Fifty Grand

12 MR. JONES

I need a gun. In Havana I was lit by neon. A rep. The kind that floats up. Only my immediate superiors and the goons in the DGSE or the DGI could fuck with me. But in America the border taught me that life is cheap. The life of an illegal worth less than a dog. And Paco’s right. It’s Saturday. I’ve got one day left. The investigative part of this operation is almost over.

Not Mrs. Cooper.

If I can eliminate Esteban’s Range Rover and the silly golf cart, it will all boil down to the garage.

There were only two cars in for repairs in the Pearl Street Garage that whole week. Mrs. Cooper’s Mercedes and Jack Tyrone’s Bentley.

But Jack was in L.A. the night of the accident.

Youkilis was here. Youkilis driving Jack’s car? Got to be. It fits with the man, it works with the evidence. Twenty meters from Jack’s house, fifteen from Youkilis’s front gate. Jack’s car and Youkilis drunk or high or both. Coke and ice. Ice and coke. Foreign and domestic. Gives you two trips, two lives.

Youkilis. Take him. Break him. Make him talk. Make him admit it.

And then…

Is there any real alternative? The Cuban Interests Section of the Mexican Embassy?

Sure. The ministry claims that Luis Carriles put a bomb on a plane that killed seventy-three people. To this day the Yankees have refused to extradite him to Cuba.

It has to be in-house. I’m ok with it. It feels right.

For all of recorded history and for the million years before that humans have taken vengeance into their own hands. A simple code. Kill one of ours, we’ll kill one of yours. The simplest code there is. Only in the last century or two have people given this job to outsiders. To police, lawyers, courts. And no one really buys into that 100 percent. Certainly not in Cuba, where the old ways walk the streets of Cerro and Vedado. This is what Ricky doesn’t understand. He’s never walked those streets. Cops and the rule of law are a blip in deep time.

No, we don’t completely believe in them and some part of us remembers that revenge isn’t just a right-it’s a sacred obligation.

And why else did I come here? Why?

Overthinking. Need to be doing, not thinking.

Supplies. Duct tape, cuffs, map, markers, sledgehammer. And most of all-a gun.

In another ensemble from Angela’s cupboard I walk out of the motel. Brown cotton skirt, beige blouse, black sweater, black jacket. Backpack. No lipstick, no makeup. Wool hat low over my eyes. No attempt to look my best. This is the business end of my journey here. An ugly business.

I turn left for Fairview and again note that Toyota with the New York plates. No man sleeping inside this time because it’s later.

One sighting was bad but two have me worried. Someone’s keeping an eye on the motel. An INS agent? A fed following up a lead from New Mexico?

It’s something. Think about it.

Down the hill to town. I walk past Starbucks and Dolce and Gabbana and a Ferrari dealership. Dean and Deluca. Whole Foods. Past a paradise of fruit and bread.

I turn on Arapahoe Street and enter the Safeway.

Aisle 2: Hardware. Knife, tape, rope.

Aisle 3: Winter clothes. Ski mask, gloves.

Aisle 6: Electrical. Flashlight, batteries.

Aisle 8: Grocery. Coffee, butter, bacon-so the purchases don’t look quite so menacing.

Pay.

Load up my backpack.

How many dollars left from my carefully husbanded bribe money, payoff money, and wages?

Six twenties and a five. Is that enough for a firearm? I walk down Manitou Road to what passes for the bad part of town.

A 7-Eleven, a couple of liquor stores, boarded-up shops-notices on the boards that all this has been rezoned for urban renewal.

Next to a sex shop is Fairview’s only pawnbroker.

In the window: a bicycle, a baby stroller, a fur coat, guns.

I go inside.

Skinny kid in a blue T-shirt reading an SAT prep book. Looks up at me briefly and back down at his book.

