His mother, his poor, weak-willed mother: she hadn’t been able to live without a man. Rosita had been beautiful: curvaceous and smooth-skinned, with long, silky dark hair. He supposed Alma’s hair reminded him a little of his mom’s, but that was immaterial. What mattered was his own selfishness, the way he’d grown so tired of her constant revolving door of boyfriends that he’d gone down the street to stay with his friend Billy.
If he had only stayed home that night, maybe if she hadn’t been alone with Renaldo, things would have ended differently. Sometimes, late at night, he remembered the way the smeared, bloody handprint on the doorframe had looked the next morning. The way Renaldo’s big thick fingers had been preserved in that stain.
She’d said something, she must have, because Rosita had been saucy, and whatever it was, it had set him off. Or maybe he’d just thought it would be fun to see how strong the back of her little skull was. Renaldo had used the blue vase she always kept in the window where the light could pass through its translucent facets and paint the floor azure. He’d swung so hard, the vase had cracked. The medical examiner said she’d been dead before her body had hit the floor.
Body. She hadn’t even been his mother anymore, but “the body.”
Sam and his mother Nadia – the Morales brothers were no longer around: Sam’s father killed in action with the US Marine Corps, Carlos’s long since run off – had come to the funeral. Nadia had put a gentle, comforting arm across his shoulders, and afterward, she’d taken him home to live in Marietta with her and with Sam.
Renaldo had been put away for twenty-five years, and last Carlos had heard, he’d come up for parole once and been denied. And that probably had something to do with the letter he’d written the parole board.
But regardless of the verdict the judicial system had handed down, Carlos knew his mother’s death was his fault. He’d abandoned her, and she’d been killed because of it. Just like he’d abandoned Sam.
What was intentional murder compared to that? The man he’d shot tonight…that wasn’t a step in a different direction; that had been a lateral move. He wasn’t good for anyone.
He especially wasn’t good for Alma, but that didn’t explain why he staggered his way down through the dark stairwell where Sam had bled out and rushed through the vacant building toward the door. He may have been a worthless piece of shit, but he didn’t want, couldn’t allow, for his mere existence to be the reason Alma died.
His Firebird was down the block and it took two tries before the engine would roll over. After that, the trip north to Marietta was a blur. By all rights, he should have been pulled over five times – he knew he ran at least three stop signs and one red light – but he didn’t even so much as roll through a sobriety check point. His still-foggy mind contemplated the possibilities: she was likely either at the hospital, her parents’ place, or home. Even half drunk, he was hit with the sudden knowledge that Alma liked to feel empowered when she should have been at her lowest. That, and she had a tendency to recede into her protective shell. So he went to the house.
A single lamp was lit, the one on the little table in front of the living room’s bay window, and he slammed the Firebird in park in her driveway, all but stumbling out of the car. As he rushed to the back door, he ran through all the possible ways in which she could be hurt. He had no idea what condition she might be in, how badly she could be injured. His pulse thumped loudly in his ears as he fumbled his key and let himself in, locked the deadbolt behind him.
“Alma?”
She didn’t answer, but he found her in the recliner. The TV was on, but the sound was off, and she didn’t appear to be watching Jimmy Kimmel, but staring blankly at the screen. Her arms were rigid on those of the chair, fingers dug into the upholstery. In the bluish glow of the TV, he could see the dark shadow of a bruise forming on her forehead. She wore a man’s t-shirt that covered her thighs and thick, fluffy socks. Her legs, he noticed, were held out away from the front of the chair and overall, she seemed uncomfortable.
Her eyes were the scary part, though, their blank, dark, flatness. They came toward him with a measured slowness, and then went back to the TV. “You heard?” her tone was just as flat.
He’d come barging in, nearly panicked, his heart about to beat out of his chest, and now he didn’t know what to do with all this calm. He would have been better prepared for female hysterics. “Shit…are you okay?”
“Fine.”
Leave, a voice intoned in the back of his head. And he should, he was going to in fact, but he didn’t buy that she was “fine.”
