Thin Gray Lines Read online

  “Bro, I loved that book.”

  A well-muscled young man in a tank top and with shades perched atop his head leaned over Joller’s table. “Gabe Fortnight is the shit, isn’t he?”

  “It’s pretty good.”

  “You get to chapter nine, yet? That one ripped my head right out my ass.” If that description weren’t enough, the young man pantomimed a reenactment.

  “Chapter five.”

  “Oh, the one about accepting yourself. Shit’s hardcore. But once I accepted my weaknesses, it, like, opened the door to new possibilities, man. It’s like Brother Fortnight said, accepting weakness is the beginning of strength.”

  “What did you accept?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What did you accept about yourself?”

  The young man blinked and jawed. “…I, Uhh… Real talk, bro?”

  “Real talk. Bro.”

  “I accepted that I was never gonna make some people happy. Just accepted it. Stop trying to please everyone. You know?”

  “Not really.”

  “How about you? What’s your weakness?”

  In the spirit of fairness, Joller tried to think up one, but nothing came to mind.

  His phone rang. When he saw the ID, he answered it and told the young man to beat it with only a look.

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t appreciate you coming to my house. I have kids, dammit.”

  “It’s a weakness. Accept that.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have the results or not?”

  “Would you rather do this in person?”

  “Talk.”

  “First thing’s first. Just because I pulled some strings to get you into an MRI doesn’t mean you can terrorize me for the length of your treatment.”

  Joller leaned forward. “What treatment? So, something’s wrong?”

  “You have a mass. It’s in your occipital lobe. No idea what it is without a biopsy, but based on size and location, I’d guess tumor.”

  “Cancer?”

  “No idea. With the brain, no tumor is benign, because it can kill you just by growing.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I’ll give you the name of a specialist.”

  “Aren’t you a neurologist? The university website said you’re the fucking guy.”

  “I’m a professor at a teaching hospital. You want a working specialist. I’m going to give you a name to write down, but do not tell them I sent you.”

  Joller wrote it down. “What are my chances?”

  “Decent if you have money. Fifty-fifty if you don’t. Never contact me again, or I’ll call the police.”

  Joller clutched the sides of his table, pouting furiously. He stood ready to throw it through the floor-to-ceiling window, then noticed the young man looking at him from the line.

  Joller let go of the table and stalked to the line, cutting in front him.

  He eyed the teenager manning the register. “Give me every single one of those bacon doughnuts you’ve got.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  After getting rejected by the farm idiots, Pineda went back to his hotel bed and slept in his denim jeans and jacket until noon. Hunger stirred him from the cocoon of sheets and pillows, and he wandered away from the hotel on the prowl for food.

  He sat inside an Arby’s, taking down his second Big Beef and Cheddar when his phone rang. The caller ID read “Cali Man.” The man who had sent him on the stupid ass errand to stupid ass Walla Walla.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s happening?” Cali Man asked.

  Pineda sipped his soda, looking about the dining room. “Recon.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Cali Man talked with his mouth full, chewing audibly.

  “We’re here checking out this farm.”

  “You’re on a farm?”

  “Not exactly. Corus is. He passed himself off as Mexican and got hired as a fieldworker.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Are you seeing what a cunning psycho this guy is?”

  “Hmm. You were right about him being from money. Met the damn pope, the son of a bitch. But he actually seems kinda okay. Sometimes. Why do you have beef with the guy?”

  “It goes back. It’s more than beef.”

  “You sure you two didn’t just get off on the wrong foot?” Pineda asked, trying to be helpful. “Happens to me all the time.”

  “We didn’t get off on the wrong foot, you fucking worm. You inbred, cheese-for-brains… Goddammit.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you with him now?”

  “No, I’m in town.”

  “Pineda, you have tonight to make this happen. Hurt him. Bad.”

  “How bad? Worst pain I ever felt was a sprained ankle. They say it hurts worse than breaking an ankle.”

