Pelón was right about one thing: I could not shit gold. The cash I scored from him that first night would not last. My room was paid one month in advance. I’d already used about half a week. I sure as shit didn’t want a longer stay than that. But it was possible that I would need more time, and definitely more cash to hold me over.
I checked the want ads. Everybody wanted credentials, experience—and was unwilling to pay shit. One warehouse needed someone to do heavy lifting, and I wasted no time getting to a pay phone. The woman who answered must’ve been sick of interruptions, because before I got two words out, she squawked, “It’s filled!” and hung up. I threw the paper in the garbage and decided to pound the commercial areas and just fill out applications.
Every application looked pretty much the same: WORK HISTORY? None. EDUCATION? None. EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF A FELONY? Oh well. Most times they ask this, they leave space for you to explain. I doubt there’s anything you could fit on that one line, or in the narrow rectangle they sometimes provide, that would make them overlook violent felonies. I figured they’d check my record anyway, so I answered honestly. A manager or someone would then take the application, eyeball it, smile, extend a hand, then tell me they’d keep it on file. Naturally, it didn’t take too many such encounters for me to rethink the gig at the strip club.
But I didn’t want to get any deeper with Pelón. I pounded the sidewalk.
On Hubbard Street, just north of the railroad tracks, workers from some kind of plant collected around a lunch wagon. They ate, smoked, and cussed. I asked if their plant was hiring.
They locked their faces like I’d said, “All right if I bang your wife?”
No jobs, they said. Not hiring. No hay trabajo.
I paid for a tuna salad sandwich and an orange juice and asked the lunch wagon man if he knew of any place hiring.
“The Polack say he fire a dude yesterday. On account of his drinking.”
“The Polack?”
“He run a small ink shop down here. Near Oakley.”
I memorized the approximate address and description, and headed west. The juice was warm. The bread was soggy. I wolfed it as I walked.
Blutarski was a big-chested man who wore his shirt open to the sternum, even though gray had overtaken most of the wheat fields that once waved across his chest. The hair on the top of his head was still a dark yellow, which looked as if it came from a bottle. It was thick. He wore it Brylcreemed into a pompadour. He smelled strongly of body odor and did not bother to stop rolling fifty-five-gallon drums into a corner of his shop. His tone was skeptical.
“Ever mix ink?”
“No, but I could learn.”
“You drink?”
“Almost never.”
Sweat beaded on Blutarski’s upper lip. “I don’t mean when you’re out trying to get some you-know-what. What a man does in his off-time is his business. I mean while you’re at work. I don’t need no lush falling into my machine.”
“Not a problem.”
“I ain’t insured for that. You sue me, you ain’t gonna get squat.”
“I hate courtrooms.”
“You mind getting dirty?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Blutarski nodded. “It’s long hours on your feet.” He looked at my boots. “Those things may as well be tissue. You’ll need a pair of steel-toes.”
“I been wanting to get a pair.”
Blutarski breathed heavy through his nose. He stood next to a fifty-five-gallon drum full of ink and tapped it with a long spatula. I got the sense he sifted his memory of the work to find the right questions.
“How good are you at arithmetic? Simple fractions?”
“I got my GED. And I like to play with numbers.”
Blutarski cleaned the spatula with a solvent, wiped it on his smock, and spoke without eye contact. “I can see how good you are with numbers, you coming to me sniffin’ for a job.” A bead of sweat wound over his pale white temple. He pointed the spatula. “Grab that smock over there, let’s see how you stand.”
The job title was assistant mill hand. Basically, all I did that first day was watch Blutarski mix ink in different proportions. So many parts this, so many parts that, voila: you got something new. Near the end of the day, he handed me a box with some small cans of ink and asked me to deliver them to a nearby print shop.
“After that, go home.”
I hung the smock where I found it. Blutarski counted out half a day’s wages, clocked at ten dollars an hour, cash.
“I open up at seven in the morning. Wear something old, ’cause you’ll be into the ink. I don’t pay you to nod.”
I told him he wouldn’t be disappointed.
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
I delivered the cans and caught the Western Avenue bus. There were plenty of empty seats, but I rode on my feet, all the way home.
An ugly kid in need of skin care slid the tray with my burger, fries, and Dr Pepper across the counter. I sat in a corner, away from the other diners, and settled in with a paperback. When I left the story, the woman told the man, instructed him really, about the differences between love, skin hunger, and temporary kindness. I picked it up again and read only one paragraph before a black hand yanked the book away.
