Sole Survivor

by Glenn Trust

  Luis stopped nursing his drink, finishing the last of it in a gulp. He set the glass down with a clunk on the bar top and looked at the bartender who had returned to reading a newspaper beside the wash sink.

  “Another …same,” Luis said.

  The old man looked up, annoyed. He folded the paper in half, placed it on the bar and walked over to Luis, scratching his belly under the black and gold Georgia Tech tee shirt he wore.

  “You gonna keep drinkin’ like that, whyn’t you buy the bottle?” the bartender suggested, reaching down to the bottom shelf.

  “How much?” Luis looked up from his empty glass to the half-empty bottle of no-name whiskey.

  The bartender held the bottle up to the light and peered at the level of the liquid inside. “Twenty.”

  “Here.” Luis tossed a bill on the bar. “Leave it.”

  “Good.” The bartender put the bottle in front of Luis, satisfied that this unknown customer would not interrupt him again for a while.

  He shuffled back to his post by the wash basin and opened the newspaper. Luis screwed off the bottle’s cap and filled his glass. Tilting his head back to take a long swallow, his eyes caught the images on the flickering television over the bar. The glass almost fell from his fingers.

  He leaned forward to squint up at the television through the smoky haze. There he was, standing just off to the side and a few steps behind the man speaking. He looked like some politician, but Luis couldn’t say who. They were all the same anyway, and he wouldn’t have recognized the name if someone had told him.

  What he did know was that the man off to the side, standing there smiling in his suit and shiny shoes was the same white dude he had seen huddled with Bautista Ortega at Eruptions. He looked at the bartender.

  “Turn the sound up.”

  “Sound don’t work.”

  It didn’t matter. It was him, standing there right in front of the cameras. The politician finished talking, smiled and waved at the cameras, then turned and walked away. The man at the side stepped forward and spoke for a few seconds to the group of people then turned and followed the politician out of camera view.

  “Son of a bitch,” Luis whispered. Then louder. “I knew it!”

  “Knew what?” The bartender looked up, brow furrowed, irritated that the heavy drinker at the end of the bar had interrupted him once again.

  “Gimme another bottle … a full one.” Luis stood up from the barstool and reached into his pocket for cash.

  “Not supposed to sell takeout … no liquor store license.”

  Luis unfolded the last of his cash and threw a hundred on the bar. “This cover it?”

  The bartender reached for a bag under the counter and put the bottle Luis was working on inside with another full bottle. “That covers it.”

  He pocketed the money as Luis grabbed the bag and headed for the door. Outside on the sidewalk, Luis stopped and squinted into the sun to get his bearings. Eyes darting back and forth in case Moya’s goons followed, he scurried through back streets and alleys toward his apartment, muttering to himself all the way.

  “I knew it. Goddamn, I knew it. That white dude, he somebody … up there standin’ with some politician. Motherfucker got to be somebody, and that somebody been sittin’ head to head with El Toro.” He stopped at the end of an alley, peering up and down the street before stepping out. “Goddamn if I didn’t know it!”

  25.

  A Shock

  He thought he was a tough man. His time spent working on his father’s fleet of shrimp boats off the Georgia coast in his youth made him think so.

  James Jadyn Sillman, JJ as friends and family called him, had indeed rubbed shoulders on the swaying decks of the boats alongside the coarse men with swollen, scarred hands who pulled the nets, manned the winches, oiled the machinery and performed the thousand other tasks required of those who venture out on the ocean to earn their livelihood. JJ had done these things until his own hands were swollen and raw.

  He had done these things because his father had insisted. To Sillman senior, it was a noblesse oblige, a duty that those of their standing must perform to merit the fruits of the labors of those lower classes who served them.

  Anchored at the ports and coastal inlets along the Georgia coastline from Savannah down to St. Mary’s, the Sillman shrimping fleet was a significant contributor to the coastal economy. A southern gentleman had obligations by virtue of his birth, and Sillman thought it only proper that JJ should have some acquaintance with the dangerous work and manual toil of those others who had made their family wealthy. So, leaving the soft comforts of his privileged life, JJ went off to work in close quarters with the men who crewed the boats.

  In his father’s mind, it was a probationary period for JJ, a time to toughen him and teach him about manhood as he learned the family business. For JJ it was a prison sentence.

  His parole came when the University of Georgia accepted him for enrollment, fulfilling another family tradition and obligation. Satisfied that his son had paid his dues to southern manhood and the family name during two summers his junior and senior year in high school, Sillman sent JJ to join the same fraternity that had been his when he attended the university thirty years earlier.

  In truth, his shrimping experience served him well at the university, at least in a social sense. To his frat brothers from equally privileged families, JJ’s toughening experiences on the boats made him unique, a sort of frat boy man of mystery.

  They had never clung to the rails of a storm-tossed shrimp boat, the green waters surging over the bow, threatening to wash him overboard. They hadn’t known the indignity of being a deckhand under the rule of boat captains and crewmen who had never attended a university or who had any idea what a fraternity was.

