“Hang on,” Charles said, “I don’t control the Apaches. Who could? We want them run out just as bad as you. Lieutenant Governor Otero called them ‘fraudsters,’ and he’s probably right. But they’re a fact of life now, like a flooding river or . . .”
Otero cut him off. “You don’t need to make nature-based metaphors for our sake.”
Charles went red. His whole career had been one step forward and then two feet in his mouth. “What I mean is that we are all dedicated to working together. There are outside groups trying to slow us down—that’s a fact—but together we can get through this. Together.”
“Together seems to be the keyword there,” Luján said. “Let’s have five minutes of questions from the audience.”
A woman with round glasses and curly gray hair came up to the microphone.
“My name is Christine Morales and I run the Women’s Economic Initiative Program here in San Miguel.”
Charles knew he was in trouble when she stopped addressing him and turned her attention to the audience.
“Look, we don’t have to listen to them,” she said. “Maybe this is a sign that we should stop. Wash our hands and move on.”
“Ma’am, you can’t just move on.” Charles looked to the tribal council for help. “We have an agreement and construction is well underway.”
Luján leaned forward. “Mrs. Morales is concerned that the airport won’t actually provide jobs for the people of our tribe.”
“We tried to put it into the agreements,” Morales said. “But the council didn’t want to push too hard. Can you promise this project will actually benefit our most vulnerable citizens?”
The crowd nodded in agreement. Charles began to realize why Salazar had sent him. The tribe had been toyed with and lied to for hundreds of years. He thought of Branch, waiting in the wings to sweep up all the profits. They had no idea. Charles took a sip of the lukewarm water in front of him. He knew it made him look guilty. That was okay. He was.
“This project will bring many jobs to the region. I’m sure the tribe will be well represented and adequately compensated.”
“Let’s build a casino,” a man in the crowd shouted.
“No more outbursts,” Luján said. “Our time for questions is almost up and if the council has nothing more to add, I propose that we . . .”
“No, no, one more thing,” Morales said, walking towards the stage. “Sir, you don’t get it, and that’s okay, why would you? We have never viewed this land as something to dig up and pave over for money. Approving the sale was difficult. Painful. It’s painful to watch the trucks drive on and off the grounds. Painful to hear the digging all over town, to taste the dust in the air.”
“Christine, this is not the place,” Luján said. “Lt. Governor Otero and I will be meeting with Mr. Branch ourselves in the coming days. We’ll tell him our concerns.”
“I don’t know if you will, Sonny. We can’t trust this. I’ve spent my life trying to bring jobs out here, and I’m worried this isn’t the answer.”
She turned to Charles, who started folding up the statement and tried melting into his chair. “They won’t even look us in the eye.”
“I’m adjourning this meeting,” Luján said. “Thank you for attending. Thank you, Mr. O’Connell.”
The crowd made its way out the front door. Everyone who had been seated around Charles walked away without even a backwards glance. Charles wanted to check in with the governor, ask how he had done, but Luján shook his hand and turned away before releasing his grip. By the time Charles slipped out the side door, the meeting room was empty.
Mallon was waiting inside the town car.
“That could have been worse,” Charles said.
Mallon put the car in drive, and Charles noticed the phone pressed to his ear and the sour expression clinging to Mallon’s face.
“Sir, this is a sudden change. Are you quite sure . . .”
Mallon went quiet. Charles imagined Branch at the other end of the line, howling in anger. They turned right out of the tribal headquarters, opposite from the way they had entered. Charles’ eyes flicked towards the speedometer.
“I understand,” Mallon said. “Will you need me to help with this delivery?”
Mallon stayed on the line, quiet, for a few more seconds before lowering the phone.
Charles got the sense that Branch had hung up on him.
“What’s going on?” Charles smiled. “Last time I got a call like that, they’d found Geronimo at the airport.”
Mallon hunched forward and kept his eyes straight ahead. They were speeding down a two-lane highway Charles did not recognize. It led them to the interstate in less than five minutes.
