Unloaded

by Eric Beetner

  “Hurricane PD cleaning up, huh?”

  She snorted. “How some old men gonna clean? They tell people to cut their lawns and cross the kids after school. Heavy lifting is the county boys. Or maybe DPS…who you don’t see.”

  “Don’t see Yo-Yo, either.”

  “’Cause Yo-Yo’s not missing.”

  Crack detective that I am, I knew that was a clue.

  “He split.”

  In the street, real and reserve cops brought more and more arrestees out of the houses and sat them on the curb. Was there anyone left on these two blocks?

  She lowered the bottle. “Cantrell hired himself a drug Messiah. Goes to all the small towns and smacks the druggies.”

  “Steiger.”

  She looked surprised. “Yeah.” She pulled a picture from the stack of chaos on her coffee table. The man in the picture definitely looked undercover; ears and lips covered in ear rings and studs, arms covered in tattoos. His clothes screamed, “Don’t look at me but if you do, see how cool I am?” Standard bullshit drug cop uniform: badass and hipster all in one.

  The heat was already up and her air conditioner, an evap like everyone else on the downside of middle class, worked feverishly but it wasn’t kicking out much cool. She stared out the window, humming a Rolling Stones song. “Yo-Yo knows him. They go back.”

  “Back to Jenny?”

  “Linda tell you that?”

  Her eyes flashed, angry and scared all rolled into a deep green and suddenly I knew the face. “You’re Linda’s sister. Or cousin or something.”

  “Yo-Yo is my nephew.”

  “You should have told me that.”

  Her anger was fierce and instant. “Fuck you. You come storming into my house? Maybe you ain’t the police but maybe you are. Maybe you work for Steiger, trying to put Yo-Yo away.”

  “I didn’t storm into your house.” I’d actually just walked in the front door. “And I’m just trying to help.”

  “Same fucking thing Steiger said. He sat right there.” She pointed to where I had planted my ass. “Wanted to get Yo-Yo back on the straight. Productive member of society and all that bullshit that all the cops always say. He didn’t care about that. All he wanted was Yo-Yo’s customers.”

  Before I could say anything, Cantrell pounded on the door, shaking the entire house. “Bongiovi? We know you’re in there.”

  She looked at me. “Bongiovi? Seriously?”

  It wasn’t my greatest made up name. “First name I thought of when I saw the Camaro.”

  Cantrell and his reserve boys escalated.

  From yelling to pounding, from pounding to kicking. The door shook, the frame threatened to snap. Their voices banged through the open windows.

  The woman, fear on her face like heat on a summer day, pointed me toward the back door. “Find Yo-Yo, he can tell you. Steiger as dirty as the day is hot.”

  “What?”

  “Go, dammit.”

  “Shari, open this fucking door. Now.”

  Someone kicked the door and through the window, I saw Cantrell and at least four reserve officers. Getting cranked up, handcuffs and OC spray out, adrenaline dumping into their systems.

  Her voice was a terrified whisper. “He’s been talking about Lakeview.”

  “Where?”

  The glass in the door, old and brittle, cracked.

  Her face went white, all the Texas tan gone. “The trailer park. South past Industrial Drive. Five or six miles outta town. Yo-Yo probably hiding with a girlfriend.”

  I was halfway through the kitchen when the front door crashed. Four or five men piled in immediately, hammered Shari to the ground, pretzeled her arms up behind her. She was zip-tied and crying before I’d even gotten out the door.

  “Where is he?” Cantrell spoke slowly, redneck and Texas thick.

  “There’s no one here.”

  She said it as I dashed down the back steps and slipped into the crevice between the house and the bushes.

  Lakeview Estates.

  What the fuck ever.

  It had about twenty weed-strewn slots for trailers, half those filled and maybe half of that half lived in. Two trailers were burned out shells, black fingers wrapped around stained skins. Another had a collapsed roof and weeds growing from the inside. Most of the occupied trailers were rusted, some with windows of plastic sheeting or cardboard. There were a couple of decent trailers, but they were definitely in the minority.

  No lake either so whoever named the place had a twisted sense of humor.

