Portland Noir (12 page)

I step quickly into the house and push the door closed behind me to get out of view, then stop and listen for sounds of life. The forced air is blowing as background noise and the fridge is humming in the kitchen, but other than that the place is dead silent. I wait a few more beats just to be sure, then head up the short staircase out of the mud room and into the kitchen.

Immediately I sense something is off.

All of the major appliances are brand new and top-of-the-line, yet sitting on the granite kitchen counter is one of those cheap-ass single-serving coffee makers with a metal carafe. The thing stands out like a pile of dog shit on a putting green. It even has a fucking Motel 6 sticker on the side.

I don’t usually bother with kitchens, but I’m so thrown by the coffee maker that I find myself opening the cabinets anyway. They’re all filled with roughly the right kind of stuff, but the shit’s just jammed in there at random—Froot Loops next to the Liquid-Plumr, Hamburger Helper on the same shelf as a Costco-sized box of panty shields, and Bob’s Red Mill Quinoa under the sink with a whole case of laundry borax. It’s like the place was stocked by a fucking schizophrenic.

My brain still trying to puzzle out what’s going on with the kitchen, I head down a narrow hall to the front living room, and I’m finally stopped cold. The whole fucking thing is decorated with the kind of crappy stuff they rip out of remodeled office buildings and hotel rooms and then sell discount—butt-ugly baby-blue love seat, hideous plaid couch, and a mammoth black enamel entertainment center dating from at least the late-’80s.

What the fuck?

As if in answer, I hear a woman’s voice behind me.

“Freeze.”

I’m so surprised that I spin around to face her before the meaning of the word sinks in. I actually see the flash of the pistol.

When I come to, I find myself sitting on the rug, with my legs splayed and my back partially propped up by the love seat. I have no clue how long I’ve been out.

“I have a gun! I have a gun!” the woman starts shouting as soon as she realizes that I’m awake.

“No shit,” I manage to whisper.

She stops shouting and takes a step toward me. I force my eyes to focus. Generic thirty-something blonde dressed like she’s about to drive her hybrid SUV to the yoga studio. Christ, if it weren’t for the Ruger 9mm in her left hand, she could be in a Whole Foods commercial.

“Don’t move or I swear, I’ll … I’ll kill you.”

“I can’t move. My legs don’t work.”

I look down at my lower abdomen and see the little hole in the front pocket of my hoodie. There’s no blood, but somehow just looking at it cuts through all the endorphins and sends the first wave of pain rolling across my torso.

“Did I hit you?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

She takes a step back again and tries to calm herself down by doing some sort of ridiculous deep breathing/grunting exercise.

“
Huh-uuuunh … Huh-uuuunh … Huh-uuuuuunh …”

I put my right hand on my thigh. There’s no feeling in the limb at all—it’s like I’m touching someone else’s leg.

“Why the hell did you break in here?” The blonde stops hyperventilating for a moment. “I mean, are you psycho or something?”

“Lady, I need an ambulance. Did you call 911?”

“The cops? Are you crazy? You know I can’t call the cops.”

“It’s okay.” The second wave of pain hits and lingers awhile. I grit my teeth and try to reassure her. “I’m just a junkie who broke into your house. Legally, you’re in the clear.”

“Legally?” She lets out a semihysterical laugh and starts with the ridiculous breathing exercises again. “
Huh-uuuunh … Huh-uuuuuuunh …”
I swear to God, it’s like the bitch is in labor or something.

I’m about to speak again, when the third wave of pain hits, and just stays. It feels like somebody left a hot soldering iron in my stomach. I decide to change tactics.

“Look, you
fucking cunt
, you shot me in the stomach. If you don’t call 911, I’m going to fucking die, and you’re going to fucking prison for the rest of your fucking life.”

She finally stops with the deep breathing, hesitates a moment, and then pulls out her phone. She hits the speed dial, and to my surprise, starts talking to somebody in rapid-fire Spanish. Not the lispy shit you might learn from a college year abroad in Spain, but Mexican street slang. The conversation moves so fast that about all I can pick up is the name Esteban. This bitch isn’t just fluent, she’s a goddamn native speaker.

