Mr. Hooligan (4 page)

“So he’s standing at the side of the road holding the gun with two hands, and shaking. Just shaking. Two men bleeding on the ground and he’s thinking that’s it, his life is over, what did he just do? Red Boy is twitching and groaning so he’s still alive but Tarik—Riley could tell he was dead. Stone dead, sitting against the big tire with his eyes wide open and not blinking. Riley decides he’s got to flee the scene, but first, his money. He finds the cash folded in Red Boy’s front pocket. Thing is, some of the bills have blood on them. He’d shot him right above the hip. He wipes off the blood on Red Boy’s shirt and that’s when he noticed that he’d also shot him in the eye. He starts feeling sick to his stomach and runs back to the car, and that’s how he sees the little boy.”

“Little boy? What—”

“Yes. Standing at a gate. He’s half concealed behind a cluster of trees. It’s off to the left, a few dozen yards up the road and it’s easy to miss, just a chicken-wire fence set back at an angle, a dirt path, probably leading to some shack way in the back. The little boy just stands there staring through the wire, sucking a pacifier. Riley walks up, gets close to the gate and looks down at the little boy. The boy is expressionless, staring up, sucking that pacifier. Not frightened, not curious, just a blank look. Riley raises a finger to his lips, goes ‘Shhh.’ He nods at the little boy, gets into his car and drives away.

“He heads back to the Western Highway. He passes no other car in either direction on that dirt road and he’s thinking he just might get away with this. The child at the gate? Riley says he didn’t fear him. He looked no older than three, and there was something in his face that … well, suggested retardation. At the intersection with the Western Highway, there’s a restaurant, a two-story concrete building, unpainted, you probably know it. A couple yapping on the verandah hardly pay him any mind when he drives by. He’s thinking, good, he just might get away.”

Roger said, “But I take it, he’s wrong.”

“He keeps driving—”

“Wait, one moment there, Patricia. You said that he killed someone. But it sounds like he killed
two
men.”

“He killed one man. And one devil.”

“Oh, come on, now, you don’t even believe in a deity anymore. Listen to you with this metaphysical talk. Devil?”

Patricia rose and went to the window. She cranked open the aluminum louvers. Only a few cars in the parking lot, one with a cab driver behind the wheel reading a magazine. She watched a paper bag skitter across the dusty pavement. “What time is it, Roger?”

“Around five thirty or so. Why?”

“I’m supposed to meet him outside about now, and he’s usually pretty punctual.”

“Another counseling session?”

Patricia returned to her seat. She said, “No, he’s through with counseling. Not that he’d even call it that. More like ‘talks.’ Soon he might be through with the talks, he might be getting married. No, today he’s just meeting me to drop off something.”

Roger inhaled deeply. “Feel that lovely breeze, so nice. That lovely Belize Breeze,” smiling at her.

“You’re so very clever. My, I can’t get anything past that steel-trap intellect of yours, can I?”

“Only concerned that you’re not driving.”

“So I can’t drink anymore, but some nights I could use just a little help to take the edge off.”

Roger raised a hand. “No excuses necessary.”

“None given.”

Roger cocked his head. “When Riley drove off, past the restaurant and nobody noticed, is that the end of the story? Did he get away with it?”

“Well, that’s what he hoped. But no one really gets away, you know that. No, Roger, Riley’s problems were just beginning. The news about Red Boy and the Lebanese came over the radio the next day—remember we didn’t have TV news back then. They said that Corporal Lucius Myvette and Lebanese national Tarik El-Bani were found dead on Manatee Road, victims of multiple gunshot wounds, police were investigating and so far there were no suspects and so on and so forth. Riley said that started one of the worst weeks of his life. It was the waiting, the fear, the paranoia that any day, any minute the cops would come knocking at his door, rouse him from bed. He said he even had nightmares they busted into his bathroom while he was on the toilet. I mean, he was a physical and mental mess. Still, still—he hadn’t told anyone. He didn’t tell me until much later. And by the end of that week he thought he was home free. The radio, the papers were saying there were still no suspects and very few clues. But he’d overlooked something.

