Once inside the car, Majoqui sat in the front passenger seat and the instructed his driver to pay close attention to all traffic laws. They pulled out onto the narrow streets of downtown Littleton and drove west toward Santa-Fe Boulevard. The police cruiser pulled out after them and followed. The speed limit was twenty-five miles an hour and "X-Ray," the driver, kept their speed at a smooth and even twenty. A short distance later, X-Ray activated his right turn signal and after a sufficient time, moved over to the turn lane for northbound Santa-Fe. The police car followed. Majoqui was not nervous. He understood America's search and seizure laws better than ninety percent of Americans did. And if that wasn't enough, there were still the guns and his blessings and amulets.
Anthony Gonzales was a veteran of eleven years on the Littleton Police Department. He was short and powerfully built, with a classic barrel chest and thick biceps and triceps. He could bench three-seventy-five and dead lift seven hundred pounds. He'd once gotten into the middle of a bar fight between two local professional football players who played for a team with a certain horse logo, when they both turned on him. One was a right tackle, the other played defensive lineman. When the fight was over, about twenty seconds later, Anthony had a bruise on the right side of his chin and a little swelling. The right tackle was shy three teeth and half his left ear. The lineman was a lot worse.
Gil Mason was a good friend of Anthony's. In fact, his last dog, Samson, had saved Anthony's life one dark and stormy night. He'd been to Gil’s house several times. He’d been fed by Joleen and had played with little Marla. He checked the pictures on his computer screen again. One was clear. It was Majoqui Cabrera, The Crow. His mug shot from after his arrest. The other was the picture taken at the convenience store. It was grainy and dull.
Anthony had seen the three men get into the Lexus. He thought the middle man, the one carrying the bag, might be Cabrera. He felt more confidant that all three of them were MS 13 and he was certain they were trouble. Over a decade of experience in dealing with trouble confirmed this last observation to his bones. He'd had the forethought to snap a couple of pictures with his smart phone, but they weren't great, what with the low light and distance and all.
He followed them onto Santa-Fe. The driver was being very careful. Anthony looked for a reason to pull them over. All lights were working. Nothing hanging from the mirror. There was tint on the windows, but not enough. The muffler was muffling. No cracked windshield. He ran the plate; it wasn't stolen and there were no hits or holds on it. It listed to a rental agency.
Anthony followed the car out of Littleton into Sheridan. Through Sheridan into Englewood. From Englewood to Denver — way outside his jurisdiction. He was mad at himself for not stopping them back in Littleton. But there was just nothing to stop them for. Nothing. He called a buddy of his that worked the streets of Denver, but he was tied up on a domestic and couldn't break to pull a traffic stop on such sketchy info.
The Lexus pulled onto northbound I-25 and Anthony had to let them go. He turned around and headed back to his city. He sent all the vehicle information and the description, along with the pictures he'd snapped, to Gil's personal email. He wished he could have done more.
Majoqui dropped the bag off at the apartment. It had taken a little while to double back to Gunwood, but they'd had no more following. He'd thought they would have to run from the police officer, maybe even kill him, but the saints had protected him.
Tamera was not in the apartment. He checked his watch; nine-thirty. Late for her to be out. But he knew she liked to go to the diner where they had met to speak with her friends. He decided to walk there and surprise her.
The walk took about ten minutes. Majoqui enjoyed the night. It was warm. Some might have thought it almost hot, but they had not lived through the summers in San-Salvador. Majoqui liked the hustle and noise of the city. Soon he would be the ruler of this place. Not just Gunwood, but all of Colorado, maybe more. The Crips were close to being finished and the Bloods would pose little trouble. The ACLU, along with liberal politicians, were handicapping the police to such an extent that soon they would not be able to stop Mara. Just as the police officer was not able to stop his car.
He was across the street waiting for a car to pass, when he saw the black man. It was Dashon. Majoqui saw the scars he had inflicted and grinned inwardly at his handiwork. He looked through the glass front of the diner and saw Tamera sobbing at the bar, another woman comforting her.
