by Dave Stanton
John hung up and drove to Pistol Pete’s, where Vic Severino awaited him.
“Call a local furniture store and have them deliver mattresses,” Severino said, his black eyes like lead balls, his complexion dark and grainy, like an Arab’s. He handed John a wad of cash. “Better buy some groceries, too.”
“What about finding these guys somewhere to live permanent?”
“The main man is named Joe Norton. You’ll meet him tomorrow. Work with him on that.”
The following afternoon John drove an hour to the airport in Reno. Robert followed him in the Buick John bought for him when they moved out west. Though Robert had a driver’s license, John tried not to let him drive unless necessary. Sometimes it became awkward—at thirty-two, Robert was a grown man and wanted to be treated as such.
Leaning against his car at the curbside, John lit a stogie while Robert tried to describe a drum part he was learning. When Robert was a child, he put together a makeshift drum kit out of pots, pans, wood blocks, and cardboard boxes. The rhythms he created prompted John to ask the local high school’s music teacher to assess his son’s talent. Within a year, at the age of eight, Robert was declared a musical savant. His inability to turn his hands palm up did not detract from his skill at playing complex and difficult drum parts. His deformity actually allowed him to pound the skins with a power rarely seen. The speed and coordination of his feet was even more impressive. He took a liking to speed metal and could handle the genre’s most demanding double bass pedal arrangements.
When Joe Norton and the half dozen men with him came out of the airport terminal, John had a brief moment of denial. The tattooed, T-shirted men were clearly drunk, trading profane insults and making a spectacle of themselves. One of them, a wire dangling from his ear, held his hand to his mouth and made noises that sounded like a gorilla grunting in anger. John squinted at the man.
“What the hell—”
“Hey, he’s good,” Robert said.
“At what?”
“It’s called screaming. You’ve heard it in the music I listen to.”
“You call that music, huh?”
“Ahh, Dad.”
“Which one of you is Norton?” John said.
“I’m Joe Norton,” the largest man said.
“John Switton. Load your gear in the trunks and let’s go.”
“We were thinking of going downtown, raising a little hell first.” Norton smiled, his teeth reminding John of a horse’s mouth.
“Suit yourself. You can take a cab to Tahoe then.”
“What would that cost?”
“At least a hundred.”
Norton knew nothing about John Switton, and he didn’t like the man’s dismissive tone, especially in front of his boys. But something about the gray light in the older man’s eyes made Norton pause.
“You heard him,” Norton said, his smile gone. “Load up.”
5
As was my habit, I woke at dawn. Cody’s chainsaw snoring was audible from the guest room while I brewed a pot of coffee. I poked around my refrigerator, hoping to find enough provisions to make an acceptable breakfast. Given Cody’s appetite, it was an unlikely notion. I strapped on my full-size backpack and jogged a mile out to the supermarket and bought three dozen eggs, a couple pounds of bacon, some cartons of frozen hash browns, and two loafs of bread. As an afterthought I grabbed a dozen donuts from the bakery. I almost made it to the checkout counter before I turned around and picked up a fifth of vodka and a bottle of Bloody Mary mix.
Pine needles crackling beneath my shoes, I jogged home through streets still shrouded in the gray of dawn but randomly streaked with light where the early sun pierced the trees. My breath was steaming, and I had to ball my fists against the cold.
“Where the hell have you been?” Cody groused when I came inside. He was sitting at my kitchen table in his boxer shorts, a blanket over his shoulders, holding a coffee cup in front of him with both hands.
“Turn on the heat if you’re cold,” I said, and shrugged out of the pack and put a frying pan on the stove. Within a minute the kitchen was alive with the sizzle of eggs, potatoes, and bacon.
By the time we finished eating, the morning chill had dissipated and my yard was in full sunlight. We sat at the picnic table on my deck, reading the newspaper. A twenty-year-old compact Toyota pickup sputtered by, then turned around at the end of the street and came back, rolling to a stop in front of my house. The truck looked to have once been red, but it was now a hodgepodge of rust and primer. The passenger door opened, and we watched Juan Perez walk up my driveway carrying a black binder.
“Hey, Juan, what’s happening?” I said.
“Hola, Mr. Reno.”
“Just call me Dan, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Cody, this is Juan Perez. I’m going to be speaking in front of his class for career day.”
“Really?”
“That’s right.”
Cody stood and shook hands with Juan, who eyed Cody uncertainly.
“Who’s that in your truck, young man?” Cody said, looking at the dark-haired woman sitting behind the wheel.
“It is my sister, Teresa.”
“Well, invite her over. Maybe she’d like a cup of coffee.”
Juan went back to his truck and after a minute I looked up from the sports page and saw them walking toward us. I blinked and folded the newspaper shut and stood when she stepped onto the deck.
“Hola, senorita,” Cody said. “Mi nombre es Cody Gibbons.”
“Buenos dias. Soy Teresa.”
“Hi Teresa,” I said. “I’m Dan Reno. I’m helping Juan on his school project.” I held my eyes on hers, resisting the urge to stare down at her voluptuous body, which was clad in blue jeans and an orange cotton shirt that clung to her curves.
