My Bad

by Manuel Ramos

  I nodded with as much energy as I thought would impress him. “No one wants it more than me,” I said.

  Someone knocked on his office door. He shouted from his chair, “Come in.”

  A woman walked in. She was about thirty with a slight stoop in her back and long dull brown hair that hung across her face. Bony angles jutted from her chin and elbows. Her clothes didn’t fit right.

  “Barbara. You still here?”

  “I wasn’t sure we were finished. I’m gonna go now. I guess I’ll see you later, at the house?”

  He stood up, wrapped his arms around her shoulders and walked her out of the office. I waited for a minute or two until he returned and shut the door.

  “Sorry about that. My daughter, Barbara. She’s not feeling well.”

  I nodded.

  Dillings finished his pep talk and moved me on to the man who would be my official parole officer, another white guy I immediately nicknamed Dirty Harry. He was young, younger than I, but his squint was old and cold, without sympathy, not even a “let’s work together” cliché. All business.

  “You check in every week. You got my card. Call if there are any issues.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “You’ll know when it happens. Don’t waste my time. That’s all I ask. I got too many files to worry about the screw-ups. If you make this work, we’ll have no problems.”

  “It’s gonna work. No doubt about that.”

  “Every guy who’s ever sat in that chair said the same thing. Know how many of them really made it?” He tapped his stack of papers on his desk like they were a deck of cards.

  I took a wild guess. “Not many?”

  “Right. Very few, in fact. To be honest, Corral, the odds are against you.”

  “I been fighting the odds all my life.”

  “Yeah? Where’d that get you?”

  I had no answer.

  “Just remember,” he said, “I got eyes on you and if you miss a beat, it’s over. I’ll turn up when you least expect it, so you don’t get second chances with me. You pay attention to the rules, you get a job, keep your nose clean, everything will be okay. First sign of you out of step, you’re violated, and back you go. Simple and easy, right?”

  Whatever, boss.

  “I got a job.” I sounded boastful but that was all right.

  He looked up from his inch-thick pile of forms. “You do? Already?”

  “Yeah. My attorney, Luis Móntez. He hired me.”

  “To do what? It has to be a legit job, Corral.”

  I ignored his rude assumption about the arrangement Luis and I might have worked out.

  “It’s real. I’m going to be his investigator, process server, janitor, all-around go-to guy. He said he’d send over the papers you need for your records. And he also said you can come by and check us out whenever. We got nothing to hide.”

  He rocked back and forth in his office chair. “That’s good, Corral. I like that. I’m actually happy to hear the news. I know this guy Móntez. I’ve worked with some of his other clients. That could be a good fit for you.” He picked up his pen and chewed on it for a few seconds, like a man carrying a nicotine monkey. “On the other hand . . .”

  “What?”

  “On the other hand, I heard about some of Móntez’s capers in the past. That guy was almost disbarred. He’s been arrested. Nothing ever came out of his legal troubles, but you have to stay away from anything that’s off-center. You understand?”

  “What you have to understand is that I’m going to do all I can to get back on the right path. That’s what you want, right? I ain’t gonna do anything to screw that up. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “Good. I hope so. But they pay me to worry about you guys.” Now I was one of the guys. “One other thing. You can’t participate in his criminal cases. Might put you in contact with felons, excons. That would not be good.”

  “Luis said we could work around that. He’s done this before. He knows how it has to be.”

  “No problem then.”

  We set a schedule for visits and reviews and a few other things that were required by the State of Colorado in return for me being back on the streets. Harry went through all the rules and regulations, again, and itemized each and every act of life I was prohibited from doing. He finally asked for my urine.

  When I left Harry’s office I felt like I’d been back in prison for a few sweaty hours. I didn’t like that feeling.

  But I didn’t feel like a criminal. I didn’t feel much else, to tell the truth. One day I was locked up, the next I wasn’t. Whatever happened to me the last few years was over. My prison adventure ended and that meant that all the alliances and conflicts and enemies and games that I’d created and played to survive were finished. Out of sight, out of mind. Now what?

  2 [Luis]

  well baby I can never be satisfied

  and I just can’t keep from cryin’

  I didn’t think Gus was much of a gamble. Yeah, he had all that excitement when the cartel hoodlum set up camp in Denver and he did end up in a shootout in a hotel parking garage, but Gus came from a good family and for me, that’s important. The guy did his time and paid for his crimes, or at least for some of them. There was more to his story than he let on, but I was too old to get all up into somebody’s business if that person didn’t want to share. As long as he did what I asked around the office, we’d be good.

  I’d been burned by ex-cons before. In my line of work that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Most of the time the problem blew up because I went against my better judgment and I trusted someone who didn’t deserve it. Gus struck me as reliable. If he was half as steady as his sister, he’d have it made—as much as a guy fresh out of prison can have it.

  It wasn’t my idea to hire him. That came from Corrine Corral. I begged off at first. I told her I was winding down my practice so I could retire from the lawyer racket, and that I wasn’t sure I had enough work to keep Gus occupied. Did no good. Corrine was persistent, for months. She didn’t want Gus to have to go back to work at his ex-wife’s secondhand store where he’d sold junk to customers and slept in the backroom at night. She talked to me every other day about what I could do for her brother when he was released. If I saw her somewhere, Gus would be the topic of our conversation. She even wrote a note about Gus on a Christmas card she sent me. That woman . . .

