Mendoza froze in his chair, wondering if the tequila was making him hallucinate. Next to Alejandra stood Lucia, her soaked clothes stuck to her skin, her arms folded across her chest, looking like a frightened doe.
“Gato! There you are, you asshole! Got a surprise for you, dude,” Alejandra said proudly.
Mendoza slid off the stool, not taking his eyes off Lucia. “Please, have a seat, señorita.”
He turned to the waitress. “Morena! Bring my friend something hot to drink and a towel. ¡Órale!”
“I found you,” Lucia muttered, slowly drying her face with the towel. She could feel all eyes in the bar staring at her back. Most looked astonished, but a few glared at her. She was painfully aware that she was the whitest person in the room.
“I’m glad you decided to pay me a visit,” Mendoza said, flashing his best smile.
“This isn’t a social call. At least, not the kind you think.”
The Mexican sipped his drink and studied the girl over his glass. It was true. He’d hoped the girl had been drawn to Bluefont by the prospect of an affair with a handsome helot. Finding out that wasn’t the case wounded his macho pride.
What the hell does she want? Drugs? Booze? She doesn’t look the type.
“So tell me, what can I do for you, señorita?”
“I need you to talk to someone.”
“Talk to someone,” he repeated, as if he hadn’t heard right.
“Yes, talk to my . . . to someone very special to me.”
“What do you want me to say to this special person?” His ears buzzed from all the tequila.
“You have to explain how wrong all this is. That what they’re doing here in Gulfport is horrible, that Greene’s an immoral pig and—”
Mendoza burst out laughing. He tried to catch his breath, but when he saw the offended look on Lucia’s face, he laughed so hard tears filled his eyes. When he finally collected himself, he slapped the bar.
“Hear that, friends? The señorita wants me to cross the channel, sneak into Gulfport, and enlighten some poor lost soul.” He imitated Lucia’s voice. “Mr. Greene’s bad, very bad, he should treat us poor helots better . . .”
Lucia flushed with anger and threw the wet towel in his face. “Enough of this shit! I’ve had enough fights for one night, dammit! I’m trying to help you. The person you need to convince is in a position to help you. He’s—”
Mendoza cut her off with a slap in the face that spun her like a top. Lucia stared at him in disbelief. She put her hand on her cheek, which was starting to swell.
“No one yells at me,” Mendoza said in a velvety voice as he grabbed her by the arm. “Least of all a gachupina from across the channel who doesn’t have a clue what the hell she’s getting into.”
“Gato, wait,” Alejandra intervened. “The girl nearly drowned crossing the river. At least listen to what she has to say.”
“You, shut up,” Mendoza hissed. “She could be one of the reverend’s spies. Now that I think of it, Ale, you got a free ride in the last raid and you didn’t have any papers.”
“I’m not a spy!” Lucia cried indignantly.
“Are you calling me a traitor, you fucking pendejo?” Alejandra was spitting mad.
Carlos Mendoza raised his hands, stepping back. “One at a time, señoritas, one at a time.” A chorus of boozy laughter punctuated Mendoza’s words as the small woman balled up her fists helplessly. “Fellas, take this gachupina to the cellar while we discuss what to do with her. And you, go wash rags—that’s your job. Get a move on!”
Two men grabbed Lucia and dragged her to a trapdoor hidden under a dirty rug. As they shoved her into the cellar, she saw a couple guys rush Alejandra. The woman cursed and aimed kicks left and right, but a muscle-bound guy sent her flying out of the bar.
The trapdoor slammed over Lucia’s head and darkness enveloped her. She heard someone drag something heavy across the rug. After a while the bar settled back down amid clinking glasses, shouts, and laughter.
Lucia curled up in a ball between two stacks of boxes and cried, cursing herself for being so stupid and blindly trusting a guy she barely knew. Most of all, she was terrified.
25
The next morning, the sky over Gulfport was lead gray. In the daylight, the squalid living conditions and mountains of trash in the ghetto underscored the true nature of the place. At least there weren’t many rats. They’d been hunted down by bands of starving children or had fallen prey to the many dogs wandering among the houses, begging for a handout.
