Roachkiller and Other Stories Read online

  Abuelita must be like eighty. She got thick glasses, shaded and shit, which is good because she got one mean-as-hell-looking dead eye. But that lady is a tiger, and sharp as steel. She give Roachkiller a hug like Roachkiller never did nothing wrong, like I came back from a week at camp and shit. She started cooking right away. Roachkiller saw she was moving a little slower now, taking baby steps. But she didn’t want no help, screamed if Roachkiller moved.

  It was cool and dark in there. Roachkiller went to the window, to check outside. Old habit, see what I’m saying.

  “Cierra las cortinas,” Abuelita said. She got this phobia, thinking somebody’s gonna shoot through the window. It’s not funny because it happened once. So Roachkiller closed the curtains, walked away.

  “Adónde vas!?”

  “I gotta wash my hands, Abuela. I got prison dirt.”

  “Dios te bendiga. Go wash your hands!”

  She fed me chicharrones, arroz con gandules, and more platanos than an army of Dominicans could eat. After Roachkiller ate, Roachkiller knew he was gonna fall asleep. So Roachkiller went to the couch, before Abuelita yelled at Roachkiller to take the good bed.

  It was a couple days later, after another one of Abuelita’s giant meals, when Roachkiller was outside busting myself down with an ace on the stoop. Abuelita didn’t let Roachkiller smoke inside. I mean, Roachkiller killed him some seventeen guys, eye to eye sometimes, but Abuelita, she just smacked that shit out of my face. So Roachkiller went out to the stoop.

  It was hot as hell outside, lots of people out, walking up and down. The garbage cans smelled bad, but better than Riker’s. That’s when the kid came up to me. He was carrying a bag.

  “Roachkiller,” he said.

  Not just anyone calls Roachkiller “Roachkiller.” This kid was about to get his ass kicked.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said.

  “Whatchoo want?”

  “They said, they told me, well . . . I wanted to hire you.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Roachkiller stared at him, not mean or nothing, just “What the fuck?” The kid looked like he was about to cry.

  “My sister is in trouble,” he said. “There’s this bad man. Juan de la Cruz. He stays drunk on the stoop all the time. She’s going out with him. She’s smart, really. But he’s going to bring her down.”

  Again—“What the fuck?”

  “She was supposed to finish high school. But he stopped her. And she was going to join the army. But he made her quit. Now she keeps saying she’s going to get a job, but she don’t do nothing.”

  Old story. Same shit happened to my moms. People like that are like addicts. Can’t save them for shit.

  “Fuck.”

  Kid’s eyes got all wet. “It’s not just her. She steals money from my mother. She takes things. My mother can’t take it. She’s too old. I don’t want Mami to die.”

  “Damn, kid. Whatchoo want me to do about it?”

  “The old men on the street, they said you would kill a man for almost nothing, that you would do it for a six-pack.”

  Then the kid held out the bag. Damn.

  “Please,” he said. “I don’t have any money.”

  “Then how’d you get the beer, little man. And now I think of it—how’d you get the beer? You’re fucking twelve.”

  “I saved up. Then I got a man to buy it. I had to give him money to get himself a beer.”

  “Shit,” Roachkiller said. “Get the fuck outta here, kid. Go home. Watch cartoons.”

  “My sister—”

  “Fuck your sister. Leave Roachkiller alone.”

  Boy look like he was going to cry again, then he turned around and started walking. But not before putting the bag with the six-pack into the trash. Then he walked to the building across the way and went inside. Never looked back.

  Roachkiller knows what you’re thinking. But there was a time Roachkiller would have killed a man for a six-pack. Even just one beer, if it was cold.

  * * *

  It was only a matter of time before Don Moncho came calling. Roachkiller had been looking for a bar, but all the old ones was closed. Too many dark places with rock music and shit. Roachkiller found this old social club called El Piterre on South 2nd. Woulda been nice to meet a mamita, you know what I’m saying. Good salsa music, some classics, on the jukebox. But nothing but old men in there. They wouldn’t even let you smoke in there. Roachkiller was outside busting an ace when this guy came up.

