by Sam Hawken
After he had been quiet for a long time, Graciela said, “I don’t have to have it.”
“What?” Flip said. “No way! We’re not doing that!”
Graciela sniffed and now she was crying, wiping away tears as fast as they could course down her cheeks. The sheets were still clutched around her, a dark pool holding her body unseen. “I didn’t know. Some guys—”
“I’m not some guys!” Flip declared. “And I say you’re not going to do that. You hear? It’s not gonna happen.”
“Flip, I love you.”
Flip pressed his hands to the sides of his head. He got up and stalked the room. “No, no, this is all wrong! It’s not supposed to happen like this!”
“I’m sorry! I promise I didn’t mean to!” Graciela said and the tears came faster than before. She was breathing erratically and her shoulders shook. Flip couldn’t stand it any longer and he went to her on the mattress and put his arms around her and pulled her close to him.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Flip said, and he said it calmly though his heart was hammering and he felt as though his head might float away. “It’s not your fault. I should have been more careful. I was stupid.”
“Do you love me, Flip?”
Flip closed his eyes. “Yes, I love you. I love you both.”
“You love our baby?”
“Of course I do. And you’re gonna be the best mamá there is.”
“You’ll be a good father, Flip. I know it.”
Flip shushed her and held her and rocked her gently back and forth. She cried freely, but he did not let go. A father. He would be a father. That was not something to hide from, to run away from. He was a father and Graciela was the mother.
When there were no more tears, Flip lifted Graciela’s head and kissed her softly on the lips. Her face was flushed and her eyes redrimmed. It did not make her look beautiful, but Flip didn’t care. He kissed her again. “I want to marry you,” he said. “I don’t want our baby to be born without a mamá and a papá. I want it the way it should be.”
“Do you mean it, Flip?”
“Yeah, I mean it,” Flip said and he held her again.
FOUR
FLIP WANTED TO KEEP GRACIELA WITH HIM when they went to the party, but she went to circulate and he could not stop her. For the baby’s sake, he hoped she wouldn’t drink. Graciela was smart. She wouldn’t.
There was nothing to stop him from drinking and he set to it without any prompting, liberating two bottles of beer from a cooler and drinking them quickly, one after the other. When they were gone, he got more. One Indian, a kid named Oscar, cheered him on as he had a fourth and then a fifth.
Alcohol coursed through his veins and his head felt lifted before he finally headed toward the flaming heart of the party that was José’s grill. Flip armed himself with a paper plate and stood in line as José doled out servings of chicken and beef. It was difficult for Flip to remember a time when he wasn’t here, begging for food off José’s table; it seemed like it had gone on forever. He resolved to drink more beer.
“Flip!” José said when it was Flip’s turn. “Chicken for you!”
“Thanks,” Flip said without enthusiasm.
“I want to talk to you later. Out back.”
Flip felt sick to his stomach, the beers curdling. Out back. Where José ordered Emilio killed. A tremor started in his right hand, his gun hand. “Okay,” he said thickly. “I’ll be there.”
“Nasario will get you.”
Eating something quelled the sick feeling, but there was still nervous pressure in his guts that did not go away. He cornered himself in the kitchen and found that his enthusiasm for further drinking was dampened. The taste of beer wouldn’t leave his mouth, despite the barbecue sauce and the spice.
He saw Nasario cruising through the partygoers like a barracuda. When Nasario spotted him, he jerked his head for Flip to follow and Flip did follow because to do nothing was to invite José’s displeasure. Emilio had died because of José’s displeasure.
Like before, the back yard was a place of peace, with the sounds of the party closed off, muted. Flip expected to see César, but instead it was one of the big men that served as José’s bodyguard. This man’s name was Angel, or maybe it was Fernando. Flip wasn’t sure who was who.
José shook Flip’s hand. “All right,” he said. “The man.”
“What’s up, José?” Flip asked. His words were relaxed, but he was not. All he could see was the way Emilio jogged to one side when the bullets started to hit him, the final barks of the pistol in Nasario’s hand as he shot Emilio in the face. The weight of the gun in his hand. The gun he never fired.
“Your boss, Alfredo, is coming back to work soon, huh?” José asked.
“Yeah. This week.”
“I want you to take my offer to him again, see what he says.”
“About the trucks coming in?” Flip asked.
“About the trucks coming in. The ones with our stuff on them. We make a call, tell him which truck to watch out for and he sets it aside. I’ll pay him a thousand dollars a truck, which is more than he ought to get. Cabrón.”
Flip nodded, but didn’t say anything else.
“You okay, Flip? You look a little sideways.”
“I’m okay. I think I drank too much.”
“At least you’re not driving. And listen, Flip: when this is over I want you to get your patch and come work for me for real. We’ll have a lot of stuff to move and I need people I can trust.”
“But my job at the—”
“Hey, they can keep you on the books,” José said, “but you’re going to be a full-time sargento. You got to step up for the family now, entiende? I got faith in you, man. Don’t let me down.”
“Okay, José.”
“Now go back to the party. We’ll talk after you see your boss.”
