The War Whisperer: Book 1: Geronimo Page 11

  I grinned as I picked up another thick piece of toasted Texas white bread. “So, are you really going to become a chef?”

  He nodded and talked around a mouth full of pancake. “First I got to get us work. Then I got to get into a school for cooking.”

  “Before the school, you’ll need papers,” I said.

  “The Kings know how to get those.”

  “What happens if we can’t get into the Kings?”

  He shook his head. “Other gangs we could try, but I got no names, no contacts.” He shrugged. “If nobody wants us, I don’t know.”

  The Kings

  The name Dylan had gotten from Billy was the captain of a crew belonging to the West Side Kings, Ignacio Azul, called “Nacho.” The Kings pretty much ruled everything illegal in the center of the city west of I-37 to Zarzamora. The crew boss, Nacho, ran an area from the west inner loop to Zarzamora, and from Mistletoe south to the Route 90 expressway. Almost in the dead center of this area, Ignacio had his home and headquarters, a two story Monterrey on West Houston Street. It had gray tile roofs, an open balcony with black ironwork railings, a natural stone tower containing double front doors flanked by tan stucco-faced wings.

  Outside were crushed oyster shell paths, palm trees, and cacti. Inside it was fourteen rooms, four baths, a huge kitchen, and a swimming pool out back. Nacho’s very pretty wife was named Delfina. His two sons were named Eduardo and Felipe. They were nine and seven and were very welcoming. They both had heavy builds like their father and were destined to medical school and law school respectively. They had a maid, Maite, a cook, Ivanna, and a gardener-handyman, Mateo, who looked like a pirate.

  Ignacio Azul was a very large man, yellowish complexion, shaved bald, a Fu Manchu moustache, and hooded eyes that seemed to look at nothing yet notice everything. He was covered from the neck down in unskillfully done tattoos. He said we should call him “Nacho.”

  He took Dylan and me into his den, a room with a big desk, built-in bookshelves filling the adjoining walls behind his desk a meter from the floor to the ceiling. On the wall next to the door was a 3-D printer sculpted painting of two spindly-legged elephants against a red background. The elephants had tall towers on their backs, the beasts looking down on two almost infinitesimal humans. The name “Dali” was up in the right hand corner.

  There was a two meter high safe built into the wall beneath the shelf wall on the right, and a huge flat screen TV on the wall opposite the couch. No windows. There was a pump-action shotgun leaning against the wall in back of his desk.

  To the right of his desk was the couch and an overstuffed chair, both covered in soft brown leather. His office smelled like rich leather. He said he was a business school graduate, a degree he had earned while in prison at Beaumont. He gave the impression of being overweight, but there seemed to be very little flab on his mighty frame.

  He asked us to sit on the couch as he held up a hand and seemed to frown for half a minute. Then he nodded, and turned to us. “ICI,” he explained tapping the side of his head. “Had to take care of something.”

  He lowered himself into the chair. Both Dylan and I were dumbstruck that Nacho could afford an ICI. They were so expensive that we’d never met anyone who had one. It did not escape my notice, however, that to Ignacio’s right, its butt resting in some kind of heavy ceramic pot, was an automatic rifle within easy reach.

  “Okay,” he said looking at Dylan, “You say Billy give you this address.”

  “Sí, señor,” we both answered.

  “Tell me about Billy.”

  Dylan frowned. “You know. Redneck, dark blond hair cut short, acne scars on his narrow kind of face, bad scar on the back of his neck—”

  “That’s Billy,” said Nacho. “And where’d you meet him?”

  “UCH; Uvalde Children’s Home? It’s a federal orphan dump in Uvalde.”

  “So, Dylan,” said Ignacio Azul, his very dark eyes aimed at my brother. “Why he give you my name and address?”

  My brother shrugged. “Hope Billy didn’t do nothing wrong.” Dylan held out his hands. “Mira, I had to get out of that place, esse.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to learn to be a chef. Wasn’t something I was going to get to do at UCH. I need money to go to school and I need to be free to earn money. Billy say he can help me out and get me to San Antonio for a price.” Dylan lowered his hands and shrugged. “Cost me my knife, all my really hot pictures, and almost all the food I stole from the kitchen. Billy told me about leads and runners, the Kings, and you.” He shrugged. “So, here we are.”

