The Power to Live Read online

The Power to Live

  By Thomas Porter

  Copyright 2014 by Thomas Porter

  Cover art (c) artshock www.fotosearch.com Stock Photography. Cover design by the author.

  To my daughters

  Chapter 1

  Elizabeth took her stilettos off and slipped them under the bed. She replaced her sequined skirt and blouse with checked pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, stuffed a change of clothes in her purse, and stepped into dark blue tennis shoes.

  She sat on the bed and listened.

  Bowery was sitting outside the room, at a desk near the end of the hallway. Elizabeth could hear him whistle aimless notes and occasionally slap himself in the thigh with his palm, a weird habit she never understood. The solid springs of the old, green metal office chair creaked loudly underneath his 300 pounds. Somewhere in her chest she could sense his presence, an unpleasant feeling she couldn't localize and was only vaguely aware of.

  She stretched out on her roommate Napolita's bed and covered herself with a blanket. Two years ago, they met inside a windowless delivery truck in Sinaloa. Elizabeth and her sister Lozen were sitting against the front wall of the dark interior when the back door swung open and Napolita was thrown inside. Nine more girls followed before they were all driven over the border. During the following week they were sold off, Napolita, Elizabeth, and Lozen going for a single price to Marcos, owner of The Taurus. Since then, as they were forced into prostitution, Napolita became like the third sister.

  Several minutes after Bowery, Taurus security chief, started his inane whistling, Elizabeth heard the chair roll across the floor as he stood up. She lifted her head from the pillow and listened to his steps ascend the stairs.

  With her left hand, she reached across her body and quietly pulled the blanket off. She stood up, crossed the room, and opened the door a crack. From there she could see the desk and the empty chair to the left. She slipped through the door, walked quickly to the opposite end of the hallway, and entered a storage room. Elizabeth slowly pulled the door until it was flush with the door jamb, then clicked it closed.

  On the opposite end of the room, over some crudely built wooden shelves, a window near the ceiling opened to the outside. It was the only window in the basement that was not covered with security bars. She didn't know why. She clumsily climbed between the side of the shelf and the wall until she was near the top. Pushing against the wall with her left hand, she reached over and opened the window latch with her right. It swung upward and Elizabeth felt the warmer air of outdoors at the same time she heard the door open wildly and slam against the wall.

  "Whoa there," Bowery said.

  Elizabeth gave up all pretense of being quiet. She pushed up against the wooden shelf, knocking spare irons, towels, and cleaning supplies onto the floor. She grabbed the inside of the window frame and pulled herself up but Bowery grabbed her ankle and pulled down. As she fell, she spun herself face down and landed on the pile of towels and cleaning supplies.

  "Not today, Elizabeth," Bowery said.

  She twisted her upper body to the right and spit at Bowery. "You despicable bastards sold my sister."

  "I didn't sell your sister. I work here just like you do."

  "You work here like I do. Yeah. Right. I don't work here, you bastard. I'm a slave here." She spoke violently and spittle rained up at Bowery. She reached down but instead of the floor, her hand came to rest on an iron. She grabbed the handle and pushed up until she was in a sitting position facing Bowery.

  "I liked your little sister. I didn't want to sell her. But she was worth a Bugatti EB110 in mint condition. I've never seen that. You should be proud. Marcos is gonna love it."

  Two years of suppressed rage built just below her sternum and migrated into her upper chest. Still propping herself up with her left hand, she patted her chest with her right hand as she said, "I know what you sold her for. A car. Is it yours?"

  "I wish. You know who it's for. Marcos himself."

  "I hope he dies in it," she said. "Who's going to take care of Lozen now? Samantha? And what'd you get for her and Napolita?"

  "Cocaine and cash for Napolita. Not collected the cash yet, though. Samantha's more like on transfer. A promotion. Learning the business side of the trade," he said as he awkwardly yanked her ankle toward him. Despite his weight, Bowery was nimble on his feet. But it was all he could do to reach down and grab Elizabeth's ankle without his own weight pulling him to the floor.

