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Trailer de Fuego

Garnett Elliott

Starry night filtered through the lime trees. Tench leaned against a tailgate, his fifth cup of Jack and warm Coke in a steady hand, listening to his fellow corrections officers talk about the day’s work. They hunkered in a circle a couple trucks down. Most were just off shift and still in their tan uniforms.

Someone came drifting over, the firefly glow of a cigarette cocked in his mouth. Tench smelled the sweat on him and frowned. It was Stewart, the new guy. Nervous. He walked up to the tailgate and stood there for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other while Tench stared at him.

“Shit, but it’s hot,” Stewart said at last. “Sun’s been down a couple hours and it still feels like ninety.”

“Probably is.”

“Doesn’t it drop at night?”

“Not much during the summer. You don’t like heat, you shouldn’t have moved to Arizona.”

He let the implications of that hang.

Stewart pushed back strands of limp hair. “I heard you, ah, handled that situation for me today.”

Tench grinned. Set his drink down and fished in his back pocket for a moment. Came up with a loaded sock and handed it over for Stewart to inspect.

“It’s light,” Stewart said, hefting the thing. A look crossed his face like maybe Tench was putting him on. “What’s it filled with?”

“Soap shavings.”

“Soap? What for?”

“Doesn’t leave any marks that way.”

“You actually hurt him with this?”

‘Him’ being Hector Tamayo, the little banger stashed in D pod, where they put the violent types. Tamayo had threatened Stewart his first day on the job. Reached up through the cell bars and shoved something hard against his back. Whispered it was a shank and he could have Stewart any time he wanted, he didn’t show him proper respect. Stewart had told Tench and half the guys in the break room about it later. Tearfully.

“Yeah, I hurt him,” Tench said. “Took a couple swipes to the gut. Tough beaner, but he went down. He didn’t have no shank in there, by the way. He threatened you with a piece of cardboard.”

Stewart still didn’t look convinced. About the sock, anyways. He kept lifting it up like he couldn’t believe how light it was.              

Tench grunted. Snatched the sock out of his hand, reversed the grip. Swung, letting his wrist go loose at the right moment, so the weighted end hit with the proper snap. He caught Stewart on the thigh. The little soap chips made a crunching sound that echoed through the groves and Stewart went down on one knee, moaning. The cigarette dropped from his lips.

“S’all in the wrist,” Tench said. “Pussy.”

He chuckled. There was a smattering of laughter from the other officers. Stewart looked up at him with moist eyes.

“I didn’t hurt Tamayo to protect you,” Tench said. “I did it to protect the rep. Our rep. Guys like you are dangerous. Get hard, fast, or get out of jailhouse work.”

Silence from Stewart. Now the other officers had gone quiet, too. No one was going to offer any objections. Not to Tench. He held the line against all the bad-asses in County, dispensing pain and intimidation where needed. Somebody had to. He made the job easier for the rest of the guards and they knew it.

Stewart wobbled to his feet, face downcast. Nobody tried to help him. He limped out of sight and about a minute later came the sound of a truck door opening, an engine turning over.

Conversation seeped back after the truck drove away. Tench finished his drink. He’d done a smooth job with Stewart. Old Tench, holding court from the back of his pickup. The other officers would come to him later in the evening, respectful, ask for a few pointers in handling cons. And he’d dispense some wisdom based on fifteen years working penal institutions from the deep dark South to Texas to this chicken-shit little border town.

Someone was walking up right now, as a matter of fact. A tall silhouette in a cowboy hat. Tench felt his gut hitch a little because he thought he recognized the guy. Him? Coming all the way out here? But that’s who it was, Don Gustavo, a big smile plastered on his greaser face. Looking more like some old vaquero than the local head of the Mexican Mafia.

He took the cowboy hat off, held it over his chest. Tench started to say something but Gustavo raised his hand. “I know, you’re uncomfortable talking to me here.” There was some urgency in his voice. “I would like to have arranged a meeting, but—”

“Don’t sweat it,” Tench said, belching carbonation into the warm night air. “None of these guys are going to give me shit. But let’s go around to the other side of the truck, okay?” No sense airing his dirty business where co-workers could hear.

They walked deeper into the lime’s shadow. Gustavo looked pretty sharp for a greaser, Tench had to admit, with his neatly creased Wranglers and snakeskin boots. Had a nice belt-buckle on him, too; Navajo silver and turquoise, gleaming in the dimness.

