TWENTY-THREE - Alexei
TWENTY-THREE
Alexei
I ve brought Miguel Cruz down to the basement of his one-bedroom tenement on the outskirts of San Jose. Oddly enough, the place is already soundproof with plenty of cement blocks set against the walls. Blood sprays show on many of the blocks as well as on the dirt floor.
You re not going to get away with this. He spits blood out of his mouth.
I actually am. I sound as bored as I feel. He s tied to a chair, and I ve cut ribbons of his skin, but I have to admit, he hasn t broken as quickly as I would ve thought. I stab him again, casually in the shoulder, and his jaw clenches.
He has to be around thirty with several tattoos across his face and neck.
Some of it s pretty decent ink. Some of it looks like he did it himself.
I ve cut off part of his right ear, and so I stick to the left side so he can hear me.
I could keep playing all night, I say casually, twirling the knife in my hand.
The blade has always been my favorite device, and apparently I haven t lost any of my skill with it.
I ve removed his shirt, and his jeans are in tatters. His knees are bloody.
What do you want, man? he asks. It s been a couple of hours, and that s the first question he has asked. Good. We re getting somewhere finally.
I want to know why Reyes wants you dead. I cross in front of his vision.
His gaze remains on the bloody knife. I don t believe you. Urbano Reyes does not want me dead.
I crouch so I m meeting his eyes. One s filled with blood. I have a kill list, Miguel. You re the second name on it. You will tell me. You might as well make it quick. I have no sympathy for him because I know his type. I m certain plenty of the blood on the walls was spilled by him.
He swallows. I don t believe you. His eyes widen and more blood drips out of the right one. Did you kill Paco?
I smile, and he shrinks back. Yeah, I did. His mouth gapes open, and he s missing several teeth. I ve only taken out two so far. I don t know how he lost the others.
He shakes his head wildly, and blood sprays. Why would you kill Paco?
He was number one on the list.
Miguel s chest sinks and his shoulders slump. There we go. We re almost there. His breath wheezes out. How did he find out?
He s Urbano Reyes, I say. He s the head of your organization.
He didn t tell you why? Miguel asks.
Just as he draws up his chin to be defiant, I stab him in the thigh again. He cries out. Nope, but you re going to tell me everything. I look around at the cinder blocks. You did a good job soundproofing this basement.
Thanks. He coughs up more blood. I rip the knife out. The sound he makes is indescribable. I ve been stabbed before. I know how it feels. He swallows rapidly. You re going to kill me.
Yep, I say. It s up to you whether I do it in the morning or right now.
He reaches the bargaining part of the dance. How about we come to a different agreement?
I m listening. I have no intention of reaching any other conclusion, but I find that giving somebody hope in their last hours is not a bad thing to do.
I have money. About two hundred thousand dollars. We ll split it.
Considering my funds were released earlier, and I already went shopping, that s a piddly amount. But I smile. Right now, I want information. Why does Reyes want you dead?
He swallows, and more blood gurgles out of his lips. I think I may have punctured one of his lungs because he s wheezing. He must ve found out Paco was making a move to take over Twenty-One Purple, and I m one of his lieutenants.
Yeah, but that s not all. It s expected that somebody will make a move. What else?
Miguel shudders violently. Yep, definitely nicked a lung. I don t know how he found out. There s no way she talked. Miguel s eyes get a faraway look as if he forgets my presence.
I m sure it s the brain s way of protecting itself. Who?
He jerks. Reyes s old lady. Juan, Paco s other lieutenant, made a play for her. She wasn t receptive. He didn t care.
I sit back. What does that have to do with you?
I helped him cover it up. I threatened to kill her if she said anything. He spits out blood. I meant it. She has no protection now that Reyes is gone. She should ve taken Juan s offer.
Doesn t sound like an offer to me, I say. Juan is the third name on my list, so at least now this makes sense. Where does she live?
He rattles off an address that s three blocks away. She ain t going anywhere, man. She lives here. Reyes makes sure she has enough money to live and feed that kid, but she ll never get out of here. Like I said, she should ve taken Juan s offer.
Where is Juan? I ask nicely.
Miguel s eyes look up, cloudy and brown, the bloody one looking darker than the other one. Why?
He s third on my list, I admit.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. If you and I are going to split the money, part of the deal is Juan lives.
Interesting. Loyalty among assholes. Why?
Because he s the man. I ll take you to a party on seventh so you can meet him tonight. Now that Paco s dead, Juan will take over. He s got some great ideas, and he s always been our best bitch trafficker.
Yet another reason I m going to kill Juan. It occurs to me that the man I m killing them for is probably worse than the three of them put together, but right now he s safely in prison, and I don t have to worry about him.
You ve been pretty helpful, Miguel. Thanks. He s bleeding out, and I wonder how much time he has left. He isn t noticing that he s losing blood faster than he can make it. The guy s not the brightest.
He s bald with even more tattoos across his skull. There s actually one of a skull with the word hell spelled with three l s beneath it.
I make sure there isn t too much blood on my jeans. There s a fair amount, damn it. Tell me about Howard Fissure.
Miguel blinks. Fissure? Why? What do you want to know about him? He pales beneath his brown skin. Oh God, Reyes knows about Fissure?
Yep, I say. Who is he?
He s the owner of Nero Tech. It s some startup that has to do with the web. Miguel hangs his head. Is there anything that Reyes doesn t know?
Probably not, I say agreeably, wiping off the knife on a clean spot on his jeans. He works to loosen the ropes behind his back, but I know how to tie a rope.
He gulps. Shit. No wonder Reyes wants us dead.
I m getting a little bored. I hear something, and I lift my head. It s thunder in the distance. Tell me about Howard Fissure.
