The Parker Trilogy

by Tony Faggioli

  There was an awkward silence before Ana spoke up. “Father, you’ve been in critical condition for a while. Completely unconscious. What’s happening right now with you? It’s practically a miracle.”

  Then it was Rudy’s turn. “Sir. Please. You’re in no condition to be trying to help anyone. If you give us her name, maybe we can have someone bring her here and—”

  “No!” Father Soltera said firmly. Grabbing his suit, he made his way to the bathroom, where he dressed in pain, sure that the stitches in his ribs would split wide open when he tried to put on his pants. As he buttoned his shirt, he looked at his body; it was cut and torn, stitched and bandaged in so many places that he looked like Frankenstein. Blood trickled from a few wounds, but it didn’t matter. He put his white dress shirt on, then his jacket. Tossing the tie to the ground, he opted to slip his shoes on without his socks. Bending over that far would be too painful.

  As he made his way back out of the room, they were all still waiting for him. His shoes were untied, the laces threatening to catch, but he didn’t care. Instead, he made his way back to the closet, where he found the small bag he had seen earlier. In it was his wallet, keys and cell phone. He grabbed them and turned to the door.

  “Wait!” Catalina said.

  He turned towards her, about to lose it, to tell her to just leave him alone, when incredibly Catalina bent down on one knee in front of him and tied his shoes.

  “There’s discharge paperwork he needs to—” Ana managed weakly. But her face was a sea of concern.

  “Never mind all that,” Rudy said, a sort of calm resignation now in his voice. “You go on and get, Father. Go do what you have to do.”

  Nearly overcome with relief, he managed to nod at each of them. As he reached the doorway he stopped, turned to them, and in a choked voice he said, “May God bless you all.”

  Then he limped down the hall, got onto the elevator and pushed “L” for Lobby, his body feeling a bit chilly and his vision momentarily blurry.

  Once in the lobby, he pulled out his phone. It looked dead and he prayed that was not the case, that maybe someone had just turned it off for him. When the phone came on with a few bars of charge left, he sighed with relief. There was only one app he needed. Pushing the Uber button, he smiled, thinking of how Luisa had teased him for not knowing how to use the app, ages and ages ago, back when this whole thing had started.

  The Uber driver was five minutes away, which wasn’t normally a long wait, unless you were as big a mess as he was. Father Soltera leaned attentively against a pole just inside the doorway of the main entrance, not wanting to stand outside in the night air, but not wanting to miss his Uber, either.

  He was on the lookout for a driver named “Moshe” who was driving a black Lexus. When it finally pulled up, Father Soltera went out quickly, inhaling the blissfully fresh rain air through his nostrils as scattered raindrops tickled at his scalp. It was good to finally be on his way, but he already felt overwhelmingly exhausted. He was telling himself to push on, that it’d be fine, when he fell to one knee, his hand outstretched to the cold, wet cement, trying to prevent himself from totally teetering over. Two strong hands helped him to stand, and when he looked up, he saw that it was Moshe, a comforting smile on his face that looked similar to the photo on his Uber profile. “Let me help you up,” he said calmly.

  Father Soltera was in no position to argue, so he grabbed onto Moshe’s forearm as, together, they got him back to a standing position. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Father Soltera said, energized by embarrassment. “Thank you. I feel better now.” Then he made his way to the Lexus and got in the back seat.

  Getting into the driver’s seat, Moshe said, “Okay, sir. Where to?”

  “Haven Home,” Father Soltera answered. Then he gave Moshe the address and watched as the GPS on his cell phone, which was mounted to the dash, came alive. The display said that the drive would only take eleven minutes. Father Soltera sighed. It could’ve been worse, much worse, on a rainy night in Los Angeles. Still, eleven minutes felt like eleven years.

  They drove through traffic in silence until they arrived and briefly exchanged goodbyes, Moshe offering to help again and Father Soltera politely refusing.

  But as the Lexus pulled away, he instantly regretted turning Moshe down. Father Soltera realized that between his confusion and his fever, he’d asked to be dropped off too far away from the building. His legs were giving way and his side was bleeding, the blood like syrup, gathering on his hip and spreading to the small of his back.

