Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (25 page)

They walked into the bathroom.  It was wall-to-wall marble with a large Jacuzzi bathtub in the center of the wall at the rear.  To the left was the large shower with multiple showerheads spraying warm water.  A mist of steam floated around the shower like a fog and they could just make out the silhouette behind the frosted glass.

Matt grabbed the shower door and opened it up to a shocked Miguel.  “Shower’s over,” he told him.  Miguel’s hands froze in his hair, shampoo bubbling down his face as he squinted trying to make out who it was that had just got the drop on him.  As the suds streamed away from his eyes he stared at them in shocked disbelief.  He had no idea who they were, but he knew they were white and they were both pointing his own guns at him.  He couldn’t understand how he didn’t hear them coming in.  The door was always locked.

“Out,” said Matt.

Miguel recovered his composure and stared at them with a cocky glare as he lowered his arms and rinsed himself off as though Matt and Catherine were expected to let him finish at his leisure.  “You know who I am?” he asked in English.

Catherine had been eyeing him closely.  She had to be sure.  But when he spoke, she knew.  She knew and it set off a powder keg of rage.  “You son of a bitch!” she cursed, charging towards him.  She snatched Miguel by his hair and slammed him against the back of the shower, driving her knee as hard as she could into his bared groin.  Miguel dropped to the floor of the shower in pain.

“Does that answer your question?” asked Matt.  He’d never seen Catherine explode in such a violent outburst.  Catherine was grinding her teeth as she stood over the doubled over Miguel, the shower still pouring water on them.  Then she stepped back and put the Browning level with Miguel’s downcast head.  For a moment, Matt thought she might actually pull the trigger.  “Catherine . . . “ he began, “Catherine, easy now.  We still have questions.”

She lowered the gun, but kept clenching her jaws against one another angrily.  “So we finally found you, Miguel,” she told him, “or would you prefer it if we called you Martin?”

“Come on,” said Matt.  He handed Catherine his gun and snatched one of Miguel’s arms, twisting it around his back, and placing a gnarled forearm around Miguel’s neck as he marched him out of the shower.  “Be glad she didn’t shoot ‘em off,” Matt told Miguel as the man moaned in pain from his aching balls.

“The day’s not over,” said Catherine, disgusted.

When they returned from eating that evening, after they had dropped Ricky off, Yesenia and Armando were talking about her immigration status.  “Maybe we could get you a student visa or something,” he told her.  “We’ll find something.”  He turned the key in the lock and they walked inside. “I think the first thing would be to find a job.  That’s kind of tough without papers, I think, but we can do some checking around.”

As they walked into the living room Yesenia froze.  Armando was still talking and nearly walked into her before he realized she’d stopped cold.  He looked up and saw two men standing near the entryway to the kitchen.  Both had guns drawn.

“Hello, Yesenia,” Jose said with an evil grin.

Armando reacted without a thought.  “Run!” he yelled to her, and he snatched a little glass bowl where he kept his change off the end table he was standing by and threw it as hard as he could.  It happened so fast that Jose was taken off guard and the bowl, full of quarters, dimes, and innumerable pennies, smashed off his head like a chunk of iron with a candied glass shell, exploding on impact.  At the same moment, full of fear and with her heart nearly bursting through her chest, Yesenia bolted.  She heard two gunshots behind her and saw Armando drop to the ground just as she looked back.  “No!” she yelled as she spun around.  She was about to run back to him but Hector raised his gun and fired a shot which whizzed through her hair, skinned her ear and missed killing her by an inch.  She turned and fled again, out of the door and into the street.

The two men ran after her but Yesenia was wearing new tennis shoes this time.  All those years of walking everywhere and running up and down the river bank in Santa Rosanna gave her long and lean leg muscles which now propelled her like a gazelle taking flight.  By the time Jose burst out of the front door Yesenia was already across the adjacent lawn and had disappeared between the two houses.  He and Hector followed but their boots slowed them down.  Each time they rounded one corner to catch up to her, she was disappearing around another, putting more and more ground between them.

