by H. L. Valdez
"I'll miss you every day," she said lovingly. “But, I’m waiting for the day when we can have kids, walk in the park, or go to the zoo.”
"I need you so much," he mumbled, ignoring her comment, kissing her.
"We'll always be together," she assured him grinning, adjusting herself on the pillow. "As long as we love each other, what can go wrong?"
"I guess nothing," he replied, turning and gathering his long hair. Nick felt in competition with Sasha. He turned serious, ruminating on the fact that she would be influencing the drug market. On the other hand, the business structure of his Mexican trafficking organization was also family oriented. They survived clan wars, police sweeps and emerged fiercer and still amassed hundreds of millions of dollars. It was this vitality and desire to succeed that made Nick so dangerous. To some, when they were near him, they felt they were near death. He could be frightening.
In silence, rebounding from the narcotics, Sasha applied her makeup. Nick tied his tie, fixed his Prince Albert hairstyle, checked the cash in his wallet, then brushed his shoes; both were busily preparing. Sasha learned a lot from Nick; she respected him. Money laundering, a highly specialized and complex proposition, was his specialty. Transferring money from drug transactions out of the country, one of the trickiest parts of the money laundering process, made Nick a valuable asset to his family and allies. From offshore accounts, dummy corporations, changing dirty money to clean, or borrowing and lending money, Nick could do it. The flexibility of his organizational methods gave him access to joint ventures and transient limited partnership arrangements among family and narcotrafficantes. The Nogales family had an onion-like layering of organizational power with decision makers at the center directing operations, yet insulated by layers of protective subordinate operatives. On the outside, growers, smugglers, and distributors handled the production, supply, and sale of their illicit products.
"No easy way to love you," Nick said, sipping tequila from the bottle.
"Love me the hard way."
"I'm worried," he replied.
"You worry too much. Just focus on our love, not business. Our love has nothing to do with business."
"You're right, but it seems natural to blend business with pleasure."
"That's never a good idea."
"The future is so unclear," he said, lighting a cigarette.
“Not for me. My future is right in front of me.”
“What’s the next step?” He asked, taking a drag from his Kool cigarette.
“Leaving and putting my loco into locomotion then get on with the task. Don’t think so much,” she advised, closing her makeup box, then sipped her wine, looking at him.
“I see. I see,” he replied, snuffing out his cigarette in an Italian crystal ashtray. Swigging his tequila, Cotton Candy by Al Hirt played on the radio. Sasha's packed suitcase was by the door. Draped over an oversized peach colored chair were her mustard colored silk blouse, a brown supple lambskin jacket with a matching mini-skirt, and boots. On top of her panties was a black alligator shoulder holster containing a gold plated automatic pistol, a .380 Walther PPK 9mm with ivory grips; a gift from Nick. Sasha was well trained for her shooting wars with corrupt police, military men, narcotrafficantes, and politicians who were fighting for control over the spoils of a drug trade worth billions of dollars. It was a war with few heroes and many bodies.
The Split
1 July 1964. Special Operations Forces (SOF) Outpost Vietnam. Outside her dirty and dusty tent, wild ducks quacked at hungry rats competing for morsels of food scattered on the ground. Doctor Rita Rios, Army Captain and emergency room physician, was inside the large green canvass tent buckling a soft black leather holster around her thin waist, and listening to the military’s Far East Radio Network play It Hurts To Be In Love by Gene Pitney. Wiggling, she adjusted her black-pearl handled, .357 colt magnum pistol below her hips.
“The end is near,” she reasoned out loud. “This bullshit is almost over," she grumbled in edgy tones. "This career is almost over, then hello Los Angeles, and private practice," she groused pacing the dusty floor. "I can't wait to get the hell out of here," she mumbled, drawing and twirling her .357 from the holster.
"I have to do something about Karl. I should’ve stayed away from him," she moaned.
"I hate breaking up," she sighed, drawing, twirling, and holstering her pistol. "I'm frustrated with this whole scene. It’s time to give peace a chance."
Walking across the muggy tent, she paused studying herself in front of a dusty, cracked mirror hanging on a thick wooden support pole.
