To Bring My Shadow

by Matt Phillips

  We waved over our shoulders. I guessed Randy should have been a big thinker in some kind of government institute. It’s too bad where some people end up in this life.

  Chapter 8

  We parked in the alley behind Rambo’s building, a three-story apartment complex with graffiti running along the back wall. I saw, too, the windows had wrought-iron cages over them. Rambo lived in a shitty section of the city—city council kept saying it was “next on the list” for earmarked tax revenue, but the voter turnout said dick to politicians, even the scummy local kind. Slade did narcotics work in the neighborhood when he first joined the department. I knew the city well—hell, it was the place of my birth—but I let Slade take the lead around here.

  Ahead, in the early morning gloom, a gray-black cat crossed through the alley, jumped into a trash dumpster. “Breakfast for miss kitty,” I said.

  Slade chuckled. “We all eat shit sometimes.”

  “Or all the time,” I said.

  Slade shut off the car and we watched for a few minutes. Out one window, a thin trail of smoke drifted through the screen, threaded upward over the building’s roof. It was the only window without a cage covering it. Odd, but I thought little about it. Slade pointed and said, “Address is 5C, and that might be third floor back. That might be our boy right there.”

  “Could be.”

  “What do you think about one of us hanging back here?”

  I didn’t like that. Best to stay together in the hood, cops or not. “How about we call patrol, let a cruiser hang out here and wait?”

  Slade called it in and we waited.

  About ten minutes later a black and white cruiser slid down the alley opposite our car. I put my hand out the window, signaled for the patrol cop to stay back from the building, not tip Rambo or some other scumbag with a warrant. Place like this, you roll up on two or three ex-cons and they all start running. They do that and we’re obligated to chase. God knew, I wasn’t in shape for that.

  “Let’s go,” Slade slid from the car like a real TV cop, all sly smile and liquid walk. I followed behind him, grunting and laboring with the slight bourbon buzz and a sleepless night.

  We circled onto the main street, turned right after passing a rundown liquor store, and went up three flights of outdoor stairs. Slade waited for me at the top, raised his eyebrows in judgment. “We need to get you back to the slim part of slim fat. You need to hit the gym, Frank.”

  “That, or I could stop drinking so much.”

  My partner shrugged and moved down the open-air corridor past a few doorways. Images of the Virgin de Guadalupe stared back at us from windows and doors. I heard a Mexican tenor singing malaise in one apartment and the sound of children—even this early in the morning—was like a hum that wouldn’t quit.

  Slade slowed as he reached 5C. The front window was covered with a child’s sheet—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—and Slade squinted through it to see inside the room. “I can’t see shit, Frank. Can you?”

  I squinted too and saw nothing. On the door, I noticed a small postcard with an image of Santa Muerte taped over the peephole. There it was again, that image of Saint Death. “Just knock on the door and get this shit over with. I doubt the kid’s a sicario. Shit, he’s probably just repeating something he heard on the corner, or from somebody down at the disco.”

  Slade drew his sidearm and I guffawed.

  He said, “Shit, Frank. Get out your fucking gun.”

  “This early in the morning?”

  “Man, you want to get shot in the hood on a Thursday?”

  “You know these motherfuckers can’t aim worth shit. Fat chance he––”

  “The fuck you fuzz want, man!”

  Both me and Slade looked at the door. Slade moved back into the corridor.

  I said, “That you, Rambo? We need to ask you some things about your pal. Kid named Turner.”

  “What’s Turner into?”

  I pounded on the door with my fist. “Let us in, Rambo. We just have some questions.”

  A door farther back in the corridor opened and an old Latina woman poked her head out to look at us. A knowing gaze crossed her face––la policia again, it said. Siempre.

  Slade waved her back inside and her door closed with the audible clunk of a dead bolt.

  “What the fuck you want with me?”

  The voice sounded farther from the door, huddled up somewhere back in the apartment.

  Slade said, “It’s just for background info, Rambo. You ain’t in trouble, man—I fucking promise.”

  “Two cops at my door and I ain’t in trouble.”

