Once Removed: The Garza Series, #3

By Michael Berrier

Donny Lind's honorable discharge from Army service should put him on a road to a new life. But months later he awakens injured in a hospital stateside to find himself accused by federal agents of kidnapping and extortion. He has no recollection of the crimes, all his memories are now jumbled and fragmented, and the evidence against him is indisputable. He flees his accusers, and when his childhood friends learn of the accusations they embark on a search for Donny, and the truth. With fellow combat veterans Paul Garza and Donny's cousin, he works to unravel the mystery while on the run from law enforcement agents that are as desperate to capture him as he is to elude them. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Berrier
• Release date: Jun 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997548600

Michael Berrier

Michael Berrier creates suspenseful stories about greed, corruption, and justice. Learn more at michaelberrier.com

Book preview

Part One

Donny Lind

1

March 8, 1989—Santa Rosa, California

As a young boy, Donny Lind imagined that the blood of his ancestors fought for dominance in his veins. This imagination was especially strong when he ran through the forest, playing war with his cousin John Klitch, and his friend Paul Garza. He couldn’t outrun them on the track at school, but here in the forest a mile from their neighborhood, he could. Here, where you had to vault over downed trees and leap across streams, with sometimes your vision blocked as you came around a stand of trees whose trunks might have been the bodies of enemy combatants, he was fastest. And it was in this place of obstacles and foes that Donny believed that the varied sources of the blood leaping in his veins fought to control his destiny.

He felt it now. With the stick that was his rifle, he came at a clump of trees standing tall in his path and he shot the trunks before him without breaking stride. Each of the men they stood for flew aside. That he still had to avoid the stand of trees did nothing to break the fantasy. In his mind, the four men lay on the ground, three of them deader than stones because of the accuracy of his kill shots, and one writhing and bleeding out.

Donny’s blood pushed and shoved, bounded and punched in his veins as he sped beyond the enemies he’d left bloodied in his trail. John was out here somewhere, John a Viet Cong today, and deep in the woods to Donny’s left Paul was flanking around to try to get the angle on the overwhelming enemy force John was leading. It was exactly like a scene from one of the Vietnam movies they watched on cable when Paul’s mom wasn’t home. A scene from Platoon, or from Rambo. He imagined he was Sergeant Elias and Paul was Rambo, and wouldn’t putting those two movies together make an even better one?

Donny wondered which of the ancestors in his blood would win today. His great-great grandmother on his mother’s side was Cherokee, and his father was descended from the Scottish lords of medieval times. The Scots might have been vicious, with their axes and swords, but now, with the low-lying brush whipping at his shins, the uneven ground beneath his Vans barely slowing him with each step, it was the Cherokee in him that he summoned.

A bush that was a VC reared up ahead, and Donny Lind the Cherokee warrior was on it before it heard his approach. The stick wasn’t a rifle any longer but a tomahawk, and the bush wasn’t a VC anymore but a cruel drunk of a cavalryman, and on a dead run Donny flipped his stick in the air and caught it by the handle, and sliced the head of his enemy with the practiced deftness of a seasoned warrior.

He sped past.

Donny had learned about his blood from his grandfather, a storyteller. As he’d gotten older, Donny began to suspect from the way his mom rolled her eyes when the old man talked that his grandfather might have embellished some of the stories. But when that balding head dipped low and his gravelly voice dropped to make it just between Donny and him, Donny knew that there was truth in the stories. Enough, anyway.

A flash of blue slid between the bushes ahead. Donny knew instantly what that blue meant. He went down in his best base-stealing slide, the soles of his Vans coming to rest against an oak trunk as gnarly and contorted as an ogre.

John wore his blue windbreaker today.

John the VC. Charlie.

Donny’s blood pumped and charged and warred in his veins. His temples raged with it. Cherokee against Scottish warrior, two nations battling, tomahawks and broadswords flailing, war cries and bagpipes resounding, going at it in the meat of his flesh for possession of his soul.

He lifted his head. Around the trunk of the tree, he edged with silent deadliness.