Coltrane and Johnson, the dirty cops who stole my money, stood in front of me. They grinned. Johnson, the African-American with the big belly, cocked his head.
Acid sloshed in my stomach. I snatched the book, though Johnson didn’t try to keep it. His other hand held a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice cream. He licked it.
Coltrane, the white narc, nodded at the food on my tray. “You better make that order to go, Santiago.”
“I ain’t going anywhere.”
Johnson put his free hand in his pocket, almost as if to restrain himself.
Coltrane amped his insincere grin. “It wasn’t an invitation.”
I had practiced what I might say, how I might react, if I crossed these two again. I narrowed my eyes. “Drop the routine, Coltrane. I ain’t impressed.”
Johnson took his hand out of his pocket. “You want the bracelets again?”
I looked Johnson in his bulging eyes. “You forget I’ve seen your best shot.”
Johnson took a half step toward me. Coltrane put his arm out and stopped him.
Johnson got up on his toes. “I’ll shove this ice cream up your ass, Santiago.”
“Yeah, and your wife’ll lick it out.”
His eyes bulged even more.
Coltrane chuckled and pushed his partner farther back. He turned to me. “You’re lucky I don’t let him mop this room with you. All’s we wanna do is talk.”
I gestured. “The floor is yours.”
Coltrane looked around the fast-food joint. “Not in here.”
“Too many witnesses? I ain’t getting in your car.” I thought for a moment, then pointed across the street. “Over there. In the park. Under the streetlamp.”
The two cops spread out on a bench. Coltrane stretched his long legs, and pretzeled his cowboy boots out in front of him. Johnson’s gut was like a beach ball wedged beneath his tits.
Johnson spoke to his partner. “We shouldn’t be doing this out here in the open.”
“It’s his neck, not ours,” said Coltrane.
I stood in front of them on the sidewalk and held my dinner in a paper bag. “The clock is ticking.”
Coltrane looked at his boots. He untangled and reweaved them, which shifted him from one heel to the other. “You been catching up with your friends?”
“I was at work all day.”
“On what?”
“Making an honest living.”
Coltrane smirked. “Fat chance. How’s ‘Cueball’ doing?”
“Pelón? Living large. As far I can tell.”
“Is that right? We hear he’s broke. His debits have overtaken his credits, and he owes the wrong people.”
Johnson licked his ice cream. “Your boy’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig.”
“He ain’t my boy.”
I flashed to the image of Pelón sprawled in the back of his limo, his pockets bulging with seventy-two thousand dollars’ worth of racetrack money. Now these two were saying he had money problems.
“What the fuck do Pelón’s finances have to do with me?”
Coltrane said, “He told you about any irons he’s got in the fire?”
“Meaning what?”
Right there, I figured the cops knew about the casino. “You got Pelón’s number. Whyn’t you call him and ask?”
Johnson shook his head. “We’re asking you, smart-mouth.”
“I don’t know shit about Pelón’s business. He don’t tell me squat. Why would he? I hardly know him.”
Coltrane studied me. He no doubt looked for signs, tics, gestures, to reveal when I lied. I breathed naturally and didn’t turn away. But Coltrane was a patient inquisitor. He went through a ritual where he dug out the tobacco tin, broke off a piece, wadded it like a gumball, tucked it between his cheek and gum, put the tin away, and spit without ever speaking or taking his eyes off me. Finally, he said, “What about your friend Pacheco?”
“What about him?”
“He mention anything?”
I blinked. “About what?”
Coltrane smiled. “You tell me.”
I remembered the reckless way Coltrane shook the dried rose petals from my mother’s Bible. I rubbed my nose. “Listen, Detectives, my food is getting cold.”
Johnson put the last tip of the ice-cream cone in his mouth and leaned forward. His belly shifted on its axis. “Santiago, you think Pacheco’s got your back? That he’s your homeboy? Y’all did time together and all that? He ain’t no friend to you.”
“What’s that mean?”
Johnson began to say something, but Coltrane cut him off.
“Santiago, you know Pacheco better’n anyone.”
“And?”
I felt the vise again. The one that squeezed both temples the night my cash vanished. “Coltrane, are you making a specific allegation?”
Johnson slapped his knee. “You must’ve learned that kinda talk in the prison library.”
Coltrane spit. He paused long enough to let the clouds above us make progress. “Santiago, you’re the one who needs to get specific. Do you know who Paredes has been talking to?”
