Road Dogs (2009)( ) (7 page)

He told good stories.

About himself.

Always. They were still good.

But you don't trust him. She took a sip of her drink and said, Let's put little Cundo and Little Jimmy on hold for the time being, if it's all right with you, and give some thought to pleasing ourselves this lovely overcast afternoon. See how much we like each other.

Foley said, Plumb the depths of our compatibility, grinning at her, having fun again.

It must seem like an eternity, Dawn said, since you've taken your clothes off with a woman. Watched her undress

He saw her eyes turn soft, dreamy, but now, the way she was staring at him, her eyes seemed out of focus and Foley would swear at that moment she was looking into his mind. Now she blinked and seemed, not confused, but less sure of herself.

She said, It's only been five days?

You're close, Foley said. Actually it's been four.

Now she'd have second thoughts. Who was he with, some hooker? But then realized, no, with her gift she'd know he was with his ex-wife the morning he left Florida, so they'd stay with the program, and they did, Dawn saying:

I'm going to take my dress off.

Foley said, And your undies?

Dawn said, I'm not wearing any.

So then all Foley had to do was pay attention and be tender, not rush into this and get carried away. It got him to grin as they looked each other over, the grin working all right here as they made it to the bed. Foley did not want to be as ready as he was and set his mind to picture the crowd at Venice Beach, the girls with long legs flying by on Rollerblades and it didn't help but didn't matter, Dawn came up like thunder, couldn't wait, Dawn the one dying to get it up to speed, and Foley revised his approach put the tender moves away until they did it again, Foley believed after a cigarette and a few sips of Old No. 7 and that was pretty much what happened when they settled down to restore their lust. But by the time they were at it again, getting into what he thought would be slow love, sail for a while kissing and grinning at each other, but they found themselves stepping it up and this act of love turned feverish, as wild and perspiring as the first one, Dawn sounding like she was dying but putting up a good fight, Foley, Foley in there performing, feeling himself into it and they finished in a dead heat, Foley believing he was in love again.

He held her, kissed her hair, her ear, did all that, watched her breathe as she came back to earth, her lips parted, this innocent-looking girl with green eyes drawing him in as her little helper, knowing it was what he wanted before he did. She was psychic, clairvoyant better than that, this girl was everything an ex-con like Jack Foley could pray for. Thank you, Jesus. A girl you had to subdue to reach where you were going. But once she opened her eyes there she was, she was aware, she was with it, back in her skin. He turned her on and they were closer now.

Intimate. She got out of bed and went in the bathroom, left the door open to sit on the toilet and smile at him.

Did you have a good time?

My heart, Foley said, soared like a hawk.

You weren't bad yourself, Dawn said. You surprised me.

She got back in bed with a cigarette to lie against the headboard now, Foley rubbing an ice cube over his chest, feeling male, satisfied. Dawn said, Did he tell you about the bank Little Jimmy runs, with the numbered accounts?

Not much. It didn't sound like a bank.

It is, Jack. It's a bank.

This is only my second week outside, I'm still pure, clean, and you want to pull a bank job?

There was a silence before she said, Jack ? and he turned his head to her.

When Cundo was in prison he'd call and the first thing he'd say, he'd ask me if I was being a saint. Cundo believed saints never had sex. Are you being a saint for me?' 'Yes, I'm being a saint.' 'For me?' 'Yes, for you.' Finally I told him if he didn't stop asking if I was a fucking saint I'd disappear and he'd never see me again. And he did, he stopped saying it. Until last week, the day before you got here, he called and asked me again, after years of not asking, if I was being a saint. I said, 'All this time I've been alone?' I said, 'For more than seven years I've been waiting for you, and you ask me that all over again?'

Did you ask him, Foley said, why he doesn't trust you?

That's not the question, Dawn said. If he doesn't trust me, why did he invite you to come here?

Fresh out of the joint, Foley said.

Dawn nodded, looking at him.

That's the question.

Chapter
NINE

LOU ADAMS MET THE LAPD GANG SQUAD DETECTIVE AT THE Firehouse Bar on Rose Avenue. He knew Ron Deneweth from a police officer's funeral, the two sitting and talking after with a few beers. Lou still had Deneweth's card and called him once he'd decided to play this deal.

Deneweth said, You know this place was actually a firehouse at one time?

