by Bella Juarez
“Amy, calm down.”
“Are you kidding? I just let a cop see me this way! He must think I’m a prostitute! What was I thinking?” Amy ranted.
“Calm down, it didn’t seem like it was any big deal to him,” Lynn snapped.
Amy was suddenly sick. “My uncle is the chief of police! How did I let you talk me into this?”
“It’s for your own good.” Lynn flopped down on the couch.
“What?” Cheryl asked, walking back into the living room with another bottle of wine.
“Oh my God!” Amy repeated.
“What’d I miss? And who turned down the music?” Cheryl asked with a frown.
“Apparently one of the neighbors called the cops,” Lynn said.
“Uh-hum. Where is our man in blue?” Cheryl leered.
“No, really called the cops, and one showed up,” Lynn said.
“Oh shit! Did she…” Cheryl asked, pointing to Amy.
Lynn nodded grimly and then brightened. “But the one they sent would’ve worked. Damn! He was good looking—and around our age.”
“Oh my God!” Amy buried her face in a pillow.
“Yeah? Details. What did he look like?” Cheryl asked.
“Tall, dark, and smoking! He had the hardest body I’ve ever seen with clothes on. And he was taking in every inch of our girl here,” Lynn said with a grin as she high-fived Cheryl.
“Okay! That’s enough! Call your boy and tell him not to come. I’m changing back into my clothes,” Amy said as she rushed from the room.
Amy could hear Cheryl and Lynn calling her, but she shut the door and locked it behind her. She had never been so humiliated in all her life. Her face flushed with heat as she thought about the police officer she had just met. She was so embarrassed. She had come on to him!
Amy was mortified as she hurriedly threw on a baggy T-shirt and jeans to cover her exposed body. At this point she could not put on enough clothes to cover herself. She sat at the edge of her bed and stared off into space. Tim had been right. She was a useless idiot. She recalled the look on the officer’s face when she opened the door. Probably nauseated at the sight of my fat self!
Amy heard the soft knock at her bedroom door. She ignored it, focusing on her humiliation. She and her friends had been planning this night ever since Cheryl had suggested that she do something different, something sexy. They had shopped for hours, finally finding a lingerie site dedicated to curvy women. She had been skeptical about the order, but when it had arrived she was happily surprised. It had fit perfectly and gave her a feeling she hadn’t had since college. It made her feel very attractive. That little indulgence led to the ladies cleaning out Amy’s closet and making her over.
“Time to go from frump girl to hump that girl!” Cheryl had cheered when the last box had been taken to Goodwill almost two weeks ago.
This was supposed her night, her “breakup party.” Amy’s divorce from an alcoholic nightmare of a marriage was finally over and this was supposed to be the night she broke free. She had waited ten long years for this night. Nothing had changed in her life. Tonight was more of the same kind of humiliation she had endured for years.
“Amy? Open the door, please,” Amy heard Cheryl call softly.
Amy got up from the bed and opened the door. Cheryl and Lynn stepped into the bedroom. Her head was starting to hurt. Way too much wine. She sat on the edge of the bed and her friends curled around her.
“Amy…” Lynn started.
Amy held up her hands. “It’s okay. We should call it a night.”
“Are you kidding? We’re just getting started. Besides, I got Winston to watch the kids. Do you know how hard that is?” Cheryl asked as she gathered Amy in her arms.
“No way! That part of the party may be over, but we can still do something else. Let’s look online for your dress,” Lynn said.
“No, I don’t think so. Not tonight. I have to work tomorrow and I need to tie up a lot of loose ends this week for the gala. Besides, if I don’t get one Cheryl will just find something spectacular like she always does,” Amy said as she smiled at Cheryl.
“I already have the dress you’re wearing. But it never hurts to look. We may find something even more special. Damn it, Amy! I wish I could talk you into modeling for my website,” Cheryl said.
“There is no way I would model anything. You want me in all that underwear you buy for your store. No way!” Amy said.
