The crowd clapped their hands to the natural rhythm the little boy made when he slipped his bare feet into the topmost strap, reached out with one hand into the night, began twirling himself around and around. Until the momentum he gathered was enough to let himself go completely from the pole, relying only on the strength of the leather strap to support his weight.
As the little boy spun in a clockwise direction, the other six men began to spin around the pole also, each one in the opposite direction of the man above and below him. Their movements seemed effortless and graceful. Like gravity never entered the picture.
It wasn’t until a few minutes had gone by before I realized I was clapping like a crazy man, pounding boot heels on the bare ground. I felt my heart beat and my lungs fill with the sweet, desert air, and there was the sweat that had built up on my brow. From across the table I spotted the girl and she spotted me.
She got up first and came around to my side of the table. And while the men in white spun away on the pole and the crowd continued to cheer them, she took my hand in hers and pulled me away from the picnic table. She led me across the front lawn, past the garage and the digging equipment, to the in-ground pool behind the main house.
Without saying anything we took our clothes off and jumped into the cool water, deep end. We kissed underwater with the lamplight sparkling and gleaming all around, and it wasn’t until we came up to the surface that I realized we weren’t alone.
Another woman had already been swimming before we jumped in. She was a beautifully built Mexican woman of about my own height with long, black hair that went all the way down to the center of her back. She had brown eyes that glistened in the lamplight and full red lips from which pool water dripped. At first I thought my girl might be embarrassed or that the Mexican woman might feel invaded by our sudden intrusion. But after only a few seconds of slightly self-conscious giggling, the two women and I discovered some strange sort of chemistry together.
As the party grew louder and the water that surrounded our bodies grew warmer (it was March, after all, even in the desert), I picked my girl up by her waist and set her down gently on the smooth wood deck that wrapped around the pool. I kissed her lips, neck, breasts, and stomach. Then I went down on her thighs and moved in slowly, until I began to kiss something else entirely. I knew she couldn’t help herself when she wrapped both hands around the back of my head, pulled me further into her as if it were possible for me to go all the way through her body.
I stayed like that for as long as she could stand it.
When finally I lifted my head, opened my eyes, and looked up at her, I could see that she was kissing the Mexican woman. The two saw me looking at them and they both giggled like schoolgirls. That’s when my girl moved me away from her angel space.
To make room for somebody new.
I watched them make love to each other and to themselves and to me for more than an hour. The three of us rock ’n’ rolled for a while more, until the Mexican woman and my girl joined hands and helped each other out of the pool. They slipped towels around their waists and torsos, took turns reaching down to me, laying one final kiss on me apiece. Then, hand in hand, they slipped into the house together by way of the back door off the kitchen for what I assumed would be a cozy desert nap.
I laughed, more out of a strange pride for the girls than myself, and hopped out of the pool. I dried myself with one of the towels from behind the open bar and put my clothes back on. Then I rejoined what was left of the fiesta.
Chapter 26
In dreams she can see the photos. The ones set up on the mantel above the fireplace. Inside the old apartment.
There is the one taken the day she first brought Charlie home from the hospital. It is the photo that always catches her attention first. Before all the others.
Even in dreams.
This is a happy photo.
Looking at it now, she can see how nervous she was with Charlie in her arms. She can still feel the nerves affecting her stomach—muscles constricting, tightening. Charlie was brand new. Charlie’s head was round and fuzzy on top, his skin dark but flushed (yellowed with jaundice). His eyes were closed, his face scrunched up (like a skinned rabbit, her husband said). His hands were already opening and closing into fists.
That’s how strong Charlie was.
She’s smiling in the photo.
But she’s also holding on tight.
This was not a pose.
She was acting natural.
Charlie was so smooth, so tiny, she thought there was nothing to prevent him from falling right through her arms.
The expression on her face told the whole story.
Looking at her face in the dream, she can see how happy she was back then. But scared too. That kind of photo.
For Charlie, the fireplace mantel was like This Is Your Life!
The photographs were everywhere back in those days.
There was Charlie swinging, Charlie crawling, Charlie rolling helplessly onto his side, Charlie playing in an early snowfall with his father. There was Charlie eating spaghetti, Charlie covered in spaghetti, Charlie soaking in the bathtub.
Eventually, there was no more Charlie.
Chapter 27
The Mexican man who guarded the entrance to Shaw’s first-floor office was passed out on the floor, his back pressed up against the wall beside the door, an empty bottle of tequila set between his knees.
Along with his head.
All it took to get past him was gently removing the key from the clip on his belt, slowly and quietly unlocking the door, replacing the key on the clip. Then slipping inside, locking the door behind me.
A foolproof plan.
So long as Shaw didn’t decide to pay a visit.
