“Ronald, I am begging you to call her up and tell her we can’t make it.”
“Jessica has been talking you up real good for a while now, so I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Who cares what she’s said. I’m telling you, this is a really bad idea. You know what? Pull over. I want out. I’ll walk back to your place if I have to.”
“First you have to tell me why it’s a bad idea. I mean you dated in high school and you stayed together for a year afterwards, so why is it a bad idea? You’ve always been a little vague as to why you two split up.”
“’cos her dad caught us doing it in her parents’ bed.”
Ronald couldn’t help himself, he started rolling with laughter. In fact, he laughed for a good ten minutes before he finally calmed down to a chuckle. I just had to wait it out. Tears were streaming down his face, he was laughing so hard.
“Okay, okay, okay, man I’m sorry, but that’s funny. But so what, why would she be mad at you?”
“Oh, because of what happened next.”
“Well, I’m waiting?”
I cleared my throat a little too much and then mumbled into the floorboards. “He, ah, swatted me in mid-stroke. So, I, ah… you know, got a little upset and sorta hit him in the mouth and maybe kicked him in the nuts.”
I now had to suffer through another round of raucous laughter at my expense. Only this time he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t stop himself from going into a coughing fit.
“Jesus, will you stop already? It’s not that funny,” I complained. Ronald began another round of laughter, which just seemed to go on and on until he finally calmed down enough to start talking again.
“Huh, well that explains a lot.”
“What do you mean that explains a lot?”
“I’m sure it will be fine. It’s rare someone commits homicide in public. And I’ve never heard of a cop doing it before. And I gotta know.”
“Know what Ronald?” I exhaled loudly
“What did Marcie do, after you lay out her dad?”
“Please stop the car, Ronald. I’m begging you. Look, here’s my ATM card. Almost all of that ten grand is still in my account. You can have it, it’s yours.”
“I got twenty million dollars right now, so ten grand isn’t much of an attraction. Now, answer the question.”
“Ronald, you have twenty million dollars in cash?”
“Well, not for me, but yeah, something like that. Walter, relax, she wants to see you. She told Jessica she forgives you and she’s not mad anymore. It’ll be fine. So what did she do?”
“No, it won’t. I’m telling you, she’s gonna shoot me just out of spite.”
He just laughed. Which is just what I wanted to hear, a sociopath laughing at my demise. But thankfully he let it drop, which was fine with me because I wasn’t going to tell him, even at gunpoint.
A half hour later, we pulled into the Amigos Tacos that was located on the West side of town, near the dinosaur museum. There were not just one, but four cop cars in the parking lot. Three of them belonged to the Mesa County Sheriffs. Then there was the lone Fruita PD cruiser. My stomach tied itself up in knots and my brain demanded a stiff drink to iron out my nerves. Unfortunately, they didn’t serve alcohol. I felt like I was gonna pass out and started to take deep breaths to calm my nerves. God, I needed a drink. Ronald parked the truck and turned the engine off.
“Look, Walter, I know you don’t want to do this, but it would mean a lot to Jessica if you were to go in. sit down, and just have lunch with her. I promise you, it’s not as bad as you think it is. I talked to her myself and she seemed real happy at the thought of seeing you again.”
I thought he was going to drop it, but I was wrong.
“What did she do?” he persisted. “You gotta tell me. If you don’t, I’ll just ask her,” he continued in a nauseating sing-song voice.
I was pretty sure I was going to have a panic attack right there in the cab of his truck. Either that, or I was going to stroke out. He thought this was funny, which was only making it worse for me. I wanted nothing better than to run away and hide like a little boy. I reached out, grabbed the dashboard and started taking in large lungfuls of air, before letting them out slowly. Mr. Funny pants over there was watching me like a science experiment.
“Stop looking at me like that. You’re not helping,” I whined.
“Spill or else.”
“Alright, after I… you know, dropped her dad, she, ah, well… dropped me.”
Ronald was almost vibrating with laughter, but was trying to hold it in. “How?” he snickered.