“Amy, Tim was an asshole. I saw the way that cop was looking at you. That man was having a hard time speaking when he saw you. I don’t give a shit what you say. You’re a very beautiful woman,” Lynn said.
“Oh my God!” Amy lamented at the thought of the police officer and the visual she had given him.
“Uh-huh, that damn cop was saying the same thing only it was oh my fucking God! I’m about to get lucky! Best call he’s made in his life! I haven’t seen him around otherwise I would’ve remembered that one. Is he new?” Lynn asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him, either,” Amy said. She closed her eyes at the recollection of what had happened. “I hope I never see him again.”
“I do. I’ll bet he arrests you but takes you to his place instead of jail,” Lynn quipped.
Amy giggled at the remark. For the next couple of hours they gathered around Amy’s desktop computer and searched for formal dresses online just to get ideas. She finally locked the door behind her friends somewhere around eleven thirty. She walked around, picking up and straightening the house before finally falling into bed. She had work tomorrow and needed to get up at six in the morning. Amy and one of her aids would be working on their annual inventory at the library.
* * * *
Gavin woke up with a sudden start. He was lying in the middle of his bed naked. He turned over and looked at the clock. It was just after one thirty in the morning. He got up and put on the pajama bottoms lying on the edge of the bed and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. Gavin could feel the goose bumps form on his skin. It was early November in South Texas and not cold like other places he had lived, but it was still a little chilly. He looked out the kitchen window, realizing he was fully awake in the middle of the night. He had fallen asleep way too early.
“Damn it!” Gavin cursed out loud.
Gavin walked into the small living room and turned on the TV as he sat down in his easy chair. He idly channel surfed for the next couple of hours before he could relax enough to sleep. Something was haunting him, and he realized his mind kept wandering back to the woman he had seen earlier. He turned off the TV and went back to bed, slipping under the covers this time. A car backfired somewhere in the distance as he closed his eyes and welcomed sleep.
Gavin was haunted. He could see the images of past battles coming back. He was back in a war he wanted to forget. The mission had failed to capture the drug lord they had been sent to shut down. The entire village had been massacred. His body tensed and went into survival mode because he could hear gunshots and the sound of explosives off in the distance. These bastards had taken their time with the people of the village.
Their dead bodies and screams filled his senses. Someone was close and watching him. Gavin could feel his heart start to race in panic. He couldn’t breathe because the smell of rotting flesh and gunpowder made him want to gag. He closed his eyes for a moment to get a grip on his fear. When he opened them he saw something run past him. He leveled his weapon and fired. He heard the thud of the body hit the ground.
Gavin woke with a start and wondered where he was. He tried to catch his breath as he took deep swallows of clean, precious air. He stared at the ceiling. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat and he felt nauseated. He had made the mistake of telling his doctor about the flashbacks.
Gavin’s doctor had given him pills to help relax him at times like this, but he wouldn’t take them. The doctor had suggested seeing a psychiatrist who specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder. He had refused. So he suffered, reasoning this wa
s his punishment for all the things he had done. Every now and then he could see the faces of some of the people he had killed. Gavin sat at the edge of his bed and took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. He didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was almost four thirty in the morning. He would wake up at 5:00 a.m., no matter what.
No need to try and sleep now.
Gavin got up and changed into his running clothes. As he stretched, he mapped out a slightly different route in his mind. He needed to sleep tonight. Today it was ten miles. He walked out into the chilly, dark morning and started down the street. It being Saturday, the roads wouldn’t be busy this early, so keeping his usual eight-minute-mile pace was no problem. He was indifferent this morning to the neighborhoods as they slipped by him. His run relaxed him. Rounding the corner, Gavin turned down a familiar, quiet street and neared the house where he had stopped last night.
