AGAINST THE WIND (Book Two of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (13 page)

With the name came consequences, responsibilities.
Soon there were battles with other girl gangs around Hialeah, not that the
Eleventh Avenue/17th Street turf was worth fighting over, but the fights
— usually in close hand-to-hand combat — were general tests of
their toughness. Saps, bats, shivs, sometimes even guns made their way into
these conflicts. Silvana had by then developed into a thick-bodied hardass, unafraid
and merciless to her enemies. The fights, all won by the Witches, made her very
aware of who those enemies were, and they came to regret being on her wrong
side.

Naturally, marijuana was introduced into the
Brujas
circle, where it was warmly
embraced. Cocaine followed as sure as April follows March, and most of the
girls went for it, many in a big way. But Silvana stayed with the weed.
Something about blow that struck her the wrong way. Goes up your nose into your
brain, fucks with your brain cells.
This
shit can make you a loser real fast
, she thought, after having seen some of
the boys in her group and a few of the other
Brujas
veer far off the rails from time to time while they were
high on it. She knew the cost, in both money and self-respect, was high.

Not at first, of course, because no one thinks the
shit will ever be a problem for them. They think they can snort it at will, all
they want, and they'll be fine. Other people … well, they're the ones who can't
handle it, they think. And then before they know what hit them, they surrender
their lives to those little bags of white powder. They give their money to
lowlifes and watch themselves slide down the drain.

No thanks, Silvana said. Not for me.

Silvana

Hialeah, Florida

Friday, July 31, 1998

4:20 PM

T
HAT
AFTERNOON
WAS
PARTICULARLY STORMY
during the summer before her senior year in high
school. Silvana was at the food court in Westland Mall chowing down on yellow
rice and black beans when she learned Blanca had been beaten to death. It
happened the night before, she was told, her bloody remains dumped in back of a
warehouse on the west side of Hialeah. The news came from Lisi, one of her
closest
Bruja compañeras
.

"I just found out about a half an hour
ago," Lisi said, visibly upset and speaking in a near-stammer. "My
cousin is on … the … the Hialeah PD and he said he took the call. He said her
b-body was broken in so many places … and … oh, Silvi, and her
face
!" She began sobbing loudly.

Silvana couldn't move. The noise in the mall,
incessant talk over nearby loudspeakers, howling infants … it all faded away to
silence. She sat glassy-eyed, mouth open.
How
could … how the
fuck
could anyone …

"Do they … do they know who … did it?"
she asked.

Lisi pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her
nose into it. The sobbing subsided for a moment. Her tall frame bent slightly,
and her light-complected face showed a mixture of pain and anger. She said,
"My cousin says they don't know. There is no evidence." Her voice
lowered to a growl. "But
I
know.
And
you
know, too, Silvi."

Silvana did know. A vicious beating like this, one
that took Blanca's life, could only have been administered by her boyfriend, a
worthless fucking Honduran by the name of Angel Canelas. He was a street level
drug dealer, and while there was nothing wrong with that in and of itself
— the
Brujas
knew plenty of
drug dealers, and most of them were pretty respectful — Canelas was a
savage. She had warned Blanca about him, not to go near him, not to hang out
with him, certainly not to fuck him. But Blanca wasn't the type to take good
advice from anyone.

"I'm calling a couple of the girls and we'll
go get this motherfucker," Lisi said. "We'll make him pay for
Blanca!" She pulled out her new cellular phone, which she had bought with
the proceeds from a recent score. One of the new Motorola StarTACs. Cost her a
grand.

Before she could flip the phone open, Silvana put
a firm hand on it. "No,
mi brujita
,"
she said. "No."

"No? What do you mean,
no
? We can't let that cocksucker get away with this!"

"He won't get away with it." Silvana's
eyes narrowed into dark slits. Her voice was all calm now, eerie almost, like
it was coming from a great distance away. "Now, tell me, where does he
live?"

≈ ≈ ≈

Angel Canelas lived in a
rundown apartment building down on Southwest Fourth Street in Little Havana.
That stretch of Fourth Street was one-way and very narrow, little more than an
alley, with low-rent apartments and houses lining both sides. Several pairs of
tied-together sneakers dangled here and there from the telephone wires that ran
the length of the street. Canelas's building was a long, one-story structure
with five units. It was in the shape of an "L" and his apartment sat
in the corner of the "L".

