Mr. Hooligan

by Ian Vasquez

  “No, I’m good.” Riley’s gaze following Carlo as he moved to the other side of the room, leaned in a doorway, arms folded. “Wouldn’t want to get too comfortable around you people.”

  Israel shook his head and said to Carlo, “Hear that now? ‘You people.’ ”

  Carlo clucked his tongue. “I believe we’ve gone and hurt his feelings.”

  Israel looked at Riley. “Is that right? You’re too experienced to think this is anything but a hard business, Riley. Are you slipping? Tell me.”

  “I had your word,” Riley said.

  “No no no, you had my word I’d talk to the Mexican, that’s it. What’s coming home to you today is just how crazy some folks can be.”

  Carlo said, “No more crazy than your asshole friend. Thinking he could waltz in and out with other people’s property.”

  “Somebody must’ve put that idea in his head,” Israel lifting a finger, leveling it at Riley. “Was it you did that, Riley?”

  “You’re still on that story?”

  Israel wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, one by one. “Let me tell you how it is, Riley. We needed to extend a gesture, a favor for a friend, something on the order of—oh, retribution—call it whatever you want. The way I see it, it was purely a business decision. My Mexican compadre didn’t take kindly to your supremely fucking foolish amigo stealing from him and then living like it was nothing while,” Israel wadded the napkin, pitched it on the coffee table, “his two trusted employees didn’t return and are here rotting on foreign soil in unmarked graves, which I have to remind you that it was we who did the digging.”

  “You mean it was me who did the digging,” Carlo said.

  “I stand corrected.”

  Riley breathed in deep; there wasn’t enough air in the room. He looked at the floor, his hands sort of cupped down in front of him like when he tried in vain to meditate, and at that moment, he knew he could easily hurt somebody again. Starting with one of these Monsantos. “Well hear this, I brought your four missing buckets, so I’m done. You want somebody to make your delivery, look elsewhere.”

  Israel and Carlo exchanged a glance. Israel said, “I expected you might say something like that.”

  “I can’t trust you. Should I start watching my back now?”

  “Settle down, don’t get hysterical. You want to listen to me with a clear head, especially since I have a sweet offer to make.”

  “I’m not doing this run, Israel, I’m not.”

  “Tuesday morning. Down the New River, you transfer it to their boat, they carry it upriver to wherever, then they filter it across the border by trucks in three or four trips, something like that. We’re sorting out the details but I know this much: Nobody’s getting the jump on us this time, and I need you to complete this run, you’re the man knows all those routes in that river, the twists and turns. We need you, son.”

  “At what price?”

  “There you go. You do this run? The interest on that bar loan? Clear, all clear on my books, you won’t owe me a cent more than the principal.”

  “Maybe,” Riley said, “it would be better if it was a cleared debt. For all the hardship this thing has caused, combat pay, you know what I’m saying?”

  Carlo let out a whoop. “Ho baby! Listen to this shit.”

  Riley looked from one to the other, waiting to see how far he could take it.

  “You come into my house,” Israel said, “insult me like this, like it’s your due. You have some damn nerve, son.”

  Riley looked off, nodded, then headed for the door.

  “Riley.”

  “No, let him go.”

  Riley, a hand on the doorknob, looked at Israel. “This is bullshit, you realize that? All of this.”

  “Your interest will be clear with me, that’s a solid offer.”

  “But will it bring Harvey back? His wife? He screwed me over, Israel, but he was my friend. My business partner. And I thought I had your word. I need to feel certain you won’t go back on your word again. Considering everything? It’s better you forget about me.”

  “Look at me, son, and let’s forget the bullshit—since when me and you had problems? All these years, we’ve been straight with each other, when it comes down to the deals, me, you, and Carlo. Don’t let the actions of your rotten, betraying so-called friend cloud your reasoning, Riley. He was the one that started this, not you. He had no place in our affairs, none. He should’ve known that, so don’t feel responsible for him.”

