Fables & Felonies

by Nellie K Neves

  The restraints rattled against the table, but Amos didn’t look away. “Don’t attempt the impossible. Leave me, leave all of this, and don’t get yourself killed, Sparrow.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  My next stop was the nearest superstore. Thankfully I had left my wallet in my car the night before, or I might have been without cash. I purchased a prepaid phone, black hair dye, black compression pants, underwear, a black long-sleeved top, and a camera with a telephoto lens to replace the one that had likely melted into a puddle of goo the night before. As the clerk beeped each item, I watched the price climb and practiced my calming mantra, It’s only money, over and over again in my head.

  Too much leaving. Not enough coming in.

  I checked into a local motel. Sure it was a dive, and I might get murdered for totally unrelated reasons before I checked out, but I needed a home front, and I refused to put my parents in any more danger by hiding out at their place. I dyed my hair in the bathroom; by the looks of the sink, I wasn’t the first. Maybe this motel had been used to create new identities before. I didn’t bother setting foot in the shower, it screamed hepatitis, and instead I balanced carefully on the edge of the tub and rinsed my hair clean in the rushing water of the spout. I used one of the stained washcloths to scrub my skin free of soot, then wondered if I should have left it for camouflage’s sake. It was all a distraction anyway, something to pass the time before I did what I’d come to do.

  I fetched the number of the hotel I’d sent my parents off to. It only rang twice before my father picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  His confusion surprised me, until I remembered it wasn’t my number, he didn’t know it was me.

  “Dad, it’s me. Don’t say anything to Mom, though. Pretend it’s work.”

  “Donnelly, why are you calling me? I told you I was on vacation.” I heard the door open and then close behind him. “Did you get those reports I sent you? I hope they were in order.”

  He was putting distance between himself and my mother. I’d love to say it was the first time we’d done this little dance, but that would be a lie.

  “Dad,” I started again, “some stuff has happened, and I’m going on recon tonight to try to get some pictures of a drug shipment as it comes in. Don’t come home.”

  I’d hoped he wouldn’t get far enough away that he’d actually be able to talk to me, but as my luck went, he had.

  “What are you talking about?” he hissed into the phone. “Take that to the cops, Lindy.”

  “I did,” I said. “Ranger is blocking me. I think he’s dirty.”

  “So go around him,” Dad suggested.

  “What if they’re all dirty?” I asked. “What then? I’ll be dead before the sun goes down.”

  “Lindy, you can’t do this,” my dad started, but I didn’t want to hear it. This wasn’t even the reason I had called.

  “Dad, I found Jackie.”

  He stopped mid-sentence, stopped so hard I heard nothing but his breathing in the phone.

  “I found her,” I tried again. “I’ve been exchanging letters with her. She has no idea. Some family adopted her and she thinks her name is Josie, but it’s her, Dad, I know it is.”

  I can’t even hear his breathing anymore.

  “Dad?”

  Nothing.

  “Dad, are you still there?”

  There were a few noises, guttural sounds that let me know that he was there but there were no words.

  “Uncle Shane has all her information,” I said, “in case I don’t…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, the sentence where I told him that I wasn’t sure I’d make it out alive.

  “Lindy, don’t do this.” That’s the only thing that makes it through to him. The idea that he might lose one of his daughters if I take on this impossible task. “I’m begging you, don’t go tonight. I can’t bury another daughter.”

  “You won’t have to,” I told him. “You know I’m careful.”

  “I’ll call in some favors. Stay put and don’t go out tonight.”

  “Dad—”

  “Promise me, Lindy.” His voice was stern, like the time he caught me sneaking back in from a concert and he made me promise I’d never do it again. “Promise me you’re not going to get yourself killed.”

  I wanted to. Isn’t that what was important? I really wanted to promise him that I wouldn’t go out, but I was trying to be a better person, trying to turn over a new leaf, and lying to my dad seemed counterproductive. Instead, I apologized.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. Tell Mom I love her,” I said, and I hung up the phone.

