The Benefit of the Doubt

by J. B. Hogan

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

Chuy shook his head as if it had become entangled in some unseen cobweb. The concrete ribbon of highway approaching El Centro stretched out before him. He unintentionally slowed his vehicle, releasing pressure on the gas pedal without fully realizing it.

Seeing a wide space by the side of the road he guided the car out of traffic. He stopped a few feet off the pavement and rested for a moment. What in the world had just happened? Had he had a vision? Had he somehow gone somewhere, to some other place, at some other time?

One thing was for sure. He was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and shame. How could he be such a coward, such a turncoat? How could he betray a friend like Emiliano? Even when he knew that friend had done wrong, had perhaps become bad.

It was all a relative thing. Wrong or bad to whom? What was more important: friendship, trust, your own self-respect, or the absolute letter of the law — the law that he had sworn to uphold?

Well, Chuy thought, I have come this far. I have been sent to do a job. I must see it through. I have to find out from Emiliano himself and then I will make my decision. Then I will choose. Slowly pulling back out onto the highway, he headed for El Centro and the last known location he had for Emiliano.

* * *

The Gato Negro Bar and Billiards Hall was a block west of Imperial Avenue, the first exit in El Centro and the road that would tie up with Highway 86 running north to Imperial and Brawley. Chuy parked his car on the street just down from the Gato Negro and put his police pistol under the driver’s seat. If he didn’t carry it with him, he couldn’t use it.

Coming in out of the bright sunlit day, Chuy found the bar was totally dark. He paused inside the door to adjust his eyes to the light before walking on into the club. He heard some men talking and the cracking sound of pool balls being hit. Just as he was regaining his vision, a man appeared directly in front him.

“May I help you, señor?” the man asked.

Chuy could make out that the man was short, very stocky and, from the tone of his voice, a person who was used to being listened to.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Chuy explained, now able to see the man better. He was indeed a very thick man, with a bulge under one shoulder that was not muscle-related. A couple of other men in the place were also taking note of Chuy’s presence.

“Aren’t we all?” the man said, without humor.

“Emiliano,” Chuy said. “I’m looking for Emiliano.”

“Yes?” the man said.

“Tell him it is Chuy, his partner.”

“Un momento,” the man said.

He started to walk towards the bar when a voice familiar to Chuy stopped the man in his tracks.

“It’s okay, Hector,” Chuy heard his friend and partner Emiliano call out from back by the pool tables. “No problem. We are friends.”

“Muy bien, jefe,” Hector said, turning back to face Chuy. “You don’t mind?” he asked, frisking Chuy carefully. “Gotta be safe.”

“Gotta be,” Chuy said, offering no resistance.

“He’s clean, boss,” Hector said.

“Thank you, Hector,” Emiliano said, coming up to the two men.

As the two police partners greeted each other, Hector stood off to one side, a hand not far from the bulge in his coat.

“I knew you would come for me,” Emiliano told Chuy, after the old friends had shaken hands.

“Me or someone else,” Chuy said, matter of factly.

“You believe the things they say about me, then?” Emiliano asked.

“I make no judgment,” Chuy replied.

“And yet you are here.”

“I had to be here.”

“To see if it was true?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, is it true?”

“What would you do,” Emiliano asked, “if it was?”

“Before today,” Chuy explained to his friend, “I would have arrested you, taken you back. Now....”

“Now?”

“Now, I haven’t yet made up my mind.”

“If I told you that everything bad you heard about me was true,” Emiliano said, “that I had done all the bad things they say. What then? What would you do? Are you here to take me back?”

“I’m here because it was my job,” Chuy said. “I was sent here to clean up this ‘situation’.”

“Did they send you to kill me?” Emiliano asked, an eyebrow raised.

“He don’t have a gun, boss,” Hector interjected.

“He wouldn’t need one,” Emiliano said. Hector moved his hand closer to the bulge in his jacket. Emiliano waved him off. “What’ll it be?” he again addressed Chuy. “Make a choice. It’s now or never. You decide. You choose.”

Chuy took a deep breath. He thought about his friend’s predicament, his own. He remembered the vision of his betrayal in the odd experience he had had on the road down from San Diego. The choice he faced was too hard now, too hard. He couldn’t live with being the kind of man who turned on a close friend, one who put duty above fraternity. Not anymore. Someone else would have to bust Emiliano. Someone else would have to bring him to justice. It would not be him, not Jesus Guajardo.

And he understood the choice he was making. He understood its consequences, how it would be seen by his superiors, his fellow officers. But there was nothing to be done about it. He was not the same man he’d been when he left San Diego. He could no longer live by the book — and he knew what that would mean for him and his career.

Without another word, he turned away from Emiliano and walked out of the bar. Outside, it was still very hot and Chuy felt the sweat begin to pop out on his back. Climbing into his car, he buckled up, pulled his shirt away from his body, and cranked the engine. Behind him, Emiliano and Hector stood just outside the door of the Gato Negro watching. Hector still had one hand near that bulge in his jacket.

Chuy saw them in his peripheral vision as he drove down the street back to Imperial Avenue, but he did not look at them directly. When he turned right to return to the interstate, he glanced over but the men were no longer in front of the bar. Releasing a deep breath, Chuy drove on, on through town and out to I-8.

Turning right onto the San Diego exit, Chuy tried to let the emotions of this strange and critical day in his life drain from his body like the sweat produced by the Imperial Valley heat. Turning up his air conditioner, he drove back towards San Diego, on towards an uncertain future.

About the time he reached Plaster City, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his detective’s badge. He looked it over for a moment, considered it carefully and then tossed it casually onto the seat beside him. It rode there all the way back to San Diego. Upon his return, he would leave it on Carranza’s desk.