A whole row of handguns in a glass cabinet in front of him, the cheapest a.38 police special for $180. I’m fifty-five bucks short. But it doesn’t matter anyway-a sign on the wall says HANDGUNS FOR SALE TO US CITIZENS ONLY and another informs me that BACKGROUND CHECKS WILL BE ENFORCED AT ALL TIMES.

This kid doesn’t seem the type who is authorized to haggle or bend the rules.

Damn it. I turn, go to the door. Kid looks up again.

“Help you with anything?” he asks.

“No, thank you.”

He goes back to his college book, and as I nod goodbye I notice something that actually might be very useful. Behind him on a rack are half a dozen sets of police handcuffs and above that, cans of pepper spray. I’ve used pepper spray before in the PNR but it’s a controlled substance in Havana and private citizens are not permitted to purchase it. Pimps like it, though-gun possession is an automatic year in jail, whereas having a can of pepper spray can be bribed out of court. Once I traded two cans of CS gas for twenty bucks and a week’s tickets from the ration book. Eggs, sugar, flour. Ricky and I made a birthday cake for Mom.

“How much for the pepper spray?” I ask.

“Twenty dollars.”

“Do I need a permit to buy it?”

“No.”

“And how much for the steel handcuffs?” I ask.

The boy looks at the price label.

“Fifteen.”

Out into the street two minutes later. A snow flurry. I pull on my wool hat.

I still need a gun.

Plan B.

I fish out the ad from the Fairview Post: “For sale: Thorpe hunting Rifle new 750 dollars. Smith and Wesson M &P 9mm good con with ammo 400 dollars OBO.”

The address is 44 Lime Kiln Road, about two kilometers north out of town.

I don’t have the cash but my plan is not to buy the weapon.

Risky, but I don’t see any other choice. Esteban has a rifle in his apartment but Esteban’s in Denver, the apartment’s locked, and no one else in the Mex Motel owns a gun.

Noon.

Go there now before you lose your nerve.

I walk to the crossroads at the liquor store. Lime Kiln is a narrow two-lane curving northwest into the mountains. No sidewalk but there is a trail next to the tree line.

Walk it.

Twenty minutes along the wood.

Cars and SUVs racing past on the downhill lane at close to a hundred kilometers per hour.

The dull clothes better than camouflage, just another Mex going about her silent business, just another invisible with no plans or dreams or thoughts in her head. No one slows to avoid showering me with stones, no one notices me at all.

After half an hour the gradient increases and the trees thin out and there are half a dozen houses next to one another. I read numbers on mailboxes.

Number 44 is a little yellow trailer home set off from the others.

A whole lot of people around. Kids playing, people raking leaves, a lady with a blanket over her legs reading a book.

All these witnesses. This is fucked. Should have scouted this yesterday. This is a night op.

It’s two kilometers back to town. I’m not going back.

Before they notice me I dart into the woods to check out the approach from the rear.

Some of the houses have tall antibear fences but number 44 does not. Just a grassy yard and a well-worn path leading into the woods.

Tires, a workbench, a lathe, half a Dodge pickup parked in the yard.

If I was a pro I’d scout and make notes and wait but I have no time for that, and besides, something tells me to go for it, now. That something is desperation.

I walk out from under the tree cover and approach the rear of the trailer home. I reach into the backpack, remove the ski mask, and pull it over my head. I put the knife into the lock on the screen door. Pull. The plastic gives with a loud snap.

Two houses over, a dog barks. The barking becomes a low growl and then stops.

Heart hammering. This is crazy. Get out now. I turn the handle on the back door and enter a tiny, dirty kitchen. Pots and pans on a gas stove, a box of pancake mix on a table next to a carton of milk. A smallish black dog is sleeping in a wool-lined box near a washing machine. The dog blinks and looks up at me. He registers my presence and rests his head back down on his paws.

This is stupid, Mercado. Get out of here.

I tighten the grip on my knife and push the door to the next room.

A living/dining room and a man, watching TV in a reclining chair. His back is to me but I can see a white hand holding a can of beer. I can’t tell if he’s big, small, young, old. The other hand must have the TV remote because every fifteen or twenty seconds the channel flips.

