Note from author: Thank you all for reading! PJ, it's wonderful to read your review! And Tessaray, you're an angel! And you too, Tessa! I hope this gets us all closer to a TnT love fest... I hope this slow walk isn't TOO tortuous. I hope all of you are well.
Caged: Reclamation
Chapter 22
The twittering awakened him, a vague loose memory or dream of Brandy at a motel weaved into the heat and songbird notes as he opened his eyes. Confused a second more, rubbing away phantom pain of heroin punctures, he kicked off the sheets and colorful quilt and squinted at light pouring in through the sheer curtains. The windows were cracked open, screens keeping late summer bugs out. Scanned the rest of the Quaker-like room.
Ah… the doctor's house.
By the sunlight's hue, Todd knew it was late, noon or later. His dog was gone, the bedroom door shut. He listened more to the sounds from outside, birds, the barking of a distant dog, talking in the garden. Nothing like the poetry of the caged yellow fluff, the water of the fountain, the sisters laughing somewhere, birds in their own right. He gazed at the perfectly aligned ink drawings of flowers that ringed the room. At the alabaster walls. Simple austere furniture.
Time to get up… time to get going. Pedro Moreno waited for him. A plan needed developing. He HAD to get his shit together and fast.
Delgado. I'm gonna change things.
Te lo prometo.
Question was though… could he? Change things? Fix things? He had no goddamn idea. He felt… not himself, not on terra firma. He rubbed hard at his face, his short hair. Tim had said he was so shocked at seeing Todd alive he couldn't be himself. Yeah, the doctor wasn't the only one feeling fish out of water. He patted the bed, flexed muscles, stared at his hands.
Be a King, be the monster you are...
He pulled the cell phone to him and without a lot of thought, dialed Téa's number. Listened to her voicemail message. Serious, cool, ice-princess lawyer. Probably she blocked his number because there hadn't been a ring at all. He hung up and lay back and breathed self-pity, felt it running through his veins, blinding him, paralyzing him.
Fuck.
Fuck!
After a shower, he headed downstairs and found Tim in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables, the table set for lunch. The doctor smiled. "Shane's on a walk with your pup," he said. "He was reluctant to leave your side but a treat convinced him everything was ok."
"Yeah, he switches loyalties pretty easily," Todd said softly, picking up a carrot stick and munching on it, leaning on the counter. He sighed and studied his friend who pretended not to notice the scrutiny. After some minutes, Tim stopped the chopping and gazed at his patient.
"What?"
Tim's tone was gentle, full of compassion and it weakened Todd. He tightened his lips. "Any other time in my life, I'd uh...I'd run to Téa. She'd fix the world for me. She… would be my lawyer… defend me… she was my…" He swallowed hard and sorrow poured out of him. "When she shot me, something inside… shifted."
"How?"
"I realized… she was… imperfect." He said it thickly, bitterly.
Tim smiled though, a sad parental smile. "She was always imperfect. That's why you love her."
"Not to me. Since the day I met her, she was… perfect." He sighed, rubbed his chin, his neatly trimmed beard. "I don't know if I have ever… saved her. And now I got to." He chuffed in a way that might have been a laugh in any other place but this noise was filled with fury, with his classic hate. "I have never felt less…" Searching searching goddamnit… "positioned to do it."
Tim nodded and finished the chopping. Dumped everything in the large salad bowl. He glanced up at Todd, the doctor's blue eyes hard on his patient. "All the cards are face-up. Nothing is hidden from you anymore. No ghosts you don't understand, can't decipher, can't anticipate. You're off drugs. You know who everyone is in this chess game, all the good, all the bad. You're as clear-headed as I've ever seen. Todd… you are in the best position to help Téa. The BEST."
Todd tried to smile, but his muscles just wouldn't go that way, too sick-concerned about his Delgado. Every minute felt like a lost opportunity to jump in the way of an oncoming train.
The doctor brought the bowl to the table and the two men sat at the table.
"Sleep ok?"
Todd shrugged, "Yeah… it's… quiet here. Reminds me of the convent." There wasn't a joke there.
"You found something there, something healing beyond the immediate medical necessity," Tim said as he piled the colorful meal onto plates, then drizzling a creamy dressing over the creations. Silence met him as he handed the dish to Todd who took it and then ate gratefully.
After a bit, Tim asked without any fanfare, "What aspect of the convent do you think about the most?"
