The Last Savage

by Sam Jones

  Both of them did their best to cool down and recharge their batteries, but both of them failed miserably, because both of them—despite their best intentions—could not help but dwell on thoughts of each other during that entire time and the various “what if?” scenarios that came with them.

  11

  BILLY HAD BEEN thrown hard onto the floor. His hands were bound behind his back with metal handcuffs, his was mouth gagged with a strip of duct tape, and his head was shrouded by a piece of black canvas. Two men were standing guard next to him, guns in their grips and violence in their hearts. One of the men shook the tension and pain out of his hand after throwing a nasty little right hook he planted on Billy’s cheek right before tossing him onto the slick, checkered linoleum floor.

  “Pinche gringo,” he grunted as he kicked at Billy’s legs.

  Maria motioned toward the door behind them. “Make sure it’s locked,” she said in Spanish.

  The henchman, a good-looking guy named Tito, doubled back and locked the door to the store—a mom-and-pop video rental joint called Gold Coast Video, owned and operated by the aunt and uncle of Chico Acosta, the other henchman posted up next to Billy and to the left of Maria. Both Tito and Chico were part of her crew, and both were equally as loyal as they were lethal.

  The shades in the windows of the store were closed, and the fluorescent lights overhead were out, save for the glow of the pink neon tubing that traced the frames of the movie posters that were changed out monthly in the store windows and all along the walls. The current selections: Ghostbusters, Footloose, Into the Night, and Red Dawn. The store itself wasn’t big, and the selections were limited, but the owners, Miguel and Lupita Acosta, took pride in the fact that they always had the newest hits, consistent customers, and a decent amount of profit being churned out from the concessions they offered at the checkout.

  But today, business had shut down early. After an 12:00 a.m. phone call from their hoodlum nephew, Chico, they were instructed to close and to leave the back door of their shop open for their sobrino, who was stopping by with a “few friends” to discuss some business. Manuel had no argument. He knew his nephew and knew the people he associated with. Saying no to Chico was, as Manuel Acosta learned very early on, an ill-advised move. Fires were started in his kitchen over his denying Chico simple sweets during his adolescence, so it was just better to say nothing and oblige his nephew’s requests, no matter what they were.

  A couple of hours prior, before Billy was taken hostage and the madness began, Maria had woken up Billy back at the safe house with a tug of his ear. “Is it that time?” Billy asked through his haze.

  Maria, coffee cups in hand, extended one out like a kind of pseudo olive branch and replied, “Si.”

  They quickly downed their coffee, Billy splashed some water on his face, and both of them were back in the city just before dusk.

  They went to the motel Maria had mentioned in Little Havana and booked a room on the ground floor near the parking lot in back—the easiest access point for any unwanted intruders. After checking the grounds and making sure that no eyes were on them, they then spent twenty minutes finalizing the details of their plan.

  Billy was closing the shades to the window of the room while Maria checked out the bathroom. “How long until I can expect a knock on the door?”

  Maria emerged from the bathroom. “As soon as I call my guys? Twenty minutes.”

  Billy pointed to the wall on his left. “Come in that way, through the hallway outside. It spills right into the parking lot behind the motel. No one will see you coming in or out.”

  “In this part of town, I don’t think anyone is even going to care. Listen, when my guys and I come in, we’re coming in heavy.”

  “I’ll leave my gun on the nightstand. I’ll try to make a dash for it, but I’m sure one of your guys will knock me down before I have a chance to snag it. How many people do you plan on backing you up?”

  “Two. I’m going to call my guys Chico and Tito.”

  “Nice. Rhymes.”

  Billy moved toward the nightstand and removed his Colt from his waistband and held it up for Maria to see. “Don’t scratch this thing up, okay?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  Billy reached into his pocket, produced his badge, and held it up. “Let’s leave these here until we’re done, yeah? We’ll come back for them after we finish with Hector.”

  “So the play is trying to nab Hector?”

  “Indeed. He seems to know the most information about what’s going on, so let’s sweat the little bastard.”

  He opened the drawer on the nightstand and placed his shield inside. Maria took hers out and tossed it over, Billy catching the badge with one hand before placing it next to his own—right on top of the Holy Bible resting inside that hadn’t been cracked open in years, based on the dusty smell the drawer emitted when he pulled it open.

  “After your guys take me,” he said, “then we’re going to this video store, right?”

  “It’s about a half mile from here,” Maria said. “I wanted to use the restaurant, but Hector shot it down. Is what it is. After we bust in and tie you up, then I call Hector.”

  Billy digested the plan as he slowly placed his Colt on the nightstand.

  “Now,” Maria said, hands on her hips, “we need to figure out how we’re going to take these guys down.”

  “When you tie me up,” Billy said, “use a pair of metal cuffs on my hands. Make them a little loose, but not too much.”

  “You plan on picking the lock or something?”

  “No need to…”

  Billy held up his right hand and hyperextended it inward over his wrist to the point that his fingertips were nearly touching skin.

