by Glenn Trust
Luis Acero ignored it all. This shit hole was home for now. When he had put together enough cash, he planned to move on, find another city and another dealer to work for.
He had left Atlanta two years earlier with a pocket of cash supplied by John Sole. The detective had killed the drug lord who was going to kill Luis. Since then, they had spoken three times on the phone Sole provided. He had no idea what the former cop was doing, but he knew he wasn’t a cop anymore. That had been in the papers.
Part of him hated Sole. If he had not been a snitch for him, Luis would still be in Atlanta, selling drugs on his corner, making money, and living large.
Another part of him knew that John Sole was the only person he could trust. Sole could have abandoned him, let the cartel slit his throat and dump him in the river, but he didn’t. Instead, he made sure Luis had some cash to start over somewhere and took the cartel on a chase away from Luis. That counted for something.
A knock came at the door. About fucking time. Luis rose from the sofa, joint clenched between the fingers of his left hand. He pulled the door open.
“Here.”
The young black boy held out two plastic shopping bags bearing the markings of a local grocery store. If anyone stopped him, he was just getting some groceries for his mother. That was the cover story he had been given, but no one ever stopped him.
Luis took the bags without speaking. No names were mentioned. Nothing else was said. Luis nodded and closed the door.
He returned to the sofa and placed the bags on the floor between his feet to examine the packages inside. Several heavy brown envelopes in each held cocaine packaged in plastic bags. One of the shopping bags held gram packages, the other eightballs—an eighth of an ounce of cocaine each.
He took a long final drag on the joint, dropped it to the floor, and stepped on it with the heel of his shoe. Then he pulled the rickety coffee table close and started to cut three lines of coke from his supply. The jolt would get him jump-started for the day.
He rolled up a twenty-dollar bill and leaned over to snort the first line from the filthy tabletop. A knock at the door, three sharp raps stopped him. His head lifted, nostrils expanding as if to sniff the air for danger. Every nerve in his body tensed. No one should be visiting. No one ever visited. There was no reason to visit. He found his customers, not the other way around.
He pulled the slats of the blinds apart and peered out. No car sat at the curb, but that didn’t mean anything. He rose and went to a side window where he could see the front stoop. He relaxed and moved to the door, a smile on his face.
“Roman,” Luis said as he pulled the door open. He nodded and grinned like a high school athlete happy to have pleased his coach on being told he was moving him to the starting team. “Man, it is good to see. I got your message … expanding my area … gonna make you proud, bro. I promise.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“Come on, in, man. Get off the street. This ain’t your usual hood.”
Roman remained stationary, expressionless. Luis’ forehead wrinkled, confused. They stood face to face without speaking for several seconds.
“What’s the matter, Roman? I thought …”
The sound behind him was faint, just a slight movement of air as someone passed into the room. He turned and would have screamed out his terror if Alejandro Garza had not clamped a gloved hand over his mouth.
Garza forced him down on the sofa, the muscles in his arms sinewy steel as Luis beat helplessly against them. Roman entered, and Garza nodded.
In a matter of seconds, he wrapped the duct tape Garza provided around Luis’ feet and hands and over his mouth, making a complete pass around his head. They sat him up straight on the sofa.
“Do you know who I am?” Garza asked.
Eyes wide, his breath coming in gasps, Luis nodded.
“Then you understand what is going to happen.”
Luis’ eyes grew even wider. It was the stuff of nightmares.
In the world he inhabited, Alejandro Garza was the phantom bogey man who sent terror through every heart. And here he stood, towering over him, all-powerful, the decider of fates, the man who could give him the simple speedy death he prayed for at this moment, but who could also send him into an endless, agonizing hell of torture that would only end when the bogey man was satisfied.
“You will give me what I want. You know that.”
Trembling, Luis nodded.
“All of it. I promise that you will have no choice.” Garza’s voice was like the drone of a machine, heartless, passionless, and irresistible. “It is inevitable, only a matter of time. The question for you, and it is an important one … one that will determine how you end your wretched life … is how much time will I waste here with you. Do you understand?”
Luis nodded again, and this time he wept.
Part Three - Life
The Hunter - A Place for Ghosts
The grave was much as he had imagined it. Nestled in a corner of the town’s lone cemetery, the tree-covered slopes of the mountains rose above it. Towering oaks, hickory, and maple surrounded the site, casting cool shadows. It was as if nature cradled the place in her palm, ensuring that peace would preside here.
He knelt by the grave, peered at the stone, and nodded. This was the one. There was no mistaking it. Though it had been dug and then covered twenty years earlier, the chiseled words engraved on the marker were still clear.
Clara Barker Sole
1951 - 1998
Beloved by all;
May the tender mercies of the Lord be upon her as she showed tenderness to all.
He reached out and touched the stone marker, then leaned forward and rested his forehead on its polished surface. It was cool and soothing. Minutes passed. He remained like that, soaking in the coolness, letting it ease away the fever that had possessed him most of his life.
