Shelter

by Gilley, Lauren

  When Diane knocked on the front door at ten – she refused to use the carport entry – Alma was surprised to find that she wasn’t alone.

  A tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who looked about her own age stood behind Diane on the front stoop, looking more than a little uncomfortable with his hands jammed in his pockets. He had the chiseled features of an Abercrombie model, and though Alma couldn’t place him, she thought he looked vaguely familiar.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Diane greeted. She gestured over her shoulder. “You remember Jamie Henderson.”

  “No I don’t.”

  The guy, Jamie, twitched in obvious discomfort.

  “Yes you do. You two went to high school together.” Her glare said you better remember him. “We need strong male arms to help us hang the mirror today.”

  Alma searched her memory banks and thought that she might have remembered a Spanish or Algebra or English class with this just-like-all-the-others pretty boy in a Polo shirt. She smelled a rat: a big one. She shrugged. “Um, Mom, where did you happen to run into Jamie?”

  “At Target,” she said brightly. “He was with his father – you remember Mr. Henderson from our Christmas party last year – and we were catching up and turns out, Jamie had the day off from work, so I asked if he’d be ever so polite and help us out today.”

  An image of Diane dragging this poor dude out of Target, all the while regaling him with tales of her beautiful, pregnant, single daughter popped into Alma’s head, and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes. “Come on in,” she stepped aside and held the door open. “Jamie, can I get you anything.”

  “Uh…” he took an obscenely long time wiping the soles of his casual boots on the front mat. “Nah. Nah, I’m good.”

  Diane breezed through the living room. “Even better if you hadn’t run into her,” Alma muttered under her breath, and his baby blues goggled out of his head. “Sorry,” she told Jamie. “But you have no idea what you just signed on for.”

  **

  Carlos kept busy one-hundred percent of the time. The loss of the Flannery’s gig wasn’t impactful because he had thrown himself into his Good & Green job, his workouts, his dealings with Sean and all the travel in between.

  He didn’t think about Alma, because that was a level of pain that would leave him huddled on the floor, drowned in liquor. He had shoved her away into a locked compartment in his head, didn’t let her name run through his thoughts, didn’t conjure up images of her in his mind, didn’t wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night after a nightmare in which he’d stumbled across her broken, lifeless body in a puddle of blood. Nope, he didn’t think about her at all.

  Today, his Good & Green crew was laying sprinkler system at Dolman Plantation. By all rights, they should have been done with the subdivision weeks before, but their foremen were stalling, dragging things out, using the weather as an excuse. It upped the hours, which upped the pay considerably. And Carlos didn’t care. As he pushed thin PVC pipes through the dirt with gloved hands, he could have been doing just about anything so long as it didn’t involve a lot of mental effort on his part.

  “Where’s the pump?” Salvador asked from a few feet away as he pawed through the soft earth they’d tilled up.

  “Over there somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Salvador!” Carlos snapped before he could stop himself. He didn’t even feel bad as he torqued around and glared at his fellow landscaper. “Can you not just shut the fuck up? Huh? Figure it out for your goddamn self!”

  His coworker blinked, face blank. “Dude, are you gettin’ high off your own supply? What is with you?”

  As always the dipshit couldn’t keep from bringing up the drugs when he shouldn’t have. In his lame attempt to be cool, Salvador was gonna get his ass canned. “Shut it,” he hissed.

  There was a pause, and Carlos thought maybe he’d finally gotten through to the other guy, but then he heard boots thump over toward him, and when Salvador next spoke, he was right next to him.

  “You know what I heard? Dolman, as in Dolman Plantation Dolman, he’s big in the trade, bro. You know, your trade.”

  Carlos whipped his head around and saw that the guy was grinning like a cat with a canary.

  “That it? You workin’ for the big boss man?”

  “Leave me alone,” he said, and resumed his task, but his pulse thumped loud in his ears.

  **

  “I don’t know what we would have done without you!” Diane exclaimed in a voice that Ava knew was all for effect.