Todd took a minute or two considering an answer as he picked at the remainder of his salad with his fork. Then he watched his doctor grab a freshly baked bun, break it open, and butter it. Simple steps as Tim waited patiently. A palpable sorrow fell over Todd as he then poured an iced tea.
"Their kindness," he finally said, eyes visibly wetting.
Tim reached out and held Todd's wrist.
"They didn't have to be that way," Todd continued. "The mother superior, Beatrice, she… um… knew what I'd done. And not once…. did she say a thing about it, about me. Angel…anyway, despite the crime. Even suggested… those deaths were meant to be, that there was goodness in my bad act. Crazy, yeah, but Angel… just the same." He glanced up, firmly on the doctor's blue eyes, constant kindness and patience there too.
"Was Rico kind to you also?" Tim asked.
"Infinitely."
"You loved him."
"He was… easy to love." He sat back, a hard expression falling over him, remembering Rico's gentle pull at the beginning, after the beating, and how little resistance Todd ever offered. "He's an artist, self-taught and… um… he drew pictures of me. And they were…" He sighed and studied the plate with the scattered veggies… "They were beautiful." The memory pained him, guilt at the abandonment that he swore he'd never do. He wondered where the sketchbooks went. Hoped Rico was able to get them. God… damn. When he glanced back at Tim, he found his doctor with a gentle smile, eyes watering. Tears...
"You saw yourself as beautiful. Todd… that's the first time I've ever heard that from you."
Todd shook his head, embarrassed a little, not feeling the enormity of the moment the way the doctor did. But he kind of knew the observation was different than his usual. What he saw in those drawings was different. He quirked and touched the table, the grain of the dark stained wood.
"Well… it was a drawing… purely from his eyes, a view… I couldn't possibly see other than on paper." He trailed off, quiet for a long while. "I didn't expect to… feel the way I did about him." He glanced around then held the doctor's gaze. "Um… my father used to… uh... he'd call me names… for as far back as I can remember, called me… faggot. Over and over. All while being one. With me."
Tim winced, a pull in his brow, grabbing Todd by the hand, with both of his hands, squeezing it. "What your father did wasn't 'gay.' That was power over you, unspeakable violence against you. It had nothing to do with attractions or sexuality. You understand that?"
"Doesn't change what I thought then," Todd said quietly, darkly. "I did everything I could to NOT be that." Todd leaned on his crossed arms, eyes fiery with a lot of unspoken words. He rubbed his short hair, features tight with thought, lost in all that he knew now.
Everything.
Tim nodded… he had long suspected the effort to 'not be that' drove adolescent Todd Manning in all those awful ways that had set him on a path that forever perhaps would define him. It hurt to know. To hear.
"I hated every man I came across." Todd laughed pitifully, "probably every woman too but… they couldn't…" Searching searching... "couldn't physically hurt me. You were probably the first man in my life who was truly kind to me…that I… um... recognized as kind."
Tim could only nod at the damning comment, at the failed responses by everyone around him. It was an unfathomable truth that had always enraged the doctor and not just for Todd either. So many of his patients had the same story. He stayed silent because any word would be too harsh a judgement, not helpful in the moment. Then… he grew even more silent in surprise at Todd's next words.
"Téa knew Rico, knew his kindness… and… the three of us were together and that was easy too."
Tim smiled at that, amazed at the revelation. There was a lot to it. No jealousy, sharing his fluid sexuality with Téa? That was something incredible. Beyond anything Tim could have hoped for.
"Todd," he said softly.
"I know, different."
"I'm… moved."
"I was coming home. We learned Rico was actually American, he'd been kidnapped… sold to Manuel Caro and he never knew. WE were coming home. WE were going to figure it out." He couldn't speak anymore. A million words and a million pictures and a million questions crashed into each other and he practically choked on the tangle.
"I hope Rico has help, wherever he is," the doctor said.
Todd chuffed and shook his head. Sad, heavy smile now. "He's not the seeking-help type."
They were interrupted, Shane bursting through the front door with Abram, pup beelining to Todd and affixing himself at his side, adoring eyes up, mouth open and panting. Todd reached down and petted him energetically.
"You have a great friend there," Shane said.
Todd nodded, eyes briefly on the doctors and then back on Abram. Needing the love of that dog. He almost dropped down to the floor to hug him but resisted the impulse.
Time to go, yeah?
Fuck.
