Bowie Ibarra [Down the Road] The Fall of Austin (epub)

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.She could not understand why her parents were yelling at each other; she just wished it would stop.“Please, Theresa.Let’s just eat.”The only solace he could find each and every day was reading to his baby girl, his little princess, each night before she went to bed.It was the perfect way to begin each night shift at the jail, where he was now directing Hector Arana to his cell.The iron bars of the cell door clanked shut.A small box on the front of the cell was unlocked, and Hector placed his bonded wrists through the door.Nick began to unlock the cuffs.“Oye.Puedo ayudar, amigo,” Hector whispered, weaving a web, tempting the fly.“Oyiste.” It was a measured offer for help.Hector was always very intuitive, and he somehow sensed Nick’s need.The perpetual frown Nick wore from the moment they met.The slumped shoulders.The sadness in his eyes.Hector had found a possible mark, and he wanted to make sure his seed of trust, his vie for an inside alliance, was planted.As the guards walked away, Deputy Officer Coleman turned to Nickand asked, “What did he say?”Nick felt a bit nervous at the query, mostly because he had quickly considered the offer in his mind.He felt caught, exposed as the prison inside man he was.Perhaps that was why the thug nicknamed ‘Sleepy’ had singled him out, took the chance to offer an alliance even in front of Nick’s boss.But it was clear Deputy Officer Coleman did not know Spanish.So Nick responded, nonchalantly, “He asked when chow is.”CHAPTER THREE5:31 PMDisturbance Call at Riverside Apartments“I’m still tired,” Derek said, sitting weary-eyed in the passenger seat of the white and blue Austin Police Department cruiser.The passing scenery went by almost completely unnoticed.“Didn’t you have a Red Bull before we came in?” Mike asked, behind the wheel.“I did, but then the wings fell off.They never tell you that part in the commercials.”“You should know that already; just like how McDonalds doesn’t tell you Big Macs make you fat, but everybody knows anyway.”“Its more the fries than the burgers.”“Well, a combination, you know?”“I swear they put MSG on those damn fries.I can’t stop eating them.”“The point is, who would actually put ‘our stuff is bad for you’ in their marketing campaign?”“Probably you, Mr.Honest Abe.”Mike chuckled.“Shut up, dude.”Officer Mike Runyard and his partner Derek Tucker had been on the clock for only thirty-one minutes, and already Mike knew it was going to be a long night.He knew Derek was going to evade as many calls as he could—maybe even try to convince Mike to cover for him while he slept.Their adrenaline from the big bust the night before hadn’t worn off all through the day, making it very difficult to catch any sleep.Now they wished they had used some pharmaceutical sleeping aids.The duo was in line for commendations, as well as several other privileges from administration, but Mike didn’t dare ask for the day off.He felt it would make him look like a pansy, requesting someone to take his shift just because he had exerted himself the night before.Oh, poor baby, he mused, did you actually have to do your job last night? Does that make you think you deserve a day off?The bust turned out to be the biggest bust in the history of Austin, which also made it the biggest in Travis county.It was actually on par with many of the large busts on the border.It was quite a boost for the department’s morale.The Austin American Statesman had interviewed Mike and Derek briefly before they hit the beat.It was nice for the department to have such positive exposure compared to the highly visible lawsuits by the ACLU, LULAC, and other alphabet soup organizations fighting for citizen’s rights against alleged violations by the Austin Police Department.Mike turned the cruiser onto Riverside.“Did you ask for nights?” he asked.“We always work nights,” Derek replied.“I could do for a day shift myself.”“Nothing happens during the day but car wrecks.”“People get murdered during the day, too.”“You mean they find murders during the day.”Mike passed the Taqueria Vallarta #3.Derek licked his lips and said, “Hey, we should eat there for dinner break.”Mike didn’t answer right away.He was preoccupied trying to make sense of the night and day shift differences.Further, he realized his previous assumption had been correct—that Derek was going to be useless today.Hell, he was already thinking about food and was coming across as edgierthan usual.“I mean, I guess those bank robberies count for something,” Mike finally said.“But there’s no high speed chases at night.”“There are high speed chases at night.I’ve seen them on Fox’s World’s Craziest Car Crashes.”“I’ve never had one at night.”“You’ve never been in a high speed chase ever,” Derek jabbed.Taking a deep breath and ignoring the subtle cutdown, Mike turned the cruiser onto Willow Lake Drive.Something caught Mike’s attention as they turned the corner.“Oh, Taco Bell.Let’s eat there instead.”“You’d eat corporate Mexican food over authentic Mexican food?” Derek challenged.“It can’t be authentic unless we’re in Mexico [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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