by C. S. 96
Tony was still smiling, and why shouldn’t he? Sure, the business that had done so well for him had hit a few roadblocks, and they were beginning to come so frequently that you wondered if something might be amiss, but if this run went as planned he’d be out of the hole we were in. And in Tony’s mind, no cop or fed could stop me. I was untouchable.
Ship of Fools
I headed home to pack for the road trip. On the way my only thoughts were of Inez; the way she walked away from me that morning when I told her I had to meet Tony. She knew what I was up to—she’d been an innocent bystander these past ten years. A victim, really, and she was at the end of her rope. I had the strangest of feelings that if she could keep walking she would, and a chill shot down my back, the first flake of a blizzard I’d never survive.
I had to convince her that my days in this life were finally over. Sure, we’d been here before and she’d heard it all time and time again. But this time was different. It was now about a compilation of wrongs I’d endured at the hands of Tony. Turning the clock back ten years sending me out as a mule once again and this sudden threat against my family, these things could not go unchallenged. In my mind, I was already out of the business. The hardest part of it all was that I could not tell Inez about how Tony had subtly threatened all of us. It would divide us even further apart.
The truth was that, though I’d realized it long ago, I had continued living a life I was never meant to be a part of, as if there were someone else at the wheel, someone who had taken control of my mind and body, acting as my ghost proxy all these years. I knew I was on the wrong side of the law, and it disgusted me to the point where I could no longer look at myself in the mirror. And every day it wore on me, grinding me down slowly, right down to a nub of the man I once was. I had to show her it was going to be all right. I somehow had to spool up all of that history between us this one last time. My only hope was that she’d listen and could understand.
I entered the house and thankfully the kids weren’t home; we were alone. Inez was in the kitchen putting groceries in the cupboards and cabinets. I moved behind her and held onto her waist. She stopped moving, suddenly frigid. I whispered in her ear, “This is it, honey. I promise, today is the last run. I’m out of this miserable business for good.”
Before I could explain further she unwound herself from my arms, quickly moving away, unpacking the bags as if she were on a mission. I stood there frozen, a glacier, not knowing what to say, though I had to prove to her that the sun was setting on this horrible ten-year nightmare I’d put her through.
I tried to close the distance between us and explain why this time was so definite. She felt me approaching and suddenly slammed a jar on the counter so hard it cracked a tile. Startled, I quickly retreated, raising my hands in supplication. She said, “Stop. I don’t want to go over this again. You’re going on a run? Really? Are you fucking kidding me?”
She turned away, busying herself with the rest of the groceries, as if working out a way to tell me this relationship was over. But she didn’t have to; Inez never used foul language—ever. And there was no denying the dispassionate resolution in her voice and her body language, like she’d already turned this page in her life and now I was getting in the way of her new life, a life she’d been planning for a very long time.
I was terrified of losing her, yet I couldn’t blame her for finally giving up. What made me even more afraid was that she didn’t even—cursing and all—sound as troubled as I’d thought she would. It was as if she’d already played through the conversation in her head a million times.
I sat down on a bar chair at our kitchen counter. I spoke without looking at Inez and I was surprised at how easily the words came. I told her of the disgust I felt just getting out of bed in the morning, how I couldn’t look in a mirror for fear of spitting at my image or breaking it into pieces. How I couldn’t look into her eyes without feeling so much disappointment with myself. I explained that there was a chasm that had built up between Tony and myself over the past few years and that we were both aware of this abyss, that maybe it was time for a change. I ended by telling her that after this last piece of business today it was the end of my life as drug smuggler. I stood up without looking at her. My back was to her as I stopped in the doorframe. I squeezed my eyes tightly, hoping that she’d come to me and tell me that she believed me and everything would be all right, but most important, that she still loved me.
Those words never came. She’d lost her faith in me. And frankly, as angry as I was, I couldn’t find a single way to blame her.
