by A. J. Adams
I sat, thought and made one phone call. Rimjob had checked into the Colon Plaza Hotel under the name of Shiva. Right. The Hindu god nicknamed ‘The Destroyer.’ Very covert. Never would have guessed it was him.
It was my fault of course. He’d arrived that morning, and he was scheduled to leave the next day by plane. We’d missed him as he was travelling under a Canadian passport as Prakash Shiva. He’d also worn a disguise, another reason we hadn’t spotted him. When I thought about it, I realised he’d been waiting across the border. His boys must have called him when they got Chloe and he’d come running in. Now he was hanging about, hoping she’d talked or that they’d get lucky and find me. His mistake.
Arturo’s call ensured Rimjob’s flight was cancelled. Mine ensured that the airline paid for an extra day and night in the Colon Plaza’s executive suite, dinner included. I didn’t want him going anywhere, you see. Ten minutes after, Rimjob couldn’t have left if he wanted to: I put a dozen eyes on his door, and I monitored every call. When he called a chupita, booking her for the night, I knew he’d stay put. I wasn’t worried. I’d get to him soon enough.
Chloe was in surgery for four hours. By the time the doc came out, I had died a thousand times. I took one look at his face and I knew she would be all right. He was smiling. Looking relieved, in fact.
“It was a success,” he said. “She’s a tough girl. She’ll be in ICU for a few days, but I think we can look forward to a complete recovery.”
“I’ll buy you a clinic.” The words burst from me.
“Erm.” For a moment he looked stunned. Then he was grinning. “We have a wish list for equipment. Make a donation towards that.”
“You’ll have it in an hour.”
Normally they don’t let anyone into ICU but they knew I’d take the place apart if they tried to keep me from Chloe so they let me sit in a chair by her side and watch over her. She was strapped up from her neck to her toes, and her face was one big black bruise but she was alive. More importantly, she was healing. I remembered some of the states I’d been in, so I knew not to go by looks. Even so, I felt my breath catch every time I looked at her. I was going to make the fuckers who’d done this suffer.
The nurses came and went throughout the night. The half a million bucks that hit the doc’s bank account an hour after we spoke was providing Chloe with the best care. Just as I had hoped. So I stood watch, grateful she would live.
She surfaced briefly at 5 in the morning. Her eyes were swollen shut but I was aware of the flicker of awareness that hung about her.
“I’m here, Chloe,” I said. There was no part of her I could touch without hurting her. I sat close by and spoke softly. “You’re going to be alright. The doc says you have to rest, that’s all.”
She was trying to speak but they had her so tied up with tubes, drips and masks that I couldn’t hear. A nurse, alerted by the change in her vitals came rushing in. The doc, his name was Bautista, was right behind her. Seeing Chloe trying to speak, he lifted the oxygen mask.
“Kyle. Careful.”
Her voice was a thread. Every breath was torture.
I hastened to reassure her. “It’s ok, pitufa. I know about Rimjob. Now stop worrying. Rest. Get strong.”
“Raoul. Don’t forget to feed Raoul.”
Chloe faded out again. Jesus. She’s something else, my girl. Always thinking about others.
Bautista was standing in front of me. “She’ll be out for 24 hours now,” he said firmly. “She needs rest, and so do you. Go home.”
I stood up. “One of my people will sit here. He won’t disturb anyone.”
I waved at the man at the door and gave him some orders. As soon as the doc said Chloe’d make it, I’d put people all around her. And I mean a fucking army. Six on the front door, and that was just the start.
Bautista threw his hands up in the air. “Would it matter if I said it’s against policy? Just like having every entrance, every lift, the stairs and even the roof filled with armed guards is against policy?”
“No.”
Bautista sighed and walked away. “I’ll send you updates,” he said over his shoulder. “But get some sleep.”
I left Little Ricky to keep watch and I got Quique on the phone. Surprisingly, he was wide awake. “The guey got his hit men from Rodriguez, a Gulf capo,” he said. “Seems Rodriguez didn’t want to risk starting another war by gunning for you himself but he was happy to make the introduction.”
“Where is he?”
“Visiting his mistress.”
The GPS coordinates flashed onto my phone screen. I gave Qinque some instructions, spot checked security and left the hospital. Both the Blackbird and the Audi were parked in front of the hospital. I took the Audi and went to work.
