"Okay."
"Let me see your hand."
He held out his right hand and she took it. Her fingers danced over his palm, rubbing the calluses and stroking his thumb and pinkie. "Oh God, you've got big hands." She writhed in her chair. "Okay, aside from day labor, first thing I see is that you're not who you appear to be. You're here, in my shop now, under some pretense. Right?"
"Well—"
"That's a 'yes.' It's okay, Mr. Jesus. We're living in a deceitful world and I accept that. Second thing, and this is coming across clear, is that you don't believe in much. I'm talking spirituality, religion, matters of faith."
"Yes." Kind of unsettling, how she was getting all this.
"Now here's something interesting." She edged her chair closer to him, leaning forward until one of her knees was touching his under the table. "You're part Indian. I can see that much in your face. Especially the cheekbones, which are gorgeous by the way. I think—Yaqui. Yes. That has to be it."
She was breathing faster now. He could smell the faint chemical stink of whatever it was she'd snorted. She ran a finger down the bridge of his nose. Her touch felt fever-hot.
Behind them, the curtains clicked. Cody walked in, turned, and walked out quick as he came.
"Are you and him …?" Vega asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?"
"Nope." She crawled onto his lap.
* * *
Dona Cruz wanted a report as soon as he got back.
She sat in a chair in the little kitchen, an open bottle of Heradurra on the table and a fat roach smoldering between her fingers. As Vega talked, she took long pulls from the bottle and sucked down enough chronic to stone the Mexican army.
"The little gringa's going to cut into my business," she said after he'd finished.
"I don't see how she's a threat. No gangster would want to be seen going into her place, believe me."
Scowling, the Dona gestured at him with her blunt. "You think all my clients are hoods? This woman steals away the richer people and I'm in trouble. You're in trouble, seeing as how I pay you."
"What do you expect me to do about it?"
Smoke drifted out of her nostrils. "Something illegal. Your hands aren't clean. What if her shop was to burn down?"
"First thing police ask is who benefits. They'd check you out, find out about me and my record, and that's it."
"Can't you threaten her, then? Beat her up a little?" She tapped at his bicep. "What good are all these muscles if you can't use them?"
"Absolutely not."
"What if …?" her face seemed to darken. "What if I asked you to steal something of hers? Something small, personal. Any object would do."
"That's not going to stop her."
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes unblinking. Like the horned owl in the big greasewood cabinet.
"It would if I put a hex on it," she said.
* * *
He figured the whole idea was harmless.
She couldn't really curse anybody, so why not go along with it? All he had to do was boost something of Ellen's, say one of her rings or those silver bangles she had on her wrist. The Dona would do her weird bruja crap and nothing would happen.
Even better, he could pretend to steal from Ellen, and just hand over some scarf or ring he bought at the swapmeet. How would Dona Cruz know? She hadn't seen her before.
Unless …
He hated to admit it, but there was something to the old woman's powers. Nothing mystical; he reasoned she was just good at reading people. She might be able to tell if he was lying. Like before, with the human fat and the candle. He'd contemplated cheating, but whenever he was around her he'd get nervous, and she had that way of looking through you, like she could see the thoughts scrolling on the back of your head.
So he'd steal from Ellen. It wasn't going to be difficult.
Because after she'd blown him, back in the shop, she'd invited him to her place for the evening.
* * *
He put on his one good silk shirt and a pair of black jeans, with a Concho belt his sister had given him. Slipped into his least-scuffed boots. He'd had to return the catering van to his cousin, which would've left him without a ride, but he'd convinced Dona Cruz to lend him her sky-blue Lincoln.
He drove out into the foothills, squinting against the sun. Ellen's directions led to a subdivision that was still being built. At the end of the first street stood a single finished home, with dirt for a lawn and a restored MG coupe parked out front.
She met him at the door. She had on a short gold robe with leopard spots and a matching terrycloth headband. Her feathers had been swapped out for a pair of jade earrings that dangled all the way to her shoulders. What with his Concho belt and shirt, they made a pretty tacky couple.
"You look delicious," she said, and hugged him. He could feel her nipples through the robe's thin material, and damn if he wasn't already responding. Maybe they could go at it right here, in the doorway. There wasn't anyone around.
But she backpedaled as he started to press against her, drawing him into a front room with very little in the way of furnishings. "Zen," she explained.
