Payoff

by Douglas Corleone

  “They were sex traffickers,” he said with a sideways glance at Mariana.

  She didn’t bat an eye.

  “We rescued the women,” I said, “but Olivia Trenton wasn’t among them. It looked as though we’d hit a dead end.”

  “But it was not a dead end,” Mariana told him. “I was one of the women being held by these men. I would listen to them, always listen, hoping for some information that might help me escape. A few days ago, I hear the men talking about a mara from somewhere in Central America. Honduras, I think. They had recently come into very much money because of some job that was done in the U.S. They had heard rumors that the girl was being handed over to one of the cartels in Colombia to work as a smuggler. I told this to Simon, and together we flew to Bogotá.”

  “I don’t get it,” Tejata said. “Seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to kidnap a mule.”

  “Of course it does,” I said. “Long story short, we followed the trail in Colombia back to Los Rastrojos. We went straight to the top, to Óscar Luis Toro de Villa.”

  Tejata’s eyes bulged. Seemed he’d all but forgotten the beers standing in line in front of him. “El hombre malo? How the hell did you get to him?”

  “With a little help from an old friend in the DEA’s Bogotá office. The DEA had an informant. We were able to locate one of Don Óscar’s underground labs, where we captured his brother, José Andrés.”

  Tejata began to frisk himself, presumably for his pack of cigarettes. “What then?”

  “From there, it was easy. My associate held on to José Andrés while I knocked on Don Óscar’s door in Cali. I traded his brother for information. Los Rastrojos had indeed had the girl. But Don Óscar didn’t do it to have her work as a smuggler. He had been threatened.”

  “Threatened? Don Óscar? By who? Who the hell threatens Don Óscar and lives to tell about it?”

  “According to Don Óscar, it was Vicente Delgado acting on behalf of the Venezuelan president. Delgado threatened Don Óscar with closing his smuggling routes through Venezuela in order to get him to comply.”

  Tejata gave up his search for the smokes, leaned back in his seat, and put a pint to his lips. His hand was trembling, either from shock or excitement. Maybe a bit of both.

  “Since we arrived in Venezuela,” I said, “we’ve been looking for someone to lead us to Vicente Delgado, if not the big man himself.”

  Tejata slowly nodded his head.

  “We started at the U.S. Embassy, which got us nowhere. Then we paid a visit to the president’s supposed nemesis, the Archbishop of Caracas.”

  Tejata smirked. “Cardinal César Zumbado? He’s no help to anyone. All he does is preach politics here in Venezuela. The Catholic Church in Venezuela is nothing more than another political party. If César’s not yapping about ‘sins of the flesh,’ he’s screaming his stupid red hat off about homosexuals and abortion.”

  My eyes dashed to Mariana. Something moved in her throat but she held up.

  “And you?” I said.

  “Me?” Tejata shrugged. “Me, I live what you Americans call an alternative lifestyle. As far as I am concerned, César Zumbado and everyone like him can go to hell and burn with their bogus devil.” He lifted his pint. “Or not. I don’t care.”

  I smiled. “Sorry for the confusion. When I said, ‘And you?’ what I meant, Jorge, was: Can you help us out?”

  Tejata motioned to the waitress, then said to me, “Just one cup of coffee to sober me up, then we will go.”

  “Make it two,” I said as I stood. “And make mine an espresso. In the meantime, I’m going to run outside and have a look, see if our uniformed friends are still hanging around.”

  Chapter 59

  We were on a dark, desolate road back to Caracas not a half hour later when I first noticed the headlights behind us. I was driving Tejata’s SUV with Mariana seated next to me in the passenger seat, Tejata himself sleeping one off in the back. I adjusted the rearview and tried to get a better look. Whatever was behind us, it was a large vehicle, at least as large as Tejata’s, and as we descended a hill, I could see that there were two other mammoth vehicles just behind it.

  “Wake up Jorge,” I said to Mariana. “We’ve got company.”

