SB: Chapter 2 - Dead Man Walking (Part I of II)
Title: Chapter 2 - Dead Man Walking
Author: das_mervin and Mrs. Hyde
Word Count: 8,055
Summary: A battle-torn but alive Agent Sands covers his ass and also makes an unpleasant discovery.
CHAPTER 2 - DEAD MAN WALKING
PART I
Agent Sands-or, rather, by this point, former Agent Sands-was in a state of high pissivity. His kid had just left, still babbling rapidly in Spanish even as he was going out the door, telling him that he’d be back in the morning, bright and early, and that he’d put everything away in its proper place, and he’d put the aspirin on the coffee table in front of him. Sands was already considering taking two now, because his legs were aching, his arm was somewhat stiff, and his eyes-
Sands drew in a sharp breath through his nose. His eyes. His goddamn motherfucking eyes.
They were his grandfather’s eyes-or so he’d been told, anyway. He’d never actually met his grandfather-his namesake, no less-because the man had died a year before Sands had graced the world with his illustrious presence. He’d seen pictures, of course, but pictures could never quite capture the reality, and they’d left his grandfather’s eyes flat and dull, not bright and wet as they’d have been in life. His mother had often told him how handsome they made him look, but he hadn’t needed her to tell him that-he’d always known he was dead sexy. He knew girls had mooned over them, anyway; he’d more than once overheard whispered and giggled conversations about Jeff’s just dreamy eyes, and had laughed himself silly when he’d heard the wide array of adjectives they’d used to describe them. He’d not really cared about their color or shape or really what they’d looked like at all-what he’d liked was using them. He’d liked being able to look straight through someone until they dropped their gaze. He’d enjoyed being able to unsettle his enemies-and his allies. He’d liked being able to stare down any and all that crossed his path. He’d liked his eyes.
And now they were gone. Dark brown had turned to dark red and then oozed down his face in hot little rivulets that dried into veins of rust, only to be washed away by Nuñez after Chiclet had helped him drag his sorry carcass out of the street and into his “office.”
Sands was still struggling to get used to the damning thought that seemed to echo in the dark space between his ears every morning when he woke up: I am blind. He despised how that sounded. I am blind…it sounded so weak, so helpless, so terribly defeated. He hated that blindness-his personal blindness-was nothing like what he’d heard he would be like. He’d heard of dark brown, vast expanses of black, strange lights-but in all of those descriptions of blindness, there was at least something there. Here was simply nothing. And though he’d rather be diddled with a broom handle than admit it, that endless, all-encompassing nothing scared him shitless every time he woke up in the morning. It only lasted a few seconds, but that deep, sickening fear made him feel even weaker than actually being blind did.
But he hated being blind more than thinking about it. Getting used to the layout of the house had been a real PITA. His shins were still bruised from where he barked them on the coffee table, his hand had a cut across the palm from grabbing a knife by the blade by mistake, and he still spilled his drinks more often than not. Putting things away in their exact spot was a very trying chore (particularly since he’d never really had to clean up after himself in his life), he still had to ask that damned kid where certain things were, and he knew he looked like Death chewin’ on a cracker even if he couldn’t see it. He’d nearly fallen on his keister twice already trying to get out of the shower-something he did as little as possible because he hated the way the water felt when it pooled in his empty sockets.
Yes. The empty sockets. He hated them most of all. And while he wasn’t exactly fond of what he imagined he now looked like, those two empty holes that were never uncovered except when he occasionally bathed, the way they looked or even the way they felt wasn’t why he hated them-he hated them because they were a fucking signature. Oh yes-he knew who’d suggested this. Barillo was sick, and not only had he most assuredly passed that charming attribute in spades to his precious, pretty little daughter, but the little chip had actually managed to outdo the old block. This had her name written all over it (well, whatever her name was-Susana Ajedrez had been a fake for all he knew). Her gift to dearest Daddy. Her revenge for putting up with him for a full year and a half. Her little victory dance for being the one who had finally pulled the wool over the eyes of Agent Sands.
And did she ever.
He realized he had no idea what time it was-and knew that he really wouldn’t ever know again, not really. He was still getting used to that, too. What he thought he was having the most trouble getting used to was falling asleep-he wondered if he would ever just fall asleep in his chair again, because falling asleep with no eyes was fracking weird, and sometimes hard to do when he couldn’t stop thinking about a particular thought or problem. No eyelids to close, and good golly Miss Molly, but he hated that, too-no, it wasn’t enough that they’d put his eyes out, no, they’d had to take his fucking eyelids, too, so there was absolutely no possible way to hide his blindness without sunglasses or a blindfold. The ingrained urge to blink made those holes itch something fierce, but he still didn’t like putting his fingers inside of them and didn’t think he ever would, so he’d just sit and try not to think about it, which, of course, was impossible and would only make it get worse until he felt like he was about to go out of his mind.
Jesus Christ, this sucked.
He absently rubbed his right leg-it tended to hurt more than the left. Nuñez (God rest his soul) had told him that the bullet had hit the bone, and that he’d spent a good twenty minutes rooting around in there as he tried to dig it out of his leg. “Tried” being the key word-because that bullet was still in there and making itself known. Loudly. Before Nuñez had managed to get it, Sands’s femoral had decided to go a gusher and had effectively ended the search. The old chode had decided to cut his losses (Sands being in no position to give his opinion) and had just stitched him back up with the slug still inside. He was looking forward to his next opportunity to walk through an airport metal detector with a sort of grim amusement-that was going to be fun.