They thought they had her at one point when a six foot privacy fence blocked her path, but Yesenia jumped up and over it like she was running a playground course and it was her favorite obstacle, and by the time they reached it, Jose was so winded from his smoking habit he didn’t have the strength to scale it.  “I’ll go get the truck,” he told Hector.  “Go get her.”

Hector grunted and pulled himself over the fence and saw Yesenia darting out of the gate.  Behind her a Labrador was barking ferociously.  It turned away from Yesenia when Hector entered the yard and jumped on him instead, biting his arm and trying for his neck.

“Fucking dog,” Hector cursed, yanking his gun back out and then shooting the dog dead.  An old man in boxer shorts and a T-shirt came running out of the back door as Hector got to his feet.  “Lady, what’s wrong?”  The old man asked, addressing the dog.  He saw Hector and then he yelled “What are you doing here!?  I’m calling the police!”  Then the man saw his dog sprawled on the lawn, its tongue laid out between its teeth, its chest not rising, and then the man saw the gun in Hector’s hand.  “Lady!” he screamed.  “You son of a bitch!” the man yelled at Hector.  “You shot my Lady!”  The man ran back into the house cursing and wailing furiously, nearly blubbering, and Hector made for the gate.

By the time he passed through it, there was no sign of Yesenia.  Hector looked both ways hoping to catch a glimpse of her running between the houses, but she was gone.

He stood in the alleyway listening intently for any sound of her, but heard nothing.  “Shit,” he muttered to himself.  He began walking down the alley with his eyes darting in all directions when the man in the boxer shorts suddenly reappeared behind him.  Hector turned and was greeted by a shotgun blast aimed right at his gut.  The irate old man had retrieved his twelve gauge from next to his bed.  “You killed my Lady!” cried the man again in tears.  “You God damn son of a bitch!  I hope you rot in hell, you bastard!”  The old man kicked away Hector’s gun and stood over him still yelling as Hector lay on his back, seeing nothing but the old man’s red face, tears streaming down it, spit flying from the man’s mouth, silhouetted against the sky above.  “Die, you bastard!” the old man yelled.  And with a second blast from the shotgun, Hector obliged.

“That’s for my Lady!” the man screamed.  A widower for four years, Hector had just unknowingly killed the old man’s only companion in life, his beloved dog, Lady, who he’d let out for a bathroom break and to run around the yard a while.  It could have been any yard in the neighborhood Yesenia had led him into, but unfortunately for Hector, they’d fallen in Lady’s.

Jose pulled perpendicular to the alley on a nearby street, but when he looked down the alley and saw the old man holding the shotgun, still crying and yelling hysterically, Hector sprawled out on the ground with a pool of blood around him, he cursed, “What the hell?”  He put his truck back in drive and drove away.  Police sirens could be heard in the distance. 
What happened?
he thought to himself. 
What am I going to tell Mama?
  He wasn’t exactly sure how Yesenia had managed to escape them or how Hector had ended up dead, but he knew explaining it wasn’t going to be easy.

In a nearby yard beneath an upside down kiddie pool, Yesenia lay in a fetal position with her hands pressed tightly over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

He had a new haircut and had lost the cheesy goatee, but Kendra had been spot on with the police sketch in all
other regards.  “So you’re the son of a bitch who killed her,” she said.  “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to finally meet you,” she told him ominously.

“Killed who?” Miguel laughed.  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

She eyed the gold medallion around his neck.  “Liar, liar,” she told him.  “I know what that is.  You’re a killer, all right.  And you killed Taylor Woodall.  Now you’re going to tell me why.  Why did you kidnap that girl off the street?  Why’d you kill her for no reason?”

“I don’t know anyone named Taylor,” he said.

“The American girl in Cancun,” said Catherine.  “We’ll be happy to jog your memory if you like.”

