Thirteen Senses by Víctor Villaseñor Read Free Book Online Page A

bootleggers, and San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Tustin, and Orange he also shared. In Los Angeles, Salvador was completely out of the picture. That huge area of the City of the Angels, with its thick density of population, was an area strictly taken care of by the big boys, the Italians, who were out of Fresno. They were in a whole other league than Salvador.
    This big organization from Fresno—in the San Joaquin Valley in central California—had connections from the East Coast, and the power to bring in the finest liquor makers from Italy. They had the exclusive rights to all of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.
    With these big boys, Salvador wanted no problemas. In fact, he was in their debt, because, after all, it had been one of their finest liquor makers from the old country, Al Cappola, who’d originally taught Salvador how to make “bootleg” liquor when they’d been spending time together in jail in Tulare, just outside of Fresno.
    There in the jail of Tulare, everyone had been fighting each other like cats and dogs, when Salvador had been put into the tank. In no uncertain terms, with a lightning-fast attack, Salvador had demolished the biggest troublemaker, a big bully redneck farmboy, and then he’d had an election taken among all the prisoners, including the Chinaman, electing a judge and three enforcers, and all the bullying and sexual abuses had instantly been brought to a stop.
    That was when the dignified, old Italian had seen Salvador’s worth and so he’d immediately befriended him. And when Salvador learned what it was that the old man did for his livelihood, Salvador had offered to pay him a few dollars per day—a huge sum—if this great magician from Italy would teach him the art of making fine liquor.
    At first old man Al Cappola had stared at Salvador with his huge, lioned face, saying absolutely nada, nada, nothing. But then he’d finally spoken. “If any other man would ask me this, I’d spit in his face, but . . . seeing how you are a man of high intelligence, who immediately brought peace and respect to this tank of fools, then I say, yes, I will teach you,” the old man had added with a power. “But with the understanding that you will never do any business in a territory that belongs to our organization of the amigos Italianos! ”
    Salvador had agreed and after that, he and Al Cappola had become very good friends, paisanos as they say, and so the big organization out of Fresno respected Salvador and he respected them. This was why he, Salvador, couldn’t figure out who were these two guys who were coming down from Los Angeles and trying to move into his territory.
    But who knew? Management changed hands in every organization, and a bootlegger’s territories were as vital to a bootlegger’s survival as hunting territories were to a tribe of hunter-gatherers.
    Sipping his second cup of coffee, a large part of Salvador just felt like hunting down these two guys, killing them both, and that would be that, bringing an end to the whole thing. What really made him mad was that these sneaky bastards had only started moving into his territory once he’d started making plans for his wedding.
    The world of men truly didn’t respect a man in love.
    To marry, that was okay, but to really fall in love with the woman you planned to marry, this was a sure sign—among men—that you’d lost your marbles and joined the world of women and children.
    And then began the jokes, “Hey, mano, has she put the ring in your nose, yet? Who wears the pants, eh? Have you been told to squat when you pee so you don’t mess the hole of the outhouse?”
    The list of these remarks was endless, and none of them were innocent, his mother had explained to him. These remarks were well-thought and were all aimed at you, a newlywed, to make you feel stupid and weak because you were in love.
    â€œAnd so, mi