Page 28

“Of course, Mr. Bergeron. And thank you. For giving her another chance.”

“This isn’t another chance, Ms. Dajerae. It’s a warning.”

She slips out of my office, closing the door behind her, and I drag a hand down my face, throat suddenly burning for a drink.

Amber fluid dances around the glass as I fill it to the brim, before setting the decanter back on my desk. This job is exhausting. Not so much the paperwork and the few moments of solitude, but dealing with people and their problems is not something I was born to do in life. It’s amazing to me, sometimes, how something I never wanted could fall into my lap, and I’d turn out to actually be good at the shit. Who knew money laundering was my great calling?

Then again, maybe it’s not so much a mystery, after all. My father was known to dabble in shady dealings, which is essentially how I arrived in this hell, so I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I kick back a sip of my drink and open the drawer beside me, pulling out a picture of my mother and Frannie. Even through my mother’s smile, and the beams of sunlight reflecting off her golden hair as she sits hugging my sister on the front lawn of our old home, there’s a sliver of sadness in her eyes. One I always thought was there, from the moment my father up and left us. I’m just glad she died before she had to see me turn out like the bastard. She’d have thought me a sinner, just like him. A lying, cheating criminal, bound for hell.

The severity of my mother’s Catholic upbringing is undoubtedly what led to her kicking my father out of the house when I was ten years old. Chasing skirts and racking up debt were some of his most notable vices, ones I cursed, when he finally up and left us for good. No word, or reason, just packed up and disappeared, like the selfish bastard was in a hurry to get out of town.

For years after, I hated what he did to her. Us. Even gave thought to hunting him down myself and punishing him for the hell we suffered at his expense, when those debt collectors came knocking at our door. At that point, it was too late, though. The world had already sunk its teeth into me, and my fate stretched out before me like a long, dark tunnel with no light at the end.

Tracking down my old man doesn’t matter, anymore. The heartache he left behind twisted and gnarled inside my chest, like a dying vine. One that spread through me with cold indifference and a penchant for my own self-destruction. Whatever love I felt, whatever innocence might’ve salvaged the tattered remnants of my humanity, got ripped from me with a merciless hand.

The only thing that matters to me now is getting out of this fucking tunnel alive.

Flickering red and blue lights reflect off the long stretch of windows across from me, and grabbing my drink from the desk, I stride toward it. Below, flames lick the air, as a fire breather ignites a torch and blows the flame over the top of the audience. Above him, half-naked girls swing from hoops attached to ceiling cables, their lithe bodies wriggling and squirming to the rhythm of the music hammering through the speaker. Because the bar serves alcohol, full nudity is forbidden, which seems like it might be a blow to profits, but the fantasy is what lingers like a thick, heady fog in this place. Takes talent to make someone come all over himself without showing more than a bra and G-string, and these dancers are the best at seducing, if the black light is anything to go by.

Girls in elaborate costumes parade around a couple that could easily be fucking on stage, if it wasn’t part of a well-choreographed dance. Art, I’d be inclined to tell the authorities, because anything considered a lewd act would have this place shut down and leave me blindfolded in front of a firing squad somewhere in Mexico.

I run a tight ship because I have no choice. Because the alternative of running hits for the cartel is a life I’d sooner avoid, if I can help it.

Most sicarios don’t live a long and prosperous life, after all.

Rolling up my sleeve, I stare down at the scar on my arm. The telling bite of a wolf, with its four prominent puncture wounds from sharp incisors, and the line formed by smaller teeth in between. A wound inflicted by a black wolf.

My thoughts take me back to my early days of training with Julio. The grueling lessons that taught me how to shoot a gun with such ease, it became as natural as breathing. I honed my reflexes. Learned to calm my breathing. And, more importantly, developed a complete detachment to human suffering and death. He told me my scar was the mark of his most trusted sicario, and that, one day, everyone would come to fear The Black Wolf, as he called me. Bold words, given the violent nature of so many in the cartel.

Words that came to pass, though, and would’ve sealed my fate as a lifelong hitman, if not for a bullet that missed my heart by a mere two inches on the only occasion I failed to wear a vest. Intentionally.

For as much headache as this place can be, here is better. Better than watching someone’s brain explode across the wall. Better than serving up death for a war that isn’t mine.

Sipping my drink, I watch the women dazzle the audience with an entrancing Cirque du Soleil allure. For a strip club, it’s considered one of the more upscale and classy. A credit I can’t claim entirely, having inherited the club from its predecessor in a gamble.

Just like my old man.

I sometimes wonder if I’d be just as pathetic, if Julio hadn’t swiped me up into this life. If I’d be wasting every day, drowning in a bottle of liquor in some cheap trailer park, or married. The idea of having a woman to myself in this line of work is as ridiculous a thought as trying to escape it. It’ll never happen. Very little eludes the attention of the cartel, and it’s a miracle I’ve been able to keep Frannie off their radar. Otherwise, she’d be the perfect pawn for my enemies.

My allies, too, seeing as loyalty is nothing but a fragile thread in this industry.

First thing Julio taught me: Sever all ties. Because in this world, what you love most is the first thing they’ll strip away before the bullet even hits your skull.

10

Céleste

“Thanks for nothing, Russ.” Asshole. I set the bottle of Tequila back on the shelf, irritated. As a parting gift, before he died, he had a whole fake identification, with passport, made by a buddy of his, and decided to list me as my actual twenty years old, something that, I’m sure, was intentional to keep me out of the bars. “You couldn’t have made me just a few months older?” What a waste of a perfectly good fake identity.

Was probably overkill, as I’m sure no one would remember the grainy picture of the girl on camera after nine years, but he certainly wasn’t above obsessive paranoia.

Keeping on down the aisle, I peruse the limited selection of pop that lines the shelves of Gaspard’s Grocery, a name that sounds fancy, but, judging by some of the outdated food I’ve already stumbled upon, really isn’t.

Sighing, I nab a six pack of Coke bottles and move on to find something for dinner that doesn’t require a stove.

From inside the refrigerator, I grab the last freshly made tuna sandwich from a mostly empty shelf, only to find it’s already two days old. And five bucks. On a groan, I toss it into the basket hanging from my arm, and feel the burning stare of too-curious eyes coming from my left.