by Derek Blass
Tyler brought the vehicle to a stop and shut off the headlights. He grabbed a flashlight out of the center console and checked the clip in his gun to make sure it was loaded. A bitter, fall wind blasted Tyler when he opened the door and stepped out onto the dirt road. He closed the door quietly and stood next to the car as his eyes adjusted to the dark. A solitary dog bark in the distance stole through the still night.
Tyler's breath rose in front of him as he moved toward Shaver's house. When he was about a hundred feet away he could make out the outline of a long, ranch-style house set back from the dirt road. He stopped at the top of the driveway behind a hedge that ran the front length of the home. There were no lights on, either inside or outside of the house. Cloud-obscured beams of light spilled down from the moon and bathed certain areas around Tyler in a milky ash.
He slipped down the driveway until he came to the front door. The screen door slipped open just enough to wriggle his hand in to see if the front door was locked. The doorknob turned and Tyler felt little resistance as the door cracked open. He pulled the screen door back more and winced when it creaked. One foot ventured into the house and then he slid the rest of his body in while slowly closing the screen door.
Pitch black blanketed Tyler. He stood motionless for several minutes, straining to hear any signs of life. There was nothing to give away Shaver's location. To his left, Tyler saw the green glow of a microwave clock. He was in a hallway that seemed to open into a large living room. The faint whir of electronics murmured about ten paces in front of him. Tyler knelt down and felt the floor. Rug, good.
He crept forward while staying crouched. Stop and listen. Creep forward some more. Stop, strain ears to listen. Tyler started to move forward again when he heard a rustle from down a hall to his left. There was nothing more than the rustle and then complete silence. No buzz from a refrigerator. No clock ticking. Nothing but silence and the uncanny feeling that he was moving deeper into a spider's web.
There was just one door at the end of the hall. A faint, yellow light filtered out from it. Tyler hesitantly put one foot in front of the other as he made his way to the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he felt his heart pound. The rough grip on his gun became slippery with sweat. He stopped at the threshold to the room and tried to figure out its layout. A crack in the door provided a limited view.
A bed was pressed into the back corner of the room. There was a window on each wall the bed touched. Moonlight barely made it through to the room, as the pines surrounding the house provided a natural barrier to any light. Tyler could see the figure of a person lying in the bed.
“Shaver,” he barely whispered. He nudged the door and took two delicate steps into the room. It was clear. Tyler took two more steps to the center of the room. He had infiltrated into Shaver's house undetected. Shaver was laying in front of him, motionless and unknowing. Perfect.
Tyler took his next step but before his foot hit the floor closet doors erupted behind him. He rolled forward and as he spun around he felt something strike his head. He was immediately dazed, struggling to push up off of the ground. A hand clasped around his neck and pinned him to the floor. Tyler felt the muzzle of a gun on his cheekbone.
“Are you fucking crazy?” a steely voice came from the dark above him. Tyler groaned as he tried to focus his fuzzy vision. “This is my house you dumbshit. Just what were you trying to do? Kill me? Me? One eye and I still fuck you up.” Tyler's vision started to normalize. He heard the sound of duct tape being pulled from a roll. Tyler struggled but it was too late. Shaver bound his hands and was on his legs next, stopping any attempt at movement. Shaver worked with the meticulous fury of a spider wrapping a newly caught insect. He let out an argh as he got up off of Tyler, breathing heavily while hobbling over to a light switch.
“The Chief sent you on a suicide mission, buddy,” Shaver said as he sat down on the bed. “You see that over there?” he asked, pointing at a group of monitors. “I saw you before you even got to the driveway. Shit, with the microphones I've got planted out there I heard you before I could even see you.” Shaver took a second to catch his breath. “The Chief's main assassin. Not much to you, is there?