The room is painted a dull yellow and, apart from a few newspaper fragments on the floor, is quite tidy. There are cupboards along the wall, and through the front window I can see the children throwing an American football to one another.

The longer I stand here the harder it’s going to be.

I pad gently across the floor with as much silence and economy of movement as my nerves will permit.

I look at the knife.

How am I going to do this?

Quickly.

One op. No second chances.

I stand behind him, look down at the top of his head. Bald, with a gray fringe around the edge.

I grip the knife, take a deep breath, and in one fast slice of air it’s at his throat.

“Don’t move,” I tell him.

“The fuck,” he says but doesn’t move.

“This is a hunting knife and it’s on your jugular vein. Don’t move or I’ll cut the vein and you’ll be dead in under a minute. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” he says with surprising equanimity-as if one of the hassles of everyday life was the occasional knife-wielding maniac jumping up from your sofa while you’re watching TV.

“Put down the beer,” I tell him.

“What do you want from me?” he asks.

“Put down the beer.”

He sets the beer can on a side table next to the chair.

“What do you want from me?” he asks again.

Keeping the knife against his vein, I reach out with the handcuffs and place them on his thigh.

“Very slowly handcuff your wrists together,” I tell him.

“I ain’t gonna do it. You’re going to kill me,” he says.

“No one is going to die. Soon I’ll be leaving and you’ll go back to your TV show. I promise if you do what I say you will not be hurt.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” he says.

“Do I sound like a killer?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Just do it!”

He slides his wrists into the cuffs. “Never had a pair of these on before,” he mutters.

When his hands are fully clipped I step out from behind the chair. The ski mask startles him and I take that stunned second to check the cuffs. Tight. Good.

He’s not what I’m expecting. About sixty-five, maybe seventy, wearing a plaid shirt and dark blue jeans. His face says that he’s lived a lot of life. Blue-collar outdoor stuff. His eyes are green and sharp and kindly. It would be very hard to have to kill this man.

“Why don’t you sit down?” he says.

“I will.”

I turn off the TV and sit in the rocking chair opposite him. Rocking chair. A heartbeat ago I was in Santiago de Cuba watching little Ricky sitting down triumphantly in Uncle Arturo’s rocking chair, winning the game, Mom laughing, Dad winking, Lizzy bursting into floods of tears. A blink and the years are gone like playing cards. And Cuba’s gone and I’m in the dream world, America, opposite an elderly man in an unnamed hamlet outside a mountain town in Colorado and Dad’s dead and Ricky’s gay and Mom’s got pre-Alzheimer’s and I haven’t spoken to Lizzy or Esme or Uncle Arturo for a decade.

“Well,” the man says. “What can I do ye for?”

“Pardon?”

“What can I do ye for?”

“I have come about your advertisement in the newspaper.”

“What ad?”

“For the guns.”

“I can detect by your accent that you ain’t from around these parts.”

“No.”

His eyes twinkle. “Well, I have to tell you, ma’am, that in general this here thing with the knife and the handcuffs is not how you’re supposed to respond to a small ad in the newspaper.”

“I need the handgun,” I tell him.

He nods, scratches his nose. “Why is that? If you don’t mind me asking,” he says.

“I need it for protection and I don’t have enough money to buy one downtown.”

He clears his throat. “Ok. Just let me get this straight. You think someone’s trying to harm you and you want to get a gun to protect yourself, but you don’t have much money, so you thought you’d break into my house and steal one of my weapons?”

“Yes.”

He thinks for a second and nods. “Well, ma’am, if you’re willing to take a risk like that then I reckon you’re in a heap of trouble, all right.”

I nod in agreement.

“I got two daughters myself. Both in California.”

“Hmmm.”

“Two daughters, four grandchildren. All girls. Not a boy among them. Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t complaining. Thank the Lord they is all healthy.”