“I brought you something,” Gustavo said. He reached under his shirt and handed Tench a tiny package wrapped in duct-tape, slick with belly-sweat.

“Whoa,” Tench said, palming the bundle instantly. He knew what it was.

“That hasn’t been cut yet. It came all the way up from Peru.”

Tench frowned. “You want me to distribute?” Not his usual kind of work with Gustavo.

“No. It’s payment. I need you to do something, tonight.”

Tench felt the grin creep around the corners of his mouth. He was holding about four thousand dollars worth of blow, easy. And he knew a truck stop in the foothills where he could move it all in one evening.

“There is a gentleman living in Dateland,” Gustavo said. “Alone. He’s had connections with La Familia in the past. I need some names from him and a guarantee of silence afterwards. I don’t want him hurt badly.”

“Not too badly,” Tench said, still grinning.

“Observe some restraint, please. I may need him again.”

“Okay.”

Gustavo leaned close and whispered details: the man’s name, an address in Dateland. Specifics about the information he wanted. Was there much security? No, the man did not have a bodyguard. No dogs. Probably owned a gun, so some caution would be necessary. Tench chuckled and told him everyone in Dateland was armed to the teeth, so no problems. They shook.

“Something wrong, chief?” Tench said. “I’ve never seen you rushed before.”

Gustavo’s eyes narrowed. It was like twin cracks opening in his head, letting Tench see the cold fire that always burned back there. “Just do this tonight,” he said. He put his hat back on and strolled away quick as he came. Tench flipped him off behind his back. Fucking Mexicans. Getting all uppity like they were serious mobsters. Like they actually knew half the crap they were talking about. He’d take their money, sure, but he was getting tired of second-generation wetbacks telling him what to do.

Then he remembered Hector Tamayo. The little greaser’s cries echoing up and down D pod, falling on ears suddenly gone deaf. And his smile came back.

***

He left the grove at midnight, while the party was still going strong. Some of the crazy fucks would be clocking back in at five in the morning, wouldn’t even go home or change their uniforms. Tench had been there once.

A patrol car pulled up the dirt road just as he was pulling out and flashed its lights. He slowed, rolled down the window. The two young policemen didn’t recognize his face, so he took the badge off his pocket and showed them that.

“Just having a party back there, officers,” he said, pointing at the dark trees. “Just a bunch of screws cutting loose.”

They laughed at that and waved him on.

 ***

He pulled off from the frontage road on the way home. Gave old Gustavo’s stuff an experimental toot and hell yes, it was pure. Live current coursed through his teeth.

All the lights were on in the double-wide as he parked. Leeza was awake. Shit. Well, this was a working night and she’d have to deal. He winced walking up the steps and hearing her techno pop crap playing on the stereo. “Workout music,” she called it. Leeza was from West L.A. and bitches up there obviously didn’t know any better.

She was waiting for him at the kitchen table, scowling, cigarette in hand and a whole ashtray crowded with butts. Wearing one of his Sturgis t-shirts — goddamn it, the one with the Old English lettering. And a pink thong. Probably thought it made her look sexy, but all it was doing was reminding him the trailer’s carpets needed cleaning.

“You’re late,” she said, like they were married or something.

“The fuck it is to you?”

She started screeching. He ignored her and rummaged in the refrigerator. Jesus, Leeza could screech. He’d picked her up two weeks ago at the Tapper, one of the skuzziest topless joints this side of Sonora, and he’d been stone drunk when it happened. He didn’t remember sleeping with her. He wasn’t sure he actually had, but she’d wasted no time moving her skinny ass and all her stuff into his trailer.

“You don’t like it here,” he said around a mouthful of cottage cheese, “you can get the—”

“Tench, honey?” Her voice had suddenly changed. She was looking at his eyes.

“What?”

“Are you tweaking?”

“What do you mean am I ‘tweaking’? Fucking L.A. slang.”

“Did you score some … cocaine?”

She spoke the last word with reverence. Her sallow tongue slipped out and wet her lips.

“Maybe,” he said, taking a step back.

Her face brightened like a vampire’s. “You’re holding…”

“Calm down.”