Dawn was starting to break. The houses appeared to be dark and quiet. Gavin smiled to himself as he drew closer to the house. He wondered which of the women that had answered the door last night were sleeping inside. His heart skipped a beat when the front door opened and the chocolate-haired hottie stepped outside and picked up the paper. It is her house!
Gavin had a split second to see her as he passed. She was tousled and totally adorable. She was obviously still half-asleep, because she had not even noticed someone running down the street. He winced. He had been living here all this time and she had been down the street. Talk about missing out on the girl next door! He had to find a way to meet her and eventually get her out on a date.
This time his shower was quick and Gavin was out the door in no time. The boss had left a message on his phone to see him as soon as he walked in to the station. It would take almost no time to get to work because this was a small town. He arrived at the station and sought out his boss.
“Fuck! Fucking Williams!” Gavin heard as he approached the chief’s office.
Gavin watched as Police Chief David Ortiz threw down a newspaper.
“Boss?” Gavin asked as he peeked around the corner.
“Take a look, badass. You made the paper,” Ortiz said, pointing in disgust to the paper on his desk
Oh! Shit! Gavin couldn’t recall doing anything wrong. Lately. He picked up the paper and read.
Violent crime, once mainly the purview of big urban centers, is now growing in many small and midsize cities. Even as aggressive policing in places like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles helped dramatically lower the nation’s overall crime rate in the 1990s, towns like Victoria, Texas, are now seeing a rise in murder, assaults, and other violent incidents. Some analysts, in fact, attribute the increase to criminal elements being shooed out of the larger cities.
According to preliminary FBI statistics, cities with 10,000 people or fewer saw a 15 percent increase in violent crimes from 2006 to 2007 while cities with 100,000 or less experienced a 10 percent increase. This comes at a time when the average national figures have been steadily dropping.
“The murder rate in small-city America right now is astronomical,” says a city councilman in Victoria, Texas. “It’s a small portion of the population involved in these activities, but they have a huge effect on how the community feels about itself.”
In many cases, police are doing what they can, patrolling “bad neighborhoods” and expanding contact with young people. But while overall crime is down, it’s the most violent acts, often the result of gang rivalries, which police are finding more difficult to curb. Victoria, Texas, ranked thirty-second nationally in terms of murders per 100,000 people last year and fifty-second in terms of all violent crime—ahead of big cities like Atlanta.
According to a recent RAND Corp. study, much of today’s street violence stems from rivalries between “loose associations” of minority populations ensnared in what researcher Jack Riley calls the “Lord of the Flies effect.” It involves the “nastiest” young men rising to the top of the drug and human trafficking trade, and then trying to control the streets.
All crime is local, of course, and each city has its underlying causes. As much as anything, many experts say, it’s a lack of familial and community values that are contributing to the violence.
In Victoria, Texas, a small Gulf Coast city, police in the early 1990s approached the crack trade in a big-city way, aggressively busting up drug rings and harassing troublesome parolees. But the effect has been akin to taking a bat to a wasp’s nest. The city today ranks among the top ten in the country in murders per capita. “What happened was that we busted up a ring in a neighborhood and suddenly the activity spread all around the city,” says Councilman Williams.
The US Department of Justice and Homeland Security, too, are getting involved. Last week, it announced that it has sent fifteen federal “impact teams” to help local police departments curb violent crime in cities like Victoria, Texas.
“You wanted to see me, Chief?” Gavin asked as he placed the paper back on Ortiz’s desk.
“Yes I did. Come in and take a seat,” Ortiz said.
“What’s on your mind, sir?” Gavin asked, taking the seat in front of the massive desk.
“You’re about to start earning your pay, badass,” the chief said, handing him a folder.
Gavin smiled at the barb. He took the folder and quickly scanned the contents.
“That would be your new best friend. He’s one of the major players in La M’ie around here. He’s getting released from a federal penitentiary in Beaumont, and he’s moving back home to be with Mama.”
“Jorge Rivera,” Gavin said out loud.
“Your FBI buddies sent that file down here. They want you to watch him,” Chief Ortiz said, sitting back in his chair.
