by Brick
Tone twiddled with the toothpicks in his hand. He stalked up to the man. Found a soft spot between his neck and shoulder blades, then jabbed the toothpick down into the man’s flesh. To most people that probably didn’t sound as if it was enough pain to have the man squealing and jerking against the chains as he was. But I knew better and so did the cashier. In his back were about fifty more of those toothpicks. In his chest and stomach were more. Tone and Caltrone had placed them there. Stabbing him with the toothpicks each time they felt he was lying to them. Torture of the worst kind.
Caltrone shook his head. “You’re lying,” he barked at the man. “Why did you run, Jesus, huh? If you know nothing, why run?”
“Because word got out a few hours ago that you were coming,” the man wailed.
“But what’s that gotta do with you?” Tone asked.
“My brother . . . My brother is friends with Hector and Hector knows something.”
“Ah, sí. Now we’re getting somewhere,” Caltrone said with a smile so cold, it chilled me.
I watched as Caltrone opened up a set of white pillowcases. He took his time, making a show of whatever it was he was about to do. He grabbed some of the crystals and vases Tone had bought in the store and dropped some in each pillowcase. He then placed the ends of the pillowcases on the floor and crushed the glass with his combat boots. I frowned as he wrapped the ends around each of his big fists.
“Who is Hector and where can we find him?” Caltrone asked.
“I don’t know,” Jesus stammered. “He left town last night, sí.”
Caltrone’s lips turned down and then he grunted. “Where did he go? What does he know?” He slowly stalked Jesus. I looked at the front of the man’s pants to see he had pissed himself.
“Madre di’Dios, por favor. I don’t know,” Jesus said, eyes widened with fear.
Caltrone stood behind the man. “You keep lying to me and I am out of fucking”—Caltrone drew back and swung one pillowcase—“patience.”
When it came crashing down on Jesus’s back, I yelled out. The crushed, broken glass ripped toothpicks and flesh from the man’s back. Jesus’s yells and screams made my flesh crawl. The man howled out in pain so loudly that it made me grit my teeth. Caltrone swung the other pillowcase just as hard as he had done the first one. Each time he swung the muscles in his chest and arms flexed, coiling underneath his skin. Sweat drenched his body and anger masked his face.
“Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Dios! He said he was leaving to meet a connect in Texas! Ahhhhh, ahhhhh, God,” Jesus wept. His body violently jerked against the chains each time the force of the glass-filled pillowcases made contact with his back.
Enough! I wanted to yell, but didn’t.
By the time Caltrone was done, Jesus was barely alive. . . if he was alive. Caltrone stopped his cruel punishment then turned to his son. “We leave for Texas in the morning,” was all he said as he rushed from the building.
Benita exited behind him yelling at the other ladies to hurry so they could clean him up.
I looked at Tone and licked my dry lips. The look in his eyes as he gazed at Jesus’s limp body told me he had no qualms about what he had just done. There was no doubt in my mind that he was indeed his father’s son. Since Texas was our next stop, I felt good knowing we were one step closer to finding our daughter.
Chapter 5
Antonio
Sun reflected off the dark shades of my sunglasses as I walked out from where we left Jesus to hang in the secluded warehouse for his crimes. Taking in the dry, arid terrain, I slipped a toothpick in my mouth in thought. Never would I truly understand why my daughter ran off with some stranger she met online, to Mexico of all places. Maybe it was easier for them to come here and disrupt their footsteps. I wasn’t sure, but I planned to find out. Who was the nigga who took my daughter? The only thing I knew from my own information was that he went by the online name of Eric, but further digging let me know that wasn’t his real name.
“What are you thinking, son?” I heard next to me.
I stood akimbo with my hands in my pockets. Keeping my gaze locked on the distance, I studied the way the wind would pick up dust and swirl it around. “We need to find out what’s Jesus’s connection to who took my daughter before we leave,” I explained.
