by David Archer
“Ah, but there are fundamental differences between Gonzalez and myself. Yes, I sell the drugs. I sell them to whoever wishes to buy them, because that is the nature of my business. However, I do not employ efectivos —what you call drug pushers. There are always enough who wish to buy the drugs, it is not necessary for us to create more of them. Gonzalez, however, he has many such people. He sends them into every neighborhood, into every school, into every playground. They are rewarded when they create new customers, and punished when they fail to do so.”
Chance grinned at him. “So, I guess that makes you the lesser of two evils?”
Baldizon returned the grin. “To you, I am certain that it does. Mr. Reddick, you and I are in a strange position, where we need each other. You can kill Oscar because he lied to you, because he tried to use you for his own purposes. That is a matter of honor, and one for which no one will be surprised at his death. However, only you can kill Gonzalez, because only you have a sufficient matter of honor to hold against him. If we work together, there is hope that we will both achieve what we wish, and live to see another day.”
Chance thought about it for a moment. If he refused, if he did nothing about Oscar at all, then he and Gabriella would have to hide for the rest of their lives. That would be no way to raise the boys, but there was also the fact that Chance had actually considered murdering the woman he had come to love, and all because of Oscar. Yes, there was a sense of honor involved.
As far as Gonzalez, he supposed there was always the risk that Gonzalez would take offense at Oscar’s death. He might end up with even worse people coming the next time, and might not manage to protect his new family. If Gonzalez was gone and Baldizon was in power, and if Baldizon would honor his promise to let Chance walk away, then he and Gabriella could have a life together.
“I want one more promise out of you,” he said, “and then I’ll go along with whatever you want to do.”
“And what might that be?” Baldizon asked.
“Silver Bell,” Chance said. “I don’t want to see that little town ruined by drugs, not the hard stuff, anyway. I’ve seen what meth and heroin do to people, and I don’t want to see it hit my little hometown. Can you agree to that?”
Baldizon grinned. “I will agree,” he said. “We will not sell those drugs in Silver Bell.”
Chance stuck out his hand. “Then let’s figure out how we’re going to handle this. I really want to put an end to Oscar as soon as possible.”
“Here’s what I have in mind,” Baldizon said. “Gonzalez is preparing for war, and gathering his soldiers. He has offered to let me live, if I surrender my position to him. I will call him tonight, and tell him I wish to meet with him tomorrow. He will agree, because he will think that I’m coming to discuss the terms of my surrender. Instead, I will tell him that I’m ready for war. I will have all of my soldiers in Louisville with us, so Gonzalez will tell Oscar to go and prepare his soldiers for the war to come. You will be able to follow Oscar when he leaves, and find a chance to get him alone. Once you have killed him, then you can challenge Gonzalez.”
“Challenge him? You mean like to a duel?”
“No, not like that. You will have to abduct him. This is known as a levanton , a raising. I will tell you where you can find him alone, so that you can take him. Once you have him, then you must take him before all of his soldiers and kill him in their presence. If he shows any weakness, then you will become the next general in his place. If he does not, then it will be up to his next in command to decide whether he wishes to challenge you.”
Chance looked at him. “How well do you know Gonzalez? Is he likely to show weakness?”
“Felipe Gonzalez is a coward. He gained his position because he had money, and was able to hire soldiers to help him take it. He murdered his own uncle to gain his power, and has been only growing more evil ever since. If you take him, he will be frightened. When you have him, I will have a place for you to bring him, where all of his men can watch as he begs for his life. Then, when you kill him, you will have earned his position.”
Chance considered everything Baldizon had said for a moment, then nodded his head. Oscar deserved to die for plotting to have Gabriella killed, just so that he could get his hands on that money. Gonzalez, from what Baldizon had said, was ultimately the one responsible for Robin’s death. Killing both of them would satisfy Chance’s need to deliver justice.