He wanted his aspirin (a problem, because he didn’t want to get up). His right leg hurt, and his left leg wasn’t much better. Nuñez’s somewhat less than professional job of patching him up had merely been the final step in a series of extremely off-pissing events that had effectively ensured that, later in life, he was going to be hobbling wherever he went. Then he’d have to start walking with a cane. But he’d be damned if it was going to be a white one.
He scratched at the still-tender place on his thigh. It hurt, dammit. It hurt more now that it had when he’d been shot. Or if it hadn’t, at least he didn’t really remember it. Truth be told, he didn’t really remember too much of that day-nothing in sequence anyway, and no memory that didn’t either seem like it had cheesecloth over it or was being viewed as a series of random clips from a Pink Floyd video. He’d been well and truly out of it from the moment that whore had plopped her smug little ass down in front of him.
First he’d been ramped up on whatever Guevara had pumped him full of to get him unconscious and down into that basement-that had made him feel damn trippy, his head lolling on his neck and his body floaty and numb. But it hadn’t been nearly enough to dull the pain of that drill. God, that had been agony-perhaps the worst he’d ever felt in his life, and he suspected it was in no small part because of the horrible awareness of what was happening to him. He’d almost passed out, but then that bitch had sidled up to him, all friendly-like, and he remembered the way she’d purred in his ear, saying it’d be such a crime for him not to be able to enjoy the Day of the Dead, and there had been the tiny sting of another needle in his neck, and the pain had faded, diminished into a dull but very steady throbbing and leaving him feeling as though his head was wrapped in cotton. She’d doped him up, worked him over with a power tool, and then shot him full of painkillers before shoving him out on the streets, his eyes and his control completely gone.
He’d known then that he was going to kill her. He was going to find a way. He didn’t care what happened to him, didn’t care how many people he’d have to waste to get to her, but he was going to kill her.
They’d had a man on the street, waiting to kill him where he stood after they’d thrown him out, and he knew it-a CIA agent shot in the streets in the middle of a coup that he’d been assigned to prevent would not have drawn any real suspicion-perhaps just a cursory inquiry at best, and then a neat little stamp on his now-defunct file back in the States. But for the boy-he’d heard that goddamned bell, its tinny tinkle echoing cheerfully through the streets, and never before had there been a more beautiful sound. And then there he was, a warm, solid little presence for him to hang on to (and goddammit if it didn’t chap his caboose something awful that he’d needed such a thing, but somehow when it was his kid, he could deal with it), someone to lead him to where he needed to be.
And he’d done as he asked. He better have, for that wad of cash he’d given him. Although looking back, Sands really didn’t know why he’d gone where he had. Really the only thought in his head was that he had to get that fucking bitch, he had to get to Barillo’s darling little chess-playing flower, and when he did he was going to show her one last rollickin’ good time.
And he had.
And as much as he hated to admit it, to even think about it, after he heard her fall dead on the pavement, his mission over, his task complete, he’d been just about ready to throw in the towel.
He never quit, goddammit-he was Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, and when he walked the streets, kings and queens stepped aside.
But that kid didn’t. That kid came back.
He still really had no idea why that kid stayed with him, even after he’d been given the money. He could’ve taken it and run, he supposed (and he probably would have had to shoot the little crotch-dropping if he had) but he didn’t-he stuck around after having a gun to his head and walking him straight into the middle of an urban warzone, and then he had come back to find him as he lay in the streets, eyes gone, shot three times, and the drugs very slowly starting to fade from his system.
Came back-that stupid kid always came back. And not just on the Day of the Dead, either-the little punk had spent the entire time with Sands as he’d slowly recuperated at Nuñez’s, popping in and out, reporting any and all suspicious activity and keeping a wary eye (goddammit) on Nuñez-Sands knew that, if he got wind of the CIA looking for him (oh, and they would be-there was only so much they could forgive, and he’d dicked around with them too many times already), Nuñez would gladly turn on him for a nice case of American bills. The little snitch.
Well, it didn’t matter anymore. He took care of Nuñez. He should probably take care of that stupid kid, too-he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was-but the truth was that he wouldn’t be anywhere if he didn’t have his kid.
He’d spent three far-too-long months in Nuñez’s odious company. Back-alley doctors were never a pleasant prospect, and that old troll had been a shining example of why it was in one’s best interest to avoid his breed. The place was drippy and damp and smelled like a meat-packing plant that specialized in pickled pigs’ feet marinated in tequila, and Sands could hear the rats in the walls. Nuñez actually smelled worse than his charming little abode, and Sands did all that he could to avoid him, despite their close quarters. He spent those early days riding high on a battery of Nuñez’s black market drugs that he kept stashed in various hiding places.
He hadn’t liked that one bit, and once he’d gotten his bearings and was sober enough to talk, he told him to get that shit away from him. Nuñez had protested that the only alternative was pain, but Sands told him to cram it where the sun don’t shine and leave him alone.
The old fart hadn’t been lying. The first few nights without painkillers had been torture. But there was a remarkable clarity inside his pain, a sharpness of thought that he’d been missing since the Day of the Dead. It was then, as he’d lain awake, biting his hand in the night to keep silent, that he’d begun to map out his next move.
