The Long Run, page 12
Israel pursed his mouth and glared at the floor. He didn’t appreciate being made the fool. But considering his situation, that perception was natural.
“Ah…. It’s both then?” she said.
“Please, do you know anything about her?”
She opened her mouth to speak when a voice called down the staircase. “La Doña! Phone call!”
“Who is it?” she replied.
“Chucho!” the voice said. “Bring it here,” La Doña frowned.
The staircase creaked under the man’s weight as he hustled down the stairs. It was that fat-knuckled bastard, Juan. Israel wondered if Juan took Sofia as well. But Agent Dominguez said the guy had long black hair. Juan had stubbly hair. Maybe he had shaved it off? Maybe to avoid police identification. Juan handed the phone to La Doña, who put it to her ear.
“What?” she said. She grew quiet, listening to the other speaker. “Yeah. Well, the dinner needs to be cooked. And he’s the cook. I don’t care how, just get him back in the kitchen.… Mm hm. Bueno.… Hey, we’ve got tamales ready. Mm hm… Bueno.” She clicked off the phone and turned to Juan. “Put him in the cell,” she said, gesturing towards Israel.
Juan nodded and strode towards Israel as he reached into his pants pocket. He removed a switchblade and flipped it open.
“Where are you taking me?” Israel called out.
“Don’t worry,” La Doña said. “You’ll go home if your father pays. Thanks for the phone number and address, by the way.”
Kidnapped. They were holding him for ransom. Like the hundreds of hapless immigrants who crossed paths with the cartel every year. Juan’s switchblade sliced through the ropes binding him to the chair. A quick jerk and the ropes unwound to the floor. But the freedom gave Israel little relief. More rope bound his wrists together. Juan cupped one hand under Israel’s armpit and lifted him from the chair. He led Israel past La Doña towards a door in the far corner of the basement. La Doña grinned as they passed.
“If you survive this,” she said, addressing Israel, “don’t play Rambo again. You’re terrible at it.”
Juan opened the door. Inside the cramped room was a cot, a folding chair, and a bucket. Israel’s new, temporary home. Juan pushed Israel inside and locked the door. In the cell's darkness, Israel heard La Doña cackle.
“Baby Rambo,” she said to herself, and brayed with laughter.
CHAPTER 16
Chucho
“Yeah. Well, the dinner still needs to be cooked,” La Doña spoke through the iPhone pressed against Chucho’s ear. “And he’s the cook. I don’t care how, just get him back in the kitchen.”
“I understand,” Chucho said.
“Bueno. Hey, we’ve got tamales ready.”
“Esta bien.” Chucho rubbed his temples. Code talk gave him headaches. He wished they could speak plainly, but the Americans had grown far too good at hacking their phones. Even encrypted phones couldn’t be trusted. Now they relied on burner phones they swapped out every week. He spent a week in a jungle classroom memorizing coded lingo. Dinner referred to the drug shipment sitting in the Reynosa warehouse. Cooks were the mules and deliverymen ferrying drugs across the border. In this case, Henry Carson. And tamales meant Chucho had a new prisoner to pick up. He wished they would come up with new code words. All this food talk made him hungry. “I have to buy a new pot anyway,” he said, telling her in code that he would swing by her location after purchasing supplies.
“Bueno.”
The call clicked dead. Chucho laid the phone on his desk and stared through the window into the compound. Two men stood on top of the men’s jail house. They pried a tin panel from the ceiling joists on the roof. A dark spot showed the rust that had eaten through the tin. One man slid the panel to the edge of the roof and kicked it onto the grass below. Another worker stood on the ground holding a fresh roof panel. The men on top took it and laid it over the opening. The sound of hammers on tin filtered through the window to Chucho’s ears.
“That bitch,” he grunted. La Doña had no appreciation for his work. She had granted him a troop of idiots. Ignorant fools who whored and gambled away their money. Most lacked any spark of intellect or talent. These were the people he relied upon to maintain the compound, defend it from attack, and feed and guard the prisoners. It was also Chucho’s responsibility to collect the ransom payments. Everyone wanted their loved ones released. None wanted to pay the asking price. He cajoled them in various ways. If phone calls and threats failed, he delivered fingers and toes in bow tied packages. Somehow, they always found the money.
