by Manuel Ramos
I fired.
The gun’s explosion echoed against the concrete walls. The ringing in my ears blocked out all other sound. Contreras jerked backwards from the shot. Even I could not miss at that distance. He grabbed the left side of his body under his arm, pulled his hand away and stared at his bloody fingers. He lurched towards me. I raised the gun to fire again but before I pulled the trigger, he jumped in the air and landed on me. He knocked the gun away and punched me in the ribs once, twice, three times. Pain rumbled through my chest. Blood dripped from my left ear. I couldn’t think straight. One more punch would end the fight.
I’d been beaten up before, but this was the worst. My mind reeled and my body couldn’t take it.
His fist stopped in mid-air. A low groan rolled from his throat. He grabbed his wound again. Blood flowed across his jacket and hand. He sat back on the floor and tried to raise his eyes to look at me.
“Where’s the goddamn money?”
I struggled to regain my breath. I held up my hand to keep him at bay. He didn’t move. Blood soaked his jeans and trickled on the floor. Blood from my sweater sleeve mixed with his.
I picked myself up. I tossed his gun into the hallway. Sam Contreras sat on the floor, not moving. I sweated, and my breathing was ragged and rough.
“The money?” he said one last time. He slumped over and closed his eyes.
The sound of gunshots bounced down the hallway from outside the building. I wobbled from dizziness. I breathed deeply for a few seconds and regained my balance. I kicked Sam’s gun further down the hallway and headed for the front door of the building.
I was almost to the door when it burst open. I raised my gun and pointed it at Gus as he rushed through the door.
“You okay?” he shouted.
I nodded. Gus saw the gun and indicated with his head that I should drop it on the littered desk. I did. Waiting outside were Jerome, Ice and Shoe. Behind them, a man in a park ranger uniform held his gun on two men I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see Batista.
Police and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
That’s when I started to shake. My fingers shimmered like dry leaves in a stiff breeze. My legs trembled out of control. I got dizzy again.
I threw up on the floor of the office of Alpine Storage and Security.
33 [Gus]
well, I woke up this mornin’, didn’t know right from wrong
It took several days to iron out the Frisco mess. We dealt with different law enforcement agencies and the encounters were anything but friendly. In other words, standard operating procedure between me and cops.
At first, we were all arrested, including Batista as he lay in his hospital bed. He’d been shot in the side of the neck, but the wound wasn’t fatal. The bullet ripped him but passed on through. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office handcuffed him to the bed while the doctors worked to stop the bleeding and stitch up the hole. Luis was looked over by a doctor, then shuffled off to the local police, who interrogated him about the storage center shootout. He told the truth: he had taken advantage of the fishing trip to follow up a lead for one of his old clients, when he was ambushed and had to defend himself. Finally, the city police and county deputy sheriffs believed him. Sam Contreras also was taken to the hospital, but we never knew where they had him. Jerome, Ice, Shoe and I were thrown in the county jail.
I saw the storage unit guy, Eugene Eccles, who’d been knocked out by Contreras, wheeled into one of the ambulances, but I didn’t see him at the hospital. At least, not where they had Batista.
Eventually, when he could talk, Fulgencio Batista was allowed to make a call. His superiors then contacted the Denver FBI office. A few hours more and a carload of suited agents visited the sheriff and the local police chief. Another hour and the cuffs were taken off Batista, and the rest of us were released from jail.
Two of the agents talked to us outside the jail, in the snow, in the freezing night air. We huddled together for warmth. I asked why we didn’t use someone’s office, but they ignored my question. They made it clear that we were cut loose only because Batista had made a show of backing us up, which caused the Mexican attorney general to call the U.S. attorney general, and so on up and down the chain of authority between the two countries. It made sense in a geopolitical, international relations way, which I didn’t understand nor did I want to. I didn’t have to understand it, I simply liked it.
Batista’s story was that he’d found Contreras in Denver. He waited for the man to make his move for the money that everyone knew Sam must have stashed. He made friends with our friend, Ana Domingo, and attached himself to our group because of the tenuous connection some of us had to Sam and his ex-wife. After days of watching and waiting, Batista believed that Sam was on his way to Frisco. The Mexican cop used our fishing trip as an excuse to travel to the mountain town. He told the agents that he influenced us—the Denver muchachos—to go on our fishing trip because it was “something I always wanted to do and, tú sabes, no puedo en México. Never happen in my country.” The rifles we carried were simply part of the fishing, outdoor mountain adventure. He never expected the cartel men, and he was as surprised as anyone else about what went down between Luis and Sam. He said Luis wandered into Alpine Storage to warm up and look for his client’s belongings while the rest of us set up for fishing.
When he was asked why Luis had his own car, Batista said the lawyer planned to leave early so he had his own ride.
I wasn’t sure anyone bought his tale, but with the political pressure from D.C. and Mexico City, all in the interest of good neighbor relations, as well as a very public display of across-the-border law enforcement cooperation, it became the official version. Batista was a quick thinker.
