Murder in the Magic City

by G. P. Sorrells

  “Doubt it,” Castillo said as he stepped out of the car. “If this is anything more than a front, they can pull stuff off in from time to time, I’ll eat that guy’s hat.”

  Micah’s eyes drifted toward Castillo’s nod, landing on a surly man sprawled out on the corner in front of the motel. He wore a taupe poncho with thin white stripes in a jagged pattern at the shoulder, separating the dull color of the body from the vibrant maroon up top. A blue handkerchief rested haphazardly around his neck. A wide-brimmed hat with a flat crown sat atop his head, shielding his face from the sun. Pushed back against a fence was a rucksack which appeared to hold all the man’s valuables.

  “Got any spare change?” The man raised a red solo cup toward Castillo, who looked at him with a mixture of disgust and pity before marching away. “Suit yourself, friend.”

  “Here,” Micah said, grabbing his wallet. He took out all the cash he had and put it into the cup.

  “You sure, man?” The man pulled the cash out of the cup and twisted it lightly between his fingers, as though attempting to determine whether it was real. “You ain’t worried I’m gonna spend it on drugs or sum’thin?”

  Micah watched him curiously. The thought of what the man might do with the money had never occurred to him. “Look, buddy, it’s none of my business what you decide to do with this. If getting blitzed is going to put you on the track to turning things around, go for it. Hell, use some of it to get a little action tonight in this motel. Doesn’t matter. Just do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get yourself a bite to eat. Got to keep your energy up if you’re going to do anything crazy tonight.” With that, he hurried after Castillo.

  Once Micah was out of sight, the homeless man stood up and tossed the cup to the ground. He walked down the street to a bus stop and sat down on the bench. Content that he was alone, the man lifted the poncho and retrieved a cheap looking mobile phone. He flipped it open and pressed a series of numbers. The phone rang twice before the line clicked. No one answered on the other end.

  “Base. This is Seamus McFly. Just ran into our bogey. He’s with the secondary target at a local whorehouse,” the man said. He waited a moment for a response that wouldn’t come. “How would you like me to proceed?”

  “Keep your eyes on our friend,” came the distorted voice at the other end of the line. “But do it from a distance. The last thing we need is to spook him before he does his job.”

  “Copy that,” the man replied. He snapped the phone in half and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. The hat and poncho weren’t far behind.

  Chapter 41

  “This is my associate, Micah,” Castillo said, gesturing to his compatriot.

  Micah seemed irritable, bouncing lightly from one leg to the other as if he might cease to exist if he just stood still. A brawny man with one of the largest beards Micah had ever seen stood between them and the door to room number 9 of the motel. His arms were a tapestry of ink. Mostly black and white with varying degrees of fading taking place. On his right forearm, stretching from his wrist to his elbow, sat an obnoxiously large Confederate Battle Flag. Its colors were vibrant, the skin still somewhat raw. In script surrounding the standard were the words “Good Ole Boys.” A nod to the group with whom he was a part. Likely a hint at something else too, Micah thought angrily.

  “Look, friend,” Castillo said, placing a hand on the brawny man’s shoulder as though the two had known each other for years. The cold stare the man returned to him said otherwise. “We’ve got a meeting with your boss. If you could just let us in, we’ll get out of your way. Let you stare off in the distance and brood for a while longer.”

  The brawny man shifted, his free arm reaching behind him. “Don’t get cute,” Micah said, his own hand moving back toward the pistol tucked into his pants holster. “Just open the door.” He wanted to say more. To be a bit more forceful, reckless. But he opted to maintain some sense of civility. At least for the time being.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Castillo retrieved his wallet, removed a pair of bills, and tucked them into the pocket on the brawny man’s leather vest. “Use this to get yourself polished up later. Consider it a thank you, from me, to you, for opening the fucking door.”

  The stare down continued for another moment before the brawny man reluctantly pounded on the door behind him. Micah could hear some commotion from inside, but not with much clarity from where he stood. It sounded like multiple people were on the other side of the door, but they didn’t seem keen on their words escaping the four walls surrounding them. The door eventually cracked open, held in place by a cheap security chain.

