by R. O. Barton
“Cool,” he said, looking at me with what looked like amazement mixed with envy.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing, just cool,” he said, taking another hit.
“Robby, when do we get paid?” I asked, sitting down on the bed next to the money.
“I was wondering when you were going to ask. Our money’s in there,” he said pointing to the bag. “Already separated. You’ll have it in your hands by the time we leave Laredo.”
That surprised me, but, before I could say anything, there was a knock on the door, to the rhythm of ‘shave-and-a-hair-cut-two-bits’.
I grabbed the shotgun and held it in my right hand, out of sight below the edge of the bed. Robby saw this and grinned, put up his hand, signaling it was all right, walked over and opened the door.
Phil walked in and behind him was a familiar face, Allen Tucker, my first cousin. Allen’s about five years older than me, the son of my father’s oldest brother, Roy.
So, Allen was ‘Good Buddy.’ Allen is also a cop in Alexandria.
“Hey, Cuz,” he said, grinning. “Close your mouth before something flies in it.”
I surmised Allen was the mutual acquaintance Robby said we had on the Alexandria Police Department.
Allen was carrying a six-pack of Budweiser. He too, I knew, stayed away from the hard stuff.
“Allen’s been on my team from the beginning,” Robby said, through a cloud of reefer madness.
I stood up when they came in and was still holding the shotgun.
“I told you,” he said, slapping Phil on the back. “You’re not going to slip up on Tuck.”
He knew better than to call me by my first name.
I threw the shotgun on the bed and walked over to shake his hand.
“I’m speechless,” I said, while we were shaking. “A little shocked.”
“Not as shocked as I was when Robby told me you were coming in on this. I’m glad to have you and your gun with us, Tuck. I had Robby come down to Alec to watch you shoot. Then you and Margie moved to Shreveport and look at us now.”
Allen and I had hunted together as kids, but as adults we more often than not saw each other at the gun range. He and his wife, Lorna, lived in a nice house in the country outside Alec; too nice for a cop’s salary. I always assumed Lorna came from money. Maybe not.
I was feeling much, much better about this deal. I had family here. I knew Allen would answer any questions I might have, and he wouldn’t lie to me.
He saw the Jack Daniels on the dresser and made a disapproving face, looked me in the eyes and shrugged while winking. He threw me a beer, and a church key to open it with.
Allen was typical for a Tucker, good looking, muscular five-nine and about 185 pounds, brown hair with blue-green eyes.
I was taller, but I wouldn’t want him mad at me.
He said, “Let’s relax a bit and find out what’s going on.”
He looked questionably at Robby. That told me he didn’t know much more than I did. The ‘much, much better’ was just reduced to ‘much’.
I opened my beer and tossed the church key back, which he deftly caught.
He read my face and said, “Tuck, after what happened to the last team, things had to change, for security. We decided it best if Robby kept the plans of this trip to himself until we got here.”
The seriousness of his demeanor just reduced it to, ‘a little better’.
Phil hadn’t said a word since arriving. He was standing by Robby, sharing the joint, watching the reunion. He didn’t seem as antagonistic towards me. He was looking at me like he’d just met me, but this time, liked me.
“Tucker,” he said, walking over with his hand outstretched, “I would like to apologize for being such an asshole. If we’re going to be working together, we need to be friends. Allen’s told me a lot about you on the way down, and I’m glad you’re with us.”
As I shook his hand, I said, “Thanks, Phil, but I’m probably still going to be a smart ass.”
Everybody laughed, and Phil said, “Yeah, Allen told me that was your nature, but you could back it up.”
“Yeah, my mouth has gotten me into trouble a few times.”
Allen said, “I told them about the pennies.”
“Great,” I said dryly.
When I was 16, I was running with a rough crowd of older guys, between 18 and 20. I had a reputation for being tough, but, these guys were the real deal. We were sitting at a table in a bar called ‘The Drive-thru’, when in walked Richard Bardwell from Pineville. Richard was about 19 and also had a reputation. We almost got into it one night at a dance, but the cops showed up. I remember being relieved. Anyway, after he walked in and bellied up to the bar, I said, “For 2 cents, I’d get up and whip his ass.” I suppose I was feeling like I needed to be tough.
The pennies hit the table bouncing and spinning, making a racket before settling. The guys I was sitting with had just called my bluff. They were not smiling. I remember instead of feeling tough, I felt stupid, and afraid. Richard Bardwell was a mean mother.
“Yeah, but he didn’t tell me who won the fight,” Phil said. “He just said it was a short, bloody one.”
I said, “Nobody won that fight. I walked away, he didn’t, but I’m sure it took me longer to recover. I really took a beating before landing a couple of lucky punches.”
“From what I heard you didn’t throw any punches, you never hit him with your fist. I heard you used everything but your fists.” Allen said.
“Is that true?” Phil said to me.
“I just remember it was unpleasant. I try to forget unpleasant events.”
Robby opened a beer and said, “Let’s get down to business.” He picked the money up off the bed and threw it on the floor with no more respect than a sack of potatoes.