I glared at him, then said, “She started screaming that I had killed her dad and well… I turned around and she kicked me in the nuts, then broke my nose with her knee when I doubled over.”
And then he lost it… again. He laughed like a crazed hyena for a long time.
After he finally stopped laughing (there were several stops and starts) we got out of the truck and walked into Amigos Tacos. Unfortunately, Amigos Tacos wasn’t really that busy at three in the afternoon. The four cops were clustered at a table near the back, and because they were cops, they had managed to turn their chairs so they could all see the front of the restaurant. Their backs faced the bathrooms. Marcie was sitting on the end, closest to the front door.
She looked up mid-bite and almost choked on her crunchy taco when she saw Ronald and I. I smiled and waved. She clumsily dropped her taco and was reaching for a napkin to wipe her mouth. The other three cops were looking nervously at Ronald and trying to determine if we were friend or foe.
Marcie waved back and the other three noticeably calmed down. Apparently, she hadn’t told the other three a washed-out ex-cop and a psycho killer would be stopping by for tacos. Who could blame her? She had finally got her mouth wiped off and was in the middle of standing up, when Ronald and I arrived at their table.
“OMG! Walter Walker and Ronald Jacobs!” Marcie cried out.
“Hey, Marcie, been a long time,” I said as a way of greeting.
Ronald merely nodded back to her and eyed the other three cops with suspicion. They, in turn, looked past me and keyed in on Ronald, immediately seeing him for the guy he was. But in Ronald’s defense, he had been getting that kind of look since we were kids.
Marcie looked the same as when we were kids. She stood about five-foot tall and carried a little weight around the middle. Her hair was, with the exception of the blond highlights, the same golden brown it had been when we were together. Her face was the pleasant oval shape it had always been. All in all, it was like looking into the past. Marcie and I had always been close when we were in school. Prior to me dropping her dad and her dropping me, I had always thought we would be together forever.
“Walter, you look just like Jessica described you.”
“Marcie, you haven’t changed at all. I mean, with the exception of the gun and badge.”
“Stop it, you…” She said, just before she threw her arms around me. We hugged for a long minute before she stepped back, her arms sliding down mine until we were holding hands. We looked at each other, our faces sporting huge grins.
The cop in the middle stood up and pointed at Ronald. “You look really familiar. You from around here?”
Ronald’s eyes had been locked on the two cops and hadn’t wavered. His dark eyes had gone from dark to pure black. I could feel tension ratcheting up several notches.
“I grew up here,” he said flatly. “What about you? You from around here or did you implant yourself like the plague?”
Now the second cop stood up.
The first one adopted a contact stance, his hands rising slightly in front of him. “Now hold on a minute,” he said.
The other cop stood slightly behind him, acting as the cover officer. His hands dangled loosely in front of him with their fingertips touching each other, like a preacher in church. It was like watching the training videos we had to watch in the academy.
Marcie
and I began to sense the cold feel of impending violence penetrating the room. We stepped apart and looked from Ronald to the other two cops. “Hey, ah, Ronald, why don’t you go and order our lunch?” I said.
He didn’t move. His eyes were now fully opaque. I knew the look. It was the look he had just before he killed someone. Those eyes and that expression were the same as when he’d shot Chaney Shannon. Then he suddenly relaxed and said, “Sure.” He turned and went to the counter.
Marcie, to her credit, turned and faced both cops. “Tom, Jerry, knock it off. I grew up with these two.”
Neither of them moved, but the one I guessed was Tom said, “Did you hear what he said?”
“Yeah Tom, I did. Now just relax, Ronald is harmless. Go back to your lunch so I can catch up with these two.”
Tom and Jerry (Really?) looked back at me. Tom said, “Your friend has an attitude. If I were you, I’d tell him he had better watch it before he finds himself in the back of my squad car.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass it along.”
The two cops exchanged looks. I saw this and knew that when we walked out of here, both of them would be waiting for us. I started to prey Ronald’s rap sheet was clean. Both of them took one last look at Ronald standing at the food counter, then turned and headed for the side door.
