by Mark Allen
Freedom.
The World.
Rudy smiled to himself.
They walked closer to the bars. Rudy noticed an opening on his side of the bars, a doorway without a door, on each side of the corridor. Obviously, these led to small rooms, and one of these were his destination. But no doors meant no privacy, and he glanced upwards, taking notice of the small gray cameras that moved slowly but surely, following him and Treese as they made their way down the corridor.
As a prisoner soon to be released, all this might have made one feel better and more secure about getting out without being shanked.
But Rudy knew better.
He had to keep his guard up because he knew, all too well, how easy it is for a guard or another inmate to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the agonizing pleas of a dying man as he bleeds out. Cameras cannot see around blind corners. And tapes or hard drives can be deleted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, or altered.
“You’re on the left,” Treese announced when they were about ten feet away.
Rudy grunted and nodded. If an attack happened, it would be inside the room. No cameras. And a blind spot along the inside of the front wall until he was already in the doorway. So he paused at the doorway, sucked in his breath a bit, going into combat mode. The room was small, square. He saw the clothing he had been arrested in, neatly folded and waiting, on a low bench that ran the length of the back wall. He glanced inside, looking for the blind spot.
He glanced to his left inside the front cinderblock wall. No one there. Silently breathing a sigh of relief, he relaxed.
“There a problem?” Treese asked.
“No problem.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” he asked. “Your bail’s been paid. Don’t you want out of here?”
Rudy stepped inside the small room, the Marine in him staying in combat mode, staying alert of what was around him, behind him, above him. Treese did not follow him inside. He took up a position outside near the door, waiting.
Rudy kicked off his prison-issued shower shoes and socks, unzipped the front of his prison jumpsuit from neck to pubis. He shrugged out of the sleeves. The garment’s own weight caused it drop off him and land with a muffled flop on the floor, forming a fabric puddle around his ankles. He stepped out of them, kicked them away. They slid across the cell and against the far wall.
No one had darkened the doorway yet. Maybe he was going to get out of this alive after all.
He peeled the prison-issue white T-shirt off, his muscles defined and rippling underneath. Now clad in only his jockey shorts, he quickly pulled on his blue jeans and buckled them. Next his long-sleeved black T-shirt. Then he sat down to pull on his socks and his tan brown, soft and supple desert combat boots. Only his weathered, worn, dark brown bomber jacket still lay on the bench.
As he laced up his boots, from the top of his peripheral vision, he noticed a shadow fall across the floor. Here it comes, he thought. He froze where he was, glanced up, and saw Treese standing in the doorway. His face was unreadable. He simply stood there, motionless.
“You almost ready?”
“Just lacing up my boots.”
“Someone’s here to pick you up.”
Rudy began to dare to believe he might actually walk out of this Godforsaken place alive. Perhaps, Rudy thought, Mr. Vargas trusted him enough to know he would never, ever, give the cops anything, even if it meant he himself went to prison for a very long time.
He tied the lace on the other boot, tucked the excess lacing inside the top of the boot, and pulled his pants leg down. He stood up, grabbed his jacket, then paused for a bit, the tactical side of him still unsure about his safety.
He looked at the open doorway, saw the barred gate and wall to the left at an angle, and the waiting area beyond. He did not see anyone in the waiting area. Hadn’t Treese just said someone was waiting for him? And exactly where was Treese, anyway?
Uh oh.
Suck it up, Rudy. Be a warrior.
Go out like a man.
Rudy squared his shoulders, exhaled deeply. He tilted his head to one side, cracking his neck. He bunched and rolled his shoulders, loosening up. Ready for what might come, he moved forward. Towards the door, towards Heaven or Hell, striding through the doorway and –-
Out into the hallway once more. Treese, a few feet away, facing him.
“Ah. There you are.”
Rudy looked at him, a bit confused. The attack he had been convinced was coming, was nowhere to be found.
He glanced around to his left, through the bars. He saw the desk in the corner, manned by an aging Corrections Officer. Gray hair, receding hairline, reading glasses. The guy had to be late fifties, early sixties. Near retirement, that’s for sure. The bulging gut underneath his straining shirt showed testament to Rudy the old guy had definitely seen better days.
Standing beside the desk was Michael C. Law, attorney to the low life scumbags of the Underworld. He waved amiably towards Rudy. Nearly swooning with relief, Rudy managed a nod in his direction.
Treese stepped towards the gate, rattling his enormous key chain. “Okay. Let’s get you out of here, shall we?”
Rudy watched him as the young Corrections Officer sifted through the keys on his brass ring. Big ones, small ones. Gold colored ones, silver colored ones. Even a couple that glinted a pale redness, illuminated by the sunlight from the waiting area.
Treese finally found the key he was searching for. He grinned as he shook the ring in his hand, the other keys jangling loudly as they fell out of the way. He pushed the key into the locking mechanism located at waist height on the barred gate. His hand cranked to the left, and the tumblers inside fell with a satisfying series of clicks and clanks. He pulled on the gate, and door swung open.
