Tequila Sunset (2 page)

“Felipe Morales?”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s get you out of there.”

Flip waited until a CO could come and unlock the cell, and then the woman had him sit in a plastic chair by her desk. She was black and had extra long nails. Her hair was straightened and braided.

“I’m going to do your release processing,” the woman said. “There are a lot of questions, but we’ll do them just as quick as we can so you can be on your way.”

“Okay.”

“All right, let’s get started…”

The whole interview took an hour and a half. The woman gave him an envelope with bus fare and a few extra dollars besides. He
had to sign his parole certificates. After that Flip had to go back into the cell again for another hour. He could see a clock from where he sat. It made time go more slowly, the sweep hand going round and round, and the minute hand edging forward. His palms itched and he wanted to be out of there, but everything in prison took time, even getting out.

A CO brought him a bag and pushed it through the bars. When Flip opened it up, he saw the clothes he wore on the day he went inside. He hardly recognized them. No one looked as he changed out of his uniform. The clothes fit loosely on him because he was leaner now. He folded up the uniform and set it on the bench beside him. The CO did not come back to collect it.

“Felipe? It’s time,” the woman said at last. “Kurt, could you take him? The van’s out there.”

The CO, Kurt, let Flip out of the cell and walked him out of the room. They passed through two short hallways and into a broad area with rows and rows of plastic chairs locked together, lots of fake wood paneling and a big counter. On one side there was a security station set up with a metal detector and a table for searching bags. Two women were going through the process right then. In the plastic chairs there were more women and a few men and a bunch of kids, from babies on up.

On Flip’s side there was just a velour rope like the kind that closed off the line at a movie theater. Kurt unhooked it from the stanchion and let Flip through.

They moved past the rows of plastic chairs into a relatively narrow foyer. When Kurt opened the door for Flip a blinding crash of sunlight rolled over him and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The sky was cloudless and pale blue and the sun was like an unblinking eye.

On the yard there was some grass, but it was patchy and mostly trod away to dirt. Out here there were two squares of neat green bracketing a concrete walk. Here was the flagpole with the banners
waving and here was a wrought iron fence that could keep in no one and an open gate. A tan van with the TDCJ logo stamped on the passenger door waited on the asphalt roundabout.

The driver was an older man. He came around and hauled open the van’s cargo door. The windows had metal mesh on the inside. “Hop on in,” the driver said.

“Good luck,” Kurt said and he offered Flip his hand. They shook.

Flip climbed in the back of the van. There was more metal mesh between the seats and the front of the cabin. The cargo door locked from the outside.

“Next stop, Palestine,” the driver said.

“Where’s that?” Flip asked.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. You won’t be seeing much of it.”

The van carried Flip fifteen minutes through greened country until they reached a scattering of houses along the little highway. They passed a sign that said TENNESSEE COLONY, POP. 300. They passed a simple white church with a mobile home next to it. The letter board out front read: PASTOR ON VACATION. GOD ON DUTY!

They found a bigger road and even some traffic. Flip just watched the miles slip by. Palestine seemed to grow up right out of the countryside, a busy small town with broad streets and clean buildings. The driver navigated without pause. He had done this a thousand times before.

“Bus station,” the driver said and they slowed to the curb. The building was compact and had a Greyhound-logo sign on the front, benches for people to wait out of the sun and a snack machine.

The cargo door was pulled aside and Flip stepped out onto the sidewalk. The driver shut the van up behind him. “And that’s it. Get your ticket inside. You’re headed to El Paso?”

“That’s right.”

“Long haul.”

“I’ll be all right.”

The driver produced a little clipboard the size of an open hand. “Just sign off. Here’s a pen.”

Flip put his signature to a green form and got a yellow receipt back. He crumpled it up and put it in his pocket.

“Stay out of trouble.”

“No problem.”

The driver got into the van and pulled away. Flip stood on the curb with his bag and watched him go. When the van was out of sight, he went into the ticket office. No one looked at him strangely at all.

