Part 2: Baja Leai & the Road to New York
Jesus kills Rodrigo with a rock; calls O'Neil in New York; O'Neil arranges cleanup and transport to Chicago.
Jesus picked up a rock, flung open the car door, and smashed the back of Rodrigo’s head. His actions were automatic; there was no thinking. Jesus didn’t feel, he simply acted, crashing the stone into Rodrigo’s skull again, but Rodrigo had reared up, pushing Jesus back. Jesus grabbed onto the back of Rodrigo’s shoulders and pulled him out of the car, tossing him onto the ground with a mighty heave. He didn’t register Andrea’s muffled screaming or the dog’s continued barking. Adrenaline poured full throttle into his veins. He didn’t register that, in his own blind fury, he had thrown himself into the car door and split his lip. He recovered the rock and pounded it into the prone man’s skull repeatedly. Three times he slammed the rock into Rodrigo’s head, fracturing his orbital socket and turning his eye into a bloody pulp, but now Rodrigo rose up like a coiled snake and pushed Jesus back into the car, gripping him by his shirt collar, snarling like a rabid dog. He pinned Jesus between himself and the still-bound Andrea, twisting Jesus’ shirt collar, trying to cut off the circulation of blood to his head. Jesus continued bashing the rock against the side of Rodrigo’s head, He couldn’t even feel that his injured leg had cramped up; all he knew was the muscles no longer responded to his commands.
The rock deflected uselessly across the crown of Rodrigo’s skull and cheekbones, unable to stop him from choking Jesus. Jesus was running out of air. His collar was being pulled tight, cutting off the air to his lungs and the blood flow to his brain. He flailed his arm uselessly, smacking the side of Rodrigo’s head, when—crack! He connected with Rodrigo’s jaw, and the man went limp.
Jesus took the opportunity to clamor on top of Rodrigo and finish the job, bashing the pointed part of the rock into his opponent’s skull until it fractured and caved in. Blood gushed out from the opening and poured over Andrea’s nude body. Rodrigo was dead.
Jesus rose up to his knees, took a breath, and realized that Andrea was still bound under a dead man. Her eyes bulged out of her sockets as she screamed through the gag. Jesus shimmied his way out of the vehicle again and pulled Rodrigo’s limp body from the car. It wasn’t easy. The dead weight seemed much heavier than the skinny, tall man’s frame would suggest. He had to heave and pull from several different positions to finally clear the car door. His head lolled onto the stony ground with a grisly crunch. Then, Jesus climbed back into the car and undid Andrea’s bindings. She reacted like a cat underwater, flinging herself out of the car door and out onto the ground, where she knelt and cried on her knees. Jesus went to her and held her as she cried.
“Call the police,” She said, finally. “We have to call the police.”
“We’ll call the police, but first you have to put some clothes on.”
She looked up at him, skirt ripped open in tatters, makeup smeared and running from her eyes, hair wild and tangled, beyond terrified. This was a woman who had been brought past the breaking point of her sanity. She clung her arms around her bare breasts, so as to hide her nakedness from the world.
Jesus raised his hand to comfort her, but she pulled away.
“I’m going in the ocean,” She said. Andrea stood up and walked into the water.
For the first time, Jesus had a chance to take a look at the scene. The car was an old model T.
Was it Rodrigo’s? He remembered something from long ago about Rodrigo claiming to own a car.
Maybe he wasn’t bluffing after all. The dog licked at Rodrigo’s head wound. Jesus couldn’t feel anything inside when he looked at Rodrigo’s body, as if he had gone numb, but he could passively recognize the gruesomeness of it. Rodrigo’s head was split open, blood running down to the ocean through the cracks of the rocks in deep gouts. Around his body, a crimson pool had begun to form. The inside of the car was splattered with gore. The murder weapon still laid on the back seat, next to some of Andrea’s blood-soaked clothes.
I can’t tell the police, Jesus thought, I just killed a man.
Jesus observed the awful scene in its entirety and decided if someone else was to see it, he would be arrested and charged with murder for certain.
Were my actions just? Did I do the right thing?
The resounding answer in the pit of his stomach was a low, definite, “No.”
No, Jesus had killed a man. This was the great evil. He looked over to see Andrea bathing herself in the tide, trying to wash off the blood and shame.
No amount of water can ever clean what was dirtied here tonight.
Jesus examined himself. Blood soaked his arms and clothes. In the darkness, it wouldn’t be immediately evident against his dark-colored jeans, but his bright summertime shirt bore indisputable evidence of the melee that had ensued.
What do I do, what do I do?
