“Can you turn that thing away?” I said.
“Just wanna get a look at you. You don’t look too good.” It was a man’s voice.
“So?” I said, “what do you expect?” I was trying to unbend a leg and stretch it, but it wouldn’t move. It seemed like a nice place I had ended up in anyway, quiet, with fresh air, the smell maybe of piñons. I tried to take a deep breath, but it made my head hurt too much. “Who’s there?” I asked.
“Me.” He beamed the flashlight on his own face. It gave him a sort of devilish charm, lighting up his snaggly teeth, making shadows around his cheekbones and eyes. Sam. Who else?
“Oh, Christ,” I said.
“Whatsa matter, Nellie? It could be a whole lot worse than me.”
“I suppose so. It could be Monogal. What happened to him?”
“He’s down the road at the big house. He had you loaded in the trunk of his car like a sack of chiles.”
A big house, mean dogs, a very rich man. “Esterbrook Farms.”
“You got it.”
“I suppose you followed me there, too.”
He grinned. “I saw you go into Monogal’s office, I saw him come out. I was curious.”
“You’re gonna tell me why you’ve been following me, Sam. But first help me out of here.” I suppose a clamshell would be a whole lot tighter without clam juice to keep it lubed, but that wasn’t what made me feel so slick and cold.
“Shine that light on me again,” I said.
“Now, Nellie, you’d be happier if you didn’t see yourself. You’re not lookin’ so good right now.” He turned the flashlight to the ground, lighting up the crowbar he’d used to get the trunk open, then flicked it off.
“Why am I so wet?” I didn’t sound too good, either; my words were thick lumps that stuck to my tongue.
“You been bleedin.’ It’s just a face wound; they bleed a lot. But you’ll be all right. Anybody who gets as mad as you do is gonna be all right.”
“Just get me out of here.” Sam reached under my arms and pulled me out. He stood me up, but my legs gave out and I stumbled and fell against him.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any tequila.”
“I got a little whiskey.” He leaned me against the side of the car, which, I happened to notice, was big and American, while he took the bottle from his pocket and poured some whiskey into my mouth. I could only open it a little bit to one side, and my lower lip hung loose. The whiskey dribbled down my chin. It wasn’t doing me a lot of good there, but some of it got through and set up a nice kind of glow.
“You have a rag or something I could clean myself up with?”
“Sure.” He took his leather jacket off. Underneath it he was wearing a white T-shirt and he took that off, too. His chest was underbelly white, and his tattoos looked like bruises in the moonlight. Here in the land of enchantment where the heavens aren’t so far away and the skies are always clear, there is sunshine and there is moonlight. From a sliver of a crescent to a hole in the sky, the moon shines in New Mexico. This night the moon happened to be full, the counterpart of the sun, only the light was softer, the shadows larger. The moon illuminated things daylight didn’t.
Sam put his jacket back on, poured some whiskey on his shirt, and wiped at my face with it. “Don’t worry, Nellie,” he said, “I saw a lotta face wounds in Nam, and this one ain’t too bad. They bleed a lot when they’re close to the skin.” Maybe, but I sure hated to see his shirt turning dark with my blood.
“Sam,” I said. “You gotta tell me why you’ve been following me.”
He grinned. “For the fun of it.”
“You think this is fun?”
“Sure. Don’t you?” He dabbed at my lip with his whiskey-soaked shirt. “I’ll tell you why I followed you, but you got to tell me what you’ve been up to. Fair’s fair. You willin’ to do that?”
It was a matter of client confidentiality, but what difference could it make now? I’d tell him what I had to. “When did I meet you, anyway?” I asked, trying to remember. Was it a month ago? A week? Seemed like a lifetime—like more than one.
“We introduced ourselves that day on the highway, but I made your acquaintance long before that. You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I don’t remember much.”
“You didn’t know it, Nellie, but I was followin’ you around the whole time you was chasin’ that lawyer. Someone had plans for that guy, and they wanted to know what he was up to.”