That afternoon I went back to the safe house, because I had no choice—if I didn’t go Tony might very well have killed me. Tony’s common-law wife, Maria, one of about four he had children with, walked out of the house carrying her infant son on her hip and half dragging the other sleepy child by the hand. I could hardly believe he was sending each of them on a cross-country ride in a rolling cocaine dispensary.
Maria looked ragged, way beyond her years of maybe twenty-three. She had been beaten down by her shitty circumstances, one of the unfortunates who grew up in the slums of Culiacán, Mexico. She saw her way out with the Cubano-Americano, Tony, the man with the nice jewelry and talk of a better life. And now this poor woman, the mother of this animal’s two children, had become his drug mule, his slave; she gets caught, it’s jail time for her. The two babies would be off into the broken system of child services, but no matter what, Tony always rode off into the sunset.
Tony exited the house, sucking on a chicken bone while holding a nicely patterned beveled rocks glass half full of whiskey and ice. He laughed sarcastically, explaining that Raul was fueling up the RV and that if he gave me any trouble to put a bullet in his head and drop him on the side of the road. He pulled out a solid gold Walther PPK with diamond-encrusted grips, and said, “This is my baby, bring her back in one piece. Raul, you know, like I said, fuck him. I don’t give a shit if you dump that dopehead off the Grand Canyon. Just bring me back my baby.” He laughed, stoked with macabre. “And my mothafuckin’ money.”
I wondered about Maria and his two boys. He acted as if they didn’t exist.
I held my hands up and backed away from the pistol. “I’m good, Tony. I got this. No need for a weapons charge, too.”
Tony jammed the glistening pistol into the small of his back. “You still trippin’ about getting busted, ese?” He avoided my eyes, coolly pulling a wad of cash out of his pocket, handing me two thousand dollars in crisp hundreds, fifties, and twenties. Tony then looked at Maria. “You see what happens when you teach a spic how to read?”
I laughed. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his toxic words stung.
“I swear, Tony, I don’t know where I’d be without you,” I said. Though the truth was all I could do was imagine the better places I might be.
Tony squinted up at me. “Maybe on the unemployment line, but then again, probably not, because that would mean that you would’ve had a job.”
He knew the right buttons to push—when I had met him I was on the unemployment line, hustling all over the city to find a job that just wasn’t there.
He downshifted, back to business. “You got your clone phone, yes?”
I nodded—and that’s precisely when my half-witted partner-in-crime, Raul, banked the corner. The RV he was driving skidded briefly, tipped onto two wheels, and came pulsingly to a stop. He jumped out, completely jacked up. I prayed he wasn’t high again. Not with that pretty little gold biscuit in the small of Tony’s sweaty back.
Raul had two speeds, hyperactive when he was straight and nuclear explosive when he was high, and this was to be my driving partner for the next six days.
Tony walked over to him, grabbed him roughly by the chin, and looked intensely into his eyes, like a doctor searching for any sign of life, studying them for a long moment. Then, in a flash, he slapped Raul so hard across the face that he seemed to lift off both feet, shuffling back clumsily int
o a row of thorny hedges.
Raul was so shocked he didn’t know whether to address the stinging in his face, the bloody lip he now had, or the fact that he was splayed across two bushes. He chose to do all three ineffectively, falling deeper into the sharp, ragged branches. After a few attempts to free himself, he finally emerged with deep red scratches on his arms, neck, and face, looking as if he’d been windmilled by a rabid cat.
“Where’d that come from, primo?” he asked. “I gassed up like you said, the material is packed away like you told me, and I got food for the trip. Why you gotta do me like that?”
