"I appreciate you helping me clean out my freezer," I tell her.
She cackles and disappears behind a door with a pile of clothes and a tube of lipgloss. I take in her kitchen while I wait. Coffee prints, ceramic chickens, everything clean and minimal in the way of someone who actually spends time at home and cares about it.
I can already tell we're going to be good friends. It's about time.
Melanie bursts back out, gloss applied, phone in hand. "I think they're here. Just ordered the Uber. You ready?"
CHAPTER 11
DIEGO
After several hours of following him, Turner just went home. That's the whole night. What I've gathered is that this man lives a sad life inside expensive things and numbs himself with alcohol. Pretty sure I watched him do a few bumps of coke too, which is almost funny given what he did in that courtroom. Painting a dead woman as a drug-seeking addict because she had the financial means, while he's doing lines off his own kitchen counter. Hypocritical doesn't cover it. But that's not my problem. His habits are, actually. Sloppy people are easier.
Raul texts while I'm still sitting outside the building.
What are you up to tonight?
Just finished scoping. What's up?
Want to do a few runs with me?
I stare at the message longer than I need to. I could use the distraction. The blonde from the courtyard keeps surfacing in my head at the wrong moments, and I need to be sharp right now, not distracted by a woman I exchanged twelve words with.
Sure. On my way.
Traffic is light for a Friday. The humidity fogs my windshield before I've cleared the first block. I pull up to Ernie's trailer and text Raul, and he's in the passenger seat before I've put it in park.
"Where tonight?"
"Just downtown. Maybe grab a beer after for old times."
I shrug and hand him my phone to navigate. He plugs in the first stop and I merge onto the freeway, already feeling the particular weight of doing something I walked away from. I worked years to not financially need this. I didn't miss it then and I don't miss it now. It just feels like the old version of me climbing back on, and that version made choices I've been paying interest on ever since.
Raul lights a joint. The smell fills the truck, familiar in a way that's almost comforting and almost not.
A lot has changed between us. Ma's accident did something to the whole family, pulled everyone tighter, burned off whatever distance had been growing. Raul is more brother than cousin at this point. But when I pulled away from the life, there was a period where everyone watched me differently. Like I was a ticking time bomb. Like walking away clean meant I was planning to talk. I spent a long time half expecting to be handled before I could become a problem, and the fact that I wasn't says something about the loyalty in this family, even if the loyalty operates in complicated ways.
Raul clears his throat. "¿Qué bolá? You're quiet and it's making me twitchy."
"It's been years since I've done a job. And those were easy. Street level, different circumstances. I barely had to think."
"You worried you're rusty?"
"No." I reach over and take the joint from him. Take a long drag. "Just different."
The two I completed were the summer of my sophomore year. Both mid-thirties, both addicts who'd stolen product from our supplier and were trying to poach his buyers. It wasn't complicated. I slipped something into their usual order and they drifted off peacefully and didn't wake up. Clean, quiet, nothing that pointed anywhere near me. I was sixteen and I told myself it was just business, which is the kind of thing you have to tell yourself when you're sixteen and doing something you can't take back.
"This guy's a big name," I say. "But I'm pretty sure I watched him do coke tonight."
Raul takes the joint back. "Of course he does. What else? He into freaky shit too?" He tries to contain a laugh and dissolves into a coughing fit instead.
"You're the freak in this truck. It's been one day. So far he's just a boring guy who throws money at his problems. No wife, no kids. Nothing."
"So just hoes."
"You're ridiculous," I say, but I'm smiling.
Raul has never taken anything seriously in his life. I used to resent it, somewhere under the surface. He had Ernie, who always made enough. Raul got pulled into the business because it funded habits Ernie had cultivated in him young, and he's never had to want for much. Meanwhile Ma worked overnights at hotels across the city, sometimes sneaking me into back rooms with a pillow and blanket when she had no other option. She cleaned houses while I was at school. She took whatever was available and it was never quite enough, and there was never anything left over.