The One Percenter
Stacey picked up her clothes and took her backpack into the bathroom. She had one pair of clean panties but she’d have to put on the same bra. Again. Tee shirt, denim skirt, hair in a pony tail, she’d look like someone who’d get searched at the airport. Great.
She pulled the rest of her clothes out of the backpack and felt the kilo of coke. She had a two dozen condoms. Well, twenty-one, they’d used three last night. The guy was all right, Richard something, very laid back when she’d met him in the beach bar in Jaco, but a lot of energy in bed. He was maybe ten years older than Stacey, pushing forty like she was pushing thirty and he had a French accent. They’d come back to his hotel, Villa Caletis, just up the coast.
Now Stacey was thinking if she could get the coke into the condoms, shove them up her ass – no, swallow them, yeah, get past security and onto a flight, get past customs in New York her only problem would be not getting ripped off or selling to a cop.
Yeah, if she could get out of Costa Rica without Tommy finding her and slicing her open to get it back.
She sat down on the toilet and took a piss, saying to herself, okay, there’s a few kinks in the plan, but what do you expect, something you just came up with spur of the moment like that.
She heard Richard say, “Hey, honey,” and she said, just a minute, I’m getting dressed, and he said, “Don’t do that, come back to bed, I’m ready.” She stood up, put the clothes back on top of the coke and thought, okay, he was good, she’d give him that. It seemed like a good idea last night – another one of her good ideas – coming back to the hotel with this guy. A place Tommy’d never find her, give her a chance to think. She’d thought maybe this guy could help her, she could hang out with him a couple days then get to San Jose, get a flight to New York. This Richard, he seemed so touristy, but now she thought about it, he wasn’t in any rush and he was sure confident. She slapped herself, thinking, shit, Stacey, always with the Daddy-complex you, but then she thought, no, this guy was different. For one thing his chest was covered in tattoos, old ones, stuff she didn’t recognize. Right over his heart was a skull with devil horns and flames and under that a fleur de lys with “1%” in it and when she was sitting on him, riding him, and she’d asked him what it meant, he’d said, don’t ask.
Now she wasn’t sure what he was.
She ripped a condom off the strip and walked out of the bathroom.
He was ready all right. Lying on his back in the middle of the bed, naked, his dick standing right up, hands behind his head. He said, “Nothing like a good fuck to start the day.”
Stacey said, “Yeah,” and she was thinking okay this Richard might not be able to help her but he could sure take her mind off her problems. She thought maybe she should go get another condom right now, be ready, so like last night she could get up on her knees. He never slapped her ass or tried to slip it in the back door, just rode her till she came.
Then somebody knocked on the door hard, bang, bang, bang, and said, “Stacey, open the fucking door, you know what’s good for you.”
She said, “Shit,” and Richard said to her, “Who is it?”
“I’m really sorry I got you into this, honest, I’m sorry. I’m in some real trouble.”
Richard said, “Okay, never mind. Open the door.”
She said, “Yeah, okay,” but she was thinking, what the fuck? Past the bed there was the balcony they did it on last night, Richard sitting on the chair and Stacey straddling him, the moonlight off the tops of the rainforest all the way to the ocean. The hotel was only about a dozen rooms and now that she was looking for a way to take off, she was thinking how expensive it must be, on top of a cliff, a straight drop into the jungle.
She walked to the door and heard Richard getting out of the bed and thought, great, he’s gonna hide in the bathroom. She couldn’t figure this guy. As soon as she turned the knob, Tommy shoved the door open, knocking her on her ass.
“Okay, Stacey, where’s my fucking dope?”
She looked up at him and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tommy reached under his silk Hawaiian shirt and took his Colt, the snub-nosed .38 from the waistband of his jeans, slapped her across the face and said, “My fucking coke, where is it?”
“I swear, I don’t know.” She closed her eyes ready for another smack and heard the punch. She looked up and saw Richard punching Tommy in the face. His other hand was holding Tommy’s wrist, pointing the gun at the ceiling, and he punched him a couple more times, then dragged him across the room, out onto the balcony and tossed him over.
Stacey stood up and watched this Richard coming back in and she noticed he was holding Tommy’s gun in his hand. She said, “We better get out of here,” and Richard said, “Relax, they’ll never find him down there, the jungle’s too thick, full of snakes and aligators and spiders as big as a fucking frisbees. They’ll pick him clean. That what all the condoms are for, you thinking of swallowing two pounds of coke?”
She said, “I hadn’t really thought it through. Why, you have a better idea?”
Richard stretched out on the bed and said, “Maybe if we put our heads together,” and Stacey thought, yeah, okay, can’t hurt.