Degüello

by Billy Kring

  Kelly felt hot tears on her cheeks. Shame and anger almost consumed her thoughts, but she also thought about escape.

  A sharp knock on the door startled her and from the other side, Kit said, “Hurry up!”

  Kelly wiped her eyes and dressed in the same dusty clothes and ripped shirt, putting on her tennis shoes, but leaving her socks untouched.

  She found a small, clean handkerchief on the pile of tossed clothes in the corner and folded it to put in her underwear for the blood. Her face burned from Carl’s whiskers rubbing on her, and her lips felt bruised, and so did the place between her legs.

  Kelly opened the door just as Kit was ready to knock again. She silently walked by the woman and sat beside her friends, who didn’t talk, but touched her and stayed close.

  Kelly leaned on Consuela and thought of the Hunter woman who tried to rescue them. Please come back, she thought. Please.

  ~**~

  As Hunter drove into San Angelo, Ike looked at her and said, “I don’t feel so good.” He passed out in the passenger seat and slid to the side as his head lolled. The only thing holding him off the floor was the seat belt. She touched his shoulder, “Ike!”

  He didn’t respond. She vaguely remembered where the Shannon Hospital was located, and started that way. She held her phone and used one hand and her thumb to punch in the hospital’s name and get the address. Hitting a few more buttons showed her the route to it from her location, and she did a rolling stop at a stop sign and accelerated.

  Ike’s head hung down and was flushed from the blood. His breathing sounded labored, and he didn’t respond to Hunter’s touch.

  “Hang on,” she said. Don’t die, please don’t die. She shot down North Oakes Street and reached the Hospital in less than five minutes. Flinging open her door, she went into the Emergency Room entrance and told the staff that Ike was hurt and unconscious.

  They had a stretcher to the vehicle almost before Hunter finished talking, and wheeled him into the hospital as the Paramedic and Hunter walked with him. The Paramedic, a man named Steve, asked her questions.

  She answered every one quickly, and got some sideways looks from Steve, but no follow-up ones on what they were involved in.

  A tall, blond nurse asked, “Are you his wife?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “A friend.”

  The nurse smiled, sad but professional, “I’m sorry, you can’t go in with him. If you’ll wait in the waiting room I will come and talk to you after the doctors are finished.” She pointed down the hall to the small, clean room with all the chairs.

  Hunter stopped by a machine and bought a bottle of water. She was so thirsty that she finished it before she went inside the waiting room to sit near the door. The room was empty except for her, and Hunter hoped it stayed that way because she didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  She thought of Anita, and of the girl, Kelly. Anita was only six, and she already showed coolness, like when Hunter rescued her from the lake. She acted so loving, too.

  Kelly was something unusual, in that Hunter saw rare traits of courage and planning in the short time she observed the eleven-year old.

  A nurse entered the room and said, “You can go visit Mr. De Los Santos now. He’s in room 211.”

  “Thanks.” She walked down the hallway, and took the stairs to the second floor. She saw the room, next to the last at the end of the hall.

  Ike sat up in bed eating a small cup of Gandy’s ice cream with a tiny wooden spoon when she entered. He nodded at her, “Hey.”

  “Are you gonna be all right?”

  “I’ve got a concussion, a good one.”

  “They doctor you up?”

  “Yes, some shots for nausea and dizziness. They want to hold me for observation. I told them I was fine, but the doctor didn’t back off.”

  Hunter thought, I need to find the children, and soon. But she said, “Doctors know best.”

  “That’s not good enough. We have to find those kids, Anita and Kelly and the others. We’re gonna lose them, Hunter. Once they’re in the Middle East, they are gone forever. You know it, too.”

  Hunter nodded and said, “Where’s your phone?”

  “In my pants pocket, hanging up in the bathroom.”

  “I’m gonna use it to call Ramona.”

  “Ramona?”

  “She needs to know what’s happening.” She went into the bathroom and found his phone. Bringing it back to the chair beside the bed, she asked, “You want me to call, or do you want to?”

