Picaro
by Terry M. West
Copyright © 2017 by Terry M. West
Published by Pleasant Storm Entertainment
Visit the author at http://www.terrymwest.com
First Electronic Edition
All rights reserved. No part of these stories may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it."
Jean de La Fontaine
Houston, Texas
July 17, 1984
Sweet Daddy was dead. He was worse than dead.
Binh Pham dropped the small Piggly Wiggly bag of groceries to the apartment rug. He choked on the foul air, poisoned by the rot of Sweet Daddy's corpse.
Binh covered his mouth with one hand and closed the door behind him. Blood was everywhere. Binh had spent the night with a john he met on Montrose Boulevard. He had no idea how long "Sweet Daddy" Richard Mosley had been dead. But everything had hardened and invited flies.
Sweet Daddy's large frame tilted back in his favorite recliner. His black skin was now closer to a blue shade. His large stomach carved open, there was a mangled mess of organs and bloodied clothes. The gore trailed to his large boots. They had a tiny apartment. It was the most they could afford for a River Oaks zip code. It looked completely drenched in Sweet Daddy's blood. Every inch of it.
Sweet Daddy took him in three years ago. After Binh's parents threw him out. He became one of Sweet Daddy's baby boys, as he liked to call the young men he managed. Sweet Daddy had many clients who contacted him for an evening with one of his baby boys. Binh had quite a following. It was a dirty business, and when it was slow Binh still had to hit the streets and hustle. But Sweet Daddy was kind, caring, professional and not violent.
You catch more bees with honey than vinegar he had said quite often.
Binh knew the man three months before they fell for each other. The depth of their emotional relationship was never publicly proclaimed. But it was evident and no one challenged it. They shared deep dreams. And now Sweet Daddy was gone. Binh felt lost.
Binh approached his murdered lover. He drew closer to the stench and horror that would be forever branded on his brain. He stared down at Sweet Daddy's dead face. The pimp's eyes were dull. Something was shoved in his mouth. Binh reached out and gripped Sweet Daddy's chin. As he lowered it, something fell from Sweet Daddy's mouth. It tumbled into the gory pit that had been a large belly. It was a flaccid and blue penis.
They fed him his own cock!
Binh screamed. He turned and vomited into the mess of murder on the floor. Weeks ago, Sweet Daddy started running coke for a Mexican named Tomás Martinez. Binh thought Tomás, a hulking man with a scar that ran through his dead left eye, was bad news from the start. But everyone loved Sweet Daddy. He had no enemies. His reputation was solid.
"Don't worry, lover," Sweet Daddy had assured Binh. "Dates are the perfect place to sell a little coke. Party favors. Up sells. We are going to make a lot of money. Tomás is a business man. He knows me. I'm not stupid enough to fuck him over. This is our ticket to Knollwood Drive, baby boy."
Something had gone wrong with the arrangement. Binh had thought Tomás and his men border town thugs. But this was punishment and a message for others. Sent drug cartel style. What the fuck had Sweet Daddy gotten them into?
Binh stumbled into their bedroom. It was ransacked. He went to their sock drawer that had a false bottom and discovered their money was gone.
"Shit," he cried.
He grabbed a duffle bag. It was stuffed with Sweet's Daddy's workout clothes that had never seen a gym. Binh dumped the contents. He stuffed what little possessions of his that weren't destroyed inside.
He noticed a picture of Sweet Daddy and him on the floor. Pulled from a frame. Sweet Daddy gave a cavernous grin to the camera, but Binh's side of the photo was torn away.
Oh fuck. They have my face. They have my fucking face.
Binh tugged his beige running shorts off and found a pair of jeans. He pulled them on. He jerked a long sleeve western wear shirt from the closet. He wrapped it over his tank top. Binh spotted an Astros ball cap and pulled it down on his head.
He rushed back through the living room. But he'd never call it that again. Murder room. He muttered Daddy, Daddy, Daddy to the body but didn't stop to give his man a last look.
