Fistful of Benjamins

by Kiki Swinson

  “C’mon, put a little pep in your step. I don’t bite—except, of course, if you’re a federal agent,” Mr. Shapiro said jokingly. I didn’t laugh. In fact, I thought all of the joking he did was always at the most inopportune fucking times.

  “Okay . . . I see you’re not in the mood for the small talk. How about we go get you some food? Maybe a shower and a change of clothes. You look terrible,” Mr. Shapiro said brightly. Food and a shower sounded like heaven to me. Thinking of those things made it a bit easier for me to follow him. I still didn’t trust him, though. I couldn’t really be sure who’d hired him and why. As we walked together toward the courthouse doors, I looked around to see if anyone else was there, but there was no one else around who seemed interested in me. I guess that was a good sign. Besides, at that point, following Mr. Shapiro wasn’t one of many options I had: It was the only option I really had. What other choice did I have? Could I have refused to go with him? I highly doubted it.

  We walked out of the courthouse together. There were people bustling about, but none of them drew any suspicion from me. I had a quick, fleeting thought about the goons I’d seen in the back of the courtroom; however, I quickly shook that off. The less I saw of them, the better for me. I followed Mr. Shapiro down the steps to his waiting Audi A8. He opened the door for me kindly and I got in. He slid into the driver’s seat and just began driving. He never asked me where I needed to go. I didn’t say a word. He tried to make small talk, but I wasn’t in the mood. He stopped at a small diner on the outskirts of town.

  “As promised, I am stopping to get you something to eat. I could hear that belly of yours growling from miles away,” he said playfully. His lighthearted, carefree mood was grinding on my nerves. We went into the diner and I ordered breakfast. He just had coffee. Mr. Shapiro was gabbing away about his clientele and his job and blah, blah, blah. I was looking at him in amazement. He might’ve been taking me for my last meal, yet he expected me to get all chummy with him. We left the diner and just like the showboating asshole he was, Mr. Shapiro threw a one hundred dollar bill on the table for the food, which could not have cost more than twenty dollars. Back in the car, he started talking about some drug family up in New York that he’d got off scot-free from RICO charges they were facing. This man just loved to speak about himself. That was apparent. After driving for what seemed like two years, Mr. Shapiro slowed the car down. We had reached this unknown destination that he hadn’t bothered to tell me about. But that I also hadn’t asked about.

  Finally, we pulled up to a chain-link fence. Outside of it was a small keypad with numbers on it. I looked around at the deserted-looking place beyond the fence. It seemed like some kind of industrial park. Suddenly, my heart started up. This wasn’t some place you’d expect your lawyer to bring you. It certainly didn’t look like a lawyer’s office.

  “What’s this place?” I finally asked. Mr. Shapiro ignored me as he punched in a few numbers and just like that, the two gates pulled apart and invited us to drive through.

  “Mr. Shapiro! What is this place?” I asked more urgently. He didn’t answer, but he drove a little faster. I could hear the gravel crunching under the car tires. With each pop and crunch I felt more and more like impending doom. Behind the gate was a nondescript, deep-red brick building with no windows. I was thinking, What type of building didn’t have windows? There were rows and rows of black-and-white vans parked out front too. I didn’t see any people in the immediate area.

  “Mr. Shapiro! Tell me what the fuck is going on!” I screamed. Mr. Shapiro stopped the car and he remained calm as a cucumber. He pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed-dial button. I was still screaming. I went for the door handle, but really, where was I going to run?

  “Yeah. It’s done,” I heard Mr. Shapiro said into the phone receiver. That was the first time I’d felt anything resembling emotions since leaving the courtroom. A ball of panic erupted inside of me like a fireworks display.

  “You fucking crook! You set me up!” I barked at him.

  “Well, kiddo. This is the end of the line. My job is done. Everything comes with a price,” Mr. Shapiro said, and for the first time he wasn’t smiling or making jokes. His voice was grave. I looked over at him, my eyes squinted into dashes. If eyes could kill, that Jew bastard would’ve burst into flames and flew down to hell at that moment. Suddenly, out of my peripheral I saw at least five goons moving toward the car. Mr. Shapiro put back on that silly smile he’d been flashing since I’d met him. I wanted to slap that shit right off of his face. Before I could react, my door swung open. A gush of hot air hit me in the face. Next, I felt huge, monstrous hands on me. They were grabbing me roughly, pulling on me with brute force.

