Zero Saints

by Gabino Iglesias

  She finally reached me and came in for the transaction. I had her bag of peace ready to go because her smell was hard to put up with, so I always tried to get her taken care of and back on her way as quickly as possible. This time, however, she stopped a few feet away. I look at her wild hair and ojos locos and went back to paying attention to the door. You can’t worry too much about the things junkies do.

  “Your time is closer than theirs,” said Pilar. I looked back at her. Her eyes were locked into mine, wide open and bloodshot.

  “You will be gone before the streets of this town are covered in the bodies of men and beasts. The Fallen Angel is reaching out for you, his filthy talons craving the feel of your ripping flesh.”

  Her words sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Get away from my door, Pilar. I can’t have you here spitting nonsense at the customers.”

  “Repent now. Your time is almost at hand. When you start coughing up blood and hear the hoofs of the Beast on your roof, remember my wor…”

  “Get out of here, Pilar. I don’t want to have to remove you.”

  She looked at me. She turned around and walked down the sidewalk in silence.

  Pilar’s words wouldn’t have worried me, but the fact that she left without her smack and cut out her crazy talk made me feel very uncomfortable. The feeling grew inside me and morphed into something cold that stuck to my ribs.

  After the doors closed, I pretended to be feeling very tired and asked Jenny, a waitress whose boyfriend always picked her up at the end of the night, to give me a ride to my car.

  8

  Too much zlo

  Tchort – Men with black eyes

  Dueña Poderosa de la Negra Mansión

  Belly full of razorblades

  The Russian called me the next morning. My head spun from too many pills and I was nauseous, but the pills had helped me sleep. I picked up the phone and looked at it. As always, the number on the screen was not the same number I’d called, and I knew it was a number I’d never see again. I swiped my finger across the screen and placed the phone against my ear with a smile plastered on my sleepy face. The chemical cocktail cruising through my system made the sheets feel like feathers brushing against my skin.

  “Hello?”

  “I found the men you wanted me to find,” the Russian said, sounding tired. I imagined Nestor’s soul flying into the body of a fly just so he could land on Indio’s glassy eye and take a shit on it. Thinking about him made me sad, but the idea that a threat that had been hovering over me like a jealous helicopter was now gone trumped that sadness.

  “I knew you would. You always get things done. That’s why I called you. So…everything has been taken care of? Easy job?”

  “No, Nando. I am sorry. This is not something I can help you with. This is something I don’t think anyone can help you with. Too much…zlo involved.”

  I didn’t know what zlo meant but, for a second, I didn’t really care because I thought he was joking, so I stayed quiet. I expected him to laugh and then tell me everything was fine. He didn’t. The threat was back, now more menacing than ever. If Indio and his monkeys had evaded The Russian or, even worse, spotted him and figured out why he was there and who had sent him, I would be in even deeper trouble.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “These men, Nando, they are all working for a man who has black eyes. They are full of very plokhoy chernila. My father, he told to me stories of a man like that when I was growing up, a man who lived alone in the woods with a dog and never aged. He would come out of the taiga once in a while and go to town to buy vodka and bread, never something more. No one looked this man in the eyes because they sometimes looked black when he returned the stare. When someone went missing who didn’t have any trouble with anyone, people always said that the black-eyed man took them, that he ate their heart and trapped their dusha. They said that kept him young, the blood, the killing. My father said the man had made a deal with Tchort and was no longer human, that he was a monster that belonged to hell. I never believed him, but a few years after my father’s death I came across this man while walking with my mother. He looked at her and winked. Then he stuck his tongue out, and incredibly long tongue, and moved it like at snake at my mother. She saw him, closed her eyes, and touched the rosary around her neck. She stood still and prayed with her eyes closed. She did not want to look at him. It was the first time in my life I had seen my mother afraid. It was not a good thing to see. I looked at the man and tried to ignore my mother, tried to be tough, like a man should be when someone scares the people he carries inside always. I wanted to hurt this disrespectful man, but then he looked back at me and his eyes turned black, like a…krovoizliyaniye of darkness. Seeing his eyes turn black made me feel very cold inside and out. It was like all the cold, dark nights, all the dangerous animals and hard ice of the taiga lived inside him and he could make me feel that with only a look. I was very scared, okamenela. Bad, bad feeling. I did not hurt the man. I was a coward. I took my mother’s arm and walked away. I could hear my mother’s prayers and the man’s laugh as I walked away. He was the only man I had ever walked away from until now.”

