Nowhere
The Vague Places Series - Part II
It would make sense that the warehouse would be at its quietest at night, but that wasn't the case. The junkies grew restless and the rats more bold after the sun went down. No, that condemned property where they ran their business was actually its quietest when the boss was there - Camila inspiring the girls' fear but interpreting it as respect. And James and all of the other men allowed her to believe in her own delusions, because it was safer for all if Camila Vargas felt admired and revered.
Except… forty-eight hours after running out of that warehouse to rescue Teresa Mendoza, when James walked back inside of it, there was a different kind of silence, heavy and foreboding, hanging over the concrete zoo with its metal cages. It was the silence of death, which was a misleading description, because even if no one was making a sound, the mood of the warehouse was loud - practically screaming at James.
She knows. She knows. She knows.
When he rounded the corner and entered the main, large room, he wasn't sure what he became aware of first. Was it the dead body lying on the table and cut open from breast to belly - a final indignity inflicted upon her even after she took her last breath? It might have been the smell of the blood - so much blood, pooling in the gaping cavity of the mule's chest and abdomen, dripping onto the floor, puddling beneath the table. But it was probably Camila, sitting in a chair with her legs crossed and smoking a cigarette like she was in the lap of luxury and not an urban hellscape.
"Well, well. Look who decided to join us. You're back just in time to admire your handiwork," Camila sneered, gesturing towards the dead girl.
Her name was Aveline. She had a child in El Paso. That was all James knew of her, yet at least he knew something. He couldn't say the same for the woman who employed her, who employed him. Because her second-in-command or not, at that moment, it was very apparent to James that, for Camila Vargas, he was just as disposable, just as replaceable, as the drug mule.
Without waiting for him to respond, she stood, flicking her cigarette to the floor and then rubbing it out with the toe of her designer stiletto… like she was standing out on the street and not in a place where dozens of lost and desperate women lived and slept. Somehow both hardening and lowering her voice, Camila hissed, "where have you been?"
She knows. She knows. She knows.
At an early age, James had learned to trust his instincts. That was how he made it through a shitty childhood, how he survived the military, how he found a way to become a part of the cartel world. He wouldn't necessarily say that his instincts had given him a great life, but the point was that he was still living, so there was still the possibility of greatness.
"Mexico."
That's why he decided to tell Camila the truth… or at least enough of it so that, whatever her spies, and her dirty cops, and her contacts had told her, his story would align with what she already knew.
Camila took a menacing step towards him and narrowed her gaze suspiciously. "Why the hell would you go to Mexico… and without my permission?"
Although he didn't outwardly react, James realized that, with that caveat, his boss had tipped her hand. Because Camila wasn't necessarily angry about his two days away, though she certainly wasn't pleased by it. No, what she was furious about was that James had acted without her say so or approval, that even her most loyal of men still had a backbone of his own and ambitions beyond hers.
Widening his stance and folding his arms behind him like the soldier he once was, like the soldier he sometimes thought he would always be, James simply said, "it was personal."
He had to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent reacting in surprise when Camila suddenly backed down and smiled, pleased. "So, it's done, then?"
"What?"
With a roll of her large, dark eyes, Camila waved off his question. "Your ridiculous attempt to have it all. Kim. I could have told you that wasn't going to end well, but that was a lesson you needed to learn for yourself."
Quickly, James put all of the pieces together to come up with a complete picture - both the words that Camila said and those she didn't. He'd never told her about Kim, which meant that his employer had learned about his girlfriend by other, less comforting means. James had thought he was being discreet with Kim, that he was keeping her free of his professional world, but obviously, he had been naive to think that there was anything about him that Camila Vargas didn't know. It made him stiffen even further, wondering and worrying that, if Camila knew about Kim, did she also know about the trailer James had hidden out in the middle of the woods?
What about the girl marked for death and her sicario prisoner that he had stashed out in that very same trailer?
But he couldn't think about Teresa or whether she was safe or not while lying to his boss, because Camilla seemed to have a sixth sense about those things. If the trailer was one secret that was still secure, he needed to keep it that way. So, he focused on Kim, and he focused on what Camila was telling him, and he realized that, even if he hadn't ended his relationship with his girlfriend yet, it was already over.