First I took out Rodriguez. I lured him out of his girl’s house by throwing stones at his Porsche. When the alarm went off, he came rushing out and I took him out with a single shot. I dropped the three lugartenientes who were with him too.
Then I went to the hotel to deal with Mr Destroyer. He probably thought that being surrounded by people offered him security. He soon found out that nobody is safe from Mixcoatl. I walked in on him while he was fucking the chiputa he’d booked an overnight with. It took me a second to put him out.
When he folded on top of her, the girl just lay there, staring at me, and saying her prayers. I took his wallet and handed her the cash I found inside. He was packing quite a roll of bills. About five thousand bucks, I reckon. I told the girl to take the money, to take a hike and to forget she’d seen me. Believe me, that girl developed an instant case of amnesia. She just grabbed her clothes and ran.
I packed Mr Destroyer in a nice large laundry sack I happened to have with me, and toted him out to this place I know in the desert. About a hundred years ago they found a trickle of water there, and some damn fool dug a well and tried to turn rock into pasture. But you just can’t fight nature. He went bust and now there’s just a tumbledown hacienda and a dry well.
I tied a rope around Mr Destroyer and dropped him into the earth as gently as a kitten’s kiss. I didn’t want him to go quick you see. Then I waited till he woke up and fought his way out of the laundry sack. It took him a while and he was cursing a blue streak. Then he swore some more when he realised he was at the bottom of a twenty meter shaft. I dropped two bottles of water on him, enough to keep him alive for a couple of days, and then I went back to place where they’d tortured Chloe.
Qinque was there and he’d followed my instructions. The fucker who’d hurt Chloe, the one I hadn’t killed, was standing in the sandy part of the arroyo, digging a hole. He didn’t look happy.
When he saw me, he started babbling. “Look man, it was just business. I’ll give you the man who called the shots.”
“I’ve got him.”
He heard the ice in my voice, the cold rage that consumed me. “It wasn’t personal!”
That did it. I went for him. He tried to hit me with the shovel but I didn’t even feel it. I punched him down, and when he was on his knees, I beat him. I worked him over, breaking his bones the same way he’d broken Chloe’s. I beat him to a bloody pulp and when I was done, I dumped him in the grave he’d dug, and then I started shovelling dirt on top of him.
Quique helped cover him. “I think he’s still breathing.”
I didn’t answer. When the ground was level, we stamped it down. Then I went back to the hospital to sit with Chloe.
I’d reserved a private suite for when she’d be allowed out of ICU, and Arturo had fetched some of my gear and stocked it there. He’d also taken Raoul to his place and he didn’t even bitch about the noise the cat had made during the trip. Arturo had heard the full story about Chloe’s refusing to give me up, and now there was nothing too good for her. Arturo’s like that.
I had a shower, got changed and went to ICU. I got there ten minutes before she woke up. She didn’t say anything or open her eyes but I knew when she became conscious. While Bautista checked the mon
itors, I spoke to her, told her she was going to be fine, that Raoul had been fed, and then watched her sink back into unconsciousness as the meds took hold of her.
“She’s doing well,” Bautista informed me. “But in a week or so, when she’s properly awake, she’ll need a shrink.”
“Why?”
He stared at me. “She was tortured and raped. I’m healing her body but not her mind.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“She needs a pro.”
I doubted it but he might be right. “Get someone good, and I’ll pay the bill.”
“All right.” He looked at me. “You didn’t sleep.”
“Hmm.”
“And you’ve been in a fight.”
“Hmm.”
He fixed my hands, treating them with an antiseptic and covering them with gauze. “Get some sleep.”
I slept in the chair by Chloe’s bed, and from that moment on, I pretty much stayed there day and night.
They had really worked my poor girl over. Bautista fixed the inside and it took a plastic surgeon two operations to fix the outside. All in all it took a month for my Chloe to look herself again. I sat with her all day, every day, but when she’d taken her sleeping pill and dropped off to sleep, I’d go out to the desert and visit Mr Destroyer.
For the first few days he swore and threatened. He tried climbing out but that didn’t work. You can’t scale earth walls that have been baked into smooth rock for more than a hundred years with your bare hands.
