Epiphany Jones (14 page)

J
ordan Seabring is on a boat in the Caribbean. She’s sunbathing in this little red bikini while her friends are in the water, diving for treasure. This is the movie that solidified her as the next Hollywood ‘It Girl’. This is the movie that made her a household name. This is the movie that put her in the minds of men across the world. There’s side-boob everywhere.

Seabring plays a total bitch who opens to taking chances when she falls in love with a lowly boat captain, who ends up having terminal cancer. We’re at the part when she has to decide between playing with her rich friends in the water or helping the captain fix the boat’s motor. We’re at the point when she says – something dubbed in Spanish.

Then again, everything in this tiny jail is in Spanish. I’m sitting on a cell bench, shirtless and shoeless, being watched not closely at all by a lanky police officer who’s reclining at his desk, engrossed in the movie on the black-and-white TV.

He is one of the cops who arrested me. When it happened I kept hoping to see Epiphany, of all people, in the crowd that formed. She would have been able to help me escape – somehow. In the cell, I look at the clock on the wall. She’s expecting me at the bus station right now.

When they searched my backpack they found the gun wrapped in the newspaper. Because of that, in front of the whole damn crowd, they made me strip to my underwear and searched me. They took my fake passport. My pain pills. After they were convinced I didn’t have any more weapons concealed in my anal cavity they let me put my pants
back on, threw the newspaper on the ground and packed me into their shitty car.

The lanky police officer at the desk abruptly sits up as another officer with a large beer belly comes in. They speak quickly, glancing at me. Compared to the detectives in Chicago, these police seem so amateur. I can’t believe they actually had the resources to track an American fugitive down.

The beer-belly officer says something else to the lanky one, who turns the TV off and then rubs his fingers together and presses a buzzer on the desk. The front door clanks open and a man walks in carrying my newspaper, which the police discarded. I can tell it’s the same one because it’s ripped from where they tore the gun from it.

The man who walks in is the same man who was smiling when he saw me get tackled; the familiar one in the leather jacket. He speaks briefly in Spanish to the officer with the big belly and then addresses the lanky officer at length. The officers grin at each other.

And now I know where I’ve seen this man before. I literally ran into him at the produce stand in Ensenada, the night I got stabbed. He’s not a cop. You can tell that by the way he casually pulls out a large roll of euros, dollars and pesos, all mixed together, and bribes the two police officers to unlock my cell before they leave the room.

‘You know what I love about this country, Jerry?’ he asks in a thick Italian accent as he enters my cell. ‘Money gets you whatever you want.’ He speaks slowly, the way confident men do. The way men do when they know they’re in control.

‘How do you know my name?’ I say, my mouth dry.

He smiles. ‘Good, Jerry! Good! Right to the point! I like that in people. You’re a busy man, I’m a busy man. Time is money, right?’ He unfolds the newspaper. ‘Your name is Jerry Dresden,’ he says, paraphrasing the article. ‘You murdered a co-worker and stole a painting in your home country.’ His eyebrows rise, ‘Very daring of you.’

My gut tells me,
You’re fucked, Jerry
.

The Italian continues skimming the article. ‘Unfortunately, the US authorities have had a break in the case. A young boy who was
threatened
into providing falsified travel documents to the fugitive –
that’s you
– has come forward. From his testimony the police now believe the fugitive fled to Mexico late last week.’ Another raise of his eyebrows. ‘The boy had created two passports, but, given your psychosis, the police believe you only
imagine
you’re travelling with someone. They are now working in conjunction with Mexican authorities … ah, well, you get the idea.’

I sink low on the bench.

‘Jerry, Jerry, don’t look so down,’ he says in mock sympathy. ‘You’ve got a lot going for you. The Mexican police are a joke. They don’t keep up on the wires. They don’t know who they’ve got in their cell.’

‘Then why did they arrest me?’

‘Because I called ahead and told them to, of course,’ he says, motioning with the wad of cash in his hand. ‘I mean, how would it look if a foreigner like me abducted an American tourist in broad daylight?’

I say, ‘I didn’t do those things.’

The Italian, he paces around the cell. ‘Jerry, you’re not getting it. I don’t care if you did or not. Do you know why I’m here?’

I shake my head, no.

