The Whisper, page 26
The big dealer took a step toward Jasper so they stood a few inches away from each other and gave him a cold stare-down.
“I can change my mind if that’s what you want,” he said.
Jasper stared back in response to let the man know he felt no intimidation. The big dealer was about to back away when something threw him into confusion.
“Your face kinda looks familiar,” he said.
“Does it?” Jasper lifted a corner of his mouth in a mocking smile.
After a few more seconds of silent staring, the dealer gave up. He headed to the door, ordering the youngster to follow him.
“What the fuck is wrong with this world?” Jasper burst out when the dealer was halfway through the doorway. “It gives you so much attention when you try to stay invisible but dismisses you when you need it the least! Come on, pal, you’re better than this. I can understand an addict whose brain has shriveled from the long years of drug use,” Jasper regarded Ken with a slight tilt of his head. “But you… you’re better than a drug addict? You’re a drug dealer. You have principles. You have a clear mind. So why don’t you use that clear mind and think harder why my face looks familiar to you?”
The dealer stood with his back turned to Jasper, speechless, groping the small bulge on his coat, right where the gun was. He didn’t know if he would need it, but he took it into consideration. That was one of the habits this job had granted him—thinking one step ahead. His confusion was mixing with anxiety. Jasper could sense it in the mist.
At one point, the silence got too intense, and the dealer turned around and looked Jasper in the eye.
“It’s so ridiculous, isn’t it?” Jasper continued. “The dealers never care to know anything about each other.”
“You used to work for Arlington, didn’t you?” the big dealer asked.
“I might still be working for him since Arlington’s never told me he fired me and I’ve never told him I quit.”
“What’s your name?”
“You don’t have to know my name. I’ll be out of your life as fast as I’ve appeared in it, but before that happens I would like you to answer one question. Where is Glen Harding right now?”
The dealer took a few steps forward, studying Jasper’s face more carefully until the wrinkles of confusion on his forehead smoothed out.
“Hey, I do remember you. You’re that weird little fuck who used to follow him around all the time. Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Is that what people say about me?” Jasper asked.
“Nobody has said a damn thing about you since that car crashed in Rosaline Park. That day took so many lives that yours wasn’t of much interest. What happened to you?”
“That’s not of much interest either. Glen, where is he?”
“Glen is in Acklestone at this very moment.”
“Acklestone?” Jasper gasped. “Okay… Um… So, I guess he moved there a while ago?”
“I would say he’s been moved there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see his house?”
“I did,” Jasper said. “It doesn’t mean...”
“It does actually.”
The world around Jasper stopped in an instant. He bit on the inside of his cheek, feeling the metallic taste in his mouth. His parasites were wreaking havoc on his mind as the dealer told him everything.
“Were you there?” Jasper said under his breath.
“Every dealer he was in charge of was there. Luis and Morgan were there too. It was the devil’s order. Almost two months after his wife’s death, Arlington summoned us to his place. He was just…fucking losing it. He never told us what was actually happening. Not that it matters, right? You don’t have much choice when the devil gives you an order. I bet Harding screwed up remarkably ‘cause Arlington wanted us—the people Harding was responsible for—to kill him.”
There was another moment of silence as the dealer looked at Jasper’s appalled face.
“You… how could you…” Jasper felt it again, the lack of air. “Did you have any respect for that person? Was Glen ever unfair to you? You killed him just because…somebody told you to?”
“Somebody? That somebody is Owen Arlington. Don’t act like you would’ve had the balls to disobey him.”
Jasper knew the dealers would have been scared to death to refuse Arlington—that was reasonable, but Glen was much more to him than a coworker or a superior, and that defied reason. Jasper raised his tear-brimmed eyes to the big dealer and took a step in his direction, his hands shaking.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” The dealer took the gun out before Jasper could take another step. “You think I took any pleasure in hearing him scream in agony? You think I enjoyed watching his house crumble? You gotta fucking admit it. We didn’t have a choice!”
Jasper tried to force that fact to matter to him, but it didn’t.
Ken, who kept listening to the whole conversation out of pure curiosity, decided to retreat from the hallway, afraid that the gun sight would find him again.
“Don’t go,” Jasper interrupted him. “I need help.”
“Help?” the dealer said. “You really think he can help you?”
“No… He can’t…but they can.”
Jasper willed those few of Ken’s parasites to join him. The hallway had limited space, everyone close enough to each other to constitute a solid mist connection. Jasper turned to the young dealer and studied his parasites for a few seconds. He had a lot more of them than Ken but not nearly as many as himself. One way or another, Jasper knew crossing this line would be a mistake, but at that moment he was willing to make it.
Jasper had to put up quite an effort to take the youngster’s parasites as the big dealer held the gun pointed at him. He could already feel his breath growing heavier. He could feel a familiar throbbing in his head. Jasper had to clear his mist immediately. Every second of hesitation made it harder for him to do it. The new inhabitants were already taking root in his subconsciousness, and he had to close his eyes to concentrate.
“What in the hell are you doing?” the big dealer snapped.
