Allies

by Wolf Riedel

  Max had been running back and forth depositing little twigs on his Mickey Mouse blanket—Mickey without Minnie; Max loved Mickey but absolutely hated Minnie Mouse. They had pointed out to Max how neat the grass was kept and he had immediately made it his mission to search for and remove any stray twigs that may have fallen from the trees. To this point, the pile in front of Kristin had grown to fourteen with no lessening of enthusiasm. They’d fortunately convinced him to stop picking up the hard, slippery leaves that had rained down from the canopy; there were several million of those scattered about.

  “It’s a nice day,” Kristin said leaning back on her elbows.

  Mark followed her gaze up to blue sky, empty of even the tiniest cloud. The temperature was well on its way to eighty with the barest hint of a cooling breeze.

  “Gonna get hot and humid,” he observed.

  “You’re being a glass half empty kind of guy right now,” she observed.

  Mark held his peace. He was still having trouble shedding the images from the last autopsy. Days like this helped but it was going to take time; quite some time yet.

  He leaned back as well and reached for his Coke Zero. He’d permitted himself a beer with lunch but one was his limit when he’d need to drive again later.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Mark swore and pulled his vibrating cell phone out of his pocket.

  “Winters,” he said.

  “Mark? Lucky. You got a minute?”

  “Well I’m just lying here with my wife on a blanket on a grassy slope making passionate love. But yeah. I’ve got a little time.”

  Mark looked at Kristin who’d given him a dirty look and then stuck her tongue out at him. He covered the handset and mouthed the words, It’s business.

  “Sure it is,” she said and pinched him.

  “What can I do for you,” Mark replied.

  Lucky took the cue. “Someone with you?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ve got something new. We need to meet. You, me and Tony.”

  “Give Tony a call. You guys set up the details and have Tony slot me in.”

  CHAPTER 23

  W Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, Florida

  Sunday 11 Mar 07 0155 hrs EST

  Tuffy liked his new ride; a 2001 Accura Integra that had been quickly made available at Meraz’s order. The car had been freshly stolen the night before and had been slated for chop work unlike others which were slated for export to South America in containers. The Integra had been due to be chopped because its powerful engine could be easily swapped into a light Honda Civic thus making the smaller car an excellent street racer. Given a last-second reprieve, this Integra had been given a quick sanitization; a replacement VIN, new tags and some doctored title documents thanks to a long time DMV contact. Maybe later it would be swapped out for something a bit more legal or less traceable.

  He’d got the car late in the evening but still in plenty of time to set up surveillance at the old man’s crib; a two-storey bar next to a third-tier, scruffy motel and just across from a series of strip malls. Here, in the mall’s parking lot, Tuffy was taking a break in the car after having just taken a walk around the neighborhood.

  The bar’s lower floor was where most of the old man’s conventional business action took place. Besides the usual drinking and bar food activities, the old man’s girls who had reached legal drinking age, plied their trade pushing watered cocktails and a wide variety of side action. The upper floor was the old man’s living quarters where he and his vieja stayed with a select girl or two; the other girls lived and carried on the more complex aspects of their trade in the neighboring motel.

  Tuffy looked at his watch. Almost two; another hour to closing time yet, he thought.

  He’d surveilled the building. First he’d walked through the bar quickly when a large group of pseudo-bikers had gone in just after midnight. Being seventeen got in the way of entering drinking establishments but when you didn’t try to get a drink you could risk a quick, discrete walk through to the john, hopefully without being noticed. He’d taken note though. The old man and his bitch were both in the bar looking after business.

  He’d left unobtrusively and made his way around to the back of the building. The upper apartment’s main entrance was through a front door at street level near the bar’s entrance. That door was locked. Another entrance was by way of a wooden stairway in the back. There was no parking lot back here; just a small yard and some bushes which screened the building from the backyards of a number of bungalows behind. The bar’s patrons parked in a small lot to the side of the bar, the hotel’s parking lot or in the strip mall across the street.

  Despite the noise in the bar, the backyard was relatively quiet, as quiet as could be expected for a building on a busy street in a city on a Saturday night.

  The stairs led up to a porch that ran the entire width of the building on its upper storey and gave a view into the apartment through the glazed back door and three separate windows.

  In all the time that Tuffy had worked with the old man he’d never been invited up to the old man’s apartment. Its inside layout was a mystery to him.

  Fortunately for him, the apartment’s occupants knew how to turn a light on but seemed to have difficulty comprehending the concept of how to turn it off. The door and windows blazed with light and Tuffy, slowly and carefully, made his way along the porch from one end to the other and peered inside.

  On the west side of the building an open concept great room let him see all the way from the kitchen in the back through to a living room at the front of the apartment; dirty dishes were stacked throughout the kitchen area but otherwise the space seemed empty.

  On the other side of the house were two bedrooms. The first was empty with a mussed up bed. The room’s contents—discarded clothes on the bed, knickknacks scattered about and toiletries occupying all horizontal surfaces—made him conclude it was a woman’s room; a very messy woman’s room.