  The Russian stopped and took a deep breath before continuing.

  “I think these men you are having troubles with are like that man. They have made a deal with Tchort and you should not try to mess with them. Go away, ischezat’. Give them what they want. Just get them away from you and keep them away. Nothing good will happen if you go after them. What they have inside, it is not human. You can not kill things that are not human with bullets or knives.”

  Back to square one. And this time around, I didn’t even have a plan.

  “I…I don’t know what to tell you. I guess I should thank you for looking into this. I didn’t know it was going to…turn out this way.”

  “Temnaya magiya, Nando. This is what these men are into. You don’t want to make men that deal with this angry because they can hurt your body and your dusha. Whatever this is about, walk away.”

  The Russian hung up. I felt lonely and scared. I knew what I had to do, so I got up and walked to my Santa Muerte statue.

  I’d left the papers Consuelo had given me next to the statue. I lit up the second candle and read the prayer for the second day of the novena.

  Novena a la Santa Muerte

  Día 2

  Santa Muerte, mi gran tesoro, no te alejes en ninguna ocasión: comiste pan y de él me diste y como Dueña Poderosa de la Negra Mansión, de la existencia y de la vida, Emperatriz de las Tinieblas quiero que me hagas el gran favor de apartar a Indio y a su gente de mi camino, que aquel que me desea mal sufra lo mismo que me desea y que la gente que quiere verme mal tenga que llorar de angustia al verme triunfador. Estos son los favores que humildemente te pido, esperando que se cumpla a la mayor brevedad. Que así sea.

  Praying helped a bit, just like it always did, but knowing that I had to get dressed and go talk to Guillermo again was making me feel like I’d swallowed a few razor blades. Knowing that I’d see Consuelo again and could ask her for a stronger limpia was not enough to make me feel better.

  9

  Fantasmas and bullets

  Jacketed hollow-points – Sicarios

  Heavy – Solid – Black

  Cow tongue

  Talking to Guillermo and telling him the Russian had declined the job would only go smoothly if I had an alternate plan. I needed to come up with that plan. And a gun. A big gun with some balas de plata. Y cojones. Muchos cojones.

  I had no idea where I could get massive cojones, but the gun was another story. I swiped my finger across my phone’s screen and dialed Ricky’s Bike Shop.

  Ricky was a skinny güey with long blonde dreadlocks and a patchy blonde beard who ran a bicycle chop shop. Drove a blue Prius with too many bumper stickers, all about yoga, coexisting, and eating vegetables instead of meat. He came from Portland, where he’d been caught too many times, and had set up business in Austin because the city, l
ike Portland, had an incredible amount of assholes willing to pay top dollar for stolen bikes instead of driving a car like a regular person. Save the planet, but fuck your neighbor. Typical white mierda. Since the bike business wasn’t enough to pay for the Vegas trips and weekend-long benders Ricky enjoyed, he sold guns on the side. Bikes paid for his rent and occasional meals, but the pistolas paid for the things he loved: booze, blow, and blowjobs.

  He picked up on the third ring.

  “Ricky’s Bike Shop. Ricky speaking. How may I help you?”

  “Hey, Ricky, it’s Fernando.”

  “Hey, what up, ese?”

  Ricky had a thing for slang. White, brown, black, whatever. His personality was like the sails of a boat and obeyed whatever breeze was flowing at any given time. I wasn’t sure if that made him a pinche pendejo or very dangerous. I always treated him well just in case it was the latter. After all, he had all the pistolas in the world.

