Best Laid Plans

by Brick

  “I assumed you knew to come here, because?” I asked needing to know.

  “Jesus was known for frequenting Teresa’s and when he chose to speak to us, even though he was at work, his breath smelled of liquor. There’s details in the smallest inkling, son, remember that, because it is a lesson I taught you.” Turning on his heels, he walked back into the cantina.

  Looking down at Kenya, I shook my head. “Like I said, he’s always a step ahead of everyone.”

  Once inside, we questioned everyone on whether they had seen my daughter. Surveillance cameras were confiscated and people were shaken down. Of course, people played stupid and said they knew nothing, and that was a shame, because they were cantina regulars and townies. This was verified by my father, who sat drinking tequila with the town’s mayor in the back of the cantina. After not getting the answers I needed and wanted, I noticed Kenya had disappeared, so I searched the place for her.

  It was when I entered the cantina billiards room that things changed for the better. As she fed her fist into the side of a voluptuous and beautiful lounge singer, I stood observing Kenya show her dark side. She slammed the screeching woman’s dark, curly mane into the floor.

  “Tell me the name of the bastard who took my daughter. I saw your funky-ass expression change when I showed you the picture. Who is he to you?” she yelled out, her teeth clenched together in anger. “Do I need to ask you in Spanish?” Kenya spat out in anger.

  When the woman tried to pull at Kenya’s lush, natural mane, I chuckled knowing that was a huge mistake. Kenya went livid. She slammed her elbow into the woman’s eye then repeated her question in Spanish as they battled.

  Part of me was about to break it up, but considering that Kenya sat on the woman’s chest and was effectively handling things, I left her to it. I walked to where my father sat, as he too watched on. It was Kenya’s turn to learn some lessons and I planned on watching as a means to pass the time before morning came. There’s nothing like a woman scorned. Turn that woman into a mother and the gates of hell always opened on earth.

  Chapter 6

  Kenya

  I grabbed the woman by her hair up from the floor then slung her into a nearby wall. The pictures and plaques attached to it came tumbling down onto her head. I didn’t care who was in the place or what they saw. The woman I was assaulting knew something about the whereabouts of my child and I intended to make her tell me one way or the other. People, men and women, scurried out of my way. They already walked on eggshells as they knew Caltrone Orlando was in the building. I was sure many of them assumed I was of some relation, being that no one moved in to stop me.

  Bella, the woman in question, whimpered as her body hit the floor in a hard splat. She was about sixty pounds heavier than I was, but I didn’t care. Somebody had my child and nothing could topple the rage I felt inside as a mother. I slung a chair out of the way as I stalked over to her. She had fallen onto her stomach, so I straddled her back, lifted her head by the back of her hair, and slammed it into the red-painted concrete floor over and over and over again.

  Moments before, I’d shown her the picture on the cell phone same as I had done with other people in the establishment. But, unlike others, Bella’s face told the story that her mouth wouldn’t. It was like looking at the picture triggered some kind of memory for her. While she lied about seeing or knowing them, her eyes held a glint of something that caught my attention. It was miniscule, but being that I paid attention to detail, I caught it. It was a skill I’d picked up while being an ADA. Paying attention to the smallest details could make or break a witness on the stand. The bitch, Bella, knew something and I intended to make her tell me even if I had to beat it out of her.

  “Bueno! Okay,” Bella managed to squeak out. “Okay, sí. Sí, I know something of him,” she cried.

  I stood up then pulled her heavy body behind me. I grabbed a chair then shoved her into it. “Talk,” I barked out at her.

  Before she said anything, her eyes roamed around the small cantina, trying to see if anyone would help her. I kicked her in the knee, which caused her to yelp out like I’d just tried to rip her heart through her ribcage.

  “I said talk,” I demanded again.

  “Jesus’s brother, Hector, brought them here. The girl looked happy. Her and the guy.”

  “What guy?” I asked.

