Scale of Justice

by Dani Amore

  “Seven o’clock?”

  •••

  When pink, bubbly blood began to froth from the kid’s nostrils, Enrique Parlall got scared. The kid was on his side, his eyes closed, his skin a whitish gray Enrique had never seen before. He was scared the kid was going to die and then he would be in big trouble, so he kicked the kid in the ribs.

  Afterward, he realized that may not have been the right thing to do.

  Because the kid didn’t wake up, in fact, the blood started coming out of his mouth in great phlegmy gobs of pink mixed with dark red.

  Enrique picked his phone up and called Pablo. This would be really, really bad.

  While Pablo’s phone was ringing, Enrique used his foot to turn the kid onto his back. The good news was, the bleeding had stopped.

  The bad news, well, the bad news, he would have to tell Pablo.

  When the voice on the other end of the line answered, Enrique spoke.

  “I think this bitch is dead.”

  •••

  That first meal had been a resounding success. Tomás had taken several split breasts of chicken, smeared them with a rub of spices that included oregano, chili powder, cumin and garlic, then grilled them. He had also created a dish using whole grain rice instead of the more calorie-laden white rice, and served an enormous salad with fresh romaine hearts, tomatoes and onions.

  It was an event that began to repeat itself over the next few days.

  Diego Villanueva seemed very pleased. Over the course of the following week, Tomás, with the help of the other household servant, an older woman named Anna, had completely stocked the kitchen with healthy foods and ingredients. Tomás spent hours at the ship-sized island of marble in the kitchen, planning meals. Egg white omelets, whole grain pancakes, turkey sausages and fresh fruits for breakfast. He created beautiful salads, vegetarian dishes, hot peppers stuffed with spicy beans and rice, and enormous platters of grilled fish, chicken, lean beef, and even some pastured-fed buffalo steaks that Diego Villanueva had devoured with relish.

  By the end of the first week, it was time for a weigh-in.

  Villanueva summoned Tomás into the massive library. Books lined one wall, Mexican folk art another, and a third featured an assortment of Mexican weapons, including a pair of matched dueling pistols from the 1700s.

  When Tomás entered the room, he instantly knew something was wrong.

  “You fool!” Villanueva cried. “”I have only lost a pound!” That is not enough! And I have been going for walks with Elissa. It must be your food!”

  Tomás trembled inside. He had carefully managed the big man’s portions, calculated the rough amount of fat and calories. If the big man had eaten only wheat he prepared, there was no way he could have gained weight.

  “I should kill you motherfucking old man, I need to feed your son to those alligators now!”

  “Please, I am sorry, sir, I will do a better job, but I do not see how if you had only eaten what I prepared…”

  “Of course I have! That is the deal. I have only eaten your breakfasts, lunches, desserts and late night treats. That is all!”

  “What late night treats, sir?” Tomás asked.

  Just then, Elissa swept into the room. “Come Tomás, I will help you, I will look over your meal plans, and figure out what went wrong, come old man!”

  She was like a colorful whirlwind as she whisked Tomás from the room. The last thing he heard was Diego Villanueva’s voice.

  One more week or your son is dead!”

  •••

  “What have you been giving him?” Tomás asked her.

  She laughed. She looked around the kitchen, at the array of fresh fruit, the vegetables in mid preparation, the papers on the marble island filled with notes for meals and recipes.

  “You are a very good chef,” she said.

  “Thank you, but you did not answer my question.”

  “And I am a very good wife,” she said. She went to a cupboard, retrieved a large wine glass, and poured herself a healthy measure of white wine. Tomás looked at it. It was the Sauvignon Blanc he planned to pair with the macadamia crusted whitefish tonight.

  “And a good wife knows what her husband needs,” she said. “And gives it to him.”

  “But do you know about the arrangement?”

  “Of course I do,” she said. “But he is a big man in his organization and gets very stressed. He needs it.”

  “But people will die if he does not lose weight,” he said.

  She looked at him, and something clicked in Tomás’s mind. The look in her eye, the smile that wasn’t real, and the shine of those deep brown eyes reflected a very intelligent, and very ambitious woman.

  “A man in his line of work, Tomás. He cannot live forever.”

  She smiled then, and swept from the room.

  •••

  It was the day of the second week’s weigh-in and Tomás had never felt so tired and stressed out in his life. He worried endlessly over his son, but he had no one to call. His wife had died years ago, and there was no one else.

  So he had put his heart and soul into his cooking, creating dishes of maximum volume and flavor and a minimum of fat and calories. He had hidden the ingredients he feared Elissa was using to give to Diego (all chocolate and sugar and ice cream). But Tomás knew it wasn’t working, he knew Diego was not losing weight. Deep down, he knew that somehow, Elissa was sabotaging his efforts.

  It was at the final stages of browning a veal cutlet when Anna entered the room. She and Tomás had become friends of a sort, and shared a mutual fear and hatred of Elissa.

