Thin Gray Lines

by Mark Hazard

  Not entirely surprised, Corus flushed more with anger than fear.

  “You put that away,” he said. “You’re gonna get someone hurt.”

  “I know how to use it.”

  “Do you?” Corus stood, partially a show of bravado, partially forcing their conflict into public view.

  “Come outside and we won’t have to find out.”

  Corus backed up, but Oswaldo and Chito stepped in his way. None of the other patrons were looking in their direction.

  Corus looked Jorge in the eyes. “I gave you a chance.”

  At that, Corus jabbed Jorge in the throat and planted a shin up into his crotch, then controlled Jorge’s wrist as he slammed his forehead into the table.

  Jorge slumped to the ground, conscious but dazed. Corus disarmed him and dropped the limp arm. Oswaldo and Chito reached for him, but Corus turned with the blade low as his waist. “Don’t do this.”

  They hesitated.

  “Hey, no fighting,” the bartender yelled. “You want me to call the cops?”

  Alarm bells went off behind their eyes.

  “Our friend slipped,” Corus said in English. “We got it. No problem.”

  He bent and slung an arm under Jorge’s armpit. “Help me get him up.”

  Jorge fought Corus’ grasp, but in a huddle they hauled him out the door.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Oswaldo and Chito checked on Jorge as he slumped down against the rear wall of the bar.

  Corus backed away.

  Randall popped into the alley, stumbling into them, half in the bag. He’d been drinking before he entered the bar.

  “Whah was that?” he said.

  “Sorry, jefe,” Oswaldo said in stilted English. “Sorry. No problem.”

  “Yes problem,” Randall crowed. “Whass going on?”

  “Is Diego’s fault,” Chito said in better English.

  “He pulled a knife on me.” Corus pointed at Jorge and held up the weapon he’d taken.

  Randall looked back at Jorge. “Is this true? You pulled a knife?”

  “He’s not Mexican,” Jorge said in Spanish, but Randall understood.

  “So what? I’m not Mexican,” Randall said. “You’re gonna pull a knife on me?”

  “He, he…” Jorge didn’t know the word in English. He switched back to Spanish. “He’s suspicious. He could be immigration.”

  “I heard him speaking English in the bathroom,” Chito explained. “Like an American. Jorge’s right to be suspicious.”

  “Chito, you can barely understand half the things I say in English,” Randall said. “You almost got yourself killed for it.”

  “I knew he wasn’t Mexican, and he’s trying to hide it. Why?” Jorge said.

  Randall turned to Corus and spoke in Spanish. “What’s your name?”

  “Diego.”

  “Are you Mexican?”

  “Not born there,” he admitted.

  “Where are you from, then?” Randal edged closer. “You speak English?”

  “I just want to work,” Corus said softly in English.

  Jorge got to his feet in a crouch and circled to pen Corus in. “Who are you? Huh? Immigration? DEA?”

  “DEA?” Randall asked with a start. “Why would you ask that?”

  Jorge froze and looked to Oswaldo for help.

  “He say a cop,” Oswaldo said.

  “Si,” Jorge said. “Could be any kind of cop.”

  “I’m not DEA. I’m not immigration, you idiot,” Corus said to Jorge. “But the cops will come if you keep making a scene.”

  An engine revved behind Corus.

  A vehicle roared up the alley with no lights and no warning.

  By the time Corus saw it, it was bearing down on him, leaving no time to leap away. He instinctively balled up in midair and turned his back toward it. The windshield bounced him off to the side, and despite the cartwheeling of his body, he kept the neon Tecate sign in view until he hit the ground.

  Eyes closed, his cognition was reduced to slow motion snapshots of sensation. Shouts and sickening thumps, wetness cold enough he knew it wasn’t blood, the roughness of the brick wall. The screeching of tires on asphalt, then silence.

  He rolled onto his back and struggled for a breath, then shot a look past his toes. The sedan turned out of the alley and accelerated away.

  Corus fought to move his limbs and catch his breath, rolling to his hands and knees. The wetness alarmed him again, but he confirmed it was only muddy alley water. He ran his hands over the parts of his back he could touch and didn’t find any shards of glass impaling him.

