Senor Mickey Farrell

  

~ Prelude ~

Evan Pierce entered Mexico on Highway One through San Diego and Tijuana. Evan was a screenwriter contracted to a company in Los Angeles called Biloxi Pictures. Biloxi specialized in biographical stories and had several books currently optioned, including a bestseller by an author named Jake Morrison.

Jake Morrison was a pen name that the author, Mickey Farrell, had given himself. Mickey lived with his wife Rosa and their two children in a beach house in the northern area of Puerto Vallarta, called Bucerias, which was in Central Mexico.

Mickey had started his book about two years earlier after he and his wife Rosa had sold and migrated from the family estate in central California. The estate which was comprised of 28,000 acres of vineyards and orchards. Rosa, was the only survivor of a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of her entire immediate family.

According to the FBI, and their forensic analysis team, the family was attacked while having dinner by at least three different individuals. all carrying semi-automatic UZI machine pistols. 

Mickey and Rosa, who had been in San Francisco for a weekend getaway, discovered the bodies on their return two days later. After the funerals, and burials, were done and the police investigations subsided, Rosa married Mickey and sold the entire estate, to which she was the sole heir, for more than 30 million dollars. They then left California for central Mexico.    

After they were settled in Bucerias, Mickey created the pen name, Jake Morrison, wrote the story and they started their family. It took Mickey nearly two years to complete the biography, mainly because he was a young and relatively inexperienced writer and his only source of information on the family, besides his limited personal experience, was his wife.

The FBI focused their investigation on several other Mexican families in California but there were no arrests and the crime remained a mystery. 

For the first few months they were in Bucerias, Mickey hired some security for 24-hour protection. But after that and a trip Mickey took to Southern California, he and Rosa determined that there was no danger to them. And so they carried on, with Rosa as a stay-at-home mom and Mickey as a work-at-home writer.

Once the book, was completed, Mickey started writing crime stories which had always been his passion.  

After finding an agent and making a publishing deal with Collins, ‘A Dark Day In Sunny California’ was released and climbed to #5 on the New York Times best-seller list. After that, it was optioned by Biloxi Pictures for a little over a million US dollars. And Evan Pierce was assigned to write the documentary screenplay.

Evan arrived at Mickey and Rosa’s house at around four PM and was welcomed warmly. The twin two-year-olds were playing in the backyard, where they sat down to talk.

Rosa brought drinks and once everyone was comfortable. Evan said. “I know we have a whole book as research, and the story is a good one. But I’m kind of old school in the sense that I would really like to hear it directly from you.”

“I understand that”, Jake said. “It will give the story more authenticity.”

“Yeah. You’re exactly right.”

“OK, but the first thing you need to understand is that Rosa and I knew nothing of the so called, ummm, other family business that appears to have surfaced recently. Nor do we believe any of it. If there was any truth to the matter, she was deliberately kept in the dark about it and I certainly would not have been informed.”

Rosa sat quietly watching Evan closely. It made him a little uncomfortable. Finally he looked at her and said. “I understand that you are a little leery about this whole process. What you should know about me is that I have done several of these stories over the past ten years and I have learned that the only objective here is to tell the real story, and not take any license whatsoever. It’s kind of a rule I gave myself very early on and I promise you will with stick to it.”

Rosa took a deep breath. “That’s good to know.”

Jake looked over at Rosa and smiled. She nodded and then got to her feet and headed out into the backyard to be with the children.

“This has been very hard on her. She lost her entire family. I know the feeling because I lost mine too.” Jake said.

“My only goal here is to hear the story in your words,” Evan said. “And that’s what I will work with.

“Fair enough.” Jake said.

For the next two days, Jake told Evan the story in his own words. He was careful to leave out anything potentially incriminating, just as he had done in the version of the book he wrote for publication.

The next day Evan left Ensenada fully equipped to turn “A Dark Day In Sunny California” into a powerful docudrama.

Both Rosa and Jake were happy to see him go, and both secretly hoped that the rumours that had started floating around a few weeks earlier would simply fade away.  

What follows here is an encapsulation of the real story.

~ 1~

A Dark Day In Sunny California, Vers. 1

Just after his twenty-first birthday, Mickey Farrell of Madison Wisconsin had a dream. In the dream, he was a writer. He was sitting in a beautiful room overlooking the ocean. He wasn't sure which ocean because he’d never actually seen one, but it was big and the waves that crashed to the shore were substantial.

He was writing a poem on an old typewriter, the kind where you have to push really hard on the keys to make them work. He remembered that his fingers felt sore from the manual labour of all of that typing. The poem he was writing was a very simple one.

CROSSROADS

The choices we make

Are the chances we take

The chances we take

Spell the fortunes we make

You can sit at a crossroads

For what seems like years

You can gaze at your navel

And be bound by your fears

Or you can just simply

Put your head down and go

You can go with your gut

Or you can go with the flow

But whatever you choose

And however you go

There is always one truth

You will certainly know

That whatever your choice

Whatever comes to pass

At least you just didn’t

sit on your ass

You made a decision

And that’s more than most do

For you will never be an ass-sitting loser

Not you.

When he woke up, he remembered the dream and the poem very clearly. And it was etched in his memory so clearly that he opened his notebook and wrote it down word for word. He then copied it onto his laptop. He had no idea what it meant, but something inside him kept telling him to figure it out.

Through a pair of tragic circumstances, Mickey was technically an orphan. His father was a US marine, a sergeant named Terry Farrell, who was killed in Afghanistan when Mickey was only thirteen. After a year his mother, Marie, married an older man named Eldon Simms. He was a good man, a mechanic who owned his own garage in south Madison Wisconsin, where Mickey had spent his entire life. Four years later, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and passed away after six months leaving Mickey, in his last year of high school, and Eldon to fend for themselves. 

For reasons he could not quite understand Mickey had excelled in high school and graduated with honours. He was very good at absorbing knowledge and retaining it. He dreamed of being a writer someday but knew he needed a lot more life experience. He had no interest in college, as he believed he could learn more out in the real world than he could from more the cloistered world of education.

Quite literally, the day after his graduation, he went to work for his stepfather, Eldon Simms. Every night he would open his computer and read the mysterious poem that came to him in a dream. After a while, he started to write new poems. He deemed them to be pretty awful, but he had read somewhere that if you really wanted to be a writer, you had to write every day. So that’s what Mickey did. He kept a journal and made it a point to write every night before turning it. 

Mickey was pretty much a loner, with only a few male friends and not much of a social life in Madison. mainly because he wasn’t a drinker or a druggie of any kind. For a time after high school, he had a girlfriend named Sandy who was a waitress at one of the local restaurants. They taught each other the nuts and bolts of sex but they didn’t have much in common beyond that.

Mickey worked hard and saved his money because he had a dream that he would one day get out and see the rest of the country. Also, the older he grew the more he came to despise the winters in Wisconsin, which were anything but pleasant, and that only added to his desire.