It had stopped raining by the time Silvana got
there. The sun was out in all its baking glory, water had puddled in the
streets, and the temperature was high. The post-rain humidity did its
oppressive best to spread misery and discomfort.

With her AC set on maximum, she sloshed off Fourth
Street into the building's small parking lot. Only one space was occupied. She
parked her ten-year-old Isuzu and went up to Canelas's door. A knock at the
door went unanswered. And what about the door itself? Just like she thought.
Cheap-ass construction with no thought of security. A fast look around showed a
still-empty parking lot, no one walking around or lingering in doorways. She
whipped out a credit card and slid it into the jamb, and within seconds, she
was inside.

The apartment carried an odor which Silvana
couldn't identify. It was definitely a mix — she smelled the marijuana
immediately, and maybe something like shit? No, more like … cat litter? There
was a little garbage for sure, but the rest of it? She'd just have to live with
it till Canelas arrived.

The small living room held a cheap couch and a
cheaper TV, one from the 1970s, she thought. There was an end table and a lamp,
which had been left on, but none of it was any good. Just shit you buy from
notices stapled to telephone poles. The window air unit whirred in its wall
cutout next to the jalousied windows, but noise, rather than cool air, seemed
to be its principal product. A few old magazines lay around on the couch and
the floor — mostly porn — and they were joined by a couple of pairs
of socks and underwear.

The stench grew stronger in the kitchen. The
garbage pail overflowed with God knows what — Silvana was not about to
look beneath the top layers — and there was the unmistakable odor of a
dead animal somewhere, probably a rat in the walls. Or maybe in one of the cupboards
under the sink. Again, Silvana opted not to look.

The bathroom was filthy and without order. She
noticed there was no toilet paper, but there was a roll of paper towels sitting
atop the commode.
Fucking Hondurans
,
she thought
. Can't even keep toilet paper
in the fucking bathroom.
Part of the smell came from in here, too. The
toilet water was yellow with urine, which had probably been there a while. She
made a face and walked out.

But the bedroom revealed bigger secrets. The first
thing she saw was a massive red stain on the rug by the side of the bed. The
same shade of red spattered upward on the sheetrocked wall in a broad, scary
pattern and some of it even found its way onto the sheets. It was here that
Blanca died. Here that he pounded the very life out of her, watched her blood
spill freely in his deliberate act of carnage. Blanca, who never wanted
anything more out of life than a good time and a few laughs, had everything
beaten out of her until she had no more to give. She was seventeen, like Silvana.

The closet was tiny behind an accordion door.
Silvana stepped inside and closed the door, leaving a slit for her to see into
the bedroom. The light from the living room would be enough to illuminate
Canelas when he entered, but not enough for him to see her in the closet.

She checked her watch. Quarter to five. Then she
straightened out the scabbard on her belt that contained the machete and
settled in to wait.

≈ ≈ ≈

Fortunately, her wait was
short. The air got thick and hot pretty quickly in that closet and Silvana was
about to run to the living room and stand in front of the window unit for
whatever coolness she could squeeze out of it. At five-twenty, however, she
heard the key turn in the front door lock. She quietly drew her machete.

He puttered around in the living room for a minute
or two, sending random noises back to her closet perch, although from her
position, she couldn't see him. Then she heard him walking, punctuated by the
opening of the refrigerator. The
psshht
of a pop-top was next, and a moment later, she heard the TV. Music videos in
Spanish.

As she remembered, the TV faced the bedroom and
the couch faced the TV, meaning that if he was seated on the couch, which he
likely was, he would be facing away from the bedroom. She eased the closet door
open.

Sticking her head out, she could see the TV going
in the living room and nothing else. Then, in a split second, it went silent.
The picture was still on, and she heard a phone ring, a strange little musical
tone like you hear in the newer cellular phones. He began speaking and she
heard him go on about an impending deal. A small argument, then he finally
agreed to meet the caller the next night, at ten-thirty. The TV volume resumed
and she had to believe he was back into watching the video.

Her sneakers, enveloped in hospital shoe covers to
prevent any possible footprint identification, didn't make a sound as they
moved out of the closet and started across the bedroom floor. Halfway to the
living room, the knock at the front door stopped her cold. She quickly ducked
behind the dresser as Canelas got up from the couch and passed by the bedroom
on his way to the front door. When he opened it, she slid back into the
sanctuary of the closet. She clearly heard the conversation at the door.