  “Think wheelchair, not ankle brace. Killing him isn’t the plan, but if it happened that way… Let’s just say I’m making an effort to be more forgiving.”

  Pineda sipped at his soda. “I’ll try to think of something.”

  “You better.”

  “I will.”

  “You better.”

  “You said that.”

  “Pineda, however much you don’t hurt him, that’s how much I’m hurting you. You got that?”

  “Dude, I heard you. Goodbye.”

  Pineda hung up on Cali Man and slammed his phone down. “Goddamn asshole.”

  A man looked up from his sandwich and gave a small nod. “I got a boss like that, too.”

  Pineda sighed. “You know it, brother.”

  His phone started ringing again, but it wasn’t Cali Man calling back. It was Corus.

  Pineda rolled his eyes, as he answered. “What?”

  Back at the hotel room, Pineda sorted Corus’ belongings into two piles. Overnight essentials went in the small bag. The rest Pineda shoved in Corus’ duffel which he stashed in his room. He returned the room key to the front desk and drove out of town in the Nissan SUV with the small bag.

  After parking a quarter mile east of the Phillips house, Pineda observed scant movement on the Tanner farm, only a couple people leaving the big metal building and closing its bay doors. He waited a while then drove a quarter mile west of the Phillips house to see if Corus had meant that spot instead. But Corus wasn’t there either, so he parked in front of the house with the hole in the roof and watched the road in both directions for a lone figure.

  If that figure did appear, and it belonged to Corus, it wouldn’t take much to hit the gas and veer onto the shoulder.

  Hitting Corus with his own Nissan? Cali Man was a sadist, so he’d like that. Hell, he might pay extra.

  But if Corus didn’t die immediately, he’d recognize the car and Pineda.

  Couldn’t have that.

  Pineda’s gaze fell on something about a hundred feet from the road in the yard of the Phillips house. He got out and walked down the hillbilly driveway, two ruts in the yard beside a fence. At its end sat an old Buick with rounded corners, wide as sedans ever came. He tried the doors, and one came open, but there were no keys.

  He let himself in the house and rifled through the kitchen until he found the Buick logo on a keychain in a junk drawer. As he walked out the back, a half full bottle of nice whiskey caught his eye from a half-open cupboard. He snatched it and walked out.

  The sun sank lower in the west as Pineda parked Corus’ vehicle behind the shed, then got into the Buick. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he rang Corus.

  “Hey, I’m on the road now,” Corus said.

  “Yo, man, I got the hot poops real bad.”

  “Oh. Something you ate?”

  “Those Beef and Cheddars got me, man. Officer down.”

  “Maybe drink some water?”

  “Good idea. I just may do that. Point is, I’m a little tied up. Could I meet you somewhere closer to town?”

  “I’ll call you back in a bit.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We will make it work. F
eel better.”

  Pineda hung up, took the cap off the bottle and tipped it to his lips.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Corus lay on an empty bottom bunk, resting his aching body after the hardest day he’d experienced since Afghanistan. His stomach rumbled. It was past six pm, and he had no idea what to do for dinner. When Pineda was done paying the price for his dietary habits, there was a chance he could bring Corus something to eat along with his gear, but that thought soured as soon as it entered his brain.

  The other three bunkhouse residents walked in, bringing a pungent smell with them. For a moment, Corus was afraid they were going to eat their dinner in front of him, but then he noted the skunkiness of the aroma. It wasn’t food.

  Oswaldo cleared his throat repeatedly and spat something globular into the sink in the kitchenette, then ran the water to wash it down the drain. Chito pulled a bag of chips out from under his bunk and set to munching. Jorge gave Corus a sidelong glance, sat on the bunk next to Chito and removed his boots and dirty socks. He whispered something to Chito, who looked Corus’ way, then got up and stripped down to his boxers. Out from under his bunk, he produced a towel and slung it over his muscular, defined shoulders, one of which played canvas for a tattoo of an old woman’s face.

