With Her Fists

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Book excerpt

Chapter I

Biloxi, Mississippi

March 16, 2010

The gun smacked into the man’s face with a sound only solid metal hitting flesh can make. An arch of pink sweat glistened in a ray of sunlight before sticking to a shadowed wall.

The man’s head rolled around his shoulders, eyes showing whites, his mouth slack. A garden hose was pointed at the man, turned on, spraying him in the face. His eyes puckered, head thrashing side to side to move his mouth and nose clear of the water.

A second assailant stepped forward with a small taser in his hand. Stuck it to the man’s neck. Jolted him with a low current, zapping him back to consciousness.

A loud slap resonated throughout the building. “Tell me where it is, Jose. Where did you hide it?” The slap again. “I will beat you to a slow death. You know this. I will saw off your fucking balls. Where’s the goddamn money?” demanded a man of enormous girth.

Tall and pale with a hair-trigger temper, his face was stained with a permanent flush, his breath an incessant wheeze. He slapped Jose with a hand swollen with hate.

“Where is it?” he shouted with spittle on his lips, veins in his neck and forehead bulging, turning his skin shades of red into purple.

“Jose, come on, amigo. You don’t have to go through this. Just tell us, okay? Dónde esta?” the partner said, playing his role. He really believed he was a good guy. Doing what needed to be done so that he could take care of his family, watch his partner’s back. Though the term ‘good’ was taken to a new level today, he thought. He fidgeted, his fireplug body and chubby Latin face filled with worry.

The place stank of mildew, rotten wood. Of blood and sweat. Of fear. Odors that imbue paranoia. Hector was constantly scanning the room, listening to the silence of the building and the lack of wind or natural noises from outside.

It was unsettling.

A train horn sounded from miles away, seeming to crescendo inside the death shrouded room, causing Hector to jump and curse a string of Spanish. He inhaled, slow, to steady his heartbeat. Tried to focus on the job at hand.

The sweat on Jose’s throat shone as he coughed to clear it. He lifted his head and glared at his enemies. “Cabrones,” he spat. “La Familia has shown you loyalty. Has taken care of you. And you show your gratitude with betrayal? Goat fucking pigs! The worst kind of traitors.” His chin sank to his chest, arms tense with ropey veins. Struggling to overcome it, he continued talking. “I was only mildly surprised by your treachery, gordo,” he said to the huge white man, then spat blood at him. His eyes moved to the other man. “But you, Hector. You are Mexicano, with roots in Juarez. The cartel is your blood. This betrayal will crush your family. They will be hunted. And exterminated. Cucarachas.” He spat blood seeping from his lips, his glare roving between them.

Jimmy wasn’t impressed. He stepped forward, grunting with the effort as he threw a fist into Jose’s stomach. The thud knocked the wind from him, expelled breath thickening the air with more blood and sweat. The ropes holding Jose to the chair strained as his body tried to double over from the pain.

“Where is it? Where the fuck did you put it?” Jimmy shouted in rage, shaking with something far beyond impatience. He screamed and started throwing punch after punch into Jose’s face, stomach, and ribs, his gloved fists dishing out bruises and fractures with every blow. The abandoned apartment building echoed with the fury, but its filthy walls, trash-strewn floors and busted windows were unconcerned witnesses to the brutality.

Jimmy stooped with both hands on his knees. Bent over and wheezing like he was the one being assaulted. He looked over at his partner. “Hose…Him…Taser.”

Hector grabbed the hose and twisted the nozzle. The cold stream of water revived Jose enough so that he didn’t have to use the modified taser. “I don’t think this was a good idea, Jimmy,” he said, turning the hose off. “He’s not going to talk. Jose didn’t get to be a lieutenant by being weak.”

“What, are you scared now? Getting a conscience all of a sudden? It’s too late for that. We can’t just quit and let him go.” He paused and looked at his partner and only friend. “Look, these greasy motherfuckers owe us, Hector. Everybody owes us, this entire community. We have served the public on these ungrateful streets for ten years, saving lives and sending the trash to prison. And what do we have to show for it? An anorexic bank account and more time on the goddamn streets! They owe us, and so does this trash right here,” he said, pushing a branch-like finger into Jose’s forehead. “He owes us for not putting him away years ago.” Dark red splotches appeared to rise from the sweat pouring off his brow, eyes enormous with lack of circulation.

He spun back to Jose, who was laughing.