  Maria’s face took on a sour expression. “Jesus…”

  “Broke my wrist back in the day,” Billy said. “Now I can bend it all over the place.” He kept flopping his hand around as he flashed a grin reminiscent to that of an amused child. “Stretch Armstrong, eat your heart out.”

  “We’ll need a safe word,” Maria said, moving the conversation away from Billy’s unnatural flexibility, “so you don’t cut loose at the wrong moment.”

  “Safe word,” he said. “Man, our relationship has come a long way.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “I’m kind of funny.”

  “Regardless, we need something, something to know that you’re going to make a move.”

  “Well, when I do make a move, I need to know that you’re going to back me up. I can’t take on a bunch of guys at once.”

  “You sure? Figured a self-assured guy like yourself had all his bases covered.”

  Billy stopped tossing his wrist around and looked at Maria with a concerned and stern gaze. “I’m serious, Maria. When shit hits the fan I need to know you’ve got my back.”

  Maria, uncertain of the path she was headed down and what the outcome would be, but always the professional, put aside her reservations about Billy Reese, collected her bearings, and with all the sincerity she could rally, she said to him, “I’ve got your back.”

  Billy believed her. He trusted her. He had no other choice. They—whether they liked it or not—were partners. He looked after her, and she looked after him. It was a tacit and fragile alliance, but an alliance nonetheless.

  Calculation.

  Confidence.

  Patience.

  Control.

  After they finalized their code word and went through the plan one final time, Billy, approximately an hour and a half later, was shackled, gagged, and thrown onto the floor of Gold Coast Video with two henchman guarding him, his Colt stored in the back of Maria’s waistband and an unknown fate awaiting him by the hands of Mr. Hector Fuentes.

  Tito, still shaking the tension out of his hand from clocking Billy in the face, moved over to one of the windows and peeked through the blinds.

  “Where the hell is Hector?”

  “Get away from the windows, stupid,” Ma
ria scolded him in Spanish. “He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  Chico began pacing and browsing the video selections.

  Maria walked the floor, eyeballing the posters to kill time.

  Tito stood guard by Billy and nudged him with his foot.

  Billy kept still.

  Tito asked, “The hell do you think the big boss wants with him?”

  “We’ll found out soon enough,” Maria said as she eyeballed Swayze’s jawline on the Red Dawn poster.

  Headlights illuminated the front of the video store, thin slivers of light peeking through the narrow slits between the blinds as they passed by the front and went around the back.

  “That’s him,” Maria said confidently. “Stand at attention.”

  Chico and Tito followed their boss’s orders and stood on either side of Billy. Chico pulled Billy up to his knees, cursed at him in Spanish, and then mustered up the most poised and professional demeanor he could put on display.

  In the parking lot at the rear of the store, sounds of a car engine shutting off were followed by a series of car doors opening and closing. Feet shuffled toward the back entrance.

  A pause.

  Then there were three hard knocks on the door.

  Maria jerked a thumb toward Tito. “Get the door.”

  Tito cleared his throat, moved toward the door, and slowly opened it with a bellhop’s grace. Three men entered the store. The two in front were large, strapping Cuban gentleman in tailored suits and expensive haircuts, moving with a similar kind of alertness that one associated with Secret Service agents. They took a look around their surroundings, both resting one hand flat on bulges poking out the front of their suit jackets.

  Maria asked, “Where’s Hector?”

  One of the thick necks motioned toward the black Benz behind them.

  Maria craned her neck and saw that Hector was in the middle of a phone call.

  And he was looking a little chagrined.

  Hector Fuentes was a short, plumpish human with thinning hair and pink skin contrasted by his all-white attire. The man was definitely sore on the eyes. He came off more like a caricature of a human being than an actual human being. Along with his oily skin, a pencil-thin, Little Richard moustache rested above by his puffy, rubbery-looking upper lip the color of veal. He had a gray-colored brick phone pressed to his ear, sweat beading down his face, and a sore jaw muscle on his left side from grinding his teeth too much. The man on the other end of the line was the only person in the world who made Hector uneasy, and today Hector’s tolerance and levels of anxiety had been tapped out from the amount of stress that had been put on him.

  It had been like that for a while.

  Ever since Hector sold out his partner Rico Castillo to the new boss, the guy on the other end of the line.

  The leash on Hector was being reeled in by this man, slowly, inch by inch every day. The new boss had promised Hector riches when he sold out Castillo and ended up carving up the empire he and Rico had created, leaving him to work for the new boss under incredible amounts of duress on a day-to-day basis as the man in charge slowly chipped away at Hector’s earnings.

  Hector used to be a player. A king.

  But he was starting to sense that his time in this business was drawing to a close.

  “You’re there right now?” the voice on the other side asked Hector.

  The bad man in charge.

  “Yeah,” Hector said. “I’m about to head inside now.”

  “Good. See what he knows, kill him, and then get on your flight.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What?”

  “About how we’ll be meeting up over there.”

  “It’s simple: go to the bus station; go to the locker, and the location for the meet-up will be inside.”

  “Why all the secrecy?”

  “Mr. Salazar is a cautious man. You understand why. You did kill his brother, after all…”

  Hector felt a knot in his throat.