As the long winters passed, he spent most of his evenings reading and writing. He wrote short stories and poems mostly. He knew they weren’t very good but he was really only doing them for the experience and to develop the discipline he figured a real writer needed. He also read a lot, mostly popular detective fiction. He knew he wasn’t intellectual enough to be a true literary writer, but he did believe he could learn enough to crank out a good potboiler or two, so he set that as his goal.

Although he never went to be tested, after three years Eldon knew that he had equipped Mickey with mastery of the mechanic’s trade that he could use to earn a good living anywhere in America. One day in June, Eldon announced to Mickey that, in his opinion at least, he had all the skills he needed to get out on the road and do the travelling he was always talking about. Eldon also reminded him that he should probably start his road trip before another Wisconsin winter set in.

Over the next two months, Eldon and Mickey worked on a 1966 Ford pickup, that would be Mickey’s mode of transportation on his journey. They completely reconditioned and repainted it matte grey. They also bored out the cylinders in the old V-6 engine and installed a high-efficiency carburetor so Mickey would get about 50 miles to the gallon on the highway. Eldon reckoned that the old Ford had at least a couple hundred thousand more miles left in it. 

They installed fold-down bucket seats and seat belts that they got from a wrecker that Eldon knew. They installed a small cooler into the space in back of the cab. They also built a two-part lacquered plywood storage cabin in the truck bed where Mickey could keep his clothes, a folded-up foam slab, a sleeping bag and an oilskin tarp.

On a bright, sunny day in August, Mickey thanked Eldon, hugged him, agreed to keep in touch, then climbed into the old Ford and left Madison for parts unknown. Eldon’s parting gift to Mickey was a nine inch Bowie knife in a hand-tooled leather case, just in case Mickey ever ran into any trouble. They both hoped that Mickey would never have occasion to use it.

Mickey’s mechanical skills would assure him part-time or temporary work on his journey and his small MacBook would allow him to record his travels and hopefully provide him with the raw material for some good stories.

All throughout his teenage years, Mickey came to believe that he had inherited some sort of warrior mentality from his dad, because one day, when Mickey was only about eleven, his dad told him he quite likely would have ended up in prison or even being executed had it not been for the military. The Marines helped him channel his aggressive tendencies in a way that was helpful to the nation. 

Eldon’s Auto Shop was a fairly busy place and he was able to pay Mickey $20 an hour for his work. Mickey religiously saved as much money as he could and when he left Madison he had close to $35,000 in a BankAmerica savings account. So it wasn’t like he was hitting the road empty-handed. But to save money, and stretch the trip out as long as he could, or until he found a place to settle down, Mickey planned to sleep in the truck-bed, and used the oil-slicked canvas as a bit of a lean-to to keep the rain from soaking him. All in all, he was quite self-contained.

~ 2 ~

Mickey was heading south and west, because he knew the weather would be drier there and much warmer in the winter. He didn’t have a fixed destination in mind, but instead took the side roads down through the midwest stopping in little towns, eating in local restaurants and picking up a day or two of mechanic work wherever he could find it. 

Mickey had printed the weird poem that he dreamt and taped it to the top of his laptop. He thought about it a lot because he was sure it had to mean something.

One of the things that Mickey noticed about himself as the days on the road passed was that he started having fantasies about robbing some of the stores he passed by in the small towns he went through. He would look at a store and imagine the whole process of entering it, tying up whoever was in there and taking whatever caught his eye. 

At first, he kind of wrote it off to boredom. He was in the middle of America and the music that would normally have kept him company was mostly all country and country music had pretty much gone to hell over the past decade. He blamed it all on people like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain who were really middle-of-the-road pop singers who had gotten popular from all the airplay they got on country stations. Mickey used to like country music when he was younger. He liked the gruffness of guys like Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Junior and Waylon Jennings. Those guys sounded like they lived hard lives and were telling everyone about it. So mostly Mickey just sang songs to himself and watched the countryside roll by.

Mickey ate lightly during the day and saved his full meal for dinnertime, where he would find a local restaurant that wasn’t too busy and plug his computer into an outlet there to help keep up the charge. Since he was only using the word processor and Google Maps on his computer, it wasn’t a huge drain on the battery but he liked to keep it as fully charged as possible because you just never knew when the next charging opportunity would come along.

The waitresses in the restaurants, in addition to being friendly, knew just about everything that was going on in their towns and were Mickey’s principal source of information regarding available work.

One night a week or more, depending on the severity of the weather, Mickey would rent a room in a highway motel, have himself a shower, a good night’s sleep in a nice bed and a complimentary breakfast.

~ 3 ~

Mickey lived this way for almost two months and had made it down to New Mexico. He was now heading north through southern California. But when he hit Los Angeles he was in for the shock of his young life. That place was a fucking mess. Nothing but traffic everywhere he went. 

LA was good for about an hour of stop and go bullshit. So he found an exit and headed back out into the desert and north.

He took Highway 99 because it seemed to be the least hectic. As he continued north he noticed that the landscape around him was changing. This was fruit and grape country he was heading through. He stopped for an early dinner at a truck stop just outside of Madera. After dinner he continued on 99 and had just passed a town called Chowchilla. About three miles further on up the highway he spotted a dark car, that looked to be a vintage Cadillac, pulled over to the side of the road. An old man was leaning on the trunk with his arms folded, looking quite frustrated.

Mickey pulled over about twenty yards ahead of the Caddy. He noticed that there was a bit of smoke seeping out from under the hood. He walked back to the rear of the car where the old man was standing. He looked to be about six feet tall. His hair was white and medium length. He had a white moustache and dark eyes. He was dressed in a suit but with no tie and a light blue shirt under his jacket.

“What seems to be the trouble?” Mickey said.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Fucking thing just overheated and then stalled out and I left my goddam cell at home.” the man said. He had a definite Spanish or Mexican accent.

“Mind if I take a look?” Mickey said. “I know a bit about older cars.”

“Knock yourself out.” the old man said. 

“My name’s Mickey. Mickey Farrell.” Mickey said extending his hand.

“Joshua Reyes.” The old man said, extended his hand and shook Mickey’s.

The two men walked to the front of the car and Mickey popped the hood. He saw right away that the rad was bone dry.”

“The engine overheated because the rad went dry.” 

“Is that something you can fix?”

“You’re in luck. I just picked up a case of bottled water.”

Mickey walked to his truck and brought the case of spring water over to the Cadillac. One by one he emptied several bottles into the rad until it was full. After he did that he checked the oil in the car. It was almost empty. 

“The oil is almost empty too. Let me drive you back into Chowchilla. You can get some oil and then I’ll fill it. That should get you back on the road.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.”

“Buy me another case of water and we’ll call it square.” Mickey said.

They got into Mickey’s truck and headed up the highway. They stopped at the service station and got four quarts of oil, which the old man paid for with a credit card. They then drove to a general store where the old man brought Mickey a case of water.