Was our secret safe from no one? “That’s where you got the name Nellie from.”
“That’s it. I know a lot about you. I know what Carl called you, when he called you, where he called you, and why. But I didn’t take no pictures or tape nothin’. I don’t want you gettin’ that idea. I only followed you as far as the door to the motels and your apartment. Why didn’t you get that guy to spend some money on you? I always kind of enjoyed following you. You’re a lively woman, too lively for him. I was sorry when you two broke up and I had to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
“I suppose Monogal was paying you for it.”
“Sure, but Esterbrook was payin’ him. They found me through Río Lindo, you know. I was ready to come back here. I needed a job, and following people seemed easy. What did I care who was payin’ for it? I was gettin’ paid, and not too bad either. Anyways, Menendez and me became friends when I was in Mexico, and it got so we was getting ready to put a few deals together: I knew the girls, he had the contacts. Esterbrook and Monogal may think they owned Menendez, but they didn’t. We needed someone to represent us in Albuquerque, and I remembered you was a lawyer. I went to your office to see you that morning you got stuck on the highway, but you was already pulling outta your driveway when I got there. I had nothin’ better to do, so I followed you. You made it easy by drivin’ the same car. I never followed anybody who drove the same car half as long as you do. When your car broke down on the interstate that day, I stopped to help you out and say hello.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what you wanted then?”
“Because I wasn’t s’posed to know who you was yet. When I went to your office I was gonna say I saw your sign out.
Anyways, when you made your appointment with Menendez, Menendez called me to see what I’d said to you, but I hadn’t said nothin’ yet, so Menendez got curious about you and called Esterbrook. But he got Monogal. Next thing I knew you went down there and Menendez was dead.”
“Monogal killed him.”
“I figured that, but I didn’t have no proof, and I didn’t know why for sure and you wouldn’t tell me nothin’ when I called you, or when I looked you up in El Presidente either.”
“I couldn’t, Sam. My relationship with a client is confidential. I’m only telling you now because the client and I badly need some answers.”
“So who’s the client?”
“Carl Roberts.”
“Some client. I kept an eye on you, and when you went to see Leona I figured either you was lookin’ for evidence or you was lookin’ for a baby. Either way, we coulda helped each other.”
“How’d you know I was going there, anyway?”
“Piece of cake. I watched you goin’ into the travel agency and I asked the girl there where you was goin’. I told her I was sweet on you. She told me about San Miguel and that led to Río Lindo.” He grinned, and checked my cut again. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, maybe the whiskey had sealed the wound. It made it feel better anyway. “You get anything outta him in there?” he asked.
“Nothing that could be used in court, but I know why he did it, and it wasn’t because Menendez was doing ‘business’ with you. It’s because Monogal worked for Peter Esterbrook for forty years thinking he was going to end up with a gold mine, and now Peter is selling the mine out from under him for a fortune. Monogal began sending threatening notes to Carl, thinking if he could scare him out of running for office, the government wouldn’t be in such a hurry to negotiate with Peter and he would be able to exercise the optio
n he had. I showed Menendez one of those notes and he figured it out.
Monogal’s threatening to take Carl’s adopted son back to his mother in Mexico unless Peter turns over the mine,”
“That Monogal’s a piece of work, ain’t he?”
Since we were spilling confidences in the moonlight, there was one more question to ask him. “That wasn’t your baby you were trying to sell in Juárez, I hope.”
“He wasn’t then, but he is now. Once Maria got hold of him she wouldn’t let go. She’s in Juárez right now trying to figure some way to get him out of there.”
“What about the mother?”
“She don’t want him. She’s already got six.”
Six, ten, one, two; these people playing musical babies made my head hurt even more.
“Whattaya wanna do now?” asked Sam.
“I want to go home, clean myself up, go to bed.” I’d suffered a blow to the head, possibly a concussion, maybe even a fracture. The only thing that interested me more than my own bed right now was another shot of Sam’s whiskey. “Give me another hit of that stuff,” I said “What’d you do with your truck?”
