The Death and Life of Bobby Z

by Don Winslow

  They’re staring at each other and then he’s like watching his hand reach out and undo the top button of her blouse and he’s wondering like where’d that nerve come from? But she doesn’t do anything to stop him, so he undoes one button at a time and reveals her breasts in the skinny black bra and feels that wonderful heat come over him.

  He lifts one beautiful breast from the bra, and then he’s leaning over and softly kissing a nipple, and he feels her long fingers on the back of his head as he feels the nipple get stiff and fat on his tongue. He leaves it and pulls her blouse from her jeans, then slides down to the floor and takes her shoes off, and he’s still wondering who the fuck is this person doing this, because it ain’t me.

  But he gets the shoes off, and she’s still leaning back into the couch, and he slides her jeans off her wonderfully long legs, and then the black panties, which are so soft even against the soft skin of her legs. He follows them down with his eyes—off her feet and onto the cheap rug on the floor—and then he looks up to see the precise triangle of auburn hair between her legs. He slides his hands up her legs to gently part them and then dips his head down. Her hands grip his shoulders as he touches her with his tongue and licks up and down as slowly as he can. Even though he’s trembling and hard under his own jeans, he licks her slow and soft because she’s been hurt and he figures she deserves slow and soft and besides, he can taste the reward of his patience on his tongue.

  And she’s making soft noises because the kid is asleep in the other room, but the soft sound of her voice could make him come as he parts her lips with one hand and flicks at her with his tongue. Taking his time still, because this is a fine place to be, he looks up at her face and can’t believe that it’s him doing a woman this beautiful and she’s liking it, and he watches her face as she has one hand on his shoulder and the other pinching her nipples. He’s still watching her face a few minutes later as she twists away from but also into his tongue and he puts a finger into her and gently presses inside the top of her and he like can’t believe it but he comes at the same time she does.

  But she takes his prick—semi-hard and sticky—from his jeans, and he twists out of his clothes and quickly he’s hard again and inside her and she pulls her knees up and back so he can be deep. At first he cups her small ass with his hands, but later they have their arms wrapped tightly around each other as they rock back and forth, and this time she cries when she comes but keeps rocking and squeezing as he comes, and he can feel the wetness on her cheeks as he lays his face on hers.

  They’re lying there soft and quiet for a while, he feeling the warm dampness of her skin and listening to her breathing, and life feels calm to him for a change.

  He’s feeling all calm and safe when she murmurs, “So tell the truth.”

  “About what?”

  He’s feeling sleepy.

  “About who are you, really?” she asks.

  Which kind of wakes him up.

  56.

  “I’m Bobby Zacharias,” Tim says.

  “No, you’re not.”

  It’s her fucking confidence that undoes him. He’s sitting on the toilet watching her clean herself with a warm washcloth.

  “How do you know?” he asks, but it’s not as much a challenge as it is a request for information.

  “Baby, a woman knows,” she says.

  Tim doesn’t want to pursue that angle, so instead he asks, “How long have you known?”

  “Moment one.”

  “Moment one?”

  She smiles at him and nods.

  Which moment one? Tim wonders. Like the moment he came out to the pool at Brian’s or the moment she took his dick out of his pants? But again he decides that’s not something he really wants to know, so he asks, “How come you told me about Huertero? Why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut and let them kill me?”

  She towels herself off and starts to slide her jeans back on.

  “It didn’t seem fair,” she says, “to let you get killed for something Bobby did.”

  “What did Bobby do?”

  She slips into her blouse and buttons it up as she says, “You first.”

  “Me first what?”

  “Like who the hell are you?” she asks. “And what are you doing running around pretending to be Bobby? And where’s Bobby?”

  She’s looking serious for a change, Tim thinks. The mocking smile is gone and there are little wrinkles around her eyes. She looks older than he’s seen her. Older and prettier.

  “Did you love him?” he asks.

  “Once.”

  “Still?”

  She shrugs.

