by Johnny Shaw
“I didn’t know the old campesinos said that,” I replied after too long a silence. “And I don’t have a clue what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t know what that means. Pretty though.”
“Alejandro isn’t anywhere. None of my eyes have seen him. He’s deep in that hole, but he’ll come out. He can only hide so long. The rain is coming.”
“What about you? Aren’t you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding. I’m different. I’m untouchable. I continue with my business, but more carefully. With more support.”
“You think he’ll come after me and Bobby?”
“Cross the border? Take some massive huevos, but that’s one pissed chingon. And them two maleantes you messed up, they ain’t so happy either. I got word to my people that work the border. Spread some money to the boys in green. Unless he jumps the fence, I’ll be able to warn you if he heads north.”
“That’d be a lot of risk for little reward, don’t you think?”
“Jimmy, you stuck a piece of wood through a motherfucker’s foot. I don’t know how they respond to that kind of thing in your world, but Mexicans don’t let that shit go.”
“I still got some shit to deal with down in Chicali,” I said, thinking about Juan only to the point where I had no idea what I was going to do.
“Coming down here would be ill-advised. If it doesn’t require your personal attention, send someone for you. You come down here, he’ll come at you. Won’t take him long to find out. All it takes is money to control the law on both sides. This is serious shit, Jimmy. You try to sneak in, you better be extra careful.”
“Can I talk to him? Work something out?”
“It was past talking the moment your fist hit his face. You can’t look for his reaction to be logical. There ain’t no logic in Mexico. I warned you. He’s dangerous. Dangerous to me, too. Tired of playing second. He’s going to use this to make his move. Sooner than he wanted, but this was the, what do you call it?”
“Straw that broke the camel’s back?”
“No, the idiot who punches Mexican gangsters for making stupid jokes.”
“Yeah, that’s me. It’s not a party until I punch a Mexican.”
“Alejandro doesn’t have my friends. As long as I’ve got my friends. As long as they’re happy, my business partners. The plaza, the cops, the priests, and the players. I’m good. He’ll find help from the unaffiliated talent pool. Their quality and quantity will depend on how much money he’s banked. I’ll know soon enough. Because one thing is certain—he’s coming.”
“Then what happens?” I asked.
“People die.”
When I came back inside, Bobby, Griselda, and Angie had made their way into the dining room. They each had a beer in front of them, and it was church quiet. I glanced at Bobby as I sat. He wore Pop’s terrycloth bathrobe and distractedly played with the sash.
“Seriously, bro,” Bobby said, looking up. “It’s a fucking sauna in here. Is the heat on? I’m sweating like a Youkilis.”
“Air’s broke. These are all the fans I got. Sorry.”
“What’d Tomás say?” Bobby said, eyes back to the sash.
When I had relayed the events to Griselda, she had been very aware of the activities of Tomás Morales. He seemed to have established himself as a slippery player in the criminal enterprises on both sides of the border. Nothing specific, but connections to every criminal and most crimes. On hearing Tomás’s name, Griselda showed obvious interest. I had a feeling that any information I gave her about him would be stored for later use.
I lit a smoke. “Tomás had nothing. Keeping an eye out for Alejandro. He seemed to think that if he tried to cross the border, one of Tomás’s guys would see him.”
“He’s got people in the Border Patrol, too?” Griselda said, shaking her head.
“Looking forward to seeing Alejandro again,” Bobby said. “That asshole’s got a beat down on credit.”
“I just want this to end. For Alejandro to leave us alone.”
“Leave us alone?” Bobby said. “He shot at me. Tried to kill me. And if you hadn’t gotten all MacGyver with that shovel, and I’m not totally convinced that actually happened, you’d have a couple of bat-sized dents in your cabeza right now. Let him come. I got some king-size hurting to put to that punk.”
“This isn’t the time for a war. There’s too much to figure out. If you want to get back at him, fine. Not now. Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Revenge is a what? What does that mean? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s a quote.”
“Best served cold? What? Like stab him with an icicle? Or use ice bullets.”
“What? No. What are you talking about?”
“No, no. You may have something. Think about it. Ice bullets would be completely untraceable.”
Angie made a loud, exasperated grunting sound. Bobby and I turned to her. After a few seconds with her eyes closed and frustration in her voice, she said, “Boys, can we save the moronics for some other time?”
Griselda laughed, putting her hand on Angie’s arm. “I was going to say something, but I was curious to see how stupid these two could get. They completely exceeded my expectations.”
“He started it,” Bobby said, pointing at me.
Angie gave Bobby a hard stare. “The only thing that matters right now is that boy. What’s going to happen to him? What are you going to do?”
It took me a moment to realize that she had turned to me and was waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said. Then for no reason other than complete impotence, I repeated, “I don’t know.”
“Well, until you know, there’s nothing else for you to do or think about. You have a problem. Solve it. Nothing you can do about this Alejandro. Work on what’s in front of you.”
“I don’t even know for certain if that kid’s Pop’s kid.”
“Then that’s where you start. Find out,” Angie said. “Have a paternity test done.”
“You need blood or something for that. I just put Pop in the ground. I’m not going to dig him up.”