Carlos Mendoza woke up feeling like a psychopathic dwarf was inside his head, beating his brain to a pulp with a hammer. He’d fallen asleep on a table in the bar. The floor was littered with regulars snoring away or stretching as Morena, the bartender (whose hangover was as bad as his), woke them with a kick.
“What time is it?” he muttered in a raspy voice. He lit a crumpled cigarette.
Morena kicked a bearded, tattooed guy. “It’s morning, Carlitos. Not that it matters.”
Mendoza grunted and suddenly remembered the girl locked in the hidden cellar.
“Tomás, Adrian, bring me that gachupina.”
The two men pushed aside a table (and the guy sleeping on it) and opened the trapdoor. One guy started down the stairs while the other waited above. A sudden howl of pain woke up anyone who was still asleep. “Fucking bitch sliced me!”
A noisy battle raged in the hole. When the guy reappeared, he had a deep cut on his left arm, and he was dragging Lucia up the stairs, his right arm tight around her neck. Nearly unconscious for lack of oxygen, the girl still waved around a broken bottle.
“Órale, Tomás, let the girl go. You’ll kill her!” Mendoza muttered as he gargled a shot of tequila. Tomás tossed her to the floor with a menacing scowl. Looking at the girl’s pale face, he got angry all over again.
Lucia tried to crawl to the door, but someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. Tears of pain filled her eyes.
“Where’re you going, slut?” Tomás demanded. “We still need to talk to you.”
“Turn her loose, Tomás,” Mendoza barked. “You’re bleeding. You might splash her.”
The man glared at Lucia for a few long seconds but did as he was told. As an afterthought, he ripped off a long strip of the girl’s shirt, exposing her breasts.
“I’ll wrap my cut with this,” he said, clutching the piece of shirt.
Lucia quickly crossed her arms over her breasts before Mendoza grabbed her again.
“Tell me what the hell you’re doing here. And I better like your answer.”
The door burst open in a whirlwind of rain and wind. A dripping figure stood in the shadows and surveyed the scene. He was short and stocky—that was all they could make out from the bar.
“Back away from her if you value your balls, amigo.” The shadowy figure’s voice was soft but menacing, like a voltage generator about to explode.
“Prit!” Lucia cried out in relief.
“Lucia, honey, come to me.” The Ukrainian stood firm in the doorway, looking like an angry bull terrier, never taking his eyes off Mendoza and the other men in the room. Rainwater dripped off his clothes, forming a puddle at his feet, but no one seemed to notice.
“Bullshit,” said Gato, gripping Lucia tighter. “The girl doesn’t leave until I say so.”
“Bad idea,” Pritchenko replied, scratching his ear with the tip of his huge knife.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” Not waiting for an answer, Mendoza kept talking as he secretly signaled to the men at the tables. “Gotta hand it to you, you’ve got balls. You’re the first Aryan to come to the ghetto alone.”
“I’m not one of those brainless Aryan Nations assholes,” Prit replied, suspiciously calm. “For the last time, let the girl go.”
“Tell that to them,” Mendoza shouted.
>
Two men in the doorway jumped on Prit. In that split second, he blinked twice, spread his feet, and, unfazed, turned his right arm slightly and stuck his knife in the chest of the guy on one side. He let out a gurgling sound, and then fell into the Ukrainian’s arms with a look of disbelief. Prit shielded himself with the first guy’s body as he swung around to the second guy. As the goon stared down at the knife sticking out his buddy’s back, Prit punched his chin with a sharp crack, sending the guy’s head flying backward. Eyes dilated, the guy took a step back, and then collapsed like a heap of rags.
Prit threw the body of the first guy into the next two coming at him, then kicked hard at the crotch of a giant tattooed black guy stalking him. The guy let out a muffled scream and dropped to the floor, clutching his balls.
The Ukrainian had time to hit two other guys—and break the arm of one of them with a chilling crunch—before someone punched him in the temple.
