Tequila Sunset

by Sam Hawken

  “Graciela? No. She’s not the type to kiss and tell. But a party has a lot of eyes and they see things.”

  Flip tried not to blush again. “I like her.”

  “Hey, of course you do! She’s a likable girl.” José clapped a hand on Flip’s shoulder. “And don’t worry, it’s not like you have to stop seeing her or anything. If she makes you happy, I say go for it. A man like you, spending time inside, you need a good woman.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Flip said.

  José leaned back in his chair so he could reach the refrigerator. He fished around with his fingertips and snared a bottle of Dos Equis from the door. The bottle went between them. José twisted the cap off. “Anyway, it isn’t Graciela I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “I wanted to ask you about something else.”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  “That warehouse where you work, it gets about how many trucks a day?”

  “A couple dozen at least.”

  “A lot of them come up from Mexico, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  José took a drink, swished the beer around in his mouth, swallowed. “Any of them stay overnight?”

  “No, they come and then they go.”

  “Where do the night shipments go?”

  “Another warehouse, I guess. We only work days.”

  “Okay,” José said. “Okay.”

  “Why you want to know for?” Flip asked. “It’s just a job I do.”

  “Be patient with me, Flip. I get curious about things and today I’m curious about this. I heard you go to work with the boss.”

  “Yeah, he’s my mother’s boyfriend.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Alfredo.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “I don’t know. Nice. Works hard. People like him.”

  “Does he make a lot of money?”

  Flip shrugged. “What’s a lot of money? It’s not like he’s rich or nothing.”

  “I’m just asking, that’s all.”

  “He does all right, as far as I can tell.”

  José nodded and took another drink. “So he’s an honest kind of guy.”

  “I guess. Hey, listen: you got to be careful if you send around people to see me,” Flip said. “My PO, he can visit my work anytime and if he sees me talking to some Indians he could violate me.”

  “Are you worried about that? Getting violated?”

  “I don’t want to go back to Coffield.”

  “I don’t blame you. I tell you what: I’ll make sure if Emilio comes around, he doesn’t bother you any. How’s that?”

  “That’s good.”

  “You sure I can’t fix something up for you? A plate of anything? I’m not just good at the grill; I can handle myself in this kitchen.”

  “No,” Flip said.

  “All right,” José said. “I guess that’s all we need to talk about right now. Why don’t you go watch some TV with Angel and Fernando, wait for Emilio to come back?”

  Flip stood up. José shook his hand.

  THIRTEEN

  MATÍAS FILLED OUT THE LAST FIELD ON AN electronic form and clicked SAVE. He waited until his email pinged with a confirmation notice and then got up from his desk. His back was stiff and he rocked back and forth to make it pop.

  “Matías.” Lopez was coming, a slip of paper in his hand, his step still uneven.

  “I’m quit for the day,” Matías said. “Everything’s done.”

  “Felix called. He wants you.”

  “Carlos, I just want to go home.”

  Lopez handed over the paper. It had an address scrawled on it in red pen. “You go home after you go here. You’re the one Felix wants.”

  “What is it?”

  “A fire.”

  Matías winced inwardly and thought about handing the paper back to Lopez. “I hate those,” he said instead. “Is there nobody else?”

  “Of course there are others, but Felix wants you. How many times do I have to tell you? So get out there and get it done.”

  “All right, but I want credit for this time. Extra hours at home.”

  “You get paid for overtime just like anyone else,” Lopez replied. “Now get going before the ashes get cold.”

  Matías drove southwest to where the city thinned out into scattered buildings and shanties and houses that had never seen better days. Despite the dust he drove with the windows open. He caught the smell of the fire long before he got there.

  It was in the back yard of a rundown, two-story home that looked abandoned. There was an empty pen for animals that were long since gone and a shed. Underneath the lengthening shadow of a live oak tree, a fire-pit had been dug twelve feet long and four feet wide.

  Two PF vehicles were there and Matías saw six PF agents, including the figure of Felix Rivera. Matías parked away from the PF trucks. The wind shifted as he got out of the car and he was buffeted with another invisible cloud of stench. It was enough to make him want to retch.

  There were no longer any open flames, but the mesquite logs in the fire-pit glowed white with heat. Two of the PF agents were working with long-handled shovels, fishing out large black hunks of what looked like charcoal. It was not charcoal.

  Felix shook Matías’ hand. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  Someone had laid out white sheets on the dirt and spotty grass and the black hunks went onto the sheets. Matías saw three and assorted pieces. Still more were coming out of the pit.

  “Where is forensics?” Matías asked.

  “Coming. They’re probably lost.”

  “It’s not easy to find. I almost got lost myself.”

  “Well, now you’re here.”

  “Let’s have a look,” Matías said.

  They rounded the fire-pit. The heat coming from it was substantial and Matías felt for the PF agents in their black uniforms, digging in the ashes for more cooked bits. Near the pit were three discarded plastic gasoline cans and a box of matches that had hit the ground and spilled. Away from the property, perhaps ten meters off, there was a thick stand of mesquite trees.

