No Room for Mercy (42 page)

“
Batir la verdad de el.”
(Beat the truth out of
him.) Carmella ordered her soldiers as she stepped aside and gave
them room to do their job. The young females beat the pilot for
nearly a half hour trying to get him to tell who was behind the
sabotaging of the plane, but he never gave a name.

“
Ese tipo no sabe nada, jefe.”
(That guy knows
nothing, boss.) one of the women said. “
Hicimos
todo lo que no
cortamos
los cojones.”
(We did
everything but cut off his balls.)

“
Puede caminar?”
(Can he
walk?) Carmella asked as she lit a blunt and toke several long tokes.

“
Ambas piernas
y
brazos están rotos. Y la bala que puso en él no está
ayudando a nadie.”
(Both legs and arms are broken.
And the bullet you put in him isn’t helping none.)

“
Entonces es
inútil
.”
(Then he’s useless.) Carmella sighed as she eased up from the
front seat of her car and walked over to the pilot, where she pulled
her gun again and pointed it at the man’s skull.

The pilot was now lying motionless in the dirt looking up at the sky,
blood covering his face with several limbs bent in awkward
directions. He said nothing as he closed his eyes. A brief pop that
sounded like a sledge hammer slamming into the side of a steel
dumpster was heard and it was all over for the officer gone bad.
Carmella had let off one bullet that crashed into the man’s
face and cracked the top of his skull.

“
Tenemos que
salir
de la ciudad ahora si vamos a estar por delante de la expedición
.”
(We have to leave town now if we’re going to stay ahead of the
shipment.) Carmella said lowly as she parted her way through her
girls and returned to her Jaguar.

Carmella had a lot on her mind as she was being driven back to the
tomato plant. Someone was after her and she knew it. She had to speak
with DeAngelo in person before she left town to inform him of the new
arrangement and she also had to check on her mother before she headed
back north. When she reached the factory, DeAngelo was on the dock
overseeing the cargo being loaded. He eyed Carmella seriously as she
approached. “Thought you were leaving, Carmella,” he said
in wonderment.

“Someone has tampered with the plane. I asked you was
everything okay here and you said it was.” Carmella replied in
frustration as she stood before DeAngelo.

DeAngelo took a couple of steps back. “Everything was fine,
boss. When I talked to the pilot he said he was going to go to bed
inside the plane.”

“He left last night and went into town drinking and whoring so
I had to kill him. Send someone to cut up his body and bury it
afterwards. I have to drive to Brownsville and catch a flight from
there to Houston now. Move this load as soon as possible. We’re
falling behind,” Carmella remarked angrily as she turned and
walked away.

“You’re leavin’ now, boss?” DeAngelo asked.

“We’ll fuel one last time and I’ll be on my way.”

“Let me know when you’re on your way out. I’ll have
the driver of the truck trail you out.”

“Si.” Carmella replied as she trotted back over to her
Jaguar and hopped in the back seat.

*******

“Green light,” Doss said as he sat in the driver’s
seat beside Bay with Jay-D in the backseat.

Bay pulled down her ski-mask and flipped out her DEA badge and Doss
and Jay-D did the same. Junior, Dawk and a soldier out the crew
followed Bay’s lead in their ride, while Malik and three more
soldiers from Fox Park brought up the rear. The three black GMC
Suburbans with dark tint pulled into the far right lane just as their
contacts had instructed and a U.S. Border Patrol agent waved them
forward just as the sun began to set.

Doss pulled forward and flashed his DEA badge and the agent eyed him
for a few seconds. “Inside left lane,” he said calmly as
Jay-D handed him a silk bag stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

The caravan moved forward and approached the inside left lane and a
Mexican border agent flagged them down. “You here for the green
light?”

Doss responded by handing the man the second silk bag of money.
“You’re looking for three black Jaguars riding north.
That is your marks. I’ll delay as many people as I can. Far
right lane when you return. Good luck,” the Mexican border
agent said as he backed away from the SUV.

Doss nodded and rode off into Mexico, headed down a lonely desert
road as the sun began to dip behind the mountains in the far off
distance to the west.