  It was old business. Bad blood between him and a man he used to work with in Chicago.

  Hector cleared his throat. “I just—”

  “Get it done, Hector,” the boss man said. “This prick FBI agent has put a significant amount of undue stress on us, and I want him dealt with.”

  “Then you should have just let Rodriguez and his partner kill him this morning when they had the chance,” Hector said.

  Nothing from the other end.

  Nothing but a tension-laced silence.

  Hector realized his misstep and tried his best to double back.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just been a late night.”

  The boss man said, “I could give a shit, Fuentes. Finish this up. Then get on the damn plane.”

  The phone was slammed down on the other side.

  Hector rested the brick phone on the seat, pulled a ruby-red handkerchief from his pocket and patted the sweat on his neck.

  He then collected himself, slicked back his hair, and got out of the car.

  Moments later, Hector waddled through the back door of the video store like a penguin in a shitty suit. He pulled his handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth while a wheezy, hacky, phlegm-stained cough was emitted from the back of his throat.

  Everyone couldn’t help but shudder.

  Hector looked at Maria, then at Chico and Tito, down at Billy, and then back at Maria.

  Just then, sounds of a helicopter passing by overheard were audible.

  “Took you long enough,” Hector said to Maria in Spanish.

  “Little bastard is slippery,” Maria replied in English.

  Hector approached Billy like someone would an animal in the zoo—scrutinizing him from head to toe. He then turned toward the checkout counter and motioned to the television mounted in the corner.

  “Put something on.”

  Chico moved toward the television as he swiped a VHS copy of The Terminator from one of the shelves and popped it into the VCR beneath the register. Credits began to roll on screen as he turned up the volume.

  “Take that thing off his head.”

  Tito removed the canvas bag over Billy’s head. Billy, his vision no longer obscured, looked at Hector with a neutral expression. Nervous but not scared. Vigilant and ready.

  Hector said, “I want to hear him talk.”

  Tito ripped the tape off of Billy’s mouth.

  “Christ!” Billy exclaimed. “Take it easy, you fucking knobhead.”

  Hector stood in front of Billy, his breathing heavy and wheezy as he said, “My name is Hector Fuentes.”

  “Good stuff,” Billy said. “You mind telling me what the hell you want with me?”

  Hector hacked once more into his handkerchief before pocketing it.

  “Fuck’s sake,” Billy winced. “That is so goddamn disgusting…”

  “We’re going to keep this simple,” Hector said. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you will answer them to the best of your knowledge.”

  “Sounds good. Do I win any prizes with this game?”

  WHACK! Hector backhanded Billy, the sound reverberating through the room despite the future war playing out on the television set in the background.

  It was a solid hit.

  Took Billy a moment to recover.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Billy said as he rubbed his cheek on his shoulder.

  “First question,” Hector said, not wasting any time. “How long have you been with the FBI, Agent Reese?”

  Maria clenched her fist.

  Billy clenched his cheeks.

  They know.

  How the hell do they know?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy said.

  WHACK! Another backhand from Hector. The second time around made his hand sting. “We know who you are, Reese. We have for a while. Counterintelligence with drug dealers rivals that of actual intelligence agencies.”

  Billy was a little dizzy.
He tried to shake it off.

  “Then what the hell are you asking me for?”

  Hector leaned forward and got right in Billy’s face, his rancid breath an assault on Billy’s nostrils. “Because we want to know what you know,” he said. “We want to know who your people are looking at, how long you’ve been looking at us, and exactly who you’re going after.”

  Billy looked to Maria, his pinched-face expression indicating that he was quickly getting close to being fed up with the interrogation.

  Patience.

  Patience…

  “How about,” Billy began, “you tell me what you want with me first.”

  Hector tsked repeatedly. “You’re not in a position to be asking questions, gringo.”

  “Yet I’m asking them, gordo.”

  Another WHACK.

  “Hector,” Maria protested, “we’re not going to get anything out of him if you knock him unconscious.”

  “Cállate, puta!” Hector scolded as he crooked a finger in Maria’s direction. “You work for me! I’m the one that gives the orders around here. Comprende?”

  Maria said nothing.

  Hector turned his attention back to Billy.

  Then the sounds of a helicopter were heard passing over the top of the Gold Coast Video for the second time.

  Close, but not too close.

  “Speak, gringo,” Hector said to Billy. “Tell me what you know.”

  The right side of Billy’s face was red and raw from the repeated backhanding. After a few seconds of silence passed, and nothing coming out of Billy’s mouth, Hector waved him off.

  “We’re getting nowhere with this…”

  Billy began slowly twirling his right wrist behind his back—prepping it, warming it up for a good stretch.

  Hector snapped his fingers at Chico, who immediately tossed over his switchblade. Hector clicked it open and waved it front of Billy’s face. “If you don’t start talking,” he said, “I’m going to start slicing.”

  Billy, ever so nimble, was already flexing his wrist.

  “What was the question?” he asked.

  “The first was how long you’ve been a fed,” Hector said.

  “Couple of years.”

  “Undercover?”

  “B-I-N-G-O.”