by Tim Sandlin
"That's called a Molotov cocktail."
"Back home they're Arapaho bombs. I'm fixing to pass out now, so I'll answer any more questions later."
Mrs. Whiteside moved off and came back with what looked like a jade jewelry case but was in fact a mobile hospital. I think. It was one heck of a well-stocked first aid kit. She swabbed my ear with a deadening agent that not only killed the pain but made my eardrum vibrate like there was that sound of a landline computer connecting to the Internet in my brain. She murmured soft words I couldn't catch as she pulled a curved needle I would have thought was used to sew canvas out of the box. Pinto said something French and her answer wasn't near as soft as whatever she'd been saying to me. I watched her thread the needle with this brown wire about as thick as dental floss, then I closed my eyes and let her go to it. There wasn't any pain to speak of. More of a sensation of a foreign object passing back and forth through my flesh. I enjoyed her fingers on my skin a lot, at least as much as I usually enjoy nailing.
If I ever pay for sex, here's what I'll do. I'll go to a woman in her fifties, like Mrs. Whiteside. She was kind. Instinct tells me whores my age or younger are not kind. They haven't been around long enough to forgive. I don't see the point in paying for a bang, but I can see paying a woman to stroke my face and murmur, "Poor boy, you're going to be okay."
Pinto said, "You must go back in."
I said the first thing that popped in my head. "Fat chance, hoss."
"Lives are at stake."
I opened my eyes. Mrs. Whiteside smiled at me. Her eyes were dun with tobiano flecks. Behind her, Pinto's skin glistened, as if he'd been spritzed with 7UP. Behind him, the mirror reflected the back of his ponytail and the back of Mrs. Whiteside's frosted brown hair. I was too low on the bed to see myself, which was for the best. Way across on the far wall, Jesus hung spread-eagled on a cross.
Pinto kept at it. "Giselle bought poison in the mountains outside of Boulder. She smuggled it back here in her tampon tube. Armand and whomever paid for her trip are conspiring to kill McDonald's customers. They will destroy the business and put thousands of people out of work, and I can't stop them unless I know which stores he's going to hit and which employees are plants. I need you to find out."
I concentrated on not moving my head while she sewed. The whomever bothered me. I never have gotten that one figured out. "So shut down all the McDonald'ses in France. That wouldn't be a great loss. People can switch to Wendy's."
"There's eight hundred franchises in France, nine within the Paris périphérique itself. I can't close all of them."
"Your buddies at CIA could."
Pinto stood up and walked to the window. I could see his back in the mirror as he looked out on the street. He spoke facing away from me, so he was hard to hear. "My superiors in the agency are not taking the McDonald's threat seriously."
"If your boss doesn't believe you, I don't either. I'm not even sure you know anybody at the CIA. I think you're a turquoise-dealing taxi driver."
"How did you get out of jail this morning?"
"Got me."
"Think about it."
Mrs. Whiteside finished my head and put away her needle. She pulled out a bottle of stuff that smelled like Vicks VapoRub and moved down to my chest. I closed my eyes again, drifting toward sleep. When I was a kid and dragged home scraped up, I got out my own Mercurochrome and Band-Aids. Mom claimed messiness made her woozy. Dad said a little bleeding never hurt anyone. It only seemed natural years later when Ty came along for me to be the one who cleaned him up when he got hurt. Mica would smoke her Salem Light and tell me not to baby the boy while I washed and wrapped. Even at two, Ty knew kissing a hurt place didn't make it better.
I slept on and off for a couple hours until the Georgia Tech basketball team showed up downstairs and Mrs. Whiteside told Pinto she needed her room professionally. I thanked her for taking care of me. She gave me a T-shirt with the second amendment printed on the back, left by a gun nut from Alaska. As we were leaving, Pinto, Monty, and I passed the team coming upstairs. The kid in front was about seven feet tall. I started to explain to him how rodeo athletes must train and work to master our sport whereas all he had to do was be tall. He pretended he couldn't see me.
In the taxi, Pinto gave me the silent treatment. He was angry and wanted me to know it, but silence was my best friend, right then. Anger isn't that bad if whoever's feeling it keeps their mouth shut.