James had suspected Kim of cheating on him for a while now, but he almost didn't blame her for her infidelity. The fact that his loyalty was supposed to be to Camila first, last, and always was a different yet no less destructive betrayal of his relationship. It would have been nice, however, to leave Kim on his own terms and under his own initiative. Now, though, because Camila had assumed a breakup was the reason behind his two day trip to Mexico… and for what - some kind of drunken bender?, James would either need to split from Kim or risk the real reason he went south being exposed.
Taking his silence as admission, Camila continued, leveling a warning, "though the next time you need to drown your sorrows in tequila and coño, James, do it a little closer to home. You don't need to drive five hundred miles to fuck a puta mexicana." Sweeping her arm out in emphasis, she taunted, "we have plenty of them right here."
Gritting his teeth, James denied, "I do not take advantage of the girls who work for us."
"Who work for me," Camila corrected him indignantly. "And fine. If you want to pay, pay them. It's your money, James."
"I don't pay for sex either."
Smiling viciously, she leveled at him, "but didn't you," obviously referencing his relationship with Kim.
Needing their conversation to be over, needing something to focus on besides his irritation, James changed the subject. Folding his arms over his chest - the creaking of his leather jacket a reassuring familiarity, James tipped his head towards what remained of Aveline. "What now?"
"Clean up your mess," Camila ordered him with a cold scoff.
"I meant about Han. Obviously, he's not getting his shipment today. Do you want me to call him and…"
"Of course he's getting his shipment today!," she cut him off in a rage, interrupting James' offer to smooth over the situation with their client. "It's not his or even my fault… beyond trusting you to hire a competent chemist… that the mule carrying his coke died. Find another girl. Drive faster. Do whatever you have to do… even if it's swallowing those damn balloons yourself… to deliver Han's drugs to him. ¿Está claro?"
"Yeah," James nodded, dropping his hands to fist them at his sides. "We're clear."
"Good," Camila praised him. She started to walk away - took one, two, three sashaying steps before pausing and looking over her shoulder at him. "And James? If you ever disappear on me like that again, you won't be coming back."
!
After checking to make sure that their prisoner was still secure in his bindings, James made his way towards the trailer where, upon opening the door, he found Teresa already waiting for him. At least this time, she wasn't holding a gun. "Come on," he nodded towards his SUV parked just behind him. "Let's go."
Although she didn't put up a protest, she did immediately start asking questions. "Where are we going? Are you finally taking me to see Camila?"
Physically and mentally exhausted - he had yet to sleep since receiving Teresa's call, it had been more than sixty hours since he had last closed his eyes, and with no respite in sight at least for the time being, it was starting to catch up with him, so as James opened the passenger door for her, he answered with a simple, "no."
Before Teresa could respond, he slammed the door and crossed the front of the vehicle towards the driver's side, climbing in and putting on his seatbelt but then just sitting there, waiting for the backlash from denying her. He didn't have to wait long. "What do you mean, no? Why not?"
Hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles popped, the skin around them becoming nearly translucent, James stared straight ahead out of the windshield as he feigned easy, casual conversation. "Hi, Teresa. How was your day? Mine?" Whipping his head towards her, he continued pointedly, "oh, well, I buried two girls and left a third behind dead in an airport janitor's closet today, because Camila ordered them to swallow faulty drug balloons." He paused for a moment, allowing what he had just shared to really sink in with her. "That's why I'm not taking you to Camila."
"I'm not a mule," Teresa started to protest.
"You're whatever Camila says you are," James argued with her.
"But I have the notebook…"
"And I'm supposed to be her second, but she all but promised to put a bullet in my head if I ever took off for another surprise trip to Mexico without asking her first."
Swallowing roughly, Teresa sympathetically offered him, "I'm sorry."
He sighed. "I don't regret helping you, Teresa. I just… don't want to have to bury you, too. If we go to Camila…"
"When we go to Camila," she contradicted him.
"We need to have a plan beyond waving Güero's notebook in front of her face. She'll just take it and have me dispose of you. No," James grew more confident the longer he talked. "Before Camila finds out about your or that notebook, we need to understand everything that's in it and how we can use that information to keep you alive."
"And you, too," Teresa added sincerely. "And how to take down Epifanio."
Finally starting the car, James put it in gear and then reversed until he could turn around. It was dark out, but he knew the woods surrounding the trailer as well as he knew the warehouse or what had been his condo with Kim. He could find his way around the property blindfolded, and that confidence was not diminished when behind the wheel of his SUV. Once they were on their way, James glanced to his right at the woman beside him, smirked, and then told her, "you know, I am a sniper. I could just take Epifanio out, and you could disappear - go anywhere in the world you want and start over."