  Walking was another matter. He could stand, but his legs kept giving out when he stepped forward. He tried to figure out which bone was broken, where the pain was emanating from, but the only serious pain he could find was in his right hand, an aggravation of an old injury. His legs were banged up but fine; toes wiggled and knees bent, but his coordination was fried.

  Increasing awareness of his surroundings slowly filtered through his mind, and the daze lifted. Whatever shock or concussion he was experiencing bled away.

  Chito stood unhurt over Jorge, picking him up and carrying his weight as he limped. Randall vomited against the wall, clutching his abdomen.

  “A car.” Corus got to his knees again. “A car ran us down.”

  He looked over his shoulder at where it came from, then ahead where it exited the alley.

  It could have been an accident, but somehow he knew it wasn’t. The angry roar of the engine had spelled the intent.

  “Get up.” Jorge yelled. “Get up, cousin!”

  Corus looked around for Oswaldo but didn’t see him. He traced Jorge’s line of sight down the alley on the other side and crawled toward the spot. First, he saw Oswaldo’s boots, then denim-clad legs, then Oswaldo’s upper half leaning back against an old fence. Shallow breaths rapidly billowed his abdomen. His eyes were open wide and round like saucers.

  Chito knelt beside Oswaldo, leaving Jorge to limp on his own. Corus edged in and searched Oswaldo for injuries, using his hands as much as his eyes.

  “We need a light,” he said. Then in Spanish. “Light!”

  “In the truck.” Jorge tossed Chito the keys, and he ran off.

  “Where are you hurt?” Corus asked.

  “I—don’t—know,” Oswaldo puffed.

  “Can you wiggle your toes?” Corus pulled off Oswaldo’s boot and watched him move his big toe. “Very Good. Now your fingers.”

  They were growing icy, either from shock or blood loss, but Oswaldo could move them, too.

  Chito pounded down the alley, and a beam of yellow light bounced closer until it engulfed Oswaldo.

  “Hold it still,” Corus said.

  Oswaldo wasn’t bleeding badly on his front.

  “What’s that?” Jorge pointed to Oswaldo’s lap.

  Not far from Oswaldo’s groin, a metal post jutted through his jeans. It was two-millimeters-thick, three-inches-wide and folded at a right angle down its middle. Possibly a piece of an old bed frame that’d been resting amongst the junk bordering the alley.

  “It’s in my leg,” Oswaldo said. “Shit, it’s in my leg.” He closed his eyes and reared his head back in a panic. “Get it out!”

  “No,” Corus said. “Don’t touch it.”

  “He’s in pain!” Chito reached for it, but Corus slapped his hand away.

  “Take it out!” Oswaldo cried.

  While Corus was fighting Chito’s hand away, the light shifted. Corus heard a sucking sound, and Oswaldo’s breath caught in his throat. When Chito held the light steady again, Jorge held out a ten-inch length of metal.

  “See? It hurts less if you do it quick.”

  “No, no, no!” Corus yelled. He clamped his hands over the wound, but the dark stain had already started to spread.

  “What’s happening?” Chito repeated the question until he was reduced to babbling.

  “Hold the light still!” Corus yelled.

  Randall pus
hed Chito aside and knelt with the flashlight. “We have to call the ambulance.” He was bleeding from his scalp, but alert.

  “There’s no time,” Corus said in English. “He’ll be dead before it gets here.”

  Corus whipped off his own belt and strapped it around the leg above the wound, then cinched it down so hard Oswaldo yelped.

  The bartender ran out into the alley. “What the fuck is going on out here?”

  “A car ran into us,” Randall said. “This man is hurt. Call the ambulance.”

  Corus handed the belt strap to Chito.

  “Pull hard. If you let go, he dies.”

  Chito yanked the strap, muscles flaring in his thin forearms.

  Oswaldo’s head bounced off his shoulder as he passed out.

  “Grab his feet. Pull him flat.”

