David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

“You been spying on me?”

“I know things,” Happy said. “Get used to it.”

“Yeah? What else do you know?”

“That’s my business. What’s with Godo?”

“Tía Lucha didn’t tell you?”

“Never mind what she told me, I wanna hear it from you.”

“Hear what?”

“He’s fucked up.”

“Ya think?”

Happy reached across and swatted the back of Roque’s head. “Don’t be such a punk.”

“Don’t touch me.”

Happy, in whiny nasal mimicry: “Don’t touch me.” Then: “His dick still work?”

Roque had to process that. “There’s some things we don’t share.”

“I mean has he gotten it wet since he got back? Given how he looks, I was thinking maybe…” Happy rubbed his thumb and index finger together, suggesting cash.

“Who am I, his pimp?”

Happy chuckled at that, then took another long drag, blowing the smoke out, watching it billow against the windshield. “Face the way it is? He looks like a fucking dartboard.”

“Tell him that. I dare you.”

Happy let that go, except to say, “You got a point. Nothing wrong with his temper. Spent maybe two minutes with him, he wants to mix it up.”

“You want Godo mellow, you’ll have to kill him.”

“There’s a thought.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Fuck’s sake, Roque, chill out. By the way, not everybody who was over there came back fucked up. You get that, right?”

“How would you know?”

Happy picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue. “That’s another long story.” He turned to gaze out at his window at the mold-freckled storefronts. A crow perched on the rain gutter, framed by fog. “How come you’re not pitching in with money?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“You’re really starting to piss me off with this.”

“I’ve got a line on a band gig. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Roque shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“Really? Hard to say what, your family needs the bread? Hard to say they’re fucked, my old man deported?”

An eighteen-wheeler thundered past, rattling the pickup’s windows. The crow on the gutter fluttered its wings. “Maybe we can get a lawyer.”

“Fucking hell-you stupid? What’s a lawyer gonna do except take our money? You think-” Happy stopped short, glancing in his rearview mirror. A patrol car pulled into the strip-mall lot. Murmuring, “What’s this asshole want,” he stubbed out his cigarette, dropped the butt between his feet. “Keep talking,” he told Roque.

“About what?”

“About anything. So we don’t look like we’re casing this dump.”

Roque let his glance dart once out the cab’s back window, then started babbling, launching into the first thing that came to mind. Happy, eyes glued to the mirror, spoke to the reflection: “Come on, fuckwad. You run the plates, we’re gonna do this.” With painful slowness, the patrol car eased along the storefronts, shining a flashlight through the window glass.

“Open the glove box,” Happy said.

Roque obeyed. The butt of a pistol lay exposed within a folded newspaper. “Jesus-”

Happy turned toward him, their eyes met. The menacing sorrow was gone, replaced by emptiness. “Tell me another story.”

“You’re not gonna shoot a cop.”

“I’ll shoot you, you don’t calm down. Tell me another story.”

The black-and-white, having finished its check of the stores, eased toward the end of the parking lot, only to circle back and come abreast of the pickup, so the driver sides matched up. The cruiser’s tires were muddy, the windshield caked with rainy grime. The cop lowered his window and gestured for Happy to do the same. The glove box remained open.

The officer said, “Mind telling me your business here?”

Happy turned so his body blocked whatever view the cop might have through the window. “I’m just sitting here talking with my cousin, officer. He’s getting married next month and he’s worried about money.”

The cop studied Happy at length, an occasional attempt to glance past him toward Roque. The man had a thick putty-colored face with baggy eyes, more bored clerk than cop. “Kinda early, don’t you think?”

“Only time we had. We both gotta head off for work soon.”

“What say you do that now.”

“Yes, sir. You wanna see my license and registration?”

Happy reached for the glove box. Roque’s throat closed up, he couldn’t get his breath.

The cop glanced away, dipping his head toward his radio, deciphering a sudden shock of words ensnarled in static. “Just get to where you need to be.”

“Okay, sure.” Happy toggled his keys, cranking the engine. “Thank you, officer.”

He pulled out and the cop stayed put, the two of them watching each other in their rearviews. Happy turned south, heading back toward the trailer park. He dug another smoke from the pack in his shirt pocket, set it between his lips, then rummaged in his pants pocket for his matches. “I’m gonna drive a ways,” he said, “not pull in, understand?”

Roque nodded. He could finally breathe. “You’re the one driving.”

Happy lit a match one-handed, held it to the tip of his cigarette, tilted his head back as he waved out the flame, then tossed the matchbook onto the dash. “Let’s get back to what we were talking about.”

Unable to stop himself, Roque glanced over his shoulder out the back window. Like a nagging itch, the cop was there, trailing several car lengths behind.

Happy said, “I see him. Relax, will you?” He glanced toward the glove box, which Roque had yet to close. “With Godo fucked up the way he is, it’s gonna be up to you. No excuses.”

Roque went cold. He glanced at the weapon, then back at the cop, then Happy. “What do you mean? Up for what?”

“I said relax. I’m talking about my old man.”

Roque wiped his palms on his jeans, trying to picture Tío Faustino in a crowded cell, unable to sleep, scared. “What about him?”

For the first time that morning, Happy smiled-an acid grin, vanishing almost instantly-as he glanced in his mirror. Behind them, the patrol car slowed, then turned off into another strip mall. A clerk not a cop, Roque thought.

Happy said, “Shut up and I’ll tell you.”

GODO WASN’T SURE AT FIRST IF WHAT HE HEARD WAS REALLY A knock at the door-the sound seemed timid, maybe just a tree branch brushing the roof. He muted the TV. It came again.

He swung his legs to the floor and leaned down, reaching under the bed, not for the shotgun this time but the Smithy.357. Be cool, he told himself, no reruns of yesterday. Could just be one of the neighbors, wanting to beg some favor off Tía Lucha. That happened a lot-patron saint of mooches, that woman. But then he glanced at the clock and thought, My God, has it really been an hour since she left for work? Can’t be. He blinked, shook off the watery drift of things, checked again. Sure enough, not just an hour, a little more.

His leg felt leaden and balance was iffy but he made his way down the hallway and into the kitchen just as a third knock sounded. Pausing beside the door, he stared at the square of cardboard taped up where the window used to be.

He called out, “Yeah?”

No answer at first. Then: “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, unfamiliar.

Godo tensed. “Who’s there?”

A preliminary bout of throat-clearing. “I’m a friend of Faustino’s. Drove his rig up from the port. Parked it out front. Got his keys here.”

Godo stepped past the door toward the window, edged back the curtain. He was a knobby squint of a man with large hands, a reddish mustache too big for his face, ears poking out from under a graying mop of windblown hair. He wore a mechanic’s one-piece coverall, stained at the knees from oil, other smeary markings here and there.