“Who the fuck is Paredes?”
Coltrane mangled all three pronunciations. “Wilfredo Paredes. Your man Pelón.”
In all those years I had not known Pelón’s full name.
Coltrane snapped his fingers. “Who’s his Puerto Rican connection?”
I thought, Puerto Rican connection? For what? “I don’t know shit.”
Coltrane put his hands together. “What kind of an informant are you?”
“Informant?”
Johnson cracked his knuckles. “Please be the type I gotta slap around.”
I made a face. “I’m not anybody’s snitch.”
“Yes you are,” said Coltrane. “You’re gonna be our confidential informant.”
They wanted me to spy on Pelón and Tony and provide info. I took a second to let it resonate. “Is that why you have me out here on a busy street? Anybody can see me talking to you.”
Coltrane said, “You were the one who didn’t wanna go for a ride.”
“You’re trying to make me a marked man. Setting me up to get hit.”
“You’ve watched too many movies. This is an investigation.”
“Of?”
“A conspiracy to commit murder. Maybe you heard about that boy who caught a slug in the back of his head while he shook the piss from his wanger.”
“I read about it.”
Johnson said, “Punk didn’t even get a chance to zip up. Force of the blast dropped him so’s his face landed in the urinal. Chipped a tooth on the porcelain.”
I held my reaction. I didn’t want to give the detectives any reason to probe further. Of course they didn’t need prompting.
Coltrane chewed tobacco. “You know, the culprit used a .38? Now, me and Johnson, we see that, we start thinking, ‘Dang. Didn’t we lift a .38 out here somewhere?’ ” Coltrane turned to Johnson. “Where’s that heater at now, partner?”
Johnson thumbed over his shoulder. “Evidence locker, down at the station.”
Coltrane said, “Maybe we should let forensics take a look? What do you reckon they’ll find, Santiago?”
I wasn’t surprised. Ever since I read about the caliber of the murder weapon, I knew the gun from Tony’s Welcome Wagon would resurface.
I tried not to sound nervous. “Detectives, I got nothing to do with that.”
“Maybe you never touched that gun,” said Coltrane. “And maybe that wasn’t even the weapon used to plug pee-pee boy. But the point is, Santiago, and you better listen: riding in that Caddy with that pistol equals possession. Period. We got you on a CPW, no matter what.”
Johnson clapped once. “A felony for you, convict. Grand jury’s gonna rubber-stamp it. Wait’ll they hear about an ex-felon with a .38 just hours after being sprung. Especially one with your record.”
The dicks painted a clear enough picture.
Johnson said, “You’re gonna do as we say. Dig into your man’s businesses and report every last nugget.”
Coltrane spit and leaned back to his original position with his cowboy boots tangled out in front and his hands clasped behind his head. “Cooperate or it’s back to the hoosegow.”
I felt the hum that comes with the urge to do violence. “I don’t think so.”
The smile left Coltrane’s face. “Excuse me?”
“If you had anything solid on me, Coltrane, you’d say it. You’d use it. You’d say, ‘Santiago, we got X, we got Y, we got Z.’ You don’t. You ain’t got shit. You got a gun recovered from someone else’s car—”
“Possession—”
I raised my voice a little. “I’ll do a possession rap jerkin’ off. Possession won’t mean shit inside but more juice than I had before I came out. Meantime, I bet the DA’s more interested in hearing about two officers coming into a gun, possibly a murder weapon, and letting everybody walk in exchange for cash.”
Their faces melted.
I continued: “So? Am I under arrest? When can I talk to the prosecutor? I got a confession to make. It involves bribing two cops.”
Johnson’s eyes widened. “You talk to anyone about either of us, cocksucker, I’ll fucking—”
“You’ll fucking what, Johnson? Shit in your pants and beg for a lawyer?”
Coltrane covered his lips with an index. “Grand jury’d never believe you, felon.”
“Wanna find out?”
They looked at me. Johnson’s mouth hung open.
I felt my blood surge. “Stay off my ass, both of you. You even think about fucking with me, get up early. Better yet, next time, bring my cash. All of it. Otherwise, stay lost.”
I turned to walk away. In that moment, those first couple steps, I had the confidence to knock down every tree in the park.
Then Coltrane called after me. He’d regained enough composure to throw one last stone. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, Santiago. Look it up.”
I can’t explain it, but that one struck between the shoulder blades. I felt the eyes of the universe, and did not look back. I tossed my dinner in a garbage can, and ran to my room.