  Tim takes a deep breath, then says, “My name is Tim Kearney and I’m a three-time loser. The DEA made a deal with me: Pretend to be Bobby so they could trade me for an agent that Huertero’s holding.”

  She just stares at him, waiting for the other shoe to fall, because she asked him three questions and he answered two. And he doesn’t want to answer the third. He’d rather lie and tell her he doesn’t know, but the woman did him decent back at the old ranch and she was a stand-up guy when Brian took a belt to her, so Tim figures he owes her the tough answer.

  “And Bobby is dead,” Tim says.

  He gets up, ready to catch her if she like faints like they do in the movies, but she keeps her feet and gets right to the bottom line.

  “How’d he die?”

  He can tell from the tone of her voice that she thinks Bobby got whacked, and he’s about to say “natural causes,” when he remembers that in the drug business getting whacked is a natural cause.

  So he says, “Heart attack.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “In the shower,” Tim says. “The DEA had him and they were going to swap him and he died of a heart attack in the shower.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Just like that,” he says. Then asks, “You okay?”

  She says, “Yeah, I’m okay. I just never pictured the world without Bobby. I mean, I haven’t seen him for years, but he was always there, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  She’s talking now. Tim’s seen it before in the joint: Guy doesn’t say a word for months and then he just goes on a jag, starts just speaking what’s in his head without thinking about it.

  “Even when I was in trouble, you know,” she’s saying. “You know, out of money, or some guy’s hassling me, or the CHP finds a roach in the car, all I had do to was like call the Monk and it was taken care of. I was taken care of, and that’s Bobby, reaching out from wherever the hell he is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I was there for him, too,” Elizabeth says. “I mean, I didn’t, you know, see him, but sometimes he’d need someone he trusted and he’d get word to me and I’d do the errand, whatever it was.”

  “Two-sided deal.”

  “And now he’s gone.”

  “Right.”

  “Really gone.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tim’s just making sounds, letting her work it out.

  “It’s like the world can’t ever be the same again.”

  And that’s no shit, Tim thinks, for her and me both.

  “So why don’t you just tell them?” she asks.

  “Tell who what?”

  “Tell Huertero you’re not Bobby,” she says. “That Bobby’s dead.”

  He shakes his head. “Won’t work, there’s been too much blood, and besides, it still leaves me with the DEA on my ass.”

  Not to mention, which he doesn’t, the Hell’s Angels.

  “No, I gotta work it out,” Tim says. “Make it right with Huertero and then get my ass out of the country somewhere.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Dunno,” he says. “Anyway, you better take the kid back to his mother.”

  She snorts. “Olivia doesn’t even know he’s gone. Olivia couldn’t care less.”

  “Anyway …”

  “He wants to be with you.”

  “So?”

&n
bsp; “He thinks you’re his daddy.”

  “He knows?” Tim asks. “About Bobby?”

  “He’s a kid,” she says. “Not a moron. Of course he knows. Poor little bastard grows up knowing his dad is some sort of legend, then the legend shows up and takes his side for once? Scoops him up and blasts him out of that lunatic asylum like some comic book hero he sees on TV? Who do you think he wants to be with?”

  “Christ, who turned you on?”

  “Well, you just can’t play with a child that way,” she says. “Shuffle him back and forth.”

  “Like you been doing?”

  “That’s right … So what are you going to do?” Elizabeth asks a few seconds later, after they’ve been staring at each other.

  “I’m gonna go see the Monk,” he says. “If I’m gonna get out of the country and support a kid and keep the kid safe, I’m gonna need money. Lots of money. Money to pay off Huertero, money to run with, money to hide with, money to live on. And Monk’s got the money, right?”

  “Bobby’s money.”

  “Fuck that,” Tim says. “My money. I get Bobby’s enemies, his problems, his blues, his child—I get his money.”

  “How about his woman?” she asks.

  He looks her dead in those green eyes.

  “That’s up to his woman,” he says.

