Free Road Dogs (2009)( ) by Elmore - Jack Foley 02 Leonard Page B

uh-huh. I spoke to a cute woman name of Tibby Rothman. You know her? Little bitty thing.
    I see her around, yes.
    She puts out the Venice newspaper, I understand, when she feels like it. I asked her did she know a James Rios. She said, 'You mean Little Jimmy the bookkeeper?' and grinned at me like she'd said something funny. Now Lou asked his second in command, Sandy, you know this Little Jimmy person?
    Now Tico was grinning.
    Boss, everybody in Venice knows Little Jimmy. He's what you call a character. Sabe usted character, boss?
    This federale being a tough guy was a trip. You fucking with me,
    Sandy? The question on Tico's mind: what was the guy doing here by himself? They send him to watch a bank robber just got his release who could sit on the beach all day watching girls, do whatever he wants? They send one guy only?
    One guy can't do it. So he wants Tico, your young Boy United, to watch the bank robber for him. The man said, And get some of those gangbangers, their pants hanging off their ass, to help you. He said, Four times six is twenty-four. He did, he said that. You need four colored guys and four la Cucarachas, one of each working surveillance at all times, six hours on, six off. Can you handle it? You can't, I'll have your ass sent back to what did he say, Nicaragua? The man not knowing shit where Tico was from.
    Tico's mama Shirlene once she'd had enough of West Memphis found her way to Central America with a light-skin Latino guy. Tico was born and she left the first guy for another light-skin guy, a musician famous for playing the marimba, and she began to sing with his band called Los Parados. Shirlene changed her name to Sierra and became famous down there doing Afro-Caribbean funk in San JosT clubs. Days she spent with Tico as he grew up, loving him, teaching him how to be black American on the beat, how to wear his hair long and a hat if he wanted with the do-rag, what kind of silver to wear, rings and an earring. Sierra spoke English to him at home, good English and street English, preparing him for his world. She said, Baby, feel your cool self, who you are, somebody special. She told him every day, There is no one else like you. Don't fuck up.
    This Lou Adams had big hands and hard bones showing in his face. He was the kind of man believed he knew everything. Be talking, thumbs hooked in his belt, turn his head to spit, turn his head back and still be talking. Why's he want this bank robber? To make a name for himself? Catch this famous bandit Tico had never heard of? Why's he think the bank robber was staying at a house everybody knows belongs to Cundo Rey? The Lone Ranger says no, Little Jimmy Rios owns the house. Tico said, Oh, is that right?
    I looked up the records, Louis Adams said, and saw the signature, James Rios.
    What everyone who knew anything was suppose to believe. But if Little Jimmy belonged to Cundo Rey, going back to the time they left Cooba, wouldn't the homes also belong to Cundo? Why didn't the Lone Ranger know that? You own two high-price homes on a canal, the most expensive property in Venice, you had to be a millionaire, even if you were living in a prison cell in Florida.
    Tico said to Louis Adams, What are you paying us for this work? You get to stay here, Lou Adams said. I don't send your ass home.
    I don't do this work for you, you deport me?
    I make a phone call, it's done.
    The guys I get for you, I tell them that?
    They're illegals, aren't they?
    I don't know. There would be a court hearing to find out, uh? I know of these situations, it could take weeks. Lou said, While you're being held in federal detention. I understand that, Tico said, but while you holding us, who's watching the bank robber? Lou Adams said, Sandy, are you fuckin' with me again? I'll get you sent home tomorrow.
    Tico said, You know my place of birth is Costa Rica? No, you didn't, did you? You know my mother was born in the state of Arkansas? I think you knew it and forgot. It makes me also a citizen of