“Hey, you got the wrong guy.  I haven’t been to Cancun since I was a kid.  I’m telling you, you guys are making a big mistake.  I don’t know any girl named Taylor and I haven’t been in Cancun in over
10 years.”

“Save it,” Matt said.  “Let’s get him out of here.”  He sat Miguel down in the living room, “
Watch him a sec, will you?  And if he screams for help just kill him.”  Catherine kept her gun on Miguel and Matt had the impression she just may actually do it if the man yelled.  He went to the closet and retrieved a pair of pants and a button down short sleeve.  “Put ‘em on,” he told Miguel.

They both kept their guns pointed at him while Miguel put the slacks on.  “What do you guys want?” he asked them.  “Money?  Drugs?  You’re obviously not with any law enforcement.  You working for someone?”

“Taylor Woodall,” Catherine said.  “We’re working for her.”

“Shirt,” said Matt, throwing it at him.

While he put it on, Matt took some of Miguel’s silk ties from the closet.  Then he went to the dresser and took Miguel’s cell phone.  By the television he saw a DVD,
Scarface
.  He almost laughed to himself. 
Of course.

After Miguel had his shirt on Matt bound his hands behind his back with one of the ties.  As he did, he noticed Catherine staring at the .22 in her hands.  “Here, let me have that one,” said Matt, trading guns with Catherine.

They led Miguel out and into the elevator.  He was still talking.  “Do you have any idea what will happen to you if you do this?” he asked.  “Not only will you be killed, but your friends, your family, everyone you know will be hunted down one by one and executed.  There won’t be bodies.  There’ll be pieces.  Everywhere.”

“I said save it,” said Matt.  “You’re the one who doesn’t have a clue who you’re talking to.”

“No,
you
don’t!” he yelled, like a five year old trying to win an argument with the same line over and over again.  “I run this city!  You’re in my country,
pendejo
!  You think you can just come in here and take me out!?  My boys will kill everyone, EVERYONE you so much as know!  It’ll be war, mother-f . . . “ but he didn’t get to finish.  Matt punched him in the mouth with the butt of the gun, knocking a front tooth loose and bloodying Miguel’s lip.  “Fucker!” he yelled at Matt, as though finishing his last sentiment.  “You’re a fucking dead man!”

Matt grabbed him by the throat, stifling him.  “Keep talking, big man, and you won’t even make it to the car.”  He wanted to gag him with another tie, but couldn’t risk a passerby in the street noticing the gagged man being led away.  It was only by fortune of the hour they were able to take him from the building without anybody witnessing.

Miguel stopped making his threats, but he glared at his captors with murder in his eyes.  Catherine stared back at him with equal vehemence.  She so desperately wanted to hit him but knew if she did she not might be able to stop herself.

They left the building figuring the security guard would be fine until morning when someone would hear him, and when they reached the car, Catherine kept a gun to Miguel’s back while Matt gagged him and bound his legs.  They had rented yet another car with a trunk release button inside the trunk, but this time Catherine insisted they not destroy the car unless absolutely necessary.  So instead they threw Miguel in the back seat.  Catherine drove while Matt kept his attentions on their new friend.  He wasn’t about to turn his back to Miguel, not even for a second.  “Comfy?” he asked.  Miguel scowled.

They drove to an industrial part of the city where ancient rail cars sat unused.  Their rusted husks wasted away near abandoned tracks without another soul in sight.  They parked next to them and pulled Miguel inside of one.  Then they leaned him against the back wall and un-gagged him.

“Now,” said Matt.  “Before we start talking to one another I want to make a few things very clear for you, Miguel, or Martin, or whatever your name is.  We’re going to ask you questions and you’d better answer them truthfully or I’m going to start removing body parts.”

Miguel sat with a smug look on his face.  “Go on, then.  Ask.”

“Did you kill that girl?” asked Catherine.

