No Good Deed (river city crime)

by Frank Zafiro

  Wiry counted out the hundreds first, reaching forty-five hundred. Then he counted out the last five hundred in twenties. It was all there.

  “I told you it was all there.”

  “Sit back,” I ordered.

  Wiry did as he was told. I reached down and picked up the money, stuffing it into the breast pockets of my flannel. D watched on, his eyes cool and appraising.

  When I finished buttoning up the pocket, I motioned to Wiry with the shotgun. “Now go get the dope you ripped.”

  “What the fuck?” D demanded.

  “You heard me,” I told Wiry. “Get the crank.”

  “Dat’s bullshit,” D snapped, his voice a growl. “You got yo’ money back. We even.”

  I shook my head. “No. You left them with no dope and no money and that’s how I’m going to leave you. That’s even.”

  “Aw, man, dat’s fucked up.”

  “That’s the way it is.” I motioned at Wiry with the shotgun. “Go get it.”

  Wiry hesitated until D gave him a reluctant nod. Rubbing his jaw, he disappeared down the hallway.

  “This isn’t personal,” I told him. “Just business.”

  “It’s fucked up.”

  I shrugged. “I’m just doing what Paco ordered.”

  D’s eyes narrowed. “Dat boy was Paco’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit. I din’t know dat. Give him back his money, yo? Den we be cool.”

  “I’ve got my orders,” I said. “It’s the money and the product.”

  “Dat shit’s unreasonable.”

  “That’s what Paco said to do.”

  D cursed under his breath.

  “Of course,” I said, “his woman didn’t help matters much.”

  D cocked his head and regarded me. “How’s dat?”

  I shrugged. “She pushed him, is all. Said there was no way Paco could let some stupid niggers get the better of him.”

  The change in D’s face was palpable. His eyes widened at the epithet and then narrowed to slits. “Bitch said dat?”

  I nodded. “If it was up to her, this would’ve been a hit instead of just a recovery. She said the only way to deal with niggers who didn’t know their place was to put ‘em down, just like a rabid dog.”

  D clenched his jaw. “Who you callin’ dog?”

  “Her words, not mine. This is just a one time deal for me and I fly back-well, you don’t need to know that part, do you?”

  “Don’t care,” D grunted. “My bidness is wit dat motherfucker Paco and his bitch.”

  Wiry returned to the living room holding a manila envelope. He extended it toward me.

  I shook my head. “On the table.”

  Wiry dropped it on the coffee table.

  “Sit.”

  He obeyed.

  I lifted the package and looked inside at the baggie full of yellowish-white powder.

  “You tell Paco,” D said, his nostrils flaring, “he wants a war, he got himself a motherfuckin’ war.”

  I tucked the package under my free arm. “He said if you niggers don’t play nice, he’d listen to his woman and cap the whole lot of you.”

  D’s eyes flashed. He dropped the game controller and jabbed his finger toward me. “You tell him. He a dead motherfucker now. His bitch, too.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I said, backing toward the door. “But he said you don’t have the balls.”

  “We see about dat shit,” D said.

  I backed through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind me. Then I ran like hell.

  “Jesus, you got it?”

  I drove north, watching for cars that might be tailing us. So far, none.

  “How’d you do it?”

  “I just did it.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Andy muttered. “I can’t believe it.”

  At Franklin Park, I pulled into a parking lot and turned off the car. The motor cooled, ticking.

  “Here,” I said, handing Andy the money.

  He took it, his eyes brimming with tears. “Thanks, Dad. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. You remember our deal?”

  “Yeah. I gotta get clean.”

  “Exactly. And I want you to leave town to do it.”

  “Leave town?”

  “You’ve got to get away from what you know if you’re going to get clean.”

  “But I don’t have any money.”

  “I just gave you five grand.”

  He blanched. “No, that’s Paco’s money. I can’t-”

  “Don’t worry about Paco,” I told him. “Just take the money and go. Today.”

