Roachkiller and Other Stories Read online

  Roachkiller and Other Stories

  R. Narvaez

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  Copyright © 2012 by R. Narvaez

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-937349-30-1

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  (continued on the following page)

  This page constitutes a continuation of the copyright page.

  “In the Kitchen with Johnny Albino” was originally published in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery (2004).

  “Juracán” was originally published in Indian Country Noir (2009), and appears as an ebook single as “Hurricane” (2012).

  “Roachkiller” was originally published in Murdaland (2004).

  “GhostD” was originally published as “El Bohemio” in Thrilling Detective (2007).

  “Santa’s Little Helper” was originally published as “The Helper” in Storyglossia (2008).

  “Unsynchronicity” was originally published in Mississippi Review (2006).

  “Ibarra Goes Down” was originally published in Yellow Mama (2010).

  “Watching the Iguanas” was originally published in Spinetingler (2010).

  “Rough Night in Toronto” was originally published in Plots with Guns (2006).

  “Zinger” is published here for the first time.

  N.B.: Many of these stories have been revised, heavily in some cases, since their first appearance.

  For my parents

  Contents

  In the Kitchen with Johnny Albino

  Juracán

  Roachkiller

  GhostD

  Santa’s Little Helper

  Unsynchronicity

  Ibarra Goes Down

  Watching the Iguanas

  Rough Night in Toronto

  Zinger

  About the Author

  In the Kitchen with Johnny Albino

  Iris woke up in the dark. She rubbed her belly where it hurt, then got up, put on her slippers, and waddled to the kitchen. She had dark hair, almost black, and a heart-shaped face that made the island boys cross their fingers during confession. She was petite as a bird, and she was six months pregnant—with a baby she knew was a boy because of the way her belly seemed to come to a point and because she just knew. She went straight for the kitchen and to the dream book.

  She got the book out and put it on the table, facedown. She tried to remember the dream but couldn’t. She lit a cigarette and went to the kitchen window. She looked outside at the clotheslines radiating from the big elm in the backyard to each building. The windows of the apartment buildings on the other side of the yard were dark, like eyes on faces before they wake up. She stared at nothing in particular. She felt that if she kept staring she could somehow reach back to the dream.

  The cigarette smoke twirled around her fingers. Tree. Outside. Rio—river. And there it was—the dream she had been having before the baby inside her kicked her awake. First it came in pieces then it played like a movie. A woman. Standing with her feet in a river. Drowning. Iris did not recognize the woman, but she knew the river. It was back in Puerto Rico, near her hometown, Guayama, and the water was shallow. The woman could walk across to save herself. Iris told her so, but then a wave came, dark and red as blood, decapitating the woman, just as Iris found a knife in her hand, and . . .

  Then a pigeon flew into her field of vision and Iris was back in Brooklyn.

  She went back to the table quickly. The dream book was mimeographed on cheap blue paper. The listings were crooked, on some pages clear, on others blurry. Iris had bought the book when she first came to New York City, in the ’60s, ten years ago. She folded the cover back—it showed a crazy gypsy lady with a crazy smile that spooked Iris every time she saw it.

  In the book, dreams were listed alphabetically, with a three-digit number next to each—

  ANIMAL, 369

  AUNT, 261

  AUTOMOBILE, 522

  AUTOMOBILE CRASH, 673

  If you dreamed about an animal one night, you were supposed to play 369 the next day and the next few days, because that number was going to hit. Iris searched the Ds and found “DROWNING, 419.” She wrote the number down in a little red notebook. She got up and turned on the radio, finding her favorite Spanish station. A song by Trio Los Panchos came on, one of Iris’s favorites. She began to sway to its tinny rhythm.

  “Mami.”

  Her four-year-old daughter, Nancy, stood in the doorway of the kitchen in her pajamas. The girl had her mother’s dark hair and her father’s doleful eyes. Every time Iris looked at her she was reminded of him.

  “Go back to bed.”

  “I’m awake.”

  “It’s too early. Go back to bed.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  She put out her cigarette. “You want some eggs?”

  Later, after she dropped Nancy at the pre-K school at St. Peter and Paul, Iris went to the bodega at the corner. Negron, an old man the size and shape of a boiler, was behind the counter, talking to his bright red and green parrot.

  “Te pegate? Te pegate?” the parrot said. “Negron!”

  Negron was missing an earlobe—which was why he kept the parrot in a cage.

  “Ratoncito,” Negron said. He called it a little rat because the bird repeated so much of what he said that it was like a snitch, and if the cops ever heard the parrot they’d know all about Negron’s business.

  Iris told Negron to play her regular numbers, and then told him to play 419—for a dollar, straight.

