by R. B. Schow
Taser darts deployed, sticking in his side, and then he got a taste of lightning. His muscles grabbed hold of his bones, stopping his surge of violence. He toppled over like a plank but the crackling of electricity and the pain didn’t stop. When it finally did stop, he thought he smelled burned flesh but that could also have been his imagination misfiring.
The guards put a beating on him like they’d never done before, yet he was smart. When he could move again, he protected his balls, his fingers, and his teeth. He could deal with bruising, a concussion, or any other number of injuries, but he wanted to keep his teeth, he liked his fingers operational, and no one in their right mind likes getting kicked in the nuts.
When they were done, he rolled over, coughed up so much blood he nearly choked, then said, “Guard.”
No one answered, but he heard movement outside the door.
“Guard!” he bellowed.
“What you sack of shit? What?”
That’s when he cleared his throat and started singing the CCR classic again. “Down on the corner, out on the street, Willie and the Poor Boys are playin’, bring a nickel, tap your feet.”
“Shut up,” he growled, slamming his hand on the door.
“You don’t need a penny, just to hang around. But if you’ve got a nickel, won’t you lay your money down.”
From the other side of the door came a banging, hateful ruckus that made Atlas stop singing long enough to start laughing.
“You going to pick up the teeth in here?” he howled. “‘Cause I don’t want to step on them next time I beat one of your asses, you bunch of sissy clowns!”
He started laughing so hard he couldn’t stop himself, and then when he laughed and cried himself into a fit, the last of his energy waned and he managed to drift off to sleep. By then, the guards had already left. When he woke next, it was to the sound of the door opening.
His eyes creaked open, the light hurting them. He lifted a hand to shield himself from the glow.
“Warden,” Atlas said, sitting up. “Well, isn’t this an unpleasant surprise?”
Another light hit him in the eyes, a flashlight this time. And then another lit him up as well and he smiled. On either side of the warden, these two men looked like they had tasers as well as flashlights.
“You’re becoming a larger problem than I know how to deal with here. Do you realize the guard whose jaw you broke has two kids?”
“I have one. He has two. What’s your point?”
“You’re just six feet and an inch worth of smashed assholes. No one cares about you. No one will ever come and check on you because you’ve done nothing but wreck lives,” Fabian Dicampli said. “So your daughter is missing, so what? Lots of people don’t get to see their kids. But my guard? I liked him seeing his kids. They kept him sane so he could deal with you cocksucking fucking toilet bugs five days a week.”
“Warden Dicampli,” he said as if announcing him on stage. “The man with so many dirty secrets.”
“Save the high school head games for people who care. What do I have to do to make you stop this constant onslaught of stupidity and violence?”
“I want to talk to Leopold,” he said.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you otherwise he would have called,” Dicampli said.
“I bet you blocked those calls, didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Because he’d cut you in half and feed you to the political vultures. A guy like you, with secrets like yours, you’d get your shit pushed in so hard, your permanent pocket would be a bullseye for every faggot and prison wolf in the joint.”
“Shut up,” Dicampli barked.
“They’d have you making tortillas in here 24/7. Straight guys, gay guys, and booty bandits…they’d turn that butthole of yours into the prison cum dumpster—”
The man struck Atlas so hard, spit actually left his mouth. He’d never had the spit slapped out of him before, but by this punk bitch, that just happened.
“Touch me again,” he growled.
“Hit him with the juice,” Dicampli ordered.
Right before that happened, Atlas managed to catch the warden in the chin with a stiff jab, rocking his head back. Before the warden’s head bobbed back for a second shot, four electrified darts from two different guns pierced him in the chest and stomach.
When the crackling died down and Atlas lay there stiffer than a grizzly’s pecker, drool leaked out of the corners of his mouth, the saliva pooling on the concrete below.
To the other guards, Dicampli said, “If this rodent dies on my watch, I’ll take the heat.”
“He might die tonight,” one of the guards said.
On his way out, Dicampli turned and said, “If you can hear me, maggot, you’re not ever going to see the light of day. As long as I’m the warden here, this is your new home. Get used to it.”
The paralysis broke just as the guards were ejecting their spent dart packs.
He groaned a little, trying to make some sounds. One of the guards leaned forward and said, “What did you say, asshole?”
“Down on the corner…”
He couldn’t quite finish the tune. Not before the other guard kicked him in the face. After that, he couldn’t tell the difference between being unconscious and every other day in the hole. Then again, it was just as well. The warden was right. No one cared. He had only wrecked lives.
He felt himself drifting off, or passing out—he wasn’t sure which. But as he felt himself being dragged down into the abyss, a single name lifted into his mind: Kaylee Barnes. He had saved her from sex traffickers in St. Petersburg and Ukraine, from a horrible life of abuse, and most likely from being overdosed, murdered, or suicided. That counted for something, didn’t it?
At least I’ve done one good thing, he thought to himself.
Chapter Sixteen
ESTELLA BACCARIN
Estella flew into El Paso International Airport late that night. She waited half an hour for Yergha’s flight to arrive, then she met him at baggage claim where she gave him a big hug and said, “Glad your bones didn’t give out on you completely, old man.”
