Authors: A.J. Sand
“
Jess
,” Drew says in a strained tone as she squeezes my hand. I turn and the man—Elias, as his nametag says—is sitting in the lobby and tapping on his cell phone, literally two feet away from me. Between the door and us. All three of us lock eyes, each one of us dead still. His chest heaves.
The breath before the scream.
“Sir…” Drew holds her hands up and moves toward him, smiling. She’s a pretty girl, but somehow I don’t think her twisted, bloated, fucked-up fingers are winning him over much, because he scrunches his nose in disgust. “
Elias
…we have more money.” His curiosity piques, and he closes his mouth with a snap as she draws a wad of pesos from her pocket to flash. “Just please be quiet and it’s yours.” Drew leans in to toss it onto his lap, and I lunge forward, my hand closing around his throat. I yank him right out of the chair, spin him, and put him in a chokehold, holding him flush against me. He struggles, and makes my walk to the door a bit more difficult, but at least he can’t yell.
“I’m glad you knew where I was going with that…” she says.
“I didn’t,” I say, laughing a little. Once outside, we stick to the shadows and move around to the side of the house. We wait there until Elias is near unconsciousness in my arms. I hate doing it but out of all the times I’ve had to do something like this, this one makes the most sense. I drop him to the grass beneath a window, and Drew and I head for the gate. I can actually see the steeple of the church Carmen was talking about. But my heart sinks as I pull Drew back inside the gate, and flatten us both against the brick wall.
Fucking shit.
There’s another cop in the car outside. The car’s rear bumper is just past the gate, and I can see the silhouette of the driver. His radio buzzes every few seconds, and his head shifts just as much.
“The minute we cross the street, even if we duck down, he might see us in his side view mirror
,” Drew says.
“Well, we’ll just have to hope he’s not looking when we run.”
The front door to the mansion hotel swings open, spilling light onto the grass. “Señor Hernandez?” a male calls out. “Elias?” He walks down the steps and goes to the edge of the house, right to the side where I left him.
Drew
grabs my arm. “
What do we do
?” I don’t have a fucking clue. The gate is a good distance away from the front door, so we’re still blending into the shadows. For the time being. But the minute he turns that corner and walks down a ways, he’s going to trip over Elias.
H
e does something far worse.
He changes direction and starts cutting across the grass
, heading for the gate. “Shit…shit…move…” I say, rasping. We ease along the wall, timing our steps so that our pacing is faster than his, going for the corner. Drew’s shaking so much that she keeps stumbling, and every time she does, I think he’ll hear it. We make it just before the gate screeches when he walks out. The cops’ voices echo as they talk back and forth, and then a car door slams shut.
“Maybe they’re leaving. Should we run into the house and go out the back?” Drew asks.
I shrug but I don’t even think it really conveys how out of answers I am right now. “Maybe…I don’t know…” Fuck it. “Yeah… ready…one…two…”
I make it just a few steps.
Drew changes our momentum and
pulls me back. I crash into her very hard, and she muffles her cries on my chest when we fall against the brick wall again, her nails burrowing into my side. Her broken fingers are between our bodies, squashed further. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry.”
T
hen I hear why she did it. Two sets of footsteps click up the sidewalk toward the house, and soon the door to the hotel opens and both cops go inside. Without a moment more of waiting, Drew and I run out of the gate.
****
Christiana meets us at the church, thank God, and Drew scolds me for waking a pregnant woman up to give us a ride. She did it gladly, and now I think she feels better about the money I gave her. She drives us straight to Majandra’s clinic in Itzacalco. It’s a small place but clean and modern, and heavily protected by four deadbolts and an alarm system, to keep out addicts looking for drugs or equipment to sell. Majandra isn’t happy when we tell her we don’t have any cash for the services, but she lets us stay at her place for a few days. And I guess because we aren’t paying up front, she doesn’t have a single ounce of sympathy in her tone when going through the damage done to me, on her portable X-ray machine. The first stab wound is pretty shallow, but the screwdriver went straight through the muscle on the second one. It didn’t hit any tendons, but I have to get stitches. The cut on my forearm is nasty but won’t need stitches. She gives me a tetanus shot and lots of antibiotics and pain meds, then puts my arm in a sling. Forty-five days is her
minimum
recommendation, and it’s a number that disappoints me. She splints Drew’s broken fingers, and we get double the drugs before she sends us on our way.
Sandrine picks us up and takes us back to our hotel, but has one of her friends go in to retrieve our things and our car, in case Carlos and his friends are watching the place.
With Drew driving, we follow Sandrine to a small restaurant outside of
Centro Historico
, and all three of us agree that it’s a good idea for Drew and me to get out of Mexico City for a while.
“Tecolutla…in Veracruz,” Sandrine suggests as she takes a sip of hot tea. “It’s a four
-hour drive, but I think the change will do you two good. Lay low.”
“But we’re not
really
safe until I fight Carlos, are we?” I ask.
“No. The guy’s messed up. You made him feel like he has something to prove. Fighting is probably all he has…you threatened to take it away
, and that makes you something he has to eliminate now. I’m sure Ramón Vega will also be interested in seeing it happen because his number one fighter’s credibility is on the line. Carlos makes less money if he’s not seen as unbeatable anymore. So, you need to reschedule the match or get out of Mexico…completely,” she says bluntly. “The good news is…everyone is waiting for this to blow over, so you have time.”
Our food order number is announced over the loud speaker. “I’ll get it,” Drew
says.
“
How are you going to carry—”
“I said I got it,” she snaps at me, pushing away from the table so
forcefully that it mashes into Sandrine’s ribs. A compassionate look from Sandrine follows Drew to the pickup area, but she blinks it away.
“Has she talked about Miguel’s death?” Sandrine asks when Drew is out of earshot.
