by Derek Blass
“Off the record?” Cruz asked with a questioning but playful look on his face.
“Told you I had some tricks.”
Cruz laughed, “More like abuse of power!” They walked down the hospital's corridor in tandem. “Where we going?” Cruz asked.
“Down to the end, turn right and then third room on the right.”
“The attendant just told you where he was?”
“Yep,” she said lightheartedly, naïve to the effect she had on people.
“I'm pretty interested to see what Martinez is like,” Cruz thought out loud. They turned the corner and stopped in front of Martinez's room.
“Geez...” Sandra said. Martinez was sprawled out on his back. His leg was elevated and an IV bag hung next to his bed. They crept into Martinez's room and when Martinez stirred, Sandra clutched Cruz's arm and started to turn around.
“Who the fuck are you two?” Martinez growled without opening his eyes. His hands stirred beneath the sheets. Both of them stopped in their tracks, caught and without an answer.
“I'm really sorry—we thought this was...” Sandra started.
Cruz picked up the slack, “My name is Cruz Marquez and I'm here with my friend Sandra.” Martinez slowly opened his eyes, which were encrusted with dirt and stuck together as he tried to peel them open.
“Fuck off.”
“Hold on, we've been investigating the Rodriguez killing,” Cruz said. “We saw a part of a video taken by a cameraman...”
“Max.”
“Yeah, Max.”
“How's he?” Martinez asked.
“Uhm, he's dead,” Sandra answered. “Shaver killed him.”
Martinez's head sunk. “It'll come back 'round to him sometime.”
“Almost did, we think ...” Cruz said while glancing at Sandra.
“What do you mean?” Martinez inquired, his interest rising.
“Well, our guess was that you and Shaver got into a pretty intense chase, is that right?” Cruz asked.
Martinez had become more alert and looked at Cruz and Sandra warily. “Timeout—I just told you all to fuck off. Why the hell should I trust you?”
“There's really no reason, I guess. I'm a lawyer activist in the Latino community. Sandra is a reporter with 9 News.”
Martinez laughed. “Okay...that doesn't help.”
Cruz frowned and said, “I can't get you to trust us this fast I guess. But, what happened that day is…it's of extreme importance to the community.” Cruz said.
“So what do you need me for, activist lawyer? I'm just a little cop.”
“We need to see if you know where the original video is.” Martinez visibly tensed.
“What do you mean original?”
“Well, we got our hands on a copy but something was wrong with the file.”
Martinez managed to pull himself up and leaned on his pillows with a sigh. “What are you planning to do with the video?” he asked. Sandra and Cruz looked at each other. In the midst of chasing the video, they hadn't really thought about what they would do with it if they got it. Martinez sensed their hesitation and added, “I mean, a lawyer and a reporter. You two are here to make a quick fucking buck.”
“No, no, no!” Cruz said quickly. “I guess we hesitated because we just haven't talked about it yet, but...”
“But what we want to do is use the video to show the kind of injustice that exists,” Sandra finished. Martinez smiled inside as he heard her words and thought about what Williams asked of him before dying. Just as Martinez stopped to think about what they were saying, a male nurse came into the room. He went over to the IV bag hanging next to Martinez's bed and switched it out for a new one.
“Is everything okay in here, sir?” the nurse asked. Martinez looked at the male nurse suspiciously.
“What happened to the nurse that was just in here an hour ago?” Martinez asked.
“Shift change,” the male nurse answered as he walked out of the room. That's when Martinez noticed the nurse was wearing heavy work boots. Mud had fallen off of the boots and was on the floor.
Martinez looked at Sandra and Cruz and yelled, “Get down!” They looked at him in surprise and stood stupefied instead of dropping. He repeated his command and they hit the ground and covered their heads with their hands. Martinez flung the bed sheet off and aimed his gun at the door. Cruz saw the male nurse come back into the room at the same time, his uniform gone and brandishing two guns of his own. When the nurse saw Martinez's gun, he dove down toward Sandra while firing shots in Martinez's direction. Martinez returned fire and Cruz struggled to move to Sandra. He looked up and saw a gun aimed between his eyes.
