Chapter 1
This story doesn’t start out like most and by that, I mean at the beginning. Well, if you wanted the whole story that is. We’d have to go pretty far back to find where this daisy chain of events really kicked off, and well, I’m afraid I’m almost out of time.
Now as a rule, I try not to spend a lot of time thinking of the past. Choices are choices, this is that, shit happens, or as the French say, “C’est le passé.” Then again, not much matters when you’ve got a .45 caliber sized hole in your gut and people left to kill.
However, maybe we could all do with some personal reflection now and then. After all, I’ve got some time left. Time enough to cover the broad strokes of how it all shook out in the end.
What else am I going to do while sitting atop the hood of my ’88 Monte Carlo while a John Doe digs a grave fitted for two. I’m not really in any condition to help, even if I felt so inclined to do so, seeing as how I’m currently holding my guts inside with a dirty rag and the weakening grip of my right hand.
What a way to go out. Not the worst way, but not exactly ideal either. To die alone out in the desert on the wrong side of midnight, all while waiting for the final pieces to click.
Yeah, it’s moments like this that give a man time to think. Time to ruminate on the past and the choices he’s made to get where he gets and to dwell on could-have-beens and the almosts, and of course, life and death.
How’s that saying go? Over a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero?
It’s only now, after a rage-filled revenge tour of felonies, that I realize I could have done some things better. Sometimes you just get so wrapped up in what you’re doing or getting what you’re after, that you end up making some piss poor choices.
At least I could have left a little bit less evidence, but let’s back up.
It all started last week, in the lobby of The American Hotel, an antiquated hotel located in downtown White Bluffs, Washington. Just another shitty hotel in a mid-sized city along the riverbanks of the upper Columbia River…another dusty shithole in the middle of nowhere, where if the wind doesn’t get you, the sun will, as if it’s permanently set to self-clean.
It was in the lobby of The American that a cut-up body was found stuffed into a duffel bag. The whole incident caused quite a stir, as it would anywhere else, and you couldn’t get online without seeing the same image plastered everywhere.
One of a large black bag sitting on the floor next to a leather armchair. I swear it punctuated every headline like mandatory grammar.
Ghouls, aren’t we all?
I didn’t pay much attention to the story after that, save for a few rumors that local PD screwed the pooch on the investigation but that was all hearsay. It was a strange story, no doubt about that, but I only worry about things I get paid to worry about. That is until the paper printed a sketch of the victim and that’s when I started to hear her voice.
I broke down when I first heard it. It came in as a whisper, just beneath the surface, yet as clear as the first time we met in the backroom of some skuzzy night club. I was security and she was the entertainment. She said her name in a raspy voice as I took her hand in greeting and even though that was over a year ago, her face still looked much like the one police sketch.
Sakura
Almond shaped eyes with the color to match and sleek black hair that was cut off at the shoulders, but one thing this caricature lacked was the glow to her white skin, like porcelain.
That was Sakura, a hooker with a heart of gold and a glint to her eye. A look most streetwalkers with clout lack as the job does its best to quickly smother it out.
The tears came and went because shortly after finding out, I received a phone call.
“Hello, Victor Serrano?”
“Yeah, this is Vic.”
“This is William DeBella esq,” the voice perked up, as if the utterance of his name demanded respect, “I represent a client who is in need of your services.”
I knew who DeBella was, because I knew who his client was, but I played it dumb.
“What’s the job?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss it over the phone, but you come highly recommended by a Mr. George R. Snyder…does that name ring a bell?”
Nine times out of ten I would have said no, but DeBella had my number, literally and figuratively.
Most people spend their lives on one side of the law, while others treat it as a suggested guideline. I was in the latter category, and it was Snyder who brought me over. Or more simply put, the day I went to work for Snyder was the day I sold my soul to the devil.
