Safe

by Ryan Gattis

  And it turns out the candy is just that. A damn chocolate bar.

  This, Blanco tears into right away and starts munching. From the crunches, I can hear it has nuts in it. I must give him a look for this because he scowls at me.

  “What? Got to get my blood sugars up!”

  “We just ate twenty minutes ago, man.”

  It’s like old times.

  “I got good metabolism. Shit. Trying to find my balance. You don’t want me hungry when it’s time to—”

  Blanco stops, remembers the kid’s still inside, and turns to the backseat. “What’s your name?”

  The kid freezes. He wasn’t ready for this one.

  Blanco switches it up. “¿Como te llamas?”

  The kid struggles to come out with “Uriel.”

  “Uriel, that’s a good name. Fuerte. But I need you to do me a favor from now on, okay? Because maybe nobody’s told you this yet.”

  Uriel nods.

  “Don’t ever tell anyone your fucking real name again. ¿Entiendes?”

  The kid’s got a hard look in his eye, like he got slapped. And he kind of just did.

  Blanco says, “Get the fuck out, little vato. You didn’t see shit tonight.”

  The door opens and closes quick. I get the engine going again and that’s that. We’re only about a half mile off. Blanco’s got me going the back way. He’s all over it.

  “Turn right here, then left. Nope. Don’t go there. Roll through that alley. No—wait. Turn here.”

  I recognize the sign as we pass it. This’s the street, the same one from Janine’s piece of paper. It’s clogged, though. Cars everywhere, out in front of one-level houses with trees in their dried-up front yards. There’s two streetlights out on this block. Even with our windows up, I hear music. Some sort of club shit. Bass like crazy.

  “Yes,” Blanco says, and he’s getting amped now, seeing this party.

  I can feel the wheels running in his head. It’s big. It’s loud. It’s the best possible distraction.

  “Turn up in there,” he says.

  “No.”

  “Dick, we’re rolling through like we’re normal party people, okay? Go.”

  I go.

  If there was the slightest chance it wasn’t real before, it’s real now.

  We cruise by just fast enough for nobody to put eyes on us. The good news: nobody cares. They’re all rolling up to the party. The even better news: the drugs house is right next door and its lights are all out. All but one. So we keep going, down to the end of the block, hang a left, and come back on it from the alley behind.

  We have to count houses as we go backwards. Eight, seven, six, five, four.

  Four.

  “This’s it,” Blanco says, and takes up the black sack that he called a mag bag from the floor, opens it, and nods his chin up at me like he wants me to put something in it.

  I’m not liking this. But it’s not like I got a choice either.

  I say, “What is it?”

  “Fucking magnets. The game’s changed since you been gone. Just put your shit in the bag.”

  The concrete I got inside is telling me not to do it, but my head’s telling me I got no choice. That I stopped having choices the moment I called Blanco. And I’m no tech dude, but I’ve been around federal agents enough to know that magnets don’t do shit to smartphones or data stored on servers or phone company records. But none of that matters now. All’s I know is, I need to keep my prepaid and its numbers intact.

  So I hand my regular phone to Blanco instead. The one I got as a Stenberg Locksmithing employee. Because fuck it, I think. Why not? It’s no good to me now anyways.

  “That’s good. I’m glad you did that.” Not taking any chances, Blanco puts his own prepaid in the bag too. “Because you need to quit living in the past, homie.”

  There’s no going back now. I’ll never see that phone again because this is him closing the loop, trying to destroy evidence before the fact. Like a pro. This is him trying to cover his tracks before he does anything.

  It’s so dark that I can’t see the bottom of the bag as he zips it up, which feels about right. Like, it’s a tiny black hole, sucking up everything.

  And I’m thinking about how since this is definitely going down tonight, I still need to get the money to Mira, and I’m not seeing how that’s happening yet.

  I got to be patient for that. I got to wait.

  “Hey.” Blanco’s punch to the shoulder brings me back to the surface. “Did you hear what I said or what?”

  “Sorry. What?”