A clarification of sorts: I might have simply asked Shaw if I could use his office. He might have said, By all means. But, then, he might have placed one of his guards in charge of accompanying me. To make sure I had no intentions of rummaging through his personal affairs, of attempting to uncover any information that might otherwise lead me to believe his relationship with Richard Barnes was anything other than it appeared to be: a hired gun and his very hands-off employer.
How would I be expected to snoop, if I couldn’t do it on my own terms?
Square-shaped and paneled in mahogany, the office had a working fireplace with a railroad-tie mantel mounted to the floor-to-ceiling stone hearth. The exterior wall behind the large wood desk was comprised mostly of French doors that opened out onto the porch. For now, the doors were partially covered with heavy, navy blue drapes with gold rope drawstrings.
The interior bearing wall opposite the desk was filled with television monitors, one for each of the six cameras mounted to the stone and razor-wire fence that surrounded the ranch. There was a set of fireproof file cabinets placed up against the wall between the television monitors and another wood table that housed a Xerox color copier and a Brother fax machine.
I went behind the desk, pulled back the curtain to get a look outside.
Shaw was a safe-enough distance away, sitting on top of a picnic table, sharing cigars along with the well-dressed men. The mustached man with the bandaged hand was still there too, although he did not smoke a cigar. He just stood off to the side, staring at the little group, observing them, rubbing the tip of his bandaged hand with the fingers on his good hand.
I set myself on the corner of the desk and used his cordless phone to dial Tony’s New York number. After a series of electronic beeps and rings, he picked up.
“You awake?” I said, as if the question needed answering.
“Keeper,” he said, his voice dry, cracking. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s okay,” I said, while glancing at the television monitors. Nothing to view in any of the six, other than a black empty desert and the occasional winged insect lit up by the white perimeter spotlight.
He asked me what I needed.
“A reduced blueprint of Attica State Prison,” I sa
id. “A schematic of a typical cell-block basement. Get a hold of it, condense it, and fax it to me here at Shaw Hudson’s place outside Monterrey.”
I gave him the fax number and the number for Hudson’s private telephone line.
“Shaw Hudson,” he said while jotting down the information. “Barnes’s man?”
“My contact,” I said.
“He mind you using his private line?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Risky.”
“I thought I’d take a little look around.”
“Thought I told you to keep your nose where it belonged.”
I didn’t answer him.
The head of a coyote suddenly appeared in the lower right-hand monitor. The animal looked up at the camera, let off with a silent fang-filled bark or two, then turned and ran off, disappearing into the blackness.
“Can you get the layout?” I asked.
“Won’t be easy,” Tony said. “Even for the Guinea Pigs. You know department rules. Once a prison’s construction is complete, all blueprints are destroyed, other than the original as-builts. And even that’s stored inside a DOCS safe.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Could take a while,” he said.
“You’re slipping, Tone,” I said.
“I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes,” he said.
“I’ll be here,” I said. Then I hung up.
Another peek outside, through the glass doors behind Shaw’s desk.
The men laughing, shouting. One short man with a paunch pressing up against his white shirt, goose-stepping around and around in a circle like some mad Nazi leftover from World War II, his cohorts laughing like crazy, about to fall over. Shaw laughed too, but not like them. His laughter seemed faked. As for the mustached man, he drank from his bottle and sneered at the goose-stepping man.
The phone rang, caller ID displaying Tony’s number.
I hit the TALK button before it had the chance to sound off a second time.
“Give me a half hour to get you the layout,” Tony said.
“Okay,” I said.
No choice.
“This guy Hudson,” Tony said. “Can you trust him?”
“No way to tell yet,” I said, my eyes once again glued to the real-life Hudson and his little private party. “But he’s definitely running something, and you can bet your ass it’s not antiques.”
“Dope,” Tony said. “Or immigrants. Both, I can bet.”
“I’m beginning to think Barnes wanted me strictly as a transport man,” I said. “To accompany Renata once we managed to get her out.”
“He needs you for more than just transport.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little bit suspicious of this guy Barnes and his connection with Hudson.”
There was a pause in the connection.
I asked Tony if he was still there.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Keeper,” he said finally. “And I understand it.”
Do you? I thought to myself, knowing full well he was referring to the black Buick and the Bald Man. But I said nothing about it.
“Your job is to get that woman out of prison,” he said. “Get her home safe and sound. Nothing more, nothing less. You start poking around into Barnes’s affairs, it’ll get us both hurt, understand?”
“What do you mean, hurt?”
“It’ll keep us from getting paid.”
I looked out the window once more. Shaw Hudson in the near distance, laughing his ass off. Not fake laughter now. The man with the paunch was down on his back on the grass, pretending to snore, his stocky chest heaving and constricting.
“The article in The Times-Union” I said.
“Still no positive ID on the body. But they think it’s you.”
“Val knows?”
“I went to see her about it.”
“You told her the truth. About the deception, I mean.”
“I told her a truth.”
I knew what that meant.
Val thought I was dead. Like everyone else.
I wondered if she cared.
