Page 543 of Devil’s Disciples

My eyes shot open. I sat up in bed and glanced around the darkened room. After a few confusing seconds, I realized I’d had a nightmare. I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the other side of the bed.

Empty.

Afraid to leave her mother’s home, Carma was no longer sleeping with me. Frustrated at my newfound state of being, I rolled out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom.

In my dream, Alacrán was alive. He’d captured all the members of Devil’s Disciples and the majority of the Filthy Fuckers. One by one, he demanded that each person tell him my whereabouts. When they wouldn’t comply, he shot them in the temple.

I took off my sweat-soaked tee shirt and washed my face. In gazing at my reflection in the mirror, I realized there was nothing I could do to fix the mess that surrounded me. I would be forced to live with the outcome, whatever it may be.

In Carma’s presence, I needed nothing more.

In her absence, however, I was a wreck. Lost and feeling incomplete, all I could think about was her, and how much I needed her by my side. In the past, recognizing that reliance would have caused me to run the other direction.

All that came to mind now was to embrace it.

Unwilling to go back to sleep, I checked my watch.

9:18

Depressed, exhausted, and saddened by a situation I couldn’t change, I’d gone to bed just after 8:00. Now feeling rested, I went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. Cup in hand, I sat down at the kitchen table and shook my head at the vivid nature of my dream.

Fearing that my dream may one day become reality, I searched my mind for loose ends with the cartel. The only people I’d exposed myself to that weren’t dead were Primo and the men Alacrán brought with him on the day of the cocaine buy.

When I’d asked him about Primo he said heir names.

He took Alfredo and Manuel to meet Luiz. They’re picking up something that’s rightfully mine.

Primo, Alfredo, Manuel, and Luiz. Three of those men had been captured and were in jail. The fourth was my loose end.

I got my phone and searched for Peyton’s newspaper article. After finding it, I thumbed through it, reading sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph, trying to find the names of the men who had been caught. Then, I saw their names.

Three other men, Manuel Sanchez, Miguel Manos, and Alfredo Bartelón-Oscura were apprehended and subsequently arrested when they were…

Someone named Luiz was the only loose end. He was the man the other three men were going to meet.

I sipped my coffee.

Then, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I’d always wondered who the person might be that leaked the information to the cartel about Carma working at the diner.

I was now certain I had the answer.

* * *

It was a few minutes after ten o’clock. We’d parked our motorcycles at an automotive repair shop up the street and walked to La Cocina. Hiding in a drainage ditch behind the restaurant, we watched the rear door, hoping the man we were waiting for was about to get off work.

A lone security lamp at the corner of the building provided a halo of light just above the door. Other than that, the area was pitch black.

Crip raised his head and peered toward the door. “How in the fuck did you put this together? Jesus. Talk about a long shot.”

“I was in here the other day,” I whispered. “The owner was yelling at someone in the kitchen. His name was Luiz. The other night, Alacrán said Primo and the other two shit hats were going to see some guy named Luiz to get what was rightfully his. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” he replied.

The door opened. A slight Hispanic male sauntered toward a bicycle.

I leaped from the ditch, ran in his direction, and tackled him just as he was reaching for it. With him in a choke hold, I dragged him toward the ditch.