by Tim Sandlin
"Rowdy Talbot."
As we shook, Pinto said, "I once knew a family of Talbots in Puerto Vallarta. They ran a business selling mail-order cancer treatments."
"I doubt we're related."
"Pity," he said, although I have no idea why. He signaled the waiter, who seemed to know what the signal meant. "The family marketed a syrup that when ingested caused the patient's toenails to turn vermilion and flake off. It actually brought about remission in some cases."
My fears were confirmed when Pinto pulled the cigar from his vest. He went into the lighting ritual.
"You going to smoke that, go somewhere else," I said.
"I beg your pardon."
"There's tables you can claim for your own. If you plan to smoke, move to one of them, far from me as you can get."
Pinto Whiteside twirled the cigar between the thumb and index fingers of both hands. His straw eyebrows arched and stretched independently, as if each brow was controlled by a separate side of his brain. "You must be a new arrival." He slid the cigar back into his vest. "I predict over time you will discover attitudes are far different here than in the Wild West."
"I won't be here over time," I said. "And if Monty lifts a leg on my gear, neither will you."
Pinto sniffed, clearing a runny nose. "I daresay you lead a miserable, frustrated existence if you must search out things that can go wrong but probably won't."
The waiter brought Pinto a drink while I worked out what he had just said. I needed a comeback, and "Oh, yeah," was the best I could do until I figured out what he meant. The drink was emerald green, served in a glass shaped like a funnel.
Pinto said, "Merci." He held the drink up and looked through it, toward the fountains, before he sipped. His lips moved, as if in prayer.
"That's not absinthe, is it?" I asked.
"Midori."
"I read where absinthe is green."
"So is Midori. May I ask you a personal question?"
Monty the dog circled twice clockwise and settled on his master's flip-flops. Not for the first time, I wondered if cow dogs in Australia circle the other way.
"Is there much I can do to stop you?" I said.
"What is your frank opinion of turquoise?"
The question didn't hit me as all that personal. "Pretty color. There's lakes in Alberta are turquoise. None in the lower forty-eight that I know of."
Pinto's second sip took in more liquid and he swished before swallowing. "I mean, turquoise the gemstone."
"Old ladies in Phoenix wear a ton of it. And square-dance callers. You never run into a square-dance caller without a turquoise bolo tie."
Pinto cradled his glass with both hands. I concluded it was his first alcohol of the day and he needed it. "The Navajos believe turquoise thrown into a river will cause rainfall."
"They must not throw many rocks into rivers. I've rodeoed on the reservation plenty, and never seen a drop of rain."
"Turks claim a man wearing turquoise will never fall off his horse."
"They got anything for bulls?"
"I firmly believe turquoise will soon replace gold as the international monetary standard. By next summer, turquoise will be more valuable than diamonds."
"You sound like a fella sitting on a pile of turquoise."
I've never known a man's mood to plummet so quickly. His gray eyes slicked over and the hands on his glass trembled. I hate it when you meet someone new and right off they weep. Happens fairly regular, at night, in a saloon, but we were outdoors, for God's sake.
Pinto let out an almost, but not quite, silent moan. "Over three hundred pieces of the finest quality rock. Lander Blue stone. The best you can buy anywhere. It's worth a fortune, but I can't give it away." He stared at the spot on his glass where his thumbs met. "Or, maybe, I could give it away, but these Parisians won't pay half what it cost me in New Mexico."
"I guessed you were from New Mexico."
"Taos. I had it worked out perfectly. Buy in bulk in the Southwest then bring it to the fashion capital of the world and make a killing. I've been to every haute shop and jeweler in the city. No one wants turquoise." He changed his voice to a French snob's pitch. "Two thousand three is the year of lapis lazuli."
I was in this hotel bar in Taos, New Mexico, once with a bunch of Yancy's buddies, calf ropers, mostly, and through the first two drinks I thought we'd stumbled into a Georgia O'Keeffe lookalike contest. I said as much to the others but none of them had heard of Georgia O'Keeffe, which tells you all you need to know about calf ropers. The bar was packed with skinny women in flowing white dresses and flowing white hair, having profound conversations, drinking bottles of red wine. You've never seen so many squash blossom necklaces.