  I gently pressed my foot down on the accelerator to see if they’d match my speed.

  After a few minutes, there was no question; we were being followed.

  “It’s the military,” Tejata said once Mariana had rattled him awake. “This is not good, Simon. If they catch us…”

  I looked at him in the rearview. “Want to finish that thought?”

  Tejata looked back at the vehicles following us again but remained silent. They were closing in on us; now they were almost on top of us.

  “Jorge,” I said, “I need your assessment before I can decide what to do.”

  When he spoke, his voice quivered. “If they catch us…”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they catch us, they will kill us.”

  “Are you suggesting we run?”

  He glanced back at our shadows again. “To be perfectly frank, Simon, it does not matter. There is not another turn-off on this road for at least twenty-two miles.”

  I shifted gears. “Doesn’t mean we can’t try to make a break for it.”

  My foot pressed the accelerator to the floor as the red line on the speedometer climbed. The SUV coasted down one hill, then started up another, my stomach sinking and rising with the movement.

  The last vehicular chase I had gotten myself into didn’t end pretty. It ended with two dead on L.A.’s storied Mulholland Drive. I pictured the wreck, could almost smell the burning, bloodied flesh. Could hear Jason Gutiérrez’s voice in my head as he begged me to pray with him.

  As it turned out, none of my maneuvers mattered.

  Because halfway up the next steep incline, I saw a string of bright lights ahead of us. Not merely a single vehicle, but a half dozen or more, parked diagonally in the middle of the road.

  “Roadblock,” I muttered.

  I twisted my head from side to side and spotted nothing but dense jungle, nowhere at all to turn off.

  In the rearview, I gazed at Tejata, his eyes wide and fixed on the scene just ahead of us.

  “It’s okay,” I tried to assure him. “When they ask, you tell them I kidnapped both of you and jacked this vehicle at gunpoint.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help,” he said.

  Chapter 60

  I didn’t know how much time passed, had no idea whether the sun had risen, only that it hadn’t risen in this gray windowless room. I lay curled up on a cold cement floor, my clothing gone, all of it; the flesh on my chest, back, and neck was raw.

  I didn’t know how many lashes I’d taken, or who had delivered them, because I’d been blindfolded. I couldn’t remember the questions I’d been asked, because I couldn’t understand a single word that had been spat at me. Worst of all, I didn’t know where Mariana and Tejata were, whether they were alive or dead or being tortured.

  I only knew this was all my fault. I’d brought them into this. And for as many hours as I had left, their fate was on my head, even if it was no longer in my hands.

  My father, Alden, had had a taste for locking me up in small rooms.

  For using the belt as they’d used the strap.

  He’d had a taste for blood, the fucker.

  A slit of light appeared a few feet away before I heard a sound. Two men briskly stepped inside and lifted me roughly to my feet. One held me up as another removed the blindfold and placed a black hood over my head. Handcuffs were then locked tight around each of my wrists, and my arms were lifted into the air, stretched as far as they could go. The cuffs closed around something metal in the ceiling; then my body was let go and I hung.

  My bare feet barely touched the ground.

  My arms felt as though they were being ripped from their sockets.

  I felt nauseated but had nothing left in my stomach but bile.

>   The footfalls of the two men dissipated down the hallway; then I heard the click of a light being turned on. I saw red through my hood. The source of the light was hot, probably a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling directly in front of me, most likely turned on from a gentle tug on a metal cord.

  Despite myself, I groaned.

  Someone cleared their throat as the door closed; I wasn’t alone. Thoughts of Emma Trenton and her night of terror drifted through my boggled mind, and a fire lit in my stomach, my muscles tensed. The whole of my body filled with an impotent rage.

  “Welcome to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Mr. Fisk.”

  The voice sounded young, coarse as gravel. He had a thick Spanish accent yet was clearly well educated, maybe somewhere abroad, possibly in the States. I tried to conjure a face to go along with the voice but ultimately came up with a question mark.