I watched them exit and make their way to their squad cars. The one named Tom walked past Ronald’s truck and took down his tag number, then keyed the mike connected to his lapel and spoke into it.
‘Way to go, Ronald,’ I thought.
I turned back to Marcie and said, “Tom and Jerry? Really? Do they play laugh tracks and funny music for them at roll call?”
She laughed playfully and then hit me on the arm. “Stop it,” she said with a smile. “They’re okay, they’re just a little young and green.”
I looked back over my shoulder and saw both of them resting against the back fender of Jerry’s patrol car. ‘Damnit, Ronald,’ I thought again. As far as I knew, Ronald had never done time and wasn’t wanted for anything. Judging by their demeanor, his tag was clean, but I knew that Tom wasn’t going to let it go.
“Come, sit down. Spill your guts, mister. Where did you get that tan this time of year? At this time of year, I have to spend fifteen minutes a couple of times a week to get that shade of brown.”
“Florida mostly, for the last couple of years. What about you?”
“Nothing really earth-shattering. Bumped around Denver for a few years, and then my dad got sick so I had to move back here to take care of him. I needed a job and Fruita was looking for a female cop or two to fill out their roster, so I applied and got accepted. Then I went through the academy and here I am.”
“What about your mom?”
“She passed about three years ago. Cancer.”
“Sorry about your mom. And you said your dad was sick?”
“Alzheimer’s,” she said.
“Sorry to hear it.”
“It’s alright. He’s got his good and bad days, but the bad are a lot more often than the good.”
“Is he in a home or living with you?”
“At home with me. I have an in-home care nurse stay with him while I’m at work.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“Pam’s in Cali, writing the great American novel.”
“Didn’t know she could write.”
Marcie laughed and said, “I didn’t know it either.”
I laughed with her and asked, “So, your dad… he, ah, still has a grudge or am I forgiven?”
She turned a little somber and said, “No, the grudges stopped last year, when he stopped remembering who I am.”
“Man, I’m really sorry to hear that Marcie.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a hateful disease. They don’t call it ‘The Long Goodbye’ for nothing. So, Jessica tells me you’re still on the market.”
I blushed a little, thinking about it. “I wouldn’t say ‘still’. I was married for a bit and have a couple of kids. Boy and a girl.”
“Oh, I’ll bet they are so cute. You have pictures? What are their names?”
Now I was embarrassed because in this day and age, when everybody has tons of pictures on their cell phones, I didn’t have any of my kids. “Sorry, my phone died and I lost all of them,” I lied smoothly. “But Thomas is ten and Cassandra is eleven.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. I’m sorry. Well, you can show me some when you get them.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I said meekly. “What about you though? Kids, husband?” I knew this thanks to Ronald but didn’t want to spoil it for her.
“No, not yet. And at this rate, maybe never,” she said wistfully.
I looked around just in time to see Ronald bringing a tray overflowing with tacos and burritos. “Didn’t know you were that hungry,” I said.
“I’m not, but since I didn’t know what you wanted, I got a little of everything.”
Just then, Marcie got a call on her shoulder-mounted mike: “Alpha three, we got a report of some kids loitering in on Main Street, in front of Doctor Mike’s. What’s your twenty?”
Marcie keyed her mike and said, “I’m at Amigos, just finishing lunch. Be there in five minutes. Show me rolling code one.”
“10-4.”
“Sorry to eat and run, but call me later and maybe we can go out? Say tomorrow night?”
“Ah, sure,” I said.
Marcie hopped up, grabbed her tray, walked over, dumped it, then came back over and bent down to give me a peck on the cheek. “It was great seeing you. Call me later, OK? I get off at seven.”
“Sure, I’ll do that.”
“You got my number, right?”
“I’ll make sure he gets it,” Ronald said with a grin.
“Thanks. Bye.” And with that, she straightened up and headed for the front door. Both of us watched her go out to her patrol car and head out of the parking lot in a rush. Unfortunately, Tom and Jerry were still lounging against Jerry’s cop car.