“Would you like coffee, or anything, Teresa?” Cody asked.
“No, thank you.”
“I just brewed a fresh pot.”
“Maybe a half-cup, then. With sugar, please.” Cody went inside, and we sat and began reviewing the pages in Juan’s binder.
“Juan tells me you’re a private eye,” Teresa said. She was sitting next to Juan and across from me, her hands folded under her chin.
“That’s right. I also have a bounty hunting license.”
“Bounty hunting? Do you work for the police?”
“No, but I frequently cross paths with them.” I looked up from the sheet I was trying to read. Her hair was thick and jet-black and fell over her forehead and around her cheeks. The ends were lighter in color and rested where her shirt was pulled tight over her breasts. “I’m usually hired by private individuals, attorneys, or bail bondsmen.”
“What do they hire you for?” She looked at me with frank interest, her eyes large and curious, her brown skin smooth and without the slightest blemish.
I smiled. “This will help me rehearse for talking to Juan’s class, I guess. Sometimes I look for missing people. Other times, I try to collect information about people, usually information they’d rather keep secret.”
“Like a man cheating on his wife?”
I nodded. “Divorce cases sometimes call for a private investigator.”
“How about drug dealing?”
Cody walked out just then and placed a cup in front of Teresa, on one of the little saucers I never used. “Here you are,” he said.
“Gracias.”
“Drug dealing is something I come across a lot in my work,” I said. “It’s a very common crime.”
“What would you do if drugs were being dealt in your neighborhood?”
I rubbed my jaw. “Depends if it was bothersome.”
“What if it was?”
“In that case I’d decide whether to call the police or discourage them myself.”
“Why?” Cody said. “Do you have a problem where you live?”
“No, we don’t,” Juan said before Teresa could respond. “Can we work on my assignment?”
• �
� •
When Juan and Teresa drove away a half hour later, Cody told me she worked as a cocktail waitress at Pistol Pete’s.
“We talked when we went to look at the meadow. She’s working tonight. Why don’t we drop by and say hello?”
“She’s got to be fifteen years younger than you,” I said.
“So? Your last broad, uh…” He snapped his fingers a few times.
“Beverly.”
“Right. How old was she? Twenty-one?”
“Look, Cody. These people came from one of the poorest areas of southern Mexico. If not for their parents sacrificing everything they had to send them here, they’d probably be dying of malnutrition somewhere, or worse.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“The owner of the restaurant where Juan works told me. He hired Juan out of charity, and says the kid is the hardest worker he’s ever seen.”
“Their English is almost perfect.”
“Juan said his parents made them study it every day.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think he was very happy with you talking to her,” I said.
“Yeah, I saw the looks he was giving me. But he’s gonna have a tough time keeping the horn dogs away from her.”
“Are you speaking for yourself?”
“Now, come on, Dan. I’ve got no dishonorable intentions here. What’s wrong with being friendly? Besides, she told me about a gang of Mexicans selling dope and basically bringing down the standard of living at her apartment complex. I was thinking you and me might take a spin over there and piss in their punch bowl.”
“What? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less. What do you expect to accomplish?”
“From what Teresa says, these guys sit out in the apartment’s common area, getting shitfaced, throwing knives at trees, intimidating the tenants, and claiming the area as their own.”
“Sounds like someone should call the cops.”
“Apparently someone did. One of the gangbangers got busted a couple days ago, but the others are still there as if nothing happened.”
I stacked the papers Juan had left me. “I’ve already got one fine group of citizens on my ass, Cody. Isn’t that enough?
“Hey, I just want to persuade them to tone it down a bit. What harm can come of that?”
I walked inside, hoping he could answer that on his own.
• • •
Later that afternoon, we parked on the street outside the apartment complex where Juan and Teresa Perez lived. Graffiti covered the walls and derelict vehicles lined the street, but flowers hung from the balconies and the sidewalks were chalked with hopscotch games. Two women pushing baby carriages stood chatting on the corner.
We knocked on the door to the Perez’s unit. Teresa opened it in her cocktail waitress outfit, a short, frilly skirt beneath a low-cut top showing ample cleavage. I didn’t see Juan anywhere. I said hello and averted my gaze.
“Hola, Teresa, you look lovely, absolutely gorgeous,” Cody said, staring at her breasts as if his eyes could spring them free of her blouse.
The apartment was clean and looked well organized. The old kitchen table was scratched and marred but polished to a shine, and I could see where a tear in the sofa had been mended with needle and thread.
“They are here,” Teresa said without preamble. She pulled back the curtain over the sliding glass door, and we looked out at the common area. A group of Latino men in red bandanas sat at a picnic table on the edge of the grass, heckling an elderly couple who were hobbling by. The old folks hunched over their walkers, doing their best to ignore the taunts. A minute later two longhaired white dudes approached the table and exchanged cash for small packages hidden in their palms. After they walked away, two of the gangbangers stood and hit off their beer bottles, then began sparring, throwing slaps at each other until one backed off.
“Let’s go suggest a change of scenery to these pendajos,” Cody said, sliding open the glass door. We walked across the grassy area to where they stood.
