Mancini didn’t have long to wait before fate intervened.
The door of apartment twelve, situated in the center building on the upper floor, banged open and a worried looking man in his mid-forties and dressed in nothing but his underwear bundled onto the balcony. He gabbled into his cell phone while glancing around him and repeatedly turned to face the open door of his apartment.
“That looks like Jorge Alvarez,” Mancini growled. “Come on, let’s go to work.”
He dropped his soda bottle on the sidewalk and hurried across the road, dodging the traffic in each direction. Trey placed his soda bottle on the store window sill and followed Mancini across the street.
“Try and stay out of sight for as far as you can,” Mancini hissed. He hugged the wall of the adjacent building beside the gateway and crept forward. Trey followed in Mancini’s footsteps, replicating every move he made.
Mancini stayed in the building’s shadow while crossing the driveway. He approached the left side of the central building, keeping a watch on Jorge above him on the balcony. Trey followed, treading lightly on the blacktop covered path. Jorge seemed too preoccupied with his phone call and who or what was inside his apartment. Mancini handed Trey a pair of close fitting, black gloves and led the way to an open staircase at the left of the building. He rushed up the steps, his footfalls almost silent. Trey likened Mancini’s movements to a hunting panther as he struggled to keep pace up the stairway. Mancini stopped at the stairway summit and took a peek through the gap in the door. He slipped on his tactical gloves and motioned for Trey to do the same.
Mancini whipped out the Heckler and Koch handgun from the back of his waistband, before he slipped through the fire door leading to the upper balcony. He held the weapon out in front of him double handed, aiming the barrel at Jorge’s head. Trey followed onto the balcony and drew his own firearm, keeping it pointed down at his side.
The near naked man still jabbered in Spanish into his cell phone and didn’t notice Mancini and Trey approach. He leaned his head inside the apartment threshold and Mancini could tell the guy was in a state of panic by the tone of his voice. Jorge seemed to be staring into his room, looking out for something inside. Mancini stealthily closed the distance between him and Jorge, looming behind him. In one fluid movement, Mancini wrenched the cell phone from Jorge’s grasp, tossed it over his shoulder and over the side of the balcony, then pressed the barrel of his handgun against the back of the near naked man’s head. Jorge gasped and made to turn around but Mancini pushed the Heckler and Koch barrel harder against his skull.
“Hi Jorge, don’t turn around now,” Mancini said quietly. “Go right on inside your apartment and don’t try to run or I’ll shoot you right in the head. You understand?”
Jorge nodded slightly and went to speak.
“Keep it quiet, Jorge. Talk to me when we get inside. Are you alone in here? Shake or nod.”
“No…yes…kind of,” he stuttered.
“You spoke, Jorge. I told you not to. That’s a big black mark against your chances of surviving this,” Mancini hissed. “Let me rephrase. Is there anybody who’s armed inside this shitty place?”
“No,” Jorge grunted. “But…”
Mancini shoved the man forward into the room space but kept his firearm trained on the back of his torso as Jorge stumbled into the apartment. Trey followed Mancini inside and hurriedly shut the door behind them. He felt his hands sweating inside the gloves and his legs shook slightly. Trey had never shot a person in anger before and he hoped the situation could be resolved without a round being fired.
Jorge turned to face Mancini with an expression of shock and fear engulfing his face. A furious pounding noise reverberated around the small room. Mancini and Trey glanced to their right to the source of the noise. They looked at a closed door and heard growls and yelps from the room beyond. Mancini turned his attention back to Jorge.
“Have you got a dog locked up in there, Jorge?”
Jorge raised his arms above his head and rapidly shook his head. Sweat poured down his face and he kept glancing nervously at the closed door.
“Don’t open it,” he stammered. “There is a girl in there. She…she was dead not so long ago.”
Trey felt his skin turn to gooseflesh. Did he hear the cowering dork right?
“Oh, I have no intention of opening that door,” Mancini said. “Now, you know what we’ve come here to take back, don’t you Jorge?”
Jorge made a strange gurgling sound as he nodded his head. “Yeah, but the money and the crystal is not in here,” he stammered.