He spent his days willing himself to heal, forcing himself to relearn how to walk in the dank little hole that was both Nuñez’s back room and Sands’s prison, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that he couldn’t see to do it. He’d ended up learning every inch of that room with his hands and his feet and his ears and his nose; the musty walls, the mildewed ceiling, the cracked plaster, the low spot in the floor halfway across from the door, the low-hanging light fixture, the crates in the corner, the drip of the faucet, the scuttle of little rodent feet-all his constant companions in his own personal shroud of night. Chiclet cleared a path in the clutter, and day after day he spent walking the perimeter. Three steps to the cot, seven steps to the window, four steps to the sink, and six to the door. Over and over again. Around he goes, where he stops, nobody knows (oh, but he knew-double zero, Sands. House takes all).
Three months later he’d been able to walk with reasonable speed, run for short bursts, and with his sunglasses on no one could tell that anything was amiss. Now that he was back up on his feet, it was time for him to go under.
He’d ignored Nuñez’s protests, ignored the way his legs had hurt, almost as if he could feel that bullet grinding into his femur, and had most of all ignored the prickling of the holes in his head when he pulled the trigger. After dispatching that particular loose end with a well-placed bullet in the back of the head, he’d limped outside, pulling the hat Chiclet had bought him lower, itching absently at the rather pathetic scruff of a beard he’d somehow managed to acquire over those three months, and had waited patiently on the corner for that kid to come wheeling up in what he knew would be his red and black Studebaker-what a pisser that he’d had to ditch it afterwards. He’d liked that car-the low thrum of the motor had always appealed to him. A CIA agent in his natural habitat, and all.
And while he waited, the kid had come.
Yeah…she hadn’t counted on that kid. Neither had he, really. That kid was damned useful.
He followed orders, did what he was told, and hardly ever questioned anything-just what he looked for in a stooge (he’d obviously been lax in his screening procedure when he’d picked up Cucuy). The kid was excellent at running around on those little legs of his, and had been going all over the city as Sands’s errand boy for the past three months. Almost anything he’d needed, Chiclet had run off and fetched, from another pack of cigarettes to a house.
Yes, it had been Chiclet who’d scouted out this particular hole-in-the-wall and eventually bought it for him. He told the kid that he’d needed a place to hide. It had to be cheap, out of the way, inconspicuous, isolated, and most importantly, the kind of place that one Agent Sands wouldn’t be caught dead in. The little rug monkey had found the perfect place with an unerring speed that unnerved Sands, truth be told-he didn’t like anyone reading his mind like that. He’d dug up some dump on an all but deserted street in the north end of town, with the added consideration that it wasn’t too far from where he lived and went to school, so that he could come help Sands whenever he needed to. His assumption that he would be sticking with him had so rattled Sands that he’d okayed the arrangement before realizing that his assent was in and of itself a tacit admission that he wanted the kid there.
And he was there-he was always there. He’d drop by in the mornings on his way to school, and once it let out he’d be back with Sands until he went home to sleep. The kid ferreted out the owner of the rattrap he’d found for Sands, played real estate agent by dashing back the offers and counter offers between Sands and whoever was selling (which just made him mad again-if he hadn’t been laid up, his gun would have negotiated for him), withdrawn Sands’s money from one of his dummy accounts to pay for it, shuttled the forms back and forth, and even went so far as to help Sands sign the fucking things, his small, chubby-fingered hand gripping Sands’s own and placing the tip of the pen on the dotted line. He hadn’t liked it, but what else could he do?
And that evening, after he’d shot Nuñez and finally up and left that place on his own two feet, he discovered Chiclet had yet again done what had been ordered to do-he’d learned to drive. Sands had sat in the passenger seat, something he hadn’t done for a very long time, while little tiny Chiclet, sitting on the phonebook in the driver’s seat, had thrown the car into gear and driven him quickly to his new locale (quicker than he was comfortable with, truth be told-who taught that little shit to drive, anyway? Evel Kinevel?)-a rotting, miserable little hovel that would serve him well. It was everything he’d asked: isolated, alone, nothing he would have ever stayed in before-and still was close enough to where Chiclet lived so that the kid could come pedaling over to run errands and collect his payment for services. Chiclet had even moved him in (along with the armchair that he’d liberated from Nuñez’s place), telling him that he’d had two of his kid brothers help him clean the place first and move in some furniture that he’d bought on the side.
That kid. He’d called him Chicle Boy-or “little shit” when he was pissed off-for three weeks until he’d finally realized that he didn’t even know the kid’s name. He’d finally gotten around to asking, and he’d received the bright and cheerful answer of Jesús Santiago. After sending some choice curses up to God and his oh-so-subtle sense of irony, he’d continued to call him Chicle Boy (later shortened to just “Chiclet,” because he hated Spanish and spoke it as little as possible), because there was no way in hell that he was going to call that kid Jesus.
And so it had been for three weeks, him spending most of his time sitting in his newly acquired armchair, wanting very much to drink a whole lot of something very strong but knowing better than to do so while he was taking any kind of painkillers (particularly not whatever street drugs to which he’d helped himself from Nuñez’s pharmacy), his brand new kid fussing over him and being a generally helpful nuisance, with absolutely nothing better to do than sit and stew and brood over how he’d gotten here in the first place.
