almost okay

SEVERAL DEATHS IN
THE FAMILY
Chapter Seven: Hell Bent In Search Of Truth

The trip to Kansas City had been a meandering one filled with overnight stays at Days Inns and Motel 6's. I'd taken my time, seen some sights and arrived on a Sunday, one week after leaving San Francisco, just in time to check into the Holiday Inn in Olathe, which was booked to capacity with drawling rednecks in town just to see a NASCAR race. I had called ahead and was lucky enough to get the last non-smoking room.

It had been tough to leave the bed that last morning on Nob Hill, leave the warm bodies of Lydia and Cookie as they slept naked one on either side of me. But I humped my bags down the hill on California Street in chilly morning mist to the garage where I'd parked the rental, tipped the little guy who drove it out and hit the road.

At the time I'd had three weeks left on the reservation, with no intention of ever turning the car in. My plan was to drive it cross country, then dump it wherever I ended up. So I burn one more alias... big deal. Airplane travel was too risky because of security and I also wanted to continue to maintain an extremely low profile for a while longer before I made my next move on Target Number Three. Plus I hadn't been on a road trip since junior college, and since I might not live much longer, I wanted to squeeze in just one more before I met my maker.

I had decided not to return the boss's call, not to even listen to his voice mail. He had called once more during the course of the week and left no message the second time. It seemed to make sense to me that he would still be lying to me no matter what he said, and I didn't want my mind clouded with anything other than the truth. I figured I'd take my own shot at getting some answers once I'd scoped out the situation in K.C., see if I could figure out how close the truth was to what the boss had told me a lifetime ago back in Michigan...

* * * * * * * * * * *

“This is a big one, Sherman,” said the boss. “Remember that girl you did over in Pennsylvania?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, it seems she was connected to a rival gang, another bunch of Mexicans that took offense to Gonzalez's handling of the entire affair. They want to send a message to Gonzalez, even though he's going to be behind bars for awhile.”

“You mean you're sending me to prison?”

“Ha ha. No, but you'll get a chance to get back at him on the outside by fucking with a bunch of his 'family' members.” He handed me a thick manila envelope. “You'll find names, photographs, and profiles of five different members of the Gonzalez gang in there. Five different cities. Four states. All in seven days. A nice little whirlwind tour of the midwest and south.”

“All four star hotels, I presume?”

“Nothing but the best for my man,” he said. “Oh miss, could we get another round over here?”

“Get me a shot, too,” I said.

“And a shot of Patron,” he added as the waitress walked away. “So what do you think, Sherman? You in? Actually, this is another one of those where you don't have much choice. You see, these guys wanted the same guy who did the girl to do the dirty work here. Just to kind of add to the whole revenge idea. The good news is you don't actually have to kill anybody, just give them all a good scare, kinda like that time the Godfather put that horse's head in bed with that guy. Ha, ha! Remember that?”

“What's it pay?”

“That's the sweet part. It's all been done. They've delivered the cash and you'll have eighty grand waiting for you once you get back here.”

“No shit?”

“Scout's honor,” he said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

The drinks came and we touched glasses. The boss took a sip of his Dewars and I tossed down the tequila.

“Better be careful what you wish for,” I said.

* * * * * * * * * * *

We were in a small dirty room in the back of a shabby warehouse that from outside appearances looked all but abandoned. I had made a few phone calls once I'd hit Kansas City, looked up some folks I knew from my days of touring comedy clubs doing my stand up act. Shady folks who remembered me and were more than happy to help out - once I'd promised them some cash, of course. It had been surprisingly easy to lure Target Number Three here with the promise of a big meth score. It had been even easier to waylay him with a tire iron and fasten him securely to the sturdy wooden chair with heavy duty zip ties, his legs secured at ankle, knee and thigh, his arms tied tightly at wrist, elbow and shoulder. I had tied a rope around his waist and even had a tether around his neck that tied over the back of the chair to the legs just below the seat. He could barely bat an eyelash.

“Ricardo Esquivel...” I said as I held his fact sheet up and looked at him, got close to his face, close enough to smell the stink of his breath. “Are you any relation to that guy who did all that crazy stereo bachelor pad music back in the sixties? You know, the piano player... Juan Esquivel? Wore those big glasses?”

“Quien?”