Carlos stepped in front of the television, unnerved by the way she continued to stare, as if she could see through him. “Alma - ”
“Look.” She huffed a tired little sigh and glanced up at him. Exhaustion broke through her smooth exterior and her mouth crinkled at the corners. “I’m not mad at you. You made some stupid mistakes…whatever, I guess I did too. I forgive you.”
Of all the things he’d expected her to say, that hadn’t been one of them.
“But I had to quit my job tonight so I could protect my coworkers,” she went on. “Because being affiliated with you got the place shot up.”
Then her gaze lowered again dismissively. The stark truth of what had happened that night, of what he’d caused, was all the ammunition she needed to toss his ass out of her life. She didn’t have to scream or yell this time. She’d obviously stowed her emotions away where he couldn’t get to them.
He expected to feel his heart get squeezed again. Her last, unfeeling rejection should have burned so bad…but it hardened his resolve. His feelings for her were irrelevant at this point; she had every right to hate him, and he’d be doing her nothing but favors if he disappeared completely. So she wouldn’t care if he got locked up. If he twitched to a slow, painful death, his blood washing over the concrete.
Revenge had never been clearer in his mind. When you stopped having anything to care about, it was the easiest thing in the world to plan yourself a murder.
Carlos took one last visual inventory of her, a mental snapshot to catalogue away in his brain, and then he left her in her recliner, with her dead husband’s ever-growing child, and without him, just the way she wanted.
27
Hell bent on his new mission, Carlos had such tunnel vision as he left his Firebird and headed across the parking lot toward his building that he didn’t see the man who blocked his path until he was almost on top of him. Tom Harris coalesced out of the shadows in front of the building’s main door. Parts of him – his nose, a patch of his sweater, his knees, the tips of his shoes – were sliced by the overhead security light, and it almost made him look sinister. He was a tall man, with wide shoulders, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Carlos registered that if not for the pleated Dockers and carefully parted hair, he had the potential to be intimidating. But Carlos had long since crossed over the boundary between perceived and actual threats. Tom was about as frightening as a toy poodle.
“I don’t have time for you,” he bit out as he stepped around Alma’s father.
Tom moved quicker than his polished exterior suggested: like his ball playing days weren’t so far behind him. He lunged bodily toward Carlos, hands going for the front of his jacket, and on another night, he might have latched on and flung him to the ground.
But Carlos was running off adrenaline and his reaction time was enhanced. He dodged before Tom was close, the taller man’s hands grasping at empty air as he ducked out of the intended hold and circled around him.
“You sonovabitch!” Tom growled as he pivoted around, shoulders jacked up, arms outstretched. He’d come here for a fight and wasn’t going to be shaken off so easily. “You almost got her killed tonight!” his voice swelled to a roar, and Carlos knew another attack was coming.
He could have outrun the guy, made it into his building. But Carlos was done with running all the way around. He brought up his shoulder and met the rush head-on, getting shoved down to his knee
s under the forward momentum of the former running back. But he gritted his teeth and dug his elbow into the soft middle of Tom’s stomach, using the man’s own energy to send him sprawling backward across the frosty grass.
The air left Tom’s lungs with a loud oomph as he landed hard on his back. Again, Carlos could have made a break for it, but he scrambled to his feet and leaned over the man who’d at one point been his employer, who’d never seen him as anything more than a screw-up kid with a shovel in his hand.
“You think I don’t know that?” he said. “You think I don’t wanna rip the heart outta whoever did it?”
He didn’t see Tom’s foot, but felt it as it came sweeping across the building’s lawn and caught him in the heels, hard. Carlos staggered and threw his hands out so he could catch himself before he face-planted on the ground. Tom brought the kicking leg up and struck again, this time slamming the sole of his loafer across Carlos’s face.
The impact rattled his teeth in his head and stars blossomed in his eyes. The world spun, started to go black, and only then did the pain register: loud and red across the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, fuuuuck…”
He fumbled out with a hand, but slumped to the earth regardless. His head felt two sizes too big, but still, he could sense the cool, damp, crunchy grass, the hardness of the frozen soil beneath. The breath left him much like Tom’s had, and as he grappled for his vision and balance, the other man got to his feet.
