My Bad Read online

  Praise for the work of Manuel Ramos:

  “One thing is almost as certain as death and corruption: Manuel Ramos’ Chicano angst. You’ll find plenty of all three in his jazzy, fast-paced and delirious whodunits, which stand as an unparalleled achievement in American crime literature.”

  —Ilan Stavans

  “Manuel Ramos is one of my all-time favorite authors and in My Bad he delivers everything I look for in a noir tale. Gus Corral is the guy I want on my side if I’m in trouble and Ramos proves once again he is the master of creating great characters. Clear your schedule and be prepared to read this blitz attack of noir in one sitting.”

  —Jon Jordan, Crimespree Magazine on My Bad

  “Ramos explores issues of the border, identity, violence and slights from outside the community, as well as within. They are thought-provoking and unpredictable. Many linger long after they end; and often they contain depth charges that explode in the reader’s mind after the story has ended. His novels belong on your book shelves.”

  —Los Angeles Review of Books on The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories

  “Manuel Ramos has a well-earned reputation for writing gritty stories about Latinos, stories that grab you by the throat. The richness of Ramos’ work is evident in The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories, a collection of previously published short stories. The stories are clever and sometimes funny, but their real strength is the way they capture today’s Latinos—the talk and humor, the swagger and irony. Ramos has a rich voice. He nails it.”

  —The Denver Post on The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories

  “Ramos puts Latinos back in the picture. He is known as a crime writer, but that does-n’t quite capture what he does. His books are love stories, political dramas, mordant cautionary tales. Characters who are Latino, black and white, artists, professionals and laborers, are described in staccato chapters, like a catchy corrido.”

  —Los Angeles Times on The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories

  “The Godfather of Chicano noir hits us hard with this collection. Great range, dark visions, and lots of mojo—much of it bad to the bone. A fine book!”

  —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Into the Beautiful North, on The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories

  “As invigorating as a dip in a Rocky Mountain stream.”

  —Mystery Scene on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “A dark mix of North Denver gangsters and Catholicism, but it’s [the] setting that really grips readers. Nostalgia is combined with reality . . . Ramos gets it right.”

  —Denver Post on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “Manuel Ramos captures Denver’s Latino North Side in the same intense way that Walter Mosley depicts black L.A. It’s all here in a gripping dark mystery: the gritty landscape, the racial tension, the conflict between native and newcomer, the violence and gangs and street loyalties as strong as family ties. No outsider could write about North Denver with such feeling and understanding. A startling novel.”

  —Sandra Dallas, New York Times best-selling author, on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “Manuel Ramos has taken the best elements of classic noir — the loser anti-hero, urban grittiness, thuggish cops and femme fatales, double and triple crosses — and updated them for the age of Obama. Gus Corral is a zero, a smart but underachieving Chicano who has missed the brass ring of life. He has been reduced to working in his ex-wife’s secondhand shop in the gentrifying Denver neighborhood where he grew up, when Artie Baca, his high school running buddy turned successful realtor, turns up looking for Gus’s help to buy off an extortionist. Old ties and the promise of a thousand dollar pay-off get Gus to agree to Artie’s plea for help, but then Artie is murdered. What follows is a ride through the underside of the American Dream as Gus sets out to find out what really happened to Artie Baca. Money, sex and greed figure prominently in the story but so do class tensions, barrio culture and a multi-cultural milieu. Ramos handles all of these elements with a deft hand that keeps the story moving and, while avoiding any overt messaging, creates an up-to-the-minute portrait of the new America. I loved this book!”

  —Michael Nava, author of the Henry Rios Mystery series, on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “Manuel Ramos’s brilliant and gripping Desperado features unforgettable characters, a propulsive plot, and the sharpest delineation of the life and geography of north Denver I have ever read. Desperado fully engages the reader from the first page, and I heartily recommend it.”

  —Diane Mott Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of the Goldy the caterer series, on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “Manuel Ramos’ Gus Corral is a hard luck individual for whom life hasn’t quite panned out like he planned. But when an old friend is murdered, Gus finds himself on unfamiliar ground where danger comes at him hot and heavy. He just might get to the truth—if he doesn’t get his head bashed in first. Desperado: A Mile High Noir is a terrific read.”

  —Gary Phillips, author of Warlord of Willow Ridge, on Desperado: A Mile High Noir

  “A very impressive debut.”

  —Los Angeles Times on The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz

  “A thickly atmospheric first novel—with just enough mystery to hold together a powerfully elegiac memoir of the heady early days of Chicano activism.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz

  “Ramos succeeds brilliantly in marrying style and substance to form a seamlessly entertaining novel [with] characters and scenes deeply etched with admirable brevity and skill.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Blues for the Buffalo

  My Bad: A Mile High Noir is made possible through a grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

  Recovering the past, creating the future

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100

  Houston, Texas 77204-2004

  Cover design by Mora Des!gn

  Names: Ramos, Manuel, author.

  Title: My bad : a mile high noir / Manuel Ramos.