‘I’m here because I’m a businessman, Jerry.’ He crouches in front of me. ‘I need to protect my interests. My interests in Ensenada, my interests in Veracruz. My interests everywhere. You understand?’

I shake my head, no, again and the Italian stands back up. He takes off his leather jacket and folds it once before placing it on the bench. Even though he’s got to be a good fifteen years older than me, his body is the image of a person ten years younger. His T-shirt is snug over his chest and his arms are firm and toned. As I sit, shirtless, my flabby belly forms a roll at my waist.
Pathetic
.

‘The police in your country are wrong, aren’t they, Jerry? You are travelling with someone. A woman named Hanna.’ His pacing increases. ‘Don’t deny it, Jerry.’

And my stomach drops. My body goes cold.

‘You’re Nico,’ I say.

Nico, the trafficker.

Nico, the teeth smasher.

Nico, he stops in place and smiles an ironic smile. ‘See! I am right! How else would you know my name? I am flattered LaRouche spoke of me. Don’t deny that either,’ he adds.

I scratch the edge of the bench. Is that where he’ll have me bite when he shatters my teeth?

‘Focus, Jerry,’ Nico says. ‘I’m after Hanna, not you.’

‘Why?’ I say.

‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,’ he pauses and shakes his head. ‘A long time ago she almost cost me a very large client. She caused them a lot of trouble and I had to do much work to keep their business. But, let bygones be bygones, right?’ He pauses as if a memory has abruptly appeared in his head. ‘Forgive me, I have lied. I did search for her for a while, but after a year, I gave up. I assumed she died on the streets. Where could she have gone otherwise?’ Now he paces again and speaks without looking at me. The blood has drained from my skin. ‘But as you know, Jerry, she came back to me. The stupid girl came back to Ensenada. And why? To burn down my orphanage.’

Orphanage?

‘Oh, Jerry, you know as well as I do that it wasn’t really an orphanage. It was a place where I could keep my newest girls without people thinking much of it. It’s easy to pay off the police, but if too many people start questioning what parentless girls are doing together in one house – well, that wouldn’t be good for business, would it?’

He pauses so long, I actually answer. ‘No,’ I say. His eyes crinkle and I realise it wasn’t a question pause – just another confidence pause.

‘I caught her red-handed,’ he continues. ‘She was running down the street, away from the fire and I grabbed her by the arm. We were eye to eye, and even though it had been over
fifteen years
, I recognised her right away. I never forget a girl, Jerry. Never. Lucky for her that fire truck came barrelling down the street when it did. It was either let go of her or be hit. And one whore isn’t worth a man’s life, is it?’

My mind spins as memories connect. I remember that night. When Epiphany came home she looked a mess. She had a long, bleeding
scratch going down her arm. I thought she had been covered in dirt, but it was really smoke and soot.

‘When I got to my orphanage the girls told me that a woman had made sure they all got out. They said she even went in to rescue a few of the youngest ones who were trapped upstairs.’ Nico notices the astonishment on my face. ‘I too wondered why. Why risk all those girls’ lives? Just to get back at me? No. Hanna always was clever. She knew the news of an orphanage fire would spread quickly. She knew that the newspapers would follow up on what happened to the girls. She knew I would have no choice but to let them be split up and taken to real orphanages. She was saving the girls, Jerry.’

And if I weren’t so scared right now, I’d be a little impressed.

Nico crouches by me. His face is flushed. ‘You know what those girls would have been worth over the next ten years?’

I shake my head.

‘Over four million US.’ He takes a moment before he speaks again. ‘So the next day I tracked Hanna to that street market. But then you ran into me and I lost her. You told me you were late for work, but it was obvious you were following her. Then, as fate would have it, a day later you shouted my name in a bar.

My head sinks. ‘You were there?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, but saying my name is like calling the boogeyman, Jerry. I have eyes everywhere. You were with LaRouche.’

And I wince as her jagged, broken teeth snap into my mind.

Nico laughs. ‘You saw her when I was done?’

I begin to breath heavily.

‘You know, I didn’t want to do that to her. I had to though. It took so much beating to get her to admit that Hanna was even back in this country, but then LaRouche just reached a point where she wouldn’t tell me any other specifics. It was as if she thought we had reached maximum pain.

‘Then I tried another approach: I asked her to tell me where the man was who she was at the bar with – but she lied and said that you weren’t associated with Hanna. Of course I knew that was a fib. So I
told her again to tell me where you were and she refused. So I changed the look of her mouth.’

