by R. A. McGee
She rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s a different time. They call us administrative assistants now. Sometimes even ‘office automatons.’”
“Not secretary, huh? Damn, I’ve been saying it wrong this whole time.”
“I’ll let you slide. Don’t forget, you have a call soon.”
McHenry looked at his watch, then smiled at Rita. “See? What would I do without you?”
“You’d be fine. I don’t buy into your feeble old man act.”
“Fair enough. Be sure to remind me when Secretary’s Day is,” he said with a laugh as he walked down the small hallway to his office. He plugged in the white noise machine and pulled the landline off his desk and to the leather sofa. He balanced the phone on his lap.
Moments later, the third line rang.
“Kevin?”
“How do you always know?”
“It’s what I do,” McHenry said. “I wouldn’t be any good if I didn’t know when you were gonna call, would I?”
“I guess not,” the young man said. “Thanks for answering.”
“Of course. There is nothing I’d rather do.”
“Really?”
“Well… a date with Jane Fonda would be nice. I mean back in the day, before all that Hanoi stuff, you know? What do you kids say? Old times?”
“Old school. So I come second only to a prime Jane Fonda? I think I can handle that. It’s nice because, you know…”
“They still don’t answer the phone?”
“No. I haven’t talked to Mom or Dad in weeks.” The younger man’s voice broke. “I finally spoke to Grandma and she couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.”
“Don’t feel bad; she couldn’t have gotten away from me fast enough either. She’s just out there, living her life—”
“—with half your money. You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true,” McHenry said. “You excited? Just a few days, right?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty pumped. Been clean almost three months now. Honestly? I still think about it all the time. They say the cravings are supposed to stop eventually, but they haven’t yet. But that’s okay. All I can do is concentrate on what I can control. Make good decisions, you know? It’ll be all right.”
“I know it will, Kev. You’re smart enough to know that you might not survive another OD. Just think about that if you’re feeling weak. I’d sure as hell miss you, bud.”
“I’d miss you too, Grandpa. So, after we leave… where are you dropping me off?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just, I have to give them an address where I’ll be living. They have a list of halfway-house type places that I can sign up for. Some of them look nice, I guess.”
“Kevin McHenry. We’ve talked about this. You’re living with me.”
“I know you said that,” the young man said. “It’s just, I don’t want to put you out. I don’t want to overstep.”
“When you asked to go back to treatment, what did I tell you? I’d take care of it, right? When you asked for money and you needed things, I always kept my end of the bargain, right?”
“Yes, it’s just—”
“It’s just nothing. I would never lie to you. The pope? Sure. The president? Yes. Your grandmother? With pleasure. You? Never. I told you, you can stay with me for as long as you need. Now, if you're too cool for the old man, then that’s a different story.”
“Yeah, right. I was thinking we could catch the tail end of football season. Maybe analyze some spring games of baseball too. Maybe I’ll play again, who knows,” Kevin said.
“That's what I like to hear,” McHenry said. He fidgeted with the long cord coming from the back of the phone.
“Hey, they say I have to get off the phone. I’ll see you when you come up, okay?”
“Sure thing, bud.”
“I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you too, bud,” McHenry said, listening to the phone click off and then returning the receiver to the cradle.
Six
Clark deftly navigated through the small streets, passing food vendors and donkey-pulled carts. The small town, dangerous at night, merely looked old in the light of day. A once thriving and proud place, it was now crumbling under its new management.
He didn’t particularly care about the town. He wasn’t trying to right all the wrongs of the world. As it happened, his interests aligned with a course of action that might make the town a better place for Señora Iglesias and others like her.
Even though it wasn’t his primary motivation, it almost made him feel good for the first time in a long time.
He drove further out of town, the countryside growing more rural as he went. Before long, he turned off on a small road that led him to a metal gate. Out front stood a man with a Rottweiler. Clark nodded and the man pulled back the gate for him, granting him entry. Clark took a right.
A hundred yards away was an enormous house. The masonry on the outside was a light sandstone color. Clark parked in the middle of a circular parking pad, next to a Cadillac Escalade, and let the Jeep stall out and turn off. He walked past a four-car garage, up a small brick staircase, and pulled open a large, frosted-glass door.
The inside of the home was littered with valuable pieces of art and antiques thrown together with no clear rhyme or reason. Another man with a Rottweiler paced the white marble flooring of the foyer.
Clark ignored him and went to the kitchen. Another breakfast table, but this one much different from that of Señora Iglesias. The table was twenty-five feet long if it was five. The wood was stained a deep, dark color, which contrasted with the floor.
There were five men seated around the table. At the head sat a thin man with a silk shirt. His shirt was barely buttoned, revealing several gold chains hanging around his neck, and his jet-black hair was pulled into a ponytail.
Clark sat on the empty seat furthest from the man.
“Where have you been?” asked another man, seated near the head of the table. A thick, fit man with a beard.
“It’s none of your business where I’ve been,” Clark said.
“When he calls, you come,” the bearded man said.