  He said, “Let me get a cigarette.”

  Roachkiller gave him a bone.

  “Let me get a light.”

  Roachkiller got out his silver lighter. But then the motherfucker kicked Roachkiller in the balls, grabbed the lighter, and ran.

  “Motherfuck,” Roachkiller said and started running after the guy.

  But a building stopped Roachkiller. It was Quique, Don Moncho’s man. He put his hand on Roachkiller’s shoulder and Roachkiller might as well have tried to move a mountain.

  “Let him go,” he said.

  “You know that guy?”

  “Juan de la Cruz. Steals little shit. A waste of your time.”

  “Don Moncho wants to see Roachkiller,” Roachkiller said.

  “Don Moncho wants to see you.”

  * * *

  Back in the day Don Moncho had his own club. He had a pool table in the back, and he played morning, noon, night. He coulda been a famous pool player, if he wanted to. If he asked you to play, you had to, even though you knew he would beat you every time.

  But there was no pool table this time. This time Quique went to an apartment on Roebling, above a laundromat. Each time you took a step it got hotter and hotter. Quique opened the door and it was like a fucking steam bath.

  Don Moncho was a great man in his day. But now he was on a couch, in sweatpants and a blanket. Little TV set on. Smelled like old pee in there.

  “Roberto,” Don Moncho said. Roachkiller could barely hear him.

  We caught up, about the old times and shit. But Roachkiller doesn’t want to waste his time or the time of a man like Don Moncho.

  “Listen, Don Moncho, no disrespect, but before we get into what I think you want to get into, I gotta say, Roachkiller ain’t doing time, again. Never.”

  “Fuck you,” he said. He was old but his balls still had hair. “I invited you here to give you something.”

  “My apologies, Don Moncho,” Roachkiller said. Roachkiller was trying to keep cool, but Don Moncho don’t give shit to nobody for nothing.

  “When you was away something very bad happen,” he said. “Your abuelita, she probably didn’t tell you. She was living all alone, and a man, he came in to take her money. You were not there to protect her. He broke in, she was there, and, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, he violated her.”

  “Madre de dios.” Roachkiller was crying like that stupid boy, crying, crazy, busting mad. I was gonna explode.

  “I have his name,” Don Moncho said. “I know where he lives.”

  “Tell me that motherfucker’s name,” I said. “Tell me that motherfucker’s name now!”

  I felt Quique’s big stone hand on my shoulder. Roachkiller had to calm down.

  “I will tell you all you need,” Don Moncho said. “But first I need a favor.”

  * * *

  Roachkiller went to his Abuelita’s house, just sat down at the kitchen and didn’t say shit. She was watching some game show and shit. She got right up, made café con leche and a buttered roll, put them right in front of me. We just sat there. Not talking. I looked at her. She looked at me.

  “Quieres jugar domino?” she said.

  “Muerto, quieres misa?” Roachkiller said. Of course. Roachkiller don’t back down from a dominoes game. See, that lady loves her dominoes. She kills in that game. Swear to god, that dead eye must give her X-ray vision.

  She got the dominoes out, the nice ivory ones with the PR flag on the back. She mixed them up on the table, and we each took our
seven. Bam! Right away she started with the double six. It was on.

  “So, Abuelita,” Roachkiller said, after a while. “You told me all about the family. But what you been up to? You never said nothing about you.”

  “You got the double five,” she said. “Lo veo todo.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Embustero,” she said.

  “So how you been?” Roachkiller said.

  “My fingers hurt me a lot, nene,” she said. “And my leg pinch me.”

  “The old aches and pains, huh, Abuelita.”

  “Si, mijo,” she said, then slammed down a three-five. “Now you got to put the double five.”

  “But you never get no trouble, living in this old building, in this bad neighborhood?”

  Then she looked up from her dominoes. In her one good eye was the saddest look. Like all her life was not there. It was just for a second. And then it was back, like it was on fire.

  “Your abuelita is fine. Now put down the double five.”

