by Manuel Ramos
RiNo—the River North Art District—was the latest trendy Denver neighborhood. The main landmark of the area had been the almost worn-out National Western Complex where the annual National Western Stock Show and Rodeo happened every January. But, like everything else in Denver, the cow town image was changing. Leave it to Jerome to surface there, on the cusp of the curve, so to speak. Galleries, restaurants, condos, music studios and artist lofts now stood on land where industrial chaos, ragged warehouses, empty garages and dimly-lit, sketchy bars used to dominate.
I drove Corrine’s black and red Kia Soul, a car that featured hamsters in TV ads and that made me feel like a lab rat. But Corrine loved the car, told me it was “cute.” And to be careful with it. She was dead serious when she said that.
Móntez’s office was near the courthouse, almost directly in the middle of the downtown hustle and skyscraper buildings. I followed the heavy traffic on Lincoln south until Lincoln became Twentieth Street, curved around toward the ball park, turned onto Lawrence Avenue and followed it to Broadway. Then a straight shot to Brighton Boulevard. The car did great, but because I wasn’t used to driving I uncorked a bit of anxiety about the congestion, noise and rude drivers, all the while silently saying to myself that I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Corrine’s car. I appreciated that the Kia was easy to maneuver in Denver’s rushing streets.
During my time spent in stir I often thought of Jerome. What we’d been through created a bond that neither of us ever put to words, but we both knew that something had passed between us that would remain forever, like a deep scar. I felt guilty for putting him in danger and I knew there was always going to be a barrier between us because he’d warned me about what I was doing; and when I didn’t listen it ended up costing him. But still . . . we survived—beaten, bruised, bloodied, for sure, but alive—which was more than I could say about several of the other players.
He waited for me at one of his patio tables. The place looked new, clean and bright. Almost antiseptic. Two customers munched on sandwiches and drank what I assumed was a healthy beverage. The view from the restaurant wasn’t much. RiNo was still under development, “on the drawing board” as they say, and large tracts of windswept weedy land littered with trash or rusted machinery competed for attention with the new buildings.
“You look the same,” I said as I shook his hand.
“You don’t. Older. I hope wiser.”
“Don’t know about that. I can tell you it’s good to be out.”
“See, smarter already. Now you just got to stay out.”
I didn’t intend to bring up that I hadn’t seen him since my trial. No visits, phone calls or letters. He told me before I took my ride to the joint that he was allergic to prisons. I didn’t really blame him. In fact, I kind of appreciated his absence. While I was locked up there was no one other than Corrine that I wanted to see, or that I wanted to see me.
“No problem, Jerome. Ain’t no way that I will ever get into any kind of legal trouble again. Especially anything like what we went through.”
He gulped down whatever he was drinking. “You want something? Chai? Espresso? A sandwich?”
“Thanks. Some iced tea, if you got it.”
He signaled one of his waiters and ordered for me.
“I’m real happy to hear you’ve learned your lesson,” he said. “I can relax now.”
“Relax? What you uptight about?”
“Because it seems that when you got trouble, I end up with the same trouble. I share your pain, Gus, so to speak, if you get my drift.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I get what you mean. Not to worry. There’s nothing that can happen that’s gonna drag you in. I promise.”
“You promise? That’s it? Hell, I feel better already.”
I spread my arms like I wanted to hug him. “Not sure what else I can do. I’m on the straight and narrow, pal. I’m working for Luis Móntez, checking in with my parole officer, staying away from bad influences.”
“Except me.”
“Yeah, except you.”
He took another drink.
“These are interesting times, Gus. You see how Denver is changing.” He rotated his arm in a wide arc that included his shop and the mountains to the west.
“Yeah, a lot changed in a few years. Grass is legal. That’s big, I hear. But some things never change.”
“Like what?”
“The Rockies can’t win.”
He laughed. “That’s true. These days, no one wins, not even the Broncos.”
“Except the marijuana dealers.”
He slowly nodded. “You can say that again. The pot business is wide open. A guy with the money and ambition can make a lot more money selling weed. And the cops can’t do anything about it. It’s almost wild west boom times.”
“But you didn’t want any part of it?”
“No, not for me. I told you, there’s a lot of oversight. And some of the people in that business . . .”
“What. They’re dopers?”
“Ha, if that was all, no problem. Seriously, it’s a tricky business. The state says okay, but the feds still trip on the illegality of kush. Creates logistical problems for the young entrepreneur, and most of them are real young.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Like moving the product across state lines. Can’t be done, so a guy has to be smart about selling to out-of-state buyers. It can be handled, but it has to be watched.”
“What else?”
“What to do with all the goddamn money that’s pouring in every hour. Millions, and millions. But many banks won’t touch it, because of the feds. So, for now it’s mostly a cash business. And where there’s that much cash . . .”
“There are people who want to take it.”
“Exactly. In the old days, that would’ve been hard for me to resist. But cold hard cash has created an entirely new business. Security for the pot shops. Temporary storage for money. Bodyguards for boxes and boxes of dollar bills.”
“Man. Who does that kind of work?”
