Bad Penny (15 page)

13
Bang Bang

FRANK WOKE UP sometime before his two cycles had ended. Tony was slumped against him. The woman looked like she was sleeping too. Then he realized the basement was not as dark as it had been before. He looked up at the boarded windows; there was no daylight coming in around the edges. He looked around.

Over in the corner, the older girl was on her knees, rocking back and forth, speaking with a hushed voice. She had turned her little flashlight on and placed it on the cement floor so it shone upon what looked liked a small greeting card that had been set against the wall.

Frank peered closer.

The image on the card was of a person. No, not of a person—a skeleton clothed in a robe of stars with roses and skulls at her feet.

Santísima Muerte, the Most Holy Saint Death, whom Jesus had tattooed on his shoulder, with that vine of skulls and roses curling up beneath her feet. The saint to whom those in drug trafficking, kidnapping, and crime set up shrines and made offerings, rubbing their candles over their limbs and face and hair and then setting them alight at her feet. Of course, Frank had been told that many in both police and military in Mexico were counted among the faithful as well and asked for blessings on their weapons and ammunition. The Catholic church had officially denounced her, calling it all a devil-worshipping cult. But it’s hard to argue with the narco prosperity. To those who believed, Santa Muerte was a powerful saint, able to grant favors no other saint could.

The girl picked up a book of matches and tore one off. She held it between the strike strip and front flap and pulled. The little flame burned into the darkness.

One of the little girls said, “No creo que nos puede oír.” I don’t think she can hear us.

“Why would she listen?” The little boy asked in Spanish. “We don’t have candles or wine. We don’t even have apples. We have nothing to offer.”

“Shush,” the older girl said. She held the little flame in front of the card and rocked. “Doña Bella,” she said in hushed tones. “You are beautiful and kind. We believe in your powers. We have no candles. We have no cigarettes to light and share with you. Please do not forget us, sweet mother. Please help little Rosa to heal. Do not forget us, please.”

By this time the match had burned down close to her fingers. She laid the remnant on the cement floor at the foot of the card and waved the smoke of the match toward the image on the card.

“She helps the Gorozas,” the little boy whispered. “She’s not going to help us.”

“Do not let her hear you say such things,” the older girl reprimanded.

The flame flickered and then burned out.

One of the little girls sniffled.

“It’s okay,” the older girl said in soothing tones.

“It still hurts,” the littlest girl whispered.

“I think he might be too injured to ask for you tomorrow,” the older girl whispered. “Did you see his face? He went to the hospital. Maybe he’ll be in too much pain to want to touch you. Even if he takes Viagra.”

Viagra?

A small point of rage filled Frank’s heart. Was that Jesus’s game—a transportation racket with a continual supply of victims to prey upon en route?

The little girl sniffled again.

Frank’s mind went back to a warlord they’d made contact with in Colombia. A man who their contacts had said could lead them to one of the carnales, one of the cartel big shots. His mind went back to tin hut at the edge of a camp in the Colombian jungle. The warlord had led them to the hut; he’d removed the chains that held the door closed, then pulled the door back. Sunlight had streamed in to illuminate five little girls huddled on the dirt floor. “Pick one, Gringo,” he had said with a smile. “They are fresh. No disease. I think you’ll like the one there with the big eyes.”

Frank and the other Special Forces men with him had turned down his offer. But they did not forget him. A week later a cartel hit squad came in and decimated the place. They’d received a strange anonymous tip that the warlord had been working with the Gringos.

“It won’t be forever,” the older girl said. “We only have to work off our debt. And then you can be an American.”

“I don’t want to be an American,” the little girl said in the darkness. “I just want to go home.”

“It’s only for a little while,” the older girl said.

“I can never go back home,” the little boy said. “Not now. If my father found out, he would kill me. The other boys would stone me like a diseased dog.”

The cold rage inside Frank rose and settled along his jaw. It ran down his neck, across his shoulders, and wrapped his chest. It wrapped him from head to toe.

He shifted his position, and the bench squeaked.

The children froze, their faces full of alarm.

“Qué onda?” Frank asked. What’s going on?

The alarm gave way to fear.

A beat passed. Then another. Finally, the older girl replied in an even tone, “Sometimes, Rosa, she has nightmares.”