  Then walks out of the room while he’s still feeling tough and strong. Figures that was about the best exit line he’s going to get off.

  Elizabeth takes the warm cloth to her face. Feels the soothing water and looks in the mirror. Runs her long fingernail down her face from forehead to chin and stares at the faint red mark it leaves.

  You’ve done some dumb things in your so-called life, she thinks, but letting this sweet boy out of Brian’s was the dumbest. Letting him get away again would be, well …

  “Dumb, dumb, dumb, Elizabeth,” she says into the mirror. What’s the matter with you these days, you can’t ball a guy without getting stupid and falling a little in love?

  “Shit,” she says. “Love?”

  As the lady says, What’s love got to do with it?

  From the bedroom she can hear the sound of the child’s breathing.

  57.

  Monk jumps a little when the hotline rings. It’s not so much a ring as it is a purring vibration, but it still jars. He sets his latte down and picks up the receiver.

  “You’re dead.”

  “Bobby?” Monk asks. “Thank God it’s you! Are you all right?”

  Tim can’t believe how smooth the guy is. He’s standing at a phone booth on the public beach in Laguna listening to this shit, and he just can’t believe what he’s hearing.

  Anyway he says, “Monk, one of your guys tries to stick a knife in my back and you’re asking about my health?”

  Monk just ignores the accusation.

  “Bobby, who were those guys? Huertero’s people?”

  “I notice you didn’t stick around to find out.”

  “I was hoping to draw one or two of them off,” Monk says. “You know, split them up.”

  “Yeah, and how many followed you?”

  “We have to be more careful,” Monk says. “One of them got the money, Bobby, and the passport. I’m sorry, but what could I do, he had a gun. It’s only money, right? Where are you, Bobby?”

  “So you can send someone?”

  “You bet,” Monk says. “Get you in a safehouse until we can figure all this out.”

  “I figured it fucking out,” Tim says. “You ripped off Huertero, kept it to yourself. And the money.”

  Monk’s voice sounded hurt. “Would I do something like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bobby …”

  Monk’s looking out the window while he talks. The marine layer is still in, but he looks down through the mist at the beach below the cliff and sees a woman playing Frisbee with a kid. The child should be in school, Monk thinks.

  “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me, Monk,” Tim says. “Look me in the fucking eye and tell me you wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “I would welcome that opportunity.”

  “Cool,” Tim says. “Salt Creek cave tonight. Eleven o’clock. Be motherfucking alone this time.”

  “Salt Creek cave?” Monk laughs. “What is this, Bobby, Treasure Island? What are we, kids again?”

  “You know what I think, Monk?”

  “What do you think, Bobby?”

  And there’s like an edge to it, Tim thinks. Like the guy’s willing to fuck with Bobby a little bit. Like the guy figures he has the juice, he can fuck with him.

  “I think you’re like a bank,” Tim says. “Like you’ve been taking care of my money so long you get to thinking it’s your money.”

  “It’s all here for you, Bobby,” Monk says. “Metaphorically speaking. I mean, most of it is liquid, so you can have it when you want it. Other monies are in long-term investments—mutual funds, real estate holdings—”

  “I’m interested right now in the liquid,” Tim says, “which like better flow in my direction. Some of it maybe oughta drift back to Huertero.”

  “Well, render unto Caesar …”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Tim says, not giving a shit about whatever the hell some guinea has to do with it anyway. “You be there tonight, you bring me some cash, you come alone. Or you’re a dead fucker. Capisce?”

  “I understand.”

  Monk hangs up the phone and walks out onto the deck. The sun is starting to burn through the fog and it’s going to be a typically sunny Southern California day.

  Just another day in paradise, Monk thinks.

  58.

  Tim’s sitting on the deck of the trailer watching Kit and Elizabeth goof around on the beach.

  He’s sitting there in these cool shades he picked up in downtown Laguna and he’s got his face toward the sun, which is like baking him, and he’s digging on the blue water and surf that’s so regular it looks like someone’s drawing a line of white chalk across the blue rectangle of ocean. This is cool California.

