Down Among the Dead Men

65

He spent his first night in Los Angeles at a believer’s home near Silverlake.

As a gesture of respect, the father shared his oldest daughter with him, a slender nineteen-year-old who had been blessed by La Santisima with flawless beauty.

She pretended not to notice his ruined face as she took him to her bed.

And he pretended not to care.

But when she straddled him and closed her eyes, quietly praising God as she worked her hips, grinding her body against his, he wondered if she was thinking of someone else.

Someone handsome.

Like he used to be.

Afterward, they got dressed and had dinner with the family, followed by an hour of prayer.

The youngest daughter sang a song about Jesus, and he smiled politely and applauded, thinking that she was even more beautiful than her sister-and only a year or so away from her initiation into womanhood.

Maybe he could convince her father to save her for him.

As a gesture of respect.

H E HAD THOUGHT about driving by the rehabilitation clinic that night. But he was worn out by the sex and the long drive from El Paso, and the meal they’d served was weighing him down.

So he decided to go straight to bed.

In the middle of the night, he felt the mattress shift and opened his eyes to find the mother climbing in next to him, naked.

She took his hand and placed it between her thighs, letting him feel her heat. Her wetness.

“It would be an honor,” she murmured, “to serve the son of El Santo. To let my body be the vessel for his release.”

He was tired, but it would be an insult to the family to refuse her. And, unlike her daughter, she did not close her eyes. Instead, she stared at him with the gaze of the truly devoted as she received him in the name of God and La Santisima.

O N HIS SECOND night in Los Angeles, he went by the reporter’s apartment. El Santo had ordered him to leave the man alone, and while he understood the reasoning, he’d felt uneasy about the command ever since it had been given.

El Santo was getting old. And careless. And may have misinterpreted the signs.

His uneasiness grew when the believers he’d assigned to keep an eye on the reporter’s apartment called and told him that Vargas had not yet returned.

So, after much prayer, he drove out to the Burbank apartment building and let himself in, checking the reporter’s computer, his notes, for any indication that he might know more than they’d been led to believe.

He found nothing, but that didn’t settle his uneasiness. And he knew that this wasn’t over.

Sooner or later, something would have to be done.

That same night, he parked the Town Car near a street corner several yards from the rehabilitation clinic.

He had no right to be here.

Another of El Santo’s commands.

“We made a promise,” the old man had told him. “We leave her alone.”

“And if she remembers?”

“Then we will pray for guidance and act accordingly. Until that day, however, we must honor our pledge.”

But no matter how he tried, he could not bring himself to let it rest. To forget about her.

She was, after all, the woman who had changed his life forever. She was the reason he could not look into a mirror without feeling revulsion and anger consume him, aching to be released.

She was the woman he loved.

So he sat in his car, watching the building that housed her, wondering if she was asleep. All he would have to do was slip inside, put a pillow over her face, and that would be the end of it.

Clean. Quiet. Simple.

But then it wouldn’t really be so simple, would it? Soon El Santo would find out, would know what he’d done, and he would face the threat of banishment, all his years of devotion marked by shame and humiliation.

“Leave her to La Santisima, my son. She has already been punished enough.”

But he couldn’t leave her. He continued to watch the building until he could no longer keep his eyes open.

Then, the next morning, he came awake, surprised to find himself stretched across the seat.

And as he sat up, he received a message from God. What else could it be?

He saw her, walking along the edge of the field behind the clinic, a man in white guiding her, ready to catch her should she fall.

As they rounded a corner, she glanced back in his direction, and his heart momentarily stopped, but he didn’t think she could see him from this distance.

She did, however, look much better than they’d been led to believe.

Thinner, perhaps. But healthy. Beautiful.

And he knew at that moment that whatever the consequences, he could not wait for El Santo’s permission to do what he knew must be done.

For his own sanity, if nothing else.

Soon he would return, find her in her room, and make his offering to La Santisima.

Robert Gregory Browne

Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller)