Chapter One

 SIN LUZ - Without Light

Opening Scene - The Chase

The shadow of a thin, dark, hooded figure pedaled slowly down a cobblestone street. The only light was a midnight moon peeking through a blanket of clouds. The shadow moved toward the sidewalk, disappeared from the moon, and stopped at the corner of the street that opened onto a large plaza with a statue posing in the center. Surrounding the plaza were tall, old trees.

Looking beyond the statue and the trees, the shadow could see two uniformed men standing on either side of a painted face on a large building. On the other side of the building, a small white car was parked parallel in front of the two guards and topped with a blue light that reflected in the moonlight. The shadow turned down the side street, silently moving away from the plaza, then turned down the next side street, then turned twice more, positioning itself at the opposite corner of the plaza behind the small white car with the blue light.

Without making a sound, the shadow got off the bike, leaned it against the building, and then leaned around the corner to see the back of the white car. The shadow waited, watching the two men standing across the block and in the back of the small white car. A cloud slowly passed in front of the moon, and the street darkened. The only light on the horizon was a faint glow from a hospital and a series of vertical red lights from the city's main telecommunications tower. Blackouts had been the norm for months, and tonight was no exception. The streetlights stood silent in the darkness, as empty of light as the sky.

Quickly placing a hand in the basket hanging from the bicycle's handlebars, the shadow removed two pieces of metal. Each piece consisted of two 3-inch nails. Each nail had been ground to a sharp point at each end and bent ninety degrees. Each sharp nail was welded to another so that no matter how the two joined nails were thrown to the ground, they would always remain at three of the four sharp points. Crouching down, the shadow quickly moved to the rear right corner of the car and then to the rear wheel to wedge the sharp metal between the front of the tire and the street. As it stopped, the shadow could hear the occupant of the driver's seat snoring, so the shadow moved to the front tire, wedging the sharp metal between the tire and the street.

Silently, the shadow returned to the bicycle and mounted it. They slowly pedaled to the front corner of the white car. Reaching into the basket, they this time pulled out a brick and, with all their strength, threw it against the car's front windshield. Then they quickly pedaled across the street toward the plaza. The two guards barely heard the trumpet blast against the glass, but the driver jumped out and honked the horn, causing the guards to turn and see a dark shadow entering the plaza in front of them. In the car, the drowsy driver, now fully awake, pressed the ignition, sending a blinding light to the guards standing across the street, pointing at the shadow in the plaza. The driver could see them pointing and looked toward the shadow standing in the plaza.

"Get them!!!" The driver yelled and the guards chased him across the street as the shadow first headed toward the opposite corner on the other side of the plaza. He heard the roar of an engine and tires squealed as the small white car gave chase and turned the first corner at one end of the plaza, and then ran toward the far corner. Suddenly the shadow burst out of the plaza, and as it passed the driver's side of the car, the shadow whistled and, gaining speed, took a sharp left turn onto the sidewalk. The driver entered the intersection and gave chase. But the shadow quickly turned into a dark, narrow terrazzo boulevard with concrete barriers blocking the car. The driver paused and shouted to the running guards, "Follow them!!! I'll cut them off last!!!"

The shadow sped to the end of the square even as the white car rounded the corner, its headlights illuminating the street for the cyclist to cross and enter another blocked boulevard. The white car stopped for the pursuing guards and shouted the same instructions again. But as the vehicle rounded the next bend, the front right tire, which had been whistling loudly, gave one last sigh, and the patter of rubber on the street could be heard. The rear tire soon gave up its ghost and joined in with a rubbery percussion. The shadow stopped at the end of the boulevard, waiting for the headlights to illuminate its path, then turned right, away from the headlights, and turned a corner onto the next street.

