This Side of Night

by J. Todd Scott

  * * *

  —

  HE ORDERED ANOTHER ROUND of beers for everyone except himself.

  He kept talking fast, while he still had them under his thumb.

  “It’s a nobody, a no one. No one is going to care. We clip him and we’re done.” Johnnie had heard the word “clip” on one of Zam’s TV shows and used it all the time now.

  “Someone cares plenty, otherwise they wouldn’t be asking us to do this. And it’s not Terrell, Juanito. We’re going to have to travel,” Chavez said, but not as forcefully as he’d complained before.

  “Fuck,” Ringo said, shrugging. “We’re only driving up the road. It’s just Murfee.”

  “Right,” Johnnie added. “Just Murfee. And hell, we’re cops. We got every reason to be wherever we want to be.”

  “Tell that to that Sheriff Cherry over there. Or to that deputy, Danny what’s-his-name,” Chavez said. “He’s a prick. You have history with him, right?”

  Johnnie nodded. “We had a dustup, but it was nothing. He didn’t like something I said about some girl.”

  “Let me get him in my sights,” Ringo said, faking a gun with his fingers and pointing it right between Johnnie’s eyes. “I fucking owe him, too.”

  “Okay, I got it. We all got it,” Johnnie said. “But we’re not going to see Danny Fuck-off or any of the rest of ’em. We’re in and out before anyone knows we’re there.” But Johnnie honestly didn’t know how things were going to play out, had no fucking idea at all.

  “You’re going to get it all squared away, right?” Ortiz asked, looking back and forth at everyone across the table. He asked it as if Johnnie could give him a sort of guarantee, as if he could promise that it would rain tomorrow.

  Fuck it, fine.

  “Right as rain.”

  “What do you know about the . . . mark?” Roman asked. Since Rae had finished her set, his attention was now fully back on the table.

  “Like I said, he’s a nothing, a nobody,” Johnnie lied, although the others had to know that wasn’t exactly true. Their mark had to be somebody, for all the effort. “He crossed our Indian friends or fucked up and failed ’em, and now they just want him taken care of. They can’t get any of their own shooters across the border right now to do it, so it’s gotta be us. If he’s even hidin’ out on this side.”

  “What about your daddy?” Roman asked, leaning back in his chair, somehow flexing his arms at the same time. All those pills he’d popped had turned him into one big son of a bitch, and Johnnie wondered if he chewed up some Viagra, too, before throwing it to Rae all night when Johnnie was home playing husband to Zam and daddy to Johnnie Jr. and Antonio. Johnnie also couldn’t help wondering if Roman fucked Rae in that amazing ass, and the thought made his head hurt.

  The veins popped in Roman’s neck, and he wasn’t stuttering so much anymore. He sure was fucking talkative now that Rae was off the stage.

  Johnnie always thought Chavez would be the first to cross him, but maybe he had it wrong. Maybe some good pussy and a few Chinese pills were going to make Roman the brave one.

  It was right then that Johnnie decided, before all was said and done, he might just have to kill Roman, too.

  We’re all killers now.

  “I’ll handle that. Don’t worry about it. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.”

  “And you’re sure this ‘nobody’ is really there in Murfee?” Roman stared right at him, muscles still flexed. They ignored gravity like Rae’s ass.

  How the fuck does he do that?

  Since when did he ever look anyone in the eye?

  Johnnie shrugged, told the truth. “They’re not sure. I’m not sure . . . not yet. But I will be.” The Indians, those indios from Acuña Johnnie answered to, really didn’t seem to know if the man they were looking for was in Murfee or not; they were just guessing, and it was up to him to find out for sure. Although he had been running dope for them out of the Big Bend for the past few months, the indios didn’t have a lot of other eyes or ears in the area—mostly just Johnnie, and Johnnie had his own guy. In a year, maybe two, they’d own all of West Texas, and probably have a dozen shooters and spies on speed dial, but not now. Now, some sort of final shakeout was going on down south between the indios and their rivals, and the man they wanted dead was at the heart of it.

