“We’ve been through a lot together.”
Cindy just smiled. Esteban liked her. There was something about her. She was different from the other women Amado had been with. It signaled to him that Amado had made a change.
“I know you’ve got friends at Telemundo.”
It was true. Esteban knew everyone.
“Cierto.”
“I’ve written a script for a telenovela.”
This took Esteban by surprise.
“¿Qué?”
“I wrote a script.”
Cindy interjected.
“It’s really good, too.”
Bob looked at Amado.
“That’s cool.”
Esteban was still trying to process the information.
“You wrote a script?”
“Sí. And I want to know if you could get someone at the Telemundo to read it.”
“¿Tu eres un escritor?”
Amado shrugged.
“Un guionista. Sí.”
Cindy looked at Amado.
“¿Guionista? What’s that?”
“Scriptwriter.”
Esteban and Amado locked eyes.
“Of course I will help. Seguro.”
“Gracias, Esteban. Muchas gracias.”
“De nada, amigo.”
Esteban looked over at Bob; Amado followed his look.
“I have a few things to clear up and then I’m going back to Mexico for a while. Roberto is going to look after things.”
Amado shot Esteban a look.
“Roberto?”
Esteban nodded.
“The favor I ask is that you watch out for him while I’m gone.”
Bob nodded.
“I might need, you know, a mentor or something.”
Amado smiled.
“I will always help Roberto. We are family.”
. . .
Thick smoke swirled around the ventilator as the air conditioning blew into the room. The smell of cordite hung in the air and assaulted Martin’s nose. It was stronger than any smelling salt and smacked him right out of his stupor. There were now lots of people in the room. Doctors, a few nurses, many policemen. One of the nurses was fixing the IV bag. That was a relief.
She said something to him about the dosage controller being damaged, but such technical terms didn’t matter as long as the narcotics kept flowing. The sheriff, his arm being bandaged by one of the doctors, turned to Martin.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Martin didn’t see anybody.
“Who?”
“The dead guy on the floor.”
Martin craned his neck. It was a horrible fucking mess. Broken glass, splintered wood, crap everywhere, and there, sprawled in a pool of blood, was Tomás Ramirez, as dead as a doornail.
Martin nodded.
“Yeah.”
Martin laid his head back down on the pillow.
The sheriff jumped up and screamed at Martin.
“Who the fuck is it? Huh? Gimme a name, asshole!”
The sheriff was, apparently, a little testy from the recent gun battle. He could use a nice, relaxing Demerol drip. But then, who couldn’t?
Martin found the little dial and cranked it. I don’t need this aggravation.
“Don’t yell, man.”
Martin watched as the sheriff’s face went through a few color changes.
“I’m sorry I yelled.”
Martin suddenly felt good. The warm waves of Demerol were back stronger and better than ever. But the situation had changed. He had credibility. A little juice.
“You didn’t believe me. You thought I was just some loser drug dealer in the desert.”
Several other policemen looked at the sheriff.
“I’m sorry. Okay?”
Martin didn’t think it was okay.
“You didn’t take me seriously. Why should I talk to you?”
“I’ll take you seriously now.”
“Too late.”
The sheriff moved to smack Martin, but his wound or whatever it was suddenly caused him great pain. He moaned and collapsed in a chair.
“Who do you want me to call?”
Martin thought about that. Call the president. Or better, call that rock star guy who’s always doing things to help political prisoners. I’m a political prisoner.
“I want to make a deal. I want immunity.”
“Then you’d better tell me who you want to talk to.”
Martin liked that. The sheriff wasn’t important enough to talk to. Now everyone knew it. Martin was important. He was a big-deal criminal. A political prisoner. Soon there would be concerts at Dodger Stadium to raise money for his defense fund, to raise awareness of his plight.
“The dead guy’s name is Tomás Ramirez. Call the LAPD. They’ll know who to send.”
Martin cranked the Demerol dial. He saw Dodger Stadium, filled with thousands of people, all of them wearing T-shirts with his picture on it. Freedom for Martin! Freedom! A band hit the stage amid flashing lasers and lots of smoke. The lead singer, his hair perfect, his sunglasses still on, pumped his fist in the air and started the chant. “Free Martin! Free Martin!”
Maybe they’d let him sing on their next CD.
. . .
Chino Ramirez tied his blue bandanna around his wrist as tight as he could, using his teeth and his good arm to pull it. He had lost some blood, but not too much. He got out of his car and hustled over to the pay phone as quickly as he could. He knew he had about twenty minutes to either ditch the car or get the hell out of town, before the genius policemen would look at the hospital parking-lot security camera’s videotape and see him walk out and drive off.
He dialed a number, waited for the beep, then punched in the number of the pay phone where he was. He hung up the phone and looked at his watch.
Chino kept his eyes scanning the road for any signs of police activity. As he did, he fumbled around in his pockets until he pulled out a folded square of paper. He’d need something to cut the pain once the initial shock wore off. He wished he had nailed that fucking cop. Who knew that Martin would be guarded by some kind of psycho jarhead? They’d come in, stolen some threads to look like orderlies or whatever they were. Walked down the hall with a bucket and a mop. Nobody’s ever going to bother a Latino with a bucket and a mop. You look like you belong.