Face and voice hard, she said, "I don't want to kill Epifanio; I want him to suffer. Death is too merciful for him. After what he did to Güero, Chino."
And to her. It went unsaid, but James knew, even if she had managed to save her own life, Teresa had still suffered at the hands of Epifanio's men, on his orders. That's why they were driving into the city that night… even if she didn't understand that yet. Testing her, he mentioned two more people who, if she had listened to his instructions, were also dead because of Epifanio. "To your best friend, your godson."
James didn't need to look away from the road to know that Teresa turned towards the window. "I got them out. I think. At least, I gave them a chance. I haven't been able to call and check on them since we got separated."
"And you can't," he emphatically stated.
"I just need to buy a burner phone. Don't worry, I have my own money."
"It's not that, Teresa," James sighed, disappointed that she thought so little of him but also annoyed at himself for caring. "Even if Epifanio's men can't track your cell, they can still ping the towers. We can't let them find out you're in Dallas."
An edge of desperation entering her voice, she wondered, "so I'm just supposed to do nothing while some pinche cabrón cerdo like Gato murders them?"
"No, you trust that they want to live as much as you do, that they can take care of themselves." She made some sort of pained noise of protest, so James continued, "besides, between one dead sicario, one missing sicario, and you disappearing right from underneath his nose, maybe Batman will be too busy to go after them."
"Or he'll take his anger and frustration with me out on Brenda and Tony," she proposed what was the more realistic scenario.
They were out of the countryside and quickly approaching the city, so the cab of the SUV wasn't just illuminated by the lights of the dashboard any longer. When oncoming cars drove by them, it was bright enough for James to clearly see the cuts and bruises on her face, her busted lip, how even though she had been able to clean herself up and rest in the trailer, she was still obviously hurting… and not just in her heart. Perhaps that was why James made the offer he did. "Look, I still keep in touch with some of the guys I served with, and a few of them won't ask questions if I have them message your friend. So, figure out exactly what you want to say, but keep it brief and discreet, and I'll make sure it gets sent." He just couldn't guarantee that her friend and her godson would actually get the message.
"Thank you."
They rode for several minutes in silence before she spoke once again. "If we're not going to see Camila, where are we going?"
"I'm taking you to get checked out by a doctor."
Quietly, Teresa said, "no, that's not necessary. I'll heal. I'm fine."
Clenching his jaw and squeezing the steering wheel to hold back his frustration, his fury, his regret that the man who had raped her was already dead, that the man who had walked away and allowed it to happen was tied up but still alive… and staying that way for the foreseeable future back at his camper, and that James couldn't kill both of them himself, he had to push down everything that he was feeling in the face of her brave front so he could calmly tell her, "not that kind of doctor," the implication of his words clear.
"Is that safe… for you?"
It was safer than James not knowing how badly she was hurt. He still wouldn't know even after she was treated by the doctor, but at least he could be reassured that somebody knew and that she had received the care she deserved - albeit late but better than never. But that wasn't what Teresa was asking. "Enough money will buy discretion, and I'll make sure that there's no paperwork." They also weren't going to the doctor that Camila kept on the payroll. Instead, Teresa would be seen by one of the more than 400 gynecologists in Dallas, practically anonymous because of how big the city was, and the doctor had a reputation of being sympathetic to women and immigrants in a place, in a state, in a country that wasn't.
Despite the fact that he could feel the embarrassment radiating off of her - James wished that he knew how to reassure her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, but he couldn't find those words, Teresa quietly agreed, "okay."
The rest of the trip they made in silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable between them, which frankly surprised James. Given their situation, Teresa had every right to be wary of him, and James wasn't sure what the hell he was supposed to feel towards her, but there was almost a sense of peace that came over the both of them in that dark and quiet car, further adding to his confusion. It didn't help matters that he was running on the fumes of his adrenaline. Sooner rather than later, he was going to crash. It wasn't an eventuality but an inevitability. But his tiredness further muddled his mind, making it difficult for him to navigate the complexities of their short in duration but long in complications relationship.
