Big Maria

by Johnny Shaw

  Harry stopped as he reached for the knob on the front door of his trailer. He stopped because the knob wasn’t there, only a jagged hole. He set the six-pack down and slowly entered.

  Cooker was duct-taped to a chair. The chair appeared to be the only unbroken piece of furniture in his home. The table was on its side. His maps and books were everywhere, spines cracked and pages torn. Every surface had blood on it, including a Rorschach on the ceiling. Teeth were scattered across the ground. Interior decoration by way of the Manson Family.

  Ricky sat on the kitchen counter holding a bag of frozen peas to his mouth. He nodded at Harry. “I got blood on your peas.”

  Harry turned his head back and forth from Ricky to Cooker in an effort to comprehend. He picked up one of the damaged books.

  “These are library books,” Harry said.

  “We can tape together the worst ones,” Ricky said. When he removed the bag of peas, Harry saw that his lip was shredded and swollen.

  “What happened?”

  “Guy busted into your place. Kicked the door in. When I found him, he had our gold. Was sitting on the ground, holding it, stealing it.”

  Harry turned to the biker. “Cooker? What the hell?”

  “You know him?” Ricky asked.

  “Yeah,” Harry said softly, walking to the refrigerator.

  Cooker remembered the head in the trash can. His body started to shake, but all Harry had in his hand when he closed the refrigerator door was a beer. Cooker breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You got a smoke. I’m dying here,” Cooker asked.

  “Quit,” Harry said.

  Ricky pulled Harry toward him. “He knows about the gold. He saw all the maps. He told me that he knows how to get us there. Knows where it is. What we’re doing. How would he know all that?”

  “I talked to him.”

  “Without telling us? How do you know him?”

  “He was a convict.”

  Ricky let out an angry laugh. “Why would you trust him?”

  “I gave him a bullshit story. It was solid.”

  “Whatever you told him, it didn’t work. Now he knows there’s a mine. And where it is.”

  “You’re a really bad liar,” Cooker cut in.

  “I’m a great liar,” Harry shouted.

  “Then why is he here?” Ricky asked.

  Harry took a moment to think about the question. “What gave it away?” Harry asked Cooker, genuinely confused.

  “You, Shits. Didn’t matter what you said, I knew it was bullshit ’fore I heard a word. Liars lie. You’re a fucking liar.”

  “You lie to everyone,” Ricky reminded him.

  “Yeah. You’re right. Sorry, Ricky.”

  “What’re we going to do with him? I couldn’t figure it. That’s why I tied him up. We had our secret, the three of us, now I don’t know.”

  “We can’t let him go,” Harry agreed.

  Harry opened the cabinet under the sink. Cooker watched him pull out the trash can. The three men looked at the dead man’s head on top of the trash.

  “I thought you were going to bury that,” Ricky said.

  “Shit on me,” Cooker muttered.

  “I’m going to,” Harry said, setting his beer bottle to the side of the head, closing the cabinet.

  “You should recycle that,” Ricky said.

  Cooker stuttered, tripping over his words. “I didn’t see nothing. I don’t know nothing. I made a mistake. I’ll walk away.”

  “Don’t think we can do that,” Harry said.

  “I’ll help you. I know the terrain. I know military protocol,” Cooker said.

  “We don’t need another partner.”

  Cooker was desperate. He had gotten greedy and walked into a clubhouse full of sickos. Only a couple of real psychos could look at a head in a garbage can with nonchalance. He was neck-deep in shit. He had to think through how to get out of that fucking trailer alive.

  “You don’t need to kill me. Killing me would be a mistake.” One of Cooker’s legs shook uncontrollably.

  Harry and Ricky looked at each other. They both laughed a little. Whether nervousness or discomfort, they both simultaneously found it funny that the idea of killing Cooker would come from Cooker himself. The thought of killing him hadn’t occurred to either of them.

  Cooker went mute. Their laughter terrified him. A trickle of piss soaked his thigh.