But this was the last corner for the car as the driver attempted another right turn without straight tires. The car hit a curb, the front axle smashing against the cobblestones. Without thinking or waiting for the two guards, the driver, a middle-aged man with a large belly, chased them down the darkened street. The shadow slowed his pedaling just enough to stay within range of the soon-to-be-panning pursuer, and on the next block, he leaned the bike against a wall beneath a window and knocked on an adjacent door. The door didn't open. The shadow waited for the pursuer to approach, then, with a key attached to a chain around his neck, he unlocked the door and quickly entered. The door remained open as the pursuer approached. Leaning against the doorway and catching his breath, he peered into the archway as an old woman in a white nightgown, holding a lanteri, approached.

Where did they go? He gasped.

He turned and pointed to the 12-foot-high wall at the other end of the courtyard. “They went that way.”

"Shit. Don't fuck with me, old lady. Where did you go? I'll destroy every inch of this place!"

From beneath the dark arches appeared a younger woman, also carrying a lantern. "Shut up! There are children sleeping. What the fuck? Who is it?"

The younger woman gasped as she recognized the man, and he recognized her, and suddenly, catching his breath, he straightened, looked at her, and exclaimed, "Adoncia. Sweet little whore. How long has it been? Three years. I'm sure you've noticed what any man does after three years so far, far away, and at 20 years old, a special place to stay, never to return.

The two women looked at each other in the darkness, their gazes speaking an intuitive language for women related by blood or through marriage. Looking at their pursuer, the young woman stood straight, took a deep breath, and, as she slowly placed her fingers on the top button of her blouse, whispered, "Maybe you're right. Three years is a long time, and for a Cuban woman without a man, it might as well be thirty years." Turning to the older woman, she said, "Why don't you make us a drink?"

The pursuer's face melted from anger and arrogance to arrogance and lust as his mind lost all thought to the shadow as the younger woman turned and lit his path toward the center of the arch and a long wooden table beneath an awning attached to the second-floor balcony and two posts, anchored to the ground at the edge of the tiled courtyard. Placing her lamp on the table, she moved a chair away from the table, spun it between them, and pointed. He smiled the smile of a man who knows what awaits him as she, from behind the chair, began to undo the buttons of her blouse, leaving open the pale flesh between her breasts, down her stomach, and past her navel.

He pointed to the chair again, and as if in a trance, his feet moved forward. He turned and sat down as she moved in front of him, and the older woman appeared with two glasses. Silently, he handed one to the younger woman, who slowly bowed her head and emptied the amber liquid into her mouth. Looking up at him, she slowly swallowed the burn and continued, "Now you."

With a sneer at the old woman, he took the glass, tilted his head, and felt the amber liquid's burning heat as well. Looking at the older woman, he then asked, "Would the old bitch like to watch?"

"Pig!"

"I prefer the son of a bitch."

Standing with the beam of his flashlight behind her, the pursuer watched as the old woman stood with her arms crossed and her lips pursed, watching the young woman move toward him and gently run her fingers over his right ear. As if she had signaled him, he placed his right hand on her left thigh and squeezed. In his left ear, she whispered, "It's been a long time. I'm going to have to take this slowly. Give the drink a few moments while I show you what I've been waiting three years for."

“You little bitch.”

“I know,” she placed her right hand between his neck and shoulder and squeezed. Then her left hand did the same, and lifting his head and eyes from her open blouse to hers, she opened her hips and, straddling him, whispered, “Can you feel it now?”

"Yes. Yes."

“Slowly. Space out.” She squeezed his neck and moved her head from left to right, following his eyes with hers. He firmly gripped both of her thighs.

But as she stared at him and he stared at her, his grip loosened, his breathing slowed, his pupils dilated and then his eyes closed, his hand dropped from her hips to her sides, and she rested her chin on his as the older woman walked by, saying emotionlessly, “Don’t drop it.”

Upon reaching the corner pole of the tent, the older woman followed a rope running from the top of the pole to the ground, and on the ground, she turned a tent peg, causing the twisted metal coil to rise from the ground. Wiping the dirt off the coil, she returned to her stove and placed the coil over the gas burner as steam hissed, then a little smoke rose and in a few seconds the twisted metal glowed red in the blue flame. 

