Chapter 19: two guests; Two a second
Bronx, same day
Rosa clicked off the light in the kitchen. It was late, and only flickering light from the television lit the apartment. She moved through the hallway, and into the living room where two of her grandsons sprawled on the couch. The boys looked up from the show when they heard her click her tongue. In Spanish, she called to them.
"It's time to go to bed, boys." They groaned and started to complain, but she held up her hand.
"We have guests in the house. I want you to go to Marta's tonight. You can stay with the boys." Their faces lit up, and they threw off their blanket and jumped up, wiggling and smiling. The four cousins got along well together. Rosa knew it wouldn't be a hard sell to get them to spend the night over there.
"I'll tell your Mama where you're going," Rosa said to them, and they started to head for the front door.
"Wait, wait. Take your things with you, boys" she called, and they turned back to look at her. "Go get your toothbrushes and your sleeping clothes," she said; and she held her finger to her lips to remind them to be quiet in the hallway. They hustled past her, wiggling and giggling, then into the hallway and in a little while she heard them open the door of their room. A few minutes later they re-appeared, hands full of clothes, a toothbrush on top of each stack. They stopped for a hug and a kiss from her, then off to the hallway door.
When they were gone, Rosa limped to the couch. She straightened the cover and sat down, lifting her feet on the seat and resting back against the armrest. The blanket that had landed on the floor made a light cover for her legs. She didn't like to show her feet. One of them wasn't shaped right from birth, and Rosa had learned to live with it all these years. It felt good to get them up on the couch after a long day of standing on them. She'd just rest here for a little bit and then head for one of the boy's beds to sleep tonight. Rosa had given her own bedroom to their two guests. She smiled softly. She was thinking of how she'd come to meet her friend.
Mellie, she'd called herself. Rosa knew that Mellie wasn't her real name, just like Abbey wasn't her injured friend's, either. She'd had to be careful, she'd said. In her line of work, she needed to protect herself. Rosa understood, and accepted her story. Few people could have done what Mellie had done to help them. Rosa thought back to those days, the bad times when she and her family had first run into trouble. Life had been good to them for a long time. Her family had come one by one, most of them settling right here in this building.
Then the earthquake had come to Haiti.
Everything had collapsed there, not just the buildings. Nothing worked. No food, no water, people buried in the rubble. The country was overwhelmed. Everything had just stopped. Good people had flooded in to help. But soon it was clear that others had come with a different motive - to profit from the chaos.
Drug dealers, smugglers. They'd slipped into Haiti while no one could notice. Haiti was the perfect place to set up shop, smuggling drugs by the ton to the U.S.. And once they'd taken hold in Haiti, they looked next door to Rosa's country to expand even further.
Her husband, Johanny, owned a business there. Every few weeks he returned to the island to keep track of things. But one time he'd had visitors on his way home. As he left the building that evening, three men stopped him on the street and told him to get into their car. He hesitated, then started to run, but one of them lifted a black gun, one of those automatic ones that fires so many bullets. He stopped in his tracks and then got into their car.
Rosa could still feel chills when she thought of him in that moment. Inside the car, they checked him for weapons and blindfolded him. Even with the blindfold, he could tell from the feel of the road that they were leaving the city and heading to the countryside. He tried to pay attention to the turns and the sounds around him as they drove. It was a long time until they stopped and got him out of the car. When they took off his blindfold they were standing on a dirt road surrounded by farm fields.
He could see the green of tall sugarcane in the darkness. Deserted. No houses or lights anywhere that he could see. This had to be more than just a robbery. Johanny began to believe he wasn't going to make it back. One of the men approached, his hat brim pulled low to cover his eyes. It was then that he noticed the others' uniforms. Police. Police, except for the man with the hat. He was dressed like an agricultor rico, a wealthy farmer.
As the one with the hat came closer, Johanny could see something in his hand - a machete, the kind they used to cut sugarcane in the fields. Johanny took a step back.
"Don't run," the man called to him. Johanny hesitated.
"We're not here to hurt you. We just want to talk." The man in the hat stopped in front of him.
"What do you want?" Johanny asked. His voice sounded braver than he felt inside.
"A little business. We want to have a little business with you." The man's face tipped up toward him, but his eyes were still hidden by the brim. Johanny could just see the jaw and his teeth as he spoke. He was speaking Spanish, but the accent and some of the words were wrong. It was clear he wasn't from here.
