Six Feet Over Carlos Cleats

by Bryan D. Catherman

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
appear in this issue.

conclusion

Agent Wilson opened the door to the bean grinding room, finding it dark. Quickly, he slammed the door shut and withdrew back a few feet from the entrance. Kneeling down, he backed up against the hallway wall and drew his sidearm. Using his thumb, he clicked off the safety.

His radio chirped. “You must have forgotten what I do, Wilson,” said Mick through the squawk box. “Stop Tollman now; call off the green light and we can go get the money together. How’s a 60-40 split? Plow’s out of the picture now, you saw to that. You can have his share.”

“I underestimated you, Mickey,” Wilson said in anger. “It won’t happen again.” Wilson backed down the hallway, radio in one hand, gun in the other, keeping a close eye on the door. At the end of the hall, he backed into something.

“You’re right, you won’t underestimate me again,” Mick said from behind Wilson. He pushed the rifle deeper into Wilson’s back. “Call Tollman.”

“You’ll have to kill me,” threatened Wilson.

“Okay.” Mick pulled the trigger, sending a burst of three rounds through Wilson’s midsection. Wilson fell forward, gut-shot through the back. “Call Tollman,” Mick said again, calmly.

“Ahh!” Wilson grunted grabbing at his stomach. Mick kicked Wilson’s pistol away. A blood-red river began winding down the hall.

“Call Tollman and I will make this better for you.”

Wilson rolled over onto his back. “The phone... The phone is in my truck. Ahh... Outside... I, ahh... Please.... Just kill me!”

“Okay,” Mick said again without a second thought. He squeezed the M-16’s trigger once more. Wilson was dead. A triple-head shot.

* * *

Settling into the first-class seat, Mick wasted little time getting a flight home. His self-care job to the arm and leg kept the blood from soaking into his newfound cotton clothes but did little else. His cane drew attention and slowed him down, but he could do nothing about that. The pain pills barely took the edge off, so he bought five mini-tequila bottles from a very gay looking flight attendant, drank them one after another, and melted away into an uncomfortable sleep.

* * *

Tollman pulled the slobbery towel from Julie’s mouth. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded.

She spat in his face. Tollman slapped her and pushed the towel back in place. “It’s been three days. How long are you going to play this game with me, Julie?” They were in his room now, but there was nobody on the vineyard. Julie knew something was wrong a few days before and begged her in-laws to take Max with them on their trip to Capri. As for the guests, she refunded two couples’ money and bought them a suite at the Hilton in town. Then she sent the employees home for a week, with pay. Later that morning, Tollman attacked her in her own bakery.

Tollman walked over to the blinds, glancing through his hotel window across the vineyard to the Gelletie cottage. He dialed Wilson’s number, but again, there was no answer. He always answers. They double-crossed me, he thought as he killed the secure feed. He turned back to look at Julie.

“All I have is you,” Tollman said looking at his detainee again. “They got the money; I’m sure. They turned on me. And they probably killed your husband, too. All we have is each other now, Julie. Just you and me. Julie, you’re beautiful you know. I bet you don’t even know, Julie. Mickey never told you how beautiful you are, did he?”

She hated the way he said Julie. She hated everything about him. Dead is how she wanted him, dead.

“When are you going to love me, Julie?” Tollman tossed the satellite phone in the corner. “I love you; why don’t you love me?” He turned back to the window and twisted shut the blinds. He unbuttoned his shirt. “You will love me, someday.” After walking across the room, he touched her face. “Someday.”

He removed his pants and laid them neatly across the table. “I’m going to remove the towel again, Julie Gelletie. You can tell me you love me or you can just scream again. There is nobody here to hear you but me. I kind of like the screaming, personally. It lets me know you are having fun.”

He pulled the towel from her mouth. Julie remained silent. Tollman grabbed her thigh. Being bound, she could do nothing but close her eyes.

Clink, clink, clink. A light tap came from the window. Tollman grabbed his pistol from the table and moved to the wall near the glass. Standing in his boxers, he took a deep breath. He glanced to the bed, thinking about the rifle lying there. He lifted up one slat in the blinds but saw nothing. A few minutes passed. “Did you hear that, Julie?” he asked her.

“I didn’t hear anything,” she lied. She held her breath.

Tollman waited another minute and glanced through a single slat again. Nothing. “It’s nothing. There’s nothing out there. I guess it’s still just us. Look.” Still staring at Julie, he turned the baton, opening the blinds. Julie’s eyes went wide.

Mike Tollman turned just in time to see Mick Gelletie standing directly outside the window, arm fully extended, pistol pointed, hammer falling. Tollman fell backward, dead, a hole in his skull like the hole in the windowpane, smoke fading from Mick’s gun.

* * *

The shovel screeched across the small gravel with every load. Mick struggled with the work, digging with one good arm and the other barely gripping the shovel, lifeless. Julie refused to help him, although she refused to leave her husband’s side. The ground was chilly there in the early morning dawn, but she didn’t notice. Tollman’s corpse lay wrapped in a tarp behind her.

Julie finally spoke, the first time in hours. “So, how many other people are buried in our pet cemetery?”