“She’s hurt?”

None of them moved.

“She’s fine,” the older girl said.

They didn’t know who he was. And every trafficker who had anything to do with them would have told them they couldn’t trust anyone. They would have told them that other prisoners, the police—they’d all be in cahoots with the captors. And if they were clean, the traffickers would have told them the good cops would figure the kids were in cahoots with the traffickers. Either way, they’d sell them out, kill them, or worse.

Frank said, “I had dreams as well, niños.” The image of Jesus and that little girl in her pink pajamas rose in his mind and made his blood boil. “I believe Santa Muerte has spoken to me.”

He settled back against the wall. Santa Muerte had spoken loud and clear.

The woman at the end of the bench was awake and watching. She gave Frank a fierce look he couldn’t read.

“What’s your name?” Frank asked.

She said, “You can call me Carmen.”

But it wasn’t. That was clear. Why would she give him a false name?

Plenty of reasons, but finding out why wasn’t the mission. Frank looked down at Tony. Tony was the mission. But how could he leave these children?

* * *

It was sometime after seven a.m. when the first folks upstairs began to move about—Ed and one other guy from the sound of their footsteps and voices. They turned on the TV, ate something, ran the kitchen sink, then left the house. Moments later a vehicle started and drove away. Another hour went by, and then someone else got up, went to the bathroom, ran the sink. The water whooshed down the pipes in the basement. Others awoke. Someone else made a phone call. Someone else started up the microwave. It dinged loud and clear as a bell.

Frank checked his zip ties, picked up the one supposedly securing him to the bench and re-attached it. He rolled his shoulders and arched his back for a stretch.

By this time Tony was awake. He said he had to pee something mighty. Frank told him to hold it. Tony groaned as a few of the girls used the bathroom and got drinks of water straight from the tap at the sink.

Things settled down for a while, and then someone approached the door at the top of the stairs and worked the lock. It slid open with a loud click. The one naked light bulb in the ceiling flipped on. The door to the basement swung open.

“Buenas días,” Shotgun said.

He came down first, holding his weapon. He was bright-eyed. Bug-eyed, actually. He was definitely riding something in his veins. Not very smart of them to use what they sold, especially not meth. The best drug organizations had a bit more discipline. Maybe a little weed and coke now and again, but never meth.

Jesus came next, his face all bandaged up. The bruising around his eyes was nice and purple. Behind him came a third man Frank hadn’t seen before. He too was Hispanic. A real stumpy guy full of hard muscle. He wore a white tank top shirt with a pair of dark sunglasses hanging from the scoop of the neckline. He wore a gold bracelet and khaki pants. His dark hair was short and tidy.

Frank looked over at the older girl. He glanced at the woman at the end of the bench. If they were going to give him up, now was probably the time. Shotgun was about ten feet away. If Frank was fast, he might be able to get to him before he got his gun up. But by then Jesus and Stumpy would have pulled their weapons.

Jesus said, “Take her upstairs. I’ll have some of that after I finish down here.”

Stumpy walked over to the kids on the mattresses. They all looked up at him with apprehension, but the little one hung her head, her face blank.

Stumpy snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

She looked at Frank, her face flat, her eyes full of death.

Stumpy turned, Mr. Sunglasses, and walked toward the stairs. The little girl rose and followed, a slight child in pink pajamas, brightly colored elastics holding her dark hair in two braids that had come a bit loose during the night. Stumpy’s steps were heavy on the stairs. The light tap of her step could barely be heard.

When she got to the top, she stopped. “Por favor,” she said. Please.

Stumpy raised his hand as if to strike her. “Shut up. You have debts. Go wipe yourself down with the lotion and get ready.”

The two of them moved into another room up above, his big steps following her little ones.

Shotgun turned to Frank, “Sleep well, dick job?”

Frank said, “No, I had nightmares about your teeth.”

Shotgun smiled.

“Agh,” Frank groaned. “Of course, you aren’t half as ugly as Jesus. I think his mother must have been one of those donkeys they use in the Tijuana sex shows.”

“You are not very smart, are you,” Jesus said and pulled on his leather gloves.

