by Glenn Trust
It was Bebé’s way of compromise, give his deputy space to pursue his goals, but set a limit. Garza paused considering the question. If he did not eliminate John Sole, his plan would be a failure, but Elizondo skillfully removed failure from the equation, instead making Garza’s safe return the primary concern.
“I will,” Garza promised.
“Good. I look forward to seeing you soon, Alejandro.”
The call ended.
“All is well with Señor Elizondo?” Roman Madera asked nervously.
Garza turned toward Roman Madera, seated across the room from him. “You heard the plan, as I reviewed it?”
“Yes.”
“See to the rat. We leave in the morning. Take everything. We will not be returning.”
Roman rose and left, closing the door gently behind him. He had listened to Garza’s side of the conversation with care, heard the review of the plan, and also his final words to Bebé, “I will.”
Without any context, those two simple words sent an arrow of dread into his gut. They could signify anything.
Will you please bring me a souvenir from America?
I will.
Roman thought that seemed unlikely.
When you are done, will you kill that idiot Madera?
I will.
There was no reason for the cartel chief to want him dead, at least none that he could think of. He had gone out of his way to be helpful and to provide Garza with everything he requested. Still, life and death blew through the cartel ranks randomly at times like springtime tornados and often for no apparent reason.
Roman hurried about, making preparations for their departure, knowing that he was as much a prisoner as Luis Acero. He had no more liberty to leave or deny Garza’s requests than Acero. The difference was the rat already knew his fate. Roman was left to ponder words like—I will.
Very Good
Chico Saludo had finally dried out. He sat in his car with the heater on letting it take the chill from his bones. A front had settled over the area and the drizzly weather was held in place all day.
At the end of the day, the BMW pulled from around the back of the stone house that served as the office and proceeded slowly to the outskirts of town. Chico followed until the BMW turned up a sloping drive toward a large house partially hidden on a wooded hillside.
Now what? He drove slowly past the driveway. It was certainly the lawyer’s home. He picked up his phone and punched in Garza’s number.
“Yes?”
“He has gone home for the day.”
“You know the location of his home?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Watch it and follow him again when he leaves.”
It was too much. Chico swallowed hard and ventured a thought. “It has been a very long day. I have been sitting in the rain and am very cold and tired. I worry that I may fail you, Señor Garza. I might lose him, or miss something important if I don’t get some rest. I was only wondering if you would allow me to have some of my people assist?”
For once, Alejandro Garza paused to consider a request from a lesser mortal. It was not an act of compassion but one of necessity for the sake of the mission.
Accustomed to working with the trained assassins on his payroll, he was discovering that these drug peddlers were soft in comparison. His usual team of killers were mostly former military, many from the Cuban Commando Tropas Especiales—Special Forces. All were familiar with long periods of privation in the pursuit of their duties, and the compensation provided by the cartel far exceeded anything they could earn in a lifetime of service to Fidel and Raúl Castro. Complaining about their work conditions was unthinkable.
But bringing them into the United States would have run the risk of attracting attention, and anonymity was crucial. This drug dealer was soft, but he was all Garza had to work with at the moment.
“You will watch him, no one else. Garza said and Chico’s heart sank.
“As you wish, jefe.”
“We are coming to you, and you will have help by tomorrow,” Garza continued. “Give me the address of the lawyer’s home, then go find a place to rest for the night. Be back early in the morning and follow him again. Stay with him until you hear from me.”
“Thank you, Señor Garza,” Chico said his spirits lifting at the unexpected reprieve.
A short while later, he found a small country motel, checked in, and took a hot shower to warm up. After a dinner of greasy American fried chicken at the adjoining cafe, Chico went to back his room and slept with the heater on all night.
By six in the morning, he was back on the street where the lawyer’s hillside home was located. He parked in the dark along a side street curb and waited. At eight o’clock, the BMW came down the sloping driveway and turned toward the office in Dahlonega. Once more Chico followed.
An interlude in the continuing drizzle made him think that the rain was passing. Chico offered a quick thank you to the heavens—Gracias Dios.
A short time later, as he settled in under the little park gazebo, the rain started again. He looked up at the sky again. ¿Qué carajo? What the fuck?
The BMW pulled out early in the afternoon. Chico followed it to the house on the hillside and pulled into the side street to watch. He didn’t have long to wait.
Fifteen minutes later, the car came back down the driveway. He could see a woman in the car with the lawyer as it passed.
After a thirty minute drive, they arrived in Gainesville. Chico followed them to the small house in the middle of the block. A woman and man came out onto the porch to greet the lawyer and his wife. Another young man walked out from the garage followed by another younger woman. Happy smiles, handshakes, and greetings were exchanged. Chico drove past the house, pretending to ignore the little gathering by the front door.
An empty church parking lot at the end of the street made a good place to wait and watch. He parked and dialed up Garza’s cell phone.
When he reported on the location of the small house and the gathering of people there, Garza said two words instead of his customary one word reply. “Very Good.”
