The District Manager (26 page)

We arrive in McAllen around dusk and pull into a Holiday Inn.

When I wake up, the air is a bit heavy. I feel like shit.

Rusty goes into the motel to check us in while I gather myself.

I throw the strap of my briefcase across my shoulder, get out and stand, looking out over the parking lot. A feeling of total stupidity over takes me.

How could I have let this situation escalate? If I don’t make it out of this alive…that’d be justice.

“We’re sharing a room?” I ask him as he swipes open the door.

“Do you want to pay for another room?”

“Well, yeah. Dude, I haven’t slept in the same room with another man since I was a fuckin’ kid.”

“You’re still are a kid. Do what you like, but I’m a cheap old son-of-a-bitch and I’m only paying for one room.”

“Okay, Rusty
Stern,”
I retort. Then I turn and head back to the lobby.

I check into my room, which is located on the other side of the hotel, then immediately go find Rusty.

“Shit, man, damn near one hundred and fifty dollars—no wonder you’re being so cheap.

“No shit, Mason. So hey, you hungry?”

“Yeah, there’s a Chili’s within walking distance.”

We saunter across the concrete dead zone in silence—for a change.

When we get to the restaurant we are seated in a booth. We order a couple of beers that I know I’m going to drink faster than the waitress can serve.

“So who is this guy we’re meeting tomorrow?”

“Ray Curlee, an old friend of mine, and Jules’ as well.”

“Old friend from where? The military?”

“College. We all went to ’Bama, met in Tuscaloosa. Curlee went straight into law enforcement.”

“With the Texas State Troopers?”

“No, he started out as a trooper back home. He’s the one that snagged me a job when I got out of the Marines. We old dogs stick together, you know.”

“So how can he help us in this fucked up situation?”
Where are my beers?

“Information, plain and simple. I’ve waited to bring him into this because I knew when I did, he could only sit on something I might have for so long. I needed time. But time’s run out.”

“But I thought you said, explicitly, not to get law enforcement involved.”

“Not local law enforcement. DPS is a different breed.”

“You’re only saying that because you were a trooper, albeit not a Texas State Trooper, but state police nonetheless.”

“I know you hate cops, Mason, and I know why.”

“First of all, I don’t hate cops. Secondly, I disliked law enforcement long before what happened to my wife.”

“So what do you want me to say? Yes, they’re a lot of bad cops…but there are a lot of good ones too.”

“How? How can good cops be good cops when all they ever do is protect the bad cops?” My beers finally arrive.
At last!

“Look, I know the full story…I know what happened that day.”

“Do you?”

“I know that your wife was pregnant. I know that when the deputy hit her with the taser he jabbed it into her womb. I also know that her death was attributed to a congenital heart defect.”

“Do you know why he tased her?”

“Because she slapped the shit out of him, which is why all the ‘good cops’ rushed to his defense. It was a bad turn of events.”

“You keep saying that. She slapped him because, when he pulled her over for speeding—less than ten miles over the limit— there was an open container sitting in the six pack of beer on the floorboard of her back seat.”

“She claimed that it had fallen over and busted open, thus the contents had been compromised. I’ve read the police report.”

“Ann hated beer! She was a wine…vodka tonic girl. She never drank beer. The beer was for me. I asked her to stop and pick me up a six pack on her way home from work!”

“Calm down, Mason. You don’t have to defend her to me.”

“I’m not defending her, motherfucker!” I lean halfway over the booth table, spilling one of my beers in the process. “That deputy deserved a firing squad!” I bellow with a finger in his face.

“He got worse. And if, by chance he’s still alive, he wishes he were dead.” Rusty concludes morosely, watching suds pour off our table to the floor.

“Is there a problem here?” a man, donning a manager’s tag suddenly asks.

“None at all, sir. My friend and I would like to order, if that’s alright.” Rusty answers with utter calm. “I think he’s gonna need another beer.”

“Sure, I’ll get your waitress.”

Rusty and I didn’t get into a fight at the Chili’s that night. We managed to have a halfway decent meal. We didn’t talk about the situation at hand, but talked about sports and politics instead.

I had more than just a few beers and felt like shit the next day. But at least the alcohol helped keep the wasps from my stomach and the demons of guilt from my mind. And while they weren’t detectable, they were there loitering on the periphery, waiting to be welcomed when Rusty called me at dawn.

“You up?” His gumbo mouth jolts me awake.

“What the fuck, man? What time is it?”

“Game time, Mason! Meet me down in the lobby at o’ eight hundred. That’s one hour from now, by the way.”

“Eight o’clock?” I ask in bewilderment.

I pull myself out of bed, shower and get dressed. I meet him in the room off the lobby for the continental breakfast.

He’s been here a half-hour prior to my arrival. He reads the paper while I struggle to swallow a muffin.

“Get that shit down. We’re meeting Curlee at o’ nine hundred.”

