Luke Locarno - San Juan Incident
Wrestlers
By: Ron Nelson
(© 2013 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Luke Locarno found himself walking in the darkened area around the former Old San Juan waterfront area of abandoned warehouses, seedy aged hotels, dimly lit bars, abandoned and rusted cars, and piles of trash.

The desk clerk at the Santa Rosa Hotel in Isla Verde, where he was staying, told him to be careful and watch his back if he were going down there to the old waterfront district at night. It was inhabited mainly by drug dealers, pimps, male and female prostitutes, and homeless bums and muggers who would beat him to a pulp to steal no more than pocket change to buy another quart of cheap vino rojo.

Luke figured he could probably handle whatever came at him, however.

He’d been a bartender at Kryptos Bar, a gay bar and restaurant in the “Little Miami” section of Philly, not far from the Delaware River waterfront below the upscale Society Hill historic area, for about four years now.

In all that time, he’d met, and thrown out, more than one drunk or troublemaker from Kryptos. Most of the regular patrons knew that while he was a real good natured guy and very tolerant of a lot of odd behaviors, there nevertheless was a line they shouldn’t cross.

And if they did, they’d pretty soon find themselves out in the street, most likely in the gutter, and feeling pretty sore all over the next morning too.

Of course, some of the gay guys didn’t mind that at all. Luke knew that some of the guys he threw out liked his treatment of them, and so they were maybe treated just a little more gently. But for the really bad guys, they got his full treatment.

Luke was just twenty-seven, five-ten and a very hunky 175 pounds. He not only had a great naturally muscular build, but he also worked out regularly at the South Street Gym and Baths, and had won a couple of Mr. South Street Gym body builder competitions.

In addition, he liked to grapple around with other guys at the gym, and got into some Mixed Martial Arts although he wasn’t that fierce a guy, didn’t really like to hurt the other man, nor really get hurt either.

On grappling, while he personally preferred the slower, anything goes, no time limit, no rules, style of give and take wrestling, with no winners or losers, but just the pleasurable and sensual workout of it, he could easily convert over to the rougher style of jiu jitsu and MMA wrestling and pretty much beat an ordinary guy to a pulp if he needed to. 

One of the older men he knew at the South Street Gym and Baths was Jose Gonzales, a stocky middle-aged former Cuban who owned a half dozen bars in Philly, including Kryptos. Their relationship at the South Street Gym was as friends and co-members of the gym, while their relationship at Kryptos was as easy-going boss and employee who each knew and trusted the other. Bartenders came and went, and were good and bad. Luke was good bartender, and Jose a good boss, however. Both knew it, and so their relationship was a good and trusting one.

In the gym, Jose occasionally asked Luke to act as his personal trainer and wrestling partner, for which he paid Luke for his time and attention. Luke was agreeable to working out with Jose and liked getting paid for his effort. He knew a lot of guys, straight and gay, liked to mix it up with him, and knew Jose liked it too.

And, he had to admit, he liked to mix it up with them also. Jose was about fifty and weighed close to 195 pounds, so he was bigger than Luke. But Luke was faster and more agile, so they could grapple back and forth, generally only in their jockstraps, pretty evenly for the workout and the pleasure they got from it.

They both liked the same slow and easy style of grappling, which frequently got to be real sensual, until finally both eventually got big hard-ons and then neither could help but shoot their loads and that would end their session.

A month ago, Jose talked with Luke, who was due for a week’s vacation, about his thought of buying a bar in the waterfront district of Old San Juan. Jose wondered if Luke would be interested in checking it out for him, with Jose paying his expenses for the trip?

‘Oh yeah man, sure,’ thought Luke. ‘It would mean a free vacation for me, and would be reasonable for Jose to want to get some advance footwork done before he would go down to check it out in detail to see if it would be a profitable move.

Luke questioned just a little in his own mind if Jose’s interests were all on the up and up? On one hand, he’d never known for Jose to be into any problems with the police, IRS, drugs or any other kind of criminal activity. On the other hand, as the owner of half a dozen Philly bars, and things being the way they were, maybe Jose had something else in mind in addition to just buying a bar in Old San Juan?