  What’s there to say about Corrine Corral? A Chicana legend and somebody who’s easy to trust. She swore and promised that I wouldn’t regret hiring Gus, that, in fact, I would one day kiss her for bringing him to me. So taking on her brother wasn’t much of a gamble, like I said. I asked for one thing. I made her promise that he would dress appropriately for the office. When I first met Gus he looked like an out-of-work gangbanger, which he might have been a few years ago.

  “I know what you mean,” Corrine said during one of her visits to my office. “I used to talk to him all the time about his image, which he absolutely did not care about. Prison changed that, I think.”

  I nodded. “Prison changes the strangest things in people.”

  “I’ll bet. I’m worried about him, after he gets out. Gus hasn’t exactly fulfilled his potential, if you know what I’m sayin’?”

  I had a pretty good idea. “Some men grow up in prison, others regress. Depends on what’s there in the first place.”

  “Guess we’ll have to hope for the best,” she said. “Anyway, he has two suits. An old one that I’ll make him throw away and the one I bought him for his trial. That good enough?”

  “It’s good. But he doesn’t have to wear a suit every day. Not sure he’s the same size as when he went in, anyway. We’ll play it by ear. As long as he doesn’t show up in T-shirts and flip-flops.”

  “No problem.”

  I worked with my accountant to arrange a way to pay Gus the minimum wage that he was willing to work for. We could do it because we cut back on weekly orders of office supplies and a few other expenses th
at I didn’t think we’d notice. Well, maybe Rosa, my secretary, would complain, but she saw that as part of her job anyway.

  “We’ll buy stuff as we need it,” I announced. “If I want to retire in less than a year, we have to eliminate some overhead.”

  Rosa let me know from the beginning that she was against hiring Gus. “I remember that guy from when you represented him. There’s something about him that’s not right.” She crossed her arms and leaned against a wall, ignoring the fact that she pressed against my framed Zoot Suit movie poster.

  Rosa could be a pain but I didn’t deny that she brought a certain . . . uh . . . charm to the office. Nothing like a homegirl chola to make clients feel at ease, to be reassured that they were getting the finest professional legal services. We’d worked together through the lean years when I couldn’t pay her unless she agreed to not cash the check until after the weekend, and she rode the high with me when times were at their all-time best. She warned me about my failed romances before they failed, and guaranteed success for my biggest legal victories. She talked me through the former and drank me under the table for the latter.

  “He’s okay,” I insisted. “Like so many of my clients. Not a saint, but not the devil either.”

  “You sure about that? I wouldn’t be surprised by anything he might do. There’s an edge to the guy.” Rosa prided herself on her ability to read people.

  She and I had a good understanding. I was the guy who signed the checks, but Rosa ran the place. The arrangement had worked for several years. I felt like we’d grown up together. It was just her and me, no partners or associates. I started out on my own and that was the way I would finish.

  Forty years out of law school and I ended up with a reliable secretary and a comfortable office in the heart of Denver. There were times, especially in the first ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years of my practice that those two things were elusive fantasies of Móntez, the Chicano lawyer barely keeping his head above water. Somehow, I’d made the proper corrections.

  My office was on the first floor of a fairly new building in Denver’s Golden Triangle, about three blocks from the courthouse where I occasionally appeared. I’d cut back on courtroom work—too expensive for most of my clients, and too much potential brain damage for me. I was at the stage where I could be pickier about my clients.

  The location didn’t have the prestige of an address in the middle of downtown Denver, but in my mind the office was the outward representation of what I tried to carry inside: professionalism, competence, quality. Leaving it would be hard. But why not quit while I was ahead?

  “We don’t know everything about Gus,” I said. “I can handle that. How many of our clients ever tell us the complete truth?”

  She nodded.

  “The reality is that I need some help. I’m slowing down, Rosa. Can’t do all the legwork I should for my clients. Gus can go places for me, plus he knows the playground. He’s lived in Denver all his life, his sister is well-connected and his family has a solid reputation.”

  “And he comes cheap.”

  “There’s that. He needs a job. I think it’ll be all right.”

  She walked away shaking her head.

  Then I tried to think of things to keep Gus busy.

  That first day on the job he was a wreck. He walked and talked and evaded like an ex-con. His shoulders slumped under the weight of past sins and continuing penance. He reacted to everything I said with an over-eagerness that annoyed then frustrated me. One of my long-term clients asked if “the guy out front” was “okay?” I nodded, half-heartedly.

  “Relax, Gus.”

  We sat in the conference room where he would interview clients.

  “It’ll take a few days to get used to how we work around here. Ease into it. There’s no rush.” I wanted Gus to make it.

  He folded his hands together, almost closed his eyes. “Yeah, I get it. You’re right. I’m letting all the free air and sunshine and moving around get to me. I’ll be okay. No need to worry.”

  “I’m not worried. It’s cool.”