  “What’s up, Roscoe?” The man on the other side of door leaned into the opening to ask his question, rather than pose it straight on.

  “Fidel here says he’s got a meeting with the big boss.”

  “Correction, Mr. Bunker,” Castillo said, a vein bulging in his forehead, “I’m here to see your boss. The man who tells you to stand outside of this door like a guard dog because he knows you’ll heed his command.”

  “What did you fucking say to m…,” Roscoe began, his mind slowly processing the slights aimed at him.

  “Castillo?” The man inside asked. His twang made it sound like cast-ill-o instead of its actual pronunciation.

  “That’s me,” Castillo replied, waltzing past the dumbfounded Roscoe. Micah followed him, expecting things to take a Southward turn any minute. The door opened and the two men walked into the room.

  It looked like any of the other thousands of motel rooms across the country. A queen bed with an overly stiff mattress and tacky sheets, dainty table and two chairs next to a pull-out sofa that had likely seen more than its fair share of use. The key difference between Room #9 at the Magic City Motel and nearly any other such room in the country was certainly the presence of storage lockers lining the wall opposite the bed. Most rooms would have a dresser and television in that area. Perhaps even a mini fridge if the place were upscale enough. But not the Room #9.

  Each storage locker stood between five and six feet tall. Most had doors constructed of steel mesh, which provided immediate visibility of the copious firearms secured behind them. Everything from pistols to shotguns to assault rifles rested in the storage lockers. Micah wasn’t certain, but he thought he had even spied the silhouette of a fragmentation grenade or two. The other storage lockers along the wall simply had solid steel doors with thick padlocks on their handles. It was impossible to know what they held, though it was presumably more valuable. Someone had tucked a large safe under the vanity, next to the bathroom.

  “Have a seat, gents,” the man gestured toward the couch. “Jeremiah should be out here faster than a one-legged man in an ass kicking competition.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s uh, gonna be out here real quick-like.”

  “Got it,” Castillo said, in no rush to accept the offer to rest.

  Micah stood near the door, absentmindedly scanning the room for anything of interest. Several small cameras were tucked in the corners, focused on the lockers and the safe. The stillness in the room was broken only by the distant sound of a toilet flushing twice. Multiple door locks disengaged shortly afterward, and the bathroom door swung open.

  Jeremiah stepped out, closed the bathroom door, and stared at it as though attempting to determine whether it had made its way into the frame. He turned on a dime and approached the trio. “Jimmy, how the hell are ya?”

  “I’m doing all right. And you?”

  “Same shit, different day. Been busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor for the past few months,” Jeremiah sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Castillo and Micah. “I see you’ve met Bennett.”

  “Yes, he let us in a moment ago. Your man out front didn’t seem too pleased to see us walking up. Not sure he believed I was who I said I was.”

  “Oh, Roscoe? Don’t mind him. His brain rattles around like a BB in
a boxcar, but he means well.”

  “Jeremiah,” Castillo said, nodding back in Micah’s direction. “this is my associate, Micah. He’s going to help me with the transport of our goods.”

  “Pleasure, Micah,” Jeremiah said. “Speaking of goods, what were you after?”

  “I’d like to get my hands on some ARs,” Castillo said. “Maybe even something that goes boom, if you got it.”

  “We definitely have something like that, compadre,” Bennett chimed in. Jeremiah glared at him, causing the man to stand up and walk toward the vanity.

  “Yes, what numb nuts over there was trying to tell you is we have some things which can cause an explosion. How big just depends on your wallet.” Bennett’s face slowly reddened.

  “Care to show me?”

  “Sure, I just need to see some money first.”

  Castillo brought his hand to his chest and opened his mouth in jest. “You don’t think I’m good for it? That hurts, Jeremiah.”