  The other bedroom was occupied. By a girl, who Tuffy estimated was probably fourteen or fifteen, lying on the bed watching MTV on a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. On the night table beside her bed was a half empty bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and a packet of beef jerky. The room was considerably less disorganized than the first. From the lack of any personal touches in the room, Tuffy was left with the impression that the girl was perhaps not a full-time resident here.

  The two bedrooms had doors on their far side revealing a hallway and portions of at least one further doorway indicating that the apartment’s bathrooms and at least one more bedroom, that Tuffy couldn’t quite see into, were on the front side of the building.

  Gently, Tuffy tried the back door. Locked. He gave the door a closer inspection. The lock looked flimsy and he concluded that it wouldn’t take much to break in. Even if there was a deadbolt, the door’s frame looked inadequate. In the trunk of his car he had a small six pound sledge with a sixteen inch handle that he’d nicknamed My Leetle Friend. He was sure it would persuade this door to pop open with one strike if push came to shove.

  Tuffy had returned to his car to wait for the bar’s three o’clock closing time and then maybe another half hour for things to settle down.

  As he finished checking his watch he noted an unusual amount of activity as the bar’s patrons started to stream out.

  What the fuck!

  Over the next ten to fifteen minutes the bar emptied of patrons and then its staff.

  Shit, thought Tuffy and then pulled out his cell phone to look at the phone’s network managed clock for confirmation. Three twenty-two. He’d forgotten that Daylight Savings Time had taken effect at two that night.

  Across the street the old man and his woman left the bar, locked the door behind them and made their way up to their apartment by way of its street entrance.

  I’ll give them twenty minutes and then check the lights, he thought.

  In the end it had taken more like forty minutes before the last light had gone out.

  Tuffy
had come prepared.

  He’d bought new, cheap sneakers at a Payless, and a cheap, long-sleeved shirt and slacks at a Walmart to change into before doing the job. At a Family Dollar he’d picked up a three-pack of rubber latex gloves and a packet of disposable shower caps. At a Target a black balaclava. At a Home Depot, a bundle of heavy-duty, double-locking nylon cable ties with a one hundred and seventy-five pound tensile strength, a sixty-foot roll of duct tape and a retractable carpet fitter’s knife. All had been paid for in cash and all were tucked into a back-pack. Then of course there was his Leetle Friend and the Glock he’d gotten from the Lewises’ house.

  The trick was to get in fast enough that Adolfo wouldn’t have enough time to get out the gun he’d undoubtedly have in his bedside table. He doubted that the bitch had a gun but he couldn’t be sure and started to debate with himself as to whether he shouldn’t simply wait for tomorrow night, break into the apartment while they were downstairs and then surprise them when they returned upstairs.

  He didn’t like his own indecisiveness. Previously it had been easy to criticize the old man’s lack of planning. Now that he was finding himself criticizing his own, he felt his confidence slowly drain away.

  “Fuck this noise,” he finally muttered to himself. “Get the fuck in there and get it done.”

  He’d decided to take one final look into the apartment from the upper back porch. Through the dim light, he could make out that the old man was in the young girl’s room; both were sleeping. Alfonso’s woman was asleep in her own bed with her window open. Now there’s an opportunity! he thought.

  Tuffy slipped on a shower cap and pulled the balaclava over top of that. No sense taking a chance on hair fibers. He pulled on a pair of the latex gloves and gently eased the screen out of the window. With the Glock in his left hand and the sledge in his right, he slipped smoothly through the waist-high window.

  The woman didn’t stir.

  Once inside he eased his way gently to the side of her bed and tapped her on the head with the sledge with what he estimated was just enough force to put her out. If she died it didn’t matter much but if she stayed alive, at least for a while, that could be helpful. He quickly zip tied her hands and feet and then moved on to the other room.

  There had been no noise other than the sledge’s low thunk and the old man and the girl were still sleeping soundly

  The successful experiment in tapping the woman had emboldened Tuffy to give it another try and with a sharp rap he smacked Alfonso upside the head. This time, however, the victim reacted sharply and lashed out, not enough to harm Tuffy, but sufficiently to wake the slumbering girl beside him who sat up with a start. She tried to scream. Her mouth opened and closed twice but no sound came out.

  “If you want to live, shut up,” Tuffy growled at her. He put the sledge down next to Alfonso’s spasming body and quickly zip tied his hands and feet.

  “Turn over,” he ordered the girl. She obeyed, her body wracked by sobs. Again he zip tied hands and feet and then he went on to wrap the duct tape around her head to tape her mouth shut. Another wrap went around her eyes and ears. He turned his attention back to Alfonso taping his mouth and then went back to the other bedroom to gag the woman as well.

  Stealthily, Tuffy went on to secure the apartment by checking the other rooms to ensure that there was no one else present. The master bedroom was empty. For whatever reason Alfonso had decided to sleep in the girl’s room rather than bring her to him.

  Maybe he wanted to keep his sheets clean, thought Tuffy.

  It took but a few minutes to drag Alfonso and his woman into the living room. He doubled up on the zip-tying and taping to ensure that neither of them could break free or make any unwanted noise. Each was zip-tied to a piece of furniture so that they would not be able to move around while he was otherwise occupied. The girl he left taped and tied to her own bed.

