Big Maria

by Johnny Shaw

  “Hello,” a female voice crackled.

  “Hi, Anna. Is Flavia there?”

  There was a long silence, then an exasperated “Just a minute.”

  It was more than a minute. Ricky fed a handful of coins into the pay phone.

  “Ricky?” Flavia’s voice surprised him. She sounded happy to hear from him.

  “Hey, baby.”

  “How are you doing, Ricky? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, nothing wrong. Other than you’re there and I’m here. I miss you. I miss the Rose.”

  “We miss you, too.”

  “I’m not drinking no more. I’m on a good path. Figuring things out. Believing.”

  “That’s good, Ricky.”

  “I ain’t pressing. I have to earn it. I have to fix what I broke. I know that.”

  Flavia kept silent.

  “I’m doing what I can to make things right. I’m working hard. I got a plan. And faith. It’s going to take time, but I’m getting everything back to the way it was. Better even.”

  “That’s good, Ricky. That sounds really good.”

  “I don’t expect anything all at once. You’ve seen me at my worst. Leaving was the only thing you could have done. I want to see the both of you soon. When you say it’s okay. Just wanted to call, let you know that I’m trying. That I ain’t given up.”

  Ricky hadn’t realized it, but he had started crying.

  “That’s good, Ricky.” He could hear the tears in her voice as well.

  “Is Rosie there? Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s out with a friend.”

  “Tell her I love her. Tell her for me, okay?”

  “She knows, but I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her twice.”

  “I love you, Flav.”

  “I know. I wish that was all it took. I love you, too.”

  “Can I call again? Is it okay for me to call like this?”

  “Any time, Ricky. I want you to. It sounds like you’re trying. No reason I shouldn’t try, too.”

  “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “Isn’t nothing that’s broken so bad it can’t be glued back together. I got to go, Ricky. Anna’s calling me. But I want to talk soon. I want to know you’re okay. I love you.”

  Flavia hung up. Ricky set the receiver back in the cradle and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He dug his finger in the coin return, found a nickel, and put it in his pocket. He started the slow walk back to his gutted trailer with a smile on his face.

  Frank couldn’t sleep. He thought a nap would give him energy, but he ended up staring at the ceiling. Getting up from the bed in his daughter’s house, he felt disoriented and lost. Nothing felt right. Something was off.

  He felt hot. His stomach hurt. He needed water. The inside of his cheeks stuck to his teeth. He might puke. Not even halfway to the kitchen, he needed a rest. His ribs felt like they were being squeezed. He thought about calling for help but detested the idea of not being able to do it himself. Defiantly, he made it to the kitchen, dragging his shoulder along the wall and disrupting a framed family photo. He shakily poured a glass of water. Something was screwy inside his body. He shook with chills. He didn’t want to bother Mercedes. He wanted to wait, let it pass, see how he felt in a bit.

  The water didn’t help, most of it coughed back into the sink.

  His hand seized and his arm burned with pain. Oh, shit, he thought. I know what this is. He tried to yell, but all that came out was a gurgling sound. He dropped the glass with a loud crash as he fell to the floor clutching his chest.

  Frank woke up in the back of an ambulance soaked in sweat and ready to fight. The ambulance guy leaned over him adjusting the oxygen mask. Frank weakly reached to pull it away. With no effort, the guy set Frank’s arm back at his side. The man’s voice was gentle, like a cartoon bear.

  “You’re wondering what happened, where you are. You’re in an ambulance that is on its way to Palo Verde Hospital. You had an episode.”

  An episode? What the hell did that mean? He had finished his chemo with a clean bill of health. Cancer wasn’t an ambulance thing anyhow. It was more of a kill-you-slowly kind of deal. Then Frank remembered the chest pain.

  The bear continued. “A cardiac episode that appears to have corrected itself. However, you needed to be resuscitated, so we’re bringing you in for tests. We would have taken you to Parker Indian, but your daughter insisted we drive you to Blythe, where you’ve been receiving treatment. She was very insistent. In fact, your daughter scared the hell out of Tommy and me.”

