by Manuel Ramos
Ortiz must have concluded that I was too much of a loose cannon, that I knew too much about his blackmailing Artie, and that he was more secure if I was out of the way, no matter how insignificant I might be to the big picture. He probably believed he had revealed too much during our cozy conversation in his car.
My lungs couldn’t heave in enough air. I choked and gasped. The hood stuck to my skin, my sweat soaked the rough cloth, and I felt dizzy, weak. I bounced with each rut in the road and occasionally I hit Jerome, or he smashed into me. The men around us in the pickup bed laughed and told jokes about us that I didn’t think were funny. I wanted the truck to stop, but stopping meant the end, in more ways than one. I cursed Artie Baca and the day he dragged me back into his life.
The truck slowed down until it idled in place. I heard a loud grating noise—chains clanging across concrete. Then I heard what sounded like a large metal garage door opening and shutting. The truck moved ahead for a few seconds before it thudded to a stop.
Jerome and I were pushed out of the bed and onto a concrete floor. The hoods came off. We were in a huge building. I guessed that it was empty but I couldn’t say for sure.
I smelled oil, gasoline and rubber. A circle of light surrounded us, but I could see only a dim gray illumination from the roof. The rest was darkness.
Lorenzo Ortiz appeared and whispered to one of his men, who then rushed into the dark. Ortiz looked freaky—shiny skin in ghostly light and eyes that wouldn’t stop moving. We all waited for a few minutes. Ortiz’s sick laugh broke the silence a couple of times. No one said anything. Ortiz’s men cradled their weapons or smoked cigarettes.
The man returned, followed by Corrine and Isabel. Both were tied up like Jerome and me with tape across their faces. Another man with another gun trailed the women. I jerked and struggled but it did no good. When I saw the fear in Isabel’s eyes and the blood dripping from Corrine’s mouth I finally accepted the dangerous reach of my gamble with Ortiz. Artie’s mess, the two slow but determined cops and the guy who broke into my room behind Sylvia’s shop—the images swirled together into a pounding headache, a crazy dream except that I was wide awake. Whatever I’d tried to do, whatever idiocy I had concocted in my confused brain to nail Ortiz for Artie’s killing, had failed miserably. I wasn’t the only one who would pay for my screw-up.
Lorenzo Ortiz stood in front of Jerome and me. He held a pistol, a small handgun that was almost buried in his large right hand.
“I have a story for you, Gus, you and your amigo. Let me see if I can tell it right.” He looked like he was enjoying himself. “Friends of mine. No. Ex-friends. Anyhow, these guys I know did a really terrible thing a while back. Maybe you heard about it? The cabrones who raided the basilica in the capital, and stole the sacred tilma. You know about that, right? Of course you do.”
Unsmiling, he looked around at his men. They stared back at him, or us, also without smiles, without any expression.
“My men heard about that savage act, that disgraceful event, and they lost all respect for the organization, for the pendejos at the top and I can’t say they’re wrong, can I? I thought I knew the fools that run the club, but you never really know anybody, not really, verdad? I was shocked and surprised when I heard about it, like my men. But what can we do? We’re only soldiers, not generals. The bosses decided they were going to steal from La Virgen de Guadalupe, and we had to go along. Until today, Gus. That’s where you come in.”
I shook my head and tried to make a face that said I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but it didn’t have any noticeable effect.
“These stupid bosses decide—on their own again, no input from me—they decide that they have to move the merchandise out of Mexico as quickly as they can. It’s way too hot to have around, not when every cop in the world is looking for it, not when there are professionals prowling around Mexico digging hard to find it. The country is overrun with FBI and CIA and cops from countries like Spain and Italy. Even the damn pope has men on the streets. Does it take a genius to know that’s what would happen? How smart do you have to be to know that there will be incredible heat when you rip off La Virgen?”
Lorenzo sweated across his forehead. He wiped his face with his left hand while he thought about his words.
“The bosses,” he said, “being the brains they are, tell me that I have to watch out for the sacred thing, that I have to put my operation and my men at risk for something I had no say about. Can you fucking believe that bullshit?” Spit sprayed my face as his right fist, still holding the gun, slammed against the palm of his left hand. “They deliver the thing to me, and I have to watch it. I have to babysit a blanket like I got nothing else to do, like I don’t have every Denver cop sniffing around every damn day.” Again his words exploded and ricocheted around the building. “Can you fucking believe it?”
The Butcher had lost his mind. His story had nothing to do with me, and it certainly had nothing to do with Corrine, Isabel and Jerome. Yet, there we all were, waiting like cattle for the slaughter and at the mercy of a crazy man who, for some reason, wanted me to know that he didn’t like the guys he worked for.
He ripped the duct tape from my mouth. I thought he tore off my lips. He did open a scab on my cheek, left over from the first beating his men gave me. Blood trickled down my chin. I took it as a sign that he wanted me to say something.
“What’s any of that got to do with us? Why are we here? What do you want? Let the others go.”
He pointed the gun at my face and I shut up.
“I’m giving you a big break, Gus. Your lucky day. You get the chance to be famous, even notorious. All you have to do is steal the tilma here in Denver and you and your friends are free.”