Rudy glanced at Treese, glanced behind him. No one else was in the hallway.
No one sneaking up behind him at the last moment.
He looked past his attorney and at the ancient Desk Sergeant, who seemed completely disinterested with the proceedings. His nose was buried in some cheap magazine he had brought with him.
Threat assessment: little to none.
Rudy stepped through the gate, and suddenly found himself in the waiting area. Law stepped forward, put out his hand. Rudy shook it, allowing a genuine smile to flit across his lips for the first time. Behind him, Treese closed the gate and secured the lock. Then he turned and walked back down the corridor, back the way he came, without so much as another look at Rudy. Mission accomplished, that’s all. Now on to the next thing. Shift change was coming up.
“So how does it feel to be a free man once again?” Law asked.
“Feels good.”
“Come on.” Law motioned with his head towards the outer door. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Law pushed the door open and stood aside, allowing his client to step into free air first. Then he followed, still lugging his briefcase. The door behind them closed on its own.
Rudy noticed the birds singing. The fresh sweetness of the air. The crispness to the coolish temperature. It had been a long time since he had seen a sky so purely blue.
They strolled towards the parking area. “So. Where would you like me to take you?”
Rudy thought for a moment. “Home I guess. But could we stop off for a bite? Jailhouse food is shit.”
Law never passed on an opportunity to eat. “Of course,” he responded.
The pair walked across the parking lot to Law’s waiting Cadillac. Rudy walked around to the passenger side.
“Just one more thing, Rudy,” Law said as he paused at the driver’s door. “Mr. Vargas would like to see you at his place of business at ten tonight.”
Rudy knew “his place of business” meant the warehouse Vargas owned down on the docks. All kinds of things, both good and bad, had transpired there. Parties, drugs, hookers and semen exchanged, but also torture, murder, vital fluids spilled out. Everything washed away.
Like nothing had ever happened.
&n
bsp; “What does he want to see me there for?”
Law shrugged. “He didn’t say,” he answered honestly. “I don’t think it’s anything bad.”
“Probably not,” Rudy said, not convinced.
Law unlocked the doors remotely. An audible thunk! rolled out as all the locks on all the car doors unlocked in unison. He threw his door open wide so he could swing his girth in, but paused as he looked over at Rudy.
“Rudy.”
Rudy was still looking around.
“Rudy!” Rudy spun back around to concentrate on Law.
“You okay?”
Rudy nodded.
“What are you looking for?”
“Snipers.”
“If Mr. Vargas wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.” Law grinned broadly. “Come on. Get in.”
Both men got into the car, closed their doors. The driver’s side sunk down slightly lower than the passenger side. From a distance, it looked like the car’s shocks were blown on one side. Law turned the key in the ignition. The engine swirled to life, idling like a purring tiger. Gentle now, but lots of muscle just waiting to be released.
Law put the car in gear and hit the gas. The engine roared with excitement, and car accelerated out of the parking lot and onto the street beyond.
Journal entry, February 3rd
Another quiet evening. Like most evenings.
I spent about four hours after I reanimated working on some stock recommendations. My clients are high-value, high net worth individuals, or “HNI’s”, as we call them in my learned profession. They are understandably jittery with their investments in this volatile market. Some require more personal attention than others.
I spend quite a bit of time in front of my laptop, a small headset wrapped over my ears, a condenser microphone on the tip of a thin stalk-like extension in front of my mouth, calming them, pacifying them, coddling them, reassuring them.
What can else can I do? I have to make a living like anyone else, and the financial services industry pays well.
However, this “economic recovery”, as the pundits and politicians are wont to call it, the one that supposedly has the United States, along with the rest of the world “recovering from the great Recession”, is a sham.
The U.S. is doing better, but there is a reason for that. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank – the “Fed” - keeps artificially deflating the interest rates on the Prime Interest Rate – which rate at which banks charge to loan money to each other, which keeps consumer home loans and cars loans – and every other kind of consumer loan except for credit card debt – at “historically low rates”, which in turn artificially props up the value of the U.S. dollar. And even though that rate has been raised by a quarter of one per cent, we are still deflating the rates to shore up the U.S. dollar on the currency exchanges. But that cannot go on forever.
Other countries have no such entity shielding them from economic reality.
And the reality is, the very same conditions that enabled the stock market crashes of 2000 and 2007 still exist today. There was no real Banking Industry or Wall Street reform as was promised by the new President, so young, so dashing and handsome, so resolute of visage as he ascended into Office. He talked a good show, but in the end, he has done nothing to correct the real underpinnings of the problem.
Subprime loans are on their way back into vogue, and people who have no business owning a home are being told it is okay to buy a house they cannot possibly afford with no money down and an adjustable rate mortgage. The problem with adjustable rates is, they always go up.
The same thing is happening with car loans. A young janitor making less than ten dollars an hour is being told he can afford a thirty thousand dollar sports car with no money down, six years to pay, at a rate of fifteen percent.