  Chapter 20

  Black isn’t really my color. Eleanor pulls it off better than I do. Her skin is a few shades more olive than mine. Mom has always said that Eleanor got the coloring of our great-great-grandmother, who came from Italy. I’ve always been disappointed that with my lighter skin tone, pastels were my best bet. Pastels, wimpy, baby-shaded, color of flowers and cotton candy, pastels. I can’t help but wonder where Jackie falls on the spectrum. Jewel tones and dark shades like Elle, or pastels like me.

  It was stupid to think about it as I pressed my body against a cargo container on the outskirts of the junkyard, but it was distracting, and for that I was grateful. When I actually stopped to think about what I was doing, about how I’d parked my car half a mile up the street and had cut a hole in the chain-link fence to creep through in order to run covert surveillance against drug smugglers, all I could see was an exploding frog and Amos’ parting words, “Do not attempt the impossible.”

  My fingers caught something sticky on the metallic wall of the container. I recoiled out of instinct. My mother always told me that the upside of my coloring was that I would always look good in white. “Perfect for a wedding dress,” she would say when I was young.

  Being the tomboy that I was, it never appealed to me. For one brief second I let myself wonder, dream, even just a breath of hope of what it might be like to walk that path. As I heard voices in the distance, the thoughts melted like chalk in a rainstorm, replaced by the irony that Elle would be wearing white in a few months, and I was dressed from head to toe in black, even down to my thick braid that hung down my back.

  Chains rattled in the night. I tilted my head to look around the container. Smashed cars piled high, one on top of the other, like gigantic toy cars in a deranged child’s sandbox. The chain metal gates swung open, catching and bumping against the gravel as two men pushed them to allow the entrance of a massive semitruck. The camera was sweaty in my hands. My gun burned at my thigh, itching to be held. Maybe my heart wouldn’t have been slamming in my chest if I held my gun instead of my camera.

  The truck lumbered forward, jolting and groaning as it tipped down the slight driveway to spill out into the junk yard. I put my camera to my eye and snapped a picture. Checking the view finder, I saw that I wasn’t close enough. My bank account hadn’t allowed for the lens that had burned in the fire, the one that could get the shot from one hundred yards away. Lowering into my knees, I ran to the next container, feet quick and silent.

  Coming up just short of the container, I paused and held my breath.

  Nothing.

  The men’s voices didn’t waver. Positioning myself again, I snapped a couple pictures. I caught the outline of the truck, and saw men with guns, but not faces. I had to get closer.

  I moved to the back of the container and set my eyes on a pile of old cars just fifty yards from their truck. “Get the pictures and get out,” I whispered to myself, as if it minimized the danger. Barely able to contain the trembling in my hands, I rushed to my goal, low to the earth, silent as I could be.

  Rancid chemicals radiated a pungent odor from the tower of cars, like rotting bodies on a battlefield oozing their decomposing fluids one into the next. Mold laced itself through the stench. Seats had been left out for years to gather water, bake long enough to foster bacterial growth, and then flood once more. Shivers rippled through me as I worked my way to the edge of
the tower, but it wasn’t the cars, it was the men who were well within the sight of my camera, and by the same token, made me well within their vision as well.

  Through my viewfinder I watched them unlatch the back. Snap went my camera as I pressed the button to take a picture. I focused on Juan Balcazar with his thick chops and stringy goatee. Snap. Then his brother, thicker, obviously the boss from the way he shouted commands. Snap. The other two henchmen swung open the doors to the back of the truck and I caught them as well. Snap. Most importantly, as the door swung open, I captured the contents. Snap.

  Tall crates stretched nearly floor to ceiling on the truck. One of the men climbed into the back, crowbar in hand. Snap. The box groaned then split as the cover side fell away and tumbled to the ground. Snap. The lights of the junkyard caught the gleam of the plastic wrapped packages of white. Snap. Snap. Snap. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how much the one crate of methamphetamines was worth, let alone the price of the entire truck.

  Another breaking sound caught my attention. I lifted my camera to my eye just in time to see a second crate pop open. Snap. Assault rifles, handguns, even machine guns from what I could see, and more, so much more shone in the dim light. Soft chuckles rippled through the crowd. I captured the contents. Snap. This was a great victory. I backed slightly to pull myself into the shadows.