  The tug jerked Elizabeth away from the shelf. She let the momentum carry her left hand up toward Bowery and the iron struck full force, snapping his right arm like a freshly-cut branch. The sound reminded Elizabeth of the gunshots she heard two years ago, just before she learned how far her father, her “Papi”, was willing to go in order to save himself.

  Bowery screamed in pain. He slapped his thigh, this time for a damn good reason, and fell helplessly sideways to the floor. The extra weight he carried, once in motion, was too much for any man to control and he hit the floor like a bag of cement. He screamed again, but was in too much pain for form words.

  The feeling in Elizabeth's chest rushed down her left arm, lifted the iron again, and swung it toward Bowery's face. The screaming stopped, replaced with blood flowing through his bleached shoulder length hair.

  Elizabeth kicked herself backwards, away from the growing pool. She stood up and pulled the snub-nosed revolver from the holster on Bowery's chest. She dropped it into her purse, climbed the shelf again and pulled herself through the window. Elizabeth naturally long, smooth strides carried her away from the club and within seconds she was gone.

  Chapter 2

  My sister is going to die.

  The thought started just below Lozen's sternum, migrated into her upper chest, and expanded until it felt like an overinflated balloon ready to burst. My sister is drifting away. She turned her head and whispered into the ear of Napolita, who was laying to her right.

  "Do you feel that?"

  "Feel what?" Napolita asked.

  "My sister. It feels like she's..."

  "Be quiet. You want to get beat again?"

  Lozen looked toward the vehicle roof, about 4 feet above her. The tarp resting against her face covered her eyes but amplified her breathing. Her dark eyes were wide open and she stared, unfocused, into the blue.

  A third girl, Samantha, also lay in the back of the van, but unbound and on top of the tarp. She turned over, trying to find a more comfortable position. The rustle of the tarp mixed sympathetically with the hum of I-80 as it whistled under the vehicle at 70 MPH.

  The feeling started to hurt. In fear, Lozen kicked her bound feet, trying to shake it out the bottom of them. When one of these kicks struck the rear of the front passenger seat, the man sitting there stopped talking and said, "Cut it out!"

  As the Transit Connect delivery van rolled down I-80 toward the Nevada state line, Lozen stopped kicking. That's not working anyway. The pressure built even more in her chest. It pressed against her, but from the inside. She forced her hands apart, against the ropes, then pressed them together. She shook her knees. She exhaled loudly through pursed lips. She groaned loudly before repeating loudly, “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

  "Why don't you shut up?" Samantha asked.

  "I can't." Lozen lifted her bound hands to her chest. It felt like opening a pressure relief valve. She lowered her hands and felt more relief. She did this a few more times before discovering that relief came even faster if she moved her hands in a circle. Around and around she moved them, in a wider and wider circle from her brown drawstring pants to her upper chest. The sleeves of her light red cotton shirt made a soft, slightly high-pitched whir as she moved her hands rhythmi
cally around and around against the tarp. I've got to do something about this feeling, she thought. It's too strong. It's not me. It's from someplace else. Someplace outside of me.

  "What are you doing?" asked Napolita, who was lying to her left.

  "I don't know. I'm trying to find my sister," Lozen replied.

  "Your sister is probably still in San Fran" Samantha said.

  "Maybe so. I don't know. But I can feel her. She's drifting. Drifting away. Drifting to death."

  "Just be quiet. I think those guys are drinking again," Samantha told her.

  "Ok," Lozen said, "but who's going to watch out for me if she's gone?" She continued making the circles, thankful for the relief they brought.

  “You three Sinaloa girls always stick together, don't you?” Samantha said. “Napolita, Elizabeth, and Lozen. Always watching out for each other. Isn't that special?”

  “I'm sorry, Samantha, but yes, we have to.”

  Twenty minutes later, Samantha dropped into a light sleep and Lozen relaxed. A weight began tugging on her bound hands, at their highest point of the arc, as they passed above her upper chest. Maybe not a weight. A tug. Something pulled them. Pulled them up. Except "up" toward her head was really back down the road. Back toward San Francisco.