*******

Carmella’s caravan had just turned onto the highway leading up
to Brownsville. Carmella’s driver, who wore a dark pair of
sunshades with her head covered in a black headscarf, was listening
to Bob Dylan’s song
Knocking on Heaven’s Door
as
she wheeled the car down the highway. The crew’s eighteen
wheeler, loaded up one hundred and forty-four kilograms of cocaine
was only minutes behind, the driver’s headlights able to be
seen a short distance back as he tailed Carmella and her caravan,
counting on them for protection all the way up to the border.

“Call the airport in Brownsville and see what flights they have
going to Houston in the morning.” Carmella said aloud to one of
her soldiers.

“Si, boss,” the young woman replied as she turned down
the radio and got on her phone.

Carmella and her crew of eight were riding deep underneath the
moonlit sky. Armed with AK-47s and plenty of wine to drink and weed
to smoke along the way, each of Carmella’s crew members’
minds were drifting off into the future. It had been a while since
they’d had traveled with her to the border because she’d
always flown out of the city, but this trip had been made dozens of
times with the driver of the tractor trailer, and each time, it went
like butter.

Carmella’s crew was on short notice so they wouldn’t be
able to cross over with her on this run. The plan was to escort
Carmella to the border and she would take a Jaguar and enter America
on her own. The driver of the tractor trailer would pick up the car
and drive it back to Valle Hermoso once he’d dropped off his
trailer at the port of entry. No one riding in the caravan had a
clue, however, that they were headed into the teeth of a cataclysm
that would play out in the middle of the desert, miles from nowhere
and under the silvery darkness of a starry, full moon-lit night.

The four-lane road traveled was a lonely one with the occasional
headlights from a single car on the opposite side headed south
towards Valle Hermoso and the silhouettes lone coyotes scurrying
across the highway and disappearing into the night. Music was
thumping from the cars as they sped north armed to the teeth, but
under a false sense of security nonetheless. Death was in the air,
but as far as Carmella’s crew from Mexico was concerned, it was
just another routine run to the border with their boss.

“I need to see how Pepper is doing and call my Ma-Ma also.”
Carmella said to no one in particular as she grabbed her cell phone.

*******

Pepper was sitting in the window of the second floor of the trap
house on Ann Avenue watching Toodie and several females as they stood
out on the sidewalk in a small circle. The weather was crisp and a
little cool as the sun dipped beneath the horizon in Saint Louis.
Pepper hated sleeping at the trap house. The place was neat and all,
she ate good and had a little money now, but the place was boring.
All she ever did was sell drugs and watch TV. If it weren’t for
Carmella and Simone Cortez, Pepper would’ve been run away. She
had stacks of money, her weekly payouts for working the set, but she
could never enjoy the money because Toodie wouldn’t let her
leave her sight.

Pepper looked over to the TV and got up and grabbed her sack of weed
off the dresser and sat down on the bed and began rolling a blunt
when her phone vibrated. Her eyes lit up when she saw Carmella’s
name flash across the screen. “Hola!”

“Hello, Peppi what it is?” Carmella smiled as she choked
off the weed she was smoking.

“When you coming back here?”

“In a couple of days. How’s everything?”

“Boring. I wanna go shopping, but Toodie won’t take me
and she won’t let me leave.”

“Won’t let you leave?”

“Yeah.”

“If you wanna go somewhere you gonna have to get around on your
own. You can catch a cab anywhere you want to go, Peppi. You have
money?”

“A lot of money. I don’t like sleeping here. Somebody
might take my money.”

“Nobody on Ann Avenue will fuck with you. Where’s
Simone?” Carmella asked while being driven down the dark and
lonely highway.

“Downstairs watching TV.”

“Get her take you to the mall tomorrow, okay? And when I get
back we’ll take us a trip to New York. Would you like that?”

“I would love to go to New York! Can Simone come with us?”

“If you want, baby. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. I feel better now, too.”

“Good. I’m going to hang up and text call my Ma-Ma, okay?
We’ll talk again tomorrow. Call me when you’re ready to
go to the mall. I’ll tell you where to go and get Toodie off
your ass.”

“Yes, ma’am. Bye.”

