Hard Cold Whisper

by Michael Hemmingson

  Next, we cleaned up his blood as best we could. I explained bleach was known to break down DNA. I didn’t expect any crime scene units scouring the place for evidence of a murdered gang member so I didn’t worry about it much; I was mostly worried about the drive across the border and into Tijuana.

  I wasn’t sweating about driving on the U.S. side; I was a cautious and careful driver. It was Mexico that I was weary of. Tijuana police could stop and search your vehicle for any reason they pleased, there was no such thing as probable cause, due process, and citizen’s rights in Mexico; the Fourth and Sixth Amendments were a gringo joke on paper.

  Stopped off at an ATM and got out two hundred dollars—two thousand four hundred pesos; if we did happen to get pulled over, hopefully a quick and easy bribe would keep a cop from looking in the trunk.

  “Drive safe but not too slow,” Gabriella told me; “just keep cool, we’ll make a beeline toward the airport, everything will be fine.”

  Gabriella, in my mind, had been an isolated young lady who didn’t know much about the big bad world out there, and now she was the calm, knife-wielding criminal who knew all about where to leave dead human flesh.

  The drive from Chula Vista to the border took fifteen minutes on Interstate 5-South. The line of cars to cross into Mexico wasn’t long. Once in Tijuana, drive to the airport took half an hour.

  “We should’ve gotten Mexican auto insurance,” I said.

  “Calm down, baby,” Gabriella said, placing a hand on my knee. “Nothing bad will happen as long as we don’t freak out.”

  “You promise?”

  I felt ridiculous asking that.

  “Pinky promise,” she said, linking her small finger with mine.

  El Fun del Mundo. The end of the world.

  Acres of dark, empty fields to the east of the Tijuana International Airport. Planes and jets in the night sky. I wondered if there were any other bodies out here that would keep Miguel company. Something in the night air told me yes.

  It was easier than I thought it’d be. We stopped. I put the gloves back on, and pulled Miguel’s body out of the trunk while Gabriella kept watch for any oncoming lights that might spot us in the act.

  We jumped back into the Mustang and got the hell out of there. All I could think of were the things that could go wrong: the car breaking down, getting in an accident, a random stop by the Tijuana police. My knee was twitching and my partner in crime saw this.

  “Hey,” Gabriella said, squeezing my leg. “Piece of pie.”

  “Let’s celebrate when we get back to the States.”

  She leaned in close to me. “Yeah? How you wanna celebrate, big boy?” she whispered into my ear.

  I said, “We have another dead body to deal with first.”

  She sat back and laughed, putting her legs up on the dashboard. It was a sexy position and I started to think about taking her, just stopping the car and having her. There was something about murder and sex that went well together.

  She said, “I’m free. Holy crap, David, I’m free.” She stuck her head out the window and hollered into the chilly Mexican night: “I’M FREE!”

  Crossing back was uneventful. Gabriella was ready to party, full of glee or adrenaline, ecstatic for the future.

  Two homicides and all she could think about was money and a new life.

  I didn’t blame her. The thought of starting anew, financially secure, was intoxicating. The idea that I could get away with not one, but two murders was like being shit-faced on a sweet wine.

  It was power.

  It was cheating the rules and game of society that told you, since you were a child, no one ever gets away with it, that it is wrong and justice will prevail, good over evil always wins.

  Miguel was, as far as I was concerned, evil, a gang S.A. Vato who'd done many bad things in his short happy life; and he'd had plans to kill me and take my love. Aunt Yolanda treated this love badly and was keeping her from being in my life.

  Now I understood what murderers and serial killers experienced after every homicide, and why they became addicted to the act of taking life—it wasn’t the act per se, but the aftermath. Getting away with it. Going on with life, keeping a vile secret close to the heart.

  29.

  The paramedics deemed Aunt Yolanda deceased and a doctor at the hospital signed a death certificate.

  After she called 911, Gabriella said, “Okay, hit me.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m too amped up to cry. Hit me, David.”

  I did.

  “Again.”

  I did.

  “Harder!”

  I did.

  “Again! Harder! Hit me like you mean it, motherfucker! I know you want to!”

  I did, I did, I did, and she cried, and when the paramedics arrived, she was in tears and the tears, the pain, it was real.

  There were a lot of details Gabriella had to take care of: the will, the transfer of bank accounts and property deeds, the funeral which no one came to but Gabriella, myself, and the estate lawyer.

  I didn’t like the way that lawyer looked at me. He was Hispanic, in his forties, mustache, ridged forehead, thick glasses. He glared at me like I was something floating around in the toilet.

  I told Gabriella this. She said I was imagining it.

  “He’s a goofball,” she said. “This whole matter is more a pain in the ass for him than anything else. He never liked my aunt as a client. She always yelled and bossed him around.”

  After the funeral, he introduced himself to me as Enrique Ramos, Esq. We shook hands. His grip was tight.

  He said, “It was fortunate you were there with little Gabriella, that she had someone to lean on during that moment of emotional hardship.”

  Gabriella squeezed my hand. “David has a way of being places at the right time.”