  Riley exhaled, jammed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling. He rolled back on his heels. Looked at the floor. “When you say? Hypothetically speaking.”

  “Tuesday morning. Before daybreak.”

  “And if I’m dumb enough to do this, who handles the transaction on their side to give me the cash?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, details to come. As of right now, with all the attention lately, we might need to get creative.”

  “See now, I don’t know what that means.”

  “I’m saying we might handle the money exchange in another location, but we don’t know where yet. Logistics, logistics…”

  “Communicate with me by radio or something?”

  “There you go, that’s an idea. Welcome back, Riley.”

  Riley could not get a full breath. He needed to leave before it started to show. He told them, “You know my number,” and didn’t have to say any more by way of agreement; they’d known each other so long.

  Israel said they’d call him after noon, and Riley opened the door, went out. They might know each other’s idiosyncrasies, but what the Monsantos couldn’t know was how much his knees were trembling as he walked down the stairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Riley drove all the way down Albert Street and circled left around St. John’s Cathedral to head back north on Regent Street. After another circle like this, after he was sure no one was trailing him, he squeezed into a space between two trucks on Regent and got out of the pickup. He walked along Regent in the sticky humidity, hoping he wouldn’t meet anyone he knew, anyone who might want to stop and chat. It wasn’t until he hooked a right on Prince Street, going toward the sea, that he felt he could relax, breathe deeper.

  He turned right on Southern Foreshore and walked along the seawall until he came to Miles’s house, a white and green colonial wood-frame, three stories, garage and storeroom downstairs, verandah and living area on the second floor, bedrooms on the top. He opened the front gate, went up the path to the covered stairway, glad for the sea breeze in the shade. He rang the doorbell and said, “It’s me, Riley.” No one answered; he rang again. “It’s Riley.”

  He heard the door being unbolted. He waited before he opened it and entered.

  Across the room, Harvey stood in disheveled T-shirt and shorts. “Riley,” he said, raising a cell phone. “My house, I just found out. My neighbor’s texting me like crazy. Damn, Riley, these Monsantos don’t play.”

  Riley walked in, hearing sobs coming from upstairs; he took a wild guess that it was Gert. He headed to the kitchen, Harvey slouching in after him, the once cocky Harvey looking beaten down and haggard. He asked Riley if he wanted a cup of coffee, he’d just made Guatemalan Arabica, was all he could find. Riley poured a cup, dumped in cream and sugar, and sat at the rough-hewn table. “Where’s Miles?”

  Harvey dropped heavily in the chair across from Riley. “Upstairs, fixing a toilet, I think.” He planted his elbows on the table, shaking his head. “Lopez, man, he keeps calling and calling.”

  “You going to answer?”

  “I already know what he’s gonna say. ‘Where are you? Where are the buckets?’ It wouldn’t be no ‘Thank god you’re alive,’ that’s for sure.”

  “Next time, answer him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And tell him they took the buckets before they burnt the place, but you managed to put away some of the coke.”

  “Why would I want to say that?”

  “ ’Cause
some might have accidentally fallen out, like three kilos, into some bags I stashed somewhere. Keep this in mind, Harvey, coke is like money. It got us in trouble, and it might help get us out.”

  Harvey sat back and stared at Riley. “Don’t go getting all crafty, I don’t want no part of this.”

  “Harvey? Let me take this opportunity to inform you that, hello, you’re already part of this.”

  Harvey sagged. Riley tipped his chair back against the wall and studied him. “You said last time you spoke to Lopez, couple days ago, he didn’t know that the Monsantos had found you out. Now he does. But tell him I don’t believe it, what they’re saying about you, and tell him I’m helping you hide out somewhere but you can’t say where. Tell him I don’t agree with what the Monsantos did to your house and there is confusion in the camp, but I still have to do their bidding and deliver those buckets.”

  “Confusion in the camp … Okay, but look—”

  “You know why you’re going to tell him you stashed some of the cane away? ’Cause you want him on your side.”