  I shook my head, thought maybe Rambo was smarter than we knew. I looked at Slade and he waved his sidearm at me. Jesus, I thought, it’s too early in the day for this shit. I unholstered my own gun, a 9 mm. “It’s the police, Rambo. Open up or we’re coming in. Don’t make me break down this door, man.” Not legal, but worth a try.

  Rambo didn’t answer. As I was about to pound on the door again, we heard the cop out back chirp his cruiser’s siren. And then we heard the unmistakable sound of a V-8 engine accelerating through the alley and out into the main street.

  “Right or left, Frank? Speak up, dammit!”

  “Left here! Watch out, man!”

  Slade slammed on the brakes as we entered an intersection, almost smacking a middle-aged junk collector on a bicycle. He flipped us the bird and kept weaving across the street, both lanes empty in the early morning. Except for two detectives in a department-issue Ford Focus, a black and white police cruiser, and a crook named Rambo on foot. Evidently, working as a crook paid dividends for cardio fitness. The man was a wizard on his feet. After we heard the cruiser take off, Slade and me hustled down the apartment building stairs, came around the corner, and saw Rambo sprinting like an Olympian across the street, the cruiser close behind. Rambo leaped over a chain-link fence between a shoe repair store and a piñata shop, disappeared down a long alley. The cruiser made the next left while Slade ran for the car. I waited on the street to see if Rambo would double back—it didn’t happen.

  Next thing I knew, Slade squealed to a stop next to me and I hopped into the car. Now, we were circling the block, Slade pumping the gas and yelling at me.

  “I’m going right at the next alley,” Slade said.

  The car’s engine whined like a two-stroke motorcycle. I ran a hand along my seat belt to make sure it was tight. While I did that, I caught a flash of white through Slade’s window—a hooded sweatshirt. “Left! Left! I saw the fucker!”

  Slade mashed the brakes again and yanked the wheel. We spun counter-clockwise, left rubber on the black pavement, and Slade steered the car down the alley. As the stucco walls closed in on us, I saw the white flash from behind a trash dumpster—it had to be him: Rambo sprinted into the center of the alley. He put his head down and pumped.

  Slade said, “The fucker is fast.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Let me put you up next to him.”

  “Go, go-go-go-go!”

  An opening revealed itself in the alley—two side streets—and Slade punched it. I saw Rambo’s surprised expression as we passed on his left. My seat belt slapped against the door as I unbuckled it. I opened my door, Slade slowed and, at that instant, I lunged from the car and hit Rambo square in the chest. I’m a heavy man and Rambo’s breath left him like an explosion. I felt the mushroom cloud in my face. We hit the hard pavement, skidded, and rolled twice before I straddled him across the back side and yanked his right arm back over his hip. I applied pressure.

  Rambo screamed, “My fucking arm, fuzz. Don’t break it!”

  “I’ll rip it off if you don’t stop fighting.” I pulled up and out at Rambo’s elbow.

  He squealed.

  “Frank, let him be. Frank. Frank.” It was Slade pulling at my collar, telling me to let up on the runner. “Easy, Frank. Let’s not fuck up the paperwork on this thing.”

 
I cuffed Rambo and Slade helped me bring him to his feet. Seconds later, the patrol officer arrived. The engine beneath his cruiser’s hood ticked and hummed. We waved the patrol cop off and he pumped the siren again and sped off to chase some other brown, black, or poor man. I threw Rambo against the car, placed my hands on my hips, and stared him dead in the face. “Why the fuck you run from us, motherfucker?”

  “Because, man. You gonna do me wrong.”

  “The fuck you mean, ‘do you wrong’?” Slade frisked Rambo and spat another phrase at him. “You do your-fucking-self wrong being a loser and a junkie, man. You don’t need no help to get got.” Slade backed away, waited for the rage that was sure to erupt.

  “I almost got away.”

  “Shit,” I said. “We were just about to call in the ghetto bird, spotlight your ass.”

  Slade grunted. “We don’t need a chopper to find this fucker. He’d probably go home for a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “Yo, man. Let me go. I’m begging you.”

  I laughed a big, hearty laugh like I hadn’t done in a few months. Or not that I remembered.

