Bull Mountain

by Brian Panowich

  “What in seven hells is going on out here?” Cutter hollered across the lot. Louis slipped the blade back into his pants and made his hands easy for Cutter to see. “This bitch owes me money, man.”

  “Well, I don’t. So get the fuck off my property.”

  Louis knew better than to shit where he ate, so he didn’t even bother to argue. “Happily, Cutter, happily.” He smiled at the little boy, who was still holding his fists high, then sneered at Marion. “Our date night is still on the books, girlie. I’ll be seeing you.” With that, he slunk in between a row of cars and disappeared. With the threat gone, the boy flew to his mother and almost knocked her over again. His scrawny legs locked on her, scraping off flecks of gravel and rock that stuck to her bare legs and ass. Cutter yelled something else, something about not showing her ugly face around his joint again, but all she heard was Simon sobbing in her ear.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  “Don’t be sorry, baby. Don’t you ever be sorry. It’s going to be okay. I promise. We’re going to be okay.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  SIMON HOLLY

  2012

  Officer Holly stood in front of the hospital’s vending machine with his phone pressed to his ear and a torn sheet of notebook paper tucked under his arm. He hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours and needed some caffeine. As the phone rang, he fished a dollar bill out of his pants pocket and smoothed it out. He inserted the money into the machine and pressed the Diet Coke button. Nothing happened.

  The phone stopped ringing and a gruff voice answered. “Montgomery.”

  Holly switched the phone to his other ear. “Yeah, hi, Agent Montgomery. My name is Simon Holly. I’m a police officer here in Mobile. We met on the Fisher case. The one with—”

  “I know who you are, son. That was some fine police work you did down there.”

  “Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have done it without the help I received from your office.”

  “Glad we could help. What can I do for you, Officer?”

  Holly pulled the folded sheet of notebook paper out from under his arm and flipped it open. He also kicked the vending machine that had just taken his money. Nothing happened.

  “I was hoping I could give you a name to run by your people over there. I’m working on something and I’m having a little trouble getting what I need.”

  “Why are you calling me? Don’t you have access to the databases at your department?”

  “Well, I should, but after that whole Fisher affair, I’m not exactly the most popular person around here, if you get my meaning.”

  “The big boys don’t like you rookies solving their high-profile cases?”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Well, fuck ’em, son. If you’re on a case, you shouldn’t be cut off from resources. Who’s in charge down there?”

  “That’s kinda it, sir. This isn’t a case. It’s personal.”

  “I see.”

  The line was silent for a moment and Holly kicked the vending machine again. Nothing happened. A male nurse who looked more like a security guard in scrubs looked over and tilted his head.

  “Well, what have you got?” Montgomery said.

  “One name. Pepé Ramirez.”

  “Spell that for me, son,” Montgomery said.

  The big nurse approached Holly and surprised him when he put a hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir?”

  Holly turned his back to him, ignoring him, and spelled out the name for Montgomery. “He’s a low-rent pimp, this Ramirez,” he said, “a gangbanger out of Jacksonville, Florida. I just need to take a look at his file. He’d be older. Most likely in his sixties, if he’s even still alive. That should help you narrow it down if more than one pops up.”

  The nurse walked around to face Holly again. “Excuse me, sir,” he repeated with a little more urgency. Holly covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Fuck off, buddy. It’s just a Coke machine.” The nurse looked at the machine and raised his eyebrows. Holly turned away from him again.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Holly,” Montgomery said. “Give me a good number to call you back at.” Holly did.

  The nurse walked around to face Holly for a third time. “Mr. Holly,” he said.

  “What?” Holly said, covering up the phone again.

  “It’s time,” the nurse said.

  “Time for what?”

  “It’s time,” the nurse repeated, but softer and more compassionate. “We’ve been trying to find you. Didn’t you hear the page?”

  Holly hung up the phone.

