The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

“Guard!” he bellowed.

“What you sack of shit? What?”

That’s when he cleared his throat and started singing the CCR classic again. “Down on the corner, out on the street, Willie and the Poor Boys are playin’, bring a nickel, tap your feet.”

“Shut up,” he growled, slamming his hand on the door.

“You don’t need a penny, just to hang around. But if you’ve got a nickel, won’t you lay your money down.”

From the other side of the door came a banging, hateful ruckus that made Atlas stop singing long enough to start laughing.

“You going to pick up the teeth in here?” he howled. “‘Cause I don’t want to step on them next time I beat one of your asses, you bunch of sissy clowns!”

He started laughing so hard he couldn’t stop himself, and then when he laughed and cried himself into a fit, the last of his energy waned and he managed to drift off to sleep. By then, the guards had already left. When he woke next, it was to the sound of the door opening.

His eyes creaked open, the light hurting them. He lifted a hand to shield himself from the glow.

“Warden,” Atlas said, sitting up. “Well, isn’t this an unpleasant surprise?”

Another light hit him in the eyes, a flashlight this time. And then another lit him up as well and he smiled. On either side of the warden, these two men looked like they had tasers as well as flashlights.

“You’re becoming a larger problem than I know how to deal with here. Do you realize the guard whose jaw you broke has two kids?”

“I have one. He has two. What’s your point?”

“You’re just six feet and an inch worth of smashed assholes. No one cares about you. No one will ever come and check on you because you’ve done nothing but wreck lives,” Fabian Dicampli said. “So your daughter is missing, so what? Lots of people don’t get to see their kids. But my guard? I liked him seeing his kids. They kept him sane so he could deal with you cocksucking fucking toilet bugs five days a week.”

“Warden Dicampli,” he said as if announcing him on stage. “The man with so many dirty secrets.”

“Save the high school head games for people who care. What do I have to do to make you stop this constant onslaught of stupidity and violence?”

“I want to talk to Leopold,” he said.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you otherwise he would have called,” Dicampli said.

“I bet you blocked those calls, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Because he’d cut you in half and feed you to the political vultures. A guy like you, with secrets like yours, you’d get your shit pushed in so hard, your permanent pocket would be a bullseye for every faggot and prison wolf in the joint.”

“Shut up,” Dicampli barked.

“They’d have you making tortillas in here 24/7. Straight guys, gay guys, and booty bandits…they’d turn that butthole of yours into the prison cum dumpster—”

The man struck Atlas so hard, spit actually left his mouth. He’d never had the spit slapped out of him before, but by this punk bitch, that just happened.

“Touch me again,” he growled.

“Hit him with the juice,” Dicampli ordered.

Right before that happened, Atlas managed to catch the warden in the chin with a stiff jab, rocking his head back. Before the warden’s head bobbed back for a second shot, four electrified darts from two different guns pierced him in the chest and stomach.

When the crackling died down and Atlas lay there stiffer than a grizzly’s pecker, drool leaked out of the corners of his mouth, the saliva pooling on the concrete below.

To the other guards, Dicampli said, “If this rodent dies on my watch, I’ll take the heat.”

“He might die tonight,” one of the guards said.

On his way out, Dicampli turned and said, “If you can hear me, maggot, you’re not ever going to see the light of day. As long as I’m the warden here, this is your new home. Get used to it.”

The paralysis broke just as the guards were ejecting their spent dart packs.

He groaned a little, trying to make some sounds. One of the guards leaned forward and said, “What did you say, asshole?”

“Down on the corner…”

He couldn’t quite finish the tune. Not before the other guard kicked him in the face. After that, he couldn’t tell the difference between being unconscious and every other day in the hole. Then again, it was just as well. The warden was right. No one cared. He had only wrecked lives.

He felt himself drifting off, or passing out—he wasn’t sure which. But as he felt himself being dragged down into the abyss, a single name lifted into his mind: Kaylee Barnes. He had saved her from sex traffickers in St. Petersburg and Ukraine, from a horrible life of abuse, and most likely from being overdosed, murdered, or suicided. That counted for something, didn’t it?

At least I’ve done one good thing, he thought to himself.

Chapter Sixteen

ESTELLA BACCARIN

Estella flew into El Paso International Airport late that night. She waited half an hour for Yergha’s flight to arrive, then she met him at baggage claim where she gave him a big hug and said, “Glad your bones didn’t give out on you completely, old man.”

Yergha wasn’t that old, but he knew she could be mean, so he took her biting humor in stride. “Does it burn when you pee?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, it does,” she laughed. “Before we get into that, though, I got a text from Leopold. He says we need to see some guy named Richie Frank.”

“Who is that?” Yergha asked.

“Big guy, funny as hell apparently, thinks the world is being overtaken by reptilians,” she said.

“Wait,” Yergha asked, deadpan, “it