TWENTY-EIGHT

General Miguel Gomez sat all alone in his office with an empty bottle of bourbon lying on the desktop in front of him. He had hardly moved from his spot all night. His face was sick with worry, his flesh dripping with sweat, and his eyes bagged, heavy and bloodshot.

The TV on his desk was the only form of lighting in the room, and Gomez’s eyes had been glued to the images on it ever since the first news of the carnage over at the Marino Club had come on.

A reporter appeared on the screen as Gomez watched on. She was an attractive brunette wearing a crimson-red blouse, which was probably not the most appropriate choice of attire, given the situation.

“This is Sonya Bravo reporting live for PCNW,” the reporter said. “As you might be able to see behind me, I’m currently standing right outside the Marino Club here in the heart of Calle Uruguay, the site of what was a suspected gangland shooting late last night. At this point reports are still unconfirmed, but police have tentatively estimated upwards of forty dead inside.”

Gomez’s hands began to shake as memories came flooding back through his head. In his mind’s eye Gomez could still see his wife lying dead beside him on the street-side pavement just before he had blacked out during Loa Lacroix’s attack. He could still hear the screams of bystanders and the wounded gunshot victims around him. He could still see the faces of those savage Haitian gunmen, laughing and howled in delight while their automatic weapons chewed up anyone and everyone caught in their line of fire.

Gomez felt a sudden surge of anger building in his belly. Before he even realised it he picked up his bourbon bottle off the desk and hurled it straight at the television screen; it shattered on impact, exploding into pieces all over the desk.

After his initial burst of rage subsided, Gomez leaned back into his chair, doing his best to control his breathing and bring his emotions back into check. But try as he might, his anxiety was only mounting higher and higher by the minute.

He still had not heard a word back from Fido since he had left the port yesterday, after Gomez had called some of his connections in the Paravinchi crime family to help Fido on his crusade for revenge. The Paravinchis had assisted Fido in finding the whereabouts of several of Loa Lacroix’s killers. Their information had led him directly to the Marino Club, where rumours were circulating amongst closed circles that the Haitians were planning an attack.

And then the massacre had happened.

At first Gomez pondered the possibility that Fido had merely been caught up in a shooting instigated by the Haitians, which in itself was bad enough. But then some more thoughts forced their way into Gomez’s head; darker thoughts. What if Fido had suddenly remembered everything about his former life? About who he really was? Gomez knew only too well that the lust for blood ran deep in Fido’s veins. What if Fido had in fact been responsible for the entire massacre himself?

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Gomez quickly turned off the television and switched on his desk lamp. “Yes? Who is it?”

“It’s Indio, sir,” came the response. “Can I come in for a moment?”

Upon realising the disturbance wasn’t in relation to Fido, Gomez felt a wave of disappointment break over him. “Okay, just give me a second here, Indio.” He took a moment to massage his face with the palms of his hands, rubbing away his fatigue. “Alright, you can come in now.”

A second later General Gomez’s chief bodyguard opened the door and walked inside.

“Is everything okay, General?” Indio Dalaez asked. “I thought I heard something break.”

“I’m fine, Indio. I just… knocked over my drink.”

Indio’s eyes shifted from the General down to the shards of the shattered bottle all across the desk. “Oh. So I take it you still haven’t heard word back from Fido yet, sir?”

Gomez glanced over at his phone, responding to Indio with a simple shake of the head.

Indio nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t beat myself up about it too much, sir. I’m sure he’ll be okay. He knows how to take care of himself.”

Gomez gave a rather unconvincing smile, his eyes remained fixed on the phone.

“Is there something else that is wrong, sir?”

Gomez took a deep breath, tears forming in his eyes. “No, Indio. It’s just that… well, this is all my fault, isn’t it?”

“Sir?”

“I mean for letting all of this happen. For allowing Fido to go after Lacroix.”

“Fido is his own man, sir. You can’t stop him from doing as he wishes.”

“And that’s the problem, Indio. I am too weak. I’ve never had what it takes to control Fido, to make him do what is right. The truth is, I do whatever it takes to avoid confrontation with him. Because when it comes down to it… I know what Fido can do when he is pushed. I have seen his work. And I am terrified of the man he could become.”

Indio glanced down at his bootlaces. He could tell Gomez was drunk, and it pained him greatly to see a man he respected so much being reduced to such a slurring mess.

“Fido…” Gomez fought back tears, his voice shaking. “He was… a blessing to me in such a dark time. By nursing him back to health after the shooting… I came to feel needed again for the first time since Maria’s death. Helping him to walk again, talk again… it was almost like raising the son that Maria and I were never able to conceive. Was it selfish of me to use Fido for my own therapeutic purposes, Indio?”

“No, I don’t think so. You gave him a home.” Indio wanted to say something else, to offer some small form comfort, but for the moment his mind went blank and he remained silent.

“Even knowing who Fido really was before… what he really was before the shooting… it didn’t matter to me,” Gomez continued to slur. “He just seemed so innocent, like a completely different person. It was as though his old life had been completely erased. But I realise now… that one can never change their true nature. Instincts run deep, even those more primal ones that we as humans sometimes like to forget we have. I should have tried to tell Fido more about what he was, Indio; about where he came from. Maybe if he knew, he would not have been so desperate to find answers about his old life. Maybe then he wouldn’t have felt like he needed to go after Loa Lacroix. But I guess I was just scared I would lose him if he were ever to find out.”