  Within seconds, he was back in the terminal wing, where his mother was being monitored. He knew before he stepped into the room that he was too late. Doctors and medical staff were crowded around her bed and the beeps and buzzing that had filled his head for the past twenty-four hours from all of the various monitoring equipment was painfully silent. When they noticed him in the doorway, the staff backed away and made room for him to enter. His feet were made of lead, each step heavier than the next. A doctor’s hand was on his shoulder. The sympathetic stares were squeezing the air from his lungs.

  “She’s gone, son,” the doctor said.

  “I . . . I was using the phone . . .” Holly said, unable to think of anything else to say. The doctor cleared the room and Holly sat on the edge of his mother’s bed. He took her hand and held it to his face. The coolness in her fingers pushed the reality of what had just happened straight through his chest and he started to cry. He cried in loud sobs—a boy’s sobs. He ran his hand down her face and let his fingers explore the scar that crossed it. She never let him touch it. She always pulled away, ashamed of it. He thought it was beautiful. He thought everything about her was beautiful. Even more so now that the sadness was gone, as if it had evaporated along with her breath. He laid his head on her chest and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for minutes or hours. It could have been either.

  Another hand was on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” a voice said behind him. Holly lifted his head but didn’t look at the hospital’s pastor, who was there to console him. He looked at the black-and-white composition notebooks scattered all over the floor and stacked on the chair beside his mother’s bed. He’d brought them here from the apartment he’d set her up in, to read while she faded away. Until today, he hadn’t even known his mother kept a journal. Until today, he didn’t know a lot of things. He didn’t know hepatitis C caused liver cancer. Or that it could kill you this fast. He didn’t know his mother had been keeping it from him. She must have started writing these journals when she got sick. It read like a Greek tragedy. Every horrible thing she went through, and not one word of regret about having Simon. Even when they had to sleep in abandoned cars, or had no food for days. It all started in Jacksonville, with this Pepé, and the night she was cut. From the top of one of the journals he hadn’t read yet, he saw the tip of a photograph being used for a bookmark. He sat up and willed himself to stand.

  “If now isn’t a good time, Mr. Holly,” the pastor said, backing up and giving Holly room to move. “Or if my being here is making you uncomfortable, I can go. Maybe I can come back later.”

  “Officer,” Holly said.

  “I’m sorry?” the elderly pastor said, clutching a leather-bound Bible to his chest.

  “It’s Officer Holly.” Holly picked up the picture, sliding it out from between the pages of the notebook.

  “Of course,” the pastor said.

  Holly looked at the photo of his mother and him at the Mobile county fair when he was a boy. He remembered having to sleep in the woods that night, and how she’d held him to her warm chest to keep him from shivering. He couldn’t stop the fresh tears from spilling over his raw cheeks. He sat back down on the bed next to his mother.

  “If you decide you need someone to talk to about Marion’s passing,” the pas
tor said, “I am always available. My office is only four doors down on the left. I’ll leave my card for you here on the chair.” Holly didn’t answer, nor did he turn around. When the pastor had left, he laid the photo on his mother’s pillow and slipped a bottle of her painkillers from the side table into his pocket. He did want to talk about Marion’s death, but not with this hospital-staff Bible-beater. He pulled the folded sheet of paper from his pocket and looked at the name he’d circled. He wanted to talk to someone else entirely.

  CHAPTER

  19

  PEPÉ RAMIREZ

  PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA

  2014

  Headlights punched through the polyester curtains. The sound of crunching gravel outside mixed with loud mariachi music announced that the owner of the trailer was coming home. The man in the mask took several deep breaths and sank deeper into the faux-leather recliner. He stroked the barrel of the Glock 17 in his lap and coaxed his heartbeat into a calm and relaxed rhythm.