Mick looked up, happy to take a break from the digging. He smiled. “Dogs are people too.”

“You think this is funny?” Julie asked.

Mick rethought what he had just said, remembering that this was likely the first dead body Julie had ever seen. “There are no people buried here, only dogs. Well, dogs and money.”

“How much money?” she asked with keen interest.

“Lots of money.”

“How much? How much money is worth what you put your family through?” Julie looked back at the tarp-covered lump.

“I never intended this, Julie. Please forgive me.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“Another agent...” Mick didn’t want to get into the details. “Will you ever forgive me?”

Julie looked into the hole, then at the grave markers, then up to Mick’s eyes. “How much money? Tell me what is going on. Everything. Then maybe I can forgive you.”

“Fine.” Mick bent down into the shallow hole and started moving dirt and gravel away from a box. “We had an informant, Plow, who helped us with local information about one of the cartels I was working to get inside. The Family struck a deal with Plow that if he could get an agent in, we would protect him and help get him out of the country.

“We got two agents in, but the Family never kept our end of the deal. The cartel figured Plow was rolling on them but never learned about the planted agents. My job was to work with Plow. He kept begging to have him and his family moved out of Mexico, but the CIA wouldn’t do it. They just kept pressing him harder, for more.

“Last year, the cartel killed his wife. It just wasn’t right, Julie. Plow and I worked up a plan to get him and his children out.”

Julie’s face held no emotion.

Mick continued, “We told the Family that we could work up a huge drug buy with the cartel; maybe the biggest ever. They bought it and approved funding for the mission. The cartel never knew. Two teams were assigned — one to watch the cartel and one to watch the money. Me and Plow were going to make the exchange.

“Instead, I slipped the money out of Mexico and buried it here. There were never any drugs, but the Family never knew. But now Plow is dead. A couple of agents turned on us and were after the money.

“Look, I was going to retire. With my cut I was going to expand the vineyard and work here, with you and Max.”

Julie thought about Mick’s story. “You stole this money?”

“Well, yes. But it was to help Plow.”

Julie thought about it for a minute. “But Plow is dead and now agents are coming after us?”

Mick pulled up one side of a plastic wrapped wine crate. “Yes and no. Plow is dead, but no agents are coming after us anymore. I killed them and their men.”

It was the way he said, “I killed them” that troubled Julie. He might as well have said, “I went to the grocery store today.”

Mick worked the box out of the hole, cut the plastic off, and pried off the top with the shovel. Inside were stacks of colorful bills, some currency Julie didn’t recognize, some she did.

“How much?” Julie asked again.

“Two hundred and thirteen million. It’s all unmarked. It cost Plow and me seven million just to work out the plan. My cut was originally seventy-five million, but I guess it’s all ours now.” Mick pushed the box to the side and moved over to Tollman’s body.

Mick looked up with begging eyes, feeling the pain in his arm. “Julie, help me drag him into the hole,” motioning to the body.

Julie shook her head from side to side, never taking her eyes of the box of money.

“Who knows about this money, Mick?” Julie asked.

“Nobody now, but us. I’m sure the Family will do an investigation, but the report I’ve already submitted says Plow turned on us and the cartel killed our agents. The Family will be looking for Plow. I’m going to tell them that I have a family now and can’t do this work anymore. It’s all worked out. Nobody will come looking for the money as long as we don’t spend it like crazy people. Please, help me with this guy.”

Together, they pulled the tarp, with Tollman wrapped inside, over to the grave. They couldn’t tell if he was face up or face down, but they didn’t care. Mick shoveled the dirt back into the hole. Julie sat on the money box in silence.

When Mick finished packing the mound with the back of the shovel, he sat on the ground next to Julie. They watched the sunrise over the vineyard. Julie looked at Tollman’s grave, there, among the animals. The only two words carved on his headstone read, “Carlos Cleats.”

* * *

Julie sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her sleeping husband. Before he fell asleep, Mick thought he had it all worked out. Julie was going to Capri to pick up Max and convince Mick’s parents to retire. They would buy them out and take over the vineyard. She would also grow her hair out for him. He liked it better.

Mick would see a doctor and then make retirement arrangements with his employer. If all went as planned, they would be settling into a relaxing life on the vineyard very soon.

But Julie had other thoughts. In the past week, she had marched through hell for her husband. She didn’t know if she could ever forgive him. She had made other plans.

While Mick slept, Julie loaded the crate of money into the trunk of their car. Next to the box were two suitcases — one for her and one for Max.

Julie went back into the house. She looked at the mattress where Mick kept a revolver.

Julie’s mind was not set when she drew the revolver, but knowing it was loaded and feeling the wood and steel, glassy like ice, against her jittery hand, she knew she could squeeze the trigger if she must. The weapon was like a sixth finger. Her blood flowed into the gun and then back again to her heart. Her pounding chest nearly woke her husband but that wouldn’t matter in ten seconds, although she hoped he didn’t wake. She could never look into his eyes again.

As Julie pulled out of the driveway, eyes fixed on her new future, trunk full of money, she now knew, more than ever, what she was truly capable of.