  He had to make it. Silly, silly, stupid, dumb old man. He had to make it. He would.

  He took three steps and felt the world tilting on him before he regained his balance. He made it another ten paces up the sidewalk, then fell sideways, catching the top of a newspaper stand to steady himself, oh so briefly, before he careened over to a lamppost and held on for dear life. By sheer will alone he made it up the sidewalk, through the entrance and to the elevator. Leaning his head and body against the call button, he took long, deep breaths, his lungs wheezing in his chest and his heart pounding away.

  When the elevator doors opened, he half fell into it, thankful that there was no one else around. The world swam in his head as the elevator ascended to her floor. When the doors opened with a ding, he took two steps out. Feeling his dizziness overwhelming him completely, he managed to make his way to a large cafeteria cart just up ahead before he began to cry. He wasn’t going to make it. Not even close. How? How could this happen? No.

  “No!” he murmured, looking up to the ceiling. “Do not do this to me, Lord. Please!” Stifling his cries in his sleeve, he added, “Please don’t do this to me, I beg of you.”

  He felt a deep chill cover his entire body, from the core of his chest to the pores of his skin, forcing him to shiver violently.

  He was dying. In utter desperation to reach Gabriella, he let go of the cart and thrust himself onward, barely managing a single step before he fell sideways and slammed against the nearby wall, his fever-burned forehead smearing softly on the cool, high-gloss paint.

  Body going cold. Head on fire.

  Heartbroken.

  It was Flacco’s turn to look betrayed as he traced the look from Hector to Curtis, saw the shiv in Curtis’ hand, and easily put two and two together. Still looking determined, Curtis began to advance on him. The other inmates, sensing a fight was coming, broke ranks to let Curtis through, but Flacco retreated as he took off his sweatshirt and wrapped it around one of his hands, evidently to use as a shield against the shiv. In the process, he backed up towards Hector, who now had enough time to get between the two of them.

  Again, Hector shouted, “Curtis!”

  “What, man!” Curtis said, his voice full of frustration. “What the hell is wrong with you!”

  “Just . . . stop!”

  “Why? Who you with, lil homie? Who turned you against me?” he asked, his eyes moving back and forth between Hector and Flacco. “You two set me up?”

  “I dunno what the hell you talkin’ about, Holmes,” Flacco said, his voice as deep as a baritone.

  The two guards that had chased Hector down the stairs almost got a hold of him, but he spun away, leaving them both in the middle of the loose triangle he, Flacco and Curtis had formed.

  “Now let’s take it easy, fellas,” the guard with the crew cut said.

  “Yeah. Just chill,” the other one added, as his blue eyes looked past them and towards the cafeteria doors for backup. A third guard was there, his nod a non-verbal cue that help was on the way, but he held his position.

  A voice came blaring over the intercom systems. “Ground! Ground! Ground! Inmates to the ground. Now.”

  Just then, one of the side doors flew open and in charged a dozen guards in riot gear, beating their batons against their tactical shields. Two of them had tear-gas guns and the threat of it seemed to do the trick. Many of the other inmates began dropping to their knees and then facedown on the floor.

 
“You punk-ass traitor!” Curtis yelled. He tried to charge Hector. The two guards in the middle of them all intercepted him, one of them striking Curtis’ forearm with a baton and knocking the shiv out of his hand. The shiv skittered across the floor, but Curtis wasn’t through. With a scream of rage, he tried to bull through the guards, his hands reaching out in a death clutch, as if he were trying to get to Hector and choke him.

  When he was fully subdued, Hector, sensing he was next as two other guards came his way, did the unthinkable; he ran to Curtis and tried to embrace him, over the arms of the guards holding him in place.

  A wave of commands and shouts to separate erupted from guards all around.

  “What are you doing?” Curtis spat.

  “Listen to me—”

  “No, homie. I ain’t listening to nothin’! You gonna get me killed now for blowing this!”

  “I’m sorry,” Hector said. “I had to, man.”

