Page 38 of Mace
Without making any effort to soft-pedal my answer, I told him the truth, “It was Ramirez, I was thinking of telling him that his man was dead, I had possession of all his drugs and if he wanted it back, I was willing to trade for Alicia’s mom as long as she was unharmed.” I shrugged, “Or something along those lines.”
Storm said something and Celt put him on speaker phone. “Actually, that’s not a half bad idea. We need to remove all the loot to a safe location and work a little harder to come up with a foolproof plan, but your idea might work.” Storm’s tone of voice changed, became darker. “When you get back to the clubhouse, come and talk to me immediately, Mace.”
When the screen went dark, Celt turned to me. “I know Storm’s my feckin’ cousin, but I cannot save ye from yerself. No more doin’ whatever random shite pops into yer head from now on.” Pointing his cell phone at me, he grumbled, “Ye got that?”
I nodded, feeling both foolish and clever, because I had a good idea, just the wrong execution. “I got it, brother. I’m a lone wolf, working on being a team player.”
We busied ourselves righting all the crates and getting them ready for transport. I was pretty sure the Slayers were just going to drop the dead man at our dumping site rather than get the police involved. Of course that would be up to Storm and the club officers to decide. I’m used to making decisions for myself, but I’m slowly learning the benefits of taking a more collaborative approach. Storm has often told us that we’re stronger together than any one of us is alone and I’m starting to believe it.
It doesn’t take long for one of our club vans to show up with Storm and six prospects. While Storm talks to us about our find, the prospects make short work of loading the van with the loot we found. They even put the dead man in a body bag. At least I had the foresight to take a pic of him with my cell phone so we could show Alicia. She might be able to ID him. So far all we knew was that his first name was Hernando, since he didn’t have any identification on him.
***
I passed by Alicia with my club brothers and didn’t stop because I wanted to debrief with Storm and then wash the scent of death off my body. Nine trotted over but stopped about four feet away and looked at me strangely, so I knew he was picking up the odor. “Go lay down, boy,” I told him, as I pointed back to Alicia.
He obeyed, probably because he didn’t want to leave her side to start out with, I thought ruefully, that it looked like my wolfdog was becoming just as fond of her as I was.
Before I headed to Storm’s office I had a thought, I quickly went to Alicia and showed her the photo I’d taken, the revolted look on her face made me realize I should have told her what I was about to show her first, but I was on an adrenaline high and not thinking, “Sorry, darlin’. I should have warned you. Do you know him?”
She swallowed like she was trying hard not to be sick and nodded, before saying weakly, “Hernando, he’s one of my father’s main men. I know his face was…” her words trailed off. His face had pretty much been eaten. She straightened her shoulders and continued, “I recognize his hat, he wore it all the time. Also the shirt. I’d washed it enough times.”
“Thanks, Alicia. I need to go and tell the club officers that.”
I followed Celt into Storm’s office, where I got yelled at for twenty minutes about what a stupid idea it was to pick up Hernando’s phone and pretend to be him. Only then did Storm admit that this might work to our advantage, especially when Itold him that Alicia had confirmed he was one of her father’s men.
“He thinks the guy he left guarding his ill-gotten gains is still alive. That means he’ll be extra shocked when we call him and drop the news that we’ve captured him and taken all his product too. We don’t know how important Hernando is to his group. We only know that he’s not their leader because Alicia’s father is and he’s not the second in command because Alejandro is. The bottom line is he was trusted enough to guard their shit while they went back to Mexico, so leading them to believe he’s still alive could only work to our favor.”
After his long speech, Storm looked at us expectantly.
I nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”
Celt went off on a fiery rant about how these guys are members of the cartel. That they’re not going to value any one person over their loot. I thought he was onto something, but I let him and Storm argue it out. They’re cousins and I assumed no one wanted to get between them. I know I didn’t. In the end Storm won the argument, because of course he always does. Storm’s the fucking smartest person I knew. He wins all the arguments as far as I can tell. I didn’t know why Celt even bothered, unless he just enjoyed arguing.
***
If I’d thought they were going to get me to make the call to Alicia’s father, I would have been very much mistaken about that. A few hours later Storm decided to make that call himself and it was something to see, because he had a plan in place to ensure the cartel’s cooperation.
Once we were outside the clubhouse with a few cases of drugs and a burn barrel with a robust fire, he dialed the number of the last incoming call.
The same voice as before answered, deep and menacing, “What the fuck, Hernando. Why did you hang up on me? Has that gunshot addled your brain.”
Storm interjected in a firm voice. “He hung up because the Dark Slayers MC showed up.”
“Who the hell are you?” the surprised man asked.
“I’m Storm, the president of the Dark Slayers.” Storm’s voice was calm and matter of fact, like he dealt with members of the cartel just about every day.
“That means nothing to me,” the other man responded. “Put Hernando on the line.”
“I’m afraid he’s indisposed at the moment. You see, there was scuffle, and the Slayers won. That means, I’m the man currently in possession of all the shit you left in that cave. Don’t worry about Hernando. We’ve got him tucked away in a safe location for now.”
“You have my merchandise?” The tone of the man’s voice grew stone cold. It was chilling to hear.
“I just said that I did. Weren’t you listening? Look asshole, you need to sit up and pay attention because I don’t like repeating myself.”
It had not escaped my notice that Storm was being as antagonistic as possible. I expected him to manage JuanRamirez a little better. Pissing him off when he had control over Alicia’s mother seemed like a really bad idea.
“This is not a negotiation. I want my merchandise returned immediately. No questions asked. You return my merchandise, and I will let you live. Those are my terms.”