The Wrong Goodbye tc-2

by Chris F. Holm

  He shook his head as if to clear it, and when he met my gaze again, his eyes were dry. “Ain’t no use crying, I suppose. You gotta take the hand the good Lord gave you, and do with it the best you can. Tell you what —how about the three of us go and grab a little breakfast, and then y’all can drop me at a bus station so I can head back home. That bitch can wait a spell to get her filthy mitts on Bertha, and I could use a little grease to soak up what’s left of this tequila.”

  After a moment’s consideration, I agreed. After what Gio and I had put him through, it seemed to me the least that we could do. And hell, if an hour or so of playing along meant that we could drive this baby free and clear a couple days, then it was time well spent.

  So Gio pulled back into traffic, and we continued on our way. I was oddly cheered by Roscoe’s presence, and I was heartened by the fact that he believed us to have a legitimate claim to take his car. This quest to recover Varela’s soul had thus far proved to be quite the pain in my ass, so it was nice to finally catch a break.

  Of course, the problem with being damned is there’s no such thing as a lucky break. And as much as I liked Roscoe, I had no idea at the time what a lousy idea it was to let him tag along. If I knew then the cascade of awful that call would kick off, I swear I would’ve given the man his car back on the spot. Reunited with his precious Bertha, Roscoe could’ve been on his merry way, and me and Gio would’ve been free to hitch a ride the last twenty-odd miles into town —no harm, no foul.

  But I didn’t know. So instead of making the smart play, I carried blithely on —oblivious to the disaster that awaited.

  16.

  If it weren’t for Rosita, none of this shit would’ve happened.

  Don’t get me wrong —I’m sure that she’s a lovely person. And if she isn’t, how the hell would I know? I’ve never even met the woman. But if she hadn’t gone and plopped her diner smack in our fucking way, we wouldn’t have wound up in such a goddamn mess.

  I guess I should’ve known better, but at the time, all I was thinking of was getting rid of Roscoe without a hitch, and the hand-painted “Rosita’s Diner —Nothing Finer!” billboard made the place look divey enough you just knew they could fry up a mean egg. Plus, the stretch of I-10 just south of Las Cruces was nothing but farmland and trailer parks, which at the time made Rosita’s seem like a godsend. I figured we’d stop long enough to pour some coffee into Roscoe, get him a bite to eat, and call the guy a cab, and that would be the end of that. Hell, I was even going to pay. OK, fine, Ethan was —but still, a gesture’s a gesture. The way I saw it, it was the least that I could do. But unfortunately, that’s not how things shook out.

  Just the sight of the place as we pulled up was enough to put a smile on my face. Rosita’s was built around an old Valentine Industries lunch counter —those squat little red-and-white diners so common to the Southwest in the decades following the Second World War. Sure, the paint had faded a bit, now more rust-and-sand than red-and-white, and the original railroad car design had been expanded over the years with a series of squat cinderblock additions, painted white and wodged on here and there at random. But still, the sight of the old diner, and the salty-sweet scent of its well-tended griddle, brought me back —back to a time when Danny was a trusted friend, and every meeting with Ana crackled with the spark of possibility. Back when Quinn was a smiling, happy child who dreamed he’d one day be an engineer, building cities out of blocks in his mother’s tidy Belfast garden.

  I should’ve known right then Rosita’s would be trouble. Those times are long gone now. Ain’t nothing going to bring them back, and I’m a sentimental fool for wishing otherwise.

  Our problems started in the parking lot. Two black-and-whites, parked nose to tail —their engines running, their drivers chatting amiably over paper cups of coffee. Another cruiser sitting vacant in the lot. We hadn’t seen them before we pulled in because the bulk of the parking lot was tucked out of view around back of the rambling hodge-podge structure. In retrospect, I should’ve realized they’d be here —there wasn’t anyplace else nearby for folks to go, and it’s not like the cops along this stretch were all that busy. A little all-night place like Rosita’s probably topped up their thermoses for free —a small price to pay for a guaranteed police presence in the wee hours of the morning. Helps to keep out the riff-raff —riff-raff who might otherwise be inclined to rob the place. Problem is, it also works on riff-raff like Gio and me, who are just looking for a bite to eat.

