One More Body

by Josh Stallings

  “Survive, Moses.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The rain settled in for the long haul, smearing my windshield and dimming the streetlights to useless. I rolled slow around two corners, one more and I’d be out of the box and onto the main street. I moved to the curb and turned the Mustang off. It was registered to Gregor, so I had to be careful not to bring my shit back to his house. His loyalty had cost him an arm. I wanted to keep it at that. My normal M.O. would be to lead a tail into an industrial neighborhood in Northeast LA. Places where I knew all the streets, blind alleys and best places to dump a body if it went that way.

  I pulled on a balaclava, for warmth and the CCTV that now blankets Los Angeles. Decades of gangland killings nobody gave a shit, but post 9/11 the surveillance cameras started going up. Fuck brown on brown violence, a terrorist could kill some pale citizens, so action needed to be taken. We weren’t up to UK standards yet, but it was coming.

  Hoodie up. Popping my collar, I pushed against the wall. A hundred feet away I could see the cul-de-sac exit. Ten feet ahead of me sat the Chevy Malibu. Fog pumped from the dual exhaust. I dropped to the deck, cold water soaking my clothes. Crawling in the gutter, I moved along the Chevy. The driver’s window was cracked open, letting the sweet smell of mota drift out. They were listening to Cafe Tacuba’s “Desperté.” Mellow music to kill by. Adolpho’s son turned me on to them. Good stuff. No Clash, but it had heart.

  The Ruger was in my hand when I stood in front of the Chevy. I pressed it onto the hood and pulled the trigger. The .454 Casull roared, bellowing flame. I fought to keep the revolver from flipping into the night. It punched a hole the size of a quarter into the hood, scorching the paint around it. Gears screeched and screamed as the engine tore itself apart. I fired a second round into the windshield. The concussion sent a million chunks of glass spilling back. It tore a three-inch hole through the seat before ripping out through the trunk. The safety glass bloodied up the bangers pretty good, but they showed good form, not a wail or a moan.

  “Whatever gun you hoped to go for, don’t.”

  “I’m going to lose my eye.” Blood was running down the veterano’s left cheek.

  “Looks like it, but ya never know.”

  “You going to kill us?” The kid’s voice was trembling.

  “Yes, if I don’t hear what I need to. Who do you work for?”

  The veterano wiped blood on to a handkerchief. “You don’t hire guys like us if you expect them to talk.” His voice was soft, pure ghetto badass. He wasn’t fronting, just stating facts.

  “Everybody talks,” I said. “Sooner or later. How about you, kid. Wanna play see how many parts we can remove before you open up?” The kid looked at me, then at the veterano. His lips went firm.

  I dragged the veterano to the rear of the car, pat-searched him, zip-tied his wrists and tossed him into the trunk, locked it and tossed the keys into the rain.

  I dragged the kid out, laid him spread-eagle, belly down on the hood of the Chevy. I ripped his pants down around his ankles. Partly to freak him, partly to fuck him up if he tried to run. “Move and I’ll kill you.”

  I sat in the Chevy. With the windshield gone, it was only slightly dryer than the street. I searched the glove box, found the registration. It was good, well printed but a fake. Taped under the dash was the real Mexican registration. I slit the headliner. Three bundles of US cash, Mexican documents, even two driver’s licenses tumbled down. I matched the first driver’s license with the kid on the hood. Roberto Orizaga was starting to panic. Couldn’t see if he was sweating in the rain, but he was starting to tremble. Opening a manila envelope, I found a picture of me and Rollens taken on the beach in Ensenada. Fuck. I near ripped the car door off getting out. I swung my fist, connecting with Orizaga’s tighty-whities and the junk inside them. He started to puke. I grabbed his hair, pulled him up, then slammed his face into the Malibu’s hood. Blood from his flattened nose mixed with his vomit. I was ready to slam him down again when a gun barrel pressed into my back.

  “Release him.”

  “I have to stop putting people in trunks. Always works in the movies.”

  “Don’t feel bad, we all see the same movies. Put releases in. Now let him go.”