His rifle in his hands seemed to rise on its own, and the Cherokee warrior once again became a Marine in Nam way back in 1972 deep in VC territory, the jungle thick and steaming around him. The battle he and Paul had designed with John nodding along was a survival mission. The Marines had no contact with their platoon. They couldn’t hope for rescue if they were captured. Their mission was that secret, and if it hadn’t been compromised they would have just snuck back to American-held territory. But as it was, they had no choice but to go on the offensive. Just the two Marines in a quest for Charlie.

Donny was breathing so hard from his run through the jungle that he could hardly hold the rifle steady. The blue swatch of fabric was still in sight. He brought the rifle in line, not seeing a crooked stick in his hands but the slick tube of an M-16 and the sight at the end and beyond it, his target a small patch of blue in the brown and gray and green of the jungle.

The blue fabric flapped in a breeze.

This was wrong.

It never flapped in a breeze when John wore it. The windbreaker was a size too small now. John had been wearing it for two years and he’d outgrown it at least six months ago.

Then he heard a twig snap.

He turned his head.

John came flying toward him. No windbreaker. 

Donny spun with the M-16. But he was too late. Charlie had the drop on him and he was a dead man.

A shot rang out.

Or at least, someone yelled, Bang! And it wasn’t his cousin.

Paul.

John plowed into Donny and the two of them somersaulted in the weeds.

John shouted in frustration. He came up on top of Donny with his own stick-rifle in hand, his lips tight and his teeth clenched.

I had you! he said. I had you, man!

Paul stepped up, shaking his head. Not really.

Donny pushed John off him and they scrambled to their feet.  The only one of them not breathing hard was Paul. Donny panted because of his sprint, John because of his anger. But Paul somehow got the drop on John without even getting out of breath.

What do you mean, ‘not really’? John said.

You had him, but I had you first, Paul said.

John stood with his fists bunched. His shoulders rose and fell, rose and fell, and redness flooded the paleness of his cheeks in the way that only happened when he was angry enough to fight.

Donny went for his stick. Let’s do a Western.

John stared at Paul. Donny had seen his cousin that angry before, but he didn’t think John would go after Paul. John was angry, but he wasn’t crazy.

I don’t want to do a Western, John said.

Paul sat down on a log and started peeling bark off it in chunks the size of dirt clods, pitching them at the trees that hadn’t fallen yet. The dings coming off the tree trunks echoed like one-shot woodpeckers.

What are you mad about? Donny said to his cousin.

I’m not mad, John said.

You’ve got nothing to be mad about, Paul said. You lost fair and square.

Donny said, We should do a Western. You don’t have to be the cowboy just because your name’s John Wayne.

John straightened. Making me the Indian because my name’s John Wayne is just as bad as making me the cowboy because my name’s John Wayne.

"Be the cowboy then, JW, Donny said, deciding on the spot that he was going to call him JW from now on. I don’t care."

I told you, I don’t want to do a Western.

Why are you so mad? Paul said.

I’m not mad. You keep asking me and it’s just going to make me mad.

Okay, so you’re not mad, Paul said.

You guys are always ganging up.

Donny felt his face flush hot now. You’re the one who wanted to be Charlie.

Well, you didn’t both have to be the Marine.

It was Paul’s turn to make up the story, and that’s the one he made up.

Paul chucked another clod of bark at a tree trunk and it knocked off into the dirt. John, he said, why don’t you make one up and we’ll do that.

But Donny could feel his anger boiling higher, his face flushing hotter. He didn’t want his cousin to make one up anymore. It wasn’t his turn. It was Donny’s turn. He went over to the log and sat down next to Paul. The rough texture of the bark felt good to his hand as he ripped a piece away the size and shape of a skipping stone.

All JW did was pace around, kicking at the weeds. He wanted to come to the log too. Donny could feel it. But he wanted an invitation. He wanted Paul or Donny to ask him to come over and see who could hit a target the most times without missing. But Donny wasn’t about to invite him. Let him come over if he wanted to.

That one, Paul said to Donny, pointing to a tree the width of a football. He made the throw, and nailed it.

Donny took aim. His piece of bark just winged it.

