almost okay

SEVERAL DEATHS IN
THE FAMILY
Chapter Nineteen: Remember the Alamo? Me Neither

It had been a grim and lonely drive to San Antonio, the wind whistling through the car from the broken passenger's side window, the spatters of Felina's blood on the seat and dashboard a constant reminder of her death. My rage and hunger for vengeance barely in check as I drove.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I hadn't even bothered to get a room. Once I'd arrived in San Antonio I'd come straight to the bar where my notes told me the original target would be hanging out. The M.O. on all of these gang creeps was the same: They spent half the day sleeping, rolled out of bed around noon, cut up the dope, made a few phone calls then sat around in their favorite dive waiting for the day's action to start.

I'd made the trip from Dallas in record time, had arrived at Elena's just as Happy Hour was getting under way. The tiny, ramshackle cement-block building was located on the service drive for the Loop in a not-particularly-upscale part of town. Across the street and under the freeway entrance ramp was an empty lot covered in knee-high, straw-colored grass. Broken bottles littered the cracked sidewalk.

The structure itself was a faded pink, the relentless glare of the Texas sunshine causing the paint to chip and peel in places near the corners. There was just a single car in the dirt parking lot, and a home-made plywood sign with alternating green and red letters that spelled ELENA'S was nailed next to the entrance. Strings of Christmas lights hung from the eaves all around the place and a pair of rusted fifty-five-gallon BBQ barrels sat at the end of the parking lot. I could smell the charcoal as I walked inside.

I sat in the middle of the bar and ordered a Tecate. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar and scarcely recognized the expressionless face that stared back at me with cold eyes. The burly bartender thumped the bottle on the bar causing foam to come out of the top. I put it to my lips and sipped.

“You must be Elena,” I said. He just looked at me, twitched his thick black mustache, peeled a five off the top of my stack of cash, then went back to his business. There were four people in the room besides me, three men and a woman, all Mexicans. None of them looked like the original target, but all of them could have been from the Gonzalez gang as far as I could tell. It didn't much matter to me who they were. I was planning on killing them all.

After two beers I ordered a Margarita, and was surprised at how delicately the bartender put the drink together, carefully placing the wedge of lime on the perfectly-salted rim before sliding it in front of me. I had just taken my first sip when the target walked through the door.

He was with a couple of cronies and they were laughing about something when they saw me sitting by myself and stopped. I put my thumb over the end of the straw in my drink to create vacuum, picked up an inch of the frosty green concoction, tilted my head towards him and slid the straw into my mouth releasing the fluid onto my tongue.

“Buenos tardes, amigos,” I said with a nod. They walked up to me, looked down without saying anything. The target, who according to my notes was named Manny Alvarez, sat down heavily to my left. One of his buddies sat on my right.

“Choo gotta lot of cojones coming in here, amigo” said Alvarez. “After what choo done.”

“So you do recognize me. I'm flattered. I didn't really have time to fix my hair this morning.”

Alvarez looked around at the people sitting behind me. I could see in the mirror that they all had expressions of surprise on their faces before cracking up laughing all at once. Alvarez patted me on the back. “Choo alright, my fren'” he said. “I gonna hate to keel you.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. I put my thumb over the straw in my glass again, created vacuum and pulled out another sip of Margarita. “I wish I could say the same.”

Instead of sipping the liquid from the straw, this time I made a swift motion with it, thumb still tight over the end, swung it in a sharp arc directly towards Alvarez's left eye. The edge of the plastic cylinder struck the inside of his nose, glanced off and I felt it slide deep into his eye socket, heard a sick squishing pop as it punctured his eyeball. Then I heard Alvarez scream.

By the time the others could react, I'd pulled the 9mm out of my shoe and begun emptying the clip methodically around the room, elbowing his buddy off the stool next to me as I fired. I put a round into the chest of the biggest guy behind me, then another into the girl. By then the others were starting to draw weapons of their own and I had to be more careful in the shot selection.

I heard a bullet whiz past my ear and shatter the mirror behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the bartender dive behind the bar to avoid getting hit. I squeezed a couple of rounds into the shooter and he fell sideways onto the floor clutching his throat. I was off the stool by then and moving across the room, swung the barrel around firing at Alvarez and his buddies.

By the time I snapped on an empty chamber, everyone in the room was lying on the floor, either dead or dying, and my ears were ringing like Notre Dame Cathedral at noon on Easter. I walked over and picked up one of the dead Mexican's pistols, turned back to the bar. “Hey, Elena! You want some of this?”

I saw the bartender's hand reach up from behind the bar, saw him wave surrender, then heard him squeak “Non, non, senor!”

I was just about to put a bullet through his palm when I heard the sound of hands clapping to my left. I looked over and saw a single figure standing just inside the entrance, rhythmically applauding.

“Bravo, Sherman. Well done.”

It was my Boss.



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
Read Chapter Fifteen
Read Chapter Sixteen
Read Chapter Seventeen
Read Chapter Eighteen