Fentanyl, Miguel says quickly. He can get great quantities of it through connections he has in China. We arrange to transfer it over the border, and suddenly it s here.
I assume Reyes is more pissed they ve cut him out of a deal than that they re bringing poison into the country. You split the profits?
Seventy-thirty. Miguel s lip curls up in a sneer. I want to change that, but it s the best Paco could do.
I see. Does Howard Fissure have a family?
Miguel screws up his face, appearing as if thinking hurts him. Um, ex-wife, maybe two. I don t know. We don t go to barbecues together, man. It s a business arrangement.
An arrangement you made without Urbano Reyes knowing?
Obviously, Miguel says.
Oh good, he is getting some of his spirit back. Where s the money? I ask.
He looks up. I ain t telling you that until I m free.
Where s the money? I ask again.
I m not telling you. I stab him in the shoulder and tear down. He cries out with the most high-pitched sound he s made. He must have an old shoulder injury. The knife didn t go through as easily as it should have. Scar tissue impedes blades.
Bloody tears flow down his face. Fine, fine. It s upstairs beneath a board in the second bedroom.
That wasn t that hard, was it? I ask him. He doesn t answer and instead tries to sniff a snot bubble up his nose. It occurs to me how much that would annoy Rosalie. Well, she probably wouldn t like the blood either. Now, tell me about Ella Rendale, I suggest.
Miguel blinks. Ella Rendale? From the society pages?
Yeah. Why would Reyes want her dead?
Miguel sits back, his eyebrows rising. One of them is heavily scarred. Dude, I have no idea. We don t have anything to do with the society page. Reyes must have a contract I don t know about.
Most entirely possible. You better not be lying to me. I lift the knife.
I m not. I m not, he says quickly. I promise. I don t know anything about Ella Rendale.
Probably truthful. He did give me the information on Howard Fissure pretty easily. So Juan Gomez? I ask. Why are you two so tight?
He saved my life more than once, Miguel says. I ll split the money upstairs with you, but you have to leave Juan alone. We need someone to lead since Paco s dead, and Reyes ain t getting out of prison anytime soon.
Fair enough. I walk behind him and reach down for the ropes tying his wrists together.
His shoulders relax. In that split second, I lean around him and slice his jugular.
Blood spurts across the room, and he jerks several times, finally going limp in death.
I manage to keep most of the blood off of me, and the cheap gloves I wear will be easy to burn.
I wipe the knife off again on him and then stab it into the ground next to his foot. It was his knife, so he should keep it.
I exit the room silently and carefully walk upstairs, listening for noise.
Nothing. I make it to the second bedroom and tap on the floorboards until I find a loose one.
Making sure my gloves remain in place, I lift the fake wood to find a knapsack that I pull out and open.
The little bastard lied to me. There s at least three hundred grand in the duffel bag.
Slinging it over my shoulder, I walk out the back door and through many sad-looking, forlorn backyards until I reach my motorcycle. I pause and then decide to walk the other block. I have the bike hidden neatly between two old sheds, and starting her up will just create more noise.
So I walk the other block and knock on a door. Nobody answers. The house is one story with falling shutters, and it may have been green at one point. Now the color is more of a dingy gray fronted by a small patch of burned-out grass in the yard. I knock louder.
The porch light flickers on, and the door opens to reveal a girl who can t be any older than seventeen.
She has at least a two-year-old on her hip.
What do you want? She s pretty, though bruised.
She has a black eye and marks on her neck.
Her hair is long and black, and the baby s adorable with her little thumb in her mouth.
I drop the knapsack next to her feet. There s enough here for you to take off and don t look back. She looks at me suspiciously and takes a step back. Paco and Miguel are dead and Juan is next, I say. Reyes is not getting out of prison anytime soon. Take the baby, take the money, and go.
Turning, I leave her on the porch staring at me. It s up to her whether she takes a chance at freedom or not. My gut feeling says that she will. I make my way back to my bike and roll it for almost a mile away from the shitty neighborhood before jumping on and starting the ignition.
I find Jose with a group of his buddies partying at a house about fifteen blocks away on Seventh, exactly where Miguel had said.
I park in the distance and watch, waiting until Juan comes into sight.
I tracked him through Facebook and know exactly what he looks like.
He laughs and jokes with buddies, a gun visible at his hipbone.
I stand in the darkness across from the street in a lonely stand of pine trees in front of an abandoned house.
He kisses a tall blonde and then saunters down the walkway around four in the morning.
The blonde tries to follow him, and when she gets close enough, he turns and punches her in the face.
She falls hard on the unforgiving ground.
I told you, you can t come home with me. Melissa s there. He turns and starts whistling again as he struts down the sidewalk.
I follow on the other side of the street until we reach a more deserted area, and then I let him get ahead of me several yards before I silently cross to his side. The wind has picked up, and a light rain is beginning to fall.
I m on him before he knows it, and I take him out quickly with a knife I snatched from Miguel s kitchen earlier.
I have all the answers I want. I believed Miguel when he said he didn t know about the hit on Ella.
That had come from Reyes specifically, and I bet he has accepted a contract for her life.
Leaving Juan drowning in his own blood, I move silently through the night back to my bike before I take off the gloves, turn them inside out, and tuck them in my pocket. I ll burn these clothes even though it s unlikely the police will do too much forensic testing on these men.
I think idly about dropping by Howard Fissure s house, but I need to know more about him before I make a move. He probably has security.
I left Garik on Rosalie all night, and now that I have enough money to fund my payroll, I ll make sure there s a rotation of two guards on her at all times.
The warning on her vehicle was for me, but I can see someone hurting her just because she s my lawyer.
They have no idea what else she is to me, and I ll keep it that way for now.
So long as she understands who she belongs to.