  I did. Orizaga grabbed the Ruger from my belt, aimed it at me. He stepped back, got his feet tangled in his pants and almost took my face off when he fell. The muzzle blast singed the hair above my ear.

  Gálvez, the veterano, looked no worse for his time in the trunk. “On your knees. Laced fingers.” It sounded garbled and thick after the blast.

  I did as told. Gravel dug into my knees. He waited until his young partner was standing up, pants secured and the Ruger aimed at my chest. Gálvez ripped the balaclava off my head. He snapped a picture with his phone, then rested the barrel of his gun against the back of my skull while he punched numbers into it. He spoke in fast hushed Spanish, but I was sure I heard Señor Sanchez mentioned. No good ever came from that man’s name.

  Then we waited. Gálvez kept the phone to his ear and his piece resting on my neck. “McGuire? Catholic?”

  “Atheist.”

  “Maybe agnostic?”

  “I’m fairly sure the son of a bitch don’t exist.”

  “Fairly sure? Agnostic.”

  “This leading somewhere?”

  “I’m just killing time, Irish. Waiting for the big jefe. He either say kill you, kill you slow, or maybe just fuck you up and leave you broken.”

  “Any chance take me out for a quick dinner and let me go?”

  “No, pretty sure that’s not an option. Me, I believe our heavenly father lets nothing happen that is not in his plan.”

  “You think it’s in his plan for me to drop tonight?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  This was it then. The moment. The one that most fear. Fuck it. If it was time to kiss this mess goodbye, so the fuck be it. “Do me a favor, don’t let this pussy do it. Way his hand is shaking he’ll blow out my kidney and leave me to bleed out.” Orizaga’s face tightened. “You see the way he went all bitch when I nutted him? Bitch in Español? Puta?” The kid took aim at my head. He was ready to prove himself regardless of his boss’s orders. “Dude, your boy is about to go way off the script.”

  Orizaga’s finger was trembling on the trigger. The bullet took him at the base of his skull, clicked out his lights before he even heard the shot.

  Gálvez turned to look for the shooter. The subsonic round entered below his left cheek, exiting low in the back of his skull. I was sure he never felt it. If he was right, he was at the pearly gates before he even knew what hit him. If I was right, he simply stopped breathing.

  THE RAIN HAD turned to mist, proving nothing in LA is constant. Nothing but pain and death, which both seemed pretty damn constant. I looked to the buildings that made up the cul-de-sac. Half a mile across the rooftops, a hydraulic crow’s nest stood on the roof of Sunshine’s warehouse. It was dropping from sight fast. I couldn’t see the shooter, but I’d bet big time she had soft, full lips.

  I PICKED GÁLVEZ’S cell up from the gutter. It was silent. Whoever he had been talking to was long clicked off. Headlights swept across me and I grabbed for the gun Gálvez had dropped. The lights swung clear and I saw a tow truck, Sal’s Service Station written on its rusted side along with a phone number I was sure was a dead-end. Kenny was behind the wheel. He backed up to the Chevy and started hooking it up.

  He said nothing to me.

  I said nothing to him.

  I collected the Mexicans’ papers, both fake and legit, and their firearms. Kenny was winching the front of the car when I dropped the bodies into the trunk.

  “Any chance you can find out who he was talking to?” I handed him Gálvez’s cell.

  “Everything leaves a trail, everything. But this here will lead to a burner and a dead-end.” He dropped the phone back into my hand. “From here on, stay clear of Sunshine.”

  “That an orde
r?”

  “No, a request. She’s had it tough. Pays heavily for every trigger pull.”

  “Yes . . . thank you.”

  “Don’t. McGuire, everything I do from here on is to keep you off her front porch.” He turned away and drove the rig into the cul-de-sac. I was sure by dawn the only thing left of the Mexicans would be a whiff of acid.

  ACROSS THE LA basin the clouds were gone, leaving stars and long vistas. Kenny was right. If I gave a damn about Sunshine, or any woman, best I could do was put fifty miles of hard road between her and me.