  The trailer’s owner stumbled through the door into the darkened room, a cyclone of noise and marijuana stink, a sweet, earthy smell clinging to everything it touched like melted wax. The mark was a gangster from the old school. His tattoos identified him as one of the Latin Kings. He wore khaki chinos drooped way past his ass cheeks, showing a good six inches of powder-blue boxer shorts, and a wifebeater thin enough to see every cut line of muscle underneath. He also toted a massive black pistol tucked into the front of his pants. How the weight of it didn’t drop his pants to the ground was anybody’s guess.

  The old gangbanger made his way into the kitchenette and pulled the chain of the wall-mounted lamp that illuminated the entire place. The man in the mask’s eyes adjusted to the light, and he watched the O.G. pull the enormous hand cannon from his britches and lay it on the kitchen table.

  A fucking .44 Magnum.

  This guy thought he was the Mexican Dirty Harry. The man in the mask allowed himself to smile. He didn’t have one of those. He let the gangster open and close the small fridge a few times, waiting for something new to appear, before deciding on a half-empty bottle of Montezuma. He poured damn near two inches of the contents down his gullet and steadied himself on the counter. When he turned to make a concerted effort to reach the bedroom he noticed the man in the mask sitting in the living room recliner. He also noticed the Glock 17 in his lap. The man in the mask smiled under his balaclava and watched the older man’s face go solemn as every possible escape scenario played out across it. Can I get to my gun on the table first before this intruder can pick his up from his lap? Is my safety on? How many steps to the front door? Can I rush the man in the chair before he has time to shoot? Are my homeboys still outside, toking down? In the end, he decided to play it cool and maybe talk his way out.

  “If you are here to kill me, ese, you better just get it done. But prepare to be hunted down like a fucking dog in the street. I’m connected, homes. I got respect up and down the coast. You ready for that kinda trouble, white boy?”

  The man in the mask uncrossed his legs, picked up the gun in his lap, and held it loosely pointed at his mark. “Forgive me, Pepé, if I’m not too impressed by an old spic gangster living in an aluminum trailer in the middle of spring-break land. You gonna call up a bunch of date-raping frat boys to throw their checkbooks at me?”

  Pepé heard his name. This wasn’t random. He flicked his eyes to the massive gun on the table. Only three feet, but it might as well be the span of the Grand Canyon. The man in the mask waved his gun. “You don’t want to do that, Pops. By the time you reach it, pick it up, and click the safety, Pepé Ramirez will be nothing but bad tattoos and strawberry jelly. Besides, don’t you want to know who I am? Why I’m here with my own big-ass gun?”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  Agent Holly sighed and took off the mask. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Fuck me. I’m sure you’ve got a laundry list of people who want to kill you. I could be anybody.”

  “Why don’t you stop talking and just do it already?”

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” Holly stood up, gun trained on his mark, and motioned to the breakfast nook. Pepé hesitated, but he sat.

  “Here, why don’t I take that out of the equation so we can focus.” Holly picked up Pepé’s gun and tossed the heavy chunk of steel onto the recliner. The last bit of hope drained from Pepé’s eyes, leaving behind two empty dead sockets as the gun bounced on the mahogany seat. “The truth is, it doesn’t matter who I am. I’m not here for me.” Holly produced a small photograph from the pocket of his black BDUs and placed it on the table in front of Pepé. “I’m here for her.”

  Pepé didn’t look at it. He just dug his eyes into the man with the gun.

  “Do you remember her?”

  Pepé dug his stare in deeper. Holly gave it right back and leaned in a little closer. “Look at the picture before I put a bullet in each of your fucking kneecaps.”

  Pepé looked down at the picture of a woman sitting in the grass with a small boy. He studied it closely before hawking up a big wad of snot and spitting on it. Holly moved like a blur. A white-hot blast of pain exploded in Pepé’s face as Holly belted him with the Glock. Pepé was used to pain but hadn’t experienced it in a long time. Not since getting out of the game. It leveled him.

  “Okay, man. Fuck. What do you fucking want?”

  Holly pulled Pepé’s head up off the table by his obviously dyed, greasy black hair. He yelped. “Ow! Goddamn it, ese. What do you want?”