My mouth must have dropped open because he gave me another one of his strange-sounding laughs.
“It’s simple, Gus. You steal the blanket, make it look real good. I tell the idiots I work for that it’s been taken, then, when no one’s looking, you give it back to me. The bosses are pissed, but they have to think things through, which buys me time, then they almost certainly come after me for losing the thing, but by then I’ve sold it to the pope or anyone else who wants it, for more money than you can imagine, and I get out of this damn country, and away to where no one will ever find me, not even the pinche bosses.”
His insane plan would never work but how do you argue logic with a crazy man? I said things like “You can’t be serious,” or “I don’t know how to do what you want,” or “Why don’t you just take it yourself when you get your hands on it?”
He finally responded to the last question. “They’re not really giving it to me, Gus. That’s the problem, güey. They’ve sent it up here to the States, and I got to use my men to watch it, but it’s under the guard of a hand-picked crew from Mexico City. They won’t have it out of their sight. We’re just sort of guarding the guards, entiendes? We could shoot them all, but that’s messy, and I’d lose some of my best men. For sure I’d be a marked man and I wouldn’t have the time I need to make my deal. Blaming the rip-off on you gives me the time I need.”
He nodded his head, agreeing with his own brilliance. A few of his men also nodded their heads—they were all in, counting on the Butcher to make a play that even in their dulled and demented minds they must have realized had little chance.
Ortiz finished his rap. “Those psychos who are escorting the tilma are way on the edge, man, I know. I used to hang around with them. Anyhow, the key thing is that you give me time, Gus. Yeah, this is your big chance.”
He looked very pleased with himself. His eyes glowed with excitement, or drugs, or both. His smile flashed in the spotlight like the rhinestones on the cheap jewelry back in Sylvia’s shop. His irksome laugh bounced around the building. We became the audience for his performance. The perfect score finally landed in his lap, so he thought, and if it worked the way his twisted brain thought it would work, he wouldn’t risk anything more than the sorry life of a loser who insisted on g
etting involved with him, and a couple of the loser’s friends and relatives.
“That crew from Mexico City. You called them hand-picked. They’ll make a quick end to anything I might try. I’ll be dead, and the botched robbery will make the bosses suspicious. They’ll tie you to it.”
“No, señor. They don’t think that quick. They’ll need to analyze, take their time like they do with everything. Worse than old ladies. My idea is a good one. Up to you to make it happen.”
I insisted and kept on rolling out the reasons why his plan was doomed to failure until he shut me up by knocking my head with his gun.
“You’re going to do it, Gus. No argument. If you don’t, then your sister and girlfriend get to spend a long night with my men, and I can promise you that by morning their wish to be dead will be granted. It’s that simple. You get your hands on the tilma and you all walk away. I’ll be out of here and won’t care about you and your friends. Or you die trying. Either way, my problems with you are solved.”
He motioned to his men and they scurried away into the darkness. He lit a cigarette.
“I’ll come back in the morning, Gus. We’ll talk about the details. You all stay here for the night, get some rest. Manuel, one of my best guys, will watch over you. He’ll be around even if you don’t see him. Give it some thought, Gus. You’re going to need damn good preparation to rip off the tilma from the Mexico City boys. Those chilangos are cabrones, but they know how to keep something safe. You’re going to be a busy man tomorrow.” He walked out of the light.
The four of us huddled together. I was the only one without tape on my mouth so we couldn’t talk. We made our way to the wall, slumped against the concrete and stared at nothing. Manuel appeared with bottles of water and bags of potato chips. He was an older guy with at least ten years on the other thugs. His eyelids hung heavy over his eyeballs. I recognized the machete tattoo from the night at the restaurant when Lorenzo’s men beat me up. Manuel seemed to enjoy the workout that night.
He removed the tape from the other three, freed our wrists, told us to drink the water, and then a real surprising thing happened. He gave Jerome a big hug. They patted one another on the back, and then I knew who gave Misti Ortiz’s phone number to Jerome. Jerome had friends everywhere and one of them turned out to be the Butcher’s right hand guy.
Manuel smiled at Corrine, who half-heartedly smiled back, but they shied away from each other like there was an invisible wall between them. Corrine had friends, and ex-friends, everywhere, too, and she and Manuel must have had a history.
Manuel stepped back into the darkness and let us talk.
They gave me hell, of course. Corrine started, Jerome continued and Isabel—innocent, unaware and scared—ripped into me like a drunken barber with a rusty pair of scissors.
I didn’t blame them. Their lives were seriously at risk and it was entirely my fault, in ways they couldn’t even guess.
The blood around Corrine’s mouth had dried but her upper lip looked like an overripe plum—always a fighter. Jerome also had bruises and cuts and a smear of mud across his cheek, but the look in his eyes told me he was standing up well, still strong. Isabel was another story. The consequences of a one-night stand can be bad, even deadly, but it never crossed her mind that spending time with the class clown would result in her kidnapping and imprisonment. I wanted to tell her I was sorry and that I would make it right but the words wouldn’t come out, mainly because I didn’t believe them myself.