  The truck’s doors groaned closed. I’d assumed they would unload the truck, maybe hide the shipment in plain sight so to speak, but as the driver finally cut the engine and made his way to the back, I knew plans had changed.

  A few words were exchanged, but all in Spanish. I understood nothing. I heard laughter as Javier Balcazar patted the driver on the back for his job well done. A sharp sound caught my attention, almost as if someone had clapped two bricks together, once, hard, but more metallic. The driver slumped to the ground. It was only then that I saw the gun, a long suppressor set to its open mouth in Javier’s hand. My shock at the death was so suffocating, I nearly forgot the picture.

  Snap.

  “Omar, Molina.” Javier Balcazar whistled, and merely stepped over the driver’s body as it still twitched on the ground. The other men climbed into the truck and the engine fired up once more.

  They were leaving. That was my cue. I had my pictures, I had the license plate of the truck. Time to make an exit.

  The gun cocked before I turned around. My mouth went dry. I froze in place. My eyes twisted to the edge of my vision, but I dared not move my head.

  “Why’d you have to come, Lindy?” I recognized the cold, deep tenor of Layton Granger. “Why couldn’t you stay away?”

  The gun jabbed at my ribcage. My hands came up instinctively to show I was not a threat.

  “Camera,” Ranger hissed through his teeth. “Give it to me.”

  “What are you doing with them?” I lifted the camera strap from my neck. “You’re a cop. You’ve always been a cop.”

  The gun jabbed into me once more. I winced. Flashes of a rifle in my ribs played in my memory. I had a thing against guns jabbed against my torso.

  “It’s good money.” Ranger reached for my camera. “Affords a good lifestyle my pension will never give me.” My weight shifted as he took the camera, just enough that he saw the gun strapped to my leg.

  “Weapon,” he said. “Give me your weapon.”

  I liked the weight of it against my leg. It had been too long that I’d been separated from my 9mm. The idea of handing it to him was difficult for more than just the reason that he might turn around and shoot me with it in the next five seconds.

  There was only a bit of resistance from the strap that held my gun in place. I flipped the safety as I fit my fingers around the hilt. Some girls like a pair of shoes that fit just right; not me, I love the way my gun molds into my hand. The holster gave way and I lifted my gun overhead, as if playing keep away with Eleanor. As Ranger went to remove it from my grasp, I tensed my muscles and waited.

  The second his skin touched mine, I locked his grip against my gun with my other hand, and twisted. My elbow collided hard with his face. The inertia of both of our bodies increased my strength and Ranger stumbled back just as I caught my balance. I brought my gun back to level and aimed it in time to look down the barrel of his service revolver.

  In my mind, all I could see were the years I’d spent on Ranger’s lap, listening to his stories, playing with his cuffs, marching Elle off to jail while carrying his badge. My heart ached as my finger braced the trigger.

  Me or him.

  Had it really come to this?

  “Put it down, Lindy,” he warned. “I’ll shoot you. You know I will.”

  “You’re going to shoot me, Ranger? How are you going to shoot me when I know you can see my mother in my eyes?” I refused to look away. “Are you going to be able to live with yourself knowing you killed the daughter of the only woman you ever loved?”

  Gravel crackled as the truck pushed out the back gates of the yard. The roar of the diesel covered our voices, or at least so I hoped.

  “Shut up,” he warned.

  “I know you’ll never see her again, but I also know my face will haunt you. Can you live with that?”

  “Put the gun down, leave the camera with me, and I’ll let you walk out of here.” He said it like it was a good offer, like I’d be crazy not to take it.

  Maybe I was.

  “Not happening,” I said. “Second option. You give me the camera, and I’ll give you a head start before I turn this footage in. Right now you’re not in any of the shots.”

  He considered it. Ranger actually considered it. If not for the gun I heard cock directly behind me, he might have taken it.

  “Zorra,” Juan Balcazar’s voice cooed, “you’re alive and you found me again.”