“I told you,” Tom panted, lurching upright, “to stay the hell away from her. Alma’s a good girl, she never hurt anybody.”
He sounded desperate, wounded, emotional. He operated in a world where, even though there were arguments and indiscretions, all his problems were well within the realm of legal. Drama was having the paper thrown into the sprinkler at the Harris house. Having to fire someone at work. Spilling coffee on his snappy pants. Drive-by shootings didn’t happen to anyone in Tom’s world, and he didn’t know how to process it. His little girl got speeding tickets, got the occasional C on a test at school, but she did not get shot at. Obviously, since Carlos was the only unsavory element in her life, he’d manage to put the puzzle pieces together; he didn’t know the how or why, but he knew the shooting at Silver Plate had been because of him. And he was, of course, right.
Carlos gathered a breath and rolled over, head still swimming, got up on his hands and knees. He had a fleeting wonder if anyone had seen them here fighting in the shadows and if the cops were on their way to break them up. Then Tom kicked him in the ribs and the whiskey he’d chugged before his little downtown nap churned in his gut.
He retched and was shocked nothing came up. The worst part was that the blow to the face had dissipated any anger he had for Tom. The guy was slowing him up, getting in the way of what he needed to do, but he couldn’t blame him for this. Tom needed an outlet for the rage, someone to blame. And Carlos was, after all, the root cause of all Alma’s problems.
But Carlos wasn’t done righting wrongs, or at least attempting to right them. “Stop,” he croaked, shuffling away from the next kick, still on his hands and knees, wheezing. Tom may or may not have cracked a rib. He coughed so hard he thought he might bring up a lung. “Hold up!”
He had no idea what stayed the next blow, maybe just a desire to knock him back down again once he finally regained his feet, but Tom held off, and Carlos did manage to get to a standing position, albeit with his hands braced on his knees, cold air punching the inside of his chest with each breath.
“I know,” Carlos said when he could, rolling his eyes up so he could see the tall, angry shadow across from him. Tom was completely outside the reach of the security light now, just a black shape in the dark. “Okay? I know. It’s my fault, and I know how bad it coulda gone tonight. Alma…” he didn’t dare finish, like saying it might somehow make it happen.
“I told you to keep the hell away from her.” Tom sounded almost menacing.
“She’s not a little girl anymore. She had a say. I didn’t make her be with me.”
“You should have walked away - ”
“I couldn’t!” Now it was Carlos’s turn to yell indignantly. He straightened, eyes riveted on the spot where he knew the other man’s eyes were fixed in the head-shaped shadow in front of him. “I’m not you, or your wife. She was falling apart and she needed me, and I wasn’t gonna just toss her out ‘cause it was time to get over it already.”
Tom stepped forward into the light, the glare painting deep, dark lines beneath his mouth and eyes. “You - ”
“I know what I am!” he shouted. Because he did: even without a mirror, his own pitiful reflection was always staring back at him, ingrained in his mind’s eye. “I’m outta her life,” he threw up his hands as he started to back away. “You win. You were right. So back the fuck off and let me do what I gotta do.”
Tom offered no further resistance, and Carlos didn’t stick around to chat; let the righteous asshole stand there and chew over just how little credit he gave his daughter.
Once up in his apartment – his empty, cold, lonesome apartment – he rifled through the stacks of mail and assorted takeout menus until he found the latest phone book. He didn’t care that it was after two in the morning, when he found the number for Dolman Development Co, he dialed, and waited while his call was automatically clicked over to voicemail. A perky female voice announced that the office would reopen at eight-thirty the next morning and that if he left his name and number, the nature of his call, someone would get back to him first thing.
At the beep, he said, “I need to talk to Sal. And don’t play stupid about who that is. He needs to call me back now.” He recited his cell number and then hung up. The night around him took a deep breath, and held it.
