The Beasts of Juarez

by R. B. Schow

  She laughed then said, “I don’t get you, Atlas Hargrove.”

  “What’s not to get?” he asked.

  She took his hand in hers and said, “When I picked you up in prison, you were like this comatose patient who assaulted a guard and flat-out murdered his cellmate. Then half a day later you’re cracking jokes and flirting with me?”

  “You were flirting with me first,” he said.

  “See? There it is again.”

  “As a SWAT commander,” he said, becoming serious for a moment, “I always found that staying lighthearted when you were about to go into the shit helped keep everyone loose. You saw how tense Leo got at the border, right? I’m surprised that when he got out of the Audi his asshole wasn’t suction-cupped to the leather seat that’s how puckered he was.”

  “I saw it,” she said, “but it was the same for me.”

  “That’s a normal response, but we can’t be normal people because this isn’t a normal situation.”

  “True.”

  “As for ‘getting me,’ I just have to say, there’s something about you that I really like. You make me want to be calmer, less…aggro all the time.”

  “Ooh, tell me more,” she said with a seductive grin.

  “I can’t say for sure what it is, only that it’s a number of factors and they all leave me feeling…intoxicated around you.”

  Smiling, walking with a little more pep in her step, she said, “I sure hope you clean up well because if not, I’m going to be thinking of Leopold when we have sex.”

  Now it was Atlas’s turn to laugh.

  Back at the hotel, Cira plugged in the clippers, turned them on to make sure they worked, then said, “Sit down and drape that towel over your shoulders.”

  Twenty minutes later, she had him shaved down to the stubble everywhere but his mustache and goatee.

  “I look like a biker,” he said, running his hands over his head, then stroking his goatee.

  “Yes, but a rough, sexy biker. That would work in Texas, but not down here. Hold on a second, let me take a bit off of your goatee first.”

  She trimmed the wispy edges of his goatee, leaving it about three inches long. She stood back and looked at him. “Yeah, that’s so much better.”

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked.

  “It would seem that I won’t be thinking of Leopold tonight after all.”

  “You keep saying ‘tonight’ like we’re not about to have sex any minute,” he teased.

  “Aren’t we?” she asked.

  He nodded yes, gave her that mischievous grin then started to undress her. In between the mad rush to be together and the actual sex, Cira said, “The first time you do me, I want it hard. But in the morning, you need to make love to me.”

  “Deal,” he said, barely slowing down.

  When they were through, when they were both sweating and thoroughly spent, she said, “I had sex with you a hundred times in my mind before this day.”

  “It showed,” he said.

  “Yeah, you were good, too,” she replied.

  “Basically that was prison sex, but with a girl,” he joked. Cira gave him a startled look but then he broke into laughter. She hit him hard enough that he had to say, “At least one of these bruises will be yours now.”

  Lying next to him, she rubbed his stubbly head, stroked his goatee, then looked up into his eyes and said, “You’re who I was hoping to find underneath all that prehistoric nastiness.”

  “Do you mind if I take a ten-minute nap?”

  “Be my guest,” she said. “Do you want to watch me get dressed?”

  He shook his head and grinned. “Maybe wait until I wake up? I most definitely want to watch you get dressed.”

  When Atlas closed his eyes to sleep, Cira quietly got up, put on her clothes, and was buttoning up her shirt when someone knocked lightly on the door. Atlas pulled the sheets over his shoulders and rolled away from the door.

  Cira opened it up to Leopold who promptly paused to take everything in. “It smells like sex and shampoo in here.”

  “That’s the air freshener,” Cira said. “What’s up?”

  “First off, it’s not. Second, I got a lock on the church but we have to figure out how to find Santiago Cardenas’s house without driving all over the place like middle-schoolers looking for the high school party.”

  “We need a drone,” Atlas said, rolling over.

  “That’s old school surveillance tactics,” Cira said. “Maybe we should see what Codrin can come up with. That guy has a mind that never stops working.”