  A sea of hands grabbed and clutched at them. Hector fought them off.

  His neck the only thing that he could move now, Curtis bared his teeth with contempt. “You had to? What do you mean you had to?”

  Hector saw his opening and took it. It was short and it was brief, but he lunged between a few of the guards and hugged Curtis over his shoulders. The tussle forced him close enough to say the answer in Curtis’ ear. “To save your soul, man. I had to save your soul.”

  As he was finally ripped off and struck by countless batons, Hector saw the look of shock and confusion on Curtis’ face as he was pulled away.

  A baton struck Hector in the jaw, almost knocking him senseless, but he struggled no more.

  He’d done it. He could feel it. He’d somehow accomplished the mission The Gray Man had told him was his . . . and it felt good. His friend might never forgive him, but now Curtis would have a chance to . . .

  A buzzing came through the air in a low pitch that quickly climbed higher, filling his ears so sharply that he feared it would pierce his brain. He recoiled as he clutched at his ears, trying to plug them with the balls of his fists. The buzzing grew louder and louder, like the reverb from a broken amp, until Hector felt like even his eyeballs were vibrating beneath the onslaught.

  At first, he thought that it was the baton strikes. Too many, all at once, about his head and face . . . until he realized that the blows had stopped completely. He’d closed his eyes against the reverb but his ears were telling him that all around, something was going terribly wrong.

  The screaming came in a growing chorus from the rest of the cell block, at first a few stunned yips, then cascading shouts of pain sprinkled with curse words that eventually became full-throated screams of agony. The chorus built and before long it was joined by an orchestra of other sounds: tear-gas guns going off, plastic trays clattering to the ground, light bulbs exploding, doors slamming, shouts for backup and another alarm was tripped.

  “Order! Order!” the voice on the intercom commanded, until, terrifyingly, that person began to scream in agony over the microphone, too.

  The cell doors were next, opening and slamming closed, over and over again, like percussion instruments keeping time to a song of utter madness.

  Somehow managing to stand, Hector summoned the blue without even realizing it. Cool liquid rushed to his eyes and filled his eardrums. Finally, able to see and hear, what Hector took in all around him was almost beyond imagining. Some inmates and guards were rolling on the ground, writhing in pain as they clutched at their heads. Others had managed to stand, somehow, and were running in circles, like wild animals, incapable of reason. Pockets of violence had broken out, with the heartier guards and prisoners locked in battle, throwing punches and pulling hair. One guard screeched as a prisoner he was wrestling bit his ear off and spat it, like a shriveled prune, across the floor.

  Out the corner of his eye, Hector saw the flickering image of snow and static, and his heart leaped at the hope that it was The Gray Man, come to help.

  Instead, it was just the three TVs in the rec room down the hall, their volumes on full blast with nothing but noise.

  Some of the men at the farthest end of the cell block, where the tear gas was spreading, had evidently reached their limit. Unable to cope with the pain of the buzzing and the agony of the tear gas, they each took turns, four of them, running straight into the wall at full speed, knocking themselves unconscious in the process.

  The blue filled Hector’s entire body now, leaving him immune to the buzzing. But it was obvious that it was only growing worse; the barred windows near the top of the cell block shattered, as did the tiny windows in each cell, the pop, pop, pop not unlike massive pieces of bubble wrap being squeezed by invisible fingers.

  Which weren’t invisible for very long.

  When he saw her, he told himself he should’ve known this was coming. The Smiling Midget had told him that “she” would come if Hector didn’t do his bidding, but the little rat bastard was always so full of lies that you never knew when he was telling the truth.

  It was The Black-Veiled Nurse, levitating twelve feet off the ground, near the guards’ station to the right, her arms spread wide, her fingers tensed tightly. She looked down at him and smiled. “Why, hello there, Hector! Isn’t this quite the soirée ? I mean, isn’t all this pain the sweetest thing?”

  She floated down towards him as the blue in him surged so much it was almost painful. She was a threat. A huge threat that he wasn’t prepared enough to fight.

