Ernesto’s carcass rolled onto the floor, his obliterated head landing with a splat on the tiles. Trey glanced at the prone corpse and then in horrified awe at the blood and brain spattered wall beyond.
Mancini waited until the brass shell cooled down, picked it up and slipped it into his cargo pants pocket. He ducked his head into the bathroom and saw another bloody mess surrounding the bath tub. Trey hauled himself onto his feet and nudged into the doorway beside Mancini.
“Oh, my god,” Trey mumbled as he took in the scene inside the bathroom.
The remains of a naked girl lay in the bathtub. Her stomach and throat had been torn open and half eaten, partially chewed internal organs, pulp and gore lay scattered around the floor space and over the walls. Jorge gasped, huddled behind Trey and Mancini, as he also took a look at the horrific sight inside the bathroom.
“We better get out of here,” Mancini rumbled. “Somebody will have heard that gunshot.”
The three of them turned away from the bathroom and Mancini pulled the door closed.
“Grab that bag, Jorge and have a quick scout around for any more of that green shit,” Mancini hissed.
Jorge nodded, sweat poured from his face and his shirt was soaking around his armpits and down the center of his chest. Mancini noticed his hands shaking as he picked up the holdall. They edged towards the front door, searching the floor and table surface for any more green crystals. Trey scooped up a small, clear plastic bag amongst the clutter on the coffee table. He held it up to the light and looked at the green colored chips inside.
“Got some ice here.”
“Is that all he had?” Mancini hissed at Jorge.
Jorge shrugged and shook his head in the same movement. “He had a little more than that but he could have used or sold the rest. I’m not sure.”
“Shit,” Mancini growled. “That damn stuff could be all over this town by now.”
The three men stood frozen to the spot when they heard a female voice from the balcony, directly outside the apartment.
Chapter Twelve
“Hola…hola?” the soft female voice called.
“Who the hell is that?” Trey whispered.
Mancini quickly slid his handgun into his waistband and gestured for Trey to be quiet. He gritted his teeth and jabbed his index finger at the bag of green crystals in Trey’s hand. Trey glanced at the bag for a moment before realization kicked in. He nodded and slid the plastic bag into his pants pocket, out of immediate sight.
“Hola…hola?”
“I think it is the maid calling for housekeeping,” Jorge whispered.
“Go to the door and tell her to come back later before she walks right on in here,” Mancini hissed, wafting his hand towards the entrance.
Jorge stood for a brief second with his mouth hanging open. He nodded and shuffled towards the front door and opened it a crack. Mancini and Trey slowly stepped out of the line of vision of the open door. Jorge held the bag behind his knees and poked his head around the door. He turned his head left and right then glanced back at Mancini and Trey with an expression of confusion.
“She’s gone,” he said.
The screeching, rattling and banging noises from Jorge’s next door apartment increased in volume and they heard the maid’s voice again. This time she spoke from inside the adjacent room.
“Hola…estas bien?”
“Shit, she’s gone into your fucking apartment, Jorge,” Mancini hissed.
They heard the neighboring bathroom door clunk open, followed by a long, barking rasp and a high pitched scream.
Trey glanced at Mancini, his eyes wide in terrified realization. “Ah, god, man. She’s opened that door to the bathroom.”
More thumping and banging combined with shrieks and muffled screams echoed through the apartment.
“Sounds like she’s let your girlfriend loose, Jorge,” Mancini said. “Grab those holdalls.” He pointed to the bags containing the cash and led the way to the front door, with Trey following closely behind. Jorge scooped up both holdalls and nervously tagged along at the rear.
The entrance door to Jorge’s apartment stood half open. The sounds of the fracas occurring inside boomed around the balcony as Mancini kicked the door open wide. The sounds of snarling, wailing and shrieking boomed from the apartment interior. Several unseen items rolled and scraped and glass shattered across the tiles.