Later I mentioned to Jerome how Batista had to have come up with the cover story while the doctors worked on his neck. “That says something about the man. But, I guess anyone who can survive cartel torture should be able to think clearly while he’s bleeding and in pain and doctors are patching him up.”
“Or he thought of it on the way up to Frisco,” Jerome said.
I asked one of the agents about Sam. “What’s going to happen to Contreras?”
He looked like I had poked his eye with a sharp stick. “Who?” he said.
“Sam Contreras. The wounded man you found bleeding in the storage building.”
He paused. “The man shot by your lawyer, Móntez, right? He said his name was Toby King. Whoever he is, that man’s been taken into custody by our office. That’s about all you need to know.”
The FBI men chained the cartel hitmen together and hauled them away. They caught Sam and two other criminals in the act of serious crimes on U.S. soil. They had to be happy about that.
The two thugs, who had given up too easily, I thought, were part of the Rojos, a gang that had messed with me in the past. I felt good about that part.
“They’ll use one against the others, get all three to turn, snitch, maybe become ongoing informants,” Jerome told me over stale coffee in the hospital cafeteria while we waited for Luis to be released. “It’s a good day for the feds.”
“And a damn lucky day for us,” I said.
“Yeah, if you think Luis getting beat, us almost killed by those two babosos and then all of us arrested is your definition of lucky.”
Jerome had a point.
When the dust settled, and the blood dried, we tried to return to our old lives. Easier thought about than done.
Luis and Rosa trudged through the closing of his office. He seemed to be okay—no post-traumatic stress that I could see—but I worried about the guy anyway. He’d fought for his life and had almost lost. I worried because something like that would have stayed with me.
Ana focused on her work and didn’t have time for anything else. At least, that’s what she told me when I called and said I’d like to try for a better ending.
Jerome, Shoe and Ice had something to crow about when they went bar-hopping.
Batista retu
rned to Mexico, without Sam Contreras. Sam departed with the U.S. feds and we assumed he spilled his guts on his old running dogs. Fulgencio Batista became the odd man out. I can’t say I was sad to see him go. He’d taken the brunt of the rough stuff and been shot. He’d most likely saved Luis’ life by stopping the cartel men before they made it inside the building. But I couldn’t forget his play at Ana. That’s just me, I guess.
I waited, not sure for what.
A couple of weeks after the Frisco episode, my waiting ended with a surprise phone call from Ana. She said she’d changed her mind and would like to “wrap things up,” as she put it, and could I come over to her place.
“Sure,” I said. “Later tonight?”
“Can you come now?” The urgency in her voice was out of place.
“Give me about an hour. I’m working on something for Luis. Okay?”
“Yeah. Just hurry. I’ll be here.”
I could’ve taken her request to mean that she wanted to get back with me. The tone of her words might’ve meant that she regretted how it had played out between us. She could’ve been trying to tell me that she made a mistake.
None of that was happening.
She greeted me with a nervous smile. I walked in slowly, unsure about the situation. She had me sit down on the couch and offered a beer.
“Okay, yeah.”
She went in the kitchen and quickly returned with the booze.
“So what’s up?” I said. She looked good, in a nervous, uptight kind of way. Something inside me moved or fluttered—whatever it was, it brought up a feeling I thought I’d buried deep.
“I’m sorry to drag you into this, but Fulgencio contacted me. He’s back in the States. He lost his job. It got weird for him. The higher-ups didn’t like that he came here on his own without official backing. He said they called him rogue, and what finished it for him was that he didn’t have anything to show for his efforts. He didn’t get his man. He thinks the cartel pulled some favors and he was kicked out. It’s dangerous for him in Mexico. You can imagine. So now he expects me to help him get back on his feet.”
“Yeah, that’s strange.” I sipped the beer. “Uh, but what can I do about it?” She hadn’t eased my anxiety.
“I was hoping that you could talk to him.”
“Why me?”
“He respects you, Gus. You may not believe that, after the way we treated you.”
“You think?”
“But, he talked about how well you handled yourself. How you could be trusted. And how you reacted up in Frisco. He said you rescued him. He admires you. I just think you and he can talk about what’s happening and maybe you can come up with something.”
I gave her a fake laugh. She frowned and sputtered cuss words before she caught herself and stopped.
“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t deal with him. Actually, I don’t want anything to do with him. We didn’t part on good terms. He wanted me to go with him to Mexico. Can you believe that? Go to Mexico and do what? Anyway, I’m hoping if he talks to you he’ll come to his senses and get on with his life.”
“You got it all figured out, eh?”
“Obviously, I don’t. I need your help. I’m asking for your help. You don’t have to do it, and I couldn’t blame you if you walk out now. But I had to ask, Gus.”
I sat in her comfortable apartment with the photographs of her brothers and the matching furniture and drapes and a few books precisely placed on eye-level shelves. She’d wasted my time and now she wanted my help. I finished my beer.
“I have to go. I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.”
Her shoulders slumped and she sat on one of her expensive chairs.
Someone knocked on the front door.
“You expecting somebody?” I asked. She shook her head. “I’ll get it,” I said.
