To The Lions - 02

by Chuck Driskell

  “Ow,” she said, turning her head but not enough to see. “I hope you’re doing that where I cleaned.”

  “Just relax.” He dropped the needle a fraction, changing the angle and pulling back on the plunger to see the rush of bright red blood, signifying the needle’s presence in the vein.

  “It doesn’t feel like you went deep enough.”

  “It’s all the way in,” he said.

  “Then just push the plunger in really slow, okay? If you go too fast it’ll leave a mouse that’ll hurt like hell.”

  Xavier had already depressed the plunger to the hilt. He slid the needle from the vein, pressing his thumb on the tiny dome of blood that emerged from the hole.

  “How’s that feel?” he asked, rolling her over.

  “It didn’t hurt a bit,” she answered, opening her legs around him, pulling him forward with her feet. She took his hands, placing them on her breasts. “It’ll take a few minutes. Want to finish as I start floating?”

  Massaging her small breasts, he leaned over and brushed one kiss on her lips. As he pulled back, her expression changed.

  “Xavier,” she said in a breathy voice, blinking her eyes rapidly. “It’s hitting too fast.” She licked her lips and took several ragged breaths. “Oh shit. Oh shit. I’m scared, baby.”

  “Don’t be, precious,” he said, taking her hand.

  “Oh-oh-oh-oh.” Her voice came in hitches, softer each time.

  The nurse’s pupils began to bounce up and down. He allowed her limp hand to drop. Her chest rose and fell a dozen more times until it finally stopped. A rattling sound emanated from her mouth as her final breath modulated her vocal cords.

  Then she was gone.

  Xavier slapped her thigh affectionately, coming to a standing position. As he lifted the nurse’s light body from the floor, he noticed the Polish woman, Justina, eyeing him through slit eyes.

  “Go to sleep,” Xavier commanded, flipping off the light in the cupboard and pulling the door shut.

  He carried the slight nurse to the hall closet, stuffing her inside, thoroughly disgusted when her bowels released due to the pressure of her contortion. Hoping to contain the smell, Xavier wet a towel and jammed it against the outer base of the door. Then, from the kitchen, he looped a piece of string around the resident dinner bell, hanging it on the doorknob of the storeroom.

  Using his cell phone, Xavier touched redial for Acusador Cortez Redon.

  “That little shit better use every bit of his influence to find Gage Hartline.”

  Cocked an eyebrow. “And my money.”

  * * *

  Something happened while Angelines drove the small pickup truck westward across the sunset-splashed city of Barcelona. Though it had been hitting him in waves over the past day, Gage’s fear for Justina uncorked, constricting his optical nerves in a cousin to his old PTSD headaches. This headache wasn’t completely debilitating—but it was quite painful. And while Barcelona was streaked with the low afternoon sun, to Gage it flamed red, worsening his headache with every second.

  Redon was still in the floorboard, his protestations having quieted after Gage stomped on him a few times. Now the lawyer was curled into a modified fetal position, whimpering occasionally, surrendered to his fate. Unable to speak with a great deal of coherence, Gage motioned Angelines to follow the road by the Llobregat River. She followed the river inland for ten kilometers, as the city abruptly gave way to a pastoral setting, with rows and rows of plantings beside the curving waterway.

  At a rural bridge crossing, Gage asked Angelines to slow, having her turn down a dusty access road that led to the river’s edge. There, at the base of a low bridge, a good ten feet below the road and completely hidden, Gage held his left hand up to stop her.

  “What are we going to—”

  Her query was cut off because Gage was already out of the truck. He thrust both hands back in, grasping Redon’s lapels and yanking him from the truck so hard that Redon’s forehead snagged on a protruding screw head at the bottom of the dashboard, ripping it open and leaving the acusador squealing like a pig.

  “My kidney’s about to rupture! My head is splitting! I’ve got stab wounds! Acid burns!” Gage’s rant continued as he dragged the howling little man down to the coffee-colored water, his actions concealed by the looming bridge. Above them, the radial sound of car and truck tires on the steel grate-work drowned out the acusador’s screamed protests and impassioned cries for help.