They get to the room, pull their guns, and move in real quick. Next thing they know some guy’s got like twelve guns out and he’s just emptying the clips at them. Chino didn’t even get off a shot before he was back out the door and moving his ass as fast as he could down the hallway. He turned and saw Tomás take eight or nine hits before he went down. That’s when he caught a ricochet in the wrist. Even though he was in a hospital and could’ve used a doctor, Chino salió. No point in hanging around for more pain.
The phone rang. Chino explained what had happened to Esteban.
. . .
Bob had watched Esteban as he talked on the phone with the producer from Telemundo. It seemed that Esteban had, once upon a time, arranged for some competitor of this guy to lose his green card and then just disappear. Now Esteban was calling in a favor.
So that was how it worked. People did favors for people and expected those favors to be returned someday. Everyone helps each other up the food chain.
Bob realized that he’d need a lot of favors from people, a lot of help. The banking end of it, moving money around, talking to investment bankers, that had all seemed pretty straightforward, pretty easy. The other part of it, laundering the money, moving it from the trunk of a car, letting it filter through a dummy corporation, a telemarketing business, the phony payroll of a nonexistent construction company, a chain of fish taco restaurants, and a boxing gym; that part seemed too complicated. Wouldn’t it be easier to just declare it as money earned doing something in Mexico? Then you could pay the taxes, and call it a day. Esteban had already built up a phony reputation as a papaya farmer. Why not say the money was from papayas
? Why not actually buy a papaya plantation?
Esteban made another call, this time to a friend who would manufacture a fake identity for Bob. He’d get a U.S. passport, driver’s license, social security card, everything. Esteban turned to Bob and asked him what he wanted to be called. Bob liked the name Roberto, but didn’t really know what to use for a last name. Esteban suggested “Durán,” that way Roberto could say his name was “Roberto Durán,” like the boxer. Everyone would remember that.
Bob liked that. Maybe he’d go to the boxing gym and take some lessons.
Get in shape.
The third call Esteban made was not a good one. He was returning a page. Bob heard Esteban’s voice fall, then become short, curt, explosive bursts of questions.
Esteban hung up and turned to Bob. They had work to do.
. . .
Don watched as the kid behind the counter cut some clumps of bright green grass and shoved them through a juicer. A liquid that looked more like an industrial cleaner than a health panacea leaked out into a funnel. How could she drink that stuff? Don had ordered something a little more, well, tasty. He’d gotten one of those giant fruit smoothies. The kind that give you repeated brain freezes and taste like Styrofoam by the time you get to the bottom of the massive cup. He watched as Maura knocked back the shot of wheatgrass juice in one gulp. He shuddered.
But then Maura did lots of things that made Don shudder. Like having sex while holding a loaded gun. What was up with that? She had told him it gave her power, it was her axis mundi, a talisman, a fetish object. Don just thought it was a loaded fucking gun that could accidentally go off. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t sexy. It was scary. Like wheatgrass juice.
His cell phone rang, and much to Don’s surprise he found Detective Flores on the other end. Flores told him about some guy who had turned up staggering around in the desert and was now in a hospital in Palm Springs. Don figured Flores was just too lazy to get in his car and drive out there, so he was dumping it on him. But when Flores mentioned that one of the Ramirez brothers had been killed trying to get to the guy, well, Don couldn’t wait to go. Whatever was going on in Sola’s crime crew, it was big. If Esteban had to send the Ramirez brothers all the way to Palm Springs to whack some guy, well, maybe this guy had something to say about it.
Don wanted to get to Palm Springs fast, before Esteban sent someone else to finish what the Ramirez brothers had started. In fact, he didn’t even stop to drop Maura back at her office. She was just going to have to park that sweet wheatgrass-drinkin’ ass in the car and ride out with him. Which, as it turned out, was fine with her.
. . .
Bob entered the house and found Felicia standing on a ladder painting flowers along the top of the wall. She turned and looked at him. It was the kind of look that everyone hopes for when they come home. Her face lit up, her eyes twinkled, a laugh escaped from her body, and her smile was the best thing Bob had ever seen in his life.
“Hola, corazón.”
“Hi, sweetie.”
Bob came up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He gently lifted her off the ladder and set her down so he could look into her eyes and kiss her sweetly on the lips.
“I’m making pozole.”
Bob didn’t know what to say. For a brief second he wondered why, when it was like ninety degrees out, he was going to be having hot soup twice in one day, but that thought quickly passed.
“I have to go to Palm Springs.”
“For how long?”
“Just for the night. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Felicia’s smiled turned into a pout.
“I don’t like it, Roberto. No me gusta.”
Bob was afraid that she’d react this way. It’s so hard to balance a career and a relationship these days.
“But Felicia, honey, it’s my job.”
“You should get another job. I don’t want to make love to a killer.”
Bob laughed.
“I’m not a killer.”
Felicia wasn’t convinced.
