White Shadow (38 page)

JOHNNY RIVERA WAITED.

The storm passed about midnight and left deep puddles of tropical water in the motor court’s lot. Crickets chirped out in the woods and the water ticked off oak leaves. Truckers finished up their meat loaf and bitter coffee at the little white diner and headed on down the Tamiami Trail. Only the occasional roar of their trucks broke the humid night sounds. It was love-bug season, and the insects were drawn from the woods and into the road, where they got mashed in car grilles and headlights and remained coupled and twisted in a dense muck on windshields.

Three stainless steel Airstream trailers were parked in a grassy lot beside the motor court, joined by only a ’48 Buick and a ’51 Olds. Slowly, one by one, the lights turned off in the windows of the little white cottages that ringed the restaurant.

Rivera found the place after asking the grease monkey at the gas station about the girl. The man tried to play dumb about the whole thing, but Rivera said he was her brother and that she was supposed to meet him here. Where she always used the phone. And the man, all that black grease caked under his nose and across his arms, just pointed down the road and said she worked at the Giant’s place. Johnny just nodded at that and took off down the road before he spotted the restaurant and motel.

He parked across Highway 41 behind a billboard advertising Colgate toothpaste and it wasn’t five minutes later that he spotted the girl walking outside to smoke a cigarette. The ripe little Cuban was covered in sweat like she’d been working the grill and used a clean white towel to clean off her face and her chest.

Rivera smoked another cigarette. He watched her. He checked his .45 and made sure it was locked and cocked and checked for the .38 at his belt. He knew she didn’t have a car and figured she was probably staying nearby. He’d wait until she locked up to snatch her and shake Charlie’s ledger loose.

He didn’t see anyone else around, but he was sure she wasn’t alone.

Jesus Christ, she sure picked a hell of a place to hide. With the windows down, Johnny listened to the slow
drip-drip-drip
off the scrub pines and palmettos. A heavy humidity had been brought in with the rain and made it feel like he was taking a steam in his car.

He looked at his watch; it was five past midnight. A truck flew down 41 and blew its horn passing the Fish Camp and then headed on over the bridge. More rainwater ticked off leaves, while crickets kept a steady drone in the trees.

He didn’t light another cigarette.

He stayed parked in the shadows behind the Colgate billboard and waited. The woman on the billboard smiled at him with some huge goddamned teeth. The teeth twinkled like fake stars.

His foot tapped and his jaw clenched.

He promised himself he would not kill the girl even though he wanted to so badly.

He would not beat her. He would get what he needed and get out of this Podunk hell.

CARL WALKER ditched his car a half mile back from the Fish Camp after spotting Rivera by the billboard. He and two other deputies from Pasco—a nineteen-year-old punk named Jack and an old cow-hand named Bill—walked back the rest of the way, a fair distance from the road, and found a good spot to wait it out near the row of ten white cottages. His cowboy boots and tan jeans were covered in mud, and he’d rolled his denim shirt to his elbows. The air smelled fishy and his arms glowed with sweat. There was a mean moon out over the bay, and he saw mullet skipping and tossing themselves up in the air and cockroach crabs scattering like huge bugs on the small sandy shore and into the big twisted roots of the mangroves.

Carl Walker caught the reflection of the moon in a glass puddle in the sand as he thumbed four shells into his Winchester Model 12. His right hand on the pump and his left on the trigger. Bill and Jack kept .45s.

All of the men wore cowboy hats that shielded their faces.

He spotted the cab of Rivera’s car glowing in the billboard’s light and heard the crunch of shell and gravel in the lot of a car pulling up.

He could not see the car.

Walker looked back over his shoulder at the endless mangroves and the way their leaves looked silver in the big moon’s light.

More fish flopped, catching bugs after the storm.

Carl Walker held the Winchester tight and wiped his brow with a forearm. He motioned for Bill to take the side closest to the bay and for Jack to take the path close to 41, just in case Rivera or the girl tried to make an escape.

