by Frank Zafiro
I snapped an overall shot of her, then zoomed in for two close-ups of her face. Each time, she flinched when the flash flared as brightly as a muzzle blast.
I lowered the camera and thanked her. She stared back at me with a shaken mien.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked in a voice thick from crying.
“Just because he’s rich doesn’t mean the law doesn’t apply to him.”
She sniffed and a sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. With a shake of her head, she said, “Oh, Carl. You’re such a romantic. One of these days, reality is going to hit you like a runaway semi.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I touched the brim of my hat and left.
Once outside, I saw that Wes and John had moved out of hearing range from my vehicle. They looked like two dogs that were waiting to be whipped for tearing up their master’s drapes.
John watched me approach. “You gonna need us at the station, you figure?”
I shook my head. “Wes’ll be enough. He can drop you at home first, though.”
John nodded in agreement and obvious relief. “All right, then.”
I gave Wes an upward nod. “See you at the station after, all right?”
His eyes darted to John and then back to me. “Sure,” he said with false camaraderie.
I opened the driver’s door to my Explorer and stepped up into the seat. Jack’s verbal harangue washed over me immediately, but I ignored it and dropped the camera on the passenger seat. I turned the ignition, lowered the gear lever into Drive and headed toward the station.
Jack became strangely silent once we reached the station. His stream of threats and insults for the entire ride dried up. It’s a phenomenon I’d seen before. When the previously ambiguous concept of jail suddenly looms as a very concrete reality for the prisoner, it can be a sobering moment for some. I was surprised it affected Jack in that way, though.
I removed his handcuffs, took his belt and his watch away. The thick band was gold and heavy. I put him in a holding cell at the end of the hall. He rubbed his wrists and glared at me, but didn’t say a word. I decided that booking photographs and fingerprints could wait. I needed to get the paperwork done before morning came. Besides, I figured he needed to spend a little time sweating.
Molly was waiting for me at my desk when I closed the door to the hallway of jail cells.
“You really arrested him?” She shook her head in wonder. “I thought I’d never see the day that happened.”
“Why?”
She looked at me like I’d asked the most foolish question of the decade. “Because he’s Jack Talbott, that’s why. This is his town.”
“I keep hearing that. And you know what? I don’t get it. I never have. So he’s got some money. He’s just a big fish in a small pond.”
Molly shook her head. “No, Carl, you’re wrong. It’s not just that he’s richer than anyone else in town. Hell, he’s richer than everyone else in town put together. But it’s more than that.”
“Power?”
“Yeah, that, too. But not the kind you’re thinking of. He’s got plenty of that, but that’s not what makes this his town.”
“Then what?”
She eyed me for a moment. Then she said, “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out. You’re a cop. You’ve been here four years. You’ve seen how he is.”
I turned up my palms and spread my arms. “Enlighten me.”
“He has something on everyone in this town. Something on them or something that they want.”
“Everyone? Come on.”
“Everyone,” she insisted.
I thought about it for a moment, remembering his tirade toward Wes when I opened the back of the Explorer.
“He said something to Wes about his cousins.”
She nodded. “Three of Wes’s cousins are illegals. They work on Jack’s cattle ranch.”
“And he holds sending them back to Mexico over Wes’s head,” I finished.
“Exactly,” she said. “That’s the way he works. If he doesn’t have something on you, he finds out what it is you want and strings you along until he does. And if he can’t get anything on you, he just plain runs you out of town.”
“That’s pathetic. It’s loco.”
“It’s Jack,” she said. “And it’s La Sombra.”
“Jack’s town,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“Now you’re starting to understand what you’re up against.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, he’s not above the law as far as I’m concerned. And he doesn’t own me.”
Molly considered me for a moment. Then she said, “That’s when he’s the most dangerous, Carl.”
I looked into her eyes. I wondered how she knew these things. I wondered what Jack had on her.
“Don’t ask,” she said, reading my gaze. “Just leave it alone.”
I nodded slowly. “All right. I need you to make a copy of that 911 call for me, though.”
“Why?”
“It’s evidence.”
She didn’t answer. Without another word, I headed upstairs to write my report.
Wes walked in when I was about halfway through the face sheet of the report. I looked up. He stood across the room from me, his thumbs looped in his belt while he chewed on his lip.
He glanced over at the closed door. “You got him in holding?”
“In number three.”
He nodded, then looked back at me. “You figure your charges will stick?”
“I reckon they should.”
“Should?” Wes barked out an exasperated laugh. “Maybe in El Paso, they’d stick. Hell, probably not even there. You might not even be able to make these stick in Dallas, Carl. But this isn’t Dallas and it ain’t El Paso.”
“I know.”
“It’s La Sombra. And La Sombra is-”
“Jack’s town.”
We stared at each other across the room. Wes ran his hands through his thick black hair and sighed. “I…I don’t think I can be with you on this one,” he muttered.
I nodded in understanding. “Do what you gotta do.”
He drew another deep, wavering breath and let it out in a rush. “I’m sorry. Really. But my cousins — ”
“Go,” I said. I kept any accusation out of my tone.