  “You don’t understand. He’ll come after me. He’ll-”

  “No, he won’t. He’ll leave you alone, because I’m going to see that he gets his dope. Okay?”

  Andy’s face filled with surprise. “You took D’s dope, too?”

  “I took the dope for Paco, and I took the money for you to get the hell out of River City.”

  “What about D? He’ll come after-”

  “He thinks the bikers did it,” I lied. “They’ll leave you alone, and they’ll leave Paco alone.”

  Andy swallowed. “Jesus.”

  “I want you to go someplace warm,” I said. “Stay away from everyone who uses. Get in a program. And send me a postcard.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I will.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll come down and join you, wherever it is.”

  “Cool.”

  We sat for a moment in the truck, silent in our thoughts. I hoped half-heartedly that he’d hug me, but he didn’t.

  Finally, I said, “Come on. I’ll take you to the bus station.”

  At the bus station, I paid for Andy’s ticket to Phoenix. When I handed it to him, he reached out and clasped my hand in his. We said nothing, but held that handshake for what seemed like forever, until they called for his bus to board.

  “Be safe,” I told him.

  “I will,” he assured me, then turned and trudged up the bus steps.

  I watched while he threaded his way down the aisle past other passengers to find a seat near the rear of the bus. He gave me a nervous wave.

  I waved back. “Good luck,” I whispered.

  Luck. He’d need some. Odds were good he’d just find someone selling crank at the first stop the bus made and inside of a month, the money would be gone and he’d be worse off.

  But at least he had a chance.

  Half an hour later, I strolled across the Post Street Bridge on the pedestrian lane. Halfway across, I stopped and looked over the side. The tumbling, white waters of the Looking Glass River flowed a hundred feet below. I thought of how many times I’d driven over this bridge and thrown pot pipes or other minor confiscated items over the side. I thought of the people who jumped over the edge from time to time. I thought about my son, and how he could easily become a part of all of that, a part of things being thrown away and people going over the edge.

  I stared down into the roiling waters. My thoughts turned to Maureen and her drug dealer partner. I tried to feel bad for what I’d done and for what was coming to both of them. I knew what it was. I’d seen the rage in D’s eyes when I uttered that magic word. Paco and Maureen were finished.

  It was no use trying to feel bad. I couldn’t work up any sympathy for a drug dealer, and the only emotion I had for Maureen was hatred. She’d taken my son away and turned him into a meth fiend. She deserved what she was going to get.

  I pulled the manila envelope from under my arm and dropped it over the side. The yellow paper fluttered slightly on the way down, winking in the fading light of the day. Then it splashed into the river, was pulled below and was gone forever.

  The pacifists in this world ask fate to take a hand in matters. What goes around, comes around, they’d say. Karma, they’d say, and I think some of that’s true.

  But sometimes you have to be the one to bring it around. Sometimes, you have to take a hand.

  La Sombra

  In The Shadow
Of El Paso

  We all lived together, but separate, white and brown, in the strange border land north of the Rio Grande. It wasn’t Mexico and it wasn’t the United States, but rather pieces of both and some of neither. We lived in La Sombra, in the shadow of El Paso.

  I never got too involved in the politics of it, anyway. I wasn’t supposed to ask whether a person was legal or not, unless I really had to know. I learned that shortly after coming to La Sombra. If they were legal, asking was an insult. If they weren’t, the question was met with distrust. So most times, I just didn’t ask. There was work here and people wanted to do it. They worked hard, they drank hard and they loved hard. I liked their food, their music and their rapid language.

  But I loved her.

  Living here was tough enough. Being a lawman was almost impossible. How could I enforce something as abstract as laws written by some rich, white men who lived two thousand miles away? How do those laws apply in a town that only recognizes the most basic and the most extreme of human laws?

  Things can get a little blurred along the border.

