Cristobal Rodriguez ♦ Coyote (coyoti) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-08-10 12:44:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | coyote, maui |
it's a lie, it's a lie
Who: Chris and our mysterious caller, then Kal.
What: Chris is getting more stuff and info that he does not want and then he must immediately hide it.
Where: Chris' apartment.
When: Early August.
Chris breathed out as he carefully closed his apartment door behind him. He was looking forward to disrobing, removing his brace, and slouching around his unit in nothing more than his underwear for the remainder of the day; but best laid plans never go accordingly, and his pocket was vibrating something fierce. Throwing his keys down on the small table in front of the space generously called a kitchen, he fished the flip phone out and glanced at the screen, his brow momentarily furrowing as he took note of the number and the associated memory rising to the fore.
"Jerry?"
"Haha, long time no talk, Cristobal, surprised you remembered me." Chris couldn't help the smile that curved his mouth at the familiar voice, and he carefully navigated himself to a chair, where he could sit. There'd been a slight crack in Jerry's demeanor, which meant he was either going to ask for something or had some bad news. Whatever it was, Chris didn't think it would spoil his day too badly.
"Yeah, well, you know I've been moving out of that line of work for awhile. I'm surprised you remembered my number, since we deal in such different things these days. What'd'yah need, something moved, something forgotten?"
He could almost see Jerry nodding; the man had always been better with his hands and his body language than he had verbally. He pictured the other man revving up, trying to find the right words in the moment.
"Look, I'm just gonna come out and say it," he finally acceded, causing Chris' brows to furrow.
"Come out with--"
"Your dad's dead."
All smart remarks flew from his mind, his mouth and throat drying up at the sudden admission that he was sans one parent in this living world. Chris leaned forward, his free hand flat on the table next to him, his mouth suddenly gaping for some sense.
"What... How?"
"Gunshot. Look, I'm not gonna get into the gory details, kid, I just wanted you to hear it from someone you knew before it came down the grapevine. Police are looking into it, but it's not like no one expected this, right?"
Chris swallowed, suddenly conscious of the fact that he, too, was nodding, and he forced himself to sit back in the chair. "Yeah, it's... It's not that shocking," he said, aware he was trying to convince himself more than his former coworker.
"I'll keep you updated if anything else surfaces, all right? But I think this is a pretty open and close case. You keep an eye out for yourself, OK, Cristobal? I'd hate to see you go the same way as your daddy. You're a good kid. Always have been."
Chris nodded again, already miles away from this phone call. A sudden knock at his door made him jump, the chair he was seated in scraping against the floor.
"I...I gotta go, Jerry," he mumbled, the man on the other end agreeing and offering condolences and asking if his mom would care to know... "No, she wouldn't. Look, thanks. I appreciate what you've done for me. But I've got another call I have to take."
"Sure, sure. I'll talk to you some other time, kiddo. Later." The line pressed against his ear went dead, a subtle white static leaking into his ear canal. Chris folded the phone, putting it down on the table as he rose and answered the door. The other side had a FedEx package delivery man, holding out a pad waiting for Chris' signatured.
"Cristobal Rodriguez? Sign here, please." Chris hesitated for a moment before committing his signature to digital ink, and then accepted the package the man had to offer. Whatever it was, he knew he wasn't expecting a delivery of any kind. The FedEx guy nodded, smiling a smile that was all business (here and gone) before turning on his heel and hurrying off to the next item on his list. Chris watched him go for a moment, an unconscious jealousy in the back of his mind over the man's able-bodied limbs, until he shook his head to clear it of such sentiments.
He pulled himself back inside, closing the door behind him as he inspected the package. There was only one way to find out just what was inside of it, but after previous gifts received at his current address, there was no way to ease the stone he felt in his stomach. A quick pull tore off the line holding the lid shut at the top, and then he pulled it back. Whatever was inside of it, it was wrapped. He leaned the box's opening toward the table, letting something in a velvet black bag slide onto the surface, striking his keys and his phone in the same tumble.
Its shape was obvious. Chris' heart beat doubletime, his hands shaking a little as he reached out and picked up what was obviously a gun.
His phone rang, making Chris drop the item the few inches he'd carried it off of the table. He flinched, hoping it wasn't loaded, and glanced to the phone number on the screen. There was only one caller it could be, and he moved far faster to answer it than he did the previous.
"I understand my package has been delivered."