“All I’m hearing is excuses,” Angie said, not hiding the aggravation in her voice. “You don’t need blood. You have all your father’s things. If there’s a hair in his hairbrush, that’ll do. Long as it’s the whole hair with the follicle, it works just as well. You can compare it to one of the boy’s hairs.”
“She’s right,” Griselda agreed.
Bobby chimed in. “DNA, dude. It’s all CSI and shit nowadays. I saw an infomercial for a home paternity tester. Three hundred bones. A little steep, but if you need to know, you need to know. Erik Estrada said it takes like a week to get the results. He was wearing a lab coat in the ad, so he probably knows what he’s talking about. Not everyone gets to wear a lab coat. I was even thinking of getting one. You know, just in case.”
“In case of what?” Griselda asked.
“In case I needed one.”
Four beers later, Griselda was off on a rant. “It’s only been a day. One day, and it’s already falling apart. Me, the case, the body, everything. My bosses, they’re pushing me to file Yolanda as an accidental death. Dove season. Election year. Bureaucratic bullshit. Like that’s a reason. They know it’s a homicide, but they don’t think I can solve it. What they’re thinking is, what’s the point? Why bother? An open murder isn’t what they want on the books. Better it’s just another dead Mexican. Won’t make their stats. Get lumped with all the other dead wetbacks.” She drained her beer. I went to the fridge and brought out four more.
“That’s fucked up,” Angie said.
“Couldn’t put it better.” Griselda nodded.
“So fuck ’em,” Bobby said. “Let’s catch the motherfucker our own damn selves.”
“Thanks, Bobby.” Griselda laughed.
“I’m serious. Just ’cause that’s not how it’s done don’t mean we can’t do it. You said it yourself—they’re going to quit. Going to
bury it. Maybe I’m all revengey right now with that prick, Alejandro, on my brain. But too much fucked shit has happened. Some bastards need a severe ass-kicking to balance out the bill.”
Griselda laughed. “I had a couple too many beers. I was venting, not looking for help. This is serious police business. It’s my job.”
“You mean, the job they’re not letting you do,” Bobby said. “You let this here farm boy get a little Columbo on this shit, and you’d be doing the job you’re supposed to. Hey, look, I don’t want to get you fired or shot or whatever they do, but I don’t see the harm in me looking into it.”
“Actually, there is,” Griselda said. “It’s called interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation.”
“But if they close the case—you said they were going to close the case—if they close it, what am I doing wrong? I wouldn’t be fucking any ongoing nothing. There wouldn’t be no investigation. Is it illegal to ask people questions?
“It had to be someone who was at Morales Bar. This is the middle of nowhere. No other reason to be this far out of town. Not like there’re people just strolling by. I made that list. We got us some suspects. You’re in, right, Jimmy?”
“No way, Bobby. This is all you. I’m sorry about Yolanda. Hell, I feel responsible, at least in some way, but she’s dead. You said it before, dead is dead. I went to get her last name, find her family, and look what happened. Griselda’s right—we don’t know what we’re doing. And Angie’s right, too. There’s a little boy without parents. He was going to have a hard life before his mother died, but now…”
“He’s fucked,” Bobby finished my sentence.
“Mrs. Ruiz said Yolanda was about to go back to Guadalajara. Head back south with Juan. That she had raised enough money to go home. Where is that money? She wouldn’t’ve kept it at her house. Wasn’t no lock on the door.”
“Wasn’t no door on the door,” Bobby said.
“She was killed right before she was going to leave?” Griselda said.
“Too much of a coincidence? You think the money has something to do with her death?” Angie said.
“Money usually does,” Griselda replied.
At that moment for the second time that night, the front door flew open and slammed against the wall with a loud crash. I turned, my heart beating out of my chest.
Buck Buck and Snout stormed into the house. I had completely forgotten that I had called them.
They stood just inside the door ready for battle, their faces streaked with a rough estimation of camouflage makeup. Buck Buck had a Remington pump-action shotgun, finger just outside the trigger guard. A shotgun shell bandoleer draped across his torso, a sombrero on his head, and a nub of cigar in the corner of his mouth: the psycho bandito look. Behind him Snout had two revolvers holstered cowboy low on a gun belt on his hips. He held a recurve crossbow with a bolt nocked and ready. In his shorts and tank top, he didn’t have a look. Unless batshit crazy was a look.
They both breathed heavily, staring at our quorum. Their dramatic entrance had taken everything out of them.
I turned to Griselda, who had her hand on her sidearm. “They’re with us.”
“Of course they are,” she said, not showing any sign of relaxing.
Explanations and introductions were quickly made. Buck Buck and Snout’s disappointment was childlike. All that preparation and Wallyworld was closed. Bobby gave them the rough recap. They were ready to head south, amped for a fracas. They almost convinced Bobby to join them. His instinct said fight, but Bobby stuck by his brain and used every ounce of restraint to convince them that now was not the time. Even if he didn’t believe it himself. I knew he was doing it for me.
While he talked them down, I spent my time convincing Griselda not to arrest the moron twins for scaring the hell out of her.
