The Beasts of Juarez R.B. Schow (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

“No problem,” he said, opening the door and standing back to let them in. “I don’t have no basement so this should be quick.”

They looked around to their satisfaction then thanked the man and left. Sitting in the rental car, Jackson looked at Scotty and said, “Well, New York, here we come…again.”

When they returned to Apple’s house, the woman’s car was gone. They let themselves in through the back door, cleared the rooms then went down to the basement.

“There’s the antique cabinet,” Jackson said, shining his phone’s flashlight on it. Scotty pulled the closet back after wiggling it here and there, and just like Martin said, there was an enclosed closet with an air hole in the roof.

“There’s enough room for a person to lie down comfortably,” Scotty said, saddened by the sight of it, its implications for the boys when they were younger, and now Alabama.

Unfortunately, there was no Alabama.

“I’ll have another look upstairs,” Jackson said.

“Son of a bitch,” Scotty cursed to himself. He was sure they would find her here.

When he trudged back upstairs, Scotty went to Apple’s room, where he found the chest of drawers opened up with clothes spilled on the floor. In the small, mold-smelling closet, he found large, empty sections on an old closet rod where the woman’s clothes once hung. A few more scattered garments were lying on the floor, still on their hangers. Did they scare her off telling her the cops knew about everything? Apparently they did.

“Scotty, you need to see this!” Jackson called out from the other room.

He hurried to where Jackson was then saw the look on his partner’s face. The man was standing over the kitchen table, looking at a large piece of notebook paper. On the paper was the pencil tracing of a middle finger. Coming from the end of the finger was a depiction of a dick spurting out globs of ejaculate. Inside one of the larger loads, the old woman had scrawled the words “Fuck you.”

“Can you believe this?” Jackson asked, astounded. “A real artist, this one.”

“Finger painting for morons,” Scotty mumbled. “The freaking liar packed her clothes, got Alabama out of hiding downstairs then she put this place in the rearview mirror.”

“Martin said she was like dealing with a child,” Jackson reminded him.

“So, what now?” Scotty asked.

“We need to figure out where this crazy bag of bitch meat went, and then we need to find out why she did so with a kidnapped kid.”

“She always wanted a grandbaby,” Scotty said. “Alabama wasn’t hers, but the baby inside of her, Keegan’s baby…now that’s part of the White bloodline. To her, if I’m right, that would constitute a proper grandbaby.”

“We need to find out how far along Alabama is. If she’s close to term, maybe we can lock in on a local hospital and see if they’ve had anyone matching Apple’s and Alabama’s descriptions. We can get photos of both to them as well.”

“That’s going to take some time,” Jackson said.

“Yeah, I agree. It’s time for me to step out and call Leopold, give him the updates, see where he’s at with Juárez. If he’s dragging balls like what happened in Russia and Ukraine, maybe it will buy us more time. If not, at least we’ve got some walking-around money now.”

He picked up the phone and dialed Leopold. The man answered the phone sounding anxious but focused.

“Talk to me, Scotty,” Leopold said, bypassing any of his usual pleasantries.

“I’m afraid we hit a slight dead end on the kid,” he said. “We have very loose leads to go on, but it’s going to take a lot of sniffing around and even more luck if we’re to wrap this up any time soon. How are you doing?”

“We’re closing in on this thing right now,” he said. “It could go either way. Give me the highlight reel on your end; let’s see where we go next.”

Scotty quickly told him about their progress, the outrageous Apple White, and the basement holding cell that might have held Alabama while they were there earlier.

“Let me see how we do here,” Leopold said, mulling it over. “I’d say sit tight for a couple of hours then we’ll be in touch.”

“Sounds good,” Scotty said, trying not to sound too disappointed. “I’ll wait for your call.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

CAMDEN FOX

He didn’t see the text until a few hours after it arrived. Camden had been drinking all night and early into the morning, and then somewhere around three a.m., he passed out in his own vomit. When he rolled over, he realized that the discomfort in his back was from lying on his phone. That’s when he checked for missed calls and found the text message.

As Camden read it, the bottom fell out of his world. He wasn’t aware that his hands had begun to shake until the racing in his heart became so overwhelming he took inventory of his entire body. When the blood ran from his face, he felt it flush out so fast it was like water going down the drain.

With fingers that would barely work, he called the nameless man with the scratchy voice. The phone just rang and rang. It wasn’t so late that he was in bed, was he? He dialed the number two more times before the man finally picked up.

“Yeah,” he said sounding groggy.

“Santiago Cardenas just texted me—” he said, the panic flooding into his words.

“I told you he’s just fulfilling a role, don’t worry about it.”

“You said not to send the money, not to call. I didn’t send the money or call, and I didn’t tell Leopold a thing. But now this slimy fuck is texting me things that I HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT!”

“Calm down, Congressman,” he said, more alert now. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

“He