by Carl Weber
“So, basically, it’s true?”
I nodded my head. This news did not make him happy.
“Well, if you get out, what’s that going to do to me? You’re my biggest client.... Or am I just fucked?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be compensated. Most likely there’ll be a buyout. We’ll use the trucks and facilities for some of our other operations.” I actually expected him to find some comfort in my words. Like me, KD was getting up there in age, and a buyout would set him up pretty well. But his eyes told a different story.
“Buy me out! What the fuck do you mean, buy me out? I don’t wanna be bought out,” he said angrily.
“I don’t think you have much choice in the matter.”
“It’s my fucking company. Of course I have a damn choice!” he shouted.
I gave him a skeptical look. “KD, we are all going to need to distance ourselves from the company. Liquidation is the safest bet, legally and financially.”
“Are you trying to steal from me? Are you trying to take my company, you black bastard?” Even in the dark, I could see his entire face was bright red.
I glanced back and could see Junior and the bodyguard were both at the ready.
I raised my hands defensively. “There ain’t shit you got that I want, KD. The only reason we ever got into business was because I was assured my product would make it unmolested to its destination. So, no, I’m not trying to steal a damn thing from you, but there are people who want you to be kept in check.”
“Like who?” he asked between gritted teeth.
I placed my arm around his shoulder like we were old friends. “Let me give you a little advice. Those good old boys you used to be friends with . . . you know the ones who sent you up the river to teach you a lesson? Well, they’re placing another man in your old job, and he looks more like me than you. He does what he’s told, and they like that because all they give a shit about is money and power, which, these days, you have very little of by their standards. So, I wouldn’t be making any demands or threats right now, and when the time comes, I’d take the buyout and retire. Better to live your old age in a rocking chair than rotting away dead in the hot sun of the desert.”
He shook my arm from around his neck. “You always did think you were better than me.”
I gave him a smug smile. “Only because I am better than you, KD, in every way imaginable. But this isn’t about me. Ask around. You’ll see.”
Vegas
6
“Dad!”
Before I could step into the hotel suite, my son pulled me into a hug that nearly knocked me down. Though it had only been a few days since we’d seen each other, it felt like an eternity, so I could understand why he was so happy to see me.
“What’s up, son? You good?” I asked when he let go of me and we went inside.
“Yeah, I’m good. I just want you and Mom to stop fighting so I can go home.”
“I know. That’s what I want too.”
“I think we all want to stop fighting,” Consuela said as she walked into the living room. She surprisingly greeted me with a smile and gave our son an encouraging look.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought.
“However, there are some ground rules we have to discuss if we are going to co-parent. Rules that are not up for discussion.”
Then again, maybe she was going to be her usual hard-ass self.
“Consuela, before you even go there, I just want to say I’m sorry. I should have never given Nevada a condom. I was wrong.” I didn’t think I could get any more sincere.
She shook her head, and I could tell from her disappointed look that my apology wasn’t good enough. “This is not about a condom, Vegas.” She turned to Nevada. “Go to your room. I need to talk to your father privately.”
He turned to me, looking ready to protest.
I gave him a sympathetic look but told him, “Let me talk to your mother for a second, son.”
Nevada hesitated, but ultimately, he gave me another hug, whispering, “Don’t blow this. I wanna come home.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
He looked at me, then his mother, then finally left the room. I remained in the same spot. The tension was thick, and Consuela and I stood staring at each other in silence for a full minute before I decided I might as well be the one to speak first.
“What is this really about, Consuela?”
“Nevada’s not here because you gave him a condom.” She walked over to the bar and poured herself a glass of wine. She lifted another glass, offering me some, but I declined. “You’re his father. You’re supposed to give him condoms. That’s why I sent him to you, so you could teach him how to be a man.”
“Then what the hell is the problem?” I couldn’t help raising my voice. I was confused as hell and getting pissed.
“The problem? The problem is . . .” She sat on the sofa, staring up at me, and sipped her wine. “The problem is your whore.”
Oh, Lord. Here we go!
“Are you serious? What does Marie have to do with this?”
“She has everything to do with this. Do you think I want my son at a house where a whore and her working girls are welcome? What kind of mother would I be?”
I could see this leading to an argument, which was the last thing I wanted, but I couldn’t let Consuela distort the truth. “She’s not a—”
“No? Then what is she? What do she and those girls do for a living? ’Cause they sure as hell aren’t candy stripers.”
There was nothing I could say that would be right. I wanted to call Marie a madam, but I realized that wouldn’t have been any better, so I just stared at Consuela in silence.
“I don’t want my son influenced by a prostitute, Vegas, and neither should you,” she said. “The life we lead is hard enough.”
“What do you want from me, Consuela?” I asked in frustration.
“Same thing I’ve always wanted since the day I found out about that whore,” she snapped back.
“You want me to keep Nevada away from Marie?” I asked, and she nodded. “You are so wrong for this.”
“Call it what you will, but that’s what I want.”