It wasn’t funny. He’d always been able to find some kind of humor in any situation, even when the bitch had been gloating over him in that basement, but this one had eluded him. This wasn’t fucking funny. Three months ago, where had he been? He’d been screwing an exceptionally sexy woman who also happened to be exceptionally useful, and then he’d been just about to screw Mexico itself, right up the old leather cheerio, and come out of it smelling like a rose-and incidentally be twenty-million pesos richer. Sure, it wasn’t the American dollar, but what with the exchange rate what it was, it would’ve come pretty close to two million cool ones-not something he was averse to. Oh, the trouble he could have gotten up to with that…but what did it matter, anyway? It was gone now, seized by the still very much alive El Presidente (that slippery son of a bitch) or rotting away in the hands of the lucky turds who’d managed to find it in all the confusion.
He resisted the urge to rub his eyes (what eyes, Sands?) for the fifty-bazillionth time. He truly hated thinking about what he didn’t have-be it eyes, money, or a good stiff drink. The money itself wasn’t really even an issue-it wasn’t as if he actually needed it. He had twelve separate accounts under twelve separate names spread throughout two separate countries, each earning interest, each having regular deposits made, from either the government, dear old Dad, or his own on-the-job acquisitions, and each started in American currency (all made just in case something like this happened-dear God, he hadn’t actually thought he’d ever need them). He was currently tapping the Mark Andrews account, one of his bigger ones, and that was the name that he was using while he was hiding out. He’d already made withdrawals from all of them (or rather, sent Chiclet to do it), and now had the cash stored all over the house.
When you came right down to it, by the standards of this crapper of a country, he was loaded. So he’d not been depending on those two million pesos for anything-he’d just wanted it. Wanted it very badly. The CIA didn’t pay him anything close to what he felt he earned, when he and he alone (well, he and his cell phone) stood between America and their mortal enemy Mexico. He’d figured they owed it to him.
Well, he knew they didn’t feel they owed him a bucket of warm spit, especially so after this fiasco. That was why he was still here, rotting away in this shithole. It didn’t take a brain-surgeon to realize that there was no way he could leave Culiacán, and it wasn’t just because he couldn’t walk. It was because the high and mighty CIA were looking for him, and he knew it-but, if he knew them (and he did), they would have assumed that he’d cut and run. And he would have that first day, if he had been able to fucking see to do it. But in the face of his obvious disadvantage (it was not a fucking handicap, goddammit), as he had lain up in the wee hours of the morning in the waking nightmare of his healing wounds, he realized that staying here was his best option.
Blind or not, he still knew this town like the back of his hand, knew the people, and knew how to get things done. And the CIA would never suspect him to stay in the city, hiding in plain sight at the very location of his own monumental screwing-over. And the same went for what remained of the cartel, and probably every other enemy he’d managed to make for himself in his years of service (and brother, were there a lot of those). But it wouldn’t matter-there were only two people that even knew he was still alive at all, still alive and unable to leave. One was Chiclet. The other was Ramirez-and Ramirez wouldn’t squeal. If the higher-ups found out the extent of his involvement, the FBI and CIA would come down on him like a ton of bricks, no matter if he’d taken out Barillo.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pang in his right thigh. He hissed, hating that-the feel of that slug always gave him the gruesome image of a steam-powered metal mole with grinding gears for teeth, something out of a bad fifties drive-in movie, burrowing deeper and deeper into his flesh and bone. The little SOB just liked to remind him that it was there, lodged happily and probably permanently in his leg. That wasn’t funny, either.
Finally giving in, he slowly and painfully leaned forward, easing himself to the edge of his chair and pawing gingerly around on the tabletop. His fingers came in contact with a little rattling bottle; he brushed his thumb across the lid, feeling the three notches Chiclet had made in it with his penknife, and knowing it was his aspirin (just where Chiclet had said it would be). Twisting the cap off, he dry-swallowed two before setting the bottle back down and easing back into the sunken well of his chair again, rubbing absently at the fresh, nasty scar he could feel even through his jeans.
Scars-he’d had some scars already, before this particular snafu. He’d been attacked by a drunk with a knife on one mission down in Columbia, he’d been shot a few times, and Ramona had liked to bite (although to be fair, he’d paid her back with interest for those teeth marks). These, though, were not going to be pretty. After all of his previous scuffles, he’d gone straight to a doctor-a competent one. But this time…he’d been wound up and wired on drugs, feeling the pain but not feeling it, adrenaline, panic, and complete loss of any idea where he was and where he was going keeping him up and on his feet and undoubtedly making things worse. His wounds had been ripped open further by his restless movement, the one in his left leg particularly nasty and bleeding all over the place, since that bullet had left both an entrance and exit wound-but, compared to the others, it was at least a clean wound. His arm had been a mess afterwards, too, and Nuñez had once again gone prospecting like a deranged proctologist, but that bullet he’d managed to extract-after making a terrific mess of things, of course. At least it wasn’t as bad as his leg. So, back alley surgery, several infections (probably caused by the fact that Nuñez had used tequila for a disinfectant), and a relapse later, he knew he was going to have some very ugly marks on him.
He didn’t want to think about the most obvious of those marks. Not right now-he wasn’t in the mood. They were itchy enough.