  The guy smiled, trying to communicate that he was joking, but Frank knew he wasn’t. Mercedes scared everyone.

  “You are doing very well. Your vitals are good and you’re in excellent hands. Lie back, get some rest, and try to relax. That’s the best thing for you.”

  Frank stared at the ceiling of the ambulance. Small lights and locked shelves lined the interior wall. The kid was nice enough, but Frank wasn’t going to take his advice. He knew if he closed his eyes, he might not open them again. It was a matter of will. It was on him. At that precise moment, Frank decided not to die yet. And as long as he did the work, he would continue to live.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Harry set the last letter down on the table. It rested among small confetti chips that had flaked from the edges of the thin pages. Each one of Abraham Constance’s wife’s letters was a tale of tragedy: a dead kid, a poor investment, a fire. And the final insult, his wife informing him that she was leaving him for his own brother.

  Despite what he knew about Constance, Harry couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. From all evidence, he was a kindred spirit. Another poor chump who had never seen nothing but the short end of the stick. Of course, he had killed who knew how many times for the gold. What was Constance supposed to do? The gold was his chance to balance out the awful.

  He looked to the cabinet under the sink. Sorry, Abe.

  Harry brushed the paper chips onto the floor with his forearm, tied the letters with the old string, and picked up Abraham Constance’s journal for a second read. He appreciated the man’s all-business approach and penmanship. At points it felt like the words had been written directly to Harry.

  From what Harry deciphered, there were roughly sixty pounds of gold unaccounted for at the time of Constance’s death. From the simple system used to keep track of the mining operation, Harry gleaned that the gold had been sacked but never exchanged. It could have been bad bookkeeping, but to that point the balance sheets balanced.

  After reading the journals and letters, Harry felt like he knew a little bit about Abraham Constance the man. He may have been overconfident, but he wasn’t careless. That was too much gold to have sitting around. The only place to safely stow it would have been at the mine. Only a few knew the location, and that knowledge was what sent Constance on his killing spree.

  Harry was sure of it. There were sixty pounds of gold sitting in the Big Maria Mine. Sixty pounds. Nine hundred sixty ounces. Sitting there. Waiting for Harry. Calling to him.

  Could it be that easy? Follow the rainbow and find the pot of gold? Of course not. Nothing in life was magically delicious. At least not for Harry. He would have to traverse minefields and artillery ranges. The way Harry figured it, if they miraculously reached the Big Maria Mine both undetected and unharmed, it would only be fair that there would be bags of gold waiting for them.

  It relieved Harry that they wouldn’t have to do any mining. Prospecting had been entirely unrealistic. His only experience with gold mining was the time he had panned for gold at a kiosk in Knott’s Berry Farm when he was a kid. The yield had been minimal, a few flakes. A pie tin wasn’t going to cut it for this trip.

  Just because a person grew up in the desert didn’t mean they liked the heat. It just meant that they were too stupid to move to a place where people were meant to live.

  Cooker had found shade, but it was still hot as a fresh shit. And boring as fuck. Nothing happened as he watched Shitburger
’s trailer. Cooker had run out of cigarettes about an hour into watching and now he was jonesing. It was only two blocks to the Circle K, but he had committed. He could hold out, but it pissed him off.

  He spat a thick white wad onto the ground. The inside of his mouth was cotton-dry, his lips chapped. His throat scratched and he couldn’t stop swallowing. Fifteen more minutes and he’d have to take a break or pass out from thirst. He licked the sweat off his arm to feel the wetness. The salt burned his tongue.

  Finally, Shitburger’s door swung open and the fat fuck slowly maneuvered down the wooden steps. The cast on his leg gave him a comical hobble. Once on flat ground, Shitburger used his crutches and slowly made his way down the dirt road out of the trailer park. Cooker hadn’t bothered to duck for cover, as Shitburger was forced to keep his head down to concentrate on each step.

