Two boys he hadn’t seen in a very long time.
He and Rachel were on the outs over his chosen profession.
“I don’t want our sons to grow up having to visit their father in prison when the cops finally catch up with you,” she told him.
He’d countered, “But honey, the money is too damn good to pass up. I can make ten times what I’d make selling insurance or real estate. And I’m careful. Real careful.”
“How long are you going to do this, Tony? How long am I going to have to wonder whether this is the day they finally lock you up?”
“Give me six months, honey. You can see I’m saving the money. In six months we’ll have enough to buy a house and have a comfortable nest egg. Then I’ll quit, I promise.”
Tony meant it. He even marked the day on the calendar. On May 10th he’d stop selling drugs forever.
But Rachel didn’t want to wait that long.
“I’m taking the boys to my mom’s. When you leave this crap behind you, you can come to Smyrna and join us.”
Tony had been conflicted. Not only was what he was doing illegal, it was also morally reprehensible.
He knew that.
But those six months would set them up financially for years to come.
In the end, he didn’t give in, didn’t chase her.
In the end he let them go.
And started marking off each day on his calendar with a big black “X”.
Now, he didn’t know if his family was dead or alive.
Smyrna was a suburb of Atlanta, which was roughly 1500 long miles due east.
It was a very long way by any means of travel.
If he walked it was four months, minimum.
And Tony had bad feet. They ran in his family.
Taking his Polaris would ease the burden.
But it would also put a big target on his back.
Not a day went by that he didn’t struggle with the decision whether to go or to stay.
If he were honest with himself he’d have admitted that it wasn’t the trip which scared him.
It was the possibility of traveling all that way to find his children didn’t make it.
After all, most of the population didn’t.
Tony’s memories of his sons were something he’d never tell Dave.
Not because he didn’t like Dave, or didn’t trust him.
But because Tony never told anyone.
Chapter 15
The pair exited the freeway by going around a ’57 Chevy, white over red.
At one time, it was in immaculate condition.
It still was, other than a thick coating of dust.
And the “MS-13” spray painted across both its sides.
Once upon a time it would have been something akin to blasphemy to spray paint a classic in such a manner. A personal affront to car enthusiasts all over the country.
Car guys would have been pissed. Some would no doubt have resorted to name-calling.
Some might even have resorted to fisticuffs.
But none of them would have messed with MS-13 to get their point across.
“These guys are bad,” Tony said. “Real bad. Try to let me do most of the talking.”
“Be my guest.”
MS-13, as the Crips had, placed sentries at the main entryways to their territory. The sentries recognized Tony as the pair rode up, and didn’t raise their weapons or challenge him in any way.
But they didn’t look particularly happy to see them, either.
Tony tried being friendly anyway. It was always his first line of defense.
“Yo, dude. Whassup?”
“Who’s that?”
“This is my new partner, Dave. Dave, this is Jesse.”
Dave nodded politely.
Jesse stared a hole through him.
Then he turned back to Tony.
“You’re not bringing this guy into our home, are you?”
“I have to, Jesse. Luis is gonna want to do business with him.”
“Luis does business with you.”
“Dave will be dealing with different stuff than what I have. Be nice to him. He’ll soon be bringing you your tequila.”
“Bullshit. There’s no more tequila left in Albuquerque. It’s been gone for months.”
“Exactly. But there’s plenty on the trucks outside the city. And I’ve already laid claim to twenty of them. We’ve got enough 1800 to knock you on your ass every day for the rest of your life.”
“No shit… for real?”
“For real. We just have to figure out how to move it. That’s one of the things we need to talk to Luis about.”
“Luis ain’t gonna be happy with you bringing a bolillo in here.”
“Oh, he will once he finds out we can provide him with tequila.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. He’s been in a pretty bad mood lately.”
As he spoke, he swept his hand toward a row of six severed heads atop spikes, driven into the front yard of a house behind him.
The heads were a couple of days old, Dave guessed. They’d turned gray and were covered with flies, but their eyeballs were still more or less intact.
Dave could still make out the look of wide-eyed terror on some of the faces, The men obviously realized they were about to die.
And he couldn’t help but notice at least half of them were white.
It wasn’t easy. The skin was gray. But the hair was blond in a couple of cases. And red in another.
“What’d they do?”
“They committed a cardinal sin. They pissed Luis off.”
Jesse leaned back and laughed like a madman at his joke.
Dave felt a strange need to chuckle himself, although it was more to ease the pit he felt in his stomach than to acknowledge the joke.
He laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“You!” Jesse demanded of one of his underlings. “Take these two to see Luis.”
The underling jumped aboard his own Polaris, a couple of model years older than Tony’s, and led the way without a word.
They traveled down several residential streets which looked like a war zone.
“They gave the residents an opportunity to leave,” Tony explained. “If they refused, they burned their houses down. And sometimes, the fires got away from them and burned other houses as well.”
