Back at the loft Tony and I walked in circles, worried that we had been made, snorted gallons of coke, and considered driving to Mexico.
The news of the foiled robbery was all over TV. Me, Tony, and Beto were reported as unidentified white or Hispanic males, twenty-five to thirty, wearing nylons over our heads. Pelón, the getaway driver, was identified as a black or Hispanic male, no nylon over his head, but they got his age wrong, saying he was thirty-five to forty-five, when Pelón was already well past fifty. They showed a police sketch that didn’t look that much like Pelón, got his mustache all wrong, but otherwise you could sort of see where they got it from. The getaway van was reported to be found blocks away, full of holes, with the bloody dashboard confirming that the driver had been shot.
The female guard that Tony had smashed over the head suffered a concussion. The black driver of the armored truck was unharmed. The white guard who maimed Pelón, the one who had surprised us by being inside the truck with a loaded gun, had died of his wounds.
“Sadly,” said the reporter, “a company spokeswoman told us the third guard is not usually assigned to that route. Since welfare checks arrive tomorrow, check cashers in this part of town stock cash a day early. Company policy requires a third armed guard inside the vehicle on those days for extra protection.”
I shut the TV off and looked at Tony. “Nice intelligence Pelón gathered, huh?”
Tony said, “We never cased the truck on a day before welfare checks hit?”
We hadn’t. That had been my mistake. I said, “Pelón got shot in the hand, I saw it. If he goes to the hospital for that, Tone, they’ll arrest him on the spot. We’re fucked.”
Tony said, “Maybe he bled to death.”
“Not from that wound. Motherfucker never lost control of the van as he kept going either.”
Tony said, “They got the FBI on this?”
“They’re sayin’ it’s a federal crime.”
“You think it’s true what that lawyer on the news said?”
“What?”
“How that one guard dying makes this a death penalty case?”
I bit my nail and didn’t answer.
We watched the news for days, ordered in, had some favorite girls come over, and never really strayed from the loft. Tony had a couple pit bulls then and walked them on the roof of our building just to avoid going outside. The FBI’s lack of progress on the attempted heist and murder was reported less and less, later and later in the newscast. Eventually, it fell off the radar completely.
Pelón was AWOL. So was Beto. Tony and I stayed close to the apartment, but little by little, we began to go out on short errands. Picking up toiletries. Renting videos once we got sick of all the favorites in our collection.
Over a few days we went back to normal. Beto never popped up and we didn’t look for him. We started tending our cocaine business again, but barely, only with well-known customers, and extra paranoid.
When Tony finally tried calling Pelón from a pay phone, just to see what the fuck ever happened to him, Pelón’s phone was disconnected. Eventually, we heard a rumor that he was hiding out somewhere in the hills of Puerto Rico. Beto, nobody knew about; he had become a ghost.
Tony and I wanted to believe that we had cheated the system once again and we began to tell ourselves, in our own subliminal ways, I think, that the matter of the attempted armored-car heist was resolved in our favor. We were golden. It wasn’t us who pulled the trigger. Things would soon be swinging again. We stopped worrying about the feds.
Tony’s pit bulls were safely walked and locked back upstairs in the loft one morning when a tactical unit of the Chicago Police Department took me and Tony down in a snap, just as we were about to climb into Tony’s racing green Jaguar and drive to Chinatown for some dim sum. In seconds flat detectives had us facedown on the pavement, our hands cuffed behind our backs. They called us scumbags and read us our rights.
The first thing I figured was that either Pelón or Beto or both had been in custody all along and one or the other had worked out a deal to finger us. But it’s a good thing that Tony and I had the habit of not confessing too easily, since it turned out that the armored-car job wasn’t anywhere near the reason that the cops had pinched us that morning.
It turned out that Tony and I were ratted out by J, the pig-nosed Mexican from our old hood who called other Mexicans “wetbacks,” the one who had driven that night all those years before, when Tony and I were teenagers and shot those black kids in front of the projects. J had gone on to commit many other crimes during his career, but when he got pinched for two bodies related to his chop shop, he turned canary and rolled over on every accomplice he had ever witnessed commit a serious crime, which among many included me and Tony.
There is no statute of limitations for murder. Nearly a decade and a half after Tony and I tried cocaine and committed reckless homicides, our crimes had returned to claim their toll.
Tony and I moved from the front of our loft, to the back of a squad car, to the Thirteenth Precinct holding pen, to Cook County Jail, to Stateville Correctional Center, in a slow, but certain, migration. Tony and I each copped a plea and drew a decade. We each understood that we could have bought ourselves time by ratting others, especially Pelón and Beto, who had just been hot news with the armored-car fiasco. But each of us agreed that this was not our way, and I think now that in some way each of us had always expected that awful night to return.
We did our time in maximum security. Tony did his eight and out, due to perceived good behavior. Me? I did not see another moment of freedom for a decade. Not until the day that Tony came to Stateville to collect me and ended up telling me about Pelón and his intention of trying one more ridiculous stunt, the casino job.
