Revenge is Wild Justice by Gary Ives

Revenge is Wild Justice by Gary Ives

Arthur rattled the old cowbell he’d lifted from the table beside his cot. Minutes later, Lopez quietly entered holding a flashlight.

“Señor? You okay?”

“Help me to the toilet Gabriel, then roll me a fatty. Please.”

“Dolor?”

“Oh, yeah. Big time.”

It wasn’t advanced age or a good behavior parole, no; it was terminal stage-four lung cancer that had delivered Arthur Quale a hospice release from Sheridan Federal Prison. His severe 40-year sentence had been imposed after conviction for the 1997 Santa Anita betting window robbery. The seabag of cash prepared for the armored car pickup had never been recovered. It had been speculated by the press that the missing bag could have contained up to half a million dollars. At the yearly FBI interrogations in prison, Arthur Quale refused to talk about the missing cash, putting the kybosh on chances for parole. But now, with the terminal diagnosis and a new parole board empaneled, his niece had won a compassionate release by offering hospice care during Arthur Quale’s remaining days.

Raised poor by her single mother on welfare in San Pedro, Allison Rutgers grew up undisciplined, tough, and pretty. At 14, after her mother ran away with a trucker, she showed up one night at the doorstep of her bachelor uncle Arthur Quale, a trainer at the Santa Anita racetrack. His first words to her were, “How ‘bout you take that goddamn cigarette outta yer mouth.” Allison’s first words to him were “Fuck you. You’re not my dad.” It went downhill from there. To avoid juvenile detention after her third shop-lifting arrest, Arthur was able to place her in a youth apprenticeship at the track’s stables, a place in which she actually thrived. However, away from horses, a sultry, bitter nature made her difficult to be around, and nearly impossible to live with. But he tried. She was his fucked-up sister’s child and he felt responsible because she was blood. The ten o’clock curfew meant nothing to her. Even after a miscarriage at 15 she continued to slip out at every opportunity. Any conversation not involving horses was an argument. He was at his wit’s end dealing with the incorrigible girl. When he refused her request for home schooling, she called the child abuse hotline accusing Arthur of having beaten her. The trauma of the ensuing investigation frazzled his nerves. Ultimately he was cleared, but living with a loose cannon further unnerved and frightened the good man. What might she do next?! On the Saturday of the California Cup, Arthur hit the trifecta taking the payoff in cash from the betting window. Arriving home, a little drunk, he hid the wad of cash in the freezer. About two in the morning, after sneaking back in through her bedroom window, Allison went to the kitchen for ice cream. Gone the next morning were Allison and the money. Arthur suffered a nervous breakdown and lost his job at the track.

Allison’s rush into marriage to Dr. Ben Wasson, DDV was simply an escape plan, believing the police might be looking for her, but with a different name, living in a different county she felt safe. Ben, a large animal veterinarian had seemed like a sucker to Allison. First, he had money, and although 12 years older, bald and fat, he spent freely, and seemed crazy about her. He put a down payment on a beautiful little 16-acre ranch near Salinas where he had an established practice. So, she easily seduced him, then told him that he had knocked her up. A patient Catholic, who very much wished to start a family, Ben was suckered in.

Ben learned to put up with her dismissive, sarcastic behavior at home. He had done the right thing marrying Allison, only to learn that there had been no pregnancy. In bed she was cold and without passion. Sex with her was like sex with that blow up doll he had in college. They seldom spoke. Eventually he simply ignored her, and she him, their attachment to the ranch their only common bond. While Ben tended horses and cattle throughout the county, Allison started a small business giving riding lessons to the children of rich parents from Salinas and even Monterrey. However, Lopez, the hired man, did all the work: grooming, saddling, helping the customers onto the horses while the señora often belittled him in front of the children. “Move a little faster, Pancho, we aint got all day. Ándale there, Speedy.” At Dr. Ben’s suggestion, Lopez, a good carpenter, refurbished the barn’s stables to accommodate boarders but received never a word of thanks from the hard-nosed señora. He swallowed his pride because he was old and feared having to leave the ranch and start over. Fortunately, his girlfriends in Salinas knew how to comfort him. Juanita Sanchez had a little of the bruja in her and reading his palm had promised luck would change in Gabriel’s favor. “You just got to be patient and wait, mi amor.”

In the sixth year of this bad marriage, Allison learned of Ben’s penchant for weekends in San Francisco with young men, hired a private investigator to gather sordid evidence, then sued for divorce.

Ownership of the ranch passed to her as part of the divorce settlement. But without her husband’s income, management of the ranch was tenuous. When she told the Mexican that she could no longer continue paying his wage, he said that he understood and would stay on for whatever she could pay. Better times would surely come. “Okay Lopez, you can stay, but I am going to have to charge you rent for your trailer.”

