Марк Смит - Moist

The sheriff stood in the doorway.

“I’m gonna get a cup of coffee, and when I come back, you’re gonna tell me the truth.”

Esteban hated going into places like this. A dark bar in East LA. If he was looking for trouble, he could find it here. He had asked Amado to come with him. But Amado said he was busy working on his telenovela script. Esteban was tired. He didn’t want to argue. He knew that if he’d told Amado who he was going to see and where, he’d have come. But sometimes El Jefe’s got to show his huevos. So Esteban stuck a fully loaded, semiautomatic, nine-millimeter handgun in his sports coat and went alone.

Theoretically he shouldn’t have been nervous. The Ramirez brothers were his employees. They should be loyal, protective. But things were getting weird. Esteban didn’t feel the bluster and confidence he normally carried with him. He was starting to look over his shoulder.

The Ramirez brothers, Tomás and Chino, were sitting in a back booth. They had a couple of long-neck Pacificas in front of them, a little bowl of lime slices, and several thin white lines of crystal meth. They hung their heads when Esteban entered the bar.

“¿Qué pasa, amigos?”

Esteban sat with them. He nodded toward the bartender, a man who’d spent the last twelve years in prison on a trumped-up manslaughter charge, for another round.

“Lo siento, jefe.”

Tomás then went into a long meandering story recounting their drive out to the desert and attempt to find Martin. Esteban wanted him to get to the point, but the crystal meth in Tomás’s brain kept his story running through a mouse maze of incidental detail and collateral anecdotes.

Finally the story came to the end. They had seen Martin in the custody of a park ranger.

Esteban looked at them for a long time. Chino squirmed in the vinyl booth.

“Sorry, man.”

Finally Esteban spoke.

“Where did they take him?”

Tomás and Chino exchanged a look.

“We don’t know.”

They started to say more, but Esteban silenced them with a look and pulled out a cell phone. He dialed a number, spoke rapidly into the phone, and then hung up. He turned and looked at the Ramirez brothers. Chino hesitated, then took a rolled dollar bill and snorted a line of speed.

The beers arrived.

Esteban squeezed some lime into his and sipped it. Tomás did a line of speed. He offered the rolled bill to Esteban.

“No. Gracias .”

The three men sat there, no one saying a word. Esteban was calm, curado como un pepino, while the two brothers were grinding their teeth, trying hard not to talk. Drinking their beers too quickly.

Esteban’s cell phone rang.

“Bueno.”

He listened for a beat and then folded it shut.

“He is in the hospital. In Palm Springs.”

Tomás and Chino exchanged looks. Finally, Chino spoke.

“You want us to go out there?”

Esteban nodded.

“Sí.”

Tomás blinked.

“Now?”

“Sí, ahora.”

Chino quickly attempted to scrape the leftover meth into a pile, but he got some lime juice mixed up in it and it turned into a gluey lump. Tomás shrugged, and with some sheepish speedy grins, the two brothers left the bar.

Esteban sighed and took a long pull on his beer. It was good that Martin was in the hospital and so far away. It would give him time to make arrangements.

Amado was enjoying himself. Somehow, writing the script was like watching the show. Only this time Amado could have the characters do what he wanted them to do. What he thought they should really do. Like having Fernando kick the padre’s ass for fucking Gloria. In Amado’s version of the telenovela, the passions weren’t hidden, they were worn on the sleeves. The characters shouted. They lived. They loved. They fought like maniacs.

If only the chingado teléfono would stop ringing and he could finish this sentence.

Amado had to admit he was curious. He wondered what the hell was going on. But he knew that Esteban could take care of himself. He just needed to remember how. Amado smiled to himself. Now maybe El Jefe would understand how much Amado had done for him. His efforts would be appreciated in hindsight. While Esteban had lounged around the pool or cruised the streets with his gringo, Amado had been working. Esteban had grown soft, while Amado had stayed hard and hungry. It would be good for El Jefe.

Amado struggled as he wrote, his one hand not able to type as fast as his brain thought or his characters spoke. But he stayed concentrated and, as the day wore on, the page count mounted.

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

If it was Esteban he’d smack him. Tell him to look down and see if he had any cojones left. But it wasn’t Esteban. It was Cindy, her pink pigtails mounted on top of her head like antennae.

BOB PULLED UP the gated drive to Esteban’s house. He couldn’t believe how nice it was. Palm trees and flowers, a manicured lawn. The house itself was an ornate Spanish colonial structure painted hacienda red with stark white trim. It was a big house. Impressive. A gardener was clipping the hedge while another swept up grass cuttings. They didn’t use the gas-powered leaf blowers that swarmed around Los Angeles like a hive of angry wasps. People with money could afford to have their gardeners use a push broom.

It was peaceful. The sun glinted through the palm trees, a mosaic fountain gurgled by the front steps, birds chirped in the trees, and the soft and steady sound of a broom on asphalt took him to another time, another place.

Lupe opened the carved wooden doors to let Bob in. The interior was furnished in a kind of Mexican moderne style. Simple, light. The walls painted deep rich colors.

Bob was impressed.

Lupe turned to him.

“He’ll be down in a minute. Would you like a drink?”

“A beer would be great.”

“ Claro. Just have a seat.”

Lupe went off.

Bob stood and looked out the large windows at the Jacuzzi and the pool beyond it. The garden in the backyard was even more extensive than what he’d seen in the front. There were several jacaranda trees, a rose bed, and wild-looking clumps of Mexican sage and rosemary growing down the side of a hill.

Esteban entered the room and cleared his throat. Bob turned toward him.

“Roberto.”

“Hi.”

Esteban came up and gave Bob a big hug.

“I am glad to see you are alive.”

“Me too.”

Esteban was wearing an elegant tan-colored suit, with a white shirt and a purple floral tie. Bob thought he was dressed like some kind of Latin American factory owner. The clothes looked good on him. Bob felt a little awkward in his jeans and T-shirt, with a funky bowling shirt on the outside. Esteban looked at Bob with a serious expression.

“Roberto, the next time someone tries to kill you like that, you cannot let them live. ¿Entiendes? ”

Bob nodded.

Lupe entered, carrying a couple of beers on a tray. Esteban kissed her tenderly on the cheek.

“Gracias, corazón.”

Lupe smiled at Bob and left.

“I think I’m going to marry that woman.”

Bob grinned.

“I’ve been thinking that about Felicia.”

Esteban handed Bob a beer and smiled.

“Qué bueno. ¡A su boda!”

They clinked the bottles together.

Bob took a swig of the icy cerveza .

“What are we going to do about Martin?”

“It’s taken care of.”

Esteban sat down on the sofa; Bob followed his lead and took a seat opposite him.

“Why did he want to kill me?”