The old ladies packed away alcohol faster than the cowboys, and they were aggressive. Long stares. Winks. Poochy-lipped air kisses. The guys at my table made a wager where we each anted up fifty bucks and whoever slept with the oldest woman won the pot. You're thinking sexual predation, I know, but that isn't true. The ladies heard us making the bet. They knew the stakes and played along. I wouldn't be surprised if the old broads didn't have a bet going on their own.
The dowager I ended up with said she was seventy-four. We loaded into her LX 470 SUV and drove up the side of a mountain to this glass-and-rebar monstrosity filled with tasteful objects. She must have spent a lifetime and a million dollars collecting stuff. Her bedroom was upstairs in a glass turret. Before we started, I made her show me a driver's license and I'm happy I did because she was only sixty-eight, two years younger than the authentic Zuni princess one of the calf ropers was supposedly nailing. I got out of there and walked back to town. Took all night and that afternoon my bull threw me first jump.
Pinto cleared phlegm from his throat. "I've been told the Swiss are obsessed by Western regalia. If I could take the stones to Switzerland, I could make a profit."
"So take the stuff to Switzerland."
He looked up from his thumbs to meet my eyes. "I can't. My wife is a prostitute."
"Mine's a whore but I wouldn't let that keep me from going to Switzerland."
Pinto finished off his green drink and nodded to the waiter, who'd been waiting by the door with another one. "You do not understand. My wife is not a whore in the fashion that every American calls his wife a whore when he is angry with her. Mrs. Whiteside has a position in one of the most respected houses in the eighteenth. Her clients include gentlemen at the highest levels of commerce and government."
"Why do you call her Mrs. Whiteside if she's a whore?"
"She is a courtesan, not a whore. And Mrs. Whiteside is her name."
It didn't make sense to me, but this was a foreign country. If I came in expecting people to make sense, I would soon enough find myself hosed. I said, "Eighteenth what?"
Pinto Whiteside ignored the question. He was too upset over having a hooker wife who, turns out, controlled the purse strings. "She gives me thirty euros a day as an allowance to stay in Paris. Thirty euros barely keeps me in comestibles and Midori."
I almost felt sorry for the guy. I've known cowboys who depend on women with jobs, and they tend to walk slump shouldered. Modern equality is a good deal — I'm all for it — but it rarely works out with women supporting men.
"Does it feel weird, having a real hooker for a wife?"
Pinto reached down and picked up his dog. "That is not a question I care to discuss."
I figured I knew the answer by the way he held the dog on his lap, like Monty was his last friend. "Does she enjoy it, when you service her?"
That whipped his mood around — more of a lateral change than up or down. "What difference does that make?"
"I've always wondered if whores" — he gave me a nasty look — "courtesans enjoy their husbands."
"I satisfy her, if that is your insinuation. Love is an emotional issue. Not physical."
"I'll bet all whores' husbands say that." Across the way, Odette stepped out of the university doors.
"Holy Hannah.
" I dug in my pocket for cash. "There she is."
14.
Odette was joined on the steps by another girl and three gangly guys. They seemed to be discussing which way to go next. I threw three twenties on the table, grabbed my saddlebag, and took off, past the fountains and across the street. One thing you don't want to do in France is run across a street without looking both ways. Cars honked. A little Peugeot hit its brakes and slid into me. No blood, no foul, except the driver didn't see it that way. I could hear him spewing French anger even though his windows were rolled up.
I danced over the curb and across the sidewalk. One of the guys Odette was with saw me coming, but she didn't.
I said, "Odette."
A flash of fear crossed her face. Just a flash. If you weren't looking close, you would have missed it.
"You walked off with something of mine the other night," I said. "I need it back."
The tallest and spindliest of the boys said something to Odette in French. She did that full-body shrug I'd seen in the Gut Shot.