Tony didn’t waste a second, grabbing Raul roughly by the throat, squeezing the air from his trachea. I’m sure with the slightest tug he would’ve snapped the life right out of him. Raul’s face was turning blue as he tried desperately to pull Tony’s vise of a hand from his throat. I noticed Maria pull her children closer, hands covering their scared little eyes, herself looking away as if trained to do so by how many times she’d been put in this position. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Raul. He was a product of his environment, born into this shitty life without knowing any different. Drugs were his escape from a life he had no clue how to extricate himself from, and now Tony was bullying him, this poor junkie, the easiest of targets. I wanted to free Raul from the grip of this animal and wrap my hands around Tony’s neck to see how he dealt with the humiliation, the pain, the fear of the unknown, but what would that accomplish? A bloody gunfight in front of a scared twenty-something-year-old girl and her two babies who didn’t deserve to be a part of any of this? I needed to find another way out, a way in which I could guarantee my family’s safety from Tony’s retaliation.
Tony whispered in Raul’s ear, I’m sure relaying what we’d discussed before Raul two-wheeled the truck to a stop. Raul’s eyes focused and he nodded his head.
We piled into the RV. Tony didn’t wait for us to drive off, not even a cursory wave. He turned, tossed the chicken bone over his shoulder, and walked back into the house.
A problem presented itself all too quickly. The RV was registered in Raul’s name. If I got pulled over driving his RV it would’ve raised unwanted suspicion, unnecessary flags. So even though I was beyond nervous about the idea, it made a crazy kind of sense to let him drive.
First, I had to calm him down. Once inside the RV I gave Raul a detailed outline of our route. Using my route of moving northeast on small roads across the country we were less likely to get accosted by any random police stops or checkpoints—it was a route I’d created for Tony’s drivers, and I’d dry-run it myself two dozen times without ever being stopped.
Raul, still embarrassed and humiliated, nodded absently, holding onto his throat while dabbing the blood off his face and arms with a handkerchief Maria had slipped him. “I’ll stick to the map, Rome.”
Raul laughed while pulling a bag out from under his seat. He reached inside the bag and produced a ridiculous-looking Russian naval captain’s hat. He seemed to have snapped out of his depression. As pathetic as Raul was, he had a good heart and wouldn’t hurt a soul, and he had this incredible ability to adapt quickly.
Pulling the naval hat on his head, obviously too big as his ears flopped underneath the hat’s brim, he saluted and tried his best at a Russian accent which ended up sounding much like the Spanish Ebonics he normally spoke: “This is your cap-ee-tan. We hope you enjoy your ride today. We got snacks and water for the adults and cookies and milk for the childrens onboard. Sit back and enjoy the trip.”
I felt a surge of compassion for this doomed man; as I mentioned he was born into a world of misery, poverty, and pain, the elixirs the ghettos of the world perpetuate upon the young. I realized that all of the impatience and contempt I had for the man was in fact directed at myself, for I was the one continuing the ugly cycle, moving into Detroit the drugs that tore people apart, that left people as utterly hopeless as Raul must have felt.
I told myself that I needed to stay focused on the task at hand. The plan was simple: up to Vegas onto Interstate 15, across Nevada onto Interstate 70, up through Denver, and then jump onto Interstate 80 east that would take us along the northern corridor across the country. At Toledo we’d get onto Interstate 75 north, taking us right to the client’s door in beautiful downtown Detroit.
I smiled at Maria, who smiled back, but it was more of a resigned, defeated smile; she was as doomed as Raul in life and she knew it, and there wasn’t a damn thing she, or I, could do about it. I asked Raul one last time if he understood the route. He said, “Yes, chief, it’s all good. Not my first pony ride.”
I lay down on the loft bed, checked the time; it was closing in on 5 o’clock. I tried to close my eyes, hoping the rhythmic humming of the engine would lull me to sleep, but all I could think about was Inez and the kids.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Out of the blackness I was yoked by a sharp pain over my eye.
That’s when I realized I was hit in the face with the clone phone. Fully awake, and very pissed off, I looked out the side window and saw that it was daylight. For the briefest of moments the tension I’d been feeling was gone—we’d made it a day, only two and a half to go. Then I looked over at Maria, who appeared to be panicking, almost hyperventilating. She waved her hands, unable to speak. She was terrified, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. I looked at my watch, 10:15 in the morning. I’d slept for nearly fifteen hours.
