Two hispanic men shoved past the guards and Blanche as they opened the glass door to the offices. She recognized the one who had to have a smoke break earlier. The men were shouting in Spanish. It frustrated her not to understand. They nearly knocked her down as an unnoticeable cleaning lady. Blanche steadied herself against the wall. The beeping alarm of the Dementia Unit was shut down by the RCCC security.
Blanche cleared her throat to talk higher. “I need to do the trash and then I’m done. Can I go through?”
She waved her trash bags and her key card around a lot hoping they didn’t really look at her face. If the Cuban security guys were chasing someone, the coast might be clear. Why were they running? What else was going on? They were running away from where she’d left Antonio.
The security waved her in as they got on the phone. She used AnaRosa’s keycard and gave a prayer of thanks when the door opened without more alarms.
Janice had been tucked in bed by her caregivers but was wide awake.
“What’s going on?”
“I thought you’d know since you’re on the inside.”
“They tell us jack squat around here except ‘you’re just fine’, like we’re morons,” Janice said.
“I’m going for the papers in the trash in Unit 2 and then I’ll be back.”
“Where’s Arty?”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get you out of here in a few days between the new Medicare fraud and breaking this scandal.”
“Why can’t I come with you tonight?”
“How would we do it with your chair and everything? I promise we’ll get you. Sit tight.” Promise, promise Blanche repeated to herself.
“Don’t have much choice, do I?” Her sarcasm mixed with bitterness.
“I better hurry.” Blanche squeezed Janice’s boney hand and moved down the hall. She stopped and dumped a small trash can at a nurses station where the aids were watching TV or looking at their phones.
She looked over her shoulder toward the door to Unit 2. The Dementia Unit seemed settled. No one running or looking for anyone around here.
Blanche slipped down the hall and through to the other unit with no alarm other than the banging of her own heart beat. As she worked her way down Unit 2, she heard a muffled keening sound. Blanche kept easing in that direction knowing she had to get to the desk and empty the trash.
As she drew even with the empty nurses station and picked up the trash can, she saw an open door directly across and to her dismay saw Antonio pulling at the bandages of a man on the bed and Shirley-Veda trying to pull him back.
“You can’t kill him. Remember?” Shirley said.
“I just want to see this hipócrita and his new face. Stop fighting me you murdering sack of...” he started speaking Spanish.
The keening grew louder and seemed to be coming from the partially bandaged head. Blanche started to go in but saw a nurse scurrying down the hall toward the ruckus.
She tried to cough or psst to let them know but the nurse rushed on.
With a shaking hand, Blanche shook the trashcan at the print station where she did see some papers that looked like Antonio had done his part. She stared into the fray in the other room.
The bandages had been pulled and torn away to some extent but Blanche could only see purple and bruising for her part. She stared as the nurse made a grab at Antonio.
Shirley got in the way, intentionally it seemed. “He’s from the Dementia Unit, I followed him.”
The nurse grabbed Antonio’s free arm that tore at the bandages, his other hand grasped Señor Rafael by the throat. Blanche hoped the purple she saw on his face wasn’t from lack of air already. He still seemed to be making the horrible sound, so he wasn’t dead yet.
Antonio somehow shook off the nurse throwing her to the floor. It must be some special move he knew from his syndicate days. “He’s a murderer. You should be ashamed for helping him escape la justicia!”
The nurse rushed out of the room yelling, “Call security!”
Blanche stared. She had no intention of doing that and anyway the nurse wasn’t really honed in on her as she ran to get reinforcements from the big nurses station down the hall.
In the guise of looking helpful, Blanche ran in the room.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
Antonio pulled a chunk of bandage from the chin that made a tearing sound. Blanche couldn’t tell if it was the tape or the skin from her angle. The man squealed like an animal.
She knew she stood gaping and holding a trash bag in midair but didn’t know what to do without giving everything away.
Then Blanche’s cell phone started to ring.
The Dragon. Blanche tried to reject the call but somehow answered it instead.
“Now is not a good time.” Blanche turned her back to the melee because she didn’t want Diane to hear Veda Vespucci in the background. Veda was putting on an Oscar worthy performance at the moment trying to persuade Antonio to flee before the nurse came back with reinforcements.
“Are you with Shirley?”
“You mean Veda?” Blanche glanced back over her shoulder at the fuss. “Sort of.”
“I don’t understand you. What’s that sound?”
“Look, it’s not a good time. Let me...”
“Tell her I’ll do a $500,000 but with photos. It has to be with photos.”
“That’s complicated due to a, uhm, problem she’s had in recent, ahh, years.” Blanche sidled over to the doorway watching down the hall.“The nurse is getting a needle and calling security, you need to scram.” She hissed into the doorway of the room. “The Dragon says she’ll do $500,000 with photos.”
Shirley pulled at the arm Antonio had around Señor’s neck. “Let go!” She glanced over her shoulder, rolled her eyes at Blanche, “Tell her to go to...”
Diane said, “What are you talking about?”
