She nodded.
“You saw it too, didn’t you?” More urgent now.
Another nod.
“You must tell them!” he demanded.
Martha put up her hands, mouth partially open, but didn’t utter a sound.
“Luke. Tell her I also know about Luke and...” His image blurred with urgency. In her mind she could hear him repeating the same request, “Tell her!”
Not wanting to be seen talking to the air in front of her, Martha remained silent. Instead, she put up a finger indicating the unknown entity should be patient. To her relief, the voice in her head silenced. But he moved in closer, crossed his arms, and stared down at her with an intensity that caused Martha to shudder.
Chapter Eight
A handful more years had passed since his first delivery for the man with the shiny-white-car-with-the-soft-roof. Armando was approaching his teenage years and had quickly grown into a reliable errand boy for the men with the scorpion tattoo. He told them he wanted the tattoo, but they said no as he hadn’t proven himself yet. They would not tell him what he had to do nor explain anything to him other than what to take and where to go.
“You are too young,” they told him.
Frustrated, Armando turned to others in an effort to satisfy his curiosities. He would often stop at the place-where-the-pretty-girls-stand-out-front and question the women as to the workings of this gang of men he ran errands for. Wisely, none of the girls wished to talk about these things. But an older woman, who seemed to be the matron of the group, occasionally answered his questions. When none of the men could see, she would take Armando aside and show him some books she kept hidden in the house. Slowly, he learned to read and, in time, developed a real appetite for it. He devoured her books. She eventually told him of the small rundown library in town. He spent his extra time there and soon found himself drawn to the tales of great men and how they had lived their lives. Inspired by these, he began to devise his own schemes in order to address the hurdles in his life head-on.
Because Armando spent most of his time away from home, his father became less of a problem. Now that Armando made the money, his father did not have to work so much. The boy paid for the roof over their heads and the food on their table but refused to buy liquor for papa. He had endured several beatings over this until the day he stood up to him.
“Give me money,” Papa demanded. “I know you have it.”
“No.” Armando had become skilled at hiding his coins from papa, who always searched him after the beatings.
“You want to defy me?” Papa said with a satisfied grin as he pulled his long thick brown belt out of his pant loops. “Then take your pants down, boy, hands on the table. You know the drill.” His father folded the belt and snapped it in the air. The leather clap sounded similar to the sound it made when the well-worn belt cracked on his skinny legs and bare ass. The reddened welts usually lasted for days.
Armando hesitated. His father raised the folded belt, intending to crack him across the face as he always did now that Armando had begun resisting. Armando didn’t care anymore. He could take the pain in order to stand up to the abuse.
“You will feel the sting of my belt until you tell me where you keep your coin,” his father growled. “Now, boy!”
Armando stepped back. “No. No more.”
Papa came forward, swung the belt, and smacked the boy across the face with it. Armando fell backwards into the wall but kept his feet. Seeing his blows no longer knocked Armando to the ground, Papa threw down the belt and picked up a stick he kept in the house. He raised it to strike the boy, but his son pressed himself away from the wall, caught his arm in mid-swing, and wrenched the stick from his hand.
Armando looked his papa in the eyes. “Enough. No more.”
Papa staggered back. “Oh, big man now, eh?”
Armando threw the stick to the floor. “You can stay here, where I pay for the roof over our heads.” Armando pounded his chest. “But you can buy your own drink.” With that, he walked out. Armando knew he could not endure much more of this before father found a way to hurt him. He always did. Armando had grown old enough to be taken at any moment by the same men who had carried off his mother. I will not allow that to happen.
Careful no one followed him, Armando went to the various places he stashed his coins and gathered them into one sack. He did not know how much he had but hoped it would be enough. He headed straight for the man-who-sits-behind-a-very-large-desk. He heard this man arranged passage to America. Armando had been saving all these years so that he might have a chance to escape a life sure to overwhelm him. He did not want to end up like his father, drunken and soulless.
The building was on the outskirts of the village, where a couple of drunken men sat guard on the front porch. He had been observing the comings and goings for some time and knew their weaknesses and openings. Making sure not to be seen, Armando snuck through a side door and walked into the man’s office.
As rumored, he faced a man sitting behind a very large desk. Armando immediately associated the confirmation of the rumors with this man as a trustworthy authority figure. He walked right up and set his bag of coins down with a clink clink. “I want to go to America.”
The man looked at the coins with a frown. “That is not enough.”
“But I have been saving for years, running errands like a dog.”
“Yes, I have heard of you.” The man paused. “But what will those men think when they learn I helped you leave?” The man leaned forward, scowling, and joined his hands on the large desk. Armando saw his tattoo—a scorpion, only different somehow... Like the man who hurt his mother.
Unnerved now, he muttered to the man, “Okay.” He reached for his bag of coins, but the man snatched them up.
“Hold on, hold on. Don’t be hasty. If we can get you out of here, you will owe us.”
“I do not like to owe,” Armando replied.
The man looked down at the bag of coins hungrily. “You are going to America. The land of opportunity where you can pay off your debt in a very short time.”
Armando hesitated.
The man narrowed his eyes. “It is the only way,” he pressed.
Armando looked away and tightened his lips before turning to look the man in the eyes, searching for any sign of truth.
The man smiled and put the coins on the table between them. He sat back and waved his hand dismissively, then returned his attention to papers on his desk.
Armando sighed. “Okay.”
“You have made a wise decision.” The man looked up and beamed. “But you must do exactly as I say. Come, we have a group leaving tonight. You will join them!”
𓂓
The compound was about an hour west of the warehouse. The Alphabet King made sure his men blindfolded Dewey and John for the ride. Two guards rode with them. ABCs rode in a second Excursion SUV with two more of his men. He demanded silence while they drove.