THREE

T
HE SUN WAS DOWN AND THE STREETLIGHTS
were on. El Paso after dark. Cristina Salas sat behind the wheel with Robinson in the passenger seat. Sodium light splashed across the windshield and reflected off the dash, making half-strength images in the glass. If anyone looked their way, the glare would make them invisible.

They looked along a row of detached houses with little fences and enclosed yards. Beside the car, a broad wall was painted with a mural depicting a group of children playing ball in a sunny green field. There was a dog, too.

A scattering of trucks and cars were parked along the curbs on both sides all the way down the street. People were coming home from work, gathering around tables, watching television. The border was just a few miles south.

Cristina’s eye was on one house in particular, painted sky blue and fronted with hip-high hurricane fencing. There were two steps up from the street and a gate to the high yard. Five figures, Latino boys, clustered around the steps, one with a basketball that from time to time he bounced off the sidewalk and the side of a parked car. Thirty yards away, Cristina and Robinson let the clock tick.

“You want my permission to do something?” Robinson asked.

“Give it a minute.”

Of the two of them, Robinson was the older by twenty years, his dark hair gone gray and his mustache, too. Cristina knew that
sitting for a long time made his back sore and they’d been here half an hour. Two empty Big Gulps stood between them in the cup holders and Cristina wondered if maybe Robinson had to take a leak. Old guys were like that.

Cristina caught sight of herself in the rear view mirror and plucked at her hair.

“Jesus Christ,” Robinson said.

“All right, if you want to go, let’s go.”

“I’m just saying they’re not moving on, so if you want to bust ’em then let’s bust ’em. If not, just call patrol and let them do it.”

“Cokley will wonder what we were doing all this time,” Cristina said.

Robinson frowned. “We were fooling around.”

“Okay, come on.”

Cristina got out of the car. Down the street, the boys were in their own world. She was too far away to hear them talking. Robinson clambered out of his seat and torqued his back. The night was cooling down fast from the seventies at the height of the day. Cristina thought of putting on her jacket.

Walking abreast Cristina only came up to Robinson’s shoulder. They crossed the street and came up the sidewalk on the boys’ side. Cristina had her badge on a chain around her neck. She pulled it out of her shirt, let it dangle onto her chest.

They were inside ten yards when the first boy noticed them. He didn’t have to look a second time; he pushed the kid with the basketball hard on the shoulder and then ran. The basketball fell out into the street.

Cristina and Robinson rushed forward. They yelled “Police!” at the same time. Three of the boys put their hands up without taking a step.

Basketball made a move between cars to get his ball back. Robinson snared him by the back of his jersey and brought him around so hard the boy fell to the sidewalk. Cristina sprinted past
the others, picking up speed after the runaway.

The boy made it to the corner and nearly tripped off the curb. Cristina closed the distance between them, spun hard on the balls of her feet at the end of the sidewalk and came up from behind.

He broke for the far side of the street but Cristina stepped on his heel. The runner’s shoe went flying and he fell over, skinned his palms on the asphalt, lost his cap. Cristina caught him by the wrist and the elbow and levered him onto his feet. “What are you, an idiot?” Cristina asked. “You don’t run from the cops.”

“Damn, man, what did I do?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

“Can I get my shoe?”

She marched him back to the others. Robinson had them sitting on the sidewalk with their hands on the backs of their heads and their legs crossed in front of them. He held the basketball. Cristina sat the runner down.

“How old are you?” she asked the first kid in line.

“Eighteen?”

“How about you?” she asked the next.

“Seventeen.”

Cristina went down the line. One was underage and two were nineteen. She saw the basketball player’s jersey had a 21 on it.

Cristina had a Mini Maglite in her back pocket. She twisted it on and played the beam over the boys on the ground. Robinson stepped up. “Let me see your arms. Front and back,” he said.

“You,” Cristina said to Basketball. “Let’s see your arms. Lift up your shirts. What kind of ink do you have?”

