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“Not yet, but I’ll call him as soon as we hang up. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.”
Delighted, Freeman was not. Corbett’s call woke him from a dead sleep. He could tell by Freeman’s extra dose of grumpiness when he answered the phone. Before he could hang up on him, Corbett quickly told his friend and colleague his plan.
“Shit, it’s because I’m black, isn’t it?” he accused.
Corbett laughed. “Well, now that you mention it...” he admitted. “I’ll get the information on my side. I’d like to see if you can get any on the other.”
“All right, damn it! What charges am I going in with?”
“Attempted murder, and maybe we’ll throw in assault on a police officer to get you some points inside.”
“You’re so good to me,” Freeman told him.
“I know,” Corbett said with a grin. “I’d do it for any of my friends. This is why I’m so popular.”
“I’m going back to sleep now. It might be the last good night I get for a while.”
Stockdale, Texas
Thursday Morning
Vincent strolled downthe quiet street with Marcella on his arm. This really wasn’t such a bad place, he thought. He might even consider settling down here someday… when he found the woman who would be his wife and have his children. It reminded him somewhat of the quaint little town in Mexico where he had grown up.
His mother had also come from a small town, one buried in the heart of Texas, before Gilberto Sanchez met her and made her his queen. She had told Vincent the story of first seeing Gil in the bakery where she worked for her father. They lived in a town called Bear Creek, with a population of less than five hundred people. It was the type of place where everyone knew each other.
Gloria Heston was never happy to see the proprietor of the bakery, an older man named Mr. Wrigley, but she had been delighted one day to see a new face with him. Gilberto Sanchez had been a strikingly handsome man in his youth, Vincent’s mother had always said. He had olive-colored skin, coal-black eyes, and dark wavy hair that was as thick as rope. He dressed sharply too, not like the dusty old cowboys that Gloria was used to around town.
“You look just like him, Vincent,” she told him often.
Mr. Wrigley introduced her to Gil, and she served the men. As she did so, Mr. Wrigley let his old, wrinkly hand rest on Gloria’s backside. It made her sick when he touched her. She despised him, but he owned half the town, including the building the bakery was in. Her father had urged her to “be nice” to the older man and turned a blind eye to the things his daughter had to do in order to accomplish that. Sometimes, Mr. Wrigley took her right there in the back room of the bakery. Her father would just turn up the radio so that no one would hear her screams.
As soon as she saw Gilberto that day, she knew he would be her husband and save her from the torture she experienced in Bear Creek.
Likewise, Gil had seen the pretty girl with the shy smile and the auburn hair behind the bakery counter, and he knew he had found his queen. Vincent knew his father was drawn to redheads. Gilberto Sanchez had grown up on a mountain in the Mexican state of Michoacán. He hadn’t seen his first redhead until he was in his teens. That one had been a hooker, and as she took Gil’s virginity for twenty bucks and a bad case of the clap, he found out that her hair was dyed. She was the last hooker that Gilberto Sanchez would ever allow to touch him, but something about her stuck with him, because after her, he refused to look twice at any woman who didn’t have red hair.
Gloria found out later that Gil was there that day for a meeting with Mr. Wrigley to ask the older man to be his business partner until the man’s… untimely death a few years later. Some people may have thought it strange that her father had died within days of Mr. Wrigley’s passing. They were both murdered and dismembered. Their murders had gone unsolved.
After becoming engaged, Gil and Gloria moved to Matamoros to marry and begin their family.
Vincent smiled at the thought of his mother.
When he spotted a very specific bakery a few blocks down, he looked at Marcella and said, “What say we indulge in a bear claw before we commence our work for the day?”
“That sounds yummy, Señor Heston,” she told him.
Vincent suddenly stopped, and his grip on the upper part of Marcella’s arm tightened. “What did you call me?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry,” she said, fighting back tears. His grip on her arm was like a vise. “I meant to say Mr. Brown.”
He relaxed and said, “Don’t make that mistake again. You’re here as part of my cover, Marjorie. Remember that. I can always send you back to be Marcella, the maid’s daughter cum slut, at the drop of a hat… or worse.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Brown.” He knew he hurt her feelings when he talked to her that way, but it was her own fault. She would need to try harder to please him.
Vincent led her inside the bakery. The place was small, with only four or five tables and a counter, but it smelled wonderful and was sparkling clean. As they sat down at a table by the window, a vision from his dreams walked out of the back. Vincent knew who she was, of course. She was part of the reason why they were here in this little shithole section of Texas. He hadn’t known how lovely she was, though, or that she had red hair. Imagine how proud his papa would be…
CHAPTERELEVEN
CUFFED