  CHAPTER 19

  Lil’ Diamond sat in the back of the convertible, German luxury car. Frankie had told her the brand but it didn’t stick. She was blazing on a Xanax and a joint. Zero was driving. Amethyst sat on one side of Lil’ Diamond, Frankie on her other side. He was an old man, forty at least. She’d fucked men plenty older and uglier. He wore a sharp suit and a Sam Jackson Kangol, backward. His smile made her feel warm.

  “Amethyst tells me you doing real good. Says you’re a fast learner. Here, I got this for you.” Frankie nodded at Amethyst, who then gave a small box to Lil’ Diamond.

  “You didn’t need do that.”

  “Just the beginning, Lil’ Diamond. Down payment on the good life you will be living. You do what you told, you be swimming in chinchilla.”

  When the child opened the box, she found a small square-cut golden “LD.” Filled with diamond chips, it sparkled wildly. “It’s for Lil’ Diamond, our baby princess.” Frankie hung the pendant on a gold rope chain. After he closed the clasp he let his hand rest on her cheek. “I know you had it rough. Zero and the boys is a tough bunch a street dogs. But that’s over. Any one hurts you again, you tell me and I will fire them up. Got it, Princess?” He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Not sir. Daddy or Frankie, never sir.” Behind the wheel, Zero tried to keep his face flat. If he or any of the men didn’t call Frankie “Sir” they got ass whupped.

  Lil’ Diamond watched her pendant reflecting in the side window. She had never owned any jewelry, let alone diamonds and gold. She still might kill Zero and his crew, but not Frankie. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “See, I told you she was a good one.”

  Frankie beamed at Amethyst. “You brung her up right.”

  Zero took a left, fast. This bullshit was almost over.

  “Slow down, bitch.” Frankie slapped the back of Zero’s head.

  “Sorry, sir. It’s just . . . well . . . fuck you hard in the ass, old man.” The car bounced into an auto painting shop. In a blink, the door slid closed behind them. Two young Latino men aimed cut-down 12 gauges at Frankie and the girls. Mostly at Frankie, not that it would make a difference. They pulled and the spread would kill all three in the backseat.

  “Who the fuck?” Frankie looking like he might explode.

  “Zacarías.” He was early twenties. Scars and tattoos covered his face, MS-13 on his cheeks, looked like a skeleton. “Yeah, you know me.”

  “Ain’t we a few miles outside your set?” Frankie was holding it together.

  “You know shit. My boy reached out, you refused.”

  “Nothing personal, brother. I stay wide clear of the gang and stay in the game.”

  “Zero,” Zacarías nodded at him, “you done good. We keeping these two girls?”

  “Ask ’em. I bet yes though.”

  Zacarías took out a nine-inch knife, pointed it at each girl. Frankie started to slip his hand into his jacket. “You go for that gun and you will die slow. Two days. No good.”

  Frankie let his hand go limp. “What do we do from here?”

  “Do you know what Zacarías means? He who God remembers. You think God remembers you?”

  The knife moved too fast to see. It dipped into Frankie’s neck above the collarbone, almost no blood. Frankie slumped over.

  Freedom slowed it down in her head: Zacarías had pierced the left lung, then hit the heart. Frankie bled out inside his chest cavity. She remembered a dream. Remembered medical high school. Looking at Frankie’s slumped over corpse, she cared, but not a lot.

  The man with the scary tattoos and knife skills smiled at her. He ran his thumb over the dead pimp’s wound, coating it in blood. He then placed a cross in blood on Freedom’s forehead. “Madre a mantenerse a salvo.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “I bought this for you. Well, Gregor did. His money, my idea.” Nika held out an iPod, flat black, cool and clean.

  It had taken me two hours to drive across town. I looped around, being damn sure I wasn’t followed. I’d brought enough pain to this family, didn’t need any more waking me at night.

  I’d called Detective Lowrie, left a message. We were sitting in Gregor’s garage, waiting. He had converted it into an office of sorts. He had a desk, a computer, filing cabinets. Tools hung from pegboard above a workbench. A gun safe took up much of one corner. In the center of the room were the white patio table and plastic chairs we were sitting in.