“Mister, uh…”

“Oh, you can call me Jonesy, everyone pretty much calls me Jonesy. And I won’t take it as a sign of disrespect if you don’t want to tell me your name considering the circumstances.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say.

A pause and then a look of cunning. “Well now, missy, how much money you got?” he asks.

“About ninety dollars.”

“Ninety bucks? My oh my. You’re right about that. That ain’t a whole lot of nothing these days. Well, I know you’ve kind of got me over a barrel here, but I’d be very reluctant to part with that brand-new Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter for less than a hundred dollars, no matter how I come to it, but I’ve got some older models you might wanna use for personal protection. Good guns. Stop any ex-boyfriend, ex-husband, that kind of thing. Stop a bull elephant if you was close enough. Lessen you is set on the M and P.”

“I don’t care what the gun is as long as it works.”

He smiles. “Yup, that’s what I reckoned. Well, if you’ll open that red cupboard over there. The key is on top of the TV.”

I find the key and open the cupboard. Half a dozen hunting rifles and a drawer full of revolvers and semiautomatic pistols. Many more guns than he needs for personal protection. Obviously a dealer or a collector of some kind.

I look back to check that he’s still sitting. He hasn’t stirred.

“Ok. You want an M and P? Good choice, by the way. The new one is over on the left-hand side but I got one with a little bit of scoring on the handle, very similar gun, 1997, shoots real good, just under the-”

“I see it,” I say, pulling it out. Looks perfect, not heavy. The grip a little big for me, but not too unwieldy.

“You like it?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Excellent, ninety bucks even for her and no questions asked. She’s a beaut, shot her myself behind the old homestead here. Fires pretty steady up to fifty feet.”

“I’ll take it.” To prove my honesty I remove four twenties and other bills from my pocket and hand them to him. He grins, showing a couple of missing teeth, the first American I’ve seen with that very Cuban look.

“Tell you what, let’s call it seventy. Can’t say fairer than that. That’s a good gun. Serial number filed-not by me, I don’t do that kind of thing. Not my line. Serial number’s gone but it wouldn’t be fair dealing if I didn’t tell you that in the Salt Lake City police department there’s a ballistics report saying that there handgun was used in an armed robbery. Smart cop might be able to trace it back. You shoot that ex-boyfriend of your’n and they’ll have you for armed robbery too. And of course, if you ever brought up my name I’d deny everything.”

“I understand.”

“Good, good. Well, we’re almost done here, I reckon.”

“We are done, thank you.”

“Don’t go running off now just yet. You and me got off to a rocky start, but ain’t that the way sometimes? We’re fast friends now.”

“I’ve got what I came for.”

“Wait a minute, you’re going to need something from me and I’m gonna need something from you.”

Suspicion makes me frown under the ski mask.

“What do I need from you?”

“Don’t you want some shells?”

For a second I don’t understand what he’s talking about. Why would I want shells?

“Ammo,” he clarifies.

“Yes, of course.”

“Fair trade, I’ll give you enough for a clip. Gratis. But you gotta remove these here handcuffs. There’s no way I can tell any of the neighbors around here to cut ’em off. Laugh themselves silly. And as for calling Sheriff Briggs, forget it.”

“What are you saying?” I ask him.

“Bottom drawer of the cupboard. Standard nine-millimeter rounds. I want you to load your clip and when you’re done, throw me that handcuff key. I’ll uncuff myself, you’ll take your gun. You go out the way you came in and we’ll say no more about it.”

“Sounds reasonable, as long as the ammo isn’t dud.”

“It’s good stuff. A-grade. Dry as a hornet’s nest.”

I find the ammo box and load eight rounds into the clip. The spring has a little more give than I would like but it’s not bad for an older weapon.

I throw him the handcuff key. He fumbles with it but eventually uncuffs himself. I take the cuffs and key and put them in my pocket.

“What now?” I wonder.

