Rain unto Death

by Alex Ryan

  “Ven aqui,” El Rey ordered firmly as the girl worked her way over to the couch where he sat. She moved in a flowing, enticing manner that did not match her apparent age. “What do you have there?” He asked in Spanish.

  “Cigars. From Havana,” the girl replied.

  “How much?”

  “For you, Senor Castillo, please take one, for free.”

  She knows who I am. Nice touch. “Let me take a look.” El Rey’s eyes bulged out slightly as he saw the labels. “Where did you get these?”

  “My boss purchased these in Havana, before he unfortunately passed from a liver condition.”

  El Rey examined them. “These look older. Do you know when they were made?”

  “They said 1970. They were very expensive.”

  He took one of the cigars from the box. It was not dried out and ruined from sitting in a hot, desiccated environment to which cheap cigars often succumb. It was the real deal. Properly kept in the humidor, all these years. Here was a young girl, here obviously with the permission of the management, trying to sell him. El Rey immediately began to be suspicious. “This, boss of yours, what did he do?”

  “He was a powerful exporter in Brazil. Guilherme Santos.”

  “I don’t know the man personally. I have heard of him. You worked for Guilherme Santos?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was his personal assistant. I set up his meetings, and made arrangements when he traveled.”

  “What kind of business was it that he did, exactly?”

  “Even in passing, I made the promise to him that I would never share the details of his business.”

  “I see. Tell me. What exactly are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for a job.”

  “Very interesting. Have a seat.”

  She could tell that El Rey was deep in thought. It was the same shifting of his fingers through his goatee that she witnessed before. He probably has a wife. He probably has girlfriends, and probably more than one. He’s a collector, like that box of H. Upmann cigars. He’d probably smoke one or two, savoring them, and then set the box aside with the rest of his collection, for posterity. That’s probably what he would do with her. But, she could probably live very nicely on what El Rey might pay her over the course of weeks, or maybe a month, or maybe longer. There was Chi Chi, and while Chi Chi was young and virile, she was still a whore, and Chi Chi treated her as such. This man, El Rey, in contrast, had a gentle, yet frightening presence. Unlike Chi Chi, the cheap street hustler, El Rey was at the top of his league. Chi Chi was scared of the Federales, the Federales were scared of El Rey.

  He carefully snipped the cigar ends with a cutter, and lit the smoke, rolling it gently in his mouth. “This cigar is like ambrosia. It is perhaps one of the best I have ever smoked. What is your name?”

  “Isadora.”

  He liked the fact that she was quiet about Santos’ business, even though he was dead and there was no need to be. It displayed trust and dependability. The thing about this girl was that she was not about emotion. She was physical. Physical about getting things done. She was probably very physical in bed, with no need for some sort of emotional attachment that he had to maintain with his girlfriend. He needed someone he could turn on and turn off. This was exactly the type he needed. “I will give you a trial. I am travelling to San Diego on business. You come with me and handle my travel arrangements. Meet me, at this place, Tuesday morning at seven o’clock and we will go from there.”

  Isadora stepped off the bus from Ensenada into the small tenement she shared with several other girls. There was a shared telephone that the girls could use, mainly for calling pimps and dialing customers’ pagers, but it wasn’t being used at the time. She hesitated to pick up the receiver. El Rey was someone you didn’t cross. She knew that. But Chi Chi did too, and if she left, she was done with the Tijuana scene, and she couldn’t burn that bridge. She took a deep breath, and dialed the number. It was scary proposition, but it was exciting too. It was the closest she would ever be to becoming a James Bond female protagonist. Never mind that they typically end up dead.

  In turn, the phone in Rex’s hotel room rang with a distinct electronic buzzing sound. “Yeah?” He asked in the most language neutral tone he could muster. It’s pretty much the universal word for ‘hello’ when spoken in most Anglo-Latin countries.

  “He’s traveling to San Diego on Tuesday.” Chi Chi spoke without preamble.