“Let her go!” Cruz screamed. Plaster and dust rained down on them. The pungent smell of spent casings burnt his nose. The four of them sat in a triangle of pistols. One gun pointed at Cruz and the other at Martinez by the nurse. Martinez locked onto the nurse. The nurse was gauntly built, deathly looking. His eyes were the ominous dark gray of storm clouds.
“Now, you're going to lower your gun,” the nurse said while looking at Martinez.
“Let her fucking go!!” Cruz screamed again. Spit flew out of his mouth and landed on the nurse's forehead who gave him a look of disgust.
“Why would I do that?” Martinez asked the nurse coolly.
“I'm going to blow both of these bitches away if you don't.”
“What makes you think I give a shit? I just met them.” Cruz's body was shaking as fear and rage engulfed him. Sandra was sobbing with her head in her hands. The nurse had her in a choke hold.
“If you want the blood of these two maggots on your hands, then go ahead and try to shoot me. Otherwise I'd suggest that you lower that fucking gun!”
“Let the girl go first,” Martinez said.
“No chance in hell,” the nurse said. “She's coming with me for security. Or, you can hand over the drive and I'll leave everyone here as they were.”
Martinez hesitated before responding, “What drive?”
“Don't fuck with me Martinez,” the nurse said.
“You have the drive here?” Cruz asked, surprised.
“Just who the hell are you to know my name and where I was?” Martinez asked the nurse.
“All in good time Martinez. Now decide. I get this bitch or the drive.”
“Fuck you asshole!” Cruz screamed.
“I don't have the drive,” Martinez said slowly, “so it looks like you're gonna have to take her.”
“No, please no...” Sandra cried.
“Martinez, you can't let him do this!”
“Do what? I've got nothing here! You want me to pull this drive out of my ass? Ain't gonna happen.”
“Okay then,” the nurse said as he stood up while pulling Sandra with him. “No struggle now, sweetheart. I've got a really twitchy finger,” he said with a sinister laugh. “I'll keep her until you come to your senses and give me that drive. Get your cell phone charged up because I'll be calling you with your deadline to decide.” With that the nurse started backing out of the room, using Sandra as a shield. Cruz watched as he pulled her into the hallway and then pushed her in front of him. The nurse jabbed his gun into Sandra's back. Cruz instinctively lunged forward but stopped when the nurse whispered, “One more motion toward me and your little girlfriend is dead.” They moved away as Cruz fell to the ground, exhausted and distraught.
“Hey...hey!” Martinez yelled at him.
“What?” Cruz said despondently.
“Do you know that creep?”
“Never seen him before.”
“Was anyone following you here? And, for that matter, how the hell did you know I was here?” Martinez asked.
“No, didn't see anyone following us and ours was just a lucky guess.”
“Did anyone know where you were going?”
“No...well, yes actually. One person but he is…he's…he would never rat us out. I mean, who the hell would he even tell we were coming here?”
“That guy that
just took your girlfriend.”
“First,” Cruz began and turned around to Martinez, “she isn't my girlfriend. Second, it's a helluva lot more likely that guy just guessed lucky like us.”
“That many people don't get lucky.”
“Look, enough talking. I've got to go after Sandra now!”
“You can go ahead, but I'm not moving,” Martinez said. “I've got what they want.”
“You've got the drive?!”
“Of course.” Cruz stood up and approached Martinez as menacingly as he could considering Martinez had a gun out. “Chill out. It had to go like that.”
“Fuck that! This isn't Sandra's fault!”
“But you two came here and so now you're in it, aren't you?” Martinez said, staring at Cruz directly into his eyes. “I didn't fucking invite you two here!”
“I've got to get her back.”
“You need to realize that they don't want her, she's just leverage. If you give me a damn second to recover here, I may be able to help you out.”
Cruz brushed himself off. “Look, I'm quickly getting out of my league here. I'll accept your help wholeheartedly, but I have one question first.”