Binh rushed out the apartment door and the boiling humidity struck him. He fearfully expected to see Tomás' black Ford Torino Cobra parked at the curb. But he didn't.
Binh had to disappear before those psycho wetbacks found him. He had money left from the night before. But not much. He dug into his jeans and fished for quarters. Binh walked to the corner phone booth.
***
Binh woke, his cheek propped under a stack of brown napkins that kept his flesh off of the sticky diner table. He was groggy. Binh lifted his head, a napkin glued to his face by saliva.
He wiped his eyes and regarded Karen Grove. She was a middle-aged widow who took care of him from time to time. She was on the heavy side, but a sweetheart. Her teenage son had died in a car accident about a month after her husband passed from emphysema.
Karen was a sad and lonely lady. She had picked Binh up on a street corner a year ago. She paid to mother him. She fed Binh. Washed his clothes for him. Slept next to him and rubbed his black hair until he fell asleep. It was weird at first. But there was nothing sexual in their arrangement. Karen just missed being a mother.
"You have got to see a doctor about your condition," Karen said. She held a cigarette in an inverted peace sign to the side of her face. It was one of those long female cigarettes that only aging housewives and drag queens smoked.
"It's not so bad," Binh said.
He pushed his cold fries with hardened gravy and cheese aside.
"The waitress had a fit. Thought you were drunk or something. I had to explain to her that you got narcolepsy," Karen said. "You were going to tell me what the emergency is before you passed out. Is it that awful boyfriend of yours? Has he been hurting you?"
"No. Of course not. I'm in trouble, Karen. There are some dangerous people who want to find me."
"Then you got to go to the police and report it," Karen insisted.
"The police won't do anything for me. I'm a yellow fag, Karen. A pe'de. They'll try to use me as an informant or something. They'll get me killed and call it good riddance."
Karen reached across the table and grasped Binh's hand. "Come stay with me. I'll protect you. I got a cabinet stocked with bad plums. And I can shoot center. My husband may have been worthless for the most part, but he taught me how to fire a gun."
"It's too dangerous. I won't get you killed. I just need to borrow some money."
Karen pulled an envelope from her purse and slid it across the table, like in a spy movie.
"It's two hundred," Karen said. "It's all I had in the house. If you can wait until tomorrow, I can get you more when the bank opens."
"No, I can't. I should have been out of Houston hours ago," Binh said, pocketing the envelope. "This'll get me a good distance from here. Thank you, Karen. You've been more of a mother to me than my own."
"You get over here and give me a hug," Karen said, pushing her large frame out of the booth.
Binh stood and she hugged him hard.
"Be safe," Karen whispered to him. "Let me know you're okay. When you can."
Karen let him go, snatched her purse from the table,
and left him there. She was crying. Binh didn't like seeing her upset, but he let her leave in that state.
He sat back down in the booth and tried to figure his next move. Binh couldn't take a bus. If he passed out, who knew what could happen to him or where he would wake up. He glanced through the diner window, and watched Karen pull out of the parking lot. After she left, his eyes caught a reddish-orange Buick Riviera parked at the curb. There were Mexicans inside. They looked like they were scouting the diner.
Binh's heart raced. How could they have known where he was? Unless they were watching him when he discovered Sweet Daddy's body. He let out a choppy sigh when the car lurched into the lane and pulled away.
Thank Christ.
Binh noticed three eighteen wheelers humming in the diner lot. He glanced around until he spotted an older gentleman. He sure looked like a trucker. He wore a snapback hat that advertised a motor oil and he was only drinking coffee. The man sat at a square center table rather than a booth. He was reading a newspaper.
Binh approached the man. "Excuse me, sir? Could I talk to you for a minute?"
The man looked up and regarded Binh. "What can I do for you, son?"
"Do you drive one of those semis out there?"