“Remember the cash Red Boy had taken and he’d taken back from Red Boy? Well, some of the bills, he hadn’t completely wiped off all the blood. Israel Monsanto had noticed the stains, and when he heard that Red Boy had been shot on the same day Riley had gone to make his collection and in the same general area? He remembered how Riley had appeared really nervous that evening, how he wouldn’t stay for a beer or have any of the chips and guacamole Mirta Monsanto had prepared. So he started making inquires. People like the Monsantos have connections everywhere, you understand.

“Riley’s fears came true, but it wasn’t the cops who showed up; instead it was Israel and Carlo Monsanto who knocked at his door early one morning. ‘Come,’ Israel said, ‘let’s go somewhere private we could have a little talk. And I want you to wear the same shoes you had on the other day you went to the agri fair.’ And Carlo, the younger one, said, ‘Also, the .45 we lent you. We’ll be needing it back.’

“Imagine the fear. Riley just about collapsed. But he held his composure, for a good while, he surprised himself. The Monsantos drove him up the Western and turned onto Manatee Road and parked on the roadside after about a half mile, and Israel said, ‘It’s right around here the police found those boys. Know who I’m talking about?’ And he stared directly into Riley’s face, waiting for a reaction. Then Israel just laid it out for him. He said that when you decide you’re going to shoot someone you must be smart enough to conceal the evidence, and that means you must pick up after yourself. Then Carlo, he’s always had a temper, broke in with, ‘Three things that cops know already, okay? Those boys were shot with a .45, footprints matching a size eleven Adidas were found at the scene on this dusty road, and a small yellow Volkswagen was seen racing with the Lebanese’s truck on the Western Highway that evening.’ He told Riley, he said something like, ‘You have a .45 in your possession,
my
.45. You are wearing Adidas tennis shoes, size eleven, and you drive a yellow Volkswagen. You dumb shit.’ Israel had to settle his brother down. Israel told Riley, ‘Tell us what happened, and don’t lie or we turn you in this morning.’

“So that was that. He told the Monsantos everything. Except he wasn’t racing, he said. Red Boy had been following him and he was trying to get away. Israel didn’t care about that, he’d heard enough and he was all about what do we do now. First, they got rid of the tennis shoes, flung them deep into the bushes off the Western. Next, they disassembled the gun and that night they dumped some parts into the West Collet canal and some in the Belize River. The car? Israel said there was nothing to be done about the car. Two friendly policemen were coming to question Riley next morning. He advised Riley to just relax, stick to his story and everything would be fine.

“The police did come. They talked to him for five or ten minutes. They explained to him how people saw him racing with the truck, making threatening gestures at Myvette and the Lebanese, how people had seen them arguing at the agricultural fair—they tried different angles, they mixed truth and fabrication, to see if they could trip him up, catch him in a lie. When the police left, Israel Monsanto paid a visit and said, ‘You’re goddamn lucky.’ That was the closest the police ever got to Riley. They never came around again, and the investigation fizzled out. Life went on as before, Riley doing collections and guiding drops—a little wiser, though, and the Monsantos profiting from it. Carlo was never shy about reminding him that if they hadn’t helped, if not for their pulling strings, and if the police were more capable? He would surely be living the rest of his life behind bars—as Carlo would say, as someone else’s bitch.

“Which brings us to the present concern. It’s been almost twenty years and Riley—he’s not so young anymore, he’s middle-aged, he’s an upstanding citizen, a business owner, taxpayer, a father, though his marriage didn’t work out, but he’s a good father—”

Roger Hunter said, “Wait wait wait. What are you saying, Patricia? This man isn’t an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, he’s part of the criminal element. Or am I living on some other planet? Did the standards of responsible civil behavior change and no one informed me?”

