Painkiller, Princess

by Chester Gattle

  Maybe, he thought, I should check out the Indian casino downtown. If it worked, that could be his new revenue generator. Forget options trading. Become a poker god.

  He’d have to make sure each handcrafted opioid pill had enough fentanyl in it, though. The whole reason he was in this mess was because the distribution had been uneven. It’d be an absolute disaster to take a pill that didn’t have a trace of fentanyl. He’d get cleaned out.

  First things first, though.

  His back and shoulders were killing him, and he needed to get that sorted out before he even thought about taking a seat at a poker table. So he popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed.

  XXIV.

  Day Fifteen, Thursday

  Eight Seven Eight Dead

  Amy poked her head into Emmelia’s office. “There’s a customer out front who’d like to talk with you. No rush.”

  “Yep. In a second,” Emmelia whispered as she wiggled the phone next to her ear.

  Amy nodded and shut the door. Emmelia continued to listen to Avispón congratulate her on her success. He’d gotten the photos and all the gory details right down to where she’d “dumped the bodies” (the same place she’d dumped ROD, of course). He was still disappointed about what had happened to that monstrous crew of his, but if their deaths had led to Jacob’s, as she’d told him they had, he understood.

  “And you’ll be back up and running in no time, won’t you?” he said.

  “I’ll manage, yes.”

  “See? I knew it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  She asked about the bounty that was coming her way, and Avispón explained the reward would come in two forms: cash and drugs. She’d get some zero-cost shipments plus a few cash drops over the next several weeks. He then paused. “If you were me, how would you feel about all this? Can I sleep well now?”

  Emmelia scratched her head. A strange question. “Of course. It’s settled.”

  “Nothing to worry about?”

  “No.” Why would he have anything to worry about? Sure, Jacob White wasn’t dead as he’d wanted, but the guy was out of the picture.

  “So you’re happy?”

  “I’m happy.” In fact, she was ecstatic. She hated to admit it, but revenge had been eating at her for the longest time. And now with Bump dead, she could focus on her operations and see what she could really do.

  Big things were about to happen, starting with the Heritage Preservation Commission. They were all going to soon receive some very sizable, very impossible-to-ignore gifts care of the Jacob White bounty. Then once her expansion efforts got approved and her roasting capacity doubled, she’d start shipping more coffee (and the drugs that went along with that coffee) than ever.

  “All right,” Avispón said, growing quiet, leaving only the sound of his breathing and the screech of a bird passing overhead. “Well, goodbye, then.” The line went dead.

  Emmelia continued to hold the phone, thinking how final that goodbye had sounded. Perhaps Avispón didn’t intend to reach out again now that everything was finished. She’d get her bounty, and he’d leave her to run her operations. Alone.

  Excellent.

  In the café, she found Amy behind the counter but no customer waiting for her. Amy pointed to a table by the roastery window.

  Emmelia turned. The woman was watching her. They’d never met, but they knew each other.

  Xiaolian was in rough shape. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun, revealing the deep bruising that ran along the left side of her face from eyebrow to jaw. Her arm was wrapped tightly to her chest, a sling providing a touch more support.

  Emmelia sat across from her. “Which one of them did this?” she asked.

  “All of them,” Xiaolian said. “The arm”—she glanced at it—“happened yesterday. With Jacob.” Xiaolian told her about the rollover. “I have to ask…why’d you let him go?”

  Emmelia cleared her throat. “I have my reasons. But let’s get to the point. You came back to blackmail me?”

  Xiaolian said, “No. I’m just curious. Avispón knows anyway.”

  “He knows what?” Emmelia stiffened, realizing that Xiaolian’s right hand wasn’t on the table. What’s she hiding?

  “Everything. I told him what happened.”

  Emmelia leaned across the table. “Why?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You told him you killed ROD?”

  “They drugged me,” Xiaolian explained. “Raped me. He knew, and he knew it was coming.”

  “He didn’t care?”

  “White’s dead. That’s all he cared about. He was obsessed.”

  “I told him Jacob killed ROD.”

  “You shouldn’t lie.”

  Emmelia was waiting for Xiaolian’s hand to appear with the gun it was surely holding. If Avispón knew her photos of Jacob had been staged, this was it.

  “What was that explosion? Right before I came in?” Xiaolian asked.

  Emmelia had to take a moment to think while she put the looming threat of death from her mind. “An espresso machine. Gregory shot it.”

  Xiaolian’s eyes shifted to the counter where the much larger version rested. “Didn’t know they did that.”

  Emmelia turned to the counter as well, hoping to get Amy’s attention. (After Tiff’s blowup, they’d put a gun under the counter.)

  “And what’d you do with the bodies?” Xiaolian asked.

  Amy wouldn’t look up, intently focused on getting a customer’s pourover coffee just right. Emmelia turned back to Xiaolian. “What did I do with the bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  “No genital mutilation, if that’s what you were hoping for.”

  “They did that to a lot of women.”

  “I know.”

  Xiaolian’s arm was in rough shape, all wrapped and coddled like a precious vase. It hung in perfect alignment with the tabletop, and if Emmelia was quick, she could shove the table straight into it. A sharp jab of the table’s edge would crack that vase and send Xiaolian reeling.