Author’s Note: Homage to Jim Henson and George Thorogood.
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Author: das_mervin and Mrs. Hyde
Word Count: 8,055
Summary: A battle-torn but alive Agent Sands covers his ass and also makes an unpleasant discovery.
CHAPTER 2 - DEAD MAN WALKING
PART I
Agent Sands-or, rather, by this point, former Agent Sands-was in a state of high pissivity. His kid had just left, still babbling rapidly in Spanish even as he was going out the door, telling him that he’d be back in the morning, bright and early, and that he’d put everything away in its proper place, and he’d put the aspirin on the coffee table in front of him. Sands was already considering taking two now, because his legs were aching, his arm was somewhat stiff, and his eyes-
Sands drew in a sharp breath through his nose. His eyes. His goddamn motherfucking eyes.
They were his grandfather’s eyes-or so he’d been told, anyway. He’d never actually met his grandfather-his namesake, no less-because the man had died a year before Sands had graced the world with his illustrious presence. He’d seen pictures, of course, but pictures could never quite capture the reality, and they’d left his grandfather’s eyes flat and dull, not bright and wet as they’d have been in life. His mother had often told him how handsome they made him look, but he hadn’t needed her to tell him that-he’d always known he was dead sexy. He knew girls had mooned over them, anyway; he’d more than once overheard whispered and giggled conversations about Jeff’s just dreamy eyes, and had laughed himself silly when he’d heard the wide array of adjectives they’d used to describe them. He’d not really cared about their color or shape or really what they’d looked like at all-what he’d liked was using them. He’d liked being able to look straight through someone until they dropped their gaze. He’d enjoyed being able to unsettle his enemies-and his allies. He’d liked being able to stare down any and all that crossed his path. He’d liked his eyes.
And now they were gone. Dark brown had turned to dark red and then oozed down his face in hot little rivulets that dried into veins of rust, only to be washed away by Nuñez after Chiclet had helped him drag his sorry carcass out of the street and into his “office.”
Sands was still struggling to get used to the damning thought that seemed to echo in the dark space between his ears every morning when he woke up: I am blind. He despised how that sounded. I am blind…it sounded so weak, so helpless, so terribly defeated. He hated that blindness-his personal blindness-was nothing like what he’d heard he would be like. He’d heard of dark brown, vast expanses of black, strange lights-but in all of those descriptions of blindness, there was at least something there. Here was simply nothing. And though he’d rather be diddled with a broom handle than admit it, that endless, all-encompassing nothing scared him shitless every time he woke up in the morning. It only lasted a few seconds, but that deep, sickening fear made him feel even weaker than actually being blind did.
But he hated being blind more than thinking about it. Getting used to the layout of the house had been a real PITA. His shins were still bruised from where he barked them on the coffee table, his hand had a cut across the palm from grabbing a knife by the blade by mistake, and he still spilled his drinks more often than not. Putting things away in their exact spot was a very trying chore (particularly since he’d never really had to clean up after himself in his life), he still had to ask that damned kid where certain things were, and he knew he looked like Death chewin’ on a cracker even if he couldn’t see it. He’d nearly fallen on his keister twice already trying to get out of the shower-something he did as little as possible because he hated the way the water felt when it pooled in his empty sockets.
Yes. The empty sockets. He hated them most of all. And while he wasn’t exactly fond of what he imagined he now looked like, those two empty holes that were never uncovered except when he occasionally bathed, the way they looked or even the way they felt wasn’t why he hated them-he hated them because they were a fucking signature. Oh yes-he knew who’d suggested this. Barillo was sick, and not only had he most assuredly passed that charming attribute in spades to his precious, pretty little daughter, but the little chip had actually managed to outdo the old block. This had her name written all over it (well, whatever her name was-Susana Ajedrez had been a fake for all he knew). Her gift to dearest Daddy. Her revenge for putting up with him for a full year and a half. Her little victory dance for being the one who had finally pulled the wool over the eyes of Agent Sands.
And did she ever.
He realized he had no idea what time it was-and knew that he really wouldn’t ever know again, not really. He was still getting used to that, too. What he thought he was having the most trouble getting used to was falling asleep-he wondered if he would ever just fall asleep in his chair again, because falling asleep with no eyes was fracking weird, and sometimes hard to do when he couldn’t stop thinking about a particular thought or problem. No eyelids to close, and good golly Miss Molly, but he hated that, too-no, it wasn’t enough that they’d put his eyes out, no, they’d had to take his fucking eyelids, too, so there was absolutely no possible way to hide his blindness without sunglasses or a blindfold. The ingrained urge to blink made those holes itch something fierce, but he still didn’t like putting his fingers inside of them and didn’t think he ever would, so he’d just sit and try not to think about it, which, of course, was impossible and would only make it get worse until he felt like he was about to go out of his mind.
Jesus Christ, this sucked.
He absently rubbed his right leg-it tended to hurt more than the left. Nuñez (God rest his soul) had told him that the bullet had hit the bone, and that he’d spent a good twenty minutes rooting around in there as he tried to dig it out of his leg. “Tried” being the key word-because that bullet was still in there and making itself known. Loudly. Before Nuñez had managed to get it, Sands’s femoral had decided to go a gusher and had effectively ended the search. The old chode had decided to cut his losses (Sands being in no position to give his opinion) and had just stitched him back up with the slug still inside. He was looking forward to his next opportunity to walk through an airport metal detector with a sort of grim amusement-that was going to be fun.
