by Janey Mack
I jumped to my feet, grabbed the heavy wooden beam, and re-barricaded the door, trapping the two guards, AJ, The Weeping Beast, and God knew what else back there.
The prisoners went apeshit.
I got that fuzzy, light-headed feeling. The one that makes it impossible to think of a decent plan.
Stay focused.
Fatted Seal had the keys. Even if he fell for my two-knock pause two-knock kicks, he wouldn’t open the door wide enough for me to give him the bum’s rush.
He needed to come into the cells.
But how?
For the love of Mike! It sounded like a herd of feral cats trapped in a Dumpster.
What was it Mom said? I never minded you guys screaming and yelling—it was when you were quiet, I knew there was trouble.
I walked between the cells, finger to my lips, shushing the prisoners. Their hands grabbed at me through the bars, panicked and disoriented and still fecking yelling.
Shit.
I went and sat back down at the post, facing them this time.
They screamed at me to get up.
Fine. We’ll just wait for Fatted Seal to notice the missing guards and come after them. Except what if there is another door?
The Weeping Beast preferred to keep his victims alive for a long time, and with AJ being Carlos Grieco’s nephew, it was a given his would be a slow and grueling journey toward the light.
Savage beast, more like.
That’s it.
“Okay, guys, time to step it up if you wanna get out of here,” I said loudly and clapped my hands. “Catholic? Santeria? I know you know this.” I started singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so . . .”
A woman in the cell facing me picked it up and continued in Spanish. Pretty soon all the prisoners in the cells were either quiet or singing.
The guards banged on the barricaded door.
The prisoners sang louder, covering the racket.
“C’mon, Fatted Seal,” I said, staring at the front cell door, clenching and unclenching my fists behind my back, running through Hank’s training. Throat, groin, knee . . . “Come on, you sonuvabitch.”
The door opened.
Fatted Seal peeped around the edge before pulling it wide, slapping the nightstick against his hand. “Silencio!”
He hit his nightstick against the bars. The prisoners kept singing. I kept singing.
Smiling, he switched the stick to his left hand and waved it as though he were a conductor. “Silencio!” He pulled a pistol from his belt and indiscriminately fired two shots into the first two cells.
The singing stopped.
I kept going. Knowing he would come for me.
Hank’s Law Number Fourteen: A good plan violently executed immediately is better than a perfect plan executed later.
I sang, “They are weak, but he is strong.”
Fatted Seal kicked my feet apart. Bent over, huffing slightly, he put the revolver under my chin. “Silencio.”
I stilled.
He laughed and straightened, still pointing the revolver at my head. He rubbed his crotch with his left hand. “Jesús esta.”
I wet my upper lip with the tip of my tongue.
He leered.
“Fuck you, el gordito.”
The prisoners howled with laughter.
Close enough.
Fatted Seal’s eyes widened in rage. “I fuck you, bitch!” He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pulled me upright.
I hit him in the throat with the best punch I’ve ever thrown. He dropped the gun, frozen from the shock of it. He keeled over. He made a rasping gasp, and I kneed him in the face, feeling his nose shatter.
Eyes bulging, face bright red, he fell back against the bars, bucking and gasping.
The prisoners grabbed him, holding him tight against the bars. One man got his arm around the Fatted Seal’s throat. Finishing the job.
I picked up his revolver, jammed it in my jeans, and went back, avoiding his kicking legs for the nightstick and the fat ring of keys snapped to his waist.
He was dead before I unhooked the keys.
The guards on the other side banged on the door.
“Oh yeah.” I winced. “You guys.”
I checked the gun. One bullet.
“What the feck?”
Who keeps a revolver with only one bullet in it?
I hadn’t quite got that far with the plan. I needed a little muscle. I glanced back at the cells behind me, the panicked faces pleading and yelling.
This wasn’t Ben Hur. We weren’t pals.
I ran for the door, unlocked it, and went into the lobby. I rifled through the desk. Nothing. No bullets. No phone.
