The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories

by Manuel Ramos

  I aimed the gun at him. He stopped squirming in the back seat long enough to see that I was now in charge.

  He shouted at me, although I was only a few inches from his face.

  “¡Imbécil! Don’t listen to her! She shot me. I’m the one bleeding! She had the gun, not me. You took the gun from her! Call the police. Use my phone.” Air squeezed through his thin, white lips.

  I thought he was passing out.

  “She told me all about you,” I said. “I will call the cops. Get out where I can keep an eye on you.”

  It took an eternity but he finally crawled out of the car. He was in obvious pain, and the blood would not stop even though his knuckles were locked on his shoulder.

  “You’ve got to help me. I could bleed to death. There must be a first aid kit in this car. Get something that will stop the bleeding.”

  I waited for her to respond. She shook her head.

  “Don’t do anything he says. He’s going to kill us. Let him rot here. Let’s go. Let’s get away while we can.”

  Castillo laughed and I thought that was the most unreal part of a very unreal night.

  He said, “Dee, you’re good. A better actress than anyone gives you credit for. What’s your plan, baby? Get this kid to finish me off, then you take care of him and claim that he tried to rob us? Is that it? Not bad. But, it’ll never work. You’ve got to get the gun back from this guy, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. Right, kid?”

  We stood along the edge of the headlight beams and I was having a hard time making out any details. He was moving so slowly that I knew it would take several minutes for him to reach the direct glare of the headlights. I had to watch the both of them at once. I held the gun on him but I tried to keep her in my vision, too. It was all a jumble, a mass of confusion in my head. I had to think clearly.

  He was right about one thing. She was an actress, and I had to remember that.

  “Kid, I need help,” Castillo said. “I’m going to faint. You must do something. ¡Ayúdame, hombre! She’s a witch. Watch her. Don’t turn your back on her. See what she did to me.”

  She moved closer, and I jerked the gun in her direction and waved her away from me. Then I quickly re-aimed the gun at the wounded man. I could not see their faces and I realized that I was incredibly hot and that sweat dripped across my eyes. I should have taken off the chauffeur’s jacket but it was too late for that.

  “Don’t listen to him,” she almost whispered. “Let’s just leave him and go. You can call the police after we drive away. He’s up to something.”

  I wiped my face with my free hand and I began to put it together. What she said did it for me. Her words clicked and my brain made all the necessary connections at once. Why wait to call the cops? Did she want to do something before the cops showed up? Maybe shoot me while my attention was diverted, then finish off her husband? He was the one bleeding, right? How had she managed to get the gun away from him in the first place? And why would he have a gun when he was going to a business meeting? She had to have had the gun all the time, in that fancy purse she had carried all night. She had played me, that was obvious. She was a beautiful woman, toying with a kid who had been dazzled by her cleavage and legs. I had almost fallen for it.

  I pointed the gun at her.

  I said, “Okay, enough. No one’s going anywhere. I’ll call the cops and we’ll wait for them to come and sort this out. You just stay there, please.”

  I motioned with the gun for her to stand still.

  She bit her lower lip. “Don’t do this,” she said. “You don’t know him.”

  I shook my head because now I understood completely.

  I said to Castillo, “Hand me your phone.”

  “Certainly,” he said from between clenched teeth. “Take it.”

  He moved slowly, pulling the phone from his suit coat pocket. I reached for the phone with my left hand and when I touched its plastic case, I relaxed the hold on the gun in my right hand. I realized my fingers ached from holding the gun in a vise grip and I did not want to have any accidents. I was close to him, closer than I wanted to be, but I had to get the phone. I paid more attention to dealing with the phone than to the man or the woman, or to the direction the gun was pointed. That’s when he grabbed my jacket lapels with his blood-smeared left hand, jerked me forward and kneed me in the stomach. I felt dizzy, sick. I fell backwards and dropped the gun.

  He picked it up and aimed it at me. I heard her scream. I lay on my back in the dirt, unable to catch my breath, the sweat on my skin suddenly ice cold. My lips quivered and almost everything disappeared—the woman in the red dress, the man bleeding all over his thousand-dollar suit, the limo, the night. All I could see was the barrel of the gun, and it made me smile. The gun roared and I twitched but I still smiled. I should have seen it coming. I had the same ending in my screenplay.

  BAD HAIRCUT DAY

  César shook my snipped hair from his striped barber cloth. “How long I been clippin’ you, Michael?”

  “Ah, geez,” I answered as I grabbed my coat from the hook on the wall. “At least fifteen years. I just happened to come in. I was on my way to an interview for my first lawyer job. You were still over at the Bryant Building. I needed a last minute touch-up and you fit me in.”

  “Yeah, I remember you that day,” he said. “That interview had you uptight like a virgin groom. Time flies, don’t it?”

  I experienced my first César haircut when I was in my late twenties. The air was cool and crisp, an early fall in the city, and I thought I looked respectable in my one and only blue suit and thin gray overcoat. I pushed against the glass revolving door of the building where I wanted to work and caught the reflection of my slightly overgrown hair on top of my ears. Too ragged for a first-year associate in one of Denver’s largest law firms, especially for a first impression of a second-generation Mexican American trying to break into big time lawyering. I was early for the interview, of course, so I turned around and dashed into the only barber shop I saw. César Sánchez obliged me with a quick, clean and tidy haircut.

