The Golden Havana Night

by Manuel Ramos

  “No one could be.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So, you take care of her, like a guardian?”

  “At one time I was her legal guardian. But that’s not the situation any more. I simply help her when I can.”

  “You gave her a job, and she seemed to be doing fine for the past six months. You gave her a chance. Sounds like you still are her guardian.”

  He smiled. Dumb clothes or not, and regardless of what I thought about the business he was in, I had to give props to Gerald Franklin.

  He walked back to his office. At his door he pulled a pipe out of a pocket and struggled to light it.

  “Of course,” I thought.

  The rest of the day flashed by with a torrent of phone calls, last minute requests for service of process and walk-ins who had no business talking to a private investigator. And no business for a private investigator.

  By the end of eight hours at the office, I was strung out on caffeine and sugar. Too many candy bars, bear claws and Nutty Buddies. I thought I’d find a place where I could have a real meal, with salad, vegetables and beer, but that would have to wait until after I talked with Corrine.

  To get to Corrine’s house on the Northside, I had to drive through the thick of Denver traffic, no matter which route I chose. Rush hour had begun, and it took me almost a half-hour.

  On the way, I turned the dial of the radio, hoping for something different. I stopped channel surfing when I heard Nina Simone moaning pain and anger.

  Ain’t it hard just to live? Just to live.

  I’d landed on the jazz station. The song was about gritty Baltimore, but it came right at me, the melancholy Mexican, trying to hang on in Mile High Denver. The song ended and I snapped back.

  I turned the dial again and listened to the news. One story was repeated, several times. Police had responded to a 911 call from a woman in the Lower Highlands neighborhood who said an intruder had broken in and now held her at gunpoint. I gunned the pickup and cursed the traffic.

  I had to park several blocks away from Corrine’s house. The police had cordoned off a perimeter. I talked to five cops and showed my I.D. a dozen times before I finally made it to the officer in charge. Police cruisers lined the street in front of my sister’s house. Men with scoped weapons leaned on the cars, their weapons aimed at the house. At least three snipers were on roofs across from Corrine’s.

  Captain Leonard Garth listened politely as I told him I was the hostage’s brother and that I knew the man with the gun. Then he told me to stay out of the way.

  Garth used a bullhorn to try to communicate with Hudgens. He repeatedly asked to speak with Leo. Apparently, they’d figured out he was the man in Corrine’s house. Garth played on Hudgens’ past as a fellow cop.

  “You don’t want to hurt any of these people, right? They’re your brothers and sisters. You worked the streets with these men and women.”

  No one responded.

  I tried to get him to let me use the bullhorn.

  “I know this guy,” I said. “I can get him to release my sister.”

  “Shut up and get back or I’ll have you arrested.”

  He waved the bullhorn at me, and I had no doubt he’d hit me with it if he thought it would help the situation.

  I felt helpless, useless. But I reminded myself that Corrine was a tough cookie. Our mother gave her that nickname the first time Corrine fell off her bike, broke her arm and didn’t shed any tears.

  I repeated to myself: “Corrine will be okay.”

  Garth ordered his men to “make this asshole go away,” meaning me. Two uniforms pushed me behind the crime scene tape. In their minds I was just part of the crowd of onlookers. I craned my neck, but I couldn’t see much except Garth and his entourage, and Corrine’s front door.

  That’s when the door opened. All the cops noticeably stiffened. Guns were turned to the doorway. No one spoke, and it looked like no one breathed.

  Leo Hudgens emerged with his hands up. Blood covered his face. Corrine walked behind him. She also had her hands pointed at the sky.

  “Drop to the ground!” Garth shouted through his bullhorn. “Drop to the ground!” he shouted again. “Drop all weapons. Drop to the ground!”

  Corrine lowered herself to her knees. Hudgens looked to his right and left. He made a sudden movement towards the street. Corrine grabbed him by the ankle and tripped him. He fell face first onto Corrine’s brown lawn. Several cops jumped him and held him down. Another cop aimed his handgun at Corrine’s head.

  When she was finally able to tell her story, it was obvious that Hudgens had hoped that the Denver police would kill him. His wish had come damn close to being granted.

  Hudgens had convinced Corrine to let him into her house. She still held onto hope for him. Once inside, he pulled his gun and forced her to call the police. He told Corrine that he’d tracked Alito for days, figured out his routine and mapped the best place to ambush him.

  “Alito ruined my life,” he said to Corrine. “And I finished his.”

  He prepared to rush the cops surrounding the house. Corrine surprised him with a vase across the top of his head. He dropped his gun and she pounced on it. She made him walk outside with his hands up. Then she placed the gun on a chair and followed Hudgens.

  “I didn’t want to step through the door with a gun in my hand,” she said. “In case one of the cops was trigger-happy.”

  Hudgens was taken away. Corrine was offered a ride to the hospital for an exam, as well as counseling for the emotional trauma. She declined both offers. Captain Garth eventually thanked her for preventing further bloodshed.

  “You saved Hudgens’ life,” he said. “That scum will never appreciate that. But you also prevented possible harm to my officers. You’re a brave lady, Ms. Corral.”

