Burn Cards Page 4

  “Doug?” I called out. No response.

  I shook from my nerves and the cold. I put a hand on the bathroom door and pushed it open. It creaked like it belonged in an old barn. I entered the yellow light and my breath seized in my chest. Inside lay Doug in a bathtub full of crimson water.

  My gaze met his dead eyes.

  6

  I froze in the doorway. Doug had done it right—doped himself up and taken a pair of my nice scissors deep and vertical—not like the paper cuts you see in the movies.

  In my head, I packed a bag and sprinted back to work, but in reality I found myself kneeling down next to the tub. The blood was so dark that it was all I could take in at first. Then the slow drip of the faucet, matching every few beats of my thudding heart. I studied his pale face, the dull burst capillaries, his blonde wispy hair. I imagined that he had left an explanation in a folded note on the sink: black ink on fancy cream-colored paper, like he’d really prepared for the moment. I wanted the note to say, Sorry for coming drunk to elementary school Father-Daughter Day. Sorry for never buying you new clothes, Mirna Foul-smell. Sorry for being such a fucking embarrassment. But I probably wouldn’t have gotten to read it anyway.

  When he fluttered his eyelids I yelped and pulled my hands to my chest. I couldn’t stop the tears. I had nothing but rage left for this man and yet I’d lost control. I wept as he struggled to speak in a raspy voice so hoarse it sounded like he had been lost in the desert for days. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear any of it. Our father-daughter relationship had hit rock bottom and I wouldn’t risk a whisper burying me deeper. All the good memories that I’d ever have were locked tight inside me. Nothing could change the addict before me, not even death. So when he mouthed, I put two hands on his chest until he was under and all I could see were my arms disappearing into the murky red. Then I lost what little toughness I had left, along with my dinner, on the floor. The wooden bat to the stomach when the bookie’s men found me didn’t help either.

  The men hammered the apartment door with thunderous strikes that nearly took it off the hinges. When I turned, too late to see the commotion, wiping the back of my sleeve over my mouth, they’d reached the bathroom. The skinny one rammed me in the stomach like he was driving home a bayonet, expecting my guts to spill all over the floor. I’d seen people like him before, stalking the losers on the downtown strip. It was always the little guys with the baseball bat or flashlight, an extension of their dicks they could swing around in their hands. I doubled over, dry heaving, my freshly manicured nails grasping for purchase on the linoleum. They laughed at the sight of Doug, like it was the funniest act to hit Reno in years. The Bat called him a bitch and said he took the easy way out. It hurt to agree. I knew Doug was broke. I’d paid the rent for the past two years. But I didn’t know he was in deep with a bookie.

  I stared up at the two men with blurred eyes bleeding mascara, recognizing that part of me knew this day would come. Doug had dragged me down into the gutter and now his dead body was chained to my ankle as the current swept us toward the storm drain. I grew up around men who called themselves professional gamblers. I should have known. I’d seen Doug’s friends fall to drugs and drink. Show up at the apartment with broken hands and busted faces. When it got bad some cheated and when it got worse they turned to other sources of funds. Anything to get another shot at the money. Anything to feel the weight of a fresh stack of chips.

  The other thug I recognized. His fat head and braided goatee were unmistakable, even with the large 49ers cap pulled down low. My eyes must have given it away because he seemed startled all of a sudden, his face darkening. He worked security at Mermaid’s, a dive casino located east of downtown, where Doug had moved after he was no longer welcome at the major Reno institutions. I’d been to Mermaid’s a few times when Doug couldn’t find his keys, let alone his feet. Back when I still cared enough to search for him when he didn’t come home.

  The Bat grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked. The fuck already had my attention; now he was just playing with me. He gave me the short: Doug owed the bookie over one hundred grand, and since I was family, I now owed the bookie over one hundred grand. I’d challenge his bullshit definition of family. I began to say something snippy to that effect, but he cut me off with the back of his hand. He told me I should be thankful for them taking it easy on me. Ms. Guzman is gonna have her money, he'd said. You’re lucky she orders us to take it easy on the fairer sex. I’m usually inclined to add a few hospital bills to the tally.

