Five: Digging

When Muerto returned to the gang’s hideout, the pizza boxes, piles of clothes, and Bulldog’s unconscious form had all disappeared. Only the blob and the girl were there, and he paid them no attention as he found an unoccupied room to claim as his own. Judging by the artifacts, free weights, lifting belt, and muscle magazines, he had selected Bulldog’s former lair. The place wasn’t exactly clean, but orderly enough for Muerto to do business. Mostly, his business was to think about the information he had received.

At the police station, he had played the grieving uncle, outraged that his nephew, such a good boy who never wanted to hurt nobody, had been killed. He had demanded to know what the police were going to do about it and cynically claimed that they’d do nothing since the victim wasn’t white. He had allowed himself to be calmed by an officer named Luciano, though the bull of a man seemed to be somewhat inept and impatient with Muerto’s outrage. Muerto had assumed a hostile-but-calm demeanor as he listened to Luciano tell him “all we know right now,” which wasn’t much by the standards of the police, but gave him enough information to start investigating. Muerto had then demanded to see his “nephews” personal effects and remains. Officer Luciano made a call and gave him the address to the city morgue, which wouldn’t be open for visitors until morning. The personal effects were evidence, the officer had explained, and couldn’t be claim yet, but Muerto convinced him to see it. He made a show of clutching hysterically at the plastic bag containing Colón’s clothes, which also gave him a brief opportunity to examine them. Nothing unusual there, except for a leather sheath for a fixed blade knife.

Luciano provided him with a copy of the police report, that Muerto was much too grief stricken to read right away. He tucked it into his breast pocket and exchanged cell phone numbers with Luciano, who promised to call him if the detectives turned up anything tangible. Muerto doubted that they would do either, but it still paid to have a connection on the right side of the law. Seemingly placated, Muerto had thanked the officer, but sternly, and had driven to the Smoking Gun Cigar Bar.

Yellow police tape indicated that the bar was closed and Muerto drove by and parked down the street. He removed his jacket and pants, carefully hanging them from the oh-shit handle next to the driver’s side rear car door, and put on a dark blue hoodie and jeans. With the bar closed, the area was dead. No police cars staked out the scene, though they might patrol by. He moved swiftly from Bulldog’s car and into the alley next to the bar, taking a small bag with him. The locked door opened in a minute after he applied the jim to it, and he slipped inside.

Tape outlines marked where Colón and his bodyguard had fallen. The little cards the police used to mark the shell casings were still there, a curiously forgotten artifact of the investigators. Perhaps they were paying more attention to this case than he had figured. He searched around the room some, but found little in the way of a clue.

In the morning, he went down to the morgue and resumed his persona as the grieving uncle. He agonized over Colón’s body for the benefit of the watching medial examiner and asked for a minute alone. The examiner grudgingly allowed it, knowing that it was against policy, but nodded and left. Muerto checked the other cold storage lockers and found the bodyguard, who had been shot once in the chest. The police report had stated that both men had been shot with the same caliber pistol and that the bodyguard’s pistol had been missing. Muerto wondered at that as he looked over the bodyguard. The bald man had been an imposing figure in life, clearly, and taking his gun away from him would not have been an easy task. The damage to his face indicated a brutal struggle, while the incisions on Colón’s had been much more deliberate and cruel.

On his way out, Muerto made the plans to claim the body for burial, and said he’d also like to take care of the bodyguard’s remains, if his family didn’t turn up to claim them. Surely, any friend of his fine nephew deserved a proper burial, too, he had told the M.E. In truth, he wanted to put the bodies in a place where he could get to it if needed them for some reason, and to see who turned up to the funeral. Rival gangs, if were any, had a way of showing up at such proceedings to do their own reconnaissance.

Back at the house, Muerto lay down on Bulldog’s bed. Someone, the girl probably, had changed the sheets for him. He thought of her and her hard stare. She had barely looked up from the computer when he had returned. She was scared of him, of course, but also, he thought, interested. Girls like her usually maintained their own independence by cuddling up to the gang leader, which he now was. She was pretty enough. More than that, she also had some intelligence behind that hard gaze. He’d have to get to know here, inside and out, and find out how helpful she could be. Who knew? He might even learn her name.

Muerto ran down the information in his head. In addition to the police report, he had found that there was, after all, the potential for rival gangs in the city, based on the many newly arrived Bosnian immigrants and at least one independent Black gang. Neither element was significant, but he couldn’t rule out a minor hood trying to move up in the world. The slashes on Colón’s face had been done to mark the man for some reason. Usually, it was to send a message. Muerto couldn’t be sure without checking the medical examiner’s report, but the slashes had looked as if they had been done while Colón was still alive. The bodyguard had been shot at extremely close range, which was consistent with the theory that he was shot with his own gun, which had not been found, only his empty holster. If the eye-witness reports could be believed, no large group of people had entered the backroom of the bar.

Muerto figured that he was looking for one man, then, a man who knew how to handle himself very well in a fight. It was an assumption that would require more evidence, but it gave him more direction to focus his search. Most gang bangers weren’t martial experts, but one or two might have trained as boxers or in the new mixed martial arts fad. He’d check the local gyms in the morning, and get the rest of his own gang’s feelers out on the street. His thoughts neatly organized, he turned to fall asleep when his door opened. The girl looked at him, the hardness gone from her eyes. Muerto released the pistol under his pillow and smiled at her invitingly.