  Gio was the first to spot them. He’d been regaling Roscoe with stories of car-thefts gone awry, repurposed —for the sake of conning Roscoe —as repossessions one and all. They’d been getting on like fast friends, laughing and cursing and bragging loudly to one another in the way that both cowboys and gangsters do. Then we rounded the corner of the building and Gio clammed up mid-sentence —his posture jerking ramrod straight, his hands suddenly at ten and two on the wheel. The Caddy rocked on its suspension as he slowed it to a crawl. The way he was acting, he may as well have lit a fucking flare.

  “Uh, Sam?”

  “I see them,” I replied through gritted teeth. “Keep driving.”

  Gio had us rolling at about a half a mile an hour. Ants were zipping past us on the ground below. “A little faster than that,” I snapped.

  Roscoe glared at me through narrowed eyes. “You boys want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing,” I replied, perhaps a bit too quickly.

  “Nothing —right. That why you’re trying your damndest not to catch the cops’ attention?”

  “Roscoe,” I said, my voice as calm and even as I could manage, “this is really not the time.”

  “But–”

  “I said not now. I like you, Roscoe —I do. Which is why I’m going to ask you nicely to please shut your fucking mouth before I’m forced to do something we’ll both regret. Sit tight and I promise you that everything will be just fine. Or don’t, and see what happens.”

  At that, the color drained from Roscoe’s face. He looked from the cops to me and back again as though wondering whether he should try to make a play, but my words must’ve had their intended effect, because a moment later his shoulders sagged, and suddenly he looked old and frail and deflated. Satisfied, I nodded at him and turned in my seat, facing once more forward. We’re just three friends out for a drive, I thought as loudly as I could, hoping against hope the cops would pick up on the vibe.

  “Gio,” I said, “get us out of here —quietly.”

  Gio obliged, piloting the gigantic Caddy on an excruciating lap through the lot and heading out the way we came. I prayed they hadn’t noticed us. I knew that in this parade float of a car, they couldn’t not.

  What I didn’t know was whether they had traced the Fiesta back to Ethan yet, and if they had, whether the Feds had managed to distribute our descriptions. I told myself they couldn’t possibly have worked that fast —that as far as these dudes knew, we were just a carload of guys who, on second thought, didn’t want to brave the twenty minutes’ wait it’d take for a table to open up.

  Yeah, I didn’t really believe it, either. And even if I did, it didn’t matter. Eventually, the BOLO would go out on us, and when it did, there wasn’t a question in my mind these boys would remember having seen us. Which meant soon enough, every copper in Las Cruces would have eyes out for us —and that would damn sure put a damper on my plan to track down Dumas.

  After what felt like a freakin’ hour, we cleared the diner’s parking lot, the Caddy’s whitewalls crunching as they gripped the gritty desert road. I set my jaw and forced myself not to hazard a glance back, so loath was I to meet the gaze of the officers who were almost surely staring after.

  “Either of y’all feel like telling me what that was all about?”

  We were weaving through the patchwork farmland on the outskirts of town, Gio turning left or right as I instructed. Fields of onions and green chilis raced by on either side, rustling gently in the morning breeze and fillin
g the air with their vegetal scent. Gio hadn’t said a word since we’d left the diner parking lot, and apart from the occasional directional command, neither had I. That was OK, though —Roscoe had been talking enough for the three of us, peppering Gio and me with question after fruitless question.

  “You boys in some kind of trouble?”

  “There,” I said to Gio. “On the left.”

  Gio nodded. Coming up on our left was a massive, leaning barn, the wood bleached gray by sun and age. A pair of rutted tracks, overgrown with fragrant desert sage, led from the shoulder of the road to the place where the barn door once hung, though it didn’t hang there any more. Now the entrance was a gaping maw that led into the darkness beyond —a darkness dappled here and there with narrow beams of sunlight, which streamed in where the roof had rotted through.