  “I ain’t kidding, man. I’m begging—you got to let me go.” Rambo’s eyes shot around at the buildings on the street. “Before they see, man. This shit gonna get me got, for real.”

  “Before who sees?” Slade knew lies as well as he knew women.

  “Fucking eyes in the sky, man. Eyes in the sky.”

  “What are you,” I said, “another nutso?”

  Rambo’s eyes started to get shiny. Within seconds, he wept. He fell to his knees and his shoulders bobbed with grief. Wails seeped from his throat. He choked out a few phrases. “It’s already done, man. You already got me killed. Shit don’t matter now.”

  I kneeled down beside Rambo, lifted his peach-fuzzed chin with my index finger. “Who you talking about, Rambo?” I looked up at the sky, back to the kid’s wet eyes. “Who’s watching?”

  He looked me square in the face and said, “The king of the streets, man. Fucking God almighty his damn self.”

  “You religious, Rambo?”

  “No, man. I ain’t talking about no church god. I’m talking about the real fucking thing.”

  I stared at the weeping thug and thought about my dead wife, her tiny pale body buried six feet deep in Forest Lawn. “Real god, huh?” I said it with bitterness on my lips.

  “The cartel, man—fucking demons.”

  We tried to get Rambo to tell us more, but he kept insisting he was dead, that he didn’t exist. And if the man thought he was dead, on the real, how the hell could we argue with that?

  Chapter 9

  We thought about taking Rambo in, booking him for some bullshit thing. But it wouldn’t get us anything besides paperwork. We let him go. About two hours later, while Slade did research on the dead man––Castaneda––I called a sheriff’s deputy I knew who worked out near Jacumba. Man I used to meet for drinks when he came to the city.

  I stared at a half-eaten egg burrito on my desk and listened to Lengo’s cell phone ring and go to voicemail: “This is Lengo. I’m at work. Use your words and I’ll call you back.”

  “Lengo, it’s Frank. Caught a body today––well, yesterday––and I’m hearing rumors about Jacumba. The Jacoby family thing came up. Thought I’d loop you in. Call me back.”

  I hung up and took another big bite from my breakfast burrito. Scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, and red salsa. Nothing like it, but my stomach turned as I chewed and swallowed. Murder always did that to me, upset my stomach.

  I told myself: The day a murder doesn’t make me sick is the day I’m done as a detective. And as a human.

  Across the room, in another cubicle, I heard Slade speaking Spanglish, jawing gangster-like about strip clubs in Tijuana. Tapping his CI network, I supposed. That meant Castaneda didn’t hit in the system––no criminal record. If it was true, I’d shit myself with surprise.

  But I’d seen weirder shit. Working as a cop on the border, you got to see––

  My cell phone buzzed. I put down my burrito and answered the call. “Lengo, que paso, amigo? You up early, or you just get home?”

  “Late night, Frank,” Lengo said. “And a long morning. A tractor-trailer flipped on the eastbound highway. Had to be a fuel tanker, of course. We called haz mat, stood around for six hours. You know how it is. What’s all this about the Jacoby family?”

  “Me and Skinny caught a body late last night. Kind of a sick scene, buddy.” I detailed the murder and Castaneda’s mutilation, caught Lengo up on Rambo’s story (taken secondhand from the punk teen, Turner). “What I was wondering, you got anybody with Border Patrol I can call unofficial-like? Hate to make hay over some kid’s loudmouth lie, but I also want to check out that area, make sure the kid really is lying, you know?”

  Lengo said, “You want to confirm the lie you suspect.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Be a whole lot easier if motherfuckers just…Told the pinche truth.”

  “I’m with you, Lengo.” I picked up my burrito with one hand, shoved the rest of it into my mouth. I tried to chew in silence, but it didn’t work.

  “The fuck are you eating, Frank?”

  I finished chewing, swallowed. “Burrito,” I said, rolling my tongue like a cartoon character.

  “Sounds like you’re real invested in this murder, Frank.”

  “Man’s got to eat. You’re no good if you don’t eat.”

  “I know a BP guy who rides the fence line, but he’s just your run-of-the-mill agent.”