She came at him with crooked fingers, clawing at his jeans and belt buckle. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to get the coke off him or give him a blowjob so he’d share. Either way was scary. He shoved her back and she collided with the kitchen table, spilling cigarette butts and a wave of ash.

“I said, calm the fuck down!”

But she sprang up, grinning. Started clawing for him again. He couldn’t do this, waltz around all night with a job waiting for him in Dateland. He made a fist and clocked her as she groped for his pants, his scarred knuckles connecting with her temple. She spun, staggered into the little cabinet by the sink that held his shot-glass collection. Both Leeza and cabinet struck the linoleum at the same time. Glass tinkled.

Oh shit. He bent to examine the collection.

His Harley Commemorative had shattered, and there was a fracture in the little cup he’d won that night he sang Karaoke at Gentleman’s Choice. Leeza made gurgling noises. He turned to stare pure hatred at the little coke-whore bitch. Unconscious. He could tell by the shallow way she was breathing. Well, it was better than she deserved. He picked the cabinet up and carefully set it on the table.

In the bedroom he changed into coveralls, transferring Don Gustavo’s payment to the bib pocket. No point trying to hide the stuff here. Leeza, when she came to, would tear the trailer apart trying to find it. He felt around under the bed and hauled out his old axe-handle, a worn leather gag, and a handful of zip ties. Nothing fancy for tonight. Gustavo wanted a quick job, and besides, Tench had learned long ago that his hands were his best tools.

He checked Leeza’s breathing one last time to make sure he wouldn’t be coming back to a corpse. The techno pop noise had faded but he busted up the stereo anyways, on account that it was hers and the loss of property would strike a karmic balance for his broken shot-glasses.

And just maybe the bitch would get it into her head to leave.

 ***

He drove the pickup through the rock gullies of Telegraph Pass, desert night and the buzz of AM radio his only companions. Beyond the mountains the land stretched out in a gray blanket. It would take an hour of chewing highway to make Dateland, so he leaned back and drowsed a little, letting his hands and eyes do the driving.

Hell, everybody wanted a piece of old Tench tonight. The altercation with Leeza aside, things were looking peachy. He had a uniform and he had mob connections and he could flit between both worlds like all those illegals slipping across the border. Four-thousand dollars worth of blow didn’t hurt his self-esteem, either. He could make a down on a righteous truck with that kind of money.

Some wussy-minded type might call him a torturer, might spit when they said the word, but truth was there would always be a calling for someone who could ask questions and get answers. Someone who wouldn’t balk when the screaming started. Was it his fault he was good at it? He’d read somewhere that even certain bad-ass Nazis had had their limits, had broken under the strain of inflicting misery on other humans. Well, that wasn’t him. Maybe an upbringing in rural Mississippi and a dad who dealt justice with a cattle-prod would’ve set those SS fuckers straight.

He thought about that, and when the high beams hit the sign that said thirty miles to Dateland he slowed a little. Best to keep his mind on tonight’s job. He remembered the piece of coldness he’d glimpsed in Don Gustavo and reminded himself that the man, greaser or not, was someone you didn’t want to cross.

 ***

He found the whispered address down a dirt road, about three miles from town proper. “Town” for Dateland meant a Chevron with a convenience store attached, plus the rows of palm groves that gave the place its name.

His victim lived in a lonely double-wide. It kind of reminded Tench of his own place, only shabbier, surrounded by scrub grass and mesquite. He drove by it to check the numbers on the dented mailbox and make sure. A light burned in the rearmost window. There was an El Camino parked on one side.

He continued driving past for about two minutes, cut the lights, then swung around and stopped. He’d hoof it from here. Place like this, you could hear things coming for miles around.

He hopped a drooping barbed wire fence. The moon was up and cast silver on a field of yucca and broken beer bottles. Even out here there were broken bottles. His feet crunched glass as he walked. He could see the trailer’s single lit window in the distance, winking at him, drawing him like the proverbial moth.

He’d heard stories about the people in Dateland. Not so much a place to live as a place to lay low. Criminals with warrants on them in other states, crazy old vets who strung claymore mines around their property. Of course, if the place wasn’t dangerous, then Gustavo wouldn’t have sent someone like old Tench, would he? Would’ve sent one of his own soft greasers instead.

The trailer window got closer. He stopped when he figured he was forty feet away. His victim’s name was Juan Smith, which sounded bogus and probably was. What mattered, though, was that Mr. Smith knew some of the people hauling Mexican Sudafed across the border for meth kitchens in Southern Arizona. And Don Gustavo wanted to know who these people were.

