by Frank Zafiro
Stay in La Sombra and wait for Jack to find a way to get revenge.
Leave town and start over somewhere else.
I sipped the water, swallowing past the taste of bile in the back of my throat.
When I got my discharge from the Army at Fort Bliss, I was already in love with Texas. After growing up in Plasti-California, I found the genuine friendliness of the Lone Star State refreshing. The men always seemed straightforward and honest to me. And the women were kind, even in their rejections. Everyone seemed ready with a smile or a helping hand.
My discharge papers in my back pocket, I toured the state on my motorcycle, stopping off in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The bigger cities seemed like less sincere, though, almost as if they were playing at being Texan. They gobbled up the smaller towns nearby with that attitude like some giant, gaseous planet pulled at its moons.
Eventually, I circled back to West Texas and El Paso, unsure if I would stay or not. The day I rolled into La Sombra and stopped off at Tres Estrellas changed my mind for good.
I told myself it the friendly people that I’d been looking for all over Texas and found in La Sombra that made me decide to settle here. That I loved the mix of America, Texas and old Mexico that seemed to find a way to live together. That La Sombra put me at peace.
But it was her.
Isabella.
I knew she was the fantasy of every man in town. The way her hair hung in full curls around her brown face. Round, sultry eyes full of mystery. And every curve screamed woman.
It was more than that, though. I sensed it immediately, though I’d spent the last four years trying to define it. I don’t know if I can yet or if I’ll ever be able to. But there was an enigmatic quality to her, one that makes a man feel that if he can just be chosen by her, he will be complete. That if he can make things right with her, everything else in the world will follow suit. I wanted so much to be that man.
I took another long drink of water and wished the aspirin would kick in.
“Carl?”
I turned to see John Calhoun standing at the corner of my house. His immaculate jeans and white shirt were the same he always wore on duty, but he was without his hat, gunbelt or badge.
He pointed toward the front of my house. “I knocked, but...”
“It’s all right.” I waved him over to the wide steps where I sat.
John strolled over, his steps even and measured. I didn’t expect him to sit, but he lowered himself slowly onto the same step I sat on with the barest trace of a sigh.
“Get you something, John?”
He shook his head. “Reckon not.”
We sat in silence for a little while, staring out at my dusty back yard.
Finally, John gestured toward the sandy lot. “Ain’t had a chance to do much with it since you moved in, I see.”
I shrugged. “Always seemed that something more important needed doing.”
“Yup,” John said. He removed a small pouch of tobacco from his pocket and slipped a pinch of leaf into his lip. “Things work that way sometimes. If that’s the reason, that is.” He held the pouch toward me.
I shook my head and said nothing.
John leaned away from me and spat into the dirt. “’Course, a man might figure you left it like this ‘cause you didn’t figure on staying around long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
John spit again and wiped his lip. “Long enough to sink roots.”
I clenched my jaw. My head throbbed at the temples. “Jack send you? Or the Chief?”
Genuine hurt seemed to register in his deep gray eyes. He gave his head a small shake. “No one sent me, son.”
“Then why are you here?”
He regarded me for a moment with the air of a father who knew any advice he gave his teenage son would go unheeded. Some mistakes a man just has to make on his own, his eyes seemed to say.
“I figure you might need someone to talk at,” he finally said. “What with all that’s happened recently.”
I looked away and took a long drink of water.
“See,” John paused to spit and continued, “I reckon that you’re thinking on what your next move oughta be.”
“Next move?” I asked, but I knew what he meant.
“Yup. Whether you should stay and fight or just cut loose and move on.”
“And you’re figuring to give me some advice.” I couldn’t keep the bite out of my tone, but John didn’t seem to notice or he chose to ignore it.
“Maybe not advice,” he said. “But some information, yeah.”
I didn’t answer. The clacking sound of a grasshopper’s wings briefly filled the silence.
“You’re thinking it ain’t right for Jack to get away with the things he does,” John said. “You’re thinking someone ought to do something and that if no one else will, well then maybe it ought to be you.”
“What makes you think you know what I’m thinking?”
“’Cause you ain’t the first person to go up against Jack Talbott.”
I turned to face him, searching out the craggy lines of his face for the truth behind that statement. His iron eyes held my stare without blinking.
“You?”
John shrugged. “It don’t matter none. What matters is this – you can’t win, Carl. It don’t mean it’s right, but it’s the way it is. He’ll find a way to destroy you. That’s what the sonofabitch lives for. All that money of his is just what makes it possible.”
“What’s he got on you, John? What did he –”
“It don’t goddamn matter!” John snapped.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. The motion sent jolts of pain through my head.
John rubbed his eyes with both thumbs in frustration. Then he turned his gaze back to me. “You’re not listening,” he said. “You can’t win. You should just go. There’s nothing left for you here in La Sombra.”
I didn’t answer. John held my eye for a long minute, then dipped his chin in a nod. Without another word, he rose and strolled away. I listened to his footsteps disappear, then the truck door open and close and finally the engine rumble to life. When that sound faded in the distance, I looked out at my desolate backyard.
He was wrong.