  He drank from a plastic bottle of water. He finally smiled. I thought we would be all right after that.

  His first big job walked in the office as a new client, someone I didn’t know but who presented a classic legal problem. Gus had been on the job about a week. Mainly, he threw out trash, shredded documents, served a few subpoenas.

  The client introduced herself as María Contreras. She wore a simple black blouse and dark blue pants. An oversized purse hung from her shoulder.

  She started the conversation. “Maybe you knew my husband, he was about your age. His name was Anselmo but everyone called him Sam. Sam Contreras.”

  A couple of things happened. First, I twitched when she brought up my age. How old did she think I was? Second, I twitched again because yeah, I knew Anselmo “Sam” Contreras. And he was about my age, north of fifty-five but south of sixty-nine.

  Sam Contreras was the kind of guy you either hated or loved, and sometimes in the same day. He owned and managed the old Roundhouse Bar that used to be a busy, busy place near Union Station, back in the days before that part of Denver got all prettied up and civilized. I knew many stories about Sam and his bar. Hell, I’d played a major role in a few of them. I vaguely remembered that there was a widow in the picture. She had to be at least fifteen years younger than Sam. Sam’s bar was not the kind of place where you showed off your wife, so there was no reason for me to recognize her.

  “Yes,” I said. “I knew Sam. I went to his memorial service. That must have been what, three, four years ago?”

  “That’s right. I guess we didn’t meet then.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think we did.”

  I almost said, “I would have remembered” or some other lame automatic male reflex, but I didn’t. Luis Móntez, Renaissance man.

  “You know, they never caught the guys?”

  This time I nodded. “Yeah, that whole thing was a mess.”

  She pinched her lips together. “You know the story?”

  “What everyone else knows. Sam was on vacation, fishing from a boat off the southern Baja coast. Him and a guide, someone he’d used over the years. They were attacked by pirates or smugglers, somebody. The boat sunk along with the two men. The Mexican police figured that the pirates made a mistake, thought Sam had drugs or bags of money onboard and then killed him when they didn’t find anything. As I recall, the cops dredged up pieces of the boat, but that was it. There was a storm that same day and most of the boat was swept away, along with Sam and his guide.”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s what happened. They found Sam’s body, eventually. I had him buried in Mexico. He loved it down there.”

  “Sam was a tough bar owner. A throwback to wilder Denver times. He acted as his own bouncer and he took that role very seriously. Saw him more than once beat up a belligerent drunk or an underage kid flashing a fake I.D. I always thought that case had strange parts to it.”

  She stared at her hands while I spoke. She raised her head and wrinkled her face.

  “Why strange? Why do you put it that way?”

  I recalled Sam’s steady stare. He could make you run out of his bar simply by looking at you at closing time, especially if you were drunk. I tried to hang on to her stare but she turned away again. The woman intrigued me. Most of my clients did, in different ways. I watched in hope of picking up a few clues about her that she might not reveal voluntarily.

  She appeared to be in good physical shape with healthy skin tone and good biceps so I assumed she worked out, maybe jogged. But I detected tobacco scent. A smoker who tried to stay in shape? Talk about a walking contradiction. Her reluctance to look me straight in the eyes meant that she was embarrassed, or not telling all of what I should know, or lying. There hadn’t been any small talk, no real attempt to soften the mood, nothing except business, but I couldn’t fault her for that. She spoke about the death of her husband, after all. A brutal, violent death.
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  “I’ve been a criminal defense attorney most of my life. It’s very rare that someone doesn’t eventually talk about a job, one of the perpetrators, I mean. These guys, the professional thieves and robbers, live their criminal lives for a lot of reasons, but most of them want, even crave, credit for what they do. They can’t help but brag or tell stories about themselves. That’s often how they get caught. I’ve represented a good number of bad guys whose own words tripped them up. But nothing ever surfaced about Sam’s murder. No snitch trying to make a deal, no barroom bragging overheard by a cop, no loose jail talk. Maybe Mexican pirates are different. The Mexican cops didn’t have anything, U.S. cops weren’t interested and the case shriveled up and died.”

  I bit my tongue for that last sentence. The woman’s husband had been the one who had died.

  “No, nobody was ever arrested,” she said. “A few years ago I talked to one of the original detectives from La Paz. He said they would question some men they’d arrested who were harassing tourists in the same area, but I never heard any more from him.”

  “Is that what you want my help with? Following-up on what the cops did in the case? You want someone to solve your husband’s murder?” As I said it, I knew I wouldn’t take such a job. Butting heads on a cold case with defensive Mexican cops, trying to deal with international legal protocols, and a complete lack of any forensic or physical evidence was not my idea of how to spend the months leading up to my retirement. I was curious about Sam Contreras’ murder, but not that curious.

  “No, that’s not why I’m here.” She produced a file of papers from her purse and laid it on my desk. “It’s a little more mundane than that. Just a money problem.”

  Money problems I understood and appreciated. No such thing as “just” a money problem. I had enough of my own to be certified as a money problem expert. Such problems could often be settled with a few phone calls. The debtor thinks he gets away with something if he pays less than owed. The creditor is grateful for anything out of what had been a bad debt.