  Jorge eyed Corus as he passed by toward the shower, and Corus casually eyed him back as a matter of principle.

  Once Jorge had left, the tension in the room cleared. Chito perked up.

  “So, Chihuahua?” He shoved more chips in his mouth. “Are you a fan of Santos Laguna?”

  “I’m not into sports,” Corus said.

  “Surely you watched their big rivalry match with Leon?”

  “No, sorry.”

  Corus caught Chito glancing at Oswaldo who was getting a glass of water.

  “But you know about Santos Laguna and their big rivalry with Leon?” Chito persisted.

  Corus bit the inside of his lip, sensing a trap. “Actually, Chito, I’ve never heard of such a rivalry.”

  Chito shimmied to the edge of the bunk. “Which rivalry have you heard of?”

  “Shut up,” Oswaldo said. “Leave him alone.” He finished his glass of water and set it down, then slumped over to his bunk nearer Corus and changed out of his work clothes into clean jeans and a polo. He took off his white trucker cap and combed his hair back, streaked with gray.

  “Get dressed,” he told Chito. “We’re leaving.”

  Chito began pulling off his dirty clothes.

  Oswaldo dropped his comb on the bed. “You should come to the bar with us, Diego.”

  There would be food there, but Corus didn’t want to eat under their scrutiny. “Thank you, Oswaldo, but I’m too tired.”

  “You look like you could run circles around me.” Oswaldo approached the foot of Corus’ bunk. “If we are going to sleep under the same roof, it would be good to know one another.”

  Corus appreciated the kinder approach but ignored the offer.

  Jorge emerged from the shower wearing a different pair of boxers and whipped on his going-out clothes. When they were about to leave, Jorge stopped them. “Oye, Chihuahua. Come with us.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Corus would gladly miss a meal if it gave him the chance to wander the property under cover of darkness.

  “Listen, amigo, we can’t leave you here alone with all our stuff. It’s not safe. We don’t know you.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to steal from people who have nothing.”

  Jorge took a step closer, expression darkening. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Corus sat up and put his boots on the floor. “I’m no thief. That’s what it means.”

  “But you’re a liar,” Jorge said. “Not a big difference to me.”

  Oswaldo got between them. “This would all be solved if you would just come and have a beer with us. I will buy some tamales from the cart. It’s on me. Please.”

  It was clear they weren’t going to leave him alone. Night recon was off the table for now, and the Diego he’d built in his head would never turn down a free tamale.

  He stood and headed toward the door.

  “Wonderful.” Oswaldo gleefully clapped Corus on the shoulder. “Good decision, Diego. Now we will all get along.”

  The Lamplight Inn was a diner on the street-facing side of its establishment and a dive bar in the rear. Corus followed Oswaldo, Jorge and Chito around back, through a wide alley, half-dirt, half weedy pavement, strewn with trash and unwanted furniture and car parts. There were fewer than a dozen patrons in the bar, gathered around the pool table, the bar itself or the card tables in the center of the floor. Oswaldo led to their perch, a high-top table with stools in the rear corner. Corus took up a stool with his back to the door, leaving him an escape route marked out in the neon glow of the signs in the small windows.

  Oswaldo bought four bottles of beer and passed them around. “Drink up, gentlemen,” he said. “To new friends.”

  “Si, si, a huevo.” It was about the most Mexican turn of phrase he could muster. He wasn’t ready to give up his act just yet.

  To avoid questions about himself, he asked Oswaldo about his family and found out all three men were cousins of some fashion or another.

  “Jorge is the son of my mother’s sister,” Oswaldo said with a smile. “Chito is the grandson of my father’s brother.”

  Jorge piped up, “And Chito is also the son of my father’s half-brother.”

  “And that half-brother,” Oswaldo said, “is also my half-brother, but by the mother, not the father.”

  Corus did the math. If he’d heard correctly, that meant Chito was Oswaldo’s first cousin once removed and his half-nephew.

  “Sounds less like a family tree,” Corus said, “and more like a spiderweb.”

