Bad Country: A Novel

by CB McKenzie

  The kid had drugs in his system and had dope on him when he was found.

  But he wasn’t high.

  The detective shrugged. He did time at the Pima County Juvie Center for selling nickel bags at a couple of high schools and middle schools, so he’s probably connected to a gang, said the cop. It’s still an open case and will stay that way, so don’t think we’re covering anything up.

  I didn’t think that, Clint.

  The detective realigned the trophy on the desk slightly.

  What gang does anybody think Sam Rocha was in? asked Rodeo.

  I could check with Detective Haynes, who heads our gang task force, but he’s up at John Jay in New York City at some criminology conference at that college of justice. The policeman shifted in his seat and looked directly at Rodeo. What’s your interest here? Overman asked. Maybe we need to get that straight first off.

  I got hired to look into this Rocha kid’s death is all, Rodeo said.

  Hired by who?

  I’d prefer to keep that under my hat since it’s just a routine follow-up. I’m in and out in a day.

  Overman shrugged. Like I said it’s an open case, so anything you get is ours by law anyway. You got anything yet?

  Rodeo shook his head.

  Well, if you do come up with something it comes right to me, got that?

  You handled the Samuel Rocha case? asked Rodeo.

  I did.

  Who found the body?

  Horseman, said Overman. And there’s nothing there. The guy who found the dead body is just a guy who rides the river every Saturday morning. Horse got spooked by the smell … The detective brushed at his eyes. That’s all in the papers. He readjusted the soccer trophy on his desk again so that the little striker aimed the ball out the window. The policeman looked out the window too as if following the potential path of the prize ball. And I can tell you there’s not much in the file that’s not in the papers, so don’t ask me to see the file. Overman aimed his watery eyes back at his guest and adjusted the kicker so that his foot was aimed at the door. I’m busy now, so …

  I guess my free pass is about run out around here? Rodeo asked.

  Nothing personal, said the lawman. It’s just that I’m trying to put all that behind me and you remind me not to.

  You don’t owe me anything, Clint.

  I never said I did. The detective sighed and pressed his fingertips into his bloodshot eyes. But as bad as it was for me, the Constance Case was still a potential career maker for me, the cop said. So I might still get to Phoenix on that one high-profile case if I can keep my shit together. He paused. So I won’t forget you for the career boost, at least. But this Rocha kid, he’s just a drive-by and you know how prosecuting a drive-by can be. If all the assholes and related persons keep their mouths shut there’s not much we can do. The cop stared at his shaky hands and then stood. I need to get back to work now.

  Rodeo stood and held out his hand but Overman walked past him and opened the office door.

  Call next time, the TPD detective said.

  * * *

  Tucson, Arizona, is a schizophrenic place, a small city that feels like a big town divided into discernible sections based mostly on money and ethnicity or occupation or some hybrid admixture of these with most of the conservative Anglo retirees on the northern edges, protected in gated communities around golf courses, and with the liberal intelligentsia and college kids huddled around the University more or less in the middle of the valley, with military spreading out from Davis-Montham Air Force Base on the east side and with Mexicans and lowriders and cholos in South Tucson and increasingly in EastSide, and with bars and saloons and dives everywhere there were people, and a few places where there weren’t even many people.

  The Buffet opened early for the chronic regulars and stayed open late for the acute frat boys and sorority girls who liked to slum. Rodeo established himself near one end of the horseshoe bar, took off his hat and laid it crown down on the carved-upon wood. He put his saddlebags with his laptop and maps and notebooks on a stool beside him. A middle-aged woman was behind the horseshoe bar, her glass eye fixed at some spot slightly above Rodeo’s left shoulder. Rodeo ordered a shot and a beer. The waitress slid a shot of house brand between his hands and placed an iced stein of beer on top of his twenty-dollar bill and moved away to wait on another customer. Rodeo threw back the shot and chased it with a long drink of Coors Light. There was not much custom in the place, not enough people to require conversation, so he pulled a spiral notebook from his bag and a Bic and started to work.