  Jamie, who Alma still didn’t remember, had just hung the wide mirror up along the far nursery wall, the purpose of which was to enable Alma to see baby Sam via his reflection without having to step into the room. She thought that was a poor excuse; really, Diane had just loved the mirror and wanted to give it to her. But no gift was ever a gift, it was always something practical.

  Jamie blushed at the praise and stuck his hands in his back pockets, eyes swinging over toward Alma again like they kept doing ever since she’d brought him a Coke earlier.

  “Mom,” she bit back a sigh. “Can you help me with something in the kitchen, please?”

  “We’ll be right back, dear,” she told Jamie. “Why don’t you see if you can get that top shelf put up.”

  The short walk to the kitchen made Alma wonder if the house was large enough to have a private conversation that wasn’t heard by all, but at this point, she didn’t much care. As she walked around her round table and put her back to the counter, arms folded, it was all she could do to lever some patience into her voice. “Mom.”

  Diane wore a carefully blank expression, though she had to know what this was about.

  “What, exactly, is going on here? You just bring a total stranger into my house? And on top of that, I think you’re trying to hook us up!” the last was said in an urgent whisper.

  The façade dissolved and her mother sighed. “Not a stranger, Alma, don’t be dramatic. We needed someone tall today, admit that.”

  She conceded with a tight nod.

  “And, well, it’s difficult for a single mother to make ends meet - ”

  “Oh, Mom!” Alma scolded. “Really?”

  “You’re done with Carlos, you said so.”

  “So that means I’ll just hop right into bed with this douchebag?”

  “Language!” Diane pointed a stern finger at her. Then she sighed, shoulders slumping. “I try so hard to be a good mother…” she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and moment. When she opened them, the fire had bled out of them. “You were very…quick…to seek comfort in Carlos. I only thought…”

  Alma felt her gut tighten, her pulse picked up. “That I was only lonely,” she said, no longer angry, but overcome with a stinging, heavy tidal wave of sadness. “That I was with him because I didn’t want to be alone.”

  Diane gave a tiny nod.

  She heaved a sigh. How could this be explained? How did she convey those lingering looks from her teenage years, one hot kiss out back in the garden, all those ways in which he’d been her connection to Sam? It wasn’t about Sam, though, not really.

  “I don’t mind being alone,” Alma said quietly, more to herself than to her mother. This sudden realization brought with it a whole new kind of grief, one unrelated to death. “Carlos wasn’t just company, he…I love him.”

  **

  “Dolman?” Carlos demanded as Sean climbed down out of his Escalade that night, wool coat whipping around his legs like a cape. The Christmas lights along the gutter of the Rite Aid across the street were reflected in the SUV’s shiny surface. “Marty fucking Dolman?”

  Sean’s response was a quick jab with a gloved fist that hit him along the side of his jaw, sent his head cracking to the side and had him landing on his ass in the street. “Get up,” the dealer hissed, grabbing his jacket collar the next second and hauling him to his feet.

  The punch might as well have been a stray leaf brushing against him. Carlos was running
off full adrenaline tonight, and he was surprised what kind of a high that was: almost as good as the real thing. His jaw, though, was feeling the effects as he struggled to get it working and form a response.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he growled, straightening his jacket and brushing dirt off his ass.

  A car whizzed past them, dangerously close, its headlights bathing them in yellow light, and Sean stepped between the back bumper of the Escalade and the car behind it. His expression was tight. When he leaned in close, his breath was hot on Carlos’s face. “I been real easy on you, Carlos, and maybe I feel bad about Sam, but you do not say shit like that all big and loud for the world to hear. You understand me?”

  Carlos glared back at him. “Is it true?”

  Sean’s eyes shifted over, then back. “Dunno.”

  “You know what happens when the cops go after guys like Dolman? And they do go after guys like Dolman.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Problem, gentlemen?”

  Carlos glanced over toward the sidewalk, saw Sean turn to do the same, and hoped that Sal had just walked up, and that he hadn’t been standing there for the whole exchange.

