One Department

by Thomas A. Young

  Burt led him away from the others so they could have a little privacy. “It’s a little hard,” he began, “for me to believe this guy just marched into your yard with a weapon drawn like that. You sure that’s what happened?”

  “You have my statement. Why do you ask?”

  “Because he knew better than to cross that line.”

  Randy started feeling very uneasy. “How do you know that exactly?”

  “I just know,” Burt replied. “But no one is disputing your story, so hey, no worries. Besides, the truth is that I’m kind of proud of you right now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You took care of the problem. Didn’t you?” Randy had no answer right at that moment, just a lot to think about. “You know what we say in moments like this?” Burt clapped him on the shoulder. “Good work.” He walked out of the driveway, got in his own car and pulled out, leaving the others to finish up.

  Chapter 7

  Complications

  June, 2006

  The night after the shooting, Elena stayed at Vincent’s, just to be on the safe side. The next day was Sunday, and that’s when he brought her back. Her moped was stuffed into the back of his Bronco. When Elena got out, the first place she went to was the spot where Armando had died. “The blood’s all gone,” she said. “I wanted to see it once more.”

  “I didn’t,” Randy replied. Then he motioned to the door. “I got some lunch going inside.”

  Inside, Vincent and Elena sat down while Randy put food on the plates. The bullet holes in the kitchen were covered with duct tape for the time being. He’d have to fix the place properly when there was more time. “You think they might be back for revenge?” Randy asked Elena.

  “They’re not the Soprano’s,” she replied. “All they care about is their money and their drugs. When one of them buys the farm, they’re forgotten about just as soon as everyone is done fighting over who gets their stuff.” Randy nodded, then brought in some burgers and chips and put them on the coffee table.

  “So what’s botherin’ you?” Vincent asked. “You know it had to be done.”

  “Yeah I know it did.” Randy said. “I just wish we’d have sniped him on his doorstep instead.”

  “We talked about that. It would have pointed right back at us,” Vincent replied.

  “I know, that’s true,” Randy said. “But at least it would have been honest.”

  Elena and Vincent looked at each other as though they feared their friend was losing his mind. “Honest?” Elena inquired. “These guys tried to rob us and they shot up our home. They would have taken me back to a life of slavery if they could. If you had paid them, they’d have come back later for more. And no matter what, they wouldn’t have left us alone. What do you find dishonest about putting a stop to them?”

  Randy didn’t really want to have this conversation, but he was stuck with it now. He walked over to the front window and looked outside. “You remember when Elio Carrion got shot.”

  “Sure we do,” Vincent replied. “And that was attempted murder.”

  “You remember how the cop went about it though, don’t you? He told Elio to get up. Then when Elio made a move that he could misconstrue as threatening, that’s when he shot him.”

  “Randy, what’s that have to do with this?” Elena asked.

  Randy turned back to face them. “It’s exactly what I did. I tricked him onto the premises and then I blew him away.” Randy looked down again. “It was not a clean shoot. I did exactly the same thing these murdering cops are doing.”

  Vincent pointed toward Randy’s chair, which sat in front of them. “Randy, sit your ass down.” Randy sat, and Vincent stared him in the eye. “That, my friend, is the biggest load of bovine excrement I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. Them sons of bitches came after Elena, and they shot up your home. They had to be dealt with.”

  “I know they did,” Randy replied. “But do you know what cops say about it when they do the same thing?

  “What?” Elena asked.

  “They say that’s what people want them to do. That when violent criminals are running amok and the courts won’t keep them locked up, that people want the cops to just dispose of them. It’s exactly what we’re fighting to make them stop doing, and what I did was no different than what they almost did to Elena.”

  “Whoa, son!” Vincent could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You don’t see the difference between wastin’ that dirtbag and killin’ Elena?”

  “Sure I do, but the method was the same. It was a setup, and a phony justification.”

  “Well let’s look at this for a second. On the night your place got shot up, supposing the cops had found that guy on the road afterward, and wasted him for us? Would we have been upset about that?” Randy gave that a little thought, but Elena was already shaking her head no. “Maybe in years past the cops only did that to the people who really needed it,” Vincent went on. “And I have to admit I’m not entirely against it in a case like that. They’re trying to deal with a problem that’s out of control, the courts won’t lock ‘em up, people are suffering for it, so somebody has to take care of it the hard way. So maybe that trend started off with good intentions, but that’s not why they do it anymore. Now they’re just killin’ people they don’t like, usually people who don’t respect their ‘authoria’, and they’re hidin’ behind the same excuses they used to use to take care of real problems. All that power went to their heads, and now they think it’s their right to do these things.”

  Randy clenched his hands in front of him. He was wrestling pretty hard with this. “Randy,” Elena said, “you tried calling the cops. Remember what that got us? It isn’t like they didn’t get their chance to head this off. They didn’t do it because they didn’t really consider this to be their problem.”

  “That’s a fact,” Vincent said. “We delegate them the power to deal with these things. But that means they have to do their job and deal with them. If they don’t do it, then the right to take care of business ourselves reverts back to us.”