There was one thing left for me in La Sombra.
The next morning, I drove over to her small house. I knew it well. I’d given her a ride home from Tres Estrellas a few times. Once, we even shared a cup of coffee at her kitchen table. She told me her dream was to buy the Tres.
“So do it,” I’d told her. “If it’s your dream, do it.”
“Oh, Carlos,” she said with a sad, knowing smile. “No banker is going to give this senorita a loan.”
“Maybe they would.”
She’d only shaken her head and said, “No, it’s all about numeros y dinero. I have no collateral.” She sighed and smiled tiredly at me. “Working there is as close as I’ll get to my dream.”
“You should never give up.”
“Who said I gave up?” Her tired smile perked up a bit. “What about you, Carlos? What’s your dream?”
I never told her. Not that night. Not ever.
Maybe the looks she cast my way were true and maybe they weren’t, but I needed to know. I knew I wasn’t going to find out inside the Tres, so it had to be at her house.
I stopped half a block away and stared.
I rubbed my eyes and stared some more.
Jack Talbott’s oversized red truck sat prominently in her driveway.
I stared and stared, a hole of fire burning in my chest. I stared until it had burned out everything that mattered. Then I left before I had to see that son of a bitch saunter out her door and to his truck.
The badge clattered onto the Chief’s desk. He looked up at me from his newspaper.
“What’s this?” he growled.
I dropped my issued gun belt next to the badge. “You got your way,” I told him.
He folded the newspaper and regarded the gun a
nd badge in front of him. Then he looked up at me. “I didn’t figure no Yankee’d last round here.”
“You crooked bastard,” I whispered.
The Chief laughed and returned to his paper. “Crooked? Oh, that’s good. That’s good.”
I turned away and headed toward the door.
Behind me, the Chief continued to chuckle into his newspaper.
I tucked the two manila envelopes into my backpack and zipped it shut. The sound held a sort of finality to it, but I didn’t mind.
There was a knock at the door. I shouldered the bag and strode across the room.
Wes stood on my porch. He gave me an embarrassed grin when I opened the door.
“Hey, Carl.”
“Wes.”
“You really leaving?”
“Really.”
He sighed. “Madre Mio, Carl. I’m sorry.”
I waved his apology away. “It doesn’t matter.” I handed him my keys. “Just send whatever money you can get for this stuff to my parents’ house in California. The address is in an envelope on the kitchen counter.”
He nodded. “All right. I can do that.”
“Square up the rent with Mrs. Gallion first, though.”
“Sure.”
I held out my hand. “Good knowing you, Wes.”
He took my hand and clenched it tightly. “Hasta Siempre, Carl.”
I cut the motorcycle engine in the bare parking lot outside the Tres. It was early yet, but the neon “OPEN” signed burned a blood red in the small window next to the front door. Below it, a new sign pronounced, “Under New Management.” Beneath those words, a picture of a beaming Isabella smiled out at me.
She found her dream. She got her chance and she took it.
I wanted to go inside and ask her if it was worth it. If she felt like she’d given up something more than the obvious that night she let Jack Talbott into her bed. I wanted to think that he played her just to get to me, but I didn’t want to hear her answer. I didn’t want to hear that she’d played him, that this was the way the world worked and that dreams weren’t free.
Most of all, I didn’t want to see her again now that everything had changed. I didn’t want to admit that she was only a shadow of a dream. I wanted my last memory of her to be that mysterious, smoky gaze she gave me from across the bar.
I thought about the envelopes in my backpack, one addressed to the Texas Attorney General and the other one to the U.S. Attorney General. Maybe they’d make a difference and maybe they wouldn’t. I’d mail them once I hit El Paso.
After that, I was turning north. I knew if I went south, all I’d find would be pale imitations of Isabella. Maybe I’d find my dream somewhere else up north, if the price wasn’t too high.
Or maybe I’d just have to accept that some dreams don’t come true.
I started the motorcycle and swung a wide, slow circle in the gravel lot. Once I hit the main street, I goosed the accelerator and headed out of Jack’s Town for good.
NOTES
As in each River City anthology, all of these stories should stand on their own, but I do believe that the crossover elements and intertwining of characters and story lines is something that most readers find intriguing. Some stories provide a little glimpse into a heretofore minor character, or a closer look at a character we know already. What follows are some facts and tidbits about the stories in this collection. I hope you find at least some of it interesting.
Please note that I will, at times, reference works that aren’t yet published. I’ll only do this if it is, in fact, a work that I have already (or mostly) finished and that I believe will, in fact, see the light of day…hopefully sooner rather than later.
Five For Fighting And A Murder Misconduct first appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine. Kopriva is the darling of Under a Raging Moon and then becomes the tragic hero of Heroes Often Fail. Except for a few brief appearances in Beneath a Weeping Sky, he all but disappears from the River City stage after that. He is the main character in a yet unpublished book called Waist Deep, and it is from that novel that the character of Matt Sinderling comes. “Five for Fighting and a Murder Misconduct” happens in the Fall after the events in Waist Deep (2005). Kopriva has found some measure of redemption but is still carrying around a lot of Amy Dugger guilt, as is surely apparent in the pages of this story.