He liked the Winchester; you could get the action going by just using the pump and keeping that trigger mashed. You could kill a person as fast as shucking corn.

LUCREZIA FINISHED wiping off the last tables and rolling silverware for the morning crowd as Jeanie perched on her stool in front of the glass counter where they kept the gum, candy, and cigarettes, and counted out the money. She bundled up the cash and rolled the coins and sunk them all into a pink cosmetic kit by the cash register. Lucrezia figured there had to be close to three hundred dollars in there. Jeanie noticed her looking at the money and smiled and opened up the bag again and counted out three dollars that she left on the glass counter above the candy.

Lucrezia thanked her and pulled off her soiled apron, hanging it on a hook by the back door. She walked into the humid night and listened to all the creatures waking up after the storm. She stretched and yawned and pulled her hair into a knot. Her feet hurt and her legs ached. But four hours would be a good sleep, and she could use as much money as she could earn if she was ever going to get to Mexico.

His letters said He would be in Mexico.

She walked up the wooden steps to cottage 5 and punched on the lights. There were two beds, and she checked under the one closest to the door for her satchel. She found it and walked over to the small sink and turned on the hot water.

She clicked on a small radio by the sink, and as the water ran, she listened to late-night music coming from the Hotel Nacional in Havana and she closed her eyes and imagined herself home.

IT WAS TIME.

 

Rivera cranked his car and waited for two big trucks to pass before crossing 41 and parking in front of the middle cottage. He’d seen the girl go inside, and the light still burned in the two small windows. He left his keys in the car and reached for the sap in his pocket. He needed to get in and get out. Getting caught with the girl was one thing, but getting caught with Charlie Wall’s little book was another.

As his foot hit the first step, he saw the girl standing topless in front of a sink and mirror. He smiled. He watched her clean her elbows and under her arms and gently take a soapy rag to her brown stomach. The bubbles were white and foamy and trickled and popped against her soft skin.

The porch creaked with his weight as he slowly set his shoes on the wood and stood ready to kick in the door.

But a big green Cadillac turned into the Fish Camp and cut its lights. In the flood of red from the neon sign, he watched the biggest goddamned man he’d ever seen emerge from the car and place a hat on his head. The monster must’ve been more than eight feet tall, and he was dressed like a freakish John Wayne.

Rivera pressed himself against the wall next to the screen door of the cabin and heard a Cuban band playing on a radio inside. He held his breath in the shadow, the sap tight in his hand.

When the man turned and walked around the Cadillac, he saw the flash of a metal star on his chest. He opened the passenger door and let out a little redheaded girl wearing a sailor’s suit and small white shoes. The big man lifted up the kid and she could sit almost solid in the palm of his hand.

Rivera steadied his breath. He heard the water cut off from inside the cabin. He looked at the girl and she was still washing herself with a rag. Her skin was dark and her nipples were the size of silver dollars.

The huge man and the child walked into the diner.

Rivera reached out from the shadows and turned the doorknob.

She saw him as soon as he entered and watched him from the mirror as she reached for a shirt and held it to her chest.

Rivera smiled at her.

She just breathed and watched him.

“Sounds like a mambo,” Rivera said.

TWO MINUTES LATER, Carl Walker made his way around the front of the cottage. He held the shotgun in his hands as his feet crunched on the shell lot. He looked back over at the big moon and how it made the bay seem like glass and lit up the white shells of the Fish Camp lot. Walker figured the green Caddy belonged to the owner of the place and must’ve come up when he was making his way back with the boys. He walked slow and careful up to the porch where Rivera had parked. The door was cracked, and he listened as he crept onto the wooden steps to the porch. A few cars passed by on 41, big trucks and a zipping little motorcycle.

He heard the music and some talking, and then a woman screamed and he heard some tumbling and scuffling around.

He pointed to Bill and Jack and they nodded back under their cowboy hats, waiting for him to give the signal to kick in the door and shoot down that Wop piece-of-shit Rivera and take the girl like he’d been told.