  “I’ll call him now,” Leopold said, a slight edge to his tone. “In the meantime, why don’t you and Sons of Anarchy here try airing out the place?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SCOTTY CHASE

  Scotty and Jackson landed at Baltimore / Washington International Airport earlier than they expected. They rented a car, typed the address into their Google Maps app, and then followed the directions to a T. When they arrived at the target’s home, they sat on it for a few minutes looking for signs of life. There were none. All they saw was a beat-to-crap VW Passat in the driveway, the tires bald-looking, the windshield, dusty, and the dark blue paint faded. It wasn’t the Hyundai they were looking for, but maybe the White family had two cars and the Passat was one of them.

  “Let’s take a closer look,” Scotty said.

  It was still daylight, and though people were coming and going, no one was really seeing anyone else—a condition of COVID, the masks, everyone’s fear of everyone else, and the virus they might spread. As much as this pandemic had upended everyone’s lives, it also created numerous opportunities for criminals and private eyes alike.

  The two of them walked right into Keegan White’s backyard through an old gate with a broken latch that didn’t make a ton of noise when it was opened. In the backyard, there was a huge tarp held in place by four large rocks. Was it covering a hole or something else? Scotty didn’t know, but he intended to find out.

  “You check the house, let me look in here,” Scotty said.

  When Jackson went to window peep on the home’s occupants, Scotty quietly pulled the canvas back and blanched at the smell of feces and urine. Under the canvas were several large sheets of metal. They had holes punched in them for air. He pushed the canvas halfway back then slid one of the heavy sheets aside to find a large hole dug in the earth below. In this hole, he found a dirty mattress with a blanket, an old doll, a five-gallon jug of water, and a bucket which he assumed had been provided as Alabama’s toilet.

  Jackson came back, looked down, and said, “Holy Toledo.”

  “Yeah,” Scotty said, the stark reality of Alabama’s situation settling in. “This poor girl, nearly ten years kidnapped and living like this.”

  “The shit bird is asleep on the couch. There’s a baggie of what looks like edibles on the coffee table and the TV is on.”

  “Can we wedge open a window or something?”

  “No need to,” Jackson replied. “Dumb-dumb left the slider unlocked.”

  “This asshole is making it too easy for us,” Scotty said, his temper already flaring. In his mind, Keegan White was already getting his freaking skull caved in.

  The two of them put on a pair of surgical gloves, eased open the slider, and slipped inside. Jackson pulled his cell phone from his pocket, found the enhanced picture of Keegan from the security footage, then looked at Scotty and nodded.

  Scotty reached down, nudged the man’s foot. Keegan didn’t wake up. He knocked the man’s foot a little harder. The scumbag gave a bit of a grumble, but he didn’t move. Scotty looked around the room then mouthed the words, “Let’s clear the house first.”

  Jackson nodded in agreement.

  The two of them went through the house, finding it empty and in a severe state of neglect. On the kitchen counter, Scotty accessed Keegan’s cell phone. There he found the Images folder, took a breath and opened it. The second he saw the folder titled Alabama, he te
nsed up like a grenade was about to go off in his heart.

  As he scrolled through Alabama’s photos, grenades went off inside of him, weakening the structure that was his sane mind. And then he saw the picture that turned all of those grenades into an Atom bomb. He showed it to Jackson with revulsion in his eyes.

  Jackson looked at the picture and frowned. He turned and stared at the man on the couch. “This is one sick son of a bitch.”

  Instead of trying to peacefully wake Keegan and ask him questions about Alabama, Scotty walked over in front of him, unzipped his pants, and started pissing in the man’s face. When Keegan’s eyes flashed open and he tried to shoot up off the couch, Jackson shoved his head back down and told Scotty to finish.

  Gotta love those Marines, Scotty thought about Jackson. Nothing bothers them but the downtime.

  When Scotty was done urinating, when he’d given the General two solid shakes, he tucked himself back in and zipped up his fly.