THIRTY-ONE
AFTER LEAVING ROSE’S, Gabe sped home. He ran a light downtown and cut off half a dozen cars on the ride. At the house, he tried to roll a joint, but his hands were shaking and the weed kept slipping out the other end. He balled up the paper and threw it on the floor.
He wanted to punch holes in the walls, kick the doors off his dad’s perfect hinges, but the doors were too thick and wrecking the house would only be one more thing he would fail at.
Gabe sat at the table in Micah’s room. The papers on the desk looked childish and embarrassing. He flicked through them, knots growing in his stomach with each ridiculous page. There was nothing here. No wisdom, no story, nothing for Micah. At best, Gabe had four or five pages of stories that might make the kid crack a grin, call his dad a nut and then forget about him after he died.
Gabe wrecked the table. He tore some of the papers, smashed others into the carpet, broke half the pencils and left the room a mess. It felt good. Giving up felt good. He told himself Rose was a distraction and the papers were unnecessary. All he needed was some more cash.
He went back downstairs. He had some weed to sell.
One of Gabe’s great pleasures was the fact that Rey—fancy, college-educated, super lawyer Rey—lived in a house smaller than Gabe’s.
“How can you even stand it here?” Gabe always asked the same question. “Damn wetbacks and homeless dudes would turn their noses up at this.”
Rey held his stomach and pretended to laugh. “Funny, oh you’re so, so funny.”
As usual, Rey was working from his living room. He had an office on the main square, but spent most of his time in his recliner at home; books, laptops, and stacks of papers spread out on couches, chairs and the floor the way beer cans were sprawled throughout Gabe’s rooms. Rey wore a blue, thick cotton bathrobe and was watching telenovelas while working. He dropped back into the recliner without clearing a spot anywhere for Gabe.
“Why do you watch these shows, man?” Gabe asked. “They’re so damn cheesy.”
“The women, mostly. And they keep me connected to my culture.”
Gold-embossed law books lined one wall of the living room. Gabe pulled one off the shelf, releasing a small cloud of dust he felt in his nose.
“Culture, my ass. You’re the least Mexican ‘Baca’ I know.”
“Not the point, cabrón.” He pointed at the TV. “I’m part of the larger Mexican . . . Nevermind. What do you need?”
“When am I getting my job back?” Gabe flipped through the thin, Bible-like pages of the law book. “Helen won’t let Micah come down until she knows I’m getting a paycheck.”
Rey pushed his weight back into the recliner. His bathrobe opened and fell loose around his gut. “I don’t know, man. This thing is complicated, and there have been some new developments.”
“This shit is witchcraft,” Gabe said and put the book back on the shelf. He locked his hands behind his head. “Look, I’ll be straight with you, man. I need some cash. Micah wants to go on a trip, Helen needs some money, I’ve got to buy the kid all this fancy camping gear.”
“I told you, I can’t.”
“You lost me my old job. Give me a new one. I can go out to the site, report what I see there. I can go up to Santa Fe and, I don’t know, ask questions.”
“Sa
m Spade, huh?”
“Okay.” Gabe pulled on his beard, the hair felt thin and rough. “Fine, buy some weed.”
Rey snorted. “I’ve got some.”
“Buy some more. You’ll be helping me out.”
“Hang on.” Rey leaned over and dug under a coffee table next to his chair. His robe opened and revealed his underwear’s white elastic. He pulled out a white cardboard box with a handle.
“See this? Milk chocolate, with peanuts. Five boxes of them around here somewhere. Five! All terrible! They taste like burnt cardboard, but my secretary’s kid is on the dance team. Have to help the holy dance team. And this.” He leaned back over and pulled a thick book from under a stack of magazines. “A coupon book. Dry cleaners and pizza and shit like that. They expire in a month, and I don’t think I’ve used one of them, but my sister’s kid is in the choir. Hell, thanks to some gimpy kid who knocked on my door, I’ve got a freezer full of the blandest green chile ever grown. Said he needed to go see a doctor in Pittsburgh. That stuff tastes like it was grown in Pittsburgh.”
