Trouble in Mind

by Michael Wiley

  ‘Could he have been Mexican?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘He could’ve been anything,’ she said.

  ‘Could his name have been Hugo Nuñez?’

  She smiled nervously, trying to help. ‘It could’ve been.’

  Kelson looked at Rodman. Rodman shook his head and said, ‘Could it have been Kanye West?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Tattoos?’ Kelson asked. ‘Scars?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and she looked at Rodman as if afraid her answer would cause him to hurt her.

  Kelson asked, ‘What’s his relationship with Doreen? She sleeping with him?’

  ‘Do you mean, does he fuck her? That’s her job. Does she want him to? You’ll have to ask her that yourself.’

  Rodman asked, ‘What does he drive?’

  She seemed relieved to be able to answer with specifics. ‘A silver Mercedes when he picked her up from the Japanese party. A Lexus the other time.’

  ‘How does he treat Doreen?’ Kelson asked.

  A bitter smile formed on her lips. ‘The way Doreen describes him, he makes her do things, and everything’s got to be done his way. You wouldn’t want to do those things. He hurts her if she messes up.’

  ‘I’ve seen the marks.’

  She asked, ‘Did she tell you she likes it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sometimes she says she does, but she’s lying. Even people who need it don’t really like it. Something’s broken that makes them think they do, that’s all.’

  ‘You seem to know her real well,’ Kelson said. ‘She walked right into your boyfriend’s house. Has she been hiding here?’

  ‘I told you, she doesn’t hide,’ she said. ‘She comes and goes, that’s all. And she never knocks.’

  ‘I found her a couple of times in my office like that,’ he said. ‘Where would she go from here?’

  ‘Anywhere. Could be she has a date – some guys like it in the morning. Could be she’s going shopping – she likes to do that.’

  Rodman asked, ‘What happened back in Sioux City?’

  ‘You know about that?’ she said.

  Boyd said again, ‘You talk too much.’

  ‘I’m not telling you a secret, I don’t think,’ she said to Rodman. ‘They blamed Doreen for the thing with Christian, but he started it. I guess they scared him, because he blamed her too. They loved each other – that’s what Doreen says – you know, the way fourteen-year-olds do – innocent and dangerous. I guess he dumped her. After him, the other boys went open season on her. She was hurt, so she let them have her. Then one night, a bunch of them got her drunk and did her. When she woke up, they’d cut off all her hair. They humiliated her and made a show of it. When she was seventeen, her stepdad kicked her out or she ran away, and she took a bus to Chicago, and everything happened from there. The old story. It’s close enough to what happened to me.’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t kill people.’

  ‘Doreen doesn’t either. I wish I had the guts to. You don’t screw with a girl’s feelings when she’s like that.’

  ‘How did Christian come back into her life?’

  Raba giggled. ‘She walked into the drugstore where he worked. First thing in the morning after she was out all night. Christian stood behind the counter, all nice and neat in his little white drugstore jacket, making eyes at his fiancée.’

  ‘So she killed him.’

  She gave that idea an affectionate smile. ‘She’s bent in just about every way you can bend a girl. But she doesn’t hurt people. Ever. For her, it’s all about love.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  As the garage man put the Challenger on a lift at a Midas dealer by I-94, Kelson and Rodman sat in the waiting area and ate chips from a vending machine. Rodman said, ‘You think Doreen could’ve hooked up with Hugo Nuñez?’

  ‘Well, he’s got money, if that’s all it takes to get to her,’ Kelson said. ‘But I think it takes more. This man seems to twist her. He set up the killings so they look like she did them, if not me. I don’t know if Nuñez is smart enough to do that.’

  Rodman thought about it. ‘You think she’d spend time with that lowlife anyway?’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to mind hanging around lowlifes.’

  ‘Let’s visit Nuñez and see what he tells us?’

  ‘Can’t go worse than last time.’

  So when the car came off the lift with a new tire, Kelson and Rodman drove back to Chicago and parked outside Bomboleo.

  The dining room and club were closed until dinnertime, though a taqueria connected to the place was crowded. Businessmen in suits stood at a heavy wooden bar and washed down carnitas and al pastor with beer. The bartender who’d directed Kelson to Nuñez’s backroom table was opening beer bottles. He wore a sombrero over his bleach-blond hair.

