I saw the car coming slowly around the block, the Atlantic Ocean dark in the background, a strobe of distant heat lightning threading gold stitches through the clouds. I entered the alleyway, the smell of garbage pungent in the night air. I felt that Gonzales wanted me alive. I knew he personally wanted to turn my backbone into calcium powder. They were here to take me alive, take me back to their leader’s hut. But, I wasn’t going to comply.
Come get me.
The Chrysler entered the alley, its headlights raking across graffiti and garbage piled in plastic bags. A light rain began to fall on the old brick. As the car came closer, I saw a black cat dart in front of it, the cat running behind a green dumpster. I stepped behind the dumpster and waited.
The car’s engine turned off, but the headlights stayed on while two doors opened and shut. There was the sound of hard soles, the men making no attempt to quietly approach me. I could see their shadows moving against the walls, the red neon of an exit sign reflecting from the wet brick. I readied my Glock and watched their shadows. Could see them reaching for something in their pockets. In five seconds they would be visible. In six seconds they may be dead.
ONE HUNDRED-ONE
The cat snarled and ran between my legs. I felt a drop of sweat roll slowly down the center of my back. A voice said, “O’Brien, no need to play hide ‘n seek.”
I recognized it. The snide tone came from the same voice I heard that morning in the Walmart parking lot. Frank Soto. “We’re here to talk. We don’t even have guns on us.”
I said, “Walk into the center of the alley. Both of you hold your hands in the air.”
“Let’s do as the man asks,” Soto said to the other man. “You sound like a cop, O’Brien.” They moved to the center of the alley, silhouettes in the car’s lights, hands up.
I walked around the side of the dumpster, the Glock in my hand. The other man had muscle so thick it looked as if he wore shoulder pads, his chest similar to a small refrigerator. But he was a least a foot shorter than me. He had a pale, Germanic complexion. His fish eyes blinked, resembling a contented cat. Soto grinned, his face sprouting a week’s growth of whiskers. He wore a blue jean shirt with the sleeves cut off and rolled to emphasize his muscles. He said, “Lower the heat. We come on a peaceful mission, brother. Mr. Gonzales only wants to have a little chat with you. Word is he might be offering you a job. Lots of money. Travel. Women. He asked us to bring you to him.”
“Tell him to come here.”
Soto smiled. The other man’s face was stone. Soto said, “That’s not too easy to do. Lots of paperwork, you know… all that immigration and customs shit. Makes traveling suck, a real pain in the ass. Look, man, the blood’s runnin’ out of my freakin’ arms. Me and Johnny will just drop our hands and talk.” They lowered their arms to their sides. “That’s better,” Soto said. “Now put the piece away and get in the car.”
“I’m not getting in that car… and neither are you.”
“Mr. Gonzales doesn’t like to be kept waiting. You can get in the car without a scratch on your body, or you can go with knots on your head.”
“Take your boots off and lift up your pant legs. Both of you!”
“Take it easy, O’Brien. I told you we’re not carrying heat.”
“And I told you to kick your boots off.” I pointed the Glock directly between Soto’s eyes.
“Kick off your shoes, Johnny. Let’s show this peckerwood we mean what we say.” They untied their boots and slowly lifted their pant legs. “You might take me out, but Johnny’s only seven or eight feet from you. He’ll put you down in less than two seconds.”
I said nothing.
Soto grinned. He slowly reached in his jeans front pocket and pulled out a set of brass knuckles. The other man did the same thing. “Looks like we need to teach you a lesson in manners, O’Brien. Mr. Gonzales is a man who knows a lot of shit about people, and he believes the good cop in you won’t allow you to shoot an unarmed man. Whadda you say about that, O’Brien?”
“You have to ask yourself, Soto, what would the bad cop in me do? Are you willing to risk that?”
Soto grinned and placed an unlit wooden match in the corner of his mouth. “Let’s see if Mr. Gonzales is right. Take him, Johnny!”
I shot the man named Johnny in his knee. Soto swung at me, the wind from his big fist raking across my cheek. Johnny fell back into a puddle of water, moaning. I turned to Soto and slid the Glock under my belt. The expression on his face was of wicked delight, as if he’d been told someone drowned the last kitten in the litter. He came closer and said, “Too bad Mr. G wants to personally pop your spine. I’d love to do it tonight, get it the fuck over with. Know what I mean?”
I was silent, watching Johnny out of the corner of my eye, readying for Soto’s attack. He swung hard. Too hard. I hit him squarely in the jaw. He staggered backward. I saw Johnny’s shadow on the wall, saw him reach into the back of his pants. I turned in time to see a derringer under the ruddy neon light. In his hand it was miniscule, a piece of metal flashing — jewelry in his palm. His stubby finger jerked the trigger, the bullet whizzing by my right ear. I approached his head. Fast. It was a small head stuck on mammoth shoulders. And I aimed — kicking him solid in the teeth, the sound was as if someone stomped on a can.
Soto hit me in the back of my head with the brass knuckles. There was a burst of white. I heard his laughter. It was arcane, a synthetic sound deep down in a well, the reverberations spinning up to the surface. I turned. He danced around, grinning, fists balled. The shiny brass looked like four big rings on his fingers. He smirked. “I planted the poison in the bitch’s house, the gal you’re seeing. I was gonna fuck her as she died, but a nosey neighbor came by just as I was going to stick it to Molly’s mama. How does that make you feel, O’Brien? You… me… sharin’ the same mama.”
“Fuck you, Soto.”
His eyes popped wide. He cocked his fist and swung too hard at me again. Off balance. I grabbed his arm, twisting it out of the socket, dislocating his shoulder. He fell to the ground, cursing me. I hit him hard in the collarbone, felt it snap under my fist. At that moment, Frank Soto passed out. The other man was unconscious, too. I ran to their car and opened the door. The car smelled of smoked marijuana and French fries. I found a cell phone on the console, scrolled through the last numbers. They were all the same. Soto had been calling someone every fifteen minutes giving an update as they followed me.
I inhaled a deep breath, exhaled and called the last number. After three rings, there was an answer, “Tell me you caught O’Brien, that bastard child of a failed society,” came Pablo Gonzales’ smooth voice. I waited two full seconds before responding, the sounds of an airport in the background.
“Pablo, your boys are lying in an alley filled with cat shit and mud puddles. Now I’m coming for you.”
He disconnected as the rain fell harder.
ONE HUNDRED-TWO
I called Dave and told him what had happened. I gave him Gonzales number and said, “It’s probably a disposable phone. Maybe they can get a ping off the cell tower. Call Daytona PD and have them pick up Soto and his pal. They’re unconscious in an alley behind McLaren’s Pub on Ocean Drive. They’ll need an ambulance dispatched, too. Remind detectives that the guys on their backs are two of Pablo Gonzales soldiers, accessories in the bombing deaths of nine federal agents. I’ll wait until I hear their sirens, then I’m gone.”
“That should be in a couple of minutes,” Dave said.
“When I spoke with Gonzales, I could detect the sounds of an airport in the background. I heard someone being paged in English.”