Blanche answered, “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you. But here look,” she tried to wave a hand at Shirley-Veda, “Shirley has agreed to tell you a story of intrigue and secrets but for $1 million with pictures.”
“I don’t care a rats you-know-what about the care center. I want childhood murder stories.”
“Antonio, we’ve got to get out of here.” Shirley bravely stepped between him and Senor’s face.
Blanche saw this brought him out of his frenzy for a moment.
Then Shirley’s face went all pale as her eyes went over Blanche’s head. Blanche was afraid to turn.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Bruce had watched Carlos run round the side of the building rather than back in the employee entrance which seemed weird to Bruce but the situation was beyond boss micro management. He adjusted his booted painful foot and started to move again.
He heard voices and sounds behind him, but didn’t look back. It was dark and he didn’t want to know. He just wanted away. He started the golf cart into the darkness toward the safety of Benita and home.
He steadied himself and hoped they Cubans would just want the helicopter escape more than they wanted revenge.
The main thing was making RCCC okay after this. It must be solved so no one knew.
Then he heard the guns fire and he heard a round smack through the seat next to him and he started weaving around the road.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Diane screamed in Blanche’s ear through the phone, but all other sound stopped except the crescendo of moaning from the man in the bed. Into the void, came a voice behind Blanche that made her blood stop.
“No one will be selling any secrets, will we?” Carlos said. “Veda, what have you done with yourself?”
Diane yelled, “You double crossing, good for nothing, old bitty.” And hung up.
Blanche felt a heavy hand slide around her shoulder and hold her around the throat. She heard gunshots far away somewhere.
Antonio said, ”Sounds like you’ve got company firing shots outside, Carlos. Shouldn’t you go check on your b
oss?” As he said it he grasped around on the side table.
Blanche wanted him to pull up a weapon and shoot Carlos off of her, but it could never be that simple. The pressure Carlos exerted on her wind pipe made her want to cough and choke. She automatically pulled at his arm with one hand and held a death grip on her trash bag with the other.
Antonio held a drinking straw up.
Carlos laughed dryly and Blanche had a sinking feeling. This was not getting better.
Slowly though, Antonio put his thumb to one end of the straw and lowered it to Señor’s closed eye. He wiggled it around to get beneath the eyelid. Rafael Angel Castellano started shouting in Spanish.
Blanche felt Carlos body stiffen behind her.
Antonio said, “Let the lady go, or Señor dies from mysterious causes and ruins your little reputation you have around here and all the magic money.” He must have exerted more pressure because Señor Rafael screamed. “I imagine those guys outside will be even harder to deal with if Señor is blind in one eye when they get back.”
Blanche’s self defense training from police volunteer school come back above her panic. She pulled her terror struck knee up as high as she could pinned to Carlos body and jammed her heavy tennis shoe against the inside of Carlos’ knee. She knew she wasn’t strong, but he reacted enough that she jerked away.
She tossed the phone to Shirley and said, “Call Al. Get reinforcements.”
Señor started to scream louder. Blanche realized Antonio must be pushing harder with the straw into his eyeball.
She turned to run and shouted “Don’t kill the evidence.”
Her head yanked backward and she felt choked. Carlos had grabbed the lanyard and keycard around her throat. Blanche put her hands up to pull the cord away. But the pressure released with a jerk.
She looked over her shoulder. Shirley had grabbed Carlos by his ponytail and yanked his neck back at an impossible angle.
“Run!” she said, “We’ve got it.”
“I will find you as soon as I kill this old movie star! You can’t hide,” Carlos shouted.
A roar of pain came from the room where the despot’s bed was.
“Okay, stop, don’t kill him!” Carlos voice said behind her as Blanche ran.
She shoved past two nurses running down the hall toward the ruckus.
She hit the emergency exit at the opposite end of the hall which she hoped led down to the ground floor.
She was winded and wanted to take the elevator but didn’t trust Carlos not to slip out of Antonio and Shirley’s grasp.
She made the stairs in record time . Her 76-year-old smoker lungs coughing all the way after the pressure that had been on her throat.
The door didn’t budge. She realized the emergency security exit onto the ground floor needed a security code to release. She took huge gulping breaths and tried to slide the keycard through. It had to have authority for this door too. She could not go back.
Her hands shook badly, she finally took the lanyard off her neck and did the slide action as deliberately as possible.
The click of the lock release was the best thing she’d heard all day.
The shuttle ride from her daughter’s house felt like another life time.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Señor Rafael’s nephew stopped firing his weapon and watched the bullets from the security guard’s gun mostly miss the golf cart. He wanted to see Bruce hit, but Bruce never seemed to catch a bullet. The hired gun security wasn’t any better shot than he was. He swore
In a moment, he realized the jefe of the cursed care center was too far away and it was too dark. He pulled down the security man’s arm so he’d stop firing. He indicated another cart.
“Go after him, bring him back or kill him.”