  “You’re going to tell us everything we need to know about Alabama Hargrove, the girl you took years ago, or we’re going to pull your guts out with a claw hammer,” Scotty snarled. “Now start talking, or start dying. It’s your choice.”

  “The wife took her because I got her pregnant,” Keegan confessed as he wiped the urine off of his face.

  “We saw the photo you disgusting pervert,” Jackson said.

  “So you took Alabama from her family, treated her like a junkyard dog, and then you had sex with her,” Scotty continued. “Is that right?”

  Keegan looked down like he was embarrassed. Reluctantly, he nodded.

  “And as if that wasn’t enough,” Scotty said, “you gave her a baby.”

  “A-yuh,” he muttered, face beet red and hair still wet.

  That Atom bomb inside of Scotty was just about to blow. Any second now, he was going to beat this man to death.

  “Where is Gabrielle?” Jackson asked as he wiped his pissed-on hand clean on the edge of the couch.

  “Gabby’s with my mother, that crazy bitch. But she’s gone, so you know, good riddance and all.”

  “I need a current address and recent pictures of your wife.”

  He didn’t move, so Jackson grabbed him by his piss-soaked hair and hauled him up. The guy started screaming like a girl.

  “Move!” Jackson roared in what sounded like a drill instructor’s voice.

  Keegan power-shuffled to the back room, took a framed picture off of the nightstand, and handed it to Scotty. The photo looked like those old family portraits you got on special at K-mart in the seventies. Scotty broke the glass on his knee, pulled the broken pieces out then removed the photo.

  “Very chic,” Jackson said sarcastically.

  “Give me your mother’s address,” Scotty said through clenched teeth.

  Keegan went into his office, dug out an old address book, and copied down the address. Before he handed it to Scotty, Keegan sheepishly asked, “What’s going to happen to me when I give you this address?”

  “If you hand us that address now instead of making me or my friend come and take it from you,” Jackson said, “it will be much better than the alternative.”

  He handed over the address.

  “I’m thinking he needs to use the bathroom,” Jackson said.

  “I’ll take care of that,” Scotty said, “and you do the other thing.”

  Scotty drove an uppercut into Keegan’s solar plexus hard enough to bend the guy in half. He tried to breathe, but he had the air knocked out of him. Scotty then soccer-ball kicked him in the nuts.

  “No more kids for you, asshole,” Scotty growled.

  Keegan stumbled forward on weak knees. Scotty grabbed his ear and dragged the gasping, hobbling pedophile into the bathroom. When he was in front of the toilet, Scotty lifted the lid then kicked out Keegan’s knees and slammed the man’s face into the toilet seat.

  “Is that a pubic hair near your nose?” he asked.

  Keegan tried to push his face off the hoop, so Scotty grabbed a hold of the back of his pants and gave him a violent wedgie. His face slammed back down on the hoop loud enough to send Keegan into a crying jag.

  When Jackson returned, he was carrying a heavy chain with a keyed padlock, a pair of pink feather handcuffs, and a length of rope.

  “Interesting,” Scotty said.

  “Watch and learn,” Jackson replied.

  Jackson shoved Keegan forward, grabbed his hands, and wrapped them around the base of the toilet close enough to cuff them. He then draped the chain over Keegan’s neck, pulled him right into the toilet seat, and padlocked it in place. Keegan couldn’t even lift his head at that point.

  “This is bad news for you, Keegan,” Scotty said.

  “I’m not done yet,” Jackson replied.

  The former Marine then used the length of rope to cinch Keegan’s knees up against the front of the toilet bowl, making it so he couldn’t move his hands, his legs, or his head.

  “Snug as a bug in a rug,” Jackson finally said, standing up.

  “What now?” Scotty asked Jackson.

  Jackson looked between Keegan and Scotty, and then he said, “I say we leave him until the client says what he wants to do next,”

  “This is bullshit,” Keegan mumbled against the seat. There were fresh tears in his eyes and his voice was hoarse from crying. “You guys can’t leave me here!”

