Tales of River City

by Frank Zafiro

  She brushed past me and I grabbed her by the arm. “How is she?” I asked quietly.

  The look she gave me was full of contempt and pity at the same time.

  “She’s dying,” she said.

  I let go of her arm and she left the room.

  Lauren’s eyes were still closed when I sat down next to the bed. I reached out tentatively and touched her on the shoulder, whispering her name.

  Her eyes fluttered open and came to rest on me. There was a flicker of confusion, then recognition flooded her face.

  “Connor,” she said, her voice a croaking whisper.

  I smiled at her, but my gut wrenched.

  She brought her hands up to her hair and covered her face.

  “I look terrible,” she said. I could barely hear her through her hands.

  I took her hands and pulled them easily away from her face. Tears welled up in her eyes and slid from the corners onto her pillow.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. I pushed the lock of hair away from her brow and tucked it behind her ear. “You look the same as ever. You’re beautiful.”

  “Liar,” she whispered, almost a hiss, but she smiled.

  I was a liar, but I sat with her, shushing her questions and stroking her hair. I told her more lies. After fifteen minutes, the caregiver returned to stand in the doorway, signaling an end to the visit.

  “Eat your food,” I whispered, and lowered my face to hers. Her breath was stale and her lips were cracked and dry, but I kissed her on the open mouth anyway. When I pulled away, she was crying again.

  “Eat,” I whispered again. I got up and walked toward the door. When I reached the caregiver, I said, “Thanks for the extra time.”

  She shrugged. “It’s her time, not mine.”

  “Does she get many visitors?”

  “Just her mother.”

  I pressed my lips together, nodded and left.

  I should have gone back to that hospice every day or two. I should have sat with her, pushed away that stray lock and told her lies. It would have been fitting. And, for a change, telling lies might have been a good thing.

  Instead, after the first visit, I stayed away. The thin tears that fell from the corner of her eyes and streamed onto the pillow were loud accusations. I liked to think that I didn’t go because I knew I didn’t deserve the vindication that might have come with sitting at her side as she left this world. But I knew the truth.

  When she died, I couldn’t even muster the courage to go to her funeral. It happened right in the middle of my workweek, which made for a hollow excuse.

  The truth was, though, I didn’t want to see newly turned earth next to her open grave. I didn’t want to see fake grass or real flowers. I didn’t want to see her mother, whose careworn features I feared would resemble Lauren too much.

  I don’t know how many people went to her funeral.

  I don’t know if there was a single cop there.

  Two days later, I went to her grave. It was late October, and cold.

  I made my way through the acres of cemetery and found her grave. The stone was small and simple and bore merely her name, the dates she lived and the words “Beloved Daughter.”

  I touched the top of the marker with my fingertips, then bent and kissed the rough stone.

  “I’m sorry, Lauren.”

  I didn’t love her. I was no better than all the other men in her life, just one in a parade of empty sexual partners. I had used her, too, if only gently.

  Gently, I thought, and my stomach burned.

  I wished that were true.

  No Good Deed

  I recognized that cholo bastard as soon as I walked into the McDonald’s, but what was I supposed to do? Rebecca and her kids were already inside. I didn’t have my gun with me, but I wasn’t about to run away from any piece of shit.

  The guy was standing in line to order, wearing his baggy jeans, blue flannel shirt over the wife-beater T-shirt and a blue bandana. He was right out of a gang movie.

  I would’ve recognized him by his face, his wispy goatee and the smart-ass look on his face. But it was the bloody cross tattooed on his neck that nailed it for me. You don’t forget a tattoo like that.

  I stood at the doorway for a few seconds, debating how to handle things. I’d been a cop for fourteen years and this wasn’t a new experience. In a city this size, you always run into the losers that you’ve arrested in the past. Usually, thankfully, I see them first and avoided them.

  Maybe he wouldn’t see me. Or recognize me.

  I pushed my bicycle in and walked it toward Rebecca and the kids. If I stood in the fucking doorway, he’d make me inside of five seconds for acting so strange. I greeted Rebecca with a brief kiss on the cheek and, as always, the shock of smelling her skin flustered me. I turned to the kids and said my hellos.