Mancini took a quick glance around the room. A double bed sat in the center of the floor space with a small beside cabinet pushed against the wall alongside each pillow. A table with a glass surface stood in front of a large, wall mounted TV set and a small kitchenette was situated to the left of the apartment. Mancini eyed the drug paraphernalia strewn across the table. The remnants of a bag of white powder was scattered amongst a few small green crystal chips. A smoking pipe lay in a big round glass ashtray beside two half empty glasses and a near empty bottle of tequila.
“Okay, Jorge. You have exactly ten seconds to tell me where the money and the merchandise are and who or what is making all that damn racket in that room.” Mancini’s words grew louder in volume as he spoke above the banging against the door.
Jorge breathed heavily and repeatedly glanced between Mancini, Trey and the closed door across the room.
“All right,” he gasped. “I have a third of the money here in a bag under the bed and a small amount of the crystal is with Ernesto, in the room next door. I haven’t heard from him since yesterday. He also has one third of the cash. Luiz has most of the green ice and the rest of the cash but he is in La Paz.”
“La Paz?” Mancini repeated, screwing up his face in disbelief. “What the hell is he doing all the way down there?”
“He is trying to do a deal with the cartel down that way,” Jorge stammered. “He thinks we can make more money this way. That’s why we took off from LA. Mr Oreilles wasn’t going to pay us what we were worth. Luiz said it would be better to go with the cartel but something has gone wrong. This is totally fucked up, you know.” He was on the verge of tears as he spoke.
“Calm the fuck down,” Mancini said. He turned to Trey. “Check under the bed for that bag of money but be careful. If there’s any asshole hiding under there, shoot them.”
Trey gulped and nodded. He strode across the room and crouched down beside the bed, flicking back the cover. A white sports bag lay in the space under the right side of the bed. Trey pulled the carrier out and zipped it open. He showed the contents to Mancini who nodded at the wads of cash inside.
“Put the bag by the door,” Mancini said.
Trey complied, keeping a watch on Jorge but also uneasily glancing at the closed door and wondering what the hell was behind it.
“The girl…she was from one of those bars,” Jorge stammered. “We came back here to party last night and carried on this morning…”
“I don’t want to hear all the sordid details, Jorge,” Mancini sighed. “Just give me the address of where Luiz went to in La Paz.”
“I was speaking to him on the phone when you took it off me and threw it away. He says he also has trouble at his end.”
“What kind of trouble?” Mancini groaned. “Let me guess, the cartel have lifted the gear off him without payment and cut off his nuts for good measure, am I close?”
“No…no, nothing like that. You see, Luiz changed the recipe from the original batches we made. He said he added some other compound to give the crystal an extra little kick. But it’s all bad. The ice is making people go crazy after they take a hit.”
“Jorge, I’m going crazy standing here and listening to all this bullshit and having to suffer all that damn noise.” Mancini gestured with his head towards the closed door to his right.
“Yo, wait up…wait,” Trey butted in. “What do you mean, like sent people crazy, man
?”
“That girl,” Jorge stammered and pointed towards the door. “We did some coke and drank some tequila then I introduced her to the green ice. I had a little sample bag still with me. She tried a small amount and she blacked out. At first, I thought she was just comatose so I took her into the bathroom and showered her off with cold water but she looked like she was dead. So I called Luiz to tell him about it but then she just woke up and went all crazy. She was trying to scratch my face and bite me and shit so I locked her in there. I called Luiz again and then you guys showed up.”
“Are her eyes all like black and shit?” Trey asked, waving his finger around his own face.
“Yeah, her eyes are all kind of weird,” Jorge said, nodding excessively.
“It’s the fucking ice that’s making these people react like that,” Trey hollered. “Did you sell any more samples to anybody else?”
Jorge looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, Ernesto sold a few samples on the road on the way down here. Nothing substantial, just a few small bags.”
“I fucking knew it,” Trey barked. “I thought there was something badly wrong with those guys we saw. And that girl…Jesus.”