“Just tell me when and where,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Baldizon gave him the address of the building where Gonzalez kept his office. Like most cartel generals, he was also involved in certain legitimate business ventures, a necessity when it came to laundering money. A moment later, Baldizon took out his cell phone and called Gonzalez.
“Felipe? This is Manuel Baldizon. I think perhaps it is time for us to sit down and talk.” He listened for a moment, then nodded his head. “Very well,” he said. “I will be there.”
He ended the call and looked at Chance. “I will meet with him at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning,” Baldizon said. “Oscar will be with him when we meet, but Gonzales will send him out to prepare the soldiers as soon as I say that we will go to war.”
“You’ll be in there alone,” Chance said. “What’s to prevent them from killing you on the spot?”
“A meeting like this is considered to be under truce,” Baldizon said. “To kill me in such a meeting would not be honorable. My soldiers would fight against him, and the war would be even worse. If we go to war and then he finds a way to kill me, then he comes out the victor. There is no loss of honor to kill an enemy in war.”
“I’ll never understand it,” Chance said. “I’m in, though. I’ll take Oscar out at the first opportunity, and then I’ll go after Gonzalez. If everything goes according to plan, then I’ll hand over his operation to you, and then you and I are finished. Right?”
“You will be free of me,” Baldizon said. “You will mean nothing, and I will never bother you again.”
“All right. I’ll be outside that building by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, ready to follow Oscar.”
He got back into his car and drove back to the farmhouse, then forced himself to relax with his grandmother for the evening. She made a nice dinner of roast chicken, and then they watched a movie together. Chance told her that he had to go to Louisville the next day to take care of some business, and then went up the stairs to his old bedroom and went to sleep.
THIRTY-TWO
Chance rose with the sun the next morning and ate a bowl of cereal before he climbed into the old Dodge and headed up to Louisville. The car ran quite well, and he made the trip in slightly less than the normal three hours, then turned on his navigation app to find the office building. It was in a nice neighborhood downtown, and there were parking meters lining the street. Chance found an empty spot and put the car into it, then fed quarters into the meter until it was full.
It was slightly after nine by the time he was settled back into the car, but the meter was good for the next three hours. He sat in the car and watched the front doors of the building, and wasn’t surprised to see an awful lot of Hispanic men and women going in and out.
At a quarter of ten, a large Cadillac Escalade pulled up in front of the building. The man got out from behind the wheel and opened the back door, and Chance saw Baldizon climb out. He walked through the front doors of the building without even looking in Chance’s direction, and Chance felt his adrenaline beginning to flow.
* * * * *
Baldizon walked into Gonzalez’s office only a few moments later, and Gonzalez looked up at him with a smile. Oscar stood just to Gonzalez’s left, and nodded to his former employer as Baldizon took the chair in front of the desk.
“It is good to see you, Manuel,” Gonzalez said. “I trust you have been in good health?”
Baldizon shrugged. “I am an old man,” he said. “Being in good health has a different meaning at my age.” He looked up at Oscar. “I see that you’re keeping my old
dog on a short leash. This is probably a good thing. Tell me, Oscar, what did you plan for the money that you stole from me and sent to Benito? Were you intending to try to hire someone to kill me?”
Oscar’s eyes went wide for a second, then narrowed. “I do not know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Perhaps your mind is also suffering the effects of your age?”
Baldizon laughed. He turned back to Gonzalez, then pointed at Oscar. “Watch this one, Felipe. I have learned only yesterday that he has managed to steal almost three million dollars from my bank in Texas. Can you imagine how foolish I felt when I learned of this? Be careful to learn from my mistakes, and never let him near your money.”
Gonzalez looked up at Oscar for a moment, and the expression on his face indicated that they would be talking about the accusation later. Oscar seemed a bit uncomfortable, but he managed not to say anything. Gonzalez turned back to Baldizon.
“If you had such problems with him in the past,” Gonzalez said, “you can rest assured that he would never have the courage to try such a thing with me. All that he has, I have given to him, and he knows that I can take it away just as easily. Now, what is it we were going to discuss? Oh, yes, your retirement.”