On the way back Mickey asked the old man where he was headed. 

“Just headed home. I live about four miles up the road. from where the Caddy died. Tell you what, why don’t you come for dinner.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“No imposition at all. It’s the least I can do to show my gratitude.”

Mickey nodded and after topping up the oil in the Caddy, he followed the man up Highway 8. But he wasn’t prepared at all for what he saw when they turned off the road and headed down into a small valley.

It wasn’t so much a home as it was a massive hacienda. The building was in a large L-shape, with a five-car garage making up the smaller part of the L. The house was made of what looked to be Adobe, but Mickey couldn’t be sure because he’d never been to California and didn’t know what they made their houses out of.

Joshua drove the Cadillac into the garage, where an assortment of other vehicles sat. There was a futuristic-looking tractor, a small Jeep, an older Toyota Tundra pickup and something that looked like a golf cart. 

Mickey parked beside the garage and got out. Joshua showed him into the house, which was even more impressive on the inside. They walked in and down three steps into a great room that was at least fifty feet wide with floor-to-ceiling glass doors, half of which were opened and looked out onto a large pool and a beautiful garden. Beyond the garden was a row of evergreens that walled the entire yard which looked to be at least a couple of acres.

“I own close to twenty-eight thousand acres out back. It’s mostly vines and fruit trees. We’re just getting ready for the harvest. A number of migrant workers will be arriving any day now.”

“You must be very wealthy, Joshua.”

“We do OK. The best part is that I have people I can trust because they are all family and they know they’re all going to inherit this when I finally kick the bucket, whenever that turns out to be.”

Joshua led Mickey to the kitchen which, like everything else he had seen, was pretty massive. There were two women working there. One was about his age and quite beautiful. The other was older and beautiful as well. The two women bore a striking resemblance to one another.

“This is my daughter Ezzie, and her daughter Rosalita. My darlings, this is Mr. Mickey Farrell from Madison Wisconsin. Mr. Farrell was kind enough to fix the Cadillac when it overheated. So I invited him for dinner.”

The two women wiped off their hands and came over to greet Mickey. 

“Please,” Joshua said. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to take a shower and get changed.

Mickey pulled up a stool and sat himself down at the kitchen counter. Rosalita brought him a glass and asked him what we would like to drink. He politely asked for a beer and she brought him a cold bottle of Corona. She also put a plate of nachos in front of him and a small dish of jalapeño dip. 

Mickey took a long slug of the cold beer. Then he took a deep breath. The women were busy preparing what looked like a rather large meal.

“So, you are from Wisconsin, Mickey?” Ezzie asked. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah I’ve been on the road for about seven weeks now. Making kind of a trip around the west, to the coast, then up along the Pacific to Washington then back east. Been picking up odd jobs along the way to pay for my gas and food.”

“And what’s the purpose of this trip?” Ezzie asked.

“Just gathering up a little life experience. I want to be a writer, so I’m keeping a journal of this trip. Hopefully, when I’m done, I can turn it into a book of some kind.”

“Writing is a very noble profession.” Ezzie said.

“So tell me about this place.” Mickey asked.

“It’s called Casa Reyes.” She pronounced it Ray-as. “My father grew up in the tequila business in southern Mexico. Once he made his fortune he moved the family up here. I was only a teenager when we arrived. But he was a builder and this land was very good. He used most of his fortune to build this place. And now he has another fortune. He’s quite an extraordinary man. My husband, Miguel, manages the vines. My brother-in-law Diego manages the fruit. We employ only Mexican Americans in the vineyards and orchards. The only Americanos are one of our lawyers and our distribution people in San Francisco. Both operations are very successful.”

“That’s a hell of a thing. All family. That is so rare in my experience.”

“Not so rare where we come from.” Ezzie said.

~ 4 ~

Dinner was served at seven o'clock. A lot of the talk was in Spanish. Mickey understood bits and pieces from the Spanish courses he took in high school, but he was very self-conscious about responding in that language so he just sat there. Finally, Joshua looked over at him and said. “So Senor Mickey, what is your story?” 

“Well…I grew up in Madison Wisconsin. My dad was a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan when I was about thirteen. My mom passed away just a few years ago. My stepdad owns a garage and we re-built the truck I’m driving. I finished high school but had no real desire to go to college. So I worked in the garage for two years. The only real desire I have at the moment is to someday be a writer. So I’m out here on the road trying to gain enough experience so that I have interesting things to say. I’ve been travelling for almost two months now. I sleep in mostly my truck and am making a tour of the western half of the country. When I’m done I’ll do the other half, I suppose.

“I have been able to get work in garages along the way because I’m a pretty decent mechanic. And that’s about it. I do have to say that this place, and all of you are pretty amazing. Building something like this from nothing is quite an achievement.”’

After dinner, Micky and Joshua sat together out on the back terrace. 

“I was thinking,” Joshua said. “In about two weeks from now from now our harvest will be over. Perhaps I could hire you to work on cleaning up and tuning our equipment. We have several tractors, pickups, a couple of larger trucks for transporting goods and a few family cars.”

Mickey thought about it and then looked over his shoulder into the kitchen where Rosalita was busy cleaning up.

“You know, that sounds like a pretty good deal.” he said.

“Once the pickers have gone, the bunkhouses will be free and you can stay in any one you like. You can make your own hours. And I will pay you thirty dollars an hour for your work.

Mickey thought about it some more. “How far from the ocean are we here?” he asked. 

About eighty miles.” Joshua said.

Okay, Senor Reyes, you’ve got a deal. I will get all of your equipment in tip-top shape.”

“I’m sure you will, Mickey.” Joshua said, and he raised his wine glass to toast his new friend.

“I’m curious.” asked Joshua. “Why did you ask about our proximity to the ocean?

“It’s what I came out here to see.”

The next day, after a good night’s sleep in one of the guest rooms, Mickey was shown around the entire operation by Miguel Ortega, who was Essie’s husband and Rosalita’s father. Mickey was impressed with the size of both the vineyards and the fruit groves.

“We have close to twenty-eight thousand acres,” Miguel said. “About twenty thousand are for various types of grapes which we grow and sell to wineries in the area. The rest are a combination of peach, apricot and cherry trees, which are sold to liqueur companies to make different brandies.”

Miguel talked about the growing business in a language that Mickey barely understood, so he just ooo’d and aaaa’d and tried to ask the odd intelligent question. At the end of the tour, Miguel showed him a large barn with a small assortment of trucks, tractors and trailers outside it.

“The harvest comes off over the next couple weeks. After that, all the vehicles will be brought here so you can tune them up.”

Mickey nodded and entered the large barn There was a good winch and a long counter along one side. At the end of the counter were a couple of boxes of tools and a lube gun. On the other side of the barn were several stacks of motor oil in boxes. It was primitive but it would do the job, Mickey thought.  

After the tour, Mickey shook hands with Miguel and gave him the number of his cell phone. 