  “What are we going to do?” Harry said, staring up at the blood on the ceiling.

  “Ask Frank.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “What hospital? For the love of all that is holy, for one second, quit your babbling and talk some sense,” Harry demanded.

  “You’re mean,” the high-pitched voice said on the other end of the phone.

  “I haven’t started, sweetie. You don’t start giving me useful information, I’m going to tell you awful truths about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.”

  Harry stood at the Blythe pay phone. A line had formed behind him, the nasty looks increasing with each second. He had spent the last five minutes and a pocketful of change gleaning from Frank’s five-year-old great-granddaughter that Frank had been taken to a hospital. He didn’t know the why, the where, the when, or the what for.

  “I have to potty.” The voice turned insistent.

  “Yeah, so do I, but I ain’t announcing it. Let’s try again. Is your mother, father, anyone over five there? They couldn’t’ve left you by yourself. Unless they were hoping you’d run off or try to juggle the cutlery, which wouldn’t shock me. Who’s looking after you?”

  “Got to go.”

  “No. Don’t,” Harry shouted.

  But the sound of the receiver plonking onto a table was her answer. Harry softly banged his head against the wall next to the pay phone as he waited impatiently for the little demon to return. He briefly turned, catching the dirty looks from the people in line behind him. The best he could do was shrug.

  It was a long three minutes. She must have really had to piss. The guy with the teardrop tattoo who was next in line shoved him hard in the shoulder, knocking him off-balance. He didn’t say a word, but the message was clear.

  “Hello?” The little voice was back. She might have only been five, but Harry was sure that she was dumb for her age. He’d had more thought-provoking conversations with fresh turds.

  “Thank God. I’m still here. Can I talk to a grown-up?”

  “Bye-bye.” She hung up.

  Harry squeezed the receiver and listened to the muted dial tone. He wished he had the strength to crush it.

  “Kids,” Harry said and set the receiver in the cradle. He turned and gave Teardrop Tattoo a hard look. Teardrop Tattoo punched him in the stomach out of principle. Harry nodded in agreement and limped back on his crutches toward Desert Vista.

  “Frank’s in the hospital,” Harry reported to Ricky.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What hospital?”

  “I don’t know. Frank. Hospital. That’s all I got.”

  “Who is Frank?” Cooker asked.

  Both Harry and Ricky turned to him. “Shut up.”

  Ricky paced in the confined area. “I don’t know if they got a hospital in Poston. Probably take him to the one in Parker. The rez one.”

  Harry said, “We can’t leave Cooker alone. Take the keys. I’ll watch him. I got to clean this mess.”

  Ricky looked at the keys in Harry’s outstretched hand. “I don’t drive, Harry.”

  Harry was about to ask but caught himself. He knew why.

  “Right. I got it. I’ll bring my books with me. Catch some pages in the waiting room. And if jerko gives you any trouble, gag him.”

  Hospital rooms were jail cells for old people. The nurses were the guards. The doctor, the warden. Your malady was your sentence. If only Frank could figure out where to dig the tunnel.

  Fr
ank didn’t like the beds or the pillows. The nurses were okay, but the doctors drove him halfway to apeshit and back. The TV only got XHBC-TV Canal Tres from Mexicali, and between the grown men in childish costumes, the insane cleavage, and the accordion music, he couldn’t watch more than a half hour without his brain turning to oatmeal. The guy in the bed next to him was worse off than him. The poor bastard couldn’t talk. Instead he made noises that sounded like a duck trying to fuck a whoopee cushion.

  The only thing he couldn’t complain about was how he felt. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time. It might have been the drugs. Despite his episode, he didn’t feel any more tired than any given day of being an old man. They told him they had a few more tests to run. And after those tests, they told him they had a few more tests. And a few more. A little blood here. A hookup to a machine there. More tests. Monotonous and pointless.

