Chapter Three
Jelly Bean didn’t waste any time. She sought out Ria. When she entered the bedroom she found Frost sitting there with the injured woman.
Ria looked over and when she saw her, she asked, “Who are you?”
Jelly Bean went to stand at the foot of the bed and she studied Ria for a minute then she said, “They call me Jelly Bean. I just saw your brothers in the cell room and Ricco told me his men would come after him soon. I need you to think really hard for a moment and tell me everything you know about the men he’s been hanging around with.
I need to know if he was speaking of Big Mac, his dealer or if he was talking about somebody else. Can you do that?”
Ria went still for a moment then said, “Vaya! That dirty little....”
Frost stared at her and asked, “What do you mean? What did your brothers do?”
Ria shook her head. “It’s not so much Benzo but Ricco.
When they started running the streets after our parents died, Ricco got hooked up with a rowdy group of men.
He used to come home and tell Benzo he was building his own cartel, taking names and trying to set up his own operations.
Of course, he never thought in the long run of things, he usually only looked at the next day, his own dreams of being the jefe one day.
He was all talk and no show because the Maldito imbécil never had a peso he didn’t spend on drugs or booze.
He was high or drunk most days but he did run around with some pretty bad vatos.
They would come and go from our casa all day and night.
They started small and grew until he had a dozen or so men who were dealing that poison the cartel was giving them.
Ricco would pay for the drugs then charge extra money for the pills and pocket most of the money. ”
“So, he does have men?”
Ria slowly shook her head as she went quiet, then she gasped. She stared at Jelly Bean and Frost. “Dios mío! That’s what the call was about.”
“What call?” Frost asked.
Ria turned her head to him and told them both, “The day before we left, Ricco ordered me to pack and get some food lined up. I made the mistake of giving him a look. I told them both I wasn’t going to come with them, that they could do whatever they were going to do without me.
Ricco got pissed. He slapped me and he didn’t know when to stop slapping me.
When Benzo finally told him enough, he just glared at me.
He told me to clean myself up and to pack up as we were on our way to Boston.
Next morning, he dragged me out of bed and threw me into his truck.
I was lying there, wishing they had left me behind and then I overheard him on the phone with one of his friends.
He told him to get the others and follow him to Boston.
He said as soon as he killed Leon, he would set up a business here and he had a friend who would be in on it.
He told his friend that if the cartel couldn’t handle one man that he would step up and do the job, then he would just take over the cartel and they would all be rich.
” She shook her head. “I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about but now it all makes some kind of sense to me. ”
Jelly Bean just stood there and stared at Ria. “So, he does have his own men. And he thinks they will come for him. Are these men loyal at all to him?”
Ria shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve seen men like them before and I know my brother.
He thinks he’s the rooster but these men don’t seem like the most willing to follow someone and I don’t think they could be loyal to a fool like Ricco.
I think they might follow him until they get the layout in their heads then it wouldn’t surprise me to find they aren’t interested in following him anymore.
I think they will just take over for him instead.
” She looked at Jelly Bean. “And I don’t think his blood will bother them a bit if they have to spill it. ”
Jelly Bean nodded at her. “Yeah, nothing he’s done since I first met him proves anything except that he’s all kind of stupid.” She looked over at Frost. “But the real asshole we have to find is Big Mac. He took Oscar and we have to find him before Ricco’s guys get here.”
Ria just lay there looking at Ria as if she made up her mind, she nodded.
She looked at Frost then back to Jelly Bean.
Then she swallowed hard and opened her mouth to say something but no words came out.
She tried again and this time she told them, “I think you need to look at the boats in the harbor.”
“Why the boats?” Frost asked her.
“Because Big Mac doesn’t live here in the city,” Ria told them. “If you listen to his voice he has an accent that doesn’t belong in Boston. He lives close but it’s not a Boston accent.”
Jelly Bean frowned. “How do you know that?”
Ria shrugged. “I just listen quietly. Always have, probably always will. Where I’m from there are many dialects.
Not just Spanish. You would be surprised by what people say when you listen to them.
Sometimes you hear more than you want to.
” She paused and lowered her head. Tears ran down her face and she went on.
“After our father died, Ricco took over as head of our house. He began ordering our mother around like he had the right. My madre wasn’t a strong woman and she crumbled under his words.
Then when Ricco demanded he take over the money part of the family, my mom denied him control of what she and my dad had worked for all their lives.
She knew he couldn’t control the spending and she didn’t want him to spend everything they had put away.
Ricco was pissed about that but for once my mom held her ground.
” She shook her head. “A few weeks later mom had her accident.”
Frost cocked his head and stared at her for a long moment. “What are you trying so hard not to say?”
Ria raised her head and stared at him, then she said, “I don’t think her accident was really an accident at all. I think Ricco might have run her over himself.”
Jelly Bean got a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach as she stared at Ria. “You think he killed your mother?”
Ria looked up at her as she swiped her tears away.
“He wanted the money and she stood in his way. A week or so after she died, I overheard Ricco and Benzo talking in the living room. Ricco was almost happy for once. He was bragging that now he had the power, the money and if he played his cards right soon he would have the glory the Gonda’s promised him.
Then he told Benzo that they couldn’t claim the power there in California but they would follow the cartel to Boston and find his place there.
He would take his place in a new city and become an entrepreneur, build himself up to a businessman in a new world.
And since we’ve been here, I’ve been listening to people.
The first time I heard Big Mac talk I knew he didn’t live here.
His accent was slightly different. I don’t know where he lives but it isn’t here.
” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Oh, and every time he came around Ricco he always smelled like fish and salt water. My dad would always travel to the fish markets and they were always by the water too...the Pacific. That’s a scent that once you smell it you never forget it.
And that’s the smell he always had when he came around. ”
Jelly Bean took another step back as she thought about all of this.
Ria had been right... The smell of salt water was one you couldn’t forget.
And in some ways it all began to make sense.
No one had ever seen him go to a house here.
Many had tried and they could never find where he lived.
Maybe she was right, he lived on a boat.
Jelly Bean looked at Ria and smiled. “Thank you for telling us. I think I know where to find that asshole now.”