  Ms.? The fact that it was a woman running the ring surprised me. Doug occasionally brought women home when I was younger but they never looked like someone who would be so sick as to push a downed man off the ledge. I wondered how they first met. If he’d stumbled onto her, or if she’d seduced him into debt. None of it mattered now.

  While the Bat was giving his spiel, the Bouncer took to the rest of the apartment. I could hear drawers being emptied—the bed being tossed. The place wasn’t big and he was through with it in under five. I got the sense he knew what he was looking for. The blood drained from my face when he returned with the thick roll of bills.

  When I was sixteen, I caught Doug stealing from my ceramic piggy bank. He’d smashed it on the kitchen floor and was bent over, groping at the money. I moved to stop him and he struck me. It was a light, drunken punch, but it stung. Half in the bag, he stumbled and fell, staring at his hands. I shoved him aside, gathered two handfuls of cash and ran out the door.

  I wandered until my feet hurt and ended up outside of a hair salon. I thought I saw one of Doug’s gambling buddies so I ducked inside and sat down in the waiting area. It was cool and clean. I didn’t realize I was still clutching the crumpled sweaty bills when the owner walked over to me. She introduced herself as Jazmín.

  She took pity; I could see it in her eyes. I wanted to run out the door but I was too hurt to be embarrassed. She coaxed me into a chair and gave me highlights and cut it into a short bob. She got me to open up. I told her about the gambling, Doug, the money. She listened without saying a word. When she spun me around in the chair and I saw my reflection, I could barely breathe. I felt alive. There was no way I could repay her, but I told her I’d help out after school. She eventually took me on as an assistant. It wasn’t much, but I saved every dollar.

  It hurt more to see the cash in the Bouncer’s hands than seeing Doug in the bath. Almost five grand for the Academy of Hair Design; I’d even sent in the application. He tossed the roll to the Bat who caught it and gave it a look like he’d rather light my dreams on fire to see me squirm than turn it over to his boss.

  They dialed 911 for me and watched as I told the operator about Doug. The Bat cackled as they walked out with the money, issuing threats on my life and friends; they knew about the salon. When I watched the first cop who showed up outside the apartment complex fist bump with the Bouncer, I knew I was in deep shit.

  7

  I pressed and held the buzzer to let in the police and stood shivering at the broken door to the apartment, listening to loud clopping of their footsteps as they entered the building. If either of the neighbors had heard the commotion, they were behind their door watching through the peephole. I didn’t blame them, I probably would have done the same.

  I tried to focus, but all I could think about was the pain in my stomach and the weight of the debt crushing down on me. There were reasons to run but no scenario ended well. I had nowhere to go and I didn’t need them suspecting me in Doug’s death. The first of the cops, obese and red-faced from the one story climb, regained his composure and waddled down the hallway towards me, the skinnier cop who fist-bumped the Bouncer in tow. The fat one had a thin line of hair for a mustache and small eyes sunk into deep sockets. Sweat dripped down his sideburns. The skinny cop’s neck was tattooed with illegible script that crept out from beneath his collar. A gang member playing pig for the day. Behind them came a plainclothes man with a large camera bag. The elevator dinged and two paramedic
s walked out with a gurney between them. It was a party, but I expected more. No chirping radios, no professional gab. Just silence as they gathered around me.

  The fat cop pushed his way into the room first, barely acknowledging me with a nod. He asked me to have a seat while he took a look around. I stood by the couch and watched them work. The second cop followed him, flashlight in hand. The fat cop squeezed into the bathroom and stood there for a minute thinking with puckered lips like he was sucking the fat off a chicken bone. I wondered if he knew the face he made when he was thinking. He set his right foot down in the puddle of vomit and then braced his hands on the wall to move his belly out of the way to get a glimpse of what he’d done. He swore under his breath, wiped his boot off on a clean section of the rug. He pushed his way out, wide shoulders rubbing against the door frame, and motioned to the man in plain clothes like he was thumbing a trucker to take him to Vegas. The man retrieved a camera with a large flash from his bag and snapped photo after photo. I didn’t know the first thing about police procedure but the whole affair felt too relaxed and off the cuff.