Prit staggered and saw double. He got off two more kicks, but then felt a sharp pain in his side, like someone’d hit him with a baseball bat. He took a deep breath, gasping at the sharp pain. Broken ribs, he thought before a brutal kick to his back knocked him to his knees. He grabbed a bottle that had fallen on the floor during the brawl and smashed it in the face of a guy standing over him with a knife. The man writhed in pain as he pulled a sliver of glass out of his eye. As the blinded guy backed away, Prit tried to stand.
Although his rivals only knew how to fight in barroom brawls, Prit was outnumbered. It dawned on the Ukrainian that he was going to die there.
With one last effort, he roared and lunged at the three guys closest to him, who stepped back in surprise. Pritchenko took advantage of that hesitation to strike the neck of the one of them with the side of a hand, leaving him gasping for breath through his broken trachea. Suddenly, something hit him in the face so hard he felt his septum crack. He fell back and then they all jumped him, savagely kicking his curled-up body.
“Lucia! Run!” was all he could scream, frothy blood spilling from his lips, before a kick to his neck made him collapse in a ball.
Mendoza watched the fight, astonished. The little guy had seemed so low-key, but he’d killed two men and knocked out three others in less than a minute.
Suddenly, a shot rang out in the bar. They all looked up, startled. All but Pritchenko, who lay unconscious on the floor. Alejandra was standing in the doorway, an AK-47 in her hands. Although she was aiming at the ceiling, she could’ve lowered the rifle in a second and cut down everyone in the place. Morena let out a frightened squeak and ducked behind the bar.
“Everybody, back off!” the woman shouted, her voice shaking. “Get away from him! Careful, Gato! I know you’ve got a gun in your boot, so no tricks, got it?”
The guys who had been kicking Pritchenko backed away, not taking their eyes off Alejandra’s gun. Lucia ran to her side.
“Are you crazy?” Mendoza hissed. “There aren’t supposed to be any guns in the ghetto, you stupid shit. They could hear that shot all the way on the other side of Gulfport. In ten minutes, the whole fucking Green Guard’ll be here.”
“You’re the crazy one, Mendoza,” Alejandra shot back. “You lock up a girl and strip her, and then you nearly beat this man to death. That’s the kind of thing Greene and his Aryan pigs do, not us. You’re acting like your brain’s rotten like those Undead out there. And you say we’re the righteous ones? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Most of the people in the bar looked down, confused or embarrassed, but Mendoza kept his eyes on Alejandra, furious. “They could be spies,” he blurted out.
“She’s here because you invited her. Admit it. Your fucking macho pride’s hurt because she’s here to talk, not spread her legs. As for him”—Alejandra pointed to Prit with her chin—“if he were a spy, Greene’s men would be all over you by now.”
Mendoza grunted, not budging, but he sat back down on the barstool. The atmosphere in the room ratcheted down a few notches.
“OK,” he said and turned to Lucia. “Someone give the girls a hand with the Russian. Morena, find some clothes for the girl. I guess I owe her an apology.”
Lucia knelt beside Pritchenko, not looking at Mendoza. When she saw her friend’s face, she couldn’t hold back the tears. His nose was smashed to one side and blood streamed out his mouth. Without acknowledging that she was bare-chested, she tore off a scrap of her tattered shirt and wiped the blood from the Ukrainian’s face.
“Prit, please don’t die.” Her voice quavered. “Please.”
The Ukrainian groaned and coughed several times. Propping himself up on one elbow, he spit out a broken tooth and bloody phlegm, groaning as he felt his ribs.
“I’m not going to die,” he growled. “Not from this. Those guys fight like sissies.”
“Oh, Prit!” Lucia grabbed the Ukrainian in a hug that made him grunt in pain. “Sorry . . . How’d you know I was here?”
“I read the note this morning.” The Ukrainian glanced sideways before continuing, lowering his voice. “I warned you-know-who and then headed here. It wasn’t hard to find the bridge. Last night you left tracks in the mud even a blind man could find. Your friend with the rifle”—he pointed to Alejandra, who knelt beside him—“showed me the way, after she made me cover my tracks.”
