Mr. Hooligan
Authors: Ian Vasquez
Tags: #Drug Dealers, #Georgia, #Mystery & Detective, #Messengers, #Fiction, #Suspense Fiction, #Georgia - History - 20th century, #General
For Nadia and Duncan,
when they’re older
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
“Once upon a time,” Patricia said, “Charles Lindbergh landed the
Spirit of St. Louis
in a seaside polo field in Belize, or I should say in British Honduras. Which is what they called it back in the late 1920s. That field, you of course know, is where the Princess Hotel and Casino is, and that park, the one out there with concrete animals, swing sets, benches, all those things. Well, just across from the park, on Princess Margaret Drive, there’s a bar called Lindy’s, named after his truly. It’s a nice place, Lindy’s, it has a thatch-covered patio, pimento and hardwood walls, a bank of wooden jalousie louvers that’re always open to the breeze. One of those places where lots of tourists hang out, a weekend nightspot where the locals enjoy a few before going to a club. But what’s really interesting about the place, to me, are the photos along the walls near the bar. Old black-and-whites of Lindbergh in the field, in these jodhpur-like khakis, a white man standing tall in a sea of black faces, lots of children in rough-looking clothes, and all the men in suits and women in long dresses and all of them wearing hats, holding their hats down against the breeze.”
“One second,” Roger Hunter said with a smile, sitting up in the hospital bed. “Is this how you’re going to begin this story? ‘Once upon a time’?”
“All the best stories begin that way, but not all of them end ‘happily ever after.’ Maybe not even this one.”
“Okay, fair enough. This tale, is this the one you’ve been wanting so long to tell me? Is this about the boy you used to counsel?”
“The boy who’s now a man,” Patricia said. “Who owns that bar, Lindy’s. Who landed himself into some trouble years ago, long before he bought that bar. What, don’t you want to hear my story?”
“On the contrary, I do. I just find myself wishing that it’ll be worth the wait. You’ve been hinting at this story for years. Giving me little bits and pieces. Now, I’m about to hear the whole thing. Why now?”
“Because it’s time. I really believe his life is about to change. And because finally telling someone about what happened, what he told me—it’ll ease the burden on my conscience.”
“So, conveniently, you’re telling a man who’s dying.”
Patricia didn’t care for that.
“Listen,” Roger said, “I didn’t mean to sound offended.”
“You don’t need to keep reminding me that you’re dying.”
“Pancreatic cancer is a perfectly logical end to life. You who left the convent because of your dedication to truth, it’s curious how you can’t accept the truth. I’m dying, woman.”
Patricia sighed. “Well, you yourself used to say that every counselor needs a counselor.”
“So what was this thing that our hero did years ago?”
“He shot a man,” Patricia said. “Shot him several times.”
Roger whistled, reached a bony hand for the cup of water on the bedside table. He drank and wiped his lips. “I would think,” he said, “that qualifies as a story I need to hear.”
“Let me tell you what happened, then. Because, actually, in a few minutes he’s coming by the hospital to give me something and I’ll have to go downstairs.”
“What did you say his name was?”
“I didn’t. When he was young, on the streets they used to call him Li’l Hooligan, but now everybody knows his real name.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Riley James, get your ass out here, we got to go, man.”
Riley lifted two bottles of Lighthouse Lager out of the cooler behind the bar and popped the caps. He turned his face to the window and shouted, “Hold on, lemme get something,” and walked through the kitchen, holding the bottles by the necks in one hand, into his small office. He rummaged through a drawer full of a loose pile of invoices, paper clips, rubber bands, slammed the drawer shut, opened another and rifled through some file folders, shut that drawer, pulled open the one near the computer monitor and peered into it. He said, “Shit,” and banged it in with the side of his fist.
Stormed outside to check behind the bar. “I’m coming, Harvey, I swear I’m coming,” moving bottles of Mount Gay and Bacardi and One Barrel to the side, peeking at the back of the shelf, shifting the tray of clean glasses around for a better view, getting more annoyed.
“Looking for this?”
Gert was holding up his Ziploc of herb, half an ounce of aromatic resin-sticky Belize Breeze.
“Yeah … yeah, there it is.”
“It was on the floor over there,” she said. “Sure it’s yours? I’ll just throw it out if it isn’t. Drugs, you know, being illegal and all.”
“Gert…” He walked around from behind the bar, and she handed it over with cool disdain.
“Patrons were in here with a little boy some minutes ago. What if they’d found it?”
Riley stuffed the bag into the pocket of his jeans and ambled past her out onto the deck and down the short stairs into the sunshine where Harvey sat waiting in the old pickup.
