A Knife in the Chest

by Michael Douglas Carlin

A few days later, Lobo is on the ground grappling with a vaquero. Lobo has the vaquero’s arms pulled back and the man’s face is in the dirt. Lobo, “easy now, Cabron, I’m gunna remember this later and if I get my pretty face cut up, it won’t go good for you.”

Angel has his gun drawn and looks like he is going to shoot through Lobo to kill the man. Thinking better of it he comes up and pistol whips the vaquero in the head. Blood is everywhere but the blow did the trick. The man is out like a light.

“Angel, are you turning over a new leaf? I thought you would kill him.”

“Naugh, este, normally I would have just shot him right through you…but with the new Comandante coming in I didn’t want to have to explain why we are two men short.”

Lobo is waiting to see if this is a joke, but it is no joke so he is back to business, “what was he trying to say?”

La Tortuga, “something about his shirt pocket.”

“I won’t let him go for less than ten grand. He can’t have that in his shirt pocket.”

“Maybe he thought we could take credit cards.” The man has been handcuffed and is still bleeding. Lobo reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a decal with the familiar insignia of the Bengal tiger. “I guess he didn’t have time to put it on his van.”

“How much you want to get from him?”

“That was before I knew he was untouchable. I guess we will have to get our money from them.” La Tortuga looks over where there are three men in the back seat of the other car. They are stuffed in there and on top of the hood are a few guns, and a hundred small packages of what appear to be drugs. The prisoners are watching the Federales “Angel’s worried about the new Comondante, I don’t want Hector Garcia Salazar on my ass.”

“You mean you don’t want his tiger on your ass.”

“No shit, huh, I’ll never get used to seeing him walk around with a full grown tiger in Downtown Juarez.”

La Tortuga is looking at the sticker, “I have never seen one of these that isn’t attached to a windshield. Who could blame us for taking him down? And this sticker might come in handy someday soon.”

Angel nods in approval as he unhand cuffs the Vaquero and rolls him over. With a smooth movement he stabs him in the chest.

“I think those guys saw you kill him.”

“That was the point. We have had an offer of fifteen to let all three go. How much will they offer now?”

“I say fifty minimum.”

“Minimum! Seventy-five or a hundred and we make them give us the money by dawn.”

“Este, we can’t let them all go. We need something for the newspapers.”

“With the weight in the van we have a few hundred kilos for the newspapers. We just find someone to attach to the drugs and we have a housewarming gift for the new Comandante.”

The three cars drive off. All three prisoners are in the back of a single car driving in the middle. The van has been left with the dead Vaquero. There is also a pick-up nearby that belonged to the three prisoners but there is nothing in the bed, it has all been removed and packed in the other cars.

In the early morning the three cars pull up in front of a small Juarez cafe. The three men get out, no one else is around and the three prisoners are no longer in the cars.

La Tortuga, “not a bad night’s work!”

Lobo, “a hundred-seventy-five in cash and the packages.”

Angel, “And you were going to settle for fifteen. Funny how the more real they feel it is; the more cash they seem to be able to get their hands on.”

“The blade of a knife in the chest of a man brings a whole lot of reality to the situation.”

“Oh, that? My bad! But just in case that was a mistake let’s sit on this for a day or two and listen to what we hear from Salazar’s Exotic Zoo. Nothing, so far, has happened that we can’t fix with drugs and money.”

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