When You Were Young

"Is that right?" she says. She knees him in the midsection and then bats the gun from his hand. A kick to the back of his leg trips him up. He takes Samantha to the floor with him, still clinging to her hair. She rolls atop him and breaks his grip along with his wrist.

From her pocket she removes a picture of the late Rodriguez family in San Diego. The husband, wife, and two young children stand before their new house like an ad for a real estate agency. "You remember them?" she asks.

"I don't know nothing," he says.

She breaks his nose, blood gushing down into his mouth. "You remember yet?" she says. When he shakes his head, she knocks out a couple of his teeth. "I can do this all day."

He spits blood into her face. She lifts him to his feet and hurls him into the arms of his mistress. Samantha retrieves her pistol and his from the floor, tucking both into her waistband. She doesn't need a gun to kill this son of a bitch.

He lies on the floor, Suarez wiping at his bloody face. "Please, leave us alone," she says. "Diablo!" Samantha drops the picture at Suarez's feet.

"The devil killed those people," Samantha says and points to Gutierrez. She kneels down in front of Gutierrez, her fist cocked. A punch to the windpipe and his evil would be exorcised from the planet forever. He didn't deserve to rot on Death Row for a dozen years or however long it took the legal system to finally deliver justice. She could bring justice to the Rodriguez family right now with one blow.

Her hand trembles with rage. Gutierrez's eyes widen as he waits for the killing strike. His mistress shouts something, but Samantha can't hear her. She focuses on Gutierrez's eyes, the soulless eyes of a killer. He doesn't deserve to live.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Fitzgerald shouts. He waddles across the room, taking hold of Samantha's arm. She could free herself with no effort, but she doesn't. "Go on, get out of here. I'll clean this up."

"Fine. I'm done here anyway," Samantha says. The killer will live, but he won't be free to murder anyone else. That's enough, she thinks.

Later she's holding a glass of whiskey in some little bar near the beach. It's three in the morning and still she can't get the thought of those eyes from her mind. Those eyes that lacked any basic human decency, that cared nothing for life. She motions for the bartender to bring her another drink.

Fitzgerald plops onto the stool next to her. "You have any idea how many bars there are on South Beach?" he says, signaling for the bartender to get him a whiskey.