  Kelson caught the man’s eye. ‘I guess the hat’s your idea of fun,’ he said.

  ‘Or funny,’ Rodman said.

  The bartender gave Kelson a long look. ‘Your bruises are looking good. You probably should let them keep healing instead of asking for more kicks in the face.’

  ‘What time does Nuñez usually come in?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘D’you know where he hangs out before he comes in?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ the bartender said, ‘I’ll give you a Corona on the house. Just to be courteous. And then you can leave.’ He looked at Rodman. ‘I’d give you a pitcher, but management would have my ass.’

  ‘I need to see Nuñez,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He doesn’t talk to guys like you. He grinds them into the bathroom floor.’

  ‘Still need to see him.’

  The bartender looked at Rodman, who shrugged and said, ‘If he says he needs to see him, I guess he needs to see him.’

  The man said to Kelson, ‘It’s your face. He comes in for dinner around eight – unless he eats somewhere else. Either way, we keep a table free.’

  ‘Where is he before then?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Do I look like his secretary?’

  ‘You look like a dick in a sombrero.’

  Rodman said, ‘If he says it, it must be true.’

  The bartender turned red. ‘Go to hell, all right? I try to help. I tell you to leave it alone. I offer you a drink. I give you what you ask for.’

  Kelson said, ‘Last time you gave me what I asked for, I got kicked in the head.’

  The bartender looked at Rodman, bewildered. Rodman said, ‘Sometimes you can’t win.’

  So the man said to Kelson, ‘You want to get yourself killed? People say Nuñez works from an office in Pilsen. Over a currency exchange. Maybe you’ll go there and he’ll shoot you. Maybe then you’ll stop hassling me.’

  Pilsen was a Mexican neighborhood on the Southwest Side. If you drove down the main drag on a Saturday night, you would think you were in Mexico City. ‘Where in Pilsen is the currency exchange?’ Kelson asked.

  The man shook his head. ‘Don’t know. You’d never catch me looking for Nuñez.’

  ‘We can find it,’ Rodman said. ‘But we wouldn’t want you calling to let him know we’re coming.’

  Kelson took out a twenty and offered it to the man.

  The bartender shook his head. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with you.’

  Rodman asked, ‘You still offering that beer?’

  ‘Just get the hell out of here, OK?’

  FORTY

  Most of Pilsen was residential – aluminum-sided single-family houses, old brick two-flats, and, here and there, new three-story condos bought up by professionals edging into the neighborhood. A single strip of businesses lined West Eighteenth Street. Signs advertised a dentista, an Escuela de Futbol, a panderia, a dulceria, and a dozen restaurants. Bright murals covered the brick walls with portraits of the Virgin Mary, Che Guevera, scenes of Rio Grande crossings, hardhat construction, and flamenco dancing.

  Kelson drove past a narrow redbrick building
with a burned-out neon sign that said, Cash Fast Casa de Cambio, and Rodman said, ‘Whoa.’

  Kelson circled back and stopped at the curb.

  The Cash Fast windows were dirty and dark, a big MoneyGram decal peeling from the glass, the paint chipping from an advertisement offering Servicio Rápido. But lights shined in the windows on the second and third floors.

  Kelson and Rodman got out and went to the street door. It was locked. ‘We could throw pebbles at the windows,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Or we could just walk in.’ Rodman yanked the door handle, and the metal bolt tore from its rusted housing.

  They went up to the second floor. The door, with a frosted glass top, also was locked. Kelson knocked and a heavy Mexican woman with gray hair opened.

  ‘Hugo Nuñez?’ Kelson said.

  The woman pointed at the ceiling and closed the door.

  So they climbed to the third floor. The wooden door looked thick enough to absorb bullets. There were two locks, one by the handle, one at the top of the jamb. On the other side of the door, a radio played Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Rodman said, and he knocked.

  A girl’s voice spoke from the other side. ‘Quién es?’

  Rodman held a finger to his lips

  But Kelson couldn’t help himself. ‘Sam Kelson, ex-narcotics cop, current—’

  ‘Shh,’ Rodman said.

  For several seconds, there was silence. Then the lock tumblers clicked, and the door opened.