  Harvey looked like he was in pain.

  “You don’t want him thinking you turned coat, getting scared and begging me for forgiveness.” Riley took a beat for him to get the message. “Especially since, last time you talked to him, things weren’t looking too hot for him. Isn’t that what he said?”

  Harvey shrugged. “He said Minister Burrows wasn’t happy. So?”

  “The guy needs a friend.”

  “I don’t want to be it.”

  “Well, guess what, it’s either him or the Monsantos, and they don’t want you and you can’t hide in this house forever.”

  “What about you, Riley, I’m with you.”

  “Me? I’m with the Monsantos, buddy.”

  “Riley, man, this is me,” Harvey said, palming his chest. “Me and you, R.J. Why you being like this?”

  “Being like what? Like trying to save your life?”

  “How is that? You’re pushing me away.” Harvey’s face was getting red.

  Riley couldn’t deny a part of him was enjoying this. He let the chair down and drank some coffee. “I’d be interested to know, when you talk to Lopez again, what his plans are. The minister giving him a certain access and turning a blind eye, then backing away when it gets too hot? I’d like to know where his mind is. Pick his brain for me, Harvey. Think you could do that?”

  Harvey took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms. “Hell, man, my life is over.”

  “Nope, you follow my directions you might get your life back. Open a bar again, start making money again, the honest way. Customers are getting thirsty.”

  Someone was coming down the stairs and Riley waited. Miles entered the kitchen with a toilet tank ball and flush handle. “Riley.” He looked from Riley to Harvey. “I’m interrupting?”

  “Nah, we’re done.”

  Miles passed behind him and pitched the parts in the garbage can under the sink. “This house is going to send me to the poor house. Every day it’s something else busted. Last week the gutter, now today this. Harvey, listen, you’re gonna have to use the downstairs toilet till I get this fixed. Who’s Sir Belly?”

  “What?” Harvey waking from a trance. “My cat … I know, I know, Gertrude…”

  “She’s still crying up there.”

  In the center of the table Harvey’s cell phone started buzzing. He picked it up, checked the screen. “See what I told you, that’s him again.”

  Riley said, “Before you answer, just one more thing.” He waited, the phone buzzing. “To make yourself believable, you got to act like you’re ready to keep on stabbing me in the back.”

  Harvey’s eye flickered with the hurt, then he rose with the phone and walked out of the room, saying, “Hello? Hey, brother … what’s that you say?”

  Leaning against the sink, arms folded, Miles watched Riley. “You’re turning the screws on him, huh?”

  Riley raised his cup to his mouth, put it down.

  “Making him feel like shit, which is proper, but at least it’s better than dead.”

  Riley drank off the coffee.

  “What I can’t understand, though, is why you go out of your way to protect a man you don’t know you can trust anymore.”

  Riley turned the cup around and around, staring at the dregs. “Because he’s my friend, the oldest friend I have,” and he looked up at Miles.

  “Okay. Same reason I open my doors to you guys, because you’re my friend, and as a friend? I hope we’re doing the right thing. I know you, Riley, but Harvey—I’m not too sure about Harvey. I like him, okay, but you know…”

  “I hear you.”

  “And as a friend, I know you’ll understand why I have my daughter staying at my fiancée’s this weekend. This life I’m living with Lani, it’s peaceful and predictable and boring, and my house—”

  Riley raised a palm. “You don’t have to say it.” He stretched out his hand and they bumped fists. “If there’s even a shadow of trouble at your door we’re off like a prom dress.”

  Miles’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “But I’ve been restless, too, so if you need my help outside these doors…”

  “I’ll holler.”

  “Cool,” Miles said and Riley responded, “Cool.”

  And that’s all they needed to say.

  * * *

  “Lopez is furious,” Harvey said, holding the cell phone in his lap with both hands.

  He and Riley were sitting in the dark family room filled with old mahogany furniture and dusty photos on the walls of Miles in his boxing days.

  “What he say?”