  “Doesn’t have to be J. Edgar Hoover. Just want to get the lay of the land out there.”

  Lengo gave me the agent’s personal number and said, “If you two dicks get out here, send me a text. We’ll meet for a beer and some wings. Anything comes up on the Jacoby missing persons case, I need to know. My boss will give me bullshit if I’m not keyed in with the feds. The dude hates G-men. I think it’s because he’s corrupt.”

  “I’ll let you know, Lengo. Thanks for the contact, hermano.” We hung up and I dialed the number Lengo provided. The line rang for a while and, as I was about to hang up, Border Patrol agent Hector Candida answered.

  “This Hector, what up?”

  “Agent Candida? This is detective Frank Pinson, SDPD. Buddy of mine gave me your number and I wanted to talk––”

  “Who?” He cut me off without consideration.

  I said, “Deputy Lengo over at––”

  “Don’t know him, buddy.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said. “I just talked to him about––”

  “I ain’t no Border Patrol no more.”

  “Well, you live out near Jacumba? I wanted to––”

  “I don’t know you, buddy.” His voice got gruff, condescending. “I ain’t working at that job no more and I live out in Calexico. I got nothing for you––”

  “I’m murder police, Candida. I don’t give two fucks if you don’t work that job no more. I want some fucking questions answered, and you’re going to answer them.”

  Candida laughed. “Homicide, huh? Who got put down?”

  The way he said it, “put down,” set my gut moving—tiny details like that said one of two things to a detective: This guy is either bad news or he wants to pretend he’s bad news. Candida? Bad news. I wondered for a moment why Lengo passed along this one’s name. Maybe he did it on purpose. That, of all things, wouldn’t surprise me. Lengo was a longtime deputy, and he found himself––after eighteen years of service––fed up with corruption and bureaucracy and hypocritical bullshit. Give me something without giving me anything––I saw Lengo doing that. Why not? I put my thoughts back on Candida. “You want to know who? I don’t know, amigo. You got any friends missing?”

  Candida said, “Friends, no. Enemies missing? Could be.”

  “Okay, smart ass.”

  “A detective without humor…What are you, married?”

  I said, �
��Used to be.”

  “So, that’s it then.”

  “What is?”

  He said, “Your bad attitude.”

  “Dude, you’re the one with the attitude. I’m just calling about a thing happened a few months back.” I paused and sneezed. “When did you get out of the job?”

  He scoffed over the line. “Two months ago.”

  “Why?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  I said, “You remember the Jacoby family missing persons case?” The case was high enough profile that all agencies were alerted at one time or another.

  “What about it?”

  “Ran into a CI who said something about they’re buried––the family that is––out near Jacumba.”

  Candida did not speak. Heavy breathing started on the line.

  “You ever hear anything about that, or about bodies out in the desert? Maybe from the migrants you picked up, or people you met?”

  I looked up to see Slade standing over me. He tapped one side of his head––he had something for us about Castaneda.

  “One sec, Skinny,” I said and turned my attention back to the phone. But the line was silent and, a second or two later, it was all dial tone. Hector Candida, former Border Patrol agent, hung up on me.

  Chapter 10

  “What it is,” Slade said, “is a damn mystery how this dude Castaneda got got.”

  “And why’s that?” We crossed the street swiveling our heads to dodge traffic. The shadow of the courthouse shaded the entire block. We reached the sidewalk and took the few steps into the county’s laudable seat of popular justice. Slade wanted coffee, and I needed it. We nodded at the sheriff’s deputies manning the metal detector, slid through and walked into the jury lounge, firearms still on our hips. “Man looked like a gangbanger,” I said. “It ain’t a mystery he got murdered. It’s a mystery who did it. Or maybe, who the hell didn’t do it.”

  Slade walked this whole way with both hands plunged into the pockets of his flat-front slacks. He looked confused, or worried. We both poured coffee from the pot at the back of the jury lounge. By this time in the morning––eight o’ the clock––grumpy jurors were filing in, taking seats in the conference-style room. We ambled through the crowd, pushed our way through the incoming line, and walked out onto the sidewalk. We stood there and stared at the passing throng of homeless, young professionals, line cooks, tourists.