Suddenly Gomez’s words were cut off by the thunderous crack of an explosion from somewhere outside his office. The explosion was followed quickly by the chatter of automatic gunfire.

“What the hell’s that?” Gomez looked up at Indio with a wild fear in his eyes. “What’s going on?!”

Ignoring his boss for the moment, Indio got his radio out. “Hey, Pablo, do you read me out there? I hear gunfire. Is everything okay on your end?”

After a brief moment of silence the radio started crackling loudly in Indio’s hand. The gunfire could be heard loudly on the other end. Whatever was happening, Indio’s colleague Pablo was right in the very thick of it.

Finally Pablo Torres responded. “Indio, are you still in there? We need help out here! There’s too many of them! They’re killing everyone! Oh my god… they’re coming back —” Then suddenly the transmission went dead.

Indio took a deep breath and drew his sidearm from his belt. “Wait here and keep the door locked, General,” he spoke to his boss as calmly as he could manage.

Before Gomez even had the chance to object, Indio was already out the door.

Taking a moment to compose himself, General Gomez opened up his desk drawer and felt around inside, pulling out his old Beretta M9 handgun that he had not even been sure he still had. He cringed as he felt the cold of the steel grip in his hand. He had not picked up a gun in ten years; not since he had sworn never to do so again on that day that he and his wife had been gunned down by Loa Lacroix’s men.

Gomez stood up from his chair, raising his weapon in his shaking hands and pointing it at the door. He heard his last two bodyguards firing away desperately with their shotguns at whoever was assaulting the warehouse, but then suddenly their shooting was drowned out by another loud barrage of automatic gunfire. The haunting silence that followed was interrupted only by the sound of approaching footsteps.

Gomez took a deep breath to steady the nerves as the door to his office burst open in front of him like the top of a jack-in-the-box.

The six Haitian gunmen swarmed inside, all of them taking aim at General Gomez with their assault rifles, measuring him up with predatory eyes. The sight of the gun in Gomez’s shaking hands didn’t faze them in even the slightest. They had the numbers, they had the bigger weapons and they knew an amateur when they saw one.

“So,” Gomez stammered at them, “Loa Lacroix finally returns to finish his job after all these years.”

The Haitian with the face painted up like a skull stepped forward, the sights of his shotgun unwavering.

“Orlando Nesta, you fucking rodent,” Gomez addressed the man through his teeth. He knew Nesta, just as he knew all the key members of Loa Lacroix’s old crew; he had spent countless hours going through their police files with Officer Sanchez. “Tell your boss I’ll be waiting for him in hell!”

Orlando Nesta grinned at that. “Hell? No, kochon, Baron Samedi be the only devil waiting to see you now.”

“I don’t believe any of your bullshit Voodoo superstitions, so spare me!”

“You will believe soon enough, I guarantee you that. But enough of this small-talk,” Nesta said, getting down to business. “This man we seek. This one who hunts us from city to city: Fido, aka: your little fucking pet. Where is he, General?!”

Gomez was caught off guard by Nesta’s question. He wondered how the Haitians could have possibly connected him to Fido, or for that matter, how they even knew Fido by name.

Nesta seemed to sense Gomez’s confusion, and was only too happy to offer up his source of information. “Your friend Officer Sanchez be telling us everything. About how you helped Fido be killing our comrades. About that little slut who works for you that the white boy kochon be falling in love with. Everything! All it be taking to break him was the threat for us to offer up his little kochon family to Baron Samedi!”

“You fucking animals! I should have slaughtered every last one of you a long time ago for what you did to Maria; for what you did to me!” Gomez quickly went to pull the trigger, but before he could get off a shot the Haitian to Nesta’s right, Jean Raimond, opened fire with his assault rifle, his bullets ripping across Gomez’s torso.

It looked like General Gomez was giving a ballet performance as he thrashed and twirled around on his feet, guided around by Raimond’s bullets. The other Haitians all laughed and cheered at the bloody spectacle.

Finally Jean Raimond stopped shooting and the Haitians all watched on as General Gomez took a few wobbly steps forward, past his desk, and then collapsed to his knees, desperately fighting to keep his insides from spilling right out on the floor in front of him. For the longest of moments he just knelt there, his vision blurring, blood spurting out from over two-dozen holes in his abdomen.

“Fido…” he whispered to himself. “My boy…my son…”

He had time for just one more memory…

The sun was setting in the distance and the birds were chirping loudly overhead. It was so peaceful now, calm.

Gomez sat down on the edge of the wooden wharf right beside Fido. Together they looked out over the horizon, captivated by the alluring natural spectacle. The purple and red clouds had blended perfectly with the dying orange sky right over the darkening waterline.

“Someday, Fido,” said Gomez, “everything you see in front of you can be yours, if you want it.”

… Then Orlando Nesta walked over, pressed his shotgun up to the back of General Gomez’s skull and pulled the trigger. The memory instantly disintegrated, along with Gomez’s entire head.