Trust Me

by Richard Z. Santos

  She always curled into a tight comma facing the wall. Then, when he got into bed, she rolled over and flopped a leg and an arm onto him. She smelled like lotion and a long bath, and her body was impossibly warm. Once or twice a month, they had sex. It was brief, even mechanical, yet necessary. Mallon had never been good at understanding his own feelings, much less those of other people. But he knew he and Claudia needed each other. She rested her head on his chest, and he placed his hand on the iguana tattoo that crawled up her side.

  “Slightly fewer assholes at work, lately,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Although this one guy showed up. I was giving him a dance. Normal, nothing special. But he, I don’t know . . . They all try to touch me, that’s the point. What I mean is, when they go too far, they all go too far in the same way.”

  Mallon felt himself go red with heat. He opened his eyes. “You got a name?”

  “No, no,” Claudia said, more awake now. “It’s fine. The last time you defended my honor, I almost lost my job.”

  “You said that guy had been . . .”

  “He was a jerk, but I’m sure that he, and his new set of dentures, are now treating women with much respect.” Claudia settled back in under his arm. “No, this other guy. He wasn’t rough. The opposite. He touched the side of my neck, very soft. Ran his fingertips up the back of my calf real slow. So, I turned around, because it didn’t feel right, and then he skimmed his fingertips along my shoulder blades. Soft, gentle. He’s been back twice, but I keep my distance. Hungry. He was so emotionally hungry.”

  Mallon tried, he tried so hard, not to let his voice give away his anger. “Let me know. A license plate. A name. Anything.”

  Claudia pressed her palm against Mallon’s chest as if she could calm the storm. Soon, she was sleeping, and he held her tight, remembering why he worked so hard to preserve an ounce of order in the world.

  SATURDAY

  TWENTY-THREE

  GABE HAD AN HOUR TO KILL before meeting the teenager. He was in a bad mood and could picture this Wilson kid showing up, calling him “Cowboy,” and generally being a pain in the ass. This time, he would keep his temper. There was a goal, and Gabe needed to stay on track. Fortitude.

  At the desk in Micah’s room, Gabe tried to explain himself.

  I know it’s wrong but it’s what I got left. Get yourself to the spot where you don’t have to pick and gripe and you won’t have to do what you know is wrong. My whole life, I’ve been getting under people’s skin. But that’s not what gets things done. Don’t be a prick. Or be a prick that takes on the bigger issue. That’s what’s good about Rey. That fat bastard busted his ass in law school so he could make people listen to him. I never saw the big picture, son. My father had a life jacket. That’s why he made it out of WWII alive. But he never should have been on that boat to begin with. He should have been the guy back in the office—sending people to death. I don’t know how to get there but I know you can. Maybe you’re already on your way and you don’t even need me or these pages. Maybe that’s where my mother went. She found something bigger than my old man and two bratty boys. Hell, I guess that’s why your mother left.

  Gabe stopped writing. Some of his problems he still had to avoid. He knew exactly when to stand up and walk away.

  He called Helen.

  She answered, which filled Gabe with absurd happiness. It meant he still had a chance.

  “Hey,” he said, “so can I see him next week?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I want to spend a couple days with him. It’s important.”

  “You’re making me say no. You put him on the bike. You got in a wreck. You don’t have a job.”

  “I have some money. Nearly the whole thousand. It’s all for him.”

  “Did construction start again?” Helen sounded like she was only going through the motions of giving Gabe a chance.

  “No, not yet, but soon.”

  “Having a job is not an unreasonable expectation. It’s in the custody agreement, and you should be thanking me for not reporting that accident.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, and it was the scariest damn thing ever.”

  Helen was quiet for a second. “Yeah, I know. He explained it to me a little more. I told him you were trying to help him. Don’t know if he bought it.” She dropped her voice. “He’s still young. He got freaked out.”

  “When I pick him up, I’ll borrow Rey’s truck. No bike.”

  “Call me when construction starts again.” She hung up.