I punched him hard in the mouth, my right fist gloved in leather. I could feel teeth break. “For the last fucking time! English, motherfucker! In fucking English!” He looked at me and I finally saw fear in his eyes. Ricardo rolled his tongue around inside his mouth and spat blood and teeth on the floor, more blood and saliva continuing to drool down his split lip and onto his chest. “They just called him 'Esquivel'. He played piano and conducted for one of the Ames Brothers albums, did a bunch of LPs for RCA?” Ricardo just looked at me. “Oh well, too bad. He was a cool cat. I just figured that he might be an uncle or something.”

I reached into my tool bag and pulled out a little blue tank propane torch, squeezed the striker and it lit with a pop. I adjusted the flow to produce a dagger of hissing blue flame. “Listen, Ricardo, I'm not a bad guy. But somehow this Gonzalez gang has got a hard-on for me and I need to know what's going on. And I happen to know that you know. You were supposed to be my third strike here and the first two guys both knew I was coming. Now granted, I've screwed the schedule up a little and altered my appearance some... By the way, what do you think of the hair? A friend of mine said it made me look gay. What do you think?”

Ricardo shook his head.

“Thanks, man. I think it makes me look younger, too. I'm afraid I need some answers, though, and I'm running out of time.” I held the flame close to his face and he turned away, wriggled in his seat and tried to move the chair, but it was too heavy and he was tied too tight. “You know, they just don't make office furniture like this anymore. Solid as hell, ain't it? The stuff they make nowadays is just a bunch of plastic and steel tubing. Cheap shit, you know?” I held the flame to the back of his left hand and the flesh started to bubble and burn. Ricardo howled in pain. “Now, do we have an understanding here? What does Gonzalez have against me?”

The burn had finally loosed the cat from the bag and the truth just poured out of Ricardo. I turned off the torch and listened. It seems that as he sat in his prison cell, Lil Papi had begun to regret the fact that he'd ordered a hit on his sweet little girlfriend, even though she'd testified against him in court. He even felt the need to get revenge against the person who had killed her, which of course was me. Some twisted, macho Mexican code of honor took over, and he hatched this scheme to get the job done. Gonzalez figured if they cooked up some kind of story to get me out in the open, then they'd have five chances to do the deed, five lieutenants who could extract his revenge upon me for killing the girl who he'd paid me to kill. One of his men, posing as a rival crime boss had done the hire, then turned over my itinerary to Gonzalez so they could track my every move.

“Why didn't he just kill me in Cincinnati when I delivered the girl's toe?”

“He din't realize how he felt until later,” said Ricardo through swollen lips. I was beginning to feel some sympathy for Ricardo. Sure he had been ordered to kill me, but I was going to have a hard time finishing the job now. In cold blood. Even though killing in self-defense was a much riskier proposition, there was some sort of sense of accomplishment that way... a survival high, so to speak. What I was about to do was going to suck.

“Well, Ricardo,” I said, “No offense, but your boss is crazy. And he's put both you and me in a very difficult position.” Ricardo did his best to nod his head in agreement, and I sensed that he had some hope that he might survive. “You see, now that I've switched up the schedule and my hairdo, nobody knows where I am but you. I have to keep things that way.”

There was a big industrial dumpster out back. It got emptied once a month and the pickup date was the next day, a Monday. The guy who I'd rented the place from told me not to look inside, but assured me that it was just filled with factory debris... old wire, concrete, re-rod, empty 55 gallon drums. He had hinted at the fact that it wasn't unusual to find more 'organic' waste in this particular dumpster and that anything I put in it would be hauled out 'no questions asked'. 'Anything', he had reiterated.

Ricardo didn't know I had the pistol. “I won't tell anyone!” he pleaded. “Promise!” I really wanted to believe him, but I just couldn't take that chance. I did feel sorry for him, so I tossed him a bone to make his last minute or two easier.

“I believe you,” I said. I reached into the tool bag and pulled out a pair of side cutters. “I'm going to let you go if you promise not to breathe a word about this.”

“I do promise!”

“Good,” I said as I walked around behind him and untied his waist. I could feel Ricardo relax a little, his breathing start to slow as relief spread throughout his body. I pulled the pistol from my boot, placed it at the base of his skull and squeezed the trigger.