With the burning coil in her hand she paused at the table and read a passage from the book laying open ben earth the light. Then to the younger woman she said.  “Yaelin, this is for you and my son. Your intimidator is in my dominion and I judge according to the law of this book.”

Yaelin did not understand but she nodded and asked, “What do you mean Debora ?”

“Watch. And hold him steady.”  Debora moved behind the slumping pursuer and placed her left hand on his left ear, pulling his left ear toward his left shoulder.  Yaelin muffled a gasp as Debora twisted the smoldering coil, into the pursuer's ear. Smoke hissed from the pursuer's ear as she twisted deeper. Slowly she began twisting in the opposite direction and as the screw rose from his ear laced with blood.  Handing the bloody coil to the stunned younger woman and taking the empty bowl, she placed it over the pursuer's right ear, letting the blood drain into the bowl as she twisted the lubricated screw in his left ear. Then, turning it the other way, she removed it and handed it to the younger woman.

“Rinse it. Heat the tip again until it's red hot.”

With both ears now free of the first trickle of blood in the bowl, the older woman wiped away any traces of blood and said, “Glue. Go get me the glue.”

The boy returned with the glue, which he inserted into the pursuer's ears. They waited for the glue to harden.  At the old woman’s whisper, he soaked it in the same amber liquid that had first filled the cups and took it from him wiping any blood and glue from the ears. Her work finished she asked,  "Where's the screw?"

The younger woman pulled it from a smoking burner and handed it to her. The older woman now straddled the unconscious pursuer. Grasping his hair to hold his head back and steady as if working, she looked up at the moon that suddenly appeared between the clouds, the tip of the screw again glowing, Just below his hairline, she pressed a line from left to right across his forehead. While that line blistered with the smell of burning flesh, she pressed another line from left to right just above his eyebrows. While that line blistered, she pressed her last blistered line from the beginning on the left of the lower line to the end on the right of the upper line.

“Now get him out of here.” As he spoke, seven soft knocks were heard at the door, and the thin, hooded figure appeared from the courtyard, approached the gate, and opened it for a man standing in the doorway. By the light from the two women holding lanterns, the man threw the pursuer’s arms over his shoulders and carried him through the archway, out the gate, to the street and the three of them slumped the pursuer into a three-wheeled cart.  As the women collected the bicycle, the hooded figure returned to the street and disappeared into the shadows. The man pedalled his cart in the opposite direction. Blocks away, he saw flashing lights and a crowd surrounding a white car. But no one noticed him pedaling silently in the darkness.

As he approached the plaza, he stopped to confirm there was no one, and slowly pedaled his cart onto the wide sidewalk to the building with the painted face on the wall facing the street. Where he pulled the pursuer from his cart and placed him in a slump at the base of the wall and turned to leave. But pausing as if he had forgotten something, he reached into his cart and removing  a bottle of amber liquid he opened it, took a long swig and then another which he spat on the face of the pursuer.  Then he placed the bottle in the pursuer's lap. Again pausing before departing, he returned to the peruse and removed a think leather belt from his waist and then fastened it around his own.  As he slowly pedaled off in the darkness, he couldn't help but put his hand to his side and feel the cold stainless steel of a Colt M1911.

As the moon set and the sun rose over the square, a crowd gathered, followed by an ambulance. The man with a large belly, and smelling of the bottle of amber liquor in his lap, was found breathing and alive but with a Z branded across his forehead.  And, he could not speak.  He could only look straight ahead and his left face drooped. As he was loaded onto a gurney, a young boy exclaimed, "Look, the fat man has wet himself."

A young woman watched the sunrise as she sat at a table outside a cafe, set on the square.   She saw the gathering crowd.   From a camera concealed in her purse, the lens could view a man slumped against a wall, gathering and an ambulance taking the man away. Finishing her coffee she removes the camera from her purse, stops the recording and with a click and a tap the what was recorded in her sunrise appears in a message to a man a world away. .