Angel’s Promise by Aleatha Romig

Rett

“Where is Boudreau?” I growled.

The man’s lips moved, but no words came as his head moved slowly from side to side. His light brown hair was matted with dried blood. The flesh around his wrists was raw from the coarse ropes and more blood ran down his arms.

My grip fisted his filthy shirt and pulled him forward. “I asked you a fucking question.”

“I-I don’t know where he goes. He just shows up and then he leaves.” Blood dripped from his swollen lip and the skin around his left eye was red, changing to purple and black by the minute. That eye was only a slit.

The man was looking at me with his other eye.

I didn’t give two shits about this man. He was one of the disposable, fucking a dime a dozen. New Orleans was crawling with scum willing to do dirty deeds for next to nothing or maybe in search of their next fix.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I-I...” He coughed and more blood splattered on his shirt. “Ingalls, I saw him today. I ain’t seen Boudreau in over a week. Ingalls been the one making the rounds.”

My blood boiled as it surged through my circulation. And my teeth were in dire danger of splintering with the amount of force I was applying. I stepped back and scanned this man. The rope securing his wrists was laced over a large hook suspended from the ceiling of the warehouse with a thick linked chain. It was similar to the way sides of beef or hogs hung in meat coolers. With his shoes gone and ankles also bound, his toes barely reached the concrete floor.

I would guess that this guy was at least eight inches shorter than me and probably fifty pounds lighter because even in his current position, I towered over him.

He’d been worked over before I arrived. The beating he took made his face less recognizable. When Leon and I arrived at the warehouse, I was informed of this man’s crimes against Ramses, not of his name, and I didn’t fucking care.

This piece of shit didn’t deserve an identity.

A long time ago, my father once told me that every soul deserved a name, and then with a laugh, he pulled the trigger of his gun, shooting the man who had wronged him between the eyes. The loud explosion echoed, blood oozed from the bullet hole, and chunks of brain matter sprayed over the floor and wall. The dead man wet himself as his body convulsed, still hog-tied on the floor of a cargo car in the train yard. My dad looked at me and with a grin, he patted my shoulder and said, “We’ll call this one Johnny.”

Fuck, after we left the train yard, my father took me for ice cream before heading home.

At the time, I was no older than thirteen, and my only instruction was to not tell my mother.

I don’t know why that memory was significant. Nevertheless, it’s something I’d never forgotten. In the schoolhouse of life, that afternoon was one lesson that stuck with me.

In my years before and since I’d taken control of this city, I’d left a trail of dead Johnnys in every ward and beyond the greater parishes of New Orleans.

“You sure it’s Ingalls?” I asked.

Johnny nodded as spit and blood dripped from his chin.

There was every reason to believe this guy was telling the truth, at least about that. From the traffic cameras near the accident, Ingalls had been identified as the man who opened Emma’s door, who pulled her from my SUV, and who handed her over to this guy—this Johnny. Johnny then shoved her into a Cadillac sedan.

My men didn’t find Ingalls, but unluckily for Johnny, they found him. They also found the kid in the hoodie, the one who took the shots through the windows of my SUV. Maybe Johnny here was lucky—he was still alive. The kid wasn’t.

My fist made contact with his torso. “You fucking touched my wife.”

The air expelled from his lungs and more blood dripped from his lips. Johnny’s knees lifted, pulling his toes from the floor, and the chain groaned as Johnny swung with the force of the punch.

His face hung forward as if by the minute his head was growing heavier.

“Fucking look at me.” I demanded.

Slowly, Jonny lifted his chin, bringing his one good eye toward me. “I-I didn’t know who she was.”

I shook my head.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked.

“Mr. Ramses, sir.” He nodded. “I didn’t mean nothing against you. Ingalls paid me cash. I got a sick kid.”

I pulled a pistol from the holder on my side. “I don’t give a shit about a kid. I care about my wife.”

I moved the barrel next to his temple. The man’s eye closed as he turned his face away. “You’re going to die today,” I said. “You know that, right?”

Snot dripped from Johnny’s nose as he nodded.

We were getting too close to the begging stage.

I fucking detested that stage.

“I’m going to give you one more chance,” I lied.

His non-swollen eye came my way.

“Give me something, anything, to find my wife, and I’ll see that your kid gets medical treatment.”

“I-I don’t—”

I pressed the end of the barrel harder against his temple making the chain creak. Then I pulled it away and pressed it beneath his chin. “Do you know why this isn’t a good way to commit suicide?” I didn’t wait for an answer as I moved the gun again. “Open your fucking mouth.”

Johnny’s lips came together as he shook his head.

“Open your goddamned mouth or I’ll knock out your teeth.” I tilted my chin over my shoulder. “Or one of my men over there will take them out one at a time. Marcus, the one with the black jacket” —I knew Johnny didn’t truly care which one was Marcus— “has a collection of teeth. He’s always itching for some more.”

His one eye came my way as he slowly opened his lips. I shoved the barrel of the pistol between his teeth until he gagged and coughed. “This is another bad way.”

When I pulled the pistol out of his mouth, Johnny nodded until I brought the barrel back to the soft flesh beneath his chin and pointed the barrel toward his sinuses.

“Most of the time, the barrel isn’t aimed correctly.” I moved the barrel around.

The man’s whimpers morphed to sobs.

“And then what happens,” I went on, “is when you pull the trigger, instead of dying, you end up surviving. Do you know what would be worse than me killing you?” I wasn’t pausing for answers. “Letting you live without a frontal lobe of your brain. More than likely the nerves to your eyes—they call them optic nerves—yeah, well, the bullet shreds those motherfuckers. And your tongue is half-gone. Hmm, you won’t be talking. Hell, you might not even be able to eat again. Not like takin’ a big old bite out of a juicy Po’ boy.” I shook my head. “Won’t matter that your teeth will mostly be gone, part of your jawbone too. None of those things are what makes this a bad idea. It’s the damage to the brain that’s real important. See, you could live without eyes, a jaw, and teeth.”

I tapped his forehead with the barrel of my gun. “The frontal lobes of your brain are what you use to talk, if your tongue still worked. It also controls voluntary movement. Shit you want to do, like walking, sitting, and fucking your woman. None of that shit will happen. You might think about them, but the neurons won’t connect. And the worst part, you’ll still be able to think. You’ll know that you’re nothing more than a fucking vegetable. That sick kid of yours, if he lives, he’ll watch his old man shit and piss himself as he changes your feeding tube, the one stuck through your neck and your diaper. That is why this” —I shoved the barrel into the soft skin under his chin— “is a bad idea.”

“I-I got something,” Johnny managed to say.

I pulled back the pistol. “Talk.”

“Ingalls, he said things about...” Johnny’s eyes closed and nostrils flared.

“About what?” I pressed the barrel back under his chin.

With his chin held as high as possible between his stretched arms, he said, “My kid. He needs medicine. My wife lost her job and our insurance, we can’t afford...”

“What did Ingalls say?”

The man shook his head.

I lowered the gun. “Talk.”

“Mr. Ramses, you got to know, none of us knew who she was...that blonde. Ingalls showed us pictures and she’s right pretty.” The large links of the chain creaked as Johnny’s trembling increased. “We didn’t know that she was your wife. He said things...” A tear ran down his face from the swollen eye.

“He?”

“Ingalls.”

The barrel was back under his chin. “I’m going to give you to the count of three,” I said. “One. Two—”