  Cooker waited two minutes and then walked to the trailer. He kicked in the front door with one fluid motion, entered, and closed the door behind him. Unless someone was watching for that brief moment, he was golden. Cooker let his eyes adjust to the shuttered darkness. The only light came from the small hole where the knob used to be. He turned on the sink and drank directly from the tap. The water poured down his cheek and wet his hair. It hurt his teeth and throat and gave him a stomachache. He let the water run over his hands and wrists and rubbed the back of his neck. If he could just find some smokes.

  The place was a fucking dump. There was shit everywhere. He had no idea where to start, but there had to be something that would give him a clue about Shitburger’s plans. How do you look for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for? He picked up a stack of books and rifled through the pages. Most of the books were on the history of the area, a couple about scuba diving. Probably junk he was selling on eBay or some shit.

  The map that Shitburger had showed him was on the table, the red line that Cooker had drawn still prominent. He had made a few more marks since their meeting, but not much else. Water glasses held down the corners of the map. Three of them empty. One of them had something in it. He picked it up, the map curling in.

  Teeth. Who the fuck keeps a cup full of teeth on their eating table? Not baby teeth either, but grown human teeth that had never seen a brushing, black and pitted. Only two kinds of people kept teeth: dentists and serial killers.

  The door opened behind him with a creak. Cooker spun, reaching for the hunting knife in his belt. Nobody was there. The hot wind blew the door open a little more. He left the knife in its sheath, laughing to himself. He set the cup of teeth down and flattened out the map. He grabbed a stack of books and jammed them against the door.

  Cooker opened drawers, rifling through the worthless contents. He silently prayed to find a half a pack of cigs or the butt of an old cigar. When he opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out the trash can, he fell back, knocking over the cup of teeth and stifling a scream. A toothless, waxy human head rolled out of the overturned trash can toward him. The soapy goo of the face left a sickly white trail on the linoleum. He kicked it away with his foot.

  Cooker had seen plenty that he wished he could unsee. Any man who’d spent time in prison had. But for all his criminal exploits, a human head in a trash can was still outside his comfort zone. Killing a dude was one thing. Keeping parts of him where you lived, slept, and ate, that was psycho shit.

  Cooker was growing less curious about the whole thing. Shitburger hadn’t seemed like much, a fucking loser. But wasn’t that always the guy who they later found out had buried a dozen hitchhikers in their backyard? “He was such a quiet neighbor,” they’d say. He glanced at the refrigerator, wondering if it was filled with mason jars and Tupperware stuffed with human organs and severed cocks.

  The risk wasn’t worth the reward. It was time to walk out of the trailer and call it a two-hundred-seventy-five dollar win. No reason to be greedy.

  Besides, he really wanted a smoke.

  He soccer-kicked the head back into the trash can and returned it under the sink.

  One by one, he collected the teeth, placing them daintily back in the cup. That’s when he saw the gold ingot. A big chunk of gold among the scattered molars and bicuspids. He picked it up, feeling its weight. Surprisingly heavy for something so small. He bit it, because that’s what people did when they found gold. It left the lightest tooth imprint in the metal. Cooker wasn’t sure if that was good.

  It took Cooker all of ten seconds to fill in the blanks. Cooker knew why Shitburger wanted to go to the Proving Ground.

  He heard the door creak again, but he didn’t turn nearly as quickly as before. He had been fooled once, and the gold in his hand was a serious distraction. Then he remembered the books he had placed as a doorstop. The wind wasn’t that strong.

  Cooker turned and looked up at the big dude standing over him. He had seen the lopsided kid with one bodybuilder arm and one baby arm at the pay phone. What the fuck was he doing in Shitburger’s trailer?

  It didn’t take Cooker long to get an answer. But a boot to the face wasn’t exactly the answer he was looking for.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Ricky had been sitting on the steps of his trailer when he caught the movement. By the time he turned his head, the little biker had dashed inside Harry’s kicked-in door.

  His first reaction was to call the cops, but they never took less than an hour to respond to a call from Desert Vista. In a boring town like Blythe, you’d think the cops would be excited to see some action. But after your thousandth tweaker or beaten spouse, the novelty probably lost its luster.

