Bear Country - The Cutting Room Floor

Note:  Part of getting Bear Country ready for the Romance contest involved cutting out several subplots.  Among those hitting the cutting floor was the story of Tony Guzman, a man who either is or thinks he is a sort of psychic vampire, feeding off pain, humiliation, and moral decay as he manipulates his victims.  Here is how I introduce Tony:

Evenas he embraced her in a very good, very practiced imitation of tenderness, Tony Guzman’s mind shifted smoothly from the woman to his crumbling business empire.  He pulled away.  “I’d better go.”

     She sighed, tightened her grip on his arm and nodded.  “Yes, you had better go.”

     He kissed her, pulled his arm away, then turned and walked out of her neat apartment, past the picture of her and her husband.  The husband was scheduled to be gone two more days, and now he was on the outside of the Exchange, which meant a week, maybe two.  Plenty of time.

     Tony grinned.  Nearly a decade of experience told him to let her sleep on the physical attraction, let it grow.  That experience also told him that the woman would contact him soon, probably telling herself that she was trying to break this off before it was too late.  Then she’d ask to meet someplace public, but they would end up at Tony’s house, and that would be pretty much that.

     Tony ducked as he left the apartment.  That was reflex.  His head would have cleared by a good four inches.  As he left the building, his mind shifted smoothly back from the woman to his business.  He shook his head.  If something didn’t happen soon, the vultures would overcome their fear and start picking his bones.

     He thought about the implications of the Exchange—more hassles trying to get around or through the police and military checkpoints.  Then of course he would have to avoid getting drafted into some work detail.  A week or two away from his business interests would leave them even more hopelessly messed up-might even cause the whole house of cards to collapse.

On the other hand, Tony could see the positives—playing the Exchange-impacted business aspect could be lucrative in terms of government handouts.  A little smuggling might not be impossible to pull off.  The black market for Bear Country ivory might be worth looking into, and maybe furs or bear organs for Asian traditional medicine.  He left his car at the woman’s apartment and easily evaded the military checkpoints to get back to his house.  He checked his answering machine when he got in.  The second message made him laugh with a mixture of relief and appreciation of a good irony.  “How convenient.  Get a little money in advance from my southern friends, spread part of it around, and they’ll get what they think they want.”

He paced and planned, his mind calling up visions of a tropical island eaten bare, with soil eroding into the ocean under the tropical rains, with hordes of malnourished men, women and children fleeing starvation in makeshift rafts.  Tony laughed at the irony of self-proclaimed patriots making their homeland uninhabitable.  That irony gave him a small trickle of the flow.  He picked up a map of Rockport and studied it, trying to figure out how to make the first stage of that plan happen.

Note: Tony did not make the final cut into my novel Bear Country.  Quite a few other strong, interesting characters did.  If you want to find out more about the setting Tony's actions were a part of, visit the first two chapters of Bear Country.  They are online, and chapter two could still use your vote in the First Chapters Romance contest.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2