When he knew he was stuck there, he tried to negotiate. That didn’t work either. I’m not much for talking, and I had nothing to say to him. He was quite a blabbermouth though. After he volunteered the access codes to his Swiss bank account, I emptied it. I was going to send it to the Cats Protection League in London, because I thought it would make Chloe happy, but then I thought of something else that would make her happy. After I asked Rimjob one question, I sent the cats half of the money and used the other half to spring Pepper. Turns out she’d been thrown into a prison mental institution in Lima. As she was there under a South African passport as Jenny Winters, I don’t know if I ever would have found her, so I was glad I did talk to him that once.
Pepper had some medical issues so I arranged for her to be fixed up. As Chloe had told me that Pepper had been severely messed up by some paedo before Rimjob got a hold of her, I decided I’d send her Mac when she recovered physically. He’ll know how to take care of her, and I hear he needs funds, so that’s all good.
After that, it was just a matter of making Mr Destroyer really suffer. I dropped a few supplies down the shaft every few days, just enough to make sure he wouldn’t die on me. Then I played games. You know, like the ones he used to play with Chloe.
Once I brought along one of those mechanical watering systems, and I sprayed the cover of the well. Of course he thought it was a desert rainstorm. He got all excited, shouting, jumping up and down, and no doubt hoping that the downpour would soften the walls and let him climb out. When I showed him I was just jerking him around, he didn’t see the fun in it at all.
Another time I rocked up in a truck I borrowed from Arturo. I played cantina pop, spoke my best Speedy Gonzalez Spanish, pretended to be shocked to hear someone had fallen down the well, and dropped him a line. He was quite weak by then, so after he’d fallen on his ass a few times, I helped him out a bit. I pulled him up to the lip of the shaft so he could almost taste freedom. Then I let him see my face, and I dropped him back into hell.
After that he broke down. He raved and threatened but mostly he cried. When he was too quiet, I livened him up by dropping some centipedes in with him. They’re harmless really but they have a nasty sting. He may have been extra upset though because I snuck up on him, and shook a rattle first. When you’re in a tight hole, filled with your own piss and shit I might add, having a rattlesnake for company can be quite enlivening. There, that’s one of Chloe’s jokes.
I would have let him suffer for a decade, but when he went insane there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping him alive. The day they told me I could take Chloe home, I made one last trip out there. I borrowed Arturo’s truck again and carted along half a tonne of sand. I think he was still alive when I buried him, but he was probably too far gone to know he was dying. I hope not though.
Funnily enough Chloe’s mental state was much better than the doc anticipated. She spoke to Bautista’s shrink once and then kicked him out.
“He doesn’t know anything about it,” she complained to me. “When I told him I’d been raped like a million times before this, he sort of gulped. I’d rather talk to you.”
It wasn’t easy, for her or me, but we got over it. I say we because in some ways I had it bad too: the guilts, as Chloe put it. But we talked and figured it out in our own way. It’s a funny thing but we’re so close now that we know what the other is thinking - and sometimes we’re not even in the same room.
The thing about us is that neither could be called a fully rounded person, or even a whole person really, but together we’re happy. It’s easy to love Chloe: I could make a list of a hundred reasons to love her, and it still wouldn’t be enough. And the amazing thing is that Chloe knows exactly what I am, and she loves me anyway.
We talk all the time now although we never discuss my work. If she asks though, I tell her the truth. Like the day she asked if I’d disposed of Rimjob, I confirmed I’d taken care of it. She just nodded but she didn’t ask for details. When I told her what I’d done for Pepper though she cried a little.
Ever since Chloe got home again, life’s been pretty smooth. Chloe’s even making friends with some of the girls, like my cousin Maria and her daughter Pia. Everyone heard what happened so she’s kind of a heroine. My work is going well too.
Come on, you didn’t think I was going to reform, did you? I’m a bad bastard. Nothing can ever change that. I live in a war zone and nothing can change that either.
As Chloe always says, “’Life’s a bitch,’ cause if it was a slut, it’d be easy.”
That about sums it up, really, except that I’d add that if you can find real love, well, that’s a bonus.
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a rating, a review or better still, recommend it to your friends. Thanks! AJ Adams.
