Constant Fear

CHAPTER 24

Inside the Feldman Auditorium, Fausto Garza had changed things up. The six members of The Shire occupied the auditorium’s front row. Behind each of them sat one cartel enforcer. They were there to keep watch, even though the kids weren’t going anywhere. The teens had their hands and feet bound with rope, but the gags were out and blindfolds off so their eyes could take in the full spectacle.

Onstage, in a perfect line, bodies rigid as if at attention, stood four members of Sangre Tierra:

The redheaded one.

A fat one.

And two tall ones, thin like Rafa.

They were the four who, per Fausto’s orders, had chased after a woman who had seen too much. Fausto was on the stage with them. He stood in front of the men and paced back and forth, eyeing each contemptuously, a cross between an irate stage director and a drill sergeant.

Minutes ago, in a fierce rage, Fausto had ripped off the arm of one of the auditorium chairs. He wielded the lacquered piece of rounded wood like a club. He slapped the armrest against his meaty palm with steady taps. Whimpers of the teens and the slapping of wood against skin were the only sounds inside the hall.

Fausto stopped pacing to glower once more at the men onstage with him. He turned around slowly, apparently ready to address his audience, those he had kidnapped and those he had employed. He spoke in English for the benefit of The Shire. This show was to be something for all of them to see and understand.

“Okay-okay-okay,” Fausto began. “We are here now to have a discussion about what happened.”

Hilary gasped for a breath and spat out a choked sob. In his cushy seat beside her, Solomon shook violently, as did David. Pixie, Andy, and Rafa might have been the most stoic of the bunch, but their eyes were wide and swimming with fright.

Fausto held up his hands theatrically and hoisted the makeshift club high as his head. He turned back around to communicate with the men onstage.

“So, who would like to tell me what they think has now happened?”

Nobody spoke up.

“Nobody has an idea?” he asked, his voice lengthened by an echo. Fausto paced in front of the four men, but stopped to address specifically the man with red hair. “You really have no idea what has just happened?”

“Perseguimos a la mujer, pero se nos escapó,” the redheaded man said.

Fausto’s expression turned fierce as he sidestepped to his left to stand in front of the man who spoke. Without uttering a word, Fausto spat into the man’s face.

“In English, Gallo. ¡Idiota!” Fausto screamed. “In English. Not all of your audience can understand you!”

“El Gallo” wiped the long trail of bubbly spittle from his face before it dribbled into his mouth. His nickname fit his appearance: his body type was squat, like that of a rooster, and his bright shock of dyed red hair looked like plumage. He took several ragged, readying breaths and said in a weak voice and very thick accent, “We run after a woman, but she get away.”

“‘We run after a woman,’” Fausto said mockingly, “‘but she get away.’” He felt the need to repeat himself, even louder and more unrestrained. “‘We run after a woman, but she get away!’”

“But we shot her,” El Gallo added. “I made the bullet. Or how you say, I did the shoot. We followed her to the woods and lost her there.”

Fausto turned to face his audience once more and raised his arms over his head almost triumphantly, as if all the answers to all the questions in the universe had just been revealed.

“‘Lost her there,’” Fausto repeated slowly, in a low, dramatic voice.

Without any shift in his expression, Fausto spun on his heels as he lowered the wooden armrest level with El Gallo’s head. With as much force as he could generate, Fausto connected the head of the club squarely with El Gallo’s ear. The blow instantly dropped the plump man to the stage floor.

Without a pause, Fausto pounced on the fallen man, straddling his round belly, and lifted the club over his head. He brought the weapon down in a wide arc. This time, it smashed in El Gallo’s nose. There was a horrible crunch, followed by a scream, and a gush of blood that seemed to defy gravity.

Fausto raised the club once more and brought it down again on El Gallo’s battered nose. And again. And again. With each strike, El Gallo’s face vanished more and more beneath a wash of red. The fifth strike completely destroyed El Gallo’s skull. For a few seconds, El Gallo’s legs kicked about spastically, but those movements soon abated and his legs went perfectly still. Even so, Fausto struck the man three more times, seemingly just for good measure.