Wes pressed his lips together and left the room.
I resumed typing, waiting for the storm.
“What in the goddamn hell do you think you’re doing?” the Chief roared at me.
“My job, sir.”
“Your job? Your job is to arrest criminals around this town.”
“That’s what I — ”
“You arrested Jack Talbott!” the Chief screamed. “What the mercy fuck were you thinking?”
I looked into the Chief’s contorted, red face. His hair was tousled with sleep. Even his vain, handlebar mustache was tweaked. His mouth hung open slightly. I could see the permanent blackness of his gums, but he must’ve scrambled out of bed so fast he didn’t even stop to stuff a wad into his lip. The sourness of his breath and unbathed body drifted into my nostrils.
When I searched his eyes, though, I found no trace of the rage or anger I expected. He was afraid.
“What’s he got on you, Chief?” I whispered. “Just holding your job over your head, or is it something more?”
“What?” he sputtered. The red drained from his face and he became pale. “What did you say to me?”
“He’s just a man,” I said. “He’s not the devil.”
The Chief held out his hand, his fingers shaking. “Give me your badge, Carl. You’re done.”
I shook my head. “No.”
His eyebrows flew up. “No? You little outsider son of a bit-”
“I wonder what the newspaper would think of a cop getting fired for making a domestic violence arrest,” I said.
The Chief’s jaw clenched.
“Or even the TV station over in El Paso. They’re always looking for
corruption cases.” I smiled without humor. “Those news boys would like nothing more than climb up some small town police chief’s ass and point out all the things he’s doing wrong.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Go home,” he growled hrough clenched teeth.
“I’m not finished with my report yet.”
“You’re finished for tonight,” he said, leaning forward. His eyes flickered with rage. “Now go home or I’ll fire your Yankee ass for insubordination. Try’n get someone to give a shit about that, boy.”
Days passed. Jack’s arrest was the talk of the town and yet it wasn’t. The newspaper didn’t report it. No one mentioned it in polite circles. But in the undercurrent of conversation, when people were sure that no one else would hear, I knew they were talking about it. People eyed me with a curious mix of dread and admiration. By arresting him, I’d only accentuated my own status as an outsider, despite being a part of La Sombra for four years.
The Chief had released Jack later that same night.
Since then no one at the station spoke to me, except Molly and even she waited until we were alone. We kept our conversations to bare minimum.
I finished my report and turned it in.
I worked my shifts. Everyone in town played the surface charade of politeness but their actions were devoid of warmth. Their nods of hello were perfunctory. They spoke to me briefly and about nothing of consequence. My calls for service dipped to almost nothing.
I felt more like an outsider than ever before.
On my days off, I drifted down into Mexico, hanging out in La Cuidad Juarez and listening to music. I saw several beauties there, but none had the grace or mystery of Isabella.
She drew me back. She drew me to the Tres Estrellas, where she worked. I rolled back into town and straight to the bar.
The twang of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire danced out of the jukebox. There was a momentary dip in conversation when I entered and walked to the bar. Or maybe it was my own paranoia, after the week I’d had.
Isabella watched me from behind the bar as I slid onto a stool. Her eyes held a curious mixture of emotions, none of which I could quite place. A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She threw the white towel over her shoulder and walked over to me.
“Carlos,” she said, and rolled the ‘r.’ She leaned forward on the bar. The movement accentuated her cleavage. The scent of her perfume, musky but with a hint of orange, wafted over me.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. It was the first personal attention I’d had in a week that wasn’t cold or distant. And it was from Isabella.
“I really need a drink,” I said.
The hint of a smile grew into a sultry promise. “I think I can take care of that for you, vacquero.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said, surprised at the sudden undercurrent of sexual tension.
“What’s your pleasure?” she asked. When she finished speaking, her full lips remained pursed in my direction.
I tried to swallow, suddenly nervous.
“Tequila?” she whispered. “Beer?”
My throat was dry and I forced myself to swallow.
“Something else?” she asked innocently, but her eyes told a different story.
“Cerveza,” I managed.
The smile spread knowingly across her face. She was taking delight in her effect on me. Without a word, she retrieved a bottle of Carta Blanca, popped the top and set it in front of me. Then she drifted away.
I sat and sipped the cold, bitter brew.
No one spoke to me.
Sip by sip, I drained the beer. Without being asked, Isabella replaced it. I sat still and wondered about things. She’d been cool and distant to me ever since I’d been forced to shoot Pete Trower right here in this same bar. I realized with a jolt that he’d died just a few feet from the stool I sat on.
So why the change?
Every once in a while, I glanced up at the long mirror behind the bar. I recalled how it had been shattered by a bullet from Pete’s pistol that terrible night a year ago. I could still almost smell the acrid odor of gun smoke in the air. Could still see Pete’s pained eyes when he asked Isabella if she could ever love him.
I downed another beer and another and Isabella slid bottle after bottle in front of me. I drank her in along with my Carta Blanca.