JW just kicked at the dirt. After a few more kicks, he said, I gotta go.

Donny glanced at him. The red had dropped from JW’s cheeks, so now it was only the base of his neck that glowed. Your mom said you didn’t have to be home until dark. If he invited him to sit on the log, JW would stay out for another two hours. But Donny was still feeling a little mean. He didn’t want JW to go home mad, but he didn’t want to give him some big invitation either.

I know, JW said.

Donny broke off a nice, round chunk of bark. Here, he said, and he tossed it at JW. Even though he didn’t want to give JW an invitation out loud, he’d meant the toss to be an invitation to join them.

But JW wasn’t looking. And the truth was, Donny threw the piece of bark a little too hard and a little high.

It smacked JW in the side of the face.

JW jumped. He glared at Donny with an outraged expression, and that redness flooded up his neck, up his jaw, and into his cheeks with such ferocity that it reminded Donny of a chameleon changing color.

He shouldn’t have laughed. He knew it. But the look on JW’s face and the way the redness climbed up so fast—and maybe because he knew he shouldn’t laugh—struck Donny with an uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing.

So he did.

And JW came after him.

The humor vanished as fast as it had come on.

Donny ducked under JW’s charge and came up with his hard right shoulder the way he’d been taught in football. The collision rocked him, but he got the momentum and drove JW down into the dirt. His cousin’s fist clipped him in the forehead and Donny knew it probably hurt JW more than it did him.

Donny cleared his right hand and swung twice at JW’s midsection before he felt his collar slice into the front of his neck and his belt crimp his waist.

It was Paul, lifting him into the air. He had a hold on Donny’s collar and belt, and as he rose into the air, Donny’s last swing went wild. He wound up on his rump in the bushes, and JW was trying to scramble to his feet when Paul intercepted him.

Hold up, man, Paul said.

You saw what he did.

It was an accident, Donny said.

JW turned to him. No it wasn’t.

He didn’t mean to, Paul said. He still had a hand on JW’s chest, and Donny knew JW wouldn’t try to take a swing at Paul. Nobody tried to swing at Paul anymore. He hit back way too hard.

I don’t like getting hit in the face with a piece of wood, JW said.

Come on, man, Donny said. It was an accident.

I’m out of here, JW said.

He should have left it at that. But JW had come after him, and Donny’s forehead was throbbing where JW had knocked it, and that little streak of meanness was still there for Donny to deal with.

So he said, Don’t be a baby.

JW’s face flushed red again. That same tide of red rising through the skin of his neck, jaw, and cheeks.

He shoved Paul’s hand away and went for Donny’s stick-rifle, picked it up and snapped it in half over his knee. He gave Donny an I dare you look, and for a second, Donny thought he might throw it at him to get even, but he threw it into the dirt instead. Probably because Paul was there.

JW swiped his own stick-rifle off the ground and stormed off, slashing at the bushes and sending clipped leaves and twigs careening into the air around him.

Paul looked down at Donny.

He’ll get over it, Donny said.

Paul kept looking at him. He didn’t have to say anything.

What?

You know what, Paul said.

Donny stood and brushed himself off. All right. I’ll apologize tomorrow.

He left his windbreaker, Paul said.

Donny looked over to where JW had strung the blue nylon. The diversion would have worked if Paul hadn’t saved his skin.

Donny sighed. Paul was going to make him do it today. Okay, okay. He made his way through the brush to the windbreaker and retrieved it.

They didn’t speak as they took the shortcut through the woods to JW’s house.

When they got there, Paul nodded at the door and Donny was starting to feel like he was in detention. He stepped ahead and rang the bell and after a minute Aunt Julie came and opened up from behind the screen door. She was a short lady with cheeks like apples, and hair the color of old dishwater. She looked past Donny and Paul for her son.

Where’s John? she said. Then she looked down at the windbreaker in Donny’s hand and straightened.

Donny looked at Paul. Paul looked at Donny.

What’s happened? Aunt Julie said. She went for the knob on the screen door and turned it, and stepped out. Her eyes had gone a little wide.

Nothing, Donny said. Nothing’s wrong. He just forgot this. That’s all. He held out the blue windbreaker as if that would prove JW was okay.

