Garcia

Where is she? The room is unfamiliar. How did she get here? She is confused, has a headache, feels nauseas and dizzy. Her hands are tied to the arms of a metal chair. She is naked and metal alligator clips are biting into her nipples, her genitals, the little toe on each foot and the index finger on each hand. From each clip, a colored wire leads to a box sitting on a desk in front of her. A gun is also on the desk. Behind the desk, a large man, probably the boss, sits and glares at her. Two other men, one on either side of her, lean against the walls, watching and smiling. They are vaguely familiar, but her mind is too messed up from whatever happened to her to place them. Her last memory is of leaving the office and walking to her car in the parking lot.

“Let me go,” she yells.

The man at the desk smiles and pushes a button on the box. Electric current tortures every nerve in her body.

Gasping for air, she says “You can’t do this to me, I know my rights.” He smiles and pushes the button again.

When she recovers, he says “Honey, you have the right to answer my questions. Anything else and I push the button. Got it?”

She nods in compliance, tears and eye makeup running down her cheeks.

He holds up the box and she stiffened, expecting another jolt, but he does not push the button. Instead, he points to a knob next to the dreaded button. “See this knob, honey? It goes from 1 to 5. That was a 1. Let’s kick it up a notch. He turned the knob to 2 and presses the button.

She is alone in the pain. No man, no desk, no chair, no light, no sound. Only pain.

When she can think again, she realizes she has urinated on herself and on the chair. What will the electricity do with that?

“Should we kick it up another notch?”

“No! Please no.” she begs. “I’ll answer your questions, whatever you want, just please no more pain.”

“Very well” he says, “who is Garcia?”

“I don’t know anyone named Garcia.”

He pushes the button. She screams and bites her lip. She can taste the blood.

“Okay, let’s start over. Tell us a little about yourself honey. Where do you work?”

She explains that she is an import export compliance attorney in private practice. Her major client is Ralph Hutchinson, who imports exotic automobiles.

“Is that all he imports” he asks, his finger hovering over the button.

When she answers “Yes, only cars,” he pushes the button.

“Please” she begs, “I’m a single mom with an eight-year old son. Please just let me go. I won’t tell anyone.”

“What does Hutchinson do with these cars”?

“He’s just a middleman. The deals are already arranged between a foreign seller and a domestic buyer. He just arranges the delivery”

“Is Garcia one of the buyers or sellers” he asks, his finger hovering over the button.

“Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t get involved in that end of it. My job is to move the cars through Customs as fast as possible. Please don’t do that (looking at his finger on the button) I’m telling you everything I know.”

He moves his finger off the button. “Okay, tell us more about Hutchinson. Is he Garcia”?

As she pauses to compose her thoughts, she realizes where she has seen the goons before. They were standing by the car next to hers in the parking lot. They must have done something to her. Maybe they held a rag soaked with chloroform or halothane over her face.

“You know who I am and where I work. Your men were waiting for me in the parking lot. What do you want from me? I don’t know anyone named Garcia.”

He shakes his head and pushes the button.

When she recovers, he asks her if the cars are very expensive.

Yes, she replies, they are very rare, and some rich people will spend a fortune to get one.

“No, that’s not what I mean. Are the prices for the car more than what they would fetch at a public auction? Is it possible something else is being sold along with the cars?”

“I don’t know. How would I know that?”

He pushes the button.

“I will ask the questions, and you will answer them. Is that clear?”

She feels she might vomit. Unable to speak, she nods her head.

“Very well” he says, “here’s my theory. The cars have hidden compartments that contain drugs like fentanyl. The buyers keep the drugs and sell the cars. Is that possible”?

“Yes, I suppose that’s possible, but I have nothing to do with it. I just babysit the cars through Customs.”

He nods and continues. “I know this because my brother bought a car from Hutchinson. When it was delivered, it didn’t contain what he had paid for. He complained to Hutchinson. Later, someone put a bullet in my brother’s head. The police are lost, as usual, but the word on the street is that Garcia did the hit.”

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Shut up when I’m talking, okay?” His hand moves toward the button.

She nods and mumbles “Okay.”

“The funny thing is that another one of Hutchesons’ customers also got a bullet to the head, and again Garcia gets the credit. So what I want to know is who the Hell is Garcia.

“I don’t know anyone named Garcia” she sobs.

He pushes the button.

As she recovers, she feels the saliva flowing into her mouth, preparing it for the vomit to come.

“Garcia may also be known as ‘The Viper,’ what do you know of The Viper?”

Daring not to speak, she shakes her head.

Again, he pushes the button. She vomits as the electricity contracts every muscle in her body.

When she recovers, he says “Well, it looks like we need to take a break and clean you up. We will continue our little conversation later, and (pointing at the box) let’s kick it up a notch or two.” He stands and walks to the door. “In the meantime, I promised the boys they could have some fun with you.” From the looks on their faces, there is no doubt what the boys have in mind.

“Wait” she pleads, “I can tell you a secret about Ralph.”

He pauses, then returns to the desk. Pointing his finger at the button, he says “It had better be good.”

She says that one time, after closing an especially profitable deal, Ralph wanted to take her out to celebrate. She had too much to drink and they ended up in his apartment. The next morning, as she was getting dressed, out of curiosity, she asked him about the tattoo on his back. With no kindness in his voice, he warned her to never tell anyone about the tattoo. Their relationship was strictly business after that.

The boss is excited. He leans forward and asked about the tattoo.

When she says it was a snake, he becomes even more excited. “Describe it, what did it look like?”

“I can draw a picture of it. I have a good memory for images.” But almost as a warning, she cautions that it was not a very good tattoo. “The snake was too short and two fat. It didn’t look right.”

He tells the guys to untie her. She stands, a bit wobbly, and takes a step forward, resting both hands on the desk for stability. She says she will need a pencil and paper, and she needs to remove the alligator clips.

He says she can remove the clips from her fingers and then opens a drawer and takes out a pad of paper and a stubby pencil.

She examines the pencil and says she will need a sharper one if he wants a decent drawing.

He rummages around in the drawer and finds a new, freshly sharpened pencil.

“Thank you” she says, examining the pencil, “This will do nicely.” 

The three men are leaning over the desk as she picks up the pencil. She pauses and looks at the boss. “Is this something you want to share with everyone right now?” He looks up and tells the goons to back off.

She draws a picture of a short, wide-bodied female Gaboon viper.

Still bending over looking at the drawing, he exclaims “That’s it! The Viper! Hutchinson must be Garcia!” In his excitement, he fails to stop the quick movement of her hands.

She grabs the back of his head with her left hand and shoves the pencil deep into his eye with her right hand. She then grabs the gun and shoots the two goons in the head before they have time to react.

The boss is screaming, with both hands on the pencil sticking out of his eye. She says, “By the way, there never was a tattoo, and I do not work for Hutchinson; he works for me. I’m glad to have finally met you; I knew someone was looking for me. I am Garcia. Now, honey, let’s kick it up a notch” and she shoots him point blank in the other eye.