Safe

by Ryan Gattis

  At 10:00 a.m., it peaked at $45 a share, then dipped down to the opening before settling fifty cents higher for $43.70.

  Thanks to Collins, I have 17,800 shares I can’t touch. DEA knows it’s not illegal money. The only reason why they’re holding it is to make sure I don’t use it in a criminal enterprise, but that’s a BS reason.

  It hasn’t been touched in years and they know it. Collins says he has discretion. It can be unfrozen on his say-so. He knows I need it. Cashing out and paying taxes on it is the only way to start a new life clean.

  The Durango apartment building on Doty is basically a giant stucco box the color of cat litter that only goes up three stories, but stretches back into the block about six. We drive by it first.

  We check five blocks in both directions, but no white Jeep with black plates. There’s a park next to the apartment building with a parking lot. We check that, but get nothing. On the front side of the Durango there’s parking, but it’s gated.

  There’s a buzz box up front with a video camera hanging off the roof pointing right at it and the front double doors. One of the things we found searching for this place online is that there’s this apartment for rent inside, so we walk up like we’re interested and buzz the button that says PROPERTY MANAGER.

  After a second, it’s either a crackly voice or a crackly speaker that says, “Yes?”

  “Good morning,” I say, “is the apartment still for rent?”

  “Sure is,” he says, like he’s sighing into the phone. “Three oh six. Corner unit. Come on up.”

  On the way there, I send Lonely into the garage while I hold the door open and he checks for the Jeep. When he comes back shaking his head, we go up to the second floor and take a detour to Ricky’s apartment to see what we can see.

  What we find isn’t good. There’s this badass-looking handle on the door of 203, one with a big key lock anchored to the door. It looks like a little square unit with decent bolts on it.

  I look down the rest of the hallway. I walk to another door, 202. That one has a different handle and lock set.

  I walk to another, where it’s the same cheap thing, and it’s obvious Ricky didn’t like the standard version. Lonely looks at me.

  “He’s a safecracker and a locksmith,” I say to him. “It figures he did up a good one for himself.”

  We go to the manager’s apartment after that. Lonely knocks, and a mayonnaise-colored white guy with wispy long hair going gray on the sides answers the door.

  He’s got a flannel shirt on that could be a type of pajama top, I’m not sure. He’s got shorts on, and double-Velcro sandals for house shoes.

  “Took you long enough,” he says. “I thought you got lost or changed your mind.” He forces a laugh.

  I smile. Without a crackly connection between us, he sounds Texan. He also sounds a little scared.

  Prolly he’s even kicking himself for opening the door when he says, “You mind taking your sunglasses off? I like seeing the eyes of folks I’m dealing with. I’m old-fashioned like that.”

  I’m still wearing my sunglasses, left my glasses in the car on purpose, since these are bigger and it’s harder to see how bad my right eye looks around them.

  “I’m afraid I do,” I say. “I just went to the optometrist and had the drops.”

  “Oh, well, that makes sense then. I’m Arlen, by the way.”

  “Arlen,” I say back to him, and shake his hand in a way that lets him know I’ll do things I say I’ll do. “Good to meet you. Nice place you have.”

  It’s not a nice place, the walls are yellow and the mismatched chairs at the card table off the kitchen look like they had a fight that none of them won, but it’s the type of thing you say to a Texan. I’ve learned that much.

  We deal with them a lot. Not all our product comes through Baja. Sometimes it comes through Arizona, but mostly it’s from South Texas, especially the meth.

  “I’m Bill,” I say. “This is Ted.”

  When Arlen makes a face, I also say, “Not our real names, and I know you figured that out pretty quick since you’re smart. I tell you that so you’ll know that we’re not here to lie to you.”

  I give him some space to nod, but he don’t. He’s stiffening where he’s standing. An old dog wanders over with a clinking collar and tag.

  It’s a lowrider dog, a corgi with little legs, and the thing’s eyes are that type of blue-white color that happens when animals go blind. She sniffs Lonely’s knee.

  “I love dogs,” Lonely says as he bends down to pet the old thing.

