Page 63 of Moros

“Uh!” Khadri spoke. “Put it down or get a new hole to breathe out of.”

There was a clatter before he fired again, and someone screamed in pain.

“What I want is simple—” He spoke again. “Anthony James.”

When I peered around his body, a slender man at the end of the bar yanked a shanking man from one of the stools and shoved him forward.

“You’re doing this to me?” The man from the ID card asked the skinny man.

“Listen, I told you,” The skinny man replied. “I opened this place to have somewhere to drink. I don’t want no smoke. This is how I feed my kids, man. And somehow you pissed off the God of impending doom. You’re on your own.”

Khadri towered over the man on the floor, caught him by the back of his shirt and dragged him, kicking and screaming out the door.

Awkwardly, I offered the few others in the room, including the bartender who was bleeding from a busted up hand, a small smile and a wave before stepping outside again.

Khadri tossed the screaming man into the bed of the truck, closed the covering over him and motioned for me to get into the truck.

“Kidnapping is a felony, you know?” I asked as he pulled the truck from the curb.

“You could have gone home.” He didn’t even glance at me. “You had that option.”

“I didn’t know you were going to kidnap a man!”

“I didn’t go there to kidnap him.” Khadri’s voice was hard. “I went there to kill him. But I’m going to give him a chance he didn’t give me. I’m going to give him a bit of a reprieve before I put a bullet between his eyes.”

“Khadri you can’t?—”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” he snapped at a redlight. “You don’t know how these men operate. They take as much rope as you’ll give them and they keep coming. If I let him go, when he comes back, anything that happens becomes my fault. Do you understand?”

His eyes scared me.

But I understood what he meant.

“But maybe hand him over to Boss when you’re done.”

“We’ll see.” He muttered turning to face forward again.

It was less than an hour later when Anthony broke. I stood outside the door listening to his cries of pain. I didn’t want to see what was happening. The truth was, I was already having trouble sleeping at nights, witnessing torture would no doubt make it worse.

As I fondled the pendant sitting on my chest, wondered what he thought he was accomplishing by not just telling Khadri what he needed to know.

He stepped through the door on phone with Boss, asking for someone to come get Anthony.

“Is he alive?” Boss’ voice was crisp over the line.

“Depends on who you ask.” Khadri hung up.

I was losing myself in the midst of all of this. But then again, as I sat on the deck of the pool wit my feet in the water, I ached to go for a swim.

Still, I remained there, swaying my legs back and forth, loving the coolness and the soft resistance that forced me to add a little muscle in the movements.

I didn’t see Anthony after Khadri had dragged him into that room. But he was moaning in pain when Khadri left him and while I wanted to ask about what had happened, I didn’t.

Did that make me a coward?

Complicit?

Evil?

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