  Parking, I wondered exactly where I was going to start. I had no interest in randomly knocking on doors until I found Yo-Yo or a girlfriend but I had no other information.

  I started walking and as I came around a corner, I saw an old pit bull. The hair around his muzzle and eyes was gray, and he moved stiffly and with great effort. More than old, though, he was worn out. Scarred with clumps of fur gone down to the skin. He was chained and the chain disappeared around the corner to the front of the trailer. Near him was a bowl half filled with dirty water. There was shade but only because the sun was behind the trailer. As the day slipped into the heat of the afternoon, that shade would disappear and there was nothing else; no doghouse or awning, not even a bush.

  It pissed me off.

  He barked, a weak and tattered thing, but his beautiful brown eyes held no malice.

  “You okay, buddy?” I squatted so that he could get a smell of me. His back end, long since clipped of a tail, wagged lethargically and after a few minutes, he strained forward at the chain. His nose twitched and eventually he licked the top of my hand.

  “See? I’m not as bad as they say.”

  His eyes brightened at the sound of my voice and he let me scratch behind his ears. Then he coughed and wandered back to the shade. I realized then that he was probably not long for this world.

  A thick, hard hand grabbed the back of my neck. Pain shot through my head and spine. “About time, Steiger. Now we’ll deal.”

  He spun me and Yo-Yo and I stared at each other.

  “You ain’t Steiger. Who the fuck are you? Another cop?”

  “Whoa…hang on. Fists down. Your mother hired me. Your aunt said you might have a girlfriend here.”

  He laughed and the sound chilled me. “Yeah, here for a little pussy. Just not between no legs.” He squeezed hard. “Get the fuck out. I talked to Shari and I called my mom. They know I’m alive so they don’t need you anymore.”

  His hand slipped around to the front of my throat and he backed me up, squeezing my airway just enough to make me nervous.

  “Come on now, I’m not a threat.”

  He moved me around the corner of the trailer and toward the street and from the corner of my eye, I saw a shit-brown stain. At first I thought I was seeing stars from lack of oxygen.

  But stars didn’t look like a shit brown Camaro.

  I pushed back against Yo-Yo and we stopped. “Son of a bitch. Steiger lives here. That’s what your aunt meant by Lakeview.”

  He had a predator’s face. “Time to take care of some business.”

  “No, not business…Jenny.”

  His hand was still on my throat. “The fuck did you say?”

  I kneed his balls. When he doubled over, I bashed his nose with a downward right cross. Blood exploded as he hit the ground.

  I stepped back but not far enough. He came up quick and hard. His first punch went mostly wide but still caught enough of my temple to rock me. I staggered but got my hands up just before he started swinging. “What the hell? Stop it.”

  Connecting on every third punch or so, he drove me back. Pain flared, hotter by the second. My stomach lurched, nerves and fear and pain, and as my back went up against the trailer, I threw up.

  “You asshole.” He held his next punch and stared at my breakfast down his front.

  I heaved again. “Your fault.” I spat, wiped my mouth with my hand, and spat again. “You
don’t hit me, I don’t throw up.”

  We stood toe to toe for the rest of forever. The anger in his eyes was as depthless as the hurt and loneliness I’d seen in the dog’s eyes and in that silence, broken only by the whistle through his broken nose, I heard the Stones’ song again. Not the entire song, just the part Shari wanted me to remember.

  Just as every cop is a criminal…

  “He wanted your customers. That’s what Shari said.”

  “Getting the picture now, PI?”

  “You’re telling me he’s not a cop?”

  “Was once. Took a nickel behind a distribution charge. Came out a heavy for Texas Syndicate.

  I shook my head. “Can’t get hired if you’re a felon.”

  “Hurricane, Tulia, Ransom Canyon, Balmorhea, all those little towns hired him.”

  “I’m telling you, they can’t hire a convict.”

  “You got no imagination, do you? His name ain’t on any felony conviction.”

  I was confused.

