Authors: Tim Maleeny
Jump (21 page)
“I’m still a cop, you know.”
Danny Rodriguez stated the obvious but didn’t sound convincing, even to himself.
Sam smiled gently. “I thought you were off duty an hour ago.”
Danny sighed. He yanked his badge off his hip and placed it deliberately on the bar between them. “This is a badge, Sam.”
“I know,” said Sam. “I’ve got one at home.”
Danny’s eyebrows shot up. “You were supposed to turn it in when you retired.”
“I wanted a souvenir.”
Danny laughed despite himself. “You mean something other than the shrapnel in your leg and the heartache?”
Sam didn’t respond.
Danny tapped the badge. “You used to wear one,
amigo
.”
“You’re saying you won’t help.” Sam narrowed his eyes. “Is that what this speech is about?”
Danny scowled and snatched the badge off the table. He hadn’t convinced himself, so why should his ex-partner buy his bullshit. He drummed his fingers on the bar and looked over his shoulder. There were other people in the restaurant but no one close, and the lesbian bartender was at the far end, washing glasses.
“You and I didn’t know each other—not really—until we were partners,” said Danny. He spoke slowly, his gaze somewhere beyond the walls of the restaurant. “Different years at the academy, and I spent some years in Narcotics before moving over to homicide. And your old partner, before me—”
“—James,” said Sam.
“Right,” said Danny. “A black guy, which is hard enough in San Francisco.”
Sam nodded but didn’t say anything. Cops used to joke that San Francisco was like a bag of Wonder Bread, all the bright colors on the outside wrapping—inside nothing but white. Hispanics quarantined in the Mission, blacks pushed all the way across the water to Oakland. A few scattered here and there in city council positions like chocolate sprinkles on vanilla ice cream, just because the mayor loved the taste of the word
diversity
when making speeches.
Danny said, “So you don’t know what it was like coming up as a Latino cop with guys like Zorro crawling all over the Mission District like cockroaches. Other cops asking where you grew up, were you in a gang, got any friends in prison—wanting to make sure you won’t get confused when it comes time to take a homeboy down.”
“Assholes,” muttered Sam.
“Maybe.” Danny shrugged. “Not a lot of color-blind cops out there. But they had a point.”
“Which was?”
Danny leaned forward and looked like he was going to spit. “Whenever the chip on my shoulder got too heavy, I had to remind myself that more than half the fuckheads we arrested came from my neighborhood. Gangs or no gangs, assholes like Zorro and Buster are the reason that I work twice as hard to get half the respect as other cops. I hate those fucking guys.”
Sam didn’t say anything. Danny had said it all.
Both men sat silently hunched over the bar until Danny said, “Of course I’ll help.” Sam squeezed his shoulder but Danny held up a warning finger. “But I won’t break the law.”
“I don’t want you to break it,” said Sam. “Just bend it a little.”
“You’ve already got it as bent as a pretzel.” To emphasize his point, Danny reached into the bowl of snack mix on the bar.
“I like pretzels.” Sam grabbed a handful.
“We’re cops,” said Danny. “We’re supposed to like donuts.”
“I like ‘em both.”
“How bent?” Danny chewed for a minute, short angry crunches that mellowed by the time he swallowed. “Not reporting a crime, like your little tango with Buster—that’s not too bent, because your story is just hearsay, not a confession.”
“See?” said Sam. “Just like a pretzel.”
Danny ignored him. “Not reporting your assault on Zorro, that’s questionable, but—”
“—again, just a story I told you in a drunken rant.”
Danny looked across his shoulder at his former partner. “You haven’t finished your beer.”
“That’s also hearsay.” Sam took a drink, set the glass down slowly. “I’m a lightweight these days.”
“What about Buster? Where is he now?”
Sam looked straight ahead and spoke to Danny’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “You know that gas station on the corner where he hangs out?’
Danny’s reflection nodded as the Danny next to Sam grunted in acknowledgment.
“There’s a dumpster behind it.”
Reflected Danny frowned as the real Danny groaned. “When you allegedly deposited him in this alleged dumpster, what state was he in?”
“Physically, just a few scratches,” said Sam. “Mostly cosmetic, around the ears.”
“
The ears?