I ripped the blaring transistor radio off the nail and clicked it off, feeling the seconds fly by.
“C’mon, Lee. Where the hell are you?”
Here goes nothing.
Grabbing a chair, I tipped it on its side, propping open the door to the cells, telling myself not to expect a miracle—great favors earn ingratitude.
At the first cell, I started cycling through the keys. People grabbed at me through the bars, chattering, crying. “Hey!” I tore myself from their grasp and held the keys up and away. “No!”
The prisoners in the first cell fell back.
You can just chill the heck out.
I went to the cell across and opened it. The prisoners ran out in a herd, slipping on the piss-covered floor, knocking into each other as they scrambled to get the hell out.
I turned back to the first cell.
They let me open the door, choruses of “Gracias, gracias” and other things I couldn’t understand. A man and a woman jerked at my shirt, pulling at me, trying to get me to go, to leave the last cell. I shrugged them off and pointed at the door.
The third cell waited for me to open the door. The man who’d killed Fatted Seal held them at bay. The prisoners filed out quickly, quietly thanking me and hustling out the door.
The man, short and barrel-chested, was last to leave the cell. He stopped at the chair serving as a doorstop and smashed his foot down on the leg. It splintered off.
He picked up the leg and pointed at the door.
A friend.
I nodded. He crossed the room and looked back at me. I drew the revolver. He shoved the barricade off with a thud and stepped back next to me.
The guards burst in, relief on their pale and sweating faces fading as they realized they weren’t nearly out of it.
Barrel Chest took their nightsticks and patted them down. With the revolver, I motioned them into the third cell and locked the door.
I put the revolver in my left hand and threw a salute at Barrel Chest.
He returned it and headed for the door out.
I’m coming for you, AJ.
Chapter 37
Hank’s Law Number Twenty: The most dangerous enemy is the one with nothing left to lose.
If that wasn’t AJ and me, I don’t know what was. I took a couple breaths and stepped inside.
And gagged.
Oh God. And I thought the cells smelled bad.
The hallway was dark with black shadows, and it stank of fear and offal, curdled and greasy.
Holding the revolver down at my side, I stayed tight to the wall. At the corner, I edged out and took a peek.
AJ’s wrists and ankles were strapped to the arms of a wooden chair that looked like it had been stolen from a medieval mental institution. The Weeping Beast pulled a plastic bag off of AJ’s face and slapped him with a meaty paw.
AJ was unresponsive.
C’mon, guy. Don’t give up.
The Beast was a giant, with thick, trunk-like legs and a lumpy torso made of scrap cement. He crossed the room to a large metal vat and dipped in a plastic pail, filling it, and trudged back to throw it on AJ.
Nothing.
With a grunt, he slapped the unconscious man hard enough to split his lip. The Weeping Beast picked up a thick black cord. Jumper cabl
es. Connected at the opposite end to a Sears Die-Hard battery charger. He touched the ends to AJ’s chest.
The horrible spark-zap and the stink of burning flesh.
Oh Jesus.
AJ’s head bobbed, body jerked, then went still. He groaned.
Thank God.
Water dripped from AJ’s torn and bloodied shirt onto the floor. His head lolled in my direction. His left eye was swollen shut, and the lobes of each of his ears hung loose, bleeding.
One bullet. It would have to be a kill shot.
Back pressed tight to the wall, my breath came hard and fast. “Hank?” His name spilled from my mouth in a silent prayer.
“Put him down, Peaches,” Hank said in my head. “You’ll only feel one thing. Recoil.”
The Weeping Beast folded his massive arms over his chest and frowned at AJ, shaking his head. He wiped his cheek and mouth off on the back of his arm and went to rummage through a rusted toolbox. The mucus on his forearm glistened in the bare bulb light. He raised a pair of pliers and clicked them together, absently, thinking.
AJ didn’t move.
The Beast put them down and picked up a scalpel.
“Iago,” I said softly. “Iago.”
He spun toward AJ.