  Emmelia would need to slide the table, though, not tip it if she wanted the full effect. Her feet had to be on the table’s base. Quietly shifting her shoes in place, she asked, “Why didn’t you kill Jacob at the house when you killed ROD?”

  “Couldn’t see him. Why didn’t you kill Jacob?” Xiaolian tried asking again.

  “It’s a small town. Didn’t want the attention.” She directed Xiaolian’s gaze around the Coffee Princess. “People don’t get away with much here.” And neither will you if you shoot me. She got her heels planted on the table’s base. “Where are you going after this?” Emmelia asked.

  “Home,” Xiaolian said, still scanning the café.

  “Where’s that?”

  Xiaolian turned back to her. “Tianjin. Near Beijing.”

  “I know it. Was there for a semester in college.” Emmelia smiled, hands gripping the edge of the table, ready to give it a shove.

  Xiaolian then lifted her hidden hand (empty) and rubbed her eye.

  She left the gun in her lap. This is my chance.

  But Xiaolian pushed herself up from the table, and there was no gun.

  Emmelia’s hands loosened their grip on the table. She asked, “Why are you here?”

  “Avispón wants me to kill you.”

  “But you’re not going to?”

  “No, I have to. I’m sorry.”

  “Then what’s this about?” Emmelia asked. “Why are you telling me?”

  “Just giving you the courtesy of knowing. I like you. You did a good job here. People respect you.”

  “You shouldn’t’ve told me.”

  Xiaolian sighed and looked around the coffee shop again. “It won’t matter,” she said before simply walking out.

  Over the next couple of days, Emmelia would be ready for Xiaolian, armed to the teeth. Ankle holsters. Shoulder holsters. Knives everywhere. But like Bump always said, those marked for a death sentence never kept up their guard, and before long, Emmelia would go
back to her routine.

  ~

  In Chicago, Bump’s mother had just visited Devon for the third time that week. On the way home, she got the taxi driver to stop at a 7-Eleven for some lottery tickets. With the thick stack across her lap, she scratched and scratched as the blocks passed by. The quarter in her hand then stopped, and she drew the card close to her face.

  She lowered it back to her lap and turned to the window, watching the scenery, clutching the card tightly, as if it might flutter away in one more unbelievable event in what seemed like a string of such events lately.

  The driver pulled up to the curb at her house and helped her from the car. He set her walker on the sidewalk and wished her a good day. She gave him a generous cash tip, something she never could afford, and went up the walkway, climbed the front steps, and disappeared inside.

  Bump’s bedroom was just down the hall past hers, and she went to it.

  She’d tidied it up. Collected his clothes. Made the bed. Now, she sat down and set the lottery ticket on his pillow. He’d been a good boy, always watching over her.

  And he still was apparently, because the ten-dollar scratch-off had won the jackpot. Half a million dollars.

  She stayed in his room for what seemed like the entire afternoon, just breathing quietly and thinking. She’d be able to buy lottery tickets for the rest of her days.

  ~

  An osprey flew by the balcony. Again it had found something of interest. Avispón wanted to say it was an ear, but maybe it was just a wrinkled chunk of flesh that’d been cut from someone’s back. These days the osprey was making a daily routine out of picking new bits from the beach and flying back to its nest. There were some chicks absolutely feasting just around the bend north of his condo.

  Too bad he couldn’t offer them a piece of Jacob White. He should’ve asked Xiaolian for something. An ear or finger. Nothing big. Just a token offering.

  She hadn’t had the time, though. Just a moment to confirm his death and then disappear. Too bad. Not even a picture.

  As if pictures carry any weight.

  Emmelia almost had him. That shit weasel. He knew from the start she didn’t want Jacob killed in her city, and he didn’t blame her, but he didn’t care. The attention it brought would fizzle out. What wouldn’t fizzle out was his anger. And Emmelia had tried to take advantage of that. He’d been so ready and willing to believe the photos. To top it off, she was even going to let him give her the half-million-dollar bounty.

  He’d called to give her a final chance at redemption (or that’s what he told himself). In reality, he might have just called to toy with her, but in his mind he was prepared to let it be if she’d refused the reward. But she hadn’t, so that was that.

  He was now going back to his plaza. He’d rebuild it. In a year’s time he’d have it running at a pre-Jacob clip.

  There was still the issue of that Castor figure, though. And he had to find another ROD. What a mistake they’d been. He appreciated their aggressiveness, but they’d been reactors, not stalkers, and he realized now that he needed stalkers. Xiaolian was a stalker. Like an alligator, she silently floated just below the surface, getting closer and closer until there was an explosion of swamp water, teeth, and death. ROD had been a pack of hyenas, and you couldn’t turn hyenas into alligators. He needed to find some alligators.

  Avispón finished his coffee and considered where he could look for some alligators.

  EPILOGUE

  Day Thirty-Six, Friday

  Nine Dead

  Missy found them an apartment at The Biltmore in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. It was a one-bedroom—no need for two—in a renovated 1940s warehouse. The place was a downgrade on most fronts—smaller, more expensive, and overlooking a rooftop instead of a park—but the front desk personnel were known to be militant about nonresidents entering the building, so they signed the lease.