“I already told you I didn’t kill anyone.”  Matt held the silenced Browning in his hand.  As he bent down and leaned in towards Miguel, the smug expression evaporated.  “What, man?”  He asked.  “I’m telling you.  It wasn’t me.”

“What about the boy?” asked Matt.  “Why did you send your boys after him, then, if you don’t know anything about the girl?”

“Boy, boy, boy, what boy?” he asked.  “You two are fucking crazy.  I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“The little homeless kid some of your Barrio Boys shot,” said Matt.  “They shot him in the leg while he was running away.  Remember him?”  Matt knelt down by Miguel and cocked the hammer on the pistol.

“What are you doing?” Miguel asked.  “Come on, stop fucking with me.”

“That’s the thing, Miguel.  I’m not fucking with you.”  Matt looked to Catherine, and Catherine nodded.  Miguel was a different animal than the last man they’d questioned.  She had no moral conflicts when it came to him.  They were going to get answers and if that meant Miguel died a slow and painful death, then that was his choice for what he had done to Taylor, so far as she was concerned.  The silenced gun barely made a thump, but then came Miguel’s scream of surprise and pain.  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Matt asked loudly of the yelps.  “I know, I know.  That little kid and I were just talking about it the other day.  Burns like hell.  Now you know how he felt.  And this is just a little .22.”

“You shot me!” cried Miguel in shock.  He tried to grab his leg but couldn’t since he was still bound at the hands and feet.  All he could do was roll around in his agony.  “You fucking asshole!  You shot me!”

“Of course I shot you,” said Matt.  “Just like you shot my little buddy.
  Did you think I wouldn’t?  Did you think we were going to try and scare a confession out of you, then give up and say, ‘oh, well, we tried, better let him go.’  This is just the beginning, Miguel.  If you don’t give us answers, you’re going to be introduced to whole new level of pain in your life.  I don’t like you, Miguel.  And when I don’t like someone, I can be a real rat bastard.”

“What do you want!?” he yelled at them.

“We’ve already told you,” said Catherine.  “We want to know about the girl!  Tell me how you raped and killed her, Miguel!  Tell me why you chose her and why you did what you did to her!  Tell me why this happened, all of it.”  She kicked Miguel in the knee where he’d just been shot.  “Tell me!”

“It wasn’t me!” Miguel cried.

“That sure tastes like more bullshit you’re feeding us, Miguel.”  Matt grabbed him by the hair and cocked the gun again.  He put it to Miguel’s other leg.  “Wait!”  He cried.  “I’m telling you the truth!  It wasn’t me.  It was Arismendez!”

Matt kept the gun to his knee, but didn’t fire.  “Who?” he asked.

“Victor Arismendez!” he cried.  “Him and Ortiz.”

“Fernando Ortiz?” asked Catherine.

“Yes,” said Miguel, unpleasantly surprised they knew the name already.

Shit, you gotta be kidding me,
Catherine thought.  If Miguel wasn’t the killer . . . .
damn.  He’s lying.  He’s got to be lying. 
“Okay, so which one killed Taylor Woodall?” Catherine asked.

“And who is Victor Arismendez?” Matt added.

“It was fucking Arismendez,” groaned Miguel, his leg tormenting him.  “He’s a crazy fucking guy back in Cancun, Ortiz’s partner.  He told Ortiz to get the girl.  Ortiz told me.  It was all Arismendez, man.”

“What kind of partners?” asked Matt.

“They share things . . . trucks, runners, people, safe houses up north, all that shit.”

Her heart sank at the prospect Miguel was telling them the truth.  “How does it work?” asked Catherine.

Miguel hesitated.  “I don’t know specifics . . . “ he shifted his leg in pain.  “Oh, you guys are so dead.  You have no idea who you’re messing with.  Arismendez is crazy.”

“There you go hurting our feelings again,” said Matt.  “You know what your problem is, Miguel?  You’ve been watching too many movies.  I bet you sit up in that high rise of yours jerking off to
Scarface
, don’t you?  Is that what it is, Miguel?  You think you’re Tony Montoya?  Well, do you remember the ending of that movie, Miguel?  Do you remember what happened to Tony Montoya?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Miguel spat.