He tossed the coupon book at Gabe’s chest, causing his robe to open more. “Spare me the lecture,” Gabe said. “And the fucking show. Cover yourself.”
Rey looked down at the opening in his robe but didn’t close it. “Shit, you should be paying me for this view.”
That open robe began to feel like a challenge, like someone poking Gabe in the chest, daring him to throw a punch.
“I am not asking for a handout.”
“Frederick is going to find out,” Rey said. “And he’s not going to like it. No, let me rephrase: I’m sure Fredrick already knows.”
“I’m being smart about this. I’m not slinging dime bags on the corner.”
“We’ve both heard the stories, man. About him tying people to trees in the mountains. Drives them an hour into the Sandia, gags them, and leaves them there. That takes days and days.”
Gabe shook his head. “I’m not his competition. I don’t have a choice. You encouraged me to sell it in the first place.”
“Not to me.” Rey shook his head and pulled his robe closed. “I’m not going to buy any weed from you. I never buy weed from anyone. But I am going to leave some money on this table, and you might accidentally drop something next to it.”
“Two ounces of something.”
Rey lifted a single finger, then grabbed his wallet and counted out a stack of twenties. “You going to roll a joint before you leave?”
“Don’t think I have a choice.”
Rey dropped the cash on the table. “You’re going to flash this to the wrong person. You’re going to sell to the wrong person. When he stops being your friend, he’s going to be a mean bastard, and Jefe’s mushrooms aren’t strong enough to protect you.”
“How do you know about that?”
“That’s my point. It’s a small town.”
Gabe sat down on the carpet in front of the coffee table. He kept his head down, working the rolling papers.
“When am I going back to work? These Apaches are full of shit, right?”
Rey rubbed his hand over his face. Gabe hadn’t noticed until then how tired he looked.
“You know, man, they probably are full of shit. But, I don’t know, they may be onto something.”
Gabe looked up and lit the joint. “Geronimo is not buried outside of Albuquerque.”
“Okay, so maybe the Geronimo stuff isn’t ironclad. But these guys might have a claim on this land. There were so many different tribes. They deserve their history. You’re playing a role in this. Might need you to testify about them dumping the bones in your truck.”
“I’m not testifying for nothing, and you know it.”
“People aren’t paying attention to this now.”
Gabe finished the joint and grabbed a newspaper off the coffee table. The headline was about delays on highway construction in downtown Albuquerque.
Rey sighed, “Media engagement is not what we hoped.”
Gabe handed over the joint. Rey took a deep hit and went quiet. He looked over Gabe’s head at the smoke, and the room seemed much heavier.
“I’m going to be straight, here,” Rey said. “I might be out of my depth, man.”
“Your ass is so big I didn’t think that was possible.”
Rey kept a straight face and Gabe was unsure how to handle his seriousness.
“You’ll figure it out,” Gabe said. “Hell, you have to. If you don’t know what you’re doing, then there’s really no hope for my dying ass.”
“When they came to me, the Apaches, they said they wanted their land but they’d take a settlement. Two million, maybe even one-five.”
“Two million. You get a cut of that too, right?”
“That’s not the point,” Rey snapped.
Smoking had not done either of them any good. Rey had gone serious, and Gabe just felt numb. He took another drag.
“Okay, question for you.” Rey seemed to perk up. “So, I bought this weed, two hundred bucks, to make you stop whining, right? To make you leave me alone. What would your reaction have been if I offered you five grand for one ounce?”
“Five? I’d have snatched your money before you realized you were an idiot.”
“No, no, no, wrong move.” Rey shook his head. “Wrong move. Offering you five grand means I really want you to stop whining. If I’m five-grand desperate for you to go away, then I’d maybe cough up seven, or ten.”
“Hey, I’ll take ten grand. No, we’ll strike a deal, just one grand for me to leave you alone. Forever.”
Rey sat up and leaned close to Gabe. “This morning, I got a call from the woman running the whole show. Serious, serious woman. She offered ten million dollars.”
