Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (199 page)

“Daddy? Something’s wrong with Momma.”

“She come out of the—“

“She’s crying.”

“I’m coming back now.” His voice is dead calm. “Be about forty minutes, make sure she don’t—”

“I know. Hurry, please.”

Just as she drops the handset in the cradle, a sound from behind sends an chill up her spine.

It’s the squeak of the bedroom doorknob. She turns around slowly.

“Momma?”

She’s standing in the doorway, in a dress so white it almost glows. Her beautiful eyes are wet with tears. And for the first time ever, her arms open wide to receive her daughter.

“Momma!” All at once she wants to cry, laugh, shout for joy. Is that a smile on her mother’s face? Even through the tears? “Oh, Momma. I’m so happy you—”

She puts a finger over her daughter’s lips.

“Shhhh...” She strokes the hair so much like her own. Can it be? Is Momma finally going to love her? And Daddy?

“Punkin’,” Momma says, and her daughter’s heart soars. “I’m afraid it’s not what you think.”

Oh, no. No! She dreads what’s coming.

“I’m leaving.”

Pushing away hard, she steps back—burning with rage. She can hear Daddy warning her to control it. She can’t bear to look at her mother.

“I thought I could do it, my child. But I just can’t. It’s too...it’s impossible. I am what I am, and nothing can change that.”

“But why do you have to leave us?”

“This life—if it even is a life—is just too limiting. I’m meant to be so much more. I thought I could give it up for your father, but I was deceiving myself. ”

“But you could, if you loved us. I know Daddy says we can’t force you to stay, but if you loved us you would. That’s what mothers DO, they stay for their family, for their children!”

Momma shakes her head. “I would if I could. I can’t. I’m sorry.” She looks exhausted, and sadder than ever.

“So that’s why you been so mean to us? You’re bored with living like us? Or is it because Daddy’s a nigger?” The provincial speech she’s worked so hard at dropping has returned with a vengeance. “Why, you just like them white people, ain’t you?”

“I don’t expect you to understand, Punkin’.”

“No! You don’t get to call me that! Only Daddy does. You—you’re just a selfish, stone-hearted...ugh! I hate you!”

Straightening until she stands only as tall as her remarkably tall daughter, Momma nonetheless seems to be looking down on her.

“One day perhaps you’ll realize you shouldn’t have judged me so harshly.” She glides slowly back to the bedroom door. “After all, you’re just like me. You’ll see. There’s no hope. Every part of you that’s a freak to these human insects, every part that makes you different...” She regards her daughter with pity. “You’re just...like...me.”

With that, she shuts the door.

Never to be seen again.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

ALERTED BY THE SOUND OF THE SEDAN, Lito turned and saw it coming at him, saw the gun pointed from the passenger seat window. He grabbed Raul by the arm.

“Get down!” he shouted.

Raul didn’t.

Instead, he seized Lito by the arms and put him in a choke hold just as the car screeched to a halt.

“Raul, what the hell—”

He didn’t answer, just tightened his grip. Lito thought he would pass out any moment.

A man in dark glasses was still pointing a gun through the sedan’s passenger window. The back door opened and a middle-aged man stepped out smoking a cigarette, his beige shirt unbuttoned nearly to his considerable belly. It was Pablo Suarez, better known as Pablo the Gutter not because of his ample midsection or his foul mouth but because of his penchant for disemboweling anyone who displeased him sufficiently. He puffed a cloud of smoke into Lito’s face.

“Carlito Guzman. Mind if I call you Lito?”

“Mind if I call you
hijo de puta
?” Lito struggled, but Raul squeezed harder.

Pablo chortled, then began to cough violently. When he caught his breath, he spit the cigarette out and lit another one.

“I swear, these things will be the death of me.”

“In that case, please, smoke some more,” Lito said.

Again Pablo coughed, but it passed quickly this time.

“Now, Lito, I’ll make it simple. Things are changing, of course you know this. The Hernandez branch is all but ours now. Why don’t you turn it over to us quietly, hmmm? So much cleaner, without all the bloodshed, no?”

“Why don’t you go to hell, no?”

“After you.” From his breast pocket he pulled a knife and pressed the point into Lito’s neck. “But I think we take you there the slow way, hmmm?”

Lito’s entire body stiffened as Pablo the Gutter slid the blade past his collarbone, the middle of his ribcage, then rested it just above his belt. He wanted to curse Raul for his betrayal and spit in Pablo’s face, but at the moment words could no more escape his mouth than he could escape his traitorous bodyguard’s grip.

“You only have yourself to blame for this,
pobre Carlito.
It’s your weakness, all this trying to do good and do right. We run businesses, amigo, not charities.”

Even as the tip of the blade pressed through his shirt, Lito managed to summon the strength to speak.

“If you do this, there will be a war. Too many people on both sides will die.”

“Ah, but that line is not so clear any more now. You really don’t know how many of yours are ready to cross the street and join us, do you? Now, that is funny!”

Lito thrashed about only to be met with increased pressure on his throat from Raul’s vise grip. He couldn’t breathe. All he could see through his tear-blurred eyes was Pablo coiling the knife back.