"
Hola,
Angelito
," said a husky male voice.

"
¿Qué
quieren ustedes?
" Angel said, asking what they wanted, using the third
person plural, letting Silvana know there was more than one of them. She picked
up what sounded like a nervous twitch in his voice.

There was a minor shuffling sound and they were
inside the apartment. The husky-voiced man said, "Maxie Méndez sent us. We
want the money you owe him."

"M-money?" Angel said, nervousness now
replaced by fear.

"
Diecisiete
mil dolares
," the man said. "We want it now."

"Sev-seventeen thousand dollars? It was only
ten thousand or-originally!"

"The interest," said another man, this
one speaking in a much lighter, airier voice. "The interest is compound.
It adds up very quickly when you don't pay on time."

"L-look," Angel said, the fear in his
voice graduating to desperation, "I'm doing a deal tomorrow night. A big
deal, you know? I'll have it for you then."

The husky man said, "No more bullshit,
Angelito. No more tomorrows. We want it now."

"
N-no
lo t-tengo ahora, muchachos
," Angel said. "Pl-please give me
until tomorrow. I promise I'll have it for you tomor —"

The sound of a fist hitting flesh was followed by
the sound of a body hitting the floor. The pounding began, drowning out Angel's
cries and pleas for time. Soon they were just cries, then grunts. And then,
nothing. But still the pounding continued.

Eventually, they quit, satisfied Angel had gotten
the message. The husky man said in a growl, "You don't pay us tomorrow,
you die,
¿me entendés?
"

Angel gave a moan in the affirmative and they
left. Silvana did not hear the door shut, but she heard two car doors right
outside the apartment open and close, followed by ignition and driving away.
She waited a few moments to make sure no one else remained in the apartment, and
then she moved out of the closet into the living room.

Angel Canelas lay on the floor clutching his gut,
his face bloodied from ugly, open gashes. He groaned a few times, but she
ignored it as she shut the front door. She sheathed her machete and walked around
his prone figure, did a three-sixty, and nudged his ribs with her foot. He
yelped. A rib or two broken, she estimated, and then she bent down close to his
head. With her mouth inches from his ear, she murmured, "Angel, do you
want some water?"

With great effort, he nodded once, still groaning,
trying to speak. She went to the kitchen and filled a dirty glass with water,
holding it with a dish towel. She brought it back to him and raised his head
gently so he could slowly take in the water. After a couple of light sips, she
took the glass away with the dish towel.

"You can't drink it too fast, now," she
whispered. "It's not good for you in your condition."

More groaning, but the water had helped. His
attempts at speaking were paying off. "Wh-who are you?" he said.

"I'm a friend," she said, now with
wickedness in her voice. "A friend who's going to give you what you
need."

"Who — who
are
you?"

"Now, Angel, don't worry about who I am. You
should be thinking of what
you
are.
And all that you have been." She began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Wha — what do you m-mean?" He was
coming around now, able to finally open his eyes and see his water-bearing
savior, this Aquarius of Southwest Fourth Street. As his vision slowly
returned, he trained his gaze on her as she yanked his shirt off. He moaned in
pain at the sudden jerk. She was still bent down, near to him and he looked at
her closely as she unbuckled his pants and slid them down over his hips,
causing him a great deal more pain. No glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

"I mean," she said, "that I am here
to make you see what
you
are."

"What I am?"

She pulled his pants off, along with his shoes,
socks, and underpants. The socks she jammed into his mouth, causing him to
yelp. Pulling out two pair of twist-tie cuffs, she bound his wrists behind his
back and then his ankles. Still reeling in pain from the beating Maxie's boys
had given him, he was unable to resist.

She said, "Yes. I am here to make you see
yourself for the cocksucking motherless faggot that you really are. I am here
to make you understand you are lower than crab shit, to make you understand you
are the most worthless piece of fucking shit that ever walked the earth!
I am here for
Blanca Nuñez
!"

Standing over his naked body, she put one foot on
his throat and pulled the machete from her scabbard. The scream he tried for
never came, shoved back down inside him by the choking socks in his mouth.
Instead, his eyes widened in terror, very nearly bulging out of his head. She
lowered the machete, and with all the grace and dexterity of a Renaissance
sculptor, she slowly went to work peeling off his blood-encrusted face.