Callahan
The Rose Club is a high-end strip club for all intents and purposes. On the front end, at least. Four soldiers enter with me, flanking me.
Back rooms. Where the real action is.
The back rooms are where the more illicit events take place. Where drugs are sold. Where women are sold. Where those with more deviant desires are sated.
I stop just inside the deep velvet curtains that are so dark a violet they appear to be black. The lights are subdued, and three stages showcase three separate dancers.
Two bars take up the whole wall at either end of the large room with glass shelf upon glass shelf of the highest quality liquor up to the vaulted ceiling. Throughout this room are situated richly upholstered deep violet chairs to match the curtains separating this room from the other spaces.
“He doesn’t get out. Not tonight,” I tell my men.
They all nod. I have two more men out front and two at every other possible exit.
“There.” In the farthest corner I spot the two men who clearly don’t belong here. They’re standing on this side of a closed door, their jeans and T-shirts out of place. The ill-fitting jackets they are wearing, obviously borrowed, and the looks on their faces that of men who’ve never seen girls like this before.
He cannot be this stupid.
“Key,” I say to the madam who’s standing nearby.
“He’s in the back rooms. I told you. I don’t want trouble here.”
“I said key.”
“Sir. I – ”
I turn to her and she backs up a step when she sees my face. I lean toward her. She’s five feet tall tops.
“Key.”
A moment later, the key card is in my hand. Modern, like a hotel room key.
I make my way through the center of the room to the door where the two men stand sentry.
When they can drag their lecherous gazes from the women to finally notice us, they’re too late to reach beneath their borrowed jackets before my men have disarmed them.
They start to speak in Spanish, words hurried, any loyalty Fernando thought he had gone.
“Take them out back,” I tell my men, my eyes locked on that door hold the key card up against the electronic pad and listen to the satisfying click as a green light blinks. I push the door open to find another corridor. The carpet, walls and ceiling is black.
Sloppily done.
No doors in this corridor. At the end, I come upon the second part of the club. The one the tourists don’t see.
A security guard meets my eyes as he slips his phone into his pocket. I’m sure that was the madam announcing my arrival.
Without a word, he gestures to a door at the far end, then slips past me and into the corridor I just walked through.
My men and I cross the large, dimly lit space to the lone door at the far end. There, I use the same key card to enter.
Soundproofing must have cost a fortune in this place because I’m instantly assaulted by the sound of heavy metal music playing loudly.
In the front room, the music is lighter, something the girls can dance to. I close the door behind me.
The downstairs room is large, open. Dark like the corridor. A set of stairs lead up to the second floor. I hear a man’s laughter coming from the bedroom with the door ajar, followed by the sound of footsteps above.
Whoever is descending won’t see us before we see them but it’s not Fernando. These men are speaking Spanish.
As soon as they get downstairs, my soldiers grab them from behind, guns to their temples. One is wearing a dirty tank top, the other white T-shirt stained and stretched tight over his gigantic gut.
The two are surprised. Again, I wonder if Fernando is stupid or if this
is a trap Felix set. I smile, put my finger to my lips as my men easily take hold of them and move them out the door.
I walk up the stairs, pistol at my side. I’m oddly calm. My heartbeat under control. My mind is razor sharp and focused.
I hear a woman then. A woman’s scream. It’s muffled quickly and just for a moment, I have to stop because it takes me back. Takes me to my mom’s screams. He didn’t try to muffle those.
The bedroom door opens a crack and the large bed is across the room. A woman is lying on her back, arms stretched out to the sides, held by soldiers. They watch as Fernando, his hand over her mouth, has his way with her. I’m not sure if he paid for the act or if he’s taking what he wants.
She’s the first to see me. I know because her eyes go from wide to panicked.
Fernando’s ugly ass bobs in my line of vision and it takes all I have to stay focused. To stay here. Because if I go back to the night of the massacre, I’ll be powerless. I may as well be lying in a pool of my own blood again.
Without a word, I lift my weapon and point it between the eyes of the man to the woman’s right.
Bang!
The woman screams but Fernando presses his hand harder against her mouth, unaware why she’s screaming over the too loud music.
The man falls to the wall, drops into a chair there.
Fernando laughs the high-pitched insane laughter of the stoned.
The other soldier turns from his fallen colleague to me. I fire in the same instant his mouth opens.
Bang!
Red splatters against the wall behind him.
I see Fernando’s head shoot up. He looks at the wall, then at the second man I killed. He shifts his gaze to the first one. His ugly ass has finally stopped its-in-out motion.
“What the – ”
“Get up,” I say.
He turns slowly to me and the woman beneath him scrambles off the bed. She falls to the floor, scurrying to collect her things, then runs out of the room and down the stairs.
“Keep her inside,” I call out to the soldiers downstairs. I don’t want her alerting anyone.
“Fuck!” Fernando scrambles too. Falling over the edge of the bed as I make my way around it. I know what he wants. The gun on top of his jeans. The idiot still has his T-shirt on but he’s bare-assed.
“Move. Opposite wall.” I point to the one farthest from the gun.
“My men are outside,” he threatens.
“No, they’re not,” I say, taking his pistol and unloading it. I toss his jeans to him. “Get dressed. I don’t need to see your dick.”
He snorts, gives me a one-sided grin. I’m not sure if he’s high or drunk or both. Maybe just plain old stupid. Which only reaffirms that he was not the brains of the operation that took down my family.
“Your mom sure liked my dick.”
I breathe.
Slow. Steady. Deep.
Calm.
Stay calm.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I can’t rush this. Can’t kill him without finding out what he said. He’s dying tonight. That’s non-negotiable.
I keep my eyes on his as I raise my pistol to aim it at his now-limp dick.
“You want me to shoot it off before we get started.”
He puts up both hands, palms to me. His pupils are dilated. The fucker is stoned and stupid.
“Get fucking dressed.”
He bends down to pick up his jeans and I watch him try to balance as he pulls them on. I see how dirty they are. How dirty the T-shirt is.
He’s barefoot but I don’t care about that. As soon as he’s got his jeans on, I empty my gun of bullets and toss it aside, pocketing the ammunition.
Fernando looks confused.
I approach him but he doesn’t move. Not at first. He’s still looking at the discarded gun.
“I’m going to kill you with my hands,” I tell him.
He lunges for the gun then even though it’s useless.
I extend my leg and trip him. He goes down hard, slamming his face into the low wooden footboard of the bed.
“Fuck!”
“Idiot.” I walk to him, get on one knee and turn him over, straddling him, but leaving his arms free. I want him to fight. I want this to last.
I want his death to be a slow one.