“But that’s not my point. He
has
changed. In the eyes of the law, he is law abiding. And over the years, if you must know, he’s pulled away from the Monsantos, little by little. As a repayment for them saving his skin, he started taking a reduced payment from them. It has become an unspoken agreement. Then after his son was born, he cut back on the number of jobs he did for them, started saving, bought that bar, he and a friend, remodeled it. Now he seldom makes runs for the Monsantos. They resented it at first but they’ve come around, slowly, accepted that they’d go separate ways one day. Last month he told them that his next run would be his last. Didn’t go over too well with Carlo, but Israel, the boss, gave it his blessing. As Riley says, ‘I can’t keep paying them back for the rest of my life.’ ”

Roger said, “So what’s the concern?”

“Will they be true to their word? That’s the concern. Not pressure him into taking on another job? He wants no more of that life, he says, and he plans to marry again, start afresh.”

“Ahh, this idea—the New Beginning. Such a common delusion.”

“You’re a cynic. One must always try, or else slit your wrists now, why don’t you?”

“True, we’ve got to practice hopefulness. Question I have, and I assume you know Riley better than most, has he really changed? Does he have the discipline to live by the strength of his convictions, live a normal, one might say, boring existence compared to the one he’s led before?”

“I believe he does.”

A nurse entered the room with blankets slung over a forearm. “Mr. Hunter, you’re getting another roommate. Fellow came in here this morning for an emergency appendectomy.” She went over to a bed on the far side of the room, laid the blankets on it and peeled back the sheet.

Roger said, “That’s fine. I need some company. Not that yours isn’t exceptional, Patricia. You know, you’re quite comely with makeup. When we were an item you hated makeup.”

Patricia glanced at the nurse, who was adjusting the bed height, wheeling a side table out of the way. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

Roger smiled, downright pleased with himself. “Know what else? That story was really something. Since when did you become such a raconteur?”

“For goodness’ sake, Roger, don’t pretend we don’t know nearly everything about each other.” Glancing at the nurse again, she said, “Private matters for instance. Like that very dark asymmetrical mole on the left tip of your penis.”

Roger’s eyes bulged and he fell into a fit of coughing. Patricia jumped up, wearing a little smile, and filled his cup with water and handed it to him. The nurse finished up hastily and hustled out.

Roger drank noisily while Patricia patted his back. He lowered the cup and said, “Woman, you’re rude.”

She laughed and retook her seat. They passed a few minutes in silence, enjoying the light breeze that had started flowing through the room, hearing the voices outside and the waves lapping against the seawall.

He said, “So you truly think he can change? Think he can become a new man?”

“I do, Roger. I do. I worry about him, he’s like a son to me, but Riley has matured. Sometimes he’s—dare I say—introspective. He’s become a surprisingly thoughtful and cautious man. I want him to change, but to change he might need to leave here to get away from his old influences, and I don’t want to lose him. He’s ready to change, but some people might resent that, and it could be dangerous for him.”

The fan clicked-clicked and blew a warm breeze over her face.

“I don’t want to lose any more of my friends,” she said.

Roger smiled sadly, stretched a skinny arm over the bed rail, and she reached over and clasped his hand.

CHAPTER FOUR

Riley dropped the truck into third gear and took the curve hard, then building speed, pressed the clutch and slipped into fourth and bulleted into the straightaway, ripping past A Street and the fork in the road and on toward home. Man, sometimes when he’d been cooped up or stressed out all day, he lusted after that piece of asphalt perfection.

He slowed down when he passed St. Thomas Street, having dosed himself with just enough adrenaline to last till suppertime. Night had fallen and he had long hours ahead. After he and Harvey had picked up the speakers, he’d helped Gert behind the bar, served some beers, shot the breeze with the Friday evening regulars. Then it was time for home and a warm shower, maybe a power nap if he was fast enough, before he had to head back.

Riley lived on Lizarraga Avenue, behind the Belize Telemedia building and the antennae tower visible for miles around. It was a street of nondescript homes and lower-middle-class incomes, children always running about, cars parked on the verges, some yards overgrown, but pretty quiet most of the time, generally safe, with friendly neighbors who liked him.