Is that right? Lou Adams said, waiting to look at the stack of rap sheets Deneweth was holding.

Usually, Deneweth said, you see some of those muscle freaks from Gold's Gym in here. They sit at the bar sipping Red Bull looking at themselves in the mirror, every so often popping a bicep.

Lou said, You gonna let me see those sheets?

I don't know why you come to me, Deneweth said, all the federal programs you have. S. T. E. P. Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention. You have C. L. E. A. R. Community Law Enforcement and Recovery. H. E. A. T. Heightened Enforcement and Targeting. You have S. A. G. E. Strategies Against Gun Violence. Shouldn't it be S A. G. V.?

It should, Lou said, but S-a-g-v isn't a word. You gonna let me look at the sheets?

You also have G. I. T., Deneweth said, Gang Impact Teams, handing the stack to Lou Adams. The guy you want's on top. He's Gang Intervention, a very bright boy, leader of a program called

Y. B. U. Young Boys United.

Nice-looking boy, Lou said, studying the mug shot of Vincente Sandoval, also known as Vincent, Tico, El Nino: twenty-one years of age, five-ten, one-sixty, eyes brown, looking devilish in his do-rag, one earring, gang tattoos from his youth. The Hardcore Gang Division brought him up four times on suspicion of felony homicide, one conviction; did three years for first-degree manslaughter, still in his serious teens.

In the L. A. area he's known as Tico, Deneweth said. It's not on his sheet where he's from originally. I think Nicaragua, but I could be wrong. I'm thinking he has a green card or we'd of sent him back.

What's he do as a gang intervention worker?

Nothing much. Tico has a bunch of teenagers, showing 'em how to be good boys, stay clear of V-13 and the Shoreline Crips and someday become grown-ups.

Tico Sandoval, Lou Adams said. What should I call the boy, Tico or Sandy?

Sandy, you know how many young men like yourself I looked at before naming you my second in command, my Segundo? As many'll fit in a good-size holding cell. When I was told you go both ways I said, 'Whoa, you mean the boy's a fruitcake?' No, what they meant, you can pass as one hundred percent Latin doing a samba, or go African with a bone through your nose. I'm told you're even a speck Chinese, but I don't see it. What was your mother?

What was she?

Sounding Hispanic.

Where was she from?

Oh my mama come from West Memphis, Arkansas.

See? Right before your eyes he becomes a colored guy. From spic to African-American nigger, Lou Adams believed, as the mood struck him.

I'm told by Detective Ron Deneweth, Lou said, gang intervention has turned you into a man of peace, and I want to believe it. Ron says they have you looking at ways of bringing the Latins and the brothers together, get 'em to work out their beefs. Es verdad?

Tico said, Is true, all right. I'm thinking of ways to bring peace to the valley once again.

Sandy, Lou said, are you fuckin' with me?

Boss ?

They were sitting on the sunporch of a yellow frame house on Broadway near Oakwood Park in Venice, where Tico was living with a good-looking black woman who was supposed to be his ah'nt, the way he said it.

Lou said, You fuck with me, Sandy, I'll have Immigration deport your skinny ass back to Central America, drop you off home in Nicaragua. You savvy 'deport your ass'?

Yes, boss, of course.

Calm about it. A Spanish dude in his striped do-rag and silver earring.

Tell me, Lou said, if you know a Jack Foley.

I don't think so.

He's only the most famous fucking bank robber in America. Last week he was released from a Florida prison and bought fake ID to get out here in a hurry.

Can I ask why you looking for him?

He's gonna rob another bank.

How do you know that, boss?

It's what he does, he robs banks. I went to the prison in Florida, Lou said. I talk to inmates, I talk to hacks, administrative people every one of 'em said, 'Jack Foley? Yeah, he hung out with Cundo Rey, they road-dog buddies.' So I'm thinking, Cundo's put him up. You know about this Cuban? He's still in the joint but suppose to have property out here. Buys homes and sells 'em, all he does is get rich.

In Venice ya lo creo.

Speak English. You know him?

I hear of him only.

Well, I checked with the county. They don't have him down as owning any. But then I find his name as a partner in an investment company. Rios and Rey, Incorporated, Financial Consultants. When'd Cundo learn to add a column of figures?

Tico shook his head. I can't help you, boss.