  Things had been quiet for nearly a month now. No more pugnappings, fires, or shootings. It really did seem that the cartel thought they were dead.

  Normalcy and routine began to return to their lives. Missy was walking to work—Google’s office was only a few blocks away—and Jacob was heading down to the corner coffee shop for a cappuccino every morning. (The capps were good. Just not Coffee Princess good.)

  He hadn’t yet told Simon or Tina that he was “dead.” He wasn’t sure how to say it.

  I’ve convinced the cartel I’m dead, so no book.

  The DEA says to cancel the book.

  I just don’t care anymore.

  That last one wasn’t quite true. He wanted to be a writer. Just not when it meant putting anyone’s life at risk.

  He also hadn’t told them because Simon had secured an offer for a $200,000 advance for the book, title TBD. The publisher, a smaller firm in New York, was looking to make a splash, and they’d bid hard for the rights. They had even agreed (verbally) to publish his other book, a retelling of Stephen King’s The Shining called The Shedding, which he’d been trying to publish for years.

  How do I turn that down?

  So for now, he was still writing the TBD book, sending new chapters for Simon to read, pretending things were okay until he figured out how to make the big reveal.

  With the stability of a new apartment and the cartel focused on their cartel business again, he was actually pumping out five to seven thousand words a day. He’d be done in a week if he wasn’t careful. He had to slow it down a bit to keep the book from going to the editor. Otherwise, he’d wake up one morning and the thing would be on shelves nationwide. Shit!

  These last few days, he’d been hanging out in the coffee shop, alternating between typing another chapter and typing his “resignation” letter. He’d snagged a barstool at the window today and had written for the last hour, then he deleted it all. Just trying to slow it down.

  He pulled his phone close and browsed the news. Slow it down.

  He didn’t expect to find anything, but he’d taken to checking the Duluth News Tribune for any mention of Emmelia, the incident at her house, or the DEA. During this routine check, however, Emmelia’s name had popped up.

  She was dead. And authorities were calling her a ringleader. They said she’d overseen one of the largest opioid distribution networks north of Chicago. Her fentanyl-laced opioids had been responsible for the deaths of both one Gregory Larry Johnson and one Sarah Sundin.

  Apparently, Emmelia had been shot near the border on her way to Winnipeg. There were no suspects or leads.

  There was also no mention of Emmelia being a DEA agent. He clicked through several variations of the same story. No mention at all.

  Of course not, he finally realized. Emmelia had been undercover, and she still was. The operation was salvageable. Perhaps the DEA even had someone else at the Coffee Princess already working the case, taking over where the late Special Agent Emmelia Lemus had left off.

  Jacob slid the phone away.

  You did this.

  You killed Emmelia.

  Was that true? He’d brought a lot of attention and disruption to her operation. Had he blown her cover?

  Yes, of course you did. You killed Emmelia.

  That accusation pounded around in his head for a few minutes until his legs started to shake.

  You. Killed. Emmelia.

  He couldn’t sit still. He slurped down the last of his cappuccino and went back to his apartment, where he leashed up the eye-patched Quincy and headed out for a walk to burn off the guilt and anxiety.

  They ended up wandering the streets until sunset, until Quincy was so tired he had to be carried, until the crisp October air hurt Jacob’s ears, but still, his conscience wouldn’t calm down. Emmelia’s death was his fault. He’d blown her cover.

  When they returned to the apartment, Missy was home, and Jacob shared the news.

  She took a moment to digest the bombshell, then said, “But you can’t say for certain you had anything to do with that.”

  “After being undercove
r for five years, now she gets killed? That’s not coincidence.”

  “It still wouldn’t be your fault.”

  He paced around the apartment. Kitchen to living room to kitchen. “I shouldn’t have ever gone up there.”

  “Oh, don’t start playing that game,” she warned.

  “Emmelia died because of me. I blew her cover.”

  “Did you tell anyone about her? I haven’t.”

  “No, absolutely not.”

  “So how’s this your fault?”

  “It just is. Think about how many people died up there. None of that happens if I’m not there.”

  “You didn’t know what would happen. How can you blame yourself for that?”

  He stopped at the window overlooking the warehouse next door. Leaning his palms against the frame, his nose poking the glass and leaving a tiny, circular grease smudge, he said, “Do you think she told them we’re alive?”

  “I don’t think that had anything to do with us. She was killed over something totally unrelated. Things’ve been quiet here. For weeks. She didn’t say a thing.”

  “Please let this be over.”

  Missy walked behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “It is. You don’t think so?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  ☐◆☐◆☐◆☐

  DEATH KEY

  Sarah Sundin (Overdose)

  Anthony “Bump” Williams (Beer Bottle)

  Mountain Meth Man (Gunshot)

  Tiff Vigil (Explosion)

  Gregory Johnson (Explosion)

  Rubén Avila (Gunshot)

  Oscar Garza (Gunshot)

  David Navarrete (Gunshot)

  Gregory Johnson (Overdose)