“All right, José.”
“Oh, hey, Flip: keep an eye out for cops. I got my ear out and I hear there’s a couple of cops in the gang unit pushing all these busts on our people. We’re gonna deal with them, too, when the time comes.”
Nasario held the door for Flip and Flip went back to the noise and the bustle. The tremor in his hand was back, but making a fist made it go away. He went down a side hallway to the bathroom and locked himself in.
The bathroom was small and the mirror had painted filigree around the edges so Flip looked like he was framed in a picture. He saw that he was sweating and had circles under his eyes. How could they not know? How could José talk to him and not suspect? Flip didn’t understand.
He lifted his shirt and exposed the white wire underneath. He peeled the sticky tape that held it to his body and pulled the recorder itself out of his pants. The wire wrapped around the little black box and he shoved both into his pocket. Anything else that was said tonight would have to be off the record.
Flip closed the toilet lid and sat down on it, his head in his hands. If he concentrated, his breathing was steady and even. Alfredo’s face materialized out of darkness and sat squarely in his mind’s eye, staring at him with judgment in his eyes. His mother would be ashamed of him for this and so much more, and compromising the man she loved was yet another betrayal.
Graciela. He thought of her and the burden lightened. This girl, this woman, would be his wife and only good things would come from her. When Flip turned in his recordings and said his bit in court, she would still be there for him and all of this would have been worthwhile.
Someone pounded on the door and jarred Flip out of his thoughts. “Hey, hurry up in there!” a man’s voice said. “I got to take a leak, man!”
He washed his hands in the sink and dried them on a little green towel. A stranger waited in the darkened hallway when he opened the door. “Sorry,” Flip said.
“Yeah, okay, man. I got to go!”
I’ve got to go, too, Flip thought. He needed to find Graciela and leave this place. They could find a restaurant open and have something to eat that didn’t ta
ste of José’s mesquite grill. And most of all it would be quiet, inside and out.
FIVE
ROBINSON WAS ON CRISTINA’S PHONE WHEN she returned to her desk. He murmured a good-bye and hung up. His mouth was a flat line underneath his mustache. Cristina said, “What?”
“I just heard from our boy, Flip. He was at a party with José last night.”
“Good,” Cristina said. “McPeek told me that the DEA got access to a house across the street and have José’s place under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Better than we ever got. They’re pulling every plate and face going into or out of there.”
Robinson did not look pleased. “Cris, he said José’s talking about green-lighting cops.”
Cristina sat down. “What did he say?” she asked. “What did he say exactly?”
“Flip says José’s got his eye on a couple of cops in the gang unit. It doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to figure out who he means. José’s talking about dealing with the problem.”
“He wouldn’t,” Cristina said.
“Wouldn’t he? This guy’s moving up in the world: he’s opening up a goddamned expressway for moving dope into the city, for Christ’s sake.”
“It’s a big jump from trafficking to killing cops,” Cristina said. “This isn’t Juárez.”
“Maybe he’ll bring in outside talent. The Aztecas from Juárez won’t have a problem doing it. He could pay them off with money and guns, and they’d just disappear back over the border like they were never here.”
“He’s got to know we’d come down on him like nobody’s business.”
“Except he’d be clean. All his people would be clean.”
The idea settled in Cristina’s mind. She remembered the call from McPeek telling her that Matías Segura had been targeted and how she reflexively thought, it can’t happen here. But it could happen here.
Los Aztecas were used to having their own way on the streets of Juárez, accountable to no one but the cartel. Barrio Azteca was the original, but now they were like the shadow cast by their Mexican brethren, aping what happened across the border. Killing innocents. Killing their own. Killing cops.
“Flip,” Cristina said. “We’ve got to get him together with José again and he’s got to figure out how to get José to say he wants us dead in so many words.”
Robinson shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Why not? José’s trusted him this far.”
“The kid is scared, Cris. I could hear it in his voice. He’s already watched somebody get killed. Who’s to say he won’t be the next body?”
Cristina grabbed for her phone. “I’ll talk to him. He listens to me.”
“Give him a break! He doesn’t need you talking in his ear right now.”
“He called me.”
“And he heard from me. I say you back off and let him get his head together. He’s risking his ass every time he uses his phone.”
She let go of the receiver and let it fall back into place. “So we do nothing.”
“No, we just take a different approach. We can’t lay it all on the back of one informant. The first thing we do, we report the threat to Cokley and arrange for some extra patrols near my house and yours. Then we call McPeek and let her know what’s happening. She’ll spread the word to everybody else in the chain. I promise you: everybody’s going to take this seriously.”
“Bob, I live less than a mile from José Martinez’s place. If some-body’s got a target on their back, it’s going to be me,” Cristina said. She checked her watch. “Freddie’s going to be home soon. I should be there.”
“You want me to tell Cokley?” Robinson asked.
“He doesn’t need to hear it from both of us. I’d feel better if I was there at the bus stop.”
“You can’t be there all the time.”
“Just for today. We’ll work something out for after.”
“Meet back here?” Robinson asked.