  Randy sat back in his chair, glanced around the place. He saw the bullet holes in the kitchen where Elena had been standing. He saw the front window, outside of which was a pool of blood that Randy had washed into the ground just as soon as he could after the show had been over. He glanced at Elena, who had made his life more interesting that it had been in a very long time. He knew that he and she weren’t going to be a permanent thing, but the idea of something bad happening to her was nonetheless becoming more and more unthinkable.

  “What you did was not the same thing as what these cops are doing now,” Vincent said. “This was not Arnold McCaslin, and you got nothin’ to beat yourself up over,” he said, referring to a local case of some notoriety. “But if it makes you feel any better, next time this happens we’ll just bomb their fuckin’ cars.”

  Randy chuckled. “All right, I get it. Let’s eat now.” As they dug into their burgers, Randy remembered something he wanted to ask Elena. “What does ‘Wero’ mean?” he inquired of her. “It’s something that what’s-his-name called me at his house.”

  “Roughly translated, it means ‘White Boy.’”

  “Is that anything like the N-word then?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. If fact you’re my Wero. My Wero Loco,” she said. Randy looked at her like he wasn’t completely sure he wanted to know what that meant. “My Crazy White Boy,” she said. Now Randy really wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more.

  “Just sign over your soul now,” Vincent told him. “It’ll hurt less.” Elena smacked him on the arm.

  * * *

  It was a little over a month later when the time finally came. Randy assembled a stack of jumbled papers into something that resembled organization. He made sure there were copies and scans of everything, and put them neatly into a big manila envelope. Elena watched, shaking with nervousness. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “This time we really have enough.” He took her hand and le
d her out the door.

  They had been to the Department of Licensing a good half dozen times attempting to get her drivers license. Each time they were told they didn’t have enough paperwork, but each time they left with suggestions for what else they could dig up. The process was long and frustrating, but this was the day they finally had everything.

  They went in, took a number, and an hour later were called by the same man who had been helping them gather paperwork for the last two months. They were all on a first name basis now, and his was Bob. Early in their working relationship, Bob had suggested that a marriage certificate would solve all their paperwork problems at once. Elena had looked up at Randy with a smile that made his heart flutter. She’s joking of course, he had thought. She has to be.

  Today was their lucky day. Bob looked over all the paperwork and announced they were good to go. Elena wasn’t prone to being emotional, but at that moment she grabbed Randy around the waist and squealed.

  On that day, they filed her application and she took the written test on the computer screen. She was nervous as heck, but she passed. Then they made the appointment for the driving test. On the day they came back for that, she was even more scared, but she passed that too. When they took her picture, she wore one of the happiest smiles that Randy had ever seen in a driver’s license photo. She was a real human being now, and had the papers to prove it.

  But soon afterward, Randy let her know that the free ride was over. Now that she had the opportunity, it was time to start working and become self-sufficient. She was all in favor of that, but they both knew it would be challenging. She had never worked at a real job before, and she had no experience, references or resume. Randy suggested she start by applying at Mexican restaurants. She had made him learn to like Mexican food, so she had to be pretty well cut out for that, and he and Vincent could be her references. Elena agreed, but she also wanted to aim a little higher, starting with getting her GED. Randy was only too happy to help with that idea.

  She started job hunting, and it didn’t take her long to find Mexican restaurant work. Whatever else she had going against her, she could make people like her. As that was what she had survived on most of her life, she knew how to use that gift to her benefit too. After she started work, Randy kept another promise and bought her a car to get there in. Not much, just a beat-up Celica, but it ran good.

  As the summer rolled by, things kept a steady uphill course. Elena enrolled in GED classes and was set to take a test in a month. At work she moved quickly from dishwashing, to waitressing, to cook. One night, as they lay in bed together, Randy remarked that the only thing she needed to seal her independence was her own apartment.

  “Randy, do you want me to go?” she asked him.

  “Of course I don’t,” he replied. “But you’re not going to spend your entire life with me either. So whenever that time comes, I want to know that you really can take care of yourself.”

  “What makes you so sure I’m not going to?”

  “Stay forever? Um… because I’m old enough to be your dad?”

  “You know a lot of fifteen-year-old dads?”

  “They’re around…”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. Where I come from, girls don’t marry their dads, but they do marry their dad’s best friend,” she said. “ And besides, I don’t care about age. Age is just a number.”

  Randy thought about that for a second. “You know, I agree. And ditto for weight. Weight is just a number too, isn’t it?”

  Elena’s eyebrows began to slant in funny shapes. “Maybe, but it’s a bigger number…”

  Randy laughed. “All right then. The more time you hang around here kicking that around, the better it works out for me.” Elena replied with her own laughter, and shoved him down on his back.

  * * *

  The weeks turned into months, the best summer either of them would remember passed them by, and finally the weather began to turn cold. That’s when Elena came home from work one day and found the letter waiting in the mailbox.