  “Looks pretty good,” he said to the skinny cop.

  Good? I didn’t know if he was displaying approval of my handiwork or if it had been pre-booked as a suicide. My mouth tasted of sour bile and my hands were still stained well past the wrist with dry blood. The skinny cop ducked his head in, cleared his throat as if to spit on the floor, and motioned for the plainclothes man to take additional pictures of Doug’s body. The camera’s flash popped several times in quick succession.

  Next up were the paramedics, treating Doug like the newest attraction at the fair. It puzzled me that the paramedics were last, like everyone took my word that he was dead and not just taking a nap in a mix of water and food coloring.

  The fat cop called out from one of the bedrooms, “Sure is a mess in here. You live like this?” A snort made it sound rhetorical. He walked back into the living room.

  “Any idea what happened?” He retrieved a small notebook from his back pocket and slapped it into his palm. If he was taking notes it wasn’t on paper.

  I took a deep breath. The full extent of the situation was beginning to sink in and I fought back tears.

  “I came home from work and found it this way,” I lied. Doug raised me to distrust police. Corrupt bastards only good for giving out tickets and breaking up a good time. I didn’t have the full picture and the fist bump between the Bouncer and the second cop lingered on my mind. Besides, I’m no murderer.

  “Quite the mess,” he said again. “Any idea what he was looking for? Your whole room is tossed.”

  I shook my head. “No idea.”

  “Use any drugs, miss?” He gave me the once-over. “You don’t look like a club-kinda-girl. Something you hide in your bottom drawer? Don’t need anything sharp giving us a stick.”

  “What?” I said, shocked at his questioning.

  “Just the standard line, that’s all,” he said, rolling his tongue around. They sounded anything but standard. “That your dad in there?”

  “We didn’t have the greatest relationship.” I lowered my chin, acting crushed. They didn’t give my false show of emotion any sympathy. Instead, they turned their attention to the television, which still churned with static.

  “Got a tape player, huh?” He pressed the VCR eject button and whispered to his partner. Doug had sold or pawned almost everything he owned at one point, except for that old VCR.

  “Looks like he was watching old home movies.”

  I stood and walked across the room to the two men. The skinny cop turned defensively to meet me with a palm. “Miss, we asked you to have a seat.”

  “Relax, Jackson,” said the fat one. “I don’t think she’s going to be a threat. Here,” he said, real sympathy creeping into his eyes for the first time, “looks like he was watching this.”

  The tape was worn, the ink smeared but legible, ‘Mirna’s fourth birthday ‘93.’ I cradled the tape in my bloody hands, a fragile ancient treasure. I had no idea the tape existed. My mother would be on this tape.

  “There is a whole box of ‘em over here,” he said, pushing off the television stand to get back to his feet. My legs felt weak. I relived the past every day in my head. Here was the real deal. My memory recorded in color.

  “To tell ya the truth, miss, I don’t suspect any foul play here, but I’ve got to do an interview.” He smacked the notebook against his palm again like a nervous tick. Maybe he was hungry. When I didn’t reply he said, “Why don’t you take a moment and when you’re ready we’ll sit down at the table and talk.”

  I think I nodded but I don’t remember. I was still in awe of the tapes. All I wanted to do was make a stiff drink and sit down and watch until I died. I crouched next to the crumpled cardboard box and picked through the collection. It smelled of strong cigar smoke and a corner had gotten wet at one point. There were over twenty tapes in the box, haphazardly labeled, all different brands. More birthdays, soccer games, the family vacation to Mount Rushmore. Six titled Vegas. I almost laughed. I felt the shock of finding Doug in the tub all over again, except good memories flooded my mind instead of the begging and stealing. I wondered why Doug picked my fourth birthday to watch before taking his life. If I thought I had questions before, I now had a thousand more questions that would never be answered. My eyes watered and I raised my head, blinking back tears. Perhaps there would be something I missed in the bathroom, that the note I longed for was hidden in a cabinet or had fallen behind the toilet.

