The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

was anyone else asking me to drive that baby-blue turd, I’d not only say no, I’d start a fistfight over it.”

“Thanks, Yergha,” she said as she lightly slapped his chest. “You really are the best.”

Chapter Eighteen

CAMDEN FOX

When Camden finished meeting with the team at his hotel room, he looked at Tyler and said, “What do you make of that?”

“Guys like this act like that,” Tyler said, reassuring him. “It’s going to be okay.”

A huge wave of emotion crashed over him at that point. His strange behavior, his odd detachment, and his concern about doing things by the book—how was he supposed to act in the middle of all of this? Sitting on the edge of the bed, Camden lowered his head into his hands and started to cry.

Tyler went silent, paced the room for a moment then said, “I’m sorry that I failed you, Congressman.”

Camden’s body shook and shuddered and all he could do at that moment was wave a hand in acknowledgment.

“I’m going to head to the hospital if that’s all right with you.”

Camden then looked up and said, “You’ll still be paid. I’m sorry about your ribs.”

He knew guys like this. Looking at him, Camden could tell that Tyler didn’t know how to respond. Military guys of his caliber had the emotions beat out of them early on and no matter how much shit they stepped in on the battlefield, most soldiers never got those emotions back. That was why they got uncomfortable whenever anyone else so freely surrendered to their feelings. And this was precisely why Camden bared his emotions the way he did. He wanted Tyler to leave the hotel room, which he did. The second Tyler left, the very instant the door latched shut, Camden stood and went to the minibar, pulled out a few mini bottles of Vodka, then opened them up and downed them.

His phone beeped again. He looked at the call log and saw several missed calls from numbers he didn’t recognize and a few from those numbers he did recognize. They were the phone numbers of reporters. There was also a call from El Paso’s West Texas Anti-Gang Center. He called the number the agent had left in a voicemail and waited for the line to ring through.

“West Texas Anti-Gang Task Force, Agent Otis Fykes here.”

“This is Camden Fox returning your call,” he said.

“Mr. Fox, I’m so sorry to hear about your family,” Agent Fykes said. “I am calling to find out if you’ve had a chance to speak with any other law enforcement.”

“I haven’t been taking calls,” Camden said.

“With all due respect, that’s not smart,” he said. “While this sort of thing is unusual for El Paso, there is an uptick in organized crime here.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

“Because the border is now wide open, Congressman Fox. You know this because you cover this. These people can just walk into our country now and do what they want, and unless we want to get railroaded by the woke mob, we pretty much have to let them do whatever the fuck they want.”

“If I could only say that on TV,” Camden said.

“Right?”

“To answer your question, I have been in touch with a hostage rescue team, but if I need any assistance from you, can I call this number?”

“Of course,” he said. “By the way, what HR team are you using?”

“They’re a private team put together specifically for these kinds of incidents. You know the local PD and yourself as well…there is already too much going on, you’re underfunded, understaffed, and that’s when people burn out and things slip under the rug.”

“We’re pretty well staffed here,” he said. “I don’t mind helping out, even if it’s as a local liaison.”

“We believe that my family has been taken across the border,” Camden said.

“Oh, yeah,” Fykes said, sounding sincere. “Wow. Something like that…that’s an international issue. Way over my pay grade. But listen, if things come back to bite you here in El Paso or anywhere north of the border, you let me know so that I can maybe put some feelers out here. We’re pretty established when it comes to gang connections, CIs, and any number of other resources in our ever-improving database. We have one of the most intricate—”

“I appreciate your tenacity in this matter, Agent Fykes, and I will certainly have someone from the team reach out if we need either the FBI or the DEA.”

“Well, you have my number, and Congressman?”

“Yes?”

“I sincerely hope you find your family.”

“Thank you again, Agent Fykes.”

“My pleasure.” Camden hung up the phone and said, “Speaking of my pleasure…”

Turning on his laptop, he logged onto the WiFi connection, opened his private account at PornHub, and started scrolling through videos.

“Lesbian massage, nope. Interracial sex was tempting, but nope. Inked, pierced, big tit porn star, nope, nope, and nope. Rock climbing outdoor sex adventure…sorry ladies, but it’s too late for exercise. Twenty-year-old babysitter takes it rough for extra cash…bingo.”

He hit play then sat back as an attractive young woman with tattoos, acne scars, and eyes way too old for her age said to an older man with half a hard-on already in his pants, “Are you the one I talked to on the phone?”

“I’m Chuck, so yes.”

“Chuck, I feel like I’m a bit early,” she said, looking him up and down. “Where is the kid?”

“Upstairs with my wife for the next few minutes.”

And this is where the babysitter sees Chuck’s three-quarter erection which then queues the music.

With such a long terrible day behind him, and finally a bit of peace and quiet, Camden slowly undressed, keeping his eyes glued to the screen, especially when the caption, “Four hours later…” came on.

In the video, the camera focused on the babysitter. She was asleep on the couch with her shorts wedged too high