Shelter (10 page)

             
“Dinner was great.” And he meant it.

             
“Hey, Carlos?” he’d been on his way to the bedroom – he had to bartend tonight and was off to change clothes. “I was thinking that I’ve got this great set of Rachael Ray cookware at my house.” He nodded, but clearly didn’t follow. “What if we have dinner over there tomorrow night?”

             
His eyes widened. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

             
She chewed on her lip. She’d wondered and worried what it would be like to have Carlos in the home she’d shared with Sam in this new capacity. As a lover and not just a relative. But she nodded. It was important she continue to take healthy steps forward. “Yeah. And I’ve got an adult-size bed,” she grinned and he returned it.

             
“I’m cool with that so long as you are.”

             
“Definitely. Definitely cool.”

11

             
For some reason, Alma expected to work as a trainee on her first day. That she’d be taken under the wing of a more seasoned waitress and learn the ropes slowly, have the process and policies of the company explained to her as the day went along, allowing her to become familiar with the menu and layout of the restaurant.

             
Instead she watched a ten minute training video, was given an apron to wear over her black pants, and turned loose with a notepad and a series of tables she couldn’t keep straight despite the fact that the Café was tiny. Having a bachelor’s degree didn’t seem to make up for her lack of experience either. She felt like an idiot.

             
“Oh, God! Oh, I’m so sorry. I…here, let me get you something…” but the woman wearing her sweet tea down the front of her white sweater didn’t look like any amount of napkins in the world was going to make up for Alma’s fifth spill of the day.

             
One of the other waitresses, Emily, swooped in with a table rag and began clearing the mess with crisp efficiency. “Go get one of the cloth napkins behind the register,” she told Alma. Then to the patron: “I apologize, ma’am. I’m sending her after something you can clean up with and we’ll happily comp your meal this afternoon.”

             
Giving away free food because of her clumsiness wasn’t the way to make money, or friends, in a new job. Alma felt her cheeks tingling with an embarrassed flush as she hurried up to the front register and dug around among the kids’ menus and Styrofoam cups for the ordered cloth napkin. All she found was a clean rag, but she snapped it up and hurried back to the table. Emily already had the table dry and a fresh tea in front of the woman. The other waitress took the rag from her with a sharp look, turning back to the customer the picture of soothing grace and charm.

             
Alma massaged her temple, unable to soothe the pounding headache behind it. The more mistakes she made, the more anxious she became, the harder she tried, and therefore, made more mistakes. It was a vicious cycle and she couldn’t foresee an end to this day that left her still employed.

             
“Miss?” a male voice intoned behind her. She turned to see the inhabitants of one of her other tables – a good-looking, well-dressed Latino guy with heavily gelled hair – extending his empty coffee cup toward her. “Would it be possible to get a refill?”

             
“Oh shit,” she said before she could stop herself, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She’d walked past his table half a dozen times and hadn’t asked if he needed anything else. And now here she was cursing in front of him. “I mean, sure. Sure thing.”

             
The backs of her eyes stung as she fetched the coffee carafe – she at least remembered that the man was drinking French roast – but she managed not to add insult to injury by crying. The woman in the tea-stained sweater was getting up from her table, talking loudly with her friends about “clumsy idiots” who “shouldn’t have jobs in restaurants.” She sighed as she pulled up to the man’s table and topped off his mug.

             
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

             
“Just the check if you would.” He caught her eye as she fished her pad out of her apron and tore off his stub. “Hey, it’s not the end of the world,” he said with a supportive smile. “Everyone has a first day sometime. And that old broad probably deserved it.”

             
A smile, her first smile of the day, twitched her lips. “Not my finest moment,” she said. “But thanks.”

             
“You’ll be fine…” his eyes skipped down to her name tag, “Alma.” He picked up his coffee. “Thanks for the refill.”

             
She nodded as she moved off to her next table. She still might get fired at the end of her shift, but just those few encouraging words had helped straighten her head.

             
A new group was being seated at one of her tables: three mothers and their elementary-age children who’d obviously popped in for a late lunch after school. Two little boys were shoving at one another, competing for the same chair, and the little girl was already squalling.

             
Alma took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Good afternoon, welcome to the Silver Plate…”

**

It was Saturday, so Carlos was free until he clocked in at the bar at nine that night. Alma wanted to have dinner at her place, and the healthy signal from her had been so welcome he’d slept the night before with a smile on his face, but he had a while until dinner, which meant time in which to contemplate Sean’s proposition further.

             
He replayed the night over in his head, each excruciating detail, even though it left his chest tight. The sounds of their work boots echoing against the concrete floor, Sam’s shouted inquiry through the empty building. The noise from the floor above. The stairwell. And the shooter, his face hidden behind a cheap cotton ski mask. He’d been in oversized black clothes, tan arms and a little snake tattoo under his elbow the only traits he had to go by. And though he clung to them, Carlos couldn’t find anything remotely familiar about the shooter. His hands, hands that had held the gun, had been encased in black leather gloves.

             
And then the memories became blood-soaked and gut-wrenching.

             
Carlos took a deep breath and let it out in a shaky rush as he stared up at the building in front of him. It was
the
building. A bank once, a hardware store, department store that had closed down sometime a good two years before and had stood empty since, plywood over the windows, in a shabby, gone-to-shit part of the city. It was where Sam had died, and everything had changed. And it was the only lead he had when it came to…revenge. Just thinking the word still gave him a stomach ache. But yet here he stood, hands in his pockets, breath misting in the forty-five degree afternoon air.