  “Tomás, I have to talk to you,” she whispered. “Outside.”

  Tomás turned the heat down on the cutlet, checked the whole grain pasta that would go with it, and followed Anna to the outdoor kitchen and seating area.

  “I heard Diego’s men talking. I’m sorry Tomás,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “But your son is dead. “

  Tomás nearly buckled and fell to the ground.

  “They said during the fight he punctured a lung and that he never recovered. They dumped his body and said the police found it this morning. They have probably identified the body.”

  Tomás nodded, tears streaming down his wrinkled, leathery cheeks.

  Anna patted him on the shoulder and went back inside.

  •••

  The next morning, Tomás brought a fruit platter to the weigh-in. This time it was being held in storage room just off the kitchen. Diego Villanueva stood on the giant scale used to weigh livestock that his men had bought in the Eastern Village. He had already broken every other scale in the house. This one had a leather harness that fit under Diego Villanueva’s arms, and a giant face at the top with an oversized needle.

  After forcing his men to leave the room and locking the door, Villanueva had Tomás help him into the rig. Tomás watched as Diego adjusted the harness, and then lifted the lever that released the small platform beneath his feet. Tomás saw the needle rise above two hundred, then two fifty, then three hundred, then three fifty. He leaned closer as the scale needle went over four hundred. Four hundred ten, four hundred twenty…four hundred twenty-seven.

  “Dios mio! “ Villanueva shouted. “I am the same!” He looked at Tomás with rage in his eyes and that was when Tomás calmly took the long knife from the fruit platter and thrust it into Diego Villanueva’s heart.

  “For my son! “ he whispered. Villanueva’s feet thrashed, but he was held in place by the scale’s harness. Blood poured from the big man’s body and pooled on the scale’s platform. After several moments, Villanueva’s body went still.

  Tomás took a butcher knife from the large pocket of his apron. He felt the cold fury of death inside and hacked at Villanueva’s neck until the head fell off.

  Tomás stepped back checked the scale.

  417.

  He again lifted the butcher knife and hacked at the dead man’s shoulder until the left arm and part of the shoulder fell
off.

  410.

  The other shoulder and arm went off.

  403.

  Tomás stepped back and looked at the big man, cut and hacked into a giant slab of butchered meat.

  But he needed three pounds.

  Tomás picked up the long sharp knife and cut into Villanueva’s chest. He made a large circular incision and pulled out a huge piece of meat, with blood and veins still attached. He threw it on the floor.

  It was the big man’s heart.

  Tomás looked back up at the scale.

  400.

  He wiped off his hands with a dish towel, then wiped off the handle of the knife and set it on the counter, just as the side door to the room opened.

  Anna stepped inside. She looked at Tomás, then at Villanueva.

  “Go,” she said and stepped away from the door. Tomás hurried past her and as he did so, she brought out the weapon she had been hiding behind her back.

  Holding the machete by its handle with a rag, she wiped the long blade along Villanueva’s body, smearing it with his blood. Anna then set the weapon on the floor, in a pool of Villanueva’s blood.

  She took one last look at the corpse of her former boss, then at the machete, and went to open the other door, prepared to tell Diego Villanueva’s men about the horrible man she had just seen, the man known as The Machete.

  THE END

  Dani Amore is a crime novelist living in Los Angeles, California. You can learn more about her at http://www.daniamore.com

  Follow her on Twitter: @authordaniamore

  Read this Free Excerpt from DEAD WOOD!

  One

  It was New Year’s Eve and I was living my dream. I was a cop. The youngest guy on the force, pulling the worst of the shifts but I couldn’t have been happier.

  I’d wanted to be a cop all my life.

  It was a brutally cold New Year’s Eve in Grosse Pointe, especially along the lake. A nasty Canadian wind was howling down and blasting Detroit with the kind of cold that ignores your clothes and tears directly into your skin.

  I’d been a cop for six months. Just long enough to be taken off probation. Not long enough to be considered anything but a green rookie. I was in my squad car, driving down Lake Shore thinking about the New Years’ Eve party ahead, about how my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate.

  Elizabeth Pierce was actually more than my girlfriend, she was my fiancé and a true Grosse Pointe blue blood. I was definitely marrying up.

  I headed down Lake Shore Drive toward the Detroit border. I passed a house with three ten-foot angels on the roof. Thousands of Christmas lights lit up the house and yard turning the quarter acre lot into a Las Vegas outpost. Across the street, the surprisingly vast, dark waters of Lake St. Clair stood in stark contrast to the hundred thousand watts supplied by the Detroit Energy Company.

  I turned right on Oxford, away from the lake, just as my radio broke the monotony of the wind’s fury. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It read 11:18 p.m. It was listed as a 10-107. Possible intoxicated person. I jotted down the address and pressed the accelerator.

  It would be my last call for the night. By the time I got back to the office, turned in the car and did the paperwork, it would already be past midnight, probably closer to one a.m.