  “Jobs,” muttered Nacho. As his head nodded slowly, his gaze shifted to me. “Uvalde’s a long way from SA—what’s your name?”

  “Jerry, señor. Jerry Track.”

  “So, what? You two walk here? Hitch rides?”

  “No, señor,” I said. “We slowed down a robotrain in Uvalde, like Billy said to, climbed on, and got off in the rail yard here.”

  He looked at Dylan. “Locater chips?”

  Dylan grinned widely as he nodded toward his bandaged arm. “Cut out and tossed in back of a moving pickup truck in Uvalde.”

  Nacho nodded again. “Bueno. Got no use for stupid here.” He looked at me. “So, you know what we do here?”

  I nodded. “Sell drugs.”

  “No. We take care of our people. That’s everyone under protection of the Kings. Take care of customers, too. Drugs, girls, gambling, and protecting our own. Keeping law and order—our law and our order—That’s what the Kings do here.” His eyebrows went up. “Jerry, you use drugs—any drugs, including alcohol?”

  “No, señor,” I answered. “Not me.”

  I looked at Dylan. He shook his head.

  Nacho grinned widely showing two gold teeth and nodded toward me. “I look in your pockets, chico, what you think I find?”

  I frowned and looked down at my bulging jacket pockets beneath my stolen shirt. “Clean sox, clean underwear.” I looked at Ignacio. “A knife. We ate all the turkey jerky and lemon drops.”

  Nacho laughed then his gaze shifted to Dylan. “You?”

  “No, señor,” he answered. “No drugs, no booze. Got nothing to do with cooking.”

  The underboss nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We try you out.” He put a finger up in the air. “First thing, you are in the Kings but you are not Kings, mira? You work for the Kings, but you ain’t got no tenure.”

  We both nodded. I knew about tenure from all the terrible teachers at UCH they couldn’t get rid of.

  “You understand probation?”

  “Sí, señor,” said Dylan while I frowned and slowly shook my head.

  Ignacio pointed at Dylan. “Tell him.”

  Dylan’s eyebrows went up, came down, then he looked at me sitting next to him. “Jer, it like you get outta jail and ain’t done with your sentence yet, see? You on probation. That mean anytime you get caught breaking probation rules, they can put you right back in the slams.”

  I remained frowning. The only jail we had been in was UCH, and the only rule for staying out was don’t get nabbed. Ignacio leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  “Kings’ probation a little different, Dylan.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Mira, being a King is a big deal. Great privileges. So we don’t just make anyone a King. You got this period where we take you in, post you in a territory, put you to work under supervision, see how you do. You got to prove yourself. Understand?”

  Dylan and I nodded.

  “Bueno. You do good, in time maybe we make you Kings. Kings are like a big family. Joaquín Cañón is our papa, I’m like one of his sons, my people grandsons, and you two a couple of orphans we taking in to see if we want to adopt. Kings look out for each other. When you need a friend at a wedding, bail money, or an extra blade, gun, or set of knuckles at a do, if at all possible the Kings’ll be there for another King.”

  He shrugged, his expression one of delivering bad news. “You don’t do so good o
ut on the block, or you try and rip us off . . . “ Ignacio scratched his right cheek with the little finger of his right hand. “Well, chico, you don’t get to be a King. Try and rip us off you don’t get to be much of anything. Ever. That page downloading? coming in clear?”

  “Sí,” I answered.

  He looked at Dylan. “You got that same page in view?”

  “Twenty-twenty, esse.”

  “Bueno.”

  Nacho raised his chin toward Dylan. “How old?”

  “Seventeen,” he answered.

  The crew boss looked at me.

  “Twelve, señor.”

  “You fast?” he asked me.

  “Very fast.”

  Nacho looked at Dylan. “He fast?”

  “I bet all I got and all I can borrow on Jerry against any runner you got, esse,” said my brother.

  Nacho nodded at Dylan. “How much you got?”

  My brother shrugged. “Maybe fifty, sixty dollars.”

  Nacho grinned, “So how much can you borrow?”

  Dylan shrugged, held out his hands to his sides, and smiled widely at Nacho. “That depends on you, esse. How much you want to lend me?”