  "My sister is drifting away," Lozen whispered to herself. "Drifting away to die."

  "How do you know?" Napolita asked. The two girls were still under the tarp, laying very close to each other and whispering.

  "I can feel her moving. Away from us."

  "Is that what you're doing? With your hands?" Napolita asked.

  "I think so. I can sense her."

  "My great grandfather could make water,” Napolita said. “He did a dance and then his band could dig a well in that spot. That sounds like you maybe," Napolita said. She shifted her body, trying to get comfortable.

  “He was Apache, like us?” Lozen asked.

  “Yes, from Sinaloa, but his band was taken to a reservation in Arizona. After that they just got water from the government and he wasn't needed anymore,” Napolita said.

  "It feels like that now. Like I can, I don't know, feel something. Somehow I just know it's my sister. In that direction," Lozen said, tilting her head up.

  Napolita said, “My grandfather called it the power. As in, 'Your great grandfather had the power to make water when the band had none.'”

  "My sister could read my mind," Lozen said, still making the circles. "She could tell me what I was thinking. No lie. But then she got really sick and couldn't anymore."

  Napolita said, lightly shaking her head. “Maybe she still can, but doesn't know.”

  "My great grandfather had a dance too,” Lozen said. “He could make it stay dark until his band could get into the mountains."

  "What do you mean, 'stay dark'?" Napolita asked.

  "They were hiding in Sinaloa. All the time chased by the Army. Sometimes just people from towns chased them. If it was at night and they were gonna get caught, he made the sun stay down until they could get away."

  "Shut up!" the man in the passenger seat yelled. He threw a heavy glass pint bottle, shaped like a flask, into the back. It skipped across the top of the blue tarp just above Lozen and clunked against the inside surface of the van's rear door. Samantha's light snoring stopped and she rolled onto her side.

  Ten minutes later, as Lozen continued making the circles, Napolita shivered.

  "You ok?" Lozen asked.

  "It's so cold in here."

  “Me too,” Lozen said.

  ~ - ~ - ~

  When Lozen's and Napolita's hands and feet were bound just before sunrise in San Francisco, the girls wore nothing but light cotton shirts and thin drawstring pants, their long, jet black hair flowing below their shoulders. A van was backed up to the club's alleyway door and, while other girls made a building-to-van privacy tunnel out of blankets, Lozen and Napolita were forced inside and covered.

  Samantha's will was gone and she entered the van willingly, without being tied.

  ~ - ~ - ~

  "Excuse me," Samantha called to the front seat.

  The man in the passenger seat lifted his head from the side window, turned his head back and said, "What?"

  "Do you think the AC can be turned down?"

  Without saying a word, he turned the fan speed down two clicks, rested his head against the window again and closed his eyes.

  "Thanks again," Napolita said through the tarp to Samantha.

  The wind continued to whistle under the floor, just below the three girls' heads, and the pressure in Lozen's chest slowly subsided. No longer needing to rotate her hands, she rested them on her stomach and closed her eyes. Her head slowly tilted sideways as she drifted off to sleep.

  A minute or an hour later, she couldn't be sure, Samantha said to the other two, "Get up. We're off the highway. Stopped."

  Chapter 3

  In the finished basement of a three story house outside Denver, Richard von Broughton sat in a brown leather chair pulled closely to a stainless steel autopsy table. He propped his short legs on the nearest cross support, his ankle-length red velvet bathrobe draping on the floor.

  The remote control sat on the flat wooden chair arm. Von Broughton picked it up. The heavy rings on his fingers, which were tipped with white lacquer fingernails, clicked against the remote. He changed the channel of the wall-mounted TV several times before stopping on Quincy.

  "Good deal. Jack Klugman," von Broughton said to the empty room and set the remote back down. He picked up the martini on the other chair arm and took another sip.