  “Where in San Diego?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any details?”

  “Not enough to bother to tell you in person, yet. I will follow up tomorrow when I get more information.”

  Rex hung up the phone. That was the day after tomorrow. ‘Traveling to San Diego on Tuesday’ could mean anything. The one thing he wished he had was a portable phone. Simon had that Motorola Dynatac that he carried with him in his car. It was big, like an oversized hand held citizens band walkie talkie, but you could actually walk around and carry the thing. Damn things are expensive though. Four grand is a lot of money. Then again, he’s spending ten grand worth of snooping and ass just to get one name.

  Sheboygan, Wisconsin got cold in the winter, and 1974 had been a particularly rough year at the start. But at least school was out. Martha Dahl was unsure if Alex would be able to move on to the 6th grade. He seemed disinterested. But it was just them, plus Aunt Livia. Papa Dahl came home last week. They discharged him, and he was done with his service. They say the war was almost over anyway. Papa Dahl walked with a limp now, and he didn’t seem like the same man he was before he left.

  The house looked like something the Munsters probably lived in, just a little smaller. It was two stories, square, built on a raised brick foundation, and it had both an upstairs and a downstairs balcony, plus the little attic space with a window facing the street. God knows when it was built; they say the turn of the century, but it had been in the family for generations.

  Alex fudged with the rabbit ears to bring more clarity to the grainy raster images that scrolled annoyingly up or down the screen if you didn’t have the knob adjusted perfectly. But the images were disturbing. Service members returning from war. They were getting eggs thrown at them, and they were being called ‘baby killers.’ Flags were burning. The one thing about Sheboygan, and probably the only thing about Sheboygan that Alex liked, was the fact that his father was treated as a hero here. The American Legion hosted a party for him and several other local returning service members at the post. They had hot dogs, hamburgers, and they even brought in one of those machines that made soda pop. And of course beer, for the adults. But Papa Dahl just seemed like he was sitting in a daze.

  “What was it like over there, Pop?” Alex asked.

  “It was a whole different world. It was like being on a different planet. Remember when we took them cross country trips to California in the Rambler?” Papa Dahl replied.

  “Sure, I remember. Hollywood. Disneyland.”

  “Remember that train you took, and it went in to a big tunnel, and slowly went by and you watched the dinosaurs eat? It was kind of like that. Being in a train, watching the dinosaurs go by. Except a lot of them were trying to eat you.”

  “Did you ever kill anyone?”

  “Mark my word, Alex! Stop that questioning right now!” Aunt Livia yelled in a loud voice. “Let your father sit in peace!”

  “Livia, it’s okay!” Papa Dahl replied. “It’s okay. You go on about your business. He’s old enough to know about what goes on in life.”

  “Lord have mercy, exposing that boy to such things.” Aunt Livia muttered mutinously.

  “Just shoo, find your sister and get your shopping done at the grocery store why don’t you?” Livia walked out of the room in a huff. He redirected his attention to Alex. “To answer your question, no. I was support. Supply. I saw some nasty fighting, and I had to take cover from artillery more times than I can remember, but I didn’t have
to be in the middle of it. Them line grunts did.”

  “How did you get hurt?” Alex asked.

  “Fifty-five gallon barrel of oil rolled off the back of a deuce on me as I was dragging a pallet of C-rations. Not all of us was heroes. I’m not one to complain though, if I had been one of them, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

  “I wonder what it would be like to be one of them.”

  “One of them what?”

  “One of them ones that were heroes.”

  “There were two types. There were the guys that were drafted, just like me, and then there were the lifers. The ones that signed up. There were these certain guys in our unit, they were called Long Range Recon Patrol operators. Lurps. They were crazy. They would head out on choppers, get dropped off in the mountains, spend days out there doing their missions, and then they would get picked up and brought back. They always seemed to survive. They actually seemed to enjoy it.”

  “Do you think I’ll ever have to go to Vietnam?”

