“Come on, let’s get this done,” Mancini barked, as he jumped out of the car. “Time is against us.”
Trey glanced back into his rear view mirror and his skin went cold. The girl’s eyes snapped open and she glared straight at him with those frighteningly familiar jet black eyes and piercing orange pupils. He whimpered and felt his heart hammering in his chest as his breathing rapidly increased. Trey’s eyes flicked to Mancini who stood beside the passenger door facing the sea. He slowly moved his right hand and unbuckled his seat belt. The girl opened her mouth and emitted a low groan. She wriggled inside the blanket, trying to throw it off her shoulders.
Mancini spun around when he heard the girl growling and Trey quickly flung open the car door. He hauled himself sideways to get out of the vehicle but the girl flung the blanket off her and launched herself forward, leaning into the front seats. Her hands clasped around the back of Trey’s neck and her head jerked towards his exposed flesh.
“Shit,” Mancini hissed and leaned into the car. He grabbed the girl’s head with both hands. His right hand clasped around her lower jaw and he gripped her hair with his left, rocking her head backwards. The girl’s hands still gripped Trey’s neck and her fingers pulled at his skin. She hissed and gurgled in a deep throaty groan.
“Get her off! Get her off me, man,” Trey wailed, grabbing the steering wheel and attempting to pull himself free from the girl’s clutches.
“I’m trying to keep her teeth away from you,” Mancini grunted, thrusting the woman’s head back as hard as he could push.
The girl violently shook her head, in an attempt to throw off Mancini’s grip. He hung onto her frizzy hair and her lower jaw, leaned further forward then twisted her sideways and shoved her backwards so she thumped against the backseat, releasing her grip on Trey in the process. Trey dived out of the open driver’s door and sprawled frontwards onto the dirt track beside the car.
Mancini wrestled with the thrashing girl, struggling to keep her pinned down in the backseat. The woman’s fingers curled around his wrists and she panted and snarled like a wild dog on the attack.
“Shit, she’s got the strength of five guys,” Mancini groaned, gritting his teeth. “Find some kind of weapon, Trey. I can’t hold onto her for much longer.” He wished he’d been carrying a firearm. Pop, pop and her struggle would have been all over in a second.
“Like what?” Trey stammered, hauling himself to his feet. “What kind of weapon, man?”
Mancini’s shades fell off his face and tumbled into the car interior as he wrestled with the writhing girl. “I don’t know, use your imagination but make it real fucking quick.”
Trey glanced around the beach and saw a fallen tree branch a few feet away. He rushed across the dirt track and picked up the three foot long stick. The wood was wet and rotted and crumbled in his hands.
“Shit,” he squawked and studied the ground around him. He saw a large, flat stone with a tapered end and picked it up. The rock was heavy enough to inflict some serious damage and he hurried back to the side of the Thunderbird. Mancini twisted the woman’s hair in winding knots as though he was trying to rein her in on a shorter leash. He glanced up and saw Trey approach, holding the rock.
“Smash that thing on her head,” he rumbled. “Make sure you do it hard.” Mancini tried to hold her head still and twist her face towards Trey on the opposite side of the car.
Trey nodded but hesitated. He’d never killed anybody before and it still felt wrong to bash a woman over the head with a big rock.
“Do it!” Mancini bellowed.
Trey took a few deep breaths and gritted his teeth. He raised the rock above his head, gripping it with both hands and aiming the tapered end at the woman’s forehead. She stared at him with those weird colored eyes and snarled and grunted like a restrained animal.
“I’m sorry, lady,” Trey muttered and brought down the rock with a forceful swing.
The tapered end of the large stone crashed into the woman’s face, with the bridge of her nose bearing the brunt of the impact. Blood spurted in both sideways directions, spurting over Mancini’s face and chest and across the backseat. The girl’s head rocked backwards under the impact of the rock but she still continued to snarl and growl at Trey. Mancini struggled but still kept his grip on her battered head.
“Do it again,” Mancini yelled.