” Danny glanced sideways at his friend.
“You don’t want to hear about it.”
“You’re right,” replied Danny. “I don’t.”
“But as for his mental condition, I’d say he was pissed.
Mad as a hornet
might be the best way to describe it.” Sam thought for a minute, then added, “And scared shitless.”
“Of who?”
“You mean
whom
.”
“Fuck you,” said Danny. “Afraid of you—or Zorro?”
“Probably a little of both. Zorro had Buster set me up, so he must have figured that’s where I got his cell number.”
Danny waved a hand dismissively. “Buster won’t do shit.”
“So no crime committed there,” said Sam. “At least none that’ll get reported.”
“Swell,” said Danny. “But not reporting a dead body—that’s pushing it.”
“That one’s on me,” said Sam. “Dead Walter is my responsibility.”
“Is your responsibility—
is
?” Danny was incredulous. “You still haven’t made the call?”
Sam grabbed a handful of pretzels. “I’ve been busy.”
“Jesus.”
Sam held up a hand that was meant to look reassuring, but it ended up looking just like a hand, so he put it back on the bar. Danny put his hands over his ears and said, “We’re not having this conversation.”
Sam finished his beer while Danny sang to himself, hands cupped and locked in place. Sam thought the tune might be
It’s A Small World
, but he couldn’t be sure—Danny did have a daughter at home. Sam signaled to the bartender, who smiled and moved down to pour him another beer.
Danny lowered his hands but waited until the bartender moved away before speaking. “Zorro’s gotta kill you now—you realize that, right?”
“
Machismo
.”
“No small thing, in his world,” said Danny. “You embarrassed him in public, in front of a woman no less.”
“Wish you’d been there.”
The laugh Danny had been fighting burst forth. “Me, too partner. Me, too.”
They sat for a minute, both smiling, like the two old friends they were. After a minute Danny turned on his stool and dropped his voice. “You must have a plan,
pareja
. You always do.”
Sam nodded. “It’s messy.”
“You figure he’ll come for you tomorrow night?”
“Yeah,” said Sam. “Tonight he’s licking his wounds, and he doesn’t move around during the daytime.”
“But you can’t be sure.”
“No,” said Sam. “I don’t know anything for sure.”
“I could arrest him,” said Danny.
“For what?”
“I’ll think of something.”
Sam looked skeptical. “And hold him for how long?”
“Not long enough,” said Danny. “Not long enough to keep you safe.”
“So you want to hear my plan?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Danny. “The less I know, the better.”
“Agreed.”
Danny blew out his cheeks. “But how messy is this plan?”
Sam seemed to think about it before saying, “Very.”
Danny studied his friend for a long minute. “You’re making this up as you go along.”
Sam drained the last of his beer and nodded. “More or less.”
Danny watched his reflection work the muscles in his jaw.
“So what do you expect me to do,” he asked. “When the time comes?”
“Just be yourself,” said Sam. “A good cop.”
A good cop.
Buster almost laughed at the thought but started coughing, an involuntary spasm that drove his bruised ribs into his lungs, which made him cough even harder. He bent over the sink and spat blood, watching as the crimson tide swirled down the drain, his future right behind it.
A good cop.
That’s how Zorro had described Officer Sam, saying it like an insult. Calling the guy a pussy, letting Buster know they had nothing to worry about. Zorro predicting the future like some old gypsy minus the head scarf, bad perfume, and crystal ball.
All Buster had to do was raise his eyes to the mirror to remind himself how completely wrong Zorro had been. Both his ears were ravaged where the hoops had torn through—he looked like he’d been chewed on by a wolverine. The antibiotic ointment he’d smeared on them glistened in the weak fluorescent light of his bathroom.
He’d scrubbed the blood from his cheeks and tried brushing his teeth, but it hurt too much. Every sideways motion of the brush sent a jarring pulse through his busted nose, Newtonian physics applied to cartilage and pain.
Buster shifted his eyes to meet his own gaze but quickly looked away. He was hoping to find rage but would have settled for grim determination. Instead all he saw was fear.
He used to think Zorro knew everything. Heard everything. Saw everything. Someone held up a grocery store under Zorro’s protection, the crew went down the next day. A new player started moving product around the Mission, he disappeared before his next sale. The stories were legend.
