Page 31 of Hit Man
My friend, who never lived anywhere else but in Sacramento, moved to Mexico. Her worried about her parents finding employment in their home country. Me afraid of what life there had to offer my sweet, amiable, well-loved, and highly intelligent best friend. Relocating to Mexico was moving to a foreign country for her.
A few weeks later, the news of her death rocked me to my core. She’d been shot on her way to school. A random victim of violence. A type of violence prevalent in the impoverished neighborhood her family had no choice but to return to.
Howie never understood why I’m so passionate about my housing plans. Unaware of what true loss feels like. The injustice of it all. How innocent people are affected every day by finger-pointing, name-calling,scapegoating. Wealth versus poverty. Political propaganda undermining regular folk trying to earn a decent living.
Tucking my book back inside my backpack, I finish my meal before setting off for the living room. A phone sits on a table nestled next to a cluster of chairs. I swallow hard, fighting off an abject sense of failure.
The lights flicker as I pick up the phone. Seconds later, the power goes out.
I put my ear against the receiver. It’s dead. The rain pounding down on the rooftop seems to amplify the silence.
With a sigh, I return the receiver to its base. After making a quick visit to the bathroom, where I take a few seconds to retrieve my raincoat and arrange the hood over my head, tightening the cords to the point where my peripheral vision is severely impaired, I head back out into the pouring rain.
Looks like I’m stuck here at Casa Bella. I’ll spend the day reading quietly inside my bungalow until the rain lets up and I venture back to the mansion to make my call.
The sky has darkened and the wind’s kicked up, forcing me to tuck my chin into my neck to escape the onslaught of rain. I follow the same familiar path from last night, once more passing Zeus and Hercules and Athena, the statues seeming less inviting and more sinister now that they’re darkened by rain. The lights that’d so fully illuminated the path last night are as dead as stone.Notsolar lighting, after all.
What kind of fool set up the electrical wiring surrounding Casa Bella? I’m not an electrical engineer. Yet connecting all your wiring to one main circuit breaker without a generator to back it up and without the simplest thing like solar-generated lighting is something you learn to avoid in Engineering 101. Especially this high up on a mountaintop, where the environs are at greater risk to the elements. All this money spent on Parisian statues and waterfalls and they skimp out on the electrical grid? That’s what you get for favoring flash over practicality.
My foot slips out beneath me and I scramble to regain balance. When I do, I immediately realize I’ve veered left on the pathway. With the rain and my being so caught up in poor practical planning, I failed to notice the pathway is steadily growing steeper. I’m headed toward the waterfall.
I pause, listening to the rain amplified by the sound of the waterfall, and look around me. A bed of bright flowers is off to my right. Red hibiscus, like the kind native to Hawaii. I’m further along the path than I was last night.
That’s when I hear them.
Men. Unhappy men.
It’s hard to understand the exchange of rapid-fire Spanish but easy to work out they’re irritated. Who wouldn’t be, out in this downpour?
Doors slam. Two truck doors, one after the other.
Curious about what they’re up to, I slowly work my way along the steep, winding path, the sound of the waterfall now barely audible as the skies open up, drowning out everyone and everything. Is there a driveway of sorts nearby, too? Somewhere where the men might have parked?
I pause, questioning myself. It doesn’t help that for some inexplicable reason, the hairs on my arms are standing at attention.
I step backward when I see them. About a dozen men slowly moving toward me. Pushing a rectangular-shaped metal cart with a large crate on it.
Uphill.
In the rain.
Cursing with each slip and slide of their unsure footing.
Strange, right? Couldn’t the delivery be cancelled? And why here? Why not store it within one of the multiple garages on the east side of the house? Or maybe it’s another statue . . . that Juan Carlos is being ridiculous and insisting it be brought deep into the garden?
I step backward, and further backward. Willing myself to sink deeper inside my raincoat. With all these unanswered questions, wanting to very much to go unnoticed.
A loud bang echoes across the grounds and I nearly fall to the ground with fright. Lightning? Another car door slamming?
Or a . . . gunshot?
I don’t wait to find out. Whatever it is has me running, suddenly and desperatelynotwanting these men to catch me on the path.
A light flashes, its glare dancing across the puddle by my feet. Lightning, without the subsequent thunder? Or did a bulb go off in one of the overhead path lights . . . which now seem to be suddenly back on . . . ?
Someone shouts.
There’s a commotion behind me. Footsteps far too close for comfort pounding across the pavement.
