Thin Slice of Life

Chapter 38

With the Ransom Island ferry back in service, Marisol decided to hunt down a working phone in Aransas Pass so she could check in with her office. Charlie insisted on going with her. “Bodyguard?” she asked. “Male escort service,” he replied. “Reasonable rates.” Raul tagged along as well, arguing that the comic books he wanted to buy would improve his English. “The Bat Man, he is very smart,” Raul explained. (Though secretly he thought Robin the Boy Wonder was a bit of a maricón.) Standing in a payphone booth outside an Exxon station near the harbor, Marisol told her sympathetic supervisor why she had overstayed her vacation…had to help some Fulton friends put their homes and lives back together after the storm. Such ruin! Such devastation! She felt she just had to pitch in. Most of it was true, of course. She left out the barroom brawl, the gunplay, the kidnapping and the assault and battery. No use going all telenovela on the guy. “Hasta luego, then,” said her supervisor. “But hurry back—all the bad guys miss you.” She hung up, puffed a breath of dismissal, and then dug into her pocket for another dime. CHAPTER 38 266 38| She phoned Miguel to report about her recent adventure in the Laguna Madre. “Miguel, are you still there?” she asked. He hadn’t responded after she finished recounting her tale. “Yeah. I’m here.” After another pause Marisol said, “Miguel, what’s going on in that head of yours?” “Just thinking.” “Thinking what, exactly?” “Just…thinking,” he said. “Listen, Miguel,” Marisol said forcefully. “That Texas Ranger is all over this thing now. And he’s got the resources and the authority to do something about it. Don’t you be getting any ideas about jumping in, okay? Don’t…do…anything.” Miguel picked up a beer bottle cap that lay on the bar and idly bent it in half, his knuckles popping out like walnuts as he squeezed, the tattoos on the backs of his hands seeming to swell. His flat obsidian eyes gazed toward the Fulton Harbor. His first thought after hearing Marisol’s kidnapping story was to grab an ice pick and march over to the Sea-Tex and push it through Bao’s ear, but he checked himself, remembering his own advice to Charlie a few days ago. “You know that Bao or his guys woulda killed you out there on the Laguna,” he said. “Still will if they get the chance.” “I don’t doubt it,” Marisol agreed, remembering Ho-Dac’s lethal expressionatShady’swhenthegun-totingthugzeroedinonthebamboo office curtain and the refugees that crouched behind it in the dark. The bartender puffed his breath out in frustration. “Oye chica, now’s prob’ly a good time for you to take your little butt back to Austin. I just learned there’s gonna be some more serious shit going down around here pretty soon.” He knew he shouldn’t be talking about the things he’d heard, but Marisol was the closest thing he had to a friend. She needed to know. “Huh?” she said. “What are you talking about, Miguel?” “A guy came in here earlier today. I used to know him back in… the old days. I dunno who was more surprised to see who. I told him I wasn’t in the life anymore. He said that’s okay, he was just passin’ through. Said he’s on his way to Corpus to pick up some merchandise. 267 |38 Said a local player was meeting a bunch of badass narcos at a place not that far from there, at Mata…Matagrande? Something like that.” Marisol pushed open the phone booth door and motioned to Charlie to come over. She covered the phone receiver with her hand. “Charlie, do you know of a place called Matagrande? Not too far from Corpus?” “Matagrande Key? Yeah, I know it. It’s a long sandy strip of nothin’ by Baffin Bay, close to where we were day before yesterday,” he answered. “Why?” “Miguel thinks that’s where Bao’s drug deal is taking place… tonight.” She put the phone to her ear. “Miguel, did he say Matagrande Key?” “Yeah. I guess so,” he replied. Marisol nodded yes to Charlie. Charlie raised his eyebrows pensively. “Makes sense. That part of the bay is way off the beaten path…and there’s nothing on the mainland near...