“No, she won’t talk to me. At all. About anything. But she called his brother and told him. We’re going to send him Miguel’s cross. He was wearing it that night.”
“Good. I’m glad you were able to get something of his. Look, I didn’t want to say this in front of her, but the
building was burned down the night after the fight. It’s gone, Jesse. Any bodies that were in there…” She trails off. “The closest firehouse is several miles away. By the time they got there, there was no building and the fire had spread.”
“Jesus,” I say, my heart ripping in two. My gaze zooms to Drew and I wonder how I’m going to tell her that Miguel can’t even get
a proper burial now. I know Drew well enough to know that she’s blaming herself for everything, and I’m afraid of what this news will do to her.
“She gets that almost anyone in her and Miguel’s situation would have done the same thing, right?
Including you. You would’ve tried to stop the fight if it were her or Miguel, too. Because I know that if it had been someone I cared about, especially knowing what Carlos had done, I would’ve driven my goddamn car through the wall to get my loved one out. Period. So would anyone else who was in that position. Most people will self-righteously say that they would’ve thought up a better idea, but it’s easy to say that from the outside. Even calling the cops would’ve resulted in getting everyone in there shot to cover up the fact that other cops were already there.
“
Look, I used to go to fights where all kinds of shit happened. Like I told you, those places are deathtraps. We all walk in there knowing that. And the guards hate letting people out. They’re assholes. That’s not the first time they’ve opened fire for no reason.”
I want to ask Sandrine more questions, but Drew is
back with our trays precariously balanced in her arms. My food happens to be on the side with the broken fingers, and I snicker. We both got soup, gazpacho for me, and something hot for her. I think it’s all we can stomach at the moment, literally.
“Have you heard anything about a cartel that’s chopping off fingers?”
I ask, changing the subject.
Sandrine snorts. “Really, Jesse? Could you narrow it down with a vat of acid or a beheading, maybe?”
Her face falls. “Shit…sorry. That was insensitive.”
“Talking about death doesn’t make Miguel
, or any of those other people, any more or less dead, guys,” Drew mumbles. “It’s fine.”
“Ring and pinkie on the right hand. Cauterized at the knuckle
,” I explain.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Now you’re talking.
I tend to focus on the guys who are cutting off things you can’t just walk away from but, now that you mention it, I have heard about something like that.”
“Have you heard that they’re
specifically targeting Americans? Maybe Americans who owe them money? Like gambling debts?”
She
turns contemplative. “Nothing that specific, but it’s possible. I’ve only just heard rumblings of the finger thing.”
“
Could you look into it for me?” I ask.
Her eyebrows slide up again but she nods. “You two should be on your way. Take a break from all of this.
No fights. No cartels. No nothing. Tecolutla is a beautiful place. It’s on the water and it’s quiet.” She pushes an envelope of money between us. “Don’t argue with me about this; pay me back when you beat him. Get some rest and we’ll talk soon.”
We leave her there and
Drew drives the entire way to Tecolutla. It is as amazing as Sandrine said. It’s a sleepy little beach town on the Gulf of Mexico with the kind of tranquility you just can’t get in Mexico City. But it still has the same look as the other cities we’ve seen—an active town square, a cathedral, low-rise bright-colored buildings, and lots of small shops and vendor carts along the main street. We choose one of the many hotels that line the beach, and they’re cheap, thankfully. My worry, though, is that we still need to make money, even if I’m not fighting right now. We can’t be in Mexico forever.
We take a room that gives us a nearly panoramic view of the vast beach, which is peppered with palm trees and hugged by rocky cliffs.
A line of colorful umbrellas and makeshift shops stretches along the sand for miles. I stand on the balcony and take it all in. It’s all anyone who wants to escape could ask for but in a cruel twist, the weight of everything that’s happened so far demolishes the mental wall I’ve had up for days. The beauty outside only serves to remind me of how ugly our lives are right now. I feel Miguel’s absence so intensely that I’m gripping the railing to steady myself. I wish I had encouraged him to stay out of this after he showed us the ropes. His blood is on my hands as much as it’s on Carlos’s. And who’s next?
Drew?
“What were you and Sandrine talking about when I got up from the table?” When I turn around, she’s standing at the sliding glass door and pouring the room tequila—with the jacked up price—into a glass. Yup, she’s about to chug tequila. Shit, I hope she pours me a glass, too. “And don’t tell me it wasn’t anything. I read your face as well as you read mine, Jesse Chance.” She usually smiles when she goes full name on me, but her lips don’t even twitch.
I sigh and walk toward her, forcing her back into the room. “We should sit.”
Drew stops abruptly and downs the tequila until there’s only ice left rattling in the glass. “I already know the bad news. Miguel’s dead.
He’s dead.
I saw him die. I don’t need to sit.”
“
Fine. Someone burned the building down. The entire place is gone.”
She makes
a face like the tequila is still traveling to her stomach. “Was it because of the generator fuel?” I shake my head. “Did everyone make it out? I mean, there were people on the ground everywhere…not all of them were…” Her stare goes blank and she rocks backward.
I grip her shoulder,
catching her, and she won’t look at me. Tears glide down her cheeks in a silent cry, and anguish cracks right down the center of me. “Will you talk to me now?” I want to make everything that’s churning inside her—the guilt, the pain, and the wondering how she got herself into this fucked-up situation—go quiet. And I know I can’t do that, only time can, but I want to hold her and let her know that it’s okay to cry. She did it for me so many times all those years ago. Shit, she’d done it a few days ago.
Drew pushes away from me and with a quick sniff
, the tears are done. “I’m gonna go down to the beach and see what they’re selling in those little shops. Do you want something to eat? There’s food down there, I think.” She’s at the door before I can even respond.