Unable to hold back her anxiety any longer, Maria shouted, “We’re getting pulled over!” Her baby erupted in tears.
That’s when I noticed a stocky deputy slowly amble by the tinted side window like he’d been here before, done this a million times. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, and his undersized uniform had definitely seen better days. I froze. My heart was pounding so hard I felt it vibrate in my throat. I needed to regain control, slow down my breathing. I carefully separated the venetian blinds of the back window, but for the life of me I didn’t recognize where we were.
The deputy’s cruiser turret lights spun, as if to reaffirm this was no dream.
The officer tapped on the driver’s side window; before I let go of the thin blind I noticed the cruiser’s front plate—Utah.
Somehow, unfathomably—unless you happen to know Raul or somebody like him—we were hundreds of miles off track in a state we were never supposed to touch.
I heard the window slowly crank open. “Good morning, sir. I’m Deputy Phil Barney of the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office. Do you know why I pulled you over?”
My mind was racing, listening for any intonation in his speech pattern that could tell me something. The deputy’s voice was low and worn, as if torn up by years of unfiltered cigarettes.
Raul answered, though jittery, almost stuttering, not a good indicator for a cop who’s probably seen more than his share of Rauls throughout his career on the road. “No, sir, I don’t know why you pulled me over. I was driving the limit, sir, I’m sure of that. I wouldn’t drive poorly, my wife and two kids are with me,” he said.
“Well, son, your front plate is missing, and you were swerving a bit back there,” he said calmly, matter-of-fact.
That’s when I knew Deputy Phil Barney had done this a million times before: this was a profiled car stop and he wanted to get a look inside this RV. The only shred of hope I had was that Utah’s finest had upgraded their deputy sheriffs with the newest technology and they were all mic’ed and wired for sound. If that were the case, all Raul had to was say “no” when asked by this cop if he could come into the RV to inspect it. Phil Barney had no reasonable suspicion to enter this RV, and if he entered it anyway, this case would be tossed before it even made it to the grand jury.
To my surprise Raul answered him back quickly. He sounded together, actually in control, a nonconfrontational man who knew his rights. “Yes, sir, I am aware of that, but in Michigan we aren’t required to have front plates on our vehicles.”
The deputy parried, “Well, son, that might be true
in Michigan, but right now you’re in Sevier County, Utah, and here we require back and front plates on vehicles driving on our roads. But beyond that you were swerving quite a bit back there.”
He stared Raul down. Raul looked the part and though Deputy Phil Barney might’ve been pushing seventy years old, Sevier County was his, and no long-haired, rail-thin potential doper was getting through his real estate without a cursory search.
“Sir, like I said, I’m driving with my wife and two babies, I’m sure I wasn’t swerving, but if you say so then I guess I must’ve swerved.” Raul went for his wallet in his pocket.
“Son, my weapon is unholstered. Do you understand that? So please don’t make any quick moves unless I tell you to. Let’s take everything textbook slow now. Okay? Now you mentioned your wife and two children. Is there anyone else in the RV with you?” Barney asked with a hint of suspicion.
Raul didn’t hesitate, though his voice now trembled with fear. “No, sir, it’s just me, my wife Maria, and our two kids.”
That’s when my heart really started pumping, wildly banging against my chest cavity. Why would Raul blatantly lie when he had to know the next step was a check of the RV? And once Deputy Barney saw me the search would certainly go far beyond a quick cursory check. No, this was going to be a full-blown search, more cops, K-9, the works. The officer’s next question was if he could take a look in the RV.
Raul said, “I’m not really comfortable with that. You’re going to scare my kids.”
The deputy said, “Well, regardless, unlock the door so I can check and make sure everything is okay with those kids.”
I didn’t know where the coke was, but how much trouble would they have finding it in a seven-by-twelve RV? I rolled over on the loft bed, looking away from the front. I wanted him to get a clear visual of me, my hands stretched out in the open, free of any weapons, as well as appearing to have slept through the entire encounter.
