Black River

Wednesday, July 26

5:23 a.m.

L
ike nearly everyone born in the tin shacks that line the banks of the Río Cauto, Gerardo Limón was short, dark, and bandy-legged. A textbook
cholo
, Limón was less than a generation removed from the jungle and thus denied even the pretense of having measurable quantities of European blood, a deprivation of the soul which, for all his adult life, had burned in his chest like a candle. That his partner, Ramón Javier, was tall, elegant, and obviously of Spanish descent merely added fuel to the flame.

Gerardo shouldered his way into the orange coveralls and then buckled the leather tool belt about his waist. A sticky valve in the truck’s engine ticked in the near darkness. Twenty yards away, Ramón spaced a trio of orange traffic cones across the mouth of the driveway leading to the back of the Briarwood Garden Apartments.

The kill zone was perfect. The driveway had two nearly blind turns. This end of the building had no windows. To the north, half a mile of marsh separated the apartments from the Speedy Auto Parts outlet up the road.

“You wanna pitch or catch?” Gerardo asked.

“Who was up last?” Ramón wanted to know.

“We turned two, remember?”

Last time out, they’d encountered an unexpected visitor and had to play an impromptu doubleheader. Ramón’s thin lips twisted into a smile as he recalled the last time they’d worn these uniforms. As he settled the tool belt on his hips, he wondered how many times they’d run their “utility repairmen” number. Certainly dozens. He’d lost count years ago.

Ramón Javier liked to think he might have become a doctor, or a jazz musician, or maybe even a baseball player if things had been different. If his family had made it to Miami the first time. If they hadn’t been dragged back to that stinking island and treated like pig shit for five years.

Ramón settled the yellow hard hat onto his head and checked the load in the .22 automatic, screwed the CAC22 suppressor carefully onto the barrel, and then slipped the weapon through the loop in the tool belt generally reserved for the hammer.

He checked his watch. “Three minutes, “ he said. “What will it be?”

“Whatever you want,” Gerardo said. “I don’t care.”

“Don’t forget, we got orders to lose the truck,” Ramón said.

Gerardo shrugged. “You pitch. I’ll catch.”

Wednesday, July 26

5:24 a.m.

T
he kitchen floor squeaked as he made his way over to the refrigerator. He removed a brown paper sack, set it on the counter, and checked inside. Two sandwiches: olive loaf and American cheese on white. A little salt, a little pepper, and just a dab of Miracle Whip. Satisfied, he grabbed the plastic water bottle from the refrigerator, stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket, and headed for the door.

Overhead, the Milky Way was little more than a smear across the sky. Too many lights, too many people, too much smog for the stars. He used his key to open the truck door. The ’79 Toyota pickup, once bright yellow, had oxidized to a shade more reminiscent of uncleaned teeth.

The engine started at the first turn of the key. He smiled as he raced the motor and fiddled with the radio. The
ON
-
OFF
knob was going. You had to catch it just right, and even then, first time you hit a bump, it would switch itself off, and you had to start all over again.

He caught two bars of music. Chopin, he thought, when the light in the cab flickered. As he sat up, a movement caught his eye. He looked to his left, thinking it was that sorry ass troll who lived in the basement. Guy never slept. Never washed either.

Wasn’t him, though. No, it was old hangdog himself. Standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, staring in the truck window like he’s the messenger of doom or something.

He rolled down the window. “You want something?” he inquired.

“How do you live with yourself?” the guy asked. “Have you no shame?”

He raced the engine three times and then spoke. “Don’t you ever give it up, man? It’s over. What can I say? Shit happens.”

Given a second chance, the driver probably would have chosen his words more carefully. As last words go,
shit happens
left a great deal to be desired. Those three syllables were, however, the last mortal utterance to pass his lips, because, at that point, old hangdog pulled a gun out from behind his back and shot the driver four times in the face.

As he stood next to the truck, trying to absorb the gravity of his act, the truck radio suddenly began to play classical music, scattering his thoughts like leaves. He looked uncomprehendingly at the weapon in his hand; then he lobbed it through the window into the driver’s lap and slowly walked away.

Wednesday, July 26

5:26 a.m.

“W
hat was that?” Ramón asked.

“Shhh.” Gerardo held a finger to his lips.

The pulsing yellow light circled them in the darkness.

“Sounded like shots to me,” Ramón whispered.

Gerardo slipped the gun from his tool belt and held it close along his right leg as he worked his way along the side of the building all the way to the back, where he could see out into the parking lot. He peered around the corner and then came running back.

“He’s sitting there warming up the truck, just like always.”

“Musta been backfires,” said Ramón, without believing it.

They’d been following him for a week. Memorizing his schedule. Getting to know his habits. Gerardo checked his watch. “One minute,” he whispered.

Whatever his other failings, and the quality of his life suggested they were many, their victim was always on time. Left his cruddy apartment just before five-thirty each morning. Warmed up his truck for three minutes and then left for work in time to arrive at five minutes to six. The only time he’d varied from his schedule was Friday night, when he’d stopped for gas and groceries on the way home.

Gerardo’s thick lips began to tremble as he stared at his watch and counted time. “Thirty seconds,” he whispered. “Twenty-nine…”

Wednesday, July 26

5:31 a.m.

H
e signed his confession, checked his watch, and then dialed nine-one-one. “There has been a killing at the Briarwood Garden Apartments. Twenty-six-eleven Marginal Way South,” he said. “In the back parking lot. I’ll meet the officers there.”