  “Quit living in the past! You got that tape. You’re driving the same style of Jeep that Rose drove—that’s creepy, dude. What the fuck you think you’re doing? For real, has nobody ever gave it to you like this? Straight up?”

  The answer to that is no. Nobody ever has.

  Because not many people in my new life know about Rose, and those that do, don’t know how much I hang on to everything of hers I possibly can. They suspect, maybe.

  But they don’t know.

  They don’t know I needed her every day just to make it this far.

  That certain-doom type of feeling in my stomach isn’t shrinking. It mushrooms when Blanco confirms everything I’ve been thinking.

  He’s staring at the back door of the house when he says, “So you know, we’re about to do this.”

  The only thing I can do now is check him a little, insinuate he doesn’t know his own business.

  I say, “You sure this isn’t going to come back on you?”

  “Dick.” Blanco rolls down the window and spits out of it. “Quit talking like we’re about to get caught. You trying to jinx this shit?”

  I’ve been hearing rumors, here and there over the years, that Blanco made some connects with the Soviet Armenians that seem to be running all the Medicare and credit fraud around, and the Russians too, the ones moving girls on the Westside and in the Valley.

  Maybe both. It never got made clear to me and I didn’t ask.

  I didn’t need to know.

  I got to get one last needle in though. “Well, just checking.”

  “Oh, thanks for ‘checking.’ I been above the street for a long time, Ghost.” The way he says it, he’s reminding me that I used to be somebody else and that I’ve been away a real long time, and even when I was up in it, I was nothing. A nobody. This is him saying it’s a new game now. His game. “If they’re slipping, we’re doing them a favor. Better than la DEA coming through tomorrow or whenever, right? We blow their spot now and it’s like a practice run for them to tighten it up because none of their dumb fuckers go to jail, right? That’s worth something. That’s leverage, holmes. You’re welcome.”

  There’s only one last thing to handle.

  “If there’s a safe,” I say, “you get the drugs and I get the cash.”

  He knows as well as I do that the odds are in his favor there, so it makes sense that he doesn’t hesitate or try to sweeten it on his side.

  “Deal, puto,” he says as he slides out of the Jeep and soft-closes the door so it doesn’t bang, only half latches.

  He’s on the other side and next to me before I do the same.

  “Now let’s go see who’s slipping.”

  It’s dark, and I can’t see shit, but I know the sound of la luz sparking up in his voice when I hear it.

  I’m in and out of the back of the Jeep quick to get my cases. We cross a dead-grass backyard and then it’s three little concrete steps to the back door. The light’s out in the kitchen, but Blanco puts his nose right up near the glass anyways.

  He mouths at me, “We good.”

  I set both my toolboxes down on the stoop.

  From the next house over, I’m hearing the beat transition into something else, into a party track of some kind, and my heart’s thumping like it’s about to pop.

  Slow down, I think. Slow. Down.

  And I don’t know if I’m trying to talk to my heart or to the concrete inside me or to my
hands.

  But it may as well be all of them because my palms are sweating inside my gloves as I grab a bump key from my pocket and do the doorknob lock. It gives about as easy as a plastic Easter egg. But then, when I go to grab a new shark and do the same to the dead bolt above, I find the thing is not even done up, so I turn the knob and the door opens just enough to see a dirty rag on brown tile in a kitchen.

  Blanco mouths it at me like he’s screaming, “Motherfuckers be slipping!”

  I crack one of my cases, grab some WD, and wet up the hinges.

  Just in case.

  When I put it back down, Blanco hands me one of the pistols before pushing the door open enough for both of us to go in.

  It goes wide without a sound.

  Glasses

  Monday, September 15, 2008

  Afternoon

  37

  When this leathery white guy Frank Stenberg goes into a Mexican minimarket by his work called La Chelita, I follow him in and Lonely backs me up but at a little distance.

  The second I saw Stenberg Locksmithing I knew. This is Ricky’s boss, or it was. Boss and landlord, making it even more complicated.