Trey wheezed and lifted the rock above his head once more. He swung the stone downwards, gritting his teeth and screeching with revolted determination. The narrowed end crashed against the woman’s forehead, splitting the skin in a crooked line. Trey raised the rock and brought it down several more times before the girl ceased struggling and she finally fell silent. Every blow sent a fresh spurt of blood spraying in all directions.
Both Trey and Mancini were covered with blood spatters and the interior of the car was coated with her arterial fluids and brain matter. Trey wheezed heavily with exertion and sickened shock at the gruesome task he’d just carried out.
Mancini breathed heavily and studied the woman’s smashed head, making sure she was no longer a threat. Her face was unrecognizable now. Her features were a mass of pulped crimson and her forehead was crushed inwards into the frontal lobe of her brain. Pieces of shattered skull and brain lay amongst the soupy glop covering the inside of the car.
Trey dropped the rock to the ground beside the Thunderbird. “Ah, shit, what have I done?” he muttered over and over. He bent double and violently threw up onto the dirt track. “What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she go all crazy-assed bat shit on us?” he spluttered.
Mancini stood straight, thinking hard about their predicament. The assignment was rapidly turning to rat shit but he had to provide a solution to their troubles.
“We’ll wrap her in that blanket, weight it down with some rocks then wade out to sea a little and let her sink,” he said. “Then we’ll have to go to work on cleaning this fucking car.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t go on, man,” Trey groaned. “I need to go home, right now.”
Mancini sighed and reached into the Thunderbird’s backseat to retrieve his blood spattered sunshades. He wiped the excess gunk off the lenses with the blanket.
“We need to do this, Trey,” he said. “We need to get this dead body out of your car and dispose of it before somebody comes down here and sees this shitty mess. Then we need to carry on with the assignment, otherwise Oreilles is going to do far worse things to us than what happened to this unfortunate woman, right here.” He pointed to the corpse sprawled over the backseat. “You hear what I’m saying?”
Trey felt shaky and hot and he thought he was going to pass out. Instead, he plumped for vomiting onto the gravel a second time.
“Ah, Jesus,” Mancini groaned. “Why did they have to give me an amateur?”
“Oh, yeah, I suppose you’ve seen far worse than this, Mr Reservoir Dogs, huh?” Trey spat, wiping the excess vomit from his lips.
Mancini shook his head. “We can stand right here and argue about what we have or haven’t seen or done all day long but that still doesn’t deduct the fact we have a busted up woman in the back of your car. Now, we can either remove said corpse and clean up or wait until somebody calls the cops. Which would you prefer?”
Trey stood upright and attempted to psyche himself up for another gruesome task. “All right, man,” he muttered, flapping his hand at Mancini. “I’ll do it.”
“Take all your cash and valuable documents out of your pockets before we go swimming,” Mancini said.
Trey and Mancini rifled through their clothing and tossed their passports, cell phones, cash and watches onto the driver’s seat. They wrapped the corpse in the once gray blanket and struggled with the girl’s body down to the shoreline. Mancini placed some larger stones at the bottom of the blanket then tied the ends tightly over the woman’s head, and feet. They waded into the ocean up to their necks and dropped the body to the sea bed.
They returned to the car and used the sanitary s
pray and wipes to thoroughly clean the inside and exterior of the vehicle. At least thirty minutes ticked away by the time the whole gory mess was cleared out from the car. Mancini pulled out a roll of plastic trash bags from his rucksack and tore one off.
“Dump all those bloody wipes in here,” he said.
Trey obliged and the garbage sack was half full by the time all the blood soiled wipes were disposed of. Mancini placed the bag into the trunk of the car and closed the cover.
“Toss that stone you used into the sea and then we’ll go for a dip,” Mancini said. “We need to clean ourselves off so we don’t look like two guys who just walked off the set of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” He studied his and Trey’s blood stained clothing.
Trey hurled the blood spattered rock into the surf and it made a plopping sound before sinking below the surface. He followed Mancini into the shallow waves and they stood in the water, up to their waists.