The silence was too good to last. "The poison is manufactured in Gold Hill, Colorado, from a toadstool called plueus villosus. One flyspeck will kill a customer before he gets out the door. Giselle brought in enough to murder five thousand innocent people."
"I'm tired," I said. "I want to go home."
"No one will patronize McDonald's for months."
We came to a stone bridge over the river. A boat lit up like a Christmas tree was passing under the bridge as we went over. It was pretty, in a tame way. I wish I knew the name of the river.
"Why don't you do it?" I asked. "Kick in the door, bust everyone in sight, and save McDonald's. You'd be a hero. They'd put your picture on a Happy Meal."
He took the sunglasses off, I suppose in hopes I would think he was telling the truth. "That would expose a cover I've spent twenty years building. You think I enjoy drinking all day and boring strangers in bars? You think I'm content, married to a whore?"
"You wife seems sweet to me. Better than mine."
There was a gigantic statue on the far side of the bridge, Neptune or Pluto, one of those gods. People milled around, not going anywhere. I wondered what there could be to do outdoors in the middle of the night.
"I cannot believe you would cross the world for a belt buckle but you won't lift a finger to save an American company in need. Where's your patriotism?"
"I left it in my other pants," which is a cocky thing to say, but he was pissing me off. If I thought actual human beings were at risk of dying, I would have gone back and done whatever had to be done, but I'd taken a sniff of Giselle's tampon-shaped powder and I didn't die, assuming it was the same stuff and I ingested a flyspeck and Pinto wasn't exaggerating about the amount it took to kill you dead. I felt weird, but there's a big difference between feeling weird and death. If she wanted to send McDonald's customers into psycho wonderland, that was her business.
"How'd you find out about the poison in the tampon tube anyway? You didn't mention it this afternoon."
"A client told Mrs. Whiteside."
"That's awfully convenient."
"We funnel men with secrets to her room. You'd be surprised the things they will confess in the arms of an artful courtesan." He pulled up in front of Odette's apartment. "Alene has always supported my career. Most agents don't even tell their wives what they do."
"My wife thinks my career is a farce."
We sat awhile, looking at the rain. The Chinese takeout place had a pink neon sign with Chinese writing. Neon looks best in the rain, and we don't get much rain in Wyoming, so we don't have a load of neon. It's not cowboy, but I think the stuff looks kind of neat. Monty whined, wondering why he wasn't going.
Pinto's spirits took a dive. He fell into that deep funk I'd seen him fall into when we first met, only this funk was even deeper. "In point of fact, I am not in good graces with the CIA, at the moment." He looked across Monty, his eyes old and doleful. "I was a vital agent, ten years ago. In the loop at every step of an operation. The old CIA respected me."
I was just beat up enough to sympathize. "It's like riding bulls. You give everything to your dream and, unless you are a champion, no one cares."
"How true. No one cares. I could handle hatred, but this treating me like I don't matter is worse." A choke came to his voice. "My handler says I am quaint."
If he'd been a girl, I would have held his hand. If he was a cowboy, I would buy him a drink. Since he was old, I didn't know what to do.
He said, "If I squash the McDonald's plot, they might realize I am still vital."
I didn't say anything. The truth was, all I wanted was to lie down and rest. I was too worn out to separate the good guys from the bad guys. In France, they overlap. Maybe Pinto was telling the truth and McDonald's customers would die, but how was I to know? He was a skinny-legged old man in a ponytail. He wore sunglasses at night. He made me apologize to a dog. This was not a man to risk violent death for.
Finally, for lack of anything better, I said, "Good luck." He could take that however he wanted.
Pinto rolled down his window and sucked in night air. He nodded at Odette's door. "Twenty-two, twenty-five."
"What's that?"
"The code to get inside. Twenty-two, twenty-five."
"I wondered if there was something I didn't know about."
"I'm sharing the information because this is the appropriate point for you to bring me one hundred forty euros. A hundred for the taxi and forty for the cabochon. I won't charge you for Mrs. Whiteside's time."
I said, "Hire a collection agency."
"Surely you aren't planning to stiff your guardian angel."