  Gabe almost threw his phone across the room. He rubbed both hands over his face. He had no idea when the site would reopen. Rey was doing his damnedest to keep it shut forever.

  It was time to go meet this kid. A shiver of fear went through his guts. What if he got busted? Frederick had been Gabe’s only concern, but if he got busted selling a couple ounces to a teenager, the courts would keep Micah away forever.

  Gabe grabbed his keys and left before he changed his mind. Forever was not going to be for very long. It was only an ounce. Frederick would not find out. The cops would not find out. He looked over his shoulder at each light, and he drove up and down in front of The Pig four times before pulling into the dirt lot.

  A few minutes later, Wilson’s car pulled in. It was a silver VW with a decal of a baseball bat and his name on the back windshield. The kid poked at his phone for a few seconds after killing the engine. He never looked up at Gabe.

  Something felt wrong. Cops would be laughing about this bust for years. “We got the guy by texting with him on a stolen phone.” One count of assaulting a minor, two for dealing, one for possessing stolen goods, and then they’d find out about the disability scam.

  Gabe walked back to his bike. But either his bike or his hand was shaking because he could not get the key into the ignition. He used both hands to guide the key into the slot.

  Wilson got out of the car and jogged towards Gabe. “Dude, dude, dude, what’s up? No, I’m here.”

  Wilson was barely five feet tall and maybe 110 pounds. His face was blistered with pink, nickel-sized bumps. The kid’s chest was probably concave under his T-shirt.

  “How the fuck old are you?”

  Wilson looked down. “Old enough to have cash.”

  Gabe ran his hand over his face and stepped off his bike. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Awesome. Really, really awesome.” Wilson pulled out his phone. “I need to take a pic with you. It’ll be fast.”

  Before Gabe could step back, Wilson put his arm around his shoulder and held his phone out in front of them. For a second, Gabe saw himself on the phone screen, mouth slightly open, looking haggard and tired while Wilson smiled and held up a thumb.

  “You’re like a legend or something, you know? This is kind of a big deal.” Wilson took a step back but didn’t put the phone away. “I’m going to take a video so you got to do the thing you do.”

  The kid lifted the phone and held it out towards Gabe.

  “Umm . . . do something.” Wilson smiled. “Say ‘this shit ain’t funny no more.’ That’s your thing, right?”

  “What the fuck is your problem, kid?”

  “That’s it, that’s it! This is crazy.”

  He moved the phone closer, and Gabe pushed it out of his face. Wilson squealed, almost jumping up and down with excitement. He looked like a kid meeting Mickey Mouse.

  “Smokey said you might do that! He said you tried to wrestle with him. He’s telling everyone. Dude, tell the truth, do you like to wrestle teenage boys?”

  Wilson pushed the phone back into Gabe’s face then turned it off. He was feeling calmer, now that the camera was off.

  “That was perfect. Wow, that was like exactly what I wanted to happen. Smokey said you’d get all mad and say weird shit like in that clip. This is awesome, the dudes are going to flip!”

  Gabe felt sick. They were talking about him. High school kids in Albuquerque were watching his video, talking about his weed, building him into
an urban legend. Gabe was some type of game or a test of strength and nerve. Who can meet up with the crazy Mexican from the internet? The next kid would bring along his girlfriend, and the kid after that would take a swing at him, just to say he was the one that knocked the cowboy into the dirt.

  Gabe took a few steps back. “Two hundred an ounce, just like your friend.”

  “Fine, fine, I can totally do that.” Wilson pulled out his wallet and started counting out the cash. The kid frowned and gave a long, theatrical grunt. “Ah, I got three eighty. I stopped and got some food after I hit the ATM. That’s cool though, right, for two ounces? What’s twenty bucks? I’ll be back in a few weeks. You’re too badass for me not to come back.”

  Gabe just wanted the kid to shut up and leave. That was worth the missing twenty. He held out his hand. Wilson slapped the cash into his palm.

  “Get out of here. Don’t try to come back here.” Gabe reached into his vest and pulled out two baggies. “I’m not selling anymore. Tell your friends, tell whoever, I’m done.”