“No, I’m real dumb,” Frank said. “But I know you’re going to let me out of here. I want to talk to Ed.”

“Ed went out,” Jesus said.

Frank had to make the sale, so he widened his eyes just a bit.

“That’s right,” Jesus said and pulled his Benchmade knife out of his pocket. He flipped the lever, and the four-inch, razor-sharp spear blade shot out and locked into place.

Frank decided a charge with the toothbrush really wasn’t the right tactic in this situation. The old maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy had been proven true yet again. There was another maxim that said: when in stress, men don’t rise to the occasion—they fall back to their level of training. He wondered what level of training Shotgun and Jesus had.

Frank put some worry in his voice. “Look man. What’s between me and you isn’t personal. It was business. You had my boy.”

Jesus smiled. He transferred the knife to his left hand and approached.

“Dude,” Frank said. “What are you doing?”

“You’re going to pay me.”

“I got a little stash at home. We can work this out; just calm down.”

“You’re going to pay me in blood.” He raised the blade in his left hand up and across to his other shoulder for a backward stroke. It was a good powerful move. One more step and he’d bring the knife down in a slashing arc across Frank’s face. It would cut deep, slicing open his cheek, maybe slashing an eye. If Jesus hit it just right, that scalpel blade just might slice right through Frank’s nose, cleave it right in two, which wasn’t going to help Frank with the women folk at all.

Jesus took that last step, his eyes full of satisfaction.

“Dude!” Frank yelled, then lunged forward and up. The zip ties holding Frank released him like he was Superman.

Jesus flinched back; his eyes went wide.

Frank grabbed the forearm with the knife. With the other hand he struck Jesus in the groin once, twice. Then Frank slammed his big fist with all his power right into Jesus’s bandaged face.

Jesus cried out, stumbled back, but Frank kept a hold of that knife arm and stepped into him, as close as any couple on Dancing with the Stars. They did a half rumba for two steps.

Shotgun raised his weapon, a little uncertain, but Frank turned Jesus so that he was between them. Then he reached around behind and grabbed the nine millimeter out of Jesus’s waistband. It felt heavy, fully loaded. He brought it up. It was a Glock 19. No safety.

Shotgun saw what was going to happen, but he was too slow.

Frank had shot hundreds of thousands of rounds. The pistol was like another part of him. A long lost part. It felt good in his hand. It felt right. He’d missed the feel of a couple of pounds of steel in his hand. Or polymer, which this was. He pulled the trigger twice. A loud bang-bang hammered the air in the room.

Shotgun stumbled back, two holes blooming blood on his chest. He fell to the concrete floor, the shotgun smacking into the concrete.

Frank slammed Jesus in the side of the head with the butt of his pistol, still heavy with rounds. Then he hooked his leg behind him and shoved him over it, tripping him and sending him reeling to the floor. Frank shot him in the chest.

Shotgun groaned. He rolled over on his side and brought the shotgun around.

Frank still had men upstairs; he didn’t want to waste another round. Instead, he strode over, kicked Shotgun in the jaw, then reached down and took the weapon from him.

“Frank!” Tony yelled.

Frank turned. Jesus was getting up, blood staining his shirt, murder in his eyes. He tossed his knife to the floor and pulled another pistol out of his front pocket. Two points to Jesus for carrying a spare. But he was still going to lose this game.

Frank raised the shotgun with his right hand, took one step to the left so the girls weren’t directly in the line of fire and pulled the trigger. The shotgun boomed and just about kicked right out of his hand. The buckshot took Jesus in a glancing blow to the lower side of his gut. A number of pellets struck the wall and sent chips of concrete flying.

Jesus raised his pistol.

Frank pumped the gun. The spent red shell ejected out in an arc. Frank slid in the new shell and this time took better aim. The shotgun banged again, so loud in this concrete place that the sound felt like it had shattered bones in his ear. It blasted its payload into the center of Jesus’s chest. Nine pellets of lead, a couple probably churning right through him,

The air filled with smoke and the smell of burned gunpowder. Frank’s ears rang. Surely everyone down here was now deaf. He turned to make sure Shotgun wasn’t rising again, and found him on his back gasping. Frank looked at Tony for any sign he’d been hit by rogue pellets. “You okay?” Frank shouted.