“Call me when the harvest is almost done. I’ll be back. I won’t go very far. Probably just look around San Francisco for a day or two and then drive up the coast a bit. I’d like to see the ocean.”

“No shortage of ocean out here.” Miguel said. He drove Mickey back to the main house where he got in his truck and took off.

~ 5 ~

Fifteen days later, Mickey returned to the Reyes estate after having driven up the coast all the way to Seattle. On the way back down he stopped at an automotive supply store and bought a couple pairs of coveralls to work in and a few tools he knew he would need.

When he arrived, he was welcomed by Diego Alvarez, who was a handsome six-foot two-inch man. Mickey followed him to the bunkhouses which were now empty and obviously had been cleaned. They went to the second of the three bunkhouses, which Diego recommended because it had the best shower and the most comfortable bunks. The first bunkhouse was still occupied by a couple of pickers who did the cleanup in the warehouses on the far end of the estate. They rode bikes back and forth.

Later that afternoon, Joshua drove down to the bunkhouses. He entered the building that had Mickey’s truck parked in front of it. Mickey was sitting on one of the bunks writing something on his laptop when Joshua entered. 

“Hello, Mickey. I trust you are settling in OK?” Joshua said.

Mickey set his laptop down and got to his feet. “Yes sir. It’s a hell of a lot more comfortable than the back of my truck.”

“OK. I just wanted you to know that you are part of the family now. You eat with us, and feel free to speak your mind on any of the discussions you may hear. Dinner is at seven every night. Breakfast is at nine now that our season is done. Essie will make you a lunch to take to the barn if you prefer.”

“That’s really nice of you, Joshua. Thank you. By the way, you never told me how many children you actually have.”

I have two daughters. Esmeralda who you have met. She is the youngest. She has one older sister, Christina, who is a lawyer in San Francisco. I never had a son, Mickey. Just two daughters. I love them both but life can be quite hectic with three women.”

“You said three women.”

“Yes my wife, her name was Olivia, but sadly, passed away three years ago. She had a bad heart. It finally caught up with her.”

“I can’t imagine that. I don’t have any sisters or brothers.”

“In that regard, I would say you were lucky.” Joshua slapped Mickey gently on the shoulder. “We’ll see you at dinner. Several of the vehicles have already been brought to the barn so you can start in the morning. Diego will give you a time sheet so we can keep track of your hours and a credit card for any supplies you need to purchase. I’ll pay you once a week.” 

Joshua turned and left the bunkhouse. Mickey closed up his laptop and went out to his truck. He brought in his clothes and his cooler and transferred his water bottles from it to the small refrigerator in the corner of the bunk next to a long table and several chairs. He then sat back down on the bunk and continued with his journal entry.

~ 6 ~

Though Mickey didn’t know it at the time, the Reyes estate was much more than simply a grape and fruit-growing enterprise. The Reyes family was, and had been for the last several generations, a crime family which specialized in assassinations.

Joshua’s son-in-law Miguel and his other son-in-law Diego were both killers for hire. 

Over the past decade, the Reyes family had been responsible for the assassinations of drug lords, crooked local politicians, and sadistic husbands, among others. In the underground, the family was well known for its prowess and its ruthless efficiency. The other family business was their cover. They only took contracts in the west. Both men travelled a lot under the guise of seeking out new customers.

Joshua Reyes was the only known contact, and he was reachable through the dark web only, under a pseudonym. All transactions were done by messenger and all financial transactions were done the same way, by wire transfer, to a numbered Panamanian bank account. Identities on either side of the transaction were never revealed. The killing business ran as smoothly and successfully as the grape and fruit-growing businesses. 

~ 7 ~

The next day Mickey was up early and headed down to the garage barn to get things ready for the day ahead, when he was all set, he walked up to the house and joined the rest of the family for breakfast. There was a lot of talk around the table and Mickey was only able to understand about half of it. It had to do with shipments and payment schedules from some of the suppliers. 

Rosalita took a seat next to him. “It’s so nice to have someone my own age to talk to Mickey. Do you mind if I come down during the day so we can chat?”

Mickey looked at her and smiled. “I would like nothing more than that Rosalita.” He said then took a sip of his coffee.

Half an hour later Mickey walked down past the row of vehicles that sat in front of the barn. He got into the closest one, an ancient GMC pickup and drove it inside. He sat in the truck cab with the engine running for a couple of minutes and listened. This was something his stepfather had told him to do, and what to listen for. He then backed the truck up to the entranceway and hit the brakes. He then backed up further and took the truck out of the barn and down the long roadway into the villa, all the while listening to the hum of the engine and for any odd squeaks or rattles that might happen as they hit a rough patch in the road. Finally, he drove the truck back into the barn and shut it down. 

He changed into his coveralls and started to work. Three hours later the truck was fully inspected, repaired and lubricated. In a three-ring binder he had bought in town he noted what he he done to the car and his assessment of the overall condition of the tires, the brakes and the transmission. Mickey named the vehicle Ford #1 and put a small card on the front of the dashboard. As he was backing the truck out of the garage he noticed Miguel Ortega standing beside the next car in line. He parked the truck at the side of the barn and walked back to the entrance.

“How’s it going Senor Mickey?” Miguel asked.

“Pretty good Miguel. But I did have one question.”

“Si.”

“The barn is great for maintenance, you know changing the fluids and greasing. I was wondering if you have any sort of arrangement with a garage in town with a proper hoist, for any heavy-duty mechanical things that need to be done, like installing new brake pads, mufflers or changing and balancing the tires.”

 “Si…there’s a garage in Chowchilla. We buy all our motor oil there. ”

“I know the one.”

“I already talked to the owner, Willis Mackie. He will be happy to let you use one of their bays. He can also order any tires you might need.”

“That’s great. I’m not taking business away from him, am I?”

“No. No. Mickey. We had a fellow doing this before you arrived. But he moved on in the spring. We have gone through a succession of people are you can well imagine. Even you I suppose.”

Mickey just shrugged. “This will take about six weeks. After that you’re good for at least a year, I would say. So yeah, I’ll probably be movin’ on myself.”

“OK, well just ask for Willis and tell him you’re working for us. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Thanks, Miguel. By the way, how was the harvest?”

“It’s California, Mickey. Also known as paradise. The harvest is always good.”

Miguel walked away and Mickey got into the second vehicle and drove it into the barn.

At around 12:30, Rosalita walked into the barn carrying a brown bag. 

She sat down on one of the stools and watched Mickey work until he finally noticed her. 

“Oh, hey Rosalita.”

“I brought you some lunch.” 

Mickey wiped his hands with a rag and came over to the counter. He opened the bag and pulled out a taco. He took a bite and mumbled something positive. 

Rosalita laughed. 

Mickey cracked a bottle of water and took a long slug. “Pretty spicy.” he said.

“Yeah, well we are a bunch of Mexicans after all.”

“So tell me, what is it you do around here besides making spicy tacos?”