Shaver rolled over onto his elbow and looked at Tyler. “You know I'm gonna fuck you up badly, yeah? You see me? Missing one fucking eye. A messed-up leg. Countless other injuries that you could call miscellaneous. I'm pissed man! You shits have tried to kill me three times now, once with the doctor and twice with you. And look at me! All fucked up—trying to take advantage of a beat-up old shit! It's about goddamn time the tables are turned!”
Shaver rummaged through Tyler's pockets and grabbed his cell phone. Tyler bounced on his shoulders in an attempt to scoot away. Shaver just laughed as he flipped through the contact list until he reached the entry for the Chief. He pushed the send button and waited as the phone rang. The Chief picked up.
“You done yet?”
“No, not quite,” Shaver answered.
“Well, tickle me silly Shaver. One eye and all and you're still alive, huh?”
“Just couldn't let it end now,” Shaver answered.
“You got some hard-on to call and let me know what you've done?”
“I've got your lackey here, and I figured you'd want to come collect your garbage.”
“Nahhhh, you can have him.”
“You hear that buddy? The Chief couldn't give a shit less about you,” he directed at Tyler. “There's one other thing you may care about.”
“What's that?”
“It was an interesting find at the doctor's office. By the way, hire some good help Chief. You've got some real incompetence around you.”
“Would seem that started with you, big man.”
Shaver grimaced. “Anyway, I found this detailed journal at the doctor's office. It was a list of all the people he had killed. When he did it, what method he used and if he was paid to do it. Guess whose name showed up a lot?”
“Doesn't mean a thing Shaver.”
Shaver let out a hearty laugh. “Sure Chief, doesn't mean a thing. You're chasing for some video that may damage your career, when I've got information here that's going to end your life.” The Chief didn't respond. “Listen, I've got to get some rest. I was in the middle of catching up on all that missed sleep when your bitch stumbled into here. You call this phone when you've decided what your priority is.” Shaver hung the phone up and threw it on the bed. He looked at Tyler again.
“Get some rest my friend. You got hell in front of ya.”
* * * *
Cruz stared down at Diego, who was prostrate in front of him, Martinez and Alfonso. He analyzed Diego's face. Years of struggle, deception and anxiety had battered his face. His speckled gray mustache twitched nervously. His deep-set brown eyes flicked up and down. What a poor man, Cruz thought. Decades of a phantom struggle. The reaper hanging over him all this time waiting to call his favor in. Powerless to resist. Shackled by the past and required to do whatever was asked—even if it meant betraying his own people. Diego's chest heaved as he spewed a plea none of the men listened to.
Cruz glanced at Alfonso. His face was gaunt, slightly yellow looking. Black hair fell over one of his eyes, failing to obscure the hatred lying therein.
“You fucking sellout!” Alfonso screamed, breaking the ice-thin silence. “How could you do this to us?”
“Vendido...” Cruz muttered.
“Damn right he is a vendido. My own father. My hero. Again, how could you do this to us!?
“I had no choice Alfonso! I was captive.”
“Fucking excuses,” Martinez growled. “I need to get the hell out of here.”
“To Mexico?” Cruz asked.
“Of course,” Martinez answered. “They've got a head start.”
“Listen, I can still...”
“Give it up old man,” Alfonso said. Diego's shoulders crumbled under the weight of his son's words.
“Alfonso, please, por favor, my son. I love you so m
uch, please don't leave me like this. We can't leave each other like this! You're all I've ever had!!” Diego threw himself at Alfonso's feet and clawed at the floor.
“It was no love, father! It was fake love. You preached a philosophy to me my whole life, a philosophy you never practiced! I have no respect left for you, and so no love.”
The exchange made Cruz feel sick. “What did you expect, Diego?” Cruz asked him.
“Forgiveness! Understanding!”
“You put my wife in jeopardy!” Martinez exclaimed.
“I had no choice...” Diego said. He started pounding his hands on the floor. “Give me a chance!!”
“Of course you had a choice! You had a choice to sacrifice my wife or protect yourself. You chose the path of cowardice, you sellout.”
