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All that is left of the cigarette is about a stubby inch, and I inhale deep off that last bit of nicotine and whatever the hell else is wrapped in this cheap Central American paper before putting out my light, right onto the wood table we’re playing at. None of these saps will care so long as the hooch keeps flowing, so I wave over to Del at the bar to bring us another round.
Because she’s in on it, you see. That’s been my ruse for almost a year now.
She saunters over carrying a dozen shot glasses bearing amber colored, mediocre tasting, but nevertheless potent liquor, and with her tits basically eye level with gratuitous overswell to the side, none of these idiots will notice when I switch the 3 of diamonds in my hand with the ace of spades I keep just under the blade on my hip. One sly trick and the card basically jumps into my waiting hand, replacing the bullshit losing card with no one the wiser.
Del and I split my winnings 70/30 – Its worth the thirty percent even if she does dilute the hooch.
I’m just about to close this last game, with a pot in the middle of the table of what looks to be nearly three hundred bucks, two packs of Lucky’s, a small sharpened fang off one of these damned jungle cats (hell, that alone should score at least 40 with Haymitch at the pawn), and, the item I’m most excited for, a single key.
That dumb bastard put his breezer convertible on the line. And in a few short minutes, it’ll be mine.
Maybe I’ll drive out to someplace new…
Every man except me and Breezer folds, wisely, and he reveals his cards. His straight doesn’t hold shit on my royal, and he knows it. I look the part – I’m quick to overreact and be way too damned excited, like I never win, and the ruckus I create draws too much attention to my loser that he sulks away from our table fast, empty handed as planned.
Its not until I’m lightly buzzed off my ‘celebratory’ drink insisted on by the oblivious hats around the bar that I step outside to see my bounty. And its one fine machine.
Would be a helluva lot finer if Breezer would stand the fuck off of the engine grate. “Don’t scuff her with your chains, guy. Hate to haveta pull my new friends from their drunken bliss to help you walk on home alone.”
“And what makes you think I’d be goin home alone?”
Then I see her, dark hair all pinned up except for one long strand that escaped and is plastered to her neck – I can see in her expression that she hates the humidity and wonders why the hell she’s here, but one look to Breezer and she fixes a him with a sultry red lipped smirk. Yeah, the only one going home alone here is me.
She stands and steps down from the passenger side of the car, and that’s when I notice she’s not in a dress like most other debs in this part of Panama, or Panam if you’re too drunk or stupid – She’s in pants, actually from the looks of things a lot like mine. She brushes the fingers of one hand across the car as she passes to the front by Breezer, twists one hand around the collar of his jacket, and finally notices me. One delicately arched brow raises.
I look slummy on purpose, but if I’d known there’d be cause to doll up, I would’ve. She appraises me in my white v-neck undershirt, sweat stained from neckline to almost the navel, cracked leather belt holding up khaki trousers one size too big, and I notice then that I’m still wringing my hat in both hands. Stop it, I think and plop it down on my blonde curls. The humidity does ridiculous things to my hair.
But to look the part of the unlucky turned luckiest tourist takes work.
“The convertible stays in my hands, pal,” Breezer says, and it breaks me outta my reverie. I look at him.
“Cards are a man’s game, an honorable tradition. You going back on it now? That’d be a damn shame,” I counter back. Gotta show a little backbone, not enough yet to start anything.
His eyes widen – they’re grey, like her’s – and he approaches me, reaching for the neck of my shirt and pulling me in close. “Honorable tradition? Like I haven’t heard from three towns over about the no level goodnick poser cheating fellas outta their hard earned money for months now.” He looks me up and down. “Didn’t know you’d look like a fucking boy scout, but all the same, you’re done.”
He releases his one hand hold on my shirt and my hands clench into fists of their own accord. I'm weighing in my mind whether or not he's gonna be worth it when he releases my collar and brushes the wrinkles outta my tee. But he's talking again.
"Listen, kid, your shit is small potatoes, and you know it. What, you think Panama is all cars and hooch? There's way more, for, uh, someone who wants it, lets say."
Again, we size each other up. His eyes tell me two things - That he ain't shittin' me on any accounts, and there's just the tiniest glimmer of excitement there. "And what exactly you offering?"
“Get in,” he says. “You work for me now.”
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I barely recognize myself anymore. Gale, or Breezer, as I’m still apt to call him, keeps me in finer duds. Though I don’t wear the mobster boss chains he does or my jacket most of the time (it is Panama, guy), we do look alike. In clothing, at least. He was only mildly surprised the first time he told me to punch some dickie’s lights out that I actually could, now we joke about who of us has the better poker face.
Still me, obviously.
I win him shit he wants in card games. Mostly its other unsuspecting bastards’ money, or land for the coca, or maybe even an occasional vehicle – He’s a collector, turns out. And he keeps me in rich suits, upstanding hotels, rolls of cash, and continuous offers of female company. But the only deb I actually wanna spend time with ain’t on the menu.