An hour passed, and he was still alone by the grave. He hadn’t expected anyone to come, but still, there had been the chance that the man he sought would be drawn to the place.
A cardinal in a nearby tree called to the strange man invading his domain. He looked up. It was unmistakable, brilliant scarlet against the green background, and one more sight he had forgotten. There were no cardinals in the Mojave Desert.
The bird turned its head side to side, watching the man. It gave another less musical call, a metallic chip sound that seemed to say, “Watch out. You’re on my turf, human. I know where the bodies are buried.”
The man smiled and muttered, “I’ll bet you do.”
The smile felt strange, pulling at the corners of his mouth like an article of clothing that had shrunk and been forgotten. It spread across his cheeks in an unaccustomed way until he accepted it. Gradually, it grew wider. He looked at the grave, whispering to her ghost.
“I’m smiling. Can you see it? Can you believe it?”
He could almost see her throw her head back, her laughter deep and throaty, womanly. “No, I don’t believe a bit of it.”
A breeze rustled the leaves in the trees, and he looked around as if she had sent the wind as an answer from beyond. He shook his head. “I guess this is a place for ghosts, if ever there was one.”
Many of the graves were old, some dating back more than a hundred and fifty years to the founding of Cassit Pass as a crossroads stop for travelers. Traveling by horse, mule, wagon, cart, or foot, they made their way from the eastern coastal regions to the Cumberland Plateau and beyond, searching for fertile farm country not already claimed by wealthy planters in the slave states.
A few stayed in the mountains. This was far enough, and as good a place as any to make a life. They lived here and died here, and now, Clara rested with them.
He spent the afternoon sitting by the grave, waiting. After a while, even the cardinal ceased calling, accepting his presence the way it accepted the dead when they arrived periodically to take their place in one of the graves.
An occasional breeze moaned through the trees, ru
stling the leaves and branches the way a sob shakes the shoulders of a mourner. He looked around the empty cemetery and wondered. Were the dead beyond weeping? Or did they shed their tears for the puny mortals left behind?
He sat through the afternoon listening to the trees whisper and moan, their limbs creaking as they swayed until the sun lowered and the shadows lengthened. It was clear that the man he hunted was not going to show today. He hadn’t really expected him to. It was just a reason to visit the grave.
He took a small medallion from his pocket and laid it on the stone, then stood and walked away. The hunt continued.
Moments
The layers of tape wrapped around his head and eyes were ripped away, taking part of his eyebrows and lashes with them. Luis Acero blinked and squinted. The transformation from pitch black to bright day was instantaneous, and the dim light from a lamp on a nearby table was like looking into the noonday sun. The light stabbed into his eyes, and he squinted in pain.
He sat upright on a wooden chair in the middle of a bare room. He had no idea where the room was located. He had no idea where Alejandro Garza was, but Roman Madera towered over him, holding the duct tape in his hand.
“Do you know where you are?” Roman asked.
Luis shook his head and looked around the room at the bare plank walls. Somewhere behind him, light shone through a window.
He sobbed and whimpered, his throat too choked with fear to plead. They had covered his eyes with the tape, then dragged him from his home and placed him on the rear floor of a car where he lay for hours.
Sounds of the city faded. A while later, noise from passing cars also disappeared. When the car came to a stop, he was dragged out and into a structure where they sat him in the chair and left him. He had no idea how long he sat there. It could have been hours or days. Sensory deprivation distorted his sense of time. At one point, he thought he must have slept, but that could have been merely a wish to sleep so he could wake up from this terrifying dream.
“You are in a room in a cabin in the mountains of western Virginia,” Roman said, his voice firm but the expression on his face regretful and full of empathy. “This is a place far from the city and that shit hole of a house you rent, a place where no one will hear you if you cry out and where no one will come to save you.”
Roman paused. His eyes softened with what appeared to be true sympathy, and Luis shuddered.
“This is the last place on earth you will see, Luis,” Roman continued sadly. “I am sorry it has come to that, but you see that it can end no other way. The only thing you have power over now is how it ends for you.”
Luis’ shoulders shook with his sobs. Tears poured down over the duct tape that sealed his mouth shut. He struggled to speak.
Roman patted him on the back and ripped the tape away from his mouth. “Don’t drown in your tears, Luis.”
“Please,” Luis begged. “There must be a way … something I can say.” His head moved side to side in denial, flinging tears to the floor. “I will give you what you want. I will do whatever it takes, but let me live. I beg you, Roman!” He gasped, barely able to speak through his tears. “Please let me live.”
“Hombre, be a man!” Roman said in harsh tones, annoyed that Luis was making this hard for him. “You know who waits in the next room. He allowed me to come in and try to prepare you so that you would reconcile yourself to the inevitable and offer him what he wants quickly. Do that and he will make things easy for you, painless and quick.” Roman shook his head. “If you do not, it will be very hard on you … harder than you can imagine.”
“I want to live!” Luis cried out.
A door opened behind him. A tall man stepped around the chair and looked down at his quivering frame. Roman stepped to the back, reconciled to what would happen next even if Luis was not.