  “I know you are, Castillo, but I can’t let my men think we operate on a give first, take later basis. Bozo back there would cost me a fortune.” Bennett continued to get redder in the face and paced. “Show me what you’ve got to play with today and I’ll give you an idea of what we might be able to do.”

  “Fair enough. Micah, go grab the cash.”

  Micah opened the door and forced his way past Roscoe. He strode down the walkway and turned the corner as though he were going to the Impala. Instead, he removed his pistol from its holster, kept it behind his back, and retraced his steps.

  “Back for more?” Roscoe asked, trying to sound some sort of way that he hoped was intimidating. He hated everything about selling to anyone that didn’t meet his vision of the ideal human, but he was at least smart enough to know the decisions in this arena weren’t his to make.

  “Get inside, dipshit,” Micah said, bringing the gun out from behind his back and aiming at Roscoe’s head as the distance between them shrank to nothing.

  “What the…?”

  “You heard me,” Micah replied. He waited for Roscoe to agree to his demands. The door opened and he could hear the confusion in Jeremiah’s voice. That same uncertainty quickly devolved to chaos as Micah pulled the trigger, sending a slug through Roscoe’s head. The brawny man slumped against the door and Micah rushed in.

  “What the fuck is this shit?” Jeremiah jumped up but quickly dropped at the sight of two pistols pointed in his direction.

  “Sit down, friend,” Castillo said, a sly grin on his face. “We’ve come to relieve you of your property. Consider it reparations for all the times your badged brothers have taken what’s mine.”

  “Come again?”

  “Open the fucking lockers, dipshit,” Micah said sternly.

  “Look, let’s just calm down,” Jeremiah pleaded, “and back things up a hot minuto.”

  Castillo raised his pistol slightly, aligning it with center mass, and fired five times. The first round struck Jeremiah in the chest. Each subsequent round traveled higher north, the last bullet obliterating his orbital bone. His body came to rest, spreadeagled across the opposite side of the bed. Blood poured out of him like candy from a burst pinata.

  “Oh shit,” Bennett muttered. He moved; an exit attempt futile, but the only option he thought worthwhile given the current situation. He’d had a revolver in a holster on his hip, but he knew better than most how scared he would be to use it on anything other than a paper silhouette, so he had stowed it for safekeeping when he first came into the room. Fight or flight forced his hands and his legs to move, but a shot rang out and stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “Not another inch,” Micah said.

  “Bennett, was it?” Castillo opted to play the good cop role; the irony not lost on him.

  “Y-yes,” Bennett replied, his voice all but a whisper.

  “I don’t suppose you could open these lockers up for me, could you?” The gears were turning, thoughts competing with one another for supremacy. It was all Castillo could do not to just shoot the weak man. His desire to access the contents of the lockers and safe with minimal effort won out in the end. “I can make it worth your while.”

  “You’ll let me live?”

  “Sure. Sure, yes, if you get these lockers open, and that safe, we will let you walk out of those doors unharmed.”

  Bennett was apprehensive, but sensible options were something he was presently in short supply of. He stood up slowly and approached the first locker, fiddling with the padlock. A moment later, the lock fell to the ground, and the doors opened. This went on until each locker was open.

  Castillo stared in disbelief at the weaponry within. It was his first solid look at the contents. “You guys got any bags? Anything to carry all this shit in?”

  “Ye-yessum,” Bennett said, fumbling over his words as he walked over beside the bed. Though he felt somewhat terrified at the onset of the current predicament, the shock of it all was slowly wearing off. Like a snake shedding its skin while simultaneously searching for the optimum time to strike, Bennett’s mind was laser focused on preservation. Figuring out a way past the bullshit. A way to survive and ultimately seek retribution for the lives of his friends. Instinct took over as he grabbed hold of the revolver he had tucked underneath the frame. In his mind’s eye, the result of him raising the gun up for an unexpected shot or two would cause the obliteration of the men currently holding him hostage. He had failed, however, to account for the fact that Micah was no stranger to this sort of situation.