  “You call. I’m still not thinking too clear.”

  Hunter let Ike open the phone, then she dialed Ramona’s number. She answered after the third ring.

  “Ike, where are you?”

  “It’s Hunter Kincaid, Ramona. I’m here with Ike in the hospital in San Angelo.”

  “Is he injured?”

  “He has a concussion. We got it checked out.”

  “He is okay now?”

  “He’s functioning, but still needs to heal a little more.”

  “Did you find Anita?”

  “We came close, but they slipped away. We’re still on their trail.”

  “Ike is there with you?”

  “He is, but not really coherent right now. He took a pretty good knock on the head. He’ll be all right, but has to give it a couple of days.”

  “Tell him to call me when he is able.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you know if Anita is all right?”

  “She is, we saw her from a distance. She’s uninjured. But we’re running short on time. The kidnappers are almost ready to fly the children out of the country. I’ll see if I can find some people to help out.”

  Ramona knew she would go to Solomon the instant Hunter hung up, and she would insist he send people to help. The thought made her feel better. She was still anxious for Anita, but this news from Hunter left her a bit of hope. Solomon would help, she knew it. “Please get my daughter back, Hunter. She is my life.”

  “I’ll do my best, I promise.” Hunter handed Ike the phone and said, “I’ll be back in a while. Stay in bed.” Ike frowned.

  Ramona hurried down the long hall in their home on the outskirts of Acuña, straight to Solomon’s office. She hesitated a moment at the closed door, then pushed it open.

  Solomon was on his phone, sitting behind his large desk. He hung up and his face darkened at the interruption, but Ramona didn’t give him a chance to get angry as she told him about her conversation with Hunter.

  Solomon nodded, “I will send my best to San Angelo. You said that Ike is in the Shannon Hospital?”

  Ramona nodded and told him the room number again.

  “Good. They will leave immediately. Thank you for telling me, my love.”

  Ramona was surprised by his talk of anything affectionate. She said, “Of course, mi amor.” She felt odd saying it.

  He smiled at her, then made a gesture with his hand for her to leave as he picked up his phone to make calls.

  She left, feeling almost dizzy. Solomon, displaying affection; it had been so long, and so unexpected. It was then that she decided to go to Ike. It was her daughter who was at stake. She didn’t want to sit by, feeling helpless. Grabbing her keys and her purse, Ramona went out the door and climbed into her Lincoln.

  Solomon waited until Ramona closed the office door behind her before he made the call. He spoke in English, “Get to San Angelo.” He told the listener what room Ike was in, and that Hunter Kincaid was close by, and he mentioned Suretta as the one hunting them. The voice said something back to Solomon.

  He replied, “Play it by ear when you get there. You know who to get with, and where to locate the children after that.” He hung up, satisfied things would be done, and be done very soon.

  Chapter 11

  Suretta met Solomon’s four men from Mexico at the parking lot of the Sunset Mall off Loop 306, on the western edge of San Angelo. She looked them over, saying to the lo
ng-haired one with the Indian features, “You, what’s your name?”

  “Sandoval.”

  “No first name?”

  “No.”

  “You’re Indian?”

  “I am Otomí.”

  “And you have the tools?”

  He opened the small pack on his hip and took out three syringes. “These are ready.”

  “Good. You will go with me.” She turned to a short, powerful man with wide shoulders and a deep scar on his cheek, “And you, how are you called?”

  “My name’s Diego Luna, from El Paso.”

  “What do you carry?”

  “My knife.” He pulled it from an almost hidden scabbard in his pocket and showed her a thin, glittering blade the size of a letter opener. He shaved the hairs on his forearm to show its sharpness. “It goes between the ribs very easy.”

  She nodded. “You come. The other two can wait here in town unless I call. Keep your phones ready. This will take no time.”