He wanted his aspirin (a problem, because he didn’t want to get up). His right leg hurt, and his left leg wasn’t much better. Nuñez’s somewhat less than professional job of patching him up had merely been the final step in a series of extremely off-pissing events that had effectively ensured that, later in life, he was going to be hobbling wherever he went. Then he’d have to start walking with a cane. But he’d be damned if it was going to be a white one.
He scratched at the still-tender place on his thigh. It hurt, dammit. It hurt more now that it had when he’d been shot. Or if it hadn’t, at least he didn’t really remember it. Truth be told, he didn’t really remember too much of that day-nothing in sequence anyway, and no memory that didn’t either seem like it had cheesecloth over it or was being viewed as a series of random clips from a Pink Floyd video. He’d been well and truly out of it from the moment that whore had plopped her smug little ass down in front of him.
First he’d been ramped up on whatever Guevara had pumped him full of to get him unconscious and down into that basement-that had made him feel damn trippy, his head lolling on his neck and his body floaty and numb. But it hadn’t been nearly enough to dull the pain of that drill. God, that had been agony-perhaps the worst he’d ever felt in his life, and he suspected it was in no small part because of the horrible awareness of what was happening to him. He’d almost passed out, but then that bitch had sidled up to him, all friendly-like, and he remembered the way she’d purred in his ear, saying it’d be such a crime for him not to be able to enjoy the Day of the Dead, and there had been the tiny sting of another needle in his neck, and the pain had faded, diminished into a dull but very steady throbbing and leaving him feeling as though his head was wrapped in cotton. She’d doped him up, worked him over with a power tool, and then shot him full of painkillers before shoving him out on the streets, his eyes and his control completely gone.
He’d known then that he was going to kill her. He was going to find a way. He didn’t care what happened to him, didn’t care how many people he’d have to waste to get to her, but he was going to kill her.
They’d had a man on the street, waiting to kill him where he stood after they’d thrown him out, and he knew it-a CIA agent shot in the streets in the middle of a coup that he’d been assigned to prevent would not have drawn any real suspicion-perhaps just a cursory inquiry at best, and then a neat little stamp on his now-defunct file back in the States. But for the boy-he’d heard that goddamned bell, its tinny tinkle echoing cheerfully through the streets, and never before had there been a more beautiful sound. And then there he was, a warm, solid little presence for him to hang on to (and goddammit if it didn’t chap his caboose something awful that he’d needed such a thing, but somehow when it was his kid, he could deal with it), someone to lead him to where he needed to be.
And he’d done as he asked. He better have, for that wad of cash he’d given him. Although looking back, Sands really didn’t know why he’d gone where he had. Really the only thought in his head was that he had to get that fucking bitch, he had to get to Barillo’s darling little chess-playing flower, and when he did he was going to show her one last rollickin’ good time.
And he had.
And as much as he hated to admit it, to even think about it, after he heard her fall dead on the pavement, his mission over, his task complete, he’d been just about ready to throw in the towel.
He never quit, goddammit-he was Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, and when he walked the streets, kings and queens stepped aside.
But that kid didn’t. That kid came back.
He still really had no idea why that kid stayed with him, even after he’d been given the money. He could’ve taken it and run, he supposed (and he probably would have had to shoot the little crotch-dropping if he had) but he didn’t-he stuck around after having a gun to his head and walking him straight into the middle of an urban warzone, and then he had come back to find him as he lay in the streets, eyes gone, shot three times, and the drugs very slowly starting to fade from his system.
Came back-that stupid kid always came back. And not just on the Day of the Dead, either-the little punk had spent the entire time with Sands as he’d slowly recuperated at Nuñez’s, popping in and out, reporting any and all suspicious activity and keeping a wary eye (goddammit) on Nuñez-Sands knew that, if he got wind of the CIA looking for him (oh, and they would be-there was only so much they could forgive, and he’d dicked around with them too many times already), Nuñez would gladly turn on him for a nice case of American bills. The little snitch.
Well, it didn’t matter anymore. He took care of Nuñez. He should probably take care of that stupid kid, too-he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was-but the truth was that he wouldn’t be anywhere if he didn’t have his kid.
He’d spent three far-too-long months in Nuñez’s odious company. Back-alley doctors were never a pleasant prospect, and that old troll had been a shining example of why it was in one’s best interest to avoid his breed. The place was drippy and damp and smelled like a meat-packing plant that specialized in pickled pigs’ feet marinated in tequila, and Sands could hear the rats in the walls. Nuñez actually smelled worse than his charming little abode, and Sands did all that he could to avoid him, despite their close quarters. He spent those early days riding high on a battery of Nuñez’s black market drugs that he kept stashed in various hiding places.
He hadn’t liked that one bit, and once he’d gotten his bearings and was sober enough to talk, he told him to get that shit away from him. Nuñez had protested that the only alternative was pain, but Sands told him to cram it where the sun don’t shine and leave him alone.
The old fart hadn’t been lying. The first few nights without painkillers had been torture. But there was a remarkable clarity inside his pain, a sharpness of thought that he’d been missing since the Day of the Dead. It was then, as he’d lain awake, biting his hand in the night to keep silent, that he’d begun to map out his next move.