The house they pulled up to was rather nondescript. A one-story ranch style home in the middle of the block. Its brick belied its age, as that of a 1970s style.
Dave supposed it was Luis’s way of keeping a low profile, thinking rival gangs would look for him in a more affluent neighborhood.
There were snipers on the roof, armed men in the bushes.
Dave felt uneasy.
Tony had forbidden him from coming in armed.
And Dave felt naked without a means of protecting himself.
Still, he faced the fact that even if he were armed, it would be his gun against several others. And while he faced such odds before and walked away, he didn’t particularly want to push his luck again.
When they entered the house, both of them were held at gunpoint and patted down.
Dave was nervous. Tony appeared cool as a cucumber.
A troubling thought suddenly popped into Dave’s mind.
The thought that Tony might have set him up.
After the introductions were made, the man they called Luis, who appeared to Dave more monster than man, barked his orders.
“I’m not happy you brought him here,” he snarled to Tony. “But go ahead and make your rounds. We’ll babysit him until you get back.”
Tony wasn’t rattled.
He addressed Dave directly.
“Relax. They won’t hurt you. I’m going to go do some business and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
As soon as Tony was out the door Luis nodded to two of his henchmen.
Each stood on one side and held Dave’s arms to immobilize him.
For the first time since he’d left Iraq
after his second tour, Dave was convinced he was going to die.
Chapter 16
Luis sat at his desk and interrogated his visitor.
“We have a few minutes to speak in private. I like Tony. He’s a good man. But he doesn’t know frijoles about security.
“You know what frijoles are?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir. Well, that’s a good start. At least you know which of us is in charge. Now, then. Tony said you’re looking for a little red pickup. And you came all the way from Texas to get it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that presents a dilemma, gringo. You don’t mind if I call you gringo, do you?”
“I love being called gringo.”
“The dilemma is I don’t believe your sorry ass. It just don’t make no sense to me that you would pass up all those shiny red pickups in Texas and come all the way here instead. Now, does that make sense to you, gringo?”
“This is a special pickup, my friend. There are plenty of red pickups in Texas. But there are no other pickups like this one.”
“What in hell makes this particular pickup so damn special?”
“It has no motor. It’s pulled by horses. I figure it’ll be perfect for hauling my booze.”
“Why don’t you use Tony’s Polaris?”
“Not big enough. If I’m gonna supply liquor to the whole city I need something that’ll carry a lot more than that. Besides, he says he needs it for his own business.”
The man continued to eye him suspiciously, despite Dave’s best efforts to charm him.
Dave was a social guy by nature. He normally prided himself on being able to get along with anybody. And to get himself out of any sticky situation.
But this guy just wasn’t having any of it.
He stood up from behind the desk. Dave could tell he was a big man, even when he was sitting. The broad shoulders and the fact he had to lean forward to place his elbows on the desk told him that much.
It wasn’t until he stood, though, that Dave was able to tell he was half the size of Mount Everest. A full six-eight, probably two hundred eighty pounds.
All of it muscle.
The man sprayed spittle as he spoke in more of a growl than anything else.
“I don’t like gringos,” he snarled. The look on his face when he said the word “gringos” was probably the same face he made when he bit into something very bitter.
“I don’t trust them. In my experience, most gringos who just show up and start asking questions are cops. Or snitches trying to lighten their sentence.”
Dave struggled a bit, but the men holding his arms had good grips. And the knife at his throat kept him from putting any real effort into it.
“What’s the matter, bolillo? You getting a little bit nervous?”
Dave tried to hide his fear. He got the sense that was what the man was looking for.
“In case you haven’t heard, my big friend, there are no more cops. They all ran away like cowards, or died and went straight to hell where they belonged. And I’m exactly what Tony said I was. Just a guy trying to make a buck by hauling liquor for him.”
“Then why you asking so many damn questions, gringo?”
“I just like to know who I’m dealing with. If I’m going to be drinking tequila with you, playing cards with you, sharing women with you, I want to know you’re a good hombre. As for the horse drawn pickup I’m looking for, I talked to someone who said it was headed for Albuquerque. I can use it to bring your tequila. That’s all, my friend.”
“You want to be my friend, gringo? Or are you just trying to save your ass, so you don’t find out what I did with the last guy who came in here asking questions?”
Dave fell silent. He suspected the man was fishing, but didn’t want to take his bait.
“Well, gringo? Aren’t you just a little bit curious about what I did to the last curious gato who came through that door?”
“I’m guessing you didn’t light up a joint and cook him a steak dinner?”
The man laughed, and Dave thought he was making headway.
Then he stopped laughing, placed his face inches from Dave’s and yelled at him.
“I cut off his head and hung it on my wall. We made a dartboard out of it until it started to stink. The eyes were the bull’s-eyes. Fifty points apiece. It was a lot of fun, until it started to rot.”