  Dropping down into the knee-deep water just below the bank, Gage twisted the acusador so his back was against the grass and mud, and then he began to beat the man.

  First blow: straight right to the mouth. Finger-width gash on the upper lip and two teeth knocked loose.

  Second blow: left hook into Redon’s right ear. No visible damage other than a stunned reaction.

  Third blow: another straight right, directly into the acusador’s pristine Gallic nose. Nose visibly broken afterward, replete with running blood and red snot bubbles.

  Fourth, and final, blow: left cross to left eyebrow. Deep fissure of a cut on the sharp brow line, matching the lip cut in severity.

  Through it all, the acusador had blubbered legal protestations, as if a bailiff might rush in to save him. Finished punching him, Gage dunked the lawyer into the waters of the Llobregat, silencing the acusador’s remonstrations. Now, other than the traffic, all that could be heard was bubbling and thrashing.

  As he held the crooked little man under, Gage turned to Angelines, who was watching him in horror.

  “Let him up!” she screamed. “You’ll kill him.”

  Gage continued the hold for ten more seconds, then lifted Redon, his bloody, split maw a rictus of sucking air. “He’s alive,” Gage said monotone, thrusting him under again.

  The thrashing continued. Foaming water. Churning. It had all the frenzy of a crocodile attack.

  Defeating the car sounds, the splashing, and Angelines’ objections, was a smooth female voice from the recesses of Gage’s mind. The accent wasn’t American; it was indistinct. It could have been Justina, could have been Monika, he couldn’t tell—but the words, and their meaning, were clear enough:

  Let him up, Gage. No more killing.

  It might have been the only thing that saved the acusador, and since the voice belonged to a woman Gage loved, though he didn’t know which one, he obeyed.

  Still holding the lawyer’s soaked lapels, Gage jerked him from the river’s silt. He hoisted Redon onto the dusty bank, leaving him flat on his back. Once the acusador had his breath, he began to cry, wailing loudly. Redon reminded Gage of the proverbial neighborhood bully once he’d finally met his match, taking a vicious and humiliating ass-whipping from the new kid on the block and not having a clue of how to react to total defeat with some measure of decorum.

  Gage pulled himself up, staggering to Angelines as his fury melted away. “Get ready to leave.”

  “Don’t kill him, Gage,” she pleaded.

  He pointed to the truck. She complied.

  By the time Gage took a knee by the acusador, the Spaniard’s cries had reduced to whimpers. “No mas,” the pathetic man sniveled. “No mas, por favor!”

  “Stop your crying,” Gage said, curling his lip.

  “Wh-wh-what are you going to do to me?”

  “Before you tell me what I want to know, I’m going to make you a promise.”

  Redon began to gingerly touch his facial cuts.

  “Look at me,” Gage said. When Redon did, Gage spoke calmly but firmly. “If you cooperate with me, Redon, I will allow you to live. If you lie to me, or clam up, you’re going back in that river and you’re not coming up.” Raising his eyebrows, Gage waited for acknowledgement.

  “I will do anything you say. Anything.”

  “Later, Redon, when your little pains and fears subside, if you try to take legal action against me, or try to tip off your gangster buddies, I swear to you above all I hold sacred, that the piss-ant beating you just took will see
m enjoyable next to what I will do to you. I will make it my life’s final mission to pay you back, and to do it as painfully as I can dream.” Gage gripped the man’s jaw, squeezing it. “Because, Acusador Cortez Redon, in my eyes there’s nothing worse than a man who is supposed to serve the people that, instead, steals from them and makes their lives collectively more dangerous. It would give me great joy to kill your ass over the most tortuous week imaginable.”

  Gage let that sink in for a moment. “Do you believe me?”

  Redon nodded, vigorously. And Gage was sure he smelled fresh piss. He stood, placing his hands on his hips.

  “Did you receive a visit from a tall Polish girl and an older Spanish woman today?”