  Isabella served drinks at Tres Estrellas most nights. I made a point of doing a walkthrough there at least once a shift, sometimes twice. Part of it was professional. A little police presence went a long way towards deterring trouble. But I would have gone anyway, just to see her. I think dozens of men in town felt the same way.

  Tres Estrellas was the only place in town where white and brown mixed with little trouble. Music played on the jukebox. The songs on the juke were an eclectic mix of classic rock, old and new country, Tex-Mex and full-on Mexican. The polished wood floor creaked a little when I walked across it in the dim light. A few customers were scattered in small groups throughout the main room. An old Mexican ballad twanged from the speakers.

  “Morena de mi corazon,” the man’s voice sang sadly. And that was Isabella. Dark-haired woman of my heart.

  She smiled at me from the corner of the bar, where she’d been chatting quietly with Pete Trower. When she flashed that smile, the world stopped and sound diminished. The light in her eyes sent an electricity through my chest and out to my limbs. It was that way every time. A twinge of regret fluttered in my chest along with the other emotions banging around in there. I wished, not for the first time, that I could sit at the bar for the next few hours and drink her in along with my tequila.

  “Carlos,” she said playfully, using the Spanish equivalent of my name.

  I touched the brim of my hat and grinned stupidly. “Everything okay tonight?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, si, everything is fine. Just slow, sabes?”

  I did know. Tuesday was usually dead.

  “You mind if I walk around?” I asked. I didn’t need permission. I had the authority to walk anywhere I wanted to in a drinking establishment. But it didn’t hurt to have manners.

  “Por favor,” she said, and moved down the bar a bit. From there, she leaned forward, resting her elbows onto the bar. The position pushed up her breasts and accentuated her cleavage. She beckoned me with a head movement. My mouth went a little dry and I stepped closer to the bar. Her perfume hinted at oranges and spice. She reached out and tapped my badge with a tapered, red nail. Her voice lowered to a husky, conspiratorial whisper. “It is nice to have the law around to keep things from getting loco.”

  My face grew warm. “Now you’re teasing me.”

  A smile played on her full lips. I looked into her dark, smoky eyes and held her gaze.

  “Tal vez,” she cooed.

  “Perhaps,” I repeated back.

  “But you’ll still look around, won’t you?” she said, and turned to leave.

  I watched her go, gliding around the end of the bar and to a table in the corner. Two young Hispanic cowboys, whom I didn’t recognize, sat in the booth and followed her with their eyes, just like I did.

  “I hate them,” muttered Pete from his barstool.

  “Aw, they’re just having a couple of beers,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “They look at her.” The word dripped off his tongue like poison.

  “Everyone does.” I pulled a five dollar bill from my pocket and put in on the bar next to Pete’s beer.

  He turned away from the cowboys and regarded me. “What’s that for?”

  “Next one’s on me, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “I gotta have a reason?”

  Pete’s expression remained hard and he didn’t answer.

  “Who bought me my first beer in La Sombra?” I asked him.

  “Dunno.”

  “Hell you don’t. It was you, right here at the Tres. My hair hadn’t even grown out from the Army yet.”

  Pete shrugged and flicked his eyes back at the cowboys as they bantered with Isabella. Her laughter tinkled through the air like tiny bells.

  “Pete,” I said.

  He shifted his gaze to me. “What?”

  I smiled my best Texas grin. “Just enjoy your beer. All right?”

  He stared at me for a few moments, then lowered his eyes to the beer in front of him and nodded. Tres Estrellas was famous for its potent Mexican tequila and weak American beer. I was glad Pete was drinking the latter. He spent too much time on that barstool, night after night, dreaming about what he could never have. I knew, because I sometimes dreamed the same foolish dream.

  I left Pete and strolled toward the back rooms. One contained three pool tables and two dartboards. On a busy weekend night, I could barely jostle through and smoke would hang in the air like a thundercloud. Tonight, Jack Talbott shot a game of nine ball, alone except for his newest girlfriend, a platinum blonde. She might have been twenty-two and with an IQ to match. Instead of cigarette smoke, the air was full of her perfume.