  “Felony conviction got overturned by local court on some bullshit technicality. The DA didn’t fight it because his office got a pile of money donated. Boom, charges never got refiled. Record’s already been expunged.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Money can do anything it wants. Shove it up the ass of a small county and Steiger gets cleaned up. Hires to little towns that can’t afford specialty poh-leece, cleans up all the drugs. No records to check because Steiger gets everything sealed up nice and tight. Undercover work.”

  “Balmorhea? That’s where he arrested Jenny.”

  Yo-Yo spat. “Where he murdered Jenny.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re looking to hang him because of Jenny. Jenny got arrested, bitches in the jail did what they did. That is not Steiger’s fault, not the judge’s fault, not anyone’s fault except those women. There is no grand conspiracy.”

  He stepped up, anger in his eyes like hellfire and damnation. “Mention her one more time and I’ll kill you.”

  I softened my voice. I could hear the hurt in his voice, see it in his eyes. “Yo-Yo, there’s nothing here except a drug cop and you’re on the shitty end of it this time. That’s all.”

  “Then who’s paying for the lawyers?”

  “What lawyers?” With just a few words, he’d made me feel stupid.

  “The ones that show up and post bail for all of Steiger arrests? Those lawyers that pay whatever fine the town demands before everyone walks away?”

  The trailer door opened suddenly and Steiger stormed out, his face a potent mix of surprise and anger. “The hell is this?”

  He made a made a dash for the car and clambered in, locking the doors just as Yo-Yo got to him. Yelling, threatening, Yo-Yo banged his fist against the glass.

  Steiger cranked the engine, gunned it, and slammed the thing in reverse, twisting the front end around toward Yo-Yo.

  Yo-Yo tried to jump out of the way but the car caught the toes of his right foot. Steiger threw the car into drive and let it slash forward to catch Yo-Yo’s entire right foot. Even over the engine screech, I heard bones snapping.

  Yo-Yo howled as the car fishtailed and knocked him off his feet. Then it straightened out and headed for us. I shoved Yo-Yo toward the trailer’s steps and ran the opposite direction.

  Between me and the burned trailer was a fire hydrant—

  Laugh at the irony later…

  —and I tried to keep myself visually between it and Steiger.

  Yo-Yo was near the trailer, his foot bloody, his face a rictus of pain, the dog looking scared but as though he wanted to help. I ran hard, my legs and lungs already on fire. I could feel the heat from the car, smoking the air behind me, calling and taunting.

  I juked at the last second and the Camaro slammed into the hydrant. I expected a gush of water, an explosion of twisting metal and pipes, of the undercarriage being ripped to shreds.

  I got a muffled thud, some smoke and dust, and squat else.

  The car had gotten hung up on the hydrant and was slowly tipping onto its side. Steiger was furiously trying to get free of the seatbelt before the car finally came to rest on its top with a desolate crunch.

  Yo-Yo and I went to the car and Steiger was suspended by the seatbelt, staring at us upside down. “Do it.”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Just do it.” Steiger closed his eyes.

  “You want me to kill you? I gots no problem with that.” Yo-Yo said

  I lost control of Yo-Yo at that point. He dove into the car and started punching Steiger, battering the man’s face, knocking out teeth, reveling in the blood.

  I let him get a minute or so in, for Jenny, before I pulled him away. He whirled on me, fists bloody and ready. “Going to beat me, too?”

  “If I have to.”

  “And then who? The dog? I bet you could take him. He’s old and about ready to die. That’s a good plan, Yo-Yo. Go down for drugs and murder, ’cause they love murderous drug dealers in Texas. Hell, you’ll even go straight to the head of the lethal injection line…Steiger being a cop.”

  “He’s a dirty cop.”

  I said nothing.

  “Dammit.” Yo-Yo punched the car two or three times.

  “Get outta here,” I said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Yo-Yo stared at me. “You’ll kill him?”

  “I’m not a killer.”

  “Everybody’s a killer.”

  I shook my head. “Get out or you’ll have to kill us both.”

  He jammed a finger at Steiger. “You stay the fuck outta my way or I will kill you.”

  “Eat shit. Kill me already.”

  Yo-Yo stormed off. A few seconds later, I heard a car start and blast into the afternoon, kicking up dust.