“Fine,” I hastily agreed. At this point, I was willing to say whatever I had to so I could take my son home.
“That’s not all,” Consuela announced. “I want you to stay away from her as well.”
“What?” My voice was an octave higher than usual. I knew Consuela could be unreasonable, but this was over the top. “I’m not doing that! She’s my fiancée.”
“And you deserve someone better.”
“Someone better like who?”
“I can think of somebody in this room that would be perfect.”
The conversation was becoming more confusing by the minute. I didn’t know what kind of scheme Consuela was planning, but I had too much going on in my life and with my family to deal with it.
“You?” I shook my head emphatically. “No way.”
“Why not me? Don’t stand there and pretend that at one time you didn’t have feelings for me; that we didn’t have feelings for one another. And who can forget our chemistry?” She started winding her hips.
“Do you know how long ago that was, Consuela?”
“And?” she shot back.
“Where the hell is all of this coming from?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and even more since I found out about the whore,” Consuela replied. “Listen to me, Vegas. You are smart and successful. You need a woman by your side who can match the kind of man that you are. One who can help you plan and execute. You can’t be a power couple with a woman with no power. They’ll laugh at you.”
“Whatever we had between us died when you chose to go back to your husband—and then hide my child.”
“Our child. I hid our son to protect him. Alejandro would have killed all of us, including Nevada. I didn’t want anything to happen to you or to him, so I did what I
had to. I saved us. And now, Alejandro is dead, and we are alive. Don’t you want us to be a family?” She sounded like she fully expected me to understand and agree with her. I suppose there was some logic to the argument in her mind, but if there had ever been a chance of us becoming a family, this was a conversation we should have had a long time ago.
“He has a family. We don’t have to be together to be his parents,” I replied. “He not a baby anymore. I just want my son home, Consuela.”
Our eyes locked, neither one of us willing to bend to the other.
“Okay. Have it your way. But understand this: if Nevada comes back to your home, he won’t be coming alone. I’ll be coming with him, or else he’ll be on a flight back to California. Either way, our son will be living with me. Now, it’s up to you where he’ll be staying.”
“We’ll see about that.” I was two seconds away from putting my hands around her neck, so I turned and walked out before I hurt her. She might have thought she had me backed into a corner, but I would never let her keep me there. Consuela would soon find out she couldn’t win this fight.
KD
7
The temperature when I got back home to El Paso was damn near 110 degrees, and I was sweating my balls off. Even with the air conditioner in the truck on full blast, sweat dripped down the sides of my face. It was almost five o’clock in the evening, but the heat and humidity were still suffocating as hell. Patrick, my gorilla-sized nephew and driver, pulled off the main road and onto the long dirt roadway that led to the seventy-five acres of land bordering Mexico that we called the ranch. For ten miles or so, the only thing you could see was produce being farmed by migrants, and cows and horses, but eventually a large farmhouse and barn would appear, along with six out-of-place steel warehouse buildings a little farther in the distance. Alongside the buildings were about twenty cars, some farm equipment, and six or seven tractor trailers.
“Boss,” Patrick said, gesturing to the front of the barn, where three Texas Highway Patrol cars were parked randomly.
I nodded my head, and Patrick parked in front of the house, quickly getting out of the truck to help me out. Retrieving my Stetson, I walked around to the back, past the barn, to the entrance of one of the buildings.
“Welcome back, KD.” Wilbur, one of the ranch foremen, who was unloading boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables from the back of a pickup truck, tipped his hat at me. “How was the big city?”
“As good as one can expect, considering all the niggers, spics, towelheads, and Jews they got up there,” I told him.
“Well, you still gotta deal with the occasional nigger and a whole lot of beaners down here—and they’re just another form of spic, ain’t they?” Wilbur asked.
“Yeah, you’re right about that, but at least they know their place,” I said, using a crumpled napkin from my pocket to wipe my damp brow and neck. “I’ll say one thing about up north. It sure ain’t as hot as it is here.”
“Yeah, it’s been hot all week, and they say it ain’t gonna stop no time soon.” Wilbur wiped off his own brow with his sleeve.
“I see we got company.”
“Yes, sir. Over in building three. You want me to go with you?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’ll take care of it.”
“All right, then,” Wilbur said then went back to what he was doing.
I continued over to the third structure, past a tractor trailer, and went inside. Standing just beyond the entrance, looking very official with their hats on, were three Texas Highway Patrolmen. They all turned when they saw me, but the one in the middle with corporal stripes on stepped forward and said, “Daddy, you’re back.”
“How you doing, son?”
My son, Tyler, was my pride and joy. The only way he could have pleased me more was to have me a grandchild. We gave each other a big hug. When we released, I turned and shook his two friends’ hands.
“Steve, Peter. How you doing, fellas?”
“Fine, sir,” the Wildman brothers said in unison. They’d been Tyler’s best friends since peewee football, and I practically raised them after their daddy ran off and left their momma when they were in junior high.