Majoqui did not doubt his power over Tamera, so the idea of her cheating on him did not even enter his mind. What did was rage. An emotion that did not very often affect Majoqui. But there was one thing he would not tolerate and that was contempt of his power.
Dashon had been given clear instructions to stay away from Tamera. That she belonged to him now. And Dashon had decided he did not need to fear Majoqui's demand.
Talking on a cell phone, Dashon turned down the alley and walked away from the diner. Majoqui followed.
Dashon finished talking and hung up the phone. He'd just elevated his position in the Crip hierarchy to an unknown degree. What incredible, perfect luck. Who would have thought that skinny, white girl would be worth so much? And once the spic was out of the way, there would be nothing to stop him from making her work the street for him. Double cash in.
As he was putting the phone in his pocket, he heard the man's voice behind him. It was soft and calm and it sent a chill traipsing up his spine. He knew that voice.
"I told you not to go near her and what would happen if you did."
"Yeah," said Dashon. "Yeah, you did." He turned, his hand still in his pocket. He looked at the thin man in front of him. There was no antenna. His hands were empty.
"Then there is nothing more to say," said the Latino.
"Nope," said Dashon, "Guess not." He pulled his hand out of his pocket, only he was no longer holding his phone. He was holding a .22 semi auto, sleek and black and carrying five rounds of carnage. He lifted the weapon gangster style, one handed sideways, just like in the movies and pulled the trigger. Only the gun was no longer there… neither was his hand.
Dashon stood, staring at the stump and the gushing blood. He tried to shoot again and thought for a second that he could actually still feel the small trigger… still feel his finger pulling back. But then he saw the thing in Majoqui's hand. It was some kind of funky sword. And there was blood on it. A lot of blood.
Dashon looked down at the dirty cement and saw his own hand, still holding the little gun, lying in the trash and dirt and grease. Something about that made him feel sick. His hand lying in that filth. His blood soaking up the germs and disease.
He looked up, trying to form words to say to the man in front of him. Words that would explain… that would take it all back. But all he saw was a quick glint of light on the slashing steel as it swung toward his face. And then his perception halved and changed its angle and he thought, for just an instant, that he saw his body standing there while his view fell down and down, forever down, and he saw nothing more.
46
James Arthur Washington Jr., AKA Three-Eight, hung up the phone. He had a decision to make. Dashon told him where the woman lived and that he thought her boyfriend was almost certainly The Crow and that he wasn’t there now, but should be within a few hours. His first thought was to round up about ten of his bad boys and head over to her apartment to set up a nice little surprise for him. But two things stopped him. First was his deal with the cop… he’d given his word. Second was the failed trap his boys set up. The one that backfired, leaving eighteen men… good men… massacred. Even the Crips couldn’t absorb losses like that for long. So, much safer to let the cops handle it.
Taking out the special phone, he hesitated. Why? It was the right call, the smart call, all his instincts said so. Still, something kept his finger from pressing the call button. Pride. As a leader of the Crips, it galled him to feel the need to have an enemy fight his fight. Who were these wetback nothings to cause all this t
rouble? Colorado belonged to the Crips and the Bloods, had for decades. Mexican gangs existed here, always had, but they were secondary, content to pick up the scraps left by the two major players. What right did Mara have to steal their turf? How dare they.
Slowly his finger moved away and he dropped the phone on the pavement by his feet.
There would be no call to this police officer. The Crips needed no help, not from anyone. James… no… Three-Eight would kill this upstart himself.
This strange feeling that had been affecting him lately was taking him down a very dangerous path, a path that would eventually destroy him if he didn’t quickly check its progress.
His teeth ground together at the thought of his dead men and the failed plan. Revenge… justice. His head bobbed slightly and his eyes narrowed to slits. Yes, justice for his fallen brothers.