“What’s with this o’ eight hundred nine hundred shit? Are we in the fuckin’ army?”

“Trying to get your ass in gear. Figure if I talk like a drill sergeant, it might light a fire under your ass.”

“I can’t believe all this is happening.” I can hardly get the coffee to go down.

“I was wondering when it’d hit you. You held out longer than I gave you credit for. It only gets more real from here, Mason.”

“I know.”

“Let me tell you the plan: We’re to meet Curlee at a park situated in between McAllen and Weslaco.”

“Why there?”

“It provides access to the Rio Grande, and is a loading dock for the Department of Public Safety’s boats. Their open air cruisers are so heavily armed that they make the crafts the Border Patrol operates look like floating ice cream trucks.”

The air is sticky this late September morn, the soft traces of fall from a couple of weeks ago are a faint memory. The morning sun struggles to define itself as we enter a thick canopy of hunching trees.

We exit the Pontiac and I follow Rusty towards a picnic area some fifty yards from the river. Numerous vessels jostle against the dock. Stray DPS troopers maneuver about the area. They look more like soldiers than police.

Our deliberate steps lead towards a solitary brown figure near a large orange, metal trash can. Deputy Director Ray Curlee comes into focus: a well-built, older African-American man, dressed in khaki trooper garb and donning a tan cowboy hat.

“Russell Sternhauser,” Curlee says stoically in recognition as we approach.

“Raymond Curlee,” Rusty trades, extending his hand.

“I imagine this is your traveling companion—the man with the damsel in distress?”

“Mason Dixon, Deputy Director,” I confirm. We shake hands.

“Just call me Ray, Mason.”

“I see you’re keepin’ fit,” Rusty comments.

“Yeah, can’t quite see why, except maybe to slight the missus. Marjorie would probably enjoy my pension a lot more without me,” he replies with a casual laugh.

“Shit, God knows Sally would’ve preferred me six-feet under a long time ago.”

“Can you blame her?”

“I guess not,” Rusty concedes with a hint of regret.

“Still the obstinate warrior, I see.”

“God, county, and family—that includes you too, you old bastard.”

“I understand, and likewise my friend.” Curlee turns to address me directly, “Mason, your counterpart here may be a pain in the ass, but he’s one of those fellas you want with you down in a foxhole—I assure you.”

“Well, don’t go speakin’ too soon, Ray…we got troubles. What you got for me?”

“I agree. Time to skip the bullshit.”

“So what do you have for me, Ray?” Rusty repeats. “Better be good. My life’s been turned upside down and I can’t make heads or tails of anything anymore.”

“Well…to start with, this ‘Contacto’, or Contact, character— the one who assaulted Mason’s friend…we have reason to believe he murdered Harry Spencer
and
political consultant, Warren Jenkins. We know this because after interviewing former State Rep. JD Dothan, though his memory was spotty, he explicitly relayed the name ‘Contact’ as being present with Ron Martinez the night of Hurricane Dante, which, to this day, is confidential due to an ongoing investigation.”

“We thought he, Contact, died in the storm. That is until some new information recently came to light. Then, when I talked to you and you mentioned the name in context of the situation on your end…well…”

“What new information?” Rusty asks.

“In a minute; more about this Contact fellow. He first starts making himself known as a hitman for the gang Barrio Azteca.”

The power plant!
I’m thinking. I nudge Rusty in the ribs.

“What?” Curlee asks.

“Nothing,” Rusty answers.

Curlee continues, “So Contact first hits our radar as a killer for Barrio Azteca, a gang mainly out of what we in law enforcement call, ‘Region 4,’ which is West Texas, mainly El Paso. But we have detected their activity
in
Houston, too. No one’s been able to pin anything on the guy until he gets picked up in Houston for stealing cars. So he goes to state prison. Gets involved with Tango Blast, a Houston gang with a significant presence in El Paso, the guys he was warring with when in Barrio Azteca. Hits are all over the place for this guy, he doesn’t know who to trust. Miraculously, he gets out of prison alive and disappears. Until…”

“The murder of Harry Spencer,” Rusty interrupts.

“That’s right, Rusty…until the murder of Harry Spencer. But it gets better, a lot better…it actually predates that—the terrorist attack on the border.”

“…that the Feds attributed to the drug cartels,” Rusty adds as he shakes his head in disgust.

“The Gulf Cartel. Remember that, because that is all important. Can I finish?”

Rusty nods his fedora donned head.

“If it were the cartels—any of the cartels—the explosives used on that bus bombing in McAllen would have been from the Mexican military, but they weren’t. It was primitive shit…I mean Oklahoma City fertilizer shit. Turns out that Contact worked for a fertilizer plant when he was just a child, a place just outside of Monterrey. When in prison, his cellmate was a convicted bomb maker from that locale! It’s like it was meant to be!”

“How did a convicted bomb maker, in this post 9/11 era, not get sentenced to
federal
prison?” Rusty asks.