The Snake

by J A Kellman

  Ochoa leaned forward eagerly when I mentioned the priest’s apparent recruitment to the cartel’s workforce. I had his full attention.

  Bill, to elaborate, dug into the drug problems in Big Grove and the death of a local disc jockey at a fraternity party during the winter. “Drugs have become a real issue here,” Bill said. “There was even a bust of university kids selling way more than weed a few months ago.”

  There was nothing like drugs and murder to get the guys back into the groove.

  “Sounds like it could be the backstory for our troubles at Tikal,” Ochoa said.

  Bill nodded.

  “That is one way to think about it,” Luis, who had been quiet to this point, said joining the conversation.

  Polop grunted in assent.

  “Let’s have our coffee in the living room,” Zoila said, breaking the ensuing silence. “It’s more comfortable.”

  ~ * ~

  The evening air, drifting in the balcony doors, smelled of freshly cut grass and blooming prairie. Conversation slowed as we settled into our chairs. Coyotes yipped in the distance. An owl called nearby.

  The thought that Tikal and the cartels might have followed us home made my skin crawl, and the owl, harbinger of death for the Maya, drove home the point. Several worlds intertwined in Big Grove and Tikal—Maya and Euro, criminal and law abiding—and trying to pry them apart seemed to lead to murder.

  “Tonight’s accounts of Father Diego and Guzmán make it clear there’s more to do,” Ochoa said.

  Luis nodded. “The story isn’t finished. All these events are part of the same world. Imagine it as an infinite piece of brocade. Time is the background hue, the body; the colors that form images of places, people, events are laid in at each pass of the shuttle.”

  The owl hooted again, closer this time.

  Later, I was still thinking about what Luis and Ochoa had said as I drove home. Maybe they were right about the continuing narrative of Big Grove and Tikal. And maybe the owl meant death here, too. I shuddered.

  Thirty-seven

  Big Grove, Third Week in June

  In the shed at the far end of the row of similar rental spaces in the U-Store-It business nearest the first exit from I-74, the old fer-de-lance slept, satiated by the rat she had eaten earlier. The warmth of the sun on the aluminum building during the day had lulled her and now her nest, a hollow space in the center of the pile of plastic-wrapped bricks of fentanyl-laced heroin, held the heat in, too, making its space even more comfortable.

  She didn’t know how long she had been there; her journey had been periods of vibrations, jolting, and shouting men, alternating with silence. It felt good to rest with a full stomach in the quiet of the shed.

  She would explore her environment later. Maybe she would find another rat in a day or two.

  ~ * ~

  That same night, as the snake drowsed in her nest, Oscar Olivera licked the last of the steak juice from his lips as he sat in his office in Cinco Gallos thinking about business. He had received a text earlier indicating a partial shipment from what was left of the Maya Gold depot in Mexico had safely been delivered to the storage facility on the far edge of the small industrial park that spread along the highway behind the restaurant. Two more deliveries to go and all of Maya Gold’s remaining product would finally be out of Mexico.

  He’d check on it tonight before he went home, see how much storage space it used, and figure out how much more he would need for the next two. They might have to open another unit for the final load.

  He’d seen a real uptick in sales during his short time in Big Grove, particularly to the south and east and even deep into Indiana. Dealers from as far away as Indianapolis and St. Louis were waiting for the shipments, too, though everyone who sold drugs throughout the region was getting interested in fentanyl-laced heroin. He needed the new supply ASAP. Eager to get the drugs on the street, he’d get a few of the bigger dealers over tomorrow night, start the ball rolling.

  He’d call it an early night. Tomorrow was going to be busy. The supper crowd was starting to thin; the manager could lock up.

  Thirty-eight

  Big Grove, Third Week in June

  Tuesday morning, I had just finished packing an agriculture professor’s office in preparation for his move to the USDA, when my cell phone rang. It was Irma, the secretary at St. Patrick’s Church.