28
By nine the next morning, Sean was in serious need of a better wakeup than the weak coffee Gilbert set in front of him. He was at the sergeant’s house, his Escalade tucked away in the garage. Mrs. Gilbert had poured herself a mug and returned upstairs, obviously well-versed in the need for privacy during this kind of meeting.
Despite Adam’s red-faced, perpetually clammy state, his always-rumpled suit, the Gilberts’ family room was nicely appointed. Their house was a narrow little bungalow, and the family room was at the very back of the house, windows on three sides overlooking a backyard that, though tidy, was bedded down for winter and offered little color to the landscape. Sean was on a plush leather loveseat, a chenille afghan brushing up between his shoulder blades. Gilbert was in a matching chair opposite a travel trunk that had been topped with glass that served as a coffee table. Built-in bookshelves flanked the fireplace and flat screen TV hanging above it. The walls were a buttery beige color and added to the room’s sense of warmth and old world charm.
The sergeant was drinking milk, a half-eaten English muffin on a plate he’d set down on the coffee table and hadn’t picked back up. The cozy furnishings, the suburban quaintness of his breakfast all jarred with the heavy frown he was giving Sean. His face looked like a vertical accordion, like someone had pushed down on the top of his head and his face had buckled until it was a maze of creases and folds.
“It was a holy fuckin’ mess,” he said. “Thirty-five people in that café and every damn one of ‘em saw something different. The manager said she saw you open fire on the place.”
“I was gettin’ the looks,” Sean said with a tired sigh. He rubbed at his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. “But no, wasn’t me.”
“I know that,” Gilbert snorted. “Cobb County has agreed to cooperate, but a public spectacle like this has people in a goddamn frenzy. I dunno that we can keep going like this.”
Sean nodded, because he knew it was true. It was bad enough his undercover sting had put actual drugs on the street, and Sam’s murder weighed heavily on him, day-in-day-out, but something like a drive-by shooting in a suburban city like Marietta, in an upscale part of town no less, was unforgivable. He knew the clock was now ticking: bring down
Dolman soon, or risk losing him altogether.
“What about your guy? Something with an S?”
“Sal,” Sean frowned. “Can’t get a hold of him.” Because, he feared, Sal had wised up to the truth behind the cover.
“Morales?”
“No.” And if someone like Sal knew Sean was a cop, then he’d assume Carlos knew it too. Clearly, Carlos wasn’t the only one in danger, but everyone connected to him as well.
A cell phone chimed to life, and Sean was so out of it, it took him a moment to realize that it was his. He leaned toward the far arm of the love seat and pulled his iPhone out of his jacket pocket. The number was unfamiliar.
**
“What up?”
“Alma Morales,” she identified herself, cringing inwardly. She’d debated for nearly a half hour that morning, not sure if she dared trust Sean. She still wasn’t entirely sure she believed he was a real cop, or that he had anyone’s interest besides his own to worry about. But memories of Carlos the night before, the dark glint in his eyes, had won out. He was in a bad place and she didn’t know how to help him anymore.
There was a rustling sound on the other end of the line. And when Sean spoke next, the put-on swagger had disappeared from his voice. “You heard from Carlos?”
Feeling a little like a backstabber, she said “yeah,” a sigh accompanying her words. “He stopped by the house late last night.”
“And you didn’t call me then?”
“I’m calling you now.”
A beat passed. Message received. “Where are you now?”
An involuntary shiver tingled up her spine. She was not a nervous person, but after last night, she was thoroughly rattled. Learning that Carlos had a dark side she hadn’t known about had her doubting her perceptive skills. And being the target of a shooting – she was no dummy; she’d watched enough CSI to know that if her boyfriend was the only Silver Plate employee’s boyfriend peddling drugs, chances were high the message had been meant for Carlos – had her nerves a jumbled mess. She’d finally turned in around four in the morning, only to startle at every creak and groan of the house. She’d stared at the popcorn ceiling and held her breath as the tree outside the window danced around in the wind, scraping against the siding. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was, not even Sean, she realized. Especially not Sean.
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