Try Dying

by James Scott Bell

  Mrs. Salazar was silent for a minute. Outside, a car drove by blasting music that rattled the windows. She closed her eyes and waited for the din to stop.

  “The gangs,” she said. “I am too afraid.”

  She looked it, too. “Mrs. Salazar, no one will know about this. I won’t come back again, I promise.”

  “Please to go now.”

  “Last time I was here, there was an explosion.”

  “Sí.”

  “There was a little girl outside your house, she had a new bike, I talked to her. I saw her lying on the street after the explosion.”

  She nodded. “Mashara. Live two houses that way.” She pointed.

  “Is she okay?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “I just want you to know, Mrs. Salazar, I know who did it, and I want to find him and keep him from doing it again. That’s a promise to you.”

  I turned to go.

  “Wait,” she said. “This thing you can do?”

  “I can try.”

  She looked into my eyes as if trying to read a distant sign. “Okay. I will do this thing. To help you speak.”

  “Help me make the call?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you.” I opened my phone and dialed the number for Estrada. After two rings a man’s voice answered in Spanish.

  “Tomás Estrada?”

  “No.”

  “This is the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  “Eh?”

  “Momento,” I said. I handed the phone to Mrs. Salazar. “Tell him it’s the police.”

  She translated for me. Then lowered the phone. “He want to know your name.”

  “Lieutenant Walbert,” I said. “Tell him we have a city check for him.”

  She conveyed the message. “He ask what for.”

  “For his time in giving a statement.”

  Mrs. Salazar spoke in Spanish, then back to me. “How much?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Three hundred. To be delivered today. By hand.”

  She told him and listened. They went back and forth a bit. Then: “He say to go to El Tapado. It is in La Puente. Tomás go there at night, but not come home.”

  “Tell him Lieutenant Walbert thanks him.”

  She did. I took the phone and closed it. “Thank you, Mrs. Salazar.”

  “You must be very careful,” she said.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  36

  TWO HOUSES DOWN, I knocked on the door. A woman of about forty, looking tired and suspicious, opened the inner door.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “What is it?” She spoke through the heavy screen of the outside door.

  “Are you Mashara’s mother?”

  “Who are you?”

  “No one. I was here when the explosion happened. I had spoken to your daughter just before.”

  “Granddaughter.”

  “I was wondering how she’s doing.”

  The woman studied me for a long moment. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just was in the neighborhood and I—”

  “How’d you get this address?”

  “Ma’am, I was just asking. I hope she’s all right.”

  The woman said, “You with the police?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Who then?”

  “Just a guy who was here. Sorry I disturbed—”

  The woman said, “She’s hurt bad, but she’s going to be all right.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “I hope she recovers real soon.”

  “Why do people do things like that?” the woman asked. “Why?”

  Good question. One I couldn’t answer. One that kept after me all the way into the night, when I drove down to El Tapado.

  37

  THE PLACE WAS dark and wooden, with some backlit signs for Dos Equis and Corona and a mirror behind the bar. A small TV was perched on a cantilevered mount in the corner at the far end, with the volume cranked up. A soccer game was on, and a bunch of men watched it with macho intensity.

  I bellied up to the bar at the opposite end, aware of the looks I was getting, and stayed there until the glum bartender headed my way. He was short and dark, with a thick black moustache. He didn’t say anything, just flicked his head a little to indicate he was listening.

  “I’m here to see Tomás Estrada,” I said.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the bartender said, “See your badge.”

  “We don’t need no stinking badges.”

  He glared, confused.

  “I’m not a cop,” I said.

  “What you doin’ here?”

  Not the usual greeting one gets from the service industry. “Tomás Estrada.”

  “Look around you, man.” His accent was heavy, but his pronunciation suggested he could converse in English. “Hear what I’m saying? You come around here, not a cop, you get into a little hot water, eh?”

  “No trouble,” I said. “I’m not here to mess with anybody. It’s a personal thing.”

  He looked me up and down.

  “You want to check me for anything?” I offered.

  He shook his head. “You do anything in here, man, you don’t get out.”

  “I’m good with that. Is he here?”

  The bartender looked over my shoulder. I turned around and saw a guy sitting in a wooden booth under an Aguas Frescas Cañita sign.

  I walked to the table. The man was looking into a glass of beer. A Carta Blanca bottle sat off to the side. He didn’t look up when I got there. It was obvious to me he knew I was in the bar and he wasn’t going to acknowledge it.

  “Tomás?”

  He took a sip of beer, staring straight ahead.

  “You knew Ernesto Bonilla?”

  Now he looked at me through narrow eyes that had a slight downward tilt. They gave him a sad look. His brown skin was marred by a gash on his right cheek that looked three or four days old. “Who are you?”

  “Name’s Buchanan.”

  “Don’t know you.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Don’t want to know you.”

  “Buy you a beer?”

  He shook his head. A cheer went up from the bar. Somebody had scored a goal for the home team. Tomás looked past me toward the TV screen. I slid into the booth.