  Right then Roachkiller knew, knew from the look on her face, the way she sounded, that Don Moncho was not making up some story.

  So Roachkiller put that double five out.

  “Te lo dije,” Abuelita said. “Lo veo todo.”

  She won one, two, three after that. That was all right. Abuelita was everything, God bless her. She never did no one no wrong.

  Roachkiller was a little punk when he was a boy. Stole, fought, sold drugs. Abuelita, she knew. But she didn’t say anything. Turned the other way. Then what happened, the thing Roachkiller was best at, that he had mad skills for, was killing. It just came easy. Don Moncho caught on to that, and Roachkiller had steady work for a long time. If Roachkiller wanted to do it anymore now didn’t matter. There was one more man Roachkiller had to make dead. D-E-A-D.

  * * *

  Don Moncho, he was being hassled by a landlord. Ain’t that funny for a man who used to run the neighborhood? But things change. A lot of old-timers still respected him, but the new people coming in, buying up houses and shit, they didn’t give a fuck who he was. They just saw an old spic.

  The landlord’s name was Michael Raskin, and he lived on the Upper East Side. Roachkiller got in there as a maintenance man. Some shit never changes.

  Roachkiller rode up the elevator, no one looking. Found the door, tripped the lock, got inside. It was mad quiet. Except for this dude’s air conditioner. He kept it running all day. Sweet cool in that nice-ass place. Nice thick rug all the way through, big-ass TV in the main room. But the kitchen was smaller than a bathtub. Rich motherfucker probably ate at restaurants all the time.

  Big pictures on the table. Big bald guy with a goatee. That was the guy. Roachkiller waited in the bedroom.

  The landlord came in, talking. He wasn’t alone. Some chick was with him. Not the scene Roachkiller wanted to play. But if that’s the way it had to be. That’s why Roachkiller had some of Abuela’s old stockings. One went over Roachkiller’s head.

  Chances are the girl would head to the bathroom, the guy to the kitchen or big-ass TV.

  “I need a drink,” the girl said.

  “I gotta go to the can,” the guy said.

  Okay, other way around.

  Roachkiller stood behind the door. When the guy came, Roachkiller got the knotted-up stockings around the guy’s throat. Held tight. Kicked the door closed. The guy was big. Hit back with his elbows two, three times.

  Felt something crack.

  Held tight.

  He pushed Roachkiller back into a lamp. It smashed. “Mike, you okay?” The girl banging on the door. Up against the wall now, still holding tight, feeling something in his throat give.

  “Mike?”

  He was down on the floor, done, Roachkiller thought. But that guy was strong. He was up again, took a swipe at Roachkiller, tore half the stocking off. Got him back by the stocking around his throat again. Tight. Tight.

  Snap.

  The girl was screaming now, wild and shit, making no sense. Loud. Not cool. Roachkiller was only here to kill the guy. Just the guy. But Roachkiller couldn’t let this lady call the cops. Even if she only saw another Puerto Rican face behind a ripped pair of his grandmammi’s stockings. Couldn’t take the risk. See what I’m saying.

  Damn.

  Roachkiller yanked the door. She was about to scream. The pillow was the fastest way. A pillow in her face then with a fist behind it. Down on the floor. She was feisty. Pretty, too. But Roachkiller was not going back to jail.

  No way was Roachkiller going back to jail.

  * * *

  Next day, the Daily News did a story on Raskin. Roachkiller was reading it on the stoop. Another hot fucking day. They called it a botched robbery. The mayor knew the guy. Said it was a shame.

  Roachkiller was about to go upstairs, but saw, across the street, that kid again, getting slapped around by that guy, de la Cruz.

  Roachkiller walked across.

  “Yo, leave the kid alone.”

  “What the fuck you got to step into my business for?” de la Cruz said. He didn’t recognize Roachkiller.

  The kid took off meanwhile.

  “You’re right,” Roachkiller said. “It’s not my business.”

  “So fuck off.”

  “Easy. Take it easy. This is me fucking off.”

  So Roachkiller went up to Abuelita’s for dinner then later back out to enjoy an ace. De la Cruz was slumped up on the stoop, snoring.