  That’s all that mattered to Johnnie.

  Johnnie stood, tossing a couple of hundreds on the table. He had no idea what the bill was, but it was nowhere near the amount of money he’d thrown down. Money he didn’t really have, for drinks he couldn’t really afford.

  Like he couldn’t afford to let the other men around the table fuck this up for him.

  He stared Roman back down, letting him know he was going backstage to visit Rae right now, reminding him who was in fucking charge. Roman and the others didn’t need to know everything he knew—it was better they didn’t—but they needed to know enough to stay in line and remember that Johnnie Macho was always on top of things.

  Making the right calls, placing the big bets, righteously handling his business.

  He spat his chewed-up matchstick onto the floor. “I got someone in Murfee. When the time comes, he’s gonna help us out.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Deputy Marco Lucero liked her tattoos.

  Okay, it was more than that.

  He liked the way she laughed when she laughed, which wasn’t as often as she should. He liked her purple eyeshadow, and the way she chewed the end of her straw when she was drinking a Coke, and the way she kept her long hair in a braid that draped over one bare shoulder. When she worked at Earlys she usually wore a tank top and dark jeans, and it was that thin-strapped top that best showed off those tattoos on her left arm, running all the way to the smooth hollows of her throat. A few more peeked out around the curves of her small breasts, and he imagined—too often—what they might be. All he could ever see was a smudge of dusky color; a flower, a sun, a dragon. He had no real idea. But when he was bored sitting at his desk listening to Till Greer tell his unfunny jokes, or was in his truck, running the radar gun on U.S. 90—the only gun he’d ever drawn since joining the department—he kept coming back to Vianey Ruiz’s tattoos. They told a story, just like all the tattoos Danny Ford had, and it was a story that Marco desperately wanted to know.

  To get to know. Vianey had to know that, too. She was a bit older than him, probably flirting with everyone since it was part of the job description of working in a bar, but when he came into Earlys and sat down, she always made a point of setting them both up with a cold Coke (lots of ice for him) and ordering him some wings or whatever was on special, and then spent a good part of Marco’s time in the bar leaning over the old wood and chatting him up.

  Again, it was probably part of the job description. But sometimes, sometimes, he imagined she was standing there waiting for him to say something more. It was the way she looked at him over the rim of her glass, over that chewed end of her straw stained with her lipstick. It was a look they both held for a few seconds too long, just before it became uncomfortable and one of them would have to say something to fill that silence. Just before she was always called away to serve someone else.

  That look would stay with him for hours . . . for days.

  Like those tattoos and their stories.

  * * *

  —

  OF COURSE, they already shared a story together, although they never talked about it. Her former boyfriend, a man named Billy Bravo, had been killed by Jesse Earl, and it was the Earls—Jesse and his father, John Wesley, and some others—who’d started the fires that cost Marco’s brother, Emiliano, most of his eyesight. It’s what had brought Marco home again and to the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department, and to Earlys on those nights like this one when he wasn’t helping Emil.

  One thing leading to another . . . to another . . . on and on. You never knew the sta
rt of something important—often never realized its importance at all—until it was over; until you had the benefit of hindsight, although sight of any kind was something Emil Lucero was never going to have again.

  Like Marco’s decision to drop out of UTEP and come back home and join the department. Had that been a good thing, or foolishly shortsighted? Had he derailed his college career—his dreams of becoming a doctor—to become a second-rate deputy? And if Sheriff Cherry lost the upcoming election (which Marco was pretty sure was going to happen), what future was there for him in the department?

  What future was there, really, for him here in Murfee?

  That’s what he imagined passed between them when he and Vianey shared those too-long looks.

  She was simply waiting for him to tell her: Let’s get the hell out of here.