“We know what his connection is, son. His brother is friends with Hector.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t really tell us anything other than a name and that this person knows something.” My mind was having a hard time accepting what I had just helped to do to that man in the warehouse, although a larger part of me felt that he had it coming. Jesus’s screams and pleas battled with my psyche as I kept my face stoic while I felt my father’s gaze on me.
“And what do you intend to do to find that out?” Caltrone asked, the scent of his freshly lit cigar curling under my nose.
“Go check out his apartment. Heard he had a little shop underneath where he sold shit. Like you taught me,” I said, turning to look at my old man, “there’s always more to the painting than the image.”
“Yes, I did. Then that’s what we’ll do,” my father said, walking with me as we headed to the car where Kenya stood pacing back and forth.
I wasn’t sure if Caltrone could see it, but I knew that I could. Kenya’s hands slightly shook. Though she had a strong poker face, my years of knowing her allowed me to pick up on the small giveaways of her emotions. With my gazed running over her curvy, petite frame, I saw that Kenya stopped to briefly glance at me then lock her eyes on my father. We were still at battle with each other and we didn’t give a fuck how that translated to others.
“Can we go?” she asked. There was annoyance in her tone.
Behind us smoke blazed from the fire my father had her set. “Did you do as I said and saturate everything in the warehouse with bleach and gas?” Caltrone asked with a bored expression.
Screams could be heard from within the warehouse. It made me scowl and had me walking past her as I muttered, “Should have listened to me.” I watched her from the corner of my eye.
She cut her eyes at me, gritted her teeth, then ignored me. “Yes, Caltrone, I did,” she said.
I knew what I had said would piss her off. All I could do was chuckle and climb back in the car while I watched her seethe in her anger from my window.
“Good girl. Let us go. You and my son will be looking through Jesus’s shop and apartment while I conduct a little meeting.”
Helping her into the car, Caltrone also got in and we headed back to town in silence. It didn’t take long to handle business once we made it to Jesus’s shop and my father left. Though Kenya’s and my conversation was strained, I had her handle the shop and look around while I went up top to Jesus’s apartment. After a while, we both turned up empty in our search. I had Kenya check the computer, as I rummaged through papers, finding Jesus’s cell phone.
Paper rained over me as I stood in the middle of an adobo-style loft apartment. Several lamps lay haphazardly on the floor and flickered off and on as I stared down at a cell phone that had images of my daughter with a tall nigga. I could only see his back and her huge, laughing smile. Various thoughts were going through me as I stood there paralyzed in my angst.
“There was nothing downstairs and now I’m not seeing a damn thing on this asshole’s computer. Nothing,” I heard Kenya say as she forcefully clicked the keys of an old 2003 Intel computer. A harsh, tired sigh escaped her lips. She pushed back from the long banister computer desk that held the computer and other random crap, including various pictures. Papers shifted while she moved; then she paused to look through them. “Did you find anything on his phone?” she asked.
We switched what we held between us. I made note of several receipts, noticing money payments that coincided with the date of the pictures on the phone.
“Yeah,” I sullenly said, taking two strides her way. “Several pictures of Jewel.”
From what I was looking at, it seemed that Jesus had a side job as a driv
er. Though the transactions on that day were done in cash, he still made notes, which was smart and helpful on our end. Nigga was dead but he still had secrets.
“She looks so happy. I don’t understand,” Kenya whispered, her voice cracking with emotion.
Dropping to sit on a couch I passed, I folded my hands in front of me, thinking. “She thinks she’s in love. Shit’s not hard to understand. Baby girl got her a whiff, and like all girls that age who get their mind blown and twisted by the wrong nigga, or the right one, she let herself get played in thinking she had a good dude, even though he’s too old for her. Same game, different generation.”
“Jewel was smarter than that. We both taught her better,” Kenya tried to reason.
I knew her words were hollow and that she was just trying to rationalize how this fucked-up situation even happened.
