by Glenn Trust
Luis’s mouth clamped shut. He had given it his all, and the spark of hope still glowed. The next few seconds would determine whether it sprang up into full flame or sputtered and died as the blood drained from his slit throat.
After several seconds, Garza asked, “The number of the person who contacted you about the fake IDs, is it in your phone?”
“Yes, in the list of calls. I don’t keep an address book or anything.” The hope in his eyes flickered a little brighter.
“Show me.” Garza held the phone in front of Luis’ face and scrolled through the call history.
“There, that one,” Luis said as the numbers went by.
Garza pointed. “This one?”
“Yes.”
Garza turned to Roman. “Keep him secure here, but release his hands and feet. Let him have food and clean up. We will need him for a while yet.”
Roman nodded without speaking.
Garza turned to Luis. “This changes nothing. You betrayed us by working with the police. For that, there is only one punishment, but for now, you will live a bit longer.”
Garza turned and left the room. Roman pulled out a knife and cut the tape binding Luis’ hands and feet.
The room swirled around Luis like a kaleidoscope. He almost toppled from the chair when the tape fell to the floor. Less than five minutes ago his life was about to end in this room.
Now he had a reprieve. The extra moments of life dangled in front of him on a thread of hope. The moments might be uncertain, and they could end at any time, but he clung to the thread the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver.
Still Here
In Winslow, he pulled off the interstate to check a map and consider his next move. Albuquerque was four hours and two hundred fifty miles behind him. The goodbye with Maggie and Edgar haunted him. His time there and sudden departure gnawed at him. Things felt incomplete, unfinished.
You did what you could, he reminded himself. The mission, focus on the mission. You can’t fix everyone’s problems. Move on.
He sighed. Alright then, focus. Ahead lay the metropolises of the western deserts and Pacific coast. Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Reno, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. Sole studied the road atlas and outlined a zigzag course in his mind.
A quick stop for gas and a convenience store sandwich in a plastic box, and he was on the road again. It was time to resume the game of cat and mouse with Los Salvajes, time to remind them that he was still there, waiting for the inevitable.
He muttered to himself as he drove, a habit that he engaged more frequently when solitude closed in around him.
“I’m still out here, boys. Catch me if you can.”
***
There was new purpose in her life. In a month, she would be married. The word sounded almost strange to her, a foreign custom she embraced to comply with the expectations of her new life. Despite raising a son, she had never been married, never thought she would be.
Her reflection in the mirror stared back, the same person she had always been, but changed too. John had done that, changed her, and changed her life. Despite the turmoil and fear accompanying their departure from Texas, she knew in her heart that she would still be there if not for John. Worse, she might have lost her son and Jacinta.
It was the great contradiction in her life. Without John, she would not have escaped the prison of her life in Texas, but because of him she met Sam. She had a new life, and the new person in the mirror could move on.
“Thank you, John,” she whispered and continued brushing her hair. “We’re still here, thanks to you.”
***
He sat on the cabin porch, smoking a cigar with his coffee. The sun was still far below the surrounding hills. Gray early morning light filtered through the trees.
Alejandro Garza considered the situation. Bebé Elizondo expected him to return soon. In one regard, Elizondo was correct. The hunt for Sole could not continue indefinitely. There must be an end. They had other pressing business.
So where was John Sole? The question preoccupied Garza night and day. Had he dropped off the face of the earth?
There had been no reports of his movements for several weeks. The cartel’s vast distribution networks had not had any contact with him. No bodies of local dealers had turned up in alleys with bullets in their heads. No one had called frantically to report he had been spotted.
He had vanished. No, that wasn’t true, Garza decided. If he remained unseen, it was because he preferred it that way. The question was why. What had changed?
Garza had come to realize that Sole was leading them on a chase. The rat, Luis Acero, had made it clear that there were others about whom Sole cared, and so he forced the cartel to pursue him and ignore those others.
He tossed the coffee from the cup across the yard and stood up. It was time to remind Sole that the cartel was still here.
Death Row
“Make the call.”
Alejandro Garza handed the phone to Luis.
“Right,” Luis nodded and took the phone from Garza’s hand.
“I’ll be listening. You leave the message … you want to speak to him. Nothing more. No signals of any kind. Do this as I have instructed and your life will continue for a while. If you say anything other than what I have said, you will die in the next minute.”
Luis nodded.
“Say it.”
“I understand. Leave the message. That’s all … nothing else.” He looked up at Garza, pleading. “I want to live. Don’t you know that? I’m not gonna say anything else. I do this right, and you’ll see you can use me, I can help you. … just give me another chance to make things up.”
“Make the call,” Garza replied without emotion or promise.
“Okay.” Luis looked down at the phone and punched the number for the voice mail service they used to communicate.
Thirty seconds passed while the call connected and the recorded female voice advised him he had reached the voice mailbox of Bill Myers. It took another fifteen seconds to go through the menu options—press the one numeral to leave a voice mail, two to enter a PIN and hear messages, three to change the greeting and manage other services. Sole had warned him never to enter three.