Jesus’ mind raced through the limited possibilities in his head. He could take the car and go. But where would he go? And with what money? Maybe back to Nueva Casa? That was an option, but not a very good one. What would he do with the body? Jesus kept searching for answers as Andrea bathed in the ocean. Unable to find them, he began acting without thinking. He took the clothes in the car, somewhat bloodied, to the ocean. Rufus followed him, whimpering quietly, head close to the ground.
The moon was nearly full, and the sky was void of clouds, allowing the celestial body to illuminate the beach with a dull radiance. The lights from above beat down onto the rolling ocean, casting a show of reflections and shadows. Andrea had submerged herself in the water. Maybe she was trying to hide from the terrible events that had transpired, maybe she just wanted to wash away the blood and bodily fluids to cleanse herself. Maybe she wanted to drown. Jesus waded out into the water, ignoring his soaked shoes and trousers.
“I brought you these,” He said, handing her the clothes. She stood up, covering her breasts.
Naked, the moonlight silhouetted her from behind. In any other time, Jesus would have found her beautiful in the ocean. He had never seen her without clothes. He had never seen any woman without clothes.
“Thank you,” She said, taking the clothes. Jesus quickly turned away and busied himself cleaning off the blood, facing the shore to give her privacy. “We can’t go to the police, can we?” She said a moment later. It wasn’t a question, and Jesus didn’t have an answer.
“We can’t just leave him here, but if we tell the police, they’ll arrest me for sure,” Jesus said. He jumped when he felt Andrea’s hand on his shoulder. He spun around to face her. She had put on a white bra and panties.
“Thank you,” She said.
I should feel proud, like a hero, but instead I feel scared shitless.
“I’m not going to let them arrest you,” She said.
“I don’t want you to lie,” Jesus said.
“Let’s go onto the beach and talk,” She said, “We need to figure out what to do.”
There’s the Andrea I know: cold and calculating.
The two of them waded back to the shore. With the adrenaline beginning to wear off, Jesus realized he was freezing cold.
“To start off with, what happened? How did you get here?” Jesus asked.
“Rodrigo took me on a date earlier tonight. We went out to dinner. He was polite, and paid for dinner. When we finished, he wanted to go somewhere more relaxed, where we can be alone,” Her voice was shaky, wavering like an acrobat on a tight rope.
“I told him that we could come here, but when we started fooling around, he got too aggressive, and I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop, and then, and then … ” She broke down into crying and buried her head in Jesus’ chest. Suddenly Jesus had an idea.
“Look, I need you to stay here for just a minute. I’m going to be right back. Just stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“First, I’m going to the house. I’m going to get some clothes for both of us. Then, I’m going to call someone who I think can help us.”
Jesus moved quickly up the dirt road that led back to Layla’s house. Rufus stayed behind with Andrea. The trip was longer than he had remembered, but after ten or fifteen minutes at a light jog, he arrived at Layla’s house. Justin was out front, smoking a cigarette and strumming his guitar, as usual.
“What happened to you?” He said, “Decided to take a midnight swim?”
“I was hot and the water looked nice,” Jesus answered before bolting inside. Thankfully, Layla wasn’t downstairs. He hurried up to the room and changed into some new, dry clothes. Then, he went to Andrea’s room and grabbed some of hers. He had almost gotten to the stairway when he realized what he had forgotten. If you need anything, anything at all, call me on this number.
He ran into his room and snatched up the card Winston had left him before dashing outside.
“That was fast. Hey, why are you carrying women’s clothing? Are those Andrea’s?” Justin called after him, but Jesus was already long gone before he had a chance to respond. Jesus sprinted down the road and was relieved to find Andrea in the same place he had left her.
“Here, put these on. We need to go into town to find a payphone.”
O’Neil was in his pajamas when the phone rang. The ambient sounds of New York City night time hummed and honked outside his uptown apartment. He walked past the poker table and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” The Irishman said, “Yeah, Winston said something about that,” He listened a little more.
“Stay right where you are; I’m going to call you back.”
O’Neil went to his bedroom and threw on a pair of joggers and a sweater. He grabbed his keys and notepad from his bedside table and exited his apartment. O’Neil took the elevator down, and when he was outside he located a payphone, slid in a quarter, and dialed a number.
“Okay, tell me what happened exactly. Start at the beginning,” He said.
There was a silence on his end for several minutes as Jesus explained the situation. After he finished, O’Neil said, “This is what I want you to do. Go home and pack a bag. Do you have a friend you can stay with for the night? Okay. Is there a bar or a twenty four hour joint you can wait at? Okay, good, go there and try to stash the bag. What’s the name of it? Okay. Listen, I have a guy on the way.
