Scale of Justice (2 page)

“Four hundred and twenty-seven!” he said.

“Dios mío!” The Machete said. “Do your men drive you around in a livestock trailer?”

Villanueva stepped off the scale. He kept his eyes straight ahead, ignoring the laughter continuing behind him.

“I tell you what, Fatso. Come back in one month, and if you weigh…” The Machete stared at the ceiling for several moments. “…four hundred pounds or less, I will let you retire to Miami.”

The Machete could see the uncertainty in Villanueva’s eyes.

“Do you think you can keep the bacon out of your big mouth for that long?” The Machete said. “It’s only twenty-seven pounds. That should be easy for a man like you, with your iron self-control. Maybe instead of eating ten cheeseburgers, you’ll just eat nine.”

The Machete’s men laughed.

Villanueva said without any enthusiasm, “Thank you, jefe. I will do my best.”

“Good luck,” The Machete said, with a hearty dose of sarcasm. He knew with the kind of certainty one felt in the very foundation of one’s soul, that Villanueva would never be able to do it.

•••

Tomás Sariagmo gasped at the sight of Diego Villanueva’s Grosse Pointe mansion. He had never seen a house this big, except maybe on the cover of a magazine somewhere. But the beautiful slate roof was a work of art, and the long sloping grass ending at Lake St. Clair was like something from a movie. He half expected to see men and women dressed in ballroom clothes dancing across the lawn.

The driver slowed the long black Lincoln Town Car as he pulled into the circle driveway. They stopped in front of the house’s gigantic carved wooden doors.

“Get out,” Villanueva said.

Tomás followed the big man into the house, through the grand lobby with fancy tile floors and big thick woodwork throughout the rooms. Finally, they ended up in the kitchen.

It was the most beautiful kitchen Tomás had ever seen. The wood floor was a beautiful deep oak, the cabinets painted a dark green and everywhere was Carrara marble. The appliances were enormous Viking sculptures in stainless steel. A Sub-Zero refrigerator practically took up one whole wall. And freezers disguised as drawers were below the island.

Tomás took in the kitchen, but he could not stop thinking about his son, wondering where he was, and if he was okay. Tomás felt an anger inside at the wealth this house displayed. This bastard, head of Detroit’s most feared street gang, the Detroit Kings, lived in this giant house, and Tomás’s son was beaten for a few hundred dollars. It disgusted him. He had to find a way to get his son free.

As if reading his mind, Villanueva spoke.

“Here is my offer,” he said. “You will cook all of my meals for me, using only healthy ingredients so that I lose weight. If I don’t lose 27 pounds or more during the next month, I will kill your son in front of you and then I will kill you. Do you understand?”

Tomás felt weak at the knees. He wasn’t sure what to say or think. He could not go to the police, before the cops even understood what he was talking about, his son would be dead.

“Do you fucking understand me?” Villanueva bellowed.

“Yes, sir,” Tomás answered.

“You will live in the small room upstairs that you can get to through those stairs,” Villanueva said, pointing to a small doorway at the back of the kitchen.

“”Diego, who is this?” a woman’s voice called out. Tomás turned to see a stunningly beautiful woman enter the kitchen. She had on a brilliant orange dress that set off her brown eyes.

“Ah, Elissa, this is our new chef,” Villanueva said. He turned to Tomás. “What is your name?”

“My name is Tomás Sariagmo,” he said.

The woman barely glanced at him. “What’s the matter, Diego, you don’t like my cooking anymore?”

They both laughed and Tomás looked again at the spotless kitchen. He had a feeling it hadn’t seen much use.

“So what time is dinner?” she asked Diego. Villanueva turned and looked at Tomás.

Tomás heard himself answer.

“Seven o’clock?”

•••

When pink, bubbly blood began to froth from the kid’s nostrils, Enrique Parlall got scared. The kid was on his side, his eyes closed, his skin a whitish gray Enrique had never seen before. He was scared the kid was going to die and then he would be in big trouble, so he kicked the kid in the ribs.

Afterward, he realized that may not have been the right thing to do.

Because the kid didn’t wake up, in fact, the blood started coming out of his mouth in great phlegmy gobs of pink mixed with dark red.

Enrique picked his phone up and called Pablo. This would be really, really bad.

While Pablo’s phone was ringing, Enrique used his foot to turn the kid onto his back. The good news was, the bleeding had stopped.

The bad news, well, the bad news, he would have to tell Pablo.

When the voice on the other end of the line answered, Enrique spoke.

“I think this bitch is dead.”

•••

That first meal had been a resounding success. Tomás had taken several split breasts of chicken, smeared them with a rub of spices that included oregano, chili powder, cumin and garlic, then grilled them. He had also created a dish using whole grain rice instead of the more calorie-laden white rice, and served an enormous salad with fresh romaine hearts, tomatoes and onions.

It was an event that began to repeat itself over the next few days.

Diego Villanueva seemed very pleased. Over the course of the following week, Tomás, with the help of the other household servant, an older woman named Anna, had completely stocked the kitchen with healthy foods and ingredients. Tomás spent hours at the ship-sized island of marble in the kitchen, planning meals. Egg white omelets, whole grain pancakes, turkey sausages and fresh fruits for breakfast. He created beautiful salads, vegetarian dishes, hot peppers stuffed with spicy beans and rice, and enormous platters of grilled fish, chicken, lean beef, and even some pastured-fed buffalo steaks that Diego Villanueva had devoured with relish.

By the end of the first week, it was time for a weigh-in.

