Immortality Is the Suck

by Riley, A. M.

  what looked like Scotch or bourbon half filling it. Judging by the almost empty

  Johnnie Walker bottle standing next to it, I'd guess bourbon. No ice. Now

  Peter's a beer drinker. Almost exclusively. It was a wonder he could walk.

  Over there on the dining table, I saw a couple boxes and a bunch of old

  photographs spread across its surface. Damn if they weren't most of them of

  me. Or of me and Peter.

  I picked up one that went back to the fishing trip we'd gone on, right after

  graduation. In retrospect I could see it all there. The way I looked at him, my

  arm draped over his shoulder. The glorious smile on his face as he grinned at

  the photographer.

  Two horny guys in denial. It made me laugh. “Can't believe you saved

  this,” I said to him, tossing the photo back into the box and walking over to the

  refrigerator. “You got anything to eat?” I asked.

  He looked at me with swollen eyes. “I should have known you'd haunt

  me.”

  I brought stuff out of the refrigerator and built myself a four-inch tower of

  roast beef, ham, and tomatoes. My stomach was rolling and creaking like a

  ship at sea. I stuffed half the sandwich in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed it

  before I realized that it tasted like mushy paper.

  “You got any spicy mustard?” I asked.

  Peter laughed into his glass. It wasn't a happy laugh. Then he stood,

  pitching off the stool, snatched up the glass and bottle, and staggered into the

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  A. M. Riley

  living area where he threw himself facedown on the sofa. I rummaged through

  his kitchen until I found Tabasco sauce.

  Now the sandwich tasted like mushy paper with Tabasco sauce on it.

  Gross. I ate it all anyway. My stomach grabbed hold of it. Studied it. Cramped.

  “Jesus…” And I ran for the bathroom.

  * * * * *

  I'd been in the same position many times. Sitting on a pot, waiting for my

  insides to deal with whatever poison I'd inflicted on my body. One had been

  that time Peter had helped me get clean.

  After a few minutes, I heard Peter's stumbling footsteps in the hallway;

  sounded like he was running into walls. He stopped outside the open doorway

  and stared at me sitting on his toilet. “Ah, memories,” he said. And then he

  melted down the wall opposite until he was sitting, legs splayed out to either

  side, bottle resting on the wooden floor between them.

  My bowels seemed to be taking a rest break, so I reached behind myself

  and flushed the toilet.

  Peter just sat there, goggling away at me, drunker than I've ever seen him.

  “You look like shit, by the way,” I told him. “What the hell is wrong with

  you?”

  “My best friend died,” said Peter. “The motherfucking son of a bitch.”

  I assumed he was referring to me. Pretty big assumption, maybe, because

  I haven't been much of a friend to Peter.

  “I can explain,” I said immediately.

  This cracked him up. “Of course you can.” He drank some more, straight

  out of the bottle, then pointed the bottle at me, which made him lose his

  balance. Poor Peter was so drunk he couldn't even sit straight. “Nobody can

  fuck up bigger than you can, Adam. Nobody. You managed to get a DEA agent

  killed, while screwing up a homicide investigation and, may I add, letting me

  watch you die.”

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  19

  “I didn't die.”

  “You asshole. You'd even lie about that, you fucker.”

  “I didn't die,” I told him. “Somebody screwed up.”

  “It's always somebody else's fault, isn't it, Adam? You lost enough blood to

  float a boat. You died.” Peter tipped back the bottle and drank the last ounce or

  so in there. Then he let the empty fall to the wooden floor and kind of pushed it

  away. His hand scrubbed at his eyes. “And now your ghost is fucking with me.”

  “You're drunk,” I said. “There's no use talking to you when you're like

  this.”

  “You're dead,” said Peter. “And there's no use telling you what a son of a

  bitch you are while you're like that.” And he lowered his head into his hands.

  “So why do you keep telling me?”

  Head buried in both hands, he was making some pretty disgusting noises.

  Sniffling and snotty and mumbling and he said, “Okay, maybe I've still got

  some things to say. Maybe that's why you're here.”

  “I told you, Peter. I need your help. They still think I'm dead, so…”

  “But you never wanted to hear it, so it's as much your fault as mine…”

  “I figure tomorrow morning when the ME finds my body missing and the

  bloody corpse on the table there…”

  Peter looked up from his hands. “Bloody corpse?”

  The cramps were starting up in my stomach again and I bent over,

  groaning. “Fuck, Peter, I'm dying here.”

  Peter kind of crawled back up the wall, using one hand to pull himself to

  his feet. He stood there, swaying, and looking down at me. “Deal with it,” he

  said. “I'm going to bed. When I wake up, you'll be gone. By the way, you fucker.

  I love you.”

  And he staggered off down the hallway. I heard the bedroom door slam.

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  A. M. Riley

  A cramp reached all the way from my anus to my throat and tried to

  disembowel me. Good. I deserved it.

