“May we get serious, you sure you want to go in there? This place is dangerous. You seem so nice.” Beatrice chuckled and winked at Rocky.

Rocky said nothing and walked though the open door. Empty tables and overturned chairs declared a party or a fight. A pool of blood surrounded an overturned chair. Against the wall there was a single faucet with a red handgrip. There were no bottles on rack, bartender, or waiter. It didn’t matter, because Rocky wasn’t thirsty.

A grinding and the gritty sound made the building shake.

A portly man with a thin mustache in white filthy clothes a butcher would wear cam out. He wore a greasy leather apron. “Hola, Beatrice how’s your virtue?”

“Very funny, Lalo! ” Beatrice sounded flat and angry.

“Have you seen Arango Mota?” Rocky asked.

“Who’s this?” asked Lalo.

“This is Rocky, he works with Roberto Cruz.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Follow me I’ll show you what I’m doing now.”

Rocky and Bernice followed Lalo and the grinding sound became more intense.

“You haven’t answered my question,” growled Rocky.

“No I haven’t,” Lalo chuckled.

The room was filled with people who pushed at beams that radiated from a central stone that turned on a stone beneath it. Male and female people pushed at the timbers that made the stone rotate. Others gathered bones and dropped them into a saucer shaped hallow that dropped to the central stones. Clattering down to the central stones bones were ground into pale dusty compound that dropped down between the revolving stones.

“I’m making bone syrup, it’s quite addictive and will give you a great inner bloom.”

Beatrice rolled her nose. Rocky said nothing. The workers were automatons appearing to be numbed, like walking somnolents.

“Where do you find the bones?” Rocky asked.

“Graveyards we dig them up,” Lalo smiled. “And we have other sources.”

“So where’s Arongo Mota?”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to make me tell you.”

“Lalo, be careful,” Beatrice spoke in a quivering voice. “This man is seriously dangerous.”

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