by Johnny Shaw
I moved my legs just in time as she jumped over the back of the sofa and slid onto the cushions. She grabbed my legs, put them on her lap, and looked at me with that damn smile.
“Sorry I got you mixed up in my bullshit,” I said. “Pretty fancy driving back there.”
“I watched a lot of Dukes of Hazzard as a kid.”
“Seriously, if anything had happened to you, I don’t know what. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull everyone down in this hole with me.”
Angie smiled. “What’s happened has happened. We’re all grown-ups. If we wanted to walk away, we would. Only person you’re responsible for is you.” She looked at me for a few seconds. Her smile vanished. “You and that kid.”
I pulled my feet off her lap and sat up. “Do we have to do this now? I don’t want that put on me, Angie.”
“Juan is your father’s child. When your father died, when his mother died, the only person he has is you. If you don’t help, who will?”
“As soon as this business with Alejandro is done, then I’ll concentrate on figuring out what to do with the kid. He’s safe where he’s at. Safer, at least. Doesn’t make sense to do anything now. I don’t know when or if Alejandro’ll try something again.”
“You’re really thinking about leaving him down there?” Angie said, a little too snide.
“I don’t know, Angie. I don’t know what’s best for him. What I’m going to do.”
“You’d leave him down there. Without a mother or father?”
I didn’t say anything, hoping that was hint enough that I was no longer interested in talking about it.
“I know you,” Angie said. “I know what you would have done twelve years ago. And there’s no reason you’d do anything different now.”
Angie stood up and left the room. The air felt thicker, more difficult to inhale. The food in my stomach turned to acid and weight. I closed my eyes, feeling like even more of a failure.
I woke up about an hour later. The house was quiet, the room still warm and bright from the afternoon sun.
Next to the front door were the two boxes of Pop’s papers. I slowly sat up, letting the blood settle in my body. I carried the boxes to the edge of the sofa and sat back down. In an overly dramatic way, I put my hand on the lid and peeked inside. It looked like letters, manila folders, Christmas cards, pretty much any paper that had handwritten messages on it. Some bills, as well. I set the lid on the cushion beside me.
I picked up a red envelope resting on top. Looking at the return address, it was from an address in Portland, Oregon. I didn’t recognize the name: Samuel Eliason. The postmark told me it was from 1972. Inside was a birthday card with a cartoon stripper on the front. Inside was a bad pun. It was signed Sammo in a man’s block letters, no message.
What kind of insight was I supposed to have gained from this? Had I just lifted back the veil and seen into Pop’s true nature? It could be anybody: an army buddy, a business acquaintance, someone from high school. What was I looking for? Secrets? Something that would tell me something about Pop that would ultimately tell me something about myself?
I felt like an asshole.
I put the letter back in the envelope and tossed the envelope back in the box. I replaced the lid and then gave the box a light kick.
My phone rang. It was Tomás. I had left a message while the paramedics were putting Mr. Morales onto the gurney. That had been hours before. I was surprised that it had taken him so long to get back to me.
I had expected Tomás to be angry or at least show some kind of emotion, but either he had had time to process the events or he just wasn’t the kind of guy to give anything away. He was all business, planning, and tactics. He felt Alejandro’s insult (his word) of attacking his grandfather, but only chose to look at it as an expression of Alejandro’s combat strategy.
“I agree with mi abuelito. The pendejo sounds desperate. He’s, what would you say, gasping at straws.” I didn’t correct him. “Going after someone as harmless as Lito, or even chasing after you. He’s attacking whoever he can put in front of him. Because he knows when he faces me, it will be too late. An easy target is at least a target. You can’t shoot what’s behind you. It’s a respectable approach. Proactive.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t kill Mr. Morales.”
“Would’ve cost him too much. Going to cost him as it is. But if he had killed him, I don’t know.”
“How much more can it cost him? You’re planning on killing him.”
“In Mexico, there may be little quality of life. So at the least, you do your best to maintain a quality of death. If he had killed mi abuelito, his death would have been poor and endless.”
“Jesus. So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We? We don’t do anything. I am in the process of taking care of this shitstorm that you started. You should do nothing, stay away from this, go about your life. Maybe be a little more careful, but just go back to whatever you were doing.”
“I wasn’t really doing anything,” I said.
“Then go back to your nothing,” Tomás said. “You have no idea what this is costing me. Shifting my attention to a speck of nothing like Alejandro has caused a loss of focus on my primary profit centers. I have enough to consider without protecting you. You cannot help me.
“When he needs extra hands for heavy work, Alejandro hires the same five or six men. Two of them, the ones you shoveled, they aren’t going to know anything. They were out of the picture before he went gone. Some friends, I’m told, have information about one of the others. Once we find him, I’ll be that much closer to Alejandro.”
“I’m supposed to just sit around and wait,” I said.
Tomás answered sternly. “I’m not mad at you, Jimmy. But I need you to respect my position.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t. “I promised your grandfather I’d keep the bar open for him. If you need me, that’s where I’ll be.”
“Better if you dug a hole and climbed inside.”
“Don’t like that idea. Planning on going down there and slinging some beer. Don’t think Alejandro would expect me to be there. Besides, I can bring my own security.”
