Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

  “You know, it’s kind of pathetic you had to come to me for help,” I add as I furiously click keys.

  “It was practically the whole top corps that got taken,” he says. “It had to have been a set up. An inside thing. A gavilán orchestrating.”

  My fingers freeze on the keys.

  He notices the sudden silence.

  “I’m his cousin,” he says. “I was with him when Chuy was killed and he nearly got gutted trying to save him. I called the ambulance that never came, and I’m the one who convinced the neighborhood drunk, an ex-Army medic from Puerto Rico, to patch him up. Afterward, when the whole notion of the gavilanes was born, I was there too. There is no way I could ever turn against Toño, you understand?”

  I don’t say anything, but when he meets my eyes in the rearview mirror I think he gets that I’m sorry.

  I concentrate on remembering the exact sequence of numbers coded to Toño’s tattoo, then punch them in, and let the slow Hipco system search its way through its database.

  “Neto, how’re we going to do this if you can’t trust any of the other gavilanes?”

  “Soon as you get me something to work with I’m going to call a girl I think I can trust. She’s mid-level still, so she wasn’t in on the job that got them pinched,” he says. “And she feels for him what you do.”

  “Great.”

  “You’d never want to see him hurt, right?” he says. “There’s also a cousin who had his day off today, like me.”

  “Gang members get days off?”

  “Not as you’d understand it, but yes. You getting anything on the computer? We’re going to have to choose soon whether to take the northern extension or the southway.”

  “It’s still searching,” I say. “So, assuming we’re right and they’ve been taken to an inkatorium, and assuming we manage to somehow break them out, and assuming their injuries aren’t so bad we don’t kill them in the process, then what? Where do we take them? I’m guessing the gavilanes all know the same safe houses or hideouts or whatever you call them. If there’s a turncoat, the injured gavilanes aren’t going to be safe anywhere.”

  “Toño’s got some secrets only I know about,” he says, meeting my eyes again. “One of them’s a place in Hastings.”

  While I wait for the laptop to cough up some information, I turn the dome light on and open the bag my mother gave me. It is, in essence, everything I’d need to put a GPS tracker in, or take one out. Suture gun, sutures, disposable scalpels, betadine, novocaine, dressings, syringes. Plus some four or five vials of antibiotic.

  And a familiar keycard.

  “Turn around,” I say.

  “What?”

  “They’re in Smithville.”

  “Is that what that thing says?”

  “No. But it will, whenever it gets done searching.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He swings the limo around and gets on his phone. He talks rapidly in Spanish, then punches the gas when he hangs up. “Okay, they’re on their way to meet us. It’ll be a while.”

  “Where are they meeting us? ‘Cause my mom’s been great so far but I wouldn’t count on her letting us plot this from her trailer.”

  “Cement factory.”

  “Hate to tell you, but they’ve got decent security in place. Live and tech.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What?”

  He shakes his head. “He bought it. So you wouldn’t run into trouble hanging around the chute staring at the stars.”

  “Jesus.” It’s all I can get out without falling apart.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said too.” There’s a note of humor in it, the first time I’ve heard anything like that from Neto.

  After a while I get on the phone. He’s not the only one with people.

  * * *

  Jobs is waiting by the front door when we pull in. He’s sweaty, like he walked the whole way. Maybe even ran. My heart softens with the proof of his devotion.

  “Gates?” he looks a bit weirded out when he sees my companion.

  “How many nicknames do you have, girl?” Neto says. He grins at me, then goes to the front door of the factory and starts punching a code into the keypad.

  “You know what the combination is, right?” I ask.

  “I’ll get it eventually,” he answers without turning around. “I know all the combinations he uses.”

  “Gates?” Jobs tries again. “You going to explain exactly what we’re doing tonight?”

  “We’re going to rescue the guy I love, and his friends, and it’s going to be like that game you designed, only better.”

  “Oh.”

  “You still in?”

  He nods, but he looks a little green.

  After Neto figures out the security code, we set up in what looks like a break room with no windows. Neto scrounges around for coffee fixings while I spill the laptop and WiFi cards out of my duffle onto the table.

  “Oh my God.” Jobs caresses the laptop before he opens it. The capture with Toño’s GPS location is still on the desktop. “Tell me you hacked this.”

  “You’ll be hacking far more impressive sites tonight.” I outline the plan I’ve devised for him, and despite a few looks of unadulterated panic, he figures out the processes fast.

  “How long until your guys get here?” I ask Neto when I look up.

  He punches the question into his cell phone. The text reply is almost instant. “Celia figures they’re about 45 minutes away yet.”

  “Are they in separate limos, or one?”

  “Separate. But they’re within sight of each other.”

  I worry this for a bit. “I think they should come into Smithville via different routes. Different roadblocks to get through. Less alarming or suspicious for the locals.”

  “Tell me and I’ll text them.”

  “Can you write it down for him, Jobs?” I don’t even pause to see if he nods. “So, we’ll put three of the gavilanes in Celia’s limo, three in the other one. What’s your cousin’s name?”

  “Carlos.”

  “And then Toño alone in yours,” I say. “And you take him, only him, to the place no one else knows about.”

