Tomás Reports Back


Tomás Reports Back

Tomás doesn’t make the call outside.

Outside is for witnesses.

He walks until the river smell thins and the buildings stop pretending they’re temporary. A narrow storefront squats between a closed tailor and a produce wholesaler that never uses its front door. No sign. Just frosted glass and a buzzer that hasn’t worked since Reagan.

He knocks anyway.

Three beats.
Pause.
Two more.

The door opens just enough to recognize him. Then wider. Then gone again behind him.

A Room That Remembers Hands

Inside smells like coffee that’s been reheated too many times and paper that knows secrets. Maps on the wall — not tourist maps. Flood maps. Property lines. Old ink fading into newer pencil.

At the back, on a scarred wooden desk, sits a black rotary phone. Heavy. Anchored. The kind you don’t slam because it slams back.

Tomás lifts the receiver.

No dial tone.

He waits.

A click. Then breath.

“Talk,” the voice says.

Tomás keeps his eyes on the maps.

“He’s still sharp,” he says. “Older. Worn. But he hasn’t forgotten the exits.”

A chair creaks somewhere on the other end. Not close to the phone. That matters.

“He say anything?”

“He admitted proximity,” Tomás says. “Not action.”

Silence. Someone pouring something. Glass, not paper.

“And the detective?”

Tomás hesitates just enough to be honest.

“She’s closer than she looks,” he says. “Not chasing him. Letting the city pull her.”

That earns a longer quiet. The kind that goes past listening and into remembering.

The Families That Learned the Delta

“We’ve been here a long time,” the voice says finally. Softer now. Not weaker.

Tomás nods, though nobody can see him.

He knows the history.

Late 1800s. Delta land nobody else wanted. Too wet. Too mean. Too honest. Planters needed men who knew soil that fought back. Italians came — Sicilians mostly — families with names that sounded wrong to English mouths but right to the earth.

They farmed where others quit.
They buried where others fled.
They learned the river faster than most.

“You don’t survive the Delta,” the voice says.
“You learn how it keeps score.”

“Yes,” Tomás says. “Sir.”

Old Power, New Noise

“The cops still think in gangs,” the voice continues. “Crews. Colors. Headlines.”

A soft, humorless chuckle.

“We think in families,” it says. “Routes. Deeds. Kitchens. Time.”

Tomás shifts his weight.

“Mercer understands that,” he says. “That’s why he’s dangerous.”

“No,” the voice corrects gently. “That’s why he’s useful.”

“And Tracy?”

A pause. Shorter. Sharper.

“She’s not ours,” the voice says. “That makes her unpredictable.”

Tomás doesn’t ask what happens next.

The voice gives it anyway.

“If she crosses the wrong line,” it says, “she’ll learn why the river remembers names.”

Instructions, Not Advice

“Leave Mercer alone,” the voice says.

Tomás stiffens.

“Viper and Snake won’t like that.”

“They don’t need to,” the voice replies. “They’re new money pretending they’re permanent.”

That lands heavy.

“And Rook?” Tomás asks.

A breath. Not regret. Something older.

“Rook forgot the first Delta rule,” the voice says.
“You don’t prove the land is crooked. You already know.”

The line goes dead.

No click.
No goodbye.

Just silence returning to where it belongs.

Tomás Steps Back Into the City

He hangs up the receiver carefully. Sets it back into its cradle like it’s sleeping.

Outside, the river keeps moving — brown, patient, carrying more history than anyone wants to admit.

Somewhere upriver, a family name is spoken quietly over breakfast.
Somewhere downriver, another one stops being said.

Tomás opens the door.

Bluff City takes him back without comment.

Old work waits.

If you want next, we can:

  • Let D. Less stumble into one of these old places without knowing what it is
  • Watch Viper & Snake realize they’re muscle, not lineage
  • Or peel back a family name tied to the Delta farms

You’ve got this thing humming now 🖤

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