almost okay

SEVERAL DEATHS IN
THE FAMILY
Chapter Fifteen: Cuatro Down, Uno To Go

“You two look like shit.”

After leaving the house where Hector and Lonnie had taken us, Felina had given me directions to her apartment where we grabbed her clothes and as much of her shit as we could carry. Then we drove to her best friend's place, the only person she said she could trust. That friend turned out to be a six-foot-tall bi-racial transvestite with huge, bony hands, a linebacker's shoulders and a voice deeper than Lou Rawls'. The lipstick, press-on nails and red wig that he wore didn't help all that much in the 'passable' department, either.

Felina had used my cell phone to call Amelie on the way over, and from what I could hear of the conversation, I'd expected to find a woman once we got there. A real one. But somehow seeing a football player in drag made me feel even safer than if her friend had been a dead ringer for Halle Berry. Much safer... and a whole lot less likely to suggest a menage a trois once we'd settled in.

“Amelie, this is my friend Marty,” said Felina by way of introduction.

“Nice to meet you, um...Amelie,” I said. “I need a drink. Better make it a tall one.”

“The first thing both of you need to do,” said Amelie, “is get out of those bloody clothes. I'll get some bandages and draw some hot water in the tub.”

“Thanks,” said Felina.

“Don't forget my drink,” I said. “There's this horrible taste I have to get out of my mouth.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

During that first day of our stay at Amelie's, Felina and I went over what had happened back at the motel, with Felina filling in the blanks, and my own forgotten details of the ordeal slowly coming back to me over the course of our conversation...

Just after I'd discovered that Felina's boyfriend was my next target, but before I'd had a chance to explain to her how I knew about his tattoo, Hector and Lonnie had burst into my motel room, knocking the door off its hinges, Lonnie quickly laying the butt of the sawed-off against my skull and Hector bitch-slapping poor Felina to the floor.

“Hector was raging,” said Felina, “crazy and wild. He wanted to kill us both, but Lonnie stopped him. Lonnie punched you a couple more times to make sure you were out, then went through your briefcase and found all your notes. I saw your photo of Hector in his hand.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then Lonnie made a phone call and told Hector that we had to go back alive.”

“It seems like I remember you saying that Hector was in San Antonio.”

“Earl had called him when I left work early. I had no idea Earl even knew Hector, but I guess Hector had paid him to keep an eye on me. Earl saw me swipe the tequila after I told him I wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home, so he knew something wasn't right. He followed me over to the motel and called Hector. Hector came home, picked up Lonnie and drove right over.”

“And I was out cold all day?”

“As far as I know. Hector kept threatening me, slapping me. He called me a whore. I thought he was really going to kill me when Lonnie yelled for him to bring me into that bedroom where you were. I thought you were probably dead already by then.” Felina's lip trembled. “I thought that Lonnie had killed you.”

I took a long pull from my third tumbler of Jim Beam. Although the memory of it was still fresh in my mind, I had finally managed to erase the taste of Lonnie's nose from my mouth. I took a deep breath, finished off the whiskey and looked Felina in the eye.

Then I told her my story. Well, most of it anyway. I left out the part where the snitch that I killed and buried in Pennsylvania was Gonzalez's girlfriend, led her to believe that it had been a man - a bad, bad man in his forties who had deserved every bit of what he got. I played up the crazy, ruthless nature of the Gonzalez gang, painted a vivid picture of the double-cross that put me in Dallas with a chip on my shoulder and another man to kill - her own boyfriend, as coincidence would have it.

I also told her I had one more name to cross off my list before I could go home, that I would never feel right unless I finished the job. It wasn't just for the sake of revenge, you see. It was my goddamn blue collar work ethic kicking in. Felina said she wanted to come with me and I told her to take some time and think about it. “I don't have to,” she said. “No matter where it takes me, I want to be with you.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

The murders of Lonnie and Hector made the news. The cops had found a satchel full of cocaine in one of the other bedrooms at the house, along with a grocery bag filled with cash, which made me wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to get out of there. Based on the evidence and prior arrests of the two dead men, they figured it was a drug deal gone bad and admitted to having no suspects. A reporter interviewed one of Lonnie's neighbors on the six o'clock news who casually said he 'wasn't surprised' to hear that the two of them were dead. There was a tip line number at the bottom of the screen to call if anybody had any further information on the crime, but the Dallas P.D. wasn't exactly calling for a statewide manhunt. They probably figured it was no big deal; a couple of bad guys had finally got just what they deserved. And they were right.

After a week at Amelie's place the swelling had gone down on my cheek and Felina's lip was looking a lot better, too. She still had cuts, bruises and a black eye, but Amelie's expertise with makeup and a big pair of sunglasses did wonders to make her look normal. It turned out that Amelie was also quite a chef. We ate home-cooked meals, drank Tecates and watched cable television while Amelie, whose real name was Lee, went off to the office each day wearing an expensive Italian suit, minus the lipstick, nails and wig. Some sort of real estate job.

But even with the grub, the beer and sweet Felina's company, I was getting pretty antsy by the time the weekend rolled around.

“It's time to hit the road,” I told Felina finally. “You sure you want to come?”

“I'm sure.”

I wrote a note of thanks to Lee, left an envelope with some cash in it on the table, then checked my face in the bathroom mirror one last time.

“Hmm... not too bad, considering,” I said to Felina. “If anybody asks, we'll tell them we were in a car accident.”

She put on her sunglasses. “And you were driving,” she said with a split-lipped grin.


Read Chapter One
Read Chapter Two
Read Chapter Three
Read Chapter Four
Read Chapter Five
Read Chapter Six
Read Chapter Seven
Read Chapter Eight
Read Chapter Nine
Read Chapter Ten
Read Chapter Eleven
Read Chapter Twelve
Read Chapter Thirteen
Read Chapter Fourteen