Chapter 14. Zama

Carlos ignored the message, but he could not stop thinking about it. His colleagues at the bar where he worked used to tell him he was too soft. Whenever he closed his eyes and thought about Zama, he would remember the scene he’d walked into and the way she’d moaned wantonly when Frank groped her, as though Carlos had not been standing in the room in front of them—Carlos, the guy who had given everything to make her happy, who had worked days without end to make sure he got her whatever she asked for.

As upsetting as the memory of that night was, he could not forget the Zama he knew—or thought he knew. He could remember walking with her through the park, the girl who told him of her dreams to one day be famous, the girl who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. When his thoughts began to spiral down memory lane, he would remind himself that this was the girl who let him be beaten with brass knuckles for no other reason than to feed another man’s pride.

His thoughts of Zama w