Rosalita smiled. “Well, I have just graduated from Cal tech. I majored in computer science, so basically I handle all the finances. I have written my own software for the job, so it requires only about half an hour a day to maintain.”

“So everything stays in the family, so to speak. 

“Si. Everything. My grandfather is very strict about that. In fact, you are the only gringo he has ever hired.”

“Why do you suppose that is, Rosalita?”

“He’s very old school, Mickey. But I think he likes you. Not many gringos would stop to help an old Mexican man on the road.”

Mickey and Rosalita continued to chat while Mickey consumed the hot tacos and two bottles of water. He told her about growing up in Wisconsin, adjusting to having a stepfather and yearning to get out on the road and see the rest of the country, maybe even the rest of the world.

Rosalita told him about the differences between Mexico and America, and although she had come from Mexico at the age of ten, she still had very vivid images of the country and the life she had there.

Rosalita hung around for a couple of hours and they chatted while Mickey worked on the vehicles. Mickey explained everything he was doing to the vehicles and why he was doing it. Rosalita took it all in and asked some pretty intelligent questions.  

Finally, she left and as Mickey watched her leave the barn, he was thinking good thoughts and giving some thought to figuring out how he could hang around a little longer.

~ 8 ~

Over the next few weeks, Mickey toiled long and hard on all the farm vehicles. Every day he had lunch with Rosalita and the two of them fell in love with each other. It wasn’t physical because they were both a bit terrified of being discovered. But both developed a deep longing for each other. 

About six weeks later, Mickey was finishing up the last vehicle which was Joshua’s Cadillac. He tuned the engine, changed the oil, topped up all the fluids, drove it into town, had it fitted with a set of high-performance radials brought it back and parked it in the garage.

He then walked over to the house and entered Joshua’s study, where Joshua was sitting at his computer. He took a seat next opposite Joshua's large oak desk and waited for the older man to be finished.

“So you’re all done, I assume.” Joshua said. 

“Yes sir. I am.”

“You know we could not help but notice that you and Rosalita have become quite close.”

Mickey took a deep breath and sighed. “Yes sir, we have. And if I’m honest, I will be very sad to be leaving here, probably more for that reason than anything.”

Joshua leaned back in his chair and folder and made a steeple with his hands. “Are you saying you would like to become part of this family?”

Mickey was taken totally aback by Joshua’s question. “From what I understand this is a Mexican family. Gringos have no place here.”

“That’s very true at the moment. But since I was told about your feelings for Rosalita and her feelings for you, I have begun to rethink that. I mean, this is America after all, not Mexico. Perhaps it’s time I started thinking a little more openly about things.”

Mickey didn’t know how to respond to that so he said nothing. He just sat in his chair and waited to see what would happen next.

“If you were to become part of this family,” Joshua said and Mickey noticed that his tone had become much less kindly old man or more, well, he wasn’t quite sure. ”There are certain responsibilities that would come with that. Some of these responsibilities are likely to be quite a bit more serious than anything in your experience.”

“I’m not exactly sure what that means.”

“It means that this family has secrets that need to be kept.” Joshua said. “So if you become part of the family, those secrets will be yours to keep as well.”

“I can understand that sir.” Mickey said, but he was finding this entire conversation a bit strange. He was wondering what kind of secrets they could be for the conversation to have turned so serious.

“These secrets, you must prepared to sacrifice a great deal to keep them, because the life of this entire family depends on them.”

Mickey said nothing. But Joshua was scaring the shit out of him. “What do you mean by a great deal?” 

“I mean everything. Your life, if necessary.”

“And if I refuse or you sense that I can’t do that, what happens then?” Mickey asked. 

“Joshua scratched his ear. “Nothing. I pay you what I owe you you get in your nice little truck and you leave, with our gratitude for a job well done. I have not told you anything, so you know nothing.”

“And if I choose to stay?”

“If you choose to stay, you will find out a lot more about us and you will become one of us in the process. But it’s a one-way street, senor Mickey.”

Mickey sat in the chair and stared at Joshua. Joshua lit a cigar and puffed on it. 

“What would I do if I stayed on?” Mickey asked.

“You would do whatever needs to be done. You will work for Diego and Miguel, and do whatever they need you to do. Sometimes it will be about the vines and groves. Sometimes it will be about other things.”

“These other things….are they legal?”

Joshua leaned forward. “I suppose that would depend on how you define the term.”

And it was at that precise moment in Mickey’s twenty-three years on the planet that he knew he was brought here for a reason. He knew exactly what Joshua was talking about and, for reasons he would never be able to understand he was okay with that.”

He got to his feet and offered his hand to Joshua, who took it firmly. “I’m in.” Mickey said with all the conviction he could muster.

That evening Mickey moved into the main hacienda. He sat alone in his room for quite a while writing in his journal:

 “Since the time when my dad was killed in Afghanistan, I have felt like I was only going through the motions of living. I always felt like I was waiting for something. I didn’t know what it was but I knew it sure as hell wasn’t in Madison Wisconsin. And now here I am in the middle of California, and I have just signed onto God knows what. Is this my destiny? Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

As he closed the laptop, he heard a light knocking on his door. It opened and Rosalita stood there. She smiled at him and entered the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She sat down on the bed.

“So you have joined the family.” she said. “I never thought it would happen with a gringo. But for my grandfather you, I think you might be the son he never had.”

“Do you really think so?” Mickey asked.

“I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

“So am I.” Mickey replied. “I don’t know, somehow it just feels like this is a place where I belong. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”

Mickey wanted to take Rosalita in his arms and kiss her. He wanted to undress her and make love to her. But deep inside he felt that would not be a wise thing to do just yet. This was a Mexican family, and he needed to figure out the ground rules before he made a move of any kind. But he could sense that Rosalita felt the same way and he would just have to be happy about that and not do anything that would piss anyone off. He really wanted to make whatever this was work. And for that, he knew he needed to be patient.

They said nothing for quite a while, then Rosalita lifted herself off the bed,  walked over and kissed him gently. Then she turned and left as quietly as she had arrived.

Mickey walked over to the window and stared out into the late evening sky. A new moon was rising and a new phase of his young life was beginning.

~ 9 ~

In the morning after breakfast Diego said to Mickey. “Come with me.” Together they climbed into Diego’s pickup, a fairly new Toyota. They turned toward the orchard ring road and took it all the way around to the far side. They drove around the large storage shed, empty now, and stopped. Diego motioned for Mickey to get out of the truck. Together the two men walked along the rear wall of the building until they came to a door, with a combination lock. Diego deftly punched in several numbers and the door unlocked. He opened the door and they walked through. Mickey realized he was at the top of a flight of stairs that went into the ground. Diego flipped on a light switch and they descended the stairs.