She looked past them again. Well, where is he?

He said he was coming home, but he left this.

She took it, her fingers slipping along the nylon like her boy was in it. How long ago did he leave? She kept looking down the street, first one way and then the other. 

Just a few minutes ago, Paul said. We took a shortcut.

Aunt Julie looked down at Paul as if he hadn’t been standing behind Donny all the time. Something in her expression shifted and she said, Well, come on in, boys. You can wait for him. She held the screen door open for them.

They went straight ahead past the stairs, toward the kitchen. Donny could smell what she was working on for dinner, a fiesta of spicy flavors blending into beef and beans.

Donny wondered what his mom was cooking tonight and if Aunt Julie was going to invite them to stay.

Aunt Julie had the blinds tilted so the late afternoon sun angled down onto the countertops, where the cutting board and knife were waiting to be washed.

Donny and Paul took their usual seats at the table. Paul perched his elbows on the tabletop, arms crossed.

JW’s mom went for the refrigerator and said, I don’t want to get any calls from your mothers about spoiling your dinner. You got that?

No way, Donny said.

No, ma’am, Paul said.

She came around with a milk carton but Donny was eyeing the big jar on the counter. It was in the shape of a fat baker, and when the head came off, you could reach inside for whatever cookies Aunt Julie had been baking lately. She took care of the milk and glasses first, giving them a warning that they had to drink every drop, and then she went for the jar and set it between Donny and Paul.

They were on their second helpings of the best, chewiest oatmeal-raisin cookies in town when they heard the front door open.

Donny stopped chewing.

The door slammed and it had to be JW’s footsteps clomping up the stairs.

Aunt Julie called after him. Donny thought he heard a pitch of relief in her voice, but he might have been imagining it.

What? JW shouted. It sounded like he was already upstairs.

Your friends are here.

No response.

Paul held a half-eaten cookie. He didn’t take another bite of it, just stared at Donny.

I’ll go get him, Donny said, and Paul moved again.

Donny left the room and came to the stairs. He looked up and there at the top stood JW, looking down at him.

We brought your coat, is what Donny started with. You left it.

JW’s eyes flickered just enough to say that he thought they’d done a good thing. He seemed to catch himself, and looked down at the banister at the top of the stairs and put his hand there.

It gave Donny the encouragement to take a few steps up. He lowered his voice. She’s got the cookie jar open.

Upstairs, JW still acted like something was fascinating about the banister.

Oatmeal-raisin, Donny said.

I know. I live here, remember? But the anger was gone from his voice, and there wasn’t any flush in his face or neck at all.

You better come down before Paul eats them all, Donny said.

JW looked toward his room, deliberating.

Oooatmeeeeal- raaaisin, Donny sang.

When JW rolled his eyes and finally looked at him, Donny said, Sorry about... you know.

It only took JW a second to come back with, She put extra brown sugar in, and he trotted downstairs as if nothing had ever happened.

2

June 5, 2015—Bishop, California

The first thing Staff Sergeant Donald Lind felt was a hazy sense that he did not belong here.

Not that he knew where here was.

The second thing Donny felt was a crushing headache.

Wherever he was, it was not where he belonged. The antiseptic indoor air had a chill to it, and the fragrances it carried reminded him of wounds and infections, of guys bleeding out, of a particular man who looked into the Sergeant’s eyes with the kind of desperation he’d seen too many times and asked him, Is it bad?

His eyes blinked open.

What he saw wasn’t the aftermath of a battle. It wasn’t a battlefield at all, no urban zone outside the wires. It was a hospital. And not a field hospital either. It was a civilian hospital.

With a couple of guys standing at the foot of the bed.

The length of their hair and their lazy eyes told him they were civilians. One of them had a mole high on his cheek. His dark eyes and black hair could have made him a descendant of Sicilian fishermen. The other one, distracted by an iPhone he held, looked a little older, an African-American man with gray peppering a perfectly shaped natural. They wore suits, the Sicilian’s crumpled like he wore it round the clock, and the other guy’s neat and pressed.