The night air blew past him bringing the smells of the city. The smells he’d lived with and known all his life. When he was young, they had seemed the very spice of life; tobacco, beer, whisky, pot, blood. But lately they had soured, smelling stale and rancid and dead.
No, a warrior did not think like this, and above all, Three-Eight had proven himself to be a warrior time and time again. A warrior and a leader of warriors. So no police, despite his word and the seeming uniqueness of the strategy and situation. The Crips would do as they had always done and take care of their own.
Before he could reach for his personal cell, it vibrated in his pocket. The voice of one of his lieutenants sounded from across the void and told him that Dashon’s body had been found in an ally cut to pieces.
Three-Eight nodded to himself and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He paused, thinking and not thinking at the same time. Three-Eight nodded again, looked down and saw the phone lying at his feet.
James Arthur Washington Jr. reached down, picked up the phone and pushed the button to call the police officer.
47
I’ve seen war. I’ve seen terrible things, evil things. But what I saw as I entered the house jumped to another level. Four men, all Hispanic, holding a woman of maybe eighty down on the floor. A tiny thing, wrinkled, nut brown skin with wispy, pure white hair that had escaped a disheveled bun. Spread beneath her was a rectangular sheet of black plastic. One man knelt on her legs while two more stood with one foot each on her wrists. There were no fingers on her right hand and only three on her left. The heel of a filthy sock protruded from her mouth. The man standing on her right wrist held a blood smeared pair of wire cutters. The man standing on her left wrist held a small butane blowtorch, a plume of blue flame jetting from the nozzle. Smoke still rose from the stumps of her thumb and index finger. Sitting on her chest, the last man held a phone in one hand and a small sledgehammer in the other. He held it raised over his head and was bringing it down in a savage arc as I burst in.
Before they registered my presence, and a split second before my mind could take in what I was seeing, the hammer landed, smacking with a sound that will live with me forever.
The old woman tried to move at the last second, her eyes wide, like the eyes of a trapped animal, but the hammer hit just above her eyebrow, crushing the ancient bones of her skull and leaving an indent in her flesh like a child’s lump of Play-Doh.
I put two bullets into the side of the head of the man with the hammer, then two more into the man with wire cutters. One of the bullets struck him in the neck, the other in the ear. Blood sprayed.
Nine millimeter slugs aren’t big… but they were big enough. Both men crumpled, dead before they knew they were shot.
The other two looked at me, both flinching. The man with the blowtorch jerked it up as though to deflect a blow. I shot him three times in the chest. He grunted, looked at where the bullets had punctured his shirt, then back at me.
I changed targets and shot the man at her legs as he jumped to his feet. The first round took him in the belly… low… just above the pelvic girdle. Then I put a bullet in each thigh. He fell to the floor screaming and bleeding.
The man with the blowtorch yelled something at me, but my hearing was gone, blanked by all the gunfire.
Five rounds left before I’d have to change magazines. I put three more in his chest. He took a step back. Tough guy. I looked down at the pitiful old grandmother and put one more in the center of his forehead.
Not tough enough.
I turned my attention back to the guy moaning and rolling a few feet away. I didn’t kill him for a reason. He was going to tell me things. Things he didn’t want to tell me… things he shouldn’t tell me.
For the first time I took in the décor. The windows sported square sheets of plywood, heavily bolted to the walls, pinning dark curtains beneath them.
Everything about the place screamed hostage - house.
There were no phones, heavy triple-keyed deadbolts on the front and back doors, hardwood floors throughout the living room, hallways and kitchen. No real furniture, just a few wooden chairs, two standing lamps and a card table laden with used cups, paper plates and an overstuffed ashtray.
Oh… and five more bodies stacked along the north wall. They were all neatly packaged in black plastic, but I knew what they were.
Horrified muffled screams echoed from the cell phone the man with the hammer dropped. Picking it up, I put it to my ear and heard the unmistakable frequency of grief and terror vibrating through shrieked words, spoken in a language I didn’t understand. What could I do? Even if I possessed the capability to make the woman on the other end of the phone understand me, I could do nothing to ease her grief, her terror.
