Read Online Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett - Free Book Online
Authors: David Corbett
Tags: United States, Fiction, General, thriller, Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense fiction, Fiction - Espionage, Immigrants, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, Human Trafficking, Salvadorans - United States, Border crossing, Salvadorans
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Brut. He could make out Puchi’s eyes in the rearview. He wore an A’s cap with the brim cocked up in front, a gray hoodie. He seemed bigger, bulkier than Godo remembered. Weights, maybe. Prison?
Chato, a few years younger and riding shotgun, turned around in his seat so he and Godo were face-to-face. An angry whitehead wept pus just beneath one heavy-lidded eye. He wore a hairnet, his coif meticulous, black and sleek and combed straight back, while on his neck three tattooed letters appeared: BTL. Brown Town Locos. It was the name of the
clica
he and Puchi belonged to, the one Godo had danced around the edges of before enlisting. The name seemed a relic from an ancient time.
Chato held out his fist till Godo bumped it with his own. “My brother from another mother. Long time.”
True, Godo thought. Two years at least. An eternity, given what happened in between. Chato had been a mere
mocoso
, a little snot, back then.
“Iraqistan. Musta seen some serious shit. Bet you waxed your share of raghead motherfuckers, am I right?”
The kid was wired and his breath smelled and Godo had to resist an impulse to reach out and rip the hairnet off.
Puchi chimed in, “Wondered when we’d see you around, man. Heard some things, didn’t know what was true, figured we’d wait till we caught you out and about.”
Godo waved his hand idly toward his face, as though to conjure its pitted ugliness in a gesture.
“Malacara,”
he said, figuring that explained it all.
“Yeah, but you’re not all
picoteado
from squeezing your zits,” Puchi said, slapping Chato’s shoulder. The kid glared back venomously. “And it’s not like we’re gonna mock you, homes. Not the way it is.”
Godo tried to picture what that meant—The Way It Is—wondering if it bore any resemblance to Some Serious Shit. The effort to make more sense of it foundered as they passed the fenced confines of a vast construction site, rising in tiers up a broad bare hill. Baymont, the neighborhood was called, that or Hoodrat Heights, depending on who you talked to. Boon-Coona-Luma. Ho Hill. At least, those were the names thrown around before Godo left for basic.
He’d heard the story in bits and pieces after that, following the hometown news from afar, how some developers had wanted the whole hill condemned, war-era federal housing never meant to be permanent but grandfathered in, city council deadlocked on eminent domain. So a local fixer, former honcho with the firefighters union, hired some bent ex-cop to torch the whole neighborhood, burn every home to the ground. The plan was to blame it on some arson freak, this patsy they let die in the fire, and for all practical purposes it succeeded, though the players turned on one another when the bent cop got exposed. Not that that stopped anything. What was left of the neighborhood wasn’t worth rebuilding. The condemnation vote finally passed and the developers lined up like trick-or-treaters. Then some of the local stakeholders, good old boys whose families ran things here, theybegan wrangling over secondary spoils; the construction unions demanded a local-labor rider in any contracts; the town’s greenies hired a lawyer and challenged the EIR; the Building Department red-flagged every plan submitted, slowing things to a crawl; then the bottom fell out of the housing market and the mortgage crisis hit, financing dried up. So here it was, a vast plot of nothing, stalled in its tracks before the first shovel bit dirt. Two years now and counting, old houses torn down, nothing new built back up. As for all the families who’d lived here? Don’t ask.
Across the side of a panel truck parked just inside the project perimeter, some tagger had written:
Rio Mirada—Where your hopes come to die
.
“You heard about the big bad clusterfuck, huh?” It was Chato, following Godo’s eyes.
Godo snapped to. “Some. Here and there. You know, the news.” He didn’t remember coming this way during his trek with McBee
Chato, a few years younger and riding shotgun, turned around in his seat so he and Godo were face-to-face. An angry whitehead wept pus just beneath one heavy-lidded eye. He wore a hairnet, his coif meticulous, black and sleek and combed straight back, while on his neck three tattooed letters appeared: BTL. Brown Town Locos. It was the name of the
clica
he and Puchi belonged to, the one Godo had danced around the edges of before enlisting. The name seemed a relic from an ancient time.
Chato held out his fist till Godo bumped it with his own. “My brother from another mother. Long time.”
True, Godo thought. Two years at least. An eternity, given what happened in between. Chato had been a mere
mocoso
, a little snot, back then.
“Iraqistan. Musta seen some serious shit. Bet you waxed your share of raghead motherfuckers, am I right?”
The kid was wired and his breath smelled and Godo had to resist an impulse to reach out and rip the hairnet off.
Puchi chimed in, “Wondered when we’d see you around, man. Heard some things, didn’t know what was true, figured we’d wait till we caught you out and about.”
Godo waved his hand idly toward his face, as though to conjure its pitted ugliness in a gesture.
“Malacara,”
he said, figuring that explained it all.
“Yeah, but you’re not all
picoteado
from squeezing your zits,” Puchi said, slapping Chato’s shoulder. The kid glared back venomously. “And it’s not like we’re gonna mock you, homes. Not the way it is.”
Godo tried to picture what that meant—The Way It Is—wondering if it bore any resemblance to Some Serious Shit. The effort to make more sense of it foundered as they passed the fenced confines of a vast construction site, rising in tiers up a broad bare hill. Baymont, the neighborhood was called, that or Hoodrat Heights, depending on who you talked to. Boon-Coona-Luma. Ho Hill. At least, those were the names thrown around before Godo left for basic.
He’d heard the story in bits and pieces after that, following the hometown news from afar, how some developers had wanted the whole hill condemned, war-era federal housing never meant to be permanent but grandfathered in, city council deadlocked on eminent domain. So a local fixer, former honcho with the firefighters union, hired some bent ex-cop to torch the whole neighborhood, burn every home to the ground. The plan was to blame it on some arson freak, this patsy they let die in the fire, and for all practical purposes it succeeded, though the players turned on one another when the bent cop got exposed. Not that that stopped anything. What was left of the neighborhood wasn’t worth rebuilding. The condemnation vote finally passed and the developers lined up like trick-or-treaters. Then some of the local stakeholders, good old boys whose families ran things here, theybegan wrangling over secondary spoils; the construction unions demanded a local-labor rider in any contracts; the town’s greenies hired a lawyer and challenged the EIR; the Building Department red-flagged every plan submitted, slowing things to a crawl; then the bottom fell out of the housing market and the mortgage crisis hit, financing dried up. So here it was, a vast plot of nothing, stalled in its tracks before the first shovel bit dirt. Two years now and counting, old houses torn down, nothing new built back up. As for all the families who’d lived here? Don’t ask.
Across the side of a panel truck parked just inside the project perimeter, some tagger had written:
Rio Mirada—Where your hopes come to die
.
“You heard about the big bad clusterfuck, huh?” It was Chato, following Godo’s eyes.
Godo snapped to. “Some. Here and there. You know, the news.” He didn’t remember coming this way during his trek with McBee
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