by Alan Lee
Ray and Echo reached my side of the street, panting just a bit.
“Still not here,” I said. “Should we go check for my car on the other side again? Simon says?”
“Okay, asshole, we get it. Just leave. Okay?” Ray said.
“Yeah sure. You guys on Facebook? Hit me up.”
Ray and Echo returned to the Addisonian.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Life ain’t easy, boys and girls!” Reginald Willis bawled. “Who told you it was? Lies! You work hard and maybe one day you won’t be poor! Until then, you poor! Poor in spirit, poor in cash, poor in character, and only hard work can save you! You want to watch television the rest of your life? How about you, young lady, you planning on a career of staring at your phone? At Netflix? No ma’am! That ain’t the way!”
The bell rang. Class began.
No Kevin.
I asked Megan, the girl in the front row, “Was Kevin here yesterday?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. August.”
“He came late!” Jeriah shouted from the back. “Skipped this class. ‘Fraid to look at’cha, Mr. August. Hah!”
“Text him. Tell him to get his ass back to my class,” I said.
“Mr. August…you can’t say that.”
“Oh, sorry, Megan, you’re right. Jeriah, tell him I said please. Where are my manners. Happy, Megan?”
“No.”
“Yeah, me neither at the moment.”
* * *
After school in the teachers’ parking lot, an enormous black truck loomed beside my humble Honda. Shiny and intimidating. To lesser men.
Nate Silva buzzed the driver’s window down.
“Hey teacher. Get in.”
“I’m not sure I can,” I said. “Do you have a stepladder?”
He buzzed the window back up. Rude.
I went around, climbed into the passenger’s seat, and closed the door. The spacious cabin smelled like strong cologne, and the pine-scented air freshener hanging from his rearview, and marijuana. The aroma of weed always made me sleepy.
He had a gun in his left fist, but it didn’t scare me. He couldn’t shoot someone sitting in his passenger seat on school grounds, and this parking lot had electronic surveillance.
“You about finished?” Silva asked. He wore jeans and a leather jacket, red T-shirt underneath. His head was freshly shorn.
“With the latest Stuart Woods book? No, haven’t started. What’s that rascal Stone up to now?”
“The fuck you talking about?”
“I’m being witty,” I said, although it should have been obvious.
“This is done. It’s over. You get it? Finito.”
“What are we talking about, Silva?”
“You poking your nose into my business. That’s what. And it’s over,” he said.
“What is your business?”
“My business is my business.”
“Maybe you should ask politely,” I said.
“I asked politely the other night.”
“You send kids to do your scary work?” I asked.
“Next time I won’t.”
It’s hard to sit in a truck cab and glare sideways at each other but we were doing it.
“Don’t come back to my house,” I said.
“Do I need to?”
“That’s not how this works. You send more guys to my house, I won’t play nice. I’ll break their noses and their arms, yeah, but I’ll kill you. You want to be a professional? Learn the rules.”
“Ain’t no rules in the jungle, motherfucker. But I don’t need to come to your house. I can make you stop by using alternate means,” he said.
“Alternate means? Holy smokes, Silva, can you read too? Them’s big words. And what is this alternative? Tickle fight?”
“You’re good, August. I get it. You beat me in that fake fight. You used to be a big shot in Los Angeles. I get it. Okay, motherfucker? I get it. But here, you’re playing with fire. You ain’t as slick as you think. You been seen. Anytime you come round, we see you.”
More teachers came into the parking lot. Laughing. Hurrying home. The big black truck got a few second glances.
“I hear the Bloods got themselves a general,” I said and his expression visibly darkened. He pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed. “And I hear he’s good. That you?”
“That’s me.”
“No it’s not, Silva. You’re small potatoes.”
“Stay alive, Teach. Your boy needs a dad. Go back to the lawyer business,” Silva said.
“Would you mind if I recorded this conversation? So I can remember it all?”
“You show up to work tomorrow, it’s war. You tell anyone about me, it’s war.”
“What the hell do I tell them, Silva? Watch out for the ugly guy in the big black truck because he’ll tell you to stop doing vague things that piss him off?”
“Don’t show up to work tomorrow,” he said.
“I’m going to.”
“Take a sick day.”
“No,” I said, and pulled on the handle to open the door. “Ms. Deere terrifies me. See you tomorrow.”
* * *
Manny came into the kitchen triumphant that evening. Triumph, on his chiseled face, was quite a sight.
I had chili cooking on the stove and Kix watched Sesame Street. An old episode. The guest was Tina Fey.
“Qué onda, cabrón. I tailed your chica,” he announced.
“That better be Spanish for ‘I need a nap.’”
“I followed Ronnie the whole day,” he said.
“I asked you not to.”
“Yeah. Well.”
“For this you are employed by taxpayers?” I asked. “Seems fiscally irresponsible of America.”
“You want to know? What she did?”
“I do not,” I said.
“Yes you do.”
“You’re correct. I do. Tell me.”
He rotated the chair and sat, so that his legs straddled the back. He tapped on his phone a few times, cleared his throat theatrically, and said, “I present to you…La Historia de Ronnie.”