  I landed that job and César landed a steady customer, although back then I sometimes went several weeks between cuts.

  César brushed off the chair. He said, “You take care and I’ll see you next time.”

  “You bet, César.”

  I handed him a twenty and waved away his offer to return the five dollars of change. It was a ritual we went through at the end of each of my haircuts.

  I left his shop thinking about how the relationship between César and me had changed over the years. For the most part it had been a natural, evolutionary process.

  I advanced through the ranks of the practice of commercial law and climbed the ladder of achievement, one moneyed rung at a time. It took time, as anything worthwhile must, but I kept at it. My haircuts became more regular—every twelve days, an automatic appointment—and periodically I treated myself to one of César’s haircut and shave specials.

  Meanwhile, César’s Hair Palace grew from a one chair, one barber stand to a busy, noisy establishment with a shoe shine guy who claimed to be a veteran of some sort. César eventually moved the business and added two chairs, including one for Angel, a brassy, humorous woman. After years of six-day weeks, no vacations, personally opening and closing the shop, and doing everything from sweeping the hair clippings to updating the magazines, César earned the right to serve only his preferred list of customers. My seniority as a client put me on that valuable list.

  The Palace sat on Seventeenth Street in the midst of Denver’s high-rises. His customers tended to be lawyers, bankers and other men who wore suits every day. The judges and financial consultants treated César like a friend, and when I finally had a little bit of standing in that community of old boys I talked him up. I soon realized he was so well-known downtown that he didn’t need any promotion from me.

  His haircuts were always right, perfect even. Bottom line, he did what the customer wanted, not what he t
hought the client needed. He’d make recommendations, sure, but if someone really wanted a fade or a crewcut or maybe a Jordan, that’s what César gave him. He was meticulous about completely brushing off a customer’s shirt, didn’t mind adding a bit of gel or spray, if necessary, and he encouraged customers to make last minute suggestions. And, yet, each haircut took nineteen minutes, sometimes less. It was amazing but he was that capable.

  He wasn’t much older than I, but I could see that life had been a different kind of struggle for him. A large chunk of that struggle was out in the open. His forearms sported amateur-looking tattoos, and a bent nose sat in the middle of his oblong face.

  His clothes invariably were sharp and well-tailored, and his own hair style never varied—swept back, every strand in place, a nice sheen. His gray streaks came long before my hair started to turn, and he joked with me about that. He’d say, “That’s a healthy head of hair, Michael. Be grateful and take care of it. Or I might have to cut it all off.”

  César could tell great stories about all the personalities who had come through his place over the years—sports stars, actors, politicians. But I had a tough time learning anything about him. He was close-mouthed when it came to his own story. He had been raised on the Western Slope, labored in the onion and sugar beet fields as a child, spent some time “out East,” was married and had a couple of sons. If I asked about his family, he answered quickly and decisively, “They’re doin’ good.” And that would be all. He would go into one of his stories and the small talk about him would be abandoned.

  He kept the mood light with jokes and Broncos updates but when he had to be, he was all business, once in a while a bit impatient, especially with salesmen who wouldn’t accept no. His leathery skin would flush. His clenched fists would hang rigidly at his sides. His lips would curl around his teeth. And the salesman would rush out.

  I knew to be on time for my appointments. I had this love-fear dynamic going on with my barber, and it didn’t seem strange to me.

  I changed firms a couple of times, bought a few more suits, and it would have been more convenient for me to use the trendy hair salon on the first floor of the office building where I finally settled. But I stayed with César. He hadn’t raised his prices to extravagant levels, and I knew what I was going to get from him. No surprises. I simply sat in the chair and he would do his magic without any instructions from me. We understood each other.

  I unfailingly left his shop feeling good about myself, good about my life. How many barbers can do that? A good barber is hard to find.

  César hit me up for legal help only once. Everyone from my mechanic to my kid’s second-grade teacher eventually asked for my “opinion” or a “little bit of advice” or, anxiously, out-and-out representation. César the barber did it the one time, and that was after I had been his customer for ten years, and it wasn’t for him. César’s friend, Abel, had been busted on a narcotics rap. César was concerned that Abel not be talked into anything that he would later regret. He was worried that Abel might be pressured to plead out to something that the district attorney couldn’t prove, or agree to a plea bargain that meant he had to testify against his cohorts.

  We discussed his friend one evening after César had closed for the day. I had been his last appointment and César said he wanted to talk about something important. He produced a couple of beers from his back room, and I made myself comfortable in one of his barber chairs.

  He explained his friend’s circumstances, then he made his pitch.

  “I know you don’t do criminal law, Michael. But I was hopin’ that you could steer Abel to an attorney that will treat him right. I grew up with Abel, we picked peaches together when we were kids, over in Palisades. I’d hate to see him railroaded. He ain’t a snitch, but when it looks like you don’t have a choice, some men will do stupid things.”

  I didn’t hesitate with my response.