He turned his head from side to side, talking to the henchmen who held Dave in place.
“What about it, boys? You up for a few more games of darts?”
Dave wished that Tony would hurry back from wherever the heck he went. And he was really starting to wonder whether Tony sold him out.
He was starting to feel fear, and he didn’t like the feeling.
That was Luis’s intention, of course. And he was starting to make progress.
Dave would never show it. But he was now certain he’d made a serious error in judgment.
His options were limited. He had no real choice but to try to talk his way out of the situation.
“You know, Luis…. Can I call you Luis?”
The big man laughed.
“Sure. I’m feeling very generous today. You can call me Luis.”
“You know, Luis, the game of darts is more about luck than skill. A blind man can hit the bull’s-eye if you give him enough throws and point him in the right general direction.
“Poker, on the other hand… now that’s a game of great skill, where only the best and smartest survive.”
Chapter 17
It hadn’t escaped Dave’s attention that Luis’s arms were covered with a variety of tattoos. Most were roughly drawn and in black ink.
Prison tattoos.
A couple of others, though, were colorful and elaborate, done by professionals with a keen eye and a steady hand.
One in particular showed five playing cards, a poker hand.
Aces and eights.
A dead man’s hand.
“You play poker, gringo?”
“Better than you.”
He laughed again. This man in front of him was plain loco.
The door opened again. It was one of Luis’s flunkies and Tony.
Tony smiled broadly when he saw Luis’s men flanking Dave and holding his arms.
He tried to diffuse the situation.
“Dave, Dave, Dave… I warned you not to talk about Luis’s sister. I told you he’s very sensitive about that. Yes, she’s a fine mamacita. But have some respect, will you?”
Luis laughed again.
“You need glasses, Tony. Carmen is as ugly as a mangy coyote. But if you want I can fix her up with you.”
“Thanks, Luis, but I have my heart set on someone else. Did I miss anything good?”
“The gringo and I were trying to decide whether we want to play darts or poker.”
“Darts? You weren’t threatening my new partner with that old darts gag of yours, were you?”
“You should have seen the fear in his eyes.”
Tony looked at Dave and said, “I thought you were fearless, Dave. Were you afraid?”
“Only enough to piss my pants.”
Luis roared and went to Dave, then told his thugs, “Let him go.”
He put his arm around Dave and said, “You’re okay for a gringo. You’re not too bright. But that’s okay. I like my gringos dumb so I can push them around easier.”
“That’s me. Just a big, dumb, easy to push around gringo.”
Tony asked, “So, what about the red pickup truck. You guys seen it?”
“No. If one of my men saw something like that he’d have told me about it and asked if I wanted it. It’s never been on our turf or I’d know about it.
“But we’ll keep an eye out for it. That is…”
He turned to Dave and said, “That is if there’s a finders fee.”
Dave’s confidence was coming back.
“A finder’s fee? What are you, the Frito Bandito?”
Luis roared ag
ain and said, “You know what, Tony? I’m starting to like this guy. He’s way funnier than you. Not bad for a lily-white cornbread-fed cabron.”
Tony smiled at Dave and said, “You’ve won him over, partner. When Luis calls you cabron, you’re practically part of his family.”
“Okay. But what does it mean?”
“You’re better off not knowing.”
“I’ll tell you what, gringos. We’ll keep an eye out for your pickup truck. If we find it, we’ll tell you where it is. For one case of Cuervo for my man who finds it. And two cases for me.”
Tony said, “Write that down, Dave. A case of fifths for his man, two cases of fifths for Luis.”
“Screw fifths, Tony. Liters. Two cases of liters.” A fifth won’t even whet my thirst.”
“Okay, Luis. You win. Just please, tell your men not to shoot the people in the pickup.”
“Why in hell not?”
“Because they’ve got kids in the pickup with them. And too many kids have died already.”
Luis suddenly grew solemn.
He crossed himself, as though remembering his own lost loved ones.
“You have my word, gringo. Now get the hell out of here before I pull out my darts and start warming up.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll be back on Tuesday.”
“Adios, my friends.”
They were the kindest words Dave had heard since his arrival.
Chapter 18
“Mom, why do you think he hasn’t called us yet?”
Lindsey was in tears. She hadn’t slept well in several nights, and had been depressed and moody.
Sarah knew something was bothering her daughter, but she wasn’t opening up about it.
She was ready to write it off as merely a teenaged girl being a teenaged girl.
Then she walked by Lindsey’s bunk to see her staring intently at the only photograph they had of Dave. It was the Texas driver’s license he left behind because it finally dawned on him he no longer needed it.
Then Lindsey’s moodiness suddenly made sense.
Sarah entered the cubicle Lindsey had come to hate and normally only used to sleep in.
Or when she wanted to be alone for a bit.
She sat on her daughter’s bed and took her hand.
On Desert Sands: Alone: Book 6 Page 5