Jasper didn’t listen as he was transferring the collected parasites to his side. He was doing it carefully, little by little, trying to minimize the damage. He had learned the hard way that, in matters of the darkness, there could be no rush without consequences.
At one point, Jasper came so close to the dealer that the revolver’s muzzle was pressed against his chest. Jasper wasn’t afraid to get a bullet, not now when the dealer’s eyes were glazed over from something he couldn’t understand. Having made sure the host had a sufficient number of the parasites, Jasper whispered a few short fragments.
You deserve to suffer.
Both Ken and the young dealer flinched as the big dealer howled like a wounded animal. Desperate wails were slipping through the half-open door and echoing out on the streets. The big dealer dropped the gun and fell to the floor, covering his face, his ears, and the back of his head, as if expecting a blow to come from any direction. For Jasper, even that wasn’t enough. He wanted to make him feel actual pain, physical pain, the kind of pain Glen had experienced while burning alive.
“What’s happening?” The youngster’s voice was so thin Jasper could barely hear it amid the howling.
He looked at that smooth, wide-eyed face.
“Tell me, what the hell are you doing here?” Jasper asked dispassionately.
The youngster stood still in silence, watching Jasper step over the big dealer as if the latter was an inanimate object and go outside.
18
THE SILHOUETTE
It was scheduled for Thursday, but for some reason the cargo ship arrived a day later. Nobody had told them about the delay in advance, which troubled Luis and Morgan but was totally fine with Arlington. He said there was nothing to worry about. He’d stopped worrying about a lot of things since his wife had died.
The waves were nothing but mere ripples that day, and the ship cut through the water like a knife. It was hard to tell if Whittaker Bay Port had changed over the years. Under the floodlights, it always looked the same: the same rows of intermodal containers obstructing the view of the outside world, the same decrepit wharves that couldn’t possibly look any more decrepit, the same cargo ship docking there every once in a while, and the same product delivered.
Most of the people who discharged the cargo at the docks had more gray threads in their hair than they were supposed to, an occupational hazard. They’d had enough stress to look older than their actual ages. The devil’s temper had subsided a little recently. After all, so much time had passed since his wife had gotten hit by that car and one of his confidants had been murdered at his own request (the rumors said there had been an affair between the two). On the whole, Owen Arlington was still much harsher to his people than he had used to be.
Everyone knew how drastically the devil’s attitude could affect their lives.
A few days after that unexpected series of deaths, seven dealers had left the business. Three of them had been punished for neglecting their job duties, one hadn’t survived the punishment, which frightened the other four into leaving while they had the chance.
It didn’t take a lot to disappoint the devil these days.
The toughest dealers had stayed simply because, as someone had once pointed out, they couldn’t live any other way. The horsemen, or rather their incomplete set, had lost most of their privileges and sometimes got as low as selling the coke directly to the buyers. All of a sudden, it dawned on Arlington that they were getting money for doing almost nothing. Luis and Morgan were still in charge of the dealers, but that responsibility now branched into a few more. There was, however, a silver lining to all that. The dealers and the horsemen had finally found common ground. When Owen Arlington got enraged and bloodthirsty, everyone was equal in his eyes.
A little over twenty men stood by the box trucks, watching the ship dock: smoking, yawning, patiently waiting for their Colombian partners to show themselves. Throughout the whole time, nobody uttered a single word. The devil had taught them that silence was one of the most useful habits in this industry. Plus, the dealers hardly had anything to talk about. Complaining about how unbearable this job was had already exhausted everyone.
Luis, being the only one of Arlington’s people who spoke Spanish, did the talking on behalf of everyone. One of the crew members descended the accommodation ladder and greeted him with all the sincerity typical of Colombians. They discussed something for a while, a polite and casual conversation, but when the man got down to business and handed Luis some piece of paper, the courtesies ended. Something was wrong.
Even from a distance, the dealers could see a displeased look on Luis’s face. The longer he looked at the paper, the louder and faster his speech got. At some point, even the sounds of working gear from the ship couldn’t surpass his voice. Luis stopped to catch his breath and shouted something in Spanish again. The Colombian turned to the ship’s bow, repeating his words to the crew in the same voice-breaking tone. The shipboard cranes halted, and for a few seconds everyone stood frozen, listening only to the hissing of the ocean.
“What is wrong?” Morgan hurried to interfere.
“Everything’s wrong!” Luis answered. “Look at this shit!”
Morgan’s eyes followed Luis’s finger, which pointed at the column on the paper that indicated the amount of the product.
“You know Owen’s been reducing the stocks,” Morgan said.
“But this is fucking nuts. It’s only half of what we got last time.”
Morgan looked through the paper’s contents more closely and then looked the Colombian up and down. The man was tall and broad-shouldered. Sweat glistened under the floodlights on his tanned skin. Morgan had known Ernesto for a long time, even though the words they had exchanged over the years could be counted on one hand. Ernesto always wore his overalls as proudly as a man of law wore his uniform. He was always self-possessed and polite, but Morgan betted if someone contrived to rub this man the wrong way he wouldn’t hesitate to respond.