"Yep. That white and yellow CRST? That's mine."
"Sir, could I get a ride with you?"
The man looked puzzled. "You don't even know where I 'm going."
"It doesn't matter. If it's out of Houston, that's good enough."
The man motioned to the chair across from him. "Sit down."
Binh took the seat.
"You in some kind of trouble, son?"
"No sir. I just want to get to El Paso. But it isn't easy for me. I have narcolepsy. The sleeping disease."
The man's eyes widened in sympathy. "I had a cousin who had that condition. He'd be carrying on a conversation, fine and dandy, then-"
The man snapped his fingers. "Out like a light. It hits you like that?"
"It can. It doesn't always. Sometimes I only nod off for a second or two. But I can't drive a car. And I can't take a bus. People might steal my stuff. Or try to hurt me."
The old man nodded. "Yeah, this world is full of degenerates. But I ain't going the best direction for El Paso. You'd be better off waiting for someone who's going down the 10."
"Sir, I lost someone recently. I want out of Houston. I just can't be here anymore, and it's hard to find someone I can trust."
"What's your name, son?"
"Binh Pham," Binh said, extending his hand across the table.
"I'm Gene Reynolds," he said, giving Binh a firm but mindful handshake. "My trailer's empty. I'm going home. Home is in Madisonville. I can take you that far. Then you can try to find another ride."
"Thank you, Gene," Binh said.
"Let me finish my coffee, then we'll mosey out of here."
***
Binh woke when the semi's brakes hissed. He was sweating, though the truck was blasting cool air in the cab. He picked his head off of the passenger's side window threshold and looked to Gene.
"You're out of Houston. Only about an hour and a half out. But you're out," Gene said, opening his door and climbing to the ground.
Binh picked his bag off the floorboard and exited the truck. He had to make a small leap to get to the pavement.
The truck was parked at a gas station. The sun was starting to set. Binh had to walk to Gene's side to see what sat across the street. A truck stop and Chicken Shack rested on the other side of the small dirt road that fed from the I-45.
"You weren't kidding about how bad you got that narcolepsy," Gene said. "You went right out before we got five miles. If you hadn't of groaned and twisted around here and there, I'd have taken you for dead."
"Yeah. I'm sorry I wasn't better company."
"You were fine. I shot the shit with a buddy on the CB while you were down."
Gene pointed toward the interstate. "You'll have to take the 45 until it peters out. Dallas. You'll see a bunch of interstates. You'll take the thirty to the twenty and then the ten. Easy enough to remember. The ten will lead straight into El Paso. It's gonna take twelve hours or better to drive there from here. This isn't the most practical route, but it's the direction I was heading. And you were anxious to put Houston behind you."
"This is fine, Gene. I appreciate the ride."
"The 45 is just a straight shot between Houston and Dallas. No other reason to be on it. Unless you live off of it, like me. It's pretty quiet most weeknights. Try to find a ride at that truck stop before dark. If you decide to thumb it down the interstate, it might be a long time before you see a car."
"Thanks for the advice, Gene."
Gene shook Binh's hand. "Good luck, son. Safe travels."
Binh headed to the diner. He took in the heavy forest that crowded around the 45. He had never been out this way before. But it was scenic. If you liked staring at trees and bushes.
The sign over the diner read Truck Stop and Café.
How original, Binh mused. He opened the glass door and inhaled the scent of meat-seasoned grease that hung in the air. There were a few people- eight to ten- spread through the place. Most took the red booths. The majority were truckers. No big surprise there. A young couple in their late teens or maybe early twenties held the booth closest to the entrance. The girl had red hair and make-up that made her pale face glow. She flipped through the table jukebox. Her beau wore a cowboy hat, tee-shirt and jeans. A shit-kicker if Binh ever saw one. He was thumping a sealed pack of smokes against his palm. Binh had heard that packing cigarettes made them last longer. He didn't know if it worked or not. He wasn't a smoker.
