Chapter 44. Bodies
Davy Branco looked at the back of the last storage truck. The last shipment of canisters was packed onto the truck and ready to go. He had sanitized the warehouse, so that there was no trace of him or his crew. He hit the side of the back of the truck, signaling to his driver that he could take off. His cousin was going to be here this afternoon. He had to make sure all the loose ends were cleaned up before Cezanne got here. Branco went around the side of the warehouse, where one more truck was waiting for him. It looked like a produce truck carrying heads of lettuce, but underneath the vegetables were twenty-two dead bodies, the bodies of the workers in the factory who had witnessed Branco shoot the police officer. Each body was wrapped in a burlap bag. Branco grimaced. He hated loose ends like this, but it had to be done. He couldn’t have any of those workers fingering him.
He hopped in the passenger seat of the truck, and his bodyguard and driver Nate drove the truck down to the dock area. He figured it was better to go in broad daylight than at night. The police were more likely to stop him if he drove slowly down in the dock area at nighttime. When he got near the big red storage container, he punched in the combination on the lock, and slid the bar back. The end wall of the container came crashing to the ground with a clank and a thud. Branco looked around. No one was anywhere near them. Not a soul was at this end of the docks. He gave the signal to Nate and the two of them began unloading the sacks of bodies and throwing them into the metal storage container. After they had safely unloaded fifteen of the bodies, a man driving a forklift with a wooden crate held by the forks came driving toward them on the docks.
Damn it, thought Branco.
The man on the forklift drove over to the produce truck.
“You guys need a hand unloading your stuff?” asked the man.
Great, the one Good Samaritan on the docks who wants to do work for free, and he is hassling me. “No, we got it, but thanks.”
“OK, sure,” he said. He started to walk back to his forklift, but then started to turn around again. Davy slowly put his hand on the grip of his gun.
“Say, you got a smoke?” asked the forklift operator.
“Uh, yeah, here you go,” said Davy. As Davy handed the operator a cigarette, the forklift operator noticed blood on Davy Branco’s hand and sleeve.
“You cut yourself?” asked the forklift operator.
“Oh, yeah,” said Branco. “Cutting up the heads of lettuce, you know, I cut myself.”
The forklift operator looked at Branco strangely, like he didn’t believe him, and then started to walk back to the forklift.
“Fucker,” Branco muttered under his breath. Branco took out his gun with a silencer and shot the forklift operator in the back of the head twice as he walked away.
“What the fuck?” asked Nate, Branco’s driver. “Why did you do that?”
“Sonofabitch made me. He was gonna rat me out. I had to take care of him. Here, get him into the container with me.”
Nate was concerned, but helped Branco move the forklift operator’s bloody body.
“What are we gonna do when his boss comes looking for him?”
“‘We’ ain’t gonna do anything. You are gonna drive that damn forklift a half mile down the docks where no one will suspect any connection with our storage container. Now help me get the rest of the sacks.” For the next ten minutes, Branco and his driver Nate loaded the remainder of the bodies into the storage container and locked it up. Branco used a handkerchief to wipe off any fingerprints.
“Let me borrow that,” said Nate, “I got blood all over my hands.”
“Take the forklift and drive it over by that black ship. I will pick you up over there in the truck.”
Nate drove the forklift as instructed, and parked it down the docks where it would not draw attention. Then, taking care to wipe down any fingerprints on the forklift, he joined Branco in the truck and drove off.
Minutes later, inside the darkness of the storage container, one of the burlap sacks moved. Small fingers edged their way out of the top of the sack and loosened the grip. After prying the sack open wide enough, young eight year-old Tanya Gomez climbed out of the sack with her dead mother in it. Her mother, not having any child care, had taken her daughter to work, without telling her employer. The child had hidden that day behind the machines, staying out of sight. When her mother was murdered, her only escape was to hide in the sack with her mother’s dead body. Having freed herself from the burlap sack, she stared into the darkness. Dead bodies surrounded her. She was petrified. She began banging loudly on the interior wall of the storage container, hoping that someone would hear her.
Natal, Brazil.
The American men’s soccer team arrived at the newly constructed football stadium in Natal at 6:00 a.m. for their warm-ups. Today, they would face off against Ghana. It should be a relatively easy match for the Americans, but you never knew in the World Cup. One or two lucky goals and they could lose. The Americans were not taking any chances. The goalie for the American team, nicknamed “The Cat” by his teammates, looked around the huge stadium. There were no spectators in the stands at this hour. Later this afternoon, it would be standing room only. The Cat had gotten his Puerto Rican girlfriend front-row box seats. He tried to figure out where she would be sitting. The Cat wondered how many people would be watching this game on their television sets around the world. This was going to be fun.