  A female paramedic who appeared close to my age stood on deck in the bathroom doorway next to the gurney, blue-gloved hands at her sides. I pushed past and into the room. I couldn’t explain it but I had to see Doug again. The older paramedic, balding with a halo of fuzzy gray hair like steel wool, knelt over the tub, unbuttoning his left sleeve and rolling it back. He didn’t acknowledge me, maybe assuming I was the shy one at the door who had decided to come in and learn. His forearm had a tattoo of a snake, the head on the inside of his wrist and body wrapping around his arm in a tight coil.

  He finished rolling up his sleeve and dunked his gloved hand into the water up to the elbow like it was just another night on the job. Another broke gambler offed himself because he could no longer face his decrepit life. I’d have loved to hear them talk shop after they finished for the day.

  I once read a news article about crews that work jumpers in major cities. They play games and make bets on if the guy is going to jump, if he’ll die on impact, or hit a car. It was morbid but they brought some humor into their work because all they dealt with was death. If they were called in it was a pretty sure shot that it was going to get messy. I wondered if paramedics were like that and I would have asked, if Doug hadn’t been my father. I stood and watched the water recede to Doug’s chest. A little red whirlpool forming above the drain. He had become so frail in recent years. Each rib was visible and what muscle he had sagged on the bones.

  What I had taken for blood stains was deep bruising across his chest. It varied from dark purples to reds and yellows. His knees were beaten and freshly scabbed. I bent down to closer inspect. My mind swirled with the water. The paramedic turned to look at me with a furrowed brow and thin lips. I felt detached from the scene like Doug had turned into a haunted house attraction; a grotesque corpse poured from a wax mold or glued together with paper mâché. Or an actor who would lie and wait to jump when you least expected it, splashing red dye on the onlookers clothes. Those guys always took a scream from me. Doug had barely received tears.

  When the water dipped to his belly I noticed the dark purple wound. At first I thought it was an old scar from a bar fight stab wound or a bad cigarette burn. The cut was three inches in length along the right side of his abdomen and stapled shut. The area around the image was black and bruised and… new. In fact, the stitches had slightly pulled apart at the top, leaving a bloodless gap in his flesh. When I bent down to inspect it further, the paramedic put up his blood-soaked arm
to block the way and called out “Jimmy.” Then one of the cops grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the room.

  “What the hell is on his side,” I asked, like they would know.

  “Now just hold on a second, miss,” said the fat one. His name tag said Mayonise. The name fit the fat face. “Let the paramedics do their job. Why don’t we sit down over here at the table and go over what happened.”

  The old man in the bathroom pushed the door closed. I looked at the other paramedic, the young woman, plain and professional. Her shirt was pressed and fitted and smelled of new recruit. She was the only one who wore a look like she didn’t know what was going on, like maybe she wasn’t in on it.

  “What’s going on in there?” I asked. She stood with the gurney, the body bag folded on top. It took up an awkward amount of the room, positioned between the bathroom and the front door. They had to move the couch out of the way to fit it in. The girl stared at the bathroom door as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “Hello? What the hell is going on?” She looked at me dumbfounded, choking on her words. Her eyes wavered back and forth.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. Greg is handling it in the room. He’s closed the door for your privacy.”

  I closed on the paramedics to give them a piece of my mind when Mayonise cut in.

  “Let’s just calm down now. What’s happened here was a tragedy and we don’t want any more suffering.”

  No more suffering. At least the skinny one, Jackson, the cop who had exchanged words with the Bouncer outside, knew there was going to be suffering. He sat at the table and looked like he had already finished his report and was setting his sights on a nap in his squad car. Why do they always pair a fat and skinny cop together? I wasn’t going to get anywhere taking on two cops. My stomach still hurt like a bitch and I could feel the harsh sting of a bruise. I pulled out a chair between the cops and sat a foot back from the table. At the least, I wanted to give myself a chance to run for it if the ordeal really went south.