  * * *

  —

  TONIGHT, EARLYS WAS BUSY, so although he’d finally worked up the courage to at least suggest to Vianey they catch a movie or something (he didn’t know what something else would be), she hadn’t been able to spend much time at his end of the bar. But as she popped open a beer or poured another whiskey, she did make a point to turn his way and flash a quick smile. There were plenty of people in Earlys, but few he recognized, and that had been true since he’d returned home. Murfee was changing, finally. Slowly but surely. There were still those old families who’d always been here and always would be, but there were newer faces who’d come to settle and start lives. There were more Hispanics in Earlys than ever, and that was due to Sheriff Cherry. In years past they would have all stayed on the other side of town at Mancha’s, or headed down to Terlingua or Presidio, but now they felt comfortable coming into a place like Earlys because the sheriff had made them feel welcome. Not only this shitty old bar, but all over Murfee. That’s why it was a shame he was going to lose the election; he’d been good for the Big Bend, even if some folks didn’t see that.

  Even if some were damn shortsighted.

  Marco wasn’t surprised at all that he didn’t know the dark-haired young man on the stool next to him. He wasn’t Hispanic, though, and hadn’t said anything to anyone else since he’d sat down. He’d ordered a beer, still sitting mostly untouched in front of him, the foam falling in place, and he was looking around Earlys like he recognized it, like from a picture he’d once seen; trying to figure out how it might have changed. He had a few days of stubble and slim hands without any rings. Not even a watch. He was wearing a black leather jacket that was too warm for the weather, and definitely too warm for inside the bar.

  He looked at Marco’s deputy badge pinned to his belt and raised his still-full beer to him.

  “Have you been a deputy long?” he asked, setting the beer back down without taking a drink.

  “Awhile,” Marco said, curious. The man had a soft voice, too soft for the loud bar, and he had to lean forward to hear it.

  “You know Sheriff Cherry?”

  Marco laughed. “Sure, we see each other every now and then.” He turned on his stool to face the man better. “And you are . . . ?”

  “A reporter, covering the election. Out of Austin.”

  “Huh. I can’t imagine anyone in Austin, or anyone outside the Big Bend, caring about who our sheriff is. It’s all just small-town politics.” Marco glanced past the man to Vianey, who was intent on some limes she was cutting.

  The man moved his beer mug around, chasing water circles on the wood. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Yeah, I guess I would be.”

  “How many deputies do you have in the department? The articles I read don’t quite match. You cover plenty of rough ground out here.”

  Marco gave the man a closer look. There was nothing threatening or intimidating about him at all, but the question troubled him all the same. He laughed again to lighten the curt answer he was going to give: “Enough.”

  The young man smiled, neither angry or irritated. “That’s fair. Look, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me an interview? Off the record. You know, a color piece, what it’s like to live and work here . . . to work for Sheriff Cherry.” He took stock of what Marco was drinking. “I’ll buy you another Coke and whiskey.”

  Marco shook his head. “Just Coke. And an interview? Not on your life.”

  The man pressed on. “Okay, there’s a young female deputy in the department, too, right? Hispanic? In a town like this, that’s a whole story in and of itself. I read about the trouble that occurred down here last year with some bikers, some sort of Aryans or skinheads. It was a big deal for a few days, and she was right in the middle of it. Do you think I’d be able to talk to her?”

  Marco paused, buying time with a long sip of the just Coke. “If you want to interview anyone in the department, you’re going to have to clear that with the sheriff. I’m sure you understand.”

  The man put a folded twenty on the bar for the beer he didn’t drink, and for the Coke he didn’t buy Marco. He smiled, unfazed. “I do. I’m only trying to do my job. I’m sure you understand that, too.”

  “I do. So I guess that leaves us understanding each other pretty well. You’re here to cover the debate tomorrow night, right?”

  The young man stood to leave. He was thin, and the thick leather coat did little to give him any bulk.

  “Sure, that’s it,” he answered as he shook Marco’s hand, then headed for the door. “Be safe, Deputy.”