Still straddling the dead man, Fausto slowly lifted his head to show the others onstage his blood-splattered face. El Gallo’s blood had turned Fausto’s fine silk shirt into a gruesome imitation of a Jackson Pollock. The killer’s eyes glowed in a satisfied way, like an animal having feasted on a carcass.

The other men onstage kept perfectly still. Not one stole a single glance at the pulpy remains of El Gallo’s face.

Breathing hard, Fausto climbed off El Gallo and again turned to face the audience. He tossed the bloody club onto the floor at Andy’s feet. It landed with a loud thud. Fausto gave a fractured smile that put his metal mouth on prominent display.

Solomon started to sob. “I want to go home,” he muttered. “I want my mom. I just want to go home.”

This caused a chain reaction of sorts and soon all of the kids were openly crying. Fausto ignored their terror.

“Correction,” he announced, holding up one of his blood-covered fingers for all to see. “We did not just shoot a woman and then lose her in the woods. We have lost everything. Our advantage now is gone. Do you know what this means?”

Fausto drew a pistol with a pearl-inlaid handle from the waistband of his jeans and spun around again. This time, he marched over to the man standing closest to the remains of El Gallo. Fausto put his arm around the frightened man as if to suggest they were close friends, bosom buddies. Fausto summoned a flat smile, while the man appeared utterly terrified.

“This is Tony, ‘El Cortador,’” Fausto proclaimed in a booming voice. “El Cortador means ‘cutter’ in Spanish, because Tony loves to work slowly and he uses many sharp objects. Tony, can you please-for the benefit of everyone, but especially our new young friends here-explain the significance of what has happened?”

Tony’s mouth opened. For a moment, no sound came out. He managed to expel a wheezing breath, which eventually gave way to actual words. “Podría estar viva,” Tony said.

Fausto’s face turned crimson. “In English!” he screamed.

Tony cowered. “She could be alive!” he shouted, using his arms and hands reflexively to shield his head. “She could still be alive!”

Fausto stepped to the side and nodded approvingly. His expression darkened again as he seized El Cortador by the shoulder and shoved him forward hard. As El Cortador stumbled, Fausto raised his pistol and fired. The bullet exploded the skull of the man standing to the left of El Cortador. But as that bullet exited one skull, it entered another; and thus two men dropped to the floor. Looking jubilant, and more than a little surprised, Fausto raised his arms in triumph.

Sprawled on the floor, El Cortador crawled to the edge of the stage like a commando going under razor wire. Fausto ambled over to him and placed his boot on his back to hold him in place. El Cortador began to weep inconsolably.

“You see, now it is possible the police will be coming. If this woman lived long enough to say anything, then you must believe that we soon will have company. And this, my friends, is a very big problem. They will have more men and more guns and smoke bombs and many tricks to kill us and save you.”

Fausto pointed at all six hostages with his pistol, indicating the “you” to whom he had referred. El Cortador convulsed and squirmed with Fausto’s foot on the small of his back.

Fausto placed his gun against El Cortador’s head and pulled the trigger. There was an audible click, but no bang, no flash, and no blood except the few drops belonging to El Gallo that dribbled from Fausto’s hand onto El Cortador’s neck.

Tony sobbed louder. Fausto examined the gun, nonplussed, as if something was wrong with its mechanics. He shrugged and his expression was slightly bemused.

“Pensé que tenía otra bala. ¡Qué suerte la tuya!” Fausto said.

Fausto made eye contact with the six panic-stricken teenagers seated in the front row. “I said to him, ‘I thought I had another bullet left. Looks like it was El Cortador’s lucky day.’”

Efren stood, towering over Pixie, and showed genuine concern. “Pero usted dijo que la policía va a venir por nosotros ahora. ¿Qué hacemos?”

Fausto nodded, seeming unbothered by the Spanish spoken. “It’s true,” he said in English, “we assume we are known and the police will come. We assume this. Okay, that’s fine. Well, not fine, but it is what it is. But your pal Fausto has a plan for everything, including the mess these four have caused us.”

The barrel of Fausto’s gun pointed out three dead men and El Cortador. “So, from this moment on, my friends, we are no longer drug dealers. We are something else, and that something is going to change the game for everyone.”