  Description: Houston, TX : Arte Publico Press, [2016]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016025123| ISBN 9781558858336 (softcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781518500978 (ePub) | ISBN 9781518500985 (kindle) | ISBN 9781518500961 (pdf)

  Subjects: LCSH: Private investigators—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Noir fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3568.A4468 M9 2016 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025123

  The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  © 2016 by Manuel Ramos

  Printed in the United States of America

  16 17 18 19 20 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This story is told by two people—Luis Móntez, the lawyer, and Gus Corral, the investigator.

  For my son and daughter Diego and Verlyn. Shout-out to #1 fans Veronica & Darold and María & Neil.

  Mil gracias to Guillermo Garibay, attorney-at-law, for his legal insights about an early version of this book.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  1 [Gus]

  2 [Luis]

  3 [Gus]

  4 [Luis]

  5 [Gus]

  6 [Luis]

  7 [Gus]

  8 [Luis]

  9 [Gus]

  10 [Luis]

  11 [Gus]

  12 [Luis]

  Part Two

  13 [Gus] Six months later

  14 [Luis]

  15 [Gus]

  16 [Luis]

  17 [Gus]

  18 [Luis]

 
; 19 [Gus]

  20 [Luis]

  Part Three

  21 [Gus]

  22 [Luis]

  23 [Gus]

  24 [Luis]

  25 [Gus]

  26 [Luis]

  27 [Gus]

  Part Four

  28 [Luis]

  29 [Gus]

  30 [Luis]

  31 [Gus]

  32 [Luis]

  33 [Gus]

  34 [Luis]

  35 [Gus]

  Soundtrack

  Prologue

  The big man waited at the back door of the low ugly building. He stood next to a pickup. The snow was light but it would be heavy in another hour. Grab the money and run.

  The double-sized door opened and a bearded man dressed in jeans and a greasy flannel shirt walked out. A cloud of vapor floated from his mouth. “Hey, it’s cold out here,” Eugene Eccles said.

  “Yeah, tell me about it. You took your sweet time about opening the damn door.”

  “You are Toby King, right?”

  “You expecting someone else?”

  Eccles thought that Toby King did not look like a Toby King. More like a José or a Juan or a Carlos. Gonzales or Martínez, maybe. Something Mexican. But the customer was always right.

  “No. It’s just that usually we load through the front, Mr. King. We don’t often use this back door. Since you said you had a bigger load . . . guess it’s okay. Hope it fits in the unit. How big is your box of stuff?”

  He peered into the truck’s empty bed.

  “Uh, where’s your stuff?”

  King pulled a gun from the deep pocket of his coat.

  “Get back in. Number one forty-three. Now.”

  Eccles led the way down the narrow hallway until they stopped at door 143.

  “Open it.”

  Eccles used the ring of keys hanging from his belt. The door opened with a loud grating noise.

  King pushed Eccles into the small room, then smashed him on the side of the head with the gun. Eccles collapsed on the concrete floor. A red line of blood creased the side of his face. King rushed to the box in the middle of the floor. He grabbed the top flaps and tore them open. Something was wrong. The box was too light.

  “Where’s the goddamn money?” he shouted at the unconscious Eccles.

  King grabbed Eccles under the shoulders and dragged him to the hallway. He closed 143, found the right key on the bleeding man’s key ring and opened 144 across the hall. He pushed Eccles into 144, shut the door and locked Eccles and himself in the dark.

  He didn’t want to, but he had to wait for the lawyer. Goddamn Luis Móntez. He knew something about the money. Why else was he coming to this place? Toby King spit on the wall.

  “I’ll have to kill him, too,” he whispered to the man on the floor. He hoped he’d be finished by the time the storm hit.

  Part One

  What’s The Worst That Can Happen?

  1 [Gus]

  stone free to do what I please

  stone free to ride the breeze

  I stepped away from prison trying to convince myself that I was on the way to a new and better life. My mind had turned to mush but my body was hard. The pen will do that. I told anyone who asked that I was okay, considering. And I had every intention of doing the right thing.

  That first night out was weird. Not sure what I expected. I wasn’t ready, that was obvious. Corrine, my sister, picked me up at the halfway house right before lunch, nervous about what to say to me. She’d organized a welcome home party and several of her friends began dropping by in the early afternoon, more for Corrine than for me. Eventually Max, another sister, and my long-time pals, Ice and Shoe, walked in. Max’s girlfriend, Sandy, aka La Sandra, showed up a few minutes after Max. Jerome, one more old friend, popped in for a hot minute, then he split. Said he had a business meeting. We didn’t know whether to believe him.

  Shoe, real name Tony Vega, was the jock of the group. Taller than the rest of us, he still looked like he could play a mean pickup game at the rec center. Ice, real name David Zamarripa—a name I’d almost forgotten since I never used it—was the would-be musician, which made him the lover boy in the group. He worked for the City and County of Denver as a maintenance man. I wasn’t sure how Shoe made his living.

  I’d missed these guys. They had my back since high school, and I had theirs. At least, that’s the way I thought about them.

