Frank Reyes paced on the concrete patio outside his front doot, looking up at the street, looking down at his watch. He looked over at the green Chevy Suburban, all four doors and the rear hatch swung open, and walked over to it, though he looked down the street again once he had his hand on the rear passenger door. Frank looked inside, reached in, rearranged something, looked down the street.
His worn blue collared shirt was pulling out of its tuck. His hair was almost in all the right places. A car, a Ford sedan, moved down Tyrella towards Frank but as soon as he recognized the model his head turned down to look at his watch. Almost inevitable was the head shake.
The screetch of brakes as cars zoomed in from the other direction took us both by surprise but the men in suits didn’t all pull guns out and point them at me. I was just walking down the street returning home from getting morning coffee around the corner though when one of them surveyed the scene and saw me, he made simple keep moving right along motions. Never having seen guns drawn at such close quarters before, I resumed breathing, then walking, and tried my damnedest to not stare at the goings on in my neighbor’s front yard.
Another neighbor, Gus, was often hanging out in his garage this time of the morning, said garage having a decent view of Frank’s yard. Gus was there this morning, his jaw nearly on the pavement. I turned in to his short driveway and waved my hand in front of his face.
“Earth to Gus, come in Gus,” I said, breaking his concentration, and he looked at me. “What the fuck?” I asked him.
“Frank was packing that SUV pretty quickly before you came along,” he told me, “and then he just stopped to wait. Haven’t seen his wife though, he was probably waiting for her.” Gus knew that I knew he had the hots for Frank’s wife Janny. Hell, I thought she was a total Latina hottie and too good for Frank. What I didn’t know was that Gus and Janny had the mutual hots, which they’d acted on for the last three months. “I called Janny 20 minutes ago, she isn’t coming any time soon.”
“Gus, you and Janny?” I asked, and then he explained. Frank blah blah blah. Nothing interesting or unusual, just excuses covering action where clothes should have stayed on. Except “And the last six months Frank has been cooking the books at work. Trying to put a little extra aside with paying them” he nodded his head towards the men in suits “or his partners. But he must not be very good at it or at keeping his mouth shut.”
Frank was handcuffed by now, leaning against one of the Fed cars. He saw us looking, turned a little to stick his middle finger up in our direction though I think that was for Gus. Gus snickered and popped open his cellphone. “Hey babe, I’m watching half a dozen guys in suits and they’ve got Frank in cuffs and, just now, a couple of them walked out of your house with a couple of PCs.” He paused to hear her answer and grinned at me. “Want to say hi to Chen? He’s been here, watching the whole thing… Okay, later.”
He put the phone down and popped a beer. “It’s a little early but I feel like celebrating. Janny’s at the lawyer drawing up divorce papers as we speak.”
Finally, the search was done, at least for now, and two of the Feds helped Frank into the backseat of a nondescript sedan; he looked done, even from across the street. One of them closed the doors of Frank’s Suburban and got into its driver seat. They all pulled out and drove off. Gus was drinking his beer but clearly happy. I started walking away, waved back, and thought about how much goes on when I’m not looking.
BillSaysThis 