“Actually, that is not why I am here. As I said, I have only learned of this theft yesterday, but I wanted to see the look on Oscar’s face when I told you about it. As for the rest of my reason for coming, it is because I have decided not to accept your offer to step aside. You have been preparing for war with me for the last two months. I believe it must be time for the war to begin.”
Gonzalez looked at him, his eyes wide but with a smile on his face. “You cannot be serious. I have many more soldiers than you do, there is no way you could win such a war. Why would you wish to send your men to their deaths?”
“Perhaps I do not think that it is such a lost cause,” Baldizon said. “Or perhaps I have found more soldiers of which you are not aware. Nevertheless, I have decided that since you have been preparing for war, then I should not disappoint you. My own soldiers have come along with me, and are now placed in strategic locations around your city. I have only come to give you the opportunity to consider whether you really wish this war to happen. Perhaps it would be better for you to simply keep what you have, and leave an old man to his business.”
Gonzalez chuckled. “Manuel, I truly hope that you are joking. I would like to avoid the war, simply because many of your soldiers are good men. I would wish to have them serving for me. It would be a pity for all of them to die, just to satisfy your ego.”
Baldizon shrugged. “Still, I will not surrender to you.” He leaned on the arms of the chair as he rose to stand. “Your soldiers are prepared for war, and so are mine. Who are we to disappoint them? I will go now, and I will take my men home. If you insist on trying to take what I have, then we will be waiting.”
He turned and walked out the door, and Gonzalez stared after him. After a moment, he looked up at Oscar.
“What was he talking about? What was this about stealing money?”
Oscar shook his head. “As you said, he is an old man. There was another man who stole some money from him, and he may be confusing that man with me, as his mind begins to go.”
Gonzalez stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “That is not important to me. What is important is that his soldiers are running loose in the city, and the war could break out at any moment. Go and make sure that our men are ready, and do it quickly.”
“Of course, Señor Gonzalez.” Oscar walked around the desk and straight out the door, then went to the elevator and rode it down to the ground floor. A moment later, he stepped out the front door and into the back seat of the limousine that had just pulled up. The limo drove away, and neither Oscar nor his driver noticed the battered old Dodge that pulled out behind it.
Chance followed the limo for more than an hour, and stayed out of sight whenever it stopped. On three occasions, it stopped where there was a large group of Hispanic men gathered around, and Oscar stood in the midst of them as they talked. Chance waited during each of the stops, and then followed again when the limo proceeded.
On the fourth stop, Oscar and another man got out of the back seat of the car and went into a small building. Chance figured he wasn’t going to get a better opportunity, so he parked half a block behind the limousine and got out. He was wearing sunglasses, with a baseball cap on his head, and hoped he wouldn’t be easily recognizable if Oscar were to step out and see him.
The neighborhood was kind of run down, the kind of place where a lot of small businesses struggled to survive. From what little Chance knew of cartels, most of the small businesses around the area probably were forced to pay something to avoid being robbed or burned out, so it was unlikely that there was a lot of love lost for the cartel around there. Chance figured that most of those people would probably never call the police about anything related to the cartels, just out of fear of retribution.
He needn’t have worried, because Oscar was still in the building when Chance got close to the limousine. He stepped off the curb behind the car as if he were going to cross the street, but then he hurried up to the driver’s door. The glass was tinted, and he could not see in so he tapped on the window.
The driver rolled it down a couple of inches and looked out at him. “Si ?”
Chance smiled and leaned down so that he could see into the car through the gap, and saw that there was another man on the passenger side. “Oh, hey, listen,” he began, but then the little silenced Ruger came out of his pocket. He squeezed the trigger twice, and the first bullet disintegrated the window as it passed through. It struck the driver through his left eye, and then the second shot entered the temple of the passenger. Both of these men were groaning, so Chance fired twice more, aiming slightly lower on the sides of their heads.