At twenty feet Tench stopped again, listening. No sounds from the trailer. No sounds from the road. He was being too cautious. Gustavo had told him the man had no muscle around. He had to get this sneaking stuff over with quick, so he could start the real work.

He crept up to the window. Craned his head. The light was coming from a lamp and a black and white TV. There was a recliner propped in front of the set, and the back of a gray-haired head sticking above the recliner. He heard snores over the soft TV voices.

Cake. Fucking cake. He ran to the side door. Flimsy lock; he slid his pocket-knife into the jam and pried the bar up with a faint pop. Crept into a narrow hallway. Ahead lay the living room, TV and recliner. Juan Smith, snoring louder now. He’d get his wakeup soon. Tench hefted the axe-handle and grabbed a zip-tie out of his pocket. A quick blow to stun him, not too hard. Then the zip-tie. Then the gag, until he was ready to talk.

Someone coughed.

Tench froze, eyes darting. The coughing sound had not come from the recliner. Where?

And now the gray-haired man was stirring, straightening up in the chair. Turning around to face Tench. It was Don Gustavo. He still wore the creased Wranglers and boots, but the cowboy hat was gone. The lips under his moustache curled in a way that wasn’t friendly.

“What’re you doing here?” Tench said. “Where’s Juan Smith?”

“Relax.”

“What’s going on?”

Gustavo settled his arms across his chest. “Do you have a gun?”

“No. You said—”

A tall closet next to the recliner rattled and the door slid back. A man stepped out. He had to stoop to clear the frame; about six-four, dark-skinned, heavy-shouldered, with a greaser haircut and an aquiline nose that hinted at Yaqui heritage. The man wasn’t carrying weapons and didn’t need to. Tench’s fingers dug into the axe-handle.

“There are complications,” Don Gustavo said, “in working both sides of the law as you do.” His voice sounded far away, though in fact he had taken a couple steps closer to speak. His eyes were half-lidded. He nodded at Tench.

The tall dark man came forward. His face had the fixed expression of someone who was expecting violence. Tench cocked the axe-handle back, ready to swing but balking when he saw all that muscle ripple towards him. He swung. The heavy’s hand flashed out and caught him at the wrist with fingers made of cinder-block. Tench balled his left and drove it into the man’s stomach. More cinder-block.

“Go easy, Chuy,” Gustavo said.

But the heavy was already tightening his grip, fingers closing on Tench’s wrist with the inexorable force of a bolt cutter. Plans flashed through his mind, desperate. Knee the guy in the nuts. Kick his shin. Lean close and head butt him. A thousand tricks he’d learned while inside. But pain and panic kept him still. His fingers were going numb.

“You beat a man yesterday, in that jail,” Gustavo said. “Brutally. I understand this was done as a matter of principle. I can respect such a thing. I hope you can, too.”

Tench shook his head, not understanding. Too much pain to make the connection.

“Hector Tamayo is my Godson,” Gustavo said.

Tench heard the first of a series of pops from his wrist. The axe-handle clanked against the floor. He swayed and felt like he was going to pass out, but the heavy jerked him upright. Tench looked into his eyes for signs of mercy. No dice. There were blue-black lines on the man’s corded neck that ran down to the top part of his chest, swirling together to form the portrait of a saint. Tench recognized the technique and dropped his head. Prison tattoos.

“Now, Chuy,” Gustavo said, his voice almost a whisper.

 ***

They broke nearly every bone he had and left him out by the freeway. Trucks roared by until the sun came up. Someone must’ve finally called 911, because suddenly paramedics were swarming all over him, shaking their heads. He’d gone so limp they had to scrape the stretcher under him to get his body off the ground.

At the hospital a toxicology screen found cocaine in his system, and one of the EMT’s had come across Gustavo’s “payment” while the coveralls were being cut away. They had left that for him after all. A parting gift. The possession was dutifully reported and Tench got his pre-trial notice while still learning to spoon applesauce to his swollen lips.

He should’ve left the stuff at home, with Leeza.

Later, sitting upright in his bed, he tried to think of a single prison in the Southwest where he hadn’t worked and the cons didn’t know him by name.

Copyright(c) 2006 by Garnett Elliott

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