  His shipmates were told that ‘Boss’ Sillman, as JJ’s father was known among his shrimpers, would not tolerate any accommodations for his son. They must treat him like any other apprentice crewman on the boats. In practice, this meant that some crews, in their zeal to carry out Boss Sillman’s instructions, treated JJ far worse than a normal apprentice.

  To a few, he was an interloper from a different world. He may have worked among them during the day, but when they returned to port, he went home to a palatial estate on the outskirts of Savannah. They returned to their single-wide trailers and tract homes.

  Not long after his arrival at UGA, JJ saw the wisdom in the life lessons his father forced on him. The experience had, in fact, toughened him.

  His upper-crust classmates were in awe of him. Wealthy as the Sillman family was, young JJ had been required to perform manual labor in a hard and dangerous industry.

  Some would come to his room in the evenings to interrupt his studies and hear the stories he shared, always at their insistence. They leaned forward, passing beers around, fixed on his words.

  He recounted the events of his time shrimping. His friends learned with fascination that he had seen death aboard the boats, hands crushed in equipment, shrimpers snared by lines and dragged overboard to drown beneath the green Atlantic.

  JJ always welcomed them, trying to make it seem like he did not want the attention. He would shrug and recount his experiences. Each nonchalant shrug enhanced his prestige with the other young men. He learned to pick the right time and the right audience.

  The reputation gained in those late night frat sessions followed him as he inherited the family business. JJ Sillman, from a southern aristocratic family, was a man of the people, toughened by hard and dangerous work. He had earned his success and not received it because of the privileged life he inherited. He had his father to thank for that.

  Eventually, he ran for public office, always proclaiming to his constituents that he was one of them, a man who understood hard work. He held up the hands that had pulled the nets on his father’s shrimp boats and pledged, “These hands will work for you!”

  It was soap opera. The voters loved it. After winning three terms in the state legislature, he ran
and won a campaign to unseat a longtime incumbent in the U.S. Senate. His campaign posters bore the image of two strong hands with the words, These Hands Will Work for You!

  These days, he spoke of his days on the shrimp boats over fifty-dollar-a-glass bourbon in the leather chairs of a Buckhead gentleman’s club. Like many rich and famous personalities, his ego led him to believe the myth about himself, the one he helped create—a working man, a tough man.

  The events of the last few days had shattered that self-image.

  The call came soon after his arrival back at his penthouse condo following the press conference. The number showed as unknown, but he knew who it was before he answered.

  “Yes.” The glass of bourbon in his hand trembled. He lifted it to his lips and gulped it down in one swallow.

  “I am instructed to tell you that Bebé is pleased.”

  Alejandro Garza’s voice was emotionless. He could have said the weather tomorrow will be sunny, or you will die, and the inflection would have remained the same, without thought of the consequences of either possibility.

  Sillman could not control the cold tingle that ascended his spine. “I … I’m glad Bebé is satisfied. We are setting the stage to …”

  “Yes, we are aware of what you are doing,” Alejandro interrupted. “It is as we planned. The next phase begins soon.”

  “Right,” was all Sillman could think to say.

  There was no further message to relay from Elizondo. The call ended.

  The day’s events had all been part of the discussion at Elizondo’s hacienda. Create the pretense of taking the lead in the so-called war against drugs. Focus the efforts everywhere but on Sillman and his arrangement with Elizondo and Los Salvajes.

  Bebé had designed the strategy himself, quoting the ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu.

  “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

  Bebé had laughed and offered Sillman another glass of tequila as he bragged about the stratagem. Sillman would lead the crusade against drug trafficking, and their dealings would be even more secure. No one would suspect that a U.S. senator was working in partnership with a drug cartel. It was the perfect deception. Sun Tzu would have been proud.

  Elizondo bubbled with enthusiasm over it. He said the idea had come to him as he lay beside Sofia one night after making love—adding as an aside that his best ideas always came after sex. It was Bebé who ordered Sillman to stage a press conference.

  The senator from Georgia was not as convinced as his new partner that the deception would be useful, or even successful. True, the government was a bureaucracy, slow-moving and usually inefficient. This reality had served him well during his political career.

  But those staffing the bureaucracies were not idiots. On the law enforcement side, most were dedicated professionals, zealots even, when it came to ferreting out criminal activity.

  The risk that they might see through the scheme seemed unnecessary to Sillman. In the end, he had no choice, and he knew it. With Alejandro Garza eyeing him from a side chair, Sillman smiled and agreed to arrange the press conference and lead the deception.

  James Jadyn Sillman stood before his penthouse window, looking out over the bustling city below. The scene was far removed from the hillside hacienda on the Pacific where trembling men were garroted to death on the orders of a smiling, baby-faced monster. An involuntary shiver shook his frame, and he swallowed more bourbon.

  He had always thought he was a tough man. Now he knew he was not. The revelation came as a shock.

  26.

  Ain’t Goin‘ Nowhere

  He was on his fourth mile, sweating hard in the morning humidity. Travis made the turn onto Twelfth Street and took the entrance into Piedmont Park when one of the two cell phones in his pocket chimed.