“I look bad,” she griped, applying the last drops of perfume behind each ear. Studying her face, her eyes turned to her black, soiled jump suit. Somber, she scraped dried blood from her Captain’s bars with her fingernails thinking the experience of combat annoyed her senses. As a surgeon assigned to an Emergency Medical Triage team with a remote forward deployed combat unit, she was emotionally tired of treating gunshot wounds, and placing steel plates into the tomato-like heads of half-dead Special Forces soldiers and Montagnard battle casualties.
“I’m tired,” she said, looking into the mirror. “I just wanna go home. I’ve had enough,” she sighed, staring into her bloodshot eyes.
"One foot in front of the other," she mused musically, smirking into the mirror.
"Don't get too down," she advised herself, pointing at her reflection.
"I'll try," she answered with a scowl, then began brushing, and gathering her long hair into a ponytail.
"Just get me out alive God, that's all I ask," she whispered, tightly binding her long hair with thin leather ties. Turning to the make shift coffee table, Rita walked on the dry leaves that covered the dirt floor as wild monkeys screeched in nearby trees. Stopping in front of her surgical kit, she fingered through assorted pharmaceutical drugs as the Armed Forces radio played The Girl of Ipanema by Stan Getz and Austrud Gilberto. After a few moments, she selected 20-milligrams of energizing Dexedrine and 10-milligrams of Valium to reduce her agitation. Holding the pills in her hand, she sauntered to the coffee pot, and poured strong French coffee into a mug. Placing the drugs in her mouth, she sipped the coffee, swallowing the pills in one gulp. Setting the mug down, she lit a cigarette, waiting for her mood to shift.
After twenty minutes, two cigarettes and two cups of coffee, her mood was subdued. She was calm, serene, alert, and at one with herself. Her energy and awareness were elevated. Preparing to leave, she grabbed a sawed off 12-guage shotgun, and put her arm through the sling, letting it hang upside down from her shoulder. Sipping the French roast, she pushed the canvass flap aside, leisurely walking into the cloudy day.
"I feel great!" she hollered, looking up at the gray rain clouds, sipping her coffee.
“Rita!” Dr. Karl Messner shouted, walking at a quick pace behind her.
"Stay calm!" she mumbled, putting on her dark aviator sunglasses continuing to walk, ignoring the Chief Medical Officer.
“Stop ignoring me!” he demanded, with a hard expression.
“Karl, I had a miserable night. I’m not in the mood for you this morning,” she said calmly, rubbing dust from her gold parachute wings. She thought Karl was eighty percent hope with no substance. Being raised with four brothers, and having lived with men, Rita understood male temperaments.
“Karl, my brains and bowels aren’t working,” she said, extending her arm, pouring out the coffee, and walking backwards.
"Here, catch," she said playfully, pitching the empty mug as he fumbled catching it. “Throw it far and high!” she said, with a Dexedrine smile. "Just for shits and giggles," she chuckled, smirking as he stood staring in disbelief. "Go ahead, throw it!" She repeated, as he flung it with all his might. Watching the cup, she gracefully drew her pistol, shot the mug into pieces then twirled the pistol into her holster.
“Who are you? Your moods change so much. I don’t know who you are,” he observed, as she stood wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, emotionall
y detached, objectively watching his nervous behavior.
“Freedom Lord! Grant me freedom!” she shouted, with out stretched arms. “Help me Lord!” she pleaded, looking up at the dark clouds.
“Cut the crap! What’s wrong with you?”
“OK, what’s up?” she asked, removing her sunglasses, placing them in her chest pocket.
“An intelligence ship sent this message. I took the liberty of reading it,” he said, removing a folded cablegram from inside his jungle fatigue hat.
“That’s some liberty!” she replied, yanking the cable from his hand, then studiously read the official Department of Defense message.
“This is like a four hundred pound telegram,” Karl volunteered in a shaky voice.
“I'm puzzled," she said, frowning and folding the message. "What’s this about?"
