Monsters
By
Karen Singer
Chapter 10 – Mexican Hat Dance – Part 1 of 2
The difficulty factor of carrying
around three large bags of adult diapers was enormous. Especially dressed the way he was. The part that worried him, was that she had
made him buy diapers in each of the adult baby stores he had gone into. Until this trip, it had been months now since
she had made him wear diapers. But he
knew from experience that she sometimes went through phases of making him do
one thing for a while, then changing it up just when he was starting to get
used to it. He prayed this wasn’t going
to be one of those phases. He hated
wearing and having to use the diapers like an infant. He hated even more the stupid silly little
girl outfits she made him wear with them.
Ralphie got out of the cab at the
hotel. He allowed himself to have his
picture taken with another middle-aged woman…why was it always the middle-aged
ones that made such a fuss over him…and headed inside. He rode up on the elevator with a lot of
other people, people who he guessed ranged from being disturbed by him to
people who were amused. He just prayed
that none of them could smell his wet diaper.
He also prayed that Miss Brandy would let him change it – soon!
Once off the elevator, he had to go
all the way to the far end of the hallway to get to the room. He pulled his room key out of his small purse
to get into the room…and his cellphone rang – Brandy’s ring! He dared not answer it quickly. “Hello Miss Brandy?”
“Ralphie!” Brandy’s voice
returned. “Where are you?”
“I just now got back to the room,”
he replied.
“Good! How was your shopping trip?”
“Not fun!”
“Very good! Have you eaten yet?”
“No, Miss Brandy. I was just going to order…”
“Forget your plans. There’s a Chinese restaurant I want you to go
to. I’ll text you the address. When you get there, order lunch, you’re
probably going to have a bit of a wait since they said it would take a few
hours.”
“A few hours, for lunch?”
“No, for something else. We just ate there. They’re expecting you. Don’t you dare leave before they give you something
we asked for.”
“What am I supposed to do if it
takes so long?”
“Eat. Drink.
I don’t care. Just don’t leave
without it. Then go it straight back to
the room. You can change your diaper
when you get back. We’ll see you there
later.”
“Miss Brandy. Can I please change this diaper first, before
I go? It’s very wet.”
“No! Now get to it! We’ll see you later.”
Another errand for Miss
Brandy. The last thing he needed just
then, especially dressed the way he was.
He was particularly distressed because he couldn’t change his wet
diaper. He went into the room and
dropped the bags of diapers on his bed, then went straight back out again to
find a taxi.
---
§§§§§§§§§§ ---
The taxi let them out in front of a
Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of town.
Brandy again lowered her mask before they headed inside.
“Nobody waiting outside with guns,”
Carol noted.
“Not yet. I have no doubt someone inside will have a
gun handy though.”
“No doubt,” Carol muttered.
They opened the door. The receptionist took one look at them,
especially the mask Brandy was wearing and gasped. A man quickly intervened before she could say
or do anything and told her in Spanish that the two women were expected. He faced Carol and Brandy. “Are you the two that Morrow told us about?”
“That’s us? Isn’t Morrow here?” Brandy asked.
“He called a few minutes ago to say
he couldn’t make it, but he asks that you phone him later to let him know how
your discussion went.”
“We’ll consider it,” Brandy told
him.
“This way then,” the man replied.
“You know,” Brandy said as they
were led toward the back of the restaurant, if we had known he would want to
meet us in a restaurant, we could have had lunch here.”
“Yeah. We didn’t know. But having Chinese again gave me a chance to ask
for my gear to be sent up and to get them to compile an updated report.”
“True.”
They were led to a large table at
the back of the restaurant where several men were sitting around it. “Miguel Lozano?” Brandy asked, looking around
the table.
“That is me,” an elderly man replied. His Spanish accent was unmistakable. “And you must be the two that Morrow said was
coming over.”
“That’s us,” Carol told him.
“Why the mask?” he asked Brandy.
“It’s easier for me if fewer people
know what I look like.”
“Like…superman,” Lozano replied
with a chuckle.
“Superman doesn’t wear a mask,”
Brandy corrected him.
“I keep telling her she looks like
Batgirl,” Carol told him.
Lozano and a few of the others
laughed. “No matter,” Lozano replied. “Mr. Morrow seems to think that you can help
us. Personally, I don’t see it.”
“Do you need help?” Brandy
asked. “Do you want help? According to what we’ve learned, you’ve lost
more men in the last month than anyone else.