I moved to the sidewalk, right below Odette, where I could grab her if she broke for cover. I spoke to the others, politely. "Will you excuse us? Odette and I have some business."
The three guys and girl were dressed in black, in sharp contrast to Odette, who wore a maroon, flowing top over a brown skirt. Same bright red Keds as Sunday night. She had on glasses. That was different.
The tall kid more or less barked, "Tu rêves quoi," which I took to mean Get away from us.
Odette nodded in agreement with whatever his specific words were. While, visually speaking, she showed nothing but disgust at my sudden appearance, I thought I detected a twinkle coming from the corners of her eyes. The Michael character had been right — outward contempt for me, inward delight at the proof of her power.
Odette spoke in French. The girl with her said something that made one of the boys — not the tallest one — snicker. I reached out for Odette's wrist. At touching her, the group tone darkened. I lost my entertainment value.
"You try this I-don't-speak-English scam on me, honey, and what could be clean and simple is going to turn nasty."
Two of the boys, including the tall, protective one, stepped in closer. The other girl in the group looked on with the interest of a kid watching a bug die. The third boy ducked back into the building.
Odette spoke to the tall guy, who had an Adam's apple big as a doorknob and four days' growth of beard wire. He put a hand on my shoulder. Using more force than necessary, I flung his hand away.
"Don't try it, Jack."
Jack said what I could tell was a dirty word.
"Are you the boyfriend?" I didn't wait for an answer. "You ought to keep your woman on a leash. She's got sex mixed up with Cracker Jacks. Thinks it comes with a prize."
Odette watched, wide-eyed. The glasses were incredibly clean and had oval frames that did exotic things to her eyes. The browns in her irises kind of shimmied, like shaved ice in sunlight. I could feel the pulse in her wrist, where I held it. Her pulse reminded me of her body, naked, sitting on my chest, which was an inappropriate thought at the moment. Tyson was depending on me.
"Where's my champion buckle?"
She replied in French. At least she was talking to me now, instead of her friends, although God knows what she was saying. She went on for a while.
When she stopped for air, I said, "I'm willing to think you didn't know the buckle was vital to me and taking it was an accident. Give it back and we'll call the last three days wasted and done with."
"This behavior is over a belt buckle?"
I turned to find Pinto Whiteside had followed from across the street. He carried Monty under one arm, the way I'd seen Parisians carrying bread.
"You speak the language. Tell Odette I want my buckle."
The third boy came back out of the building, accompanied by the same security guards who had thrown me out of the philosophy department. A veritable hullabaloo of foreign noise exploded, all the players talking at once. Only Odette kept silent. And me. I stared at her face while she stared at the ground. Then, she raised her brown eyes to meet mine. It felt like that first high dive out of the gate. The gut drop. The band on my chest. The adrenaline.
The guard I'd taken for a roller derby thug stepped between me and the boyfriend, facing me. He grunted — Lâchez-la — and I let go of Odette's wrist.
Pinto said, "You need a new story, cowboy. Nobody is going to believe you crossed the Atlantic Ocean for a belt buckle."
"Tell her it's not worth the mess. Tell her the buckle means nothing to her but if she doesn't give it back, I will turn her life into a nightmare."
Odette blinked.
Pinto said, "Do I hear a threat?"
"You hear a promise."
That's when the policeman arrived. The gendarme. Blue suit. Silly cap. Serious as a stroke. Everyone shut up while the less imposing security guard explained the situation to the gendarme. The cop listened, then the boyfriend jumped in and gave his side. The gathered crowd exchanged views. From the mutters, I'd say public opinion was not swinging my way.
The spare girl asked Odette a question. I don't know what she asked, but it ended in Clint Eastwood.
Odette smiled. In daylight, and wearing glasses, her smile was less complicated than it had been in Colorado. I'd call the nighttime booze-and-seduction smile detached. Ambiguous even, although that isn't a word that comes up much on the rodeo circuit, so I may be using it wrong. Her daytime glasses smile was open. Crinkly lines radiated from her eyes.
