Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

38

OCTOPUS

ARTURO ANTHONY COOED. "Aww, you're such a sweetheart. I wish I'd married you. But I didn't."

Jack's smile grew wider at Margarita. Not a bad answer.

Suddenly the waiter returned, and while Jack and Margarita studied each other Arturo Anthony jumped in his chair and pointed at the plate the waiter set down for Mr. Cortez. Margarita looked over and shrieked and Jack jumped at the sight of movement on the plate. He took a closer look and sure enough he was not imagining it.

On the large plate was a mountain of live octopuses floating over each other with their moving tentacles.

"I've never seen such a display," said Arturo Anthony, his face white.

The waiter replied, "A special request by our esteemed friend Mr. Cortez."

Jack was utterly fascinated but Margarita shifted her chair away in disgust.

"Disgusting! Get them off the breakfast table at once or else they're going to climb off the plate!"

The waiter quickly poured a ring of what looking like cooking oil around the brim of the plate and lit the ring on fire with a lighter. Immediately the little octopuses reacted by climbing back to the center of the plate. "Not to worry ma'am," said the waiter.

Just then the doors from a dark side of the room opened and the group turned to find the heavy stepping giant come from the bathroom, his hair wet and slicked back, his suspenders striped and retro, and his pants and shirt brown and green. He wore the same shoes as last night. Yet the shoe whose laces Margarita had not finished tying were still untied from last night. He didn't seem to notice. Or care.

"Ah," he said, paying no attention to anyone but the pulpitos climbing over each other on his fire-ringed plate, "mis pulpitos están aquí. Gracias mesero." My octopuses are here. Thank you, waiter.

The waiter nodded and shot Jack a look of mutual discomfort and left through the hall, forgetting to fetch their meal orders.

The giant took his seat. He took an immediate stab at the top mound of pulpitos with his knife, and stuck the kabob of wriggling live octopuses in his mouth, and chewed all around his mouth before swallowing. With one gulp he looked up across the table at Arturo Anthony whose face was paralyzed.

And the giant Carlos Cortez said to Arturo Anthony, smiling, "Good morning, Senator."

Jack looked over to Arturo Anthony in surprise as Mr. Anthony nodded to the name of Senator.

"I've been waiting to talk business with you for quite some time," said the giant, pointing at him with a kabob of moving tentacles. "But you always seem to be too busy. Why's that?"

Senator Arturo Anthony thought before answering. "I'm here now aren't I?"

The giant nodded his huge head. "You ready to talk business or do you want to wait for your food?"

"I'm ready," said Senator Arturo Anthony.

"I understand you to be a man who ran a clean campaign for mayor before you became senator."

"Yes. Very clean," said the Senator proudly.

"You are indeed a rare politician," flattered Carlos Cortez.

"Unfortunately."

"I appreciate your anti-crime and anti-corruption efforts."

"Thank you," said Senator Arturo Anthony, coldly.

The giant leaned in. "I especially like your anti-drugs efforts. Your anti-drugs efforts really speak to me." He stuck a bigger wad of octopuses into his pie hole and chewed.

Senator Arturo Anthony didn't move but it was clear by his subtle expression that he could read Carlos Cortez's bullshit.

The giant caught this and stopped chewing. He held his empty knife still. "Are you doubting my sincerity, Senator?" he challenged. "I mean it when I say your anti-drugs campaign is important to me. My father died of overdose. My grandfather was shot by the cartel. So was his father." He eyed the senator long with scrutiny, demanding the senator stop looking at him like he was just asking for a political favor.

"Were your father and his father and his father as tall as you too, Mr. Cortez?"

"Indeed Senator," said Carlos Cortez with a look of disdain that read, why should that matter?

The senator picked up his water glass with a smart-ass grin on his face. "Then by analogy it seems you'll either die of drug overdose or drug ring crime yourself." He took a sip and coughed. His confidence was forced. "Am I wrong?"

The Giant Carlos Cortez put his knife down beside his plate that was still hot with fire. The room seemed to get a little darker. "Seeing everything by analogy is no good, Senator. It's a fallacious form of comparison. I choose to learn from my history but not to project it onto my future. That's a form of growing up. And in that way I can let go of the past and make myself out to become whatever I want."

The senator's face turned red with fire. "I may be young but my age is also what won me my elections for mayor, for governor, and finally for senator. Unlike you and your past, I am the future you're talking about. And my clean campaigns are an analogy for my efforts for a clean Mexico and clean world, in all areas of industry, life, everything. Don't speak down on me like you've got a better way of thinking, Mr. Cortez. My fresh ability to see the world as it is now versus your view that money and power are all important makes me the clear winner. I got to where I am because of hard work and a vision with which people resonate. Unlike you I actually believe in something. I didn't need to use force to get where I am. I didn't need to lie or cheat or steal to get where I am. I didn't need to kill a goddam person and if you are planning to influence me in any way during this meeting—be it blackmail, or threats on my family—it won't work. The only way I will do your bidding, is if you believe in something," he took a breath, "something I can believe in too."

Margarita stared wildly at the senator, admiring his anger. His passion. Jack on the other hand turned to the giant Carlos Cortez and suddenly wondered if he truly was a member of a drug ring like the senator implied.

Giant Carlos Cortez said nothing. He merely peered at the man with a pensive stare. The ring of fire around his plate finally died out and some of the octopuses that remained started to hover off his plate.

"You seem to have revealed all your predispositions too soon, Senator. I haven't even begun to discuss what I want from you nor what I was planning to offer in exchange." He held himself tall and an optical illusion made the table seem like it was sinking.

The heated senator drank his whole glass of water again and nodded to Giant Carlos Cortez with respectable apology. "You're right, I have my predispositions about you, but that wasn't fair of me. Go ahead."

The Giant Carlos Cortez nodded in a regal manner. "Thank you," he said, noticing an octopus on the table and taking it into his mouth. "Okay. So I was going to make you drink gasoline until you agreed to help me kill the president but now you've forced me to think of a cleaner route we can both believe in."