#####
Téa Delgado eyed the cigarette pack on her desk as the dispensary operators updated her on "competitive" businesses. Today, the temperature had risen to the low 90s and she wore a thin blousy dress, rich blue flowery print, evocative of Parisian strolls along the Seine, missing a hat. Her hair had grown long and dark silky locks dipped below her shoulders. She wore light makeup, her skin smooth and creamy without effort, seeming to be frozen in a moment in flight… and she knew it was pure adrenaline that allowed her to run this way, that eliminated the need for usual coverings. Nothing of her broken heart, of the rage and hate, showed on the outside of her. Like a doll, she mused, in a museum. She kicked off her high heel shoes, painted toenails glimmering red to match fingernails. Sipped sweet tea, iced.
Each of the operators testified about their efforts to urge the departures of neighborhood competitors. They avoided specifics. Intentionally. They had conversations with the competitors, they used statistics and data to explain how said competitors could not succeed in these neighborhoods, in their various businesses. They had succeeded in some places, but not in others. Los Muertos were… tough sells. In these less compliant situations, departures became removals. Masked patriots removed the competitors through force. Yes, yes, economics removed some as well, natural survival of the fittest, but... again... many remained in place, intractably, mucking up the neighborhoods across the North West region.
As a note, for the record, Method Makers had not emerged from these forced departures unscathed. They lost three men.
Three.
Tres.
Las tres en la cama.
Nobody emerges unscathed.
The conversation droned on and Téa sighed, pulling her hair back, dark eyes on the reporting operators. She lingered on Rolon whose expression was plain, unrevealing. She did not sense support, however. Of course not.
"Are people unhappy with the departures slash removals of our competitors?" she asked.
"Neutral, I think," someone offered. Davíd. He was young, beautiful in his own way, managing one of the more successful stores. Téa couldn't remember if he was one attending the University. She hoped so.
"Neutral is good," she said.
"We are walking a yellow line," he countered, his metaphor getting Téa to raise her eyebrows. "Neutral can change really fast. Some neighborhoods for instance benefit from our competitors."
"How?"
"Robin Hood gifts."
"Let's up our non-profit work then, get money to the neighborhoods who benefit that way. Reach out to Lena downstairs."
"We continue then with our… departure work?" A voice from the back, Horacio.
"Absolutely," Téa snapped, her voice tight, her opinion unequivocal. "We need Los Muertos gone. They're bad for our business."
"You got that right," someone shot out to a rise of whoops and "yeah" from the gathered operators.
Téa stood and looked at everyone and finally said, "Well then… get to it."
A shift to seriousness happened then, a collective approval without hesitation and the energized group moved out of the office, dispersing to the various offices throughout the old farmhouse.
Rolon shut the door and stood against it, saying nothing.
"Nobody is dead on the other side, Lopez, who didn't ask for it."
"We have dead men. Three."
"They knew the risks. They agreed. They volunteered."
He groaned and walked closer to her. "How are your children?"
She was surprised by the question, her delicate features softening somewhat. "They're coping. Lucia is doing well in school, and Reese is fine in his new preschool. Esperanza… is… different... but growing fast. Starr and Jed are living their best lives."
"How many days a week are the little ones with you, at home?"
Téa laughed… "You have got to be kidding me." She leaned forward on her hands, daggers at Rolon. "Did you ever ask Blanco that? Ever? Even one time?"
Rolon bit his tongue. "No," he admitted.
"Of course not."
"Téa, those days were different. And he—"
"Don't… don't."
The interruption, the shutdown of Rolon, differed from the usual. She wasn't raging, her head was down, hair hanging, her voice soft and sorrowful. Her own admission.
"Please…," she finally said, eyeing him again. "Get back to work. Make sure our men are surviving."
He did. Turned sharply and walked out, hoping, wondering, if some of the way Téa used to be had just revealed itself. Make sure the men survive. Easier said than done.
Téa sat back down and caressed the cigarettes. The gang wars were intensifying, shifting forces in all directions, the power structure constantly changing. Chaos really. But chaos never stays that way. Order will come. The question is… who would emerge where on the hierarchy of gang organizations? The men of Method Makers (and women) had broken into ranks on their own. Operators managed the dispensaries, their workers managed the streets. And it was on the streets that las tres soldados has gotten killed. The scent of burning bodies swirled around her. Acid in her throat. R.J.'s and Rolon's bitter judgements sat in her belly like poison. She picked out a cigarette and studied it, smelled it, tasted the unlit stick.