I do get to see her, though its always when she’s hangin offa his arm. She doesn’t take his shit, which I admire, and once he yelled at her for talking and taking bread, good American white bread he had sent down just for her, to the little brown kids in the village through the way, she slapped him across the face and yelled how he doesn’t own her and never will. She likes to wander through the greenery of the jungle too, which he hates but she insists on doing anyways. And those damn slacks. I’ve seen her in a dress once, there was some bullshit even at some bullshit embassy, and I don’t think I’ll ever really forget how lovely she looked, all polished and swell.
But I almost think I prefer those gams in trousers.
I’ve had my share of flings, lovers, whatever you wanna call it, and, well, I love women, but just never … felt anything? Is that what I’m feeling? Or what I’m not feeling?
Anyhow, it don’t make no sense to be thinking about her, especially tonight when Gale intends to make his big move to shut down the bums across the river. I don’t think I even understand what Thom and his men even did to upset Gale – But it doesn’t matter because he’ll go in tonight blazing hot, and tomorrow there will be no more Thom, as far as we’re concerned.
He’s told me he wants me behind the wheel of one of the getaways, so I’ve been practicing a little when I’ve had the time. To think that I actually once ‘won’ the car I’ll be driving tonight without ever having the faintest idea of even how to. The irony is not lost on me. Anyhow, I take the convertible out with the intent of crossing the bridge into neighboring Thirteen when I see her. She darts from the big house to the back shed, yelling cuss words over her shoulder the whole way. Gale emerges from the doorway, and glances left and right before chasing after her. She whirls on him though, shoving him back, and now she’s shaking a finger in his face – I can’t help but smile at the hand she’s givin him. She completely kicks his ass in the one way nobody else could. He turns back and marches into the house, shaking his head the entire way.
Before I really even think, I toot the horn and wave her towards the car. What am I doing, exactly?
She approaches slowly, with that same raised brow. We’ve talked before – Once I even held her elbow when she trotted through mud and muck – But the energy this time is different somehow. Its her. “Where exactly are you going?” she asks, with just a titch of that air she gets. Almost uppity, but mostly adorable.
“You need to cool off, and the breezer needs to heat up. Well, I need to heat up. For tonight. Let’s go.”
I’m surprised when she climbs in.
She grabs her seat when I accelerate, and I find it hard to focus on the gears and the clutch when I really just wanna look at the delicate shape of each finger, especially that one carrying the ring from Gale.
Gale. I shake my head and stare forward.
“I’m just so mad at him, Peeta!”
This is obviously no surprise – The deb’s a spitfire, and she has him just totally juiced on her because of it. What surprises me is how she immediately starts spouting, to me, of all people.
“Thom isn’t even a bad guy – Not like Gale is, anyway. I’m serious, I tried to talk him out of tonight, but he just won’t hear any of it,” she goes on.
“Gale isn’t bad, Miss. You can’t” – The look she shoots me here is deadly – “I mean, you shouldn’t go off saying that Gale is bad or even does bad things, because all of Panama is run by him, and the likes of him. Just, I dunno, … What if you didn’t get involved in his, uh, work?”
“What, because I’m his bimbo I don’t need to know where all this comes from?” She gestures to the car and the sweeping jungles he has claimed for his operations. “I’m no fool, Peeta.”
“Never thought you were,” I get out, barely above a whisper. In fact, I think more of this woman, this taken lady, than I do my own brothers, off fighting that damn Kaiser in Europe right now. Its not right, I tell myself. I need to get her outta my head. Why did I invite her for this ride?
“Its not right,” she says, and I flinch. Nah, ‘flinch’ is an understatement – I jumped outta my own skin. But what’s ‘wrong’ to me isn’t the same as whats ‘wrong’ to her. “Thom is helping the kids here – He’s building a school and bringing a teacher down from New York to teach them to read! Gale would never spend a dime to do that same thing.”
I feel my stomach twist – All the things Gale has planned for Thom tonight flash through my mind. I might be sick, and its because whatever happens is going to upset her. Knowing how strongly she feels about everything… There’s no way I can go through with this, money or not. Right or wrong, even, I don’t think it matters to me.
I’m a fool, a fraud, a liar.
Because I have one measurement of what is the right thing to do – And its whatever makes Katniss Everdeen happy.
I bring the car to a gentle halt just alongside a ravine overflowing with overly large orange flowers and turn to look at her. “Then we have to stop him,” I say.
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By the time we reach Thom at his compound to tell him to get the hell outta town, shoving his bags and crates into cars and truck beds, and get back to Gale, its near sundown. Only an hour to go.
I know Gale will be disappointed that he doesn’t get to ‘clean up’ Thom in the manner he was hoping to, to make an example of any aspiring competitors in the area, but its all shit under the bridge to me.
And my cool, calm exterior hides a rapidly beating heart.
Because once I patted the hood of Thom’s model T when he was packed and ready to drive off, she trailed her hand, that delicate hand, across my shoulder blades and down to my elbow, gently tracing the bones there with her thumb. I turned to look at her, with her eyes cast downward all I could really see were lashes. The ride back to the big house was peaceful, and I found myself nervously talking about my old painting hobby with the bright, bold colors of the Panem sunset. She laughed, more than once.