Page 24 of Nightcrawler
“Don’t laugh, Miguel.” Hearing him say my name felt really good. “I mean it. I think we worked well together once we, you know, actually worked together. I haven’t had the greatest experience working two-man jobs with the other guys at my workplace. There’s a level of trust and rapport that takes time to build. We had instant chemistry.”
I smiled. “Bad chemistry.” He stared at me, and I found myself sighing. “Okay, you’re right. Once we realized we were there for the same reason, we worked well.” I stepped up to him and looked down at his mouth. “And knowing you don’t trust the people you work with in our business, makes me a little bit—” I had to be really careful here. Protective was the wrong word even though it’s what I felt. I smiled inwardly and deliberately lifted my hand to run fingers through my hair.
He laughed and the sound of it followed us out of the apartment.
Chapter Nine
RAVEN
I was shocked by the sheer amount of dried blood in my new truck. The gray leather passenger seat and my floor mats were pretty much toast and would have to be replaced. It saddened me to see what a mess Passantino’s gunshot and the resulting bullet wound in my side had left behind.
Miguel insisted I call him by his real name, now that I’d asked, and it was almost nice when we’d had a short argument about who was going to drive, now that I was feeling better. It felt almost normal to be fighting. He finally gave up the driver’s seat when he realized I wasn’t giving up. He slid into the stained front passenger seat as I got behind the wheel, determined to get home to rest and hopefully bathe in my own tub.
“I know it’s a pain in the ass, but would you take me back to Passantino’s house?” he asked as soon as I pulled out onto the street. “I left my truck parked in his neighborhood around the corner from his house. Then I can follow you home just to make sure you get there okay.”
I turned to look over at him. “Why? You don’t need to do that, Miguel. I’m totally fine.”
“Because I want to do it. Ineedto know you’re okay.” He frowned at me and I would have been tempted to frown right back had I not been driving.
I sighed. “Yeah, of course that’s okay. I’m just not used to being coddled.”
“Is it coddling when you have not one but two bullet holes in you?”
I darted a glance at him before looking back at the road. “No, of course not. I’m sorry to be obstinate.” I headed toward Gemma and Passantino’s mansions on Hesby Avenue and he pulled out his phone, scrolling through it silently. It was morning rush hour and since my truck was big and couldn’t weave in and out of traffic with ease, I decided to think about the review I’d leave for one of the last books I’d read.
Book title: The Mount of Minty Cristo
Author: Brownsleeves
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Adult Entertainment/Equestrian
Review/rating by Nightcrawler: <2 stars
Synopsis:
A young woman named Minty finds her soulmate in the oddest of places, on her grandfather’s farm in Mexico. After moving there as a young child because of the death of her parents, she grows to womanhood learning to ride his favorite stallion, a horse named Coco. But she falls on hard times when the old man dies, being forced to take up the lonely life of prostitution. Using a series of flashbacks which put the reader in the moment, Minty’s life is chronicled from childhood to her tragic death many years later.
My Review:
I’ll never learn.
Even the adult entertainment section of the Amazon bookshelves hadn’t prepared me for a porno about a girl who finds her soulmate in the form of a horse named Coco. This book sucked big donkey balls. Take that any way you want and by that, I mean to say,take it literally. I’ve never been fond of flashbacks in books but in the case of this story, they were the only part I could stomach. They consisted of Minty’s younger years and the kindly grandfather who is loving and dear to her. When he dies, things change in Minty’s life and let’s just say, the kind of mounting she and Coco had been doing in the past, changes in ways I’m not prepared to describe here.
I think you get what I’m saying…or neighing.
If I didn’t like or need them, I’d enlist volunteers to come and gouge out my eyes but even that wouldn’t erase the memories of what I just read, so that’s futile. For those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I’ll put it this way: Minty, unable to bear leaving her beloved Coco on her grandfather’s farm with no one to care for him, moves to the port city of Cozumel and comes up with a business model which works for her. I’ll describe itbriefly, since there will be copious retching involved afterward, and I have no desire to harm readers with my reviews.
Minty holds horse shows, similar to donkey shows, where she and Coco are the stars. Unlike any old donkey shows, Minty designs a mask for Coco which covers his face during and after these shows. I should also say, Coco doesn’t seem to appreciate being deprived of his senses in this manner which makes Minty chain him in his stable every night. The book details Minty’s many injuries during one such show and eventually her untimely death,from which you, dear readers, can only imagine. I care not to.
I’m giving this book a negative two-star rating because, well…who really cares after being subjected to this subject matter. The author, Brownsleeves—who evidently earned his name from inseminating farm animals—knows way too much about Minty’s injuries for this reader to stomach. So, in conclusion I say, this book is a big, fat, NO from me and needs to be burned.
And nowI’llgo put out my own eyes.
I chucked as I mentally archived the review in my brain, and Miguel looked over at me.
“What’s funny?”