  “I reckon not. They say this war will be over in a year, maybe two. But you never know. Remember Uncle Robert from Chicago?”

  “The guy with that old car he was fixing?”

  “Yeah him. Well, he enlisted in the Navy, just so he didn’t get drafted in the Army. They put him on one of those patrol boats in the Mekong and last I heard his boat got blown up by a rocket, with him on it.”

  “That’s terrible! He was a swell man. But, what about that?”

  “I guess what I’m saying is, if you gotta go there, stay out any way you can, or, if you can’t, go big.”

  Alex grabbed his bicycle and rode down to the local store where the kids hung out. It wasn’t a big store like the supermarket where Mom and Aunt Livia did their shopping. It was the place where the poor people shopped. The storeowner was a short, bald man that always wore an apron around his waist. He was so proud about how he had all the cans and boxes of goods arranged just right, and in the right order. To Alex, it just looked like cans and boxes on wooden shelves. But the one thing they could do there was to get a cold bottle of soda pop and a chocolate bar with the money they saved up. The bald man didn’t mind the kids too much, as long as they didn’t make trouble, especially if they bought stuff.

  But trouble found its way there. Kenny Pratt was the school bully, and he had his minions with him.

  “Hey! Whatcha got there?” Pratt asked.

  Alex slid the chocolate bar he purchased in the back of his pants pocket, trying to hide it. “Nothing for you, Pratt.”

  “Are you Dahl, or are you dull?” Pratt replied. The other kids laughed. “Why don’t you give me that chocolate bar you’re hiding in your pants?”

  “You want it? Why don’t you come try to get it?”

  Fists were pummeling. Legs were kicking. In the end, Alex was lying on the ground, bleeding, minus his chocolate bar, and the bullies left before the storeowner could chase them off. One small consolation is that the bar got smashed to shreds in the process. A thin, black kid, from the poor section, came over and sat next to him, assessing the situation. “Man,” he said, “you need to learn the arts.”

  “The arts?”

  “You know, Bruce Lee. Karate.”

  “That stuff doesn’t work. It’s just movies.”

  “All the brothas are studying it. It works. Why don’t you ride with me? We’ll show you some moves.”

  Lawrence Washington was a decorated World War II vet. He remembered Alex from the party at the legion hall. He sat back on his rocker and watched as he sparred with the boys. A white boy was out of place in this neighborhood, but at least they had something to focus on besides petty crime and reading all about this Malcolm X bull. One thing was clear though. That white boy, Alex, was getting it; he was actually pretty good.

  That first walk back to school signaled the end of summer. It would get cold again, quickly. He managed to avoid Pratt successfully for the last two months, but today, Pratt intercepted his path. Last year, they both encountered each other on the same path, on their way to start the fifth grade. Pratt insulted his mother. Alex struck first. Pratt won. This year was a little different. Alex was to report for sixth grade. Pratt for fifth grade, again.

  “Your mother’s still a whore,” Pratt whined.

  “Really?” Alex said. “I have one daddy. They say you have so many daddies going in and out your door, you can’t count them all.”

  That struck a nerve. It was actually the truth. Pratt charged him. Alex moved to the side. “Let the other guy’s force work for you.” Pratt tripped over an extended ankle and went flying into the grass. He charged again, this time in a low tackle.

  The sharp one-two hits from Alex’s downward traveling elbow, followed by a hard upward knee sent Pratt to the concrete sidewalk, semiconscious. Marcus and his gang had taught him well. He dusted himself off, and continued his walk to the school as if nothing had happened. The three boys that were Pratt’s friends looked at the slumped figure, crying on the concrete, and walked away, following Alex’s lead to the school. “Stay out or go big” was his only comment.

  “Biesbol?” Isadora asked, as the dark green Lincoln Continental pulled in to Jack Murphy Stadium for the game.

  “El Rey loves his baseball.” The driver replied, looking back towards the two occupants of the rear seat. “Goose Gossage has been good for the Padres since he was signed on.”