“Wash all that shit off your hands and clothes,” Mancini instructed, before dipping his head under the waterline.
Trey reluctantly washed the blood off his clothes, hands and face, cringing at the coldness of his wet clothes clinging to his body.
“What happens when they find her?”
Mancini spluttered and smeared his wet hair back off his face. “With a shitload of luck, we’ll be out of the way by the time somebody finds the body. You done? Come, on, let’s go.”
They waded back to the shore, shaking off the excess water and wringing out their clothes before climbing back into the car. Trey gunned the engine and U-turned in the circular, gravel covered space. They drove in silence and turned back onto the main highway towards Ensenada. Both men mulled over the recent events and held deep reservations about the assignment returning a favorable outcome.
Chapter Eight
Trey pulled over at the next garage they came to and gassed up. Mancini reminded him to only pay by cash.
“What do I say if the guy asks me why I’m all wet?” Trey asked.
Mancini shrugged. “I don’t know. Just say you went fishing and fell in the sea or some other lame excuse. I can’t think for you all the time, you know.”
“Okay, man. No need to chew off my ass, geez.”
Mancini’s mind raced as he sat waiting in the car beside the gas pumps. Other drivers stared at the Thunderbird while filling their cars with gas and Mancini sensed the feeling of paranoia creeping up on him. The people were probably simply admiring the vehicle but they would also remember the occupants as well; if they had to recount their sighting to any law agency.
Trey returned a few minutes later, squelching towards the Thunderbird in his wet training shoes.
“We got to find a change of clothes,” Mancini sighed as Trey climbed back into the driver’s seat. “We look too damn conspicuous as it is. Two soaking wet guys in an old Thunderbird. They might as well sling the cuffs on us now.”
Trey started the engine and they pulled away from the garage. Mancini spotted a row of small, shabby stores to the right of the highway.
“Pull over,” he barked. “Let’s go shopping.”
“Shopping?” Trey blurted, taking the right turn. “You sure about this?”
Mancini nodded as Trey parked in the center of empty spaces outside the stores. They both slipped on their sunshades and Trey replaced his yellow beanie hat on his head. He followed Mancini into the store to the right of the line of buildings with metal grills covering the front windows. A couple of thuggish guys, who stood leaning either side of the doorway, eyed them up and down as they moved between them. The store interior was dimly lit, narrow and cramped, with an abundance of clothing racks and beachwear fighting for room amongst the floor space. Loud mariachi music pumped from large speakers, hanging on the walls in the corners of the shop.
“You think the wheels are safe out there, man?” Trey hissed.
Mancini studied a rack of bright colored, garish shirts. “These colors will look good on you.” He lifted the sleeve of a lemon yellow garment with lime green stripes. “It’ll match your hat.”
“Ha fucking ha, very funny, man,” Trey sneered. “Can we please hurry the fuck up and get out of here? The place is giving me the shits, plus, I thought you were in kind of a rush to get the job done?”
A sweaty, overweight man, dressed in a black vest glanced up at them from behind a service counter. A lit cigarette drooped from his lips and he studied Mancini and Trey with a look of apprehension.
“If we’re going to hide in plain sight, we need to look like we’re on vacation,” Mancini muttered. “We need to look like tourists instead of a pair of soaking wet ass clowns.”
“All right, I hear you but at least let me pick my own clothes,” Trey said. “I really will look like a fucking clown if I wear that crappy shirt.” He pointed to the garment in Mancini’s hand.
Mancini chose a baggy black shirt and a pair of fawn colored cargo pants, while Trey plumped for a long sleeved, crimson red sports top and some loose-fitting, white shorts. The guy behind the service desk crushed out his cigarette and glanced up from his porno magazine. He slowly bagged the clothing and took the cash from Mancini without uttering a word.
“Don’t mention it,” Mancini grunted sarcastically.