I decided not to press the issue any longer. None of it mattered.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said. “After it’s over. From the airport. Or from the air.”
“I’ll fax you the layout,” he said. “Soon as it comes in.”
I pictured Tony standing inside his home office, a silk robe wrapped around his stocky torso. His office more like an English smoking room, furnished with a leather couch, original oil paintings, antique wood desk. But also furnished with powerful computers with enough RAM to wage a small war. And not just one but three separate flat-screened monitors bracketed to the ceiling above the desk.
“Stick to the job at hand,” he said. “Then get out. This one is strictly about money. Not about playing hero.”
“I’m no hero, Tone,” I said. “You should know that by now.”
“It’s why you’re still alive,” he said.
“Correction,” I said. “It’s why I’m dead.”
Chapter 28
She wakes up on the cold concrete.
Head pounding.
She reaches up with her right hand, touches the tender bruise the pistol made when the mustached man jammed the barrel behind her left earlobe. The bruise is round and protruding, like a lump. She can’t resist pressing down on it with her fingertips. When she does it causes her right eye to water.
But the pain and her shallow breaths tells her she’s alive.
She sits up, presses her back against the wall. On the floor, a tin pail filled halfway with water. She reaches down for it, lifts the semi-heavy bucket with two hands, brings it to her mouth, takes a long, deep drink. The water is warm and smells faintly of rotten eggs. But she doesn’t care. She is parched.
When she’s had her fill, she sets the bucket down and dips her hands into the water. She brings her wet hands to her face, rubs the moisture into her skin, into her eyes. She allows herself to drip dry.
All around her come the groaning voices of the caged and the corrupt. The drugged-up bodies awaiting their own personal tortures for their own personal reasons.
But of the many voices, one stands out above the rest. It is a crying voice and it comes from the cell directly beside her own. It is Roberto. She hears him sobbing.
She slides up to the front of the cell, presses her face against the narrow vertical bars.
“Are you all right?” she says, half whispering, half out loud.
He does not answer.
She asks again. “Are you okay, Roberto?”
“We should not talk,” he says after a time. “It is very dangerous. They will hurt us.”
“What’s wrong?” she asks him. “Something must be very wrong.”
“We should not talk, miss,” he repeats. “We must do what they tell us.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she says. “You tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll shut up. Deal?”
The old man lets out a breath that seems to linger in the stale damp air, like the moans and groans of the prisoners who occupy the surrounding cells.
“This morning,” the old man says, his voice shaking and rattling. “This morning they told me the news.”
“What news?” she says.
“About my son.”
She knows what he’s going to say before he says it. But she asks him anyway. “What about your son?”
“He’s dead. My Juan is dead. A soldier shot him, they said. Over drugs.”
“Don’t you believe it,” she says. “Don’t you believe any of it”
“Believe it,” says the voice of another man. This one a soldier. He is carrying a tray of food, which he sets down on the floor and slides under the gate. “I was there myself. They caught him with a truckload of cocaine. Caught him at the border a few days ago during a deal with a beautiful burrier.”
“They hauled his ass out to the pit, made him go down on his knees. Then they shot him in the back
of the head!” He makes like a pistol with his right hand, brings his thumb down fast. “Bang, bang, just like that. His brains spattered all over the sand. Then they tossed his body in the hole with the other scum. It was a sight to see, old man. A beautiful sight.”
Now the old man is openly weeping.
“You bastard,” she says, now picturing the two men she dealt with in the desert. But not believing any of those creeps were Roberto’s son. “You evil bastard.”
“Eat,” says the soldier, standing. “Eat and shut up.”
That’s when she gets the idea.
She calls out for him.
“What is it now?”
“There’s something in my food,” she says, staring down at a bowl of rice and a second bowl filled with a watery, yellow-colored potato salad, as well as a Styrofoam cup filled with red Kool Aid.
“So what?”
“So I want you to look at it, tell me what it is.”
The soldier takes a deep breath, releases it. He turns, makes his way back over to her. He bends at the knees, looks directly at the tray. “What is it?” he says.
She flings the food in his face.
He stands fast, wiping the food out of his eyes.
“Bitch,” he says, slimy potato salad and Kool Aid dripping off his face and chin. “Fucking bitch.”
She slams the tray down, slides back against the far wall, as though it will protect her from the inevitable.
“Open up two!” the soldier shouts, wiping what’s left of the food from his eyes.
There is a loud buzzer and the gate opens with a solid bang.
“Close two!” the guard shouts again.
The gate closes with a resounding slam.
As the soldier comes for her, he unbuckles his belt, unzips his zipper.
“Don’t you scream,” he says.
She lets out a resigned breath. “Who would want to hear me anyway?” she asks.
Chapter 29
The fiesta was all but dead. Now all that could be heard above the hum of swarming insects were the voices coming from Shaw’s little private party on the front lawn.
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