The Sicilian nudged the other one. Then both of them looked at him, the black guy closing down his iPhone and slipping it into a pocket inside his jacket.

Donny cast about through the pain throbbing in his head for a recollection of them. He found none.

Welcome back to the land of the living, the Sicilian said.

Donny blinked at him. He started to speak, but found that his throat was clogged up and so dry they might have been feeding him sand. He cleared his throat.

Who are you? he asked them, the sound of his voice a thunderclap in his head.

As Donny winced, the Sicilian stepped around to the side of the bed. Donny lifted his left hand and found that an IV was stuck in the back of it. Tilting his head to follow the tube up to a hanging, plastic bag brought another wave of pain behind his forehead.

The Sicilian poured a cup of water from a pitcher at the bedside and held it out to Donny.

He used the hand without a needle to take it. The cool water flooded his gullet and surged into his stomach like it was opening up passages long neglected.

Thanks, he whispered. His throat didn’t resist, and the pain in his head only responded vaguely to the whisper.

The Sicilian moved back around to the foot of the bed next to the other guy. From the flat expressions in their faces, it was clear that they weren’t here just to pour water for him. But Donny had no idea who they were.

In fact, with a rising sense of panic, he realized that he didn’t know how he’d gotten here, or what had happened to deliver him to a civilian hospital with a hammering headache.

I’m Agent Bracco, the Sicilian said. This is Special Agent Lester. We need to ask you a few questions. Bracco stared at him a moment. If you’re up to it, he said.

Donny looked around the room for anything that might give him a clue as to what had happened to him. The last thing he remembered was moving through a corridor—a white corridor. Could it have been here, at this hospital? He’d been moving through, and he remembered wanting to get out of it. Wanting to escape from something. Or someone.

But it was only a foggy memory. Like the memory of a dream that was growing fainter and fainter with the incursion of reality.

Bracco was talking about someone with a Hispanic name, wanting to know what Donny knew about Mexico—about Sinaloa.

How did I— Donny said. But his head’s response to his voice was a squeezing vise. He whispered, How did I get here?

Bracco stopped talking. Both of them looked at Donny with those flat, inscrutable expressions, eyes that gave him nothing back.

Lester said, "How did you get here?"

Donny looked into the brown eyes. Still flat. Unmoved. Accusing.

The two agents looked at each other. What passed between them wasn’t exactly compassion.

Bracco turned back to Donny. Never mind that. We need to know about your relationship with Roque Isidro.

Donny stared at him. The name Roque Isidro was vaguely familiar to him, like the name of some lower tier celebrity. But he couldn’t place it. Who’s Roque Isidro? he said.

Lester waited. The expression on his face took on impatience.

Our sources, he said, put you in an operation with Roque Isidro about four weeks ago. In Sinaloa.

Donny couldn’t remember what happened four hours ago, much less four weeks ago. And he remembered less about Sinaloa than he remembered about how he’d landed in this hospital. That is, exactly nothing.

Maybe if he let these guys keep talking it would come back to him.

Lester said, We’re hoping you can give us some details about what happened. You know, clear things up. We’d really like to report that no Americans were directly involved. That this was all Roque Isidro’s doing.

Bracco’s eyes shifted. There was something going on between the two of them. Some question about their mission here, or the way the interview was supposed to be conducted. Donny had seen it before when the objectives coming down to the troops on the ground weren’t what they should have been. Top-down strategies designed by some guy with no experience in the kind of operation he was sponsoring, no skin of his own at risk, a guy just looking to make a name for himself.

That thought set off a sequence of memories flitting through Donny’s head. He was transported to Iraq, rolling through the streets in a Humvee. A guy was driving—Caczka was his name—and he was talking about a scene in the movie Anchor Man, reciting the lines and all of them laughing when the roadside bomb went off and everything changed.

Donny blinked away the memory.

Bracco was expecting a response. But Donny didn’t even know what the question was.

What? he said.

Both of them glared at him. The failing student. A pupil who couldn’t pay attention.

Impatience simmering just under the skin surrounding his eyes, Lester said, I said, ‘Let’s start with Graystone.