“Your wife busted me,” he told Harvey, and Harvey laughed and started the engine and aimed north on Princess Margaret Drive.
Five o’clock Friday afternoon. Just a light breeze wafting off the Caribbean, but the promise of the weekend was enough to cool irritations, like that moment with Gert. The exciting hustle of Friday and Saturday nights at the bar to look forward to, the jump in sales, and then Sunday, long and peaceful, the only day Lindy’s was closed.
This was what Riley enjoyed—sitting back sipping a brew and cruising through town, the late afternoon light, he and Harvey, just like when they were younger.
“Let’s see what you brought here,” he said, shuffling through the stack of Harvey’s CDs piled on the seat. “Rusted what?” He held up a CD.
“Root. Rusted Root. Good music, sweet percussion. Drop that on.”
“
Legend,
Bob Marley. You still rocking
Legend
? Man, that’s the equivalent of
Frampton Comes Alive
every American used to own back in the seventies.”
“And your point is…?” Harvey’s short arm rested on the steering wheel as they made the curve past the old fisheries building and he helped flip through the CDs. “How about Burt Bacharach?”
“Better shut the hell up and watch where you’re going.”
They settled on playing the radio, the surprises it offered. Riley hung an arm out the window and took a swallow of beer. They were going across town to pick up speakers for the three-man band that was performing on the outside deck at Lindy’s tonight; heading on a “mission” like so many others he and Harvey had made since they bought the bar three years ago. Riley had known Harvey since they were about seven years old, the red-faced boy with one short arm who sat next to him one day at the start of third grade and said, “My arm looks like this ’cause when I was a baby I had polio but don’t let it fool you ’cause I can still fight.” Laying down a challenge that Riley had never felt remotely inclined to take up. From that day, he and Harvey had been tight.
They passed joggers and a woman pushing a stroller along the promenade fronting the sea. In the distance toward the mangrove isles, a skiff tore through the water, a white swath behind, bearing for the cayes. Instead of continuing the scenic route on Princess Margaret, Harvey had turned left on A Street. “Why you going this way?”
“Well, there’s a certain person that I got to see if she’s home.”
Riley groaned. “Now? Really, man?”
“Yes indeed. If she’s back in town, I may be paying a little visit tonight.”
Riley looked out the window at the fine two-story homes they were passing, kids playing soccer in a big yard. “Careful. One of these days you’re gonna get caught.”
Harvey looked at Riley. “Gert knows I love her. This thing here, it’s nothing to do with love. It’s pure beastly, hot, animalistic, athletic, nasty freakiness, yeaaah baby. See, I admitted it.” He slapped the horn and gunned the engine, probably feeling the beer already, having never been much of a drinker.
“On that note,” Riley said, leaning to one side and reaching into a pocket, “I have a little something I plan to give Candice tonight.” He opened the tiny box and showed the diamond ring tucked into the fold of padded velvet.
Harvey grinned, looking down his shoulder at it. He punched Riley’s arm. “Look out! R.J. is getting hitched.”
Riley drew up his top lip for a buck-teeth effect. “Aw shucks.”
“So why now, Riley? Because of the Monsantos?”
Riley nodded, drank some beer. “One last run Monday and I’m through. Debts paid, respect given, and that’s it, me and the Monsantos will be square. One more run, make the pickup out by Turneffe reef, drop it off next day and that’s all she wrote. Me and old man Israel already had the talk, so I figured the time was right to ask Candice. You know?”
Harvey nodded, looking a little distracted, another question on his mind. On Baymen Avenue he occasionally had to steer to the side for approaching trucks to barrel by, the street narrow and walkers showing no respect for traffic. The usual Friday evening madness.
“Doesn’t mean I’m leaving,” Riley said.
“Your woman is an American, don’t forget. She won’t want to live in Belize. Three months after the I do’s, you’re gone, up to Foreign, you watch.”
Riley sipped beer and stared out the window. Harvey was right, of course. Leaving Belize was a possibility Riley had imagined for some time. If it happened he would not be the saddest man in the world. Just because you didn’t pursue something didn’t mean you wouldn’t accept it, and right there lay his ambivalence about his lifestyle, the work he had made a name with, a good living, but which had also produced its share of regrets. Smuggling had been a job he couldn’t let go, he told Candice not too long ago. But he’d said it like it was in the past. She never interrogated him, and he loved it when she said, Well, now you’ve let that go you’ve got to just hold on to me. The woman was golden.
“Harvey, if that happens, I leave, like I used to threaten when I got drunk? Listen to this: The bar is yours.”
“I can’t afford to buy you out.”
“No, you’ll run it. Send me a small cut.”