‘No, no, no,’ I say under my breath.

‘I did that because of you, Jerry.’

‘Please,’ I say, not knowing why.

‘It takes multiple tries to knock all the teeth out you know,’ Nico goes on. ‘And with each try she gave up just a little more about you: that you weren’t a buyer of Hanna; that Hanna has some kind of videotape you want; and that you were heading to the bus station to journey to meet Hanna here.’

‘Here, I have other
orphanages
,’ he says grimly and pulls a thin little blade from his boot, and I begin to cry.

‘I’m sure you can guess what happened next. LaRouche, being the dishonourable person that she was, was lying when she said you had already left for the bus station. I got on the road but then it occurred to me that maybe all that money in her kitchen was for you. Maybe you were coming back for it. Maybe you were taking the later bus. I’ve been in this silly country long enough to know there are three buses a day making the journey from Ensenada to Veracruz. So I waited on the shoulder of the road until the last bus to Veracruz passed and what did I see? You looking out the window at my car. Am I right, Jerry?’

I can’t find the words to answer him.

He sighs and rolls his eyes, growing frustrated. ‘Do you know how I got her mouth to fill with blood? After you shatter the teeth, you take a knife – like this one –’ he holds it to my mouth. ‘You slice the tongue from the bottom, making sure you leave a little bit of flesh connected so it flops back but doesn’t fall off. Here, let me show you.’

‘No!’ I scream, but already he’s grabbed my head in his arm and with his fingers on his other hand he’s spread my mouth wide and buries the blade underneath my tongue.

‘Shh. Shh,’ he says. ‘You feel this?’ The blade pokes the thin strip of flesh that holds my tongue to the floor of my mouth. ‘This is where you cut. Then up through the bottom of the tongue. Then you push
it down their throat.’ The blade, it prods against the bottom of my tongue and I cry out as its tip pierces the flesh of my tongue’s belly.

‘Pleath!’ I scream as sweat breaks on my brow.

‘Jerry, don’t distract me. I’d hate for my hand to slip.’

I try to freeze my face.

Then Nico says, ‘After you’re done with their mouth, you put your heel on their forehead so they can’t turn over. They die from suffocating on their own tongue. The pool of blood is just for show.’ He smiles.

My breath is rapid and shallow as he slides the blade from my lips and I taste the battery-acid tang of blood under my tongue. Spasms beat my insides. I keep seeing LaRouche’s mouth in my mind.

Nico shows mock concern. ‘Oh, don’t cry,’ he says. But I am. I’m leaking tears.

‘Tell me where she is,’ he says, ‘so I don’t have to give you a new mouth.’

And I spring from the bench. ‘Police!’ I shout. ‘Police! Guard! Police!’

But Nico just laughs and starts shouting ‘
Police!
’ with me. The lanky and fat officers come back into the room. They see me crying and look at Nico. But Nico walks over to them, takes out his roll of money and hands them more bills. Then, without warning, he grabs me by the back of the neck and pushes my face between the bars of the cell.

‘That looks like a bad laceration,’ he says and then I feel two thick fingers burrowing into the wound in my back.

I scream and scream as he thrusts harder and deeper. And the two police officers, they just leave the room as Nico finger-fucks the hole between my ribs.

The pain is unbelievable. White and hot, like a poker burrowing into my core. There are moments when time has no presence, when I hear nothing, not even my screams, and see only pale swirls of white. The pain is so great even death couldn’t stifle it. I don’t even know where it’s coming from anymore. Am I on fire? Am I freezing in the cold depths of space? Has someone sent me to the bottom of the ocean, where the pressure is crushing my body from all sides?

‘You see, perro,’ someone breathes into my ear; my face is still stuck between the cell bars. ‘Do you know what “perro” means? It’s Spanish for “dog”. You are my new dog. So you see, perro, money buys anything here.’

I drop to the floor. I’m wet all over. My head spins. Black-and-white spots muddy my vision, which is only slowly returning. Nico … I think, yes … it is Nico, he’s wiping his bloody fingers on my pants. ‘Every time you scream it will cost me money,’ he says, his voice slightly delayed behind the movement of his lips. ‘I have a lot of it, but I don’t like spending more than I have to. It’s bad business.’