," the old man sputtered, "but this woman is a menace from hell and fears no one. She is stronger and more ferocious than any man. She kills for the pure pleasure of it. We don't know anything else about her, but your friend does."
Snowflake jumped a little, and her heart began to race.
"What friend? What are you talking about?"
"Your man," the old fellow bellowed. "Your helper. What's his name, Stone or something?"
Snowflake flinched, and her eyes became as hard and dark as two lumps of refined crystal.
"What does Jake know about this woman?"
"He's been asking around about her," the old man said, a sly grin now twitching the corners of his mouth. "He saw her kill over a dozen men with her bare hands," he added, pausing to study her stoic face. "You mean he hasn't told you about her. She looks so much like you, you know. I mean, your face and eyes and hair. She is much taller though, and her body is much thicker. I'm sure you're faster though. I'm sure you could take her in a fair fight."
Snowflake barely heard the last few lines of the old man's rambling. She looked at the bartender and asked him if what the old man had said about Jake was true. The bartender nodded sullenly. Snowflake turned again to the old man.
"So, you believe that this murderous woman you speak of had something to do with my servant's disappearance."
"We don't know," the old man said. "All we know is that she is the only thing new in town. She is what we are all talking about."
Snowflake nodded and then rolled her eyes as she swept her arm in a long slow arc in front of her, as though she were pointing at everyone and no one, all at the same time.
"Does anyone else have anything to add?" she shouted in a strong husky voice.
Her gaze was met with lowered eyes and shuffling feet. There was not a woman in the whole place, all men. A pity, Snowflake thought. Perhaps a woman would give her a straight answer. Then she sent a withering glare at the old man.
The old goat was a charlatan and a thief. She could tell it by his smarmy eyes and slouched shoulders. He fancied himself a shrewd fellow too, or otherwise he would never have dared to engage her directly. He was probably trying to set her up for something. She should kill him now, Snowflake thought, swiftly and brutally, as an example to the others. But he was old, and she was feeling suddenly very tired. The thought of Jake withholding critical information from her was rankling her as well.
She decided to spare the old fellow's life and only gave him what she considered a light tap on the chin as she strode by. It was hard enough to flatten him though, and she heard the rush of feet as some of the other patrons gathered around to help him. She was getting soft emotionally, Snowflake mused, or she would have killed him. But physically she was as powerful as ever. That was some consolation to her as she made her way to the door, the other patrons scattering before her like flies.
When she got back to the Hummer, Jake was still sleeping, snoring heavily in fact. She climbed behind the wheel and looked at him for nearly a minute. Should she wake him up, or should she let it go until later? Maybe the old man had been lying to her. Jake was her guy, after all. She should give him the benefit of the doubt.
She decided not to disturb him, not yet. She made a few more impromptu calls to other haunts and beer parlors and even a few heroin dens. She got the same response everywhere, a claim of no knowledge about Maria's kidnapping, and an outlandish description of some new creature in the form of a woman who was terrorizing the local criminal class.
Snowflake did manage to learn a few more details about this woman though. She was reputed to have deep green eyes and strikingly long blond hair. Snowflake instantly recalled Jake asking her a few months before if she had another sister somewhere. So, Jake did know about this woman. He had deliberately withheld information from her. But why, and did it constitute a betrayal? Had her beloved Jake turned against her? Had someone paid him off?
The sun was rising as Snowflake drove the Hummer from her last stop. Jake was still snoring. He had slept enough, she concluded. She whacked him across the rib cage with the back of her hand, hard enough to give him a rude awakening, but not hard enough to break any bones.
Jake slobbered a little, yawned and then stretched his arms in front of him. Finally he opened his eyes and smiled at Snowflake. His smile faded though as he gazed into her stern eyes. Now what had he done wrong, he wondered.
"Who is this green eyed mega woman who has been terrorizing Monterrey lately?" Snowflake asked in the intense but calm manner of a professional interrogator.
Jake frowned. In an instant he realized what was bothering her, and he wondered how best to set it right. After a few tense moments of frenzied reflection, he decided to be thoroughly honest. Perhaps his forthrightness would disarm her.
"I saw her a few months back strutting around the city. I followed her and watched her annihilate a whole gang of young men. When I got home, I asked you if you had any sisters. You said you didn't think so. I thought about telling you, but I decided to let it go. You get so excited about things. I didn't want to stir the pot."
"What are you talking about?" she muttered. "Me always getting so excited. I'm as calm a person as there is."
"You always overreact to everything, Snowflake," Jake said hurriedly. "At heart, you're an extremely nervous person.
"I do not behave in an irrational manner," Snowflake shot back. "That's what you're really saying, aren't you, that I'm just some kooky woman with a strong back?"
Jake immediately felt relieved. She was taking his explanation personally, rather than drawing some insidious and largely irrelevant conclusions about his motives in withholding the information from her. The worst that could come of it now was perhaps a sharp sock to his jaw, but not a life threatening karate chop to his neck. When one lived with Snowflake, these were the unfortunate distinctions one often had to make.
"I'm just saying that you sometimes get all worked up about things."
"I do not get all worked up."
"Sure you do."
"I do not."
Judging from her rapidly tightening biceps and the strident way she was heaving her chest at him, Jake concluded that it was time for him to change the subject. He decided to continue to be truthful, however, since the strategy seemed to be paying off.
"I asked around town about her, but I didn't come up with anything at all. So I just dropped the whole thing. I guess somebody must have told you about her. What information did you manage to pick up, anything useful?"
Snowflake shook her head as she slouched back into her seat.
"You should have told me about this woman, Jake," she said softly. "Next time I won't go so easy on you."
From his many confrontations with Snowflake over the years, Jake knew now that all he had to do was apologize profusely and as sincerely as he could for his misguided actions, and he would be home free.
"You're right, Darling, I should have told you earlier, but I thought..."
"No buts," she cut him off, brusquely waving her hand frighteningly close to his nose.
"You're right again, Darling, no buts. I should have told you."
"Yes, you should have."
"I was quite stupid."
"Yes, you were."
Now seemed the time to change the subject once again, so as to completely divert her attention from him and his many failings.
"Did you find anything out about what might have happened to Maria?"
"Nothing really."
"Then why are you asking about this woman?"
"Because she is apparently the new great thing in town."
"She was awfully impressive," Jake stammered as she turned menacingly toward him, "physically, I mean. But I'm sure you could take her."
"That's what they all said."
"All who said?"
"All those thieves and liars I just talked to," she said, glaring at him again.
"Well, I'm sure they're right. Where are we headed off to now?"
Where do you think?"
"I'm just asking," Jake said. "If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked."
She
rolled her eyes and then jabbed the key into the ignition.
"You're
getting awfully frisky lately," she muttered. "You better
watch it, or you'll end up eating a knuckle sandwich for lunch."
"I'm still waiting for an answer," he said with unaccustomed boldness. Even Jake could only take so much of her condescension and intimidation.
"We're going to the police station," she replied huskily. "Isn't that where you wanted to go?"
"You don't have to get all huffy about it."
"I'm not getting huffy about it."
"I'm not your slave, you know. I'm not your boy toy either."
She glanced at his suddenly somber and wounded expression. It was so cute that she wanted to smile, but she caught herself in time.
"Any other irrelevant and utterly nonsensical statements you would like to make?" she sighed, jamming her foot onto the gas pedal as she guided the Hummer out into the noisy early morning traffic.