  “Uncle Conner!” Anthony Junior yelled as he hugged my leg.

  I tousled his hair as I felt Rebecca’s smile upon me. The seven-year-old boy was his father through and through. Same hair, same face, same eyes. I loved him like he was my own, but his features haunted me.

  I kissed Maggie on top of her head and she grinned. “Hi, Uncle Connor. We already ordered. You’re late.”

  “So I am,” I said. “Lucky for you, I’m not hungry.”

  “I’m hungry!” said Anthony Junior. He dove under the table, past his mother and into his seat, where he attacked his Happy Meal.

  I pointed out the window. “What’s that?”

  All three looked. I snatched one of Maggie’s French Fries and stuffed it in my mouth.

  Maggie looked back in time and caught me. “Hey!”

  “Keep your eyes on your fries,” I half-sang and slipped into the booth next to her.

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” Maggie said.

  I shrugged. “Don’t have to be hungry to eat fries.”

  “Keep yoah eyes on yoah fwies,” sang Anthony Junior.

  I heard Rebecca laughing softly. I glanced up at her and caught her eyes. She looked at me and that sweet, seductive softness was there again. It had begun appearing more frequently sometime earlier this year. I don’t think either one of us was ready to deal with it just yet. I wasn’t, anyway.

  I gave Rebecca a quick smile and glanced back toward the counter. The shitbird was still waiting in line. I looked around the dining area for his crew. An elderly couple sat a few tables away drinking coffee. A polyester cow and her three kids were sitting next to them eating sundaes. Two kids, probably boyfriend and girlfriend, lounged by the window, munching cheeseburgers and talking on cell phones. Probably to each other, the way they were giggling. But no sign of any Mexican bangers anywhere.

  I struggled to remember this cholo’s name. It’d been about three years ago, I knew that much. Before I left patrol. He and his brother had been in a fight with a couple of Crips outside a downtown bar. His brother had been an asshole…in fact, he’d fought with us. I remembered now. He’d fought like a fucking Tasmanian devil, even though he only weighed a buck fifty. I finally had to nail him in the nose with a blast from my palm and that took the fight out of him. He bled all over the place, too. And once he started bleeding, he started crying and calling for his brother, who was the stocky one at the counter now. The cops beat me up, he said. Come help me. Come help me…Rueben! That was his name. Reuben Gonzalez, Hernandez, some-fucking-dez.

  “We went shopping,” Rebecca said.

  “Were you successful?”

  She motioned at the bags next to her on the bench. I nodded. “A resounding victory for bargain hunters everywhere.”

  “Smart alec. How’s work?” Rebecca asked.

  I watched Rueben out of the corner of my eye. He was talking to the thin girl with bad teeth taking orders.

  “Same as ever, “ I told Rebecca. Nothing ever changes in my office. I deal with the bar owners, liquor licenses, code enforcement, and zoning issues. Over-service at the newest night-spot is the most severe crime I deal with anymore.

>   “You always say that.”

  “It’s always true,” I answered. “SPP is not exactly a firestorm.”

  “But it is special,” she joked.

  Special Police Problems. SPP. Ha. Ha.

  Just join right in, Rebecca, I thought. It’s not like every cop on patrol hasn’t thrown in their own little jokester gem about my job. It comes with the territory.

  I grinned at her anyway. She knew I transferred there for the day shift and the weekends off. She knew I did it to be able to see her and the kids and to be there when they needed me. She knew a lot. She’d been a cop’s wife.

  “Uncle Connor id speshal,” Anthony Junior said around the chicken nugget in his mouth.

  Rebecca and Maggie laughed. I smiled and watched that fucking cholo get his food and start walking right toward us.

  Back when I was on patrol, I carried my off-duty gun everywhere I went. My old girlfriend thought it was cool at first, but after a while she’d sigh heavily every time I strapped on the ankle holster or slipped the gun into the small of my back. “Better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it,” I always told her. For her, my carrying a piece ruined the night for her, like the gun somehow invaded our personal life. I couldn’t be her boyfriend while I was being a cop. Ironically enough, that’s what she said when she moved out.