You’re gonna go wait there. Don’t go back to the car. Now tell me exactly where the car is,” He jotted down a few lines on his note pad.
“Now, listen, I want you to— What? Someone else? The girl? Lemme think … Ok yeah, that’s fine. Actually, that’s better. Have her do the same thing. But listen, I need you to not fuck around. Do exactly what my guy tells you to do. He says jump, you don’t say how fuckin’ high. You just jump.
Same goes for the bitch, excuse my French. Look, my guy doesn’t care if she’s the queen of fuckin’ England, if she’s fuckin around we gotta cut her loose. Okay. Just so you know man. Her? You don’t tell her anything. Your buddy Winston will take care of that. Yeah. Now go, kid,” He pressed down the receiver then dialed again.
“Listen, there’s been a change of plans. I need you to go tonight. Yeah, I know. No, she will have it. That hasn’t changed. You’re gonna pick up a couple extra passengers.”
“Okay, this is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go back to Layla’s house and pack our bags quietly and just leave. There’s someone who’s gonna pick us up,” Jesus said hanging up the phone.
“What? Are you serious? We can’t just leave! We have school to go to,” Andrea said. She looked shaken.
“We can and we have to. All of that is over now. Things have changed. Someone is dead. The police need to find someone.”
“Where are we going to go? Who is going to take us there?” She said.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we go now and we go quietly.”
“Jesus, are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Now go!”
They walked back to Layla’s house and quietly entered. It was the midnight hour. Alfred didn’t say anything when Jesus began packing a bag by lamplight. Jesus knew he wasn’t asleep. Rufus stayed closer to them than usual as they walked downtown to Sol’s the late night restaurant O’Neil and Jesus had agreed upon. Jesus ordered some food, paying with the proceeds from the vegetable garden, and ate in silence with Andrea. They were both starving, and ate ravenously. At 4:15AM, a black car pulled up and honked its horn in front of the restaurant. Two bald Mexican men were in the front seats. As Jesus walked up, he could see they both wore suits. The passenger seat man rolled down the window. He was in his early thirties, well built, with a tattoo of a snake by his left eye.
“Get in,” He said. Andrea looked at Jesus. Jesus nodded, and she reluctantly slid into the back seat, quickly followed by Jesus.
The interior of the car was fine, with expensive black leather and a spacious back seat. The two men in the front looked identical, like brothers, maybe even twins. The man in the passenger side spoke again in a low, gravely, southern Mexican dialect.
“From now on, you do everything my partner and I tell you to do. You don’t ask questions, you only answer them. Give me your keys,” Jesus handed the man his keys. Andrea did the same, but he stopped her, “Just you. Which one is it?” Jesus showed him. The man nodded and turned back to face forward in his seat. The conversation was over.
Shortly, they pulled up to Layla’s house. The driver parked the car, got out, opened the trunk, and then walked in holding a briefcase. The three of them waited in tense silence.
Why are we here?
A few minutes later, the man emerged, returned the suitcase to the trunk, and got back in the car.
He started the engine and began driving.
“Tell us how to get there,” The man with the snake tattoo said.
“To the, the car? With the body?” Jesus stuttered nervously.
“Yes,” The man said. He was ice cold. Everyone else was silent.
“Okay, follow this road. Now take a left,” Jesus directed them to the site. Soon enough, they had pulled up to the beachhead that the terrible events of earlier had unfolded on.
They parked the car. “Wait!” The man with the snake tattoo said. Jesus and Andrea waited as the two men exited the vehicle and began to inspect the scene, taking care to not touch anything. The blood had begun to dry, but stained the rocks red. Rodrigo’s car door was still open. A few minutes later, the man returned and asked Jesus a question.
“Is it still drivable?”
Jesus looked at Andrea, who nodded.
“As far as I know,” He said.
The man didn’t respond, instead leaving again to join his partner. Jesus and Andrea could see the two talking and gesturing to one another. Eventually, it seemed like they came to an agreement. Both men walked back to the car they rode in. They released the trunk, and one man carried a suitcase to Rodrigo’s car. The other man got in the driver’s seat.
“My partner is going to stay here. We’re going north to see your father in Chicago,” The man with the snake tattoo said.
Andrea gave Jesus a shocked look that translated to, “What the fuck?” Jesus ignored it.
“This is your last chance. Are you sure you want to do this? What about you, miss?”
“We’re sure,” Andrea spoke for both of them.
“Then we’re off. I hope you kids packed your toothbrushes.”