  Corus pushed the wounded leg outward, then snatched Jorge’s thick wrist and jerked it down, pressing the base of his palm into Oswaldo’s groin between the wound and the base of the joint. Next, he ripped the opening in Oswaldo’s jeans wider and stuck a finger directly into the wound until he found the pulsing artery and applied pressure.

  “I’ve got it.”

  Chito gritted his teeth and spittle flew as he prayed. They held firm until red and blue lights appeared where the street met the alley.

  Randall took hold of the belt, pushed Jorge’s hand off the groin and leaned into it himself. “Go, you two. Get back unseen.”

  Jorge grabbed Chito, and they half-ran-half-limped toward the parking lot as the ambulance’s headlights filled the alley with blinding white light.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The bartender told Randall and Corus to wait for the police to give a statement, but they slipped away as soon as the EMTs had things under control. Tending to a grave injury had brought all of Corus’ nerves back to firing on command, and Randall still seemed woozy, so he drove Randall’s rig.

  “What’s your name?” Randall’s accent slipped, and it sounded like “Vas yo nahm.”

  “Diego. You’re Randall?”

  “I owe you, Diego. I owe you a lot.”

  Corus glanced over, but it was too dark to see much in his expression.

  “Just tell me now,” Randall said. “Do you mean to hurt me?”

  “What? No.”

  “It’s just, with what the boys were saying. And now you talking like an American, and what you just did back there. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Who would want to hurt you?”

  “There’s one man, maybe. But, ag, he wouldn’t do it like this. Then what was that?”

  “It might have been for my benefit,” Corus said. “Unless Oswaldo and his cousin-brothers have enemies around here we don’t know about.”

  “Someone’s after you? You hiding out? Witness protection?”

  “Some enemies just won’t let bygones be bygones.”

  “I could’ve sworn I’ve seen that car before.” Randall sounded far away. “Strike that. I know I have.”

  A set of headlights turned into the oncoming lane of the country road. As they approached, Corus noted the familiar outline of a Nissan SUV. He let off the gas.

  The headlights washed each other out until the vehicles got close, but in the split second when the beam’s edge passed over the windshield and driver side window, Corus saw a flash of Pineda’s face.

  Corus did a double take over his shoulder and in the rearview, but the vehicles were moving apart at high speed.

  “I owe you, like I said.” Randall sniffed hard. “If you just tell me what’s going on, we can deal with this together. I won’t make problems for you.”

  Corus got his eyes back on the road. “This car that hit us. You say you recognized it?”

  They parked at the Phillips house and Corus used Chito’s flashlight to search the driveway. A truck and a sedan sat side-by-side in the rutted driveway, same as when Corus had first seen them the day before. When he hit the sedan with the flashlight, the rear light covers shined bright, triggering his mental snapshot of the vehicle that hit them as it drove away.

  The windshield was spiderwebbed on the driver’s side, and one of the side mirrors hung limply by a wire.

  “It blerrie was this car. I can’t believe I spotted it.” Randall looked about for danger, hands in his short hair. “They could still be here.”

  Corus felt they were alone but scanned around as far as the light would reach to be safe. He locked in on a set of tire tracks through the grass, leading onto the dirt road to the Tanner farm and back behind the shed.

  “What is it?” Randall asked. “What do you see?”

  Corus nodded to himself, assembling facts, despite a lack of understanding.

  “You know who did this,” Randall said.

  Corus nodded.

  “And you don’t want to call the police?”

  Corus glanced up at him. “It’s time we talk.”

  “Come. There’s a freezer in the tractor barn. You and I need ice.”

  “Do you have any Ibuprofen?”

  “Heaps.”

  This time Randall drove, taking the straight dirt road across the Tanner land and parking beside the second-biggest structure on the property. Outside of a farm setting, Corus would’ve referred to it as a hangar, but its space housed big farm equipment not planes. Randall kicked on a row of lights, partially illuminating the space along one wall, which held a long workbench with cupboards underneath and tool chests and mechanical equipment standing nearby like in an auto shop.