  A child stood in the doorway. She wore a white blouse and blue jeans embroidered with pink and white thread. She had black hair and very dark eyes. She held a little black pistol, which she pointed at Kelson. She said, ‘My dad wants to know what you want.’

  ‘Cute,’ he said. ‘Is your dad Hugo Nuñez?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her answer made him grin. ‘That’s great.’

  She wrinkled her lips. ‘What’s great about it?’

  ‘He didn’t strike me as the type to have a daughter.’

  Rodman said, ‘We want to talk to him about Doreen.’

  She glanced into the room.

  Behind the radio noise, Nuñez must have shaken his head.

  ‘He doesn’t know her,’ the girl said.

  ‘Raba?’ Kelson asked.

  She looked into the room, said, ‘Nope,’ and started to close the door.

  Rodman jammed a thick hand against it. When she pointed the gun at him, he said, ‘Here’s the thing. You don’t want to shoot me. The cops would come, and who needs that? Even if you managed to do it without the cops, I would bleed out, and with a guy my size your dad would have Niagara Falls down the stairs. And then he’d have to carry my fat ass down to the street.’

  The girl smiled, and those dark eyes looked a little crazy.

  ‘We just want to talk,’ he said.

  She said, over her shoulder, ‘They just want to talk.’

  Nuñez must have signaled again, because she lowered the pistol and moved from the door.

  The room had none of the glitz of Bomboleo, none of the flash a man like Nuñez seemed to need when he went out in public. He and the two men who beat up Kelson at the dance club sat on unmatched leather office chairs. A TV played silently in one corner. An old boombox rested on top of the TV, tuned to WLUP, where Jimi Hendrix put down his guitar and the DJ promised more classic rock after a message. There were a couple of open cans of beer on a table, an open bottle of mescal on a desk. When Kelson stepped in, the men gave him vicious smiles. When Rodman stepped in behind him, the men reached into their belts and snatched pistols into their fingers.

  ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ Nuñez said. ‘How can I help you?’

  Kelson stared at Nuñez’s raging bloodshot eye. ‘You could start with a pirate patch.’

  Nuñez’s men pointed their guns at Kelson’s forehead.

  So Kelson said, ‘We just came from the house of a methhead whore who—’

  Nuñez held up two fingers with a kind of aristocratic flair. He could have passed as refined except for his eye and his armed companions. ‘Who is your Negro friend?’ Nuñez gave Rodman his little-toothed grin. ‘I grew up in a nice house. We had a Negro maid. She was almost as big as you. I loved that woman.’

  Rodman gave him back a big smile that looked as if it could eat Nuñez’s little one.

  Kelson said, ‘This … hooker … this exotic dancer said the woman who set me up is controlled by a man who sounds a lot like you. Same general look. Access to drugs.’

  Nuñez said, ‘The last time you came to see me, you accused me of setting you up because of Bicho. I thought my boys persuaded you that you were mistaken. Now I force a girl to set you up?’

  ‘You’re behind it. You and Doreen.’

  He looked offended. ‘I’m a man of honor and faith.’

  ‘Who sells drugs and kills his enemies.’

  ‘I’m a businessman. Violence is unnecessary … much of the time.’ He signaled to the other men, who set down their pistols. ‘You’ve made me curious. Who is Doreen?’

  ‘As far as we know, she’s a girl from Iowa who got into trouble at home, and so she ran away and got into trouble here. I can’t help thinking that trouble involves a little Frito like you.’

  Again the guns came up.

  Again Nuñez signaled them down.

  ‘Once more, you are mistaken,’ Nuñez said. ‘You are rude. Disrespectful—’

  ‘Disinhibited,’ Kelson said.

  ‘But,’ Nuñez said, ‘I’m content telling you this without violence. Having my boys kick the shit out of you again seems unnecessary. You think I’m a bad man, but I’ve known cops who are worse. Cops who would shoot a seventeen-year-old boy in an alley. Terrible men.’

  So Rodman said, ‘Where are Christian Felbanks’s parents?’

  Nuñez said, ‘You are a very big man. Like my old housekeeper. A rinoceronte. A rhinoceros, yes?’ He looked at his men for confirmation. ‘The little eyes so close together.’

  Rodman kept his voice low and mild. ‘Christian Felbanks’s parents?’