“I was hoping you'd tell me. I’m feeling paranoid,” he said shaking his head, watching Rita bend over to adjust a dagger inside her boot. Aware of Karl’s lust and apprehensive concern, she delayed her response. She had a disguise: she was vulnerable but had a strong spine inside. It was that juxtaposition between fragility and strength that captured his imagination. Karl wanted her from the moment they met at the Uniformed Services University of Health Science where he was teaching surgical techniques, and she was completing medical school. He was a Major, and upon graduation, she would become a Captain with six years of obligated service to the Army Medical Corps. A dark and devious, passive-aggressive Karl stayed in contact with Rita, and within a few years, he had manipulated his way into her life, even his marriage could not prevent his lust. His neurotic obsession with Rita increased as the Vietnam War escalated, leading him to ask her to join the Army's Mobile Medical Triage Team. Accepting the risky and hazardous duty meant completing Board Certification credentialing requirements for emergency room physicians. It also meant Karl would be her supervising physician, and she would practice under his license. But for medical team members, the assignment guaranteed a "fast track" toward licensing, upward mobility, promotion, and extra pay. A pensive Rita returned the message, quietly trying to fathom the gravity of being removed from her unit before her regular rotation date. She had to leave immediately for the Fleet Command post located on the Admiral's Flagship, where a Criminal Investigation Detachment and an ultra secret International Crisis Response Team were waiting to interview her.
"Do you think they know about our selling prescription drugs on the black market?" Rita asked, drawing her pistol, and twirling it back into the holster
"I don't see how," he answered. "Everyone out here is trafficking in drugs of some sort."
"I hope you saved all your drug money. Because you got me into this mess and if you get caught, I want your share," she said drawing and twirling her pistol.
“No, I can’t do that.”
"Tell me where you stashed the cash. You owe it to me," she shouted, holding the powerful pistol at her side. "Write the information down, and get it to me before I leave," she ordered, raising her arm aiming the weapon at his head.
"That money is for my family," he said, quietly.
"You wife didn't do shit for that money. I risked my ass for that cash,” she yelled, pulling the pistol's hammer back, cocking the weapon.
"Don't be irrational. Stay calm,” Karl pleaded.
"Don't be stupid -- the money or your life? If you live, I'll return it," she said, firing her weapon, discharging a hot round past his ear.
“We had a dream. I mortgaged my soul on you,” he said with bitter-sweetness, covering his ear, watching her twirl the weapon into her holster. Navy F-4 jetfighters screeched overhead as she walked away with her head down, ignoring a medical evacuation helicopter landing close by. A skittish Karl walked briskly to catch up as Rita adjusted her dark sunglasses, hurriedly swallowing 20mgs of a powerful anti depressant drug. The Dexamyl tablet would quickly push her into a new hyper charged, psychological, emotional, and physical realm of functioning.
“Karl, come on, let's walk,” she said, gripping her dangling shotgun, putting her hand on his shoulder, walking side-by-side.
“Our relationship is a meeting of the heart and soul, of destiny, time, and fate,” he reasoned desperately. Rita was not a boozy sentimentalist, and was accustomed to ego leaks and the acting out that separation anxiety produces when a relationship ends.
“Karl, we were geographical lovers and you’re a geographical bachelor. You have a wife,” she uttered truthfully, withdrawing her hand from his shoulder, rubbing her chin in thought.
“I still love you,” he said miserably, sensing feelings of separateness, and the erosion of Rita’s empathy.
"It's transient love," she replied in a melodic tone, drawing, twirling, and holstering her magnum in one polished motion. Rita had a higher sense of morality, yet she shared with Karl her private romantic feelings. She knew the current development had a radical rupture on his trust toward her. Walking closer to him, and gently squeezing his arm, she put her lips to his ear as wild monkeys screeched at an F-4 roaring overhead.
“Privacy is something people give selectively, but...I don’t want to deny that your piston pushed my heart," she said, removing her sunglasses. "Listen, I admit we had a passionate struggle. It was real, we both felt it.”
“I have a painful psychological diary over you. I guess I like the lie that you hate. I guess I have to readjust my temperament. I guess you don’t care anymore.”