  “No! Please! Don’t leave me here! Please! I didn’t do anything!” I screeched at the top of my lungs as I kicked my feet. I knew I had caught one of the goons in his nuts, because I saw him go down moaning. “Aggh! Somebody help me! Help me!” I hollered. It was all for nothing. Who was I kidding? There was probably no one around for miles and miles out in that deserted industrial area. I kept screaming, though. I was in a fight for my life. I was finally out of the car. My ass hit the gravel with a thud. I kept kicking and swinging my arms wildly. It wasn’t long before a huge hand covered my mouth and nose, muffling my desperate cries for help. I struggled to breathe and my legs were moving like I was running as I was hoisted up in the air like a little rag doll. I flailed and kicked and tried to scream, but my efforts proved futile. I tried to open my mouth enough to bite down into the hand that was suffocating me, but I couldn’t get my teeth close enough to close in on the skin. I was getting exhausted from trying to fight. But, I continued. My fight-or-flight instinct was in full effect right then. I was no match for the hulk that was carrying me into the scary building. And I knew I was finally in over my head.

  CHAPTER 15

  MY LIFE WAS SLIPPING AWAY

  “Mmmm!” I moaned from the depths of my throat, but the sound wasn’t enough. I heard what sounded like big steel doors slam shut once they carried me inside. That was it. I just knew I was a dead woman.

  I was finally dropped onto a hard concrete floor. My back ached when it hit the floor. I immediately scrambled onto my knees in an attempt to get to my feet so I could run. “Help me!” I cried out again. That’s when I noticed Eduardo balled up in a corner of the room. I had never been so happy to see him. I crawled over to him as fast as I could. Whether I was speaking to him or not, he was my only source of comfort now.

  “Eduardo! Help me! Don’t let them hurt me!” I screamed as I reached him. When I got close enough to see his condition, my heart sank. There was no way he could help me now. He was barely able to sit up himself. His once strikingly handsome face was now a bloodied, bruised, closed-eyed mess. Eduardo inched himself up into a sitting position, wincing in pain with every move he made. He parted a halfhearted smile when he saw me. He reached out and grabbed my hand.

  “Oh my God! What did they do to you?” I hollered. Eduardo tried to shush me, but I couldn’t stop screaming. “What did they do to you! You didn’t do anything! It wasn’t us!” I screamed some more. I was fucking losing it. I felt like I was snapping. “Eduardo, we have to get out of here! Let’s run! Let’s go!” I shouted.

  Suddenly, I felt a shooting pain in my scalp that radiated over my entire head. It was like a bolt of lightning had hit in me in the head.

  “Aggh!” I shrieked. Instinctively my hands flew up to my head in an attempt to stop the pain. That’s when I realized my body was moving across the floor. I was being dragged by my hair like a piece of garbage. I had never felt pain like that in my head. It felt like my entire scalp was being ripped off. Not to mention the friction burns I was getting on my back from the concrete floor.

  “No! No! Get the fuck off of me! Let me go!” I screeched, digging my nails into the skin of my attacker’s hands in a last-ditch effort to get some relief from the unbearable pain. “Ah! This fucking little bitch scratched the shit out of me,
” the man who’d been pulling my hair barked. I was finally let go, but with force. My head was thrown down as if were some type of ball. The back of my head crashed to the concrete floor with so much force I thought my brain would shoot through the front and burst out through my forehead. I knew now what people meant when they got hit and said they were seeing stars. My head hit with such force that little squirmy flashes of lights invaded my eyesight for at least twenty seconds. I was dazed and confused and the pain was like nothing I’d ever felt.

  I moaned from the pain, trying to keep my head still so that it wouldn’t feel so bad. I tried to keep perfectly still, but my minute of peace was short-lived.

  “This is the bitch who brought the feds down on us,” I heard someone growl from somewhere to my left. Then, I felt the presence of several pairs of feet next to me. I tried to gather up my senses so I could try to roll away, but I wasn’t fast enough on the action. My brain wasn’t sending the right signals to my body to tell it to move.