He spent his days willing himself to heal, forcing himself to relearn how to walk in the dank little hole that was both Nuñez’s back room and Sands’s prison, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that he couldn’t see to do it. He’d ended up learning every inch of that room with his hands and his feet and his ears and his nose; the musty walls, the mildewed ceiling, the cracked plaster, the low spot in the floor halfway across from the door, the low-hanging light fixture, the crates in the corner, the drip of the faucet, the scuttle of little rodent feet-all his constant companions in his own personal shroud of night. Chiclet cleared a path in the clutter, and day after day he spent walking the perimeter. Three steps to the cot, seven steps to the window, four steps to the sink, and six to the door. Over and over again. Around he goes, where he stops, nobody knows (oh, but he knew-double zero, Sands. House takes all).
Three months later he’d been able to walk with reasonable speed, run for short bursts, and with his sunglasses on no one could tell that anything was amiss. Now that he was back up on his feet, it was time for him to go under.
He’d ignored Nuñez’s protests, ignored the way his legs had hurt, almost as if he could feel that bullet grinding into his femur, and had most of all ignored the prickling of the holes in his head when he pulled the trigger. After dispatching that particular loose end with a well-placed bullet in the back of the head, he’d limped outside, pulling the hat Chiclet had bought him lower, itching absently at the rather pathetic scruff of a beard he’d somehow managed to acquire over those three months, and had waited patiently on the corner for that kid to come wheeling up in what he knew would be his red and black Studebaker-what a pisser that he’d had to ditch it afterwards. He’d liked that car-the low thrum of the motor had always appealed to him. A CIA agent in his natural habitat, and all.
And while he waited, the kid had come.
Yeah…she hadn’t counted on that kid. Neither had he, really. That kid was damned useful.
He followed orders, did what he was told, and hardly ever questioned anything-just what he looked for in a stooge (he’d obviously been lax in his screening procedure when he’d picked up Cucuy). The kid was excellent at running around on those little legs of his, and had been going all over the city as Sands’s errand boy for the past three months. Almost anything he’d needed, Chiclet had run off and fetched, from another pack of cigarettes to a house.
Yes, it had been Chiclet who’d scouted out this particular hole-in-the-wall and eventually bought it for him. He told the kid that he’d needed a place to hide. It had to be cheap, out of the way, inconspicuous, isolated, and most importantly, the kind of place that one Agent Sands wouldn’t be caught dead in. The little rug monkey had found the perfect place with an unerring speed that unnerved Sands, truth be told-he didn’t like anyone reading his mind like that. He’d dug up some dump on an all but deserted street in the north end of town, with the added consideration that it wasn’t too far from where he lived and went to school, so that he could come help Sands whenever he needed to. His assumption that he would be sticking with him had so rattled Sands that he’d okayed the arrangement before realizing that his assent was in and of itself a tacit admission that he wanted the kid there.
And he was there-he was always there. He’d drop by in the mornings on his way to school, and once it let out he’d be back with Sands until he went home to sleep. The kid ferreted out the owner of the rattrap he’d found for Sands, played real estate agent by dashing back the offers and counter offers between Sands and whoever was selling (which just made him mad again-if he hadn’t been laid up, his gun would have negotiated for him), withdrawn Sands’s money from one of his dummy accounts to pay for it, shuttled the forms back and forth, and even went so far as to help Sands sign the fucking things, his small, chubby-fingered hand gripping Sands’s own and placing the tip of the pen on the dotted line. He hadn’t liked it, but what else could he do?
And that evening, after he’d shot Nuñez and finally up and left that place on his own two feet, he discovered Chiclet had yet again done what had been ordered to do-he’d learned to drive. Sands had sat in the passenger seat, something he hadn’t done for a very long time, while little tiny Chiclet, sitting on the phonebook in the driver’s seat, had thrown the car into gear and driven him quickly to his new locale (quicker than he was comfortable with, truth be told-who taught that little shit to drive, anyway? Evel Kinevel?)-a rotting, miserable little hovel that would serve him well. It was everything he’d asked: isolated, alone, nothing he would have ever stayed in before-and still was close enough to where Chiclet lived so that the kid could come pedaling over to run errands and collect his payment for services. Chiclet had even moved him in (along with the armchair that he’d liberated from Nuñez’s place), telling him that he’d had two of his kid brothers help him clean the place first and move in some furniture that he’d bought on the side.
That kid. He’d called him Chicle Boy-or “little shit” when he was pissed off-for three weeks until he’d finally realized that he didn’t even know the kid’s name. He’d finally gotten around to asking, and he’d received the bright and cheerful answer of Jesús Santiago. After sending some choice curses up to God and his oh-so-subtle sense of irony, he’d continued to call him Chicle Boy (later shortened to just “Chiclet,” because he hated Spanish and spoke it as little as possible), because there was no way in hell that he was going to call that kid Jesus.
And so it had been for three weeks, him spending most of his time sitting in his newly acquired armchair, wanting very much to drink a whole lot of something very strong but knowing better than to do so while he was taking any kind of painkillers (particularly not whatever street drugs to which he’d helped himself from Nuñez’s pharmacy), his brand new kid fussing over him and being a generally helpful nuisance, with absolutely nothing better to do than sit and stew and brood over how he’d gotten here in the first place.