  There was the kid again now, walking, scared, trying just to get up the stairs and into his house.

  “Kid,” Roachkiller said. “Get the fuck over here.”

  He was scared but he came. Roachkiller handed him cash.

  “Get a six-pack.”

  “What kind of beer you like?” he said. He looked happy to be doing something for me. Punk.

  “It’s not for me,” Roachkiller said. “Buy any old six-pack and leave it next to my man over there on the stoop.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask questions, peckerhead. Do it.”

  * * *

  Miguel Peralta was an addict who hung out by the waterfront off Grand Street. You can see Manhattan from there, big and silver and shit, and watch the tugboats on the river. They got park benches there, but mostly it’s rocks and dogshit and crack vials. Sometimes white people go there to picnic. Roachkiller will never understand those motherfuckers. But most days it’s empty, and that’s where Peralta went to get high.

  It was almost too easy. Roachkiller had to wait up till five a.m. till the cop left. The timing had to be right. Roachkiller walked outside, and there was de la Cruz still sleeping it off, six empty beer cans next to his ass.

  People make it easy for you to kill them. They walk alone at night. They don’t lock their windows. They talk to strangers in clubs. You can throw shit in their drink that’ll kill them long before they think of the asshole who bumped into them at the bar. You can bang them up, one, two, three, and never get no blood on you. You can shoot them from a block away and still have time to finish your McDonald’s. Killing is easy. Dealing with the evidence, that’s hard. ’Specially with cops around.

  Peralta liked to get high on the piers as the sun came up. Fucking romantic. And stupid. He was all alone, sitting on a rock. The man who attacked Abuelita.

  Walked up to him, two shots in the face. Took whatever money and drugs he had. Threw the gun into the garbage a block away, threw my gloves in the sewer ten blocks away.

  Roachkiller felt good, felt clean. But not free, not no more.

  * * *

  Abuelita had some serious breakfast waiting for Roachkiller. Eggs, platanos, spam, and the best fucking café con leche. Roachkiller first went to the bedroom, made a quick phone call. Then Roachkiller came out, gave Abuela a long hug, and when she looked at my eyes, Roachkiller had to turn.

  “Dios te bendiga, mijo,” she said and told me to sit down and eat.

  Before Roachkiller finished breakfast, here come the sirens. Abuela s
top for a second, she look at Roachkiller, Roachkiller be looking at his coffee. Whistling.

  Roachkiller knew without looking, the cops were waking up de la Cruz from his beauty sleep. Motherfucker. “Hey, buddy, hey, buddy, wake the fuck up!” De la Cruz be in cuffs in five seconds, in the cop car in ten. Still half asleep probably.

  He’ll get plenty more chance to get beauty sleep in jail, what with his prints on the gun and all. Not really a good idea to get drunk and sleep so deep out in the street. Won’t hear Roachkiller sneaking up on you, putting your prints on a gun, or whatever, see what I’m saying.

  Couple days later, though, was Roachkiller’s turn.

  Getting home from the bodega, two cop cars outside the apartment. Roachkiller looked up. The curtains in Abuela’s kitchen window was open. There she was, talking to somebody.

  The girl might have still been alive.

  Or Roachkiller left something behind in that landlord’s place.

  Or they traced it back to Moncho and then back to Roachkiller.

  Cops be here soon enough. Time to bust out. God bless you, Abuelita. Take it easy.

  Roachkiller saw the kid again, staring at him.

  “Kid!”

  He didn’t say nothing.

  “Wait for the cop cars to go, then bring this upstairs to the lady in 4B.”

  Roachkiller put money in the bag, gave the kid twenty bucks for his trouble.

  “Thank you, Ro—. Thank you, mister.”

  “Forget it.”

  Roachkiller took the train to the City, took a half hour to find a working pay phone. “Joselito, how you doing, man?”

  GhostD

  Eulogio Vega thought about maybe working out. Then he thought about maybe playing Metroid Prime. But as he moved toward the video game, the doorbell rang. “Marvelous,” he said.