“Okay. Thanks, Bob.”
“Be careful out there.”
Cristina left the building and by the time she reached her car she was walking fast. The clock was ticking too quickly, though it was only a matter of minutes to drive from Central Regional Command to her home. On the road every stop sign was an imposition and everyone seemed to be driving too slowly.
Ashlee wasn’t answering her phone. Cristina passed Nachita’s, a little meat market and grocery where she and her mother used to shop when Cristina was little. There was relief when she saw the house with Ashlee’s car parked in front of it. Cristina’s tires rubbed the curb when she stopped.
Down at the end of the block she saw a familiar figure. She did not run, but she walked fast until she was close enough to shout, “Hey, Ashlee!”
The girl turned away from the street and waved. When Cristina was closer, she said, “Hello, Ms. Salas. What are you doing here?”
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Cristina demanded.
“What? Oh, I must have shut the ringer off. Is everything okay?”
Cristina looked up and down the street. If there were strangers around, she would have seen them. “I thought I’d come by,” Cristina answered, too rapidly. “Make sure everything was all right. Check on Freddie.”
“Here comes his bus now.”
The little yellow bus came up the street and stopped at the corner, red lights flashing. Cristina saw Freddie’s outline moving on the other side of the windows and then he was coming down the steps with his book bag in one hand and a papier-mâché cat painted blue in the other. “Mom,” he said.
“Hey, peanut,” Cristina said and she knelt down to hug him. He accepted this passively. “How are you?”
“Fine,” Freddie said. “Are you home?”
“I’ll be home for a little while, but then I have to go back to work,” Cristina said.
“I want to play Roblox.”
“Okay,” Cristina said.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Ms. Salas?” Ashlee asked. “You look flushed.”
“It’s nothing,” Cristina said. “The weather. It’s hot.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Freddie, let’s get inside,” Cristina said and she let Freddie lead the way. She did not stop watching the street.
SIX
THOUGH ALFREDO WAS BACK ON THE JOB, Clayton drove Flip home and the first thing he did was take a shower. He wiped the steam off the mirror and lathered his face for a shave. One cheek was clean when he heard a rap on the bathroom door. His mother was there.
Flip looked from her face to the battered shoebox she held in her hands. It was obvious she had been crying. “What’s wrong, Mamá?” he asked.
“I don’t want to interrupt,” his mother said. “When you’re finished, I want to talk to you.”
“Sure.”
He hurried through the rest of his work and dried his face with a clean towel. After he dressed in new clothes he went looking for his mother. She was in the living room, the shoebox balanced on her knees. As he came in, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Come on in, Felipe,” she said.
“Why are you crying, Mamá?” Flip asked.
“Sit here. Next to me.”
Flip sat. His mother wrapped one small arm around his shoulder and found it hard to do. Flip’s eyes fell on the shoebox, which was plain and brown with no brand name on it.
“Flip, I want you to know that I love your father. I have always loved him and I won’t stop ever. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Alfredo asked me to marry him. Yesterday, after you left. Here is the ring.”
Flip didn’t know how he’d managed to miss the ring. It was a pretty gold one with a diamond that was not small. Flip wondered just how much Alfredo had saved to buy it. “That’s great, Mamá,” he said. “I’m really glad for you.”
“I went into the closet and found some of your father’s things. I thought maybe you might want to have them.”
; She presented him with the box and for a moment Flip wasn’t sure if he was meant to open it now or wait. His mother didn’t look away, so he took off the top. The first thing he saw was a tie.
There was a watch that wound by hand, its crystal cloudy and cuff links and a few photographs of Flip as a child, and of his mother and his father together when she was much younger. Flip noticed for the first time how much alike he and his father looked. Perhaps it only took time.
Most of the things were worthless. A clip to go with the tie. Some papers for a car his mother didn’t own anymore. At the bottom was a folding knife with a carved handle. The image was of a deer with a full rack of antlers standing on a hillock with a stream flowing beside it. Flip found the deer mesmerizing and he forgot everything else when he lifted the knife from the box. He opened the blade. It was as long as his middle finger.
“Your father used to whittle with that,” Flip’s mother said.
“He whittled?”
“He was always a country boy.”
Flip slipped the knife into his front pocket. “Thank you,” he said.
“I’m sorry there’s not more.”
“It’s plenty.”
Flip’s mother hugged him again and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll make something for you to eat,” she said.
“Okay.”
She left him with the box. Flip took it to his room and sorted out the things he wanted from the things he didn’t. The photographs went on top of his chest of drawers. Maybe he would buy frames for them. The tie was ugly, but he decided to keep it. The same with the cufflinks and tie clip. The rest he put in the trash can. He would throw it out later, when his mother wouldn’t see.
An engine rumbled on the street. Flip looked out his window and saw Alfredo parking in front of the house. All at once the warm feeling he’d had drained away and he was cold. His skin prickled as if he was standing in the open door of the refrigerator.
He got to the front door before Alfredo had a chance to ring the bell. Alfredo stopped short when he saw Flip.
“I’m here for your mother,” Alfredo said.