  After Anthony died, I got promoted but after a couple of years on patrol, I managed a transfer to SPP. Around that time, I stopped carrying so often. Now, I couldn’t remember the last time I packed my off-duty piece. Which was stupid, really, because right now I needed a gun and I didn’t fucking have it.

  Reuben-Fucking-Greaseball walked by without a sideways glance.

  Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. Or maybe he was playing it off, too. Waiting for the right time to make a move.

  Jesus, police work makes you paranoid.

  “What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked me.

  I gave her a cautious look. I’m sure it looked paranoid. “Client,” I said in a low voice.

  Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced around the restaurant. I watched her until she spotted Reuben, then looked back at me. I nodded to her that she was right.

  “Should we leave?” she asked.

  “Probably.”

  Maggie watched both of us. She didn’t miss a thing. Anthony Junior might have looked like his father, but that little girl acted like him to a tee. Same awareness, same senses, same ability to judge people. Same radar. Anthony’s had almost never failed him. Almost.

  “What is it, Mom?” she asked. She may have been eleven, but sometimes she sounded like she was twenty.

  “Nothing, hon. Just finish up your fries.”

  Maggie wasn’t convinced, but her radar was on and she dropped it.

  Rebecca started gathering her things. “You want to meet us back at—”

  “Hey, pig.”

  His voice was coarse and accented. Rebecca’s eyes snapped over my shoulder and back to me. I saw panic enter them.

  Easy, I mouthed to her.

  I turned slowly in the booth and planted my feet on the floor. Rueben stood almost directly in front of me. His right hand was deep in his baggy pants pocket. His left hand dangled at his side, fingers twitching.

  I felt the adrenaline course through me. I took a long, slow breath to control it and met the greasball’s eyes. He gave me his best I’m-The-Baddest-Motherfucker-In-The-Cell-Bloc look. I tried not to reflect it back at him. The last thing I wanted to do was to start posturing. But I had to show him strength. It was the only thing people like him understood.

  “You beat up mi hermano, ese,” he said, his voice low and singsong. “Broke his fucking nose.”

  I kept my eyes locked on his but I concentrated on that right hand. Was he carrying or was he bluffing?

  “You think you’re tough, ese? Hmmm? Not so tough without your badge and uniform. Not so tough without your homies.” He leaned in toward me and lowered his voice. “Not so tough without your gun, huh, ese?”

  “You’re out of bounds, Rueben,” I told him evenly.

  He cocked his head back and to the side at the sound of his name. “Out of bounds? What the fuck you mean, ese?”

  “I’m off-duty. You’re not with your homies. This is out of bounds.”

  He regarded me in silence for a moment, his eyes flat and unrevealing.

  “Let’s save this for another time,” I suggested. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  A smile touched the corner of his lips. “You’re scaaaaared, ese. Fucking tough guy is scared.”

  I changed tactics. “I don’t want any trouble, Reuben.”

  His gaze swept over me, took in the T-shirt and shorts. Saw the small fanny-pack around my waist.

  “You got trouble, puto.”

  I didn’t reply, but moved my hand slowly to the zipper of my fanny-pack. I watched his eyes calculate the size of the fanny-pack. Could I fit a .38 in there? A .25? Maybe a .22?

  “Is this going to be a fist fight, Rueben, or a gun fight? Or nothing at all?”

  His eyes met mine again. I gave him a calm stare. Back down, you son of a bitch, I thought. Just turn and walk away. Find me another day and I will oblige you. Not here. Not now.

  I don’t know how long he stared at me before his eyes flickered. I was watching for that flicker and I hoped it was going to be a flicker of doubt. That it would flicker and then he would slink away and make up some story to tell his cronies about how he faced down a cop at the McDonald’s.

  But it wasn’t a flicker of doubt.

  “Fuck you, puto,” he said and pulled his hand out of his pocket.

