by Manuel Ramos
I dealt with my hangover with water and coffee and a few old doughnuts I had lying around, but mid-morning Reese and Robbins interrupted my convalescence, and it wasn’t pleasant.
The two cops accused, threatened and mocked me. They were upbeat, gloating almost. I, on the other hand, could barely stay awake. I had a hell of a time keeping down the three-in-the-morning burritos Isabel and I scarfed after the clubs closed.
“We know you and Artie Baca were working together. That’s what the check was supposed to be for.” Crew-cut, tobacco-smelling Reese talked at me, not waiting for a response. “Linda Baca said she thought it was very weird that you would have had any business with her husband. It had to be something shady because she didn’t know about it, and she knew everything he did, business-wise. Everything that was on the up-and-up.”
“She said he left all that behind, years ago,” Robbins chimed in. “You must have had something on him to get him to go along with you again.” He came off surly, as rude as his older partner. I wondered what happened to good-cop, bad-cop. They were both offensive that morning.
“She said that?” I managed to say. “Why would she say such a thing?”
Robbins grunted. “Yeah, asshole, she said that. She told us how you and Baca were wannabe gangsters back when you were punks. She talked about the low-end B and E’s you never got popped for, how your partnership ended when you finally got busted. We checked your record, a real cheap charge. Both of you walked away with nothing serious in your files. Linda says that was Artie’s turning point. Apparently not for you, right, Gus?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
That was true. Right then nothing made sense, and it had as much to do with the shots of tequila from the night before as with my normal state of confusion.
Robbins glared at me like he was a wounded animal, and then he moved right up in my face. “Asshole,” he seemed to like that word. “You’re the one who knocked off Artie Baca. I know it, my partner knows it, and we’re going to bust your ass, asshole.” The smooth-looking, always professional policeman had a limited vocabulary.
“You go to public school, Robbins?” I asked.
He looked like he could explode. I shrugged. “I don’t know why I said that.”
He slapped me across the cheek and any other day I wouldn’t have noticed but that day had a lot of wackiness built in. My face felt like someone had used a hot iron to wake me up, and my nose still ached from Jerome’s punch, not to mention the beating Lorenzo’s thugs gave me, so maybe I overreacted. Truth be told, it wasn’t the pain or bruising or lumps that caused me to lunge at Robbins. I had enough of feeling like everybody’s easy target. I charged Robbins but before I could throw a punch, Reese grabbed me by the armpits and lifted me off his partner. He wound up his delivery like a cartoon relief pitcher and slugged my gut. I doubled over. He threw me across the room into the wall. Robbins moved toward me and I prepared for another smackdown.
I held up my hands and tried to wave him back. He hesitated. I tasted sour burritos, gagged at the back of my throat, felt a wave of nausea and lost my doughnuts and burritos on the dusty floor of Sylvia’s Superb Shoppe. Robbins stopped in his tracks. Specks of brown vomit dotted his black shoes.
“You pig. Look at the mess, you dumb piece of shit.”
I mumbled and stumbled around the room, waiting for the cuffs and the ride downtown. I imagined the charges I might face—assaulting an officer, disrespecting an officer, grossing out an officer.
They didn’t make the move. They made noises, for sure, smoke and fury without action. They shouted they were watching me and I was going down. An attack of hiccups seized me, but I managed to wave at the two cops when they escaped from the foul-smelling shop.
Eventually I cleaned up the shop and myself. Then I called Jerome. I had a hard time spitting it out, and he didn’t act like he wanted to waste any time with me, but finally I said, “I need your help, Jerome.”
“You got some balls, Gus. My nose still hurts.”
“I thought you were over that.”
“Think again.”
“I have to talk to someone about all that’s been happening. I don’t understand it. Maybe you will. We’ve been friends too long, Jerome.”
He ragged me for several minutes. I cringed, but stated my case and argued that he was the only person I could turn to for advice. Couldn’t he see how I made the mistake of not trusting him? What would he have done?
He finally came around. “I kind of understand. I might have screwed up the same way, given the circumstances.”