“You promised him?” Tomás asked, considering it.
“He wouldn’t get in the ambulance until I did.”
There was about five seconds of silence. I chose not to fill it.
“Safe a place as any, I guess. Public. Keep that pinche Bobby Maves around. Much trouble as he is, he’s got a good taste for war. You want, I can send Big Piwi down.”
“There’s a Big Piwi?”
“Little Piwi’s hermano.”
“Is there a Medium Piwi?”
Tomás laughed. I was glad to have reduced some of the tension between us. Tomás said, “Stay out of trouble. This mierda with Alejandro will be over soon. After that, we’ll talk about next.”
“Is there any way that all of this can end without people getting hurt? Without someone getting killed?”
“Probably,” Tomás said after a brief silence. “But that’s not the current plan.”
“Dónde está Señor Morales?” or “Tú no eres Señor Morales” were the only greetings I got from the Mexican customers before I handed them their Budweisers. From the white clientele, I got the English versions of the same questions as I served them their Coors Lights. I was amazed at how clearly divided beer choice and race coincided at Morales Bar.
I gave each person the short answer, and word quickly spread among the patrons about the attack on Mr. Morales. In Spanish and in English, the only topic of conversation at Morales Bar for the first hour was the cabrón that attacked Mr. Morales and what each individual would do if he ever saw the culprit. I started to wish that Alejandro would try something, picturing him charging into the room, only to face a barload of drunk enemies.
As time progressed, I felt safer and safer. So much so that I told Snout and Buck Buck to get off the roof where they had stationed themselves without my provocation. They joined
Bobby in the corner and set to steady drinking. All three with their eyes on the door.
Three hours into playing bartender, I found a groove. It was a good rowdy crowd, and everyone was there to forget their day. After the talk of the attack on Mr. Morales, much of the conversation shifted to the dead girl across the street. It seemed that many of the people in the bar were there the night of Pop’s wake. They each told their story. I caught snippets of opinion, observation, and straight-up bullshit.
“Mike and I were playing pool the whole night. Remember seeing some hot broads, but I couldn’t even say if I saw the one that died. Heard she was a whore. Not surprised she got killed. They know what they’re doing. They know the risks.”
“Si permanecemos en la República, nosotros nos moriremos de hambre. Así que venimos al Norte, y ellos nos matan. Si usted es un mexicano, usted no puede ganar.”
“Someone told me she was shot five times. I don’t remember hearing no shots. But with all these fucking hunters around, who could tell. Shit, maybe it was a accident. My brother once shot me twice on accident. Least he said it was a accident.”
“All the drug shit down there—before you know it, that violence going to make its way over the fence. Next time, it ain’t going to be just a Mexican that’s dead, I’ll tell you.”
“Yo no recuerdo nada. Bebí tanto, fui afuera de enfermo. Vomité en el lado de una camioneta anaranjada. Y entonces me desmayé.”
Bobby gave me a whistle and held up his empty beer bottle, smiling. Like he was expecting table service. I flipped him off, but he didn’t see me. He was facing the door and his expression had changed. So had Snout’s and Buck Buck’s. I don’t know if I’ve seen awe, but that was probably as close as I would get.
The gigantic Mexican ducking under the doorway was the biggest man I’d ever seen, and I spent three months in Tonga. He was about two inches under seven feet with forearms bigger than my thighs. The strange thing was that under his prominent brow, he had a gentle face. Even with the five teardrop tattoos under his left eye. It was a gentle face, but it was nowhere near friendly. It was like his face was trying to fool everyone into thinking he wasn’t an enormous monster. He was. He looked like he lived under a bridge and ate live things.
Everyone in the bar had stopped what they were doing and were looking directly at him. Nobody moved. People froze, beer bottles halfway to their mouth. I felt like I had walked into a cartoon.
He nodded at me and walked toward the bar, his eyes focused on my face. I did and said nothing. He reached into his pocket. I felt a thimbleful of piss escape my body. I heard the high-pitched slide of chairs from the corner where Bobby was, but I didn’t look away from my new friend. I slowly put a Budweiser on the bar and shot him an insincere smile. I kept my other hand near Mr. Morales’s shotgun, although I doubted its efficacy on this target.
“Big Piwi?” I hoped.
He opened a cell phone and touched a few keys with his massive chorizo fingers and then handed it to me. I slowly put it to my ear, expecting it to be hot to the touch. Big Piwi drank from his beer, his pinkie sticking straight out.
“Big Piwi will drive you,” Tomás said without greeting.
“Drive me where?”
“Where he takes you.”
“I thought I was laying low. I thought I was supposed to stay out of this,” I said.
“I didn’t ask you a question, Jimmy. Big Piwi will drive you,” Tomás said, his voice strained. “If I tell you to do something, I have a good reason. And I expect you to comply. I am your friend, but that will always come second to my interests.”
“Not really how I would define friendship.”
He ignored my comment. “We found one of the men we were looking for. We’ve been asking him questions. He tells us some things, but not others. About Alejandro and that. Here’s the thing. He asked for you.”
“For me?”