  “How many?” Matías asked.

  “You can see the three. I think that’s a fourth one there.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Anonymous. There’s not a public phone within five kilometers of this place, so it was probably someone on their mobile. We’ll trace the number, but I don’t have high hopes.”

  “They probably called it in themselves,” Matías said.

  “Most likely.”

  Matías watched as one of the PF men dislodged a heavy chunk of blackened flesh from underneath a bed of roasting mesquite. This one still had a head attached, though the features were burnt into obscurity. When he circled completely around to the sheet, he saw the remains of three torsos and most of five legs. The heads came separately, severed through the neck. One section of arm was only elbow and the flesh immediately above and below the joint.

  “They were dismembered first,” Matías remarked.

  “At least they didn’t go into the fire alive,” Felix said.

  “I’m sure they were very thankful. Goddamn it, where are our forensic people? This whole area should be cordoned off and picked apart centimeter by centimeter. Look for cigarette butts, discarded brass, footprints, anything.”

  “They’ll get here.”

  “I hate fires,” Matías said.

  A crosswind blew and the blistering hot coals were fanned into life again. Now that Matías had gotten a chance to grow used to the smell, he was able to pick out the gasoline stink from the overpowering odor of burned human flesh. “I’m sorry I called you out,” Felix said, “but I knew you’d take it seriously. Not like some of the others.”

  “Of course I take it seriously,” Matías said. “What other way is there? Madre de Dios, it’s the worst goddamned thing in the world. I can almost stand the bodies even when they’re in pieces, but when they burn them…”

  “So you’ll look into i
t?” Felix asked. “Try to identify them?”

  “For whatever good it will do. We got lucky on the Salvadoran thing, but you know how it is with fires.”

  “I know.”

  The fourth torso was dropped onto the sheet. It still smoldered.

  FOURTEEN

  CRISTINA SIGNED OUT EARLY AND WENT home. She paid Ashlee for a full night’s work and made dinner herself. It was just things she could thaw out in the oven or the microwave, though she made macaroni and cheese from a box.

  Freddie was at his computer, building in Roblox. When Cristina came home he said nothing until Cristina came over and kissed him on the forehead. “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  “Hello, peanut.”

  She put his plate on the desk beside the computer. Freddie would eat bites between clicks, his eyes hardly flickering from the screen. Cristina thought about putting on something Freddie might enjoy, like the show that showed how factories made different things, but he was engrossed and she didn’t want to disturb him.

  From time to time she felt guilty for letting him play and not insisting that they do something together. Once they had put together a simple jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table and he seemed to like it, but when she bought another he was no longer interested. Now it was just Roblox and only Roblox and nothing could deter him. Even when he played with real plastic bricks he called it “playing Roblox for real.”

  There were three sheets of homework in Freddie’s folder from school. They would go undone. This was something else Cristina felt guilty for. She reasoned it away by thinking Freddie worked hard all day at school to follow the rules and do his work and the last thing he needed was for that atmosphere to come into his home. Sometimes she would fill out the answers to the worksheets herself, but most of the time they went straight into the trash, as they did tonight.

  He had a point sheet that reviewed his day, period by period. If he consistently raised his hand before talking he would earn a point. If he managed to go a period without having a fit of anger or frustration, he earned a point. Today he had earned almost all his points with just a few rough spots. Cristina signed the bottom and put the sheet back in his folder.

  The phone rang and it was Robinson. Cristina turned the sound down on the television.

  “You left before I had a chance to get back to my desk,” Robinson said.

  “Yeah, I know. Busy day.”

  “I heard you went to Juárez.”

  “I did. Met with their guy in the PFM. He seems all right.”

  “Just all right?”

  “We’ll call it ‘all right’ for now.”

  “You’re going to tell me all about it, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, tomorrow. You don’t want me to lay it out for you on the phone.”

  Robinson paused and Cristina could almost hear him nod. “I was thinking. About that kid, Flip. We need to set up regular contacts, especially if he’s close to José. Anything he tells us we can feed up the pipe.”

  “We don’t want to push it. They might be watching him.”

  “I know, but we can’t let him go to waste, either.”

  Cristina looked at Freddie’s back. His left hand twitched on the keyboard and his right hand worked the mouse, steering his virtual plastic avatar through a fanciful land of houses made of multicolored bricks. He passed a flowerbed someone had made. Cristina wondered if it was possible to water them.

  “Still there?” Robinson asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah. Sorry, my mind was wandering. If you want, we can give Flip a call tomorrow and tell him what to keep his ear out for. Now that we know the target is José, he should be on the lookout for anything he can give us on him.”

  “I like it. How’s Freddie?”

  “He’s being Freddie. Playing his game.”

  “I showed Louise how to play it the other day. Maybe they can be buddies online.”

  “He’d like that. He said he wanted to put some people on his friends list, but you never know who’s a kid and who’s a pervert.”

  “I make Louise play on the computer in the kitchen so we can see what she’s doing.”