  Immortality is the Suck

  21

  Chapter Four

  I spent the next hour or so waiting for my body to dispose of the ill-

  begotten sandwich. In between the worst moments, I mulled over the events

  leading up to my supposed demise.

  Like I told you, I'd been working undercover for LAPD Vice. Specifically, a

  long-term assignment in tandem with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and

  Firearms, or ATF. I'd spent the last three years infiltrating the Outlaw

  Motorcycle Gang, known as the Mongols. The Mongols were one of Los

  Angeles's most powerful OMGs, running drugs and guns from LA to Phoenix to

  Texas.

  The operation had ended in eighty-six local arrests, with charges ranging

  from illegal possession of firearms to rape and murder. I'd received a medal,

  handshake from the mayor, five seconds of fame on the local news and an

  urgent recommendation that I retire and move elsewhere, before the vengeful

  Mongols enacted their promised vengeance.

  But I was loath to leave town. For a lot of reasons, one of which was

  passed out in the nearby bedroom.

  My CI, and the man who had helped me infiltrate the Mongols in the first

  place, a certain Leonard, a.k.a Freeway, Chavez, also had reasons to linger in

  East Los, despite an OMG death sentence. Some personal, some financial. It

  was the financial reasons that he and I had in common.

  Freeway and I had been smuggling drugs together for three years. Of

  course, it was all part of my cover. I'd never skim off the top or keep a little

  something for myself. Of course not. That would be wrong.

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  A. M. Riley

  Like I said, I figured I was headed for Hell.

  A few days back, Freeway had heard of a dude named Starz who was

  supposed to be moving a large quantity of meth through Los Angeles. Rumor


  was he'd ripped off La Eme, the Mexican Mafia, and now found himself in the

  unenviable position of possessing a lot of meth and a lot of cash, with no

  connections or pipeline by which to dispose of either. In Southern California

  that's like a fox walking among a pack of hounds carrying a bag of scent. Dude

  was desperate for someone to take the meth off his hands, transport the payola

  back to a bank in Mexico, and distract La Eme long enough for him to escape

  in one piece.

  The fact that this Starz had such a large quantity of ice, and that there

  was, purportedly, several hundred thousand in small unmarked bills out there

  in search of a home was of interest to yours truly and my friend Freeway.

  It should have been simple. I'd meet with the guy, facilitate a few

  connections. Spread a little of his green here and there and, with a small

  broker's fee pocketed by yours truly, he'd be well on his way through San Diego

  county before the narcotics officers I'd tip off descended and took out the trash.

  Given what had gone down, it seemed somebody had misrepresented the

  situation. Color me surprised.

  None of this explained why Peter would have been there when the meet

  went down. Peter was Homicide Special. The proverbial crème de la crème of

  detectives. He worked out of Parker and only on high profile or sensitive

  homicide cases.

  I couldn't think of any reason Peter would have been down in the Marina

  while yours truly was meeting a meth distributor.

  Obviously it was a setup. But who had set up whom? And why?

  I cleaned myself up a bit as I considered my next moves. I needed my bike,

  my cell phone, a certain small black book. I splashed water on my face, found

  Immortality is the Suck

  23

  Peter's comb there on the sink, and looked in the bathroom mirror for the first

  time. And that's when I got a big shock. 'Cause I wasn't there.

  I opened and closed the medicine cabinet door. I held things up to the

  glass. The things were there, floating in the air, disembodied, but my reflection

  was not.

  I was a ghost. What the hell?

  But wait. Can ghosts use the can and stink up the place in the process?

  Can ghosts fuck skater boys by the Santa Monica pier? Had I imagined that? I

  went into the kitchen, where I found the evidence of the mess I'd made

  preparing my sandwich. I cleaned it up, thinking about anything I'd ever heard

  about ghosts and it was just not adding up.

  I peeked in at Peter who was still passed out on his bed. After his parting

  words I was loath to wake him.

  So, I prowled the condo for a few minutes like the trapped animal I was,

  then I went into the living room and switched on the set while I tried to think.

  And guess whose murder was being featured on the ten o'clock news? They'd

  dug up some old picture of me in my blues shaking hands with the mayor and

  they were going on about what a big hero I was. It was a very old picture,

  needless to say. None of my contemporaries would have recognized me. They

  had a picture of Starz too, looking clean-cut and wholesome in a suit and tie

  and they told me that he was an agent for Drug Enforcement.

  What a clusterfuck. I was up to my neck in crap. I could see that.

  I grabbed Peter's landline up from the end table and dialed a number from

  memory.

  “Freeway, ' mano. It's Adam. If you're watching the news now…” I was cut

  off by a computerized voice. “This mailbox is full.”

  I cursed and slammed the phone back into the cradle.