“Cris, take a look at this,” Robinson said. He had a nineteen-year-old by the wrist and shone his own light on the kid’s hand.

Cristina looked. Inked between thumb and forefinger were the letters BA. “You’re going to jail,” she told the kid.

“For what?”

“For being obvious. You, too, 21,” she said to the basketball player.

“What about us?” said one of the underagers.

“Go home.”

Robinson stood over his kid and Cristina kept a hand on hers. They called for patrol to come pick up.

“I still don’t understand what’s going on,” the basketball player said.

“You’re gathering in a public place and displaying gang markers, stupid,” Cristina said. “That’s jail time and a fine. Didn’t you hear? Segundo Barrio doesn’t like your kind around anymore.”

“Lady, I’m not in no gang.”

“Your shirt tells me different. Now shut up.”

In ten minutes there was a car on the scene and the kids were cuffed and stuffed into the back seat. Cristina saw them talk to each other for the first time, getting stories straight. By the time they were back at the house, they would be well-rehearsed.

The patrolman was named Alvarez. He took notes, got names. “You let the other ones walk?” he said.

“Didn’t seem to be much point in keeping them,” Robinson said.

“Your call.”

They finished with Alvarez and waited until he drove off with their boys before heading back to their car. Cristina punched Robinson in the arm. “Two down,” she said.

“It’s getting harder to find them. Pretty soon they’re not going to need us anymore.”

“They’re still plenty around. You just have to
listen
to your partner when she says she sees something she doesn’t like.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What’s the problem now?”

“I need to find a bathroom.”

“Old man.”

FOUR

B
ACK AT THE HOUSE THEY WROTE UP THE
arrest sheets. They had Alvarez’s booking forms in front of them, with pictures of the two kids staring into the camera. “Get this,” Cristina said, “our 21 has priors for assault and misdemeanor possession. And then he goes around parading his number where he
knows
we’re looking.”

“Nobody said Aztecas were smart,” Robinson said.

“Got that right.”

Cristina saw Cokley first, emerging from his office at the far end of the room, cruising past empty desks to land right on the spot. He looked over Robinson’s shoulder, then Cristina’s. His face was sour. “I got two members of the gang unit sitting on a bunch of kids any patrol car could have rousted?” he asked. “Is that it?”

“It’s my fault,” Cristina said. “I spotted them, I thought we should bust them.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was Bob because he knows better.”

“Thanks, boss,” Robinson said.

“Not so fast. You’re supposed to keep each other from fucking up.”

“It’s not so bad. We got two.”

“Two. And you have how many cases pending?”

Cristina had nothing to say to that and Robinson was quiet. She turned back to the arrest sheet, tapped out the last two fields and clicked SUBMIT. The printout of Alvarez’s booking form went into
her out box. Cokley was still looking at her, but she didn’t glance up.

Cokley sighed. “Next time just call a car and let them handle it,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay, boss,” Robinson said.

“Now go home.”

The captain went. Robinson and Cristina looked at each other from across their desks. “I’m sorry,” Cristina said.

“Forget about it. It’s done.”

Cristina put on her jacket and gathered up her things. “I’m running late. My sitter’s going to want to know what’s up.”

“I’m looking at cold dinner,” Robinson said.

They rapped knuckles before they headed for the door. “Tomorrow,” Cristina said.

“Tomorrow is another day.”

In the parking lot they went separate ways. The temperature was down in the low fifties now. Cristina was glad when her car’s heater warmed up and took the chill off. Winter was struggling with spring and they were still in a desert.

Robinson drove north, away from the border, to get home. Cristina turned south, back into Segundo Barrio. At this hour she was twenty minutes away in a little place on South Campbell Street across from a vacant lot. She found a place along the curb and walked a hundred yards to the house. The porch light was on and there was a yellow glow through drawn blinds in the front window.

Ashlee unlocked the door before Cristina could turn her key. The girl was twenty-one and she’d been waiting in the living room. Lamplight picked up strands of blonde hair and gave her a halo. “Hi, Ms. Salas,” she said.