“Shut up, Trey,” Mancini growled. He didn’t want the death of the girl to be known to anybody else. “Where is Ernesto now?”
“He’s still in his room, as far as I know,” Jorge said. “We had a heavy night last night. Luiz had told us not to go out but Ernesto said it would be okay.”
“Did he take any of the green ice himself?” Mancini asked.
Jorge shrugged. “I don’t know. He still had a few of the small sample bags with him. He went into his room late last night with a chica from the bar we were drinking in.”
Alarm bells rang in Mancini’s head. “And how much of this shit has Luiz got with him?”
“Around twenty pounds of the product.”
Mancini groaned and covered his mouth with his hand.
“Fuck, man,” Trey spat. “Dude, that stuff is a ticking time bomb.”
Chapter Eleven
“Get dressed, Jorge,” Mancini barked. “You need to tell us exactly where Luiz has gone to in La Paz.”
“Where the fuck is La Paz, man?” Trey asked.
“A long way from here,” Mancini groaned. “Way down the bottom of the Baja Peninsula. Keep him covered while he gets dressed, I need to make a call.”
Trey stepped forward, nervously raising his handgun and pointing it at Jorge. Mancini marched to the front door and moved out onto the balcony. He dialed a number on his cell phone and waited for the call to be answered.
“Yeah?” Eddie Reinbeck grunted.
“Eddie, we got a real fucking problem down here,” Mancini hissed.
“I don’t want to hear about problems, Marco,” Reinbeck barked. “I only want to hear – Yes, Eddie, we’ve got the stolen merchandise and the cash back, understand?”
Reinbeck could have had the word ‘stress’ tattooed on his forehead. He was a big guy, both in stature and weight and looked as though he was ready for a heart attack. Several ex-wives had prematurely aged him, with deep worry lines creasing his face and a shock of rapidly graying hair. He’d fled his native New York City to escape from divorcee number three, several years back. Eddie had come to work for Oreilles in LA, with the offer of employment passed through mutual acquaintances. He’d wasted no time in shacking up with a woman named Brianna Mantra, a blonde wannabee actress, who had subsequently fleeced Reinbeck of all his savings and absconded to Las Vegas with a young male model.
“Listen to me, Eddie,” Mancini growled into the phone, turning his back on the line of apartment doors. “That shit that Luiz has cooked is poison. It’s killing people on the first hit. He’s all the way down in La Paz with most of the gear trying to do a deal with the cartel. So far, he’s left a trail of death in his wake.”
“So, who gives a crap? He’s made a bad batch, is all. Even more reason to shoot the motherfucker.”
“It’s not that straightforward, Eddie. This green ice, or whatever the fuck it is, is turning these people into some sort of fucked up wrecking machines, who want to kill everybody.”
“Just get the fucking stuff back, Marco,” Reinbeck sighed. “If you have to go down to La Paz, then so be it but don’t leave it too long, okay?”
“Jesus, Eddie, you send me down here with a novice kid whose balls have barely dropped and now you want me to head way down to La Paz to face the cartel without backup? That’s a suicide mission and you know it.”
Mancini heard a pained groan and a sigh on the other end of the line.
“Call me when you get there, Marco and I’ll send some guys if you need a hand. Just get the cash and the merchandise back before Oreilles blows his stack and we’re all in a world of shit.”
Mancini was about to ask Eddie if they were holding any more of the new, modified green ice back in LA but the line went dead. “Shit,” he hissed. He made his way back into the apartment and saw Jorge was dressed in a black shirt and formal, light brown pants. Trey still pointed his handgun at Jorge and the thudding noise of the girl in the bathroom still echoed through the room.
“Get your shit together, Jorge,” Mancini said. “You’re coming on a little road trip with us, down to La Paz,” Mancini said. “It’s your lucky day; Oreilles wanted all three of you dead but I need you alive to show me exactly where Luiz has gone.”
“I don’t know the exact location,” Jorge stammered.
“Well, you can call him and ask him when we get into the car. Don’t tell him we’re on his tail or he’ll clam up and keep quiet and then you’ll really be of no use to me, Jorge.”
“What about her in the bathroom?” Trey asked.