  “The police just dropped off Father Diego’s computer. I don’t know if you still want to see it, but I have his password since he never could remember it. I thought some of the material might need to be printed out and sent to join his other papers.”

  “I should look at it. I’ll stop by this afternoon, if that’s okay with you. See what we need to do. Will two o’clock work?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Good. See you then,” I said, edging a chart of types of soybeans further into an envelope.

  By 1:30 I was on my way to St. Patrick’s. The traffic on Sutter was light at that time of the day. Bloomingdale Road was deserted when I turned west except for a black Jeep Cherokee that looked like Olivera’s entering the rental storage facility nearest the first Big Grove exit from I-74. The juxtaposition of the type of vehicle that had snatched Polop and a storage facility that could house drugs was intriguing. I drove past the church. I still had ten minutes before I was due to see Irma. Might as well see where the Jeep’s going.

  I didn’t slow down as I past the U-Store-It, since I was trying to be inconspicuous, but out of the corner of my eye I spotted the parked Jeep, an old Hertz truck, and two or three guys letting themselves into the end door in the last row of units. Huh.

  When I got to the church at two o’clock, Irma was busy at her desk. Father Diego’s computer was on the table behind her.

  Father Diego’s computer, once she got it running, was not the goldmine I had hoped—emails, of course, but nothing unusual, three dozen homilies, and two folders of letters regarding church business. His schedule, however, was thought provoking: dinners with Guzmán were noted throughout the autumn and increasing numbers of trips to Chicago showed up as well. At least it confirmed my suspicions regarding connections between the two men, and the priest’s visits to the city seemed to be linked to his friendship with Guzmán.

  Irma emailed me the schedule: it would give me something concrete to think about once I got home. That night, after dinner, I forwarded the priest’s schedule to Bill and Pat; maybe they could come up with something I hadn’t considered. I mentioned the guys with the Cherokee and the truck at the U-Store-It as well, just to bring them up to date. I even suggested someone should check it out.

  Later, settled into my recliner with a small glass of Bowmore 18, Rosie, and a book, it was hard to concentrate. What was going on at the storage place? Excess furniture from Cinco Gallos being stored? Olivera’s household goods warehoused till he could find a place to live? Drugs? That end of town seemed to be the center of something odd; U-Store-It and Cinco Gallo were only a few blocks apart, and St. Patrick’s Church was in between. And whatever was happening might have to do with all those Chicago trips Father Diego took before he was murdered.

  I had trouble going to sleep that night. It was as if shadows were moving just outside my line of vision. Rosie was restless, too. Maybe it was the moon, or what Luis had said about not being done with the story. And then there was the owl. What the hell was with the owl?

  ~ * ~

  Early next morning as a hazy mother-of-pearl sun broke free of the horizon, I staked out the storage units from behind the truck repair shop next door, armed with binoculars, water, and a box of cereal bars. I’d parked behind a dozen fifty-gallon drums and a couple of dumpsters at the rear of the building for cover. The U-Store-It was quiet when I arrived. All that was left was to wait.

  The traffic on I-74 was heavy as people headed for work; it drowned out the noise from Bloomingdale Road and silenced a plane angling toward the runway at the airport. Nothing much happened for the next couple of hours, a
nd I was getting restless.

  I’d just finished my first cereal bar when a black Jeep Cherokee pulled up in front of the first unit at the far side of the complex. The driver got out and began fiddling with the heavy padlock. I slid out of the RAV4 for a closer look, leaving the door ajar so I could leave with ease; I edged my way behind the closest drum. If I were careful, there was no reason the Jeep’s driver should see me, hidden as I was behind the drum and a corner of the repair shop. I propped my elbows on the drum’s rusty top to steady my binoculars.

  I didn’t sense anything until a leather glove clapped over my mouth and an arm hooked around my neck, yanking me backward onto the ground. I squirmed, kicked, thrashed, but it didn’t do any good. Jerked over on my stomach with a knee rammed in my back, my arms were lashed together, my ankles and mouth wound with duct tape. I was trussed like a lamb on a spit.