‘Nah, I don’t think so,’ concluded Luke to that thought. ‘In any event, I’m not into any of that, and all he’s doing is asking me to go down to San Juan, have a good time, and check out some of the bars in Old San Juan, including the old waterfront area, to see if anything might look good to buy.’ Luke had a good business sense for what makes a good, and profitable, bar, and his observations would be a help to Jose.

Both Jose and Luke knew that the younger man just wasn’t into the drug, gambling or any other criminal scene. He liked his good body and health just the way they were, and never even considered messing around with drugs. Nor was he interested in the money part as he knew it might be nice for a short while, but then sooner or later it would catch up with him and be a lot more trouble and expense, and maybe doing time, and it just wasn’t worth it. Ditto the numbers and gambling rackets.

Every once in a while somebody would approach him and try to tempt him into something, but he always, good naturedly but clearly, told them he just wasn’t interested.

His trip to Puerto Rico, therefore, as Jose would know, would be above board, and if Jose had anything else in mind, he’d have to take care of that himself. 

*          *          *          * 

Luke had a great afternoon swimming off the beaches around Isla Verde, and some guys, seeing his build, invited him to play some beach volleyball with them. He could see a couple of them were a little more interested in him than just for volleyball, which he didn’t mind as they looked sort of interesting and hunky too.

For this evening, however, his plans were to go down to the waterfront district of Old San Juan and check out some of the bars in that area for Jose to take care of some of his obligations there.

Typical of what he did when he went to strange bars or places, he wore only one of his old, but still tight on his muscular frame, black t-shirts and blue jean cut-offs, particularly as it was going to be a warm night. On his wrist he had just a cheap fifteen dollar watch, and in his pocket only a simple travel wallet which had no more in it than just about twenty dollars, enough for a few beers and carfare back to the hotel, plus his name and hotel address.  

He always told his Kryptos patrons, particularly when they asked him about some of the lower night life in Philly, which advice he followed himself too, “When you’re out at night, don’t be a target. If you don’t stand out, you stand less chance of being bothered, or worse, and if you are, if you don’t have anything of value on you, you won’t really lose anything.” 

The old waterfront district was pretty much what he expected. Dark streets with most of the lights broken or burned out, old warehouses covered with graffiti, and old and younger bums hanging around. Still, there were a few shops and tattoo parlors here and there, and half dozen bars in the area too, which were Luke’s intention to check out.

One in particular looked interesting. The red neon sign on the outside said El Pajaro, or The Bird. It had two blackened windows facing the sidewalk, with three blue neon signs which showed a male nude, a female nude and a sort of stylized gold “infinity” loop.

The Pajaro looked to be a little bigger bar than some of the others, and was located on the first floor of an old and decrepit hotel called the El Toledo. While the street in front of the Toledo was pretty dark, and a dark garbage- strewn alley ran down the side of the hotel and bar, it was only about 100’ down from a much busier and well-lit street.

‘Maybe,’ thought Luke, ’if Jose got this bar, he could have the street lights in front of the place fixed and pull business in from the main street nearby where a number of regular people were walking, and build up the business some more and make a profit in it.’

Luke walked into the Pajaro to see some more for himself. Toward the front and right side were about a dozen old but ornate wood tables and chairs, all of them occupied by one or more men lounging around and drinking. The bar itself looked like maybe at one time, perhaps when it was part of the hotel, it might have been pretty fancy. ‘Maybe,’ thought Luke, ‘like the tables and chairs, it could all be cleaned up and polished and made to look good again under new ownership. The walls had the usual neon bar signs, which could also either be cleaned and retained or thrown away and replaced by something better.’ 

Luke went to the bar and ordered a Corona beer and then looked around to see where he might sit. All but one broken bar stool were occupied, and all of the tables had some men, and a few women, at them too.

However, as he looked over at one of the tables, he saw only one man sitting at it. The man looked like maybe he was in his late twenties or early thirties, but it was hard to tell as his hair was all disheveled and he had a three or four-day stubble beard. He was wearing an old and soiled long-sleeve cotton shirt, and a pair of dirty blue jeans.

Still, he didn’t look totally bad, and didn’t look like he was either totally scrawny from not eating enough, nor fat or even obese from eating too much.

As Luke glanced at him, the man raised his head, looked at Luke, and motioned slowly to him to come over and join him if he liked.