Mancini drew his handgun and shuffled inside the dim apartment, holding the weapon in both hands out in front of him. Trey hesitated but trod slowly behind Mancini. Jorge looked up and down the balcony, wondering how much attention all the noise was attracting. He stepped cautiously into the apartment doorway but stopped in his tracks when he saw the carnage inside.
The housekeeping maid and a naked, shapely Latino girl scrabbled around on the floor beside the bed. The maid’s white shirt was torn and heavily blood stained. Her face was screwed up in a combination of fright and pain. The infected Latino girl rasped and bit into the maid’s flesh at her neck and chest, tearing at the open wounds with long fingernails.
“Ayudame!” the maid screeched.
Mancini glanced at Trey.
“Ah, what the hell do we do, man?”
Mancini bobbed up and down but couldn’t find an angle to fire a clean shot at the infected girl. The two women grappled around the floor, twisting and turning in different positions. “What’s she saying?” he yelled.
“She wants us to help her, man. What the fuck do you think she’s saying?” Trey shouted back.
Mancini didn’t want to risk going too close in case the infected girl sprang at him. He leveled the handgun and took aim, following the contaminated girl’s blood streaked face with the gun barrel. Her black eyes bulged with murderous intent and Mancini knew she wouldn’t stop attacking the maid until she’d fulfilled her brutal objective.
“Stop, don’t fire,” Jorge called from the doorway. “Somebody is coming up the staircase. They’ll hear the gunshot.”
Mancini turned his head back to the doorway. He didn’t want to leave the poor maid to suffer but also couldn’t run the risk of a lengthy detention by the authorities, or even being seen and identified by potential witnesses to the horrific activities. Sighing heavily, Mancini retreated, flicked on the safety and replaced his handgun into his waistband, out of sight.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered to Trey. “We’ll have to leave this mess to the cops.”
The three of them slunk out of the apartment and Jorge nodded towards the staircase on the opposite side of the building. “Let’s take the other route.”
The sound of running footsteps and the squawk of a two-way radio caused them to turn back to Jorge’s apartment. A beefy guy dressed in a dark blue security guard’s uniform hurried across the balcony, followed by two more men, dressed in white work shirts and black chinos. The security guy spoke into his radio mic as he bundled into Jorge’s apartment. A few people stepped from their doorways, out onto the balcony to see what the commotion was all about. Their faces were fixed in bemusement and confusion, staring towards the source of the noise as Mancini, Trey and Jorge brushed by, keeping their heads down and turned away from the gathering crowd.
“This situation is going to end badly,” Mancini hissed, as the three of them hurried down the staircase. “I should have popped them both.”
The sound of police sirens wailed from somewhere nearby as Mancini, Trey and Jorge speedily walked towards the gate at the end of the driveway. Mancini crouched and scooped up Jorge’s cell phone from the ground as they hastily moved. They turned back to the apartment block when they heard an agonized shriek and saw the security guy tumbling headlong over the balcony balustrade with the naked Latino girl entangled around his body. The two bodies landed heavily onto the top of the car parked alongside the building. The vehicle’s windshield and side window glass shattered as the roof crumpled with a hollow crunching sound.
“Ah, fuck, man,” Trey groaned.
The cr
owd of a dozen or so people leaned over the balustrade to stare at the carnage below. They babbled to each other, pointing to the naked Latino girl gorging on the flesh of the unconscious security guy as he lay on his back on top of the bowed car roof. Mancini cringed when he noticed a couple of the bystanders filming the grisly proceedings on their cell phone cameras. The last thing they needed was to be caught on footage. No doubt the recordings would soon be uploaded to the internet, for all and sundry throughout the entire world to view.
“Get moving,” Mancini growled at Trey and Jorge, turning his back on the apartment block.