  “I don’t know his name,” Bella said with a pained expression on her face, her accent becoming thicker with each word spoken. “He was tall and black with muscles and he had some kind of chess piece tattoo on his arm.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Tone. We had something else to go on now. The description of the man she was with was vague at best, but the fact that Bella gave us a specific tattoo to look for made it better. Still, I was angry. I was beyond reason. I needed to hurt someone, anybody, because my child was gone. So I threw a punch to Bella’s face that knocked her head back. Blood shot out of her nostrils and pooled from her bottom lip. I hit her again and this time so hard the chair she had been sitting in rocked back, tilted over like it wanted to fall, and then clanged back down on the floor.

  “Kenya,” Caltrone’s booming voice called out to me. The man’s voice demanded attention, even when he was being gentle in his tone.

  I whipped my head around at him. “Yes,” I answered.

  “That’s enough. She can tell us nothing more. She’s of no use. We don’t want to waste precious time now,” he said plainly as he made his way from the building.

  The fact that the man had changed clothes and cleaned himself up after the happenings at the warehouse told me his OCD was kicking into overdrive. I knew being in this place was nerve-racking for the man, but the fact that he was willing to do it in order to find my child made me appreciate him.

  Tone walked over to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Calm down,” he said to me.

  I almost wanted to ask why I had to calm down, but something in his eyes made me hold my tongue. There were times when I gave Tone a hard time and there were other times when I knew not to test his patience. I looked around at the other people who, I’d forgotten, were in the place. Some quickly cast their glances in other directions while others looked disgusted. I couldn’t care less.

  Tone walked out of the cantina behind his father, and I soon followed. Meanwhile, Bella started yelling and squealing at the top of her lungs. You would have thought somebody had poured scalding hot water on her naked body. Benita and her sidekick snatched Bella by her hair and dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the van. What they would do with her I had no idea.

  I also had no idea where we would be staying for the night, as I knew Caltrone wouldn’t sleep in any hotel bed he hadn’t had thoroughly inspected. So it wasn’t a surprise when we pulled up to a Mediterranean-style mansion that sat at the very end of a dark and dusty road. Traveling through Mexico City at night was a very scary experience especially if you had heard the tales of the Cartel. That would be a different story for another day.

  I couldn’t see the color of the house under the night sky, but I was surprised to see Antonio’s niece and nephews were already there, ready and waiting for their grandfather like the good toy soldiers they were. Tone hadn’t said anything to me on the ride over. I sat on the front seat behind the driver and passenger seats of the van, a stoic expression on my face. Tone sat behind me. I didn’t know what was going on in his mind. Probably the same thing going on in mine as I stared at the picture of our daughter on the phone we had found.

  I couldn’t get over how wide the smile was on Jewel’s face in the photo. She looked to be in love. That look was familiar to me. Many days I’d had that same look when I was a teenager and her father had been around. I remembered the days when I used to be stone-cold pissed off, ready to fight any chick or boy who wanted to catch a beatdown. And all Tone had to do was look at me and shake his head or grab me up from behind to pull me away and all the anger I had in me would subside. Tone and I were good back then, before the b
aby and before the pressures of growing pains got us. But I shook those memories off, as Tone and I were over.

  I thought about my fiancé, Isaac. He was a good man. Since the day I’d met him, he’d been good to me. Jewel liked him and he worked damn hard to get her to. Isaac had always been afraid of not being able to meet Jewel’s expectations for a stepfather. So when he found something they were mutually interested in, he jumped on it. Jewel liked anything to do with science. I always chuckled at the fact that a doctor and a lawyer had produced a future scientist. Isaac was into all that chemical mixing shit. He and Jewel would talk for hours about whatever the newest shit Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about.

  I chuckled to myself. No matter how good an attorney I was, I was no match for that kind of talk. There was a time when I’d prided myself on being able to find a mate whom my daughter accepted and one whom Tone approved of; at least, that was the lie I told myself. I wasn’t really sure what Tone thought of Isaac, as he’d never said a word, but I was sure since he hadn’t forbade me to have the man around his child that he was somewhat okay with him.