The bar heated up as patrons filled the stools and the tables and the dance floor. The jukebox roamed from Mexican to country to classic rock and back again. No one said a word to me. I was alone in a sea of boots, buckles and cowboy hats.
Except for her.
I met her eyes several times over the evening. Most of the times she gave me a mysterious half-smile, like a Mexican Mona Lisa and flicked her gaze away. But once she caught my look and held it. Her eyes smoldered. I imagined her in the half-light of her bedroom, staring at me with those eyes out from underneath her long hair falling down.
She was a dream.
A voice ruined the moment.
“You think you’ll ever get into that?” Jack Talbott sneered at me from three barstools away.
I turned to him. Renny, who taught third grade at the elementary school, and Sal, who managed the Salvation Army Thrift Store, sat between us. Both shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
“Never happen,” Talbott said. “Never ever.”
I stared at him for a moment, my brain dulled by the many beers and maybe even more by Isabella’s presence. Then I drawled, “Ain’t you supposed to be in jail or something?”
Renny and Sal slipped off their stools in unison and moved away.
Jack didn’t show any anger. He smiled his best Public Jack smile. “I was out before you made it home that night.”
“That’s temporary,” I said and smiled back at him. “Soon as you go to court, you’ll get to spend a little more time in the gray bar hotel. It don’t matter who you are.”
Jack shook his head. “I already went to court.”
My smile faltered. “When?”
“This morning. Saw Judge Chavez.”
I squinted, trying to work things out. I didn’t get a subpoena to appear for testimony.
“Funny thing,” Jack said smoothly. “You weren’t there.”
“I was — ”
“Whoring down in Mexico, way I hear it,” Jack finished. He motioned his head toward Isabella. “Probably trying to find some of that, right? Just a more basic version?”
Anger rushed up my shoulders and into the base of my skull. I tightened my hand around the beer bottle. The song on the jukebox ended. Aside from the occasional clink of glasses, the bar was silent.
Jack waited for the music to start up again, then leaned forward and spoke over the strains of Travis Tritt. “Since you weren’t available and my wife refused to testify…well, Judge Chavez said he’d just have to rely on the police report.”
The report would be enough, I thought. I nailed him in that report.
“’Course, there wasn’t any report.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
Jack’s smile broadened. “I guess you’re not much of a cop, Carl. Making arrests and then not filing reports and all.”
“I turned in that report,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
He shrugged. “Not according to the Chief of Police, you didn’t.”
“I did,” I said, unable to stop the thick words from falling out my mouth. “I wrote every word of what happened.”
“Really?” Jack asked. “Did you keep a copy?”
My jaw fell open. I didn’t answer.
Jack slid off the stool and stepped in close to me. The rich aroma of his aftershave washed past my nostrils, out of place in this bar full of people who worked for a living. My anger returned. I wanted to blast him in the head with the bottle in my hand, but I knew if I did, he’d win.
“Welcome to the big leagues,” he hissed in my ear. He motioned at Isabella with his head. “Enjoy that attention while you can. She probably thinks you’re
hot shit, mister big cojones, but this game ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot.”
Before I could answer, he turned and sauntered out, returning hellos with a wave and nod.
I called in sick the next morning.
The dry, dusty Texas air gusted through my small back yard, bringing the faint whiff of cattle with it. I sat on the back steps and sipped water, nursing a hangover. My thoughts climbed around the problem in front of me, grappling with my options. I didn’t see that either of them were good ones.
Stay in La Sombra and wait for Jack to find a way to get revenge.
Leave town and start over somewhere else.
I sipped the water, swallowing past the taste of bile in the back of my throat.
When I got my discharge from the Army at Fort Bliss, I was already in love with Texas. After growing up in Plasti-California, I found the genuine friendliness of the Lone Star State refreshing. The men always seemed straightforward and honest to me. And the women were kind, even in their rejections. Everyone seemed ready with a smile or a helping hand.
My discharge papers in my back pocket, I toured the state on my motorcycle, stopping off in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The bigger cities seemed like less sincere, though, almost as if they were playing at being Texan. They gobbled up the smaller towns nearby with that attitude like some giant, gaseous planet pulled at its moons.
Eventually, I circled back to West Texas and El Paso, unsure if I would stay or not. The day I rolled into La Sombra and stopped off at Tres Estrellas changed my mind for good.
I told myself it the friendly people that I’d been looking for all over Texas and found in La Sombra that made me decide to settle here. That I loved the mix of America, Texas and old Mexico that seemed to find a way to live together. That La Sombra put me at peace.
But it was her.
Isabella.
I knew she was the fantasy of every man in town. The way her hair hung in full curls around her brown face. Round, sultry eyes full of mystery. And every curve screamed woman.
It was more than that, though. I sensed it immediately, though I’d spent the last four years trying to define it. I don’t know if I can yet or if I’ll ever be able to. But there was an enigmatic quality to her, one that makes a man feel that if he can just be chosen by her, he will be complete. That if he can make things right with her, everything else in the world will follow suit. I wanted so much to be that man.