  Frank stared at the ceiling. He did the math. It wasn’t college calculus. It was simple pluses and minuses. His age was staring him down, and between the cancer and his heart, it was a matter of time before some part of his body quit. Optimism, pessimism, it didn’t matter. The machinery was grinding down. He put the over-under at a year. He wasn’t sure he was ready. Or ever would be.

  “I’d say you’re goldbricking, but considering our plans, that would suggest you were actually being productive.”

  Frank gave Harry a weak smile.

  “I drove all over hell looking for you. You know how hard it is to drive with a cast on? Got to drape it over and work the pedals with my left. Pinched a ball when I made a U-turn. Thought you’d be in Parker or the rez. Ended up, I could have walked. Talked to your daughter out in the waiting room. She’s a piece of work, that one.”

  “Don’t mess with Mercedes. No joke. She punishes.”

  “I kind of got that. Wanted to know who I was, how I knew you, why I been calling, and why she never met me before. She grilled me, man. Like a verbal strip search. I told her we were in a book club together. If she asks, we’re reading Franzen.”

  “You are the worst goddamn liar.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “Don’t underestimate Mercedes. Moment you turn your back, that’s when the tomahawk flies. Ker-chunk, right between your shoulder blades.”

  “We got us a real problem.”

  “My heart exploded and we have real problems?”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry, Frank. How you doing? You look fine to me. I mean, as well as a dude as old as you can.”

  “I’ll live. Tell me what you assed up.”

  Harry took offense that Frank immediately assumed it was something he had done. But considering that it had started with something he had done, he let it go. Harry gave Frank the rundown: his meeting with Cooker, Ricky’s battle royale in the trailer, and the problem in miniature biker leather that was tied to Harry’s only unbroken chair.

  “You don’t got many options,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Can’t leave him tied up. Can’t let him go. Can’t trust him.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, “I’ll do it. I’ll kill him.”

  “Whoa,” Frank said. “You jumped to that quick.”

  “Not so quick. Came to me when I was driving around.”

  Frank didn’t saying anything. He didn’t nod or shake his head.

  “I’m not saying it’s right. Or I want to. But it’s what we got. The best solution,” Harry said.

  Frank held his stare.

  “It’s our gold,” Harry said.

  “That’s a big decision. Can’t take it back,” Frank finally said.

  “Fucking hell,” Harry said, suddenly exhausted.

  “You said it.”

  Harry grabbed a chair and set it next to Frank’s bed.

  “I didn’t bring you nothing this time. Been thinking so much on the gold and this Cooker thing, forgot to bring you a gift. You’re in the hospital, you’re supposed to get flowers or something. Want me to grab you a burger? Some tamales? Food can’t be any good in this dump. I got more girlie mags. Big stack of Mexican newsstand swag. Couple of them so filthy—weird and hairy—I can’t look at them no more. But you may like ’em.”

  “Thanks. I’m good. But if you want to stay for a bit, I’d like that.”

  Harry nodded.

  “The Go Go Gophers come by? If not, I could sneak you some, you know.” Harry made the universal symbol for pot by putting his pinched fingers to his pursed lips.

  “I’m an old man in a hospital in California. All I need is a prescription.”

  Harry nodded. They listened to the disgustingly cartoony sounds of Frank’s bunkmate.

  After a long silence, Harry said, “I’ll take care of the problem. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “No, but there’s no other way I can think of.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “That’s my gold. Mine. And no one, not some leather-daddy midget, some Keebler convict, some criminalizing scum-sack, is going to stand in the way of my gold.”

  The slurring, low-rent halftime speech had been frothing from Harry’s mouth for the better part of a half hour as he paced in front of his trailer. Paced might be a strong word. It was more of a crazy arc caused by his cast. Through a dry mouth, Harry kept up the banter, hoping that he would eventually forget what the words actually meant.

  Harry had sent Ricky down to the hospital to visit Frank. He knew the kid would never go along with murder, not even of a lowlife like Cooker. Easiest way to avoid the conversation was to have it after the fact. Asking Ricky to bury a body was easier than asking him to kill a guy.