  Gregor motioned with his chin at the iPod. “I told her you would never learn to use it.”

  Nika leaned over my shoulder. “It’s easy. Push this button to open iTunes.” I could feel her warmth against my skin. I fumbled with the small device. My fingers felt huge and clumsy. “No, Moses, push on the music icon, see?” She touched my hand, moving it over the screen.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She looked into my eyes, playfully batting her lashes.

  “Seemed like a nice guy.”

  “He is, but . . . I don’t know.” On the iPod, a play list appeared. “I loaded in a bunch of bands Gregor said you like. And one new one, Admiral Fallow, they’re from Scotland. I know you like The Pogues and The Clash. You may hate them.” Her finger tapped the screen. “There, that track.”

  I could see the title, “Old Fools.”

  “It made me think of you.”

  From the house, Anya called Nika, who rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t,” Gregor said. “Give your sister respect.”

  “Whatever.” Nika gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Moses.” And she bounced off into the house. I looked at the iPod to keep from having to look at Gregor.

  “You know, you are her hero.”

  “That’s a mistake.”

  “She compares boys she meets to you.”

  “Teach her the truth.”

  “Can’t. I agree with her. Look, Boss, what happened in Mexico, you did what you did, brought her home. Time to let it go.”

  But Gregor wasn’t there, didn’t see the Russian pimp pushing down on me, forcing me to enter her. I could say he would have killed us both if I hadn’t done it. Could say there was no other way out. Could say a lot of crap. Didn’t mean much at four in the morning when the truth hit home.

  He sipped his muddy Armenian coffee. “Boss, remember how we met?”

  “I broke your nose on the hood of a car.” He’d been muscle for a wannabe gangster running a protection racket at the strip joint I bounced at. “I pointed a nine at you. Crazy bastard, you looked ready to eat a bullet then rip my head off.”

  “I was. In church tonight, I saw that moment.” He stared into space. “Bad day. But without it, no hiring me. No firefight in NoCal. No meeting Anya. No saving Nika. No son. No life.”

  “You look happy.”

  “I am. Blink and this could crumble, but somehow I have faith it won’t.” He shrugged, done talking. We sat drinking our warm brew in comfortable silence. We had been to war more than once, and for all it had cost us, we had survived, that much was true. Price paid.

  Later, Gregor told me he still felt his missing arm, that his brain couldn’t fully grasp it was gone. Angel was like that. I found myself starting to call her name before remembering she wasn’t there anymore. Kelly, the woman who had given me Angel, was like that. I had loved her, and still saw her out of the
corner of my eye on a crowded street. Sometimes I even had a phantom childhood, one where mom wasn’t a monster driven by equal parts booze and Bible. Where my brother hadn’t left when I was sixteen, leaving me to steal his ID and join the Marines. Hadn’t learned to kill and to live with it.

  Gregor told me the hospital wanted him to wear a prosthetic arm. Anya hoped he would, it would make him look more normal. But it would be useless. For show. He turned them down. Guys like us wore our scars for all to see. Not as badges of honor, but as warning to our enemies of how far we were willing to go.

  It was after ten when Lowrie called back. He sounded weary as ever. “Rollens is a ghost. Never worked LAPD, the Sheriffs, no one. Lucky for you I have OCD, least that’s what the department shrink tells me. I did some digging, deep. I found a woman with Rollens as her maiden name. Husband was an LAPD detective, then moved to DEA in San Diego, killed in the line of duty in . . . Mexico.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Bullshit, right? Same last name? I don’t have a picture of the widow, but she ticks all the boxes.”

  “Don’t tell the I.A. boys yet.”

  “Screw those pricks. They are on my need to know nothing list.”

  “You got any clue what’s going on? Anything?”

  “Nope, kid, all I see is how dicked you are.”

  He gave me Rollens’s last known address. I thanked him, he grumbled and hung up. I owed him, but doubted he’d ever call in the marker.

  AS I CLIMBED into a cab, Gregor tossed me a cell phone. “What’s this?”