  First he sketched the layout of Sam Rocha’s death with Starr Pass Road bridge as one boundary and A-Mountain as another with the Rio Santa Cruz in between. He drew an arrow showing Sam’s path across the bridge and Xs where the kid had most likely been hit on the bridge and where he had landed under the bridge. He drew a line from halfway up A-Mountain to the X. He drew a B for Billy on one side of the dry river.

  You an artist, cowboy? the barkeeper asked.

  She had crept up on him. She raised an eyebrow above the glass eye at the shot glass but Rodeo shook his head and she plopped the shot glass in the wet sink.

  Just thinking, said Rodeo.

  You draw pictures to think? the woman asked. You dyslexic or something?

  My daddy said I was just plain retarded.

  Join the Bad Daddy club, the woman said. She moved off to the other side of the bar where two summer school college boys were testing their afternoon limits against a pair of cougars working on multiple margaritas. A patron fed the jukebox old school rock and roll.

  When Rodeo looked away from the barmaid and her patrons he noticed an angular Anglo wearing an MIA-POW cap covered in red, white and blue buttons. The man’s beard was long and yellowed with nicotine, his eyes were beach glass gray. The old Vet raised his mug in a salute.

  Hot one today, idn’t it? the man asked.

  104’s not so hot if you’re inside with a cold beer, said Rodeo.

  I’m not going to say it’s a dry heat though, the man said. Then people will know I’m not from around here.

  That a fact? Rodeo asked. You’re not from around here?

  Nope. Idaho.

  What brought you down here?

  Dry heat, the man said. The man laughed again and pulled on his long beard. ’Struth though. I loved Idaho. I loved the attitude up there, you know. Independent. Survival of the fittest. But the winters are real hard up there. The Vet hospital here is good, so I come on down here.

  You sick? asked Rodeo.

  I got Agent Orange, you know? the man said. From the government. My own fucking government tried to kill me while I was in its very service. Can you believe that shit?

  Not much I can’t believe about the government of this country, mister, Rodeo said.

  Rodeo knocked off his beer then waggled his finger between the man and himself. The bartender refreshed the mugs and made change for three beers and a shot out of Rodeo’s twenty and placed the money on the bar.

  Much obliged. The man’s voice was slurred. But don’t get me started on Bureaucracy. Clusterfuck is what it is. Ought to blow the whole caboodle to shit and start over.

  I sometimes feel that it’s hard to get anything done through regular government channels, Rodeo said.

  ’Struth. Not but one man man enough in government around here to get shit done and that’s the Tea Party fellow Randy Miller and the liberals are trying to kill him outright.

  That a fact? asked Rodeo.

  ’Struth, said the barhound. All over the Internet, idn’t it? Assassination plot on Randy Miller ’cause he’s running for Congress and that scares the shit out of them liberals. Ronald told me all about it.

  Rodeo leaned forward. The Viet Vet tilted his head and looked down his long nose at Rodeo.

  You Mescan? he asked Rodeo.

  My mother was Italian-American. Her people came to this country from Sicily in the 1800s, said Rodeo. I’m Black Irish on my daddy’s side. His people
came over during the Famine, way back when. Daddy was a roughneck in the East Texas Oil Fields and he served in WW Two, Infantry, IndianHead Division. Rodeo told these practiced lies easily.

  No shit, the man said. Your old man was in the Second? Landed on Normandy?

  Rodeo nodded though this was also not true.

  What’s your name son?

  Rodeo looked around the bar carefully to make sure nobody there actually knew him. Early, Rodeo said. Bill Early.

  Olin, the man said. He didn’t supply a last name or offer a handshake.

  Who is this “Ronald” you’re talking about? Rodeo asked. He reached into his pocket for his billfold but the bartender unceremoniously shut Rodeo’s party down.

  Y’all are cut off and out of here, the woman said. She stared at Rodeo with her one good eye. Rodeo shrugged and pushed his half-empty mug toward the old man who killed it.

  Let’s move on, Olin, Rodeo said. Buffet’s not the only place we can drink.

  ’Sonly place I’ll drink. Olin wobbled off his barstool and without a backwards glance stalked out the door.

  Rodeo watched him leave.

  You’re next, cowboy, the bartender said.