She led him through a sliding glass door onto the patio. Even by his standards, it wasn't much. An eight by five concrete slab with two lawn chairs. The backyard view consisted of a low mountain, mostly hidden behind cinderblock wall and the ceiling joists of another house.
"When I came here I thought it would be all sage and saguaros, with coyotes howling in the distance," she said. "I didn't figure on sprawl."
"A lot of people had that idea."
"Well, maybe if the shop takes off I can get a place farther out. I've got some Clamato if you want a bloody Mary."
"You got that, how about a chelada?"
She looked mystified.
"Beer and tomato juice, plus some salt and lime. Sounds nasty, but it isn't."
"I'll take your word on that."
* * *
Three drinks in and he got tired of all the tomato juice, switched to straight beer, and some point after that switched again to tequila. Ellen kept asking him how the drinks tasted, like a self-conscious host.
They talked while the sky darkened and flights of tiny bats stumbled around in the desert air. Ellen described how her spiritual transformation had occurred while attending a rehab in Malibu, the same place where'd she met Cody. "After that I stopped listening to all the bullshit the therapists were telling us," she said.
Vega was thinking how he'd have to steal something before he got too wasted. "Need to piss," he said, which was also true, and pushed himself up from the lawn chair. Bright sparks pulsed at the corners of his eyes. He swayed for a second. "Sorry, but tequila never hits me until I move."
"Down the hall to the left."
He stepped through the sliding glass door. Veins of white light were threading across his vision, making it hard to see. Christ, how many had he had?
He found the hallway and lurched down it to the bathroom. There was a tub shower with sparkly gold curtains. About a hundred squat red candles had been arranged on the sink counter. He ran water and splashed some on his face. When he glanced up into the mirror his features seemed distorted, and the web of light was still there. Growing, in fact.
Tequila had never done this to him before. He leaned closer to the mirror. It was crazy, but his eyes were retreating back farther into his head. Shriveling up. He saw the reflection of the gold curtain behind him, and the sparkles were sliding across the plastic surface, forming whorls. The curtain rippled—
Had it moved?
It had.
He turned, and in a sudden motion grabbed the curtain, tore it free. Plastic rings rained down. Cantil stood in the tub, his arms raised in surprise. A length of nylon cord, long enough to strangle someone with, trailed down from his right hand.
They looked at each other. Cantil licked his lips, and when his tongue slid out it was forked like a serpent's.
From farther down the hall someone was yelling. Ellen?
It dawned on him then, what this date was. She'd put something in his drinks. Not a knock-out drug, though. He was hallucinating. God, had she put … was it mescaline?
Run, a voice told him.
He bolted down the hallway. Cody was waiting in the front room. He stood rigid, feet spread apart, left forearm raised and his right hand curled in a fist, palm facing upward. Breathing through his nose. Vega recognized the karate stance and had to force back a laugh. For some reason it struck him as funny. Cody twisted, shifted his weight to his back foot and brought his front knee up, chambering for a roundhouse kick. Even drugged, Vega could see it coming.
He snatched up a small table and swung it at him.
Cody tried to block. Forty pounds of hardwood, backed by Vega's jailhouse muscle, smacked into his forearm with a crunch. The table kept going, slammed against the side of Cody's head and swept him over the back of a futon couch. Cody, couch, and table struck the tiled floor.
He didn't get up.
Vega groped for the front door knob, but the room was spinning and diamond box patterns kept bursting from his temples, dazzling him silver-white glare. He touched the knob's warm metal. A sound to his left made him turn. He saw Ellen slide the glass door shut behind her and lock it, face calm. She smiled at him and opened the folds of her robe. Naked underneath, and all Vega could think as she shrugged off the garment was how skinny she was, not much pubic hair, and there was a crescendo of steps behind him, feet slapping on tile, and something struck the back of his neck, hard metal, and plastic CD cases went clattering all around him, as he dropped to one knee.
Then the metal thing again.
* * *
Snakes bit into his wrist. Through the slit of his eyelids he saw a snake-man and a golden she-demon looking down at him.
"His eyes just moved," the snake-man said. "Go ahead, ask him some questions."
The she-demon hunkered close. Her face was a mask hammered from a single sheet of gold, and when she talked her words formed shining hieroglyphs that hung in the air. "Mr. Jesus, did that old woman send you to spy on me today? You work for her, don't you?"
He couldn't answer. Too fascinated.
"Can he understand me?"
"I think you gave him too much."