“The kind of guys you might expect. Military, ex-police, retired prison guards. And others.”
“Hoodlums?”
He stared across the patio and over to the mountains. “Of course. So now we got crooks guarding money against other crooks. Some of these guys are really bad. And I don’t mean in a good way.”
“Hell, if I’d known, I might have held out for one of those jobs. But I’d probably be too stoned all the time to be much good at guarding the money.”
He laughed. “So, what you want?”
The waiter served my tea. I took a long cold drink. Excellent. Not sugary sweet. Spicy but smooth, real strong flavor.
When I finished I said, “Nothing too traumatic. A potential client of the office. I’m doing a background check. I can’t talk to you about her. I’m learning that lawyers got their rules about confidentiality and privacy that the good ones follow to a T. But I wanted to ask about Sam Contreras. Remember him? The old Roundhouse? He’s part of the picture with the client, so Móntez wants any info I can gather about him. Just in case. Whatever you know about his setup with the bar, and what kind of other stuff he might have been into. Anything, really.”
“Damn, Gus. Here you go again.” He made a noise like a growl. I thought he might reach across the table and slap me.
“What? Only background info. That’s all I’m asking. Contreras is dead. What harm is there in asking about him?”
“You know how he died, right?”
“Went down with his boat in the Sea of Cortez. Supposed to be piracy, something like that.”
“That’s the accepted version. There are others. The first story was that the boat simply sunk in a storm. Then they thought the two men on board might have had a falling out. The Mexican Coast Guard eventually pieced together that Sam and his guide had been overrun. Those so-called pirates were never caught.”
“That’s pretty much what I heard.”
“So you think it’s
okay to ask about a murdered guy when the murderers are still running around? You don’t think you might draw someone’s attention that you don’t want?”
Jerome thought like that. “What we’re working on doesn’t have anything to do with Sam’s death in Mexico. This is an entirely different matter. Anyhow, I don’t expect any pirates to come sailing up to Denver anytime soon.”
“You’re testing my patience, Gus. I’m not going through the OK Corral for you again, understand, Corral?”
The play on words was mildly amusing but it told me that Jerome was pulling my chain for the most part.
“There’s no risk I know of. That’s all I can say.”
Jerome grunted. “I should know better.” Then he tipped on the back legs of his chair and used his heels to balance himself at an angle. “Contreras had a reputation, you know that. And he deserved it. Guy could be mean, a brute. On the other hand, he sometimes had good intentions. He hauled food and water to the homeless that camped by the Platte.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Yeah. I saw it. The bar was no five star deal, but it was all right for a dive by the tracks. Longtime customers that returned every week.”
“I had heard that. Móntez told me the same.”
“The thing is . . .”
“What?”
“His lifestyle away from the bar was not what you’d expect. The Roundhouse was not where the Chamber of Commerce would send tourists. It was just there, a watering hole where the beer was cold and cheap. Mechanics, roofers, construction guys, a few bikers, whores taking a break—that was the crowd.”
“Móntez said he used to drink there, when he was a drinker.”
“Oh yeah. He could tie one on with the best of the boozers. Didn’t matter he was a lawyer. Saw him tangle a couple of times with guys I wouldn’t cross.”
“He’s settled down.”
“I don’t know about that. He’s older, that’s probably it. I’d bet that if you put him in the right situation his old reflexes will kick in.”
“Can’t see el jefe as some kind of bar brawler.”
“Anyway, the customers at the Roundhouse didn’t flash a lot of cash. But Contreras had a nice house up north by Standley Lake. He didn’t live a real big life but I always thought he had to have more going on than he showed.”
“How’s that?” I finished off the tea.
“Well, he bought or maybe he leased a new car every two years. He spent a few weeks every summer somewhere along the Mexican coast in a place he owned with a few other guys. That’s when he went on his fishing trips. They fished, drank, partied. Nothing too extreme, but still it caught my attention when I heard about those things.”
“Maybe he had investments that paid off. People do that, I hear.”
“Didn’t strike me as the type, but could be. He rented out his parents’ old house in the Westwood neighborhood after they died. That couldn’t have been much but it was something. He married late but he had women around all the time.”
“Nothing too fancy, though, right?”
“Right.”
“A guy trying to stay under the radar but there’s still something,” I said. “So he most likely had another source of income?”
“Yeah.” He stared at me, smirked. “And you know more than you’re telling me about Sam.” He paused. “Guy was dirty, right?”
“Can’t say much more unless Móntez gives me the okay.” I wanted to ask him about María Contreras but Móntez had warned me about tipping off anyone that she might be his client. “Thanks for your thoughts.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t really tell you anything you didn’t know or couldn’t guess. You just want back-up for whatever you tell your lawyer.”
“Maybe.” I stood up to leave. “Tell me, Jerome. How do you know this stuff?”
Jerome squinted at me. “Seriously? You’re gonna ask me that?”
“Yeah, never mind. I forgot for a sec who I’m talking to.”
“That’s right.”