  Steiger got the seatbelt undone and fell to the roof of the car. When he finally crawled out, I made sure he stayed on the ground, a well-placed boot to his bloody face, pressing him into the dirt.

  He grimaced. “You have any idea who you’re screwing with?”

  I took a guess. “Well, a former cop now fronting for TS. You show up, put people in the jackpot, TS pays to get them out and viola…new guaranteed customers, new guaranteed dealers, a whole new town in TS’s back pocket.”

  He looked surprised. “You ain’t as stupid as you look.”

  I dragged him toward the trailer and he fought until I bashed the open cuts on his face. “A lot of work, doing things this way, but it does give you some measure of legal coverage, doesn’t it? Anyone asks, you’ve got chiefs up and down the line willing to vouch for you but all the records sealed up.”

  When we got to the trailer, I called the dog over.

  He refused, his anger at Steiger hotter than the afternoon. His rear end was tucked down, his body language hunched and scared. “Don’t think your dog likes you.”

  “Fuck him and fuck you.”

  Keeping watch on Steiger, I went—carefully—to the dog, took him off the chain, and gently undid his collar. When I was done, he scooted to the far end of the trailer, watched us warily. I slapped the collar on Steiger and hooked him to the chain.

  “The second you walk away, I’ll be gone to Mexico.”

  From my pocket, I pulled the zip-tie. After jerking Steiger’s hands behind his back, I zipped him tight.

  “This gonna teach me a lesson? Listen, pissant: you got no play. TS’s light days are beyond your worst nightmare. Leave me here? In the sun?”

  “Just like you left your dog.”

  “Who gives a shit? Maybe I die, maybe I keep doing my thing.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ll call the Attorney General’s office, maybe the Texas Rangers.”

  “TS has my family, you think I give a shit about the Rangers? I been down once, I can do it again. Long as TS has my family, they got my help and you got dick.”

  “They have your family?”

  “Parents and little sister. Snatched t
hem right outta the house in Fort Stockton.”

  Did they? Or was he yanking my own dog chain? I wanted to be sympathetic but I just wasn’t sure I believed him.

  With a yell, he charged. I punched him but he came again. Another punch and he hit the ground. “I’m so fucking tired of all of this.”

  “Then maybe I’ll call TS, tell them you’ve been stealing.”

  I’d expected fear. I got relief. “I’m asking. Hell, I’m begging.”

  Surprised and disturbed by his request, I left him zipped and chained, gathered the dog up and took him to my car.

  Ten minutes later, we were on the highway, the dog and me, headed to Barefield. I’d made three calls: the Attorney General, the Barefield Industrial Times newspaper, and a friend who knew how to get a message to TS. I had no idea who’d show up first.

  The dog had his head out the window, flying like dogs do, the grin on his face somehow larger than his face. His butt waggled fiercely. I could almost imagine him screaming “Rock and rooooolllllllll, baaabyyyy.”

  I drove him around for the better part of forty-five minutes and not once did he come back inside. As we rolled into Barefield, though, he looked at me, age creaking through his now shiny and wet eyes. He settled quietly into the passenger seat. Even sleeping, his face was a grin.

  By the time I got home, he was dead, the grin still there.

  I sat with him for a while, then took him to my garden to bury him in the shade.

  Back to TOC

  A FEAST FOR HOGS

  Jeffery Hess

  The bitter taste in Allen Kinsey’s mouth convinced him this would be the longest helicopter ride of his life. He didn’t want Maria sitting next to him—not now, not ever. She ruined everything.

  The morning sun beamed through the windshield and over the pilot’s shoulder. He adjusted his aviator sunglasses. Liftoff felt like riding an elevator of a skyscraper, but today it failed to give Kinsey that sense of immortality it usually did.

  Bile behind the bitterness roiled into his throat. He tugged to loosen his tie an inch or so and unbuttoned the white shirt he wore beneath a tan cardigan his wife Christine had knitted him. He’d had every right to leave Maria behind, but only one reason not to. He’d promised to take her up the next time he had occasion to fly and he always kept his word, unlike some people, namely this cheating bitch sitting next to him in the back of his helicopter.