Luke was accustomed to all sorts of men coming into the Kryptos back in Philly, and this guy didn’t look like the worst. Luke went over to him to sit down at his table and join him.

“Thanks, man,” said Luke, “appreciate your letting me join you at the table.”

“Ok, amigo,” was the only and non-committal reply he got, the man’s head hanging half way down to the table.

For a couple of minutes they said nothing, and Luke took a couple of swigs from his Corona. He never drank much anyway, and if he was going to check out some more bars, he didn’t want to drink too much at any one of them.

“I’m Luke,” he said, by way of introducing himself and just to say something to break the silence. You come here often? Luke had in mind, if the guy was reasonably sober, to get an idea of what sort of patrons the bar had.

“Yeah,” was the only reply he got at first. Then, after a pause, the man said, “The Pajaro is an ok place for whatever a guy might have in mind.”

“How do you mean?” asked Luke.

“See them signs in the window? You want maybe play around with a guy or woman? That’s why this place is in an old hotel. And that other sign with the loops? Maybe if you want to get a change in your life, maybe this place could help you with that too,” he said.

Luke figured he meant, for all of the signs, he could get a man or a woman there if that’s what he wanted, and a change in your life might be drugs or gambling. That was how it was referred to once in a while in Philly, and maybe it meant the same thing here.

As Luke looked around the dimly lit bar room, he could see how this might be. Behind the bar were three men, all in bartenders’ apron, but it looked like only one of them was serving the patrons. The other two were just sort of hanging around down at the far end of the bar, going through the motions of a bartender, but not really doing anything.

 Luke, being a bartender himself, could spot such things. He wondered what they might be up to? He saw one or two patrons, one was sort of middle-aged and sort of heavy, like a businessman, go up to one of the two bartenders and say something to him. After he left, another man, a younger man, maybe a seaman from one of the ships in the harbor go to one of those two bartenders, and the bartender pointed him to the back.

Luke’s table was positioned so that he could see down the back hall where the rest rooms and whatever else might be back there, were located. From the outside, the hotel looked as if it extended to the next block back. But it was so dark toward the back of the hallway he couldn’t see anything more of it as it was lit with only one dim light in the ceiling, with the rest lost in the darkness.

A couple of over-dressed women in maybe their mid-thirties who were sitting at one of the tables toward the rear, got up and went over to the bartenders too. They talked a couple of minutes and then returned to their table and went back to their drinks.

Some other men came and went too. None of them seemed to be in any hurry, although Luke could see just about all of them were going to the two rear bartenders, and none of them were coming away with any drinks.

All the rest was just the usual bar activity of patrons coming in, getting drinks, going back for refills, going to the restroom and then coming back to their tables again.

Luke knew, by the occasional glances his way, that he stood out some. He was good looking and muscular, unlike most of the men in the bar. Not but what there were some other pretty strong and tough-looking men in the place too, most likely local working men or waterfront stevedores. He also realized the watch he was wearing, even though it was a cheap one, looked expensive, and he knew the outline of his wallet showed against his tight blue jean cut-offs.

If somebody wanted to target and attack him, it wouldn’t be the most surprising thing that ever happened to him. They could expect a fight from him, but if there were two or three of them, or they were armed with a gun or a knife or were pretty good at using their fists, they most likely could take him anyway.

Luke realized his table partner had never really even told him his name, and he thought he’d try to get the conversation started again. Sometimes a guy drinking alone in a bar didn’t want to talk to anybody, and that was ok. But sometimes he did want to talk, but didn’t know how to get it started. So sometimes it took a question or two to get him to open up, which the guy was then glad to respond to and talk.

As they sat together, despite his dissolute appearance, there was something about the man’s eyes which looked clear and alert. His hands too looked strong and smooth, not beaten and scarred like the hands of most of the bums and drunkards he’d run into.

“What’d you say your name was?” asked Luke, a soft grin on his face.

“Jimmy,” he replied, “but here in San Juan they call me ‘Guillermo,’ or 'Geemo' for short.”

“You work in San Juan?”

“Truck driver. Beer distributor. Too many free samples for myself, I think” said Geemo with a small grin on his face.

Then Geemo said back to Luke, “you look like you got a helluva build, man. You a rassler?”