  They drove across the town and parked in the hospital lot. Suretta led them into the building and to the elevators, pushing the button for the second floor. When they exited, the floor appeared empty of people, except for a single nurse at the nurse’s station. She didn’t look up but kept her head centered in front of the computer screen, a frown on her face.

  As Suretta and her two companions walked by, the nurse looked up and Suretta smiled and made a little wave, but continued walking. The nurse turned back to her computer.

  She said, “It’s the next to last room on the right.”

  Sandoval removed a syringe from his belt pouch and took off the safety cap, leaving the bright silver needle exposed, ready to inject the blue liquid inside the barrel.

  Ike rose from his bed, feeling better but still a little queasy, a little dizzy, but not like before. His head hurt like a mother, though. Definitely going to be a bruise there. He slid his feet into the hospital-provided slippers and thought he felt good enough to walk down the hall, maybe take a look around. Before he started, Ike picked up his phone and re-tied the gown’s strings to help hold the back of his hospital gown together so he didn’t moon some little old lady. He smiled at the thought.

  Stepping into the hall put him a foot in front of a surprised Sandoval still holding the syringe. “Whuh!” Sandoval said in surprise.

  Ike spotted the syringe and moved before the Otomí reacted, grabbing the man’s forearm and pushing it up so the needle pointed toward the man’s neck, and then pushing with his body weight to send the needle into the man’s skin, where he pushed the plunger with his palm, forcing all the fluid into the Indian.

  Suretta and Diego reacted a half-second later, but Ike already raced the short distance down the hall and into the stairwell door, pushing it shut behind him.

  Suretta said, “Get the door open and find him. I’ll go down and get in front of Ike.” She lifted the dying Indian by the armpits, drug him to a nearby janitorial closet and slid him inside, putting his quivering body behind a rear shelf of cleaning materials and papers. He gave a death rattle as she put him down, and she checked Sandoval’s pulse. None. She rose and left, locking the door behind her.

  Diego jiggled and worked the knob until it opened, and he hurried down the stairs, hearing Ike’s slipper-covered feet padding on the concrete floor one level below him.

  Suretta ran to the elevator, hit the button, and the door opened. She stepped inside and hit the button for the ground floor. As soon as it opened she sprinted out the doors and down the hall to the lobby, which caused the nurse to look up in alarm. Suretta ignored her and shoved open the front doors in anger, causing one of the glass barriers to crack down the center.

  Ike felt dizzy, and his breath came in gasps, but he knew better than to stop. He looked left and right, then took the emergency exit at the end of the hall that went straight outside. He still had his phone and tried to dial Hunter as he ran. Missing the first time, he slowed, and got her on the second try.

  “Hey, Ike.” She said.

  “Hurry, I’m in trouble. They’re after me.”

  Hunter tensed, “Where?”

  “The hospital, they came for me.”

  “But how did they know?”

  “Not important, just come get me. I put one down, but two more are close. They’re gaining.”

  Hunter wanted to ask a dozen questions, but hurried to her pickup and drove toward the hospital, looking all the while for Ike. She called him back, “What are you wearing, so I can spot you?”

  Ike cut down an alley off of East Harris Avenue and said, “If you’re coming up behind me, look for my butt winking at you. I’m in a hospital gown.”

  Hunter let a ghost of a wry smile show. Even though this was a dire circumstance, Ike still had a sense of humor. Hunter gripped the wheel so tight that her knuckles were white. She had to get there, had to help him.

  Ike cut between buildings and cars, heading for the city park by the river. He glanced behind once and saw the man coming, a short, broad-shouldered man built like a bull, and Ike noticed he was gaining.

  Crossing back and forth between the buildings, he finally cut across East Twohig and passed behind the gazebo, not stopping but continuing toward the river and more cover from the trees.

  The last remnant of his slippers came off when he crossed the clearing, and his feet jerked at the spiny goatheads and small, jagged stones hidden in the grass. His breathing came in gasps, and bile-like nausea bubbled in his throat.