  I smiled. The lawyer did not. He looked at her hand in mine, and then at me like I was something he found in the shitter.

  Gabriella wiped away a fake tear, and looked over at her aunt’s closed casket. “She had a hard life, always in pain. She’s no longer in pain now.”

  She was a good actress. She could go up to L.A. and become a star on late night cable movies.

  “Nor are you,” the lawyer said.

  What did that mean?

  “No,” Gabriella replied.

  He said, “I need to come by the house tomorrow afternoon, there’s some more papers for you to sign. Will you be there?”

  “Yeah,” Gabriella said, “come by anytime.”

  “I’ll see you then, Gabriella. Mr. Kellgren, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  So many cordial lies happen at funerals.

  We didn’t shake goodbye.

  In the car, I said, “That Ramos guy, I don’t like him.”

  “He’s nobody,” she said. “A paper pusher. He’s never been in court.”

  “You think he suspects anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “Did your aunt tell him she wanted to change the will? He might—I don’t know, find it strange that she says that, and a day or two later she’s dead.”

  “So? It happens. She was old and sick. The old and sick sometimes just die, David.”

  “I got a weird vibe from him is all.”

  “He’s nobody, okay? Look at me. Kiss me. That’s my lover, lover boy. Everything is going according to plan. Soon I’ll have the money, and the diamonds, and I’ll sell the properties and have even more money, and we’ll get the hell out of here, somewhere far far away.”

  “How far?”

  “Not far enough,” she said.

  “Where will we go?” I said.

  “New Zealand, I don’t know,” she said. “Anywhere.”

  For the first time in her life, she had multiple options for her present and her future.

  And so did I.

  What a thought, a feeling that was—I could pack all my belongings in storage, or just get rid of it, go light. Sel
l the car, quit the job, and disappear with the girl of my dreams.

  It could be that fucking easy.

  30.

  Lisa Dean, Esq., informed me that the court demurred on the lawsuit and the Roy Erics had fourteen days to revise his complaint, or else that was it: case closed.

  “I doubt he’ll re-file, he doesn’t know how,” she said.

  “He could get a lawyer,” I said.

  “Who would take a case with no merit?”

  “Plenty of shifty lawyers out there,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, David,” she said. “Go on with your life.”

  There was no good news for Allen Marshall.

  “They’re after me,” he said, “and they’re going to get me. Lisa’s trying to negotiate something. Maybe a few months in jail, hell thirty days. I can do thirty days. Who can’t lose a month in their life for a fuck-up?”

  Thought I’d surprise Gabriella. We hadn’t planned on getting together until that evening. I showed up at her house—her house now—two hours early, holding a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates in my hands. It was a silly romantic gesture and one I figured a girl who liked to read trashy romance novels would appreciate.

  She was surprised when I knocked on the front door—and what a change that was, too, instead of sneaking in the back way. I could see my life changing for the better already.

  She was wearing her robe. She clutched it, closing the top.

  “David, I thought you were coming at six.”

  “I had nothing better to do but come see the woman I love, bearing gifts,” and I held up the roses and chocolates.

  “Oh, well, wow, I wasn’t ready,” she said.

  I came in.

  Her lawyer, Enrique Ramos, was standing in the living room, holding a briefcase.

  “We were—we were going over some last minute details,” Gabriella said.

  She seemed nervous and I didn’t like this, not one bit.

  “Mr. Kellgren,” the lawyer said, nodding at me, pushing his glasses up to the ridge of his nose.

  “Mr. Ramos,” I said, nodding at him, ready for anything unpleasant.

  Gabriella took the roses and smiled. “These are beautiful, David. Thank you.”

  “A man of romance,” said the lawyer. “A Casanova, perhaps?”

  Gabriella smelled the roses and she still seemed nervous.

  I said, “If you two have business . . .”

  “We are done,” Ramos said. He placed the briefcase down on the floor. “Be wise with this, Gabriella.”

  “Gracias, En—Mr. Ramos.”

  The lawyer walked by me and I felt the chill of his demeanor. He left the house and got into a car outside—a small silver sports car, how did I miss that parked on the street? I was losing my touch of observation.

  “David?”

  I handed Gabriella the chocolates.

  “You’re so silly,” she said.

  I pulled her to me and kissed her. Her robe opened. She was naked underneath.

  “You’re dressed like this in front of your lawyer?” I said.

  “I was going to take a shower and he showed up. A surprise, like you. A day full of them.”

  Didn’t Ramos say he was coming by this afternoon? Maybe she forgot.

  “He doesn’t like me,” I said.

  “Because you’re white. A gringo.”

  “He’s racist?”

  “All his clients are Mexican. White people run the system. What do you expect?”

  “Well, I don’t like him,” I said…or the fact that she was naked under that robe.

  She changed the subject fast. “Come, look at what I have,” and she picked up the briefcase, placed it on the couch. “Sit down, baby.”

  I sat with her.

  She opened the briefcase.

  “Mira,” she said. Look.

  I looked.