“Left it at Esterbrook’s. I coasted into the driveway real quiet, put his car in neutral and rolled it away from the house. Then I hot-wired it and drove it here. I had a feelin’ I’d find you inside.”
“Monogal’s probably in your truck by now with Eduardo, heading for the border.”
“I got the keys, and he ain’t got the skills to start it without ’em. He killed a man, Nellie, and you coulda been next. He didn’t stuff you into his trunk because he was plannin’ to take you to Rancho Encantado for the weekend.”
That was true.
“What about the rest of the people in that house?” Sam went on. “That kid’s not there alone. Monogal ain’t gonna be in a good mood once he finds you and his car gone. He’s got a mean temper. I seen it, Menendez seen it—you seen it too.”
Who else was in the house? Emma, Lupe, Celina. There is a saying here that if you save a man’s life you become responsible for him forever. I have a saying, too: be careful who you harm.
20
WE HADN’T GONE far from Esterbrook Farms. It didn’t take long to get back, not nearly long enough. We were met in the driveway by Peter’s barking machines, the Dobermans, ugly mean creatures with pointed ears and tails, thin black bodies, narrow heads, and sharp white teeth. I suppose it was good breeding that made these dogs so tense and angry. Sam’s truck was still there, just like he said it would be. The dogs closed in, gathering around the car and snarling viciously as we left the driveway, crossed the lawn, and pulled up at Peter’s antique doorway.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” I said.
“You just stay down there, Nellie. Don’t let him see you.” I was curled up in the back seat, hidden behind Sam. It was the arrangement we’d made.
He turned on the bright lights and beamed them into the portal. We’d made our presence known; the next move was Monogal’s. But he wasn’t in any hurry to make it. The house was dark, with no sign that he or anybody else was there according to Sam.
“Maybe he’s already split,” I said.
“Not a chance,” Sam replied.
“He must have someone he could call.”
“If I hadn’t cut the wires, he could.”
“What was it you told me you went to jail for?”
“Car theft once, breaking and entering twice. I was good at it, too. I didn’t get caught every time, you know.”
“Good thing one of us has experience. Well, what are we going to do now?”
“Wait here.”
But how long can you wait when a bunch of Dobermans want you for dinner? If this was a war of nerves, I’d run out of ammunition. “Why don’t you just shoot those dogs?”
“Shh.”
“What’s happening?”
“He’s put his hand out the door, motioning toward the ground. I’m gonna turn off the lights.”
There was some whistle or command too subtle for us to hear, and the dogs shut up.
“It’s about time,” I said.
“I ain’t lettin’ you outta here till he calls those dogs inside.” Sam rolled down the window and leaned out. “It’s Sam. If you want your car back, call off the dogs.”
I heard Monogal’s voice then, dry leaves blowing in a cold wind. “They won’t harm you. I gave them a command.” I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from; the portal, the doorway. Wherever it was, it was much too close. I pressed myself a little farther into the upholstery.
“Inside,” Sam called again.
Another inaudible command; I heard the front door shut. Sam handed me the truck keys. “Okay, Nellie, you got it? Give me about five.”
“Be careful Sam. He’s crazy, he’s armed, and he’s got the dogs.”
“I got a gun, too, Nellie, but I bet I can take him without it. Guns give you the edge at a distance, all right, but up close I got somethin’ even better.” He tightened his karate-hardened right hand and chopped it against the top of the seat, making the car’s radials quiver. He grinned at me, slammed the car door, and was gone.
Five minutes. How do you measure five minutes in the back seat of an automobile? I tried counting—one hundred, one hundred one, one hundred two—but I was too distracted. On the one hand they were five very long minutes, on the other they were much too short. I would have been happy to press my face into the upholstery and go to sleep. I would have been even happier to have this over with. When the moon had inched a little farther along the top of the seat, when it felt like Sam had been inside a lifetime, I opened the door, very quietly, checked to be sure the truck keys and flashlight were still in my pocket—they were—and looked around, just to make sure the dogs were nowhere to be seen. They weren’t.