The room they entered was about 100 feet long and only about 20 feet wide. Along each side were a series of supporting beams. At the far end were several hay bails stacked up from floor to ceiling. At the near end where they were standing was a counter about ten feet long. In front of the counter were a couple of couches and chairs arranged around a low circular table in the centre. Behind the counter, mounted on the wall was a huge gun rack. It contained several long guns and half a dozen pistols. Below them in a cabinet with a glass front were a couple dozen boxes of ammunition and another box containing several suppressors and shoulder holsters for the pistols. At the end of the counter were a stack of targets in the shape of the upper part of the human torso. 

Mickey took taking it all in. He was dumbfounded. 

Diego just smiled and got to work making some coffee on a small counter with a sink and several mugs, Below was a small refrigerator.

“This is a place that only a few people know about, Mickey. It is where Miguel and I practice our trade.”

“So you’re what, contract killers?”

“Si.”

“And you expect me to become one as well?”

“We expect you to decide once you have learned how to shoot, which is what I am going to teach you to do. But your real job, for the time being, will be driving.” 

Mickey was surprisingly unfreaked out by all of this. If anything he was intensely curious. “So explain to me how this works.” he said.

“Well, Joshua deals with the clients. He does so via the dark web where the client provides as much detail as they can and pays 50% upfront for the job. We then head out to wherever we need to go, scout the location and then execute the job. The client then pays the second half and we move on to the next job.” 

“And how many of these jobs have you and Miguel done?”

“Between us perhaps fifty over the last ten years.” Diego said.

“And you have never been caught or suspected?”

“No. Because we have nothing to do with the actual target. Our bullets are all untraceable because they are handmade by a cousin of mine in Chowchilla. and our hardware comes from Mexico and is all unregistered. Plus the information, of course, goes back and forth anonymously. Although Joshua knows who is ordering the hit, you know, just in case, they decide not to pay the full price.”

 “And have you ever had to go after anyone for that?”

“A couple of times. It’s the cost of doing business.”

“And what happens to those people?”

“They pay. They always pay. We’re very persuasive.”

Diego made some coffee, and while it was brewing and then he took Mickey on a tour of the gun collection. He also explained that part of Mickey’s job would be keeping all the weapons in good working order. 

After looking at and having all the weapons explained to him, he and Miguel poured cups of coffee and sat down behind the counter

“So, this is the operation. What we need you to do first is drive for us. As time goes by you will become familiar with all the weapons and be able to take care of them, and I will teach you how to use them.”

“What about Miguel?”

“Miguel specializes in reconnaissance. He follows the target and picks the best spots for the job. His wife, Christina, lives in San Francisco so in the off season he works out of there. For the past few years we have been working together, because it’s always wise to have a partner, especially for the driving. But now we have you.”

Mickey sipped his coffee thoughtfully.

“So, Senor Mickey, what do you think of all this?”

Mickey took a deep breath. “Ummm, you know when I left home almost three months ago now, I was looking for adventure.”

“Oh, this will be an adventure. I promise you that.”

“Well then, I’m okay with it.”

Miguel made a gesture with his head. “Well alright.”

The two men shook hands.

Then Mickey said. “I just wanted to ask you, you know about Rosalita. We have grown quite fond of each other.”

“Yes, she told me.”

“I just don’t know how to move ahead with our relationship.”

Diego laughed. “Mickey, we are not old school Latinos here. Rosalita is twenty-three years old. She’s a key part of this operation, because she builds our firewalls and does all the legitimate financial management. She has more than earned the right do whatever she pleases. If what she pleases is you, so be it.”

~ 10 ~

For the next week, Mickey and Diego spent a lot of time in the gun room. Diego showed Mickey how to take all the guns apart, clean and oil them and put them back together. Mickey’s mechanic’s brain made it all quite easy for him to understand and in just a few days he could field strip all twelve of the weapons in double quick time.

The next couple of days were spent shooting at targets. Diego was delighted at just how quick a study Mickey turned out to be. He was focused and methodical and he was surprisingly accurate with the rifles, not so much with the pistols, but that was to be expected. Pistols are harder to control than rifles. Nonetheless, after his first week in the gun room, Diego complimented him and told him that he needed to come down and practice often and that he would get progressively better as time went by.

During the second week, Diego taught Mickey how to drive offensively. Again he was blown away by just how well Mickey could control the vehicle, which in this case was the jet black Dodge Charger with an oversized engine and a 200-gallon gas tank. Diego explained that once the hit was made, they needed to get as far away from the scene as possible as quickly as possible without attracting the attention of the authorities. Often times, this would be at night, and Mickey would have to operate without headlights until they were clear of the scene. Miguel gave him a pair of infrared goggles, and well after midnight, Miguel would put Mickey through his paces on the darkened streets and alleyways of Chowchilla, to get him used to looking at the world that way. Mickey kind of felt like he was in a movie or some strange AI game with Diego barking instructions at him and Mickey responding almost instantly.

Nonetheless except for a couple of stray trash cans, Mickey performed marvellously.

At the end of two weeks, Diego pronounced him good to go. He sat Mickey down one last time in the gun room then sat directly across from him.

“This is the last thing I will say to you, Mickey. You have done a great job of mastering the skills we need you for. But so far all this has been is practice. You need to understand that when we get out there on a real job, our freedom and even our lives are on the line. So you need to concentrate and stay focused, but you also have to stay in control of your emotions. You will be fighting a lot of fear with every job we do. So you must make sure that your fear doesn’t get the best of you, because that can be tragic for both of us. Do you get what I am saying to you?”

Mickey looked at Diego for a good ten seconds. “You might not understand this, but this, everything you have taught me, has confirmed something I always believed about myself. Having the skills you have taught me has given me a great deal of confidence. My father was a warrior, and I am a lot like him. So, yes, I get what you are saying, and no, I have no intention of putting you, or anybody else, in danger.”

“Bueno.”

“Bueno is right, Diego.”

Diego handed Mickey an America Express card.

“Take my daughter to San Francisco for the weekend. And have some fun. You have both earned it. Take the Charger and get used to driving it.”

Late the next morning as they were getting ready to leave on their long weekend in San Francisco, Christina and her husband Miguel arrived. Christina was introduced to Mickey and they all sat down for lunch together. 

After lunch, Mickey and Rosalita headed out to the car, threw their bags in the trunk and headed north to San Francisco.

For Rosalita, that lunch was the last time she would ever spend with her family.

~ 11 ~

The family had gotten together that weekend to discuss the state of the assassination business. But Joshua surprised them when he told them that it was approaching the time for them to shut it down. He stated that within two years he wanted to have the family out of the business, so in eighteen months they would stop accepting contracts and refer any interested parties to the Villaneuva family, whose ranch was about 10 miles north. Joshua explained that he had made the decision very recently. According to him, they had a very good run. but he was starting to feel the pressure of old age creeping up on him. They were all wealthy people, with money enough to last them a lifetime, and, as far as they knew at least, they had made few serious real enemies along the way.

The head of their main rival family, the Villaneuvas, were happy to receive the news and wished Joshua all the best.