  “A dollar, straight?” Negron said. “Did you have a dream?”

  “A lady drowning,” she said.

  “Dios to vendiga,” he said, “419, dollar, straight. You got it.”

  Later in the day, she went back to the bodega to pick up milk and to see what number hit. “Quien pego, Negron?”

  “419—te peges!”

  The odds for bolita—the numbers game—were six hundred to one. Negron was from Guayama, too, and had known Iris since she’d moved to the Southside, so he didn’t take his normal bookie fee of fifteen percent. Iris had six hundred dollars, more money than she had ever had at one time in her life.

  * * *

  Iris had been laid off that summer. She considered going back to Puerto Rico—again. She’d already gone back and forth twelve times. She got food stamps and sometimes she cleaned houses for cash. Her friend Maribel was in the same situation and hadn’t worked in a year. They spent a lot of the day in Iris’s kitchen, drinking coffee and
listening to the radio until it was time to pick up Nancy.

  “That’s pretty nice money,” Maribel said.

  “You telling me. That’s half a year’s rent.”

  “Pretty nice money.”

  “I have to go shopping first. Then pay the rent and the electricity. And I gotta put money away for the baby. Then I start saving to buy my own restaurant.”

  Maribel laughed. “For that, you don’t got enough money. You have to dream a thousand dreams. That’s a lot of drowned ladies.”

  Iris took a drag on her cigarette and rubbed her belly.

  “You know what?” Maribel said.

  “What?”

  “You know what—you could start your own bolita. You make enough money, you never have to work again.”

  “Run the numbers? Like a crook?”

  “Everybody’s a crook. Look at the frikking president. It’s easy. Look at Negron. He makes easy money.”

  Iris nodded her head to the side.

  “You have to watch out though,” Maribel said.

  “Why?”

  “If someone doesn’t pay you, you gotta be tough. Business is business.”

  “I’m tough,” Iris said. She looked at the window, remembering her dream.

  Maribel laughed. “Little Iris the crook.”

  “Maribel!”

  “Maybe you’ll get as big as Benny, ha.”

  Benny was the biggest numbers runner in the neighborhood. The rumor was that he knew people in the Mafia.

  “That’ll be the day,” Iris said. Then she got up and took pork chops out of the freezer for dinner that night.

  * * *

  Iris picked up Nancy at school then decided to go to Negron’s to pick up milk. As soon as she opened the door, the parrot said, “Te pegate? Te pegate? Negron!”

  “Hello, parrot,” Nancy said.

  “She’s getting big,” Negron said. He sat on his stool behind the counter. He was once a big man but was bent over with age. He rarely moved from the stool, but the store was always well stocked and neat. The parrot was silent behind him, munching on one sunflower seed after another. Newspapers were spread out under its cage.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Iris told Negron about her plan and assured him that she would still play numbers with him.

  “Don’t worry. They got business for everybody,” he said.

  “What about Benny?” she said. “I know he’s a big shot.”

  “He don’t care,” said Negron. “He got plenty business. He don’t care about little people trying to make some money. He’s not like that. I been here fifteen years, and he comes in here all the time, and he don’t say nothing. But listen—”

  Negron reached under the counter, balancing himself with one hand, and took out a cracker tin. Inside it was a greasy rag, and inside the rag was an old, dented .38 revolver. “Sometimes there’s trouble,” he said. “You need any help, I got this. Okay?”

  The gun looked evil to Iris, as if it had its own heartbeat, its own ugly soul. She watched her daughter, who was staring at the parrot. “I don’t like those things, Negron,” she said.

  He nodded. “In case,” he said, putting it away.

  Walking home, Iris thought about some of the ladies at the elementary school where she used to work who liked to play the numbers. She went to visit them the next day. “So you got your own numbers game,” said Mrs. Killian in a thick South Carolina accent. Killian was a large black woman who taught second grade. “You’re an enterprising woman, Iris. I like that. I always play 731, because the first time I hit the numbers it was July 31. So I’ll play that straight and combination.”

  “Ay, Iris, god bless you,” said Olga, another one of her old coworkers. “The woman I used to play with moved to Queens. I hope you bring me luck!”

  * * *

  A few days later, Iris got back from the school with Nancy, and the girl’s father was sitting on the couch in the living room, having a beer. The light was off, but his sad, handsome face was lit by the television.

  “Papi!” Nancy jumped on the couch and hugged her father around the neck. He kept his eyes on the TV. Iris turned on the light.

  “What’s new?” he said to Iris.

  “I hit the number.”

  “Baya. Let’s go celebrate! We could go to the Copa.”

  “Asi?” she said, pointing to her belly. “No, thank you. That’s my money. I’m going to start my own bolita, I decided.”