  The gang underboss laughed loudly and nodded. He seemed to like us.

  Nacho rubbed his hands together and leaned back, one hand on each armrest. “Okay, boys. I want you two stay here with my family until you start getting paid and get a place to live.” His eyebrows went up in a comical expression as he nodded. “Mira, that gonna be real soon. Already got two boys driving me loco. So, tomorrow you begin learning your ten. I’m keeping Jonny Brake down on your ten for awhile to show you the ropes.”

  Dylan and I both looked confused. “Ten?” I asked.

  “Ten-block area. That’s your ten, your territory,” Nacho explained. “Now, we had some bad trouble there with the SA Reds, left us shorthanded. You two’ll hear about that. Whatever Jonny got to say on that or anything else, you listen with both ears.”

  He looked at me. “Jonny’s Indian. Some kind Apache . . .” he looked at me for the designations of tribal divisions.

  “I know Lipan and Chiricahua Apache,” I said. “I’m Lipan.” I frowned as I tried to remember the article on Apache peoples I downloaded so long ago. “There’s also Plains, Western, Navajo, Mescalero—”

  “That,” said Nacho pointing at me. “Mescalero.” He nodded and looked at both of us. “Okay, you straight with me, do good job, I am a lion in your corner forever. Things work out, maybe even take you in the Kings.” He nodded toward me. “Kings got all kinds, Jerry: Indians, Chinese, whites, Japs, some Afros, even got a couple Arabs. Mostly Mexicans, though. Pero, we only take hombres, comprende? We throw the pussies out or put ‘em in a bag and drop ‘em off a bridge. Questions?”

  “I got one,” I said.

  “Shoot,” he said with a grin.

  “Billy; Why’d he leave?”

  His eyebrows went up in surprise. “Good question.” Nacho nodded and shrugged. “Smart kid. Billy, he don’t leave. Billy got nabbed by DEA, Jer. Don’t know how yet. Never said nothing in the calabozo ‘cept his name. Stand up kid, Billy. They give him three months cleaning toilets at Gatesville then his DNA came through and they send him to Uvalde. You believe Billy’s old family is frostback Canadians?”

  “Why would a Canadian come here illegal?” asked Dylan.

  “Hey, it’s not all pine trees, big houses, Eskimo Pie, and moose shit,” said Nacho. “Billy’s old man killed a couple people up in Ontario.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Mounties not understanding about such things like SA cops. They got Billy’s old man, too. Couple Mounties, couple Texas Rangers surround the shack Billy’s family living in outside some pisshole town up north called Rocksprings. They pull out old M-16s and fill the place with holes. Smoke clear, Billy’s old man dead, his mother shot in the head and can’t even say her own name right. Billy he got shot right in the ass. They did a DNA on Billy in the hospital, so the SA cops know Billy’s Canadian, but Canada say they got no record of Billy even being born and wouldn’t take him.”

  “The Lipan Tribe has many imitators, their wallets to behold,” I said with more bitterness than I intended.

  Ignacio Azul studied me with narrowed eyes for a long moment. “Bueno,” he said at last. “Anyway, when Billy’s ass heals and he get out of UCH, we got a place for him in the Kings.” He looked at Dylan. “When you decide to go over the wire, chico, how come you pick this Apache kid as a partner?”

  Dylan frowned then shrugged. “Es mi hermano, jefe. Never think of nobody else. Know Jerry a lot of years. He steady, loyal, so smart he scares me, not afraid of nothing, got good looks, and he fast. Jer can run all day and not get tired. He don’t forget nothing. He read something today he can tell you all about it five years from now with page numbers. When Billy tell me about his time as runner for you, it sound to me like Jer would make the best runner there ever was.”

  Nacho nodded slowly, then he suddenly smiled. “So, Dylan, you want to be a chef?”

  “Sí, yes. My uncle was a chef. Best uncle in the world. I want to be just like him.”

  Ignacio thrust out his lower lip, nodded, and said, “Then you go to the kitchen and help Ivanna and Del prepare dinner for tonight. See what the cook and my wife do and how they do it and be very helpful.” His eyebrows went up. “You want to learn just Mex?” he asked.

  “I want to learn it all, jefe,” said Dylan.

  “Bueno. Partial to Italian, myself. I make a few calls, see what they got for cooking colleges in SA, yes?”