This squirt's finishing up a homicide conviction in Florida while he's a businessman in California? Yeah, uh-huh. I spoke to a cute woman name of Tibby Rothman. You know her? Little bitty thing.

I see her around, yes.

She puts out the Venice newspaper, I understand, when she feels like it. I asked her did she know a James Rios. She said, 'You mean Little Jimmy the bookkeeper?' and grinned at me like she'd said something funny. Now Lou asked his second in command, Sandy, you know this Little Jimmy person?

Now Tico was grinning.

Boss, everybody in Venice knows Little Jimmy. He's what you call a character. Sabe usted character, boss?

This federale being a tough guy was a trip. You fucking with me,

Sandy? The question on Tico's mind: what was the guy doing here by himself? They send him to watch a bank robber just got his release who could sit on the beach all day watching girls, do whatever he wants? They send one guy only?

One guy can't do it. So he wants Tico, your young Boy United, to watch the bank robber for him. The man said, And get some of those gangbangers, their pants hanging off their ass, to help you. He said, Four times six is twenty-four. He did, he said that. You need four colored guys and four la Cucarachas, one of each working surveillance at all times, six hours on, six off. Can you handle it? You can't, I'll have your ass sent back to what did he say, Nicaragua? The man not knowing shit where Tico was from.

Tico's mama Shirlene once she'd had enough of West Memphis found her way to Central America with a light-skin Latino guy. Tico was born and she left the first guy for another light-skin guy, a musician famous for playing the marimba, and she began to sing with his band called Los Parados. Shirlene changed her name to Sierra and became famous down there doing Afro-Caribbean funk in San JosT clubs. Days she spent with Tico as he grew up, loving him, teaching him how to be black American on the beat, how to wear his hair long and a hat if he wanted with the do-rag, what kind of silver to wear, rings and an earring. Sierra spoke English to him at home, good English and street English, preparing him for his world. She said, Baby, feel your cool self, who you are, somebody special. She told him every day, There is no one else like you. Don't fuck up.

This Lou Adams had big hands and hard bones showing in his face. He was the kind of man believed he knew everything. Be talking, thumbs hooked in his belt, turn his head to spit, turn his head back and still be talking. Why's he want this bank robber? To make a name for himself? Catch this famous bandit Tico had never heard of? Why's he think the bank robber was staying at a house everybody knows belongs to Cundo Rey? The Lone Ranger says no, Little Jimmy Rios owns the house. Tico said, Oh, is that right?

I looked up the records, Louis Adams said, and saw the signature, James Rios.

What everyone who knew anything was suppose to believe. But if Little Jimmy belonged to Cundo Rey, going back to the time they left Cooba, wouldn't the homes also belong to Cundo? Why didn't the Lone Ranger know that? You own two high-price homes on a canal, the most expensive property in Venice, you had to be a millionaire, even if you were living in a prison cell in Florida.

Tico said to Louis Adams, What are you paying us for this work? You get to stay here, Lou Adams said. I don't send your ass home.

I don't do this work for you, you deport me?

I make a phone call, it's done.

The guys I get for you, I tell them that?

They're illegals, aren't they?

I don't know. There would be a court hearing to find out, uh? I know of these situations, it could take weeks. Lou said, While you're being held in federal detention. I understand that, Tico said, but while you holding us, who's watching the bank robber? Lou Adams said, Sandy, are you fuckin' with me again? I'll get you sent home tomorrow.

Tico said, You know my place of birth is Costa Rica? No, you didn't, did you? You know my mother was born in the state of Arkansas? I think you knew it and forgot. It makes me also a citizen of the United States. I have a passport.

Tico waited, giving the federal time to think of what he might say, the man trying hard to be a serious FBI man. Help him out.

Still, Tico said, I see what you need to do and I think, all right, I get the guys. We see the bank robber leave the house we know is owned by a criminal who isn't there, is in prison. The bank robber has left. Now, nobody is there, this place owned by a millionaire criminal.

Lou Adams said, You gonna fuckin' act it out next? You want to know what you get out of it? Give your boys some T-shirts that say Y. B. U. across the front. You get to see your mama when she comes to visit. We won't detain her, have her x-rayed. 'Well, it looks like you're in a good shape. Except for those balloons in your tummy.' Lou turned to get in Tico's face. Don't fuck with me, boy.