  This Frank goes left. I’m in behind him but it takes a second for my eyes to adjust, and when they do, I can tell how this isn’t a typical minimarket.

  I mean, the tiny market is on my right, with toilet paper and cereals and all that, but in front of me is a whole kitchen setup with a menu board talking about fried shrimp and hamburguesas. Beside all that is a freezer for ice cream.

  To my left is the register with a guy behind it flipping through a Hot Rod. He looks in his forties. What my guess is, is he’s Guatemalan. On the wall to his left are coolers. That’s where Frank is, standing in front of the rack for sodas.

  As he opens a door and leans in while a little cloud comes out, I get close to him and say, “Do you know a Ricky Mendoza?”

  He turns and looks at me. “Nope.” He don’t blink, but he’s lying.

  I take the photo out of my pocket, thinking I’ll just show it to him so I can get a reaction and he’ll know I know he’s lying, but I don’t even get my arm halfway up before his eyes are following it and going big and wild.

  He lunges at me, snatching the photo straight out of my hand. I take a step back to keep the right distance between us in case I need to swing.

  Lonely’s inching in behind Frank, getting close enough to do something and I’m about to let him loose, but then this guy Frank brings his face up from the photo and he’s crying.

  Red angry eyes filled up with tears he’s not even trying to control. What it is, is crazy. This hard-looking old man cracks in half right in front of me and I don’t even know what to do.

  I’m just standing there stunned until he shouts at me, “Where did you get this?”

  His voice’s loud, so loud it snaps the Guatemalan register guy out of looking at his magazine.

  “Hey!” the guy says. “What the fuck is up?”

  I give Lonely a look that says it’s time for him to handle this, and he’s about to, but right as he’s stepping up, the old man turns and stomps on his toes.

  Lonely don’t go down from that, but the old man does. He goes down and comes back up with a little pistol in his hand. Super slick. On purpose.

  He’s not pointing it at me, just showing me he has one, and if I’m thinking of doing something stupid in a room full of cameras, I may as well not bother.

  Frank shouts, “Why are you looking for Ricky? Are you threatening him with something?”

  Register guy’s chiming in at me and Lonely, “You think you pulling something? You ain’t pulling shit, fuckers!”

  I put my hands down in front of me, to show how I’m not a threat to either one of them.

  “I would never do that,” I say to Frank, then add, “sir.”

  “No?”

  He’s eyeing me. He’s getting smart, memorizing what I look like and then what Lonely looks like, what we’re wearing down to the cut and the colors. The kinds of things that go in police reports.

  This’s a problem and it’s my fault. I never should’ve followed him in here. I’m kicking myself for it now. That’s what I get for thinking being in public makes little things like asking if somebody knows somebody easier.

  The whole situation gets one push further in the wrong direction when the guy behind the register says to Frank, “What’s up with Ghost? He in trouble?”

  I circle a little bit where I am to see the guy bringing his hands up from underneath the counter to show me just the butt of a gun, either a rifle or a shotgun, and that’s our sign not to push this anymore or somebody’s liable to get shot.

  “Not yet,” Frank says, but he’s keeping his eyes on me.

  I need to take some heat out of this quick, so I step back. Lonely follows my lead.

  “Sorry to upset your day, Mister Stenberg.” I say it like that so he knows I know who he is, that he’ll for sure be seeing me again but under better circumstances next time.

  Me and Lonely back ourselves out of the front doors and turn and walk down the block. I’m deciding whether we should walk by the car, disappear somewhere, and come back to it.

  I ditch the idea when I see Frank’s not following us. He’s watching us but not following us, so I turn on 142nd and head for the car. As we get in, I don’t see nobody coming after us, so we go.

  “That got crazy,” Lonely says.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think he knows where Ghost is,” Lonely says about Stenberg.

  “I know he don’t.”

  Since we’re far enough away, Lonely takes it down to the speed limit as I’m thinking about how maybe Ghost is ashamed of what he did, that he don’t even want Frank to know about it or be involved, but I feel pretty sure Ricky took that safe for a reason bigger than himself.