  “He wants get back. He kept saying he wants to fucking hurt somebody.”

  “Any plans?”

  “One to come, it sounds like. But this is the big news: Minister Burrows cut him off for good. No further assistance. He says they’re coming down on her, some kind of internal investigation, he says. Police, people from the DEA involved, all that shit, he doesn’t know who else, except the minister’s telling him she’s out, he’s on his own. Until it cools off, but the way he’s talking, all defiant and arrogant, he doesn’t want to cool off.”

  “Who’s he got with him, did he tell you?”

  “Two guys still hanging with him. That’s it. One is a cousin of one of those guys that got killed in Caye Caulker the other day, and the other dude is a policeman still wants a big payday. But he’s got nobody big behind him. Everybody is scared, he says. His contacts on the BDF won’t take his calls. He says the head of the Coast Guard threatened to string him up if he comes by asking for help, and that’s why he’s pissed, Riley. He says everybody turned their backs on him because of this DEA and police pressure, and he’s blaming you and the Monsantos for it.”

  “So just him and two other guys, no Coast Guard boats, no BDF guns, nothing like that?”

  “That’s about it. What it sounds like, none of his contacts want nothing to do with him at the moment so he’s taking this one up himself.”

  “How about you, he have any doubts about you?”

  Harvey chuffed. “That’s the funny thing. He’s hardly listening to me. Just keeps giving orders, pontificating. Wants me to keep my eyes open around you.”

  “Good.”

  “No no, not good, not good at all. I don’t want to be in the middle of this.”

  “What did I tell you about that?”

  Harvey flung himself back against the chair and said, “Shit,” shaking his head. “Not good, not good. He’s threatening your life, Riley. He sounds crazy. He’s talking about taking your life, how he knows where you live, what you drive, serious stuff.”

  “He really said that?”

  Harvey nodded, gravely. “He said somebody saw you and two other men the other night at Caye Caulker in that bar.” Then, after a moment, “That true, Riley? You did that?”

  “Who you gonna believe?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “What else did he say
?”

  Harvey exhaled. “He said … well, he said something like, ‘One gets the sense that Riley James isn’t bright enough to see beyond friendship, so let’s fuck him.’ That’s him saying that, not me, okay? Like he wants me to set you up or something. ‘One gets the sense that Riley James isn’t too smart,’ shit like that.”

  “Juan gets the scents, huh? Who is Juan and what do his scents have to do with me?”

  That halted conversation.

  Harvey sucked his teeth and waved a dismissive hand, looking away. “You’re turning this into a joke? How can you take this for a joke? Man, Turo’s rubbing off on you.”

  But when Riley kept staring at him in mock seriousness, one eyebrow lifted, Harvey couldn’t fight it, he chuckled, and for a moment, a brief moment, it was like old times.

  “Hey,” Harvey said. “We screwed?”

  “Not if you don’t set me up.”

  “No, no,” Harvey jumping to his feet, “no, that’s not … Yeah, okay, maybe I deserve that but I can’t laugh through this, I’m sorry, it’s like, like—I’m dying inside.”

  “We’re going to get through this, man.” Riley watching Harvey pace the room. Riley twisted around in his seat, ignoring the pain in his abdomen, to get Harvey’s eyes. “Listen to me,” and Harvey stopped pacing and looked at him. “We’re going to get through this but we need to keep our heads,” pressing a fist against his stomach, “and think from down here. Centered. You understand? Like a rock. Right down here.”

  Harvey looked at Riley. “Where did you hear that from?”

  Riley shrugged. “Read it in a book one time.”

  “Really? Like what, some Zen comic book?” Harvey’s mouth threatening to break out into a grin.

  “Comic book? No, man, higher learning. A graphic novel.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The ice rattled when Candice set the glass on the coaster and sat back in the rattan chair. “This is nice.”

  “The whiskey?”

  “Well, that too. I meant out here, this breeze, the view. I don’t think I’ve ever come out here.”