Mancini glanced at the door. He didn’t want any more bodies piling up and there was no way they could dispose of another corpse in such a populated area. “Leave her where she is for now. We’ll check on Ernesto first. We need to haul his ass out of bed and take him with us too. You say he’s in the apartment next door?”
Jorge nodded then picked up his wallet and watch from the bedside table. Mancini knew he was the placid one of the three and possibly wouldn’t cause them any bother.
“All right, let’s go and see if he’s at home,” Mancini said. “Grab that bag, Trey and don’t let it out of your sight.”
Trey nodded and scooped up the holdall beside the door.
“We’d better keep our shooters hidden or somebody will call the cops.” Mancini stuffed his handgun back into his waistband and Trey did the same. “Don’t think I’ll hesitate to shoot you, if you try and run, Jorge,” he warned.
Jorge nervously nodded in acknowledgement.
Mancini led the way out of the apartment with Trey at the rear and Jorge between them. The noise of the girl banging against the bathroom door was still audible outside the door. Mancini rapped on the next door apartment and waited for a reply. They stood on the balcony for a few seconds, waiting for Ernesto to open up. The front curtains remained closed and they didn’t hear any sounds from within.
“You sure he’s in there, Jorge?”
“I tried him this morning but he didn’t open his door. I also tried his cell phone but he didn’t answer.”
“Okay,” Mancini grunted. He glanced up and down the balcony and took a step back. “Mind out.” He gave the door a hefty kick, the impact thudding against the lock beside the door jamb. Wood creaked and splintered and the door gave way, flying open inwards into the apartment.
Mancini quickly looked around the balcony again to check nobody was alerted to the sound of his break-in. When he was satisfied the coast was clear, he drew his handgun and led the way inside the room. Mancini screwed his face up as he inhaled the stench of sweat and puke and unwashed clothes but also that ammonia scent again. The apartment layout was exactly the same as Jorge’s next door but the place looked as though it had been ransacked. Piles of dirty clothes, blood stained bed sheets and broken bottles littered the floor. Jorge crossed himself,
glancing nervously around the room.
“What the hell happened in here?” Trey whispered, holding his hand over his nose.
Mancini took a good look around the room. “Search around for his bag of cash or any more of that green ice shit.”
Jorge moved to the stripped bed and sunk to his hands and knees. “His bag is under the bed,” he said, hauling the holdall across the tiled floor.
“That’s a start,” Mancini mumbled. “But where the hell is Ernesto?”
“Let’s check in here,” Trey said, pointing to the bathroom door.
He heard a scratching sound a split second before opening the door but pushed it open anyhow. A grimacing, snarling face with deep ebony eyeballs loomed from the room beyond. Trey gasped in shock and took a step backwards, leaving the door wide open. The naked guy in the bathroom roared in a throaty croak, raised his arms and sprang at Trey.
“Fuck,” Mancini spat, recoiling in shock.
Trey wailed and went down under the weight of the snarling, attacking guy.
“Ernesto?” Jorge shrieked. “What the hell…?”
The assailant snapped his blood stained jaws at Trey lying beneath him. Trey jammed the heel of his hand beneath the guy’s chin and tried to push his head backwards.
“Get him the fuck off me,” he screeched.
“It is Ernesto,” Jorge repeated. “He’s turned.”
Ernesto scrambled his hands across Trey’s stomach and chest, as though he was trying to rip the flesh from the young man’s bones. Mancini crouched and leveled his handgun parallel with Ernesto’s temple at the left side of his head. He fired once. The sound of the gunshot reverberated around the small apartment. Blood and brain matter spewed from the exit wound on the opposite side of Ernesto’s head and his body went limp on top of Trey. The spent brass shell rattled across the tiled floor and the musty stench of cordite wafted through the room.
The apartment remained silent for a brief second before Jorge whimpered in shock and fright.
Trey shoved Ernesto’s corpse off him, groaning with revulsion and exertion. “Get this piece of shit off me,” he moaned. “Dirty, stinking assed bastard.”
Green Ice: A Deadly High Page 7