  Dear Ms. Elena Morales,

  It has come to our attention that your legal residency status is in need of review. Within fourteen days of receipt of this letter, you are directed to report to one of our bureau offices. Please bring this letter and any documentation you have that shows your current immigration status. Failure to comply may result in a warrant being issued for your arrest. A list of regional offices is on the back of this letter. Thank you for your cooperation.

  Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  Seattle, WA

  They sat on the couch as Randy read the letter out loud. When he was done, Elena stared at the floor like someone who just had her whole world taken away. “It’s all over,” she said. She was too stunned for tears at the moment, but there would be time for that later.

  “It’s not all over.” Randy threw the letter down on the coffee table. “We’re getting a lawyer and fighting this. And I mean a lawyer who fights dirty.”

  * * *

  Randy got her an immigration lawyer. He worked out of Seattle, charged a fortune, and he laid it out for them. She was screwed. They could delay for maybe as much as a year or even two, but with no proof of citizenship and a criminal record that was somewhat less than spotless, she would eventually be sent back. In the meantime, he suggested following their instructions to the letter if they didn’t want Immigration to have an excuse to greatly expedite that process.

  They went in as ordered, showed the Immigration personnel what they had, and were sent home. A week later they received a notice for a preliminary hearing. It was set to take place in a month.

  * * *

  It was a Monday night at Bourbon Street; in other words it was deadsville. Elena sat at the bar chatting with Alicia, while Randy and Vincent played pool. Vincent took a shot at a corner, and just missed. “You think it was them crackheads?” he asked.

  “No way to know other than to go back there and squeeze it out of them, and that just doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Randy replied. “As happy as those two were to get out alive, I wouldn’t think they’d be that stupid, but who knows.”

  “Tell you what I’d still like to know, is how’d those clowns know where to find Elena to begin with?” Vincent turned to Elena. “You have any idea ‘bout that?” She shook her head.

  Alicia was standing behind the bar close to Elena. “She was in the news,” Alicia said, “and the paper reported she was staying with Randy. They could have looked it up.”

  “For them to follow the news is a pretty unlikely scenario to begin with,” Randy said. “Plus, my home address isn’t listed anywhere except with the county. And I’ve been to the county and nobody’s been there to try and look up where my place is.” Randy took his shot and missed. No one was having a good night it seemed.

  “Well, if they did turn Elena in, then somethin’ needs to happen,” Vincent said.

  At that moment Frank came out from the back. “Hey there sweetheart! ” he said to Elena, and she smiled in return. After they had all pitched in to save her, they were glad to see her become a regular, and she tended to get the rock star treatment. “Everybody taking care of you?”

  “Sure are,” she replied.

  “How’s your folks?” he asked. She returned a look of complete puzzlement.

  “I haven’t heard from them in a decade. How would I know?”

  “I don’t know, I just heard some rumor about you going to visit them.”

  Randy overheard that and walked to the bar. “Where’d you hear that from?”

  “One time when the cops were in here making up shit to write us tickets for, one of them said something about it. Don’t remember exactly what it was he said, but it was something about her taking a trip to visit her folks.”

  “At last report her folks were in Mexico, which is the last place on Earth she wants to be,” Randy said.

  Vincent said, “Those cops just heard about this and they’re laughin’ it up now. Pric
ks.”

  “No,” Frank said, “this was a while ago. About a month or so, before you even got the letter from Immigration.”

  Randy dropped his pool cue and it clattered on the floor.

  * * *

  “Did you speak to Armando?” Randy was again standing in the office of Burt Grandstone, and he wasn’t happy.

  “Mister Gustin, what gives you that idea?” Burt responded with a faint smile on the corners of his lips. He always loved his job, but some days were still better than others, and this was shaping up to be one of them.

  “The lady at the desk informs me you did.”

  “Hmm, going to have to talk to her about that. But in point of fact, I did speak to him. On the day he came to get his stolen car.”

  Randy nodded slowly. He was surprised to hear such an admission. “You tell him where to find Elena?”

  “Since he was declining to press charges, it seemed fair to me that he should get to discuss the matter with her. Wouldn’t it to you?”

  “It’s because of you that he’s dead, and our home got shot up with us in it.”

  “You sure you want to have this conversation?” Burt asked. “Careless admissions could still get you in trouble. But since you’ve brought this up, I made it pretty damn clear to him that he better not set foot on the premises. So you want to tell me how he got found there?”

  “He got found there because you had the chance to head off that problem, and instead you chose to aim a violent drug dealer and sex trafficker right at us!”

  Burt shook his head. “Now Randy, that’s just not true.”

  “What about Immigration? You talk to them?”

  “That subject did come up in my chat with Armando,” Burt replied. “And regrettably, the law requires me to forward such information to the appropriate authorities.” They stared at each other across the desk for a very long moment. “Say, how’s that little project of yours coming?” Burt asked. “The one in the state capitol, I mean. Finding any more support?”

  “Progress has been a little slow. But I have a feeling it’s going to pick up.”