No one was coming back to Chris Jacobs’s little house. Gerald was certain of that. Somehow, Jacobs had instinctively fled. Possibly Jamie had said something to scare her brother off, but she was still in town. And Jacobs wasn’t with her. As far as he could tell, the sister was planning to head out to the Jacobs house sometime today.
Last evening, he’d asked a few questions in the market, and he’d found out Jamie had asked the sheriff for directions to Chris’s home but not driven out there. Instead, she’d shacked up in a bed-and-breakfast with Brody.
Gerald snorted. Wonder what they’d spent the night doing?
According to the checker at the market, the only person Chris Jacobs spoke to was the town baker. Some old Mexican with an ancient bakery off the main drag in town. The kind of place where living quarters are behind the shop. He’d said Jacobs was a regular at the bakery. It matched the story he’d gotten from the kid pumping his gas.
Did Chris still have a sweet tooth? Gerald doubted it.
Gerald decided the bakery wasn’t going to be opening up shop today. He’d made a hand lettered sign to place in the window stating Juan wasn’t feeling well. That would be sufficient to keep small-town people away. He needed to have a private talk with the baker. Might take a few hours.
He silently let himself into the bakery, sneering at the pathetic lock. He’d dismantled it in fifteen seconds. The bakery was dark, the windows facing the street quite small. That was good. He inhaled deeply though his nose. God, it smelled heavenly. Small glass cases stood empty, ready to be stocked with that day’s goods. The bakery was old but spotless.
Gerald moved behind the cases and into the back room. Old stainless steel equipment littered the room, the walls lined with shelves and stocked with canisters. But he only had eyes for the door to the right. He held his breath as he listened outside the door for a full five seconds. Pure silence. He placed his hand on the knob and slowly turned, pushing the door in to another dark room and tightening his grip on his gun.
He heard the movement before he felt the metal pole crash into his face. Lights exploded behind his eyes, and Gerald’s head felt separated from his neck with the blow. He dropped to his knees in pain, losing the gun. He heard it hit the floor and slide away. He flung himself in that direction, and the bar hit him in the back of the head. Blindly, he cast about the floor for the gun. Hands scrambling. Nothing.
Shit! Where the fuck was it?
His attacker yelled at him in Spanish and struck him in the back of the head again. Gerald powered forward, aiming low with his shoulder in the direction of the voice, and rammed something solid. Swearing in Spanish, the attacker fell backward and landed hard on the concrete floor. He heard the air rush out of the man’s lungs, and he lunged forward again, hands grabbing and punching. Adrenaline lit up his brain with fireworks. He got one hand on the metal bar and yanked, flinging it behind him.
His attacker was old. The voice was scratchy, and the movements were of a weak man. Easily overpowering the attacker on the floor, Gerald rolled the old man onto his stomach and knelt on his back, yanking his head up by his hair.
“You the baker, you useless piece of shit?” he hissed in the man’s ear.
The man struggled underneath him, and he pulled harder on the hair, overextending the man’s neck.
“You want me to break your neck? Is that what you want me to do? Because I can. I can do it so fast you’ll never even know.” Gerald punctuated his threats with more yanks, and the old man gasped for air. “My fucking head hurts! You old bastard!”
He squinted in the dim light and spotted an electrical cord plugged into the wall. Stretching, he jerked it out, and a phone fell to the floor. He wrestled the old man’s arms behind him and spun the cord around his hands. He grabbed the old man’s head with both hands and slammed it into the floor. The baker went still.
He slid off the man’s back and collapsed on the floor, gasping for air, trying to slow his heart rate.
Jesus Christ! He’d nearly been taken out by a senior citizen.
He’d been sloppy and overconfident. He was lucky he wasn’t flat on the ground with a metal bar sticking out of his skull. Gerald spotted the bar across the room and rose on shaky legs to retrieve it. It was rough and heavy in his hands. Rebar.
Primitive.
He rubbed at his skull. But effective.
His foot kicked his gun. He put it back in his shoulder holster and eyed the prostrate body on the floor.
Dead? He’d smacked his head pretty hard.
Gerald squatted and held two fingers to the old man’s neck. A weak pulse fluttered.
Good. Not dead. He needed some answers.
He stood up and blew out a breath. He was still seeing stars and desperately needed a drink of water. By the light of his cell phone, Gerald found a tap and a glass and drank deep. He filled the cup again and poured it over the old man’s head.
Nothing.
He checked the pulse and barely yanked his fingers away from the snapping teeth of the old man.
“God damn it!” He gave the baker an angry kick in the ribs and was rewarded with the sound of a painful grunt. He hauled the old man up and thrust him into a chair. Finding some twine, he tied the man to the chair rungs and flipped on the single light bulb over the kitchen sink. Gerald slammed a chair directly in front of him and sat, staring the old man full in the face. The man shrank away in horror, averting his eyes.
“Diablo blanco,” he whispered.
“Ah. I see you’ve heard of me.” Gerald grinned. Apparently, Juan was closer to Chris than the townspeople knew. Gerald doubted Chris shared stories from the old days with many people. Gerald kept the memories to himself, visiting them late at night when he was alone. It’d been an addiction, that intoxicating rush of power to his brain back then. Nothing else had ever matched the high of those boys under his thumb.
Now, he was seductively close to having Chris again.
“You can guess why I’m here.”
Old Juan was silent, his gaze on the floor. Blood oozed from a cut above his eye and from his nose.
“Where’s my buddy Chris?”
Nausea crossed Juan’s face. Gerald stood and grabbed him by the chin, forcing the man to look in his direction. “Look at me! Do I look like I’m fucking around? Where is he?”
Terror widened the old man’s eyes, but he looked straight at Gerald.
Silence.
Gerald smiled. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”