I stepped into his private chamber of horror, revolver pointed at his chest. “Iago García Falto.”
He turned slowly and peered at me like I was some sort of alien. “Quién?”
I motioned him away from the tools, to the near corner. He moved obediently, a surprised, openmouthed smile on his mouth, lower lip tucked to avoid the drip.
I backed slowly across the room to AJ, and without taking my eyes off him, went to work on AJ’s wrist cuff. “AJ,” I said.
“AJ. Wake up.”
Nothing.
I moved to the other wrist cuff. Fumbling, taking forever because I couldn’t take my eye off the Beast. I knocked AJ’s hand in his lap. “AJ.”
The Weeping Beast cocked his head, closed his good eye, and opened his dripping eye wide with his thumb and index finger. “Quién?”
I dropped to a squat and started on the ankle cuff. Sweat ran down my back. The revolver was getting heavy. My hand shook. “AJ.”
AJ coughed, and his head sagged forward. “Okay,” he whispered.
I moved to the last cuff.
The Beast frowned and demanded, “Quién eres?”
I rolled the dice, banking on Lennon’s report. My Spanish stilted and slow as I tried to say I was his dead sister’s guardian angel. “Un amigo ángel de María.” I hoisted AJ to his feet, ducking under his arm.
The Beast’s face crumpled in concentration. He wiped the drip off his chin. “Que María?”
“Tu hermana.” I edged AJ and me toward the door. “María Fernanda Falto.”
He began to laugh. A harsh, snuffling sound of the sort a wild boar made, bumping and rubbing its snout into the earth.
Oh God. The report got it wrong.
“I kill her. For the crying.” He came slowly toward us. “All the time, the crying.”
“No closer.” We were almost to the door.
“Then I must kill them all, sí?”
I let go of AJ to grip the revolver, wrapping my thumbs over and pulling tight as I’d been taught. “Stop!”
The Beast didn’t stop.
I aimed directly at his head. AJ stumbled, knocking into me as I pulled the trigger.
The bullet grazed the side of The Beast’s skull.
I kept pulling the trigger.
Click.
Knowing there were no bullets left in the gun.
Click. Click. Click.
The Beast yanked the gun from my hand and threw it across the floor. Grinning, a gelatinous bubble of teary mucus dribbled down his cheek, and hung off his upper lip before dripping onto his shirt.
“Run, AJ!” I shoved him toward the hall.
The Beast grabbed me around the waist. He picked me up and threw me over the side of the vat as effortlessly as though I was a child.
Headfirst, dunking me into the filthy water. Eyes stinging, I inhaled a mouthful of water, choking beneath the surface.
He hauled me up by my hair.
I broke the surface, gasping and spluttering to his sick, grunting snuffles.
He held me over the tank, letting me getting my breath back. Knowing he was going to put me under again.
“María Fernanda . . . María Fernanda . . . María Fernanda.” He sang the name, the syllables singsong guttural, the rage beneath them building. “María Fernanda . . . MaríaMaríaMaría . . .”
He jammed my head underwater.
My feet scrabbled uselessly against the sides of the vat. His weight pinned my waist over the rim. I arched backward, arms reaching over my head, clawing feebly at The Beast.
Eighty-seven seconds to break point. The moment when you’re on the verge of losing consciousness and you inhale water.
Lights sparked behind my eyes. I thrust my arms inside the tank, feeling for anything to either pull myself in or to push myself out.
The sparks faded to a pinprick.
Arms grabbed me around the waist, forcing dirty water up and out of my lungs. Heaving and spasming, I heard Lee’s voice in my ear. “I got you, you’re okay.”
Took you long enough, cavalry.
When my paroxysm of coughing had eddied down to tremors, Lee turned me into his chest. I sucked in giant lungfuls of him. Sweat and gun grease and the tang of diesel fuel never smelled so good.
The Weeping Beast groaned, semiconscious on the ground. Three Five-seveNs had their rifles trained on him, another two had AJ up and walking.
Lee let go.