The slithering voice made shivers run down his spine, and he nodded before remembering to reply verbally.
"Uh, yeah, I mean...what the fuck?"
"It's just a little gift from me to you, Chris. A...reminder. Honesty is the best policy."
The stone in his gut sank a little deeper, nestling in among his innards. A hand rose, pressing to his belly, as though he could physically dislodge what he was feeling.
"I don't.... I'm not sure what you're--"
"Don't bullshit me, Crisotbal. I know you lied about who was in the closet. I wonder what else you've lied about? For your sake, you better hope I never find out. I will say this -- your father was very talkative, up until the end. It's hard to keep numbers when your brain is leaking out of the side of your skull."
Chris felt himself falling, and he reached out to grab the back of the chair he'd been previously sitting in. His gaze fell on the gun, still wrapped in the velvet bag. His heart was speeding faster than a rabbit's.
"What you've got there, what I assume you're looking at right now, is the murder weapon, Chris. And I know the police would be very interested to know that you've got it."
Shit.
"So this is where you apologize, say it'll never happen again... Because it won't. I play for keeps, Cristobal. If that wasn't clear before, it better damn well be now."
Chris swallowed, nodding. He couldn't move his eyes away from the gun, away from just how big of a mess he'd gotten himself into this time. His heart was pounding in his head, almost so loudly that he didn't quite understand that there was another knock at his door.
"Fuck, I have to--"
"Go? No, you'll go when I say you can. I want to be sure that we're clear, Cristobal. Crystal clear."
Kal stood in the hallway, hearing the murmur of his friend’s voice as he paused before knocking again. He wore shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt; his hair tied up into a topknot on the top of his head. He was the picture of a man on his day off, complete with a large paper bag clutched in his one hand. “Chris, I hear you in there, open up!”
He knocked again, smiling with the surprise he was going to bestow upon his friend. After visiting kuku and worrying she’d be further lost to her mind, he found her strong and full of memory. So much so that she had even gone to a local Hawaiian earlier to pick up laulau and kalua pig. The two meals, their scent and taste, filled Kal with the memory of childhood and he was eager to share it with his friend whom he had already shared so much of his culture with. Chris would be thrilled, surely, and maybe if he was in a good mood they could speak further about the coyote situation.
Of course it was Kal. Chris rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, a hand pressing its palm to his forehead.
"Yes, yes, I understand, but this little power play is about to put me into much worse shit if you don't let me get off the phone," he whispered, hoping Kal couldn't actually hear the contents of his conversation. He heard his caller sigh on the other side of the phone, and Chris slowly began to move away from the table, though his eyes never quite left the gun still resting on its surface.
"Don't disappoint me again, Cristobal. You're not as unreplaceable as you might think"
Kal knocked again. “The food is going to get cold!” He called through the door. “If you’re busy, just let me drop your share off. I’ll eat it otherwise.” He held up the bag and looked at it almost lovingly. There were a number of things Kal loved fully in life, sex, pot, traveling, and food were all on that list.
Chris swallowed a sigh, nodding again; the hand on the back of a chair tightened.
"A full report. By the end of the month."
"Good." The line against his ear emptied, the quiet sound of nothingness sending a new chill up his spine. He flipped his phone closed and put it in his pocket before reaching for the still-bagged gun.
"One sec, Kal," he finally called out, hustling as quickly as he could into the bedroom. He glanced around, finally landing on the closet -- the gun was quickly stashed on a shelf in as far back as he could get it, under some clothes. Nothing weird or possibly criminal about that. He wondered if the firearm's identification had even been filed off... But there would be time to worry about that later.
He came back out of his bedroom, heading for the front door. In contrast to Kal, he was wearing beige work slacks, polished black shoes, and a matching button up black shirt. As his entryway opened wide to his uninvited visitor, he tried pressing a smile to his lips to cover the anxiety that still ran through his veins.
"What's this about food?" His words were only slightly shaky.
Kal tilted his head slightly, catching the shakiness in his friend’s voice, but knew Chris well enough to push on and give him a chance to come out with it all--at least for the moment. “Kuku made a friend with a local that has a roasting pit. She got us laulau and kalua pig and there’s enough for the both of us.” He held up the bag and smiled.
Chris' brows rose, his eyes widening in delight even as puzzlement crossed his features. He reached a hand out for the plastic-encased pig.