  Randall ushered Corus into a windowless corner office with a couch on one wall, bracketed by tall filing cabinets. Corus eased himself onto it at Randall’s insistence, while he went and fetched ice.

  A voice in his head told him to jump up and sift the orderly space for information in the precious seconds he had alone, but the evening’s adrenaline had worn off, and he’d felt stiffer with every step inside. He prevented himself from easing back into the cushions, afraid he’d never be able to unglue himself.

  Besides, the main question on his mind at that moment didn’t have anything to do with Randall’s office or the Tanner Farm.

  He pulled out his phone, glad to see it wasn’t smashed, and made a call.

  “Corus! How’s the Palouse?”

  “Chu, I need a favor. It’s important. Listen very closely.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need you to find out one thing. When Pineda left duty today, did he sign out sick or on orders?”

  “You want me to ask Ruiz?”

  “No. Get Redmond to help. It has to be on the down low.”

  He hung up as Randall appeared at the door, carrying a tackle box with freezer packs and a bottle of pills stacked precariously on top. He gingerly set them down on his desk, and for the first time Corus saw the wash of blood on Randall’s sleeve.

  “How bad are you hurt?”

  “Pretty good gash, I think. Maybe the broken side mirror.” He ripped the sleeve off his shirt and examined the wound, a triangular puncture surrounded by puckered blue flesh.

  “Looks painful.”

  “It would’ve hurt more if you hadn’t pushed me out of the path.”

  “I pushed you?”

  Randall studied his face. “Well, yeah.”

  Corus frowned. “Huh.”

  “Did you shatter that windscreen?”

  “Guess if my spine was broken, I’d have noticed by now. I can breathe without too much pain, so I didn’t break a rib. Got very lucky.”

  Corus arranged ice packs on his back and leaned into the couch to keep them in place. Randall rolled his office chair up close, so Corus could tend his wound without moving anything but his arms.

  “You’re from South Africa,” Corus said. “Where?”

  “Small town. Klerksdorp.”

  “What part of the country?”

  “Southwest of Johannesburg. On the road to Kimberley. That’s where the famous diamond mines are.”

  “You grow up on a farm?”
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  “I did, ja. Parents sold it when I was a boy, afraid of a civil war or something at the end of Apartheid. Got half what it was worth, then…”

  “No civil war.”

  “Ja. Too bad. About the farm I mean, not the peaceful transition. Pa owns a machine shop now. Ma works in a library.”

  Corus finished cleaning the wound of blood, then poured antiseptic into it. Randall bowed his head in pain.

  “Why come here?” Corus asked.

  “While I went to university, two of my friends went to a faraway place called Nebraska.” Randall laughed through the pain. “They came back with a suitcase full of Cornhuskers gear and what seemed at the time like loads of money. Painted a nice picture, too. Better conditions, better equipment, better infrastructure. I tried to make it work at home after I graduated, but I was making kak for wages. So, I followed them to Nebraska. After a couple years, I got hired here.”

  “Hope to have a farm of your own?”

  “That’s the dream, isn’t it? But with what I send home, it’s hard to save.” Randall nudged Corus with his leg. “Friend, I think it’s your turn to tell me something. Why do you speak Spanish so well?”

  As Corus applied butterfly bandages to close Randall’s wound, he said, “Spent a lot of summers stranded in Spain not hearing any English.”

  “How’d you go from summering in Spain to getting hit by a car in Walla Walla?”

  “Someone is after me.”

  “Who, then? Why are you here to begin with?”

  Corus took a pad of gauze and taped it over the wound, then set the supplies back in the tackle box. “Was it drugs?” he asked. “That fell through the old man’s roof?”

  Randall stared at him, then got up and walked around his desk and bent. If he was grabbing a gun, then that was it. Corus wasn’t moving his ice packs for anything.

  A bottle of whiskey appeared out of a desk drawer. Still a weapon, if you knew how to use it.

  “You game?” Randall asked.

  “I think the Ibuprofen label says not to, but sure.”

  Randall left and quickly returned with two disposable cups. He filled one and passed it over, then filled the other.

  “Cheers to being alive,” Randall said.