Clark smiled. “I don’t work for you, Sammy. You need to remember that. Mind your own fucking business.”
Sammy stood up and glowered at Clark. “You think you can talk to me like that?”
Clark poured himself a glass of orange juice. “You got a problem? Say the word, asshole.”
Sammy’s face was purple and he pushed his chair back, but then the man at the head of the table spoke.
“Relax, my friend. He’s here now. There’s no need to make a scene.”
Sammy took a deep breath and nodded at the man in the ponytail. “You’re right, César. I’m cool. I just don’t like the way that new bitch speaks to me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” César said. “Did you, Barnes?”
Clark didn’t answer. All the cartel thugs in the room knew him as Barnes: a disgruntled Army soldier on the run, looking to make extra money. “I always mean what I say. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t say it.”
César laughed. “That’s what I am beginning to appreciate about you. Always honest and to the point.”
“That’s what you pay me for,” Clark said. “You texted. Did you need something?”
“See? Right to the point. I hear that Darren Flores had a tragic accident with a knife last night.”
“Some people have a tough time shaving.”
César laughed. “I couldn’t ask for any better results. The Nahuatl is losing its membership at an alarming rate. In no time, we will absorb their territory and pipelines. It will double our business.”
The men around the table clapped like sycophants, lapping up every word César said. He played it up, like a motivational speaker or petty dictator. “And now? I think with one more well-placed blow, their organization will crumble and we will be left to pick up the pieces.
“Tr
ue, we have lost a large number of our men as well, but those putos started this war and I’m going to end it. With the help of my new friend Mr. Barnes, of course.”
The men clapped but Clark interrupted. “You have my next target? If so, give me his info and I’ll get to work.”
“No time to stay for breakfast?” César said.
“I’d rather get to work.”
César held up a manila folder. “Fair enough. Go see Javvy up front. He’ll have what I owe you for Flores, plus a little extra for prompt service.”
Clark pushed away from the table and walked to the head of it, retrieving the file. As he reached for it, his elbow moved several inches out of its way, and he spilled an entire glass of sangria on Sammy, staining his white shirt.
“Oops,” Clark said, before walking out of the room. He could feel Sammy’s eyes burning a hole through his back.
Seven
Clark drove to a small café he had frequented since he’d been in town. He ordered a Coke in an unopened bottle, and thumbed through the file César had given him.
Alejandro Pascual was the number one guy in the Nahuatl cartel, which was the direct rival of César’s Los Primos. They had been embroiled in a bitter war for the last several weeks, with important men on both sides turning up dead at an alarming rate. The information César had given him was meager, but Clark didn’t need it. He was very familiar with the next target the drug kingpin wanted him to eliminate.
Drinking his Coke slowly, Clark thought of the best way to handle the hit. It was during times like this that he missed the network at Blackthorn. People to help him plan and execute the operations. No matter how good he was, he knew it was too easy to forget things, or overlook an obvious hole in a plan.
Clark was on his own now, but he thought his plans were pretty damn good. He was considering how long he should wait to go after Pascual. The man had been in town only a couple of weeks. He normally had a base of operations in Distrito Federal, near the Mexican capital, but since things had heated up with Los Primos, he had come into town and taken up staying in the nicest hotel in town. A handful of guys were with him twenty-four hours a day, but the number of men had been shrinking because of Clark’s actions.
His watch read a little after noon. Waiting until later was a better course of action for hitting Pascual. No reason to rush things. Hell, César and his crew of idiots wouldn’t be able to get the man for months, even if they tried. Waiting a few more hours couldn’t hurt.
His decision made, Clark paid his tab with a waitress who was growing familiar with his ordering habits, and got into the Jeep, traversing the roads back to the laundromat and his current home. Parking in the empty lot a couple of blocks away from the business itself, Clark looked across the street at another, larger lot, which had turned into a makeshift soccer field.
Children and teens played with a ratty ball, on a field more dirt than grass. A man with a small vending cart was parked at the field, selling drink, food, and cigarettes. Clark approached him with a smile and spoke to him in Spanish. “Could I buy five?”
“Five packs?” the man said, his sunken face tanned by years in the sun.
“No, just five,” Clark said.
“A pack has twenty.”
“Sure, but I only want five.”
The man looked confused. Clark gave him a ten-dollar bill and took the pack, opening it in front of the vendor and pulling five out. He gave the remainder back to the vendor.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Clark took a pack of matches from a plastic cup. “Smoke ’em. Sell ’em. I don’t know.”
He struck a match and enjoyed his first smoke of the day, simultaneously feeling the tingly sensation of nicotine washing over him and extreme guilt. Samantha would have hated to see him smoke. His mind tried to skip memories of her when he could. It was a protective habit. Thinking of her usually wasn’t pleasant. Instead of her soft skin and amazing smile, all he could think of was melting flesh and burned hair.