             
“Here goes,” he muttered to himself. He checked the sidewalk to make sure he was alone – or at least mostly alone – there was a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart a few blocks down. Then he walked across the front of the brick and stucco structure to the alley where he knew a side door could be jimmied open through a hole in the wall.

The hole was still there, full of cobwebs, and he reached through the silk and grime until he could feel the pins of the lock where they latched into the female component. A few grimaces, a possible spider bite or two, and he had the door loose. He slipped in quickly, let it click in place behind him, and once the immediacy of finding cover was gone, dread filled him head to toe.

The place smelled like he remembered: like mildew, mold, and dust. Gaps in the plywood shutters were the only sources of light, and beams sliced through the shadowed cavern of concrete and gutted beams like razors, dust motes dancing between them. Which gave him pause. Why would there be dust floating around unless someone had been in here to disturb it?
Just a hobo
he reasoned, though his hand went to the small of his back and his clammy palm wrapped around the grip of the Glock 9mm he had secured in the waistband of his jeans. He’d had the gun the night Sam was shot. This time, he was ready to use it.

There was a mini Maglite in his coat pocket and he withdrew it too, shuffling it around to his left hand so he could hold the gun with the right. He left the flashlight off, though. Better not to draw attention to himself, wait until he needed the thing.

As his eyes adjusted, the hulking wreck of what once been a checkout counter came into focus in front of him. Ceiling tiles had rotted and fallen loose one at a time, littered the floor in front of him like stepping stones. Exposed wiring hung down from the rafters at intervals, giving the building the air of a man-made jungle.

Carlos took in a big breath of the stale air and pulled up what he remembered of the floor plan in his memory bank. The main floor was a blank canvas, half-walls here and there, what had once been store rooms and dressing rooms in the back. That was where the staircase up to the second floor was too.

He allowed himself one last inventory of his immediate surroundings, then headed toward the back.

He encountered the first strip of left-behind
crime scene tape at the base of the stairwell. He thought the CSIs would have pulled out their industrial strength solvents and cleaned up the mess that had been left behind. But the sight of one of his own bloody boot prints on the concrete had him staggering to a halt.

The boots were still stuffed in a garbage bag in the back of his closet, along with the jeans and shirt. But as always, each new reminder of that event triggered a whole new onslaught of guilt and grief.

When he blinked, he saw it all in a split second. He’d called Sean after 911. His hand had been pressed over Sam’s wound, blood bubbling up from between his fingers. And from between Sam’s lips. His cousin had been breathing with shallow, wet, slapping sounds, like his lung had collapsed, or maybe it had just been all the blood that was trickling out of his mouth. Carlos hadn’t known, the tears had clouded his vision until he couldn’t tell where the blood was coming from anymore. The sirens had risen up from the silence, soft and growing louder. Sean had told him he had to leave, and he hadn’t wanted to. He couldn’t. Sam was, was…and he had to be there for him. Sammy had always been like a brother to him, he…

But Sean had screamed at him through the phone line and Carlos had known. He’d cursed and yelled and hated himself, but he’d run down the steps and out the back exit, had stumbled through the alleys until he finally collapsed, sobbing, against the side of a dumpster. Sam hadn’t been breathing anymore when he’d fled, and that was the only consoling thought he’d had about the whole thing: he couldn’t have done anything further.

              He’d left him, though. He’d run away like a little pussy afraid to get caught while Sam’s blood ran all over the concrete.

             
A shudder rippled through his body, put goose bumps on his arms, made the short hairs on his arm stand on end. He adjusted his grip on the nine and ducked under the crime scene tape, heading up the stairs to what he knew awaited him on the first landing.

             
The stained tracks were more vivid the higher he climbed. Up and to the right, around the corner out of sight of the first floor, he hit the landing, and there it was. The once-crimson puddle had turned black and dull, like someone had mopped it up and scrubbed it. But the evidence of Sam’s demise was still there.

             
Carlos put his back to the wall and let it hold his weight a moment. As he breathed in through his mouth, he thought he could still taste the coppery tang of blood.

             
Focus,
he reminded himself.

             
If there had ever been security cameras, they were long since gone, so that left him old fashion Sherlock magnifying glass kind of evidence snooping. The second floor had obviously served as office space and storage for the various businesses downstairs. The top landing ended in two hallways, one straight ahead, one that went off to the left, the windows at the ends not boarded up, so light streamed in, showed him that a half a dozen closed doors lined each hall. An EXIT sign was affixed to the ceiling at the end of the hallway to his right, its arrow pointing around the corner, so that was the direction he chose to begin his search.

             
Carlos quickly realized, though, that he had no idea what he was looking for. Some of the old offices still had desks, wall calendars hanging askew. Others were empty. There were rat droppings everywhere, and a few rat skeletons. Drifts of paper and trash that indicated kids or the homeless had been crashing up here.

             
Of course nothing jumped out at him as proof that a drug buyer had shot his cousin and then fled through this hallway. He knew though, that’s how it had to have happened. The shooter had gone back up the stairs and – Carlos started walking toward the indicated exit – left in a hurry. The sign directed him to another alcove and another stairwell. He followed it down to a door that, after a quick look without locking himself out, let out a hundred feet further down the alley. Carlos frowned as he ducked back inside, frustrated at having proved absolutely nothing. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought he would find. He wasn’t a cop; he couldn’t dust for prints or look for tiny hairs with skin tags still attached so he could analyze their DNA.