“We knew better and we still had that pull to be with each other at her age, damn the consequences. Like I said, same shit, different toilet. Once a teen gets that whiff of sex, baby, it’s outta there. Can’t tell them shit. They think they know all, are all, and are grown, regardless of the stupid-ass waving flag that’s in front of them. No grown-ass nigga need to be chasing young cunt when it’s some around his age or older who might want his lame ass.”
“Tone,” Kenya started in that way that always commanded my attention to make me check my language.
“Fuck it, you know the shit is truth. Our daughter fell in that same youthful bullshit and now we, the parents, are paying the cost for her fuckup. I want to just . . .” Hands forming into fists, my eyes narrowed as I shook my head.
Heated, Kenya abruptly stood up and pointed at me with the phone in her hand. “And what is that going to help, huh? You stayed strict on her and look where we’re at. Besides, how you and I were as teens was different. We were friends and . . . it was just different.”
There was something more behind her trailing off. It was the thing we both chose to ignore. Brushing off that whisper of my conscience, an amused but pissed-off laugh rumbled low in my chest and I focused on the bullshit she tried to slickly shade me with. So, we were here finally and going to play this game. A’ight.
“So, telling our daughter to be responsible in how she picks a nigga—because I knew, considering the fact that she is my child, she is intelligent, and beautiful, and could handle herself better than some of these other kids—was wrong?” I slowly rose off the couch and glared at my ex. “Being stern and telling her to keep her grades right so that she could earn the fucking luxuries she had, like that computer she loved, is my fucking fault? Giving her a gotdamn curfew so she couldn’t run around Miami with a wet pussy and dulled-out mind because some wack-ass punk knew how to say the right thing, was wrong? Shit was at midnight and she seventeen, but I was wrong in that?”
I felt myself pace around the room as I kept a level voice. “Teaching her to value her body, not by shaming her but educating her about having a responsible, healthy, budding sexual ownership. I mean, you and I were both there for that, but you like to think I’m a fucking asshole and tyrant with our daughter? Oh, a’ight then. Fuck outta here, Kenya. I’m not even going to waste my anger on you. Back to business.”
Kenya snapped, “Screw that. Yes. Because, in all of it, you were an asshole and you know it. I give you respect that you’re a damn good father to Jewel. But, you’re right: we don’t get along. Let me cross you and—”
Jumping in, I shook my head. “Right, to you I may have been an asshole! I never raised my voice to Jewel. Fuck, I never raised my voice to you. I stayed cool. We both did. You and I argued like normal people, Kenya, but I’m the asshole. You are just as much an asshole as me. Own ya shit, mama. I still made sure that you had all you need for Jewel and even yourself. Yeah, we can’t get along, but I respected you even with how you distanced yourself when we were together. So, don’t play me like that. I sucked as your man because I was keeping you from this half of me; and, no matter what the hell I did, it was wrong according to you. That’s all. I did everything right by Jewel. Everything. You still can’t trust in me to believe that I can lead us.”
“Because you can’t. Look where your leadership led us now. Look where our child is at now. Gone,” Kenya spat out. “What’s your plan, huh?”
My lips turned up as if something stank in the room and I found that Orlando part of me wanting to abuse her verbally. Instead, I turned my back on her, frustrated at everything, even though I knew that this was our grief and anger at losing our daughter.
After a while, a long moment of silence followed until I heard sniffles. Gripping my fists, I saw Kenya staring at the phone holding herself. I still hated to hear or see her crying. Even throughout all our fights and battles and close blows, where I found myself ready to choke out her fiancé, I hated her crying. We didn’t work, so I thought, but we did; and, like I said, I knew all her triggers and she knew mine. Right now, we were in a psychological and emotional war and being near each other wasn’t working.
“Look—”
“Shut the hell up, Tone,” Kenya quickly cut me off. Her honey brown eyes narrowed in her quiet angst as she spoke. “Somewhere in both of our parenting we messed up with Jewel. I mean, that’s apparent with the fact that she ran away with a damn stranger. I was wrong in what I just said, because it wasn’t all you. It was me too. I did the same thing. I thought being lax with her would help and it didn’t.”