CHAPTER 24:
THE COLD, HARD ONES
I pointed at the earrings. “Let me see those, right there.”
The pawnbroker took them out and placed them on the felt mat on the counter, next to the other ones I already selected. They were all gold—simple, but pretty—very much like one another in design or style, and the only issue was to pick the right size. The pawnbroker appeared bored with the potential sale. He lazily pointed at other, more expensive jewelry.
“I’m all right with these.” I picked a nice big pair, although not too big. “Can you gift wrap them?”
The pawnbroker made a face like, Buy a clue, this is a pawnshop. “I give you nice box. You wrap it on you own.”
I paid about a day’s wages, and couldn’t tell, for lack of experience actually paying for jewelry, whether I’d been ripped off. I tucked the small box with the earrings into my jacket pocket and looked around the pawnshop again.
A pair of halfway-decent congas collected dust in the window. I looked them over and thought of the rush if I took them home, how big they would sound in my little room. I could play along with Barretto on “Indestructible” and “El Hijo de Obatala,” and if Xochitl would get up and dance around the room while I did that, it would be bananas. The price on the congas was high, but I had it in pocket. I told myself that it would not be practical to lug those to Florida. That was half the reason I gave away my prison drums.
Immediately, the notion took shape in my mind that to leave Chicago meant to say good-bye to Xochitl. It should not have mattered. Xochitl was a fling, I told myself that. The earrings were just something nice for a friend.
But I felt a pull inside that wanted more. And I did not understand then, although I see it now, that the impulse to take those congas home was somehow related to my developing feelings for Xochitl. Like a secret desire to throw over an anchor and stay put.
What happens when you can’t pull up?
I left those dusty congas where they were and headed out.
Tony hit me on the cell as I walked home from the grocery store.
“Where the fuck you been, dog? You don’t check voice mail?”
“I been busy, Tony. What’s up?”
Tony let the silence cong
eal. I figured him to be in one of his self-pity rounds. I was not in the mood.
“Tony, if you got something urgent, man, shoot. Otherwise, I’m on another mission right now.” Xochitl was on her way over for dinner and I wanted to be finished cooking for her before she arrived.
Tony said, “They’re after me again.”
Great, I thought. Vampires in your rice and beans? “Tony, you need a doctor. I can’t help you.”
“No, Palo, I’m talkin’ about Roach and his crew. I was coming out of La Pasadita with some chiles rellenos and tacos and—and these niggas must’ve been waiting. Bullets started flying. Glass was everywhere. All I could do was drop to the ground. Once I heard their car peel, I jumped to bust caps, but they vaporized. My car’s a fucking basket case. They Swiss-cheesed it. And I fuckin’ landed on top of my tacos, too, and crushed them.”
“Is that it? Were you hit?”
“That ain’t enough?”
“But you’re all right?”
“Fuck no, Palo, I ain’t all right.”
“Stop calling me that. You sure it was Roach?”
“Who else?”
“Did you see him, Tony? Was it Roach or Bulldog or Chulo or anybody you know?”
“It was their crew.”
“How do you know?”
“Instincts, nigga, instincts.”
I didn’t even respond to that. Tony played a game where he waited for me to say something that meant I was jumping in on his side. The silence between us fattened. I was at my building.
“Tony, the best I can tell you is to make a treaty.” It was language from when we came up, when gangs were more formal and alliances were negotiated and approved by war councils. “Make a treaty and make this go away, Tone.”
Tony said, “Shit, them niggas want beef, they found it. This shit is blood in the streets.”
“C’mon, Tony, how’s it worth all that?”
“I built this business. These niggas can’t stop me.”
I put my groceries down, dug for my keys, and looked for the way out of the conversation.
Tony said, “You in on this or what?”
I took a deep breath. The type of breath that goes into the receiver on a cell phone, flies up to a satellite, flies down to the other cell, and lets the attentive listener know you ain’t feeling whatever he just said.
“Eddie, they tried to execute me.”
“I heard. Your tacos got crushed.” My grocery bags were on the sidewalk in front of my building. Inside those bags were the ingredients for dinner with a sexy woman. “You know what, Tony? You knew what this was. You knew the cold, hard facts about gangbanging and slinging dope. You wanted to check back in? You’re in. You want this shit outta your life? Change your lifestyle.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You wanna throw smack—this is it, Tone. You should ask yourself why you can’t just walk away.”
There was a deep silence on the other end.
I tried another tactic. “Look, Tony, if you want, I can talk to Roach. I know his boy Chulo real well. I could set up a meet. Someplace neutral. We can talk and squash this. But not without sacrifice on your end.”
“Sacrifice? Is that all you got?”
“Right now, Tony? Yes. I’m offering you a solution.” I tried to assure Tony that I was there for him, that I was still his best friend, and that this was the best option. Halfway through that spiel, he hung up.
The salmon I chose for Xochitl was pink enough to indicate freshness. I cooked it in a crazy coconut sauce the way Chiva showed me in Stateville. Chiva himself had learned to make it in Cartagena, a city of dark lovelies on the coast of Colombia. Chiva stopped there on tour once, and ended up living on a boat, fishing with a jealous woman, for seven glorious months.