  Now he just needed to wait for the old man to come to. Patience and some cold compresses should do that job.

  While waiting for Alfonso to come around Tuffy had ensured that all the windows were closed and then tossed the place. He found two handguns—a revolver and a small nickel-plated automatic—and a shotgun. He’d contemplated keeping them but eventually decided he’d had no idea what forensic history these items had; he’d toss them in the Bay later. It wasn’t as if it was hard to get guns. There were also four cell phones, two computers and close to eight hundred dollars in cash; not enough to represent the bar’s take for the night. That was probably in the wall-safe that Tuffy had found in the closet. He’d see about getting the combination for that and then handing the proceeds over to Meraz; he wasn’t about to rip the raza off. It would, however, give the cops a nice alternative motive for what was going to happen here tonight.

  The woman came to first, moaning and trying to roll upright. Tuffy ignored her and waited for the old man. The girl had, in the meantime, settled down to a continuous sniffling in her own room.

  It had taken the better part of a half an hour and frequent splashes with glasses of water but finally the old man’s eyes fluttered open. Open but not yet really seeing.

  Tuffy made a mental note about using the sledge to knock someone out. Maybe I gave him a bit more than the puta; maybe he’s got a softer head, he thought. Either way, he concluded, the tool wasn’t one hundred percent reliable.

  He slapped the old man’s face.

  “Look at me!” he ordered.

  The old man looked uncomprehending. Tuffy slapped him again.

  “Look at me!” he repeated.

  The old man’s eyes locked with Tuffy’s.

  Tuffy took out the knife and sliced the tape away freeing the old man’s mouth.

  “Tuffy?” he asked.

  Tuffy sat back on his haunches. Notwithstanding the balaclava, the old man had recognized him. It wouldn’t matter.

  “Can you hear me, Alfonso?”

  The old man nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Where is the girl?” Tuffy asked.

  The old man looked around.

  “I don’t know. She was in bed with me. Where did you take her?” he asked.

  Tuffy said nothing. He put the tape back on the old man’s mouth and then rose to his feet and walked over to where his Leetle Friend was sitting on its end in the middle of the room, its handle sticking straight up in the air. He grabbed the handle and walked over to where the old man’s lady was lying on the floor tied to a table. He stood over her and looked the old man in the eye and then in one smooth motion swung the sledge in an arc to smash down on the woman’s tied up ankles.

  Her body arched and thrashed but the duct tape around her head that sealed her mouth stifled most of the screams.

  Tuffy had contemplated starting with the girl first but had eventually come to the conclusion that the old man probably didn’t give a flying fuck about her. He thought that he just might have some feelings for the older woman.

  He walked back over to the old man leaving the woman behind. Setting the now bloodier sledge back down in the middle of the floor, he sauntered back to the old man and again hunkered down on his haunches. He again pulled off the tape.

  “Where’s the girl?” he asked again.

  The old man was sobbing. It seemed that he did have some feelings for the woman.

  “I killed her,” he sobbed.

  Tuffy replaced the tape, rose again and again picked up the sledge by the handle. This time the head came down on her left knee, shattering it.

  Moving slowly and deliberately he set down the sledge and returned to Alfonso removing the tape and hunkering down next to him. The sobs were almost, but not entirely, uncontrollable now.

  “She has many body parts, man, and I have all night,” said Tuffy. “At some point, though, I’ll simply smash in her head and then start on you.” Tuffy’s voice was steady; hard. He stared into Alfonso’s eyes; saw hopelessness there.

  “Where’s the girl?” he said.

  The round trip had taken an hour.
Ten minutes of travel time each way and forty minutes establishing that the girl was not where the old man had said she was.

  Tuffy walked back into the apartment without a word; the old man had been struggling to get free overturning some of the furniture but the nylon cable ties had done their job. The woman hadn’t moved much. Apparently the pain from her injuries had kept her relatively still. Tuffy checked the bleeding and found that there was relatively little. The sledge had mangled the bones inside but had opened up the skin only where some bone splinters had punctured through.

  Good to know, he thought.

  Tuffy had no illusions about his abilities but he knew he was good. He knew he could think better and more clearly than others. He also knew he was young and didn’t have much experience. This is why he had initially been so glad to be paired with the old man; to learn and develop. It had been the greatest disappointment of his young life to find that the old man had few talents and abilities beyond running a line of whores. His reputation as a go-to hit man had been greatly exaggerated. In many ways Tuffy had felt betrayed by the old man. A betrayal that was beyond the old man’s understanding or even his awareness.

  “You lied to me, old man,” Tuffy said in an even voice.

  “I didn’t lie, man. If she wasn’t there than someone has moved her without telling me.” There was desperation in his voice.

  Tuffy walked over, picked up the sledge and in one smooth stroke brought it down squarely on the woman’s head. The sickening crunch made it clear to the old man that the next blow would rain down on him; there was nothing further that Tuffy could do to hurt her more. A sob escaped his lips. Tuffy couldn’t be sure whether it represented regrets for the death of the woman or fear of what would happen to him next. Fear would serve Tuffy better.