Luis pressed the one numeral on his phone, waited a second, and spoke.
“We gotta talk. It’s important. I’ll check messages every day until you get this.”
Luis disconnected the call and handed the phone to Garza.
“Good,” Garza said.
“That’s all?” Luis asked.
“For now.” Garza pocketed the phone. “When will he call?”
“Like I said. I call back and check messages every day. When he gets this one, he’ll leave a message and set up a time for us to talk, a number to call, that kind of thing. He’s pretty careful about how he does it.”
“I’m sure he is. How long?”
“How long before he gets the message?” Luis shrugged and answered truthfully. “No telling. Sometimes it’s quick, just a day, or two. Other times it takes a while because he’s … busy.”
Luis saw Garza’s eyes narrow at that and repressed a smirk. No doubt when Sole was busy he was fucking with the cartel.
Garza turned and walked from the room without comment.
Luis Acero looked out from the single window in the room. It was barred, but beyond the bars, the Blue Ridge Mountains undulated to the horizon. A billion trees covered their slopes. How easy it would be to hide out there without them finding him, if he could only get out there.
He couldn’t. The cabin was his prison and the room where they had kept him for the last several days was his cell. Bathroom visits and a few minutes a day to stretch his legs in the yard outside under the pine trees were his only breaks from the monotony of the room. Always, Roman Madera remained at his side as fearful of displeasing Alejandro Garza as Luis was, even more so since he would eventually leave the cabin alive to return to trafficking drugs for the cartel.
>
Luis had no illusions. He was under a death sentence, serving his last few days on death row. With no hope that his sentence might be commuted or pardoned, delaying the execution became his only purpose in life.
Take your time, John Sole, he thought. Find something else to do. Every day he delayed answering the message would be another day of life for Luis Acero.
The Hunter - Rotten Son of A Bitch
The bartender leaned over the bar, his fists planted on each side of a newspaper spread open before him, a cup of coffee at the side. He looked up as the customer walked in.
“What can I get you?”
“Beer, I guess.” The hunter slid onto a stool and looked at the waiting bartender. “Got a Sam Adams?”
“Yep.”
“Make it a Sam.”
“Right.” The bartender turned away and added, making conversation with the customer. “Most people order coffee this time of day. Beer crowd doesn’t usually get here before four or five.”
“No law against it is there?”
“Nope, not a one.”
The hunter noted his size and figured he must tip the scales at about three-fifty. It was the first thing everyone noticed about the man who ran the place. The second thing was the wide, round face filled with a perpetual grin.
The bartender put the beer on the bar, folded his arms, and the grin grew wider. It was a perfect pour, an inch of white foam atop dark amber. He watched, waiting for the customer to lift the glass and appreciate the perfect pour.
The hunter obliged, nodded, lifted the glass, and took a swallow, then put it back on the bar. “Good. Thanks.”
He swiveled on the stool, examining the interior of the small bar. It was early still for public drinking in this out of the way place, and he was the only customer.
Located on the square in the center of Cassit Pass, the bar was tucked between a craft’s shop and an old five and dime store that still managed to attract locals who didn’t want to drive to the big box stores closer to Atlanta.
Space was at a premium. A few tables and chairs were scattered around the room, and ten stools lined the bar that faced the front door and street outside. From the street to the bar’s back door wasn’t more than forty feet with a width of twenty. Friday nights must be elbow to elbow at the only bar in Cassit Pass, or maybe it never got busy.
He turned back to the bar and his beer to find the bartender watching him, arms folded over his belly, his eyes curious above the grin.
“Who’s Derek?” he asked, nodding at the sign high on the wall over the bartender’s head—Derek’s Bar.
“That’d be me. I own the place.
“Don’t remember any bar around here,” he said, not really interested in conversation, but the bartender’s inquisitive stare showed no signs of moving on to something else.
“You been here before?” The grin remained in place, but the furrows in his forehead marked the bartender’s curiosity.
“Yeah.” The hunter nodded. “Long time ago. Back then couldn’t get a beer in town … not legal anyways.”
“Yep, we used to be a dry town, but the council finally gave in and decided to permit us.” The bartender chuckled. “Figured they were losing too much revenue to the big city. Money talks, even out here amongst the hillbillies. Been here about ten years now.”
“So, I expect you know most everyone in town.”
“A good many,” Derek said with a nod. “If they drink at all, they eventually make their way in, except for the hardcore Baptists and Pentecostals.”
“How about a man name of John Sole?”
Derek’s eyes narrowed, and the grin faded somewhat. “He was from here. He’s not around anymore.”
“Oh.” The hunter nodded and lifted the beer. “Just that I read some things in the paper a couple of years back.”
“True enough. There were some things in the paper, terrible things … family murdered. Then he disappeared. No telling where he is now.” Derek shook his head sadly. “Thing like that would ruin a lot of men … maybe kill them.”