When she looked up, Todd's ghostly self stood in the center of her office, Blanco in his full form, jeans low, color blazing, muscles hard and ready for war. His face though, was that of her husband. All the guilt he felt for abandoning them when he went to Statesville, hours of whispered confession in bed after she had learned of MK, late into the night, a face she couldn't see in the dark, leaving her with only an imagined look…
He stared at her now. Silently spoke to her.
If I coulda done it different, Delgado, I would've.
She sat back, eyes on the ceiling. Slipped her feet back into her thousand-dollar sandals. Picked up the phone and dialed Victor downstairs.
"Get the car. Let's go on a tour."
#####
Saying goodbye to the doctor pained Todd more than he thought it would. Leaving the safety of Superman's cozy home proved almost as hard as leaving Las Hermanas de Misericordia though logically he knew it was better because he could come back whenever he wanted. Unlike the sisters.
"My door is always open," Tim had said.
Shane joked to the doctor's quiet laugh, "Though do knock first."
The other doctor had given Todd a once-over, finding him in good health. He promised the word-problem would improve, it already had improved, but that possibly there'd always be a trace of it. Small matter considering what you survived. He gave a prescription for the necessary anti-seizure meds, wrote it out to Angel Victor to match the passport. A totally illegal act that actually hurt because this guy was clean clean clean and yet here he was putting his neck out not for Todd, but for Tim. It was love that motivated him. Love in action.
Todd held that paper in his hand and could only look at Doctor Graham, utterly and strangely humbled. He said to Shane...
"You don't have to—"
"It's alright," Shane had assured him. "Your passport is plausible deniability."
Todd only had a few pills left and was grateful to be able to get more. The practical reality of walking into a pharmacy gave him the shakes though.
For now.
When Tim hugged Todd goodbye, Todd squeezed the big man to him, tight as he could, saying, "Next time… I wanna know what kinda pizza you like and if you… um… if you like any Cali-football team or just your team."
It was hard not to get emotional. The doctor still couldn't breathe but for lingering grief and its sudden vanishing with Todd being raised from the dead. What a miracle. He didn't want to let go of him.
"We'll hang out, just shoot the shit," Tim said, smiling. Then added, "And I'm more a soccer guy."
Todd laughed now, "'Course you are."
"Keep me in the loop, ok? I'm here to help. Don't forget, kiddo."
Don't forget. Because he had forgotten. Because for five years of Statesville and another three of half-living he'd rejected the doctor.
"I won't. I can't."
So after the hugs, Todd grabbed up his bag and pup and made his way to the Jeep on the street.
He started the engine and drove-crawled from the pastoral surroundings of Doctor Graham's house back to the city. He wore his Mariner's baseball cap and sunglasses and looked at all the familiar spaces but more… looked at the people. Looked for his family, for friends and old enemies. Every face…
He snaked his way through the outskirts and then hit downtown and Angel's square. Drove along Sixteenth Street and saw Brandy in her trashy clothes and he had to slow even further to drive her out of his mind. Strange how she loomed in his head since he woke up this morning, didn't know why. He had no desire to get high, no desire to disappear into the white bliss of psychosis or the heroin binge. Strange absence of dope, actually. Didn't miss it, didn't sweat at the sight of the alleys, at the couple of dealers he spotted. And it wasn't like back in Havana either, where he recognized the lull in the hate, knowing it was going to come back.
No, as he passed the tenements he lived in with Brandy, the loss of the Princess felt so very permanent.
He waited at a stop light, contemplating whether to drive to his house, to his home, just to see it, to pass by, when he glanced at the black SUV next to him.
Masked dudes in the front seat, balaclavas that warned of real hurt should anyone confront them or their boss. Couldn't see weapons but he knew they were packing. He craned his neck to see who was in the back…
And his heart jumped into his throat.
Téa Delgado Manning.
She was cool, eyes forward, dressed in flowers, blue and green against an ivory sky, bare arms he could practically taste, could feel holding him. He scratched at his chest, heart pounding, blood racing, Delgado, oh my god, you're alive, you're real…. and couldn't breathe for the immediate desire to throw open the door and bang on the windows and god fucking damnit grab her into his arms and Jesus Christ she wasn't dead, she wasn't dead, and neither was he and we're going to do this right from here on, now to forever, forever, forever, yeah?
I will never let you go. I will never abandon you ever again.
But he did nothing.
The SUV inched its way past him and then... she looked... right… at… him.
A joined held breath across the space between them.
Téa. I'm here. Can you feel me?