"If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have needed any angel." I got out and leaned down with my hands on his windowsill. "Don't bother coming back to take me to the airport. I'll find my own way."
I couldn't tell if he was fixing to cry or get out and hit me. "Are all cowboys rude, ungrateful, and selfish?"
"Hell, I'm better than most."
Pinto drove away in a cloud of hard feelings, leaving me on the foreign sidewalk. I went over and punched numbers. At first, it didn't work. He hadn't told me you hit the numbers, then the tic-tac-toe key. I had to figure it out through experimentation.
Frankly, my ass was dragging in the dirt. It wasn't all from getting beat to smithereens and chucked out a window, either. There was an emotional exhaustion. Ever since the phone call with Tyson, I'd been jerked up and down and around like a rider hung up on a bad bull. I don't recall ever suffering this level of exhaustion before. Dad's funeral, where they kept the casket open, maybe. Or when Ty was born. Maybe exhaustion this deep in your bones is one of those things that are so awful you forget them.
And it wasn't over yet. I had my buckle but I still hadn't figured out Odette Clavel. It appeared we were in love, as if either of us knew what the word meant. I sure as hell was in something I'd never been in with Mica or any other woman. Odette had gone from an anonymous lay to someone important I'd just as soon not be without. What was I supposed to do about that?
I hoped she was home and not off gallivanting at three or four in the morning, or whatever time it was. I couldn't face the thought of threatening the old lady downstairs again, to get into the apartment. I was burnt out on threatening people. Being hated takes more energy than you would believe.
I traipsed up the dark stairwell to the third floor that was really the fourth. In Paris, they don't light stairs and hallways with nobody in them. There was no doubt a timer switch on the wall somewhere, for the situation, but I'd be damned if I was going to grope around like a boy scared of the dark.
I stepped off the third-floor landing and started down the hall toward Odette's door. It's hard to figure what happened then. I saw a lightning bolt and incredible pain cracked the top of my spine. Then my head caved in.
32.
Odette's voice brought me back. "Wake up, my cowboy. Please awaken and be with me now."
My eyes fluttered, involuntarily, and I could see her although the focus was still out. Odette shimmered, like looking at her through someone else's bifocals.
She smiled. "Bonsoir."
"Why am I here?" Here was her couch. My boots had been taken off, and the top button of my Wranglers undone. Robert the cat sat on the far arm of the couch, looking down at me. Odette held a damp cloth to my forehead.
"I heard a sound in the hallway, and when I looked out, I found you."
Odette's hair and eyes were the exact same shade of loam brown. If we ever got married, I would ask her to pull the iron out of her eyebrow and nose. Maybe even her lower lip. I had enough metal in my body for the family.
She murmured. "You will be well now. I will take care of you." Those brown eyes shone with a devotion I'd never run into on the circuit.
"I always wanted to hear someone say that."
"It is true. You are safe with me."
Safe? It took a few moments to recall why I hadn't been safe on my own, without Odette. Frequent knocks on the head scramble time sequencing, but, lying there with a woman holding a wet washrag on my head for the second time in one night, my short-term memory came back with a fury.
"Holy Christ." I arched my back and clawed for my back pocket. "It's gone."
"What?"
"My buckle. The asshole-prick-shitheads took my buckle."
That was it. Last straw. Or brick might be the better word. For the first time since Uncle Ed shut me in the kindling box, my chest shivered like I was cold even though I wasn't and the tears came flowing. I cried like a baby. All through the annulment, divorce, separation, second divorce, and enough bull wrecks to kill most folks, I hadn't broken down the once. But there on Odette's couch, I lost control. Life was nothing but a gyp. Every time I got hold of something that could help me be the way I wanted to be — Dad, a wife who was on my side, Tyson — fate or some jerk acting as fate snatched it away. For no reason. My whole basis for going on was the belief that if you fight hard and never give up, sooner or later, good things will happen. That's the American way. The cowboy way. Only it isn't true. Cheaters win. A lot.
Odette didn't bat an eye at me crying. I've never had any use for men who cry in front of women, or women who cry in front of men, either. Tears should be private, shed in the loneliness of a truck. I didn't know if Odette would have anything to do with me after this or not. At the moment, it didn't matter. I was beat.