4 [Luis]
you can’t spend what you ain’t got
you can’t lose what you ain’t never had
Gus filled me in on what his friend Jerome told him, plus he gave me all the information he’d found on Ms. Contreras.
The stuff about Sam confirmed my suspicions that there was more to the guy than simply a rough-and-tumble bar owner. I’d known many men like Sam over the years. They presented one front while they worked hard at something else entirely. If they weren’t complete outlaws, they often skirted the fringes of lawful behavior, thinking they were untouchable, that their more-or-less honest day jobs insured a type of immunity. It never worked that way, but I didn’t complain because those guys kept me in business. Sooner or later they stepped over the line big time, or the police thought they had because of their past history, and the heat would come down on them like the scorching wind from one of Colorado’s brush fires on the eastern plains. Then these guys needed the help of Luis Móntez, Esq., Chicano lawyer and cool-down specialist.
Nothing too surprising about the wife. Forty years old, no kids, worked for the Denver Public Library (almost twenty years). She looked like what she offered, nothing more or less.
“The first thing I’ll do,” I told her on the phone call when we confirmed our attorney-client relationship, “will be to meet with Valdez. Has he contacted you again?”
“Yes. He called last night. I told him I had a lawyer and that he had to deal with you.”
“How’d he take that?”
“Not well. He cussed me out, said I was making trouble where there shouldn’t be any. Said a lawyer would just take money from him and me. But he stopped almost as soon as he began. Caught himself, I guess. Finally said he had no problem meeting with whoever I wanted. Even the police. He repeated that a couple of times. I told him you would contact him. I asked for his address but he wouldn’t tell me where he’s staying. I gave him your name.”
“Good, that’s all good. If he is on the level, and we’re only dealing with the split of business assets, then we can work something out, I’m sure.”
“But I don’t know where the money is. That’s the problem. He’s insisting that I know and that I’m stalling to keep as much as I can. But I don’t know. I don’t know where the goddamn money is.” Her voice trailed off across the line.
“Then I’ll have to convince him that he’s wasting his time.”
“Exactly. If I knew where that kind of money is, don’t you think I would’ve spent some of it by now? It’s been years.”
“I won’t tell him this, but he has to figure out that he should get a lawyer for a civil action against you or whatever’s left of Sam’s estate or the business assets, if anything. I’d welcome that, actually. Settling this problem in court is much better than trying to deal with a man who is convinced he’s been wronged and will do anything to come out ahead.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said.
“But he can’t force you to give him something you don’t have.”
I wanted to reassure my client but that was difficult since I was on uncertain ground. I didn’t sound all that positive, not even to myself. I hadn’t quite persuaded myself that María Contreras had told me everything she knew, and Valdez was still a great unknown. He could be a regular guy looking for his fair cut, or, as I suspected, a slimy con artist trying to wring money out of the vulnerable wife of his dead associate. What I didn’t want to think about were the other possibilities, the ones that included the scenario where Valdez had something to do with the killing of Sam Contreras and now was looking to tie up loose ends.
“So you’ll take care of it from here?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ll call him today, set up a meeting. I’m hopeful I can have some news, good news, for you in the next few days.”
“I hope so, too.” She didn’t sound optimistic. “Thank you, Mr. Móntez.”
She said she would send me a thousand dollar retainer that i
ncluded two hundred for immediate expenses. I explained my hourly rate and all the other details I had to give her to make sure we were on the same page about what I would do, and what I was charging her for. I told her that if I wrapped up the problem with the one meeting, I would most likely return some of the retainer. She said goodbye without seeming to care about what I did with her money.
“You only asked for a thousand up front?” Rosa said when I gave her my notes so she could type the client agreement. “Why so cheap? You in love again?”
“Damn, Rosa, where’s that coming from?”
“What? You never got in over your head because of a client, especially a female client?” She folded her arms across her chest and stared me down.
She knew the answer, so I ignored the question. “I don’t want to gouge the woman for money. I can take care of this with a phone call and a meeting. I don’t need big bucks for that.”
“How about your time, my time, even Gus’ time? A thousand won’t cover the hours we’ve already spent on this.”
She had a point but I didn’t acknowledge it. I never was a good businessman, never made the money I should have as a lawyer. But I had no regrets. As they say in the movies, I don’t stay awake at night thinking about what might have been or what I should have done. I sleep very well, thank you.
“If we need more, she’ll get it for us. She didn’t make a big deal out of having to pay me. This guy Valdez is really messing with her head. I’ll feel good when I can get him out of her life.”
My secretary shook her head. “You’ll never learn, Louie. But it’s your business, your clients and your headaches. Don’t expect me to fix it when we’re out of money at the end of the month.”
I reminded myself that it was my name on the office door. Rosa worked for me. I kept my thoughts to myself. It was my turn to shake my head. “Whatever. We’ll be okay, Rosa. We always are.”
I called the number María had given me for Ricky Valdez. He answered on the first ring.
“Hello Móntez,” he said before I had a chance to tell him my name.
“Mr. Valdez. You know I’m representing María Contreras. Looks like we should meet to talk about this problem with some money you say is owed to you by the late Sam Contreras.”