  “I need something, man. I lost the last bike I got from you.”

  “You lost it? How can you lose such a thing, ese?”

  “Well, it was stolen.”

  Ricky laughed. I hadn’t said anything funny, but whatever. Algunos pinches gringos se ríen por todo.

  “No worries, man. I actually have something you might really dig. Got it the other day and remembered your tattoos and shit. No one has jumped on it, so it’s yours if you want it. I can give you a sweet deal on it. You ever seen The Boondock Saints?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, man, it’s a pretty sweet flick. You have to see it. Anyway, get your brown ass down here and I’ll explain it to you. That little taco truck around the corner is already spitting smoke, so we can grab some food and talk business. Shop is dead, anyway.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a few.”

  I hung up and thought about taking a Xanax along with the Oxy my mind was craving. However, I wanted to be a little sharper than that for my visit to Ricky. I wanted to make sure that I went in there, got a gun, and left without having to put up with three hours of the man talking nonsense and asking questions. My brain needed the fluffy coating of something, but not too much. Thoughts of Indio had to be kept on a soft pillow inside my head or their sharpness would tumble around and destroy everything, but getting zombified was not an option, so the Oxy went down my throat alone.

  Ricky was blasting some death metal when I showed up. It sounded like a buffalo stampede passing through a drum shop. I always thought he looked like a reggae kind of guy, but I guess loud screaming and distortion kept him happy.

  He turned the racket down as soon as he saw me.

  “What up, ese? Shut the door behind you.”

  I threw the lock and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

  “How you doing, Ricky?”

  “I’m good, bro, I’m good.”

  Ricky came around the counter, his yellow dreadlocks swinging all over the place, and gave me a hug. He always did that. With everyone. I had no doubt he would shoot me in the head if someone offered him fifty bucks or un cuarto de coca.

  “So you have something for me?”

  If I didn’t keep Ricky focused, he’d start talking about his last bender, snorting lines off a stripper’s culo or how it was increasingly harder to keep up with the demand for top-notch lowrider bikes. He thought that me being Mexican meant I was tight with the cholos that fucked around with cars and bikes all over town.

  “Sure do, bro. Follow me.”

  Ricky walked around the counter and opened a door that lead to the real office, the secret garage in the back where bikes came in and became something new. Parts and wheels hung from the ceiling and the walls and there were half-constructed bikes all over the place. Ricky walked to a huge red toolbox that was almost as tall as me. He opened one of the bottom drawers and pulled out a black gun. He looked at the piece with a smile on his face and handed it to me.

  It was heavy. Solid. All black. I was never a fan of guns, but this was the first gun I’d touched since having the pinches mareros steal my old piece, and it felt good.

  “That’s a Beretta 92SF. You already know 9mms are awesome, but this is top of the line, man, this thing comes fucking loaded. Three-dot sighting system, super reliable open slide design, safety-decocking lever on both sides, and a really sweet and easy to use mag-release mechanism that you can switch around if you want to. Oh, and you can keep this thing in your fucking gym bag and it won’t corrode or anything. Super sweet gun, man.”

  Ricky talked about bikes and guns the way teenage boys talk about tits. He was excited about what he was showing me. I just wanted a gun that wouldn’t lock up on me. While he rattled on and on about the gun, I turned it over and pretended to be studying it. On the left side it said PIETRO BERETTA and then, in smaller letters, GARDONE V.T.-MADE IN ITALY. Just below that, I found what I was looking for. Instead of the serial number, there was a slightly discolored triangle that someone had tried really hard to disguise via polishing. This thing looked brand new, but it could have a few bodies on it already. I didn’t care. My plans included adding a few bodies to its list.

  The Oxy was kicking in. I felt like I wanted to take a nap. It was time to speed things up.

  “Bullets?”