  “I am meeting a business partner here.” El Rey ordered. “I need you to make some arrangements for a hotel for tonight. The driver will take you.”

  The white Isuzu pickup made a good platform for Rex to stand on while he scanned the entrance of the parking lot with a pair of binoculars. Look for a new, metallic green Lincoln Continental. Mexican plates.

  Black, dark green, blue, they all looked damn near the same. There were a few. And it was absolutely essential that he spot it in the entrance. By the time it got parked in the lot, it would be too late. He looked down at his watch. The inflow of cars was starting to slow down as game time approached.

  Then he saw it. This was some special custom color. It had to be him. It filtered through the traffic, and then the Hispanic man with the salt and pepper mustache goatee got out. He’s being dropped off. Another man came to greet him. It was a man in a dark suit, wiry, with white hair.

  Rex took off in a run, slipping between the stragglers trying to make it through the gate before the first pitch. Rex made it through the gate, showed his ticket and then followed the pair of men to their seats. Directly behind and above the two men in the next row, was a pair of empty seats. There were several empty seats in the row. Hopefully, the row wouldn’t be full to every last seat.

  As the singer started the national anthem, the fans stood up and most put their hand over their heart. El Rey stood and observed. The white haired man stood at strict attention. He was military; either ex-military or military in civilian garb. After the crowd seated, a man with a box of popcorn and sodas started to make his way through the row where Rex was seated. Rex, at the same time, noticed the man’s ticket sticking out of the front pocket of his suit jacket and had a thought.

  As the man pushed his way past Rex, an errant knee bumped him, causing the vendor to lose a bag of popcorn on to the white haired man in the suit. The man in the suit cursed. In the confusion, as the vendor tried his best to clean up, Rex was able to pull the ticket out of the man’s jacket pocket.

  “These people are careless,” the white haired man grumbled to El Rey.

  “You should see our soccer games.” El Rey said. “They get much worse.”

  “So, I have some good news for you. The guns you have been after, the Colts, I’ve been able to secure them. I can have them shipped to you in a week.”

  “Outstanding. Let’s talk business later. The game is about to start.”

  “Great. I’ll get us a couple beers.”

  “Actually, I need to remain alert for tonight.” El Rey said with a grin.

  “I know what that mea
ns. You lucky dog!”

  Rex fired off a series of shots through a small instamatic camera, catching various angles of the man holding the ticket with the name of Roy Mills.

  The Lincoln Continental dropped El Rey and Isadora off at the lobby of the hotel. A bellhop attended to his bag. “I trust you have a key to the room?” El Rey asked.

  “I have a key to your room, yes,” she replied, nervously.

  He frowned slightly, perhaps she misunderstood the protocol. Make nothing of it. Yet. “Well, then take me to it.”

  The bellhop left with a five dollar bill. Isadora stood in the bedroom, unsure of what to do next. It wasn’t that she was unsure of what would happen next, it was more that she was unsure of how to facilitate it without coming across as an outright whore. Feign some innocence. That kind of thing excites egomaniacs like El Rey. “I want to thank you for taking me with you on this assignment.”

  He stood behind her, and started to caress her shoulders. “You do understand, that your position will require a close working relationship... do you have a problem with that?”

  “I am open to learning,” she murmured, feigning a nervous tone, as her dress fell to the floor.

  It did occur to Rex that there was no particular reason to share his excitement of success, which was huge. Guns! Military! Roy Mills! Bam, got ‘em nailed! It would take a couple of days for the film to get there, be processed, and for Simon to confirm that this was the man they were after, and issue further instructions. For now, Rex left Chi Chi and his implant in a holding pattern, keep tracking and reporting, no progress yet. At some point, Chi Chi would want to know what happened. The problem was that Rex had absolutely no way of knowing what El Rey may have told the girl. And anything he tells the girl would filter back to Chi Chi. So far, the girl had not given any indication of the nature of El Rey’s visit.