  She touched down to the floor and, while looking over at a guard that was babbling incoherently, she continued, “But do you want to know what’s even better? Madness. Madness is the most delectable agony of all. I mean, look at them.” She giggled gleefully as she stared out at the battlefield of her own making. “They’re going to tear each other limb from limb, you know. Limb. From. Limb! That is, if you don’t do your job, Hector.”

  She steered his eyes with a glance over to a nearby lunch bench that had been tilted upright. Pinned to it, seemingly unaffected by the buzzing, was Curtis, his eyes full of shock and disbelief.

  Someone down the hall was calling for his mother. Just like in the hood. As soon as someone got shot, or right when they realized they were going to bleed out and die, they always called for their moms. Why?

  “Because one of the greatest lies ever is that mommas make the pain go away,” The Black-Veiled Nurse replied, evidently reading his thoughts. “Did you know that Hymie called out for his precious mama, too, Hector? Cried out for his mama like he needed his diaper changed.”

  “And he did!” a random inmate lying nearby said, as if under her control. “Because he shat himself, homie. Right there on that sidewalk, as he was dying.”

  “Where you sent him to die!” another inmate-turned-puppet said with a chortle.

  “And what of your mother, Hector? Did she ever make the pain go away?” The Black-Veiled Nurse asked, before pursing her lips with mock sadness. “My poor, poor little baby!”

  Feeling completely outmatched, Hector called for The Gray Man. But . . . nothing.

  “Well,” The Black-Veiled Nurse said, “that didn’t take long. I thought you’d at least put up a bit of a fight before you called on your stupid little angel.”

  “Hector?” Curtis screamed with fear as he struggled against the invisible force that was holding him firm against the table. “What’s goin’ on? What’s happening?”

  Feeling the blue in him building, Hector’s mind was scrambling for what to do next. He hadn’t really used it that often, and as such, he had no idea how it could be utilized in the current situation.

  The Black-Veiled Nurse looked over at Curtis. “Oh, honey. This? This is the moment right before Hector here does what he was supposed to do.”

  She whipped up her hand and tossed Hector, like a rag doll, into one of the nearby vending machines with a loud crash.

  Then, taking two, small steps forwards, she added with a smile, “This is when he kills you, Curtis.”

  Chapter Twe
nty-Nine

  Parker was halfway to the house when he realized that Jim’s intel wasn’t very good. Actually, it was shit. Having heard the scream of the sentry at the front door, men seemingly came out of everywhere. The one from inside the house he expected—there were supposedly three in there—but the one that came piling out of the passenger seat of the Escalade, a huge man, not so much. Even worse were the other four who came from—

  The damned barn. I shoulda know when it was unguarded. And the doors were partially open. Probably the other shift, trying to get some sleep.

  The gunfire started immediately, tufts of grass and dirt exploding all around them. Parker was just about to take cover behind one of the delivery trucks when he heard a sound that shocked him. People. No. Women. It was a chorus of female voices. Screaming. Screaming from inside one of the trucks.

  “You hear that?” he shouted to Melon.

  Busy returning fire, Melon shouted. “Yeah!”

  “Cover me!” Parker yelled. His best bet was the Range Rover, which he barely reached in time. The back window exploded from a round and a sea of chink, chink, chink lit into the air as the car was strafed on the other side. Lying on the ground, he assessed their situation. Big Boy was between the Escalade and the house, firing from behind a bunch of wooden crates. The four guys from the barn had fanned out. All were armed. Two had taken up positions behind the Escalade and the other two had split off, hard charging to the east to outflank Melon. Parker looked for his next move, but there wasn’t one. He was pinned down, tight, and that’s when he noticed Melon loading the grenade launcher.

  Their eyes met but Parker didn’t even hesitate. He nodded firmly.

  Melon blew the Escalade into pieces, sending Big Boy flying across the front porch and out the other side. The two goons next to the Escalade had seen it coming and escaped most of the explosion just in time. Just then, another goon came rolling out from inside the house, a Glock pistol in hand. He shouted to Big Boy and the goons who’d escaped the Escalade explosion and they all began advancing on Parker’s position with confidence.