  The kid bobbed his head up and down, trying to look casual. “Man, I hope not, you’re hilarious, and your shit is for real.”

  Twice was two times too many. Gabe headed to his bike. These kids were idiots and they were going to get him arrested or worse. Wilson had gone quiet, and when Gabe looked over his shoulder, he saw the kid had his phone back out, and was filming him. Gabe told himself not to peel out, not to flip the kid off and not to buzz by him so close the kid would fall back into the dirt. Of course, he did all three.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  CHARLES WANTED TO STASH all the empty wine bottles before Lou and Jordan came over. There was no recycling bin, so he lined them up along a side wall in the courtyard.

  Inviting them over had been a mistake. There had been no sign of Olivia since the night of the art opening, but what if there was a stray earring or a few long black hairs? Some tell-tale sign that Jordan would recognize? The nightmare scenarios were endless.

  Lou and Jordan arrived right on time, which meant they could leave just as fast.

  “Come in,” Charles said. “I’m getting the food started. There’s wine.”

  Jordan’s eyes flicked around the house, seeming to catalog the furnishings and the décor.

  Lou whistled. “Damn, boy. This is crazy.”

  Charles laughed. “I know. It’s too much. Nearly all the floors are either heated or cooled, whichever you want. Even the toilet seat has a little heater.”

  Lou snorted, but Jordan’s smile looked like something that had escaped from one of Olivia’s paintings. As Charles showed Lou the speakers hidden in the walls and ceiling, Jordan went to the sliding glass door that looked down on the city. Olivia should ask her about the tile, Charles thought.

  Everyone settled around the kitchen island. Charles leaned onto the marble countertop while Jordan and Lou sat on high bar stools. Lou took Charles up on a beer, but Jordan declined a glass of wine.

  “Hey,” he said, “we’ve got to get through this somehow, right?”

  Acknowledging the tension caused Lou and Jordan to freeze up and then smile. “Yeah,” Jordan said. “Sorry, I’m fine. This is just quite a house.”

  Charles insisted on serving her a glass of wine.

  “It’s not normally like this. On the road, I’ve shared sofa beds, slept on recliners in screened-in patios, all sorts of terrible places. So, I’m enjoying this spot as long as I’ve got it.”

  Everyone went quiet. The ticking of the oven timer seemed very loud.

  “So, Charles,” Lou said, “is it always ‘Charles?’ Not ‘Charlie’ or something?”

  “I had an ex that called me Chuckster when she was mad at me.”

  “Right. Well, Lou isn’t even my actual name. It’s Guadalupe. Very Hispanic, you know, so ‘Lou’ is easier.”

  Jordan finally sipped her wine. “This is good. Thank you.”

  Charles nodded and looked at the oven timer, again. The three of them kept glancing at each other, and Lou and Charles were drinking a little too fast.

  “So, do you like all this traveling?” Lou asked. “Going on campaigns and stuff?”

  “It doesn’t feel like ‘traveling.’ Not really, not in a tourist way. It’s hard to see much more than office buildings.” Charles smiled. “But I do like the road. Higher stakes, more alive than staying in one place. You know this, Lou. Desk job versus beat, right?”

  “Being law enforcement is not the same as campaign work,” Jordan said.

  “Okay,” Charles conceded. “Of course not, but campaign life is more fun than normal life.”

  “I don’t know,” Lou said. “I had my fun on the beat and now I like scrubbing Mr. Branch’s balls. The work is less bloody and the pay is better.”

  The kitchen started to smell like food. Another drink. Dinner. One more drink. Then, he could show them the door. Charles finished his wine and topped off Jordan’s without asking. Lou helped himself to another beer.

  “And you?” Charles asked Jordan. “You going to hit the road? Get out of New Mexico and work some real campaigns?”

  “I’ve done real campaigns. Maybe I’ll work a presidential in a couple years. Diana can help me with that.”

  “How many times have you worked with her?”