  “No,” Sean said as he turned toward the punk who was now his boss, the picture of suave calm now. The man was a fantastic actor, a trait which Carlos was a bit jealous of. “Good evening.”

  “You two ready?”

  Carlos trailed along behind them as they set off down the sidewalk, all with hands in coat pockets, shoulders hitched up against the bite of the December breeze that whistled along in front of the buildings.

  They were amongst high-rise business buildings not too far from Centennial Olympic Park, though at this late hour, none of their fellow pedestrians were businesspeople: dinner-goers, shoppers, a varied mix of couples, groups and singles, all the layers of the socioeconomic scale displayed in clothes, shoes and accents. There were no offices on the ground level along the sidewalk, but lobbies and parking garages whose yawning maws were blocked by striped arms and orange cones, the offices above all shut down for the night. It was a little eerie: the kind of atmosphere that fostered vandals and evil-doers. Then, Carlos realized with a jolt, he was one of those evil-doers now. He was the kind of guy who frightened passersby now.

  Sal led them to the entrance of an underground parking deck that was the base of a tall stone-and-brick building that looked close to thirty stories or so. Two men coalesced from the shadows within, taking up flanking positions at the door: these were the muscleheads from high-on-up who ensured Sean played ball with the boss man. Sean may have kept some of his dealers, but he’d been “given” new security guys.

  The ramp sloped down right away so that, even though the garage was lit with fluorescent caged lamps every few car lengths, no one could be seen from street level. Halfway down to the first floor, Carlos could hear the voices. And as they rounded the first curve, he heard that one of the voices was begging.

  In the middle of a knot of guys who were professional wrestler huge, Carlos recognized Tiny, one of Sean’s other pushers. He was, in fact, tiny, a little white guy with a stocking cap and pants belted below his ass, his boxers showing. He’d been peddling pot because none of the cocaine gangs would have him, and Sean had recruited him a few months ago. Tiny was sweating now, his face bright red.

  “I swear,” he said. “I swear I…Sean!” he spotted the three of them. “Sean, tell this asshole I didn’t - ”

  One of the meatnecks sucker punched him in the gut and he doubled over, words becoming wheezes.

  “What is this?” Carlos asked, though as his gut churned, he had a sinking feeling he knew.

  Sean made no comment.

  Sal, though, reached into his pocket and produced a gallon-sized re-sealable bag full of white powder. “Tiny was cutting our product with baking powder. He made twice the sales and kept the extra profit for himself.”

  Sean kept him removed from the operation of it all, he only sold and passed money for drugs, but Carlos knew that, if this allegation was true, it was an unforgiveable offense.

  “Tiny,” Sal continued, “isn’t loyal. And loyalty is everything.” He reached into a coat pocket again, this time coming back out with a gun in his hand. It looked like a 9mm, black and matte, and the dealer extended it, grip-first, toward Carlos.

  “No,” he said before the order had even been given. He shook his head. “No way.”

  Tiny surged against his captors. “I didn’t! It ain’t mine, I swear!” He was punched in the side of the head and he crumpled again, moaning. “Sean, Sean please, please,” he whimpered. “I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “Begging never helps,” Sal told Carlos. “He’s gonne bite it anyway,” Sal’s tone was nothing but cold, and once again, Carlos found himself realizing just how unfit he was for this world of gangsters and contraband. And as he stared at the unflinching, impassive face of the man who offered him the gun, he’d never hated anyone like he did this guy. “Time to prove we don’t have to worry about you pulling the same shit.”

  Certain circumstances had a way of putting everything else into perspective. Carlos had not known dread like this. A cold sweat broke out across his entire body, his skin feeling feverish and tight. His stomach made a rallying leap up his throat, but he found he lacked the muscle control to vomit. He swore he could feel his soul being damaged; this was the sort of thing that put a person in hell. He wasn’t sure there were enough Hail Marys or Our Fathers to undo this kind of sin. And even worse, he knew as his eyes darted wildly toward Sean, he had no options. If he ran, he’d be killed. If he refused, he’d be strung up and called a rat, and then killed. Because no matter what the movies portrayed, when you went up against this kind of organized crime as just one man alone, you were completely, absolutely powerless.