  “Sí, señor,” answered Dylan with a big grin as he got up, “Muchas gracias.”

  “De nada,” answered the crew boss.

  I got up, too, but Ignacio motioned me to stay. “Want to talk a minute, Jer.”

  Dylan nodded and left the room closing the door behind him. I sat back down slowly and looked at the crew boss, revealing nothing but quaking inside. There was something about my Lipan Tribe comment he didn’t like at all. My second biggest fear right then was that he would kill me. My biggest fear was that he wouldn’t let me work with Dylan, that he’d send me away.

  “Okay, Apache, what’s this shit with the Lipans that’s stained your shorts?”

  I shrugged. “Sorry, señor. Shouldn’t of said anything. Same as Billy. I was found by the cops in a Dumpster the day I was born. DNA says I’m full blooded Lipan Apache, but the tribe wouldn’t take me mainly because it costs a lot of money to take over the care of a baby now the BIA cut the subsidies. Every baby they refuse to enroll in McAllen saves the tribe a bundle.”

  Ignacio nodded, his gaze aimed somewhere at the floor. “Times are hard. So you born in the U.S.?”

  “Probably,” I said. “I got no proof.”

  “No matter. We get paper for whatever proof you need. I got to call someone first, see if anyone cares much you and Dylan being gone, then I get paperwork for you both.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “What’s the head guy’s name at UCH?”

  “Makin with a ‘K’. Kendall Makin.”

  “What’s your full name?” he asked.

  “Jerome Track,” I said, waiting for the laugh and Geronimo jokes.

  “Bueno,” he said. “Jer, if you got what it takes to be valuable to the Kings, you got a home, a family, here for the rest of your life. You got a good future coming.” He grinned widely. “You follow the Spurs?”

  “What are the Spurs?” I asked.

  “NBA. Pro basketball. San Antonio Spurs. Boss Cañón is a Spurs fan, so Kings are Spurs fans.” His eyebrows went up expectantly.

  I grinned and shrugged. “Go Spurs.”

  “You got a great future with the Kings, Jer. Hell, chico, when you born in a shitcan, you got nowhere to go but up.”

  He said it as a joke but I broke down, cried, knelt by his chair, rested my head on his shoulder, and wrapped my arms around him as far as I could. He was a big man. So much for stoic In
dian reserve.

  With his big right hand he reached across his chest and patted me on my head. “Life is hard, kid. The world is the big suck and you caught it from day one. Everyone who should do the right thing does something else and people like you catch the trim.” He put his hand under my chin and lifted it until I was looking directly into his big ugly face that didn’t look very ugly right then.

  “You got family now, Jerry Track. Lock that in. You belong somewhere, you got food, a place to sleep, work, and as long as you straight with us, your family will be here for you.” His eyebrows went up. “One more thing, hijito: This the last time you ever cry.”

  The Ten

  Nacho had more than a thousand books in his house divided between his office his man-cave in the basement and the living room upstairs. Most of the books were mysteries: Parker, Staunch, Hillerman, Burke, DeMille, Myers, Patterson, Cruz Smith, Blackwing, Block, Connelly, with some spy adventure novels by Fleming, Flynn, David, Clancy, and others.

  I only managed to read a little. Nacho suggested I read Ghost Express by Jay Blackwing, some kind of Indian Nacho said he couldn’t pronounce. The sleuth was a half Chinese half Indian named Walking Horse Chang.

  There wasn’t much time for reading, though. Memorizing ten city blocks and developing relationships with all the residents therein doesn’t leave much time for reading. Usually by the time we were done for the day, we slept unless Nacho and the family coaxed us into watching something on TV where I usually nodded off sitting up.

  Our ten was bounded by Zarzamora on the west, Poplar in the north, Navidad in the east, and a mostly dried up creek bed and Camada Street in the south. It was a pretty large area usually worked by three teams under a lieutenant, but right then they were very shorthanded. Jonny Brake would fill us in on that.

  As he drove, Nacho said, “Look at SA. To a couple hicks from Uvalde it look like the big city. But San Antone more like towns even smaller than Uvalde. SA is a bunch of little neighborhoods living real close to each other. This territory I assign you is one of those small towns.”