  Corrine blushed. She and Garth scheduled an appointment at the district office for her to make an official statement.

  “This fellow says he’s your brother.” He pointed at me like I was a goiter on a pig’s neck. “That right?”

  “Never saw him before,” she said.

  Garth straightened up as though he was a hunting dog sniffing out a squirrel. I waited for Corrine to laugh it off. And waited.

  Chapter 27

  CIEN AÑOS

  It was well after midnight before Corrine, Max and I were the only people in Corrine’s house. Thursday morning. Max rushed over when she saw Corrine’s face on TV, but she had to wait with us outside until the crime scene and forensics crews finished their jobs and cleared the house. When we finally sat at the kitchen table, Max and Corrine shared a bottle of white wine, and I helped myself to the six pack of Pacifico in the fridge.

  “How could he do that to you?” Max asked. “You tried to help him. You picked him up out of the gutter. Then he comes after you with a gun?”

  Max liked to say, “The weekend begins on Thursday.” She was the leader of a punk/grunge/rap/retro all-girl band, so she had to say stuff like that. So far, the weekend had been a bummer.

  Sweet, chilled-out Maxine was pissed. She had patience for just about anything except a threat to her family. Then her Chicana roots came out, loud and angry.

  “He was desperate,” Corrine said. “He wouldn’t have hurt me. He needed an excuse for the cops to show up in force. He wanted to end it. For himself, not me.”

  “You trust him more than I do,” I said. “I would’ve shot the motherfucker if I had the chance.”

  “I would have helped you, Gus,” Max said.

  Corrine smiled at that. She must’ve been thinking of all the times she had come to our rescue, especially during our teenage years when, more than once, she’d saved our asses from whichever bully was tormenting Max, or whatever hoodlum was trying to prove he was a man by beating me up.

  “Look,” she said, “gracias, and all that, but it’s over, none of us got hurt, and hopefully Leo will get some help. He’s gonna have a hard time in prison.”

  “That’s what you’re wor
ried about?” I asked.

  “You know what it’s gonna be like, Gus. He might not last long.”

  “Between you and me, I hope he ends up in the same joint as Delly Thomas. That’d be justice.”

  She shook her head. “I’m no friend of dirty cops. I knew Hudgens when he was a decent man. I want to think that decency is still there. I think he deserves a second chance, we all do, sooner or later. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “He’s killed at least twice. They may pin all the highway shootings on him. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up on death row. His second chances have run out.”

  Corrine frowned at my words.

  “I’ll give him this much,” I said. “He took care of Alito.”

  “You found Alito for him, right?” Max asked. “That gonna be trouble for you?”

  I hadn’t thought of that possibility. “Well, technically, Soapy found Alito.”

  Corrine slapped my wrist.

  “But we haven’t done anything illegal, although the cops may stir something up.”

  “Leo won’t burn you,” Corrine said.

  Max and I looked at each other.

  “If you say so, sis,” Max said. “I hope you know this guy like you think you do.”

  We didn’t say anything for several minutes. I stood up and walked to Corrine’s kitchen window. The ash and elm trees in her backyard were spotlighted by the bright, full moon. Branches glowed as if they were wired for light. The patchy hedge undulated like a metallic rug, woven of silver and gold. It reminded me of the Cuban night from a hundred years ago.

  Corrine turned on her record player and placed an LP on the turntable. Wouldn’t you know it: Cien Años by Pedro Infante. Like she read my mind.

  Me duele hasta la vida.

  Life hurts. Really?

  The three of us had a decent and expensive breakfast at one of the new restaurants on Thirty-second, walking distance from Corrine’s. I paid for the meal, which caused mild hysteria from my sisters. No one could remember when I’d picked up the tab, including me.

  “You been through hell, Corrine,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Max said. “Club dates for Mezcla have been scarce lately.”

  We went our separate ways. I was bone-tired again, but I knew I couldn’t sleep. I went home, showered, changed my shirt and, twenty minutes later, checked in at my office, where I picked up the newspaper in the hallway and made myself at home.

  The Rockies returned to Denver on a beautiful day. They brought with them an ugly losing streak—five of their first seven games. Players and coaches talked about how good it would be to play in Coors Field. They sounded like they were ready for the All-Star break. It wasn’t hard to believe that it was going to be a long season.

  But the build-up to the home opener never faltered. The fan appreciation events, which began on Wednesday, were packed with hardcore season ticket holders, one-game-a-year families, autograph seekers, high school coaches and little league teams. Sports shows on TV featured taped interviews with players, the manager and fans. Baseball websites debated the good and bad points of the team’s starting rotation. Twitter and Facebook were agog with the one bright spot: the lanky, pimple-faced kid from Wyoming who owned the two wins for the Rockies. He’d been rushed into the starting rotation when the designated ace stubbed his toe on a doorstop in a freak accident, and made the most of his opportunity.

  There was something else. Kino’s slump had become a national topic. It was so bad that oddsmakers in Las Vegas were willing to take bets on how many games would be played before Kino was benched. The odds were even that the opening home series would be his last as a starter.