This wasn’t the life he imagined for himself when he joined the cartel. He had far greater pursuits in mind. Pursuits worthy of his heroic ancestors. This land birthed the Olmec, the Maya, the Mexica, and more. They derived from Xbalanque and Hunahpu, the ancient twin heroes who defeated the Lords of the Underworld and breathed life into the mortal realm. Their lineal tribes tamed the wilderness, turning swamps into farmland and towns into empires. They warred and expanded their territories until they encompassed the known world. Their warriors were proud and savage, decked in the land's armor—stone blades, feathered arrows, and the hides of fallen beasts. Jaguar heads served as crowns. They fought alongside underworld spirits—invoked by powerful shamans—to buttress their campaigns. Together, they ruled these lands he called home.
Until the conquistadors came.
Chucho idolized Mayan warriors in his youth and pursued the life of a shaman himself. He traveled to Catemaco and received training at the feet of an elder brujo named Alejandro. The brujo taught Chucho incantations—both white and black—and the mixing of potions. After several years of serving as an apprentice, Chucho set out in search of his greater purpose. He traveled vast distances, setting up as a local healer who tended to spiritual ailments. Over the years, his practices evolved into a bastardized form of his Mayan traditions, shaman teachings, Catholicism, and his own sprinkle of arcane beliefs.
During his travels, he met a gangster named X. X had beheaded many men—women too—in pursuit of his seat. Chucho did not bother himself with the worldly deeds of the people he healed. Good and bad was a mortal construct. The Lords of the Underworld did things the mortals of today would consider evil. But this world’s existence owed to those actions. When X asked Chucho to fortify his soldiers via potions and prayers and make them impervious to bullets in a coming battle, Chucho did so. For he served his spirits, not the mortals who fell in battle. When X told Chucho of their victory, Chucho shrugged and said it was as the spirits willed it.
Then X made Chucho a proposal. If Chucho would join his organization, X would provide him with all the mortal pleasures he could ever want. Money. Women. Power. Chucho only needed to bless X’s troops and ensure the spirits of the underworld were on their side. But Chucho could have all the money and women he desired with the proper incantations and herbs. Power, however, eluded him. For all his abilities, the spirits had never granted him that. Chucho didn’t desire the power to live a meaningless, comfortable life in the suburbs. He wanted power to bring back the rule of his people. To reinstall the proud tribes of his line as the rulers of this land.
And so he accepted. With one demand. He would not serve at his patron’s side or from grand isolation in a tower somewhere. Chucho wanted to grow in the cartel as the foot soldiers did. That way, he could he cultivate the power necessary to bring about large societal change. He neglected to tell X that part. Because someday X would be eliminated. Unaware of Chucho’s grand intentions, X happily accepted the proposal.
Chucho trained in a camp in the jungles of southern Mexico and learned the art of soldiery from a former US Army Special Forces ranger called Kruger. Chucho learned modern soldiery fast. Coupled with his cold indifference to suffering, either his own or others, he rose through the ranks. When he completed his training, Kruger snapped a proud salute and declared him fit for duty. X installed Chucho in command of a troop of narcos.
Chucho grew in stature and was granted more difficult tasks. When X grew hungry for Cancun, he tasked his top lieutenant with the mission. Take Cancun from Los Cabrones and make it their own. It was a grand prize X long craved. The lieutenant given the honor wasn’t Chucho, however.
It was a goddamn woman.
La Doña had served alongside X since their days in the Mexican special forces. Both received training in Ft. Bragg from gringos like Kruger. Together with five other soldiers, they broke from the federales and formed their own cartel called The Border Boys, in honor of the men who formed it. And one woman. Whether La Doña appreciated the name, Chucho didn’t care. Women shouldn’t be in command.
But that was his position now. La Doña’s lieutenant. It made his skin crawl. Like Henry’s FBI agent, La Doña had been up Chucho’s ass for several days, badgering him about the wayward shipment of cocaine, meth, and heroin sitting in their Reynosa warehouse. It was a week overdue, and their customers were furious.