Alfonso pulled his foot away from his dad's hands. “Can I come with you guys?”
“Just like that? Like an old towel you can discard me?”
“All right...we could use another hand,” Martinez answered.
Cruz picked Sandra up in his arms and they all started to walk out of the house. He turned around to look at Diego who was still kneeling on the floor. The two men locked eyes and Cruz felt a wave of remorse. It was almost too much to bear. Traitor or not, he knew Diego for a long time. And the lack of forgiveness from his only son, who clearly meant the universe to Diego, brought tears to his eyes. He turned around and as Martinez closed the front door, a scream and then a bang filled his ears. He turned to go back into the house but Alfonso grabbed his shoulder. Cruz looked at Alfonso's face, which was eerily calm.
“Dejalo. Leave him. At least that choice was honorable.”
The harshness of Alfonso's decision left Cruz feeling disconnected. This was not humanity. This was a young man raised in a mercenary environment, where truth was paramount to love and forgiveness. Diego's own methodologies led to the instantaneous abandonment by his son. Martinez called him away from his trance by screaming, “Let's go!” They all hopped into Martinez's vehicle and sped away for Mexico. For battle. To escape.
T W E N T Y-S E V E N
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The Chief hauled down the highway with his lights flashing. The sparse number of cars on the road moved to his right and left, opening a black path of tar in front of him. By his calculations, he was already too far on his way when Shaver called him to turn back. Tyler would be dead—that didn't bother him. Shaver wouldn't do anything with the journal by the time the Chief was able to make it back with Martinez's wife. Then he'd negotiate with Martinez for the video and Shaver for the journal. Easy, he thought, to comfort himself while knowing the situation was a lot harder than a couple days ago.
Dawn broke. The Chief had been driving for several hours without stopping. He unzipped his pants and relieved himself into an empty can which he then threw out of the window. Diego told the Chief approximately where Martinez's wife was hiding, and with what person. Raul Santiago Dominguez. He was her brother and a well-known anchor on television, according to the Chief's people. He lived just across the Mexican border.
The Chief saw the border crossing in the orange haze in front of him. “At fucking last.” There was already a line of cars stretching back several hundred feet. He pulled in between two lines of cars and moved forward as drivers of other cars yelled at him and flipped him off. The Chief looked at them and marveled at how stereotypes formed the basis of truth. He passed a lowered, white pickup truck with small wheels and a print of the Lady of Guadalupe plastered on its back window. Another car had an entire circus act packed into it—five people stuffed in the back seat of a sedan. A nicer car had several young, white girls in it, undoubtedly off to some border town to lose all notions of personal and public respect.
A border patrolman with an assault rifle walked out and stepped in front of the Chief's car. He held his hand up and the Chief came to a stop. “What the hell are you doing?” the patrolman asked in broken English. The Chief flashed his police badge to which the patrolman responded, “Tu no mandas aquí jefe. This isn't your jurisdiction.”
“I know,” the Chief responded. “I've got to get across due to an emergency.”
“Next time you wait in line like the other gringos, okay?”
“Sure.” The patrolman stepped aside and the Chief headed into Mexico. After a few minutes he stopped in front of a pharmacy fronted by two old dogs. They were both females, the same brown as the street, whose teats hung low off their mangy undersides. He rolled his window down and asked a passerby where Calle Roblado was. The man looked at the Chief warily and said, “Dos quadras para allí y te das la izquierda—eso es Roblado.”
“Any chance of getting that in English?” The man just shook his head and went on walking. The Chief headed to where the man had pointed and eventually found the street. He drove a while before seeing the house. It was set back a good hundred yards from the road, fronted by a waist-high stucco wall. The Chief kept driving down the street which eventually doubled back and started to go up the side of a large hill. After about ten minutes of going up switchbacks, he stopped on the side of the road where he had a good view of the house and pulled out binoculars.
