Jake lit a cigarette as Sidney handed him a glass of wine. “Tell me, Jake Harkner,” the man asked. “Why do you bring this man with you? Might you have ulterior motives for being here, which is why you need an extra gun along?”
Jake sipped some wine, scowling. “I don’t bring ‘extra guns’ along if I have gunplay in mind. I don’t need them.”
Sidney chuckled. “I have offended you?”
“Yes, you have. I came down here to buy horses, which is why I brought one of my ranch hands to help me herd them back home. Someone up in Brownsville suggested I look up the Heavenly House of Women while I’m down here, so I thought I’d take them up on their suggestion.” Jake drew deeply on his cigarette and drank more wine. He could hear Lloyd scolding him for drinking, which was dangerous for him in his state of mind. He had no choice. Too much alcohol could turn him into the monster his father had been, but he had to convince Sidney Wayland he was for real. “The man I spoke with told me you specialize in young white girls from America…virgins. Hell, it’s been a long, long time since I screwed a virgin, and I figure if you have one here, she’s probably already a little wild.”
He scanned the four beauties parading in front of him. “You are all beautiful,” he told them. “Gracias.” He turned back to Sidney. “These girls are some of the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and my friend Cole here can have his pick. He just wants to poke something. Me—if I’m going to come to a place like this, I’m going to take a look at the top of the line, so to speak. And at my age, a virgin would be damn exciting, and I have plenty of money with me.”
Cole signaled one of the four women to come and sit on his lap. “This is all I need right here,” he told Sidney. “How much?”
“Two hundred dollars American.”
“Two hundred!” Cole squinted in thought. “That’s a lot of pesos.”
“And she is worth it,” Sidney told him. “She will do things you have never even thought of doing, my friend. We offer only the best to wealthy American men. That is why we are so successful.” He waved his hand. “Look at this hacienda! It’s big and beautiful and clean. How do you think I got all of this? And I have my pick of all these women whenever I need one. I never sleep alone, my friend, and usually with a different woman every night. I love it here in Mexico. A few U.S. dollars go a long way here.” He smiled at Cole, who looked at Jake questioningly when Jake sipped on another glass of wine.
Jake knew what Cole was thinking—the same thing Lloyd would be. Cole could drink any other man right to the ground, but he knew Jake Harkner and alcohol didn’t mix well, and Jake was in a bad enough mood as it was. Jake raised his glass to Cole and grinned. “I know you’re itching to have at it, my friend, so you go ahead and take that pretty young thing to her room. I’ll pay the man, but it’s coming out of your pay when we get home.”
“As long as you’re willin’,” Cole answered. The Mexican whore screamed as Cole picked her up in his arms and made off with her. He glanced back at Jake. “What time do you want to leave out in the morning for them horses?”
“Early. Sunrise.”
“You’d best lay off the wine then, Jake,” Cole told him with a warning look. He set the girl on her feet and headed down a long hallway, past the courtyard, with his arm around her.
Jake turned to Sidney. “I’m holding out for a virgin, which is why I can’t drink any more wine. The Harkner blood doesn’t mix well with alcohol—makes us mean. Besides, I want to remember and feel and enjoy every minute tonight, and sometimes alcohol can make a man—you know—not quite up to par. Plus, I have a long ride ahead of me in the morning.” He took a last drag on his cigarette then put it out in a stone ashtray on a table beside the big wicker chair. “From the stories I hear, you always have one or two virgins that you save for special sales.”
Just then, a very handsome Mexican man joined them. He wore a sleek, blue-silk suit, his smile bright, his black hair slicked back. “Señor Jimenez told me we have new customers of a higher class,” he told Sidney. He flashed a bright smile at Jake. “I am Señor Wayland’s right-hand man,” he said, putting out his hand.
“Luis, this is the famous Jake Harkner, the gunman from America,” Sidney told him. “He is in Mexico to buy horses, and he heard about this place. He is, uh, interested in a virgin.”
Jake took Luis’s hand and longed to squeeze it until he broke every bone. So, this was the very man who’d stolen Annie away. He was every bit the handsome, charming man Gretta had described. He could see how easy it might be for the man to lure a young girl into a fate worse than death. “I prefer blonds,” he told Luis.