Start with Graystone? Donny wondered if he meant Graystone Services, or if there was some other Graystone these guys might be interested in. Graystone Services was a Private Military Company—a PMC—that contracted with the US government and others. He’d come across some of the guys in Iraq. The company had contracts with the Department of Defense to do work Washington didn’t want their soldiers involved in. Most of them were ex-military, a lot of them former Special Ops or Green Berets, SEALs—guys who had rotated out but either enjoyed soldiering too much or couldn’t find anything better, and signed on with the contractor for better pay and missions that might be for Uncle Sam, or might not.

But Donny didn’t know what it had to do with him.

Bracco and Lester gave him no clues.

Lester cleared his throat, sighed. Why’d you leave them? More money in it if you branched out on your own? Was that it?

They were saying he’d worked for Graystone. That he’d left them and gone off to Mexico on his own to work with this person named Roque Isidro. Could it be true? He had vague recollections of helicopter rides with guys who didn’t look like regular Army. But that had all been in Iraq.

Hadn’t it?

What do you think I did? he whispered.

Bracco stepped around. We know you were there, you sorry—

Matt! Lester came up next to Bracco. Chill.

If you know, Donny said, why all the questions—Matt?

Bracco’s jaw clenched, the knots at its edges flexing. Agent Bracco, to you.

I don’t know anybody named Roque Isidro, Donny said. His head responded with a squeezing ache.

Oh, here we go. I told you, Bracco said to his partner. He wandered over to a chair and plopped down into it, crossed a leg and stared at Donny with his head inclined to one side.

Donny dropped his voice to a whisper again. I’ve never been to Sinaloa.

Lester inspected the IV bag, the monitors behind it, and eyed the tube that ran to the needle in Donny’s hand.

That’s not the information we have, he said. We have documents and eyewitnesses that make you the leader of the squad in that village. We have phone records and correspondence between you and some of your men. And Isidro.

The scene in that chopper kept coming back to Donny. It was the only thing in his memory that might match up with Graystone, the only set of guys that might be private military that he could recall.

But the truth was, he could recall very little since his last deployment. He knew he’d been out a long time—he felt it in his mind, the weariness of stressed days and nights replaced with a kind of languid dread. He remembered other hospitals and doctors. And he remembered that one corridor in particular, wandering in it, searching for something and running from something—someone.

It occurred to him that if he could remember so little, what they were saying might be true. That chopper trip could have been after his deployment. The guys with him might have been private military. He could have been to Mexico. Could have been to Sinaloa. That’s how vacant his memories were.

What happened there? he said to Lester.

The Special Agent’s eyes narrowed a fraction. Measuring Donny. His lips parted to speak, but before he could, Bracco stood. This is going nowhere. I’m going to see what his doctor says about this memory loss story.

At least tell me what you think I did? Donny whispered.

Bracco came up next to Lester. It’s not what we think. It’s what we know. We know you were there. You were the guy in charge. We gave you the benefit of the doubt. War record and all. But what you and your guys did—you’ve got to pay for that. He slapped Lester on the arm. Come on.

After two steps toward the door, Bracco stopped. Lester leaned over Donny, peering into his eyes.

Donny said, What did I do?

Lester’s gaze lost some of its intensity. He straightened. I’d like to hear your side of it, Sergeant Lind. I really would.

What? Donny said. What was it?

One eyebrow raised, Lester said, Taking kids.

Special Agent Lester, Bracco said. He gave a nod toward the door.

Kids? Donny said.

Lester nodded.

Let’s go, Bracco said.

I don’t see it in your eyes, Lester said. You don’t have that kind of cruelty in you. That’s my take.

Donny’s head fell back, and the insides of his head were a jumble of throbbing jelly, settling in an agonizing mass. He looked at the ceiling. Square tiles lined up in perfect rows, filled with dotted impressions in irregular patterns like millions of tiny bullet holes.

He wondered if he could have done it. If he could have been so desperate that he’d do something to kids.

Here, it didn’t seem possible. Here, in the brightness of this room, with the smells of disinfectant and iodine in the air. But if the darkness inside him rose up, if he’d been in the heat of battle, he knew he would have been capable of setting aside kindness or pity.