Now, looking at his miserable expression in the mirror, Buster realized he’d only
heard
those stories—but out on the street, he rarely saw evidence of Zorro’s hand. Maybe Zorro wasn’t so omnipotent after all. Maybe Zorro was just a bully that no one had stood up to until now. Until he fucked with the wrong guy.
Who knew it would be a guy like Sam?
No doubt Zorro was dangerous. One glance at that jar of eyeballs and you knew better than to fuck with the guy. He would kill you as soon as look at you. But he wasn’t all-knowing, and he wasn’t always right.
He had been wrong about Sam. Dead wrong.
Zorro said that being a good cop meant playing by the rules, but now Buster thought maybe it meant doing the right thing. Standing up, not taking any shit. Buster looked in the mirror and met his gaze, managed to hold it this time. Realized for the first time that he wasn’t looking at a player or a
gangsta
—a G. That cop had played him like a punk, because that’s what he was. That’s what Zorro had made him.
Zorro wasn’t someone you wanted to cross, but as it turned out, neither was Sam. And Buster had managed to cross them both. No matter which way he turned, Buster was caught in the middle, and when those two tangled it was going to get messy. Deep in his gut, Buster knew this was going to end badly.
Buster brought the scissors up and cut away the hair extensions. Blue and green strands fell into the sink and onto the floor, cotton candy from some nightmare carnival. When he got to his own hair, he brought out the electric clippers, moving from front to back until he was down to a quarter-inch of stubble. He dumped his grill in the garbage can, a twisted sliver of metal covered in blood and saliva. Took the rings off his fingers and the chains from around his neck.
For an instant he felt naked, almost dizzy, and thought he was going to be sick. Then he realized his ribs hurt a little less, as if a great weight had been removed from his chest. He took a tentative, deep breath and looked in the mirror again. Almost recognized the guy looking back at him, someone from a long time ago. A forgotten friend. Not a bad guy at all.
Buster nodded at his reflection, then turned and walked down the short hallway to his bedroom.
The duffle bag was packed and over his shoulder in less than fifteen minutes. He didn’t look back at his bed or mourn the loss of his stereo. He left his keys on the counter and the door unlocked.
It took him five minutes to reach the BART station at 24th and Mission, the underground train that would take him through San Francisco in a straight shot, under San Francisco Bay and into Oakland. In less than an hour, with any luck, he’d be at Oakland airport.
Buster had a sister in Denver. She was a self-righteous bitch, and he hadn’t spoken to her in ten years, and Denver sucked. Full of whitebread people, shitty weather, thin air that made you stupid. Goats, cows and other animals roaming around that Buster was pretty sure the locals liked to fuck when their dough-faced wives were on the rag. His sister married a goat-fucker, you could just tell by looking at the guy.
But family was family, and Buster needed a new start. He’d rather talk to his sister and fuck a goat than sit around waiting for some sick
pendejo
to come and cut his eyes out.
Buster arrived at the platform where the ticket machines stood all in a row like robots, red lights blinking a warning about a fare increase. Nearby was an escalator leading to the tracks. He reached into his pocket for some cash and felt the edge of a card. Pulling it out, he saw Sam’s name and flinched involuntarily. It was the business card Sam had shoved in Buster’s jacket, what seemed a lifetime ago.
He ran his index finger across the raised digits of the phone number and stood rigid on the platform as people brushed past him on either side. He imagined calling Sam and wondered what he would say.
Would he threaten him?
Not a chance.
Thank him?
Not likely.
Tell him that he wasn’t a punk anymore. He wasn’t Zorro’s bitch. Maybe ask Sam to call off the dogs. Let him slip through the net. Walk away if he fingered Zorro.
Buster looked over his shoulder, an involuntary move that he suddenly realized he might be doing for the rest of his life.
He started to chew his lower lip but it hurt. Blinked and looked up from the card, found himself facing away from the ticket machines. Ten feet away stood a pay telephone, its silver key pad a little face staring him down, daring him to make the call. From the next level down, Buster could hear a train approaching.
Fishing in his pocket, Buster came up with a quarter and held it gently in his open palm. As the roar of the train shook the station, he chose heads and flipped the coin into the air.