“Yeah, sorta. I like to wrestle and grapple around, give and take, but I’m not competitive. Took a few martial arts lessons in case I need anything extra with my job as a bartender and occasional bouncer back in Philly, and it went real good. But I’m not really it that sort of thing too much.”

Geemo only grunted and mumbled something like “yeah.”

Luke figured that what Geemo said about being a truck driver was probably true. He looked pretty solid and muscular under his shabby clothing, most likely from carrying heavy cases or kegs of beer in and out of bars, and taking a few “broken” cases for himself along the way too. His clear eyes were probably from watching the road and keeping his inventory straight, but that was about it. Who knew what the rest of his problems were?

“You say maybe you’ve had enough beers, but I could use another one - how ‘bout one for yourself on me?” asked Luke, a grin of sympathy on his face for Geemo.

“Sure, buddy, I never pass up a free beer, even if I’ve got a full case myself,” was Geemo’s soft and grinning but slightly slurred reply in return.

When Luke came back to the table with the two new beers, each man swigged down almost half a bottle more. As they drank, and when they’d been talking earlier, Luke had noticed Geemo taking a quick glance down the dark hallway in the rear of the barroom from time to time. But then each time afterwards his glance always came back to the barroom pretty quickly. Luke wondered if there was something back there that Geemo was checking on or waiting for?

“Hey, Geemo, with all this beer, I gotta take a piss. Know where the rest room is?” asked Luke

“Yeah,” mumbled Geemo, “all the way down the back hall there. It’s sorta dark back there, so watch where you’re going. Last door on the right.”

“I’ll find it - thanks” said Luke as he got up to go to the men’s room.

As he walked into the hall, nobody seemed to notice the two men, one a really big man and the other shorter and stockier, get up from their table closest to the rear hallway and follow him back.

Although Geemo did notice.

Luke had just reached pretty close to the far end, passing a half dozen old and dirty closed doors on his right, mostly closets or supply rooms or whatever, he figured.

As he approached the end of the hall, where the hall way was darkest, the door on the right, just as he was passing it, suddenly opened and a big man, maybe about twenty pounds heavier than Luke himself, stepped out right in front of him threateningly.

Luke instincts were real fast, however, and he moved quickly to either sidestep or punch the man out, sensing what the man might have in mind for him.

Unfortunately, at the same instant he was confronted by the man right in front of him, the big man walking right behind him from the barroom grabbed him in a powerful bear hug from the rear, pinning his arms to his side, stopping him cold.

Then the man in front of him slapped him in the face with one hand and punched him hard in his abs with his other hand while the big man holding him tossed him into the room to his right from which the other man had just come out of.

The whole thing was over in no more than three seconds. There was no sound from any of them as Luke was too startled to call out and the other three, the one in front of him the one behind and holding him, and the smaller man coming behind the big man from the barroom, were all silent. Then suddenly all four were out of sight and the hall was empty.

‘Oh man,’ thought Luke, ‘now what’s this all about?’

Luke knew he’d just been captured by these guys. His instincts and training kept him real cool, however, and he quickly checked his surroundings and the situation. He quickly figured, three-to-one and him not knowing what the score was, he’d best do nothing until he could find out what they intended. ‘Need to be careful on this,’ he thought, while he waited for them to take the next action.

Quickly scoping out the room, he saw they were in what must have once been an old ballroom of the hotel. It was all dark now except for a couple of dim wall lights on one end toward the front. At the other and darker end Luke saw about six mattresses lined up against the wall extending out into the room.

On the mattresses he could see two or three men, either asleep or drunk, but in any event not part of whatever he was involved in.

“Ok, man,” said the shorter and stockier of the two men who had followed him down the hall. “First, don’t try anything or Big Benito here will cut you up faster than a twelve inch pizza. Show him your slice knife, Benito, so he’ll know what’s coming to him if tries anything.”

With that, Benito, the big man who was right behind him and bear hugged him and then thrown him into the room, pulled what looked like a ten inch stiletto out of his belt holder and showed it to him. Luke got the message.

“Just call me ‘Francisco” the shorter and stockier man doing the talking said, “and this man is Manteo” he said of the third man, the one who confronted him in the hall.

“Manteo, how about you taking that watch off our man here, and see if that might not pay the rent for the next couple of months? And then check his wallet and let’s see what he’s got on him. He looks like a real hunky gringo, probably down here to play the horses and maybe play with the girls, or maybe play with the boys considering what a hunk he is. Benito, one false move from our hunk here, and we eat some pizza tonight!”