  “Gotcha, bitch! We spotted you from I-74 on the way over,” the man who had grabbed me first said. “Your RAV4 stuck out like a sore thumb parked with these crappy drums.”

  The men hauled me like a duffle bag toward unit one, the Jeep, and the man who drove it: a current of terror ran through me as I was dragged and scraped over the gravel between the buildings, writhing, twisting, bleating with terror.

  My head hit a cement parking bumper as we rounded the corner of the last bank of units; the world exploded into bursts of colored light. Then there was nothing.

  ~ * ~

  Once my head cleared, I began to slowly twist and wriggle on the uneven surface under me, desperate to assess my situation in the dark enclosure, likely a shed. Turning my head against the tape on my jaw and neck, I felt my hair pull where the adhesive wrapped around the back of my skull. Working my hands under me despite the sticky binding might yield some information about my current position.

  I was lying on what felt like large blocks packaged in plastic, similar to vacuum packed cubes of sphagnum moss, or maybe like the drugs that had burned behind Cinco Gallo earlier in the year. If it were the latter, I might as well give up. Though I couldn’t pick out the guy I saw fiddling with the storage unit in a lineup, no way was I going to get out alive after being caught spying on him. And now I was wallowing on what likely was his inventory.

  Muffled voices came from my right from a nearby unit: then I heard an overhead door being pulled down, a car driving away.

  Why the hell hadn’t I talked about my snooping with Bill and Pat? Ochoa would have had something to say, too. I was helpless in a claustrophobic space, unable to escape, unable to call for help. The blood roaring in my ears, however, wasn’t so loud that I didn’t hear something moving further back in the shed, sliding slowly among the packages of drugs in my direction.

  Whatever it was, it couldn’t be human. I wasn’t going to annoy it by thrashing around. I forced myself to stop moving.

  ~ * ~

  Later—maybe an hour, maybe two—my disoriented state was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle in front of the shed. I could hear the two men who had snatched me talking with someone else, likely the guy I thought was Olivera, come to oversee what happened next.

  The unit’s door rattled open. Light from the orange security lights poured in, blinding me with sudden glare. The men slipped into the shed pulling the door closed behind them. Someone switched on a flashlight.

  One of the guys that grabbed me earlier kicked my legs, “You awake?”

  I moaned under the tape.

  “Good. We’re gonna take you outta here to someplace more private,” he said, as he and the other thug began to wrestle me upright. “We got business tonight and need you gone.” He cut the tape from my ankles so I could walk, and then pushed me toward the door. “Easier than dragging you and less obvious, too.”

  This was it. The owl’s prophecy coming true. I was going to be hauled off, killed, and then dumped in a cornfield. I couldn’t even scream. If I was going to do anything, it had to be now. If they got me into the Jeep, I was finished.

  I went nuts. I kicked at where legs or crotches would be, slammed my head into the face of the guy holding my arms. He shrieked. I kicked again, this time at the man hovering nearby with the flashlight.

  He swore as the light flew out of his hand, smashed on the floor, and went out.

  I was hurled back onto the heap of drugs as the men struggled to regain control of the situation.

  “What the hell! Open the damned door,” the guy who might be Olivera yelled. “I can’t see a thing.”

  I had a front row seat for what came next.

  As Olivera scrabbled in the shadows to locate his flashlight, patting the floor with his hands and fumbling with the closest packages of drugs, the snake, bedded down in a depression at the front of the pile, had had enough.

  Outraged at the intrusion, the struggle, the noise, the man swearing and groping inches from her new resting spot, the agitated fer-de-lance raised as much of her five-foot body as far as she could on the slippery heap, striking without warning, hitting the pawing intruder on his shoulder. She drove her fangs in as far as possible, hanging on no matter how the man tried to knock her loose. Then, finished, she dropped back into the pile of drugs.

  ~ * ~

  “My shoulder’s on fire!” Olivera yelled, staggering from the storage shed holding his upper arm. He fell against his Jeep, pale even in the sickly glow of the yard lights.