"Her boyfriend insists that you be arrested," Pinto said. "He says stalking is accepted in the United States, but in Paris it is considered rude and therefore illegal."
I tore my eyes from Odette's. "Being rude is not illegal."
Pinto and the gendarme got into a discussion. Odette continued staring straight at my face, only once I'd looked away, I couldn't look back. It was disturbing. My ears grew hot and when I swallowed, battery acid burned my throat.
"I'm trying to convince him you are a pitiful cowpoke," Pinto said.
"Thanks."
"He's not buying it."
After hearing everyone else's version, the gendarme turned his attention to Odette. She talked. Pinto translated over her words.
"She says she was raised in Polynesia, that her father owned a pearl diving operation there, and when she was fourteen, he sold her to you for six thousand francs."
My face must have shown how aghast I was because Odette shot me an interesting look — I'd call it a challenge — as she went on.
"She refused to marry you," Pinto said, "so you stripped her naked" — Odette's hands flew, showing how I stripped her — "at a rugby match and shoved her onto the playing field. Thousands of Polynesians saw her shame."
A hunched-over old lady from the crowd hissed. I've been booed plenty of times, by impatient fans, but never hissed. It caused a squirrelly sensation in the spine.
"Still, she refused to marry you, so you bought the bank note on her father's boat and foreclosed. You destroyed the family business."
"That's a good thing, right? I mean, her father sold her. Wouldn't ruining the old goat be considered good?"
"Family is sacred in Polynesia. Odette loved her papa and what you did was villainous."
"But I didn't do it."
"Tell her that," Pinto said. "She claims you did, and I don't see why she would lie."
Neither did her friends, the security guards, the gendarme, or the crowd. I was a stranger in a strange land.
"Penniless," Pinto said, which is a word I'd never heard in conversation, "penniless, she fled to Haiti and in despair she became mistress of a plantation owner. But you followed her and when the owner would not give her to you, you threatened to expose them to his mother."
"Mother?"
"And wife. The plantation owner was forced to cast her out into the wilderness."
"Awfully Old Testament of him."
"He was black."
&
nbsp; By now the crowd was transfixed. Odette was putting on a goddamn Greek drama, one of those plays where by the end everyone beds down their mama and pokes out their own eyes.
"She escaped in a refugee boat that sank off the Florida coast. All but Odette drowned. She was rescued by drug smugglers who forced her to mule dope into Miami." Pinto paused to listen. He asked Odette a question. She answered and went on with the hogwash.
"You caught up again in Bogota, but she hid with nuns until they could smuggle her to Paris, where she is now trying to start a new life."
Pretty Odette gave me a look that said, Top that, sucker. There was a moment of silence. Had we been in Iraq — or Wyoming — I would have been hung.
"That's the most bizarre story I ever heard. No one could possibly believe that malarkey," I said.
Pinto said, "It makes more sense than chasing her down over a belt buckle."
The gendarme placed a sympathetic hand on Odette's forearm. She sniffed back tears, murmured, "Merci," and nodded as the gendarme spoke gently.
Pinto shifted Monty to his other arm. "The policeman wants to know if your friend Odette would like you arrested."
"I haven't broken any laws," I said.
"That is meaningless here."
After the gendarme said his piece, Odette's lower lip quivered. She clasped her hands, as if in prayer. The girl was good.
"Non," she said.
"Looks like you lucked out," Pinto said.
The gendarme gave Pinto the lowdown and Pinto passed it on to me. "He's willing to let you go if you promise to stay away from the girl."
"In a pig's ear."
"The alternative is arrest and tomorrow they place you on a plane for the States."
"Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"I promise."
Pinto passed this back to the gendarme, the security guards, and what by then was a good-sized mob. The mob wanted me in chains. The guards wanted to beat the stuffing out of me. The boyfriend made the most noise. He couldn't believe I was being cut loose to terrorize another day. I don't know his exact words, but the gendarme asked Odette if she wished to reconsider.