  Cristina looked back to Freddie. At the bottom of the screen was a constantly scrolling bar of text, the inhabitants of Roblox communicating with each other. She had the game set to “safe chat,” so Freddie could only communicate through sentences constructed from a drop-down menu. He wanted to have it the other way, but there were the perverts to consider. It was better like this.

  “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m probably going to go to bed early tonight,” Cristina said.

  “Don’t let me keep you up.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll tell Freddie about Louise.”

  “Good night.”

  Cristina dropped the phone on the couch beside her. The TV was showing a commercial about a glove that peeled potatoes. She shut it off. “Hey, peanut,” she said, “let’s wrap it up. I want you to take a bath tonight. And we have to brush your teeth.”

  He didn’t answer, but she knew he heard. After five minutes she got up and stood behind him. “Let’s go. Save and quit now.”

  “Can I play some more?”

  “Not tonight. It’s bath time.”

  She left him alone to start the bathwater, knowing that he would use every extra minute to play the game until it was really time to move. Cristina put bubbles in the bath to make it more fun. When it was just the right temperature she called him and he came.

  When he was naked he looked like all arms and legs, gangly and skinny. He still did not know how to bathe himself, so it was up to Cristina to use a washcloth and scrub him down. She washed his hair and for her own amusement spiked it up into devil’s horns. After the washing was done, Freddie liked to wait until the water was completely drained before hopping out of the tub to be dried.

  There was pajamas and tooth-brushing and Freddie snuggled into his blanket while Cristina made up a story about a hamster who went to school. Freddie wanted a hamster of his very own. Before she was finished, he was asleep.

  Cristina put out the lights in the house and undressed in the dark. Though she was tired, she didn’t fall asleep right away. She stared at the ceiling, thinking of nothing except what dreams she might have. Her last thought was of Freddie playing in the bubble bath, making an elevator out of bubbles.

  FIFTEEN

  THEY TOLD HIM WHAT TO LISTEN FOR AND when to call them. They gave him their personal phone numbers with instructions to contact them day or night if he had something useful. Flip did not call for three weeks.

  On most weekdays he worked in the warehouse and things were good. He got his first paycheck and repaid his mother for the shoes with enough money left over to open a checking account. He made arrangements with Alfredo for his check to be direct-deposited.

  On weekends he saw Graciela. She was close to finishing her time at the cosmetology school and she told him stories about all the job opportunities there were in the nail business and how she’d be able to save up fast for her own place. Her nail salon would be in Segundo Barrio “for all the local girls,” and she would be able to walk to work. She even had the spot picked out: an empty space in a little strip mall next to a liquor store.

  Flip and Graciela made love in the back of her Hyundai at the end of a dead-end street near the cosmetology school. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but when Flip was with her he didn’t mind the difficulty. He asked her when he could go to her place or meet her folks. She always said “soon.”

  They went twice to the club and danced. Graciela got to mingle with her girlfriends and Flip spent time talking with Emilio. Flip did not think they were friends, but they were close enough to talk frankly and that was close enough for him.

  “You see that girl?” Emilio said one night. He pointed to a slightly chunky girl in a tight dress with a wide bottom. She danced with the enthusiasm of a much lighter girl and when she caught sight of Emilio watching, she blew him a kiss.

  “I see her,” Fl
ip said.

  “I’m going to marry her.”

  Emilio was six beers into his drinking, the empties on the table of their booth. Flip was closed in by a couple on his left side and pushed up close to Emilio such that he could smell the alcohol on his breath when he talked.

  “Aren’t you too young to get married?” Flip asked.

  “I’m twenty-four,” Emilio said. “That’s plenty old.”

  “I guess so. Does she want to get married?”

  “You kidding? That’s all she ever wants to talk about. When am I going to get her a ring? How big is the ring going to be? And all that. We could get married tomorrow and she would be thrilled.”

  Flip looked around for Graciela, but he didn’t see her. He wondered if she’d retreated to the VIP room where José held court and brushed away the twinge of jealousy that gave him. “Graciela never talks about that,” he said.

  “She’s in no hurry to settle down,” Emilio said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she likes to party. Know what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t know what you mean.”

  Emilio waved Flip away. “Alicia likes to party, too, but she’s been looking for a husband all her life. Suits me fine. If I say I’m going to marry her, she lets me get away with anything.”

  Flip swallowed the question he wanted to ask. “Like what?”

  “Like when I keep my weight at her place.”

  “The weight you move for José?”

  “Yeah. I don’t keep it at my place. I got a record and it’s the first place the cops would look. But her, she doesn’t even have a parking ticket. I move everything through her.”

  “What are you going to do when you get married?”

  “I guess I’ll have to keep it at my girlfriend’s place then,” Emilio said and he laughed. “Hey, tell the waitress I want another beer.”

  Flip got the couple on his left to move and he slid out of the booth. He found a waitress and pointed her toward Emilio, then went back to the VIP area. Tonight there was a bouncer in place with a clipboard. He asked for Flip’s name.