The three of them went to El Paso State College and played football. It was only a Division III school, but they had fun, and I loved the fact that they were so close and I could watch their games every Saturday. They even won a conference championship and went to the Division III playoffs while they were there. They came to work for me after they graduated, then they all joined the Texas Highway Patrol a few years later.
I had my own motives for encouraging the boys to pursue careers in law enforcement. Despite my incarceration, I still had my share of support in West Texas, but what most people didn’t know was that I was secretly rebuilding my power base. These three boys would be at the center of it.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s here, Daddy.” Tyler gestured toward the back of the building. “Me and the boys was just about to have a chat with him when you walked in.”
“Well, son, I think I’d like to be a part of that conversation.”
Tyler smiled then began to walk toward a small office in the back. He opened the door, and sitting on a chair, looking scared as shit, was Johnny Brooks.
That black bastard jumped to his feet when he saw me. “KD,” he mumbled.
“How ya doin’ there, Johnny?” I took a few steps so that he and I were now standing face to face. I wasn’t but a few inches taller than him, but the additional two hundred pounds my body carried made it look like I dwarfed him. His nervousness amused me.
“I’m doing okay. I just wanna go home. Can I go home now?” He glanced at me for a moment, then down to the ground.
“Well, that all depends.”
His lips trembled as he glanced over at Tyler and the boys.
I eased closer. “How’d that last delivery go, Johnny?”
“It went fine.” Johnny nodded, his eyes still lowered. “Right on schedule.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
“Y–ye–yes, sir,” Johnny stammered.
“Then why the hell were you missing for twelve hours?” I slapped him.
Johnny finally looked up, trying to protect his face. “I–I di–di–didn’t go missing. I made the drop on time. I swear, KD. Call the dispatcher and ask them!”
“Ya know we got GPS tracking on the trucks. The GPS went ghost for almost twelve hours after you crossed the George Washington Bridge, and you didn’t answer our calls.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he replied.
“You don’t know nothing about that?” Tyler repeated, taking off his hat and getting in Johnny’s face.
“I parked underneath a bridge and went to sleep,” Johnny nervously spit out. “Maybe the bridge blocked the signal?”
“Maybe you turned that fuckin’ GPS off and went off the damn grid for twelve fuckin’ hours to talk to the feds.” I grabbed Johnny by the collar and pulled him so close to me that the heat from my breath caught him in the face. “Don’t play dumb wit’ me, boy.”
“I–I–I’m not playin’ witcha. I swear.”
“Johnny, Johnny. You do know I’ve taught these boys how to use police techniques to beat the shit out of someone without leaving a mark, don’t you? We will find out where you were even if we have to beat it outta you,” I added, which prompted the other boys to remove their hats.
Johnny’s eyes were as wide as the tires of the tractor trailer outside.
“Step aside for a minute, Daddy.” Tyler chuckled, rolling up his sleeves.
I glanced at Johnny and shrugged, stepping out of the way. “See, you left me no choice.”
Before Johnny could reply, Tyler smacked him three times, way harder than I had. “Where the hell did you go? And you’d better not lie to me neither, you li’l prick.”
“A’ight, don’t hit me no more,” he pleaded, lifting his hands to protect his face. “I–I–I went to get some pussy before I
made the delivery in the morning. That’s all,” Johnny sputtered.
“You what?” Tyler asked, his face so close to Johnny’s their noses were practically touching.
“I got some pussy.” Johnny’s eyes and voice lowered as he turned to me. “I got a little sweet young thing I been running after, and she finally decided it was time to give ol’ Johnny some. So, I turned the GPS and my phone off and parked the truck across the street from her place so I could see it. I’m sorry, KD. I couldn’t resist. She’s twenty years old and got the prettiest set of titties you’ve ever seen.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I released him from my grip, and he fell to the floor.
“Ha! Well, ain’t that some shit?” I snickered as I wiped my forehead again with the tattered, damp napkin. “He was getting some pussy. It all kind of makes sense.”
“Fuckin’ on company time? Is that allowed, Daddy?” Tyler chuckled.
“Must’ve been some good pussy to take twelve hours, Johnny.” I shook my head.
“Yes, sir, best I ever had.”
Johnny went to get up off the ground, but the toe of my cowboy boot struck him in the stomach, and he crumbled back down. He had enough sense to stay down while I talked.
“That’s for making my ass go all the way to New York looking for you and embarrassing myself in front of that nigger Duncan.” I kicked him twice more. “Now, you listen to me, and you listen good, you worthless piece of shit. When you’re making a delivery for me, you don’t fucking deter from the schedule—ever—with-out telling us where the fuck you’re going. I don’t give a shit if you’re pulling over to take a piss in the fuckin’ woods. We’d better know about it. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Johnny nodded rapidly like a damn bobblehead doll.
Tyler yanked Johnny to his feet. “And if that GPS ever gets tampered with again, it better be because you’re dead. Because if you’re not, you soon will be. Got it?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I got it,” Johnny panted.
“Now, get your black ass home and get some rest. You got another run in the morning,” I said.
Johnny nodded and hauled ass out of the building.