  Jorge aimed to take offense, but Oswaldo laughed and clapped Jorge on the back, jarring him out of his reaction. “It’s true. In our town, you have to take a girl home before you sleep with her so your grandmother can tell you if you’re in the clear or not.”

  “Not that it ever stopped Oswaldo,” Chito said.

  Oswaldo stopped laughing and feigned seriousness. “That is between me and God.”

  That got even Jorge and Corus laughing.

  Their attention turned to Corus, so he told them all about his fake family, even down to Conchita’s leg braces. Remembering the tattoo on Jorge’s shoulder, he added a new bit about his sick grandmother.

  “She raised me, really. I owe her everything. I always told myself I’d buy her a house, but all my schemes fail. Once I admitted I’m no good at business, I started working the fields. I came to it later in life, but my hands are getting tougher every day. Still, I dream of giving my grandmother a comfortable life before she passes on.”

  He hoped to see a softness in Jorge’s eyes at the mention of a beloved grandmother, perhaps even to watch them grow misty at the tale, but they remained hard and fixed like security cameras, watching.

  Corus sighed inwardly at that failure, but he’d had to try.

  A man entered the cantina and sat at the bar, his hair still matted down from wearing a hat all day. Piercing, troubled eyes stared with mild interest at the TV screen above the bar.

  Chito saw him too and nodded for his cousins.

  They looked over surreptitiously. Oswaldo nodded back.

  Finally, Corus recognized the farm boss with the Afrikaans surname.

  “That’s Randall,” Oswaldo said low. “He’s the farm manager, knows about the tractors and the machines. He knows how to test the soil with chemicals. He went to university for it.”

  “He’s from South Africa,” Chito added. “Says he’s seen lions and hippos and everything.”

  “He doesn’t look so good,” Corus said. “Is he a big drinker?”

  Chito looked to Jorge who shrugged.

  “I’ve never seen him drunk.”

  “We’ve only been here a few months,” Oswaldo said. “But Randall is a good man. You d
on’t have to worry about him. He’s a foreigner, too.”

  Randall ordered something amber-hued with bubbles in it, maybe a whiskey soda. He went through it quickly and ordered another.

  A buzzing went off in Corus pocket. With a start, he realized he’d forgotten about Pineda.

  He started to curse in English before turning it into babble and managing, “Need a piss.”

  Once in the bathroom, he checked the stalls were empty and answered his phone.

  “Pineda, hey. Feeling better?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Where are you?”

  “I had to roll with the situation. So, I’m at this dive at the southern end of town. Lamplight Inn.”

  “Fine. But it might take me a while. Gotta ask directions. It’s dark and there’s no road signs.”

  “Should be fine. When you’re here, just ring twice and hang up.”

  “I got it.”

  “Hey Diego, you okay in there?” someone asked in Spanish.

  Corus froze and peered through the edge of the stall door.

  Chito.

  Corus winced. He hadn’t heard the restroom door open.

  “Everything’s good.”

  “You piss in the stall?” Chito asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Ever since the accident.” Corus mouthed “what?” to himself.

  Chito pulled a face, then stepped out of view. A few seconds later, a urinal flushed. The door opened and closed.

  Corus cursed to himself, afraid Chito had heard him speaking English to Pineda. There was nothing to do but try to no-sell it as if nothing had happened. Maybe he could convince Chito he’d imagined it.

  He went back to the table, projecting confidence, and finished his beer. “I can buy the next round.”

  “Actually, we’re going to go outside and smoke a joint,” Jorge said. “You should come with.”

  “It’s healthier than alcohol,” Oswaldo said with a forced grin. “No hangover from too much beer.”

  “I don’t smoke, but you go ahead.”

  “You should really come with us.” Oswaldo’s voice once again held a tenor of concern.

  “I’m fine here,” Corus said.

  “Come outside or I’ll stick this in your guts.” Jorge produced a folding knife and flicked the blade out.