Yergha wasn’t that old, but he knew she could be mean, so he took her biting humor in stride. “Does it burn when you pee?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, it does,” she laughed. “Before we get into that, though, I got a text from Leopold. He says we need to see some guy named Richie Frank.”
“Who is that?” Yergha asked.
“Big guy, funny as hell apparently, thinks the world is being overtaken by reptilians,” she said.
“Wait,” Yergha asked, deadpan, “it isn’t?”
Estella laughed at his humor. “Whatever he says, just go with it. Leo said he’s the best arms dealer in this area, but as far as cans of Coke in a six-pack go”—she said, tapping her skull—“word is he’s got three or four at best.”
“You Americans are hard to understand, even after all this time.”
“I’m Mexican, you asshole,” she said.
“Mexican-American.”
“Whatever. I rented us a car. It’s a subcompact.”
“So, will we be sitting close?” he asked as everyone’s luggage started to appear.
“Close enough to smell my armpits,” Estella said. “I haven’t bathed in days.”
“Just the way I like my women—fresh from the earth, none of the perfumes or dyes they use to mask their natural fragrance.”
With that, she lifted her armpit and said, “Smell.”
He did with a grin but then he gave a hearty sniff, yelped, and turned away fast. “Ya Allah, what have you done?”
“Everything on me is clean, perfumed, made to smell like flowers,” she grinned. “All my womanly parts are clean and shaved to the skin.”
“This truly is a travesty,” he said, saddened. When he got his baggage, he said, “I still have the smell of your deodorant on my nose.”
“Think of it as a warning for when you think
you want to get too close,” she said.
After they checked into the rental car company and walked out to pick up their car, they were given a bright, Easter-egg blue Chevy Spark. The tiny hatchback immediately struck her as hilarious but Yergha threw a fit. The attendant who dropped it off picked up his pace, ducking back inside the rental facility like a kid who had just stolen someone’s purse.
“What in the name of Allah is this madness?” he cursed.
“It’s a Chevy Spark.”
“My God, the color…it’s…offensive!”
“It’s Mystic Blue.”
“No,” he said, looking around for the rental attendant. “This is some kind of mistake. We are not going anywhere in this car!”
“It was either this color or Passion Fruit.”
“Anything is better than this blinding blue! What color is Passion Fruit?”
“Purple,” she said, tempering her laugh. She hadn’t realized how much she missed Yergha. He was fun to tease, almost like an older brother she secretly wanted to be around.
Shaking his head, he said, “You used to be hardcore. What happened to you?”
“I’m still hardcore, Yergha. You just wait and see.”
With Estella in the driver’s seat and Yergha in charge of directions, the two of them left El Paso’s airport on their way to see the congressman. They traveled up Airport Road, finding their way first to Sergeant Major Boulevard and then to Spur 601/Liberty Expressway.
“Who the hell calls a highway Spur 601?” Yergha asked.
“Texans.”
“Why not just call it Highway 601?” Yergha asked.
“Do I look like I’m from El Paso?”
“Maybe?” he said, more like a question. “I haven’t seen these people in the daylight yet but if they’re all as beautiful as you, I might want to stay awhile.”
Heading west on 601/Liberty Expressway, they passed a long line of chain link fencing that seemed to separate the expressway from what Yergha said was likely Biggs Field. He wasn’t the best navigator she’d ever been around. Focusing on the road ahead, Esty kept to the sixty-mile-per-hour speed limit, which Yergha said was making them a target for regular drivers and suspicious cops.
“While I’m in the driver’s seat, you need to close that shit trap of yours.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said folding his arms.
To his credit, he didn’t say another word. Not when they merged onto 54 heading north, and not until they got off on Gateway N. Boulevard. After that, he gave her more detailed directions.
“Take a left on Hercules and go under the freeway. It’s just past the pawn shop, at the light.”
She turned left, cruised under the freeway and into a four-lane road with a mix of single-story homes and commercial real estate. Mostly it was just a 7-Eleven, an Alon gas station, a US Post Office, and the Dollar General.
The end of Hercules was Magnetic Avenue, which ran either left or right.
“Take a left,” Yergha said.
“You sure?”
“One-hundred percent.”
There were more one-story homes, most of them nice looking as the glare of the headlights washed over them. On one side of the road, wooden utility poles were outfitted with phone lines and street lights while the center divider was clean looking and wide with flowering bushes of all shapes and sizes.
“Take a right up here on Titanic, by the church, and then the next left on Tonto.”
“I got it from here,” she said. “I remember looking up the address while I was waiting for you.”
When they got to Richie’s house, both of them were in awe. The one-story brick house was easily five thousand square feet with half an acre of land, up-lighting on the plush landscaping all around it, and sweeping views of the night sky from all sides.
“This isn’t exactly lying low,” Yergha said.
“Maybe he does something else for a living,” Esty replied, her lights illuminating a Lexus ES F-Sport sedan. With cobalt blue paint and the black hourglass grille, Richie Frank wasn’t hiding from anyone.
They got out of the car, looked at each other, and then Yergha said, “Maybe this is the wrong address.”