  “What you gonna do that for?”

  The little girl tried to sit in his lap. The father sipped his beer.

  “So I can make some money. In a little while, I’ll have enough to buy a restaurant.”

  “That’s crazy. Pregnant women are crazy. They get crazy ideas.”

  “Don’t call me crazy, Juan,” Iris said.

  “What if somebody hits big. They’ll take your whole bank.”

  Iris had met Juan years ago at a club. He got her pregnant but he wouldn’t marry her. He hung around, giving her some money for a while. He got her pregnant again but then hadn’t given her any money in months. Iris would tell him she needed to buy groceries and pay rent, but she got tired of asking and knew she would get the money on her own anyway, somehow. She fought with him, but not so much she would push him away.

  “That’s not gonna happen,” she said. “No one’s gonna hit that much.”

  “And what about Benny?”

  “I don’t got to worry about Benny. He doesn’t notice the little people trying to make a little money.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  Nancy squirmed on her father’s lap. “Papi, are you coming to see me sing?”

  Juan moved his daughter off of him and got up. “Get me another beer,” he said to Iris.

  “Get it yourself.”

  He got up and went to the kitchen, where Iris was smothering the defrosted pork chops with adobo.

  “You’re a rich woman now. You can support me,” he said, turning on the radio. A slow, melancholy love song was starting. Iris heard it and cursed under her breath.

  “You never supported me,” she said.

  “I don’t want to argue, baby.”

  Just as she thought he would, Juan took Iris in his arms and began to dance slowly with her, humming to the old Johnny Albino song. Iris was stiff at first, then her body melted and she molded herself to his body, her round belly up against his taut stomach.

  “You’re my baby, and you got my baby in there.”

  They danced slowly in place, shuffling on the kitchen linoleum. Nancy watched from the doorway and giggled, covering her mouth.

  * * *

  Every morning Iris picked up the morning and evening editions of the Daily News. Two three-digit hit numbers came out every day. The daily number came from the track handle—the amount of money bet at the races—at whatever track was featured in the News that morning. The nightly number came from the handle at Yonkers.

  When Nancy was at school, Iris would sit by the phone and her customers would call in. Maribel would play only a quarter every day on 561. Mrs. Killian would play up to ten dollars in numbers, and always 731.

  That first week Iris made a hundred dollars.

  She went to the kitchen cabinet and took down the ceramic pitcher she’d received as a bonus when she’d worked for the Prince Spaghetti factory in the neighborhood. It had closed a long time ago. She kept her money inside the pitcher in a tight roll, wrapped by a rubber band. She sat down and laid out her original six hundred dollars and her newest earnings on the table. She lit a cigarette and looked at the neat piles. The radio was on low.

  “My god,” she said.

  If this kept up she would have no problem paying rent, for the first time in months. It meant, she hoped, that she wouldn’t have to go crying back to Guayama ever again. She had worked for this. So what if it was illegal? Everybody was a crook. Everything was okay as long as she didn’t get caught.

  “Wow, Mami.”

  It
was Nancy, standing in the dark doorway.

  “You should be sleeping.”

  “That’s a lot of dollars.”

  “That’s right. This is our money. This is for us.”

  “And for Papi. And my baby brother.”

  Iris lit a cigarette. “Go to sleep, Nancy, please.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  Iris got up and poured a glass of milk for her daughter. As her daughter drank it, she said, “You want to go shopping tomorrow?” Iris said. “We can go downtown to McCrory’s and the toy store and get you a new dress for when you sing.”

  “Really really?”

  “Really. Now go to bed.”

  “How about Papi? Is he coming for the play?”

  The girl’s father hadn’t called or come around all week.

  “Ay, Nancy. You know your father.”

  “I miss Papi. I want him to see me sing.”

  Iris barely remembered her own father. All she had was an old picture that someone had crumpled up.

  With a cigarette dangling from her mouth, Iris brushed her daughter’s hair with her hands. She began to make pigtails. “I know, m’ija. I know.”

  “I’m going to sing ‘Silent Night’ just for Papi. I learned all the words.”

  “That’s good,” Iris said. “You got a beautiful voice. Why don’t you sing it for me now?”

  “Okay, Mami.”

  Her daughter began singing in a tiny voice. She was very shy and her voice rose barely above a whisper. So Iris began to sing with her, and soon Nancy got louder, and then both of them sang. They sang the song through three times, loud, louder than the radio.

  Afterward, she put Nancy to bed, and then Iris went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. Then she put it down. She wanted a beer but instead poured herself a glass of milk. She shut off the radio then picked up the phone again.

  Juan sounded tired, half asleep. “Que?”