“He wants to know who you work for.” She flips the phone shut and switches back to an equally native-sounding English.

“Work for? What do you mean?”

“He’s sending someone. He says to keep you alive.”

“Who’s sending someone?”

“Esteban.”

“Esteban?”

She nods.

“Who the fuck is Esteban?”

“I’m going to see if there’re any bandages in the bathroom.” She ignores my question. “I swear to God, if you move while I’m gone, I’ll kill you.”

“I told you, I can’t move. I think you hit my spine.”

“Good.”

She leaves the room and I’m left to ponder why she speaks native Mex slang, who the hell Esteban is, and why the bitch doesn’t even know what’s in her own medicine cabinet. I look down again at the bullet hole in my hoodie. There’s still no blood.

A minute later, she comes back with a roll of duct tape, paper towels, and a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol.

“Lady, I’m a fucking junkie. Tylenol is not going to cut it.”

“That’s all there was.”

“Well, maybe if you called a fucking ambulance they might have something a little stronger?”

“I told you. Esteban is sending someone. Do you want the Tylenol or not?”

“No.”

“All right, I’m going to see if I can make a bandage.” She puts the Ruger and Tylenol over on the coffee table out of my reach, and then kneels down next to me with the duct tape and paper towel.

“Christ … is that blood?” She notices my soaked jeans.

“It’s piss.”

“Eww!” She recoils.

“I’m fucking dying here and you’re scared of a little piss?”

She does her best to regroup and folds up a piece of paper towel into a half-assed square, adding strips of duct tape to the four sides to form a makeshift bandage.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s the best I can do, is what it is.” She does a few more deep breathing exercises, and then slowly lifts my hoodie and T-shirt.

The hole seems almost ludicrously small—about an inch below, and an inch to the left of my navel. My whole stomach is smeared with blood, but not a Hollywood amount. For some reason, exposing the wound to the air makes it hurt even more, and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming.

“You don’t have HIV or anything …?” She hesitates at the sight of the blood.

“No,” I lie.

She looks at the hole for a few more seconds, building courage. “Did the bullet go through?” she asks.

“How the fuck should I know?”

She reaches gently around to the small of my back to feel for a hole.

“It must still be inside you.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

She shrugs, and adds a few more strips of duct tape to the paper towel bandage.

“Okay, this is the part that’s going to hurt.”

She uses an extra sheet of paper towel to carefully mop up the blood around the gunshot hole, and then slaps the bandage on.

I scream.

She’s so startled that she momentarily lets go.

I keep screaming.

She puts pressure on the bandage again and begins to tape it down.

I keep screaming.

She lets go.

I stop screaming. And then promptly shit myself.

“Oh gross!” She jumps back from me, covering her face with her hand to try and block the smell.

Somehow the change in bowel pressure shifts things around, and I have to start screaming again.

“Shut up!” She grabs the Ruger off the coffee table and waves it at me for emphasis. “Shut up or I’ll fucking shoot!”

I manage to stop screaming, but it’s not going to last.

“Look, you fucking cunt, either finish me off or get me something for the pain.”

She hesitates.

I start to scream again.

“Shut up!” She slaps a hand over my mouth.

I try to bite it.

“Look, just shut up for a minute and I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

I shut up.

She speed dials the number again, and there’s more rapid back-and-forth in Spanish. After a few seconds, she covers the mouthpiece with her hand.

“He says someone will be here soon.”

“How soon?”

She’s back on the phone for another few seconds, but then her expression changes and she covers the mouthpiece again.

“He wants to know who you work for.”

“Who I work for? No one. I’m a fucking junkie.”

She’s back on the phone, and this time actually winces at whatever Esteban is telling her.

“He says he needs to know right now.” She walks over and kneels next to me again, keeping her face turned away from the smell. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

She winces again at what she’s hearing over the phone, and then reaches out with her free hand and presses on my stomach.

“AHHHHHHHH!!!”

“Tell me.” She keeps her hand there.

“AHHHHHHHH!!!”

“Tell me and I’ll stop.”

“Okay! Stop! Stop!”

She lets her hand up.

