Denise sensed a change in his vibration with the mention of his big boss. He frowned. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
They walked out to the parking lot where they were met by a very large man, also dressed in black. Hikaru introduced him. “This is Brutus, my ummm… assistant. Brutus, this is Denise Song, a colleague of mine.”
“Brutus?” Denise asked. “That’s your real name?”
Hikaru smiled at her. “Yes, that’s his real name. If you’re a boy named Bru-tus, you have to be tough for real.”
He looked more like a bodyguard than an assistant, but Brutus handed her a folder with a print-out from a court website. Denise opened it and gasped at the police report.
“Does Denny even know who I am?”
“He can sense you I guess,” Hikaru said.
“Why does he want me to be his lawyer?”
“Because he trusts you.”
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“That’s why he trusts you,” Hikaru said. “I think you need to see this too.” He handed her a tablet with a news website on the screen. The website showed an officer’s lapel cam video of a figure shooting at three cops, each of whom fell to the ground. The figure then crumpled even though there were no shots fired. Stunned by the violence on the screen, Denise handed the tablet back to Hikaru.
“That’s my brother?” she asked. “The one that did the shooting?”
“He was the only one other than the cops,” he said. “Do you still want to take the case?”
“I want to see my brother.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I know,” she said. “I guess you know that I’m not really a lawyer.”
“It’s been dealt with.” He smiled at her. “Let’s just say we got the proper authorization for you to practice as a clinical law student under your mother’s supervision.”
“Did you want to become a real lawyer?”
“No, I’m good with audiences, not good with umm…people. I knew you wanted to be a lawyer back when we did mock trial together. You were shy too, but you’ve gotten over it.”
“I don’t know, but I’m still shy in everyday life. Yet, when I’m in court, even on the little things, I feel like I’m playing a part on stage. I feel powerful. I love it. Then I leave the courtroom and I’m back to being me.”
“I saw it in you back then,” he said. “How did court go?”
“Court itself went OK,” she said. “Then everything went to hell… until I saw you.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Was he making a pass at her? They locked eyes again. His spark aligned perfectly with hers. Definite chemistry, well definite electricity. But both of them knew the situation was too awkward, too new.
His giant phone buzzed again, he half-jokingly clutched his heart. He was clearly trying to pretend that it wasn’t serious, but she sensed that it was. “I’m going to call them back. To be continued,” he said.
“Hope so.”
She shook his hand again, the current passed back and forth between them. It was a real spark, a corner of the folder she was holding smoldered. He broke contact.
They both smiled at each other. “So, what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Let me meet with my brother in the jail and then I’ll decide.”
His phone buzzed again, indicating a text. He frowned. “I serve a harsh mistress,” he said. “I’ve got to take care of this. You better get on your way. You can meet him in Hidalgo County jail. Lordsburg. Just go four hours due west, and you should make it by the end of visiting hours this afternoon. If you hit Arizona, you’ve gone too far.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked him.
The phone kept buzzing. “I was. I’ll email you the rest of the paperwork this evening if you decide to take the case.”
She walked over to the Lexus in the next spot over. Hikaru closed the back of the van and got in the front passenger seat. Brutus backed out of the parking spot and pulled up next to the Lexus. Hikaru waved at Denise and smiled. “Save your brother. Hopefully I will be able to come back for you.”
“I’d like that.”
Denise melted into his smile—Hikaru was a smart, successful young man who clearly was attracted to her ever since those hours practicing cross-examination answers. His shyness was somehow a turn-on. She wanted to protect him and speak for him, tell his boss to, “Take this job and shove it!” on Hikaru’s behalf.
Even better, he had a spark to him, a real spark. There weren’t many of them out there. He was like her, and he had made it on his own, despite his shyness. This might be the man to wander the earth with.
The van went north. Who did he work for and why did they keep calling? She got the impression from his reaction to the texts that whoever he was working for wasn’t exactly pleased that he had approached her. Would they let him see her again?
Chapter 10
Denise drove westward as fast as she could. After leaving Roswell, the four lanes of US 70 floated up into the high plains before descending into a narrow mountain valley that followed the shallow brown waters of the Rio Hondo. The road followed the river all the way up to the tall pines of the tourist trap town of Ruidoso. She was so excited after meeting Hikaru, her heart was pounding the whole way. There were a few more HERRING FOR CONGRESS. GO BIG RED! billboards, each showing Rayne and Rita at their matriarch’s side.
She tried to call Rayne, but there was no reception up here in the tall pines. She had a better look at Rita on one big billboard. It was odd that Denise had talked to Rayne and Rita almost every week but had never met up with Rita in the flesh. She hadn’t seen Rayne since high school.
Denise thought again about poor Rayne, back in their Team Turquoise days. When her mom would pick her up from practice, Rayne looked like she was going off to bootcamp. Her mom invariably yelled at her for not having her shirt tucked in or having a single hair out of place.