Rickets, I thought.
I turned and faced Ronald. “What was that? Are you trying to get arrested?”
Ronald’s head turned like it was on a swivel and looked at the two deputies outside. “No, I wasn’t. Shit happens,” he said, taking a bite out of one of the burritos on the tray.
“Well, they’re not going anywhere ‘cos you had to go and run your mouth.”
Ronald turned his head again and chewed slowly while he watched the two cops. “We take our time and eventually they’re going to get bored and leave, or get a call. Either way, they're leaving, so quit worrying.”
“For your sake, I hope so.”
“Eat those tacos, they aren’t very good if you let them sit in the grease for very long. One side gets soggy and then you have to throw them away.”
I picked at the food on the tray and finally went to a taco that was still reasonably hard on both sides. Looking for hot sauce, I finally gave up and went to the condiment stand. When I found the green sauce, I looked outside only to see Tom and Jerry looking back at me. I ignored them and went back to the table.
By now Ronald had eaten three of the tacos on the tray and was looking at mine.
“Back off, that’s mine,” I said.
“Not for long if you don’t hurry up and eat it.”
Sitting down, I opened up the packet, poured it on the taco and took a bite. “You were right by the way,” I said with a mouthful of taco.
“‘bout what?”
“Marcie. She was happy to see me.”
“Told you,” he said, smiling.
We were both quiet for a minute. Both of us settled in to enjoy our tacos; the sound of munching was the only sound you could hear. I thought about Marcie and how she had looked and smelled. She had brought back a lot of memories for me and I wondered if the same was true for her.
“How much did you and my sister tell Marcie?”
“Not much, just that you were living down in Florida and are single.”
“So she doesn’t know about…” I let the thought die out.
“Nope, she won’t know until you tell her.”
I nodded my head slowly and then finished off my taco. What was left on the tray was congealed grease inside of soggy flour tortilla shells. I pushed the tray away and sat back in my chair, picking at my teeth with my fingernails. Ronald finished his and did the same. We both looked over our shoulders and saw they were still there.
“Jesus, isn’t there a crime somewhere they need to go and solve?” I asked.
Ronald shrugged, picked up his soda and took a drink. “No matter, just play it cool and they’ll leave us alone.”
“Are you nuts? You called that one the plague. You did a great job of giving him a hard-on for you.”
He shrugged again and then started to wipe his hands on a napkin on the table. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.”
“Ronald, whatever you do, don’t provoke these guys. I recognize the type and they’re just itching to hook you up.”
“Don’t worry, I’m good.”
“Shit,” I said. Then I stood up, grabbed the tray and started for the trash can. After dumping the tray, I turned around and looked outside again. Both of them had taken notice of my actions. I felt a little quickness in my heart. I walked back to the table and looked down at Ronald. “I mean it, Ronald, don’t say anything or you’re going to get arrested.”
He just smiled at me as he stood up. A hint of mischief began touching the corners of his eyes as he reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m solid.”
“Sure you are,” I said. The pit in my stomach was beginning to churn, the grease from the tacos making me feel slightly ill. I blew out my breath and said, “Alright, let’s go.”
When we walked outside, Tom and Jerry came off the cruiser casually, as if the topic of conversation they had been discussing had concluded and they were now just going to greet two old friends. Both of them adopted the same stance as before.
Tom said, “That was a real ugly thing you said to me before.”
Jerry smirked a little but maintained his position as the cover cop. Ronald had come out behind me but now drifted out and to my right, angling towards the driver’s side of the truck. He smiled and bobbed his head, but gave no other indication that the deputy had spoken. I had seen and done this dance many times when I was in uniform. As a cop, you needed very little reason to hook someone up and take them to lock up. Even when the party in handcuffs was sprouting off about his rights being violated or threatening to have my badge, my response was always the same: “You may beat the rap, but you ain’t gonna beat the ride.”
On The Devil's Side of Heaven Page 11