  He didn’t really hate Sal, but himself.

  With a clammy, shameful hand, he took the gun.

  25

  In Tampa, as a beat cop, Sean had gone into his share of businesses looking for suspects or witnesses, possibly related parties to crimes, and people had only needed one look at his badge and his blue uniform before they were all too happy to comply. He’d been addressed as “sir” and “officer,” had drawn fretful glances from the guilty and approving glances from the surrounding public.

  But when he stepped into the Silver Plate Café in another of his sharp suits, his wool coat, and asked after the pregnant little waitress by the name of Alma Morales, he’d been looked at like the thug he was portraying. His hand had itched to reach into his wallet and pull out his official APD ID, but then he’d remembered that as Sean Taylor Drug Dealer Extraordinaire, he didn’t carry it. After a half a dozen suspicious glances, he’d learned that Alma wouldn’t be in until one from a red-haired employee who liked to crack her gum. So he’d spent the time making some follow up calls to his department, double and triple checking the rest of the puzzle pieces. Then at six, once dark had settled over the little posh Marietta shopping center, he turned off his cell and nosed the Escalade up to the curb himself – Jerome, like the PD, wasn’t going to be privy to this little meeting.

  Inside, the Silver Plate seemed to have drawn a sizable dinner crowd: mostly college students with laptops or textbooks. But there was a smattering of families and groups of high school kids doing more goofing around than eating. The place smelled good, like fresh-baked bread. Alma wasn’t hard to spot: the slightly-protruding stomach and long dark ponytail were a giveaway. And when her head came up from the pad she’d been scribbling on and her head happened to swing in his direction, the slim, pale face with its dark eyes confirmed the identification.

  So too, did the look of shocked recognition that rippled across her features. Then she frowned, scowled in a downright ferocious way and spun away, making a bee line for the back of the restaurant.

  Brushing past the waitress who attempted to greet him, and earning a startled gasp for it, he went charging through the maze of tables in pursuit of Sam’s widow. He
registered dark glances from two employees behind the bakery counter – a tall skinny guy with acne and a heavyset woman as wide as she was tall, but neither made a move to intercept him. Doing a peripheral scan of his surroundings on the move was second nature, and as he followed Alma’s retreating figure past the soda fountain and across tile wet with cleaning solution, he took note of each member of the staff.

  Thankfully, none of them got in the way. Alma went down a short hall that had openings on either side: one, rolling with steam, that presumably led to the kitchen, and the other shadowed and cool as if it was a small alcove where the exit was located. Through a swinging door, into a break room full of folding tables, lockers along one wall, a low counter on the opposite. Sean saw a fridge and a microwave, extra aprons hanging up on pegs, employee coats and scarves.

  Alma had gone to the furthest table and was gripping the chair in front of her until her knuckles were white. Sean stopped just inside the threshold and put a palm against the swinging door in a weak attempt to guarantee them a moment of privacy.

  “I take it you remember me.”

  He’d only been around the girl a handful of times, but she’d always given him the impression of trembling, meek, doe of a female: graceful and sleek, beautiful, but timid and quick to please her husband.

  The young woman who spun around now, hands clenched into fists, was anything but meek. Her brows knitted together and her cheeks flushed, lips pressed together into a white line. “Get out of here,” her voice shook and it wasn’t because of nerves. She was so furious, for a moment, he was afraid she might seize. “How dare you come here where I - ”

  “Carlos is missing.”

  Her mouth shut with a soft click of her teeth meeting. But just as quickly, her scowl returned. “He’s not my problem, and neither are you, asshole, so show yourself out before I have the Cobb County PD crawling all over this place.”

  Obviously, Carlos had told her everything he shouldn’t have. Sean sighed and held up his free hand, palm-out in a peaceful gesture. “Look, calm down, a’ight?”