The little Mexican woman grinned as she stanched the wounds on Prit’s face.
“What do we do now?” Lucia wiped away her tears and put on a faded shirt Morena handed her. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
A siren wailed in the distance, rising and falling in a strange cadence. Everyone jumped up and ran out of the bar, scattering in every direction in panic.
“What’s that?” Lucia asked.
“Bad news,” Alejandra said. “We gotta hide.”
“Why?” Prit muttered as he tried to sit up.
“It’s a raid,” Alejandra replied. “And they’re gonna be really mad.”
26
GULFPORT CITY HALL
FIVE HOURS EARLIER
The day was one big nightmare. Discovering I was unwittingly contributing to a planned mass murder was horrible enough, but finding out my girlfriend had run off to the ghetto was a thousand times worse. The world stopped spinning for a moment as Prit leaned against the office door, panting, dripping with sweat, a helpless look on his face.
“What do you mean gone to Bluefont? When? How do you know?” I strafed poor Pritchenko with questions before he could catch his breath.
Prit dropped into a chair and told me about the note he found in Lucia’s room. I was only half listening. My mind was racing as I tried to come up with a plan. My plan later turned out to be complete bullshit, to put it mildly.
“Prit, we gotta get out of here. Now!” I said, frantically shuffling the papers on my desk. “We’ll have to split up. You go to the ghetto and bring Lucia back. I’ll get transportation, supplies, and weapons. Shouldn’t be too hard since I’m on the town council.”
“Leave this place?” The Ukrainian arched his eyebrows.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s just say Lucia was right. This place is rotten to the core and we can’t stay here any longer.” I furiously looked through folders, then tossed them on the floor. “I know I saw some kind of a pass in all this, dammit!”
Pritchenko put his hand on my arm and I stopped, panting. I was losing it. If anything happened to Lucia, I’d never forgive myself. On top of that, the warning bells that had kept me alive were going off. Something bad was about to happen.
“Forget the pass,” he said, quietly. “Our girl’s smart, but if she found a way to the other side of the fence, I can too. It can’t be worse than Chechnya.”
“It’s worse, Prit, believe me,” I replied grimly.
Prit looked surprised, but didn’t say another word. My old friend trusted me and knew there’d be time for explanations later. We threw
our arms around each other in a bear hug. We were both downhearted. This was the first time we’d split up since we met.
“Be careful,” I said. “Picture me by your side, covering your ass when you screw up.”
“You be careful,” he said with a confident smile. “Don’t know what I’m worried about. All you gotta do is steal a damn boat. My Aunt Lyudmila could’ve done that, and she was blind in one eye and could only hear in the morning.”
I flashed a tight smile, knowing Prit was trying to reassure me. The desk phone rang, breaking the spell.
I lifted up the receiver, then hung it up without answering. As the Ukrainian headed for the door, he turned and looked back at me. In that moment, I felt a dark shadow looming over me, but I didn’t want to worry my friend.
As soon as Prit left, I put on my jacket and started to rush past my secretary, who waved a stack of papers in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. If all went well, Prit would be back with Lucia by nightfall, and I’d have found a boat. I ruled out ground transportation—too dangerous. Air transportation was also out—I didn’t know where the airport was, and helicopters would be closely monitored. I had a lot to do in just twelve hours.
Before I dashed off, I stopped and took a sip of the lukewarm coffee Sue Anne held out to me. To cover my tracks in case anyone came looking for me, I told her I was feeling sick and needed to go home to rest. It was a lame excuse, but I just had to buy a few hours.
I headed down the crowded halls, reading the signs on the doors till I came to one that said “Transportation Services.”
I knocked, but no one answered. I cautiously turned the knob and poked my head inside. The office was empty. It was lunchtime, so most people were away from their desks. Perfect.
I slid behind the largest desk like a thief. I was relieved when the computer screen lit up. The system was password protected, but the user of this computer had left without shutting it down. I searched the Gulfport database for a boat that would solve our transportation problem. A wolfish grin spread over my face.
The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z) Page 14