  He was fast but I was ready. I exploded from my seat toward him. Even so, it seemed like I was moving in slow motion. I saw the silver metal come out of his pocket surrounded by his tan hand. I recognized it as a gun. It could’ve been a .380 but at that moment it looked like a Dirty Harry Forty-four.

  I grabbed onto that cannon with my right hand and squeezed as hard as I could. I could feel him pulling the gun away from me, but my grasp held. He reversed direction and tried pointing it at me. I forced the muzzle toward the floor.

  Motherfucker was strong.

  Stronger than me, I realized.

  I evened the odds. I buried my thumb in his left eye and gouged like I was scooping ice cream.

  He screamed out in pain and turned his head, but his grip on the gun remained firm. I pulled my left hand back and hit him in the throat with all the force I could muster. There wasn’t much on it because of the angle, but the throat is a vulnerable target.

  He grunted and the gun went off. The blast shook my hand. I heard the loud thud of the bullet impacting.

  I struck him in the throat a second time.

  He began coughing.

  I tore the gun from his grasp. Without thinking, I cracked him upside the skull with the handle. He collapsed like a tub of shit.

  I dropped down onto his back with my knees, trying to drive him through the porcelain. I felt the breath whoosh out of him.

  “Hands on your head, motherfucker!” I told him. I fumbled with the gun momentarily. Once I had a good grip on it, I jammed the muzzle behind his ear. “Do it, asshole!”

  Reuben groaned but slowly moved his hands headward.

  I glanced up at Rebecca and the kids. All three were staring with shocked expressions.

  “Get to the back of the kitchen and call 911,” I told Rebecca.

  She was a cop’s wife. She grabbed the kids, one by each hand and hurried toward the counter.

  Rueben groaned again.

  A man in a McDonald’s shirt was staring at us from behind the counter.

  “Are you the manager?” I asked him.

  He continued to stare.

  “Are you the manager?” I asked again, louder. This time, he nodded back at me slowly.

  “Get your people to the back of the kitchen. Call 911. Tell them that an off-duty officer has a suspect in custody for attempted m
urder. Tell them what I am wearing. Do you understand?”

  He gave me a slow, frightened nod.

  “Say it back to me.”

  “Wha…?”

  “Say it back to me. Say what you’re going to tell the 911 operator.”

  “Oh. Uh, you’re an off-duty cop and you got some guy under arrest. And what you’re wearing.”

  Good enough. “Do it,” I told him.

  He turned and ran toward the back of the kitchen.

  I took a breath and looked down. Rueben’s hands hovered next to his ears. I grabbed onto them and squeezed them together on top of his head. “You son of a bitch,” I hissed at him. “I should fucking kill you right here.”

  Reuben coughed weakly and groaned.

  “Oughta put a bullet behind your fucking ear.” I pressed the muzzle into his head for emphasis.

  “Do it, pig,” he rasped. “Chinga tu madre.”

  I almost did. I swear to fucking Christ I almost pumped some lead love behind his ear. Instead, I told him, “Forget it. I’d rather you died in prison of AIDS after getting raped by a bunch of Aryan Brothers.”

  He laughed wetly, then coughed again.

  “You ain’t got the cojones, pig. Don’t fool yourself.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He gave another gurgling laugh.

  An eerie silence set in. I could hear the sizzling of meat back in the kitchen and the incessant beeping from the order screens. Someone was not getting their quarter pounder on time.

  I listened for the sirens. Nothing yet.

  I grabbed onto Rueben’s hands with my left hand. I kept the muzzle of that pistol pressed against his neck. I watched him. Dared him silently to move, to fight. Reach for a second gun. A knife. Give me enough of a reason to end your miserable life.

  “Your brother cried all the way to jail, Reuben,” I whispered.

  I felt his body tense.

  “Cried like a little bitch.”

  A twitch. Not enough.

  “Once they booked him in, his broken nose kept him from being the prettiest one on the floor. He made up for it by giving the best head, though. Benito the Blowjob King. We even heard about him outside the jail, he was so famous.”