Dead South (A Bryson Wilde Thriller / Read in Any Order) (13 page)

39

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Afternoon

Wilde let a few rays of hope into his heart. The possibility of recovering Maria was tangible. Wilde was still alive and, to the best of his knowledge, so was Jori-Rey. The big trick now was to get Jori-Rey loose from the clutches of Rojo, get to Tijuana to recover the child, and then get Mexico the hell and gone out of their lives forever.

He lit a smoke, gave Rio a kiss on the cheek and headed for the blue piece-of-crap pickup with the Rojo files under his arm.

Getting them back under Trench’s desk shouldn’t be a problem.

The window was already broken.

He knew the lay of the land.

He wouldn’t need to be inside for more than a minute.

The secretary, or whoever she was—
Gina, baby
—already had her daily fix.

The day was hot.

The sun was high.

The humidity was thick.

No one was following him.

At the truck he slid in and put the files on the seat, careful to keep them in order. The engine cranked over. As aesthetically offensive as the vehicle was, Wilde had to admit it hadn’t let him down, at least not yet, which is more than he could say for his little foreign job.

Blondie.

Blondie.

Blondie.

Hopefully she was actually getting repaired instead of rotting to an even deeper death at the side of the road.

The miles clicked off.

In his pocket was a crude map drawn by Rio, showing the location of Rojo’s establishment, which was something in the nature of a walled villa at the end of a winding dirt road ten kilometers south of the city.

This afternoon, Wilde needed to figure out a way to scope it out. Then tonight, after dark, he needed to get Jori-Rey out of there.

Up ahead on the road three large black ravens picked at road kill. Wilde slowed as he got closer but even with that they didn’t want to give up their prize and hung on, almost with defiance.

Wilde steered around, casting his eye on the meal.

It was a squashed cat.

The fur had been pulled away.

Bloody red internals hung out.

When he looked up something in the rearview mirror caught his attention.

A pickup truck was behind him.

Inside were three men.

They looked rough.

Wilde’s chest pounded.

He had the hatchet but no gun.

He took a left at the next turn.

The other vehicle followed.

He pushed the gas to the floor.

The streets flew by.

The city got smaller, the country got bigger.

Then gunfire came from behind.

A rear tire blew and the pickup twisted violently to the left. Wilde jerked the wheel the opposite direction only to throw the vehicle into a violent death flip.

40

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Evening

Wilde woke from a deep cavernous unconsciousness to find himself on a mattress, alone in a windowless room. Judging by the cramp in his neck he’d been there for some time.

Where was he?

His thoughts were foggy and he had to force the images to the surface. With increasing clarity he remembered the death-roll in the pickup, the gas tank bursting into flames, the three men pulling him out and forcing him into their truck, then injecting him in the neck with a needle.

Now he was in a strange room.

He muscled to his feet.

The movement sent sting and snap into his brain.

Whatever he’d been injected with still had a grip on him.

In a corner was a table. In the other was a toilet and a shower.

A large wooden door was closed and wouldn’t open.

He pounded on it.

“Let me out!”

No one answered.

The room spun.

His legs wobbled.

He got back down on the mattress before he fell. Then he closed his eyes and let the blackness come. It felt good. It felt right. Everything was beginning to disappear and he didn’t fight it.

The next time he woke could have been ten minutes or ten hours later. Either way things were better, much much better. The pain in his head was gone, the room was stable and instead of exhaustion he felt almost refreshed.

He took a long piss, warmed the shower to temperature and stepped in. The spray was an oasis. It brought clarity and restored his soul to where it needed to be.

Clean clothes were on the sink; a pair of tan cotton pants, a white button down shirt and black socks.

He dried off and tried them on.

They fit.

He knew where he was, namely somewhere in crazy Rojo’s compound. There was no other explanation. Those were Rojo’s men who captured him; no one else had the motive or the audacity. He had one thought and one thought only, namely to let whatever was going to happen start now.

He pounded on the door, not frantically like before, more in the nature of an announcement that he was conscious.

“Hey, let me out of here.”

Nothing happened, not for a few heartbeats, and then the faint sound of voices became audible.

A minute later the door opened.

What he saw he couldn’t believe.

41

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Evening

The door led to a larger room, also windowless but very eloquently ordained with expensive furniture, rich textures, intricately woven rugs and a crafted wooden ceiling. That’s not what drew Wilde’s attention though.

A table along one wall contained an assortment of foods, wines and spirits. That also wasn’t what drew his attention.

What drew his attention were the two curvy beauties.

Men would sail the world and fight monsters of every size just to lick their feet, that’s the kind of women they were.

They were there for him.

They were his last meal.

“Do you speak English?”

No, they didn’t.

One walked over to a clock on the wall, which read slightly after seven. She put an index finger on the minute hand and ran it in a circle to eight, and then another half circle to eight-thirty.

Then she opened her dress and approached him.

The other did the same.

Food, wine and beauty; Wilde had as much of it as he could consume for the next hour and a half.

He waved the women off.

He needed to think.

He needed to be honest to Jori-Rey.

“Go,” he said.

They looked at each other, uncertain.

“Go.”

There must have been something final in Wilde’s eyes because the woman went to the door at the far end, knocked and got let out.

The door locked behind them.

Wilde was alone.

He ate, concentrating on the lighter foods and resisting the urge to gorge.

He let the liquor sit.

At 8:30 the door would open.

Whatever he had a chance to do, it would be then.

He needed to be ready for it.

Seconds passed, then more. Wilde’s eyes stayed almost entirely on the clock, as if it was a death-possessed demon that would lunge at him if he neglected it for even a second.

Now it was 7:30.

Now it was 7:40.