“What we had was special,” she replied, feeling a warm surge of energy speeding through her body as her mental acuity sharpened, her psychological insights strengthened, her body relaxed, and her intuitive perception expanded, reacting to the Dexamyl.
“You’ve taken as much as you’ve given,” Karl said, filled with resentment.
“Right is what works. I only hope we have the same fundamental level of insight.”
“I don't think so,” he said bitterly, as thunder rumbled across the sky. Rita stared at him as he altered his expression to a let’s-kiss-one-last-time appeal.
“Don’t look at me that way!”
“What’s really going on? Why are you being called away early? What do they want with you aboard that carrier? Are you coming back? Will I see you again?” He asked in compulsive succession.
“Are you puzzled or confused?” She answered, sensing an incompatible interest, and a mutual vulnerability. Although they knew each other’s deep-seated secrets, leaving Karl was a relief; it was like having psychosurgery.
“We are what we feel, Rita. Now, I’m feeling a lot of resentment and anger. I wish we’d never started smuggling those damn pills," he shouted with a heart filled with pent-up frustration and hostility. Pulling a small plastic vial of prescription drugs from his pocket, he threw it with tremendous anger; Rita, tracking the spinning bottle rapidly drew and fired her pistol, smashing it to smithereens.
"Too bad you got greedy and started ripping-off opium, and heroin from hard working drug dealers," she said, noticing a fat rat scurrying on the ground. “Rats usually get shot,” she said, drawing her pistol, then casually shooting its head off.
“Don’t rat me out and I don’t rat on you, simple.”
“What’s the point?” she asked, easing the weapon into her holster, feeling psychologically depleted and confused by his statements, and current events.
“Like it or not, the game is up. We’re going to jail.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I don’t implicate you. You don’t implicate me. But remember, you said we would never get caught.”
“We’re not caught yet. Just make a phony deal with the cops, get the money then meet me at my bank in L. A.”
"Good-bye Doc. It’s over," she said, walking toward the field mess hall. Absorbed in thought, her rational inner voice repeated, “You must cope. Nourish yourself. This situation will pass. Don’t look back. You're on your own. Keep walking. Press on.”
"Keep your mouth shut, Rita. You're as guilty as I am!” He shouted, watching
his dream girl walk out of his life as thunder echoed through the dark clouds. "Damnit!" He shouted, punching the palm of his left hand with a clenched fist as a warm summer rain began falling, concealing Rita's tears, and hiding her pain as she walked.
In front of the mess hall, two large furry rodents were greedily eating spoils from the garbage cans. The camp was tailor-made for creatures, and was ideal for breeding droves of rats.
"I hate rats!" Rita grumbled, drawing her pistol, shooting their heads off in two quick shots. Entering the canvass portable mess hall, she holstered her weapon, and removed the shotgun from her shoulder. Leaning the barrel against the table, she picked up a small towel, and sat alone wiping her face. As she was carefully contemplating her past, present, and future, a mess attendant served her a regional style hot coffee with condensed sweet milk. Picking at her breakfast, she began counting, and listening to the reverberations from cannon fire repercussions in the distant hills. The President’s program of flexible response, counter-insurgency techniques, and the new theories of limited war remained, and was being implemented with high enthusiasm.
Hours Later
Rita sat euphorically on the passenger side of an idling helicopter adjusting her flak jacket when a young Army private suddenly ran up to the aircraft, handing her an envelope.
“Captain Rios, Doc Messner sent this!” He shouted.”
"Great. Thanks," she shouted back, accepting the envelope, and began reading the contents. "That's more like it," she blurted, as the helicopter ascended, making its way to an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. In quiet despair she turned her face toward the window, and swallowed another amphetamine-tranquilizer combination as hot metal from small arms fire punctured the tail section of the chopper. As a multiple drug abuser, Rita had an incredible capacity for rapidly progressing to new euphoria-inducing preparations that proved to be both habit and dependence forming. She had led a secret life of vice since she arrived in Vietnam in1963. Since then, she had also become addicted to the "speedball" that contained heroin and amphetamine, rather than heroin and cocaine.