“Want a beer?”
“No. Shush. Her real name is Veronica Summers. Did you know this?”
“I did,” I said.
“No you didn’t. Shush. Veronica Summers rises early. She was at Golds Gym off Electric by five-thirty in the morning. She participated in a hot yoga class and came home without showering.”
“You’re not a member of Golds, Manny. How’d you get in?”
“I smiled at the girl at the desk.”
“Ah,” I said. The chili needed more tomatoes so I diced another half on the cutting board. “You used the force.”
“And if the girl at the desk texts me, I may visit her bedroom. Because that señorita got ass. But I digress. Did I say that correctly? Digress. Ronnie was back at her place by seven, and then out again at seven forty-five.”
“Less than forty-five minutes for shower and makeup,” I noted. “Doesn’t leave much time for prep work.”
“Girl doesn’t take much to look crazy fly, hombre,” Manny pointed out.
“That barn don’t need painting.”
“What?”
“Nada. Carry on.”
“She drove a red Mercedes C-Class to her office, which is off Campbell. Second floor, windows in the back. She stayed there until noon, at which point she lunched alone at The Quarter. A friend or business associate stopped to talk during the final five minutes. The friend would be pretty, if she wasn’t eating with Veronica Summers. You dig?”
“I dig,” I said.
“I got a photo. Wanna view?”
“I do not.”
“Back at the office by one. A lone hombre visited at two. Came with an iPad. Wore a cheap suit. I got a photo. Drove a Toyota, license registered to Fredrick Wheeler. I looked him up, because I am intelligente, and he is a lawyer out of Harrisonburg.”
I said, “Let’s assume that is work related. Does she have a recepti
onist?”
“Sí, Shawna Walsh, and Shawna went home a quarter till four. Ronnie went for drinks at Billy’s. She was much celebrated and sought after, but for the most part she drank alone in the corner, and she talked with the bartender. The bartender’s name is Carrie. Ronnie left for home alone at five. Still there when I left.”
“So, Manuel my suspicious Mexican, we’re no closer to solving the mystery of her secrets. And thusly, I think, we should leave it.”
“Not so fast, maestro. First, I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And second, I went back to her office after five. An hour ago.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“Yes you do,” Manny said. “Her office is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Comprende? Two independent security systems, including one monitored remotely. Bars in the windows. Cameras.”
“Ah hah!”
“Ah hah, what?”
“A clue,” I said.
“I wonder what she keeps in there, jefe.”
“You didn’t find out?”
“No, señor,” he said.
“What does America pay you for?”
“I shoot people in the ass.”
* * *
That night I lay in bed, staying at my iPhone. I’d typed out a text to Sheriff Stackhouse twice. And deleted it twice.
What would I tell her?
Nate Silva told me to go away?
Some high school kids are angry with me?
There may or may not be drugs at a warehouse off Shenandoah?
A guy named Big Will scares Reginald?
There’s a kid named Eddie who will deny everything?
Put it all together, and it gives the appearance of significance. But take it apart and each piece of the whole is thin. Nothing conclusive. And worst of all, they’d figured me out. Almost immediately, so it appeared, and that aggravated me. Was I so clumsy?
I’d done a bad job. No other way to look at it. Now I wanted to run to the police? I’m no amateur. No wimp.
I wanted to piss off Silva. He’d sent kids to my house, he’d pulled a gun on me. I’d go to work tomorrow and see what happened. He promised a war. Now he’d have to deliver. Chances were, though, it’d been a bluff.
Come get me, Silva.
Or Ronnie, either one.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
My car didn’t blow up - I checked first, to be safe, in the morning.
No one followed me to Roxanne’s to deliver Kix. And no one shot me as I pulled into school.
I made copies in the office. The receptionists talked into their phones. Ms. Deere’s heels clicked up the hall and Reginald Willis hummed in his classroom. The custodian was peeling gum off a water fountain. All seemed well. Students soon flooded the halls, same as always.
Pretty boring war.
“Mr. August, Kevin is missing again,” Megan noted, in first period.
“I see that. Jeriah? Any word from our boy?”
“No sir, he don’t tell me nothing.”
* * *
Ronnie texted me during my planning period.
>> Hey handsome stranger
>> There’s a hockey game tonight
>> First game of the season!
>> Meet me at Berglunds Civic Center?
>> I’ve got good seats
I was a man who lived by principles. I paid my taxes and took multivitamins. I ate veggies and avoided gluttony. Rarely was I drunk. I’d read books on how to be a better father. I got enough exercise, and went to bed early as often as I could. I was patriotic and went to church and believed in Jesus and had no debt.
And I didn’t date women like Veronica Summers. She was mysterious, while I wanted an open book life. She disappeared for days and claimed she had secrets and sins I could never discover. She had family trauma she wouldn’t discuss.
And yet. I wanted her. Ronnie was fun and friendly and she read books to kids. She had a law degree and she mixed drinks. She adored my house and my son. She thought I was handsome, and I thought she was the prettiest human being I’d ever seen in real life.