“Let me have your—”

He hung up on the dispatcher. Then he smoothed his confession out on the counter and read it over. It began:
This morning, July 26, 2000, I killed a man who deserved to die. For this act I am prepared to suffer whatever consequences society sees fit to im
pose upon me.
It was followed by his signature. He’d thought of explaining his crime but felt certain they wouldn’t understand. They knew so little of honor.

The more he looked at the word
consequences
, the more convinced he became it was spelled incorrectly. To be thought a killer was one thing; to be thought ignorant was another.

Wednesday, July 26

5:34 a.m.

“H
e’s late,” Gerardo said.

This time it was Ramón who scurried up to the corner of the building and peeked around. In the ghostly overhead light, he could see the mark sitting behind the wheel, hear the sounds of music and the engine running. He wondered if perhaps the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Something about the situation didn’t feel right.

When he looked around, Gerardo had doused the emergency light and was throwing the traffic cones into the truck. He hurried along the side of the building.

“He’s still sitting there,” he whispered to Gerardo. “Maybe we should wait a few more minutes.”

Gerardo’s face was grim. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Get in.”

Ramón hopped into the passenger side just as the truck sprung to life.

“You play center,” Gerardo said. “I’ll play third.”

They’d done it so many times before, nothing more needed to be said. Gerardo gunned the truck up the narrow drive, swung left around the parking lot, and slid to a stop with the bed of their pickup blocking the mark’s. Both men leaped from the truck and ran to their respective positions, Ramón out onto the grass in front of the truck, where he assumed the combat position, holding his silenced automatic in two hands, pointing directly at the dark windshield, Gerardo a half pace to the rear of the driver’s-side window, where by the mere extension of his arm he could place the end of the suppressor behind the victim’s ear.

“What the fuck is this?” Gerardo said.

When Gerardo returned his weapon to his belt and leaned down to peer in the window, Ramón hustled across the grass to his side. The mark sat open-mouthed. Four separate rivers of blood ran down over his face and disappeared into his collar. He’d been shot twice high on the forehead, once in the right eye and once again just to the left of the nose.

“Somebody shot him,” Gerardo offered, in that literal manner of his that drove Ramón crazy.

“No shit,” Ramón said. He pointed down at the .22 target pistol in the dead man’s lap. “Shooter dropped the piece,” he said.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?
We
was supposed to shoot the guy. What kinda fuck would do something like this?” Gerardo demanded.

“Lemme think, will ya?”

Ramón looked around the parking lot. Nothing. Apparently nobody had heard the noise. “We gotta finish this thing,” he said after a minute. “Just like the plan.”

“But we didn’t pop him.”

“Don’t matter,” Ramón said quickly. “We still gotta finish.” He checked the area again. Still nothing. “We finish…just like it was us who offed him.”

“It ain’t right,” Gerardo said. “We was supposed to do it.”

Ramón knew the muley look. He pointed the silenced automatic through the window and shot the lifeless corpse twice in the side. The body toppled over in the seat.

“There…we shot him,” he said. “You feel better now?”

Gerardo didn’t answer. Just stared sullenly off into space.

“Go ahead,” Ramón said. “Give him a couple.”

Gerardo shook his head. “It’s not right,” he said again.

“Go on,” Ramón coaxed.

Gerardo hesitated for a moment, gave a small shrug, leaned into the cab, and shot the body three times in rapid succession.

Ramón began to move. “I’ll drive his truck. You follow behind. We do it just like we planned.”

“What if—”

Ramón cut him off. “You gonna go back and tell the man we struck out?” he asked. “You gonna tell him how we was sitting on our thumbs out front while somebody else was earning our money for us?” They both knew the answer was no. In their present position, failure was not an option.

Ramón pulled open the driver’s door and used his foot to push the body down onto the passenger-side floorboards. “Let’s go,” he said. “Nice and easy like always.”

Gerardo hustled over to their truck and moved it forward, allowing his partner to back out into the lot. He began to sweat, as he followed the flickering taillights down the drive, around the corner, and into the street, where they drove north at forty miles an hour.

A mile down the road from the Briarwood Garden Apartments, flashing lights appeared in the distance, blue and white. Both men tensed at the wheel, watching the lights grow closer, until a pair of white police cruisers came roaring by in the opposite direction. Both men smiled with relief and watched their rearview mirrors as the lights disappeared into the darkness.

Wednesday, July 26

5:41 a.m.

T
he swirling light was captured in the iris of a single orange eye. Then, a moment later, the static crack of a radio scratched the air, and the heron began rushing forward through the water, curling its long neck for flight, beating indignant wings against the cold night air. He watched as the great bird forced itself upward into the black sky and then pulled his confession from his jacket pocket and read it once again. He stayed in the shadows as he made his way toward the pulsing blue-and-white lights ahead. At the final corner, he stopped. Everything was as he had imagined it would be—a pair of police cruisers sat in the middle of the lot, doors open, light banks blazing; four policemen stood in a knot in front of the cars, the harsh glare of their headlights turning their legs to gold—everything but the truck and the body.

The yellow truck was gone. He leaned back against the building to steady himself. Then he looked again. Still gone. He blinked his eyes in disbelief and then, afraid he might have fallen asleep, checked his watch. Five forty-two. Eleven minutes since he’d called nine-one-one. No way the pervert had lived and driven off. No way the cops had towed him off so quickly. His pulse throbbed in his temples and his knees were weak. He’d never been more confused in his life. Without willing it so, he began to move. As if in a trance, he pocketed his confession and hurried back the way he’d come.