That’s what I hoped for—we were dropped from the same mold and sooner or later Jerome had to see it. Two beans in a pod—that was Jerome and me.
“What happened to your business? Not that long ago this place was packed.” There were few other customers. Jerome and I were the only ones sitting in the patio.
His nose looked bad—bloated, red and bruised. I didn’t mention it.
“A new shop just opened up, on Tejon. It cut into my base, big time,” he said. “That’s the way it goes. Up one day, down the next.
People want to try out the newest thing, and that place offers what they call Cuban coffee and Cuban sandwiches. There’s so many new coffee shops on the North Side we’re killing ourselves. I’m competing with Cuban and Mexican and European and old-fashioned and cutesy and who knows what else. I don’t sleep much, and it’s not from sampling my product. I’m hoping that when the newness wears off, my regulars will come back.”
The magazines Jerome laid out for his customers were full of stories, how all the experts were saying that we had finally bottomed out, but it sure didn’t look like it from where I sat. New businesses had to be flukes, aberrations, freaks of nature. They couldn’t all endure, and Jerome might become a casualty.
“You’ll survive,” I said despite my doubts. “You always have.”
“Maybe.” He sipped on his espresso and snarled his words. “What’s bothering you now? Why the rush to talk?”
“The cops, Reese and Robbins, dropped by, it got ugly. They tossed me around. I had to defend myself, commit the crime of self-defense. But the strange thing is that they didn’t do anything about it. Nothing serious, I mean.”
That caught his attention. He put down his coffee.
“They think I had something to do with Artie’s murder. They keep accusing me but they don’t take me downtown, they just walk away. It’s like they want me to twist in the air, know what I mean? Like they’re playing a game, but what’s the payoff? It’s bugging the hell out of me. What’s going on?”
“I didn’t think any cop would ever pass up a chance to arrest you. It doesn’t take much to get pinched for assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, all that bullshit. You’re a lucky guy, Gus.”
“People keep saying that and I repeat—I don’t feel lucky. I feel used, set-up, but I don’t know for what.”
He took his time answering. He watched a guy with thin graying hair, dressed in sweat pants and a sweatshirt, pick up his order at the counter. A blond woman also in workout clothes waited at the door, a few feet from where we sat. She winked at Jerome.
“Yeah, could be a set-up,” he said. “I once got popped for a warehouse break-in but it took the police weeks to make the pinch.
They tailed me everywhere I went. Talked to all my friends. Visited me several times, letting me know that they knew all about me. They spooked me, serious. When the arrest finally went down, I was relieved in a way. I got so nervous that I hustled the warehouse stuff too early—electronics, remote controls, DVDs, that kind of junk. It was stupid, I wasn’t ready but I choked. They didn’t have enough on me until then. It took some fancy and expensive legal work to get me out of that one.”
“The difference between you and me is that I didn’t do anything, so this game they’re playing won’t do them any good. Meanwhile, I’m getting squeezed for no reason. That damn Baca.”
“If what you
told me about Carne Ortiz is true, that’s your way out. Give him up to the cops.” He couldn’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.
“Give him up to the cops. Right. Not going to happen. I can’t do more than I already have, not if I want to stay alive. I’ve led them to Ortiz when he beat me up. I’ve put out the word I was looking for his sister and asking about her link to Artie. I’ve done everything but draw a map for the two police cowboys, but they won’t move off of me.”
“Then you got to do something else.”
“Like what?”
“You think I know? I’ve never been a snitch, so this is new territory for me.”
“I ain’t a snitch. I need to protect myself. I got to come up with something. I can’t sit back and let the cops railroad me.”
He stood up. “Your odds are like slim to none. No one beats the cops at their own hustle. Least, no one I’ve known for a long time. Let me think about it. Come around tonight, over to my house. Maybe we can put something together.” He turned away, then turned back. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. I shouldn’t be. Laters.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll see you tonight. Thanks.”
He walked away. I had to trust him, what else could I do?