  “He does,” I say to Arlen. “He loves dogs.”

  Hey, getting what you want from a stranger isn’t about doing something to somebody. It’s about planting a thought and letting it grow. Most people are reasonable.

  They don’t like pain. They don’t like thinking about it happening to them or nothing else they love, and that goes for how Arlen’s staring at his dog right now, looking nervous.

  He’s patting his thigh even, saying, “Petunia, come here now, girl. Let the nice man alone,” but there’s worry in his voice.

  To him, I say, “Is two zero three owned or rented?”

  The odds are that it’s rented if it’s in a building with other units for rent, but I need to know.

  “Oh,” Arlen says, playing it off like a misunderstanding, “that’s not the one for rent. Uh, the one for rent is—”

  “I’m aware,” I say, before smiling and adding a nod to it. “Owned, or rented?”

  Lonely picks the dog up in his arms and the dog lets him. You can tell she likes the attention. She looks heavy, maybe thirty-five, forty pounds, but nothing’s heavy to Lonely. He picks her up like he’s picking up a stuffed animal. Easy.

  “Hey, now!” Arlen’s turning red.

  I take a step forward before he shouts more.

  He flinches. “It’s rented.”

  “Good, then I need the key.”

  “Now I don’t actually have that.” What Arlen’s doing right now is squinting.

  “You do,” Lonely says, not taking his eyes off Petunia, still rubbing her tall ears. “State law requires a property manager or management office to be able to access all units in the event of fire or disturbance at the behest of the police or fire departments.”

  “Give us the key,” I say, “and we’ll bring it right back with Petunia before we go.”

  Arlen gets a look on his face then like I just punched his mother in her sleep, but he goes and he gets the key out of a special drawer where it’s sitting all by itself next to a larger key ring, and when he puts it in my hand, I say, “Thank you.”

  Ghost

  Monday, September 15, 2008

  Evening

  32

  Here’s why I promised myself never to call him again: Henry has shot people and gloated in their faces when they faded out of this life. He’s stabbed people for no good reason. Shit. He even did it to me once when he was losing on a video game at Sega Genesis. Still got the scar on my left thigh from where the knife went in, and he was looking me in my eyes the whole time. He took me to the hospital after, but don’t get it twisted, Henry Williams, a.k.a. Blanco, is nobody to spend any kind of time with.

  Unless you’re desperate. Unless you got no one else you can turn to. Unless you know someone else actually willing to roll up in a house with a gat and watch out while I crack a safe. And it’s at least worth knowing that if he’s going to stab me, it’s not going to be in the back.

  It’s almost ten o’clock when Blanco shakes his fork at me like he can’t believe I’d ever be sitting across from him again, much less at his own kitchen table. There’s white lace cloth on it, like grandma cloth, and I can’t keep myself from pushing a fingertip through one of the bigger crochet holes to rub waxed wood underneath. With my other hand, I’m forking up food, just like Blanco.

  With his mouth almost full, he says, “When you called, I thought someone was playing pranks.”

  “You never changed your num
ber.”

  He shoots back, “Why would I have to?”

  He hasn’t changed. Still the same dirty-blond hair, but slicked back now. Still got that purple scar down his chin, hiding in stubble. Perfect bony forehead for boxing, big and solid and hanging low over his eyes so gloves can’t get in there and tear his lids up.

  He sees me watching him and nods at me. I nod back.

  Out of the corners of my eyes, I watch his knife sit still next to his plate.

  I’ve known Henry since forever. After the Piñedas left for Arizona when their dad got a mechanic job at a semi-truck garage and my mom never really came back, Mr. Jimenez next door ratted me out to Family Services, and I went in the system. Was only two years of foster care, but it felt like longer. That’s where I met Blanco. He was just Henry then, and me and him were family once. We still are, kind of. Even now.

  Far as South Central’s concerned, Henry never fit in nowhere. Growing up, he was always getting called out for being white, and having to fight black kids, raza kids, guatemaltecos, Thai kids—fuck, even Samoans. Sometimes you hear how what makes people is nature or nurture. With Henry, it was both. He loved socking fools up. That’s who he is, but coming up in Lynwood just meant he had to do a lot more of it. Sometimes two or even three times a day. Didn’t matter if he was tired or already busted up, he’d still do it.