That day, something was different. Ernesto lacked his usual coolness. His eyes couldn’t find a spot to fix on. His lower jaw was tense, and both hands kept diving in and out of his pockets.
“Listen,” Morgan began, turning back to Luis. “Aren’t you sick of worrying about this business more than Arlington? This is as much as you can do. If he doesn’t give a shit, neither should you.” Morgan patted Luis on the back as if he were checking an iron’s temperature. “Let’s not keep the tough Colombian waiting, okay?”
Luis fell silent, pondering, then he crumpled the piece of paper in his hands and threw it into the ocean.
The cranes roared again, and everyone got to work. Nobody was in the rush the horsemen had once imposed. Luis and Morgan didn’t mind the reluctance with which their subordinates loaded the trucks. They didn’t mind if someone was taking a break every five minutes. They didn’t care if someone dropped a box and found out it was one of those boxes that actually contained furniture parts.
Luis and Morgan no longer had that sense of responsibility the devil wished they had. But should they feel guilty, given that Arlington had killed two of his confidants and turned the other two into slaves?
The horsemen didn’t exist. Not anymore. They had broken up like a music band. Luis and Morgan didn’t even remember when they had last heard the word “horsemen,” which gave them just a bit of sad nostalgia.
“It can’t go on like this,” Luis pointed out while they were smoking behind one of the empty containers.
Morgan exhaled cigarette smoke with a smirk.
“What?” Luis asked.
“Wondering if you’ll ever get tired of repeating that.”
“Don’t act like you’re perfectly fine with all this.”
“I’m not, but soon it’ll be three years of our constant whining and saying that it’s the right time to quit. Yet, we’re still here because we have no fucking clue where else to go.”
“Arlington’s not the only figure in this industry, you know.”
“And where would you go? To Whitney’s gang so you could steal cars and push heroin for pennies? Back to Colombia to help the cartel tend coca bushes?”
“I doubt it would be worse than what I have to do now.”
“You really wanna flush all the years you’ve worked to be where you are down the toilet?”
“Look around, all those years have been for nothing! I don’t understand why Marquez is still willing to cooperate with this shithead. I mean, for God’s sake, he’s losing his money because of him! Owen constantly demands something but fails to do his part of the job. If it keeps going this way, in a few years this business will either go broke or get busted.”
“You don’t have to think a few years ahead.”
Luis had meant to say something when a dealer approached them.
“Luis, that guy, Ernesto…he’s calling for you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s speaking a lot, but I don’t understand shit.”
Luis and Morgan looked at each other in confusion and walked back to the unloading area. The cranes for some reason came to a halt again, and the intermodal container one of them had been lifting froze high above the ground. Luis eyed “the tough Colombian” through the crowd and set off toward him, leaving Morgan to finish his cigarette.
He shouldered a few dealers on his way and found Ernesto standing by the seaside railings with his back turned to him, simply looking out at the ocean. Luis stopped in his tracks a few feet away, hesitant to attract his attention. Even though he couldn’t yet see the Colombian’s face, his posture, his stillness looked intimidating. It was the habit common in this social circle—maintaining composure before plunging into attack. Luis waited a bit, contemplating the ocean view along with Ernesto, and then called out to him.
“Ernesto, ¿está todo bien?”
Ernesto hesitated to answer. He turned his head a little to the left, side-eyeing Luis, and back to the ocean. He wiped his cheek on the shoulder of his overalls, and at that moment Luis heard something he found more intimidating than a possible outburst of rage—sobbing.
As Ernesto had finally turned around, Luis curved his brow. What threw him into confusion were not so much his swollen, tear-brimmed eyes as that fearful expression. The Colombian was scared, scared to death, and even more so the fear on his face was mixed with a feeling that might pass as guilt. Ernesto propped one hand on the railing and lowered his gaze, unable to look Luis straight in the eye.
“Lo siento... Dijo que si no lo hacía... él... él...” Ernesto broke off, sobbed once again, and then managed to get a hold of himself.
He straightened up, his head slightly bent. Luis wished he’d had more time to think—think through his further words, his further actions, think about what the most appropriate tactic for leading this conversation would be. But Luis could think of nothing but the absurdity of the situation. He felt in his gut that something bad was coming, but that feeling was pretty much all he operated by.
Ernesto crossed his arms over his chest, probably thinking that Luis wouldn’t notice his right hand slowly but surely shifting under the side of his overalls.
“Ernesto…” Luis rasped. “Ernesto, no lo hagas…”
The hand kept moving.
“Ernesto!”
There was no time to think at all. Luis brought out his gun abruptly and pulled the trigger before Ernesto could do the same. A deafening gunshot, and he watched in bewilderment as the Colombian dropped to his knees with a dark, scarlet stain blossoming in the middle of his chest. Ernesto had mumbled something incoherent before he tumbled to the ground.
The gun was trembling in Luis’s hand as all the sounds and images around him were turning to mush. Hazy, Luis turned around to look at Morgan across the unloading area, where the dealers were already rushing up in his direction. The faces of both expressed an equal amount of perplexity and dread.