  I’m looking for a friend of Olin’s, Rodeo said. He slid the photo of the solo hunter out of his billfold and placed it atop the money on the bar. “Ronald Rocha” is who I’m looking for.

  The bartender looked at the blurry photo quickly, put her hand over it and pulled it into the wet sink, soaked it for a few seconds and then shredded it in Rodeo’s face.

  You need to drift, Cowpoke, she said. And you might not want to drift back this way.

  Rodeo claimed his change without leaving a tip and left the bar. He walked around the neighborhood for ten minutes looking for Olin, didn’t find him, so headed back to Arizona Motel.

  * * *

  Rodeo sat alone on the edge of the Arizona Motel pool and watched his dog swim laps for no reason. Rodeo heard the truck before he saw it, the throaty rumble rolling into the parking lot like the prelude to a storm. Sirena ran the black Chevy 4 × 4 fast over the speed bumps and parked right under the ramada of the bar-b-que near the pool in the middle of the horseshoe of the motel. Rachmaninoff’s “Moscow Bells” were muted abruptly when she shut the truck down.

  The dog swam to the pool’s edge, struggled up the steps and ran to the chain-link fence where he stood panting as he pressed his nose against the gate wire like he was trying to escape jail.

  Hello, boy, said Sirena Rae Molina. You been missing me?

  Rodeo’s former girlfriend unlatched the gate, bent down and rubbed the old dog’s head until his tail almost wagged out of joint. She stood up and let the gate shut behind her as she stepped onto the pool deck. Rodeo could hear her undressing but he did not turn around to see how far she would go toward naked. A sleeveless pearl-buttoned shirt landed nearby enough for him to smell her scent of White Shoulders as his bad hopes rose against his best intentions. Her boots hit the deck and then a bucklebunny belt that once had been his.

  She stepped into the pool. Her blue-jean cutoffs were trimmed short so her butt cheeks showed on the bottom side to complement the g-string whale tail showing off on the top side and the wife-beater she wore was cut ragged just below her breasts as if she had torn it with her sharp, white teeth.

  Sirena swam to the deep end under water and then surfaced and rolled onto her back and floated for a minute then breaststroked back to the shallow end wall of the pool where she folded her elbows on the concrete, turned toward the man and his dog and rested her head on her arms. Rodeo had to restrain the dog from jumping back into the pool.

  Rodeo’s white feet in the water kicked like fish struggling against a strong hook, a short line and a heavy sinker. Rodeo let the dog loose and the dog scuttled to the woman and started to lick her face. She giggled and played with the dog until she got bored and then she thumped him firmly on the nose with a blood red fingernail and the dog moved away a few feet and circled three times, lay down and whined for more of the woman’s attention.

  Your dog still loves me, Sirena said.

  That dog never had any sense, Rodeo said. That’s why I got him.

  He always loved you the most, Ro, so maybe you are right about that dog. I’m sure you’ll break his old heart one day too just like you broke my heart, you mean old mule rider. Sirena sighed out dramatically. Left me all by myself, didn’t you?

  I’m sure you hooked up with somebody the night I moved back to Vista Montana. Rodeo looked at Sirena’s profile.

  Because I need company, the woman said. She looked at the sky as if at an audience, then looked at Rodeo.

  Rodeo looked away from his ex, looked at the swimming pool.

  I was upset because you dumped me, shitheel, Sirena said. And I don’t like to get dumped.

  I didn’t dump you, Sirena. Rodeo steadied himself on the shallow edge of the deep pool. I told you you had some serious psychological issues and when you threatened to kill me in my sleep I suggested you and me might be well served with some time apart and when I moved back to my place you tracked me down in the desert and damned near shot my dog to death.

  I was high, Sirena said. You know I wouldn’t hurt that stupid dog on purpose. He loves me.

  She cooed at the dog near Rodeo but the man held the dog down.

  I know sensible behavior often seems crazy to you, Sirena Rae. And I know how you treat things you love, Rodeo said. My dog still has shotgun pellets in his ass.

  The dog whined as Sirena shook out her big head of hair.

  If I am crazy it’s because I have PTSD from what my daddy did to me when I was little and everybody knows that.