  “Carl,” he said, chalking the tip of his cue.

  I gave Jack a neighborly nod and stepped into the back room.

  At first, I thought it was empty, but then I saw two Mexicans in the nearest booth, hunkered over their drinks. Neither one made eye contact. One pulled the bill of his dirty ball cap low over his eyes. The other squeezed further into the corner.

  “Buenas noches,” I said.

  They muttered the words back to me with thick accents. One cast a quick, wary glance up at me before returning his eyes to his tequila.

  I thought about it for a second, checking them over. Dirty clothes, rough hands. Hard workers, I figured, and not likely to be any trouble. I touched the brim of my hat, turned and headed back to the main bar.

  “You check them two for green cards?” Jack asked me as I strode past. “’Cause my money says they’re wetbacks.”

  Miss Twenty-two giggled at his witty word choice.

  “They’re legal workers,” I said, and kept walking.

  Jack wouldn’t let it lie. “Bullshit. You weren’t in there long enough to check.”

  I turned back to face him. “What’s that?”

  “You heard me, Carl. Ain’t no way you checked them boys for green cards or any other damn thing.” His jaw jutted out, challenging me.

  “I suppose you’re an immigration expert,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, but I am an expert on spic lovers. And you, my friend, are one.”

  Heat flushed my face. The roof of my mouth itched. People with Jack’s way of thinking were part of the reason things never changed down here. I thought of a dozen responses and not all of them involved words. Finally, my eyes settled on the blonde at his side. “Your wife meet your new secretary yet, Jack?”

  His face blanched and his mouth hung open for a moment before snapping shut. “You-”

  “Wife?” the blonde screeched. “You have a wife?”

  I turned on my heels and headed back to the bar.

  Isabella stood in the corner at the cowboys’ table. She rested her palms on the edge and leaned forward coquettishly. A smile played on her lips. Both men bore huge grins. A small flare of jealousy burned in my gut as the song on the jukebox trailed off.

 
Pete was halfway from his barstool to the corner table when I walked in. He pushed up the sleeves of his jacket as he strode purposefully.

  “Pete!” I barked.

  It was a mistake, raising my voice like that. All eyes turned to me. Now if I gave Pete an order, he’d never live it down.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked him, softening my tone.

  Pete stared at me for a moment, then back at the table. I used the time to cross the distance between us, took Pete by the arm and led him outside. He pulled against me once, but I jerked his arm close to my body and kept walking.

  Once outside the bar, Pete pulled away again and this time I let him go. We stopped a few paces away from the door. The odor of gas fumes from the parking lot and manure from the stockyards across the street replaced the bar smell of cigarettes and beer. All four smells burned my nose and would likely hang on my uniform for the rest of my shift.

  Pete stood with his shoulders slumped, all hang-dog and pushing gravel rocks around in the dust with the toe of his boot.

  “Those boys don’t need any trouble,” I said.

  “Don’t reckon so,” he mumbled.

  “And she’s just being friendly with the customers.”

  “Bit too friendly, way I see it.”

  “Friendly folks spend friendly money,” I said. “Isabella knows that.”

  “’Spose.”

  I hitched my thumbs in the front of my belt and appraised him. “What were you figuring to do, Pete? Take on both of them?”

  He shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Not really a fair fight.”

  He shrugged again.

  “Where them boys from, anyway?”

  “Over New Mexico way,” he said. “Leastways, that’s what Isabella told me.”

  “See, that’s my point.”

  He looked up at me quizzically. “What point?”

  “They’re from New Mexico. Any Texan can whup at least three New Mexico boys. Not even close to a fair fight.”

  Pete grinned grudgingly. “I ’spose not.”

  I reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. “You just let things lie, all right?”

  He pressed his lips together, but nodded. “Sure, Carl. It’s just hard, that’s all. She’s so beautiful, and…,” he trailed off.