15
Corrine stopped by that afternoon. “I heard you picked up Isabel Scutti.” First words out of her mouth. “She’s way out of your league, brother. How’d you pull it off?” Good old Corrine, never missed an opportunity to drive the knife deeper.
“My charm, what else? When did you hear about Isabel? What happened to my privacy?”
“You must have got her drunk. One thing led to another, eh? She had that reputation in school. There was a good story behind why everyone called her ‘Three Beers’.”
Three shots of Patrón Silver worked, too, but Corrine didn’t need to know all the details.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Corrine. What’s new?” She looked out the windows of the shop. She sniffed and touched the front door, feeling for dust.
“Smells like Lysol in here. You been cleaning up?” “Yeah, figured it was time to at least mop the floor. Didn’t you notice?”
She eyed the floor. “Hard to tell the difference. You must have been bored.”
“I’m never bored, believe me. There’s plenty going on in my life. But what I asked was, what’s new with you? What do I owe this visit to? Somebody else steal Panchito?”
“No, nothing like that. I had to get out of the house. I’ve been feeling . . . I don’t know what . . . nervous about something. Like something’s going to happen, and it won’t be good. I get these feelings every once in a while.”
“Yeah, and most of the time nothing happens. What could go bad with you? All the weird shit is happening to me, as usual.”
“I don’t know what it is. Like someone’s watching me, but I haven’t seen anyone unusual hanging around the house or anything like that.” She craned her neck to look up and down the street.
“Maybe it’s the cops. The doughnut squad’s hassling me about Artie. They were here earlier today and they stunk up the place so bad I cleaned up, as you noticed. They might have someone watching you, hoping that you lead them to the murder weapon so they can finally arrest me. That’s probably what it is. Just the cops.”
“That might be it, I guess. If I see them I’ll tell them you confessed. That should get them to leave me alone. You think?”
“You’re funny, Corrine. Funny like sitting on a cactus.”
Corrine didn’t laugh or smile or act in any way like she heard my flat joke. “This feeling of yours, it really has you worried?” I asked.
“I said that, didn’t I?”
“What do you want to do about it? I could stay with you for a few days. Maybe I’ll see something or someone.”
Normally she shot down a suggestion like that without any second thoughts. Corrine never needed a bodyguard or chaperone. She could be flighty, sure, but never uptight defensive. This time, though, she weighed my offer.
“Thanks, Gus. It’s all right. Imagining stuff—I must be getting old or something. You’re the one who should worry. At least I don’t have any gangsters after me.”
She left a few minutes later and when she did, she made sure to survey the street before she walked out the door. She turned and waved at me with a smile that looked as fake as her hair color.
Jerome’s house sat on a hill near the Willis Case golf course, not too far from I-70. The view offered the city skyline in one direction and the mountains in the other, each framed by the noisy, always busy freeway. He inherited the creaking, leaking Victorian house from an aunt who favored him over his brother and sister, for a reason he never explained to me. When he had the money he did what he could to fix up the house. He kept at least one project going at all times—kitchen remodeling, plumbing repair, landscaping—and the house never looked finished. Pallets of bricks, cans of paint and rolls of wire or sod cluttered the yard. Boxes of tile, shelving and windowpanes sat in corners and hallways. His purchases exceeded the time he had to devote to rehab chores, but he figured he would buy all that he could while he had the money. He worked with the materials on hand, seldom completely ending one job before he started another. He was good with his hands and had a designer’s eye. The house gradually came together and its disheveled, under-construction appearance looked better than the way I remembered it when Jerome first moved in.
I sat on his couch. I held a dark Dos Equis. He sipped on a full glass of red wine.
“That’s new.” I pointed at a massive painting of blue and gray naked bodies.
Several paintings hung on his walls, all by Latino artists but nothing typically “Latino.” He preferred what he called “the more modern,” odd shapes with bright colors, or highly stylized figures like the bare asses, tits and other body parts hanging on his living room wall.
“Who did it?”
