El Gavilan (6 page)

A screaming woman suddenly threw herself between them and gathered up the little girl with the burned arm. In Spanish she said over and over “Thank God,” then she said, still speaking Spanish, “My family—the rest are still in there! My mother and father … my brother and my baby boy!”

The fire chief and EMT looked bewildered. The EMT nodded at Tell and said, “This cop here speaks Mex’, Chief.”

Frowning, sickened now, Tell said to the firefighters, “None of you speak Spanish?”

The fire chief glowered. “
No
…”

“With this growing constituency, you better fucking learn.” He grabbed the Mexican woman by both arms and asked in Spanish, “Which one? Which apartment do you live in?”

Sobbing, with a shaking hand, the young Mexican woman pointed at the center unit. Most of its roof was gone. Tell said, “She says her baby, her parents and a brother are still in that townhouse.”

The fire chief shook his head, the fire flickering across the plastic shield of the helmet that obscured his face. “Christ, I’m sorry, then. It’s too far gone, pal. I can’t send my men in and there’s no way anyone can be alive in there now. If she’d told us fifteen, even ten minutes ago, there might have been a chance.”

Tell snarled, “How the fuck was she supposed to do that when she can’t speak our fucking language? None of these people living here can speak English.”

The EMT said, “And so now we see what that gets them, packed into these places like sardines and not talkin’ English. Fuckin’ illegals.”

Tell was on the technician before he realized he had thrown himself at the man. Tell was trying to get his hands around the medical technician’s throat when he felt the first kick to his ribs. The fire chief was yelling at him and kicking Tell.

Tell felt other hands on him and thought he recognized a voice:

“Easy now. Easy, Tell. It’s okay, son. I’ll make this okay.”

He struggled up to his feet, his ribs aching. He turned and saw Able Hawk. Able stepped between Tell and the technician still sprawled on the ground. The prone EMT pointed at Tell and said, “He stinks of alcohol. Fucker’s drunk, I think. I want you to fucking arrest him, Sheriff!”

“I’m not drunk,” Tell said.

“No, you’re not,” Able said. He turned to the fire chief and said, “Kenny, give this man a pass. He’s our new chief of police. His own family was lost in a fire just a few months back. His little girl, about this one’s age,” Able said, rubbing the head of the little girl with the burned arm, “died in that fire. Mexican drug cartel set it. So you can see how this would play with Chief Lyon’s mind in ugly ways, yeah?”

The fire chief shook his head. “It’s my man’s decision whether to press charges or not. Tommy’s the aggrieved party.”

“Not tonight he fucking isn’t,” Able said sternly. He put out a hand and helped the technician to his feet. Able said to the man, “I heard that last crack of yours. I’d have hit you too, asswipe. Only difference is, you wouldn’t be getting back up after I came at you, you sorry son of a bitch. I don’t pull my punches.”

The fire chief started to object and Able said, “Tell Lyon here is
chief
of police of New Austin. So you can’t expect him to arrest himself. I’m county sheriff, and I say this citizen of mine was justified in his desire to kick your man’s ass. You should fire this cocksucker, and you may do just that soon to cover your own ass. My man Tell is right about what we all have to do with these Mexicans overrunning us. I’ve got me some Spanish language tapes in my cruiser. Listen to ’em all day, to teach myself Mex’. You best get to doing it too, for nights like this one. Because I’m here to tell you, when word gets out to the media that a baby and a family burned to death because your boys don’t speak Spanish, you’re gonna be toast yourself.”

Hawk was just getting started. “And if your boy here and his dumbass statement about them ‘deserving’ their fate for not speakin’ English goes public? Best grab your ankles now for the lawsuits coming your way, cocksucker.”

Able squeezed Tell’s arm. “Now, you use this man here while there’s maybe still time—time to find out if anyone else is burning to death in those townhouses while you sit around jawing in the wrong language.”

Tell said to the fire chief, “Just please promise you’ll call me, day or night, next time you come into this neighborhood with a fire or emergency. That’s all I ask. I’ll translate. And I’m very sorry for attacking your man.”