Chico spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the parking lot watching the house, and fighting off the temptation to take a nap. With Garza arriving at any time, napping was out of the question.
***
Luis Acero sat in the rear of the SUV, his hands, wrists, and ankles zip-tied together. Roman Madera was at his side. Garza drove, periodically lifting his cell phone to hear a report from someone. He said little on the calls, usually one word replies, or brief instructions for Chico Saludo to stay in place.
Once, Luis heard him say, “Very good.”
Senses keenly attuned to the minutest changes in his situation, the words made his heart leap into his throat. The words “very good” coming from Garza could not mean anything good for Luis.
A short time later, they passed the Gainesville city limit sign. Luis shivered in his seat and fought back the desire to cry out and beg for his life once more. The time was close now. The moments of existence he had tried so hard to prolong were slipping away like sand clenched in his trembling fist.
They pulled into a church parking lot at the end of a residential street and parked beside another car. Garza opened the window. Luis recognized the man waiting for them—Chico Saludo, one of the cartel’s drug lords.
“They are all in that house down the street,” Saludo said. “The one with the cars in front.”
“How many?” Garza said, peering in the direction Saludo pointed.
“Six. Three men and three women … a party of some kind.”
“Very good,” Garza said, nodding.
Luis shivered again. The words rang cold and clear in the misty evening, settling into his terrified heart.
***
On the street where the gathering was in progress at Isabella’s home, a pickup slowed as it drove past the house. After a few seconds it crept forward to the end of the street to turn back toward the c
ity center. Chico Saludo watched with interest, but the driver was invisible in the evening gloom.
Let Them Be Happy
After more than twenty-four hours on the road, he was exhausted. John Sole took the exit ramp from I-985 into Gainesville, Georgia and stopped for the red signal at the top. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open and his chin from dropping down onto his chest. The need for sleep finally overpowered him.
The light turned green. A car behind him tapped the horn. Sole’s eyes popped open.
Enough. He’d drifted off to sleep in the minute before the signal changed.
It was time to find a place to get some rest. He made the turn and passed a truck stop at the intersection. The all-night diner inside was open.
Coffee, he thought. Black, strong coffee. That’s what you need, John-boy. Then you can keep going.
No. He shook his head. You need rest. A few hours’ sleep and you’ll be able to think clearly. Right now you’re no use to anyone, and as likely to get yourself and everyone else killed as get Luis Acero out of whatever trouble he stumbled into.
Then there was the issue of the man who claimed to be his father, waiting for him in a motel in Dahlonega. He thought about ignoring him and continuing on to find Luis, but Billy was right. Clara would have wanted him to at least meet the man.
He could hear her voice.
Tell him he’s a son of a bitch for what he did, if that’s what makes you feel better, but look your father in the eyes for the first time in your life.
“Alright. Find a motel and get some sleep,” he muttered.
First, there was one place to visit. He cruised through the streets of Gainesville. He’d only been there once, but the location was burned into his memory.
It only took a few minutes to find the street. He slowed as he passed the house midway down the block. The lights were on inside. Several vehicles filled the driveway and lined the curb outside. Through the picture window’s partially open blinds he saw people moving about.
A family gathering was in progress. He smiled as Jacinta walked from the kitchen into the front room carrying a tray with glasses on it. Sandy rose from a chair to help her with it. He turned and held it out for two people seated side by side on the sofa. Their faces were not visible, but he knew that the arm that reached up for a glass belonged to Isabella. That meant that the man seated beside her was Sam Goodwin, according to Billy Siever, a good man. They made a happy family.
What the hell are you doing? The voice was asking questions again.
I don’t know.
He took his foot off the brake and let the pickup roll down the street, turning at the corner past a church, back toward the interstate. Winding through the city, he found a budget motel that claimed to always keep the lights on for weary travelers.
Ten minutes later, he was stretched out on a bed, his clothes in a pile on a chair. The image of a happy family behind a picture window floated before him as he sank into sleep,
“Stay away. Let them be happy,” he muttered
Stakeouts
“Where are they?” Alejandro Garza stepped from the SUV to stand beside Chico Saludo in the church parking lot.
“The house in the middle of the block with the car on the street in front.” Chico pointed.
“Don’t point. Someone might notice.”
“Right.” Chico dropped his arm instantly. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“From now on, think,” Garza snapped.
“Yes, jefé.” Chico might be the drug lord of Atlanta, but he understood who the boss was tonight.
Garza stood quietly for a few seconds, assessing the quiet residential street. Then he motioned to Roman Madera to join him for a conference. “Here’s what we will do.”
***
Three hours later, Chico Saludo found himself once again parked on the side street near the lawyer’s residence. The rat, Luis Acero, lay prone in the back seat, unconscious. The zip ties on his hands and feet and the duct tape on his mouth had been cut away.