"Ça va aller, mon chéri, " she said.
I said, "It's not fair."
The tear part didn't last fifteen seconds, but it was enough. Then, I cussed — shit, crap, cocksucker — only not pissed-off cussing, more in the lines of no hope. End of the trail. Odette bathed my brow and waited while I gathered myself.
"Why?" I looked at her with some fierceness. After all, the bastards were her friends. "You tell me, why? That buckle doesn't mean a damn thing to anyone in the world except me, and maybe my kid. Why would anyone want it so much?"
She was gentle around my sewed-together ear and the forehead bandage. "Some people will not rest if their enemy has what he wants, even if they do not want it themselves."
I blinked teardrops. "That is incredibly fucked."
"But true."
Odette kicked off her Keds and lay down beside me on the couch. I had my right arm across her shoulder with her face cradled against my collarbone. The cat jumped off the couch arm and snuggled in between our knees.
I ran my fingers through Odette's hair and listened to her breathe. She was the one good thing to happen since Ty was born over seven years ago, and I'd messed up with him. What I wanted now was to lie here with her on the couch as long as I could because I knew this was okay and as soon as I went on to the next thing it might be another seven years before I was okay again.
"Tell me why you want this buckle," Odette said.
I stared up at the ceiling. Whoever put on the plaster had tried to make fan patterns. He pulled it off, mostly, except around the light fixture.
"Dad died in the avalanche. My mare had to be put down. Mica left and took my son with her. He'll hate me soon, if he doesn't now."
Her breath was soft on the collar of my borrowed T-shirt. She seemed like the first person I could tell the truth to. Mica would never have put up with soul-searching, even at the peak of our time together.
"I never had a thing in my life that didn't get yanked away. This once, with the buckle, I decided not to stand for it anymore. This was the test — winner or loser. I had to find out what I am." I stroked Odette's hair. "I guess I found out."
She inched up my body,
nibbling on my neck, then chin. She skipped the mouth and kissed each eyelid. "You will go after the buckle again, no?"
"No."
She stopped, mid-kiss. "But you are the rider of bulls. You do not stop."
"Odette, honey, I'm a terrible rider of bulls."
That said, it was time to go on to the next part of my life's story, the part where I wasn't indestructible.
"Hell," I said, "if Giselle or Armand have it, they'll throw the buckle in the river. If it's anyone else, I've got no way to track it." I eased Odette off of me and sat up. "Could you bring my saddlebag over here. There's codeine in the bottom."
Odette padded into her bedroom. I sat up and rubbed the goose egg on the back of my skull. Self-evident Truth #10: You only get a certain number of knockouts in Life, before you go away and don't make it all the way back. Consequences become permanent. I'd had two in one night, which is pushing your luck, even for a bull rider. Maybe it was time I quit the bulls and went into poetry full time. If I stopped now, I could say I won the last rodeo I entered. I could talk like a winner even though inside I would know better. Why would a person feel so much passion for doing something they weren't good at anyway? For every champion who says he would ride bulls even if he didn't get paid, there are twenty cowboys who do. Suddenly, I could not see the point.
Odette came back in, my saddlebag across her arm. "You are quitting?"
I flipped the flap and dug for pills. "I am quitting."
"Is not that against the code of the cowboy?"
"I guess I'm not cut out to be a real cowboy."
She slapped the holy shit out of me. "I did not waste my years looking for a man to have him not be a man."
I felt my face. One more blow to the head and I might be looking into street beggar as a career.
"Jesus, Odette, I don't know what to do."
"If you cannot fight for the buckle, fight for me."
I hate it when women are right. Maybe I wasn't worth a damn as a cowboy, but I was still a person. Even if I was lousy at sitting on a bull, I could still drink coffee and watch the creek go by. Write a poem. I wasn't gone yet, and so long as you're not gone, you've got a fight on your hands. People who whine are whiners. Surely there's something between cowboy and whiner. Most men spend their lives in that gap, but those were men I didn't have much use for. I didn't want to join the vast, dull-eyed middle ground.