After gassing up at the Casino Apache travel center, the highway descended into the Tularosa Valley, a gigantic desert valley sixty miles across. There was a “beltway” around Alamogordo, and she was back on 70 again. She soon passed the exits for the massive Holloman Air Force Base at the edge of the desert.
After the last Holloman exit, she passed a dirt turn-off with a stylized image of binoculars on a metal sign. She felt a vague spark from the turn-off but was dissuaded by the smell. She realized that she had to use the facilities and turned the Lexus around, hoping the turn-off held a rest stop. This had to be the back entrance to White Sands National Park, right? There was a lake ahead and some people walking in the sand, so she looked for an outhouse.
Not even.
The dirt road was too narrow for her to turn around. She had to keep going till she got to the lake shore where it was sandy. The water was blue, maybe she could fill her thermos.
However when she got to where she could turn around right by the lakeshore, a sign indicated that this small body of water—well small body of fluid—was a “Toxic Waste Evaporation Pond,” for the air force base. Did they dissolve alien bodies in the pond? It smelled like death.
It reminded her of the odor coming from Nastia’s flask.
Desperate, she drove back to the main road and continued west. The entrance to White Sands National Park was only a mile away and had a public bathroom. After using the facilities, she bought some bottled water from a vending machine and put it in her thermos. She quickly got back on the road.
She sped up even further as she did a straight shot adjacent to the vast expanse of the White Sands National Monument on her right. The wind blew sand toward her windshield. One dune actually spilled out onto the shoulder of the highway.
She had to stop at a roadblock and a whole platoon of military police. An electronic sign flashed: WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE.
ROAD CLOSED! MISSILE TEST IN PROGRESS!
She pulled over to the side of the road, tenth in a line of cars. Many of the drivers got out of the cars, some smoked cigarettes. This stop wasn’t that unusual apparently.
“The second day in a row,” one driver said.
“The fifth this summer,” another said.
“Wait for it,” the first said, and he pointed to a flash of light. Seconds later, they heard a distant explosion. The lights and sounds finally stopped, and after a few more minutes of waiting, a Military Policeman finally let her through the checkpoint. She wondered if the test had succeeded or failed.
The MP indicated with a hand gesture that she should keep it slow.
As she drove west through the barren wasteland, she realized that White Sands Missile Range was probably the size of Delaware, maybe even with Rhode Island added in. She knew the first atomic bomb was exploded at the Trinity Site, not sixty miles north of here.
Further west, the white sand turned brown as she passed various turn-offs to the missile testing sites. One had an ominous name of something like Hell-Staff. Deep in the heart of the desert was a turn off to Syrinx Mission Control Experimental Drone Testing. She could see a hangar, a large satellite disk, and some pavement graced by a large black helicopter.
Were there flying saucers way in the back? No, they looked more like spheres with tubes through them. Denise pegged the four or five objects as military drones, the type that would go out and greet the flying saucers to see if they were hostile.
This wasn’t Area 51, but perhaps Area 51 adjacent.
A few miles down the 70, she passed the main entrance to the Missile Range at the far west end of the Tularosa valley. The main facility looked like a small town, a Mayberry of mayhem.
At a barren rest stop at the top of San Augustine Pass, she saw yet another billboard for Big Red Herring and the family, with the tag line about supporting military families. This billboard was next to another flashing sign that indicated another missile test was in progress, back in the valley below.
There was no turning back. There never was.
She tried Rayne, but there was still no reception. After passing over San Augustin Pass, she headed downhill into the Las Cruces suburbs. She passed fast food chains, Walmarts and subdivisions. She was back in America.
She had a sharp pang of memory as the road descended. Her cousin Marley had died near here, shot at his boarding school.
“You’re on the right track!” a voice said as she passed the exit for his former school. The lights flickered in her car.
“Marley?”
No response.
She took the freeway around the heart of Las Cruces, feeling sad there was no time to see her other cousin, Dew—the final Team Turquoise member. Dew lived off campus by the adobes of New Mexico State. She texted Dew but did not get a response. Her cousin must be busy.
On the other side of Cruces, Interstate 10—the Ten—took her through the hard-core desert.
Right before Deming, she saw a façade of a fake town at the Akela Flats Travel Center. There was even a façade of a courthouse. Next to the “courthouse,” a sign advertised discount fireworks. Discount fireworks at a courthouse, talk about a metaphor for her life right now.
One hand on the wheel, she googled Lordsburg and learned it was famous for being the destination of John Wayne’s “Ringo Kid” in the film Stagecoach.
She blinked after Deming, and her stagecoach had arrived in Lordsburg. There were two competing truck stops on the east side of town.
“Where’s Denny?” She asked out loud. She had meant to ask the location of the Hidalgo County Detention Center, but her phone answered anyway.
TAKE NEXT EXIT, her phone replied.
She took the first exit and pulled into a truck stop parking lot. Had she found him? She got out of the vehicle and laughed when she saw the name of the truck stop’s restaurant—Denny’s.