  “LAPD has issued these photos,” said the newscaster. And then they put a

  picture of one of the two “assailants” up on the screen, and I recognized the

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  A. M. Riley

  corpse I'd fought with down in the morgue. He was a Richie Ortiz. A “known

  associate” of the Mexican Mafia, and last known to be residing in Tijuana,

  Mexico, where he was wanted for money laundering and gun running.

  According to the news, there was a “citywide” investigation and they wanted

  any information anyone could provide about who might have offed me and DEA

  agent Armante.

  Now, I'm no Rhodes scholar, but even I could see that just calling the

  precinct and telling them I wasn't dead was not the way to handle things.

  So, I went back into Peter's room and thunked on him a few times. “Hey,

  dude. Wake up. I've got a real problem here.”

  He moaned. See? How could I be a ghost if I could elicit moans from a

  man who was dead drunk? I shook him and he swatted at me but he didn't

  seem about to wake up. And, while sitting there, I noticed the framed

  photograph on Peter's bedside table.

  The picture was of me and Peter, still in our academy days. We were out

  on the rifle range and he was looking down at his gun with a sheepish smile

  and I had my arm slung around his shoulder, smiling at him. I had no idea

  who had taken the picture, but I wondered how they could have snapped that

  shot without seeing what was so obviously between us.

  It made me remember things, that picture.

  I jumped up from the bed. Memories are like snakes. They'll bite you on

  the ass. And thinking had never been my strong suit anyway. It was time to

  take action.

  According to the clock on Peter's microwave, it was only 11 p.m. There

  were places in Los Angeles where that was normal business hours. I searched

  around the condo and quickly found the keys to Peter's other car and, exactly

  where he always kept it, Peter's old service Smith & Wesson. Bullets in the

  shoe box in the lower left corner of the closet.

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  25

  The gun was registered to Peter and if one of its slugs showed up

  anywhere it shouldn't, he'd have my head. But you didn't go where I planned

  on going without a weapon.

  I found a wad of bills in the cookie jar that added up to roughly fifty

  bucks, which would have gotten me about five miles if Peter hadn't kept the old

  beaten blue Cadillac in his garage with a full tank. As it was, I had enough to

  purchase a prepaid cell phone at the nearest service station.

  An old canvas windbreaker of Peter's that tugged at the shoulders and a

  pair of mirrored shades and I was good to go.

  I wanted my bike, but I wouldn't be recognized in this old heap. I wasn't

  used to traveling in a cage, though. The old interior smelled like mildewed

  upholstery, gunmetal, and the sickening pine air freshener hanging from the

  radio knob. I tossed the pine tree out of the window. The wheel was overlarge

  and seemed to respond ten seconds after every twist I gave it. It was like flying

  a crop duster as opposed to a jet and it took me awhile just to back out of the

  garage. As I headed out, the Caddy swayed and careened on the road like the

  driver was drunk. Then the soft tires squealed and the tail yawed left as I

  turned right onto the freeway, headed south toward my old stomping grounds

  and Freeway's home in Boyle Heights.

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  A. M. Riley

  Chapter Five

  Boyle Heights, from the 5, looks like a pretty stretch of little ticky-tacky

  boxes, sprinkled with Christmas lights.
And if that's all you see when you look

  at it, I suggest you stay on the freeway and just keep driving until you get to

  San Diego.

  For years Boyle Heights was agricultural land. Acres of frequently flooding

  “flats” and the small lump of Mount Washington on the east side of the Los

  Angeles river isolated, in the early years, from the growing urban west side.

  Recent immigrants and minorities lived there until Boyle and Hollenbeck

  bought up the whole thing and developed it. The mayor of Los Angeles built

  bridges and for a while the area was opulent and pretty. Those people moved

  on, leaving behind crumbling mission-style houses and a new population of

  poor and immigrants.

  “The Flats” has the highest gang crime rate in Southern California. Here,

  the tagging is a serious form of communication and rarely does anyone argue

  that “it's an art form.” As I rolled off the ramp, I noticed that the “Mosca”

  inscribed on the stop sign there had been sprayed over with a cross and the

  name “Charra.” Either a threat or a brag. Charra had either taken down Mosca

  or intended to in the near future.

  I pulled off the freeway a little north, in the slightly more affluent Mount

  Washington area, and let the Caddy roll slowly along the road that skirted the

  base of Mount Washington. Stepping-stone residential blocks climbed, one

  beige and pink stuccoed square after another, up to the more imaginative

  buildings pitching off the top of the mound of earth that gave the area its

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  name. Due to erosion and bad building codes, those homes teetered overhead

  like something from a Dr. Seuss illustration.

  I saw no motorbikes, no one wearing colors, and kept to the back streets,

  passing though Lincoln Heights, then west on Mission past the medical center

  and the county morgue, under the freeway, skirting the RTD and Amtrak bus

  yard so that I could creep up on my old stomping grounds.

  I could see no one on the streets and most of the homes were dark. A cat's