I said, “I’m sorry,” and set the phone back down, still connected so that maybe the police could make contact with them once they arrived.
Like I said, what could I do?
I walked to the man writhing on the floor. Blood flowed freely from both thighs and a quarter-sized dot stained the edges of the hole in his stomach. Minimal bleeding from a belly shot meant some pipes on the inside must be spraying full out. He didn’t have much time left, but then again, neither did I.
People say torture is wrong, and in my old life, depending on what you consider torture, I would probably agree. But my old life no longer existed and now a zombie stood, looking down at the man who had just participated in cutting off an old woman’s fingers after shoving a sock down her throat and then caving in her skull with a hammer.
Having been in the thick of one of the most brutal wars in history, I’d seen and even participated in a lot of hard things. I’d never personally tortured anyone, but I’d seen experts, mostly Taliban and Al Quada, but some others too. I never thought I would ever have to use any of that knowledge. I was wrong.
I kicked him in the face. Not hard enough to put him out, I just wanted to get his attention off the pain in his stomach and onto me.
“You speak English?”
He stared at me blankly.
I shot him through the shin.
He screamed and screamed.
I kicked him in the solar plexus, stealing his wind. That shut him up, but he writhed worse than ever.
“If you don’t speak English you’re no use to me. The police are on their way, so I’ve only got a few more minutes to waste on you.” I pointed the gun at his forehead. “You’re bleeding internally, but they can save you if they hurry. Only they won’t get the chance if you don’t let me know you can understand me right now, because if you don’t, I’m going to put a bullet through your brain.”
He gulped air now, coughing weakly… blood slicking his lips. He nodded, his whole body trembling. “Si… yes… a little.”
“Anybody else in the house?”
“Si.”
“How many?”
He seemed to be thinking. “Treinta y tres… thirty tres…”
“Thirty-three?”
“Si.”
“Where?”
He convulsed in pain, breathing hard and fast. With a trembling finger he pointed down.
“The baseme
nt?”
“Si.”
I knelt next to him, his breath smelling of onions and blood. I grabbed hold of the front of his shirt and ripped down, revealing scores of faded blue tattoos running his torso. “Mara.”
He nodded, his eyes closed in pain. “Si.”
“Where is The Crow?”
Opening his eyes slowly, I saw something I didn’t like. Defiance. Ordinarily I’d have to respect someone able to still show defiance after all he’d been through, but I didn’t have time for defiance. I dropped my knee onto his broken shin. He almost passed out. I grabbed him by the jaw and shook him back and forth till his eyes lost their glaze and the pain reestablished its hold on his nerves.
“I know you… gringo… ” he grunted and gasped the words from behind gritted teeth. The onion and blood smell washed over me in a swampy wave. He looked at the puckered scar on my throat where I’d been shot. “The Croneja… Crow… did that to you.”
The defiance burned brighter, even through the pain.
“Pilgrim.” I said it softly, without inflection, and so he responded the same way, padding from the garage in a low slinky crawl until his big head rested by my thigh. His eyes locked on the man’s eyes, knowing prey when he saw it. “I’m going to ask one more time, and if I don’t hear what I want to hear, I’m going to have this dog tear parts from your body and I’m not going to stop him until you are dead.”
As if on cue, Pilgrim yawned hugely, showing his forty-two knives, and then resumed his stare.
No more defiance, only pain and primal fear. He gave me an address in Byers.
I left him moaning where he was while I went to the basement stairs, Pilgrim guarding him. He would live or die depending on the police and his own determination. I am nothing if not a man of my word. The stairway seemed to go down forever. It was dark and cool, clammy, as though the walls themselves were sweating and dimpled with gooseflesh. The door, solid, not one of those hollow core deals, sported two deadbolts. It took four hard kicks to breach it, and when it went, it took most of the frame with it.
Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set Page 62