The fire chief said, “Anyone still left in any of those units is dead. I can’t use you anymore tonight,
Chief
.” He looked around and then nodded at the sobbing woman. “Well, there
is
one thing you’ll do for me. You give the bad news to that poor Mexican bitch there. Tell her in her own language, so she’ll understand. Then you can go home and crawl back into your bottle, asshole.”

Able Hawk wrapped an arm around Tell’s shoulders. “I’ll help you with delivering that bad news, Tell. Well, you do the talking, Tell, and I’ll see to the aftermath. Then you best get along home, Chief. Tomorrow we start fresh. Maybe get us some ideas together for bringing these kinds of backward bastards behind us up to snuff for dealing with our crazy West Side.”

Tell and Able squatted down next to the Mexican woman who was crying and holding her young daughter.

The woman looked up at Tell. His eyes had already told her all that he was just beginning to explain to her in Spanish.

THEN

In Ohio, Thalia’s father developed a cough that worsened.

Sofia and Francisco had yet to become citizens, so Thalia’s father resisted seeing a doctor.

Lack of insurance kept Francisco from seeking treatment as his cough became deep and wet; as the coughing made him see black spots and he couldn’t lie down without feeling as though he was suffocating.

Sofia was less than a week from taking her citizenship exam. She was much more fluent in English than her husband and making the better wage, so they had decided it made sense for her to be the one to become a citizen first. But as capable of communication in English as she was, Sofia was still nowhere near as bilingual as Thalia or her other two children.

Sofia saw it as a grim race now. She needed to become a legal U.S. citizen to secure insurance at work so that Francisco could be treated.

Two days before her scheduled test, Francisco collapsed on a public street. He was dead before Sofia could be notified.

An emergency room nurse tried to comfort her. The nurse listened in horror as Sofia talked of trying to become naturalized in time to save her husband.

“Oh, honey,” the nurse said, “illegal or not, we would have
had
to treat him anyway.”

“Don’t say that,” Sofia said, stricken, “please don’t say that!”

Thalia looked on, confused and crying.

Francisco had died of pneumonia.

The man who had survived the so-called “Devil’s Highway”—who had staved off fatal dehydration by drinking his own urine—had drowned in his own tissue fluid. Sofia thought that must be what the whites called “irony.”

They buried Francisco in a potter’s grave, sealed up in a box constructed of materials just a grade or two above the sheetrock that Francisco spent the last year of his life hanging for half minimum wage.

SEVEN

Tell awakened early, reaching again for his wife. He hated waking up alone.

He started coffee, showered, then dressed. He’d showered twice, but could still smell the stench of the fire in his hair and on his skin. Or at least he thought he could smell it.

He made eggs and bacon and toast and watched cable news while he ate his lonely breakfast. He came across yet another feature on Mexican border security. Some heartland politician was calling for a fence along the entire expanse of the border—a multi-billion-dollar proposition. “Better to spend the money there than trying to prop up a sinking Louisiana,” the senator said. Smiling, he’d said, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Tell switched over to a music video. Shakira, enticingly shaking it.

Sipping his coffee, Tell continued to channel surf, settling on Country Music Television. Billy Joe Shaver was singing “Live Forever.” The sentiment was lost on Tell, but he liked the Mexican visuals well enough.

The eggs, surprisingly, weren’t bad. Tell had asked his cousin’s wife, Salome—a black haired, black-eyed gypsy beauty whose coloring reminded Tell more than a little of Marita—to teach him how to make some basic meals for himself.

Tell had never learned to cook: He’d gone straight from his parents’ home to school and then on into police work that started early each day and ended late. After he left home, it had been a steady diet of school cafeteria and then take-home meals and fast food until he married Marita. Salome spent two days teaching Tell to fend for himself in the kitchen and gave him a notebook filled with handwritten recipes. Tell had found himself spending most of his daylight hours with Salome and with his cousin’s pretty daughters. Tell and Chris tended to catch up in the late evenings.

While sitting together a night or two before on the back porch of his cousin’s cabin, Chris Lyon, five years older than Tell, had urged his cousin, “Get back out there as soon as you can, Tell. It’s not a betrayal, though I know you’re going to think of it like that. But the sad fact is, us Lyons, we don’t do that well without a woman in our life. We just aren’t built for solitude, my brother.” Chris hadn’t been the first male Lyon whom Tell had heard make that assertion.