The daughters and their husbands had no choice but to agree. The deal had been done. The decision had been made. They also agreed that they would take their shares of the fifteen million dollars they had earned slowly over the course of the next few years, laundering it as an increase in the profit sharing from the vines and orchards.

The final question then became what to do about Mickey Farrell, the young gringo from Wisconsin whom Rosalita had fallen in love with.

“Mickey is a good man,” said Diego. “He will take good care of Rosa. We can set them up with a substantial income so he can pursue his passion for writing. And we can teach him about our legal business if he is interested.”

It was agreed that Diego knew Mickey best and so they discussed how they would deal with the situation when Mickey and Rosalita returned from San Francisco. 

They sat at the table until long after dark drinking and talking. They did not notice the car that had parked about half a mile down the driveway and the three men, all dressed in black, and carrying UZI submachine guns who quietly got out and headed towards the hacienda. 

They entered the house through three different doors and all five members of the Reyes family were shot to death. They then exited the hacienda as quietly as they had arrived, got into their car and left. The night was dead quiet.

~ 12 ~

Mickey and Rosalita had a great long weekend. They spent one night in a downtown San Francisco hotel and then drove up the coast to Monterey where they spent two days wandering around the city and sitting by the ocean talking about the future. The time they spent together was wonderful and it flew by all too quickly.

It was an awful sight for Mickey and Rosalita to behold as they entered the house two days later. Rosalita screamed and cried for a good half hour, as Mickey comforted her.

Finally, after she had calmed down. Mickey said to her in a gentle voice. “I’m going out to the fruit barn and get rid of the weapons. You need to get on the computer and erase any trace of the assassination business. If there is money in a bank account somewhere, you need to move it to a new account and delete all the information you can except for the legitimate business.”

Rosalita nodded her head.

“We have to do this as quickly as we can”, Mickey said. “Because, then we have to call the police. If they find any evidence of the assassination business we could both be in big trouble. Huge trouble and we don’t need that.”

Rosalita slowly got to her feet and headed into the study. Mickey drove the Plymouth out to the fruit barn, gathered up all the weapons, munitions, targets, holsters and silencers and tossed them in the trunk of the Plymouth. He went into the barn and grabbed a shovel and a roll of thick plastic. He loaded everything into the Plymouth’s trunk and drove off along the property line until he came to an area where he thought he could see a bit of a clearing in the brush. He took the shovel and walked to the small clearing. There were mostly shrubs surrounding it so he knew that the roots would be easy to break.

As quickly as he could, he dug a trench about four feet long and three feet wide. He dug down until he was waist-deep. As he was climbing out of the hole he had dug, his cell phone rang. It was Rosalita. She told him to come to the house immediately.  Mickey jumped in the Plymouth and was back at the house a couple of minutes later. 

He entered Joshua’s office. Rosa was sitting behind the desk. There she was holding a piece of paper, in front of her. Below that on the blotter as a white business envelope.

“I found this under my grandfather’s desk blotter. She handed the note to Mickey. 

To whom it may concern:

Over the past eighteen years, we have done very well for ourselves, but unfortunately, we have made some enemies along the way. One man in particular has been a constant source of concern. His name is Francisco Duartes, and he has sworn a vendetta against this family. If anything should happen to us, it will be at his direction. Whoever in the family is reading this, if anyone, your obligation, will be to find this man and make sure that justice is done, legally or otherwise, it makes no difference.

Mickey handed the letter back to Rosa. “Put this somewhere safe, and finish cleaning things up. I have to finish taking care of the weapons. Then we have to call the police. We will find this man and we will take care of him.”

Mickey drove back to the hole he had dug. He wiped down all the weapons except for a 9-millimetre Ruger carbine rifle and its accessories. He also kept an H&K 9-millimetre pistol and silencer, along with a couple of clips for each weapon. The rest of the weapons he dropped into the hole he had dug, covered it over, stamped it down and then ran the shovel blade over it to rough up the terrain. He then gathered some fallen branches and scattered them around. When he was done, he could barely recognize the hole. 

He then drove back to the house and loaded the two guns in the back of his truck cab. He hugged Rosalita who was still working on the computer.

Micky showered then put on fresh clothes clothes and tossed his dirty clothes into the laundry basket. He then drove into town and rented a small storage locker where he stashed the weapons. He then quickly then drove back to the house. 

It was late afternoon by the time Rosalita had finished cleaning everything up in the office. They then called the police and while they were waiting they rehearsed their story.  

Mickey and Rosalita sat on the front porch. She was still in shock. Rosalita Mickey held her for a few moments. “The story”, Mickey said,  is we just got here and this is what we found. That’s all we have to say.”

Rosalita understood completely and nodded her head. 

“Rosa, I am so sorry that this happened to you.”

“I know you are Mickey.” she said in a flat voice. She was emotionally drained. 

“We will this guy and take care of him. I promise you.”

~ 13 ~

In the few days that followed, the Reyes farm was flooded with cops, forensic investigators even a few local Hispanic politicians. The conclusion was a simple one. This was a well-organized, flawlessly executed mob-style assassination. The fact that Mickey and Rosalita were still alive was seen as nothing more than dumb luck. And the fact that there was no real evidence of criminal activity anywhere to be found added an extra layer of complexity to the mystery.

The police combed the entire area. Mickey had pried open the door to the underground chamber at the back of one of the barns to make it look as if it had been broken into. There was no evidence, save for some bullets that were pulverized against the iron wall behind the haystacks. The police simply figured that it was a room designed for shooting practice which, in America, wasn’t all that uncommon. They also figured that the killers got away with whatever weapons were stored there. 

Rosalita was in shock for several days. They went to see her doctor in  Chowchilla who prescribed some lorazepam, to help keep Rosalita calm. So Mickey took care of dealing with the family’s lawyer and their insurance companies He arranged for the funerals and burials of the five people who were killed. No one had any family to speak of in Mexico, so the funerals were very sparsely attended. Just a few of the neighbours and representatives from the companies the family dealt with. 

After the burial, in a Catholic cemetery in Madera, Mickey and Rosalita went back to the house, which had since been professionally cleaned. They sat on the porch for a long time and talked about what they should do. The first thing they talked about was retribution.

Rosalita got on the computer and within ten minutes had located Francisco Duartes. He was a land owner and horse rancher who was located just north and east of San Diego. Rosalita had no idea why he would have murdered her family. 

Together Mickey and Rosalita worked out a plan of action, which Mickey would execute in due course.

They then decided on a few things. Firstly they would get married. They both loved each other and trusted each other

 Secondly, they would sell the operation. They talked to a real estate agent about it. And within a week they had three offers the highest of which was $31 million which they accepted, plus the $16 million in a high-interest Panamanian account and another three and a half million in life insurance benefits. 