Luke knew it was three against one, men as big or bigger than he, and a knife in one of their hands too. The best thing would be just to take it easy, cooperate, and see where it was headed. He did know, however, they’d be pretty angry in just another minute or two when they found his watch was no more than a cheap fifteen dollar watch from an outlet store, and his wallet held nothing more than a broken twenty.

“Oh man,” said Benito, checking his watch and wallet, “I can’t believe this! This guy has nothing on him but a lousy ten dollar watch and less that even a twenty.

“C’mere, you motherfucker,” said Francisco to Luke, “what the fuck you don’t have anything on you? No watch, no jewelry no rings, no money, no nothing?

“Benito, you keep holding him tight while I strip him down to see if he’s got something hidden away in those nice tight camo’s he’s wearing, or maybe in his shoes. Guys like this’ll try to hide stuff like that just in case they meet somebody to play with and they don’t want to get ripped off.

“Lucky for him we’re not like that” he said with a grin on his face.

It took a couple of minutes to strip Luke down to his tight black jock strap, revealing his hunky body, to check out his clothes.

“My, my,” said Francisco, “we’ve got quite a tio bueno here, don’t we?”

“How come you’re such a hunk, man, you got something going?” asked Francisco, who seemed to be the leader of the three, with Benito and Manteo watching carefully but saying nothing.

“Oh yeah,” said Luke, trying to be casual, “I work out beating up guys like you, and then eating all your own meat on your pizzas!” Luke knew if and as long as he could keep them talking, the longer he’d stay alive and then maybe could he could figure out what to do next. He knew he could probably take on any one or two of them, but three would be calling it pretty close, particularly with at least one of them holding a the knife as well.

“Hey Manteo, you’re always working out on the speed bag. Mr. Hunk here looks like he can take it, so if you want to give him a few shots for not having anything on him, at least so far, that’s ok with me. Benito, hold el Senor Tio Bueno here real tight.

In fact, if you want to give him a few bear hugs like you do those wrestlers out on the semi-pro circuit, that would be ok too. Maybe if we warm him up a little, he’ll tell us where he’s got some more money or jewelry hidden away.”

Luke knew he’d probably be in for a beating now. He knew he could take a good deal of punishment from his grappling and MMA workouts as well as the occasional drunk who wanted to fight back when Luke was acting as a bouncer at Kryptos. But who knew how much of a beating these guys had in mind?

Manteo took off his shirt so he wouldn’t get it sweated up. ‘Nice pecs and abs,’ thought Luke, ‘and good arms too. I’ll just have to see what he can do, I guess'.

He didn’t have to wait long. Manteo didn’t slug him too hard a first. A left jab to his big, muscled and now naked right pec, and a right jab to his left pec; then a couple of jabs to his abs, and then back to his pecs. Luke, stripped of all of his clothes except his tight jock strap, was fully exposed to whatever punishment they had in mind for him.

‘Actually,’ thought Luke, ’this isn’t too bad, at least so far. In fact, it’s getting me nicely warmed up, and that’s always good in case I need to move suddenly.’ With the stimulation he got from Manteo punching his pecs, he began to feel himself getting sexually aroused and his big cock and balls begin to thicken, just like they always did when he was grappling with another guy and they were working on each other’s pecs, with then both of them getting sexually aroused pretty quickly.

Manteo looked like he was going to give Luke another double shot on his pecs. But then he suddenly changed direction, and instead reached his open hand out to grab Luke’s crotch, now bulging out from his tight black bikini and making a pretty big and inviting target for Manteo.

Manteo grabbed the full load of Luke’s big junk in his fist and began to squeeze it - not hard at first. But then he began to squeeze it harder and harder. Fortunately, Luke already had a big hard-on, and he was used to getting his equipment worked over and punished what with a lot of cockfighting always being part grappling around with other guys, so he was sort of used to it and knew he could take it, or at least so far.

“Hey Francisco, look what we got here. Look at this big load Hunk Man has, what do you think about that? I think we could start a baseball game with all this for the equipment, or at least eat it after the game like a melon and have it with the pizza he’s going to give us.”