I gave my salmon the nose: almost as good as Chiva’s. The rice was fluffy the way I liked, the corn was buttered, and the wine cap was ready to unscrew. I checked the clock on my cell. There was just enough time to jump through the shower.
Xochitl called from her car. “You coming down?”
I looked from my window and saw her in the driver’s seat. “Look up, I’m waving at you.”
She didn’t. “I don’t feel like climbing those stairs.”
“Come up, Xochitl. You gotta see the feast I made.”
“I’m not hungry, Eddie.”
“Xoch—”
“Fine. But I can’t stay.”
I unscrewed the wine and poured generous amounts, then unlocked the door and left it wide. Xochitl came down the corridor slowly. I locked the door behind her, and she stood in the center of the room with her hands in the pockets of her navy trench coat. I offered her the wine.
“Trade you for the coat.”
She took the wine. “I’m OK.”
“You cold, Xochitl?”
She sipped her wine. “I told you I can’t stay.”
I grabbed my own glass. Xochitl sat in the chair with her coat on. I raised my wineglass at her, then decided to scrap the toast.
“You usually work this late without warning?”
“I wasn’t at the office.”
“Where were you?”
“What’s that smell?”
“Coconut salmon,” I said. “Helluva job keeping it fresh this long. I thought you would come earlier.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I thought to say that I had made it for her, but didn’t. Instead, I got up and served myself. I pointed my fork at the fridge. “There’s more wine, if you want.”
I went back to my plate. No other conversation happened while I ate. Xochitl finished her wine, but made no move toward the bottle.
I got up and poured more for myself and rescrewed the cap. “You don’t like the menu tonight?”
“I told you—”
“C’mon, Xochitl. I call you up. I invite you. I cook you a nice dinner. All right, so the wine’s cheap.”
I stood and went to my dresser drawer, where I had stashed the gift box with the earrings out of view. I extended the box to her. Xochitl looked at it. It occurred to me then that she might think that it contained an engagement ring.
“Nothing that deep, Xochitl, don’t worry.”
She did not take it. “I gotta go.”
“Xochitl, why’re you shutting down again?”
“This is not—”
“What?”
“I can’t do this, Eddie.”
“You can’t do what, Xoch?”
“I can’t get involved with you.”
So there it was.
“Xochitl, I’m not trying to nail you to the floor.”
“There’s always strings, aren’t there?”
“Like?”
“My kids?”
“I like kids.”
“I don’t need you to like them. I don’t want you to.” Xochitl shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I’m still married. Do you get that?”
The jewelry box was still in my hand. The landscape between us expanded.
“You told me you were separated.”
“I am.”
“So then? Aren’t your lawyers working on a divorce?”
“You think it’s that easy? Like you hire somebody to clean your house and that’s it, the chores get done? He’s my husband. We have an estate together, a marriage.”
“So this is you having an affair then, Xochitl? Is that what this is? You having an adventure?”
Xochitl didn’t avoid my eyes. “Right now I’m staying with my parents while I get an idea what I’m gonna do. My children stay with him.”
“How long has it been?”
“A couple months.”
I didn’t know what else I wanted to know. I thought about the phone calls she got sometimes. “I pretty much figured shit was still brewing between you. I don’t care about that.”
“I do.”
“Are you going back to him?”
“I need help with my kids, Eddie. Things cost.”
> “You don’t love him, Xochitl. You told me so yourself.”
“That isn’t what I said. Don’t twist my words.”
“What about us, Xochitl? You could love another man, and do what we did?”
Xochitl half-closed her lids. “What you and I did is over, Eddie. I’m sorry.”
Xochitl’s hands were in her pockets again.
“I thought we were good.”
“We were just being kind to each other, Eddie. That’s all.”
“Kind? What am I, a charity?”
“What did you think, Eddie? That we were going to fall in love and run away to a big house?”
What a cut. The jewelry box got sweaty in my palm. Xochitl walked past me and leaned to kiss me on the cheek, but I pulled back.
“Don’t take it like that,” she said.
She waited for a few seconds longer, then unlocked the door. She did not bother with a long last look.
I listened to Xochitl’s footsteps fade down the stairs. I didn’t go to the window and watch her go to her car, though I heard it start and heard her drive away. I put the unopened jewelry box on top of the dresser, then put my fist into the wall one time, hard. Plaster crumbled. I grabbed the rest of the salmon, the rice, and the corn and flushed it down the toilet.
PART IV:
GALLERY OF ENDANGERED SPECIES
CHAPTER 25:
THE MOURNING AFTER
I arrived on time for work, but that didn’t matter. Blutarski was bent when I got there, in the middle of a big mess. He lifted a fifty-five-gallon drum off its side, where it had landed in a violent splash that sent black ink in all directions. A couple of other drums were overturned in the same manner.
Blutarski cursed in Polish.
“What happened?”
He looked up at me, startled. “Some friends you got.”
“Who?”
“I knew when you came here, with that hungry look—”
“Who did this?”
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