“It’s not,” said a large bearded man near the garage. “Unless you’re not Estella and Yergha. That’s you, right?”
Esty breathed a sigh of relief. “Looks like you’re keeping a low profile.”
“I’m a pillar of the community,” he said. As he walked out under the garage lights, she saw that he was six-foot-five at least with a bald head, a big beard, and a Cheshire cat grin. Spend one second in his presence and you could tell not all cylinders were synchronized or firing right.
“Oh, I bet they just love you here,” she said, looking around the neighborhood.
“Which community are you referring to?” Yergha asked. “You said you were a pillar of the community.”
“The Mountain Park community, of course.” Then, quieter, Richie said, “Unless you’re talking about other things, in which case—if that were real—I’d be upper hive for sure, a reptilian overlord with a blue chariot, which I may or may not be anyway.”
She looked at the Lexus’s customized license plate. It read: RPTLIAN.
“Alright, Overlord,” she said to the bearded man-beast. “You have some bang-bangs for us?”
“You weren’t followed, were you?” he asked.
“Not by anything on land,” she said.
He snapped his fingers hard, grinned extra-wide, and said, “That-a-girl. Follow me into the hive, but take off your shoes, unless you have holes in your socks. Do you have holes in your socks, Yergha?”
“No.”
“Estella?” he asked.
“Yes, but my shoes are staying on.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Why the hell would you have me take my shoes off in your garage?”
“It’s a sanctuary.”
“The answer is still no.”
“I respect a woman who can make up her mind,” he said.
“There are lots of us now, it’s amazing,” she said, her sense of humor as dry as the desert air.
“You know what I mean,” Richie said.
“No I don’t, but whatever.”
“You guys believe in reptilians, right?” Richie turned and asked before unlocking a decorative chest covered in dust.
“Of course,” Yergha said, exchanging a brief look with Esty.
“Then again, it depends on which species you’re referring to,” Estella countered.
Richie smiled really big again, snapped his fingers, and said, “We come in peace for sure. You especially, lady.”
“Do you have ammo?”
“Whatcha heading out and killin’?” he asked.
“Whatever needs killing when it needs it,” Esty said. “You feel me, right Overlord?”
“Like an emotional orgasm, you bet I do.”
“I like that,” Yergha said. “I feel the same way with her.”
“You just got into the city, right?” Richie asked.
Yergha nodded.
“Wasn’t talking to you, brother.”
“Yes,” Esty answered. “We just got into the city.”
“Perhaps you’d like a drink and a seat, maybe a cigar since you look like you could kick both my ass and your boyfriend’s ass, too.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.
“That’s what I thought,” Richie grinned. “We need to sit down and talk about all the reasons you’ll want to say yes to a man like me when I suggest you drop roots and join forces with a real Texan.”
“I just want the guns and the ammo Leopold asked us to come and pick up here.”
He held up his hand, sneezed so hard it sounded like gunfire, then turned back around and said, “Excuse me. It’s the dry air.” There were streamers of snot in his dyed-black mustache and beard, a slimy mess of which he wasn’t fully aware. “My own overlord, who was really just this hard-ass cuck in the car busi
ness, he said it’s always best to make a little small talk before you get onto the bigger things.”
“I don’t know what you are inferring by ‘bigger things,’ but if we’re talking about guns that shoot lead bullets, you’re on the right track.”
“I wasn’t referring to that, but if you’re going to be that way, we can be that way together.” He rubbed his beard, but the snot stuck to his fingers and pulled up looking like slime. Glancing around, panicked, he said, “Did you just see someone come in here?”
“Someone like how?” Yergha asked.
“They had to be fast, like when I sneezed.”
“That’s all your snot, Richie,” Yergha said. “You weren’t slimed if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It wasn’t,” he said, embarrassed. He wiped his hands on his pants, made sure they were clean. “Nevertheless, Leopold had specific instructions which I’ll follow to the letter.”
He reached down, opened the trunk lid, and started handing them guns, boxes of ammo, and a pair of tactical knives with sheathes they could attach to their belts. After that, he pulled out another box, opened the flaps, and handed them both a few more items.
“I think that’s it,” he said.
“I’m sure Leopold paid you, yes?” Esty said.
“In bitcoin.”
“Good luck, reptilian.”
“Hell yeah, good luck to you and your man-servant.” When he tried to snap his fingers, though, the dried slime on his fingers made snapping impossible.
“The thing that slimed you,” Esty said on the way out, “I don’t want to spook you, but I’m pretty sure it was one of the grays.”
“That’s an alien.”
“No shit it’s a freaking alien,” Yergha said. “Be careful.”
“10-4 good buddy.”
Chapter Seventeen
ESTELLA BACCARIN
Armed to the teeth, Esty and Yergha arrived at the Stanton House hotel near midnight. They left most of the guns and ammo in the blue eyesore on wheels and then they prayed the Chevy wouldn’t get stolen. If it did, all they had were two guns between them, both XD9s and both with only a single mag in the mag well. Neither she nor Yergha expected trouble. They were, after all, just visiting the client and his bodyguard in an attempt to establish some sort of jumping-off point.