“Bye, baby,” Carmella said just before she let out a
short gasp that was heard by Pepper.

“Bye,” Pepper responded somewhat apprehensively. “You
okay,” she then asked.

Carmella’s eyes had caught sight of something that gave her an
ominous feeling just before she ended the call. She picked up her
gold-plated .50 caliber and tapped her soldier sitting in the
passenger seat. The female turned around and saw her boss nod her
head towards three sets of headlights approaching from the opposite
direction riding in close proximity.

“
Quién es?”
(
Who’s
that?) Carmella asked anxiously as her heart rate began to
accelerate.

Carmella’s soldier righted herself in the seat and leaned
forward and she and Carmella watched as the cars approached. “
Mirar
como el de la ley. Qué están hacienda?”
(
Look
like the law. What are they doing?) the young woman asked in
confusion as she grabbed her AK-47 and racked it.

At that moment Carmella’s driver’s cell phone vibrated
and she answered. “Hola?”

“
Compruebe los jeeps de pasando por el otro lado.”
(
Check
those jeeps out passing by on the other side.) the driver in the lead
car said.

Carmella’s crew was waking up to the fact that danger was
lurking about as the SUVs approached, but they weren’t certain.
Heads were turning, blunts were being discarded and semi-automatics
were being locked and loaded. Law or not, Carmella’s crew was
preparing to battle.

“Carmella, you there?” Pepper asked.

“I’m here, Peppi. Hold on, baby.”

Carmella sat her phone down and eyed the three sets of headlights
headed her way from the opposite direction. The dark tinted Suburbans
cruised by and Carmella swore she saw DEA emblems on each of the
vehicles’ driver side doors. She bowed her head briefly when
she saw the SUVs’ brake lights light up as all three vehicles
made U-turns in the middle of the road, prompting her to pick up her
phone.

“I love you, Peppi.” Carmella said lowly.

“Okay,” Pepper responded.

“I’m sorry about your mother, okay? Be good to your
friends.” Carmella said before she ended the call and racked
her gun.

Pepper removed the phone from her ear and stared at it. She’d
never heard Carmella speak in this manner—ever. She placed the
phone back to her ear and asked, “You okay? I love you too,
Carmella. I forgive you for killing my mother.”

Carmella didn’t hear Pepper’s reply because she’d
ended the call. She was too busy watching the headlights on the SUVs
as they sped past her tractor trailer, making a beeline for her
caravan with their blue lights flashing. Carmella then began thinking
about the events that had led up to this moment and two things stuck
out in her mind: her plane was sabotaged, thereby preventing her from
flying out of harm’s way, and DeAngelo kept asking her when was
she leaving for America and he’d wanted a signal.

“
Uno de mis propias. Me fuckin' DeAngelo!”
(
One
of my own set me up. That fuckin’ DeAngelo!) Carmella said in
disbelief as she turned around and slumped down in her seat as her
car continued traveling up the road towards the U.S. border.

The hit in Saint Charles then quickly ran through Carmella’s
mind and she now believed she was facing the same maneuver. “
Son
American! No rendirse! Matarlos a todos!”
(
They’re
American! No surrendering! Kill them all!) she yelled as her caravan
readied themselves for a gun fight.

The female in the front passenger seat of Carmella’s ride let
the window down and extended the top half of her body out the side of
the car and opened fire with her AK-47 on the lead car trailing
Carmella’s vehicle.

Malik swerved the jeep just as the passenger side window shattered
and one of his men screamed aloud. When he slowed, Dawk sped past him
and Jay-D rose up through the sunroof and opened fire on Carmella’s
car with an M-16. The left rear tire exploded and the trunk popped
open on the Jaguar as the driver skidded out of control, veering over
into the oncoming lane and running off the opposite side of the
highway into the desert sand.

Seeing their boss’s car swerve off the road and come to a halt,
the two remaining cars in Carmella’s caravan stopped in the
middle of the highway and six females welding AK-47s hopped out of
their rides and opened fire under the silvery night sky, determined
to take it to whoever it was that dared to impede their venture onto
American soil with a tractor trailer loaded down with kilograms of
uncut Colombian white powder.