  Before Scotty left the bathroom to make a call, he stepped back and kicked him again, this time catching Keegan’s balls from behind. This was one of the worst shots you could lay on a man because it’s all balls. The man broke into a heaving fit followed by a shrill wail. The sound alone brought a tiny measure of satisfaction to Scotty’s soul.

  In the living room, Scotty dialed Leopold’s number. He answered right away. “Scotty,” he said, “let me have good news.”

  “We found one of the two people who took Alabama.”

  “Which one?” he asked, interested.

  “Keegan White, the guy in the photo. He’s married to Gabrielle White, who was the woman. She’s his wife and she’s MIA, along with Alabama.”

  “Where is Mr. White now?” Leopold asked.

  “He’s currently face down on a toilet seat and not going anywhere. We have a lead on the wife. She left Keegan and took Alabama with her.”

  “Why’d they split?”

  “I’ll give you one guess,” Scotty said.

  “No,” Leopold said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Scotty said, eliciting a deep groan on Leopold’s part. “But it gets worse.”

  “If you say ‘baby,’ I swear I’m going to be sick.”

  “Get yourself a barf bag then,” Scotty said.

  “For the love of God, what is wrong with people?”

  “We think we know where Gabrielle is, which means we can probably find Alabama, but we have to leave Keegan. The question is, do we leave him dead or alive?”

  “Text me Keegan’s address, then head out to see if you can retrieve Alabama,” he said, matter of fact. “Oh, and Scotty…great job.”

  “Jackson has been instrumental in this,” he said because he felt he needed to after dodging his investigator’s calls last time. “Without him, I would still be in Louisiana scratching my ass.”

  “It was a good move bringing him back then,” Leopold said.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Anything else?” Leopold asked.

  Scotty took a breath, tried not to sound nervous. “How are you progressing on your end?”

  “You worry about you and I’ll worry about me,” Leopold said firmly. “But if you’re wondering, there’s still time to hit that performance bonus.”

  “Yeah, well, Gabby’s at her mother-in-law’s house in Queens.”

  “That’s about a three-and-a-half-hour drive from where you are,” Leopold said. “Check the flights, and if you can’t hop on one quickly, rent a car and go.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ZOEY F
OX

  When they woke up in the morning, Zoey and Maisie were hustled out of bed and sent to a food line. Zoey was exhausted. Her body ached in a dozen new places, her fingers were raw to the touch, and her stomach was about as empty as it had ever been.

  She and Maisie ate a terrible breakfast with runny eggs that tasted funny, potatoes that were overcooked, and pig bacon that was more fat than meat. With both of their stomachs now rumbling and sick, they were loaded back on the truck where they would be taken back to the maquiladora. Maisie sat beside her, holding her hand and laying her head on Zoey’s shoulder.

  “I’m scared,” she turned and whispered into Zoey’s ear.

  “I am, too,” Zoey confessed.

  As they drove, Zoey studied the route looking for nearby businesses, but there were only a few small homes and a lot of dusty roads. She managed to memorize a couple of street signs, hoping that one day they may mean something.

  When they got near what might have been a town, they turned onto yet another dirt road and from there the warehouse came into view. It was like a nightmare cresting the horizon of her mind, one that had her trembling inside.

  They walked inside with the others, keeping their heads down and talking to no one as they took their stations. Beside the stations were stacks of fabric—the day’s work.

  Maisie started to cry but Zoey gave her a stern look and shook her head slowly. The girl’s lips puckered as she lifted her chin and willed herself to work.

  Zoey was proud of her, but she was also scared for both of them.

  Later that morning, the man from the office called her and Maisie in to see him. Were they in trouble? Did they do something wrong?

  The second she and Maisie stepped into his office, Zoey heard the boss speaking into the phone. He didn’t sound happy at all.

  “Yeah, they’re with me now,” he said in a frustrated tone. “Are we a go, or not?”

  He listened intently to the person on the other end of the line, looked up at Zoey and Maisie then raised his finger like he wanted them to wait a second. The man now looked more peeved than ever.