  It was his day to carry the burner they used for communicating with their informants. He pulled it out as he ran then came to a stop, squinting at the display as he caught his breath. The call was from Luis Acero.

  “Yeah,” Travis said, one hand on his hip, breathing deep as he rested.

  “I know this white dude.”

  “What?” Luis never broke protocol. The correct response was the usual ‘It’s all good’ signal. The question now was whether Luis was in trouble or just so agitated that he forgot to give the all clear signal.

  “I know who he is!” Luis persisted, his voice rising in pitch. “The white dude … from Eruptions.”

  “You can identify him?” Luis might have a reason to be anxious, Travis decided. “Where are you?”

  “Home, man. At home and I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “Okay,” Travis kept his tone mild. “Say it right, so I know this is legit.”

  “Oh, yeah … right,” Luis paused then said, “It’s all good, bro.”

  It wasn’t textbook protocol, but it would have to do.

  “You know him?” Travis continued. “The white dude? How?”

  “Well, I ain’t met him or nothin’ like that, but …” Luis hesitated, his mind whirling. There was danger here. El Toro was frightening enough, but ratting on a prominent politician would plunge him into dark waters too deep for him to fathom.

  He took a breath and said, “I seen him on television.”

  Travis stared across Lake Clara Meer at the midtown high-rises. Could it be possible that Luis was on to something?

  “What do you mean on television? A show?”

  “Not a show. One of them news things … some politician up there smiling and makin’ a speech, then they all askin’ him questions.”

  “A press conference?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. A press conference.”

  “A politician? You saw a politician from a press conference?” Travis lowered his voice, the phone screwed tight against his ear. “Meeting with El Toro?”

  “No not a politician, but I seen him … the white dude … standing right beside one on the news, this morning. The press conference, like you say.”

  “Which politician?” Travis asked, playing it cool to mask the intensity of his interest.

  “Shit, I don’t know his name, they all the same to me.” Luis spoke fast, explaining. “I saw the white dude standing off to the side. That’s why I paid attention. Saw it on the screen in a bar. Then the politician left and the other white dude stepped up and said something. Then he left.” Luis finished breathless. “I’m tellin’ you I seen it all. I saw him.”

  Travis remained silent. There was only one politician in town on the news that day, talking about his crusade against drugs.

  To call the information a longshot was an understatement. First, you had to accept that Luis Acero had been sober enough while sitting in a bar to recognize a politician’s aide at a television press conference. That was hard enough to swallow.

  Second, you had to believe that Luis was also sober enough the other night at Eruptions to recognize the same man meeting head to head with a suspected drug kingpin. Still, if it were true, if Luis’s faculties were not dulled by alcohol but instead heightened by fear, he might be telling the truth.

  “You still there?” Luis called out to him over the silence.

  Travis spoke up. “I’m here.”

  “So, I’m paid up now, right?” Luis’ voice was hopeful.

  “Maybe. We have to check things out.”

  “What you mean maybe? I’m telling you what I saw. I ain’t no genius but I know what I saw, and I know a politician’s boy hanging with a drug boss means something’s up.” He nodded to himself, sitting on his bed in the apartment. “It’s big. I know it is.”

  “We’ll see,” Travis replied. “Stay close to your phone and don’t speak to anyone else about this.”

  “I ain’t saying shit to no one. This could get me killed.”

  Travis
nodded. Luis’ assessment of the risk was accurate.

  “Stay quiet, and don’t get killed,” Travis said. “If what you’re saying is true …”

  “Shit, man. I ain’t lyin’ … not about this.”

  “Okay. Then we will probably want to bring you in … for protection.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. My ass stayin’ right here hunkered down. You do what you got do and get the white dude … get Ortega … fuck … get ‘em all. Ain’t no safe place for me ‘less you do. You put me in a lockup for safekeeping, and one of Moya’s men will get to me and shove a knife up my ass. They got ways. You know that’s true.”

  Luis was right. If word got out that he was in custody for anything, it would reduce his life expectancy to days, if not minutes. Esteban Moya would not hesitate to eliminate Luis if only on the mere possibility he had turned rat on them.

  “All right, hunker down there. We’ll run it down and call you back, but you be where we can reach you.”

  “I said, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  The call ended. Travis pulled out the other cell phone and punched up John Sole’s number. He ran over the information Luis had given him and asked, “What do you think?”

  “Question is, what do you think? You talked to him.”

  “He sounded shaky, but it’s a hell of a story. The kind of story that would take real smarts to come up with. Not sure our boy Luis has that kind of brain-power.” Travis paused, thinking it through. “I think we have to take him at his word and check it out. I believe him … or at least I believe he thinks Senator Sillman’s aide is the white dude he saw at Eruptions with Ortega.”

  “Fair enough. I’m on my way. I’ll pick you up, and we can run down Sillman’s aide. It’s worth that much at least. If it pans out, we make Luis accept protective custody. If he’s jerking us around, he’s on his own.”