#

It was like trying to hold gallons of water in his bare hands. No matter how carefully Nick tried to manipulate the current state of his existence relative to the physical speed of the events unfolding before him, he couldn’t keep time from plowing forward. Having watched the whole scene at a fraction of the speed of mortal perception, he realized that the large man holding the knife was within inches of stabbing Lito Guzman in the stomach. His bodyguard was holding him in place for the kill.

Nick rushed over.

Though he remained invisible, Lito was looking in his direction, It almost seemed he was pleading for help. Nick knew exactly what he was supposed to do, or rather not do. Yet another order that made no sense to him.

The expression on Lito’s face wasn’t so much fear as sadness. And he tried hard to hold his head straight despite being in a chokehold. Whatever the reason, this man Nick had been assigned to protect was now supposed to die. But he couldn’t just stand there and let it happen the way he had with Clara.

The large man drew his knife back, then thrust it forward.

Just as the tip of the knife reached Lito, Nick reached for the blade.

Never one to worry about getting physically hurt while in his angel state, he grasped the fat man’s wrist with his left hand, took the knife by the sharp edge with his right, and bent it into a curve. Then returned it to its owner.

In an instant, time resumed at mortal speed.

The fat man looked at the twisted blade in his hand, gasping in wonder. Nick yanked it out of his hand and threw it across the parking deck. The three men turned to watch it fly and clatter to the concrete about ten yards away.

Then every eye seemed to look at Nick, or at least in his direction, despite his invisibility.

Or lack thereof, as he suddenly realized when the fat man’s face blanched and he let out a string of curses in Spanish.

Before he could react, Raul threw a punch at Nick’s face.

He’d never had to stoop to hand-to-hand with a human, so it didn’t occur to Nick that he ought to duck. When the hulking bodyguard’s fist struck him in the jaw, however, he actually felt it.

Letting out a grunt, he staggered back.

His vision blurred and pain stitched his skin for a moment, but aside from that, it wasn’t so bad. Then Raul came at him again, rubbing his fist like he’d punched a brick wall, but ready to strike again.

The fat man scrambled into the car, shouted to his driver, and they blazed off.

Raul, closing on Nick, didn’t notice. He reached behind his back, pulled out a handgun, and flipped the safety off.

“The hell you think you are, man?” He cocked the hammer.

Nick would enjoy watching what happened to the smug look on his face when the bullets bounced off him.

Raul fired.

Nick felt a sting in his shoulder, then from behind them came a growl.

Lito.

He lunged at Raul, swinging at his face just as he turned towards the sound. Raul caught Lito’s fist with his free hand, twisted it until he fell to his knees, then pressed the muzzle of the gun against his forehead.

“You had to know this was coming.”

Lito squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating the inevitable.

Nick reached for Raul’s shoulder.

Before his fingers even made contact, Raul threw the gun to the ground, screaming. He fell on his hands and knees, then began rolling around from side to side shrieking in agony. He got up, ran forward a few yards, threw himself on the ground and began rolling again.

Lito wasn’t watching. Knees still bent, he was looking upward, his eyes filled with awe.

He bowed his head and whispered,
“Dios mio.”

“Get up, Lito.”

He didn’t. Instead he cast a nervous glance at Raul, still writhing and screaming like a pig being slaughtered, then looked back at Nick.

“Who...
what
are you?”

Not much sense saying he was an angel when he’d soon be a mortal, and he wasn’t a hundred percent angel anymore.

“A friend,” Nick said.

“What did you—? I don’t understand, but I thank you.”

In the distance, Raul’s screams died down to a whimper. He was now balled up into a fetal position, his entire body quaking. Lito looked over in his direction and shook his head in wonder.

“If that’s the sort of friend you keep,” Nick said, “I’m not surprised at what kind of enemies you have.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I only made his dreams come true.”

“Dreams?”

“Nightmares.” A dull pain nagged at Nick’s shoulder. He rubbed it, then felt a slight chill. “I’m not sure what Raul fears most, but I wouldn’t be surprised it’s being burned alive.” He had neither the time nor inclination to fully explain. And judging by that look of wonder still on Lito’s face, the explanation wouldn’t help much.

“What are you, some kind of hypnotist?”

“Something like that.”

Lito gave him a long look, then said, “No, you’re more than that. I mean, you just show up out of nowhere, mess up Raul’s brain, and—wait! You look familiar.”

Nick scanned the area. All the commotion was sure to draw some onlooker, no matter how remote a part of the parking deck it was. “Would you please get back into your car and get out of here?”

“Yeah...” Lito started off, then stopped in his tracks. “I remember you. We’ve met before!” But when he turned around, Nick had already dropped out of his perception. The words floated out of his mouth as he realized.
Eres un ángel.

Lito walked. And thought. And made a decision.

#

Fifteen minutes later, he knelt before the crucifix at Our Lady of Peace in Chula Vista and from a heart filled with gratitude thanked his merciful God for the angelic visitations and protection that had spared him. He vowed to turn his life around, right all his and any of his family’s wrongs he could.

He left the church feeling like a new man, not one whose life was, in fact, in greater peril than ever.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

NICK STOOD OVER RAUL, WHO WAS still curled up in a ball and moaning. The worst thing about constructs like these was that every physical sense was engaged and tied directly to the emotions and mind. For all intents and purposes, Raul’s reality was that he’d been doused in gasoline and set on fire. Only the pain wouldn’t end, as it would in death.