  “No, no, no. Wait a minute, man. Remember I asked you if you had seen The Boondock Saints?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this was the gun they used. As soon as I got it, I thought about your ink!”

  Ricky was talking about the Virgen de Guadalupe, which occupied my left forearm, and the Santa Muerte con su guadaña, which was on my right bicep. La virgencita I got because my mom would always give me her bendiciones whenever I left the house and, once I started spending more time on the streets than in my house, I felt like I needed those bendiciones. La Niña Blanca I got my first year in Austin. It was my way of thanking her for helping me stay alive and a way to carry her with me wherever I went. It had been done by Elisa, a woman who worked at Fantastic Tattoo and who claimed ángeles lived in her shop and guided her hand while she worked. She was the second person I planned on seeing that day. That would only happen if I managed to escape Ricky’s shop before Elisa went home for the day.

  “Thanks for thinking about me, Ricky. Means a lot.”

  I didn’t.

  “How much do you want for it and can you give me some bullets?”

  “Listen, bro, I’d ask anyone else for $500, but since they stole your piece, give me $400 and it’s yours. Also, I’m gonna give you some special bullets. Check this out.”

  Ricky turned around, walked back to the toolbox, and opened a different drawer. He came back holding a dark blue box. With a huge smile on his thin lips, Ricky shook his dreadlocks back over his shoulder and held the box up as if he’d suddenly became one of those nice ladies whose sole job is to show contestants shit at game shows. Fiocchi ammunition. 9mm luger. 115 GRS. JHP.

  “You see these babies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See that JHP at the bottom?”

  “Yep.”

  Ricky brought the box down and looked at me as if I’d missed a hilarious joke.

  “Jacketed hollow-points, bro. This shit will do some major damage.”

  Jacketed hollow-points. I’d never seen them before. A lot of sicarios who worked for the carteles liked these bullets. Instead of entering someone and flying out of them on the other side, these thing opened up like a metallic flower on impact, causing a hell of a lot of carnage and blood loss. Usually I wouldn’t see the need to load my gun with balas like that, but with the smile on Indio’s face as he sawed off Nestor’s head burned into the back of my eyelids forever, they struck me as the perfect thing.

  “Are they really hollow?”

  “Yeah, bro, I wouldn’t lie to you, you know that.”

  My question had nothing to do with Ricky’s honesty, but what I had in mind was not something I was willing to discuss with him.

  “Cool, man. I’ll take them.”

  The cash came out
and Ricky’s eyes lit up. I counted twenty twenties. The green was down his pocket so quick I didn’t even see it. He handed me the box of balas, a 15 round mag, and patted me on the arm.

  “Shit, ese, I wouldn’t want to be the guy who stole your piece right now!”

  “They took more than my gun.”

  “So you’re buying this thing just to get your stuff back? For some payback?”

  “No, I’m buying this to make sure those hijueputas don’t ever steal anything from anyone ever again.”

  Apparently my words carried some odio in them because the smile on Ricky’s face died quicker than a cockroach under a fat man’s boot.

  “So…how bout those tacos now?”

  I hadn’t had anything to eat, so I nodded despite the fact that having lunch with Ricky was not something I’d normally do. It’s hard to enjoy your tacos when some pinche gringo is going on and on about the latest stripper he banged.

  “Cool, man, cool! Let’s head out. I’m starving. Oh, hey, do you guys really eat cow tongue?”

  Sometimes the best thing that happens to other people is an unloaded gun.

  10

  Cold, sharp silence

  La huesuda – Missing chingos – Blood

  San Lázaro – Snake around my lungs

  Pain

  I drove to Guillermo’s house in a blur. I parked the car more or less in the same spot I’d parked the previous day and sat there, suddenly remembering the cracked egg and its nasty, slithering contents. I felt like I now had some of those worms crawling around my soul.

  I shut the car off and stepped down. I was walking up to the door when I remembered to text Guillermo.

  I’m here again. Need to talk.