  Fear rose in Ranger’s eyes as Balcazar’s hand slipped around my stomach, a snake coiling its kill. My gun was wrested from my grip. The ground rushed my face as Balcazar shoved me forward. I collided with enough force that my breath caught and a cry was forced from my lungs. Cold steel ate into my forehead as Balcazar pressed the muzzle of my gun against me. He bent low, close enough I felt his breath on my skin. That same excitement was there, the frenzied elation I had seen as he’d chained me to my bed and lit my cottage on fire.

  Captured like a fox in a trap.

  “Get her up,” a second voice said. “On her knees.”

  Javier, Juan’s brother. He’d stopped Balcazar back in the cottage as well. I knew better than to be grateful. Where Juan wanted to play with his prey, like a cat with a mouse, Javier was a shark, swift and without mercy.

  Balcazar looked to his brother. “One night, just let me—”

  “Get her up,” Javier instructed. When Balcazar didn’t move, his brother’s kick caught him square in his ribs. “Now!”

  Pain surged through my scalp as Balcazar fisted my hair and yanked me to my knees. Gravel cut into my skin through the thin fabric of the compression pants. I kept my eyes down, knowing Balcazar was just inches from my face. The knife made a grating sound as it pulled from its sheath at Juan’s belt. The glint of steel threatened me from the corner of my eye.

  “What about you?” Javier turned to Ranger, just out of my sight. “Why didn’t you shoot her? Isn’t that why we hired you?”

  Ranger didn’t say a word. I wished I could read his mind, know what he was thinking as Juan began to trace my old scars on my face with the tip of his knife as though he might open the wounds once more.

  “What good is security,” Javier asked, “if you don’t keep us secure?”

  The steel was too familiar. A mad man with a knife was too familiar. Panic rose up in my chest like a stampede. My whimper leaked out, crept past my lips and landed in Balcazar’s ears where he relished my torment. Gentle Spanish words were his reward for my outburst, his plans for me if he got his way, I was sure of it. I had to get free, but with the knife against my jugular, I was pinned.

  The stench of alcohol slipped over my skin as he leaned
closer and took a deep breath of me. My fear enticed him. The knife tightened as he drank in another shot of my terror. I felt his tongue against my skin, slimy and wet with saliva, tracing over the place he’d marked once before. Hot air burst into my ear. My skin crawled with loathing. I had to get free.

  “You’re mine,” Balcazar hissed against my hair.

  Unable to bear another moment, I drew back my head and cracked it against his. Pain seared through my vision, turning it blinding white for a brief second in time. The force of the backhand slammed me back into the gravel. Balcazar tangled his hand in my hair and pressed down as though he might crush my skull.

  “Lindy!” Ranger called out for me, but I kept my eyes on the knife. Tilting and twisting in my vision, as if it had a life of its own, there was no way I was taking my eyes off that knife.

  “It becomes clear now,” I heard Javier say. “You know her better than you let on. That’s why you didn’t shoot her.”

  Balcazar sank onto me, his body weight against mine, arms pinned beneath me as the tip of his knife traced the outer edge of my torso.

  “She’s the daughter of a friend of mine. I told you that.” Ranger’s desperation was palpable. What could he see that I couldn’t? What new dangers had been released?

  “You said you could take care of her, but then we had to. Now she’s here. Did you help her? Warn her? Save her from the flames?”

  “No,” Ranger said, adamant that he’d been loyal. “No, I didn’t even know about it until she—” He caught himself. Ranger knew he couldn’t admit that he’d seen me at the precinct because it would be admitting that he hadn’t told his employers that their plan had failed.

  Air brushed over my torso as Balcazar peeled back the fabric of my top. Electricity shot up my spinal cord as the cold night touched my backbone, and then the knife. Stinging pain trailed each vertebrae as he cut into me, not enough to drain me like Dallas had, but enough to exact pain. My cries of terror were muffled by the gravel, but not so much that Ranger couldn’t hear. His breathing went ragged, tight and strained. What could he be thinking as he watched the psychopath take his liberties with my pinned body?