  The Cadillac rocked along the dirt track and disappeared into the gloom. Inside, the air was close and thick and sickly sweet; a thin sheen of sweat sprung up across my borrowed skin, plastering my clothes to my frame. Gio cut the ignition, and I hopped out of the car, watching from the doorway of the barn to ensure we hadn’t been followed. For a time, I heard nothing but the beating of my meat-suit’s heart. Then Roscoe broke the silence —his voice low and quiet and full of fear.

  “You boys ain’t repo men, are you?”

  “No,” I said, “we’re not.”

  “So you’re what, then? Car thieves? Common criminals?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ah, come on, Sam —tell him!” This from Gio.

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “For one, telling him won’t go well. Believe me, it never does. And for another, it’s not safe.”

  “Seems to me, he’s involved now whether we fill him in or not —so what’s the harm?”

  “You’re not getting me,” I said. “I mean telling him isn’t safe for us.”

  Gio blinked in disbelief. “After all you been through today, you’re afraid of Roscoe here?”

  “I’m afraid of a lot of things,” I said. “Unnecessary complications, for example —which is exactly what Roscoe here would be if we told him. Simply put, he doesn’t need to know.”

  Roscoe looked from me to Gio and back again, squinting against the darkness. “What? What aren’t you telling me? What don’t I need to know?”

  “We’re Grim Reapers,” Gio blurted. “We’re on a mission from God!”

  “Excuse me?”

  I sighed. “Ignore him, OK? Gio —shut the fuck up.” But Roscoe wasn’t about to take my advice. “Grim Reapers,” he said. “Great. I fall asleep for a couple hours, and I’m abducted by a couple of goddamn loonies!”

  “I’m being serious!” Gio insisted.

  “Oh. Good. You’re being serious. In that case, I believe you. Does that mean I can go?”

  Gio bristled at Roscoe’s sarcasm, but I just frowned and shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, not unkindly. “But you’ve seen us. You know where we are. What we’re driving. I can’t let you walk out of here —there’s too much at stake.”

  It was then that Roscoe noticed what I’d been doing. While we three had been talking, I’d popped the trunk, and riffled through it until I found what I was looking for —a length of yellow nylon rope of the kind used to tether the trunk closed when transporting oversized loads. Given the loft-like spaciousness of the Caddy’s trunk, I’m guessing its use would be limited to packing up other, smaller cars.

  “Sam, no,” Gio said, his voice strained by sudden alarm.

  “Gio, shut up and mind the door. The last thing we need now’s another witness.”

  Gio’s face twisted into a silent plea, visible even in the murky half-light. I held his gaze a moment, and with obvious reluctance, he did as I said, shuffling over to the doorway and standing guard.

  I coiled the rope around both hands, and pulled taut a two-foot length of it between them. Roscoe’s eyes widened in fear, and he tried to back away, but the Caddy blocked his path.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Please.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to, but there isn’t any other way.”

  “I’m begging you, don’t do this. Just take the car and go —I won’t tell a soul, I swear!”

  “I’d like to believe you, but right now, I can’t take that risk.”

  “But I got grandkids.”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied. “It’s nothing personal.”

  I was on him in a flash. The whole time, Gio never turned around —unwilling or unable to, I’ll never know. For a little while, old Roscoe put up quite a fight. But eventually, Roscoe wasn’t fighting anymore.

  When the deed was done, I slammed the trunk, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The keys I’d found in Roscoe’s pocket, so this time, no hotwiring was necessary. I slid them in and thumbed the ignition, and the old girl sprang to life.

  “C’mon,” I said. “We’re going.”

  Gio shrugged then, looking tired and drawn, and plopped heavily into the passenger seat. I backed the Caddy out of the barn, leaving nothing but gloom and silence behind.

  17.

  “I don’t see why you had to do it, is all.”

  “I told you, Gio —he would have been a liability.”