They reached the gateway and glanced back to the building when more screaming sounds pierced the air. The two guys in white shirts carried the blood stained maid between them as they emerged from the apartment doorway. She thrashed around in their arms and transparent liquid erupted from her mouth, spraying the surrounding people gathered on the balcony. The maid’s head shook violently and she snarled before biting into the leading guy’s forearm. He howled in pain as blood spurted from the bite in a sideways direction. The maid squirmed in their grasp and eventually shook herself free. She leapt at an old man, who stood at the edge of the balcony and bit into the top of his bald head.
“Oh, my god,” Trey gasped. “This is insane. Maybe we should go right back there and wipe them all out.”
Mancini, Trey and Jorge jumped backwards, out the way of two police cars with flashing lights and blaring sirens. The vehicles screeched around the corner of the gateway and zoomed towards the apartment block.
“Nothing we can do now,” Mancini said. “Let’s get going.”
Passersby huddled either side of the gateway, eager to see the cause of the pandemonium. Trey took one of the holdalls from Jorge as they walked briskly back along the street towards the Thunderbird. They rounded the street corner and saw the car still remained in the parking slot but three rough looking guys stood beside the driver’s door and one sat on the hood.
“Hey, back off,” Mancini growled as he approached. He wasn’t sure if the guys understood or spoke English but he couldn’t wait for Trey’s attempt at translating.
Trey and Jorge hung back a little but shuffled forward in Mancini’s wake.
“What’s your problem, asshole?” a guy wearing a red bandana chirped, flicking his chin at Mancini.
“That’s our car, so step away from it,” Mancini barked. The language barrier was no problem but the guy’s menacing presence was the immediate dilemma.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m warning you, move away now.” Mancini insisted. He stood on the sidewalk, a few yards away from the three guys beside the driver’s door.
The guy slid off the trunk and joined his companions. They fanned out in a line, eyeballing Mancini and briefly glancing at Trey and Jorge.
“You three think you are bad-asses? You look like a bunch of faggots to me,” the guy with the bandana said. His companions snickered, continuing their long stares.
“What’s in the bags?” a thick set guy with a goatee beard quizzed. “Maybe we should take a look inside and we’ll let you keep the wheels if we like what we see.”
“No deal,” Mancini barked. “You leave now, peacefully and I’ll let you all live.”
The four guys snickered between themselves once again.
“Just for that smartass remark, we’ll take the car and the bags,” the big guy said, scowling. “Now, hand over the keys and the bags or I’ll gut you like a fish.” He pulled a large knife with a serrated blade from a sheath around his waist.
The big guy plodded towards Mancini, swishing the blade through the air. Mancini held his ground. He lifted his shades onto his forehead then whipped the Heckler and Koch out from his waistband. The big guy stopped in his tracks and his eyebrows rose in surprise. Mancini aimed the barrel directly between the big guy’s eyes.
“One more forward step and your tiny brain will be splattered all over the sidewalk,” Mancini threatened. “That goes for all of you. Now, scram.”
The four guys raised their arms slightly and reluctantly shuffled backwards, away from the Thunderbird. They retreated a few feet from the parked car and stopped moving, huddling together in defiance. They glared at Mancini, waiting for him to make the next move. Mancini was aware of the clock ticking away and the chances of escaping from Ensenada without being stopped in some sort of road block or check point were diminishing with every wasted second.
Chapter Thirteen
“Get the car started, Trey,” Mancini barked, covering the four guys with the handgun. “Lock the bags in the trunk first.” He was aware he could be seen by passersby aiming a loaded firearm but the alternative situation was to lose their ride and the cash to the gang members.
Trey opened the trunk and hurriedly piled the bags inside the compartment. He locked the hatch and jumped into the driver’s seat. Jorge clambered over the passenger door and slumped into the rear seat. Trey gunned the engine and rolled the car forward. Mancini rounded the rear of the car, still aiming his handgun at the four guys and slid into the passenger seat.
“Go, go,” he spat at Trey. “Take a left turn.”