“You just aren’t getting this, are you Miguel?” Matt asked.  He pulled the trigger on the gun, shattering Miguel’s other knee as he screamed.  Catherine flinched and shot Matt an angry look.  They were just now getting some answers.  The small hole on the surface belied the damage the bullet did as it tore through the bone and cartilage.  As he tried to roll around in pain, his legs flopped about awkwardly like broken hinges at the knee.  Matt put the gun to Miguel’s hand.  “You want to see what happens when I shoot your wrist?”  Catherine grabbed Matt’s arm and shook her head, but let go when Matt gave her a firm stare that faded slightly into one of recognition.  He was going too far.  They were after answers, not his screams of pain.
Okay,
his eyes said.  “Tell me about the girl,” he told Miguel again, more calm.  “Start from the beginning.”

Miguel writhed in pain reminiscent of the last man that Catherine and Matt had had a talk with.  Finally, he spoke again.  “I told you, Arismendez was the one that offed her,” he said.  “He threw some fancy dinner party down there during spring break, invited all the bosses.
  He’s got a big fucking spread out there off the island.  We stayed late trying to work some deals with him.  He’s got connections like crazy.  But he didn’t want to talk business.  He just wanted to party.  He started talking about all the white girls that were in town, started talking about how hot they were and how he wanted one.  Ortiz offered to get some girls, prostitutes, the expensive ones, but Arismendez wouldn’t hear it.  He kept saying it had to be a white girl with blond hair and green eyes, someone exotic, like a model, not a prostitute.  He got obsessed about it.”  He trailed off as he saw that his legs were bent in ways they couldn’t naturally be bent.  “Oh, shit, man,” he whined to himself.  “I can’t believe this shit.  I’m freaking bleeding all over the place, man.”  The pain was unbearable, as though his legs had been ripped away.

“Keep talking,” warned Matt.

“We tried to talk him out of it,” said Miguel.  “
Tio
told him there’d be too much heat, but Arismendez was snortin’, man, and the higher he got the more crazy he got about it.  He told
Tio
to go get him a white girl with blond hair and green eyes.  He told him to do it or he wouldn’t make any deals.”

“
Tio
?  You mean Ortiz?” asked Catherine.  Miguel nodded.  “He’s your uncle?” Catherine asked again to confirm.

“Yeah,” Miguel confessed.  Then he shook his head with a painful smile, “fucking millions of dollars on the line and all the guy would talk about was getting laid with an American chick.  He just went on and on and on.  He wouldn’t shut up about it.”

Catherine and Matt exchanged a look.  Some of the pieces were slowly coming together, strange though they were.  Miguel was just a glorified errand boy.  “Go on,” said Matt.

“Finally,
Tio
told him we could go party at some of the clubs and maybe he’d get lucky.  Throw around some coke and cash, you know, but Arismendez wouldn’t listen.  He was high as hell.  Plus the guy’s a real ugly, fat bastard.  There was no way he was picking up any of those chicks.  We tried everything, man, but the guy wouldn’t listen.  He told
Tio
to either go get a girl or to go back to Mexico City.  So
Tio
told me to go find a girl so he could get Arismendez to shut the hell up about it and start talking business. 
Tio
needed some new supply and better transport up north and Arismendez had it.  Fuck, man!  I’m dying.  You got to get me to a hospital, man.”

“No.  No hospital for you,
amigo
.  Not until you tell us everything.  Keep talking.”

“If I die, you won’t get shit,” he told them.

Matt grabbed him by the throat.  “If you don’t talk, then you’re no good to us alive anyway, and I’ll just kill you right here.”

Miguel managed to talk despite the python-like grip Matt had on his throat.  “You’re just going to kill me anyway,” he gasped, his face turning red.