  “You follow fútbol?” I said.

  “Hey man—”

  “Ever see Serriano?”

  “You know Serriano?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I knew Serriano only because our firm once represented his agent in a contract dispute with Nike. Serriano was apparently hot stuff down Mexico way. He had rock star charisma, and they wanted to bring him up to the States. But a couple of years after the Nike deal fell through he got drunk with a bunch of his friends and decided to go bullfighting on a farm outside Mexico. He got a little unplanned groin surgery. Career over.

  Tomás softened a bit. “I ask who are you.”

  “I’m a lawyer. I need to find something out about Ernesto’s death.”

  “Don’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Man, I don’t got to answer.”

  “No, you don’t. And I don’t have to buy you another beer, but I’m going to.”

  “You think then I talk? Happy little wetback likes his cerveza?”

  “You can do whatever you want. But I said I would, so I’m going to and you can drink it or not, we clear?”

  He shrugged. I went to the bar and ordered another Carta Blanca and didn’t get any hard looks from the patrons, who were concentrating on the game and apparently had accepted my presence.

  Back at the table, Tomás accepted the beer and poured some in his glass, then asked, “How come you interested?”

  “Because when Ernesto’s body hit a car a woman died. That woman was my fiancée.”

  He shook his head. “No lie?”

  “No lie, Tomás.”

  He scratched t
he back of his neck like a man considering which shirt to put on. “Man, look, what is happen to Ernesto is no good. What is happen to you, I am sorry for. Yeah, I am. But look, I no can say nothing.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  His eyes flicked to the left, then back at me. “Don’t want to.”

  “You afraid of something?”

  “Look, man—” He stopped. Three men were at the table, laughing and pointing at Tomás, and saying a bunch of things in Spanish. My Spanish skills dropped off greatly after twelfth grade with Señora Padilla. But it was apparently something really funny—or else the result of too many beers—that had the trio in stitches.

  Nervously, Tomás laughed and returned some banter. One of the men, with an ample stomach doing damage to a tight flannel shirt, looked at me and stopped laughing. He said something to Tomás, and I recognized enough of the words to know it had to do with me.

  Tomás appeared even more nervous as he answered. Whatever he said rolled off the backs of the other two, but El Estómago kept glaring at me. I looked at Tomás and waited.

  A few more words and the three left, bobbing and weaving between tables back to the bar.

  “You better get out now,” Tomás said.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. Do it now.”

  “You haven’t told me—”

  He leaned over. “Let it go, man. I’m saying to you, let it go. You keep on about Ernesto, man, the guys at Triunfo gonna hear about it.”

  “At what?”

  “Triunfo, man. Where you at?”

  “How do you spell—”

  Slapping the table, Tomás said, “You don’t go now you gonna get hurt.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up!” He slid out of the booth, grabbed the beer I’d bought him, and walked to the crowd at the bar, joining his three friends. The big one was still looking at me.

  I got out.

  38

  THE NIGHT AIR was clammy. Lights from the bar cast a dull, multi-colored patch on the sidewalk, like a kid’s melted snow cone. Even the mess of light seemed dirty. I’d parked my car at the end of the lot, where the light barely reached. That’s why I walked quickly. But not quickly enough.

  The fat one stepped out from the shadows. He must have gone out a back way. His face was barely visible, but I saw enough of it to see he was smiling.

  I stopped. He looked at my Cabriolet. “She’s a nice car, man.”

  He’d obviously had his fill of beer and now had nothing good on his mind. I wasn’t going to be getting in my car anytime soon.

  “Can I have it?” he said.

  “You want my car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go to law school.”

  I thought about turning and running. The guy, big and sodden as he was, would not be able to keep up. Then I could call a cop and get safely out of there. Meanwhile, El Estómago could mess up my car all he wanted. No big deal. I had insurance.

  But I didn’t run. I was through running from people like this. I had no idea what I was going to do at that moment, except not run.

  “Car like that,” he said, “cost money. Big money, eh?”

  “Why don’t you go have another beer?”

  “Got no money.”

  “Ask one of your friends.”

  “You,” he said.

  “You’re on your own.” I started to walk around the back of the car so I could come up the other side. But he stepped in front of me and that’s when I saw the knife. I don’t know if he drew it just then or if he’d had it in his hand all along. The weapon seemed to have a personality all its own, big and blustery like its owner.

  Running was the right thing to do. Instead, I put my hands in the air and said, “Sure. Fine. You can have my wallet. I don’t want any trouble.” I reached in my pocket and pulled the wallet out and tossed it at his feet.

  The moment he looked down, I kicked him between his legs as hard as I could. It was a stupid thing to do. One wave of his hand and he could have gutted me.

  But everything aligned just right and he doubled over. As hard as I could, I kicked him in the face. He went down on his side.

  That’s when I lost it. I entered an acid fog that burned my senses and took away all human will. What I did next was pure animal.