  And that’s the kind of daily bullshit that either puts you in a bottle or slings you at a gang real early. For him, it was both. Me, I was never more than part-time in that gang life, mostly stealing, getting things for people that needed them. That’s mainly because you can’t be a full-time anything when you’re a full-time addict. Me and Henry used to jack cars together and rob paisas for their payday sock stashes.

  So many nicknames around here come from some obvious shit. Dude looks like a big chubby bear? That’s you, Oso. Dude’s skinny? Flaco it is. For Henry, most people think he got named for his skin, because it’s white as clouds and letters on street signs. But that’s not how he got it.

  One time early on, before he had a name, this dude named Lil Corners hated Henry and tried to get everybody to call him Güero for his nickname. That next day, L.C. got a visit in his front yard when three of his homies were there playing catch. Henry rolled up solo with a bat and broke ribs, but when he got to L.C. last, he damn near took the kid’s jaw off. Broke it in seven places, I heard. L.C. had to get it wired up afterwards, and he’s talked funny ever since, makes this sucking sound on his s’s and f’s. His mom’s boyfriend at the time saw the whole thing go down, and he never liked L.C. This boyfriend was involved himself and impressed by the balls it took to come at somebody like that in broad daylight. Outnumbered. Not giving a fuck.

  The boyfriend spread the word pretty good about what went down. “You should’ve seen them knuckles on that bat, holmes. They were whiter than white!”

  And that’s Henry now. Nudillos blancos. White knuckles.

  Blanco for short. Named for his fucking grip.

  To this day, you drop Henry’s street name anywhere south of the 10 and people with enough sense and time in the game will close down right there and walk away. It’s a name that people just can’t have anything to do with. And that’s because everybody knows Blanco will do whatever to whoever, whenever—that the dude has no limits.

  When I walked in tonight, I looked him in his eyes. I gave him that respect. And I came with cariño: an envelope with $1,000 of my own money, my daily ATM max that I pulled out of my account on the way down. We do the dance right after I give it to him. He says no, he can’t take it. And I insist, telling him it’s for his kids, for their education, and then he can’t say no.

  33

  Blanco offered me food straight off, and I said no because I could see his wife was pregnant again and had been sleeping on the couch right before he shook her awake. When she came over into the kitchen, blinking, I told her I was good, that I didn’t need any food even though I’d thrown everything up before coming over and couldn’t bring myself to eat the nachos after either, but her and her ma got up anyways.

  Now there’s chicken thighs in mole amarillo in front of us, and it’s fancy as hell, loaded up with green beans and potatoes. Chayote too. On the side is a little plate of chopped white onion and lime slices next to some reheated rice and beans.

  I bet it smells amazing, but all’s I’m smelling is glue right now. Glue like they used to have in my elementary school classroom. I feel chilies, though. Heat. On my tongue.

  “She didn’t make the sauce,” Blanco says, talking about his wife, “so you know.”

  He explains how it came from the market inside Lynwood’s Plaza Mexico, that one development the Koreans from Mexico put together.

  “They built it around the old swap meet, and the thing is,” Blanco says, “it looks all nice and shiny and new on the outside, but inside? It’s the same old.”

  He takes a bite, looking at me hard right then too, like he’s trying to say I might look different on the outside, but I’m still the same inside.

  That I never changed. That I can’t. That he sees me. He knows me. All that is what his look puts across while he’s chewing.

  He swallows and says, “What do you call that, anyways?”

  He knows what it’s called. Blanco’s no dummy. Like a lot of powerful men, he just loves asking questions he already knows the answer to so he can see what you’ll come back with. Collins is the same way. Frank too, sometimes.

  I come back with the same look he’s giving me. The same look I would’ve given from a lifetime ago, because you can’t let people like Blanco front you or they own you. And this is him testing me, seeing if I’m still worth his time.

  “A metaphor,” I say.