  Tim thinks that life, if he can hold on to it, is a pretty good thing.

  Kit’s running around grinning. Kid can’t throw a Frisbee to save his life, but he sort of flings it at Elizabeth, who isn’t much better or is pretending not to be much better. She throws it back and the kid goes running, chasing the rolling Frisbee, and he’s laughing like an idiot and screaming in delight when he has to chase the Frisbee into the cold ankle-deep water.

  And even a three-time loser, officially antisocial career criminal like Tim Kearney knows this kid is sky-high because he’s got himself a real mommy-daddy-kid combination plate for at least a little bit and is making the most of it.

  Tim takes off his shirt and lathers his body with Bain de Soleil. He’s just grooving on sitting in the sun, listening to the surf, smelling the salt air and feeling the cool breeze wash across his chest, and he feels like fucking relaxed for maybe the first time in his life.

  Knows, too, that it’s dangerous to feel relaxed but doesn’t care at the moment. Like tonight he has to go back to being a skell and doing skell things, but right now he’s got himself a place on the beach and a beautiful woman and a terrific kid, and sitting in the joint looking at his life sentence he didn’t even dream that life was ever going to look like this.

  Then Kit notices he’s relaxing and figures that’s against the rules and calls to him to come play. So Tim puts up the expected token resistance and then trots down onto the sand and starts tossing the Frisbee with them. Elizabeth’s looking at him with sweet sexy eyes, and the kid is just sky-high as they do this family beach thing.

  Tim thinks like, Thank you Bobby Z, wherever the hell you are.

  Problem is, of course, that you can be getting royally fucked without even knowing it and that’s what happening to Tim as he tosses the Frisbee on the beach.

  Sometimes you get remote-control screwed just for nothing at all, just because that’s the way the world spi
ns, and sometimes it’s because you fucked up in the smallest way. It’s the latter that’s happening now, a long way anyway from Tim’s little seaside domestic scene.

  What Tim did to fuck up was that he shouldn’t have bought a car in the barrio.

  Because what’s happening right now is the kid who sold it to him gets the word that some serious people in East L.A. are looking for a guy who looks like the guy who bought the car. Paid cash and was in a big fucking hurry. No test drive, no haggling, no questions: just money, the keys and the pink slip, ese.

  So the kid in the barrio in San Juan Cap thinks that maybe he can do himself some good and makes a call to a guy, and that guy makes a call and that guy makes a call and pretty soon the kid’s on the horn with Luis Escobar, who the kid knows is serious people in East L.A.

  So Tim’s indiscretion gives Luis Escobar a description of the vehicle and a fucking license-plate number and a he-went-that-a-way, and while Tim’s having himself a good time on the beach, Luis Escobar is dispatching the troops in search of that vehicle.

  Luis does something else.

  Luis Escobar is a careful man. Luis believes in planning. Planning and the right tool for the right job, and he decodes that the right tool for this job is a chollo from Boyle Heights who isn’t some gang-banging child but a “precision matters” pro, name of Reynaldo Cruz.

  The point about Reynaldo Cruz is that Cruz can shoot.

  Cruz was the star of the sniper school at Pendleton. His Marine instructor said that Cruz could shoot the balls off a flea. Cruz goes to the Gulf with his unit and makes his bones picking off Iraqi officers from long range. Like one second the Rack is walking around doing the Allahu Aqbar thing and the next second he’s like with Allah. Compliments of R. Cruz, Boy Sniper.

  “DFN Cruz,” man, was what the rest of the platoon called him. “Death from Nowhere.” That night of Khafji, man, all hell breaking loose in the black sky and Cruz just lies there in the prone position like he’s on his couch in the barrio, dealing death from nowhere. Plinking Racks like in a video arcade, except Cruz never runs out of quarters. Plink, plink, plink—one bullet one corpse—and like DFN Cruz is the all-time Mortal Gulf Kombat champeen.