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The man with the goatee shoved a little girl into the room and stood at her back with his hands resting lightly on her frail shoulders. The girl was not fully awake yet and she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with tiny balled fists. |
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The fat man cried, "¡Madre Dios! Not my Sally, no!" |
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"Please, señor. Please. I will do anything." |
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A spark of something malevolent ignited deep inside her host's mind. To Paula, it felt like an explosion of foul-smelling swamp gas. "Excellent. Where is it?" |
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Tears and mucus were clotted in the man's moustache. He tried to lick the snot away as he replied, "Señor, I swear to you on my daughter's life . . . I do not know. I was contacted by a man over the phone. He knew me, or at least knew of me, and had heard I might be willing to . . . broker your" |
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A black hand seemed to come out of nowhere to grasp the fat man's throat, the bony fingers digging into the spongy flesh until the man's eyes bulged out like bloodshot grapes and his tongue flopped in his mouth like a dead leech. The hand remained until the man's face turned the color of an eggplant and then relaxed and withdrew. The fat man gulped air until his color returned to normal. |
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"How do you contact this man?" |
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"I don't. He calls me. If I do anything for him, he leaves the cash in a locker at the bus station or the airport and leaves the key at a prearranged spot. I get the key, drop off the merchandise, pick up the cash and split. Sometimes it works the other way aroundI pick up a package and return cash." |
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"What is in the package, drugs?" |
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"Diamonds. Once in a while emeralds. Emeralds are big down here with the" |
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The hand lashed out, crushing the man's nose and splattering blood all over his face. |
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"I am not interested in your marketing report! You expect me to believe that you never saw this man? That you never waited at the bus station to see what he looked like?" |
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"Of course I did. I had my men watch the drop, but some- |
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