  The briefcase was full of one hundred dollar bills.

  “Fifty thousand, David. Fifty fucking thousand dollars.”

  She handed me a bundle of twenty one hundred dollar bills, held together by a rubber band.

  “Crisp new bills. Don’t you love how they feel? How they smell?”

  “Where did this come from?”

  “Enrique closed out one of my aunt’s accounts, and that’s only the start. This is just the tip of iceberg.”

  Enrique . . . no wonder he was cold to me. Here he comes to deliver all this cash and I show up, he probably thought I was only after Gabriella’s new wealth.

  “And there’s this,” she said, pulling out a small black velvet pouch. “Hold open your hand, baby. Do it.”

  I held out my right palm. She poured the contents of the pouch into my hand: ten small diamonds.

  “Whoa,” was all I could say.

  “Nice, huh?”

  She gave me the pouch and I put the diamonds, one after the other, slowly taking in the texture of each gem, into it.

  She took a bundle of cash and rubbed it on her face. “I want to stink of cash,” she said. “How’s that for skank?”

  She dumped the money on the couch, pulling the rubber bands off quickly, the bills scattering about like birds released from a cage.

  “I want to fuck on it,” she said.

  I smiled for that idea.

  “I had dreams of this day,” she said, and she removed her robe, and laid back on the money, her arms spread out to me, inviting me.

  “Come here,” she demanded, and we made love on top of fifty grand.

  “We need to be cautious,” she said. “Things are a little tense around the block. Across the street. Miguel disappeared and no one knows where he went. His homies have come by asking if I’ve seen him.”

  “Why would they ask you?”

  “They knew I used to see him, what do you think? And they’re asking anybody and everybody.”

  I didn’t want to be reminded of that. I didn’t want to be reminded that Miguel had once existed. I preferred to believe that night and the trip into Tijuana was just a dream.

  “Haven’t the TJ cops found his body yet?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Would they bother informing the cops here? He’s just another dead gangbanger. Another cartel hit. News will get to his homies some point. They’ll say, ‘That Miguel was shitting in the wrong can and got his check cashed.”

  “You don’t think he told his buddies—homies—about the little plan you and he hatched?”

  “I’d be dead by now if he did,” she said. “You too. No, he said nothing. I mean, if he told them he was going to come into a load of money, he’d have to share it with the gang. That’s the code. They share everything.”

  “Women too?”

  “Stop it. Give me a kiss.”

  I did.

  “You worry too much, baby,” she said. “You should use the back door next time.”

  “Are they watching?”

  “Cautious, David. Not paranoid.”

  “Do they know you have money?”

  “Hell no. If they knew I had fifty K in the house, they’d bust in and take it.”

  “And rape you.”

  “Or kill me. Rape me and kill me. Does that turn you on, baby?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  It kind of did, though.“It turns me on,” she said, and she was. Some women get off on violence, the threat and thought of it.

  Men, too.

  “It’s not safe, having all that money here,” I said later.

  “Should I hide it?”

  “Yeah. Where?”

  “Can I hide it at your place?”

  “If you want.”

  “Is it safe there, David?”

  “Safer than here.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  31.

  Got a message the next day from Enrique Ramos, Esq., to call him. What did he want with me? I didn’t want to call him but if I didn’t, if he did indeed suspect anything, my silence would only fuel his ire.

  “I’d l
ike you to come by my office,” he said.

  “Is there something wrong?” I asked.

  “Not at all. Can you come here, say, after lunch time? One o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I had a feeling Ramos wanted to make sure I would look after Gabriella, or that I wasn’t out to just get her money.

  He had a small, modest office in National City, which borders on Chula Vista and is incorporated and not part of San Diego County. He didn’t have a secretary.

  “Gabriella tells me you’re a registered process server,” he said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And that you’re one of the best.”

  “Well, I get the job done.” I gave him the run down on my record and what I do well.

  “I have a defendant who has been dodging me,” he said. “I was hoping I could hire you to serve the papers.”

  That was a surprise. I said, “Well, sure, but usually you go through the company I work for.”

  “I can hire you independently, yes?”

  Shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

  “You don’t have to split the fee with your employer,” he said with a lawyer’s smile. “How does three hundred dollars sound?”

  “It’s more than the typical service fee,” I said.

  “I need this done today. A rush job.”

  “Tell me why this person is hard to serve.”

  “He’s expecting it. He’s here in National City. I was figuring—to be blunt, Mr. Kellgren, you’re a gringo, Caucasian. Normally I do not hire Caucasians to do my work, no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Plus, I’m sure you have your crafty ways of doing things.”

  “I cannot 100% guarantee today,” I told him, “but I will damn well try my best; otherwise, this person will be served by this week.”

  He nodded. “Good enough.”

  The process was a writ of attachment of some sort; I didn’t take a close look. The defendant was one Angel Marco Mendez. The address was a small house on an empty lot near the city line with Imperial Beach. Ramos told me he got off work around four and was usually home by six. I aimed for seven-thirty, a good time anyone will be home, sitting down with a drink and dinner and watching TV.