As Buck Buck was leaving, he said, “You need us, you call again. We’re always ready for action. Probably not used to it in the city, but country folk look out for each other.”
“I grew up here too,” I said, not sure why I was defending my rural origins.
“All right, Jethro. Just saying, you want, Snouter and I’ll camp out outside. Sentry duty. Or we can go on the hunt. Just like in Hawaiian Hellground.”
“What’s that?”
“Mack Bolan.”
“Who?”
“The Executioner? It’s a book. Hawaiian Hellground. Number 22. I’m surprised you don’t know that, being an English college major and all. Thought they’d teach you literary shit.”
“I ditched Literary Shit 101.”
Griselda and Bobby left soon after Buck Buck and Snout, leaving me and Angie alone in the big house. Not much had been decided on, but beer and exhaustion adjourned the meeting.
I had settled on two clear objectives: One, stay away from Alejandro. And two, figure out what to do about that kid. The talking was over for now. It was time to do some heavy figuring.
“You okay to drive home?” I asked Angie.
“Nope.” Her eyes were at half-mast.
“I’ll throw some clean sheets on the bed in back. I usually just hit the couch anyway.”
“Are you going to go again?” she asked.
“What? I’m not sure what you’re asking. Go where?”
“Your father died. I’m sorry. But that’s why you came back. For Jack. That’s done. Are you going to leave again? Are you leaving now?”
“You’re drunk. If you want to talk about this, let’s do it tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. I still have the house and the land and this thing with the kid, so…”
“That’s not an answer. You didn’t answer me. Are you leaving?”
There was silence between us. But her patience trumped my discomfort, so I answered.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she said.
“A lot has been happening really fast. I’m just trying to get to morning. Hoping that when I wake up everything will be clearer.”
“You don’t know?” Now it was a question.
“I’m definitely not leaving soon.”
“When you go, where to? What are you going to? Are there people there? Are people waiting for you?”
“I just said I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”
“You know, you haven’t once asked me what I’ve been up to. What I’ve been doing in all this time since we saw each other last. But I’m going to tell you. After we stopped our thing, after like six months, to be honest, I didn’t really think that much about you. Maybe here and there, yeah. But not like a lot. I liked us, what we had, a lot, but you move on. Then I had seriouser relationships, moved away, moved back. But when you walked into my work the other day…”
She trailed off, leaving a thick silence between us.
“What?”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
I stared at her, trying to conceal the warm hum that rose through my body. She stared at me like she wanted me. Her body drunkenly tilted forward.
She smiled. I knew that smile. It was slightly mischievous, but mostly it was decisive. Like Angie had made a decision and she found that decision amusing. That smile had always frightened me.
“You’re drunk,” I said, trying to end the line of conversation.
She nodded, agreeing. “We haven’t been alone in this house together since we were in high school.”
She was right. I laughed at the quick memory of those times. Why couldn’t we stay young forever?
“Do you remember the last time?” she asked, the smile ever present.
“Only every day since I left.”
Angie leaned in and gave me a vicious hug that made my healing ribs ache. I did nothing to stop her or show my pain.
After a minute she let go of me, punched me hard on the arm, told me to fuck off, and walked to the back of the house. I watched her until she turned into the back bedroom. I went to the linen closet and grabbed some clean sheets and pillowcases.
“Sorry again for t
he air-conditioner. I hope it’s not too hot for you,” I said as I walked into the bedroom.
Angie sat on the edge of the bed, her feet not quite touching the floor. She was completely nude, leaning back slightly with her legs crossed and her arms on the bed at her side. Her brown skin brought back memories that I wanted to climb inside.
“I hope it’s not too hot for you,” she said. That was no accident. She knew how turned on I was by lame jokes. She was really pressing.
Wanting to stare, but trying not to, I looked down at my feet. I tentatively set the sheets on the corner of the bed, conscious that I was staying outside her reach. “A little too hot,” I said.
She coyly patted the side of the bed next to her.
I tried to lock my eyes on hers, but I couldn’t help taking another peek at her breasts. And the rest of her body. Maybe a little more than a peek. Angie appeared to have improved with age. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. I tried to stay on her face, but I was a man, goddammit.
“Not when you’re drunk,” I said.
“I’m not that drunk,” she said, that drunk.
“Yes, you are. Scoonch back on the bed. I’ll tuck you in. You can dream about me. That’s the best I can do. All the nasty dreams you can handle. You want to try this some other time, both of us sober, we’ll see what happens, but not like this. Not today, not right now. Drunk sex should be a break from sober sex, not a replacement. God, you look great. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to leave before I do what I want to. Jesus, your body looks…Good night.”
“I want you to stay,” she said.
I left the room, closing the door behind me. The devil on my shoulder screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?” That’s how I knew I was doing the right thing.
Sometime in the very early morning, Angie slipped in next to me on the couch. There was just enough room for her tiny frame, one leg twisting around mine. She wore one of Pop’s dress shirts. The odor of her alcohol sweat and Pop’s closet made a confusingly familiar potpourri. I put my arm around her, nothing more. And I did that primarily for her safety, as she was precariously close to falling off the edge. Her grip around my chest held firm.