Trey pumped the gas and the tires squealed on the blacktop as he pulled out of the parking slot. Vehicles already rolling down the road jammed on their brakes and honked their horns when Trey pulled out across the stream of traffic. The four gang guys shouted inaudible threats and rushed to a blue SUV, parked up on the roadside a few yards further down the highway.
Jorge nervously glanced behind him, beyond the following traffic.
“Those guys are going to come after us,” he stammered.
“Forget about them. Let’s just get out of this town before the cops bring down some kind of quarantine area. We won’t be able to get out if we get snared in a road block.”
“Where we headed?” Trey asked.
Mancini sighed. “We’ll have to take that road trip all the way down to La Paz.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” Mancini groaned. “More guys will come on down there, if we need them.”
“How many miles are we talking here?”
Mancini shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet but we’re talking about a few days on the road to get down that way.” He unfolded the map and pointed Trey the route out of the city.
The traffic thinned in volume the further they drove from the city center. Jorge kept glancing at the road behind the Thunderbird, checking on their pursuer’s progress.
“They are still following,” he groaned.
Mancini ignored him and continued plotting the route to La Paz. “Stick to Highway 1 and that’ll lead us all the way down. It’s going to be a hell of a drive but we have no choice. We have to try and take that whole batch of green shit from Luiz, before it hits the streets.”
“Ah, man. This really sucks ass,” Trey groaned, slumping his head back against the seat rest.
“What are we going to do about those guys following behind?” Jorge sounded insistent.
Trey glanced into his rear view mirror and Mancini twisted around in his seat. They both saw the battered, blue SUV following behind with a few vehicles between them.
“This baby will easily outrun that piece of shit,” Trey said, patting the dash. “Don’t worry, we’ll put some space between us when we hit the open road.”
“There you go, Jorge,” Mancini muttered, turning back to face the front.
Jorge worried his cohorts weren’t taking yet another threat seriously. His mind was awash with all the possible outcomes of his current predicament. None of them seemed favorable and he decided to take his chances and make a bolt for it at the next available opportunity. Ernesto was dead, Luiz would probably follow the same way soon enough and he himself wouldn’t survive Oreilles’s wrath, even if they did somehow manage to recover the batch of green crystals from the cartel. His usefulness would immediately evaporate once Mancini had located Luiz. Jorge began
to plot his escape in his mind. He didn’t care about the merchandise but one of those bags of cash would allow him to get someplace miles away.
Trey snaked around the roads on the city limits surrounding Ensenada. He ignored the speed limits, figuring the cops would be preoccupied with the events back at the apartment block. He glanced in his mirror and saw the SUV falling behind. Several cop cars and ambulances flashed by, heading in the opposite direction with their sirens wailing and lights frantically blinking.
“Looks like you’ve created quite the shit storm, Jorge,” Mancini said, watching the emergency vehicles zip past.
“Oreilles better be paying us some big bucks for this job,” Trey said. “Driving all the way down Mexico deserves a bundle bonus in my book.”
“Tell him that to his face next time you see him,” Mancini snorted.
Trey thought about the bundles of cash in the holdalls inside the trunk. He glanced in the mirror at Jorge. “So, what were you guys doing with all those rolls of dead presidents?”
Jorge looked confused and leaned forward in his seat. “Excuse me?”
“He means the loot, Jorge,” Mancini sighed, stifling a slight grin. He was also curious why Oreilles had entrusted them with such a large amount of ready cash.
Jorge shifted on his seat and looked uncomfortable. “Luiz had the knowledge of how to produce and manufacture the product. He is the chemist. Ernesto was in control of the distribution side of the network and I was the money man. Mr Oreilles supplied us with the money to build up the business on a larger scale, to purchase property, equipment and trucks for manufacture and distribution. I was going to launder the money in much smaller, legitimate companies, which were in effect all going to belong to our manufacturing organization.”
“And the three of you got greedy, Jorge,” Mancini sighed. “You tried to cut Oreilles out and go it alone with the cartel. What the hell were you thinking?”
Green Ice: A Deadly High Page 8