Finally, they decided they would move to Mexico. They would have more than enough money for Mickey to keep writing and they could find a nice house by the ocean. Rosalita told Mickey that when she was younger her mother took her to visit friends in a suburb of Puerto Vallarta called Bucerias It was a nice quiet area with lots of seaside properties. 

It took about a month, but everything got done  Then they drove down in Mickey’s truck. They had gotten their marriage licence and blood tests done in Chowchilla. All they brought with them were their clothes, their laptops and a few mementos and the weapons which Mickey stashed in a storage locker in San Diego. Anything else they would need they would simply purchase. Rosalita wanted a brand new life and she could afford to build one.

They got married in a small chapel on the outskirts of Modesto on their way south.

A real estate agent in Puerto Vallarta found a beautiful unoccupied, semi-furnished beach house. They paid $650,000 in cash and moved in.

Once they were settled, moved in and the house was in the process of being fully furnished, Mickey, hired some private security to keep a close eye on things and then sat down and started to write the story. 

It began as a kind of family history so that their kids would have some sense of where they came from. Mickey and Rosalita planned the book together, and every few days, he and Rosalita would sit and talk about her life. Then Mickey would write it all out. 

As it turned out, Mickey was actually a pretty good writer. Several months later, with Rosalita about five months pregnant, Mickey completed a story that painted the family as hard-working large-scale grape and fruit growers. Once he finished the first draft, he stopped for a couple of weeks and did some work around the house, then went back over it again with a fine-toothed comb smoothing out the language and adding a bit more intrigue to the ending. 

When he finished the second draft, he stopped again. He then drove the truck to San Diego where he began to surveil Francisco Duartes. 

Duartes was a fairly unremarkable looking man who spent most of his time working with the horses on his small ranch. He did not appear to have any real protection close by, or at least none that Mickey could see as he watched the goings on at his ranch from a nearby hill through a powerful telescope. He watched the house closely and noted that Duartes appeared to live on his own. He had several hands but they drove to work every day. At night he was, in fact, alone on his ranch. He would sit out on the front porch of his house and smoke cigars and listen to music that emanated from a small radio.

One night, after Mickey had become completely familiar with Duarte’s routine, he loaded the pistol, attached the silencer and headed down onto the property.

He approached the house from the side, came around, aimed and fired a single shot that lodged in Duartes’ thigh. Mickey then climbed up on the porch and perched on the railing with his gun levelled at Duarte’s chest. 

Duartes screamed a series of what Mickey took to be curses at him.

“I may not look the part, Senor Duartes, but I am one of the Reyes family that your contractors failed to kill.”

Duartes was in a great deal of pain. He screamed some more at Mickey in Spanish. Mickey didn’t really understand what he was saying, as he sat perched on the porch rail and watched him writhe in pain. 

“I don’t know what you had against my family, and I really don’t care. I just wanted you to know that you didn’t get everybody. And this is the price you pay.”

Mickey then fired three more shots into Duarte’s chest and he slumped over in his chair. His cigar fell to the floor of the porch. He was quite dead. Mickey then took the cigar and went inside the house and used it to set the window curtains on fire. As he walked away he looked back and saw the fire quickly spreading. We walked to the corral where several quarter horses stood around. He opened the corral and one by one the horses left. He then climbed the rise that was his observation post, got into his truck and headed into San Diego. On his way, he stopped to wipe down and bury the weapons in some scrub about twenty-five yards off a side trail.

He stayed in San Diego overnight and then headed back home the next morning, arriving just in time for dinner. 

The next day Mickey reviewed the draft he had written, then he wrote a treatment, and emailed it along with three chapters to an old high school friend, whose name he came across when he was researching literary agents. His name was Drew Pearson. He and Mickey had hung out together and both talked about becoming writers someday. Drew worked for a small literary agency in Chicago.

Drew was surprised to get the package from Mickey, and called him back almost immediately. They talked for quite a while and Drew agreed to run it through the agency’s management. A few days later, Drew called and asked Mickey to send him the entire manuscript. The company was, as he put it, uber interested. Another week passed and Drew called back to say they would like to represent the property and that he would be flying down to spend a few days with Mickey going over it, and to also have him sign a rep agreement.

Two weeks after that, Mickey was signed up with the rep house, Jacobs & Freelander, where Drew was a junior partner. He also let Drew know that he was a little bit worried for his and his wife’s safety so he would prefer the be published under this pen name, Jake Morrison. A week later Drew had the finished manuscript and began shopping the book. 

The rest, as they say, is history. Mickey became Jake Morrison to the literary world. Six months after its publication, the book, ‘A Dark Day In Sunny California’ had climbed to #5 on the New York Times Bestseller list. After a year over two million copies had been sold in both English and Spanish, and several other translations were in the works. 

Two years later, Mickey was hard at work on his second crime novel, when requests for option on ‘A Dark Day…’ started arriving, which ultimately led to Evan Pierce driving to Mexico on a bright warm day in April.

No one bothered to come after Mickey and Rosalita, most likely because they did not know that Rosalita’s name was now Rosa Farrell. They were both satisfied that justice had been done. The killing of  Francisco Duarte, like the mass murder of the Reyes family, several months earlier remained a mystery.  

 Over time, the wounds healed. Mickey had learned to channel whatever violent tendencies he may have had into his writing, The children grew. The novels kept coming. His old pal Even got him a sweet deal with Bantam books and life was good. He was not going to set the paperback world on fire, but he had built a pretty decent following all the same. Neither Mickey nor Rosa had any reason to feel guilty about anything that had happened, and that served to make the healing go that much quicker.

Two years later, and with plenty of room, Mickey invited Eldon Simms to come for a visit. Eldon had just sold the business and the house and was planning a road trip when he got the invitation. Three weeks later, he showed up, a spry sixty-five and still the same nice guy he always had been. Rosalita and the children loved him and he spent the better part of six months with them. In town, he had met a beautiful older Mexican woman named Lena Sanchez who lived three streets over. One thing led to another and Eldon eventually moved in with her and Lena began teaching him the language.

Once a week, at least, they would all have dinner. And for Rosalita, it felt like she had herself a brand new family.

Mickey’s third book, entitled “The Black Plymouth.” was the charm that elevated him into the ranks of good-selling authors in the crime fiction genre. 

So in the end, everybody wound up in a good place.

One night, after the kids had been put to bed and Rosa was downstairs reading, Mickey sat down at his laptop and re-read the poem he had taped to it.

He then opened the computer to a file of poems that he had written over the last few years and wrote a new one.

BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

The days tumble by

The nights roll along

We tell a few lies

We sing a few songs

We have some regrets

But nothing that odd

We live in our memories 

And onward we plod

We’re all feeling younger

As we’re all growing old

But the wisdom we carry

Is more precious than gold

We know about life now

And we know about pain

We’ve all learned the hard way

To keep it restrained

We know about fear 

And we know about joy

We rejoice in the small things

Like good girls and boys

And at the end of it all

At the end of the book

We’ll have made a whole lifetime

By hook or by crook

FIN