“There is no what now,” he says. “What now is you going and me staying and us never meeting again.”

He sits in his chair and picks up the beer can. He hits the remote and the TV comes to life.

I walk into the kitchen and slip out the back door and down the yard.

I’m half expecting a shotgun blast tearing up the air around me, but nothing happens.

I dart into the woods and take off the ski mask.

No one follows me on the road back to town and everything’s real smooth until Sheriff Briggs in his black Escalade pulls in beside me.

Bad judge of character-I didn’t figure the old man for someone who would call the cops.

Briggs leans out the window. “Aren’t you one of Esteban’s… Wait a minute, I know you. I got you myself, day before yesterday. What the hell are you doing down here?”

No, Mr. Jones isn’t a chivato, this is just the Mercado luck.

Briggs handbrakes the car and takes off his aviator sunglasses.

Looks at me. I look at him.

A spark.

That man and I know each other. In other lives or other universes our paths have crossed. We’re right to be wary.

Let me see you, Sheriff. Let me really see you.

Skin the tone of a throat-cut murder victim. Eyes the blue ice of an alien moon.

“Asked you a question.”

No muscle in his face moves when he speaks, his voice slipping between his thin lips like one of Mother’s voodoo spirits.

“I must have gotten lost, sir,” I say in Spanish.

“Lost? Christ on a bike, your people managed to fucking walk here from Siberia and you can’t find your way around a town with half a dozen streets?”

“I took a wrong turn,” I suggest.

After this remark, which seems to highlight a prima facie case of falsehood, he hesitates for a moment and then pulls out a packet of cigarettes.

Something’s up, something’s not quite right.

“Lost, eh?” he repeats.

“Sí, señor.”

“Gonna tell you one more time, cut out the Mex.”

“Yes, sir.”

He opens the car door and gets out. “Gonna search you, sister. If you got any large sums of money on you, you and Esteban are in for the fucking high jump. I don’t care if the INS is fucking with the program, I’m not that desperate. I run this town, not him, get me?”

“Yes, sir, but I have no money, sir.”

Just a ski mask, a gun, a fucking sledgehammer.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Take off the pack.”

I let it drop. Gently.

Towering over me, he pats me down, his big horrendous paws touching my sides and ass. He looks inside my shoes and pulls my sweater forward to look down my bra.

“What’s in the backpack?”

Lies. Lies that won’t get believed.

Here it comes-

The big paws pummeling me. Smashing down and down. Blood pouring from my nose and mouth. From my eyes. Drowning in blood. Screaming nerve endings. Pain. Mercy shot to the head. Shallow grave in the woods. A missing Mex. The world doesn’t hesitate on its ellipse.

“Fucking deaf? What’s in the backpack?”

“Cleaning supplies.”

“Open it up.”

The radio crackles inside the SUV.

“Sheriff?”

Briggs reaches through the window and grabs the mike. “This is Briggs.”

“Sheriff, we got a twenty-two on the Interstate. Messy one.”

“Shit. Deaths?”

“I don’t know, Sheriff, at least three vehicles. One of them’s on fire, so I reckon Channel Nine will send up the chopper.”

“I’ll be right over,” Briggs says and gets back in the Escalade.

“Mex town is at the top of the hill and turn left,” he says.

“Thank you, señor.”

“And don’t let me catch you in this neighborhood again. Decent folks along here.”

“No, sir.”

He starts the engine, drives off.

When the SUV disappears over the brow of the next hill my body wilts.

Relief. Exhaustion.

I sit down on the grass verge. December in Colorado, but the sun is shining and it’s warm-not Havana warm, not hot enough to melt that lake in Wyoming; but a dry, wearisome mountain heat.

Get up. Hoof it.

After a klick I find a sign on a forest trail that says ROAD CLOSED-SUBSIDENCE DANGER. That might come in handy. I roll up the sign, put it in my backpack. As I’m zipping another car slows and a voice says, “Me to the rescue. Need a ride?”