  “Kenya, you going to get out of the van or what?” Tone asked from the back seat.

  I jumped at his intrusion into my thoughts. For some reason, his voice annoyed me in that moment. I didn’t even realize I’d just been sitting there. Caltrone had exited the van already. Benita, her sidekick, and Bella were all gone as well. I glanced behind me at Tone then hopped out of the van. I pulled my cell from the black bag I carried. I had forgotten I’d placed it there. I had fifty missed calls. I eagerly scrolled through the log to see if any were from numbers I didn’t recognize. My heart deflated when I saw they were all from Isaac.

  The mansion sat regally like it went back to the Spanish roots of architecture in Mexico, and beyond that to the Mediterranean culture of the classical period. A peristyle, or inner courtyard, was the central element around which the house was organized. The various rooms of the house surrounded the interior space. That was where Bella had been strung up. She was stripped naked. Her stretch marks made trails like a road map over her bottom half. Tears rained down her rosy cheeks and she looked to be in more pain than she cared for. The way her arms were above her head made it appear as if they were about to be pulled from the socket.

  There was no need for me to make any bones about what was going to happen to the woman. If she was alive after it was all over, she would never be the same. Mark was already eyeing her like she was his last supper. Frederick and Maria-Rosa were standing off to the side, guns strapped on them as if they were going to war. I didn’t need to question how they’d gotten here or when. That wasn’t of importance. My heart was broken because my daughter had run off with some lowlife piece of shit and that was my only concern.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Caltrone said as soon as Tone and I walked in. “We have to move quickly, as word travels fast. Catch a quick nap; then we’re on the jet to Texas before daybreak.”

  I nodded but didn’t say a word. I looked at Tone, I mean really looked at him for the first time in years. I didn’t give him enough credit for being a single father. His load was much heavier than mine. To be honest, after my run-in with Lu Orlando I’d dropped the ball as a parent. Wasn’t mentally fit to be a parent after all the mess I’d gotten myself into. I found that I wanted to apologize to him. Maybe that would make me feel better. Maybe that would take away the guilt I felt behind letting my personal demons interfere with being a mother.

  But I didn’t get a chance to. My cell rang and before Tone could ask me what the fuck I was looking at, I pulled it from my hip and found my way to an empty room. It was Isaac calling. I’d meant to call him sooner to let him know I’d made it to Cuba and that I was okay, but I hadn’t had the chance to. The room I was in was dark and the only light came through the floor-to-ceiling window because of the moon. I could see that different furniture pieces had been covered with white sheets. Statues made ghostly shadows along the wall and I was willing to bet any amount of money that there were cameras all around the place.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Hey,” he answered quickly. “Kenya, baby, what’s going on?” Any other time, hearing his country baritone would make me feel at ease. It did nothing for me now.

  “Hey, Isaac,” I responded, my tone about as dry as I felt.

  “You find anything? Did you get the help you went there for? You okay? Did that man touch you in any way?” he rattled off at me.

  Isaac knew I was coming to see Caltrone Orlando. I’d told him as much. He didn’t really know the man, but he knew the name Orlando and that had given him pause. The only way a person didn’t know the Orlando name in the South was if they lived under a rock.

  “I’m okay, Isaac.”

  “I’ve been calling you.”

  “I know and I’m sorry. I left my phone in my bag on the flight—”

  “Flight? What flight?” he asked as the tone in his voice changed a bit.

  “Caltrone traced Jewel to Mexico. Me and Tone—”

  “Mexico? What? How the hell did she get to Mexico? And Tone? You didn’t tell me Antonio would there,” he said, his voice taking on that jealous note it always did when I mentioned I’d be somewhere alone with my child’s father.