Villanueva summoned Tomás into the massive library. Books lined one wall, Mexican folk art another, and a third featured an assortment of Mexican weapons, including a pair of matched dueling pistols from the 1700s.

When Tomás entered the room, he instantly knew something was wrong.

“You fool!” Villanueva cried. “”I have only lost a pound!” That is not enough! And I have been going for walks with Elissa. It must be your food!”

Tomás trembled inside. He had carefully managed the big man’s portions, calculated the rough amount of fat and calories. If the big man had eaten only wheat he prepared, there was no way he could have gained weight.

“I should kill you motherfucking old man, I need to feed your son to those alligators now!”

“Please, I am sorry, sir, I will do a better job, but I do not see how if you had only eaten what I prepared…”

“Of course I have! That is the deal. I have only eaten your breakfasts, lunches, desserts and late night treats. That is all!”

“What late night treats, sir?” Tomás asked.

Just then, Elissa swept into the room. “Come Tomás, I will help you, I will look over your meal plans, and figure out what went wrong, come old man!”

She was like a colorful whirlwind as she whisked Tomás from the room. The last thing he heard was Diego Villanueva’s voice.

One more week or your son is dead!”

•••

“What have you been giving him?” Tomás asked her.

She laughed. She looked around the kitchen, at the array of fresh fruit, the vegetables in mid preparation, the papers on the marble island filled with notes for meals and recipes.

“You are a very good chef,” she said.

“Thank you, but you did not answer my question.”

“And I am a very good wife,” she said. She went to a cupboard, retrieved a large wine glass, and poured herself a healthy measure of white wine. Tomás looked at it. It was the Sauvignon Blanc he planned to pair with the macadamia crusted whitefish tonight.

“And a good wife knows what her husband needs,” she said. “And gives it to him.”

“But do you know about the arrangement?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “But he is a big man in his organization and gets very stressed. He needs it.”

“But people will die if he does not lose weight,” he said.

She looked at him, and something clicked in Tomás’s mind. The look in her eye, the smile that wasn’t real, and the shine of those deep brown eyes reflected a very intelligent, and very ambitious woman.

“A man in his line of work, Tomás. He cannot live forever.”

She smiled then, and swept from the room.

•••

It was the day of the second week’s weigh-in and Tomás had never felt so tired and stressed out in his life. He worried endlessly over his son, but he had no one to call. His wife had died years ago, and there was no one else.

So he had put his heart and soul into his cooking, creating dishes of maximum volume and flavor and a minimum of fat and calories. He had hidden the ingredients he feared Elissa was using to give to Diego (all chocolate and sugar and ice cream). But Tomás knew it wasn’t working, he knew Diego was not losing weight. Deep down, he knew that somehow, Elissa was sabotaging his efforts.

It was at the final stages of browning a veal cutlet when Anna entered the room. She and Tomás had become friends of a sort, and shared a mutual fear and hatred of Elissa.

“Tomás, I have to talk to you,” she whispered. “Outside.”

Tomás turned the heat down on the cutlet, checked the whole grain pasta that would go with it, and followed Anna to the outdoor kitchen and seating area.

“I heard Diego’s men talking. I’m sorry Tomás,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “But your son is dead. “

Tomás nearly buckled and fell to the ground.

“They said during the fight he punctured a lung and that he never recovered. They dumped his body and said the police found it this morning. They have probably identified the body.”

Tomás nodded, tears streaming down his wrinkled, leathery cheeks.

Anna patted him on the shoulder and went back inside.

•••

The next morning, Tomás brought a fruit platter to the weigh-in. This time it was being held in storage room just off the kitchen. Diego Villanueva stood on the giant scale used to weigh livestock that his men had bought in the Eastern Village. He had already broken every other scale in the house. This one had a leather harness that fit under Diego Villanueva’s arms, and a giant face at the top with an oversized needle.

After forcing his men to leave the room and locking the door, Villanueva had Tomás help him into the rig. Tomás watched as Diego adjusted the harness, and then lifted the lever that released the small platform beneath his feet. Tomás saw the needle rise above two hundred, then two fifty, then three hundred, then three fifty. He leaned closer as the scale needle went over four hundred. Four hundred ten, four hundred twenty…four hundred twenty-seven.

“Dios mio! “ Villanueva shouted. “I am the same!” He looked at Tomás with rage in his eyes and that was when Tomás calmly took the long knife from the fruit platter and thrust it into Diego Villanueva’s heart.

“For my son! “ he whispered. Villanueva’s feet thrashed, but he was held in place by the scale’s harness. Blood poured from the big man’s body and pooled on the scale’s platform. After several moments, Villanueva’s body went still.

Tomás took a butcher knife from the large pocket of his apron. He felt the cold fury of death inside and hacked at Villanueva’s neck until the head fell off.

Tomás stepped back checked the scale.

417.

He again lifted the butcher knife and hacked at the dead man’s shoulder until the left arm and part of the shoulder fell off.

410.

The other shoulder and arm went off.

403.

Tomás stepped back and looked at the big man, cut and hacked into a giant slab of butchered meat.

But he needed three pounds.

Tomás picked up the long sharp knife and cut into Villanueva’s chest. He made a large circular incision and pulled out a huge piece of meat, with blood and veins still attached. He threw it on the floor.

It was the big man’s heart.

Tomás looked back up at the scale.

400.

He wiped off his hands with a dish towel, then wiped off the handle of the knife and set it on the counter, just as the side door to the room opened.

Anna stepped inside. She looked at Tomás, then at Villanueva.

“Go,” she said and stepped away from the door. Tomás hurried past her and as he did so, she brought out the weapon she had been hiding behind her back.