He considered severing one of Sofia’s ears and shipping it to Henry’s front door. But this situation was unique. Henry Carson wasn’t kin to Sofia. Her wellbeing played no bearing on his decision making. He preferred Sofia’s death rather than exposing himself to prosecution. Henry Jr., the original target of the attack on Club Bombom, had escaped Chucho’s clutches. If he had the son, the drugs would be flowing. Instead, Chucho had a bullseye on his chest and La Doña was aiming his way. Chucho kicked the desk in disgust and stood.
There was no point in bemoaning his ill luck. A storm was approaching. They needed to cover windows, buy rations, and make repairs. And he had to drive into town and pick up another prisoner. La Doña would want to chat. He cursed and walked to the end of the hall. He pushed open a door to a converted bedroom.
The walls were painted dark red. A giant pentagram inlaid with goat heads was centered on one wall. A painting of Lucifer himself covered another wall. It depicted him in the classic form, with hooved feet and long, dangling tongue. Chucho crossed the room and kneeled in front of a makeshift altar constructed of a section of plywood seated atop blood red bricks. Two statues sat on the plywood. One was a robed skeleton carrying a scythe and a globe. It was female in appearance, with long flowing hair and a ghastly skinless smile. Another statue depicted Lucifer as a man, bright red and smiling, with an erect penis. Between them sat a row of photos and letters. Submissions for prayers. One photo showed La Doña, surreptitiously snapped the last time Chucho visited her. He closed his eyes and lifted his palms up and prayed.
“Oh Father, grant me the power over my enemies. Send them to harm so that I might usurp their station.”
When he finished the prayer, he lifted a large round jar filled with a brown, viscous solution and dropped the photo inside. It plopped into the liquid and settled to the bottom. The white edges of the photo pressed into the sides of the jar. He sealed the jar and set it beside a flickering candle. He stood and surveyed his work. If the spirits permitted, they would remove La Doña from his life. Either by harm or some other fate, Chucho didn’t care.
He exited and grabbed a set of keys from his desk and strode to the front door. He would travel to Cancun and meet with La Doña with a rare smile on his lips.
CHAPTER 17
Sofia
Trees swayed under a driving wind outside Sofia’s cell. Ominous clouds darkened the afternoon sky. She watched the scene through the barred window with a detached, icy stare.
“Dinner is due in forty-eight hours, cabrón,” Chucho had told Henry Carson Sr. on the phone last night. “If it’s finished on time, she goes home. It’s up to you.”
The implication was clear. Sofia would die if Henry didn’t deliver Chucho’s drugs. Disbelief gave way to creeping panic. Despite the sultry summer heat, her skin prickled with icy fear. Not much time left. Death would arrive in thirty hours if Henry didn’t do as Chucho demanded. And Henry didn’t seem inclined to make that happen.
That Hank’s father was involved in her abduction, even if indirectly, was hard to digest. Yet he held the keys to her survival. The phone call helped her piece together the twisted logic of her abduction. Chucho had attacked Club Bombom in search of Hank. Kidnapping Hank would have been a powerful incentive to force Henry’s cooperation. That’s why Chucho called for him by name.
“If I can’t have Henry Carson, I’ll have his woman,” Chucho had said.
Sofia was sitting in that cell awaiting death because of a twist of fate. She was a backup plan. Nothing more. And Hank’s uncertain involvement did nothing to ease her worries. He couldn’t have known. Could he? She licked dried lips and turned away, filling her mind with happier thoughts. Memories of her parents, of her twin brothers. Even of Israel. She had completely forgotten about their chance encounter a week earlier. Now it bubbled to the surface along with her family. He had been her stalwart defender in school and at home. She could always depend on him for backup. And that’s what she needed now. Her memories faded and left her with the imaginary ticking of a mortal clock.
She plopped on the cement floor of the jail cell with her knees pulled to her chest. If she couldn’t conjure happy memories, she would pursue darkness. She buried her head between her folded arms and forced all thought out. Peace lay in the still calm of the dark.
“Are you OK?” A soft voice trickled through Sofia’s mental block. She lifted her head and saw Dominica staring at her with round brown eyes.