  The patient, the girl, Samantha whatshername, was supposed to be delivered tomorrow but von Broughton was leaving for the bar midday and expected to close the place down again, so he was prepping the room early this morning. Extracting five organs at one time meant six procedure trays needed to be prepared and then laid out in proper sequence. But Quincy was on, so it was break time.

  Next time, von Broughton thought, Nancy is making the trays, even if she does want an extra $1K. About half way through the show, von Broughton fell asleep. About an hour later he woke up, turned the TV off, rubbed the back of his neck, and went upstairs to his kitchen.

  Stainless steel pots and pans, which von Broughton never touched, hung above a large island topped with dark green granite. The floor was laid with tastefully matching green granite tile. Behind the island, a door led to the backyard. Nancy's phone number was written on a 3x5 index card that was thumb-tacked to the wall next to the wall-mounted phone.

  Von Broughton picked up the handset, looked at the index card and dialed.

  "Nancy?"

  "Yes. What is it, doctor?"

  "We're still on for tomorrow?"

  "Yes, of course. You need me by 7, right?"

  "Yes, 7. Very good, the patient will be here from San Francisco by then. They're supposed to pick up the harvest by 3 so I've got to get started as soon as it gets here. Is that okay?"

  "That's fine," Nancy said. “Same amount as last time?”

  "Wonderful, Nancy. Yes, you'll get the same amount I gave you last time. I'll pick you up in the morning," von Broughton said with a big smile and hung up. She was very professional and von Broughton appreciated her almost clairvoyant understanding of his needs at the operating table. But he sometimes wondered whether her conscience, which made her such a good nurse, would also push her to call investigators someday and bring their operation down. But she was paid very, very well and that kept her mouth shut.

  Von Broughton closed his surgical practice seven years earlier after he lost his third malpractice case. He was 59 at the time and decided that "three strikes and you're out" was a rule that worked for surgeons as well as for batters. But three years into retirement, a drinking partner from The Cage, the bar he spent most nights in, made him an offer he couldn't refuse. One day's work, at least five usable organs extracted, $20,000. Extra for the
eyes. For Dr. von Broughton, getting five organs was child's play, even though they counted both lungs as one organ. The eyes were tricky but he usually managed. O'Groghan's organization would deliver the "patient" and von Broughton paid Nancy to administer the desflurane prior to the surgery, then the pentobarbital before the cutting begins, and to assist during the procedures. She wasn't cheap, $4,000 each job, but she kept her mouth shut, and she did the dirty work of the drugs that put the patient out, effectively removing the responsibility for the patient's death from von Broughton's conscience. Not that he had much conscience let.

  At the end of the procedure, O'Groghan's men would remove the body and organs and Nancy would clean up.

  He refused the first three times he was asked, but the money was under the table and he could make $60,000 to $80,000 in one month if "patients" could be found. And he was assured that they usually could be. No attorneys, no lawsuits, no guilt, no clean up, no muss, no fuss. Von Broughton couldn't resist.

  After hanging up the phone, he went back into the basement, walked across the commercial-grade vinyl flooring he had installed himself, and made himself a martini at the wet bar. He took a sip, announced to the empty room that it was good, and continued assembling the prep trays. Samantha whatshername would be here before sunrise tomorrow and he still had a lot of work to do.

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth ran up the sidewalk to the next traffic light and stopped where a group of 5 people stood talking.

  "Where you going, sister?" one of the women of the group asked her.

  "Should I know you?" Elizabeth replied.

  "No you shouldn't know me. But I've got two babies at home with nothing to eat. Can you help me get a can of baby milk?"

  Elizabeth ignored the request for a handout and looked down the street perpendicular to the one she just ran up. Her face contorted in fear and she breathed heavily. She saw a Citgo gas station about 50 yards down. In her two years of forced prostitution at The Taurus she was rarely let outside and didn't know it was there.

  "So?" the woman asked.

  Elizabeth's expression changed from fear to annoyance and she said, "Do you have a lighter? Matches?"

  "What you need that for?"

  "To start a fire. Wanna watch?"

  "Sounds like a party," one of the men standing on the corner said. "Where at?"