“Voodoo Mike.” I gasp for air. “I work for fucking Voodoo Mike, all right?” The idea is completely absurd, but it’s the first name that pops into my head. Besides, I owe him money.

She relays this information to Esteban, then flips the phone shut again.

“You fucking blond bitch. You fucking cunt whore cooze. I’ll fucking kill you, you fucking cocksucking motherfuck-ing—” “I think someone’s here.” She runs over to look out the front window.

I hear what sounds like a truck pull into the driveway, and then a door slam. The blond bitch heads back to the coffee table for the Ruger, then sprints to the front door and opens it. A moment later, a uniformed EMT walks in.

“Esteban sent you, right?” she asks.

The EMT just nods. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, but immediately takes charge of the situation.

“How is he?”

“I … I tried to bandage him, but—” the blond bitch stutters.

The EMT shoves past her and comes straight over to me, putting his box of supplies down on the carpet next to where he kneels. He snaps on the latex gloves, and I tense up figuring he’s going to lift my hoodie and inspect the wound, but instead he starts checking the veins on my arms and hands.

“These are fucked. Where are you shooting now?” he asks.

“My legs.”

“I think the best bet is the jugular.” He examines my neck for a moment, then pulls an IV bag out of the box of supplies. “This is saline. You’re losing blood and need fluids to keep you from going into shock.”

“You’re not going to bandage it?” the blond bitch asks.

“There’s no point. He needs surgery.”

The guy is good and hits the jugular no problem. I can feel the cold of the saline rushing down my neck. Somehow the fluid triggers another wave of pain, and I start screaming again.

“Oh for Christ sake, shut up!” the bitch yells at me.

“He needs morphine.” The EMT turns to look at her.

“Well, give him fucking morphine then!”

“I can’t. They keep track of our supply.”

“So what the hell do you want me to do?”

The EMT just looks at her.

I keep screaming.

“No way. Esteban would kill me.” She shakes her head.

“We don’t have a choice. He wants him alive, doesn’t he?”

“No.” She keeps shaking her head.

“Yes.” The EMT nods.

“AHHHHHHH!!!” I scream.

“All right, this is all on you.” The blond bitch throws up her hands and disappears down the hall.

“Where the fuck’s the trolley?” I manage to stop screaming long enough to ask the EMT.

“Sorry,” he says.

“What the fuck do you mean,
Sorry
?”

I’m about to start screaming again when the bitch comes back with what looks like a blob of beige packing tape.

“I’m telling you, this is all on you.” She hesitates in front of the EMT. “I want no part of it.”

“Fine.”

He holds out his hand until she finally gives him the blob, and then uses a pair of medical shears to cut the tape away from one corner. Despite ten years of being a junkie I’ve never actually seen a whole kilo outside of TV news reports, so it takes me a second to comprehend what it is.

“Is that … Is that a fucking kilo?” I ask.

“Do you have your works on you?”

“What the fuck are you doing with a kilo?” I ask the blond bitch, but she’s back to the deep breathing exercises.

“Do you have your works on you?” the EMT calmly repeats the question.

I point to my right sock.

“I’m not going to get stuck, am I?” He hesitates.

“No. It’s capped.”

He pulls out the works and then heads back to the kitchen with the spoon to get some water—just leaving the kilo there on the freakin’ coffee table like it’s nothing.

“What the hell is going on here?” I ask the bitch.

“I need you to promise me something,” she leans in and whispers so the EMT can’t hear in the other room. “When Esteban gets here, tell him this was all the paramedic’s idea, okay?”

“Why the fuck do you have a fucking kilo of
chiva
in your house?”

The EMT comes back before she can answer and starts loading up the spoon straight from the kilo.

“What are you? A gram a day?”

“Gram and a half.”

He taps a tiny bit more in.

“Hey, you’re going a bit light there,” I point out.

“Trust me, this shit is pure.”

“It’s black tar. How pure can it be?”

“Pure.”

He cooks it over my lighter, then barely lets it cool before skipping the cotton ball and loading it straight into one of the horse syringes from his box.

“Jesus Christ, this is a fucking stash house, isn’t it?” I ask them both.

Instead of answering, the EMT sticks the needle into a little side branch of my IV line and pushes the heroin directly into my jugular.