The House of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

death.
    As the tape comes off their mouths, each captive breathes in gasps, fighting for air and grimacing at the foulness of it.
    Sorry about that, fellas, Chino says. But don’t worry, you won’t have to smell it for long. Tomorrow night, you’re out of here. Right now we’ll just line you up and take you over to the house and get those blindfolds and cuffs off you.
    Bullshit! one of the men says in anger. I know what this is. He coughs and spits on the floor.
    Chino disregards him. One of the others begins praying in low voice.
    Chino helps the man nearest the door to get out and guides him away a short distance before saying, Right here, stay right here. He then retrieves the angry man and stands him at the side of the first man and goes back to the van for the next man.
    You fuckers, the angry man says. You stinking shits!
    What can we tell anybody? the first man in line says. We don’t know anything.
    We know what they look like, the angry man says. We know Huerta knows them. They can’t trust us. Fuck them. Fuck their mothers.
    The Chato one says, Man, I wouldn’t want you for my lawyer.
    Fuck what you want, the angry man says. Fuck your father. I hope your sister gets fucked to death by burros.
    The Chato one laughs and says, Burros! Damn, man.
    Chino sets the third man beside the angry one, then fetches the one who was praying and who now starts to cry.
    Easy, man, Chino says, patting the man’s shoulder gently as he stands him at the end of the line. I know the smell’s bad. But it’ll be all right soon, you’ll see. You don’t have to put up with it for long.
    The angry man says, Stop sniveling, you cunt coward.
    The smoky reek burns their throats. The blindfolded men cannot know they are within three feet of the edge of a bluff overlooking the vast excavation spread before them like a black smoke-hazed sea scattered with large and small islands of fire. A dozen feet below them is the apex of a large smoldering scree of noxious refuse reduced to bright orange embers. It is any man’s guess how deep the pits are under the fires, under the accruals of ash and coal and dissolved organic matter of every sort. Popular belief holds that the pits have no bottom but in hell. Through the cold air, the men feel the wafts of heat.
    The big man is the last to be brought out. His wounded arm is in grievous pain and bleeding through his makeshift bandage. Chino holds him by the elbow of his good arm and takes him over to the others. The man feels the strength in Chino’s hands, but can tell, too, that he’s shorter than average. He supposes that, as befits their nicknames, Chino truly looks Chinese and the one called Chato is in fact broad nosed. He is aware that he will never know. When he’s positioned at the end of the line, he bumps against the crying man and says, Excuse me, and the man begins to sob more loudly.
    You cocksuckers, the angry man says. I hope you die of AIDS. I hope your mothers drown in shit. I hope your sister chokes to death on a nigger dick.
    The Chato one laughs. Jesus, man, you’re a poet.
    He and Chino confer in lowered voices.
    The big man envisions one of them standing aside with a gun and ready to shoot anybody who might in desperate fear whirl and run, even blindfolded, preferring to be shot while trying to stay alive than just stand there and take it. He can picture the other one stepping up behind the first man in line and raising the muzzle to his head. He inhales deeply of the malodorous air, feeling his lungs swell wonderfully. His name is Salvador Martín Obrero and he now recalls a Sunday morning more than thirty years ago, his mother telling him as they leave for mass to comb his hair, for the love of God, it looks like a bird’s nest.
    He flinches at the blast of a gunshot and then come three more in quick succession . . . bam . . . bam . . . bam . . . approaching him and—
    Chato and Chino watch the big