  But for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on, Marco didn’t think that was it at all.

  * * *

  —

  IT BUGGED HIM FOR THE NEXT HOUR, even after Vianey brought him another Coke.

  She tried to talk to him, but he was distracted, and soon she had to go back to the other customers, leaving him alone.

  Marco wasn’t going to ask her out tonight anyway. It was a missed chance, but he hoped there would be others.

  He was bothered by the young man in his leather coat and his questions. Questions about the sheriff and, more important, about America Reynosa, although he’d never once said her name. Marco couldn’t shake the idea that the whole conversation was about her and had been all along, and not about anyone or anything else.

  He didn’t think the man from Austin cared about the election.

  He’d heard the other deputies talking, and some folks around town. In the last couple of days, America had been seen in the company of an old man and a young girl. Probably just relatives or friends, although no one knew exactly which. Come to think of it, Danny had been seen with them, too. It wasn’t a secret, exactly; the sort of thing people might notice and comment on, maybe consider strange, but never think of asking directly about. It just wasn’t how things were done in Murfee. For a place that did such a poor job of hiding its secrets, most folks did an admirable job of keeping their mouths shut.

  Now you had America being seen with two strangers, and another stranger suddenly appearing in Earlys, asking about her.

  All that was strange.

  Marco would never consider raising it with America, either. Honestly, he got nervous around her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t mention it to Danny. In fact, it was the sort of thing he absolutely should tell Danny, who could then decide what to do about it.

  One thing leading to another . . . leading to another . . . on and on. You never knew the start of something important—often never realized its importance at all—until it was over.

  But maybe, just sometimes, you did.

  THIRTY-TWO

  America woke Fox Uno with a gun pointed between his eyes.

  He was sleeping on the couch, Zita nearby on a pallet on the floor. The sheets were cartoon characters she had picked up, and the pillow was a big yellow thing, like a sun. Danny, too, was there—back in her bedroom—all wound up in a sleeping bag he’d been issued in the army. He had one gun, maybe two, slipped down into the sleeping bag with him. The last coupl
e of nights he’d fought to stay awake, before finally, angrily, succumbing. He talked in his sleep, words and names she didn’t know, hands moving on their own, flying toward his face as if he were startled and about to wake from whatever dreams were troubling him. But he never did. He rose each morning confused, with circles under his eyes, unrested.

  It wasn’t just Fox Uno troubling him, but he wouldn’t talk about it, and since he refused to leave her alone in her apartment at night with Fox Uno and the girl, it was a tight, uncomfortable fit for everyone.

  It had been hard getting up and moving through the bedroom and stepping quietly over Danny, and then Zita, to get to her uncle.

  He sat up without a sound when she touched the gun’s muzzle to the weathered skin between his eyes, and if he recognized the gun—with its grinning silver calaveras and Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte—he didn’t show it. He blinked and said nothing. She forced him to get up and grab his precious phones, and then she guided him silently out the door.

  It was still dark outside, but the sun would likely be up by the time they got to where they were going.

  * * *

  —

  SHE DROVE OUT OF MURFEE with the gun across her lap pointed at Fox Uno’s stomach. She’d accepted that’s who he was now, so there was no need to think of him as Juan Abrego or anyone else—as anything other than what he was. If he was concerned that she was going to kill him, he didn’t beg for his life. Instead, he ignored her, letting it play out, watching the darkened world roll by.

  She angled them south of town, toward Texas 118, out past Chapel Mesa, along the line of the Del Norte and Christmas Mountains; within sight of 9 Point Mesa, then in the direction of Terlingua and Study Butte. She kept going, eyes searching for the ranch road. To her left, hidden behind the mountains, the sun was still rising, and the sky there was slowly softening . . . lightening. A memory of a thousand other dawns. She had her window down but the cool morning air did nothing for her. Her skin was beaded with sweat, her hand steady on the gun.