Dating her was going to involve pain. Lots of misery.
But maybe some girls are worth it?
Probably couldn’t figure this out while I grade papers, huh. A lesser man would cower and hide, but not I.
I texted her back.
Should I pick you up?
>> Even better.
>> Afterwards, back to your place.
>> To the guest bedroom this time.
>> For third date bliss.
>> I owe you. >=) =P
* * *
Ronnie wore embroidered white trousers which gathered above the ankle, peep-toe heels with no backs, and a long-sleeve Henley because, “It gets cold, of course.” Her hair hung loose and straight, not thick, not thin, the texture that shimmers in waves like silk. She looked so healthy, so happy, so fit and full of life that folks on the sidewalk stopped to watch her get into my car. I gave them the “I know, right, how’d she get so lucky?” eyebrow arch.
“Gosh you smell good,” she said, and her fingers found mine. “Good enough to eat.”
“I smell like corndog nuggets?”
“Why are you wearing a sports coat?” she asked.
So it’ll hide my pistol, because I don’t trust Silva.
“Because it gets cold, of course,” I said.
She pinched me.
A man waving a flashlight cone directed us to a parking spot near the back of the Civic Center lot. I turned off the ignition and Ronnie grabbed my coat and pulled me close. She kissed me hard and aggressive. Her fingers found my shirt buttons, released the top two, and slid inside.
“We’re going to be tardy,” I noted from the corner of my mouth.
“We can be late,” she breathed. “It’s hockey. Who cares?”
“Not I.”
* * *
We missed the first period, but made it in time to start the second. The air inside the area was chilled and electric, the sensation live sports provided. Her seats were next to the glass, close enough that we ducked when pucks connected. The announcer and horn were loud and the crowd enthusiastic, and our team was winning 2-0. I ordered us each a hot pretzel and beer, and Ronnie beat on the glass during a fight, and for twenty minutes life was good.
Between periods we sat down and she rested her head on my shoulder, her hand around my bicep.
“Are you working with Brad Thompson Law right now?” she asked. “On anything fun?”
“No, I’m on a full-time assignment. No time for Brad at the moment.”
“What’s the case?” she asked.
“Drug trafficking. I’m helping locate some of the larger players.”
She sat up, amusement and confusion bright in her face. “How on earth are you doing that? Undercover?”
“Kinda. I used to teach English, and the sheriff asked me to do it again this year, and collect information from the inside. The school’s infested.”
“So you’re a high school English teacher?”
I nodded. We had to speak loudly over the hockey arena din.
“Currently. If I survive the year.”
“And you accepted the position to help the police identify and arrest drug traffickers?” she asked.
I nodded again.
“Correct. Don’t tell anyone. Or the students will murder me.”
She nodded slightly and turned her attention back to the game.
But I’d lost her. Something went awry, and her expression grew distant. There was another fight on the ice but she didn’t stand. Our team netted a goal but she didn’t notice. She could have been on the other side of the planet. With five minutes left, she excused herself and pushed past me. Trying not to cry.
I gave her a ten second head start and followed.
She went straight for the doors, reached the parking lot, and began walking in the opposite direction of my car.
“Ronnie,” I said.
She didn’t turn. Didn’t
stop.
I followed.
“Ronnie,” I said again when we reached the edge of the cars. Just beyond her, traffic roared on Williamson. She paused, a shadow framed by passing headlights. “You’ve got a lot going on inside. Be healthier if you shared.”
“I’m breaking up with…me,” she said. Her voice was high and choked.
“Why?”
“Why? Because. Because everything. Because you’re a teacher and you’re working to catch drug traffickers and your father loves you and you’re a good dad and you haven’t forced yourself on me and a thousand other reasons which prove I’m not good enough for you. I can’t break up with you because you’re a complete person, a decent human, and I’m lucky you haven’t realized I’m human filth, so I’m doing your job for you,” she said. Her words bordered on hysteria.
“You’re operating under a lot of guilt, Ronnie. Take a deep breath and release some of the judgement. You’re crushing yourself.”
“I wish I hadn’t met you.” She paced back and forth, three steps, one two three turn, one two three turn, holding her left arm with her right hand. “Before, I thought my life was okay. Now, I realize it’s bull. One big lie, you know?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Tell me.”
“Girls like me don’t get guys like you. Girls like me marry gross men with money, divorce several times, have kids who hate them, get plastic surgery and look fake and shitty, and make money at jobs we don’t enjoy until we die of lung cancer at sixty. And the whole time we’re with the rich gross men we wish he was the cute honest boy, the boy named Mackenzie August. But he saw I was broken years ago, and he married the woman of his dreams, and he’s faithful to her, and her kids love her, and she has friends who sit on beaches with her, and it’s a fucking fairy tale, but I’ll be at home drinking alone and wondering where everyone is.”
“So you’re nothing more than a stereotype? That’s horse shit,” I said. I’d covered half the distance between us. “Women like that don’t read at the Rescue Mission.”