The guy watched them leave the store with an expression of uneasiness. The two guys who’d been standing beside the store doorway huddled over the Thunderbird on each side of the doors.
“Excuse me, pal,” Mancini muttered, as he brushed by the guy standing next to the passenger door. The guy shuffled half a step away and Mancini had to bump the guy out of the way to get inside the car.
Trey hopped over the side of the door without opening it, receiving a constant glare from the guy on his side of the Thunderbird. He gunned the engine and screeched out of the lot back onto the main highway. Mancini noticed a dumpster beside a line of small houses off a side road to the right.
“Turn off here,” he ordered.
Trey didn’t know what he had planned but did as he was told.
“Park up by the dumpster.”
Trey brought the car to a stop beside the fly infested waste container. “Fuck man, something really stinks like shit in there,” he said, holding his hand over his nose.
“Let’s hurry it up then,” Mancini said. “Get changed into your new clothes but don’t leave anything behind in the pockets. Dump your gear in the trash when you’re done.”
“What? I’m not throwing away my clothes, man,” Trey protested. “These things cost like, a lot of green.”
“Do it,” Mancini barked. “Come on, quickly before somebody sees us and wants to know what the hell we’re doing.”
Trey reluctantly complied, changing his clothes while still sitting in the driver’s seat. Mancini stood in the shadows of the nearest house and hurriedly dressed into his new gear. Trey handed him the wet clothing and Mancini stuffed both sets into the dumpster, along with the trash sack full of bloodied wipes from the trunk.
They turned back onto the highway and followed the signs, heading towards Ensenada city center. Mancini took out the map from the glove box and studied the route. He decided they’d make their next stop at the marina. He could make the phone call to his contact from a payphone and arrange a meet. The address La Rat had given him was for a place on a street named ‘Miramar,’ with no directions. Mancini surveyed the map and found the street, directly east of the marina.
“I still can’t wrap my head around that girl back there,” Trey sighed. “Why did she change like that? I mean, you saw it yourself, right? She was dead, man.”
“Stop beating yourself up over it, okay,” Mancini replied. “She was attacking us, remember? We did what we had to do.”
“…And her eyes, man. Her fucking eyes.” Trey forked his fingers at his own eyes and turned to Mancini. “What the fuck was that?”
“Put it out of your mind. Let’s concentrate on what we got to do.” Mancini was also thinking about the incident with the girl but cou
ldn’t allow the recent events to cloud his decisions and judgment.
Highway 1 led them out of El Sauzal and back alongside the coastline. The road was separated in either direction by a palm tree lined central reservation. The traffic remained sparse and Trey kept the Thunderbird at a steady speed. They passed beneath an overhead sign that directed the route to the harbor. Mancini pointed to the right side lane.
“Follow the signs for the harbor and head for the marina,” he said.
Trey followed the lane for the harbor, staring directly ahead at the road and trying to clear his head. The image of the rock smashing the girl’s skull kept playing over and over in his mind like a movie loop.
Mancini glanced around at the scenery. Several construction sites, coastal resorts and industrial centers were situated around the city limits. Ensenada looked as though it was a place on the upward scale. The road bent to the left and the marina honed into view, a few miles further on. Red colored cranes and stacked shipping containers stood high in the distance, to their right. The industrial shipping port receded into the distance and the surroundings became increasingly tourist orientated, with a few small cafes, bars and restaurants sitting opposite a line of angled parking slots. Trey took a right turn onto a one lane route, heading towards a row of gleaming white yachts, bobbing alongside a jetty.
Mancini spotted a roadside payphone near a large plaza to the left of the marina. “Pull over someplace here,” he said.
Trey nodded and parked the Thunderbird in a space beside the curb. Mancini hopped out of the car and made his way to the payphone. He retrieved the piece of paper La Rat had handed him and dialed the number written across the bottom.
The phone rang for a full minute before a brusque voice answered the call.“Si?”
“Hector?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Somebody who has to collect some items from you,” Mancini said.
Green Ice: A Deadly High Page 5