  The partiers were in a good mood and they all took pains to make me believe they really cared that I was back. The stories about my arrest and the whole mess with the Mexican gangsters and the kidnapping and Corrine’s awesome escape were told again, but this time we could laugh about some of what had happened. None of us talked about the blood or bodies or the fear. The party went late but I didn’t drink too much. One half-hearted beer, if you can believe that. You’d think I would get all crazy and loose. You’d be wrong.

  I worried about showing too high of an alcohol level when I met my parole officer and he gave me the mandatory tests, but that wasn’t the reason I held back.

  Of course, booze wasn’t the only available drug. Shoe asked me if I wanted to get high.

  “I have some bud, bud. All legal, too.”

  “I guess that’s how it is now, right?”

  “It’s like the world changed overnight,” Ice said. His red eyes and goofy grin gave away that he’d already sampled Shoe’s product. “Marijuana stores popped up everywhere. Over on my block, there’s three different ones. Opening day was a circus. Lines of pot heads around the block. I got really stoned.” He giggled, tried to cover his mouth with his hand. He couldn’t keep it in and he gave up and walked away.

  “I better pass,” I said to Shoe. “I have to meet with my P.O. tomorrow. You know what that means.”

  “But it’s legal,” Shoe insisted.

  “Except for me,” I answered.

  The highlight of the night turned out to be Max excitedly announcing that she and Sandy were finally getting married. We toasted the couple and cheered the progressive voters of Colorado because Max’s marriage would be legit and official. The party turned into a celebration of Max’s longest-lasting relationship until the happy pair had to leave for their band’s show at a club in Capitol Hill.

  A vibe floated through the remaining group, something gray and heavy that laid on my shoulders like a sack of dead fish. Maybe it was only my imagination. I fought the feeling, but the tricks I used in prison when the dark took over were missing. No weights for lifting, no yard for running, no sympathetic counselor who would listen to anything I said until her shift was over.

  I was thankful when the party finally ended and I made my way to Corrine’s basement, my new home until I found something I could manage on my own.

  “You can stay as long as you want, you know that,” Corrine said. She carried blankets and a pillow.

  “Yeah, I know. But I don’t want to mooch. That’s got to stop, know what I mean?”

  “You’re not mooching. I want to help. You got a bad deal with the cops, you took the hit for everything but I know you didn’t do all that stuff that the cops, especially Reese, said you did. You’re my brother, Gus. In this house, that means something.”

  I smiled at her, gave her a hug and said, “Without a doubt. Thank you.”

  She hugged back. We finished making the bed.

  “Goodnight, Gus. I’m glad you’re home.”

  Home. What a concept. But all that time I’d had to think prison, you know, made my hard head open up to the idea that I needed, and wanted, some of the comforts I’d never given much thought to in the past. Like a home. Family. Decent job. Peace.

  I shared the basement with a cat or two and Corrine’s CDs and record albums. Stacks of Chicago blues, sixties and seventies rock, Tejano and Mexican, and a handful of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and other outlaws were scattered against walls, on makeshift shelves, and in a scratched and peeling cabinet. She’d inherited my father’s vinyl collection and added a few
of her own CDs to the mix. I dusted off and plugged in an old turntable. When I turned it on, the knobs lit up and the needle arm moved so I figured it worked. I found a pair of gigantic headphones that plugged into the turntable. Then I spent an hour listening to scratchy blues legends. I read about many of the musicians and their songs in prison. I read a lot in lockup. Thanks to Corrine’s basement, I finally heard the music. The blues seemed to fit my lifestyle, attitude, outlook on life in general.

  I had only one nightmare that night. In my opinion, I slept like a baby—first time in months.

  The next day, I finalized the details of my parole at an office across from the courthouse. First, I met the man who ran the program, Ed Dillings. Thin wispy curls circled his ears. He didn’t have enough hair to cover the shine beaming off his huge forehead.

  “Mr. Agustín Corral? You go by Gus?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Ed Dillings.” He extended his hand and I shook it. He held on to my fingers rather than shake them. “I’m the director of this office. Any problems, issues, controversy—you bring them to your assigned P.O. If he can’t handle them to your satisfaction, come to me.” I jerked my hand loose. “But don’t try any ex-con bullshit. Be real, that’s all I ask.”

  “Yeah, sure, okay. But you’re not the person I report to?”

  “No. Your regular contact will be Harold Mills. You’ll meet him in a few minutes. He’s been with the office about five years now, so he knows the deal. I’m sure you do, too. I won’t waste too much of your time today. I just want to be clear that our job is to ensure your transition back into the world is as problem-free as possible. But we can’t do that by ourselves. You have to be invested in your future, your own life, if you hope to avoid recidivism. We got programs for everything from drug rehab to computer tech. Our counselors are trained in psychology, sociology, and some can even run a yoga class. We’ll give you leads on jobs, apartments and used cars. Hell, we’ll teach you how to swim if it’s something you need to survive. But it’s all for nothing if you don’t care, Gus. You have to give a damn. You do that and you might make it out here.”