I let myself out of the car, leaving the door hanging open behind me; there’s no sound that travels across the night like a slammed car door. Peter’s lawn was silvery in the moonlight and I was alone on it, the only tree in his meadow, much too easy to see. I ran to the shadows near the house, which set my heart thumping and my head pounding again. When this was over I intended to find myself a stiff drink and a soft pillow. I inched along the side of the house, mashing down Peter’s carefully tended flowers with apologies to Kiefer. It was Peter’s fault, his arrogance that made this necessary. This close to the wall, I thought I might hear something from inside, a cry or a whisper or even a growl. But I heard nothing, nothing at all.
I got to the first corner, eased around it. Somewhere down this wall there was a patio, French doors. I saw the patio, and beyond it the silvery lawn and the dog pens, doors hanging open, empty. I made my way up to the door, which might or might not be locked. If it were, I could break one pane of glass and get in. Peter relied on his dogs for protection, that and his superior judgment of character, but who knew what effect the sound of shattering glass would have on this household, who would hear it, what the dogs would do. Sam was supposed to subdue Monogal and the dogs and keep Monogal in the living room, away from the den, but maybe he hadn’t been successful. Monogal could be in the study waiting for me, a mass of broken stone behind Peter’s desk. What did I have to protect me? A set of keys between my fingers; the Chi?
I reached the door, put my hand on the brass knob and turned it, pushed the door open. I was inside Peter’s study, alone, standing on the Oriental rug. Not a sound within the house. It was not as silvery bright inside as it was out, but there was enough light to see by. I could see that there was no old Spot lying on the rug, that the bookcases were full of books, and that what I was looking for was hanging beside the door. It felt smooth as silver in my hand. The next step was to find out where everybody was.
There was something to be said for Peter’s taste; the thick carpet, for example, moved me silently down the hallway. This seemed to be Peter’s wing of the house. His taste was as predictable and imitative as Ralph Lauren’s. His clothes closet was probably full o
f overpriced copies of L.L. Bean. Beyond the study I came to a bedroom. I flashed my light in and saw a huge bed smothered by a fur bedspread. It was immaculate, not a sock on the floor or an old pair of jeans or underwear thrown in the corner. Who lived like that? Men with Mexican maids. After that I found a guest room, twin beds, with neutral quilted spreads like in an expensive hotel room. A suitcase stood on a stand with filmy white things falling out. Celina and Carl’s room when they were there. This wing was so quiet, it made me want to sing or scream, but I suppressed the urge. I looked out at the patio. The bougainvillea clung to the wall, the deer and goats watched it, the parrot slept in his cage, the fountain had been turned off.
I turned the corner into the children’s wing. If there was anyone but Monogal and the dogs left in the house, it was a child. There was still no sound, not even a soft whisper in sleep. I reached Emma’s room first. The door was shut. I stopped outside and listened; nothing. Either there was nobody in there or something I didn’t want to see. As I couldn’t linger outside thinking about that forever, I put my hand to the knob and pushed it open. The door slid silently across the carpet—even Emma’s room was carpeted, I remembered: pale pink. Whoever was in that room made no more noise than the Cabbage Patch Dolls, but when I flicked on the flashlight it lit up two pairs of eyes, red and frightened like the eyes of animals that you meet on the road at night. Celina and Emma were tied to the bed. The curtains had been ripped to shreds, the shreds had been used to tie their hands together, their feet to the bed, their mouths shut. Celina might have thought she was back in a nightmare again, finding me bruised and battered at the other end of the flashlight, but I guess it was an improvement over Monogal.
“It’s Neil, Celina,” I said.
“Um,” was all she could manage.
The rags were cruelly tight, cutting into the skin around her mouth and hands, but otherwise she looked all right. Monogal had tied those knots, and there seemed to be bitter rage in each one. I managed to get Celina’s hands undone first. “There isn’t much time. The dogs are loose and Monogal has flipped out. Do you know where Eduardo is?”
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