  Harry took another swig from the paper-sacked bottle of scotch. The more booze he drank, the more the argument made sense. Leave it to alcohol to streamline debate.

  “You can do this, Harry. People die every day. This guy is a garbage. What do you do with a garbage? You put it in a bag and leave it on the curb. He’s a drug dealer. A scourge. I can make the world a better place. For the world. For me. For Frank. For Ricky. For everyone. He’s got to go. So shut your mouth, Harry, and do it already.”

  Inside the trailer Cooker could only hear snippets of the one-man conversation happening outside. He didn’t have to hear much more than the constant repetition of kill, gold, and scum-sack to know which direction the wind blew. Right up his ass.

  He pulled at the tape that bound his wrists, but the kid had used the whole fucking roll. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was fucked and he knew it. It was time to prepare for the end.

  Cooker’s eyes drifted to the cabinet under the sink where that weird, soapy head sat covered in beer bottles and fast-food wrappers. He didn’t want to think about what this sick fuck did with the bodies of the poor bastards he killed. He hoped he didn’t fuck them. Cooker had avoided losing his ass virginity in the orphanage, military service, and prison, but there was no way of defending his ass after death. It made him sad that this psycho might pluck that flower.

  The ranting stopped outside. Cooker closed his eyes to listen. Had Shitburger gone away? What was happening?

  The door opened slowly and Harry entered. He kept his eyes to the ground.

  “This is it,” Harry said.

  “Fuck me.”

  Harry pulled a samurai sword from his closet. He ran his thumb along the blade, yanking it back when it drew blood. He tasted it.

  “Salty.”

  “He’s going to what?”

  Ricky stood up from the chair next to Frank’s hospital bed. His arm got caught in an IV tube, but he managed untangle himself before he ripped it from Frank’s body. Frank put his hand on Ricky’s arm. He had no grip, but the contact was enough to freeze Ricky.

  Frank spoke slowly. “Stay here, Ricky. Nothing for you to get involved in.”

  “We’re in this together. All of us.”

  “Yes and no, kid. Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean? I have to stop him.”

&nbs
p; Frank took a look at the clock on the wall. “Ain’t the kind of thing you dilly-dally with. Either done it or he’s never going to. Both ways, it’s best you stay.”

  Ricky gently removed Frank’s hand from his arm and moved toward the door.

  “You shouldn’t have let him,” Ricky said.

  “Come back in here and sit the hell down,” Frank said, loud and stern.

  Frank’s voice was so commanding that it didn’t occur to Ricky that there was an alternative to obedience.

  “Harry brought this guy in. He made the mistake. He created the problem and he needed to fix it. Maybe it’s wrong. Hell, of course it’s wrong. But this is our chance. I got no doubt about that. Dumb a plan as we got, we have to see it through. And no matter where it takes us, there’s something you got to remember.”

  “What?” Ricky leaned in.

  “Harry is an idiot. Nothing against him as a friend, but he’s a goddamn moron. For all the work he’s done, for as far as we’ve got, his ideas are the stupidest I’ve ever heard. Follow him too close, he’s going to stupid you into deep trouble.”

  “He kills that guy, we can’t erase that.”

  “That’s why you have to let him go through with it.”

  “That doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me. I kind of got lost in the conversation back there. We’re talking about Harry and the guy, yeah? I’m on a few painkillers. Have been all day.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Let him do it. On his own. That’s what I’m saying. When Harry decides to do stupid, you have to let it be Harry’s stupid. You have to step back.”

  “You don’t let friends make those kinds of mistakes. This isn’t just a law he’s breaking. It’s a commandment.”

  “Unless you have a better idea of what to do with this fella, I don’t see another choice. Think about your family. That’s what’s at stake. We got to do what’s necessary to get the three of us up those mountains.”

  “You can’t be serious. You’re not going anywhere. Look at you. You really think you’re in any kind of shape for this trip?”

  “I’m going.”

  “I thought Harry was the moron? And his plan was stupid?”