South Texas Tangle. T.K. O'Neill

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      Corpus Christi was the kind of place Jimmy Ireno could get behind: big beautiful houses on his right, big beautiful houses on his left. Could still see the water in quite a few places. Feel the genteel comfort, the sea-breeze luxury and the laidback attitude, sending your troubles away into the soft night air.

      But for Jimmy, reality was rubbing against the serenity. The stolen pickup was almost out of gas and he needed a nice big hotel parking lot to dump it in. Cops would likely be looking for it by now. And given his pressing needs, Jimmy thought it weird how the warm night air brought on the inappropriate impulses, the cravings.

      Jimmy knew better, but just the same, he was thinking some cocaine would be nice. Shit would clear his head; help him think. But in the absence of any white powder, a drink at one of the numerous oyster bars in the area would have to suffice. Jimmy had no plan; no apparent options and only seventy dollars cash in his pocket. His wallet contained an overdrawn Discover card and two Master Cards, all three cancelled for lack of payment. He also had a checkbook from the Western River Bank of Commerce in Minneapolis, Minnesota, account closed.

      As he navigated the light evening traffic in downtown Corpus, Jimmy’s gaze flicked back and forth between the gas gauge and the surrounding buildings. Be a drag to run out of gas and have a cop show up. Glancing around, nerves getting up, he locked onto a glowing green and red neon sign announcing The Bayside Motel, a two-level job with a sizeable parking lot on the side of the building.

      Jimmy swung the truck in the motel parking lot, shut off the ignition and dropped the keys on the floor mat. No good reason to make it hard for the people at the ranch house, their truck had served him well. A nice old truck, a retro classic. No rust at all. Truck this old back in Minnesota would be a rust bucket.

      After walking out of the parking lot Jimmy turned toward the darker, older part of the city and blended in with the night. Enjoying the salty air, he was drawn toward the blue-green pulsing neon above the Sand and Sea Oyster Bar. Soft light was coming out of a small porthole on the front door had tinted glass the color of seawater.

      You didn’t see many oyster bars back in Minnesota.

      Jimmy went inside to a pleasant, half full room, fishnets and sailfish mounts on the corkboard walls and blue padded stools in front of a long and dark, backlit bar. Leaning his elbows on the glistening wood, shivering slightly from nerves and the air conditioning, Jimmy scanned his environment.

      Forty-something couple looking very Texas: tall and large boned in Western-style garb, shit-kicker boots and cowboy shirts, on his left. The gentleman two stools to his right seemed like a tourist: thinning white hair, Hawaiian shirt and a sunburn. Bartender looked to be around Jimmy’s age, tall skinny guy with a suspicious gaze and a brush of bleach blond hair on top a square head, the man wearing a yellow T-shirt and wrinkled, white, over-the-knee cargo shorts.

      Craving something tall and cool and tropical with a southwestern twist, Jimmy ordered a tequila sunrise, pulled a twenty from his pocket and set it on the bar. When the drink arrived gold and glistening, tall glass sweating and a red ribbon of grenadine drifting slowly through the shimmering orange liquid, it conjured up two familiar images from Jimmy’s past: Cocaine swirls floating down and turning red in a glass of gold Clorox, and his former fiancé, Elizabeth. The two of them used to consume sunrises in excess back in their early days when things were still fun. Used to make them with two shots of tequila and one shot of gin.

      Texas bartender wouldn’t know to put gin in the thing, Jimmy thought, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to ease the lingering tension. Was probably a good thing, though, he needed his wits about him, was in one hell of a fix this time. Jimmy picked up the tall glass and sucked the drink down like it was life itself, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead at the bottles and amber-colored glass brick behind the bar, not wanting to give anyone a full frontal. But halfway through his second drink—shit was tasting good—Jimmy was swinging around on the barstool checking out the stuffed fish on the walls. Sailfish, marlin, billfish—he didn’t know the difference. Then it wasn’t long before he was going to the men’s room and stopping along the hallway to scope the old photos of ships and bridges and paunchy men in hats standing next to huge dead fish hanging from large metal hooks.

      Yes sir, Jimmy was in another world now.

      Tequila World.

      Next ride coming right up.

      3

      Sam Arndt’s gut was still churning when he got up to take a leak at four-thirty a.m. Stumbling back toward his king-size bed, he wondered what was causing this intestinal distress, but was too zonked to care. Save it until morning—the beauty of downers.

      But the next morning, as any experienced tranq user knows, he would feel dumb and pissed off and just a tad slow. Then you drink the coffee and maybe your gut tightens up again and you have to go back for more Pepto. Then you read the paper and see where the Blues scored three times in forty-two seconds and you lost a shitload. But the thing really upsets you is that goddamn Jimmy Ireno hasn’t called from Texas like he was supposed to and now there’s a message on your phone from Bob Ryan, the “Associate” whose money you are responsible for: “Sam. What the fuck is going on? Answer your goddamn phone, goddamn it.”

      So now Sam had a pressing need for more of those pills. And would have to call the fat chick in St. Paul gets them from some Mexican by the carload, see what she has in stock. And to make matters worse, he was getting hooked on the goddamn things. Sammy’s little helpers.

      Help.

      Sam was thinking he’d personally skewer Jimmy’s balls on a shish-ka-bob if the kid screwed this deal up. That is if he could keep his own gonads out of Bob Ryan’s Mulligan stew long enough to get his hands on the wop-cokehead-weasel-bastard-sonofabitch Ireno.

      Dan Henning was feeling loose. Texas Highway Patrol could kiss his ass goodbye this time. See how often Theodor lunched with the governor after Henning was gone. Goddamn Cyn could be replaced too. Woman was turning their boy Danny into a sissy the way she smothered him. Always preaching the “Christian Way,” and that’s suppose to be good, but Danny was getting too—not sure what to call it—just something not right about him these days.

      Henning was thinking maybe he should take Danny away for a while, put a little distance between the two of ’em and Cynthia. But man, sometimes it got hard to be around the boy. So maybe Danny was better off with his mother. She could teach him to live the nice clean life—no drinking, no swearing, no whoring.

      Poor kid.

      Henning swung the red Dodge Ram pickup onto his hardpan driveway and rolled through the trees surrounding the trailer. Coming into the yard he cut the wheel hard, hit the gas and sent the truck into a dust-throwing slide. He’d polished off the beaner’s shitty lime vodka on the way home and didn’t have to be back on the job for two days. Planned to request a personal leave of absence his first day back. Tell them it was a family-based decision, take that route: personal problems sir, that kind of thing, easy for everyone to relate to.

      He got out of the truck. He stood and watched the sun peeking above the eastern hills. Soon it would be up bright and hot. Expecting some kind of scene from Cynthia, Henning lit a Marlboro to mask his booze breath and went inside to face her. But in the coolness of the trailer’s mint-green interior he sensed the emptiness. No Cyn to greet him. No smell of his breakfast cooking. No sound of his son playing. Just dust floating inside a sunbeam and the soft hum of the refrigerator. All the dishes were clean and put away. Nothing in the sink. Coffeemaker was empty.

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