  I took a solid blow to the center of my chest and immediately thought I’d been shot, was sure I was dying. I struggled for air, felt the bile rising in my throat, and fought to keep it down so that I wouldn’t choke under the hood.

  Found myself in a painful coughing jag.

  I was very aware of my nakedness, felt more vulnerable than I could ever remember.

  It was as though the man standing in the room with me could sense it. He stepped closer to me, grabbed my scrotum and squeezed.

  All I could do was scream.

  When he finally let go, the pain was so intense, I silently wished he would kill me.

  He said, “You are a long way from home.” He paused as though he expected me to fill the silence with something other than my pathetic whimpers. Then he said, “Why?”

  We were alone in this room, me and him. I was sure of it. Whatever I was cuffed to, I still had my legs. But I couldn’t do fuck-all without my eyes. I needed him to remove this goddamn hood from my head.

  “You coward,” I rasped. It pained me even to speak, and I tried to conceal the discomfort. “When I get out of here, I’m going to hunt you down and bury you alive with nothing but a recording of my voice.”

  He laughed; it was a hideous thing, an animalistic shriek. “What on God’s green earth makes you think you will ever leave this place with breath left in you?” he said.

  I forced a smirk that pained my beaten face. “Why the hell else would I have this hood on my head? It’s so I can’t identify you.” I paused for a breath. “Fortunately, though, I could never forget that smell you’re giving off.”

  The hood was torn from my head so hard, I thought my neck might have snapped.

  I blinked as I’d never blinked before, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the cruel light before he decided to deliver a fatal blow.

  His face was only a few inches from mine, his eyes alight in the way only a lunatic’s eyes can be.

  He was even younger than I’d expected, and he was dressed like a civilian. Clean clothes, but nothing expensive. Around his neck he wore a large gold crucifix and cologne so pungent, it burned my nostrils. He had dark skin, a pencil-thin mustache and beard. His cheeks were evidence of a protracted battle with teenage acne.

  “Should have kept the hood on,” I said. “Don’t need the last thing I see to be a Ven bitch with a face like a—”

  Before I could finish, he drove a fist into my nose. My head was thrown back, and a white fuzz instantly clouded my vision.

  “You fucking Americans, you like to hear yourselves talk, don’t you?” he said.

  Something warm flowed down the back of my throat and I tasted blood, nearly choked on it. More was streaming across the outside of my lips, though I wasn’t sure what part of my face it was coming from.

  I tried to take the kid’s measure. Early twenties, around six-foot-two, thin but solid, roughly two hundred pounds.

  He’d hit me with his right, which was still raised, still balled into a fist. On his right wrist he wore a watch, which meant he might have been a southpaw. If so, there was no telling what kind of punch he could throw with his left. Chances were I wouldn’t be able to retain consciousness following one of those.

  “Who sent you here?” he said.

  I could hardly think due to an incessant ringing in my left ear.

  He threw another roundhouse with his right. This time I saw it coming and was able to brace myself, but only so much.

  His knuckles struck me close to my left temple. It was a punch that could have caused a brain bleed, could’ve killed me instantly.

  One thing I was sure of: the way he threw that punch told me he was right-handed. He kept his right raised again, and I could make out the watch through my blurred vision. It was an expensive piece that didn’t go well at all with the pale forest green shirt and khakis.

  “Who sent you?” he shouted.

  When I didn’t answer, he popped me in the mouth, loosened at least two of my upper front teeth.

  “Who sent you?” he said calmly.

  I opened my mouth to speak but only felt blood pour down my chin, onto my chest, felt it drip all the way down my stomach and legs to my feet.

  He took a step back to avoid getting any blood on him.

  I tensed the muscles in my arms to see how much strength I had left in them.

  Enough.

  Maybe.

  The kid dipped his hand into his right pants pocket and came out with the diamond pendant I’d had on me. Olivia’s diamond pendant. I thought about the old-timer on Seven Mile Beach, mused how if I survived this, we’d probably have the same number of teeth.