#####
She gazed at the man staring at her from the truck or the Jeep or SUV next to her, at the dark sunglasses, at the beard, at his lips slightly parted, at his absolute grip of her. That was it. He was holding her, almost as powerfully as touching her, demanding she see him, a stranger, a complete and total stranger. She didn't recognize him. Short hair, military short, she caught that under the nondescript baseball hat. She couldn't make out what he looked like, not really. The shades prevented it, his capture of her prevented it. She didn't have time to check the rest of him, to even see the lettering on the cap, to see if there were gang tattoos or whether he was an old prosecutor or judge or defense attorney or … who? She wasn't able to see the whole man because she could not tear away from his face.
An unknown. Alien to her. Un desconocido.
She looked until she couldn't.
Téa had a hard time forgetting it. That hard grip stuck to her as she and her guards visited the new dispensaries, as she checked out the products and talked to the workers to remind them of the greater purpose to everything they were doing, the purpose of owning their destiny, of taking up power in a society that didn't want them to have any. All through the tour, she couldn't stop thinking of the stranger who wouldn't let her go.
When she got home she held Esperanza and in that embrace on the rocking chair, she remembered Todd, her Todd, Blanco, too, that they looked at her like that. Held her with a look that was as real and solid as a touch.
No… forget forget forget, please dear God, keep me forgetting. Stay the fuck away from me because if I feel you, if I fully remember that touch with your beautiful eyes, with those light eyes that drove right into my heart, mí alma, I will die.
She worked hard to keep his ghost at bay once she remembered. Let Espy do all the crying she refused to do.
When she looked across the room in the dark, she could hear his heart beating, his whisper…
Can you feel me?
#####
Pedro Moreno stood at the door of Todd's cottage, one of six others just like it, all six surrounding a stone-tiled courtyard, for workers on the property, small, quaint, buildings originally for slaves in the early days of Pennsylvania. Todd had spent the afternoon doing his memory tour, admittedly torturous. He finally had parked at the top of a hill, let Abram sniff around after they shared burgers, both only a stone's throw from his own house as the sun set in the horizon. He spent the time imagining his family, aching to blow the whole effort, more hellish torture. He knew he shouldn't do this to himself. Prison awaited the discovery of him. He kept telling himself that.
He eventually made it to Pedro's, well after dark.
He tossed his bag on the bed and plopped down on it. Jedediah was on his way. Abram lay down at his feet and they both glared at Pedro, heaping blame on him because it was easier than blaming himself.
Prison for a bombing.
Todd gazed at his savior, hard… revengeful... light eyes. Pedro crossed his arms and understood. Said plainly, "I hope the death of Manuel Caro serves as payment for all the wrong that has been done to you. I hope you have that."
Couldn't go there. Did not want that basement door opened. He growled wordlessly. He wanted to ask about Téa except the words disappeared, caught in his throat, crashing into the image of her in the back of the SUV, rolling like Cleopatra on the backs of slaves. Too much work to get the words in order, to wrestle them out of his broken brain.
Moving inside, Pedro shut the front door. Todd monitored him through his peripheral vision. The cottage was a single room with a small kitchen, a bathroom. It reflected its history, utilitarian in its lack of decorations, monkish like the convent, like the guest room at the doctors' house. Oppressive though. It felt like a prison. The wood floors, however, reminded him of the beach house in La Habana. Gloria, Rico… flashed in his head. He swallowed hard and begrudgingly focused on Pedro at the tiny kitchen table. He'd pulled a bottle of rum from a cupboard, and two short glasses.
In Spanish, Pedro said, "Come to the table, let us talk like the kings we are."
After a minute of silent brooding, Todd got up and sat as asked, a move that echoed when he was under Pedro's thumb. It left a bad taste in his mouth. He sipped the Cuban rum, the absence of whiskey or scotch confirming who had the power right now.
"When I handed you my crown en la Habana, I meant every word. I stepped down. Voluntarily."
Todd lifted his eyes to Pedro's, gazing until Pedro pulled away to drink. "I like to think," he said, "we would have shared a drink, this way, at my restaurant, in the back, to speak about transition."
Todd chuffed, "Maybe." He drank the rest of the liquor and poured himself another finger or two of the rum.
Pedro smiled, almost to himself, "I assume you want to know about MK."
Todd grunted a yes, the alcohol loosening him a little, enough to ignore the dynamics, and the resulting old and current wish to squash Pedro like a summer bug.