  “Right.” He’s still eyeing me hard.

  Blanco’s got a smile and a disbelieving shake of his head on top of it too. He’s got my old name in his mouth, and I can see how he’s about to spit it, so I stop him because I don’t need to hear the name I left behind here.

  “I’m going by Ghost now.”

  He leans back at that, and the look in his eyes tells me how that’s perfect, how he just nailed me down with the bit about the swap meet still being the same thing just under a different name, how he knew it was the same for me too. He’s proud of himself for that. He goes back to smiling and nodding.

  “Fits you,” he says, and then turns to his wife. “Don’t it fit him?”

  I never really knew Esmerelda back in the day, but she’s from the neighborhood. She’s got that cinnamon-red Mexican hair. I mean, we got drunk together once and fucked at the old Casino House that Millionaire used to run, but nobody else knows and neither of us is going to tell Blanco that. Not ever.

  She doesn’t look up from whatever it is she’s doing with dessert. “Fits him if he wants it to.”

  “Yeah.” Blanco says it like he didn’t even hear what she said.

  That’s Blanco. In his own world. Always has been. Always will be.

  He comes back with “Some folks thought you was dead anyways. Coming back here, it’s like you really are a ghost, Ghost.”

  I’m about to be one soon too, I think. People have a tendency to die around Blanco. Sometimes on accident. Mostly on purpose.

  Right then, he laughs a late laugh that wobbles on the line between fake and real. It’s just awkward enough to remind you that his crazy is in there, lurking under his skin. That he has control of it. For now.

  “This dude, man,” he says. “This dude. It’s good to see you, cabrón!”

  He throws a little check hook my way to catch me in the shoulder, but I dip an inch and slip it. That was a test too. How slow was I now? It’s funny sometimes how much gangsters are like boxers, just physical. Always touching you, putting an arm around your shoulders, poking at you. What they’re doing is trying to see who you are underneath everything. Trying to find weak spots.

  Me and him used to scrap. He never beat me when I was sober, when we were evens, he calle
d it. To this day, apparently, I’m the only one that never lost to him fair. And to Blanco, that means something.

  See, he doesn’t ask me what I want, or what I need. He just leans forward and says, “You know it’s been boring around here lately though, huh? It’s not like it used to be, not like that Wild West shit. None of the little-ass homies get that. Damn, man, nobody even gets tattooed anymore!”

  He’s got that look in his eyes. La luz, we used to call it. The light.

  Not many people on earth enjoy going out and getting wild for no damn reason, but Blanco’s one of them. Thirty-two years old. Wife. Two kids. One more on the way. Seen the inside of county jail plenty, even been tried, but never once convicted because witnesses had the habit of getting noncooperative at trial.

  But that light’s blazing now. I can see it.

  And like all fires, it’s got to be fed.

  He takes a bite, chews, smiles, and says, “So what kind of trouble you gonna make for me?”

  His wife flinches and that makes me hesitate, but Blanco’s making a face you can’t say no to, so I tell him I got an address. He makes me tell him what it is, and where it is, and I watch as he does that mental math about whose click owns it and if he can fuck with it or not. It must be a yes, because next he wants to know what it is about this particular address, so I tell him that maybe there’s a safe inside, but we won’t know till we get there tomorrow.

  He scoffs at that. “Tomorrow? We’re going tonight, fool.”

  Behind him, in the kitchen, I see his wife’s shoulders sag. She turns and shares a look with her mother that I’m no good. That I’m taking her husband away. That I’m putting him in a position to do dangerous shit like he probably hasn’t done in years. That I’m bringing the past back. That I’m reminding Blanco about what’s bad inside him, not about what’s good.

  “Tomorrow’s better,” I say, as if anyone could ever tell Blanco when to do anything.

  He doesn’t like that. “We’re rolling through, seeing what there is to see. You fixing to bust in somewhere without ever putting eyes on it first, dick?” He scoffs again, harder this time. “You been gone way too long, seeing things from that other side. It’s a good thing you called me, man. These streets would’ve swallowed you up otherwise.”