  An image of Elizabeth floated through my mind. She would have her blonde hair tied back tonight, her diamond earrings sparkling, a glass of champagne ready for me. She might even be a little drunk. We’d hang out, go to a couple of parties, then retire back to my place and ring in the New Year the best way of all.

  I cruised up Oxford Street and flashed the spotlight on the street numbers until I came to 1370. I called in to dispatch, got out of the cruiser and walked to the front door. The wind wasn’t letting up farther from the lake. The sweat from my hand momentarily froze on the brass knocker and stung when I broke my hand free. I banged the knocker against the oak a few times, noticing the small, worn indentations where the metal had been knocked raw. An elderly woman in a glittery blouse with a cigarette between her fingers opened the door.

  "He was staggering down the street," she said, gesturing with a shaking hand toward the other end of the street. The cigarette’s red, glowing end bobbed in the dark with each tremor of her hand.

  I could smell her breath, a strong dose of stale smoke. She was ancient, probably between eighty or ninety with saggy skin and deep creases everywhere.

  "How long ago?" I said.

  "Just a few minutes. The poor boy was going to freeze to death. He wasn't wearing a shirt, even. These kids.” She shook her head. “Sometimes they act like animals!” Her voice was raspy and thick. She ran her tongue over her lips.

  "Can you describe him?"

  "Thin. Pale. Young." She squinted at me through the cigarette smoke. "Younger than you."

  "Which way did he go?"

  She nodded with her head. "He's probably still staggering around. Look under a shrub or two, you'll find him." Her little laugh sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball.

  "Thanks for the advice, ma'am. Have a good New Year."

  I turned before I could hear her response. Back in the squad car, I called in again to dispatch again and put the car in gear, then prowled slowly up the block. The homes were alive with lights and colors, glimpses of holiday sweaters, glasses clutching egg nog cups or champagne glasses. The twinkle of trees decorated with Christmas lights sparkled through the big picture windows.

  On the second block down, I saw him.

  A smear of white skin in the night. I pulled the squad car up next to the kid, radioed in to dispatch then parked and got out.

  "How you doin' tonight?" I said, and pointed the flashlight in the kid's face. Young. Maybe around eighteen, I figured. Big brown eyes, his hair wild, his shirt gone, in jeans and barefoot. I didn’t see any signs of frostbite, but he couldn’t be out in this cold much longer. His skin was nearly purple.

  The kid looked at me, but recognition was dim. He mumbled something but it was incoherent. Not a single identifiable word escaped his lips. I could smell the booze, though. Strong. Almost fruity. Like peach schnapps or something.

  "Sending the year out in style, are we?" I asked. “There must be a helluva party somewhere.”

  The kid mumbled something and tried to walk away. I grabbed his arm and he sagged. I knew what I had to do. Put him in the back of the squad car, book him for public drunkenness, and let him dry out in jail. Shitty way to kick off the New Year.

  I helped him to his feet, planned to take him to the car and on into the station when the man appeared from around the corner.

  "Ah, Officer!" the man called. I turned. The man was bundled up in a thick winter jacket and he had a wool fedora, the kind with the built-in ear flaps, pulled down. At first, I thought he was a woman from the way he ran. His hips moved with a swishing motion. His thick black glasses were nearly steamed up with the melted snow glistening on the lenses. He was a little older than the kid, probably in his mid to late twenties. But it was hard to tell.

  "Oh my God Benjamin," the man said, and produced a leather coat which he helped onto the boy. His voice was high and wavering with a thick lisp. "This is my responsibility, Officer, not Ben's. This should never have happened.” He shook his head like a disappointed mother. “He had an office Christmas party today and then he was hitting the cocktails when I left to get thyme for the chicken and when I came back, he was gone. I've been going crazy trying to find him."

  "Could I see some identification, sir?" I said.

  The man, wearing gloves, gently withdrew a wallet from his back pocket. I looked at the address on the license as the man put the coat on the boy. The address was just a few blocks over. I glanced at the picture and the name on the license. The picture matched.

  I handed the license back to the man and studied the kid once more. “Benjamin, what’s your last name?” I shone the flashlight in the kid’s eyes. He didn’t wince or look away.

  “Collins, Officer,” the man sa
id. “His name is Benjamin Collins. I’m so sorry about this, sir,” the man continued, his voice high and nervous. I stepped back to the cruiser, called dispatch, and had them run Benjamin Collins through the system. The name came back clean. I had dispatch run the man through, too. He came back without any hits.

  I thought about it. The kid was in bad shape. By the time he was booked, printed and in an actual jail cell, he’d be even worse. I thought about one time in high school when a cop pulled me over. I had a beer between my legs and a twelve-pack in the trunk. He made me dump everything out and go home, rather than taking me in, calling my parents and basically ruining my life. That act of kindness was a better lesson than being thrown into a holding cell with a bunch of lowlifes.