  Behind him, Diego closed the gap, pulling his knife as he ran. He was almost close enough to throw, but he hated to do that, preferring instead to feel the blade enter someone’s body. Like stabbing a pillow, he thought with remembered satisfaction.

  As Ike trotted down to the lower bank of the river, he saw a possible escape and called Hunter as he made his way under the pecan trees.

  Hunter answered, “Yes?”

  “There’s a road, a bridge that crosses the river beside the park.”

  “Yeah, it’s called Rio Concho.”

  Meet me there, I’m trying to outrun this damn guy, so I’ll be coming fast.”

  “Jump in the pickup bed, and I won’t slow down much.”

  “Okay.”

  Hunter turned on the next street and again at the following one. She drove slow since there was little traffic, and when she reached the river, she spotted Ike coming her direction, down by the river and the cane, with his pursuer twenty yards behind. She stopped at the point where the bridge went over the river and the pedestrian trail came out of the park and up to join the street as it crossed the water. “Come on!” Hunter yelled.

  Ike nodded, but then staggered as he vomited, almost halting his speed. The short man sped up and closed fast. Hunter yelled, “Run! He’s gaining on you!” She drew her pistol and held it by her leg.

  Ike gasped out, “I know!”

  The two men were almost at the point on the trail where it started up the incline to the street, and that’s when the short man put on a sprinter-like burst of speed. Ike turned at the last instant and the two men collided with an audible thump, chest to chest.

  Hunter lost sight of them as they went under the bridge, still battling. She had seen the knife in the short man’s hand.

  Glancing both ways to see if any traffic approached, Hunter left her pickup and hurried down the trail and underneath the bridge.

  Ike flailed three feet from the bank as he struggled in the river where the cane hung over and under the water. Hunter ran to him, reaching out her hand to grasp his wrist and help him pull away from the cane and reach the bank, where he crawled out on his knees, exhausted.

  “Where’s the guy chasing you?”

  Ike motioned with his thumb at the cane. “Under there.”

  “You want to try and save him?”

  Ike’s eyes were hot, “That’s a death trap, and I wouldn’t want anybody going in that mess. It’s like a hundred hands pulling you under.”

  Hunter nodded, “Let’
s get out of here before any police come.”

  “Let’s.”

  She helped him to his feet, saying, “My truck’s right up this path. Go ahead and I’ll be right behind you.” She double-checked the cane for any sign of the man, but saw nothing.

  She started up behind Ike and he said, “Stop staring at my butt.”

  “Kinda hard not to with it out there like that.” She grinned as she said it, aware he wasn’t watching.

  He shook his head in a what am I going to do with her motion and said, “First thing, let’s get me some pants.”

  She said, “You want to go to the hospital, get your clothes? We’re not far.”

  “I don’t want to go in there looking like a drowned rat.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “Deal. I’ll lay low in the truck.”

  She drove to the hospital parking lot, and found a space out of the way at the edge of the lot so Ike wouldn’t be as easily seen, and walked into the hospital. It only took a moment to take the elevator to the second floor and go down the hall to Ike’s room. Ike’s clothes and a pair of Merrell hiking boots were in the closet. His valuables were in a drawer, such as they were: five twenties, another two thousand in pesos, a MasterCard, his Texas driver’s license, a concealed carry permit, and a white handkerchief, neatly folded.

  Hunter put them in a spare plastic bag made for the small trash can, and returned the way she came, letting the bag dangle from her right hand. As she walked out the front of the hospital and into the lot, she glanced to the left and spotted the muscular woman getting into her car. When she saw Hunter, her eyes widened.

  Then she accelerated, straight toward Hunter.

  Hunter drew and aimed at her face behind the windshield, which made the woman slam on her brakes. The two women stared at one another, and Hunter waited for the muscular one to make her next move. Hunter was ready, any way it went.

  The woman cut her wheels and squealed the tires as she accelerated out of the parking lot. Hunter watched her until the car turned on East Harris Avenue and disappeared behind the buildings, then she went to the vehicle and handed Ike his clothes.