"Who the hell has a roasting pit inside the city limits... Actually, I don't need to know." He took the meat from his friend, stepping away from the door enough to invite him inside. As he all but fondled the pork, his mouth salivating at the thought of what it'd taste like (he'd had kuku's cooking on several occasions and this was certainly a special one), he gave Kal a sidelong glance. He was more than minimally grateful to have a reason to discuss anything other than the phone call he'd just taken. "You coming in or just dropping off?"
“Well you just took the whole bag of food so you bet your ass I’m coming in,” Kal announced as he walked in, not waiting for any type of an invitation, and retrieved the bag Chris took from him. Bringing it to the kitchen counter, he began fishing out the various containers of food, sitting them on the counter, and glanced over his shoulder toward Chris--his eyes passing over the apartment all the while to see if anyone else was there. “You have a visitor? I heard you talking but you know if I waited and took this food home I would’ve eaten it all before you had a second chance.”
Chris closed the door behind his friend, the one topic of conversation that he'd been dreading finally coming to the fore. His eyes slipped shut, shoulders rolling as he mentally prepared himself to do whatever it took to remove Kal's attention to something a little less life threatening.
"Why do you think I made sure I got off the phone ASAP? So what else you got in there?" It was both an answer and a diversion. Hopefully, Chris thought, enough to keep Kal's focus on the immediate and not the past.
“Just the laulau and the kalua pig,” Kal replied, pulling out the rest of the containers until he hit one final one. “Oh, and I guess a pineapple salad.” He glanced at his friend as he pulled open the various containers, separating them on the counter. Smaller containers were obviously Chris’s while the bigger ones were for him--he always had a larger appetite than his friend. “You alright? You seem, I don’t know, off. You didn’t turn into a coyote again, did you?”
"No," Chris blurted out too quickly, lingering too close to where Kal was stacking the containers on the counter. He took a step back, a hand tracing a line down the refridgerator door handle, until he finally forced himself to move back and take a seat at the kitchen table. "A guy can't just...be a little taken off guard? I'm fine. Really." Of course, he sounded anything but, and immediately started to rap his nails unconsciously against the table as he fought to keep from glancing at the bedroom. "We should've... should've done this as a dinner at kuku's, don't you think?"
Kal continued to eye his friend but went with the obvious refusal to discuss whatever it was that was going on. “I was just over there running errands with her. She does want to do dinner soon, probably the night before I head out of town again, if you’d like to come along? We can even bring Daniel, you know she’d love him.” He smiled and elbowed his friend playfully. “I’m going out of town again, by the way. Just for half a week though, nothing too extreme. Would you mind just calling her every few days? Just to check in on her. It’d make her happy and I’d feel a little relief too.”
Chris paled considerably at the idea of bringing his boyfriend to his best friend's grandmother's house. Now that just seemed like it was asking for trouble, but he also knew such a gesture would both win major brownie points with Daniel and maybe throw both him and Kal off of his trail. After the mostly abysmal kidnapping camping trip, from which his back had not still fully recovered (and he was still convincing himself that he wasn't finding mud in places it shouldn't be), anything that might convince the two of them that everything was truly well and good was probably worth the hassle he'd receive in the bargain.
"Sure," he said, his voice sounding more convincing than it had prior all evening. "We can do that, and I think Daniel would like it too. And, of course. I mean, someone has to keep an eye on her, right? Who knows, she might just get a spade and start digging her own roasting pit..."
Kal smiled, one of his large, eager smiles that showed particular pleasure. He trusted his grandmother in his friend’s hands, he knew that for all the closed off emotions that Chris had in his adult life that there was true caring for the older woman. But the fact that he didn’t run out of the apartment screaming at the suggestion of introducing Daniel to the woman spoke volumes. “Excellent. I’ll let her know, she’ll be thrilled and maybe she’ll even get some more of this food for you both.
“So are you about to run off or do you want to share a meal?” Kal lifted the pineapple salad and raised an eyebrow.
"Naw, I can stay, and yes, you clearly have my permission as well," Chris jabbed back, bringing both hands to the table top. He patted the one near him. "So seriously, stop hogging the stuff. And you can tell me where you're going. I hope to God it's better than the last place you went to..."
“Are you kidding? I’m totally taking you with me to Africa the next time I go,” Kal replied with a grin, the excitement building. “But this time, I’m heading much further north.”