  Redon’s eyes grew wide. “Yes.”

  “Where did you see them?”

  “Near where you grabbed me, in a café.”

  “What happened?”

  Despite the stress of the situation, Redon concisely exposited the story about Señora Moreno and Navarro’s money. Then he explained that he didn’t know they were together, and told Gage about going to the hotel with the Polish girl.

  Trying to make sense of what he’d just heard, and guessing correctly that it was a two-pronged setup, Gage grasped Redon’s wet tie and dirty-water-stained white shirt, twisting it. “Where are they now?”

  “I truly don’t know.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “When we got up to the hotel room, when the girl was in the bathroom, I received a call.”

  “Who called?”

  A visible swallow. “A man named Xavier, the head of Los Leones.”

  “The same man who you were secretly working for when you double-crossed Navarro?”

  “Sí.”

  “And what did he tell you?”

  “He said I was being set up, so I ran away.”

  “And he snatched the girl and the woman?”

  “I don’t know that but, if you’re unable to reach them, I would presume he did.”

  “Where would he take them?”

  “I don’t know,” Redon answered immediately. Making a fist, Gage pulled his right arm back as Redon cowered, whimpering that he’d been calling Xavier all day long.

  Angelines, having been sitting in the passenger seat with the window open, stepped out with Redon’s phone, an Android. “What’s the password?” she asked, wagging the phone.

  “George Town.” He said it in English.

  She typed. “Not working.”

  Gage pulled back again.

  “It’s two words!” Redon screamed. “Upper-case ‘G’ and ‘T’: George-space-Town.”

  She tapped the words in, nodding as the screen lit up. “You’ve received two calls,” she said, handing Redon the phone.

  Squinting his eyes, Redon nodded enthusiastically. “They were from him.”

  “Message?” Gage asked.

  “No. Never. He expects me to answer. He doesn’t leave messages.”

  “If I let you call him…”

  “I will behave as if my very life depends on my cooperation.”

  “It does.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Xavier stood on the balcony, eyeing the distant, darkening Mediterranean. He knew that many people of varying authority could possibly be looking for his three “houseguests.” A plan in mind, he went inside, methodically searching all their clothing, finding no cellular phones or anything that could be emitting a signal. That done, he searched the nurse’s purse, discovering an older Blackberry, which he disabled by removing the battery.

  Satisfied that the most recent parlador injection had at least thirty more minutes of effectiveness, he took the inner stairs down to the enclosed garage, inspecting the Volvo. Right away he noticed a large, purple handbag and, inside, a wallet and a cell phone. The phone was cheap, of the prepaid variety. Since he couldn’t determine a way to eliminate its signal, he removed the battery. Xavier set it aside, eyeing the dormant GPS on the dash of the Volvo.

  Could this still be sending out a signal?

  He recalled something about a radio advertisement, describing a person whose car had been stolen, and the overly-cheery operator finding it due to the car’s global positioning system. Of course, the advertisement failed to mention the car-jacker’s vow for revenge against the car owner, or the crooked judge, or the beating the car-jacker put on the engine and transmission while trying to escape. No matter, Xavier located an adjustable wrench and, after popping the hood, disconnected the grease-coated red cable leading to the battery.

  Ascending the stairs, Xavier checked the door to the storeroom. It was closed and he could hear no movement. As he pondered his next move, his own phone buzzed on the counter. He eyed the phone number, recognizing it as Cortez Redon’s cell phone.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Xavier snapped.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s been a very interesting afternoon.”

  Knowing he had no room to talk, Xavier admonished Redon anyway. “How could you be so stupid, so cock-driven to get lured to a hotel room by some slut you don’t even know, with all you and I have on the line?”

  “I realize that now,” Redon said in a contrite voice.

  “And what did the old woman talk to you about in the café?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. She offered money.”

  “I know about the bearer bonds. Do you have them?”

  “No, Xavier. The man who kidnapped me has the bonds.”