The tall man spoke. “You will not live. That has been explained to you. You will tell me what I want to know one way or another. Tell me quickly and I will send you to your ancestors quickly and without pain.”
Luis’s head sunk to his chest, weeping in desperation. Without warning, a hand struck him in the side of the face, the force of the blow twisting his head to the side. The sobbing stopped as he caught his breath, stunned by the blow.
The point of a knife pressed into the bottom of his chin, lifting his head until he looked into the eyes of Alejandro Garza.
“We will begin.” Garza spoke quietly, without threat, as if he were asking about the weather. “Where is the man, John Sole?”
It was a simple question, and Luis was terrified to give an honest answer. Trembling, he whispered, “I don’t know.”
Eyes clenched shut, Luis waited for the blade of the knife to slice into his quivering flesh.
“Very good,” Garza said, nodding approval.
Luis’ eyes popped open. “Good?” He was confused.
“I do not believe this man would be so careless to make his whereabouts known to the likes of you. If you had answered differently, it would be proof that you are going to try to lie to me, and there would have been consequences before I asked the next question … painful consequences. Do you understand this?”
Luis nodded.
What passed for a smile flittered briefly across Garza’s stone-like countenance. “Are you ready to continue?”
Luis nodded.
“Good. Have you been in contact with him since leaving Atlanta?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Not many. Three maybe.” Luis looked up, thinking, and nodded. “Yes, three times.”
There were tears in his eyes. With each question, he drew closer to the moment when Garza would run the blade across his throat. Yet, each moment was one more of life. He tried desperately to devise a plan to extend the moments and avoid the knife.
“Have you seen him in person, when you have been in contact with him?”
“No, never.”
“How do you contact him?”
“I call him.”
“You call him?” Garza’s eyes narrowed. “You have been warned to speak only the truth.” He lifted the tip of the knife blade in front of Luis’s eyes. “This man would not have a number you could call and reach him so easily.”
“It’s not like that!” Luis spoke rapidly. “I didn’t mean I just call his phone.”
“Explain.”
“There is a voice mail account. I dial the number for the account and leave a voice message. It is not the number to his phone, but we can both listen to voice messages on it.” Luis’ voice and eyes pleaded in desperation for Garza to believe him. “I leave a message. He checks in from another phone, one I don’t have the number to … a burner. Then he calls the same voice mail number and leaves a message for me. He tells me how to reach him … what number to call. It’s always a different number. He never uses the same phone.”
“Simple and clever.” Garza considered the explanation for a moment, then extended a hand to Roman. “Let me have his phone.
Roman handed over the phone they had taken from Luis’ pocket. Garza scrolled through the contact list.
“This number, is it in your list?”
“No.” Luis shook his head, and a spark of hope flickered in his heart. He might be able to prolong his moments of life for a few more minutes. “He told me to remember it, not write it down, or add it to my phone.”
“You will give me this number.”
“Yes.”
Luis spilled it out immediately. Garza thumbed it into his phone and saved it.
“If you left a message for him that you were with me, that he must come to me to prevent me from ending your life, would he come?”
The spark of hope burned a little brighter, fanned by the possibility that this might not be his last day on earth.
“Yes,” Luis said quickly, praying that he was right.
Garza was silent, considering the possibilities, and Luis lived for several more moments, each one a lifetime in his feverish brain
. If he could survive until Sole showed up, there might be a way to go on living. Garza looked at the phone in his hand.
“If I leave this message for him, he will come right away?”
“No,” Luis said, and recoiled as Garza lifted his dark eyes, menacingly. “Not at first, I mean. He checks the voice mail, but sometimes it takes a few days. He doesn’t check every day, but he will, and then he will get your message and …”
“And he might come to help you, or he might not,” Garza interrupted. “I warned you to speak truthfully.”
“I am. I swear it,” Luis pleaded. “I mean he saved my life I Atlanta when he …”
“When he killed our man.”
“Yes.” Luis’ words came out rapid-fire filling the air in the hope that as long as there were words floating between them, Garza would keep the knife away from his neck. An idea came to him. “But there is someone else. Someone he will come to protect. I am certain of it.”
“Who?” Garza’s eyes narrowed.
“A woman.”
Sole had fled Texas with a woman and her son to protect them from the men Garza sent to kill them. This was a bonus he had not expected.
“And how did you hear of this woman?”
“I helped get fake IDs for them so they could stay hidden.”
“And Sole contacted you himself for this task?”
“No. He sent someone … a friend he said.” Luis gave the sales pitch of his life. “He will come for me, but he will come faster for the woman I think. I’m just a snitch to him, but they are friends … I am sure there is something between him and the woman.”
“Something?”
“Yeah, like they were together … like she was his woman and he was protecting her … like she …”
“I understand,” Garza broke into Luis’ sales pitch, staring at him as he weighed this new information. “Then why do I need you?”
“Because I’m the one who contacts him on the voice mail number. He would expect a message from me if there’s a problem. If I don’t leave the message, he will think it’s a trap and not show up.”