I picked up the shotgun and propped it against the wall by the door, and we sat down on the beds with our beers, whiskey . . . and pistols.
After we were settled, Robby said, “Okay, this is the way it’s going down. Teemo, that’s our Mexican connection, you two remember Teemo, right?”
Allen and Phil nodded.
“Okay, Teemo’s going to come by at 5:30 this afternoon and we’re going to follow him down to Mexico and buy the pot, load it up and go home.”
Allen and Phil looked at each other with equal confusion.
“What!” they said in unison.
“That’s fucked,” said Sunshine Phil.
“I don’t like it,” Allen said, looking at me.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I just got here. How does it usually go down?”
Allen said, “They usually bring it here, we load it in a U-haul trailer and go home.”
I felt my jaw drop. This must be the stuff Robby referred to earlier.
“Excuse me,” I said, “You’re telling me you guys would load up a trailer with pot, right here in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn.”
“Yeah,” Robby said, chuckling. “It’s great. The pot’s in these boxes labeled tomatoes and we looked just like some vegetable entrepreneurs. Hiding in plain sight, you know.”
I started laughing and said, “That’s great. Why can’t we do that this time? Why do we have to drive into Mexico?”
Robby looked at us one at a time and said, “After the last team got hijacked and whacked, Teemo called and said he had a new connection. A much better price and better quality grass, we just have to go and get it.”
It was very quiet. The three of us who just got the news were weighing the risk. I didn’t need to weigh as much as Allen and Phil, because it was all new to me. But their indecision was infectious.
Allen spoke first. “How do you see it happening, Robby?”
“In the morning, Phil goes and rents a U-haul trailer, one of those 8 or 10 footers should do it. After Teemo gets here, we follow him for a couple hours. That’s how long he said the drive was. The route’s all figured out, no problem. Allen, you stay here with the Impala. Phil, Tucker and
I will pull the trailer with the Bronco. Teemo said we will need a four-wheel drive. We do the deal and call Allen back here at the motel, after we know when we can meet up with him.”
He made it sound easy. I could see some holes, but kept my mouth shut, for the time being. I also wondered just how much we were buying . . . an 8 or 10 footer?
We finished off the beers and Robby and Phil took a couple more swigs from the bottle, but no one got drunk. By 3 a. m., the memory of the road had stopped bouncing in my body, and I wanted to lie down. I was hungry, but wanted to sleep more than eat.
Robby yawned and said, “Let’s get some sleep, and we’ll talk again in the morning. If anybody comes up with any ideas that will help us get this done, we’ll talk about’em over breakfast.”
He gave Allen the key to the adjoining room, and we started getting ready for bed.
A minute later, the door to the adjoining room opened, and Phil said, “Sweet dreams, ladies.”
He was holding a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun in his left hand. He left the door to their room open.
There was a lot of fire power in the two rooms. It would take some very stupid people to break into a motel room full of armed drug runners, I hoped.
I dreamed of making love with Margie and woke missing her. I felt like a little boy spending his first night out, wanting to go home where it was safe and sound. I could hear Robby’s gentle snoring in the other bed. I lay there thinking about the holes in the plan I’d heard last night. I hope they wouldn’t mind taking some advice from someone new. But, then again, this was new to them, too. After all, we wouldn’t be loading boxes of tomatoes from a produce truck to a trailer. We were going to drive to Mexico and bring it back, at night. I felt sure they had the border figured out, but what about the dark? And who were these people Teemo was going to take us to? These questions would have to be discussed over breakfast. I was starving. I looked at my watch. It was 9:27 a. m. .
I got up and went into the bathroom. When I came out after my morning toilet, showering and shaving, Robby was up drinking coffee from a room service pot.
“Took you long enough. I had to use the john in the other room. Damn, your as bad as a woman,” he said irritably. “Want some coffee?”
“Not if it makes me all warm and agreeable like you,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he said, with a smile.
While he was showering, I put on jeans, a black t-shirt, a pair of dingo boots and a long-sleeved denim cowboy shirt. I left the cowboy shirt opened and untucked, with the sleeves rolled up to mid forearm. I put on a cream colored hemp (I swear) cowboy hat that I had shaped myself over a steaming kettle. Pretty much my summer attire.
By 10:30, we were all in the restaurant, clean and awake, with an array of breakfast dishes laid out before us.
Robby had the money bag on the floor between he and Phil.
I had your regular bacon and eggs, with grits. They actually knew what grits were in Laredo. But the other three were definitely into the local cuisine. Juevos Rancheros and western omelets, even some kind of breakfast taco.
As the business at hand required, our table was away from other ears.
After we established an eating rhythm, Robby said, “Anybody have any ideas?”
For some reason everyone was looking at me.
After washing down some eggs and grits with milk and dabbing my mouth with a napkin, I said, “I have some questions and then, maybe some ideas.”
I was proud of myself, watching my manners and all.
“Shoot,” Robby said.
Allen laughed and said, “But not at me.”
“What about the border?” I asked.
“Teemo said it’s the dry season and there’s a crossing about seventy-five miles south of here, around Zapata. The Bronco should make it easy. He said they drive it in pickups carrying wetbacks.”