  Micah’s eyes followed Bennett throughout the course of his jaunt over to the bed. He saw the feeble man lean down and fumble with something obviously more cumbersome than a duffel bag. That Bennett stood up with a gun in hand didn’t surprise him near as much as the fact the yokel could get a shot off.

  “What the fuck?” Castillo yelled out as he rushed behind the wall separating the bathroom from the main living area.

  Plaster exploded from the wall beside Micah, causing him to duck down reflexively as he fired a pair of shots at Bennett. Only one shot hit the target, but the sound of wood and metal clacking on the ground was unmistakable. The gun was on the ground. Micah bolted over to opposite side of the bed and kicked the revolver out of Bennett’s reach. “Stupid move.”

  “Just do it already. Fucking kill me, you piece of shit,” Bennett said, spitting blood in Micah’s direction. The first shot struck the wall near where his head had been, but the second shot had punctured his abdomen. Death would come for him swiftly if medical attention wasn’t able to be administered with the utmost haste.

  Castillo stomped over and grabbed hold of Bennett’s collar. He yanked it up and snarled, “first things first, comprende?” If there was one thing Castillo hated, it was feeding into stereotypes. The man trembling before him was too far gone, literally and figuratively, for any hope of change. Toying with him in his last moments on Earth felt like a better way to channel his anger. “You’re going to give us the combination to that safe over there. If you don’t, I’m going to make damn sure whatever time you have left on this rock is so miserable you’ll be begging me to end it.”

  “Better get to torturing me,” Bennett said, spitting out more blood. “Cause I ain’t telling you a damn thing.” Castillo punched him in the face. “Even if I knew the code, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Castillo said, a hint of concern in his voice. “He’s got to be bluffing, right? Right?”

  Micah felt the world around him go quiet, as though he briefly began to both exist and not exist, all at once. It was an unnerving sensation. One he wanted no part of. Just as he wound back down, coming to grips with what was taking place in front of him, the shrill whoop of sirens pierced the air off in the distance. “Cops,” he muttered to no one as much as to himself. “We’ve got to get out of here, Jimmy. Now!”

  “We need that damn code. I want whatever’s in that safe.”

  “Fuck the code a
nd fuck the safe. Let’s just grab what we can and get out of here before we make the five-o’clock news.”

  “You can just leave me here,” Bennett suggested. “I’ll be dead before the cops show up.”

  “Nice try,” Micah said. He shot Bennett in the head and rushed over to the lockers, grabbing hold of everything he could. There was a bag folded and stuffed up in a corner. He opened it up and filled it to the seams.

  Castillo stood stupefied before gradually coming to terms with the situation and joining Micah. “Fucking cops, always ruining a good thing.”

  “He would never talk. You know that, right?” Micah couldn’t help but feel a bit of contempt for the way Castillo was handling the fact that things hadn’t gone as planned. That he didn’t account for this exact possibility was downright disappointing. Something pulled Micah to action. A notion that perhaps his action was necessary to prevent this same thing from playing out in the future. But he brushed it away.

  When both men had a pair of duffel bags full to the brim, they stood up and walked toward the front door. A pounding on the bathroom wall stopped them in their tracks. “Let me out of here!” The words sounded muffled, as though the person on the other side of the drywall were screaming in vain through walls a few feet thick.

  Chapter 42

  “Let’s go, Micah,” Castillo said, one foot out the door.

  “No, you get the car. I’ll meet you down the street, near the gas station.”

  “Are you nuts? Those cops catch you and you’re as good as dead.”

  “I’ll be fine, trust me.”

  “Suit yourself,” Castillo relented. “Give me one of those bags, though. Just in case your dumbass gets caught, I’d like to make sure most of the goods are with yours truly.”

  “Thanks for the concern.”

  Castillo put the strap of the duffel around his torso like a backpack and ran. The pounding continued, though the intensity faded with each passing barrage. Micah cautiously approached the bathroom door. He turned the knob and pushed the door back into the room. Whatever he had expected to see, he felt certain that a young girl with torn clothes locked to the back of the toilet was low on the totem pole of possibilities.