When the three finally stopped slamming me, a nervous silence fell on us. Guilt smothered me and most of it came from what I had done to Isabel. She’d walked into my mess of a life without any warnings. I guessed that Ortiz’s men had jumped to a conclusion about her and me because of the one-night stand. Max or Sylvia as hostages made more sense, in terms of a connection to me. If we escaped alive I swore to myself to make it up to her. I had no idea how I could do that.
“Can’t your friend help?” I asked Jerome. “He could get us out of here tonight.”
Jerome shook his head. “He’s not that good of a friend. We partnered up for a few gigs a couple of years ago. But those were different times.”
“Corrine?” I said.
“Manuel’s not a friend,” she said. “I know him. That’s it. I can’t ask him for anything. We’re probably lucky he doesn’t shoot us all.”
“Anyway,” Jerome said, “there must be men outside, just in case. Ortiz wouldn’t trust us to one man. Even if Manuel let us go, it wouldn’t do any good. The rest of the gang would capture us again, or kill us, and Manuel, too.”
“I figure Ortiz will send me and Jerome after the tilma,” I said. “He’ll keep Corrine and Isabel for security. We can’t do anything unless we have some leverage. The only thing that could be is the tilma, or our own guns.”
Jerome agreed. “Juan Diego’s poncho is our only weapon. To make sure we get away with our lives, we have to use what Ortiz wants, against him.” He looked at each one of us. “I don’t know how we do it. It doesn’t look good.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Corrine said. “But you guys have to take care of business. We have to get some help. Maybe we can get word to someone when Ortiz sets everything in motion. That might be your chance.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But slim. We don’t have phones, and they aren’t going to leave us alone.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’ll go down that way,” Jerome said. “We need something else, someone else to help us.” He peered into the dark building and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Maybe from Ortiz’s crew. We try to buy one off. These guys are always for sale to the highest bidder. They change teams like they throw away empty beer cans. They have no loyalty. You heard Ortiz talk about his bosses, his former running buddies. It’s all about the money, that’s what loyalty means to them.”
I nodded. “We’ll work on that angle, talk it up with whoever we end up with tomorrow. Even if Ortiz gets wind of what we’re trying to do, so what? We don’t have anything to lose.”
We all thought about what I said. The women settled back against the wall.
“Ortiz is a lunatic,” I said to Jerome.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Yeah, he’s crazy, but why drag us into this? This is a big deal, a life-changer for him. He’s double-crossing his outfit, one of the biggest and most violent gangs in Mexico. He can’t go back after this. He’s risking everything.”
“It’s how he thinks. This job will set him up for life. There’s a mountain of money to be made off the Virgin. He’s betting everything on it. That’s all that matters to him.”
“Sure, sure. But why use us? We’re not part of his gang. We could easily screw it up. Most likely we will. He knows that. Yet, here we are. We could sabotage the plan, make a run for it. Do almost anything except make it work for him. So, why us?”
Jerome thought for a few seconds. “It’s what he said. He believes by using us he’s one more step removed from the scrutiny of his boss. If it goes bad tomorrow, he can claim that we, the outsiders, planned the rip-off and died trying. Even if we succeed, he still lays the blame on us until he gets his pay-off, stalling the boss from looking at him too close, and then he disappears. We’re his cover, Gus. I think it’s as simple as that.”
“He’s going to have to use some of his men,” I said. “He knows better than to leave it all up to you and me.”
“That’s right. Whoever those men are, they’ll be thrown to the dogs along with us. Ortiz will say they’re turncoats who climbed in bed with the two outlaws from Denver. When we’re all dead, who’s to say otherwise?”
That reality settled in and we quit talking. Manuel returned and secured our hands and taped our mouths again. We tried to sleep. Occasionally I heard a whimper from Isabel. Jerome actually snored for several minutes. Corrine twisted and turned, trying to find a comfortable position on the concrete, but with her hands tied together making her arch her back, it was useless and I knew she wouldn’t
sleep all night.
Neither would I.
17
Misti Ortiz showed up around three in the morning. Manuel stood nearby, his back to us, watching for any late night visitors. I knew it was Misti as soon as my eyes focused. The stark, gaunt face, not beautiful but something else, drew me into her world—lost, wounded—the almost boyish short black hair, the silver ring in her eyebrow, the eyes with a sad glow. Artie disregarded his wife and kids and nice home near Sloan’s Lake once he looked into those eyes. But I wouldn’t let myself forget that she was only fifteen.
She wore jeans, sneakers and a thin fleece jacket. She could have been a cheerleader on her way to the homecoming dance. She could have been a teenaged killer cleaning up her latest job.
She touched a ring-laden finger to her lips and motioned me to move away from Corrine, Isabel and Jerome. She snipped off the restraints. I rubbed my sore wrists.
She finally stood in front of me, but I didn’t know what to say. I reminded myself that she tried to swindle Artie Baca. She used her obvious sexuality and too young body to extract money from my old pal. The way she played him freaked him out in such a major way that he lost all sense and believed that he could win the dangerous match. I didn’t think I was any smarter than Artie, but I had an advantage since I wasn’t about to let a fifteen-year-old girl use me. At least that’s what I told myself would never happen. She loosened the tape around my mouth.