“Hector is right, Jimmy,” Jose croaked, still laughing. His slight frame shook in his yellow silk shirt, eyes alight with the antagonizing desire he felt towards the man he knew would kill him. “And you are wrong in your justification. There is no just due. Nobody owes you. It is greed that controls your life now.” His teeth showed in a bloody smile. “It’s greed that has sentenced you to death.”

With a ferocious grunt Jimmy reared back and slapped him again, putting his whole body into the swing, knocking the chair over. Jose’s body slammed on the floor, thumping his head on the filthy tile. Jimmy leaned down and grabbed his shoulders, pulled up, setting the chair upright again.

He growled in Jose’s face. “Now, you listen to me, big shot, big shit, mafia wannabe greaser.” His whisper was ominous, “You are nothing now. Nothing,” he breathed hotly. “You have been screwing me for three years. Now I want to get paid.” He gave a pleasant look. “You know, we learned quite a bit about serial killers and torture methods at the academy. I would love to try out a few of my favorites on you. You will suffer in pain beyond comprehension. I’ll give you blood transfusions and bring you back to life with a fucking defibrillator so I can kill you and revive you again and again. And again.” His big nose wrinkled over bared teeth. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Tell me where you hid the money and I’ll end it quick and clean, right now.” He snapped his fingers.

Jose whispered, features going slack. He grunted with a swing of his head, motioning Jimmy to come closer. Jimmy leaned down with his ear to Jose’s mouth. “Chinga tu madre,” he said, then spat blood on the side of Jimmy’s face.

“You’re dead! You’re fucking dead, greaser!” The folds in Jimmy’s neck trembled, fists rose up on either side. He unleashed blows into Jose’s face once more, wheezing and missing as he tired. He fell on one knee, sharp breaths stirring dust between his boots.

Jose managed to laugh through the final barrage, laughing even harder when he quit. “No gordo. It is you who are dead. Traitors… las estupida putas. Always make mistakes.” He coughed, blood ran out of his mouth and down his clean shaven chin and neck. His diehard manner and righteous final words would honor his Aztec warrior ancestry. “If my hermanos don’t avenge me, someone else will get you. Sooner, rather than later.”

Face purple and bellowing between breaths, Jimmy drew his gun and shot Jose in the face from where he knelt. The .40 Black Talon entered at his chin and went through his mouth and out the back of his neck, severing the spinal cord and traveling through two sheetrock walls before lodging in a wooden stud. The explosion covered the wall and floor behind him in bits of bone, blood, gray matter, chunks of hair and skin. Pigeons cooed and flapped away from the open, busted windows, emptying their frightened bowels on the concrete and lawn below.

From the wall of gore an incisor fell free, hitting the floor tiles with a chink in the silent aftermath.

Hector’s swallowed a powerful cry and stumbled forward. “Oh, Jimmy. No! Not the Sig. Why did you use the Sig?” He stood with his hands gripping his hair, staring at what was left of Jose’s neck. He whined, “This is bad, amigo. Really bad. You were supposed to use the .38, the throw-away. Not your issue!”

“Shut up, shut up! I know that.” Jimmy said, huffing from an inhaler. Asthma under control, he realized the consequences and made a serious effort to get his temper down, to compose a new plan. “Don’t worry about it. It was only one bullet. We’ll take his head and throw it in the bayou. They’ll never find it. Our cartel guys will think it was an MS-13 hit.”

“Take his head? You want to take his head?” He whined, “Madre de Dios,” and crossed himself.

“Yes. Listen to me, goddamn it. We needed to do this. This piece of shit was in our way. We talked about this. He’s the reason our cut was only five percent. The ungrateful prick is out of the way now, so we’ll get more money. Your family will get more money now. Let’s stay focused on why we had to do this, Hector.”

“All right, Jimmy. Let’s hurry, okay? We have been here for way too long already.”

Jimmy unsnapped his knife sheath and slid out his six-inch serrated Gerber blade. Grabbing Jose’s hair with one hand, he sawed through the esophagus, muscles and tendons, then dug around and found a spot between two vertebrae to complete the severing. Blood nearly as dark as his gloves ran to the floor in rivulets. He didn’t get what he had come for, and the dead eyes and death’s head grin seemed to mock him for his failure. His neck quivered below his gaping snarl.