Now it was 7:45 . . .

42

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Evening

After all the seconds and minutes passed and it was time for whatever was going to happen to happen, three gorillas with pistols opened the door and waved him out. They’d seen rougher than him plenty times before and knew how to stay positioned to where he couldn’t grab one of their guns or make a move.

A crowd was outside, drunk and out of control.

Someone shouted something, faces turned to Wilde, and whooping and shouting lit the air, all in Mexican. Wilde didn’t understand a word of it.

He knew the tenor though.

The tenor was extreme.

It was final.

It was the way someone yelled at a dog before beating it to death with a bat.

Wilde’s chest pounded.

There were too many people.

There was no way out.

Even if he made a move past someone there were ten more to grab him. He couldn’t be more stuck if he was in quicksand up to his throat.

Then he saw something that charged every molecule of his body with terror.

It was a large wooden pole sticking out of the ground, something in the nature of a telephone pole except not as high. Four or five feet off the ground was a small platform. Jori-Rey was standing on the platform, roped with her back against the pole and her arms tied high above her head. Her dress was ripped open and pulled down to her waist. Her chest was bare. A blue bandana gagged her mouth.

Her eyes locked on Wilde.

They were nothing but panic.

Wilde must have flinched because the men grabbed him with iron fists and worked him towards the pole. Attached to it at the bottom was a rope thirty feet long. Wilde knew what was coming and fought against it.

The fight was futile.

The men securely tied the rope around his ankle and then they got out of distance. The crowd circled around, keeping back just far enough to where Wilde couldn’t get anyone no matter where he might go.

Then came a chant.

Rojo!

Rojo!

Rojo!

Suddenly Rojo appeared.

Wilde’s legs weakened.

The man wore no shirt. His chest belonged to a gorilla. His shoulders were wide. His arms were twice as big as Wilde’s and ripped with bulging veins. Rojo walked toward the pole, his arms up in salute to the crowd, turning and twisting to let everyone get a good look at him.

Voices rose as one.

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

The man tied a rope to his ankle, identical to Wilde’s.

They were both locked in.

Neither could escape the other.

Two men emerged from the crowd, each carrying a burlap sack. One went to Wilde and the other went to Rojo. In unison they dumped the contents to the dirt.

A hatchet fell next to Wilde’s foot, a hatchet tethered to a rattlesnake, just like at the hotel. The same thing fell at Rojo’s foot.

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

43

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Evening

Wilde had one thought and one thought only, namely to get the hatchet in hand. He pulled off his shirt and threw it over the snake’s head. It landed off-center, covering for only a heartbeat before the snake was out, now coiled in a kill posture a few inches from the hatchet.

The tail rattled.

The head bobbed.

The tongue flicked.

Wilde had been warned.

He’d been warned to death.

He cast an eye to Rojo. The snake was similarly coiled but farther from the hatchet. With a lightning move, Rojo grabbed the hatchet and swung it up. The snake jerked off the ground. Rojo swung it around in a circle over his head two, three, four times and then snapped the line back. The snake ripped in half. The parts flew off and landed in the crowd.

Rojo looked at Wilde.

He slowed down.

He carefully removed the tether from the hatchet, taking his time.

He was in no danger.

He twirled the hatchet into the air and caught it by the handle when it came down.

Wilde kicked at the hatchet, intent on getting it far enough away from the snake to grab it. The reptile struck. It’s fangs sunk into Wilde’s boot. To his amazement it didn’t draw back, not for a second, not for two, not for five. Instead it twisted its body frantically, stuck.

Wilde kicked.

The snake didn’t dislodge.

He kicked again, snapping back this time.

The snake’s mouth ripped off and the body catapulted in the direction of Rojo, who chopped in half mid-air as it flew past.

Wilde wedged the head off using his other foot.

Then he grabbed the hatchet and faced Rojo.

His heart pounded with the force of a million maniac drums.

Rojo squared off for a second.

Then he let out a blood-curdling war cry and charged.

They swung at each other, each barely missing, again and again and again and again and again. Then Rojo landed a blow, not to Wilde’s flesh but to his weapon. Steel exploded on steel and a shock shot up Wilde’s arm, a shock so intense and severe that his fingers opened and the weapon flew out of his hand. Before he could recover it, Rojo had already kicked it into the crowd.

Wilde backed up, feet squared, faced to Rojo.

The crowd tensed.

The kill was at hand.

Rojo didn’t take it, not yet.

Instead he backed up to the pole and ripped Jori-Rey’s dress until it came down. He cut her thigh with the hatchet, not deep, just enough to draw a line of blood.

Fire exploded in Wilde’s blood.

He charged.

Rojo was already waiting for him.

He swung.

The hatchet stuck Wilde in the ribs but wasn’t blade first.

Pain exploded; untamed and untamable.

The damage was bad.

Ribs were broken.

He couldn’t lift his arm.

He couldn’t get air into his lungs.

Before he even knew how it happened, he was on the ground. Rojo twisted him onto his back, straddled his chest and pinned him down with his weight.

The man smiled.

He drew the hatchet back and forth in front of Wilde’s face like the dance of a snake’s head, each motion another declaration that Wilde was totally and absolutely powerless.

He squirmed.

It did no good.

The crowd shouted in unison.

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

A la muerte!

Rojo waved the hatchet in the air.

The crowd screamed.

It was here!

The kill was here!

Rojo looked into Wilde’s eyes. What Wilde saw was the devil himself. The man twisted his face with hate and then raised the hatchet up into a chopping position with both hands on the handle.

Wilde’s body convulsed.

It did no good.

He couldn’t twist out, not an inch.

Rojo said,
A la muerte!

Then he swung the blade down.