He quickly opened the back door on the driver side, but saw that there was no one else in the limousine. He hurried around to the other side and managed to make it to the side of the building, out of sight of the door. He shoved the Ruger back into his pocket, then reached into his back waistband and withdrew one of the Maxims. The bulky handgun looked huge, and Chance was counting on the psychological advantage that it would give him.
He waited another moment, and then he heard the door open. Oscar and the other man came out, and Chance stepped out from where he was hiding. Oscar was almost to the limousine by that point, and barely even noticed Chance standing there as he reached for the door handle.
“Oscar,” Chance said.
Oscar froze when he heard his voice, and slowly turned to look at him. The other man also was looking at Chance, and at the large gun in his hand. His own hand started to move toward the gun he carried in a shoulder holster, but Chance fired before he even had his hand on the grip. The bullet took him right through his nose, and his body dropped straight down.
Oscar glanced down at the body, then looked back at Chance. “Señor Reddick? What is this?”
“This is called justice,” he said. “You see, Oscar, you sent me out there to do your dirty work. You wanted Gabriella killed, so that you could get control over her sons and use them to get control over the money that was in the bank in Reno. That’s the money you sent to that account, the money you stole from Mr. Baldizon. We already know that Benito didn’t steal it, because all of the bank wires had your signature on them. The only question is how you got Benito to go along with it. Did you threaten him? Threaten Gabriella or the boys?”
“Señor Reddick,” Oscar said nervously, “You cannot always believe what Señor Baldizon has to say. He is an old man, and I believe that his mind is beginning to suffer for it. This is why I left his employment, and came to work for Señor Gonzalez.”
“Oh, give it up, Oscar,” Chance said. “I know the truth, you’re not going to trick me into letting you go. I was just hoping you’d be man enough to tell me how you got Benito to do it. I guess I was hoping you might have just a little bit of truth and honor le
ft in you, but obviously you don’t.”
“Señor Reddick, why are you here to kill me? If you’re unhappy with Señor Baldizon, I can speak with Señor Gonzalez about…”
“Here’s the thing, Oscar,” Chance said. “Turns out I’m not a natural born killer after all. You know what got me all fired up that night? It was the fact that, for that few minutes, I was the hand of justice. Those men killed my sister, and they thought they had gotten away with it. I had the opportunity to prove to them that they didn’t, and that’s what got me so fired up and excited.”
He raised the gun and aimed it directly at Oscar’s forehead. “And now, I get to deliver justice again. Oscar Reyes, because you are a thief and a murderer and tried to make me murder an innocent young woman, I am here to give you justice. This is the only justice you deserve, and I know that at least some of us will sleep better tonight.”
Oscar’s eyes went wide and he turned slightly toward Chance as he tried vainly to reach for the pistol behind his back. “Señor Reddick, don’t…”
There was the sound of a small engine backfiring, and a hole suddenly appeared in Oscar’s forehead. He shook a couple of times, and then, unlike his partner, he fell straight over backwards.
Chance looked down at Oscar’s body for a moment, then turned and walked back to the Dodge. As he got into the car, he saw a few people coming out of buildings and walking toward Oscar’s corpse, but not one of them would look his direction. He grinned, then started driving south, toward his next destination.
THIRTY-THREE
Felipe Gonzalez was furious. First, that arrogant old bastard Baldizon had come into his office daring to speak of war, and had even tried to start trouble between himself and Oscar. That alone was bad enough, but then, just before he would have gone to lunch, he got the call that said Oscar was dead. Someone had shot him between the eyes, and nobody who was close by had seen anything.
“We shall see about that,” he mumbled to himself. His soldiers knew how to find out whatever they wanted to know, and his friends on the police force would let him know what they found out, as well. Somewhere in Louisville was the man who had killed Oscar, and there was no doubt in Gonzalez’s mind that Baldizon was behind it.