  Wham! Crack! Bam! Crunch! were the sounds that filled my ears next. More pains erupted on every inch and pore of my body. The bones in the side of my skull felt like they’d come loose. My teeth clicked together so hard I knew that some of them were knocked from my gums. My jaw ached so badly that my ears rang. I felt like both of my eye sockets had been caved in. The bridge of my nose cracked under two or three hits. This pain was the result of the bevy of punches being rained down on my face and body landing at will.

  “Eduardo, help me,” I croaked, but I couldn’t even get enough air into my lungs to scream properly. I tried to curl into a fetal position, but another set of hands forcefully unbent my body. Next, a huge men’s boot slammed into my abdomen, then with the force of a wrecking ball the boot slammed into my rib cage. A cough involuntarily escaped my lips as the wind was knocked out of me. My bladder released all over my clothes. I was hurting so badly, even my eyeballs ached.

  “Please,” I begged through my constantly swelling lips. “Have mercy.”

  “Luca wants her alive when he gets here, so enough,” I heard one of the men say to the ones beating me. He just didn’t know how grateful I was to him for stopping them. My body curled in on itself and I sobbed. It even hurt to cry at that point. I could smell and taste my own blood. Death would’ve been a welcomed thing with the way I was feeling at that moment.

  “Get her up. Put her with that bastard man of hers and let them wait for whatever Luca has planned for them,” the same voice instructed. I immediately tightened my aching body and tried to fight them off.

  “Get off of me! Don’t touch me!” I managed, although it hurt like hell to even whisper.

  “Shut the fuck up, before I put a bullet in the back of your head, you fucking snitching-ass bitch,” one of the men growled as he forcefully pulled me up off the floor. Again I was dragged, this time into another room. I was immediately freezing. I was thrown practically on top of Eduardo, who had been beaten just as badly, if not worse, than me. He reached out an arm and held onto me. He wasn’t showing any emotion. I kept shaking him, but he was stoic, cool even. That pissed me off. We were both forced to sit up. Our shoes were removed and so were our shirts.

  “What’s happening?” I cried. My spine felt like someone had replaced the discs with ice blocks. Eduardo and I were forced together back-to-back. His skin still felt warm against mine. The contact gave me a quick feeling of comfort. It didn’t last, though. The men used a thick, scratchy nautical rope to bind Eduardo and me together. The heavy rope was forced around our chests and stomach. Then it was run around our ankles. I felt like my skin would bleed. That is how tight they had that coarse, harsh rope against the delicate skin of my stomach and chest; even my ankles burned from the touch of it.

  “Look at the two snitching pigs tied together, ready for the slaughter,” one of the men said. The others laughed. Their words and the sound of their laughter stung my ears. I thought about my mother and Andrew. They would never get to lay eyes on me again. The pain from knowing that was even harder to bear than the bruises, broken ribs, fractured nose, and facing death.

  “Gabriella,” Eduardo mumbled, leaning his head back against mine. I was overcome with sobs.

  “Oh my God, Eduardo. What do you think they will do to us? I don’t want to die . . . I can’t leave my son,” I cried, barely able to get my words out between sobbing and the fact that my teeth were chattering together so badly. The warehouse-type of room we were being held captive in was freezing. I mean, freezing—like we were sitting inside of a meat locker type of freezing. I could even see puffs of frosty air with each breath that I took. I knew it was summertime outside, so the conditions inside of where we were being held told me we were purposely being made to freeze. The smell of sawdust and industrial chemicals were also so strong that the combination was making my stomach churn. Eduardo flexed his back against mine and turned his head as much as the ropes that bound us together allowed. He was trembling from the subzero conditions as well.

  “Gabby, just keep your mouth shut. If we gon’ die right now, at least we are together. I know I ain’t say it a lot, but I love you. I love you for everything you did and for the shit you put up with me. I am sorry I ever let you get into this bullshit from the jump. It wasn’t no place for you from day one, baby girl,” Eduardo whispered calmly through his battered lips. With everything that had happened, I didn’t know how he was staying so calm. It was like he had no emotion behind what was happening or like he had already resigned himself to the fact that we were dead. In my opinion, his ass should’ve been crying, fighting, and yelling for the scary men to let me go. Something. Eduardo was the drug dealer, not me, so maybe he had prepared himself to die many times. I hadn’t ever prepared myself to die, or to be tied up like an animal, beaten, and waiting to possibly get my head blown off. This was not how I saw my life ending up. All I had ever wanted was a good man, a happy family, a nice place to live, and just a good life.