Gabe’s mouth went dry. The fact that these sums existed in the world and that they could be conjured, offered, denied at a whim, confused him.
“Yeah,” Rey said. “My reaction too.”
“Take it. Take it. Call them now and take it.”
“The Apaches are deciding on that. If they take it, you’re going back to work very, very soon. But here’s the thing you don’t get. We never asked for anything. Never even put out any feelers about taking one or two million. Then, out of nowhere, ten? I got a call from the woman helping the Apaches. And she says to wait. Wait, because maybe they’ll pay twenty.”
Rey looked around the room, as if expecting someone else to be there, taking notes in the corner, listening.
“Take the money,” Gabe said. “These guys aren’t in the habit of handing over millions to Indians. I’m desperate for cash, but waiting for twenty feels like a dangerous mistake.”
Rey looked at Gabe with a heavy worry. They were both getting so old. Gabe pushed himself up to his feet with a groan. He grabbed the cash from the table. Far from ten million, but it would do.
“This money will help.”
“I’m a real lifesaver.”
Gabe walked all the way to the front door before stopping. He knew Rey was back there, waiting for Gabe to leave.
“Don’t ask me to buy any more,” Rey hollered.
Gabe leaned his head against Rey’s front door. “No, no, it’s . . . could you help me find someone?”
“I’m not digging up customers for you.”
Gabe took a breath and let it out through his mouth. “I meant my mom.”
Rey did not respond. Gabe pictured him pooled in his armchair, laughing at Gabe’s family. He opened the door, ready to slam it shut after him.
“Yeah,” Rey shouted, “I’ll try.”
Gabe felt like throwing up. He wanted to tell Rey to forget about it, find another way to waste his time. Before taking a step outside, Gabe shouted.
“Hey, did you see the video? I’m famous online, like YouTube and stuff. There’s a video of me singing, talking, like a million people have seen it.”
Rey snorted. “Shit like that is why people never believe a damn thing you say.”
Walking back to his bike, Gabe felt
his legs go watery. Before graduating high school, he had looked in the phone book for a Celsa Luna. There was one in Albuquerque and another in Pecos. He sent graduation announcements to both. No one showed, and that was the last time he had tried to find her.
Gabe rested one fist on the seat of his bike. He needed to focus on Micah. He needed to sell a lot more weed.
THIRTY-TWO
MALLON DUMPED O’CONNELL at the office and sped back to the compound. On the phone, Mr. Branch had sounded the alarm. “Pack your bags. We’ve decided it’s time to move on,” Branch said.
Who was ‘we’?
Years of sitting in the corners of every meeting, hearing every phone call and delivering every message, either with a fist or an envelope, and he had never heard Branch talk about giving up. Someone had his ear, and Mallon doubted it was Mrs. Branch.
He pulled into the compound and jogged into the guardhouse before going up to Branch’s office. No way would he walk in there without at least a little extra knowledge. Mallon hunched over a monitor and switched through the camera feeds. Mrs. Branch’s bedroom door was open. He looked for any signs of movement. Through the doorway all he could see was the edge of a dresser. If she was packing, she was doing it quietly. The monitors at the office showed Salazar addressing the suited masses all gathered together in the center of the cubicles. They were being fired. O’Connell leaned in the doorway of his office, hand over his mouth, looking as confused as Mallon felt. The GPS trackers showed each car in Branch’s fleet, except for O’Connell’s, making their way back to the compound. The empire was being rolled up, and Mallon had no idea why.
He left the guardhouse and went into the main house. Branch would know Mallon had not gone straight to see him, and he would have a few things to say about that. In truth, Branch’s abuse never bothered Mallon. He had made it through Basic Training, dealt with snipers and IEDs. He had faced down meth heads with cleavers. One millionaire’s bile was easy.
The door to the office was open. It was never open. He pushed. Branch was in a recliner that he had pushed to nearly horizontal.
“Finally,” Branch said. “I need your help finding this game. It’s called ‘Magic Run’ or ‘Run Magic,’ I don’t know. I thought I found it, but this screen is so small.”
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