“You all right?” I asked AJ.
His velvet eyes had turned to stone. “I owe you, kid.”
“Time to go,” I said. “Please.”
“Not yet.” AJ gestured with a hand to the Five-seveNs and cracked his knuckles. “Get him up.” He turned to Lee. “Get her out of here.”
“AJ—” I began.
“Beat it.” He picked up the pliers and smiled. It was one of the most awful things I’d ever seen. “Zed’s dead, baby.”
* * *
Lee and I left the kill house in one of the Grieco cartel’s armored Humvees. I sat in the middle of the rear seat bench, in between Lee and one of the Five-seveNs.
“Is good, what you did, Señora Renko.” The Five-seveN nodded at me. “You save many people. La bestia que llora will die as he lived.”
Violently.
Lee stared out the window. The frown on his face cut so harsh he looked like a fury.
I wanted to say something. Anything.
But what was there to say, really?
I felt exhausted and ancient. Beyond the years of a human being.
My body didn’t seem to get the message. I couldn’t stop my knees from bouncing, hands robotically clenching and unclenching the hem of my jacket.
The Five-seveN put his hand on my knee to still it. “You are okay now.” He smiled at me. “Okay.”
“Take your goddamn hand off her,” Lee’s voice sliced through the air. He threw a rough arm around my shoulders. I scooted up close to him. His hard, muscled body felt as unforgiving as his face looked.
It’s a helluva lot nicer cozying up to an angry statue than being tortured in a kill house.
I sighed.
It came out a shudder.
Lee growled, “You stink of death.”
The tears came then, silently sliding down my cheeks, dripping onto my chest. I didn’t have the strength to move out from under his heavy arm, much less raise a hand to wipe them away.
Chapter 38
Carlos and his men were on the driveway when we pulled up. Floodlights and panic and the acrid smell of chemicals wafted gently through the air.
He met us at the Humvee, eyes shiny with unshed tears, took me by the shoulders, and kissed me on each cheek. “The angel who saved El Cid. We talk tomorrow, yes ?”
I nodded.
Lee frog-marched me up the stairs to our rooms, gripping my elbow hard enough to leave a mark. Didn’t bother me a bit.
He checked the bedroom, bathroom, and made sure the balcony and bedroom doors were locked. “Good night.” He disappeared through the en suite door between our rooms, closing it firmly behind him.
Without a second thought, I stripped down and got in the shower and stayed until my fingers and toes pruned. Feeling remarkably peppy, I put on a tank top and underpants and blow-dried my hair. Amped, I glossed and flat-ironed it to a silk curtain before going back to the bedroom.
The lamp on the nightstand would barely qualify as a kid’s nightlight. I clicked on all the lights. It still felt dark.
TV on.
Univision was rebroadcasting a soccer match.
I’m so not tired.
I splayed my fingers. Not a tremor.
The world’s a happy place. Mani-pedi’s chipped, though.
Back to the bathroom for fire-engine red nail polish. Waiting for the polish to cure, I turned on my phone and followed along with a YouTube contouring makeup tutorial.
Huh. That really worked.
I cracked my neck.
Time for a little yoga, maybe.
Univision had switched over to a telenovela. I turned it up, dropped onto the floor, and raised my legs into Boat pose.
Lee flung open the door between our rooms. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“Nothing.” I wiggled my toes.
The red looks fantastic.
“Maisie!” His short brown hair was sticking up in the back. Indian feathers.
“Geez. I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You did.” He stomped over to the bathroom.
I guess when you have a body like that, you’ve pretty much earned the right to walk around in boxer briefs whenever you want.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” He turned off the light and shut the door. “You have every fucking light on. Every goddamn cabinet open. What the hell are you doing?”
He turned everything off, came closer, and squinted at me. “Are you wearing makeup at three forty a.m.?”
“Yes?”
“Why?”
“Uh . . . I’m a little off the rails, maybe?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” He picked up the remote and turned off the television. “You are.” He loomed over me. “Get up.”