Garza had ordered Chico to drag Acero from the SUV and place him into his car as they sat in the church parking lot. Then Chico watched in horror as Garza leaned over Acero with a hypodermic and shoved the needle in the squirming man’s arm. What if he killed him with poison and ordered Chico to drive around with a dead body and dispose of it somehow? How the hell was he supposed to do that?
Garza turned to Chico and explained, “Rohypnol, a strong sedative. The North Americans call the pill form rufies, a drug their weak men use to rape women while they are unconscious. He will appear intoxicated if anyone should see him with you, a friend who had too much to drink.” His eyes narrowed. “But do not let anyone see him with you.”
“Of course not,” Chico said, ignoring the nervous bead of sweat on his brow that threatened to trickle into his eyes.
He looked over the seat into the back. There seemed to be no danger that the unconscious man would cry out for help. Chico doubted whether the rat would ever be able to do more than sob, which he was doing now in his sleep. The potent drug Garza had used acted within seconds and had transformed the terrified man into little more than a teary-eyed vegetable.
Chico snarled, “Yes, cry all you want now, rat. I don’t think you have much time left for tears.”
Acero’s head moved back and forth, his eye wide, staring vacantly at the ceiling of the car. Snot dripped from his nose to accompany the tears. Chico gave a wolfish grin and turned to stare back down the street toward the hillside house.
For now, his assigned role in Garza’s plan was to follow the lawyer and his wife when they left the party and then wait outside the house through the night. When the lawyer left for work in the morning, he was to advise Garza.
What does he think I am, a fucking poli—a cop? This must be what it is like on one of their stakeouts. Wait and watch, watch and wait.
He had to stay put until the great mastermind, Alejandro Garza, decided how to deal with the real cop, John Sole. His mouth twisted into a wry smile. The cop had become a boil on Garza’s ass, he thought, and the smile grew wider. It felt good to think these things, to vent to himself alone in the night, sitting in a car with a rat in the back seat.
It felt good, but he would never speak such words to Garza’s face, and saying them did not change the fact that he was cold, tired, and hungry. This work could be accomplished by one of his underlings, someone dull and without imagination, capable of sitting idly for hours and following orders.
Is that what cops were? Dull and unimaginative?
John Sole did not seem dull and unimaginative. Up to now, he had stymied Garza at every turn.
Chico shrugged. It didn’t matter. He only knew that sitting in this car in the middle of the night did not suit someone with the abilities of a Chico Saludo, drug lord of Atlanta. Unfortunately, Garza did not share in his sentiments.
He settled back into the seat and fought off sleep, mostly in case Garza called or drove by unexpectedly. Through half-closed eyes, he could make out the lawyer’s house on the dark empty street. How did the fucking cops do it, anyway?
***
Twenty miles away, Garza and Roman Madera sat in the church parking lot watching the house down the street. Roman’s head nodded and his chin sank to his chest repeatedly. He opened his eyes wide and shook his head to clear it, casting a sidelong glance at Garza, hoping he had not noticed.
The cartel enforcer sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat. If he blinked, Roman could not detect it.
A robot, Roman thought. The son of a bitch is a robot, or an alien.
“You slept,” Garza said without turning his head from the house.
“Sorry.” There was no sense denying it. Roman stretched, wrapped his hands around the wheel, and sat up straight. “My apologies,” he said, and added nervously. “It won’t happen again.”
“Sleep if you must. I will watch,” Garza replied, unconcerned. “You will need it. Tomorrow we have work to do.”
&
nbsp; Roman folded his arms over his chest and leaned back on the headrest. He wondered how Chico Saludo faired in Dahlonega on stakeout outside the lawyer’s house.
He only wondered for a second, before he drifted off to sleep. Trapped in this car with a cold-eyed, murderous robot from another world, he did not doubt that Chico had the best of things.
I Ran Away
The seedy, rundown roadside inn on the outskirts of Dahlonega had been there since Sole’s youth. He remembered driving past it into town on Friday nights with Billy Siever when they were looking for more distraction than Cassit Pass had to offer two high-spirited teenaged boys.
It had probably been there more than half a century. Located on the highway into the city, he figured there had been some sort of stopping place there since the days of horse-drawn coaches that once used the route to cross the mountains into Tennessee.
The pavement was cracked. Weeds grew in every corner. The building hadn’t seen a coat of paint in decades, and what there was of it was cracked and peeling. Dirt and trash blown in by the wind collected in every corner, crack, and doorway. It was a forgotten place. As far as John Sole was concerned, it was perfect for the man who claimed to be his father.
He parked in front of the room number Billy Siever had given him and stared at the door. You have to do it, he told himself. Have a reckoning with the old bastard, if not for you, then for Clara. After that, you can leave with a clear conscience and go find Luis Acero.
Sole got out of the pickup, walked to the door, and gave three hard raps. It opened immediately.
The man staring back at him didn’t smile or try to throw his arms around him. He simply stood there, silent, emotion flickering in his eyes. He seemed afraid to speak or move as if the slightest gesture, a breath of wind, an uttered word, a whisper might cause the vision to evaporate before him.