  This isn’t something to share with Lonely, or Rooster either, but it hits me pretty hard, since I understand the motivation to doing something like that. I got it inside me too.

  Lonely’s not saying nothing, but I know he’s thinking about how we might need Frank to get to this Ghost.

  “We know who this Frank is and where he is,” I say. “We can get him later if we need to use it like that. First, we tell Rooster.”

  Even as I’m saying this, I’m getting the feeling this isn’t over, that it’s not even close. A guy like this, does he cut ties with the closest people in his life over one safe? Prolly if he’s in a tight spot, but I don’t buy that.

  What I’m thinking is He’s acting like his life’s already done. I can’t get over how he left everything behind, all ordered or sold. That commitment’s crazy.

  I feel like it’s a lesson to me, that if I want to get out, this is what I have to be prepared to do. But something isn’t sitting right with me. Maybe it’s thoughts or maybe it’s my stomach.

  I pop a couple more antacids, lime this time. What I’m worried about is, I don’t know that anybody goes this far for just one rip, not that almost nine hundred gees is little, but it sure don’t seem like he’s the type to act on a gut feeling now.

  It seems like he was waiting for it, getting ready. I could be wrong but I think he cleaned that place out before he even took what he took.

  I mean, are you gonna go home and junk your bed after you put that much money in your pockets like that? No. You got your bug-out bag with you, and you just go. You run.

  “Hey,” I say to Lonely, “go right up here on El Segundo and then right on Crenshaw when we get to it.”

  Lonely changes lanes. He don’t know where I’m taking us and don’t ask why, he just does it. He’s a good soldier. Prolly he’s exactly the one they send to get me if they find out I done what I done.

  It don’t take long for us to roll by El Camino College. I was a student there. Twice. After the settlement was the first time. I thought I could go right and do something, so I signed up for an economics class and a business class too.

  That was it,
not a full schedule or nothing. I didn’t go so far before dropping out, but it was a good year before Rooster swooped me up. I met a South Gate girl there. Well, she met me when she was working circulations at the library.

  Leya was doing her A.A. in paralegal studies and sort of minoring in avoiding me. That’s what she calls it to this day, but she said yes the first time I ever asked her out. Just a few years ago, I went back there for some sign-language classes, interpreter training they call it.

  It was just to give me a jump off. After, Rooster taught me the rest.

  As we’re going by the campus, it feels like I’m waving at what I could’ve been without even moving my hand. But when we’re past it, we’re past it, and my mind’s on more serious things than could haves or should haves.

  “Left on Artesia,” I tell Lonely.

  I don’t have to say it becomes the 91, that it’s the fastest way back to Lynwood from here. He knows it.

  When we turn, I’m thinking over the best way to tell Rooster that somebody going by Ghost took his money and that I don’t know why exactly now, but I’m wondering if it’s so simple as greed.

  That worries me, since as I’m trying to figure out exactly how dangerous this Ghost is, I need to know if he can even mess up these plans I put into place. It’s maybe a paranoid feeling hitting me but I’m feeling like if we have sources in the DEA, then this Ghost does too.

  I’m worrying about the addresses I gave Collins this morning over pancakes. I shouldn’t, since that’s stupid, but I am. I’m thinking those spots aren’t safe.

  III

  LAST, DO NO HARM

  Ricky Mendoza, Junior, a.k.a. Ghost

  Monday, September 15, 2008

  Evening

  38

  There’s a TV on somewhere, maybe the front room. It’s two white people talking. A man and a woman. Clipped. Proper. And under their voices is piano music. There’s somebody here. Watching it. Most likely somebodies. Chances of there being less than three dudes here, all with some kind of gun: pretty much zero.

  I’m sweating already. And I’m telling my heart to slow down, to be cool.

  I tell it we can do this. While I’m at it, I tell whatever part there is inside me that’s making me feel helpless to shut the fuck up. Because I’m not helpless.