Cars whizzed past him and sent up clouds of dust. An hour passed when he saw some movement at the front and back of the house. A man came out of the back of the house with a shotgun in his hand. He walked the perimeter of the backyard which was hemmed in by the natural flora. Two women came out of the front of the house and cautiously approached the top of the driveway. They looked both directions as they moved. The Chief zoomed in on the women and recognized one of them. It was the wife of the cop that had died. He didn't recognize the other woman, but judged it to be Martinez's wife.
The Chief watched the people move around the house before the women finally went back inside. The man in the backyard made his way to the front and sat down on the front porch, his shotgun draped across his lap. The Chief tapped his fingers slowly on the steering wheel as time passed. He faced a dilemma. Move in on the house now, when the occupants were clearly alert and it was full daylight, or wait until night fell but when Martinez was sure to have arrived. The Chief picked up his phone, figuring it would be best to make a move before Martinez and whoever he decided to bring arrived.
“Hey, I need a favor.”
“Now what,” answered the gruff voice of a man.
“I need you and another gun to help me secure a hostage. They're located in a house not that far from where you're usually at.”
“You're down here, cabron?”
“Sure am. I've been watching the house where the hostage is located for a while and it looks like the occupants are on guard.”
“Listen, before you start with your shit, my debt to you is gone. This, te va a costar. You're going to pay.” The Chief winced at the answer but knew he was in no position to drive a hard bargain. The man on the other end of the line was Jorge “El Tiburon” Lopez, a notorious drug dealer and human trafficker. Jorge escaped charges in the United States thanks to the Chief. He was another in the long list of criminals the Chief brought onto the books.
That was how the Chief built his list of connections over the last twenty-five years—a debt collector of criminals. These exchanges undoubtedly corrupted his soul, but it wasn't like he fought it off. The Chief was always bent the wrong way. As a child he recalled torturing his family's dog for pleasure, for the feeling of control. Growing up he would manipulate the dumber children in his classes to do things like steal money for him from other kids. It was a natural transition to manipulating the generally dumb confederacy of criminals.
None of that mattered to Jorge. A person unafraid to kill or be killed was not easily manipulated, and the Chief did not have time to work him over right now.
“How much is it gonna cost?” the Chief asked.
“Five grand a person.”
“Come on! It's only an hour. Two grand a piece is more than fair.”
Jorge laughed,
“You are funny jefe. You are on my home court and you must be desperate to come to the barrio desert. Five thousand each or you can die in this pinche hell hole of Mexico. Plus, I'm good company and you know it.”
“Bastard,” the Chief said, only because he knew both statements were true. “I've got the money.”
“Where do you want me to meet you?”
“I've gone a little beyond the end of Calle Roblado, up a hill overlooking the house.”
“Exciting! You sound like James Bond, jefe. There is a small bar up the hill. I will meet you there in twenty minutes.”
The Chief threw his cell phone onto the passenger seat and picked up his binoculars again. The man sitting in front of the house was still there, but close to sleeping. The Chief studied his tiny face through the binoculars, grunted and set the binoculars down. A short time later a black pickup truck tore up the road behind him and passed, sending rocks clanging into the side of his car. The Chief pulled out onto the road and followed up to the meeting place.
It was a very old, small bar. The kind a movie director would kill to find. A triangular sign hung from two cords over the door, “Lookout Saloon.” Boards were missing from the steps leading up to the front door. The Chief avoided the rotted handrail for fear of toppling over.
“You like it?!” Jorge bellowed.
“Fancy.”
“It's been here for ninety-seven years.”
“Looks like two hundred.”
The Chief stepped past Jorge's broad frame into the bar. “A whiskey,” he called out. The barman looked at him and then at Jorge who nodded his head.
“El dinero first.”
“Here,” the Chief said while handing Jorge a thick, white envelope. Jorge stared at the Chief as he put the envelope in his jacket pocket.
“So what the hell is this about?”
“Is it just you? There's ten thousand in there. You said that would buy you and someone else.”