Painkiller

“I already knew you didn’t like it,” he said.

6

Cooper didn’t like to moor his boat in San Juan harbor, so despite his hatred of the airline he caught the early American Eagle flight into San Juan’s Luis Muñoz Marin International, easily the worst airport in the Western Hemisphere but still better than the harbor. He chose a red convertible Mustang at the rental counter and took the shuttle to the lot, a process that only took ninety minutes from counter to street.

That put him around nine-thirty as he pulled into a convenient red zone in front of the San Juan Police Department. Once inside, he waved at the desk sergeant, who didn’t know him, and walked into the squad room. He approached the desk of Detective Manolo Pérez, who was sitting there sipping a Burger King coffee.

Pérez, who went by Ma

Cooper was wearing a banana yellow Tommy Bahama short-sleeve shirt featuring green illustrations of parrots. “The hell are you, Ma

“They let you just waltz right in?” Ma

“Been told I look like a cop,” Cooper said. “Lucky me.”

He noticed Ma

“Looks like you’re working that big homicide case,” Cooper said. “Reviewing the file, following up on some leads to start the day. Hell, maybe you’ll even give it some more thought while you’re having some plantain chips and a couple of Miller Genuine Drafts on your three-hour lunch. You’ll be taking that lunch in what, about an hour?”

Eyes shifty, taking in the squad room, Ma

Cooper deposited himself in the chair alongside Ma

Cooper set the snapshot of the tattoo on the empty desk and pushed it over.

“Nineteen-year-old kid washed up on the beach in Road Town,” he said. “Had that tattooed on his neck.”

“And I care about this why?”

Cooper looked at him. He gave Ma

“He was shot in the back,” Cooper said after a while. “Had both legs broken, like maybe he jumped off the tenth floor of a building trying to get away. Could have been using, but was probably getting shot up by somebody, I’m guessing heroin. Mark on his neck is a voodoo sign.”

Almost involuntarily, Ma

“Not for you.”

Ma

“Maybe not,” Cooper said, “but they might know who does.”

Ma

Cooper said, “You know, this kid could have been a mule. Or hell, maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see. Any way you look at it, somebody wanted him pretty dead. Means to me somebody had something to hide. Probably something worth hiding.”

Ma

“There’s a cop I know here in San Juan,” Cooper said, “possessed of a keen olfactory nerve. Where others blindly pursue justice, or arrests, he also knows when a case presents an opportunity to pad his numbered account in the Caymans.”

Ma

“You show me that picture,” he said, “you don’t even need to tell me the story. The smell of money ain’t what’s coming off that one. You know what that picture smells like? An outhouse, ese. Smells like you’re knee-deep in shit.”

He stood up.

“Fuck you, Cooper. I’ll give you a couple hours, but that’s it. I got that lunch to get to.”

Cooper entertained himself by waiting to see whether Ma

The sunglassed Ma

“Shitty seats,” he said. “Listen, ese, I’ll meet you inside-and I may need to spread some goodwill. Know what I’m saying?”

“Bill me,” Cooper said. He handed his ticket to a stout old man in a red vest and pushed through the turnstile.

The cool blast of the gallera’s air-conditioning system dried his sweaty skin. He flagged down a girl in a halter top and short-shorts slinging a concessions tray, bought a beer from her, pulled down a few ounces of it, and thought that if he had to wait for Ma

He found the hall that led to the ring; it was lit like a Best Buy. A velvet rope kept you a couple feet back from the glass, but even standing on the other side of the rope you could poke your head in, almost against the window, and get a good look at the birds. The walls in the narrow hall were composed of cages, each about two feet square, stacked in three rows, so that the top row of roosters stared back at you from eye level.

Cooper found one of the noon combatants and scoped the gamecock out, leaning in until his face was an inch from the glass. The rooster stood his ground. Cooper thought the foot-tall bird looked like somebody had just given him a haircut and removed his pants-the feathers on his wings and neck were slicked back, his legs and tail plucked, the skin red, swollen, greased. There was a splash of gold in the feathers of the rooster’s neck, Cooper thinking this was one proud-looking bird, his handlers unable to make a fool of him despite the plucking. He found the second fighter, a smaller, fatter, relatively unkempt bird, his feathers a mottled black and white. This one bobbed hyperactively around his cage.

Cooper decided to go with the black-and-white scrapper-unless the fix is in, he thought, I’m walking out of here a few grand to the good.

The handlers pulled the two birds out of their cages, taking them into the back room. Peering through the empty cage of the black-and-white bird, Cooper caught a glimpse of Ma

Cooper took his seat while the birds were positioned beneath Plexiglas boxes on the artificial turf of the cockpit. The roosters were going crazy, trying to get at each other with the sharp wooden espuelas their handlers had strapped to each leg. Cooper had heard that gamecocks were fed a pregame meal of brandy and coffee, Cooper thinking he’d be whacking away at the box too-pants off, legs greased, drunk and java-juiced, about to get gouged to death if you didn’t strike first. Bring it on.