  I jumped up and stomped his head with my right foot. He groaned but was clearly out. That’s where I should have left it. But I did the same thing again. The rage that had been building up, all of the reactions against being knocked over the head by lower forms of life like this fat slob bubbled up in my chest.

  Only a vague thought that I might kill this guy with the next blow stopped me. I picked up my wallet and when I got in the car I was shaking so bad I could hardly grip the wheel. I kept looking around. Had anybody seen me? Was someone taking down my license number even now? Calling the police, prepped with a full description?

  I pulled out to the road, still trembling. Slow, hard realizations started falling on me.

  I’d told Tomás exactly who I was. There would be no way I’d get out of this without being ID’d. It wouldn’t take much for the cops to find me, and my tale of self-defense would be my word against everybody else.

  If Tomás went to the police. He and his friends might decide to take things into their own hands.

  The lights got brighter near the 134. I hopped on the freeway, almost running myself into a semi in the process.

  It was near midnight when I got home. By then the shakes were coming and going, like I’d just been pulled from the Atlantic and handed a blanket. Sort of like going in and out of consciousness. When I shook, that was all I could think of. When I calmed down I thought of myself. And what I’d just become.

  When I was a kid I saw Death Wish II with Charles Bronson. I remember thinking, as he took down punk after punk, that he seemed to like his “work” a little too much. There was some sort of pleasure in the destruction of loathsome human beings that brought a half smile to his face.

  What I’d just done was a Bronson thing, but this wasn’t the movies. There would be no half smiles, no credits at the end after rough justice had been meted out. You had the feeling Bronson was always comfortable in that craggy skin. My own skin was vibrating with adrenaline and fear.

  I turned out all the lights and lay down on the sofa and tried to get my breathing steady. Couldn’t.

  I needed a drink. That would calm me down. I hadn’t thought about drinking since Jacqueline’s death. She didn’t want me to, and it was no big deal not to. But I had some Jim Beam in a cupboard, and right now I wanted the smoky heat in my throat and stomach and head. What I wanted was to drink, put on Gretchen Wilson, and pour another round, and another, until I passed out.

  The JB was half full. I took down a shot glass and poured one. Lifting it to my mouth, I thought of Jacqueline. She invaded my thoughts, like if I took the drink I’d be shaming her memory.

  But she was dead. Dead and over, and she wasn’t coming back, so what was I doing trying to find out anything about how she died? Would that make it any better? Would it make one bit of difference in the whole big world of things? Would I reach some sort of beatific vision or get closure or anything else worth getting?

  At that moment I thought I might hate Jacqueline now, or the memory of her, for bringing me nothing but grief. Maybe that’s what Poe felt like when he wrote “The Raven,” which we all read in middle school thinking the guy should get over that stupid chick Lenore already.

  Jacqueline wasn’t coming back and I could get drunk again. I wanted to fall into that amber glow and pass out like I used to in my good old college days.

  The shot glass hit my lips.

  I didn’t drink. I still don’t know why. Poured it down the drain, took the bottle and did the same. And noticed, as I did so, that I was crying.

  39

  ON MONDAY I felt like the entire cast of a George Romero zombie movie. The weekend was lost to me. I hadn’t showered or shaved, nor had I left the
house. I didn’t answer the phone or return messages. I felt like I slept through Saturday and Sunday, and probably did sleep through a lot of it.

  But I had to go into the office, had to pull myself back to the old life. Had to find Tyler Buchanan again, the respected lawyer, not some half-animal prowling bars and kicking people in the face.

  I wasn’t succeeding, not even when I got behind my desk and fired up the computer for the day’s work.

  I couldn’t concentrate. My head started pounding at nine-twenty. At nine-thirty I called Al and asked him to come see me. He was in five minutes later.

  “What’s up?” he asked, tossing himself into one of the client chairs.

  “You talk to McDonough today?”

  “Only about your future, which is sinking like a stone.”

  “I’m not kidding around.”

  “Neither am I. There’s a spot in the Xerox room that has your name written all over it.”

  “I’m really not kidding, Al. Cut it.”

  “Hey, you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. My head feels like it’s being pulled apart by tractors. I can’t sleep, and I know my work on Edwards is floating in the toilet. I just want to know from you if you have any word about what the big man is saying or thinking, so I don’t go down the toilet with it.”

  Al fiddled with his tie. A regular Oliver Hardy. “All seriousness aside, buddy, he did make a little mention.”

  “Wonderful. What did he say?”

  “Hey, no big deal. He just asked me if I thought you were all right. He understands about Jacqueline. I think he just wants to know that you’re going to bounce back and be right where you were before this all happened.”

  “I’m not going to be where I was. I don’t know if I even want to be.”

  “You’re just talking out of frustration, you can—”

  “I got plenty to be frustrated about. While this Edwards thing is going on, there’s some weird stuff about Jacqueline’s death. Stuff I can’t leave alone.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you. All you have to know is I can’t leave it alone, and it may impact some of the stuff I’m doing here at the office. It would be a great favor to me if you would consider covering for me every now and then.”