Tell had paraphrased the lyrics of a song back to Chris, “Mom always said don’t fall in love too quickly … you know—before you know your own mind.”

But Chris shook his head. He’d said, “Huh-uh. Our kind? We’ve likely got more days behind than ahead of us. We maybe don’t have the luxury of time.”

Tell sipped some more coffee and stared up at the mantle. Pictures of black-eyed, black-haired Marita and their baby girl, Claudia, stared back at him, smiling forever in the only pictures he had left. The rest had perished in the fire that killed them.

* * *

The city fathers hadn’t stipulated that Tell live in New Austin. But Tell thought it bad form to live outside the community he was sworn to protect and serve. He hadn’t yet found a house to his liking, and he hadn’t really settled on exactly how much house he wanted or needed. And his cousin’s cautions kept eating at solitary Tell.

So as a stopgap, Tell had settled on a temporary apartment near the West Side.

Tell locked up, toting his sack lunch—something he’d made to Salome Lyon’s specifications—and a metallic flask of coffee. The thermos, brushed chrome with black highlights, had been his last Father’s Day gift.

He walked out to his civilian wheels, a 2000-model Suburban, and pressed the fob to disarm the alarm.

“Hey you!”

He turned as Patricia Maldonado trotted up next to his truck. She brushed damp strands of hair from her forehead. She was panting; her chest heaving. She wore sneakers, black shorts and a damp, maroon sports bra. Her long black hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail. She glistened with sweat. Tell made a conscious effort to keep his focus on her face.

“You’re up early, Chief,” she said.

“It’s when I like to go to work,” Tell said. “Get more done in an hour or two when I’m alone than I do the rest of the day once the others come in with their distractions and the phones start going. And you should talk about being out early.”

“It’s when I run,” Patricia said. “You know, before the heat sets in. What are you doing here, Chief?”

“Tell.”

“Sorry, right.
Tell
. What are you doing here, Tell?”

“I live here. In 308.”

She smiled, hands on hips and chest still heaving. “How strange! Me too—304. You’re just down the hall. At least I feel safe now.” She drew an arm across her forehead. “Maybe it’s an omen.”

“Actually, it’s probably not the safest thing for you to be jogging on this side of town, Patricia.”

It was particularly not safe for a striking and voluptuous young woman like Patricia. Tell had been reviewing weekly crime logs going back four months. Tuesdays through Sundays in their neighborhood seemed especially treacherous. “No kidding,” he said, “you really ought not to be running alone.”

“I can believe that,” Patricia said. “Do you run, Tell?”

“I used to, back in the day. But it’s been a good long while.”

“So start again. Run with me tomorrow?”

He could spare an hour or so for a morning run.

But hell, what was Patricia? Maybe twenty-four or twenty-five?

Marita had been twenty-seven to Tell’s thirty-seven when she died. Somehow that didn’t seem quite the age gulf it should have been.

But this was just a jog.

Yet it smacked of a mistake … and certainly an excellent way of getting on the wrong side of the local press.

He said, “Patricia …”

“It’s not safe for me to run alone, Chief. You said so yourself.”

“And that’s true. But I don’t think your boyfriend—who is scheduled to interview me in a few hours—would take it real well.”

“Not my boyfriend. I’m well past boyfriends.”

“Begging your pardon,” Tell said, “but last night Shawn said—”

“We’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“He know that, Patricia?”

“Shawn will know soon.”

“Okay. Maybe when he knows how it is, you’ll ask me again?”

“It’s just a jog, Tell. Not a date.”

“Absolutely. But all the same.”

“Tell, I’m just asking for you to go out running with me. To get all sweaty and out of breath
protecting
me. That’s all.”

“You’re relentless, Patricia.” He smiled. “Okay, sure. Tomorrow morning, this time, let’s go for a run. But only if you lay back. Like I said, it’s been a good while and I’m apt to lose my legs, fast.” He smiled. “You know CPR in case this goes really south for an old man like me?”

“Sure,
old man
. And great—great you’ll do it.” Patricia smiled and brushed more hair back from her face. “You’re on my way so I’ll knock on your door.”

“Perfect,” Tell said, half looking forward to Saturday morning, and already half regretting it.