Batista stood in the hallway. He was in bad shape. There was little left of the imposing in-control legend who’d chased Sam Contreras from Mexico to Colorado. His hair was messed up, his eyes bloodshot and older. The scar on his cheek had dulled into a gray stain.
He wore a thin black nylon jacket that was spotted with dirt. His hands were stuck in the jacket pockets. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes. A dirty bandage wiggled on the side of his neck.
“Hola, Gus.” His words sounded hollow. A crooked smile crossed his face. “I see she got you here. Bueno.” He walked in. More correctly, he hurried into the room like a wounded animal.
“You okay? You don’t look well.”
“Sí, I am good. ¿Por qué no, eh?”
He stumbled to a chair. “It’s good to see you, Gus. I never got the chance to really thank you for what you did at the lake. Mil gracias, señor.” He extended his hand. His fingers shook.
His sweaty palm gripped mine only for an instant. I turned to find a place on the couch when I heard the rustle of his jacket. Then I felt his gun jam up against my spine.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. Just listen to me, and everything will be okay.”
He stood up and kept the gun aimed at me. He was shaky. He walked in front of me. “Sit down, por favor. Next to Ana.”
I did as he ordered. “What’s this about?” I said. “What’re you trying to do?”
“I have nothing left. They took away my work. Disgraced me in my country. Me, the only honest cop in Mexico.” He laughed at his words. The laughter was out of place, wild.
“Maybe there’s something in this country,” I said. Ana glanced at me.
“Yes, that’s possible,” she said. “I told you that. Give me a chance to talk to some people.”
He shook his head. “No. That won’t ever happen. We all know that. Es de mierda.”
“Then what do you want?” I asked.
“The money, Gus. What else? It wasn’t in the mountains. There’s nothing in your lawyer’s office.” Another piece of the puzzle fell in place.
“You’re the one who trashed Luis’ office. You knocked out Rosa?”
“I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t want to do it. But, after Ana didn’t get the files for me to look over, I had to do more. You left me no choice. I needed to find something that would lead me to Contreras and I knew that if I found the money, I would find Contreras. Rosa surprised me. I didn’t want to hurt her, you have to believe me. But I couldn’t risk being discovered.”
“You were after the money all this time?” Ana asked. She squirmed on the couch like something crawled across her skin.
He shifted the weight on his legs. “No, no. It wasn’t the money. I was trying to find Contreras. I had to do extreme things because we were too slow. I thought he would find his money and run, and I would miss him again. It wasn’t the money.”
“But now it is?” I said.
He slowly nodded. “I have no choice. The money is here, in this state, this city. You have it Gus. Somehow, you and Luis Móntez found it. That’s the only explanation that makes sense about the empty storage room. You have it, and now I want it.”
The man had lost it. He slurred nonsense. He looked out-of-place, undone.
“We don’t have anything,” I said. “You had the chance to interview Contreras before the FBI took him. If he didn’t tell you anything about the money, you can bet he’s talking now. The money’s gone, Batista. The money’s gone and you have to snap back. Remember who you were. What you did. The money isn’t worth all this, isn’t worth you ruining your life.”
“My life is already ruined!” he shouted. His eyes opened wide.
“You can’t do this,” Ana shouted. Batista jerked at the screech of her voice. He pointed the gun at her. He gripped the weapon with both hands but the shaking continued. Ana hollered again. “Fulgencio!” She stood next to him, about six inches shorter. She looked up directly in his eyes. He slumped backwards, away from her.
He stared at the gun in his hand like it was the first time he’d seen it. Disgust swept over him. He threw the gun on the couch.
&nbs
p; Ana grabbed the gun and held it on him. “Ana, put that down,” I said. “He’s not going to hurt us. He’s done.” She took the gun to her bookshelves and set it down. Batista sat back in the chair.
“Please, por favor. I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“You want a beer?” I said. It was all I could think of to say.
He nodded.
Ana retrieved the beer from her kitchen. For several minutes we sat in silence as we finished our drinks.
He breathed deeply and occasionally a low groan escaped his wounded throat. His eyes never stopped moving. Ana and I kept our silence. A few more minutes passed. Ana fidgeted.
“I can help,” she said. “I want to help.”
He looked at her without any emotion on his face. “I don’t believe you.” He looked around the apartment. His eyes stopped when he saw me, then moved to Ana, where they stopped again.
“I’m leaving now,” he finally said.
He walked out the apartment without looking back at either of us.
“You think he’ll be alright?” Ana said.
“Maybe, maybe not. I think he’s going home, though. That’s got to be a good thing. And you offering to help him. That something. That counts.”
“I hope I never see him again,” she said. “After what he did to Rosa? He deserves all that’s happened to him, and more.”
She walked to her bookshelves and picked up Batista’s gun. It was a big gun with a wood-grain grip. She held it tightly. For a second I expected her to aim it at me.
“You want this?” she said.
“Uh, no. I don’t like guns.”
She put it back on the shelf.
“Look, Gus. About everything . . .”
“Yeah, everything. Let’s just leave it alone, okay? You gotta agree that we need a break. From everything. Right? Let’s call it a night. I think that’s the best we can do.”