  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got to Harry’s trailer. The guy had rushed in with confidence and purpose, which probably meant he had a weapon. He was a little fella. In fact, it looked like the tiny biker that had been at the pay phone earlier.

  Kicking the guy had been improvised, and the violence of the act surprised even Ricky. He felt awful the moment he did it, but if he apologized, he risked looking weak. The guy had broken into Harry’s home. A kick was a fair enough punishment.

  “What the heck you doing in here?” Ricky shouted.

  Cooker tried to uncross his eyes. The blurry guys in front of him were talking. The upside of the pain was that it kept him conscious. The impact had knocked him backward into the table. The rotted teeth were sprinkled on the linoleum around him. His nose was undoubtedly broken, blood flowing like an open tap. He felt it dripping off his mustache. He swallowed the blood that collected in his mouth.

  “There ain’t nothing to steal here.” Ricky took a cautious step toward him.

  Cooker had no interest in explaining himself. He rose slowly to a crouch.

  “Don’t do it, man,” Ricky said.

  Cooker’s vision was clearing. He had to get out of there. Fucking three strikes. One more arrest and he was fucked. He found some balance and rushed Ricky, attempting a tackle around the waist.

  Ricky fell back a few steps, but had the weight advantage and easily braced himself. It had been forever since he had been in a fight, but he had the experience of plenty of scraps in his youth. Time didn’t diminish certain skills even through long periods of dormancy. Without thinking, Ricky threw hard rights to the liver of the man clutching his waist. The biker folded, leaning his middle away from Ricky’s good arm.

  Cooker couldn’t take many more hard punches. He threw a couple of weak hooks, but was getting more than he was giving. He brought his head up quickly, catching Ricky on the chin.

  Ricky bit through his lower lip, tasting the blood and wincing in pain. A thin section of lip hung from his mouth.

  The shock of the blow gave Cooker enough time to get his footing.

  For a moment, the two men squared off. Both men’s faces were covered in blood. They breathed heavy. The peaceful seconds of nonviolence were almost friendly, touching gloves or walking to the dance floor. Then the bell rang in their heads.

  Ricky gave Cooker a hard two-handed push to the center of his chest, forcing him stumbli
ng back over the already upended table. Teeth crunched under his skidding feet. He fell onto his side awkwardly but scrambled to a knee.

  Ricky took two steps toward him.

  Cooker’s knife came out in an experienced sweep of the arm.

  Ricky scanned the room for an improvised weapon. With his good arm for weight and his bad arm for balance, he grabbed a box of books and threw it at the biker.

  Cooker tried to knock the box away, but a brush of the hand wasn’t enough to stop the path of forty pounds of books. They crushed him, the corner of the box jabbing his sternum. Another box followed right behind it, landing on top of the last one, knocking the wind out of him.

  And another box.

  And another box.

  Ricky picked up the heavy boxes, lifted them over his head, and threw them as hard as he could, until the little biker was almost completely buried under their bulk and weight.

  Cooker gasped for breath, drowning in books. He flailed and pushed at the pages, but more kept coming. Spines and corners bruised his skin. He stabbed with the knife, what little good it did him.

  To that point it had been a quiet fight. There had been banging and crashing and furniture breaking, but neither of the men had said much beyond breathing and grunts of exertion. No shouted threats. No angry swearing.

  Until the boot came down on his wrist.

  “Motherfucker,” Cooker yelled, followed by a guttural roar. He struggled to hold on to the knife. Which was a mistake, because it only made the boot come down a second, more destructive time. That’s on me, Cooker thought and let his fingers go slack, the knife falling to the ground.

  “Do. Not. Move,” Ricky said, panting for air. He put his big arm onto his thigh, bending over and catching his breath.

  Cooker decided that not moving was a good idea. Not moving hurt less than moving. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, tasting the blood in the back of his throat. Some might say that it tasted like defeat, but Cooker liked the rare-steak taste. It was the losing that he hated.