“I found it, Jimmy,” Hector called, relief evident in his voice as he walked from the hallway holding a deformed slug between two fingers. He stuck it in his pocket with a grimace. “It was stuck in a stud, in the back room. Got lucky, ese.”

“Right. Good. The crime scene unit won’t have a bullet or a head to find out what kind of gun was used. But they could find our hair, prints, or something. We’ll have to burn the place. That’ll clean it up. Do you have a lighter?” he asked, knowing his partner sometimes smoked.

“Yeah, Jimmy. I’ll make a fire. Let’s just go, okay? I’m getting spooked.”

“All right, all right! We’re going. Don’t start that Mexican spirits of the dead crap again. This is one greaser that won’t be haunting us, I promise you. He’ll be haunting some stinking bayou in about fifteen minutes.”

“Whatever you say, Jimmy.”

Hector shook his head and walked back down the hallway, stepping over an Arby’s bag with holes chewed in it, stopping where he had earlier found a jug of paint thinner. He picked up the container, wondering if someone had abandoned it along with their plans to restore the apartment. The entire neighborhood had deserted the area, unable to afford to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina had caused the building codes to change. The police kept out squatters and junkies very effectively.

And the officers that made that extra effort are the same ones that used this neighborhood for their personal affairs, he just realized. He shook his head again.

“Well, no one will use this place again. Sheesh. What have you gotten yourself into, Hector?” he muttered to himself, unscrewing the cap. He poured the mineral spirits all over the floor and walls. Walked the liquid trail down the hall and into the front room with Jose. He splashed it around the body but couldn’t quite bring himself to throw it on the cartel lieutenant. Squatting down, he struck his lighter and the room slowly bloomed with firelight.

Walking outside, Hector saw Jimmy rummaging through Jose’s car, a new champagne colored BMW M3. The glass had been recently cleaned and reflected a morning sky that seemed supernaturally clear and pure in contrast to the street below. The yard was a trashed clone of the other lots on the abandoned street, overgrown with weeds and littered with fast food packages, old, rusted kitchen appliances, and diapers. It was diseased. Clusters of pox on hairy, filthy skin. The apartment buildings were mere skeletons of their pre-Katrina glory, gutted and ugly with stripped paint and rotten wood that could be sensed every time a breeze drifted through.

The scene matched Hector’s mood, compounding it.

Maybe a fire is what this place really needs, he reasoned, looking around and envisioning an inferno consuming the filth and corruption. “We are going to burn for our corruption one day, too,” he prophesied to the neighborhood.

“What?” Jimmy yelled, still digging around in the car.

“I lit the fire.”

“Good. Set this car on fire, too. There’s nothing in it worth anything. Dammit!” He threw down some papers and slammed the center console shut. Got out, looked Hector in the eye. “I wish I could bring the bastard back to life so I could kill him again. They owe us, Hector. They fucking owe us!”

Kill him again? Hopefully you’ll use the .38 next time, Hector thought to himself. He didn’t say anything, knowing that continuing to talk about the money they didn’t get would only make the situation worse. And, he discovered, he was scared to say anything. Scared of the person his partner had become.

He popped the hood on the BMW and used his knife to cut a fuel line. Then he walked back to the driver’s side and turned the key on. The fuel pump cycled on and off to prime the engine, spraying gasoline all over the engine compartment and ground. He turned the key off, then on again to spray more fuel. Then, he squatted down and struck his lighter.

The car burst into flames.

“Let’s go, Hector. We have to dispose of this son of a bitch’s head and get back to work.” Jimmy got into their car, closed the door.

"Yeah. Let’s get back to work,” he replied, adjusting his uniform back into regulatory position. For a moment he stood there, studying the side of their patrol car, noticing how the name of the place he once swore to protect and serve mocked him in return. City of Biloxi Police, its bold, black presence stood out in sharp contrast against the pristine white of the front and rear door panels. The dark letters seeping in and scarring the rest of the sanctified body, abusing their place of honor much like the two men who rode inside.

He fell into the passenger seat with a defeated slump, closed the door behind him, and sighed.  Flames from the BMW’s carcass danced like victorious, evil spirits across the cruiser’s mirrored surface, echoing their laughter along the side of Hector's sullen face as they drove away from the scene.

He dug a pack of Winston’s from his uniform pocket and placed a crooked cigarette between two nervous fingers.  Turning slightly so as not to arouse Jimmy's suspicion, he crossed himself, resigned to the chaos ahead.