Now Luke began to get a little more worried. He didn’t yet really know what Francisco, Benito and Manteo had in mind for him. They seemed reasonably ok so far, but most likely, by the way it was going, they were just setting him up for a lot worse treatment very soon. After all, they’d taken him forcefully to at least rob him, if not worse, they had him in their control, three to one, and now he was stripped naked except for his thin and bulging jock strap as well.

His fears were soon realized.

“Ok, Mr. Hunk Man, we’ve been gentle with you so far,” said Francisco. “Now we want to know where you’re staying and where your money and valuables are? We know you didn’t come down here to San Juan with only that cheap watch and twenty dollars in your pocket, and we want the rest right now.

“Benito here is a big boy and needs to be fed, and that takes money. And me and Manteo aren’t here just for laughs either.

“Manteo, take Benito’s knife there and see if you can persuade Mr. Hunk Man here what we mean.”

Luke knew he was now in big trouble if they decided to cut him up. The two or three men sleeping on the mattresses, even if they were awake and weren’t drunk, weren’t about to come to help him. The room was dark and the solid walls of the old hotel were too thick for any sound to escape if he tried to call for help. And with Benito holding him in an almost deadly bear hug, Francisco standing aside and calling the shots so Luke couldn’t get at him, and Manteo expertly handling the knife, it didn’t look good.

Then it got worse as Manteo slowly pressed the sharp tip end of the knife into his muscled pec and drew the first drop of blood. 

Then all hell broke loose! First the door to the hall burst open with a crash. Then the room was flooded with a brilliant light. After that, before the door even hit the floor, a tall and powerful man, a captain in a San Juan PD uniform, burst through the door with Geemo right behind him.

In less than the blink of an eye Geemo lunged for Benito, knocking Luke completely out of the way and out of Benito’s tight bear hug on him, grabbed Benito in a powerful judo flip and drop-kicked flat on the floor, face down. In the next instant, two of the ten or twelve uniformed officers of the SJPD who had followed the captain and Geemo into the room, jumped on top of Benito and quickly handcuffed him with his wrists behind his back.

At the same time, the other officers seized and cuffed Francisco and Manteo before they could even begin to react.

It was all over before Luke even knew what happened.

Was this Geemo, who had just whipped and slammed the big Benito to the floor, the same slovenly dressed and lethargic Geemo who Luke had been sitting with and talking to in the barroom just a few minutes before?

 If so, he sure was totally different now. He had obviously thrown off his shabby clothing and was now wearing the official SJPD summer action uniform of a tight dark blue t-shirt with the white SJPD logo over his powerfully muscled pecs, and was wearing the tight dark blue shorts of the SJPD which barely enclosed his powerfully thick and muscled legs and thighs.

Coming in right behind Geemo and the Captain were the ten or twelve other SJPD policemen, all dressed just like Geemo, who had burst in either barehanded, with their powerfully muscled biceps rippling with strength, or holding pistols in their hands ready to fire if need be.

Luke reviewed in his mind that with one leap as he entered the room, Geemo had lunged for Benito like a leopard leaping on another animal of prey, knocked Luke off to the side and slammed Benito to the floor, with the two other officers coming in close behind him to handcuff Benito behind his back.

A couple of other officers got Manteo the same way and handcuffed him as well, while the Captain himself had secured Francisco, now badly shaken and speechless, and had him pinned down on the floor by his throat as well.

Luke could do nothing but stand there, his own powerful body naked and wearing only his tight and bulging jockstrap with the thought of all the action taking place and awed by the show. He knew he was strong, fast and good, but it was nothing compared to these guys. 

As soon as the three were captured and ‘cuffed, two other officers took out their voice notebooks while two police photographers took a methodical set of pictures of the scene, and the whole atmosphere became perceptibly more relaxed, Luke along with it.

“Hey, man,” said Luke to Geemo, who was now leisurely checking on his fellow officers, and with Luke seeing the lieutenant’s bars on Geemo’s tight uniform t-shirt and shorts, “I’m sorta glad, you know, that you guys came in just when you did. A couple more minutes and I might have been in need of a serious blood transfusion.”

“No problema, man. Pedro,” he called to one of the officers, who had a small red cross on his shirt, “come over here and take care of our Mr. Hunk Man here. Looks like he got a slight cut which cost him a couple of drops of blood and needs to be washed out and a bandage to cover it.

