Scout’s Honor: Chapter 7

Date Night

To seize the day, Roy Cross could say anything to anyone, occasionally even meaning it. While Eddie hung his head in mortification in the Tiki bar, Roy lay in a silk-sheeted bed one hundred and thirty miles to the north—in Juan Sierra’s Hollywood pied-a-terre—nursing his raw pain with a cigarette, his body a pale blue in the moonlit bedroom. Juan squeezed his bare shoulder and asked, “Was it all right, mijo?”

“It was great, Juan,” Roy said, his voice catching slightly. His sexuality may have been somewhat fluid—mouths and hands felt the same in the dark—but he recoiled at kissing men and his calculated submission to Juan had been anything but enjoyable, despite the mound of cocaine and two bottles of Dom Perignon. While he yearned for nothing more than to be alone with a Quaalude, he knew Ramirez would cancel his shipment if he and Juan parted on bad terms. “Really great.”

“You do not like it, do you? Please tell me the truth, mijo,” Juan Sierra pleaded, staring into his lover’s faraway eyes. He gazed at his beautiful King as an art lover might, his eyes wide in near adoration. Juan had met Roy at a gay party given by a second-tier Hollywood producer a couple years before. After Roy had bragged of his drug dealing, Juan had been indiscreet about his own business, telling him he had distant relatives in a similar line of work. Desperate to have him, Juan had handed Roy an eight-ball of uncut cocaine and suggested he try it in the bathroom. He completed his seduction—or business arrangement, as Roy had preferred to see it—by promising to use his influence to let Roy buy from his relatives.

The Trujillo family, the most powerful of Colombia’s narcotraficantes, had selected the polished thirty-eight-year-old Juan Sierra as its distribution manager for Southern California only in part because he could assume an unremarkable existence in Los Angeles. A stocky man of middling height, Juan’s face was rounder than he might wish and his jaw beginning to jowl, yet he retained the dark good looks of his youth. His eyes were striking, shining with intelligence, seldom flashing the cruelty that had marked his early career. 

After their first evening together, Juan had ordered his obese, smirking lieutenant Griego to supply Roy with a couple ounces on credit. To the Colombians’ surprise, the young man had proven reliable, with Juan gradually increasing the weight for his border crossings. When Roy had first announced Tommy Mahoney’s system, Juan was pleased with his ambition. And now his King wanted to bring over fifty kilos. Roy’s record had been flawless, he’d arrived on time for every pick-up and delivery, paid every penny owed. Yet Juan was conflicted. His wispy ruse—that he was but vaguely aware of his distant cousins’ business—prevented him from describing to Roy how thieves begged for death once their torture began. Surely, he comforted himself, Roy had to understand that stolen Trujillo cocaine was worthless; no dealer wishing to see the sun rise would touch merchandise stolen from the family. Reasoning that Roy would have been careful to show up on time had he intended to steal the cocaine—rather than two hours late—Juan had concluded he could trust the youth.

 “It was great,” Roy insisted, smiling into Juan’s liquid brown eyes, selling what Juan desperately wanted to buy, shaking off his malaise. “Let’s party on.” He spooned powder from a ring box onto the green marble-topped nightstand and chopped it with a razor, lining up four neat rows. Roy had in fact vowed to show up on time. He understood the evening’s importance, but his body rebelled, as it had every time with Juan. And while he had no idea who would buy his fifty kilos, he knew he would be set for life. He could break open a key, cut it with lactose and retail it at his endless parties. He idly wondered if Ramirez would blame Juan for introducing them, whether Juan might suffer afterward. He leaned over the nightstand and snuffed up two lines. “Juan, amigo, quit thinking so much. Let’s play backgammon. I’ll be red and you’re white. Cool? I’ll get the board and we’ll play here. Party time.”

Juan tried to smile, but hounded by his own sense of dignity, he found himself contemplating the world’s view of a man in love with such a beautiful boy.

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