  Xavier didn’t respond for a moment. He padded through the house, walking outside, collapsing into one of the patio chairs as Redon repeated his name.

  “Xavier, are you still there?”

  Leaning his head back to the growing dusk, Xavier calculated the situation and said, “If he kidnapped you, and now you’re calling me, it can only mean that he wants his women.”

  “That is exactly what he wants.”

  “Wait a moment,” Xavier said, concentrating. With Navarro’s organization at his disposal, despite the current cash crunch, Xavier felt confident Los Leones could pull through in their current state. Rather than bargain with this American prick, he could order his entire organization to hunt this man—hunt him and kill him. Xavier gave himself a one-in-three chance of finding him before the dawn.

  Besides, the old woman in that storeroom was loaded. With a deft hand, Xavier might be able to extract her wealth instead. He lifted the phone.

  “Tell your American I said to fuck off. And he can gut you for all I care, Cortez.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Redon said, his voice shaking.

  “I told you I know about the money and the bearer bonds.”

  “Not that.”

  “What then?”

  “Angelines de la Mancha, from Berga, is with him. If you don’t bargain with him, he said they’re going to the American Embassy. They’re going to expose Berga, and expose you.” Redon lowered his voice. “And they’re going to take me with them. It will be bad for you, Xavier. While you may rule Catalonia, such pressure from the United States would force Spain to crush Los Leones, despite all the government officials on your payroll.”

  “You would turn on me?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  Xavier stood and walked inside, trembling in his rage. Breathe, Xavier, breathe. He took another beer from the refrigerator, biting off the top and taking a long draught.

  “Are you still there?” Redon asked.

  “I think the American is a desperate liar. And that cunt from Berga, too. There’s no way in hell they’ll admit what they’ve done. They’ll go to jail.”

  “No. They’ll be cutting a deal to bring down Spain’s most brutal gang. We all will. And we’ll get immunity, Xavier. While you’ll get hunted down.”

  “You’re somewhere with this American’s pistol aimed at your nose, mariquita. Like I should believe you.”

  “It’s the truth and it will make for great news and publicity for a country that makes its living from tourism.�
��

  From somewhere in the corner of his mind, Theo Garcia demanded that Xavier cut a deal and get that damned money. Xavier rubbed his temples…

  Swallow your pride, Xavier. Swallow your pride and meet the American. You can make the deal and still deceive him. You’ll get your money, thereby satisfying Garcia and solidifying Los Leones. Then you can kill the American, de la Mancha, and that little prick, Redon.

  Then, when the coffers are full, rent another yacht and head to Italy.

  It made sense.

  Xavier idly glanced at the supply closet, wishing he hadn’t overdosed his nurse friend. After this call he was going to require an intense release.

  “Fine,” Xavier finally said. “Tell the American we can make the trade. The two women for the money. If anyone tries to go to the embassy or the authorities, I promise a blood war that Spain has never before seen.”

  “Wait a moment.” It sounded as if Redon covered the phone. When he came back he said, “He wants proof the two people are alive.”

  “To hell with him,” Xavier laughed. “He will never, ever, make demands to—”

  “You better not hurt them, you sonofabitch!”

  The voice that had just yelled was different, and in English.

  It was the American, Hartline.

  Although momentarily surprised, Xavier was experienced in making, and dealing with, threats. Rather than let it sound as if it affected him, he made his voice silky as he said, “Your two conniving friends are just fine and both resting comfortably.”

  “Hear me,” Hartline said, his voice suddenly calm. “If you hurt those two women, I will destroy you.”

  Xavier thought he might keep going but he didn’t. That was the sum total of his threats. And the conciseness and tone actually made Xavier believe the American—or, believe that he would die trying. In some small way, he respected the man. Unfortunately for the American, he wouldn’t be alive to mete out any destruction. Nevertheless, Xavier appreciated such economy and coolness. It made the threat seem far more ominous.

  “Mister Hartline, I am a businessman. You have my attorney, and my money. And I have your women. Let’s don’t take the dark road. Let’s figure this out, and be done with it.”