  “Where did you get this?” he said, dangling it in front of me with his right hand.

  I was about to tell him that his henchmen had missed it during their home invasion in Southern California when something other than his fist finally struck me.

  I narrowed my eyes and gazed hard at his wrist.

  The watch.

  I’d seen it before.

  “Christ,” I said, staring into his eyes. “The question is, where the hell did you get the pendant? And just out of curiosity, how goddamn much did you pay for it?”

  Chapter 61

  The kid seemed highly satisfied that I had finally figured out that he was the one with his arm around Olivia in the photo taken at the Next Level. He was actually smiling.

  I smiled right back.

  Or tried to.

  He looked into my swollen eyes, said, “Are you not afraid to die?”

  “Not particularly,” I replied between heavy breaths. “What’s there to fear? Simon Fisk ceasing to exist? Hell, I’ve only been alive forty years. I’ve been dead for hundreds of billions.”

  His head tilted to one side as though he might understand me better if he watched me from another visual perspective. “So you do not believe in the afterlife.”

  I stared back at him and grinned.

  He seemed to take my response as an affront. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on an edge. “So you do not fear death. You obviously do not fear God. What do you fear?”

  I thought on it seriously, said, “Flesh-eating bacteria.”

  Mirthlessly, he chuckled. “That is all?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He stepped back to appraise me, no doubt trying to conjure something clever to say. It took a few moments, but then his brows rose and he opened his mouth to speak again.

  When he did, he stepped forward, spoke directly into my face. “Before this night is through, Señor Fisk, you are going to add me to that list.”

  While he watched my eyes for a reaction, I grabbed hold of the chains on my cuffs and allowed the blood that was flowing from my nose down the back of my throat to pool inside my mouth.

  I didn’t know exactly what he feared; all I knew from his actions was that he didn’t care to get much blood on him.

  So I spit no less than an ounce directly into his eyes.

  He jerked back as though I’d thrown acid into his face. When he did, I pulled my body up just high enough to deliver a swift kick into the left side of his ribs.
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  As the kid doubled over, I lifted my bare lower legs and closed them around his neck in a scissor lock. When I had him, I squeezed.

  He instantly felt the pressure and cried out, “Let go, please! You’re going to break my neck!”

  As I tried to work out just how the hell he was going to be able to get the cuffs off me without me losing my leverage, the door blew open and two uniformed guards charged in.

  Their jaws dropped.

  Must have been quite a sight, I supposed.

  I scanned the two men; neither of them was carrying a gun.

  “Off with the cuffs now, or this kid is dead,” I shouted.

  The guards hesitated.

  I applied more pressure to the kid’s neck with my left calf.

  “Do it,” the kid yelled. “Do it or my father will have you both executed.”

  One of the two dug into his pocket and pulled out a key; then they both began to approach.

  “Slowly,” I shouted. “One at a time. You on the right, you first.”

  The one on the right had the key. He took baby steps toward us and cautiously lifted his arm to unlock the cuff.

  “One false move, and the kid’s a paraplegic,” I reminded him.

  The kid hollered an instruction in Spanish, and the guard inserted the key into the lock and it turned. I kept hold of the chain so that I wouldn’t lose my grip on the kid, but my arms were tiring, the muscles burning, my left forearm beginning to shake like a branch in the wind. Sweat poured from my forehead, stinging my eyes like tiny fires.

  “Hand the key off and step over to the right wall,” I ordered.

  He did. Carefully, the left guard approached. With all the gentleness of the guard on the right, he unlocked the cuff.

  Again I held on to the chain, but my arms wouldn’t hold out much longer.

  In fact, they weren’t going to hold out at all.

  My fingers slipped from the chain and my body fell, dragging the kid down by his neck. We hit the floor even harder than I’d expected. But I recovered immediately and interpreted the situation.

  The guard on the left froze long enough for me to sweep his legs out from under him. He hit the deck.