“What's that?”
“Why would you help us out at all? And...why'd you keep the video? You could've stayed out of all of this—hidden behind the blue line.”
Martinez looked at Cruz for an uncomfortable length of time. Why was it? It was Williams but it was more than that too. Then, he remembered a saying. It captured his sentiment.
“Because it's better to spend one day as a lion than to be a lamb for a thousand years.”
T W E N T Y-T W O
__________________________________________________
Carmen and Alicia pulled up to the border crossing. The sun beat down and scorched the surrounding area. The air conditioner blew at full tilt but it still felt like a hand-held fan in the desert. A patrolman monopolized the sliver of shade provided by the border checkpoint structure.
“Vamonos mujer! Pasale! Y, bienvenidos a Mexico!” he said sarcastically. Carmen looked at Alicia who shrugged her shoulders, not understanding a word.
“How about we take a break?” Carmen asked. They had been driving for fourteen hours without rest.
“Sounds good. By the way, what's the plan now that we're here?”
“Not sure what we are going to do. I've got a brother who is active in politics down here and who is an anchor for the local news channel. I'll warn you though, he can be a little...well...passionate is probably the right way to put it. Some may say radical.”
“A radical reporter on television?” Alicia asked, surprised.
Carmen laughed, “Yeah, it's different down here. The reporters aren't as...they aren't as whitewashed is probably the way to put it.”
“What do you mean?” Carmen smiled at Alicia. Alicia was a nice person and the two had known each other for quite some time now. But, Carmen had never felt that she could fully connect with Alicia because she just didn't quite get it. She either hadn't experienced the world's injustice or she ignored it.
Alicia was into arts and crafts and cooking and taking kids to soccer and baking and hosting social functions and all sorts of other, noble activities. She wasn't a fighter though, and Carmen wondered if all those activities weren't just a coping mechanism to avoid confronting the world's harsh realities. Most people use hobbies to get away. To get away from what, she wondered. Why not stay and deal with reality? Tackle the world with both arms and then hug the hell out of it on the ground. Get filthy in the trenches and fix the world.
“I'm sorry Alicia, what did you say?” Carmen asked.
“What did you mean about people being whitewashed?”
What she meant was people's great rush to be inoffensive, placating robots living in the ever-growing morass of the middle world. Elected officials serving as voice boxes, tap-dancing from one constituent issue to the next without ever taking a position. In the country's desire to become absolutely, unequivocally politically correct, it has lost its soul. Instead, she tried to focus on the positive, “That's something you'll see down here Alicia—the souls of these people are strong. Their cars aren't as nice and their clothes don't always fit right. But, they don't lack these material things because they're poor. It's because they haven't sold their souls for them—yet.”
Alicia stared out of the window. “Well, I like our boring, middle of the road country already,” Alicia said while pointing at a rundown, rusted tin-top store on the side of the road.
Carmen grinned.
* * * *
Anytime Sandra slowed down she felt the nurse's gun jab her in the back.
“I'm going, you ass!” she seethed through clenched teeth.
“Cooperate and you might live, if the Chief doesn't let me have you.”
“The Chief? The Chief of what, you freak?” And then it hit her, “Oh my God! The Chief of Police?”
Pissed off at his own slip, Tyler said, “Just keep walking and shut up.”
“I don't even know where I'm going, you idiot.”
“All of these words will come back to haunt you. Maybe I'll pull a fingernail off with pliers for every name—or maybe I'll just use the pliers to twist all of your teeth out. How does that sound, you dumb bitch?!”
And so they walked in silence, their way dimly lit by overhead lights flickering in the dusk. A cold wind gusted every few steps and Sandra would correspondingly get a jab in her back.
“The white sedan, over there,” he said pointing at an inconspicuous vehicle in front of them. Sandra started to move toward the front passenger seat. Tyler reached out and grabbed her by the hair.
“What the hell?!” she screamed.
“Think again...you're going in the trunk,” he said as he popped the trunk and tried to shove her in.
