The Kind One by Tom Epperson

Mexican asshole old enough to be her grandpa. Bud told her what horses to bet in a couple of races, and she cleaned up. Then she dumped grandpa and came back up here with us.
    “She was a gorgeous broad, but she was also nice. She was nice to people that most people don’t give a shit about.
    “There was this kid, Flumentino. He worked in the kitchen at the Peacock, sweeping up, taking out the garbage, that kinda shit. He had a long neck and big ears and he was always smiling at everybody. Everybody thought he was a dummy, but maybe that’s just ’cause he didn’t speak no English to speak of.
    “Anyway, Emperatriz was nice to Flumentino, and maybe he got the wrong idea. One night, him and one of the cooks, they’d been nipping at a bottle all night, and I guess he musta got pretty plastered, ’cause when Emperatriz walked by he grabbed her by the ass. And Bud happened to walk in right at that moment and he seen it.
    “Jesus Christ, Danny, what they did to that poor kid. They cleared the kitchen out and tied him up and put him up on this counter where the cooks do their chopping. When they got done with him, they had to put him in four different gunnysacks to get him outa the kitchen. And then I got stuck with the job of going out in the desert to bury the sacks.”
    “What was Emperatriz doing during all this?”
    “Begging. Pleading. Screaming. But it didn’t do no good. And after that she started calling Bud
el Benévolo.
The Kind One.”
    “What ever happened to her?”
    Dick took a drag on his cigarette—took his time blowing the smoke back out. “I don’t know. She just kinda disappeared. Went back to Mexico, I guess.”
    We started walking again. The sand sucked at my shoes. The waves slid up the beach then slipped away.
    “Was I there?” I said.
    “Was you where?”
    “In the kitchen. That night.”
    Dick was quiet a minute. “I think you was outa town. On business.”
    I wondered what business I was on. We heard some laughing and screaming—a happy kind of screaming—then we saw a guy and a girl playing around in the water. Dick said: “Shit. They’re naked.”
    They looked young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. They were chasing each other around and grabbing each other and kissing and then they’d laugh when a wave hit them and by the light of the half of the moon I could make out the nipples on the girl and the hair down between her legs and my heart felt like it was about to bust I wanted so bad to be out there in the waves chasing around a girl, not her, not Darla even, but the girl I dreamed about sometimes, the girl with the dark hair and the olive skin.
    “Looks like they’re having fun,” Dick said wistfully.
    “Yeah.”
    “You know the last time I screwed a broad that wasn’t a whore?”
    “No.”
    “Me neither. Probably when Babe Ruth was still a pitcher.”
    We walked a little further, then Dick said: “Hey, lookit!”
    We’d found their clothes on the sand. A “his” pile and a “her” pile.
    “I know what,” said Dick. “Let’s bury ’em!”
    “Their clothes? What for?”
    “’Cause it’ll be funny as hell.”
    I thought about it a minute. “Nah. Let’s just leave ’em alone.”
    “Well, no way I ain’t gonna get a fucking souvenir.”
    He rummaged through the “her” pile then pulled out her underpants. He held them up dangling in front of his eyes and grinned then stuffed them in his pocket.
    We headed back up the beach. When we got close to the Surf Club we saw a couple of guys duking it out on the sand. We got a little closer and saw it was Tommy and Goodlooking Tommy.
    It looked like Goodlooking Tommy was getting the worst of it. By the way, it wasn’t like Goodlooking Tommy was really that goodlooking. Nello Marlini was twice as goodlooking as Goodlooking Tommy, girls were telling him all the time he was a dead ringer for Rudolph Valentino. But it got confusing having two guys named Tommy around, so since one of them was goodlooking in