She frowned as she got gas and then drove west on Lordsburg’s main drag, Motel Drive. The static lessened with every mile, she was getting further away from her Denny, further away from her goal. Motel Drive was a few miles of broken-down motels and closed auto-repair stores. One business boasted “direct dial phones” and “ice cold air-conditioning.” The Joad family of Grapes of Wrath fame could stay there on their way to the promised land and not noticed that the century had changed.
Other than a relatively nice bank, only a handful of businesses were open in the downtown area. She passed a store front for a closed newspaper called the Lordsburg Liberal.
Liberal? There was likely nothing liberal about this place.
She soon found herself at a crossroads with the north road leading to Silver City and the south road heading to Mexico. The railroad “station” on the corner was an open shelter that could barely hold the two people waiting for the midnight train to somewhere, anywhere.
She continued west. There were a few more closed motels on the west side of town, then there was only Arizona ahead. She really was in the corner of the state, west was Arizona, south was Mexico. This wasn’t just the end of New Mexico, this was the end of America.
She made a U-turn over the dirt median, and headed back east into town. The sheriff’s vehicle, the biggest vehicle she’d ever seen, had been parked behind a dumpster and flashed his lights. He wore sunglasses even though it was almost dark out.
Denise froze. After all this, she would be busted for an illegal U-turn? Thankfully, the sheriff’s vehicle remained stationary. She made out the sheriff’s face in her rear-view mirror, and those damn glasses. He smiled at her and mouthed the words, “I know who you are.”
The trip back through town was even more depressing the second time around, especially since she drove one mile below the speed limit. Once she passed the Denny’s restaurant and got on a frontage road, she finally came upon a small, brick building surrounded by barbed wire. In the twilight, she saw there was only one other civilian car, an old black jeep, in the main lot.
She checked her watch—5:55 in the evening, she still had time for a jail visit, right? She knew she’d have to leave her staff in the car.
The static in her brain was overwhelming. She hit a buzzer by the front door and spoke into an intercom.
“What do you want, girl?” a tinny voice responded. “Regular visiting hours end at six o’clock!”
Girl? This was getting old. “Attorney visit.”
“Please show some ID.” She flashed her law student’s card at the black ball she perceived to be the surveillance camera.
“Do you have an active New Mexico bar card?” the voice asked. “You need a bar card for attorney visits.”
Denise frowned. “I’m family, then. For Denny Song. I’m his sister, Denise Song. And it’s 5:59.”
“He’s already got someone here, but we’ll see.”
After a few long moments, the door finally clicked open and she entered the building. They didn’t believe she was a lawyer, but believed she was family. She didn’t know what to think about that.
Inside the unlit room, a woman in high cowboy boots and western wear fumbled with her purse in the small, cramped lobby. There were no guards in sight. The only illumination came from the windows and a sign that said: “Emergency Exit Only.”
Denise saw another intercom, and spoke into it. “Denise Song for Denny Song.”
“So, you really exist?” the woman asked. “You’re the world-famous Denise Song?”
This cowgirl from hell stepped in front of Denise. “I’m Cordelia. Denny’s been talking about you for like his whole life. I thought you were just a figment of his imagination.”
Denise tried to read this cowgirl in the fading light; but she couldn’t. Cordelia’s brain was wired differently.
“I’m real,” Denise said. “Kinda.”
“You’re the one who is gonna sav
e him?” Cordelia spit on the floor “We’re better off with a real lawyer.”
Denise took a step back, but Cordelia leaned down until her face was inches from Denise and said, “Don’t fuck with my man. This is my town, bitch.”
“I’m here to save him,” Denise replied. “I don’t want to take over your town. He’s my brother, he’s my blood. I will help him. You have my word.”
“Give me your card,” Cordelia said. Cordelia unzipped her purse to put Denise’s law student card inside. Was there a gun in there? Cordelia turned to leave, but said over her shoulder, “Just meet with him and we’ll see if he still wants to hire you.”
Cordelia slammed the metal jail door behind her.
Denise was alone in the jail lobby for a moment. Nothing happened. The lights came on but blinked off then on again. Was it closing time?
“Go to visiting room C,” a voice said from above. “He’s waiting for you.”
Denise entered the room and saw this was the family room, not the attorney visitation room. She didn’t want to push that right now. She sat down and picked up the phone and looked on the other side of the bulletproof glass to see an empty chair.
The off-white room was empty for a moment and then the door opened. When she saw Denny, she nearly fainted from shock. This was her long-lost twin? She probably outweighed him, even if he was a few inches taller.
“I’m Denise,” she said. “You might be my brother.”
“I know who you are,” he said. “Denise, I’m Denny. I know that we’re related. Do you know the story about how we got our names?”
PART II
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Chapter 11
While Denny went through the Denise and De-nephew recitation, Denise smiled politely. “I’ve heard the same story from my mom,” she said. “I guess we really are related.”
They stared at each other for another moment. She couldn’t sense anything directly from his mind, but they both emanated so much spark, so much psychic energy, one of the light bulbs actually burst. It was both blinding and deafening at the same time.
The Shakespeare Incident Page 8