Binh marched toward a booth. He wasn't a screaming queen, but definitely more effeminate than a mama's boy. This wasn't a good place to fly back-pocket hankies. And he was Vietnamese. A twofer. But he had to eat. And he had to get a ride. So he sauntered as straight as he could, imagining how John Wayne would make the walk.
Yeah! I wanna kill things and fuck women!
He blended in to most crowds. If he wasn't advertising.
He sat at the booth. Binh glanced around. No one was paying him any mind. He pulled a sticky menu from the center clasp on the condiment cart.
A waitress stepped up to him. Her nametag said Denise and she looked anything but happy to be there. She wore a tacky waitress outfit that she was too old for. She stood, poised with a waitress pad and pen.
"You ready to order?" she said.
"Anything you'd recommend?" Binh asked.
"Yeah. The Chicken Shack next door," she said.
Binh didn't know what to make of the remark.
"Relax, sugar. It's the only waitress joke I know," she said, with an insincere smile. "The food here ain't too bad. So long as you stay away from the fish."
"I'd like a large Mr. Pibb and fries with gravy, please," Binh said.
Denise jotted down the order and walked back toward the grill.
Binh returned the menu to its spot and looked around the place again. He saw a man, in the corner opposite the redhead and her cowboy. The man stretched out on one side of the booth. He rested on it as if it were a bunk. A water and coffee went ignored on the table. The man had a worn paperback propped on his belt buckle that he was reading. The book title was My First Two Thousand Years. It was too far away for Binh to make out the author.
He knew it wasn't wise to stare, but Binh couldn't take his eyes off the man. He had bushy black hair and a tanned and chiseled face. Gorgeous blue eyes. He wore a long black trench coat, which pulled over him like a blanket. He was in his late twenties. The man in the booth looked like a movie star waiting to be discovered. Binh could imagine the story from a big Hollywood producer.
So I was scouting locations in Texas. I was driving through this nowhere town full of nobodies when I blew a tire. So I go in to this crummy little diner and I saw him. And the rest was history.
The man's pose reminded Binh of James Dean on the movie poster for Giant. Stretch
ed out on a chair, the mansion behind him. The man in the trench coat wasn't wearing a cowboy hat, but his dusty boots crossed the same way. Most people wouldn't get that comfortable in a truck stop booth. It added to the stranger's mystique.
The image of Sweet Daddy, mutilated in his recliner, flashed in Binh's mind. It came to him like a postcard from Hell. He felt guilty for drooling over this stranger. Sweet Daddy's desecrated corpse was still cooling. He turned away from the attractive man. He wondered if someone discovered the body. Binh would have made an anonymous call, if he had thought of it. He'd check a newspaper tomorrow. See if there was any ink on the murder and if his name played into it.
Binh pushed the horrible picture of Sweet Daddy down. This was how he would remember his lover. Binh's sorrow flickered out though as hot anger took its place.
Sweet Daddy had fucked him but good. Tomás Martinez was looking for him. He knew it would be difficult for Tomás to find him. He worried more that the authorities would track him down. Interrogate him about the murder. He had priors, nothing violent. Solicitations mainly. His fingerprints were all over the apartment. He imagined his mug shot popping up on every fax machine in every post office and police station in Texas. If his ass got hauled back to Houston, he had no doubt that Tomás would find a way to get to him. Even though Binh didn't know shit.
Things got heated with the young couple. Binh was grateful for the distraction. The redhead whispered a loud but indistinct complaint to the cowboy.
"What crawled up your ass and died, Tina?"
The redhead- Tina -glanced around the diner. "Dammit, Tyler! You're embarrassing me! People are looking!"
The redneck now known as Tyler glowered at the patrons. Many were watching the show. But when Tyler found Binh's face, he stood.
"What the fuck are you staring at?" Tyler growled. He walked toward Binh's booth, and he looked like he was bringing an ass whipping with him.
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