“Yeah, I know what you mean, Luke,” he continued, turning his attention back to Luke, “as soon as you went down the back hall, I saw and knew what happened and called for an immediate backup.

“The other officers were about three blocks away, staked out on another job, but they got here as quick as they could. It took about three minutes until they arrived and we could set up our action plan.”

“Well how come you were out there in the barroom looking like a bum, and now you’re here, and I can see you’re an officer on the SJPD?” asked Luke.

“Oh yeah,” replied Geemo, “we’ve had some troubles in this district with drug dealers and muggers for a few months now, and had staked out a few of the bars and seedy hotels to see if we could catch them.

“Sorry we had to use you as bait, but when I saw you, I knew maybe you were the guy to bring them out. Sorry we sort of had to leave you to set it up that way, Luke, but you were great. As soon as I saw you come into the bar looking like a real tipo bueno, I thought maybe this would be our night.

‘For the past four months every few days we’d find some guy, and even a couple of women, unconscious out in one of the back alleys. Sometimes they were beaten up only slightly, but sometimes they were in pretty bad shape. None of them were marked around the face, but they were beaten elsewhere on their bodies, with occasional cuts in and around their pecs or breasts. When we found them none of them ever had any watches, jewelry, wallets, money or ID’s on them either.

“When we brought them around, they all testified that they’d been to one or another of the old bars or hotels around here, had gone in for a couple of drinks, and maybe more. We never asked them about the “maybe more” part as that wasn’t our business.

“Anyway, we got it narrowed down to where there were probably three or four bad guys in a kind of gang. They’d jump some unsuspecting person who looked like they might have some money on them. Lots of times people come down here because they’re trying to buy some drugs in the area, and then they’d get stripped of everything they had on them. Then the gang would dump their victims in the alley and disappear, with the victims not recovering until the next morning or until one of our routine night patrols found them earlier.

“So when I saw you come into the Pajaro, I figured you might be a pretty good target for them, so you were sort of the bait. And then you saying you were into grappling and knowing some martial arts too, I figured, or at least sure hoped, that if worst came to worst, you could hold on to the situation by yourself until we could come in to your rescue and apprehend these guys.

“Sorry to use you like that,” said Geemo, with a grin on his face, “but you were real great, just like I hoped!”

“Oh man,” you sure fooled me out there in the barroom with your "bum" act, but it sure was a good plan, and now that it’s over, I’m thinking it was real cool too!," was Luke’s grinning reply

“If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient, Luke, I’d like to ask you to stand by for a while so that we can take your testimony for the official record. These things take a little time to take care of the paperwork, but that’s the way it goes these days” said Geemo.

“No problema, man, if you’ll buy me a beer to keep me wet while I’m waiting,” was Luke’s reply.

“You got it, Luke” said Geemo as he motioned to the working bartender, who had come back to the room of the action to see what it was all about. In another minute Luke had a fresh new Corona in his hand and a couple of bags of bbq chips as well.

At one point Geemo came over to Luke just to let him know of the progress they were making, and to check on his cut, which Luke had by now all but forgotten.

“These guys are real jerks, “said Geemo, with a grin on his face. “That cut they gave you, drawing blood, makes their action a major felony and it will entitle each of them to a mandatory extra five years in the slammer on top of whatever else they get. Pretty expensive for them, I’d say.”

Collecting the evidence and testimony took until close to midnight, by which time the bus service back to Isla Verde and the Santa Rosa Hotel had ended for the day.

“Hey man,” said Luke to Geemo, knowing how late it was and that there was no more bus service that night, “Any chance of your giving me a ride back to my hotel in Isla Verde?”

“Sure, Luke, in fact can I offer you one better? How about if I take you home with me? I’m about ready for something to eat as these things always make me hungry. And then too, it takes a while for the adrenalin after all the action to get back to normal too.

“You’re in real good shape, and I know you like to grapple around, which I do too. So how ‘bout, after we have something to eat, we hit the mats for a while at my place, and then maybe that’ll give us something more to eat?

“Yeah, that sure sounds real good to me” said Luke, looking at the hunky Geemo again, “Yeah, in fact real good, for sure!”

The End.

Posted: 04/26/13