  “Several. She ran Governor Baca’s campaigns, you know? I did research. Then she advised Congressman Solís on his races, so I went over there. That’s where we got close. I also spent a month with her at the Roundhouse, but government work isn’t for me.”

  “Exactly,” Charles said. “Campaigns are more alive. You get what I’m saying?”

  “I guess.” Jordan smiled. “I don’t know how she did it. Between running that campaign and being the governor’s chief of staff? Just one of those jobs would wreck me.”

  Charles crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “Wait. She didn’t do both jobs at the same time, right? You can’t work an election and a government gig.”

  “There was a strict firewall in terms of resources. Different offices, cell phones. And she excused herself from a few of the hot-button legislative issues. I checked the rules myself. It was fine.”

  “I keep telling her to go to law school,” Lou said. “Spends half her time digging through papers and archives already.”

  “No wonder Salazar keeps you around.” Charles raised his glass to Jordan and laughed. “Hate to think what you found out about me.”

  “Oh, researching you was easy.”

  Lou raised his eyebrows, and Charles turned a little too fast to the oven. He opened the door and poked at the food with a wooden spoon.

  “I was wondering about one thing,” Jordan said. “Mayor Hunt had no real opposition in the senate race, so why would he do something so stupid? He didn’t need that union’s support to win. The corruption was pointless.”

  “I don’t think he was corrupt.”

  “He went to prison.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Lou interrupted. “Start over. One of you give me the story. Was it a hooker? Dick pics?”

  “I wish,” Charles said. “You can come back from that. No, Hunt had been mayor of Dover for ages, centuries. Everyone came to him for decisions up and down the line. Senator wants to push a wind farm, talk to Hunt. Alderman wants to redevelop a stretch of urban blight, talk to Hunt. He was King of Delaware because Dover is where all the money and the people who matter are. Finally, a senator retires and everyone knows Hunt is next in line if he wants the seat. Well, he wants it. Money pours in. Corporations, interest groups, they’re all setting up PACs, 501c3s, c4s, the whole bit. One time, the owner of a furniture shop showed up with a trailer full of oak desks and bookshelves for the campaign office. Just wanted to give it to us. I had to go out there and say no. That hurt.”

  Lou jumped in. “You always bet a sure thing.”

  “Exactly. When you know with absolute certainty that a candidate will be a United States senator, you don’t want to be the guy who gave him ten t
housand dollars. You want to be the guy who gave him fifty thousand.”

  “Then he went too far,” Jordan said.

  “I’m getting there. About six months before Election Day, the sanitation workers’ union came to him. There’d been an out-of-state company applying for permits to pick up garbage in Dover using private trucks and non-union workers. So, the union wanted Hunt to do something about it. They said they’d endorse, spend a boatload of cash and deliver the votes of every garbage worker in the state. In Delaware, this is huge.”

  “He got caught,” Lou said.

  Charles cocked his head to the side and raised his hands. “Well, the permits were denied and the non-union company got sent back to Kentucky, or to the mob, who knows? Then news of the meeting comes out. The opponent, some nobody with zero experience, jumped on it. We didn’t respond fast enough, or in the right way, so when the press started running the story, we were behind the eight ball.”

  “It was the response that did you in,” Jordan said.

  “I still think it was the right response. I said, in a very televised press conference, that it didn’t matter, that it was simple government work, simple politics. And it was.”

  “You did something for the money.”

  “The press made you believe that narrative. See, that private company would have been denied these permits no matter what. The union would have endorsed us no matter what. But Hunt and the union guys huddled. That was wrong. They were stupid for shaking on something that should have been understood.”

  “Were you in that meeting?” Jordan asked.

  “As a campaign staffer I wasn’t allowed to attend government meetings. Firewall, like you said.”

  Jordan obviously knew Charles was lying. Of course, he had been in that meeting. He had been in the corner, on his phone, flirting with one of the communication interns and not paying attention. That was the worst part. He never even saw the moment his life went to hell.

  “So why meet?” Lou asked. “Why shoot yourself?”

  “Because they were crooks,” Jordan said.