When he quickly, unthinkingly signs on the dotted line, he is locking the cage of his own financial prison, and putting himself on the road to financial ruin, car repossession, an anemic FICO score, and possibly, a bankruptcy. But with his head swimming with visions of the respect he will soon get from his friends and the pretty girls who will somehow miraculously now want to go out with him, the modest janitor signs his name.
It is the economic equivalent of feeding a diabetic a candy cane.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Horn’s office door clashed open swinging inward, clattering against the wall. Horn stalked in, still fuming about what had just happened at the jail. He had not spoken on the ride back, and Castle had known to not try to start a conversation. Now Horn lumbered across the few feet to his desk, and plopped down into his high backed leather chair. An older chair with a wooden skeleton and base, creaked under his weight.
Castle glided in behind him, padding to the chair in front of the desk where he had eaten his breakfast barely an hour ago. He sat down again, grabbed his coffee mug as he watched Horn rub his eyes like a man who had not slept in days. The coffee had gone cold, and Castle’s nose crinkled.
He got up, poured a fresh mug from the pot, which was still hot. He added sugar and cream, stirred with a pen he kept in his pocket. When he turned around, Horn had placed both meaty hands, palms open, across his entire face.
Castle sat down, sipped his coffee. Across from him, Horn heaved a great sigh, the kind of sigh that said, I Hate This Fucking Job. He rubbed his hands across his face and moved them outward, until he held his face in his hands at either cheek, fingers extending close to his eyes, and base of the palms cupping his chin. Then his eyes snapped open, and he saw Castle, calmly sitting there, legs crossed comfortably, sipping his coffee.
Castle saw Horn looking at him. He motioned with his mug like he toasting him, then continued to sip his coffee.
“You don’t seem to be very broken up over our hopeless situation,” Horn observed.
“We’re not in a hopeless situation.”
Horn put his hands on his desk, leaned forward, resting his weight on his forearms. “And why’s that?”
“The question is,” Castle responded, “why do you think we’ve lost anything?”
Horn looked back down at his desk. He focused on the half-eaten raspberry cheese Danish, which lay in pastry puff tatters on a grease-stained napkin, growing stiff and stale.
Sort of like his career, he thought. Past its prime.
And even though he was looking at food, he found he now had no appetite whatsoever. For the first time, wondered if it might be time to seriously consider putting in his retirement papers.
“We needed to question that witness,” Horn relied. “He’s the only one who might have seen something, and now he’s gone.”
“We can still get him in an interrogation room.”
“Not without that mob attorney present.”
Castle shrugged. “Yeah, but so what? We were going to have to deal with that anyway,” he said. “It’s not worth getting knocked off our stride.”
“His lawyer’s gonna stonewall us. He won’t let Valdez give more than name, rank, and social security number.”
“That’s all we’d get from him anyway, Cap. That man is hard core.”
“Great. So no matter what, we’re back to Square One.”
“Not exactly.”
There was something in the way Castle had said those last words, a sense of surety that Horn picked up on.
“What are you thinking?”
“Rudy Valdez is not the only person who survived that night,” Castle answered. “He’s not the only person we can interrogate.”
“You mean?” Horn ventured.
“Reggie Downing,” Castle answered.
Banker’s Hill was a largely residential area located just north of downtown San Diego and the Gaslamp District, and just blocks north of several large, world-class banks and investment banking institutions. Most small businesses in the neighborhood were law partnerships, medical offices housing both group and private practices, and architect and graphic design offices. The buildings were early twentieth century structures that had b
een upgraded over the years to meet changing building codes. Some had been converted into apartments or condos.
Traffic in Banker’s Hill flowed through on a series of one-way streets. The north south streets were numbered, one through five, and were all one way. Sixth Street, closest to the Western border of Balboa Park, was two-way traffic. The cross streets, named for vegetation like Grape, Laurel, Juniper, also boasted two-way traffic.
Saturday morning traffic was sparse, almost nonexistent. By this time of day during the week, all four lanes would be filled, with an ebb and flow created by the Stop signs and traffic lights set up every few blocks.
But not today.
After being dropped off by his attorney at a corner market, Rudy Valdez changed direction and walked briskly back down the block. Most convenience stores and delis in this area supported the investment bankers during the week. They were closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
Rudy stopped into one of the few convenience stores open on the weekends. Though the outside possessed a updated sign and facade, the inside had not been updated in decades. More than merely a convenience store, this was a tiny, but functioning market and deli. The store had three aisles, stocked with everything from a small freezer section to canned goods, paper products, soft drinks and beer, and even a microscopic section for fresh produce. The only things out in the produce section were a couple bags of potatoes, some bananas, and a few apples.
Rudy glanced around as he browsed. The old guy behind the counter, Gary Kirchik, had owned the place since he inherited it from his uncle. His scalp was bare these days, his face deeply lined. Dressed in threadbare pants and a faded plaid button up shirt he’d owned and worn for twelve years, Kirchik chomped a cigar tightly at the left corner of his mouth. He read a newspaper by the register, holding the paper in his gnarled hands.