“Young lady named Carla Martínez. I saw it at CHAC. One of those First Friday things. The gallery was packed, like it always is for that night. Quite a street party. I saw the artist standing next to this piece.” He pointed his wine at the painting. “Pretty thing. I didn’t know she was the artist, not until we talked for a few minutes, which was hard to do in the crowd. She’s doing a series, calling them her Blue and Gray Forms. This is #2.”
I looked again at the painting but I didn’t like it. I guessed it was technically all right, and the colors mixed well, but the nudity did nothing for me. I kept my opinion to myself.
“I’m going to be one of her models for #3.” He added that bit too carelessly.
“Naked?”
“Yeah, what else? That’s kind of the idea, Gus.” “You dog.”
“It’s not what you think.” His smile said otherwise.
“Right. You’re dropping your pants for art’s sake. I like it, that’s good. With all your crying about the economy, you must have bucks to afford that painting.”
He bobbed his head left and right—maybe yes, maybe no.
“I manage. I always have several irons in the fire. The painting? Carla lent it to me after her exhibit closed. I may buy it, don’t know yet. We’re working on the details.”
My man, Jerome. Whatever he said could have a double meaning, at least to a guy like me who read something into everything I saw or heard. Given Jerome’s history I had no problem taking Jerome’s words in their most sinister or devious meaning. His “other irons” had to be illegal. “Working out the details” with the artist meant he was hitting that. Sex and art, always a nice combination. Or he could mean nothing at all except the obvious, but that’s never where my head went concerning Jerome.
“Any ideas for me regarding my situation with the cops?”
“A few. It may be in your best interest to meet with the two . . . ”
A noise in the back yard—a squeaky gate—made him stand and peer through one of his windows, then we both rushed to the back kitchen. We looked at one another. He shook his head, an
d then reached up to open a cupboard door. I never learned what he hoped to find. The back door burst open. I heard splintering wood and the tinkle of broken glass. Four men carrying guns crashed through the kitchen door.
Jerome moved as fast as I have ever seen him move. He ran, more like rolled, to the closest corner where he picked up a hammer from a bucket of tools, but one of the gunmen knocked him down with the butt of what looked like an AK-47. A man with silver rings on his fingers pushed me into a wall and pressed a gun against my forehead.
The four men breathed deep and hard. They moved their weapons back and forth and I could see sweat on their faces. They forced Jerome and me to our knees. They pointed their guns at us but did not say anything.
Lorenzo Ortiz eased the battered door out of his way and walked into Jerome’s house.
“Look what we got here. Gus and his best pal. It’s a bad night for Gus’ friends.” He laughed his hyena laugh.
“Leave Jerome out of this. He’s got nothing to do with your sister or Baca.”
Ortiz ignored me.
He shouted orders in Spanish. “Let’s go. Get them to the truck. It’s your ass if we get caught. Let’s go.”
The man with silver rings stretched duct tape across my mouth and dropped a hood over my head. He jerked me to my feet, wrenched my hands behind my back and secured them with plastic restraints. He pushed me out of the house and down the back yard walkway. The alley gate squeaked when it swung open. Jerome grunted as he struggled and someone hit him.
Two of the men picked me up and tossed me into the bed of a pickup truck. They draped a canvas tarp over Jerome and me, and the truck moved. Ortiz had grabbed me again. My jaw still cramped from the last time his men stuck duct tape on me, my body still ached from the beating. What did this guy want?
About every five minutes I felt the barrel of a gun jab my ribs.
16
Ithought we were in the back of the truck for hours, but that came from my thumping heart and nauseous stomach. Jerome and I were dead, there was no doubt. Ortiz had snatched me twice, the first time to warn me off and this second time to carry out the threat. It had to be, and yet I didn’t know what it was that Ortiz thought I’d done that deserved my execution. But the gangster didn’t need a rational excuse, did he? He was a killer, a stone-cold murderer. That was what I tried to clue the cops to. Was I paying the price for being half-in, half-out with the police? I lay in the back of that shaking, noisy truck bed, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey ready for carving. I understood that I should have gone straight up to Reese and Robbins, but it was too late.