When the security guard screeched away, he glanced up to the window where his Uncle was. He should get back up there. Shadows played on the blinds sending an alarm down his spine.
It was suppose to be secure, but this was the first time he and the security guard left the floor at night.
White hot anger at the situation burned through him. He looked up again. He’d kill anyone who messed with him tonight. This was not done to the familia of Señor Casteallano’s.
He ran for the door unbuttoning the double breasted purple suit coat so he could move faster.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Blanche took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. She reassured herself she still had the trash bag with its incriminating evidence and stepped through the first floor door into the hallway of RCCC making an attempt to look calm. No one outside Unit 2 knew anything was wrong, right? All she had to do was look like she belonged.
“Stop!” A man in a purple suit called out to her. “Give me the trash!”
Blanche recognized him as part of Señor’s entourage and pretended he wasn’t speaking to her. She turned quickly toward another passageway. She heard him pull at the security door and mutter or swear and then heard his steps pursuing her.
She took off at a full run taking each sharp turn she could. Her own hard breathing soon drowned out sounds behind her. As she skidded around a corner a bullet burrowed into the wall across from her. She saw a hall and recognized the route to the secret smoking patio.
She hit the crash bar at full speed and was engulfed in total darkness outside. She flew into the shrubs and undergrowth of jungle at the edge of the grass and threw herself on the ground under the foliage.
You’d think they’d have security lights pop on at a supposed emergency exit. She wondered if Frank and his friends had also disabled that for late night cigs or secret night escapes as they’d disabled the door alarm.
She heard a metallic sound when the door opened and prayed the shrubs around her weren’t quivering with her labored breathing.
If possible, her heart beat harder than it had while she ran. Darkness and bad guys. Darkness and bad guys.
She wondered if it was a lethal combo for her. The old ticker surely could only take so much.
She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from thinking, to stop seeing the darkness. If her eyes were closed, it didn’t count. If her eyes were closed, the bad guy couldn’t see her. If her eyes were closed, none of this was real.
She wondered if Shirley had called Al yet. Then the thought occurred to her, “What could Al do?”
The county cops weren’t on the island and would only come if called. What would Al tell them to bring them to the RCCC? It would be ages before they arrived. If they show up, how much time before they looked behind the RCCC building for an old lady no one knew was missing paralyzed by fear in the bushes? She could be hiding in the dark for hours. She could die here. They’d have to use cadaver dogs to find her.
She forced herself to take a quiet deep breath and feel her lungs filling. Feel her chest expand. For at least this moment she was alive. Her nostrils filled with the smell of earth.
She heard all the night noises of crickets and frogs and...movement in the woods. She swallowed hard. Did alligators hunt at night?
The man pursuing her muttered in Spanish and came out nearer her slapping at the plants. She felt him nearby. He swiped around a little ahead of her hiding spot. Blanche’s heart pounded into the dirt beneath her. Something long crawled across her ankle and she felt bile come up her throat.
“Where are you? Who are you?” he said in accented English.
Right, Blanche thought, I’ll come out and chat.
Blanche heard the crack of breaking glass and distant voices filtered out into the night.
Bam!
Her pursuer must have been startled enough to shoot a round into the woods. It hit somewhere off to Blanche’s left side.
It was enough to make her open her eyes and squint into the darkness toward the building.
A window on the second floor secret Unit 2 wing was broken and she couldn’t help think it was Antonio up to something. God bless him.
She heard her pursuer say, “Dios mio,” and he fled back to the building.
Chapter Eighty-Six
As Edna got nearly to the hall intersection, she saw an employee uniform shoot past her. Staff never ran. Not even when people were dying or choking. Nothing merited urgency at RCCC. It had to be Blanche.
She rushed forward as best she could pushing her cart.
She heard footsteps pounding up behind her and knew for sure something was up. She moved to the middle of the hallway. She braced herself for an impact if the footsteps didn’t stop. At least she could be a road block, but she heard the steps falter as she turned her head. A hispanic man in a tasteless purple suit pushed at her and shouted but Edna couldn’t understand him.
It surely had been Blanche running, but how had they got on to her? Blanche was just checking the trash bins as far as they knew.
Edna’s frustration and her helpless condition frustrated her. She longed to run after them and help Blanche.
She looked back down the hall to see if anyone else was coming. In the scrolled industrial carpet lay an employee badge on a lanyard.
Edna wheeled over and got her tongs for picking things up out of her basket. Sure enough, it was AnaRosa’s badge that had been Blanche’s ticket into Unit 2 and the Dementia Unit.
Edna rolled back the other way. She had to find Frank.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Antonio felt Señor Rafael squirm under the pressure he exerted. He must be coming out of whatever sedation had suppressed him. Antonio took satisfaction in breaking his left arm so he couldn’t take any more weak punches at him.
Tonio kept the pressure on because Carlos needed to let Shirley go. He could hear a tussle in the hall. Antonio knew from experience rescuing the damsel gets you caught. Force them away from the lady due to some other crisis. This was part of his modus operandi.
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