“He asked for you. By name.”
“Who is he? Do I know him?”
“That’s what you’re going to tell me. He keeps saying he has something he’ll only tell you. We’ve been persuasive, but he has been equally adamant,” Tomás said. “Big Piwi is an excellent driver.” He hung up.
I handed Big Piwi the phone. He crushed it in his hand and threw it on the ground. A bit over the top, but effective. That’ll keep anyone from tracing a call.
Big Piwi was as loquacious as his brother. I tried asking about Little Piwi’s condition in both English and Spanish, but only got a surly shrug. I asked him where we were going and got even less. When we drove across the border into Mexicali, I wasn’t surprised. I verbally expressed my concerns. He nonverbally expressed his lack of concern by ignoring me completely.
A Mexican police officer opened the gate leading into the chain-link and concertina wire protected parking lot. Big Piwi parked the black SUV in front of a door that turned out to be the back entrance of the Policia de Mexicali precinct building. Big Piwi nodded his head toward the door and got out of the car. When he saw that I hadn’t moved, he looked back inside like I was a child or an idiot or a child that was an idiot.
I said, “You might not understand, usted no comprendo, but this gringo is slightly uncomfortable around the Mexican police. No me gusto la Policia de México. If Tomás wants to talk to me, we can do it in the car.”
“You think you have a choice?” were the only words Big Piwi spoke. It sounded like the roar of a semi-articulate, tattooed mastodon.
I got out of the car and followed him to the door.
The interior paint of the hallway was a chipped and peeling institutional green. It was dimly lit, and the air was thick like a gymnasium locker room. I couldn’t see past Big Piwi, who ducked under each of the hanging bare bulbs that lit our path.
Most of the doors that connected to the hallway were open. As we passed, I looked into identically furnished rooms. No variation on the presentation: a long table, a wooden chair, and nothing else. There didn’t appear to be any other people around.
Big Piwi stopped, and I walked into his back. It was like walking into a wall made out of creature. He stood in front of a closed door and pointed at the knob. All the taciturn, cloak-and-dagger procedure had succeeded in creeping me out.
“After you,” I said.
He shook his head.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
He shook his head.
“Are you afraid of Tomás?”
He didn’t shake his head.
Until that moment Tomás Morales had not scared me.
A cold chill shook my body. I had seen Tomás in action. I had witnessed his impassive pragmatism. We had discussed the murder of a man. But there was still a part of me that couldn’t help but to remember that kid with the briefcase.
It took that moment for me to realize that the child was gone. That was the past. And the past meant nothing.
Standing in the hallway of that Mexican police station, I felt like I had fallen back into a dark hole that I couldn’t climb out of. I was back in the cistern. I felt a surge of panic. I was back underwater, fighting Yolanda’s lifeless body in an effort to breathe. I couldn’t reach the surface. The only chance for escape was to dive deeper. Deeper into the darkness and black muck.
I opened the door and walked into the small room.
A powerfully built Mexican man sat at the wooden chair with his hands tied behind his back. His feet were bare and his skin was shiny with sweat. Blood and saliva ran from his mouth and stained his stubble and the front of his torn shirt. He cried and smelled like piss.
On the other side of the table, Tomás spoke with two uniformed police officers. He glanced at me, but continued to give whispered orders. The two men hurried out of the room. Tomás walked to the far corner and waited for me to join him.
“His English isn’t great, but you should be able to talk to him,” Tomás said.
“Who is he? One of Alejandro’s guys?”
Tomás nodded.
“What have y
ou been doing to him?”
Tomás ignored me. “Some information led the local police to Alejandro’s suspected location. The Mexican authorities performed a raid on the building, protecting the public from what they considered to be imminent criminal activity. They missed Alejandro. He was already gone, but three of his men were there. This is one of those men.”
“What happened to the other two?”
“What do you think?”
I looked at the beaten man in the chair. I wondered if he considered himself “the lucky one.”
“What does he want to talk to me for?” I asked.
“Your name arose,” Tomás said. “Apparently, Alejandro was putting something together that involved Yimmy. As ridiculous as this sounds, he thinks you can save him.”
We both turned to the man in the chair. I put a hand on Tomás’s arm. “This is seriously fucked up, Tomás. Torture? I don’t know if I can be a part of this.”
Tomás looked at my hand until I let go. “You don’t know if you can be a part of this? Jimmy, shut the fuck up.” He turned back to the man, argument resolved. “Muchacho? Estás listo? Este es Jimmy. Él habla muy poco español. Hablas inglés?”
The man stirred and looked at me. “Jimmy?”
“I’m Jimmy.”
“Él es un asesino. Él me matará,” the man said, turning to look at Tomás. His voice was wiry and strained, unnatural to his build.
“Who is going to kill you?” I asked.
“He is to kill me,” the Mexican man said to me, but his eyes were still on Tomás.
Tomás said nothing.
“He isn’t going to kill you,” I said.
“Can you stop the devil?” the tortured man said. “Can you?”
“I don’t know.”
“If he is to kill me, you will not find him.”
“Then I will make sure you are safe.”
“If you want to find him.”
I turned to Tomás. He nodded.