Samantha wasn’t the only one who’d kill him for smoking. Hell, if Miri ever saw…
He thought of his friend, and not for the first time. He’d promised he’d call her, to ask for help if he needed it. Trouble was, he didn’t think he needed any, and he was sure Miri was busy enough.
When McHenry had first recruited him out of the Army, he’d only been at the Blackthorn office for a few weeks before another recruit showed up. Miriam Banks was hard-nosed and fearless, and the pair had gotten along immediately. They’d worked together in some of the worst places on the planet and gotten impossible results.
There was no one he’d rather work with.
Pushing thoughts of Miri from his mind, he pulled deeply on the cigarette and watched the children play. There were several small games going, kids using half-inflated balls and sticks stuck vertically in the ground to represent goal posts.
The closest game erupted in a scuffle, with two larger kids pushing a smaller one around. Clark stepped through the gate and separated the boys.
“Knock it off,” he said, none of the kids either old enough or brave enough to mess with him. He put his arm around the smaller boy, ushering him off the field.
“Bad game?” he said.
Mateo wiped the blood from his nose. The boy had tears in his eyes. “I’m just not good at soccer.”
“You look pretty good to me,” Clark lied. “Those other guys bother you like that every time you play?”
“No,” Mateo said, eyes looking down at the ground.
“I see. Does your mom know?”
“No, and you don’t tell her, okay?”
“My lips are sealed.”
The pair walked in silence down the street to the laundromat.
Mateo spoke first. “My dad used to practice soccer with me. Before…”
“Before they killed him?” Clark said.
Mateo nodded. More silence until the boy spoke again. “Mr. Smith?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“Do you… do you know… know anything about soccer?”
Clark laughed. “Sorry, bud, I played contact sports. I’ll tell you what, you want to learn how to stop those kids from putting their hands on you? I can teach you that. Then it won’t matter how bad you are at soccer.”
The boy smiled and the two walked into the empty laundromat.
Clark pulled up a chair to sit on, to be eye-to-eye with the boy. He looked at his watch. “Tell you what, I have a few hours to kill. Anybody ever taught you how to throw a jab?”
The boy shook his head.
“You’re gonna love this. Those other shitheads, not so much.”
Clark held up his hands and began to coach the boy through a jab, all thoughts of César and Pascual temporarily pushed from his mind.
Eight
The sun was setting, casting the waiting room of the laundromat in a soft red haze. The palms of Clark’s hands were red and tender, and Mateo’s hair was damp with sweat, causing it to cling to his forehead in thick strands.
“Just like that. Again,” Clark called out.
The boy snapped a stiff jab out, stinging Clark’s hand again.
“Exactly,” Clark said, shaking his hands out. “Catch people at the full extension of your arm. It’s stiffer and you get more pop. Okay, remember what I showed you.” Clark threw an exaggeratedly slow overhand right at the boy, who raised his hand to block it, then flicked his right hand out, smacking into Clark’s left palm.
“There you go. Most people throw a big right as their first punch.”
“Why?” Mateo asked, breathing deeply.
“Because most people are right-handed. It’s the only punch they can think of. You need to be ready for that right. You block that right, then hit them and knock them on their ass.”
The boy nodded.
Not for the first time that afternoon, Clark saw Señora Iglesia’s head pop out from a back room, observing, but not interrupting.
Mateo cycled through
several more combinations before Clark begged off. “All right, young man. You keep smacking my hands like this, you may break one. I need mis manos. Time for you to hit the showers.”
The boy smiled and went skipping off to the back of the laundromat, toward the small space he and his mother shared.
Clark looked at his watch and knew it was almost time to go.
Señora Iglesias came around the corner that her boy had disappeared behind. “Leaving, Mr. Smith?”
Clark nodded. “I have somewhere to be. Hopefully, I’ll be back tonight.”
“I hope so too,” the woman said, patting Clark on the shoulder. “I hope so too.”
Clark stood, stretched his arms out, and walked out of the laundromat. He lit a cigarette and observed the street as the pink sky grew darker. There were people coming home from work and kids running through the alleyways. A pair of thin dogs picked at a pile of trash in the street. He pulled his keys out, jogged to his Jeep, and fired it up, pulling slowly out of the parking lot.
The lights of the town whizzed past him as he drove a familiar series of streets, roads, and buildings. He didn’t need to look at the address César had given him. Clark knew the way.
He pulled the Jeep into a parking space on the side of the street and walked a couple of blocks up, past the café he’d drunk in earlier in the day, another block down, and into the lobby of a Hyatt hotel. There was no one in the lobby to talk to him, so he walked across the industrial carpet, with its terrible swirled pattern, and to the bank of elevators.
He pushed the top floor button, staring into the middle distance somewhere beyond the stainless steel door panel until the door chimed and opened.
A large man stood there, with a rifle pointed directly at his chest.
Nine
“Jones? I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you,” the big man said, lowering the rifle.
Clark nodded. He was Barnes to César’s men and Jones to Pascual’s, doing his best to keep everyone confused about who he really was, and what he actually wanted. “It’s all good, Héctor. Better safe than sorry.”