“Yes. I think. No… I don’t know.” Sofia drew a deep breath and exhaled. The simple act of speech felt like walking in lead shoes. Everything was harder now. Thinking, talking, breathing.
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been quiet since you visited Chucho. What happened? Did he… touch you?” Dominica shrank back, chewing her lip as if anticipating terrible news.
“No. Nothing like that. We just… talked.”
“Oh,” Dominica’s eyes fluttered. “What about?”
Sofia eyed the young woman. She didn’t know the circumstances that had brought Dominica here, but it had clearly traumatized her. She didn’t speak, eat, or drink that first day. Only now, on her third day in the cell, did she open up. Despite her silence, Dominica had clung to Sofia’s side since her arrival. Sofia was her ersatz friend, a precious commodity in this place. Sofia didn’t want Dominica to know her only friend might die tomorrow.
“He let me talk to my father on the phone. To prove that I’m alive.”
“Oh,” Dominica said.
Sofia’s problems vanished as Dominica’s face hardened with pain. The girl needed to unburden her misery. And Sofia needed something to occupy her time besides worrying about her immediate future. She swiveled to face Dominica.
“How did you end up here? Do you mind me asking?”
“No. It’s OK,” she said without raising her head. She drew a deep breath before proceeding. “It was my fault. I was stupid.”
“What happened?”
Dominica scowled and wiped tears from her eyes. Beneath her sadness, Sofia saw a battle raging inside. “I left San Lorenzo in July with my dad. Papa didn’t want to ride a bus or a train. He said gangsters raided them to rob and kidnap the passengers. Sometimes, they killed the passengers. He said it was safer to walk in crowds. Gangsters wouldn’t attack a big crowd. Together, we were strong. Hundreds of us left San Lorenzo. We walked over mountains and through jungles and rivers. In rain and heat. Everything hurt. My feet, my legs, my body, my bones. I was so tired. Some people fell back. Others gave up and went home. Some owned nothing but the clothes on their back. They begged townspeople for food. An old man fell unconscious on the road. I don’t know if he was dead or alive. The crowd grew smaller. Eventually, it was just me and Papa.”
The words poured from Dominica like a dam released. The effort took its toll. She exhaled and shut her eyes. When they reopened, they were pink and moist.
“Papa bought me new shoes before we left home. The first pair of new shoes I’ve ever had. They were still in the box and stuffed with paper. I was so proud of them,” she sighed, looking down at her battered and faded shoes. Gray duct tape wrapped around the right toe, preventing it from bursting. “They wore out weeks ago. Papa taped over the holes, but the tape wears out. I had blisters on blisters. They popped and bled. They hurt so bad that I cried. I wanted to stop walking. I asked Papa if we could take a bus. We still had some money left. Just one bus. Maybe a night in a hotel. A real bed to sleep on instead of a bedroll. I was such a child.”
“Anybody would want those things. It’s natural,” Sofia said.
“I shouldn’t have! I knew better!” Dominica glared at Sofia, though her anger was directed at herself. “Papa,” she choked on her words and drew a breath. “He wanted me to be happy. He bought bus tickets to Mexico City. The worst was behind us. That’s what he said. The gangsters focused on the borders. Grabbing immigrants right after wading across the river was easy. They wouldn’t look for us here. God, I was so stupid.”
“What happened?”
“The bus stopped. We were driving through the jungle. A two-lane road in the middle of nowhere. Papa thought there was an engine problem. We couldn’t see anything where we sat. Then people started screaming.”
“Who?”
“The people in the front. Somebody yelled narcos, and we all knew. Papa kicked out a window because there weren't other doors. Maybe climb out and escape. But a man appeared outside. He pointed a rifle at us. I didn’t even hear the gunshots. Just the sound of a window exploding. Glass flew everywhere. Papa pulled me to the floor and laid over me. He told me to be calm. A man fell beside me with blood on his shirt. He didn’t move.”
“What happened after that?”
“The narcos came onboard. They pulled everyone out and stood us in a field. They asked which ones were going to the United States. Papa said nothing.”