It wasn’t funny. He’d always been able to find some kind of humor in any situation, even when the bitch had been gloating over him in that basement, but this one had eluded him. This wasn’t fucking funny. Three months ago, where had he been? He’d been screwing an exceptionally sexy woman who also happened to be exceptionally useful, and then he’d been just about to screw Mexico itself, right up the old leather cheerio, and come out of it smelling like a rose-and incidentally be twenty-million pesos richer. Sure, it wasn’t the American dollar, but what with the exchange rate what it was, it would’ve come pretty close to two million cool ones-not something he was averse to. Oh, the trouble he could have gotten up to with that…but what did it matter, anyway? It was gone now, seized by the still very much alive El Presidente (that slippery son of a bitch) or rotting away in the hands of the lucky turds who’d managed to find it in all the confusion.
He resisted the urge to rub his eyes (what eyes, Sands?) for the fifty-bazillionth time. He truly hated thinking about what he didn’t have-be it eyes, money, or a good stiff drink. The money itself wasn’t really even an issue-it wasn’t as if he actually needed it. He had twelve separate accounts under twelve separate names spread throughout two separate countries, each earning interest, each having regular deposits made, from either the government, dear old Dad, or his own on-the-job acquisitions, and each started in American currency (all made just in case something like this happened-dear God, he hadn’t actually thought he’d ever need them). He was currently tapping the Mark Andrews account, one of his bigger ones, and that was the name that he was using while he was hiding out. He’d already made withdrawals from all of them (or rather, sent Chiclet to do it), and now had the cash stored all over the house.
When you came right down to it, by the standards of this crapper of a country, he was loaded. So he’d not been depending on those two million pesos for anything-he’d just wanted it. Wanted it very badly. The CIA didn’t pay him anything close to what he felt he earned, when he and he alone (well, he and his cell phone) stood between America and their mortal enemy Mexico. He’d figured they owed it to him.
Well, he knew they didn’t feel they owed him a bucket of warm spit, especially so after this fiasco. That was why he was still here, rotting away in this shithole. It didn’t take a brain-surgeon to realize that there was no way he could leave Culiacán, and it wasn’t just because he couldn’t walk. It was because the high and mighty CIA were looking for him, and he knew it-but, if he knew them (and he did), they would have assumed that he’d cut and run. And he would have that first day, if he had been able to fucking see to do it. But in the face of his obvious disadvantage (it was not a fucking handicap, goddammit), as he had lain up in the wee hours of the morning in the waking nightmare of his healing wounds, he realized that staying here was his best option.
Blind or not, he still knew this town like the back of his hand, knew the people, and knew how to get things done. And the CIA would never suspect him to stay in the city, hiding in plain sight at the very location of his own monumental screwing-over. And the same went for what remained of the cartel, and probably every other enemy he’d managed to make for himself in his years of service (and brother, were there a lot of those). But it wouldn’t matter-there were only two people that even knew he was still alive at all, still alive and unable to leave. One was Chiclet. The other was Ramirez-and Ramirez wouldn’t squeal. If the higher-ups found out the extent of his involvement, the FBI and CIA would come down on him like a ton of bricks, no matter if he’d taken out Barillo.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pang in his right thigh. He hissed, hating that-the feel of that slug always gave him the gruesome image of a steam-powered metal mole with grinding gears for teeth, something out of a bad fifties drive-in movie, burrowing deeper and deeper into his flesh and bone. The little SOB just liked to remind him that it was there, lodged happily and probably permanently in his leg. That wasn’t funny, either.
Finally giving in, he slowly and painfully leaned forward, easing himself to the edge of his chair and pawing gingerly around on the tabletop. His fingers came in contact with a little rattling bottle; he brushed his thumb across the lid, feeling the three notches Chiclet had made in it with his penknife, and knowing it was his aspirin (just where Chiclet had said it would be). Twisting the cap off, he dry-swallowed two before setting the bottle back down and easing back into the sunken well of his chair again, rubbing absently at the fresh, nasty scar he could feel even through his jeans.
Scars-he’d had some scars already, before this particular snafu. He’d been attacked by a drunk with a knife on one mission down in Columbia, he’d been shot a few times, and Ramona had liked to bite (although to be fair, he’d paid her back with interest for those teeth marks). These, though, were not going to be pretty. After all of his previous scuffles, he’d gone straight to a doctor-a competent one. But this time…he’d been wound up and wired on drugs, feeling the pain but not feeling it, adrenaline, panic, and complete loss of any idea where he was and where he was going keeping him up and on his feet and undoubtedly making things worse. His wounds had been ripped open further by his restless movement, the one in his left leg particularly nasty and bleeding all over the place, since that bullet had left both an entrance and exit wound-but, compared to the others, it was at least a clean wound. His arm had been a mess afterwards, too, and Nuñez had once again gone prospecting like a deranged proctologist, but that bullet he’d managed to extract-after making a terrific mess of things, of course. At least it wasn’t as bad as his leg. So, back alley surgery, several infections (probably caused by the fact that Nuñez had used tequila for a disinfectant), and a relapse later, he knew he was going to have some very ugly marks on him.
He didn’t want to think about the most obvious of those marks. Not right now-he wasn’t in the mood. They were itchy enough.
Author’s Note: Homage to Jim Henson and George Thorogood.
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