Sulking, I stayed where I was watching her. “Why do you say that?”
Kenya was walking back and forth in the room. Her boots scraped the wood floor. She fiddled with the side of her jacket until she settled upon resting her hand on her ample hip, clad in blue jean leggings.
Inwardly cursing, she glanced at me. “Because, I recognize this number,” she said holding the cell up. “It’s the same one that used to call the house. I remember talking to the voice on the other end. My gullible ass thought he was a kid her age.”
“Call it. Fuck, give it here,” I shouted thrusting my hand out. I found myself shouting in Spanish about this being why I hated Jewel having a cell, and why I never allowed Jewel to have niggas call my home at all hours of the night. A slight red haze was sliding over my eyes. I wanted to kill. I wanted to punch a wall in but, above all, I wanted my daughter back alive and healthy.
Holding the phone away from me Kenya shook her head. “Can’t we trace it?”
Several deep, meditative breaths kept me from being pissed at Kenya as I tried to listen to her like a civilized man. “That’s what I am trying to see. If it’s the same number that I found when I was doing my own search, then we can cross that shit off the list because it’s long been disconnected,” I explained.
Kenya spat out the numbers then cradled the phone. A part of me realized in the moment that she was doing that because it was the only tangible link we had to Jewel. Pictures were worth a thousand words and I guessed Kenya needed them close to her, so I dropped my hand and let it be.
Digging in my pocket, I pulled out my cell, which held some of my personal notes and leads; then I nodded in disappointment. “Yeah. Same number. It went dead about a couple of weeks ago after I traced it and had a private investigator call it.”
“The time and date of the call matches that window. I guess they were down here then,” she quietly said.
“Anything else in the pictures? From the receipts, they were dropped off at some restaurant. Is that matching up?” I asked, moving around to head to the computer desk where I noticed a lot of pictures resting. “Seems he took tourist pictures when he dropped them off or when they came into his store.”
“I see a corner of something, but look.” Moving by my side, Kenya pointed to a smiling blonde and a sunburned fat boy.
Behind the tipsy couple was a pink adobo-style building with a wall of Mexican tchotchkes. In the picture of Jewel and her kidnapper, I saw the corner of the same wall. Quickly going through all the pictures, I stepped back. “Let’s go.”
Storming out,
we left Jesus’s place from the back. A large, blaring horn drew our attention, and I saw that it was the same female driver who chauffeured my father around. Jogging, we made it to the ride. I opened the door for Kenya to get in, and then I followed her.
“I’m doing a search.” She silently clicked on the phone then glanced my way with a determined expression. “It looks like it’s Teresa’s Hotel and Cantina. What’s the plan? We need to be on the same page.”
Adjusting my gloves, I stared at the winding road. “You’re right. A’ight, the plan is to gather any witnesses. We’ll need them as legal backup just in case this whole thing goes south; and we find out names, aliases used, and if they have a rental car. We probably can trace them exactly to where they went in Texas. Then we leave in the morning like Pops said.”
“Do you think he’s doing some of that already?” she asked as she shifted to the side watching me.
“Yeah, I have no doubt that he is. Father is always a step ahead of everyone. It’s how he’s successful in being who and what he is.”
Slightly laughing, Kenya scoffed. “Yeah, don’t I know.”
Immediately I stepped right into old shit, remembering the connection between her and my father. I had so many damn questions I wanted to ask, but now wasn’t the time, I knew. Still, I had to at least get it off my chest in some way.
“And how do you know again? Why do you know again?” I got ready to go deep with it again, but I stopped myself. I was emotionally drained and didn’t feel like it, just like I knew she felt the same way. “Never mind.”
We pulled up in front of the cantina. Funny enough, music blazed and the place looked like the stereotypical tourist trap. Townspeople paraded around singing and dancing, tourists did the same drunk and “lost in the sauce” dances. In the midst of it all, my father stood at the door of the establishment, waiting. He watched us both with an unreadable expression as Kenya and I climbed out of the car.