  “Chris Morales is a good friend. He’s top gun, one of the best defense attorneys in the state, hell, in the country. If he takes a case he pulls out all the stops. Whatever he does for your friend, you can believe it will be the best he can get, from anyone.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he said. “I’m not sayin’ Abel’s a saint, but he’s also a family man, never hurt no one. This drug business is out of character for him. And it’s his first serious arrest, so there must be somethin’ that can be worked out. I’m just afraid the prosecutor will take advantage of him. Abel ain’t exactly the brightest candle on the cake.”

  “Chris is expensive,” I said. “You get what you pay for, César. Can your friend take care of that?”

  “That’s on me, Michael. Like I said, I grew up with this guy. We’re practically related. I think of him like a brother. He’s done favors for me in the past, it’s almost like I owe him. So, you tell your friend that he sends his bill to me. I’m good for it.”

  “It’s going to be steep. I hope you can swing it.”

  He shook my hand as though we were closing a deal.

  “You let me worry about that,” he said. “I won’t embarrass you with your lawyer chum. I pay my debts. Just one thing, Michael.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I’m countin’ on you to keep an eye on your man, Chris. I know he’ll do a great job and that Abel will land on his feet. But if you could just stay on top of it, I would appreciate that. Okay?”

  I agreed and I did what César asked. I was glad I could help César.

  Chris took the case, primarily because he thought Abel had illegal search issues that needed to be aired out in the courtroom. César covered all the bills, including expensive pre-trial experts and forensic tests on the seized drugs. Chris filed motion after motion and scheduled numerous hearings. The prosecution ran out of steam after about nine months of intense legal scrimmages. Abel pleaded to a minor possession charge and walked away. No major conviction, no jail time, no need to turn against his pals, who remained unknown to everyone except Abel.

  César overwhelmed me with gratitude for the favorable resolution of his friend’s legal problems. The free haircut was more than I expected. I felt that I had raised my standing in his eyes although I hadn’t done anything except give him a referral, something I did every week for others who never thought twice about it.

  We chugged along in our respective roles: César the barber, the downtown icon, who needed visibility to stay in the game, to compete; and Michael, the high-powered corporate lawyer who valued his privacy and whose clients preferred that their lawyer stay out of the spotlight.

  A few years after Abel’s case, I showed up unexpectedly at the Palace. It was another fine Colorado autumn morning, just like the first time I met César. I had an arbitration in Dallas later in the week, which meant that I would have to miss my regular appointment. I thought that I would stop by and reschedule or, with some luck, finagle a quick trim if César could fit me in.

  It was early, not quite nine, his normal opening time. The door was unlocked but the shop looked empty. I figured César was checking his books in the back office, the one with a sign on the door that warned, “Employees Only!”

  I strolled in, picked out the current issue of Time from his rack, sat down and waited. Several minutes passed and the situation started to bug me. I thought I heard muffled breathing on the other side of the door to the office.

  I half-heartedly hollered, “César, you open?” Nothing.

  I reluctantly gave up on the magazine and César, and started to leave.

  The office door burst open. I fell back in my chair. César tumbled through the doorway screaming, “Run!” Before I could react, César tripped and sprawled to the floor. A guy wearing a ski mask pointed a gun at César, then at me.

  I shouted, “What the . . . ?”

  The guy in the mask shouted back, “Shut up! On the floor!”

  I looked at César and he nodded and indicated with his eyes that I should do what the gunman ordered.


  I slipped off the chair and laid down on César’s cool tile floor.

  César said, “Let this guy go. He’s not part of this. It makes it worse for you.” He was calm, contained.

  The words didn’t register with me. They weren’t what I expected.

  The gunman stood over us, still working that gun for all it was worth.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “You bet I’ll let this guy walk out of here. This is your fault, C. This is your mess. All you had to do was treat me right. But, old habits, right C? I knew you’d rip me off.”

  I couldn’t put it together but the guy’s implied threat cut any bravado I might have had stored deep in my gut. My nerve drained away and I started to sweat. I heard César and the gunman talking but they didn’t make any sense. The pounding in my ears didn’t make any sense either.

  The gunman put his gun against my temple. His eyes peered through the slits in the ski mask—red-veined, dilated pupils that moved constantly. I felt the hard barrel push the side of my head. My breath came shallow and fast.

  César kicked the back of the man’s knees. The gunman grunted and fell in a heap.

  The gun clattered next to me. César leaped to his feet and jumped on the man, punching and kicking him furiously. As the blows rained on the gunman, a stream of ugly epithets flowed from César’s mouth, in Spanish and English.

  He shouted, “¡Cabrón, puto! You try to take me?! You try to pull this two-bit bullshit?!”

  He didn’t stop the beating until the man went limp and passed out. It had lasted less than a minute. The mask had ripped away from the gunman’s head. Blood flowed from his eyes, nose and mouth.

  César took three deep breaths. He picked up the gun. He looked at me, shook his head. He hung the “Closed” sign on the door, turned the lock and shut the blinds. He said, “Help me with this.” He lifted the man’s shoulders, I grabbed the legs and we half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious gunman to the back room. I tried not to look at the blood.