“Did they say what this guy has done that requires my attention?” Gavin asked.
“It seems like he made the watch list along with some new buddies he made at Club Fed, guys with names like Abdul and Mummar,” Ortiz said.
Gavin didn’t react when he heard the names Ortiz had just mentioned. They were part of the terrorist cell that he was investigating. He looked down at the file in his lap.
“I know his kind. They’re always running through here, thinking they can hide in my town because it’s small. These folks like to fly under the radar, and since Rivera was put away for human trafficking, it’s not hard to guess what his next business venture is. He was the asshole sent up for those eighteen immigrants found dead in that semi-trailer,” Chief Ortiz said.
“You think he wants to start trying to smuggle terrorists?” Gavin asked, flipping through the folder.
“You win the prize. For every one terrorist he smuggles it’s worth ten wetbacks,” Ortiz said sarcastically.
“Boss? Should you be talking about your own people like that?” Gavin asked, looking up at Ortiz.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not a politically correct kind of guy. I call ’em the way I see ’em. I don’t give a fuck who they are,” Ortiz said.
Gavin redirected his concentration to the information in front of him. Something he read caught his attention. The associates Rivera had met in prison were terrorists who Gavin was familiar with. In fact he had sent them to federal prison. There was another more chilling recognition, a ghost he had been chasing for years. Esteban Merles. He decided not to say anything until he had a chance to go through the entire file.
“The FBI boss from the San Antonio field office called me on this one. They want the credit and so do I. The mission is to watch him. Do not make a move without consulting me, you understand? Don’t screw this up and you report to me weekly. Sooner if you have to. I don’t want a bunch of terrorists being run through here, and I sure as hell don’t want them planning their next hurrah in my town, understand? But we’re doing this my way,” Ortiz said, reaching for his cup of coffee.
There was no way in hell Gavin was about to run everything past Ortiz. He had been working this case for a long time now. He was not about to let a sm
all town police chief with an inflated ego piss in his territory. He would consult with his FBI boss since this initially had started as a federal investigation. Gavin decided against arguing the point with Ortiz until he had looked into this situation a little further.
“Understood, sir. I’ll give this a study and start shaking some trees.” Gavin stood.
“We’ll see if you’re worth all that money the feds have been throwing at you, badass.” Ortiz smiled as he took a sip of his coffee.
“We’ll see,” Gavin said with a smile.
“By the way, dust off a suit if you have one. If not, go get one. You just got plans for next Wednesday night,” Chief Ortiz said, handing Gavin a ticket.
“For?” Gavin asked, looking at the ticket in his hand.
“My wife sits on the Library Foundation Board. The department is backing literacy in this community and the place will be full on Wednesday night, understood?” Ortiz said with a smile.
“Chief, do you really think I belong in polite society? I’m not exactly the politically correct kind either,” Gavin said.
“Quickly study Ms. Manners. The wife needs three hundred people at this gala. You get a date, come see me. I’ve got another ticket. Although, I can’t think of any woman who’d want to be seen with you.”
“I do okay for myself. But I’ll be busy,” Gavin said, holding up the folder in his hand. “Can’t I just make a fifty-dollar donation toward literacy and get out of this?” he asked hopefully.
“Nope. It’s already paid for. I bought two tables for the department. Dinner will be on me Wednesday night.” The chief grinned.
“Chief, I’ll even pay the hundred bucks for a date I don’t have if I can skip this. And, I promise to get a library card,” Gavin offered.
“Muster at the gala is at 1830. You’re dismissed, badass.” Chief Ortiz gave him an evil smile.
“Yes, sir.”
There was no way out of this. Gavin was in the upper echelon of the department and this was a gotcha clause, other duties as assigned. It was much like when he was in the military and reached Senior NCO status. Master Chief McGuire used to call it the dog-and-pony-show requirement. As much as it went against his grain, he had to play nice.