  I don’t know that, Rodeo said.

  The woman raised herself up and eased her wet breasts onto the hot concrete. My momma was, you know, she said.

  Was what?

  Bone deep crazy. Sirena sighed. Went from Hollywood Playboy Centerfold to Arizona Desert Lunatic in ten short years. But Daddy pushed her to that.

  I didn’t know your momma, Sirena, said Rodeo. But I know Ray. And I know he’s generally sensible, so I doubt what you say.

  What do you think about me, Ro?

  I think you want something and while I don’t know what it is exactly you want from me I doubt it’s any good for me. And I doubt what you want from me is talking psychology about your family which you probably been doing in rehab therapy for weeks.

  Sirena steamed on the concrete. I thought you loved me once, Ro. Wasn’t that true? You were my knight in shining armor once, weren’t you? The woman did not seem to be engaged in a real conversation as much as following a script she had already written.

  I don’t think so, said Rodeo. He looked at Sirena, who looked like one million dollars. I think you are a woman who’s got a very poor self-image and some bad daddy issues and many chemical addictions who lives a high-risk lifestyle and latches onto men for a while now and again when it suits you because you think they might help your poor self-image and then you build these men all up and make out like they’re great but then when these men don’t solve your problems you treat them like shit and try to shoot their dogs. Rodeo took in and let out a deep breath, glared at Sirena.

  You obviously been waiting a while to back that truck up and unload that pile of shit, Garnet. Sirena smiled a prizewinning smile. You read one of your momma’s library books or something, cowboy?

  Yes, I did, Rodeo said. He looked back at the swimming pool. The water in front of him was calm but the traffic behind him was raucous. I read up on psychology a lot after you almost killed my dog. And what I read described you just perfect.

  You think I’m borderline, don’t you?

  The woman said this like she knew what the man was talking about.

  I know you go through men like hotcakes, every one of them your knight in shining armor until you start hating them then you turn them into enemies who are the root of all your evils.

  Admit it, Ro … Sirena laughed her coffee a
nd cigarettes laugh. If I were a man, going through women like you say I go through men you’d just think I was a Big Swinging Dick, wouldn’t you?

  You’re not a man, Sirena, said Rodeo.

  Sirena shifted nearer to Rodeo and cupped a hand to make some waves. I think that’s been established between us, the woman said. She looked at his crotch and licked her thick lips.

  Rodeo stood as best he could, navigating his tumescence until he was wrapped in his thin motel towel. Sirena leaned over the pool edge, pulled her cowgirl shirt to her and extracted a pack of Marlboro Reds and a Zippo from the pocket, lit a cigarette and moved to the steps where she leaned back against the wall of the pool. Her silicone breasts floated in the chlorinated water. She ashed her cigarette into the pool.

  I might be at BoonDocks later on, Sirena said. Buy a girl a beer for old time sakes?

  When Rodeo moved toward the gate the dog reluctantly followed him. Rodeo stopped at the gate. Did you actually want anything, Sirena? Other than jerking my chain?

  Sirena smoked and shrugged.

  You used to like it when I jerked your chain, cowboy. In fact you liked everything I did to you with chains.

  I used to like a lot of things, Sirena.

  But now you don’t like anything? the woman asked. Not even Sirena anymore?

  Nope. Not anymore.

  You’re no fun, Rodeo.

  I never was fun enough for you, Sirena. You need fun on a whole other level.

  I guess that’s in my blood. Momma was wild and crazy. Sirena looked at the blue sky. And Daddy was crazy too, in his day. And wild. Mean and wild. Sirena blew more smoke from her cigarette and then paused and looked into the smoke she’d sent. He was asking about you the other day, Ro. I think he still imagines you might one day be his son-in-law and run the old rancho and be sheriff just like him, just like in the movies.

  I doubt any of that is true, Sirena.

  Well, Daddy is in a state and he’s sure nervous about something.

  There’s a lot for Apache Ray to be nervous about, said Rodeo. You not the least of it.

  He thinks the murders in Los Jarros are all related, Sirena said.

  Related to what? Rodeo asked.