“No way!” she cried as she struggled with him.
“I thought we just talked about this!” he yelled as he forced her into the trunk. Before he could close the trunk, Sandra saw a man walk up to the car.
“What's going on here?” the man asked.
“What's it fucking look like?” Tyler answered. “I'm shoving a woman into a trunk before I go kill her.”
The man started to take a step toward Tyler, but before he could get close all Sandra heard was a shot, and then a thump as the stranger collapsed to the ground.
Sandra sobbed silently in the trunk. Tyler leaned in and said, “The only reason you aren't sharing that bastard's fate is that you have something we need. So, it's best for you to shut the fuck up and cooperate!” With that he slammed the trunk down and closed Sandra in darkness.
Sandra heard the car start and then she rocked forward as the car backed out. She could hear Tyler entering numbers into a phone.
“Hello? It's me...I didn't get Martinez but...no, wait...I got us some bait, juicy bait....”
* * * *
Shaver sat in a reclining chair tucked away in Doc K's waiting room. The doctor brought him a glass of water and said, “Tomko is dead?”
“Yeah Doc—lost all but one in a team of four guys in just under a week. I don't know what's going on,” Shaver said.
“Who's left?”
“Fucking Martinez. That slippery little wetback is the only survivor except for me. All of this is because of him and that goddamn drive.”
“Sure, but it's what's on that drive that really started this, isn't it?”
Shaver shot the doctor a menacing stare. “Listen, I don't need a fucking philosopher right now. Just take care of me and let's leave it at that.” Shaver was pissed about the trip to the emergency room to begin with. Wished he had come straight to Dr. K, but he wasn't left with much of a choice at the scene of the accident. Once that freak Tyler showed up though, he knew it was time to get off the public grid.
“All right, Sergeant.” The doctor walked out and went to his main office. He closed the door which doubled as a soundproof barrier, grabbed his phone and pressed a speed dial
button. Someone picked up and asked, “Did he come to you?”
“Just like water down a hill,” the doctor answered. After a pause, Doc K asked, “What do you want me to do with him?”
“Nothing right now. He's one tough son of a bitch and maybe we'll need him. Plus, he's still teeming with desire to exact revenge on Martinez. Guaranteed I'll need that kind of emotion to get this mess resolved.
* * * *
Diego sat back in his chair and looked at Alfonso. “It's no good.”
“I told you we couldn't fix it. I don't even know why you spent so much time trying.”
“Are you kidding me?” Diego asked scornfully. “Do you know what this video is worth?”
“Well, if I didn't at first I do now with how much you've brought it up,” Alfonso retorted.
They both heard the front door swing open. “Who is it?” Diego called out.
“Me, Cruz.” Cruz walked into the room followed by a man sporting a limp.
“Who's he?” Alfonso asked.
“Diego, Alfonso—this is Officer Martinez.” Diego looked Martinez over. His right leg was heavily bandaged and he had fresh cuts on his face and hands.
“Been a rough few days, huh?” Diego said.
“You can say that again,” Martinez answered.
“Don't just sit there Alfonso, help the man to some food and drink. Oh, show him the guest room too.” Diego ordered. “Are you tired?” Diego asked Martinez.
“Deprived, hallucinating. Yeah.”
“Well, make yourself at home. You know the saying.”
“Thank you very much,” Martinez said as he followed Alfonso out of the room.
“Where's Sandra?” Diego said. The pain Diego had failed to notice on Cruz's face became apparent. “What happened Cruz?” Cruz sat on a chair next to Diego, crossed his arms over his chest and bent at the waist.
“Someone kidnapped her when we were at the hospital,” Cruz stammered.
“What?!” Diego shrieked. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“There's no point—he said that he was going to contact Martinez.”
“What the hell does Sandra have to do with calling Martinez? Again let me ask you why we aren't doing something. No, no, no! I'm going to call the police and get them...” Cruz put his hand on Diego's shoulder as Diego went to pick up the phone.