When they arrived at the doctor's office, Teresa didn't question James coming inside with her. Whether she assumed his presence was for her protection or his - guaranteeing that she wouldn't get herself and then him into even more trouble, he didn't ask. Instead, side by side, they exited the vehicle, walked through the parking garage, boarded the elevator, and then eventually found their way into waiting room chairs.
Without needing to be told, she gave a fake name to the receptionist, and James slipped enough cash across the counter and through the open glass window to avoid the prompt to fill out the intake forms. People stared - their gazes ricocheting back and forth between Teresa's fragile and obviously injured form and his much larger frame and intimidating presence with judgement in their eyes… for the both of them, but James stared right back, challenging them to actually care enough about a stranger to say something in her defense, to check on her wellbeing.
Nobody said a word.
He might have dozed off while Teresa was with the doctor. He definitely shut his eyes. It wasn't necessarily that he felt they were safe there, but his fatigue was close to reaching the breaking point. The fluorescent lights above were too bright, too glaring, and the chair below him wasn't comfortable, but James still had to take Teresa back to the trailer in the woods and then figure out where the hell he was spending the night - he certainly couldn't go back to the place he shared with Kim - before he could properly sleep, and his body seemed to sense that the waiting room might be its best chance for rest anytime soon. Yet, as soon as Teresa started back towards him, James was completely alert.
He stood… even before she could softly murmur, "come on, let's go."
"Do you need to stop anywhere before we head back?"
"No, the doctor gave me everything I needed," Teresa answered, avoiding his gaze and blushing. It was then that she seemed to notice the looks they were receiving from the other patients - looks ranging from curiosity to outright derision. Without touching her, James placed his hand at her back, urging her to walk before him, but suddenly her urgency to leave was gone. Instead, he found her angrily confronting the other women scattered around the room. "He didn't do this to me. He couldn't!"
Earlier that evening, he'd confessed to her that three women in his care were dead… and partly because of him, no less, yet Teresa wasn't just defending him to these strangers; she trusted him enough to believe what she said. This time, when he encouraged her to leave, he did allow himself to touch her. It was just the very tips of his fingers, and it was through her shirt, but James still felt like the heat of her had scalded him. At the same time, her curly hair was long enough to brush against the bare skin of his wrist, encouraging his flesh to pebble with goosebumps. "It's alright," James whispered to her.
"No, it's not alright," Teresa contended. Meeting his gaze imploringly, she exclaimed, "these women think I'm here because of you."
"But I don't care what they think. You and I? We know the truth." Stubbornly, she huffed out a breath, but she didn't argue with him further. With a nod of acceptance, Teresa practically marched towards the exit. As he held the door open for her, James found himself asking, "are you hungry? We could get something to eat that doesn't come from a can." He kept the camper stocked with food at all times, but by necessity, it was nonperishable and not all that appetizing.
"No," Teresa declined. "We should just go back. I'm tired, and I need to check on… our guest."
Despite her refusal, he went by a drive-thru anyway, using the excuse that he needed caffeine, and if they were stopping, then she might as well get something, too. So, the ride back to the trailer was filled with companionable quiet while they ate. It wasn't until they pulled off the highway and onto the backroads once again that Teresa queried, "where are we, anyway? There are no signs. If I was just driving by, I wouldn't even know this place existed."
"Exactly," James responded, pleased by her description. "We're nowhere."
The piece of land he owned on which the trailer sat was far enough outside of the city for it to be obscure and remote yet close enough that, if he needed to get there in a hurry or go back and forth without detection, he could. The woods themselves were worthless - the trees too small to log, and the land was too much trouble to clear for farming. Plus with the lot's proximity to the water, there was another means of escape should anyone ever find and attack him there, though it was unlikely, at the same time, for the enemy to approach the camper from the lake.
Almost like she was trying the word on for size, Teresa repeated his answer back to him. "Nowhere," she said softly. Deliberately. Appreciatively. "Will you be staying there with me?"
When he left her and the sicario at the camper that morning, it wasn't James' plan to stay there as well. But a lot had changed over the last twelve hours, and some of those changes still needed to be put into place, but he was too tired to do it that night. "I have - had," he corrected himself, " - a place in the city. But, yeah, I guess I'll stay… if you're alright with that. I'll sleep in the car," he was quick to add as reassurance.
After a contemplative moment, Teresa agreed with a simple, "okay."
This time, it was James' turn to repeat her word back to her. "Okay."
Everything else, at least for a few hours, could wait.