“I expect so,” the hunter agreed. “Thing is, I’d like to find him if I can. I was hoping someone around Cassit Pass might be able to point me in the right direction.”
“Don’t know that they can, but I have a question for you.” Derek’s demeanor changed. He leaned forward, peering into the eyes of the stranger who had come into his bar, digging into what most people in Cassit Pass considered the worst event to have ever occurred to one of their own. “Who the hell are you to be asking questions about John Sole, and why do you want to find him?”
The hunter looked into the bartender’s eyes and said the words he hadn’t said since young John Sole was born to Clara in the house on the mountain. “I’m his father.”
“The hell you say.” Derek’s usually open, friendly face clouded with disbelief. “John Sole didn’t have a father. I grew up with him. He was a couple of years ahead of me in school, but we knew each other and everyone knew how his father deserted him and his mama when he was a baby. He never made mention of anyone he called a father.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“I can see a resemblance, but that doesn’t mean a damned thing.” Derek leaned a little closer, like a man examining a faded photograph in an album. “All I can say is, if you’re who you say you are, you are one rotten son of a bitch.”
The hunter, the man who claimed to be John Sole’s father, did not argue the point. He simply nodded and returned the bartender’s gaze.
“Still, I don’t suppose you’d be in here claiming to be that rotten son of a bitch if you weren’t him,” Derek said. “What’s your name?”
“Lamont Sole … people back then … Clara … used to call me Monty.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “What I’m saying is true. You can check it out, and whatever you say to me can’t be worse than what I’ve said to myself over the years.”
“That supposed to be some sort of excuse or an apology to your dead wife?” Derek shook his head emphatically. “It doesn’t excuse anything. That boy grew up without a father, and his mother, Clara, she spent her life alone in that little house. If that isn’t an evil way to treat people, I don’t know what is.”
Monty Sole sat, hands folded around the glass, and lowered his head. He had expected this sort of reception, had prepared himself for it, but that didn’t make it any easier. He had no desire to meet the bartender’s outrage. A silent minute passed between them before he spoke.
“I’m looking for my son. Can you help me contact him?”
“Why should I? If I did know where he was, and I do not, but if I did, why should I believe he even wants to hear from the deadbeat who abandoned him and his mother.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” Monty said, nodding. “But that’s his decision, isn’t it?”
“I suppose that’s true.” Derek scowled and crossed his beefy arms over his chest. “If anyone should tell you what you are to your face, it ought to be him.”
He turned and pulled a stack of business cards from beside the cash register, flipping through several before he pulled one out.
“Here, take this.” He held the card out to Monty. “Billy Siever and John were best friends in school. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, but if anyone knows about John Sole or his whereabouts, it’ll be Billy. They reconnected after Clara died. I heard Billy say they kept in touch … at least until the day John disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Thank you.” Monty reached for the card.
Big Derek the bartender held it tight for a moment, his eyes boring into Monty’s. “Don’t make me regret giving this to you.”
“I won’t.” Monty looked into Derek’s eyes. “I promise.”
Derek released the card. Monty pushed it down in his shirt pocket and stood, reaching for his wallet.
“Beer’s on the house,” Derek said. He shook his head. “Rotten son of a bitch or not, after all that’s happened to your boy, if he’
s still alive, I reckon I don’t feel like charging his father for a beer. Go find your son.”
Monty Sole nodded and walked out into the noonday sun. He stood alone on the curb in front of Derek’s Bar, his heart pounding in his chest. Derek had known John growing up. Meeting the bartender was the closest thing to contact with his son he’d had since the day he walked off into the mountains, running from his demons. He’d been running ever since. It was time to stop.
He pulled the card from his pocket. It read:
William Siever, Attorney at Law
They were best friends, Derek said. He hoped that was still true.
He punched the number on the card into his phone and waited. The call went to voice mail and he ended it. Maybe it would be better to do this in person.
Or maybe he shouldn’t do it all. Derek’s words rang in his ear.
“You are one rotten son of a bitch.”
Wedding Gowns and Robo-Calls
It was a family excursion. With the dates for two weddings and a baby shower approaching, there was a lot to plan, and planning involved a good deal of shopping.
They began at the Mall of Georgia in Buford, mostly because it was the first in proximity to Gainesville on the drive to Atlanta. Accompanied by Billy and Vera Siever, Isabella, Sam Goodwin, Sandy, and Jacinta were on an excursion, determined to make all the arrangements and necessary purchases in one day.
Their route would take them on to Perimeter Mall, then to the upscale boutiques of Buckhead. While the ladies shopped, led by Vera Siever who had jumped in to help in the planning with the enthusiasm of a favorite aunt, the men found a bar and grill with seating in the mall concourse and drank coffee.
“Guess I’m out of practice for this sort of thing,” Sam said as the ladies disappeared into the Saturday crowd. “Forgot how much goes into a wedding.”
“It’s a defense mechanism.” Billy grinned and winked at Sandy. “We forget to protect the next generation. Otherwise, young fellas like Chris here would get cold feet, marriage would end, and society would crumble.”