  Shit. Isaac didn’t know about Tone being here because I hadn’t known Tone would be in Cuba once I got there. Quiet as kept, Isaac liked Tone about as much as a person with arachnophobia liked pictures of spiders. He always tried to play it off though. I never really knew his beef with Antonio, as Tone had never said a disrespectful word to the man.

  “I didn’t know he would be in Cuba, Isaac. He showed up a few hours after I did,” I explained.

  Isaac was quiet on the other end of the phone. I could hear Bill Nye talking about something in the background. That was Isaac’s thing. He always had to be in the know, always had to know what his white counterparts did so he could stay one step ahead.

  “So you mean to tell me that you both randomly showed up in the same place to ask the same man for help?” he asked.

  I knew that sounded like too much of a coincidence even to my ears, but it was the truth. “It’s the truth, Isaac. I had no idea he would be there,” I defended myself, feeling myself become annoyed.

  Isaac grunted. “And now you’re both in Mexico,” he said with a tone that told me he didn’t believe shit I was saying.

  “Dios, Isaac, I don’t have time for your male pride and jealousy bullshit right now. My child is missing,” I snapped into the phone before I could catch myself.

  “Don’t yell at me, Kenya. Don’t ever yell at me like that again. I told you before,” Isaac said. This time there was no tone in his voice. It was a low and even monotone. The same one he always took when he felt my voice was at a level too high for him. Isaac never liked for me to yell. He felt because he never yelled or cursed, even when we argued, that I should grant him the same respect.

  I sighed and shook my head. I wasn’t able to deal with his bullshit and handle all that was going on at the same time.

  “You didn’t tell me he would be there because you knew I’d have a problem with it. You knew I wouldn’t have let you go had I known he would be there,” he said. Anytime Isaac said the word “he,” it was with so much venom it poisoned my ears.

  “‘Let me go?’” I barked back into the phone; then I pulled it from my ear to look at it as if it had offended me. “Like you could have stopped me either way.”

  I heard Isaac sigh. “It’s always something with you and this motherfucker,” he mumbled under his breath and, to be honest, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “And, let me guess, you two are staying in the same hotel? Same room as well?”

  “Oh, my God,” I spat. “Isaac,” I called then took a deep breath. “We aren’t even at a hotel right now and if we were, no, we wouldn’t be in the same room. I can’t believe you’re doing this
to me right now. Where is the man who was supportive of me doing whatever it took to find my daughter?”

  “He’s still here, but that was because I didn’t think Antonio was doing enough. That was why I gave you the okay to go globetrotting over to Cuba to speak to the man who you said could help you.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “You better stop while you’re ahead. Antonio was and is doing everything in his power to get our child back. What has gotten into you?”

  “Does that include you?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, Kenya. I have to go,” was all he said before the phone went silent on the other end.

  I was left standing in the dark trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

  Later, I didn’t get much sleep. Bella’s screams through the mansion kept me awake most of the night. Thoughts of Jewel kept me awake as well. I missed my baby so much. My heart was broken into thousands of little pieces. I’d give anything to hear her voice, to hear her speak to me in Spanish when she was upset or to see her eyes turn to slits like her father’s when I said something she didn’t like. I’d give anything to see her pout or whine about something that wasn’t going right in her world. I closed my eyes as tears fell down my cheeks. I’d trade everything I owned to have her hug me and sit on my lap like she would do from time to time. Yes, she was seventeen and would still sit on my lap.

  I was in a room in the west wing of the mansion, with Tone in the room next to me. It seemed as if Caltrone always made it a point to put us in a room next to one another. I had no idea why he kept doing that, but I didn’t care to press the issue.

  There was a knock on the door to my room. I didn’t have to open the door to know who it was. There had never been a time when Tone and I were around one another that he couldn’t pick up on when something was wrong with me. Even when he wasn’t in the same room, it was like something, some kind of connection we had to one another at the soul level, would allow him to pick up on my moods. This time was no different.