  Nuñez smiled. ‘Doreen? Christian Felbanks’s parents? These are people I don’t know. But I do know that you are wasting my time.’

  Rodman seemed to consider him. ‘All right, but if you hear about the parents – or about Doreen, or about anyone out to avenge Bicho’s death – we’d appreciate knowing about them. If you want to send your boys out to listen, we’d appreciate that too.’

  Nuñez’s smile hardened. ‘It is a big city,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I will hear about these people.’

  ‘Nah, it’s a small town,’ Rodman said. ‘Seems after a while I know everyone. If nothing else, we try to stay on each other’s right side. A man like me and a man like you.’

  Nuñez didn’t agree to help. But he didn’t have his men shoot Kelson and Rodman either. Although Kelson still had all the same questions he walked in with, the conversation went as well as he and Rodman could hope.

  But as they turned to go, the WLUP DJ fulfilled her promise by spinning another classic tune – Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.’

  An image of Nancy stripping off her dress the night she and Kelson first had sex flashed into Kelson’s broken brain. ‘Dammit,’ he said, and spun toward Nuñez. ‘Why are you playing this?’

  Nuñez gave his daughter a wry smile and glanced at his men, unsure what to make of Kelson’s strange turn. ‘What do you want me to listen to? Mariachi? Shake some maracas like a good little Frito? Maybe play a corrido about los pobres?’

  Kelson fingered his top shirt button, and his hips started to sway.

  Rodman saw what was coming, and he reached for him, but Kelson danced across the room toward the little drug lord. He ran his fingers down the man’s chest and belly, ran them back up, and pinched his nipples. He would need to talk with Dr P about this. Words rolled off his tongue and over his lips – ‘Joan Jett is good for only one thing,’ he said. ‘Loving.’ He yanked open t
he top three buttons on Nuñez’s shirt.

  ‘Jesus Christ, man,’ Rodman said, as Kelson fingered the fourth button.

  ‘Are you fucking with me?’ Nuñez said, and his voice rose an octave. ‘If you’re fucking with me—’

  Kelson backed away from the man, still dancing. Most of his brain told him to stop. But the part that mattered told him to go, go, go. ‘No,’ he said, ‘if I was fucking with you, I would call you Peewee Chilito. I would tell you how when I was a narcotics cop, I would’ve busted your tiny ass. I would call you a little dog that barks at the big dogs, and the big dogs only want to lift their legs and piss on you.’

  ‘Enough, man, enough,’ Rodman said.

  But Joan Jett reached the lines where she tells the boy to put a dime in the jukebox, baby, and dance with her, and Kelson grabbed Nuñez, pulled him to his feet, and tried to do something between a waltz and a swing-your-partner.

  Rodman yelled, ‘No.’

  Nuñez pulled free and shouted at his men, ‘Kill him.’

  Maybe if Kelson’s behavior hadn’t stunned them, they would have done it.

  But Rodman got to them before they could raise their pistols. He backhanded one with his huge knuckles and took his gun. He threatened the other with a fist, and the man turned his over to him. He held an open palm for Nuñez’s daughter, and she laid her little weapon on it. He emptied the chambers, pocketed the magazines, and set the guns on the floor. He gripped Kelson by the arm and dragged him to the door. ‘Until next time,’ he said to Nuñez, and they went out.

  As they jogged downstairs, Nuñez stood on the landing and shouted insults and threats. Kelson was dead, he said. He would chase the hijo de puta through the city. He would track him like an animal. Kelson was a cabrón, a maricón. He would see Nuñez coming for him, and there would be nothing he could do. He would die with his verga in his mouth.

  Kelson and Rodman went out the street door and got into the Challenger. Kelson said, ‘Damn, I hate when that happens.’

  Rodman rolled down the window and jutted his elbow out. ‘I like working with you, man.’

  FORTY-ONE

  Whether or not Nuñez knew other dealers who might have heard about a plot to avenge Bicho, Rodman did, though finding the right ones and getting them to talk was a long shot. It would be even longer if Rodman showed up with a stranger who blurted out any thought that crossed his mind and, at the moment, had a hard time keeping clothes on. So Kelson dropped him off in Bronzeville and drove back through the city to his office.