“What’s going on, boys?” Cody said. The men stared at us with blank eyes. A couple of them were probably teenagers, the rest in their twenties. Tattoos covered their brown skin, their teeth flashed with silver caps, and the pants they wore sagged low on their hips.
“You want something?” said the largest of the bunch, his torso fat and barrel shaped. He stepped to within an arm’s length of Cody and gave him the dead eye.
“You want to sell drugs, go find somewhere else to do it,” I said, addressing a man with angular eyes and a square jaw. “The people living here have a right to this area.”
“You a funny man, homes,” he replied. “Maybe not too smart, though.”
“I think you’re the one with an intelligence issue,” Cody said. The fat man started to say something, but Cody shoved him and sent him sprawling over the table.
The cholos jumped at us, circling, getting in position to rush from all sides. I heard the flick of a knife, and saw a blade in the hand of one of the younger gangbangers. He came at me and I kicked his wrist, my foot extending over his head. The knife flew from his hand, then I grabbed him by the hair and pounded his face into the large pine tree shadowing the table. He flailed, but after the third blow he dropped to the ground, bleeding from the mouth and unconscious. Before I could turn, another one jumped on my back. I hit him hard in the ribs with an elbow, peeled his hand from my throat, and slapped him into a wrist lock. When he bent to keep his arm from breaking, I kicked him in the gut, and he collapsed and lay in the fetal position.
Two of the gang ran at Cody. One got behind him and swung a forty-ounce Budweiser bottle, shattering it over his skull. Cody turned and grabbed the man’s neck, then picked him up by the crotch and launched him into the other Latino. They went down in a heap.
The Mexicans regrouped, waving bottles and knives, circling. Cody and I were waiting for their attack when two men in street clothes walked into the square.
“Looks like cops,” Cody said, a thin trickle of blood running beside his ear.
Four of the gangbangers bolted, leaving the unconscious member lying near the tree. The two Cody and I had spoken to remained, apparently unconcerned about the arrival of whoever was coming our way. Probably because they weren’t holding drugs, I guessed.
“You recognize them?” Cody said, nodding at the white men walking toward us.
“I’ve seen the bigger guy before. Pretty sure he works for Douglas County.”
“What’s he doing in California, then?”
The two men approached and flashed badges.
“What happened to him?” said the smaller one, a pock-faced man with black hair. He pointed at the prone Latino, who lay near the picnic bench, blood trickling from his mouth.
“He was playing Frisbee and ran into the tree,” I said.
The man glared at me, but his big partner’s freckled face split into a grin.
“Don’t you hate it when that happens?” he said.
“If you two are here buying dope, you’re out of luck,” Pock Face said. “So get lost.” He began searching the two gangbangers, ignoring us as Cody and I backed away to the small patio of the Perez apartment. Theresa opened the sliding door while we watched the cops handcuff their suspects.
“It’s Rodrigo,” Theresa said. “Their leader.” She pointed to the slim man being led away. He was walking in starts and stops and leaning unexpectedly, making it difficult for the cop to guide him smoothly. It was an old prison trick.
“I guess our work is done here, huh?” I said to Cody.
“For now, I suppose,” he replied.
“Looks like the police are taking care of those guys, Teresa,” I said.
“I appreciate you coming.” She bowed her head and smiled shyly, standing with her small feet together. She wore black flats, her calves full and well shaped, her thighs curving invitingly into the ruffles of her short dress.
“Of course,” Cody said grandly. “We are at your se
rvice, senorita.”
“Oh, Mr. Gibbons, you are bleeding.”
“It’s nothing, just a scratch.”
“You have glass in your hair. Sit, and let me clean it for you.”
Cody sat at the kitchen table and Teresa began combing out the shards from the broken bottle. Soon a small pile of bloody slivers lay on the newspaper she’d laid on the table.
“You have some cuts,” she said. “I will clean them with alcohol.”
When she finished, Cody said, “Thank you, Teresa. If you have any trouble, ever, you can call me.”
“Okay, Mr. Gibbons,” she laughed. “I will remember that.”
We left after Cody said a prolonged good-bye, and drove out to Highway 50, heading toward the state line.
“I should call Marcus Grier,” I said.
“Grier? Does he still hate my guts?”
“Probably.”
“I could never figure out what his problem was.”
“He’s a lawman, Cody. Every time he’s met you, it’s been in the middle of a shit storm you created.”
“What? That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard worse,” I said, pulling into Whiskey Dick’s. He gave me a curious look as I left him at the bar and went to a table in the corner to call the sheriff. After a minute I was connected to Grier.
“Say that again?” he said.
“A couple plainclothesmen just arrested two Mexican gangbangers at the Pine Mountain Apartments,” I said. “I recognized one of them—about six-four, with a face like a fish. I ran into him once in Douglas County.”
I could hear Grier breathing in the phone. “Describe the other one.”
“Five-nine, dark hair, acne scars.”
“Thanks for the information,” he said, and hung up.
At the bar, Cody was shaking a dice cup and eating a bag of potato chips. “What’d your buddy have to say?” he said.
“He didn’t sound too happy.”
“You mean he didn’t like the concept of out-of-state cops coming into his backyard and making arrests?”