  “Let me take a look,” one of the men said. He pulled down Olivera’s jacket, jerked open his shirt. “Your shoulder’s bleeding.” He tugged aside the shirtsleeve for a better view. “You’re bleeding from a couple of holes, like a snakebite, for God’s sake. A snake! In the shed? What the hell?”

  The second man vigorously wiped his handkerchief over the wounds. “It’s starting to swell, and even in this crappy light I can see it leaking under the skin. Why don’t we have another flashlight?”

  Olivera lurched toward the rear of his car, then fell, sliding into a sitting position in the gravel. “Don’t call nine-one-one. I gotta get to a hospital without emergency personnel. If they show up, we’re screwed. Help me into the car, let me out near an emergency room. Then leave.

  “What was I thinking coming to Big Grove?” he said as he fell flat on his back despite the men’s efforts to keep him upright.

  ~ * ~

  I slipped down behind the mountain of drugs. With Olivera on the skids, maybe they would forget me.

  It was becoming difficult for Olivera to breathe. I could hear him panting over the sound of traffic. One of the guards tied a tourniquet around his arm, but what good would that do for a bite on the shoulder? It probably would only make things worse.

  Then Olivera threw up.

  The men struggled to drag Olivera into the back of the Cherokee.

  “Son of a bitch, he’s limp. It’s hard to hang on.” One of the men grunted.

  While he swung Olivera’s legs into the vehicle, the other man jumped into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine. “Get in,” he yelled, “We don’t have time. We’ll worry about that goddamn woman later. She isn’t going to get far covered with tape.”

  As soon as the second man slammed his door, the Jeep peeled out of the storage lot. They had only pulled the garage door part way down.

  The snake, still agitated by the commotion and the screaming men, slid down the plastic pile and out the storage unit’s door, staying close to the wall, her dark splotchy pattern clearly visible in the garish light. She rounded the end of the building and headed west, crawling off into the Midwestern night.

  I was right behind the snake’s vanishing tail as she left the shed. I wasn’t going to wait for the guards to come back. I wasn’t thinking clearly myself, but I knew I had to get away. No point in trying to reach the industrial buildings to the east, since there wouldn’t be anyone there at this hour, or going for the McDonald’s several blocks away, since I could hardly totter. No point in following the snake, either: there wasn’t anything in that direction, just the exit ramp and scattered warehouse
s, and who knew how the snake felt about company?

  St. Patrick’s Church was the closest familiar place. If I could make it there, someone would eventually show up.

  It was hard to walk with my arms bound behind me. I stumbled over every clump of grass and depression in the church’s athletic field, falling on my face more times than I could count. I couldn’t put my hands up to soften my fall, so I slammed my face into the ground a couple of times before I figured out I needed to turn my head to the side as I went over. I was still going to look like dirt, but at least I wouldn’t break my nose.

  Getting up was an additional agonizing undertaking: roll on side, raise one knee toward chest, plant that foot, rock forward, stand slowly, stabilize, move forward. Without the use of my arms, trying to maintain balance was difficult. I couldn’t call for help, either. I couldn’t get the tape off my mouth without my hands.

  The church was dark except for the porch lights when I finally collapsed at the small side entrance outside the sacristy. Maybe Olivera’s thugs won’t look for me here and besides, there is nowhere else to go, I thought as I slumped onto the cement and leaned against the door. Now that I wasn’t floundering across the field, the evening chill began to seep into my body, making me shiver. I closed my eyes. All I had to do is wait, wait and hope someone found me before something else happened...or I died of misery on the same spot where Father Diego had been murdered.

  Thirty-nine

  Big Grove, Later That Night

  It must have been a half hour before I heard an increasing number of sirens coming from the north, on Sutter. Maybe an accident on the freeway, some multicar pileup outside of town, I thought as they grew louder. The wailing suddenly cut off somewhere nearby, one siren after another. They seemed to reach their destination west of St. Patrick’s, across from the activity field, near the U-Store-It facility.