"A man like you, with a good business like yours, should be more careful. There are criminals around. They want to take your money. They stop at nothing to get it." Johanny understood. He knew what was coming next.
"We protect you. We keep the criminals away. You and your family are safe." He waited for a little while, as if he were giving it some thought. And then he asked the obvious question.
"And what does this cost, to keep me safe?"
"So little. You will never miss it, someone like you with a good business."
Johanny kept silent. And so did the man in the hat. Johanny watched the man's hands, the shiny blade hanging down toward the ground. Then the man turned to the others and swiped toward the car. They nodded and moved off, leaving the two men facing each other.
The man in the hat raised his arm between them. The machete dangled from his fist. He let it go and the tip buried itself in the dirt. The man in the hat backed up and turned away to the waiting car. Johanny watched him go, unsure of what to do. Then the headlights flashed on, blinding him. He threw his arm up to block it, and started backing away. The engine revved, and for a moment, he expected it to come right at him. He swung his head around. No place to hide. If it came for him, he was dead.
It revved louder, then lurched forward, then stopped, then lurched forward again and stopped. He heard the men laughing inside. They revved it again and tore forward, but jerked to the left a second later, just missing him with their bumper, spewing dust and stones all over him. In the haze of dust he could see their car jouncing on the rutted road, headlights bouncing in the darkness. He watched them go, and then he sank to his knees on the ground.
Outside the Bronx apartment building
A white panel truck sat idling on the street. In a little while a man dressed in black, with his cap pulled down low made his way to the back of the truck. He rapped lightly on the metal and the door popped open. As he climbed in, he pulled his cap higher on his head, and nodded to the others inside.
"It's that one, over there," he said, pointing to the tiled opening at the back of Rosa's apartment. Two of the others leaned forward to see where he was pointing and then they readied themselves to follow. He pulled his cap down lower again, turned to the last one left in the truck, and signaled they were heading in.
On his way out earlier, he'd twisted the two lone lamp bulbs lighting the back lot, dousing their light. They made their way unseen then to the opening in the wall that led to Rosa's apartment. The heavy drape hung down at the opening and inside, the tile floor made little tapping sounds of their footsteps.
One of them opened the screen, and another stepped forward to try the door. Locked. Hardly a minute passed before the lock was jimmied, and the three of them entered the kitchen. The man with the cap pointed ahead and the others followed. At the hallway, he pointed to one of them, and then to the hallway door in the living room. He watched him step carefully across the floor, passing the sleeping form on the couch, to take up his position next to the door. Then the two headed down the hall toward Rosa's bedroom.
Shaw's eyes opened. She lifted her head and the room lurched and spun. Her hands went out to steady herself, but that wasn't good at her left shoulder. She groaned and pulled her arm back closer to her body. Shaw thought about pulling off the swathe so both arms would be free if she needed them, but the sound of it pulling apart would give her away.
She sat forward in her chair, spinning inside her head again, and she had to grab for the arm of the chair. A wave of nausea started to rise from the spinning, but she fought to control it. Shaw was sure there was someone in the hallway. It wasn't Rosa. She had a limp. It might be one of her kids or her grandkids, though. Shaw looked at her wrist, but her watch was missing. It seemed like it must be the middle of the night. No one should be lurking around out there.
She tried to piece things together as fast as she could. Root had come back after ditching the van. Root. That's right. Root was here. Shaw looked over at the bed. Root had gone to sleep next to her, but Shaw didn't want both of them sleeping, so she'd gotten up to sit in the chair. She'd pushed the pile of clothes on the floor, and under them was her holster, reeking of blood, with her gun inside. That made her feel better. She'd sat there in the dark until the sound in the hall stirred her. Sound in the hall. That's right. She grabbed her head. Hard to think. She was shivering. Cold. Sweating, too. She felt her pulse in her neck. Two a second and thready. Damn. This wasn't good. Didn't think she could stand. Try.
Shaw pushed herself off with her right hand, and the room started spinning hard. Her hand held tight to the chair. Over her shoulder, the bedroom door opened. No choice. She let go and lifted her gun, pointing toward the door. The barrel wavered in the air as another wave of spinning came, intense like nothing before it.
Shaw knew she was falling, but it was over so fast she couldn't land well. Right on her bad shoulder. The last thing she remembered was the sound of Root calling her name.