  Holly let go and picked up the picture. “I asked you a question, you disrespectful piece of shit.”

  “What? What fucking question?”

  Holly held the photo within an inch of Pepé’s face. “I asked you if you remembered the girl.”

  Pepé looked again. “She look like every other bitch whore I ever ran.”

  Holly pressed the barrel of his gun against Pepé’s forehead hard enough to leave a mark. He put the photo back down on the table and spoke calmly. “This is your last chance, homes. Show me a little respect and answer my questions, and maybe you come out of this alive.”

  Pepé swallowed a mouthful of the blood. “Who you fucking kidding, ese? It don’t make no difference if I answer your questions or not, and you know it. I come in here. I see you sitting in my chair, in my place. Don’t even have your gun in your hand. Sitting there without a care in the world. Like we good buddies. You wear that fucking mask like it’s suppose to hide something, but it don’t hide your eyes. You got a killer’s eyes, homes. That’s why I knew right away, one of us was going to die. You a fucking killer through and through. Just like me, ese.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Pops. I’m nothing like you.”

  Pepé smiled through blood and broken teeth. “I say we just alike, white boy. So go ahead and do it. Pull the trigger. I ain’t scared to die. I’ll catch up with your white ass in the next life. You can believe that.”

  “So it’s fair to say you don’t want to tell me anything about Angel?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl in the picture. You named her Angel.”

  “Right, right, Angel. That’s the name I have for my dick. The one I made your mother suck on before I—”

  Holly swung the gun at Pepé again. Harder this time. Pepé’s neck twisted and he slumped down into the seat. Holly grabbed his hair and yanked him back up. The retired gangbanger drooled blood down his chin and the front of his shirt.

  “Errgg . . . just do it . . .” he said through a broken mouth.

  “Not yet, Pepé. There’s someone I want you to talk to.” Holly let go of the gangster’s hair and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped in a number and held the phone to his ear. When someone answered, he put the phone on speaker and laid it on the table next to the picture. A child’s voice came from the phone in frantic Spanish. All the attitude melted from Pepé’s face, replaced by panic. He yelled back at
the phone in Spanish. Holly tapped the phone and ended the call. “Carlos is your sister’s kid, right? He’s the reason you got out of the game and relocated here in Titty City. He’s a cute kid. What is he . . . nine?”

  Pepé sneered at Holly. “I’ll fucking kill you, white boy.”

  “No, Pepé, you won’t. But if you tell me what I want to know, I won’t let my friend hold your nephew underwater in a motel bathtub.”

  Pepé struggled to get up and make a run at Holly. Holly easily knocked him back down.

  He had nothing left but to beg. “Please don’t hurt that boy,” Pepé said. “It would kill my sister. He is all she has.”

  “Then talk to me. Just a conversation, then I call my friend and everyone goes home happy.”

  Pepé slumped back down, defeated. He looked at the picture on the table. “I don’t know her, man. I ran a lot of girls. It was a long time ago.”

  “Look real hard. She might have had blond hair then. She got her face cut up real bad.”

  Pepé leaned down closer to look at the picture again, then looked at Holly. “Yeah, I remember her now. Angel. What about her?”

  “You remember the night she got cut?”

  “Yeah, some john did it. Motherfucker cut her up real good. I sent her packing. She wasn’t any use to me no more. But I didn’t do that shit to her, man. I helped her. I got her fixed up after that shit happened.”

  “Who was the john?”

  “I don’t know, man, I didn’t keep records of that shit.”

  Holly leaned back on the fridge. “Why didn’t you retaliate? Do you normally let johns affect your money like that?”

  “Hell, no. I tried, but that dude was protected.” Pepé rested his forehead in his hands.

  “Protected by who?”

  Pepé was clearly done holding back. “The Englishman.”

  “I need a real name, Pepé.”

  Pepé just sat there, holding his head. Holly tapped the barrel of his gun on the table. “Think about little Carlos,” he said.