"Most of the men have shifted to Method Makers, Téa's organization. A few still work for me. We don't have territories anymore but we still have suppliers, so we continue to supply."
He managed to choke out a response. "Supply who? What?"
Pedro sighed heavily. "Same as before, the Native Americans, the Chinese, the Jamaicans, the Puerto Ricans. Supplying much less inventory."
"The usual?"
"Pharmaceutical, weaponry, laundry. My hope of legitimacy is dead. We have backed out of gaming though."
"Tell me… about… her."
Pedro leaned back, eying his putative son, his adopted bastard son. He could see the torment over her, the desire to go home. Pedro never much cared for personal agonies of his men, MK came first always. But today, now, after all these months, that old kingly dispassion had dissolved. He was left an old man… full of regrets… and too aware of pain that surrounded him. An acid ocean of pain. He swallowed hard and assumed a pretense of business-only.
"Every city that permits it has a Method Makers marijuana dispensary. They are manned by ex-MK and a handful of other groups. As far as I know. They were fully legitimate until recently when Los Muertos moved in en masse. Her workers resumed old methods at keeping territory. At her command. your Téa is a queen of the Method Makers' illicit work and the proper."
It blew Todd's mind. Couldn't fathom this. He shook his head. "No," he said. "Can't be… on purpose." The idea shoved out all his hate for Pedro. No room. Only Téa now.
"I do not know, my son. I do not speak to her. But… it does not matter. This is where we are are. Los Muertos and Method Makers are in a war. So… being that MM is a new iteration of MK, what do you say as king?"
Todd grumbled a repudiation of being called son but the crossroads he stood at took precedence. He was here to fix things. To cushion the fall of Téa as a queen because unquestionably, she was on a train heading straight for a cliff. On the other hand, why think that? To see her on the doomed locomotive was to say he thought her incapable of manning the engine. Why should he think she'd fail? Why not let her command and win?
He tilted his head… maybe she only needed a capable guy dumping the coal into the firebox?
Pedro sipped his drink and watched Todd consider his options, tears stinging his eyes out of sheer… love. He wished they had been able to find a way to be a father and son in a purer way. But here they were. It was the best he could do. He had to accept this reality.
"Where is Rolon in all this?"
My god, Pedro thought, restraining a large rejoiceful laugh. He just knew his son was coming around. He balanced the crown in his hands. He just needed a push to place it on his head.
"Right hand man to Téa."
Todd's eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. "Is that right?"
"It is."
Pulling himself up to his feet, Todd glanced around the room as a rush of mad out-of-left-field jealousy blew up in his chest like an old mine in a Vietnam rice field. He tightened his fists and bit down on his teeth. Of course…that goddamn bastard would have run to her bed—
"She is not sleeping with him," Pedro offered, eyes on his drink. He may have been a deposed king but… he still had eyes all over the region. "She's taken up with Gloria."
Todd could only blink, struck.
Pedro smiled, "Surprised?"
"I don't believe you."
"Does not matter. Nothing changes the state of affairs."
Todd paced now… the explosion still booming, still wrecking him. Gloria? Never occurred to him that Gloria… that Delgado... he almost laughed. Who the fuck was he to say who could possibly sleep with whom? He plopped down on the bed and called Abram up. The dog nestled next to Todd. But since the dog did not sense pain… he flipped on to his back and demanded a belly rub. Todd accommodated him.
"Get me Rolon. Can you do that?"
"Why don't you? You are the king. Be that."
Pedro took out his cell and tapped at the screen. Todd's phone buzzed. He glanced at Pedro and picked up the burner next to his bag. Rolon's number blazed in the text message.
Todd looked at Pedro and then at the numbers again. One thing for sure, Rolon would never betray him to the cops. That was unquestionable.
With a hard swallow, he dialed the number. After a moment, a gruff voice answered and in his Cuban Spanish said, "Who is this and what the fuck do you want?"
Todd smiled, an act he couldn't help…a beat of silence passing… and then in his own street-taught Spanish, he rumbled...
"Stories of my death are greatly exaggerated."
The gasp he heard, the near whimper, all before getting a cursed "Where you at, bitch, where where the fuck you at?! Coño!" reverberated in his head for a long time.
"Hey Rolon… we got work to do, yeah?"
"Brother… my god…mi hermano de sangre..."
And for the first time in his life, Todd heard Rolon really cry and THAT confirmed what Jedediah had been saying…
…Téa was in such trouble.
To be continued...