  “I don’t care about being together when we die, Eduardo! You forget I have a son? Who is going to take care of him if I’m dead over something I didn’t do?” I replied sharply. A pain shot through my skull like someone had shot me in the head. I was ready to lose it. My shoulders began quaking as I broke down in another round of sobs. I couldn’t even feel the pain that had previously permeated my body from the beating I had taken. I was numb in comparison to the pain I was feeling in my heart behind leaving my son. I kept thinking about my son and my mother, who were probably both sitting in a strange place wondering how I had let this happen to them. That was the hard part, knowing that they were going to be innocent casualties of my stupid fucking actions. I should’ve stuck to carrying mail instead of stepping into the shit that had me in this predicament. I was the dummy in this situation. I was so busy looking for love in all the wrong places. I had done all of this to myself.

  “Shhh. Don’t cry. We just have to pray that Luca will have mercy on us. I will try to make him believe that it wasn’t us. I’ll tell him we didn’t do it. We weren’t responsible for everything that happened,” Eduardo whispered to me.

  “But he’s the one who got us out so fast. I keep thinking that he only did that because he thought we might start talking. He got us out just so he could kill us, don’t you see that? We are finished. Done. Dead,” I said harshly. The tears were still coming. It was like Eduardo couldn’t get what I was saying. We were both facing death and I wasn’t ready to die!

  “You don’t know everything. Maybe it was something else. Let me handle—” Eduardo started to tell me, but his words were clipped short when we both heard the sound of footsteps moving toward us. The footsteps sounded off like gunshots against the icy-cold concrete floors. My heart felt like it would explode through the bones in my chest and suddenly it felt like my bladder was filled to capacity. The footsteps stopped. I think I stopped breathing too. Suddenly, I wasn’t cold anymore. Maybe it was the adrenaline coursing fiercely through my veins, but suddenly I was burning up hot.

&n
bsp; “Eduardo Santos,” a man’s voice boomed. “Look at you now. All caught up in your own web.” The man had a thick accent, the kind my older uncles from Puerto Rico had when they tried really hard to speak English.

  “Luca—I—I—can—” Eduardo stuttered, his body trembling so hard it was making mine move. Now I could sense fear and anguish in Eduardo’s voice. That was the first time Eduardo had sounded like he understood the seriousness of our situation.

  “Shut up!” the man screamed. “You are a rat and in Mexico rats are killed and burned so that the dirty spirit does not corrupt anything around it,” the man called Luca screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t keep the tears from bursting from the sides.

  I was too afraid to even look at him. I kept my head down, but I had seen there were at least four more pairs of feet standing around. Eduardo and I had been working for this man and had never met him. I knew he was some big drug kingpin inside the Calixte Mexican drug cartel that operated out of Miami, but when I was making the money, I never thought of meeting him, especially not under these circumstances. I was helping this bastard get rich and couldn’t even pick him out of a police lineup if my life depended on it.

  “Please, Luca. I’m telling you I wasn’t the rat. Maybe it was Lance . . . I mean, I just worked for him. He was the one responsible to you. He was the one that kept increasing everything. I did everything I could to keep this from happening,” Eduardo pleaded his case, his words rushing out of his mouth.

  “Oh, now you blame another man? Another cowardly move. Eduardo, I have people inside of the DEA who work for me. I know everything. If I didn’t pay off the judge to set bail so I could get you and your little girlfriend out of there, you were prepared to sign a deal. You were prepared to tell everything. Like the fucking cock-sucking rat that you are. You know nothing about death before dishonor. You would’ve sold out your own mother to get out of there. You failed the fucking test, you piece of shit,” Luca spat, sucking his teeth. “Get him up,” Luca said calmly, apparently unmoved by Eduardo’s pleas.