“Isn’t that what you do for Esteban?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I haven’t killed anyone. I mean, I hit a guy on the head with a shovel, but I kinda had to and it didn’t kill him.”
“Really? You’re telling me the truth?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Do I look like a killer?”
Felicia laughed.
“Honestly, no. But that’s what I thought made you a good killer, because you didn’t look like one.”
“I’m not a killer.”
Bob could see the smile return to Felicia’s face. But just as her grin was starting to light up the room, it shorted out.
“Then what do you do for Esteban?”
“Well. I don’t know. I’m kinda new. Right now he just wants me to look after his money, keep the business running. I guess I’m an executive or something.”
“An executive?”
“I guess that’s what you’d call it.”
Felicia bit her lip.
“Do you know how to manage?”
Bob grinned.
“I’m learning.”
. . .
Amado sat in bed, just wearing an old cotton robe. He had his laptop on his lap, and he balanced a cold beer on a fat Spanish dictionary that lay in the middle of the bed. Cindy’s beer was next to his. She sat on the other side of the bed wearing a tattered Fugazi T-shirt. She had her laptop open too.
Amado looked up from his work. He looked at Cindy and realized that for the first time in his life he felt content. He wasn’t working in the fields, he wasn’t stealing a car or hijacking a truck. He wasn’t carting narcotics from a van to a storage unit somewhere. He didn’t have to go hunt someone down and kill them. He didn’t have to clean up any bone chips and guts. And best of all, nobody was going to try to kill him for sitting in bed wearing his robe and writing. He was safe. He was content.
Cindy didn’t look up from her work. She was concentrating. Amado smiled to himself and got back to work.
The only sound was the clicker-clacking of laptop keys and the occasional soft belch.
They both had a lot to write about.
Twenty-one
DON HAD TO think of something. He couldn’t very well tell the sheriff that he had brought his girlfriend along for the ride. So he told him that Maura was an assistant district attorney. The sheriff bought that without blinking, perhaps because he was admiring Maura’s cleavage, and proceeded to tell Don and Maura about his day.
He took them down to the morgue to identify Tomás Ramirez’s body. Don didn’t want Maura to see something so gruesome, but there she was, standing right next to him as the sheriff pulled the sheet back and showed how he’d hit Ramirez in the torso nine times. Each bullet hole was neatly circled with a red marking pen, not that you’d miss them; they were black, nasty-looking wounds. The sheriff was proud of his work; his only regret was that he hadn’t dropped the second one, but that guy hightailed it out of there like a scared jackrabbit.
Don felt like asking about the twenty-four shell casings found on the hospital room floor. If nine bullets went into Ramirez, where’d the other fifteen end up? Ramirez’s gun had been fired once, a shot which had managed to hit the sheriff in the arm, and that shell had been found in the hallway.
Don watched as Maura asked the sheriff lots of questions about the kind of guns he used, how he liked them, and which gun had landed the most shots on target. For a vegetarian, she sure liked guns.
Don interrupted the impromptu gun seminar and asked the sheriff if he could see the suspect. He wanted to get his statement as soon as possible.
. . .
Esteban drove. Every now and then he’d look over and see Bob fidgeting, looking out the window. It reminded Esteban of himself when he was young. All the excitement, the nervous energy. The great people he’d met. Like everything in life there were some bad moments, some close calls. But, all in all, it had been a fun ride. They’d work
ed hard and played hard. Now, after twenty-some years of it, Esteban realized that he was tired. Tired of maintaining the tough-guy facade that used to come so naturally for him. Perhaps the money, the cars, the women, the lifestyle had softened him. Amado had warned him. Amado, despite all the money he’d socked away over the years, continued to live in a modest apartment in the barrio. He drove a dirty Ford Taurus. He ate at taco stands and drank in local bars. Amado had never gone far from his trabajadores roots. He was a tipo. A normal guy.
But then that enhanced Amado’s onda. He was misterioso. A samurai. It gave him an edge. People thought of Amado as dangerous. They thought of Esteban as dangerous, too. But in a different way. Esteban was a shogun, a warlord, a businessman. It was not about who he was on the inside.
When he thought about it too much, he had to laugh. Being a gangster is such a superficial thing.
Bob rolled down the window and sucked in a big gulp of air.
“You okay, Roberto?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Nervous?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Bob didn’t say anything for a minute.
“Esteban? Can I ask you something?”
“Claro.”
“I wouldn’t normally bring this up, but how much are you paying me?”
“You want to know what you are worth to me?”
Bob nodded.
“Sí. Exacto.”
Esteban smiled.
“Muy bien, Roberto. Tu hablas español.”
“I’m learning.”
“Qué bueno.”
Esteban had to grin.
“How much do you think you should make?”
Esteban watched as Bob thought about it.
“I’ll be honest with you, Esteban, I don’t know what the going rate is for . . . you know, whatever it is I do.”
“You will make a lot of money, Roberto. But I will give you some advice. If you take the money and spend it, the tax people will find you, the police will find you, the federales will find you. You can’t go spend the money.”
“So what do you do with the money?”
“You put it away. In a box in a bank, or in a business somewhere.”
Moist: A Novel Page 22