~
Jorge and Jerry had spent all night searching the Richardson neighborhood but found nothing at all. For a moment Jerry had looked up to an abandoned apartment and wondered if they’d been in there but he thought they probably hadn’t. It looked to him as if they were long gone. After a fruitless evening they had returned to the car and sat in the sunshine. Jorge had his feet poking out the window and he studied the way the sunlight glinted off the scales of the snakeskin. He lit his fourth cigarette of the morning.
“This is kinda nice,” he relaxed back in his seat.
“Yeah for you maybe, I’m exhausted AND starving by the way. We should get outta here and find breakfast,” he yawned.
“Then what?”
“Fuck I dunno, we can’t go back to Angelo without a result,”
“No we cannot,” Jorge blew out smoke and watched it drift across the front of the car.
A heavy silence was settling inside the car. Jerry was picking at a nail nervously and making furtive glances all around.
“Fuck!” he eventually lashed out and punched the dashboard.
He instantly regretted it and winced in agony as he cradled his hand. Looking down he saw that it was definitely broken. Feeling livid Jorge watched as his face became redder and redder.
“Yo man what’s happened to you?”
“I’m just so fucking frustrated. Where could he have gone? He gotta be around here!” and he stepped out of the car and kicked at the dirt on the side of the road.
The wind wafted it across the bonnet of the car and it made Jorge fume.
“Mind the car you asshole!” he shouted as he tossed his cigarette end out the window.
Jerry clapped his hands to his head and looked up to the sky.
“We’re fucked,” he whispered. “If we don’t find him we’re fucked,”
Jorge was watching his breakdown from inside and he watched as the chubby man in the sweaty, crumpled suit walked away down the road. He let him cool off for a few minutes and then started the engine and drove forward. Catching up with Jerry he talked through the window.
“Hey…. Come back won’t ya? We’ll not find him if you throw a hissy fit,” Jorge tried to reason.
But Jerry was too frustrated, too angry to care about what he was saying. Instead he just kept walking while staring at the ground. Jorge found it amusing watching the big Mafia henchman act like a spoiled kid. He humored him for a while and then eventually braked and reached over to open the passenger door.
“Get in you dummy,” he laughed.
And Jerry got back in the car with a furrowed brow and a pout. He leant against the window and held his head in his hand. All he had was Carl’s dog tags and he couldn’t go back to Angelo with just that.
“If you were a Navy-Seal and you were tryin’ to escape… where would you go?” he asked his new partner
“Hmmm…. California? Ain’t there a base there?” Jorge suggested.
“How would I know?”
It looked like they’d hit a dead end. Jerry sighed heavily and looked to the dog tags that were hanging from the rear view mirror.
“And you’re telling me that he didn’t even bite at his old man gettin’ a beaten?”
“Nope…” Jorge shook his head in disgust. “Either he didn’t get the message or he doesn’t care.
“Harsh stuff,”
“Yuh,”
“I wonder what happened between the two,”
“None of my business,” Jorge shrugged.
CHAPTER 19
John Reiner
had the most pain in his right side. That’s where the Puerto Rican
had kicked him the most. He was certain he was close to death and
after a few days he had resigned himself to it, thinking it was a
punishment for not loving his son enough. He’d suffered greatly
this last year and more than ever he appreciated what it meant to
be a father.
He was still
in the basement on the floor and despite the fact the sadist in
snakeskin had cut him free he still hadn’t moved. Thinking back to
that very moment made him shudder… The way he had pulled a knife
out from his boot and brandished it in his face, and John
remembered the exact moment when he saw the look in the young man’s
eyes change. It looked as though a light flickered inside him as he
was reminded to own a conscience. Instead of plunging the knife
into the old man’s gut like he promised he slashed the blade
through the rope and John had tumbled over. Free at last he felt
his wrists regain blood flow as he watched his captor walk away and
not come back.
Now all Reiner
Senior had to do was summon the strength to sit up. If he could sit
he could stand. If he could stand he could walk, and if he could do
that he could tackle the stairs. The rest would follow. The pain
was indescribable as he wrapped an arthritic hand around a water
pipe to hoist himself up. Finally he was resting against the wall
and he felt the chill of the concrete. It soothed him momentarily.
He then gripped the same pipe again and with all his strength,
pulled his weight up from the cold floor and stood up.