  Neto raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything.

  “You may trust the others,” I say, “but I only trust you.”

  He nods. I notice that Jobs is just sitting there. “Why aren’t you writing down instructions for Neto?”

  “I don’t drive. I don’t know any of the routes,” he says.

  “I do.”

  I turn to the door of the break room, to the familiar voice.

  “I’ll write them out for you,” John says. “But first I need to talk to Abbie.”

  “You can talk here, Bro,” Neto says. “We’re all in this together.”

  “Alone, Abs,” John says. “Chute. Three minutes.” Then he’s gone.

  “What the hell?” Neto asks, frowning.

  “He’s in love with her,” Jobs explains unhelpfully.

  Neto shoots me a look. “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “Is Celia? Look, he and I have already broken people out of this inkatorium. And I trust him, okay? And Jobs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ever heard of Google Maps?”

  When I see John silhouetted against the night sky, I feel my heart clutch. In spite of everything, he didn’t hesitate when I called him to help with this craziness.

  “I’m going to do this for you, Abs,” he says without preamble when he sees me. “All of what you’ve asked of me, and more if you need me to.”

  “But there’s a price,” he adds after a moment.

  “What?”

  When he doesn’t say anything, I turn to leave. “Forget it. I’ll do it without you.”

  “No, you won’t.” His voice is as dangerous as I’ve heard Toño’s get. “I know too much, and there’s no reason not to use it to get him detained in some jail or internment site until he dies of old age. Or t
o have him deported to wherever his parents or grandparents came from. No reason but you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You know.”

  I make sure my voice is as full of contempt as I feel. “Fine. We’ll fuck. Are we done here?”

  “Not quite. I want a guarantee of sole proprietorship,” he says. “Title to you, as it were.”

  “Jesus, John. I’m not a car.”

  “You’ve always been for sale,” he says.

  It feels like a punch.

  He takes out his smartphone, starts keying a number in. “You’re out of time. Swear to the deal, or stand aside.”

  “Deal,” I say. “I swear. Now, go home. I’ll come to you when I’m done with this.”

  “I wouldn’t want to lose you to a higher bidder while I’m not watching.” He puts his arm around my waist. “And you don’t want to admit it but you need me.”

  Neto looks up when we come into the break room. I see him take in John’s arm around me. His eyes slide up to mine. I don’t know what he sees there, but his voice is expressionless when he speaks.

  “All set?”

  “Yes,” John says pleasantly. “So, Lloyd, show me the routes you’ve charted out.”

  He may have become a creep, but he knows his way around Smithville better than anyone. Within seconds he’s corrected Jobs’ pedestrian routing and come up with something really ingenious.

  “When are your people getting here anyway?” he asks Neto.

  “Twenty minutes?”

  John looks at me. “Time to go.”

  I nod. “Jobs….”

  He looks up from the laptop. For a moment his face is euphoric, then he actually sees me. “What’s up with you? You look sick.”

  “Nerves,” I say. “You got it straight, right?”

  “Piece of pi. Get it?” Then he cackles.

  He actually manages to get me to smile.

  We park John’s beemer in my mother’s tiny private lot and go through the glass door of her office. It’s the only one in the whole building that opens with a keycard but doesn’t record identity or time. The door actually has an official name: Administrator’s Privilege. Every inkatorium has one egress so designated. I had discovered this during my long hours of computer sabotage while I was dying of love for the guy at my side. The one I no longer even want to look at.

  I pull two sets of scrubs out of the cupboard where my mother keeps hers. They’re not the right color for volunteers but there’s no other choice. I drop the travel kit on her desk and start up the computer. Jobs could have gotten this information for us from remote, but why waste talent on the piddling stuff?

  “Three of them are at Revere,” I say after I’ve got the day’s deliveries on screen. “The others are in the infirmary.”

  Revere is strictly off limits to any but the most senior staff. It’s where they put the inks hopped up on drugs, or on anger, for their first 24 hours at the inkatorium. We’ll need to open it with my mom’s keycard, and unfortunately the reader there will log all the requisite information. The infirmary, on the other hand, is unlocked and closer to the inkatorium’s hub. People are in and out of it all the time. Which means it carries its own brand of risk.

  “I’ll do the infirmary,” John says. “I can charm people out of their questions a lot easier than you can, Abs.”

  I jam a paper wedge under my mom’s office door in case John gets back before me since I’ll need the keycard. Then I push it almost shut. You’d have to be right on it to see that it isn’t actually latched.

  “15 minutes and we’re back in the office. With or without them,” John says.

  We head in opposite directions.

  I pass Val at the mothership on my way but she’s intent on something that keeps her eyes downcast and doesn’t notice me.

  I run into Bennett two corridors from my destination.

  “They run out of the volunteer scrubs again?” he says, slowing to chat.

  I nod. “Somebody must like pink.”

  He grins at me. “Well, I know it isn’t you. You heading for the vending machines?”

  There are two around the next corner. Short of where I need to be, but not bad cover. Except I don’t have any quarters on me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Want me to get you anything?”