Bracco came up next to Lester. Special Agent, this is going nowhere.

Lester held up a hand. Sergeant Lind, you’re remembering, aren’t you?

Donny turned to him. Lester’s eyes were a deep brown, the pupils in the center of them the shining black of cooled lava.

Remembering? No, not remembering. But he knew that darkness lived deep inside him. He’d felt its presence all his life. And he feared the way it might be able to warp him.

But kids? Was it possible?

He looked away from Lester and shook his head.

All right, Lester said, standing away. Have it your way. Without another word, he joined Bracco and they left the room.

Their steps receded down the hallway. Firm steps. Righteous steps.

And now the darkness inside him rose up. As if thinking of it gave it power it surfaced, fingering into his mind and limbs with a will to drive his humanity away.

He tried focusing on the brightness around him, the ordinary things in the room—on the handle of the door, a crisp, silver lever, on the rail running along the ceiling and a curtain hanging from chains that could be drawn along to hide him, on a whiteboard where someone had written times and numbers and a nurse’s name. But the bright and familiar things in the room didn’t avert the darkness. It crept through his mind to cloud every thought with terror, to shadow everything he saw. He felt it seep into the flesh of his face, drawing down his mouth and cheeks, sharpening his brow, turning the frustration of not remembering what had led him here, into an aggravated rage.

He filled his lungs and tried to imagine that inhalation brought brightness inside him, and that what he exhaled was not just his breath, but darkness. Where he had learned this, he did not know. But as he forced himself to continue the exercise, he felt the darkness grudgingly ceding territory within him, until it was tamped down into those hidden places to wait for the next opportunity to rise up.

Could he have given it free rein in Sinaloa? Had he allowed this Roque Isidro to tap into it?

A shadow fell across his doorway. He turned as a woman entered, and the pull of gravity on his brain activated the pain again.

She wore the colorful smock and pants of a nurse.

Her name tag said, Almario.

With a smile that lit up her face, she said, I’m glad to see you awake.

She came to his side, started inspecting the monitoring gadgets behind him.

What happened to me? he said.

She froze for a moment, and seemed to catch herself and offered him another smile. Her teeth were perfect lines of white, her lips full. She had dark eyes that were slightly upturned at their outer edges, skin coppery and hair as black and shiny as the feathers of a raven. He put her in her mid-twenties, Filipina or part-Filipina.

What do you remember? she said.

I don’t want to play a game, he said. I want you to tell me what’s going on. At the sound of his voice, his headache flared up again. He put a hand to his head.

You fell again, she said. This time you hit your head. Not what a guy with an injury like yours needs. Do you remember the fall?

Donny stared at her. What did she mean by fell again? How many times had he fallen? His memories were a jumbled mass, like puzzle pieces dumped out of a box into a pile. But this nurse was familiar. Was it because he’d fallen so many times he was a regular here? She had a good and caring face, skin that made him want to touch it. Other faces came to him too, but only in flickering, disordered visions.

And he remembered pain.

Your head hurts, she said. It wasn’t a question. Let me check your vitals, then we’ll get you something for that.

Out of the pocket of her smock she drew a plastic clip and put it on his fingertip.

Get me my clothes, he said.

The nurse didn’t break her routine. You don’t like the hospital gown? It’s very stylish.

Donny grabbed her arm. I want my clothes.

She tried to yank her arm away, but he had a good hold on it. Stop that, she said.

I need to get out of here.

That’s not possible. She wrenched her arm out of his grip.

Give me something for this headache and get me out of here. He swung his legs around and started to sit up, but his head seemed to weigh tons.

Stop it, she said, and she took hold of his legs and tried to get them back under the covers.

He let her.

Here, she said, and handed him a paper medicine cup.

The leftover water that Bracco had poured him washed down a couple of pills. Donny looked into her eyes.

Kim, he said.

How he knew that was her first name, he couldn’t imagine. But it seemed to startle her. She returned his gaze.

I have to get out of here, he said. Can you help me? Please?

"Listen, Houdini, you’re