  “A liability! A liability how? Maybe if you’da taken a sec to properly explain the situation, he’da wound up on our side!”

  “Explaining the situation to his satisfaction was going to take a hell of a lot longer than ‘a sec’ —and chances are, he wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

  “I believed you fine,” he said, his tone that of an insolent child.

  “Yeah, but you I brought back from the dead —and in another body, to boot. That goes a long way in the convincing-you department.”

  “Still,” Gio replied, “you didn’t hafta to get all drastic.”

  “I’m sorry —is the hell-bound mob enforcer going soft on me?”

  Gio bristled. “I ain’t going soft —I just liked the guy, is all.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Gio —it’s not like I killed him. And once we get to where we’re going, I promise I’ll let him out of the trunk, OK? I just can’t have him making trouble if we run into any more cops.”

  Gio muttered something, but I didn’t catch it.

  “I’m sorry —what was that?”

  “I said he’s probably hot in there. We shoulda given him a bottle of water or something.”

  “The guy is bound and gagged, Gio —what the hell’s he going to do with a bottle of water?”

  “I guess,” he said, but he sounded unconvinced.

  “He’ll be fine. Besides,” I said, glancing down at the real estate circular —picked up at a convenience store a few miles back —that sat open on my lap and then back up at the street before us, “it looks like he won’t be back there much longer; we’re here.”

  Here, in this case, was Cuesta Verde Estates, a tidy little development a few minutes north of downtown Las Cruces —or, at least, it would have been a tidy little development, if the project hadn’t been abandoned years back when the market tanked. The ad in the circular promised “SEVERAL UNITS AVAILABLE! PRICED TO MOVE! FINISH TO SUIT!" —all music to a would-be squatter’s ears. I counted twenty-four homes on the single, winding drive, ranging in state from finished, just inside the charming flagstone sign that marked the entrance of the development, to skeletal frames draped in Tyvek and sheets of plastic as the pavement gave way to fifty feet of dirt track before vanishing into the desert beyond. Only the first three or so looked to be occupied. The rest sat vacant, their many FOR SALE placards swaying gently as one in the warm desert breeze. I checked the clock in the dash. It was barely 2pm. That meant what few people actually lived here were likely all at work or school or wherever.

  For now, the neighborhood was ours.

  I piloted the Cadillac down the empty street, past the well-tended yards of the occupied houses, and into a stretch marked by heat-cracked earth and overgr
own by desert scrub. Here and there, the pavement jutted a couple feet to the left or right of the main drive, and the curb followed suit, curving to accommodate these tiny on-ramps to nowhere. They were no doubt intended to allow for future development should the need arise; I’m sure whoever plotted out Cuesta Verde saw modest taupe houses on every tenth of an acre for miles around, on streets named Mesa and Arroyo and the like. Now those preparations for expansion were nothing more than a painful reminder of headier times too far gone to even hope that they’d return.

  “There,” I said, nodding at an unfinished house around the bend from the entrance to the development, obscured from view of the occupied homes by the two that came before it. “That’s the one.”

  Gio heaved a sigh that sounded like a balloon deflating. “I still don’t see why we can’t stay at a motel.”

  I shot him a look that would’ve made a small child cry. Gio just blinked back at me from amidst a pile of crumpled cellophane wrappers and empty Coke cans —his face full of crumbs, his expression blank. “Well, for starters, I just spent the last of Ethan’s cash on food —food that was supposed to last the three of us at least a day. And I’m sure the cops’ve flagged Ethan’s credit card accounts by now, which means we even try to get a room, they’ll be on us in minutes. Then there’s the matter of the stolen Caddy and the pissedoff Texas oilman in the trunk, which as far as I’m concerned makes parking anyplace where there’s witnesses a pretty crap idea.”

  “Hey, it ain’t my fault I ate all that shit —this dude you stuck me in was fuckin’ hungry. ’Sides, Roscoe’s gotta have a little dough on him, right?”

  “Not a dime. I checked his wallet —plenty of plastic, but any cash he had went the way of the G-string last night.”