That sounded doable.
“Let me get this straight. We are going to leave here around 5:30 give or take a half hour, and follow this Teemo guy for a couple of hours into Mexico?”
“That’s right,” Robby said with his mouthful.
The swine.
“In Mexico, in the dark?”
They all stopped chewing
I looked at Robby, and asked, “Did it ever occur to anyone that the hijackers might have been Mexicans?”
Robby looked at Phil and Allen.
Allen said, “We always assumed it was someone from Louisiana, you know, a leak. One of the other team talked too much.”
“Were they the talkative type?” I questioned.
They all three looked at each other, then shrugged.
“Maybe,” Phil said. “Ronnie Leggit was pretty proud of himself and was getting cocky.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s assume there was a leak. Why did the hijackers wait until they were almost to Laredo before ambushing them? Seems to me they could have done it a lot closer to home, save themselves a lot of driving.”
Allen pushed his half-eaten breakfast away. He looked as if he’d lost his appetite.
In the silence that followed, the sounds of the restaurant became amplified.
Phil and Robby stared at each other, both looked constipated.
I said, “Robby, how’d you find out the other team had been hijacked?”
He rubbed his face with both hands, let out a long sigh and said, “Teemo called and told me the guys didn’t show up with the money. He wanted to know if I had heard from them, and I told him no.”
“What was his attitude?” I asked.
“He was pissed off, said this wasn’t any way to do business and what was he going to do with all this product, wanted to know if we could get down here fast with some more money.”
“What?” I said. “How long after the meet time did he call you?”
“I don’t know. A couple hours, maybe three. Why?”
I looked at the three of them, one at time, and said, “Seems to me if the money was just a few hours late, it could have been because of car trouble or a wreck. There’s quite a few reasons they could have been late. Why was he so pissed? Why would he ask for more money if there was a chance they could show up later, and wouldn’t he know you couldn’t get more money in the first place? Smells bad to me.”
“I don’t know, Tucker, Teemo has always played straight with us. I trust him,” Robby said.
Phil nodded and said, “Me too.”
I looked at Allen, “What about you?”
Allen grinned and said, “I don’t trust anybody, but that’s just my nature.”
“Must be genetic,” I said.
I leaned back in my chair, pushed my hat back and said, “To get back to my original question of how did you find out they had been hijacked and killed? You said Teemo called and said they were late, but when and how did you find out they were dead?”
“The next day, Teemo called, said they’d been found by the cops on some back road off highway 59. Said they were shot up pretty bad. It was on the news and shit down here.”
“Did they have ID’s with them?”
“Sure,” Robby said.
“Then why would it be on the news down here before the police in Shreveport were notified of their deaths? Or were they?”
“Fuck,” Robby said, as he leaned back and put his hands behind his head. Looking at the ceiling, he said, “The department didn’t get notified until after I got the call from Teemo.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure, but that still doesn’t mean Teemo was in on it.”
“Were either one of the two a cop?”
“No, I’m the only Shreveport cop, that I know of, and Allen is the only other cop.”
“That you know of,” I said, drinking more of my milk while I digested what I’d just heard. “You’re right, it doesn’t prove anything, but I think it smells bad enough that we need to take some precautions and prepare for the worst case scenario.”
“I’m with Tuck on that,” my cousin sai
d.
“Makes sense,” Phil agreed.
“What do you have in mind?” asked Robby. “You do have something in mind, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it since last night, after I found out we’d be following them into Mexico . . . in the dark.”
Allen chuckled, looking at Phil and said, “Told ya, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” Phil replied.
Robby and I looked like question marks.
“I told Phil on the way down that my cousin here,” he said, pointing his thumb at me like a hitchhiker, “may be 22 but he acts 42, and out of all us cousins, is the smartest, toughest and quickest. I told Phil if made a run at Tuck, Tuck would rip his arm off and beat him to death with it.”
Robby was smiling at this and Phil looked a little uncomfortable.
Rip his arm off?
“The only reason I’d do that,” I said seriously, “is because I have soft hands and they break easy.”
Then I winked at Phil and smiled.
I am charming, and he couldn’t resist.
“Fuck you,” he said, laughing.
We were friends now.
The waitress came over and left the bill, which Robby picked up. So far, I hadn’t dropped any cash on this fandango. There was some satisfaction in that alone, somehow giving credence to the professionalism of the operation.
We were back in the room, sitting around, when Robby asked, “Okay, Tucker, what’s your idea?”
“I’ll need the Impala for an hour or so, and some money to get some supplies.”
Robby was shaking his head when he said, “One of the rules is, once we’re here, we don’t separate.”
I thought back to the other rule, about no phone calls. Robby must have been thinking the same thing. He laughed and shrugged.
“How much money do you need?” he asked.
“Fifty will more than cover it. I’ll bring back the change.”
“I’ll go with him,” Allen said.
“Phil and I will get the trailer I reserved,’ Robby said. “Then we’ll come back and get some more rest.”
Phil walked over, turned on the TV, and laid down on the bed with his hands behind his head.