  Kino’s photograph graced the first page of the special Rockies insert in the Denver Post. He wasn’t smiling. The headline read: Does Machaco Have Anything Left? The writer speculated that Kino had burned through his talent and skills the previous year, when he almost single-handedly led the team to the World Series.

  “For the good of the team and Kino,” he wrote, “Machaco should be used off the bench. Let him end his great career with dignity, if not glory,” the writer concluded.

  I didn’t know whether the reporter knew what he was talking about, not sure I had an opinion one way or the other. What I did know was that Kino and I had to talk, and the conversation would not help the superstar get his mojo back.

  I answered a handful of messages, typed a few invoices and reports on my laptop, and then decided I needed fresh air, or at least relief from the dungeon-like atmosphere of the Lewis Building.

  Instead of waiting all day in my office for my meeting with Kino, I locked up, walked the couple of blocks to my parking space, started the pickup and made my way to Speer. I exited on I-25, then, a few minutes later, exited again to I-70. I drove east, away from the city and the mountains.

  Freeways work when traffic is light, and that day I drove as though I had I-70 all to myself. I sped by the Purina pet food processing plant, with its unique bouquet that nauseated people at their club level seats at Coors Field, five miles away. The battered communities of Globeville, Elyria and Swansea were barely noticeable under the arches of the elevated highway.

  I drove past the Havana Street exit. I’d taken that exit a few times, involuntarily. It was the way to the county jail. The light rail rushed along the side of the highway to the airport, then I flew by the Peña Boulevard exit.

  I left the industrial grime of Northeast Denver. Expanses of what was once called the “Great American Desert” stretched in early spring optimism: a bit of green, a few birds, clumps of snow—dirty and gray, but melting.

  I pushed the limits of the truck on the highway. I told myself I should know what the tin can had inside, what it would give me in a pinch. And that was true, up to a point. At the heart of my lonely cruise toward the Colorado plains was my uncertainty about all that had happened in the Machaco job, and how Hudgens had ended.

  The ex-cop was on his way to years of penitentiary torment and abuse. Corrine wouldn’t let it go, of that I was certain. Would she drag me back into the mess of Hudgens’ life?

  Lourdes’ letter should have closed the Machaco file. She wrapped up the loose ends quite nicely. If that wasn’t enough, Marita’s surprise visit should have been the capper, the last bit of theater for a case that had way too much blood and betrayal. The script had been played out, but I couldn’t let the play end. Not yet.

  When I stopped, I was close to the small town of Bennett, almost forty miles from Denver. I needed gas and a restroom. I found both, then headed back to the city. I’d killed two hours.

  — Chapter 28 —

  WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT

  I called Soapy to finalize our plans for the night meeting. She was eager and excited. Maybe she should’ve been the investigator and I should’ve been her assistant?

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. I double-checked the figures, looked again at the relevant files. It’s as good as it’s gonna be.”

  “You okay with giving this info to Kino?”

  “He has a right to know. He won’t like how I found it, but he needs to have it. And I finally feel sure about the whole thing.”

  “Then you’re on for tonight.”

  I turned on the answering service app on my phone and walked across the street to the Blind Bat. I realized I was hungry and that the first half of the day had slipped away from me. I ordered a Dos Equis, a Jalapeño cream cheese burger and onion rings. My breakfast with my sisters had worn off, and I gobbled the bar food like it was my last meal.

  When I came up for air, I ordered another beer. I thought about calling Jerome or Corrine and filling them in on what I had in mind, but why drag them into something that could be nothing at all or a real mess? I had no good answer. Besides, Soapy would be with me at the meeting. If she wasn’t enough backup, then I had miscalculated. Again.

  Sofía Santisteven walked into my office a minute or two before s
even. She sniffed her nose and gave me a dirty look.

  “You been drinking?”

  “I had a couple beers with lunch. Big lunch.”

  “And then what?”

  “I did some work until I was hungry again.”

  “So, you went back to the Bat and drank more beer?”

  “I had a couple more.”

  “Did you eat dinner?”

  “Lost my appetite.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. We need to think clearly. We don’t know how Machaco will react.”

  “He’ll be upset, yeah. But he’s a big boy.”

  She shrugged. “Still gonna hurt.”

  “It’s your show,” I continued. “You got all the data. I’m just along for the ride. Anyhow, I’m not drunk, just been drinking.”

  “You’re not funny. I hope I can count on you.”

  Soapy hurt my feelings. I was under control, she didn’t have to worry. In fact, the beer hadn’t done anything except relax me a bit. Nothing wrong with that. I was overdue on some chillin’ time. Who was the boss in this partnership anyway?

  “I got your back. No worry. We’re doing the right thing, going beyond what anyone, including Kino, should expect.”

  “We should go to the police,” she said.

  “That’s up to Kino. If he wants to handle it that way, we’ll turn over the info you collected. Until he says otherwise, it stays with you and me and him.”

  As if on cue, the superstar knocked on the office door and walked in. He had a broad smile. His head was shinier than ever, and he still looked like he could pick me up and tear me in half.