Beaten By Anger first appeared in the 2006 anthology Seven By Seven. The relation to the previous story should be obvious. This story was my “Wrath” entry for the Seven by Seven anthology.
Cassie first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Yellow Mama. Cassie is a character most of you won’t meet until Waist Deep. Some of the events in that book are foreshadowed here, but even without having read that novel, I think the dynamics of this relationship are clear…or unclear, which is kind of the point.
Shae first appeared in the February 2006 issue of Crime and Suspense It was reprinted in the Spring 2008 issue of Mysterical-E.
Laddie first appeared in the July 2006 issue of Crime and Suspense. It was reprinted in the Summer 2008 issue of Mysterical-E.
A New Life first appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Mysterical-E.
Egyptian Eyes and Irish Lies first appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of Mysterical-E.
Shae and Laddie are a fun couple to write about. Writing from the perspective of one and then the other was also a good time. I narrated an audio version of these stories to accompany their publication in Mysterical-E (They are probably still available in that magazine’s archives).
What’s the point of Shae and Laddie? Well, I think two themes emerge. One is that we are a slave to our nature. The other is that some attractions are unstoppable. I suppose a third theme finds its way into these stories, too: love is universal. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cop or a crook, a sinner or a saint. You feel it.
No Worse Curse is previously unpublished. This was a ‘bridesmaid’ story a couple of times. In other words, it was slated to appear in a couple of different anthologies but both collections never came to fruition. When I realized that there was a connection here between Shae and these jokers, I figured it needed to be included with Shae and Laddie.
Being of Irish and Italian descent, I remain unapologetic for the digs at the English. Of course, given that I’m as much English as either of the other two, what can I say?
This story has one of my favorite endings.
Gently Used is a previously unpublished. It was a hard story to place, because while it involves cops, it really isn’t a mystery or a procedural. And while it has some literary leanings, it is too sexually graphic for most of those venues. I tried a number of different approaches, but simply couldn’t find a home for it. Maybe the story sucks, but I don’t think so. Several different women who read it had quite visceral reactions. Some had difficulty with it being Connor O’Sullivan’s story – they wanted to hear more about Lauren. Or they simply hated Sully, which I suppose is fair enough. The way he treats Lauren is admittedly shitty. In fact, that’s the point. This happens at a time in Sully’s life right between Beneath a Weeping Sky and And Every Man Has to Die. Sully is not atypical of we humans, in that he has a conscience but doesn’t always act in accordance with it. Of all the men who used Lauren for sex, he knows he’s no better and no different…except that he feels guilty for it, and is therefore in the minority. Does that excuse his actions? Nope. Does it make him any better or worse than those others? Well, I guess that’s the dilemma at the core of this story. Does the way someone feels about an action matter, even if the outcome is the same?
No Good Deed first appeared in January/February 2005 issue of A Cruel World. This earlier version of the story has the Battaglia children a little younger than the current incarnation, but that change was necessary to fit in with the events in And Every Man Has to Die. This story also serves as a prologue of sorts for the forthcoming novella Nor Shadowed Heart. Nor Shadowed Heart picks up right after Sully returns from his ten day
suspension
From the Roof first appeared in June 2007 at Amazon Shorts. It’s the first story actually starring Glen Bates, though he appears in any number of other ones as a minor character. Here, he is the veteran trainer working with the rookie. This is a scenario that has played itself out in reality tens of thousands of times.I’ve been on both sides of this equation in my years as a cop. Even though most of my tenure has been on the mentor side, I still remember those thoughts and emotions when you’re the rookie. Trying to learn, trying to make a good impression. Being a probationary police officer is probably one of the most stressful times in anyone’s professional life.
Take a Hand first appeared in the anthology The Ex Factor, in 2006 . Bates again, this time after he has retired from the River City PD. His crappy relationship with his son is something that I think isn’t altogether uncommon for police officers to encounter, at least at times. Cops have a particular view of the world, and it isn’t always one that translates well to parenting. I hope it is clear in this story how much Glen Bates still loves his son, in spite of everything.
In the Shadow of El Paso first appeared in the 2007 anthology, Map of Murder (Red Coyote Press).
Jack’s Town is previously unpublished.
Both of these stories take place in the fictional West Texas town of La Sombra, outside of El Paso. The inspiration for these tales was a mish-mash of original thoughts and outside influences. I wanted to write something with a Texas flavor, as the Lone Star State has always been my second favorite state after my native Washington. I also felt the influence of the Marty Robbins song “El Paso” and Springsteen’s “The Line.” In fact, the name of the narrator is an homage to the latter.
I also wanted to capture the character of Isabella as that mysterious, sensual, “perfect” woman that most men desire at some point in their lives. I wanted to show that such women do not exist except in our own minds – every one of them is a real woman when you get right down to it. A real person, with far greater wonder and weaknesses than that fantasy image. My means of making this point was two-fold. One, Carl doesn’t “get” the girl. Two, her actions, particularly in “Jack’s Town,” show her own humanity.
