Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett

cold. He glanced at the weapon, then back at the cop, then Happy. “What do you mean? Up for what?”
    “I said relax. I’m talking about my old man.”
    Roque wiped his palms on his jeans, trying to picture Tío Faustino in a crowded cell, unable to sleep, scared. “What about him?”
    For the first time that morning, Happy smiled—an acid grin, vanishing almost instantly—as he glanced in his mirror. Behind them, the patrol car slowed, then turned off into another strip mall. A clerk not a cop, Roque thought.
    Happy said, “Shut up and I’ll tell you.”

GODO WASN’T SURE AT FIRST IF WHAT HE HEARD WAS REALLY A knock at the door—the sound seemed timid, maybe just a tree branch brushing the roof. He muted the TV. It came again.
    He swung his legs to the floor and leaned down, reaching under the bed, not for the shotgun this time but the Smithy .357. Be cool, he told himself, no reruns of yesterday. Could just be one of the neighbors, wanting to beg some favor off Tía Lucha. That happened a lot—patron saint of mooches, that woman. But then he glanced at the clock and thought, My God, has it really been an hour since she left for work? Can’t be. He blinked, shook off the watery drift of things, checked again. Sure enough, not just an hour, a little more.
    His leg felt leaden and balance was iffy but he made his way down the hallway and into the kitchen just as a third knock sounded. Pausing beside the door, he stared at the square of cardboard taped up where the window used to be.
    He called out, “Yeah?”
    No answer at first. Then: “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, unfamiliar.
    Godo tensed. “Who’s there?”
    A preliminary bout of throat-clearing. “I’m a friend of Faustino’s. Drove his rig up from the port. Parked it out front. Got his keys here.”
    Godo stepped past the door toward the window, edged back the curtain. He was a knobby squint of a man with large hands,a reddish mustache too big for his face, ears poking out from under a graying mop of windblown hair. He wore a mechanic’s one-piece coverall, stained at the knees from oil, other smeary markings here and there.
    Godo reached around to the small of his back, tucked the .357 into his pants, covered it with his shirt and opened the door. The man seemed taken aback by the sight of his face.
    Extending one of his outsize hands. “Name’s McBee. You Faustino’s son?”
    The question reminded Godo that Happy of all people had appeared out of the blue that morning. Or was he making that up? A drugged-up dream, a figment of his bleak mind—no, he thought, it happened, we fought. But Christ, we always fought. Suddenly he remembered his hand and glancing down he saw it, same pitted red scars as on his face, locked in the fierce pumping grip of this stranger. McBee. Chafing calluses coarsened the man’s palm.
    Godo said, “Not son. Nephew, sort of.”
    McBee seemed content with this information, delayed though it was. He took his hand back, dug around in what appeared to be a bottomless pocket, then produced Tío Faustino’s key chain. “I can leave these with you?”
    “Sure.” Godo shook his head to clear away the Percocet muck. McBee dropped the keys into his hand. From somewhere in the trailer park, a woman’s voice could be heard:
“¡Oye, nalgón, no me jodas!”
Listen, fat ass, don’t fuck with me.
    McBee broke the spell. “Any way I could bum a ride to the bus station? Gotta get back to Oakland. Can’t waste the whole day, losing money as it is.”
    Godo caught a hint of dutiful poor-me in his tone, the only snag in the man’s act so far. “I don’t have a car, sorry. My aunt took it to work.”
    The news seemed to baffle McBee. He dog-scratched his ear. “Point me the right direction at least?”
    Godo snapped out of his stupor. “Sorry. I’ll walk you, how’s that?” He thumbed the door lock plunger, searched for Tío Faustino’s keys, found them in his hand, reminded himself not to forget about the pistol