  “Nah,” he says. “They ran out of Snickers bars.”

  He gives me a little wave as he trots off.

  There’s no sound coming from Revere and no light leaking beneath the door. I slide the card through the reader and inch the door open. My night vision is pretty good, so it’s only seconds before I discern three cots with occupants strapped down on them. Which means they must have gone really crazy at check-in because my mother’s protocols limit the use of restraints.

  I move silently to the closest. The occupant’s asleep, I can tell by the breathing. I grab the shoulder and give it a shake. The breathing changes.

  “Are you a gavilán?”

  There’s no answer. And now the room is absolutely silent. As if all three woke when I shook the one.

  “I’m a friend of Toño’s,” I say. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  “Who’s we?” A woman’s voice. Raspy.

  “Neto. Celia, Carlos and some friends of mine.”

  There’s a low babble of Spanish. They’re all women. For a second I’m stunned they’re the ones in Revere, in restraints, then remember they’ve got to be pretty tough to be gavilanes in the first place. I work my way around the room and undo the straps.

  While they’re rubbing their wrists and ankles, I hook a blanket over the lens of the security camera in the corner. “You might want to shield your eyes because I’m going to turn on the lights.”

  I go to the cupboard built into the west wall and pull three sets of scrubs. Long-sleeved, dark green ones like the senior CNAs use.

  “Heads up,” I say, and pitch one set to each. “So, here’s the plan. We turn left out of the door, straight through the main nurse’s station. While I distract, you take the next right, then count four corridors and take another right. All the way at the end of the hall to the door with ‘Administrator’ on it. It looks closed, but isn’t. And keep the sleeves down over your tattoos.”

  I pull a bedpan out of the cupboard and hand it to the shortest gavilán, a sweet-looking girl whose round face makes her look about my age. “You hardly look old enough to be a CNA, much less a senior one, so if someone stops you tell them you’re a college volunteer but we’re out of pink scrubs. Got it?”

  “Yes,” she says. With a strong Spanish accent.

  “Plan B, don’t talk.” I grab a bottle of betadine from the cupboard, open it and pour a little into the bedpan. Crap brown, with a reddish undercast, like bloody diarrhea. I drop a few half-shredded cotton balls in there to look like floaters. “If anyone gets close to talk to you, just pretend you’re losing hold of the bedpan.”

  “Gross,” snickers the tallest. Raspy voice. No accent at all.

  “You’re allowed to speak,” I say.

  Her eyebrows shoot up into her forehead. “Who made you boss?”

  “Opportunity,” I say.

  The third – bleached blond and wiry – grabs a couple of sheets out of the cupboard, dips parts of them into the bedpan of betadine, then crumples them up. Close enough to soiled linens to make people keep their distance.

  We do a quick run-through of the room, making sure it looks as if it hadn’t been occupied in the first place, then I turn off the light and yank the obscuring blanket off the camera. I slip out first and start walking down the corridor. I hear them come out, and the click of the door behind them. At the nurses’ station, I hop on the desk, hanging pretty much in front of Val’s face.

  “Jeez, Abs, you scared me,” she starts. “I didn’t know you were on tonight.”

  “Someone called my mom at home to let her know about tonight’s no-shows. I owed her, so I’m here.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t me trying
to get last-minute replacements for an overnight shift,” Val says. “If I have my way, the no-shows are so not getting college credit unless they agree to pull doubles.”

  “‘Us community service types are much more reliable.” I grin at her.

  “So, anything going on tonight?” I add, trying to sound casual.

  “Some nastiness at registration earlier, and Bennett’s up to his usual crap, but other than that, no.”

  “What’s up with Bennett?”

  “Nothing,” she says, but she makes a motion with her hand to indicate drinking. “Just don’t tell your mom, okay?”

  She studies me a moment, “You’re a Chatty Cathy tonight.”

  “Bored.”

  She grins. “Get back to work then. Or I won’t credit you for your hours either.”

  None of the girls are there when I swing myself back over the mothership. Good.

  I give Val a little wave before I set off.

  When I push the door to my mother’s office open I can pick out six shadowy silhouettes in the dark.

  “Your friend’s gone to get the last gavilán from the infirmary,” says the raspy-voiced girl.

  But I’m not paying attention. I walk over to the figure standing nearest to the administrator’s privilege door. He’s staring out of the smoked glass and doesn’t turn to my approach.

  “Your boy tells me you made your first sale tonight,” Toño says.

  His tone is all business, and though I’ve heard it before, I haven’t been expecting it. It robs me of the words I had been turning over in my head since I left the cement factory.

  “It’s not my first deal, remember?” I say instead.

  “Our deal didn’t use people for currency. Tell me he lied to me about that part.”

  Whatever has held me in one piece threatens to come undone. I sink to the floor, hands over my face.

  Toño says something in Spanish. I hear raspy-voice answer, and then footsteps. He drops down by me and grabs my upper arms.

  “Go home, America.” He says it so quietly I almost miss it. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “No,” I say, coming out from behind my hands. My eyes might be full but they haven’t spilled over, and the emphasis I give my words is clear. “We do it my way. No one gets hurt.”