Gabriel Lopez, an orphaned Terahumara Indian, grew up in misery on a poor ranch in Chihuahua, in brutal, abusive servitude. At 17 years of age, he assumed a new name and came across under the bracero program for seasonal work picking lettuce and grapes, never returning to Mexico where he was wanted for the murders of a certain Chihuahua ranchero and his foreman. Jobs in California were plentiful; there was money and for years life was good until he was seriously injured at the horse ranch near Eureka where he had worked for 18 years. Fearing that the hospital would contact immigration, he quietly slipped out on crutches at two in the morning. Later that day, hitchhiking south, he got a ride with a veterinarian who offered Lopez a job near Salinas. With this job, comfortable quarters, and girlfriends in town, he was content. The owner, Dr. Ben, was a good boss and even helped Gabriel to buy the used trailer he set up behind the stables. He grew to love this little rancho of which he knew every square foot. Working for Señor Ben would have been perfect, but the señora was arrogant, discourteous, and cold. Still, he loved living on the ranch. He could pay the greedy woman rent for a while. However, he worried that the señora might lose the ranch. The lady was okay with horses, but otherwise too stupid to run a ranch.

Arthur Quale had been front page news after his spectacular Saturday robbery of the Santa Anita betting windows on the day of the California Cup races. Newspapers described the bold robbery, the mysterious escape, and his later arrest at the Chula Vista border crossing. Arthur’s plea of not guilty by reason of temporary insanity was dismissed out of hand. It was a short trial, a quick conviction, with a long sentence because the money had not been recovered. Years after the robbery, FBI agents interviewed his niece Allison who had nothing to offer other than ‘she had been estranged from her uncle for years’. “Actually, I haven’t thought of Uncle Arthur for years,” she told the agents.

A $7000 judgement against her over the death of a boarded thoroughbred and an IRS audit’s discovery of a four-year-old mistake placed her in dire financial straits. She reconsidered Uncle Arthur, whom she had not spoken with since leaving years earlier with his $82,000 winnings. But now, considering the missing loot, there was a spark of hope, a tiny spark but worth a try. Hadn’t he always been soft-hearted? She arranged a visit. The potential of that missing loot made the trip to the Federal Correction Facility in Sheridan, Oregon a journey of hope. She reflected that her uncle had been decent to her through her difficult years, and that was then, but this was now. Hey, it could happen. She would lay on the charm. At the correctional facility, she was shocked to see how her uncle had aged. Confessing to having stolen his money and having been an absolute bitch of a teenager, Allison begged his forgiveness. She wasn’t sure, but he seemed receptive. To show her sincerity she promised to stay in touch and put money into his commissary account. He said that any kindness was appreciated. To show loyalty she would send a short letter or card once a month. Prison had aged him terribly and he looked unwell, but he seemed pleased to see her.

Then Arthur was diagnosed with terminal stage four lung cancer. She visited again. At his suggestion, she appealed for compassionate parole. Yes, she would happily care for him. Oh yeah, definitely yes.

Because he could not manage stairs, he chose to sleep in the tack room of the stables. “I want the sounds and smell of horses.” A cot was set up and it was only a short walk to the bathroom that had been installed for riding lesson customers. Daily, Allison would question Arthur about the missing money, eventually raising her voice and threatening him with a large veterinary syringe. But Lopez shielded Arthur and took care of the old gringo during his two months dying, bringing him hot soup, boiled eggs, and his medicines. If he soiled himself, Lopez would gently clean him and assuage the embarrassed man. He rolled joints for Arthur and the two smoked and drank rum in the evenings when Arthur was up to it. When he became too weak to walk, Lopez put him in a wheelbarrow and walked him to the pond to watch deer come to drink in the evening. The night before his death, he pressed into Lopez’s hand a map of a churchyard with an X at a corner just outside the cemetery’s main gate. “Amigo,” he whispered, “this little map, its got no value unless a person knows its location. Bend your ear close to my mouth, Gabriel. This is the graveyard of the Catholic church in El Monte. That’s not far from Santa Anita. Wait at least a few months; the FBI will be watching the señora, maybe you too. Pick a night with no moon; bring a shovel. Suerte, mi amigo.”

Gabriel Lopez bought the ranch at the foreclosure sale.He and his two girlfriends moved into the ranch house.  Allison, angry and distraught, swallowed her pride and asked to stay on to run her business.

“Let’s talk about the back pay you owe me. Also, I gotta tell you, the rent for use of my stables is $600 each month.”

“But Mr. Lopez, I don’t have that kind of money and now you are obviously rich. Rich with my uncle’s money that should have come to me! You don’t need it! And I have no other place to stay, goddamit!” He told the señora yes, she could live in the little trailer but would have to pay rent. If she chose to stay, he would enjoy making her life miserable for a while. It would be best, however, if she left. If Señora Allison were stupid enough to remain, he would take pleasure in killing her when the time was right..

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Copyright Gary Ives 2023