And that’s on top of the fact that your organization is smaller than any
of the others. Someone is trying to wipe
you out of this city first because you’re the smallest. So I’ll ask again, do you want our help?”
Lozano looked angry. “Where do you get your information?”
“Here and there,” Carol replied.
“We’re just trying to ask questions
about how the killings happened, that’s all,” Brandy told him. “If you don’t like it, just say so and we’ll
leave.”
“Just ask questions about it?” Lozano
said. “What are you, the police?”
“Huh!” Brandy grunted. “The furthest thing from it, believe me.”
Miguel stared at her for a
moment. “I have heard a few things about
both of you…through the grapevine. I’ve
heard that you both are very accomplished assassins. He nodded toward Carol. The things I’ve heard about you, are nothing
but fantasies. I wouldn’t believe them
if you rested your hand on my mother’s sacred bible and swore they were true.” He looked over at Brandy. “Some of what I’ve heard about you though, I
know to be true.” He grunted a laugh. Branding Romo’s men with Besinski’s brand was
one of the best things I’ve heard in years.”
“Yeah,” Carol replied. “Omar got a big laugh out of it too.”
“I’m sure he did. But that doesn’t mean I need either of you
poking your noses into my business.”
Brandy shrugged. “No problem.
We’ll leave. And when they send
their hired mercenary troops around to wipe out all the rest of you, we’ll have
one less organization in town to worry about.
Ready Dee?”
“Ready Ret,” Carol
replied. The two of them turned and walked
out.
“Where the hell are we going to
find a taxi out here?” Brandy complained.
“We really need those bikes,” Carol
replied.
“Yeah. For sure.
It was a good idea.”
The two of them started walking
towards town.
“That got us a lot of nowhere,”
Carol said, referring to the meeting with Lozano.
“You got any better ideas?” Brandy
asked.
“Nope. Going to them sounded like a good idea to me
too. They’ve lost the most men. But I’m guessing that old Miguel in there is
another one of those stupid proud Mexicans who doesn’t like women telling him
what to do.”
“I hate that kind,” Brandy
replied. “I’d like to just take them all
and rip their balls right off. Then fix
them so they’re stuck in cheap dresses and doing nothing but menial women’s
work for the rest of their stupid lives.
Let him live the life of some of those women and see how he thinks then.”
“You know, I can arrange exactly
that,” Carols told her.
“Huh! If only that were true!”
“It is. Trust me.
That’s what my mother does.”
“Your mother? What do you mean?”
“Have you ever heard of Janice
Stokley?”
“No. Who’s that?”
“She’s one of the most wanted women
in the world.”
“Right after you, I’m guessing.”
“No. I probably fall after her.”
“Wow. She must be good. I’ve seen what you can do. And quite frankly, you scare me to death.”
“Thanks. I feel the same way about you.”
Brandy stopped them and looked into
her eyes. “There’s lots of things we
seem to feel the same way about each other.”
“Yeah. Weird.”
“But nice too.”
“For sure.”
“So, who’s Janice Stokley?” Brandy
asked as they started walking again.
“My mother.”
“Your mother? After watching you just a little, I’d love to
see her in action. She taught you well.”
“She taught me a lot, but none of
what you’ve seen comes from her. What
she does is totally different.”
“Different?”
“Brandy, I consider myself to be a
monster. I actually get a kick out of
thinking of myself that way. But my
mother is the most…incredible monster of all.
She’s a mind control expert, and when she starts on you, she can gain so
much control over your entire brain that you have no choice but to do whatever
she wants for the rest of your life. And
with the way she works, there’s no way for anyone to fight against it. None!
Others have tried to copy her method, but nobody yet has been able to
manage it. It’s absolutely uncanny what
she does. Almost like magic. Like she’s got this brain control superpower.”
“Huh!” Brandy grunted. “Between you and me…and I guess this mask,
and now what your mother does, maybe Morrow as right, we do sound like a comic
book.”
“Trust me. I know it’s hard to believe. You’ve really got to see it to understand
it. But it’s true. Believe me.”
“I still want to meet her.”
“I still want you to meet her too.”
“Ladies!” a man’s voice called from
behind them.
They turned and saw one of the men
from the restaurant hurrying towards them.
“Mr. Lozano would like to talk with
you again.”
Carol shook her head. “He waited long enough to decide that. We’d be gone if we could have found a cab.”
“Or if we had better
transportation,” Brandy agreed. “Let’s
go. We came to talk to him. Let’s see if this time we can make some
progress.”