"Fuck that. You hit him too hard."
"Guy's a fucking bull, man. I had to hit him. And Cody's still out. We should take him to the hospital."
"He'll wake up." The mask leaned closer, its eyes gaping like twin bullet holes. "Mr. Jesus, you shouldn't mess with us, okay? We're bad people. Snakebite knows all about your boss, so tell her to lay off. Got it?"
He opened his mouth and vomited a stream of blood. Some of it splashed the she-demon. She cursed and drew back, and the world receded around her.
* * *
He came to feeling hot blacktop against his cheek. His wrists were bound behind him. Morning sunlight lanced down through the branches of a Palo Verde tree. He lay on his side in what looked like an abandoned cul-de-sac. Off in the distance he could see houses.
Fucking Ellen.
He'd pissed himself. Red vomit—tomato juice, not blood—crusted the front of his good shirt. His stomach roiled and his throat felt so dry it wanted to close up. The back of his neck throbbed from where the CD rack had struck.
It took him several minutes, but he worked free of the nylon cords binding his wrist, minus a little skin. They'd left him his wallet, but his keys, including the keys to the Lincoln, were gone. He couldn't drive back even if he found the car.
He started walking down the cul-de-sac. They'd dumped him in an aborted subdivision; a bunch of empty lots that had been leveled and staked out before the developer's money dried up. Fifteen minutes later he'd crossed a rural road and found a canal running alongside a field of iceberg lettuce. He eyed the lapping water, wondering about pesticides and other shit, but it wasn't like he could hike up to someone's house and ask for a drink. He took a couple careful sips, then stripped off his silk shirt and washed it. Nobody was coming up the road, so he peeled off his jeans and washed them, too. Put his clothes on sopping wet.
They were dry by the time he'd flagged down a produce truck willing to take him back to town.
* * *
The driver let him off five blocks from Dona Cruz's house. Five blocks in a hundred and ten degree heat, blisters already forming under his boot's hard leather, and he was thinking how he'd explain what happened.
But when he got there the Lincoln and the MG coupe were parked out front.
He slunk around to the back yard, heard voices and music slipping out through the kitchen window. A glance inside showed the Dona sitting in her usual chair. Across from her sat Ellen, talking animatedly, gesturing with her hands. The two women laughed. About a dozen empty bottles of Negro Modelo occupied the table between them.
"No revenge today, alright?"
The back door had opened. Cantil leaned out through the frame and leveled a shotgun with a cut-off stock. His other hand held an icepack against the back of his head.
Whatever rage he'd been feeling evaporated as Vega looked down the smooth-bore barrel.
"Come inside," Cantil said.
The Dona didn't look happy to see him. "You took your time, getting back here. Ellen brought my car around this morning. She decided to do the civil thing and talk to me face to face. She told me what you did to her friend Cody. They had to take him to the emergency room last night."
"Good. She tell you how they drugged me, tied me up—"
Dona Cruz raised a wrinkled palm. "I don't want to hear anymore. This has all been a misunderstanding, and Ellen and I have decided to put it past us." She snaked an arm across the table and covered Ellen's hand with her own. They grinned like sisters.
"I've always been fascinated with curanderas," Ellen said. "Dona Cruz has agreed to take me on as a student."
"For a fee," the Dona added.
"Well fuck me," Vega said.
"And I'm changing my name," Ellen said, not hearing him, "from Ellen Redfeather to Ellen Aztlan. What do you think of that?"
What he thought was that these two spiders deserved each other. He grabbed a cold Modelo from the counter and went looking for his keys.
†
Nickel and Damned
Arizona sun leeched blue from the sky, scorched blacktop.
The heat got so bad Joe Pender abandoned his office for the front stoop of U-Save Storage. A wind picked up and spat warm dust at him, but it was movement, at least. Air circulated past his armpits. The sweat clinging to his Dickie shirt started to dry.
And then: two shapes approached along the frontage road.
They came fast, on motorcycles, and Pender saw the glint of round helmets, the familiar brown-and-tan uniforms. He put a grin on his face. Waved. Sure enough, the officers slowed as they neared the storage facility, angled their bikes off the road and into the parking area.
He felt fresh sweat begin to trickle.
They swung the kickstands down, leaned their heavy machines onto softening asphalt. Both slid their helmets off at the same time. Christ, he knew these two. Ray Satoshi and Robert Opp. They started over to him, Satoshi taking the lead. He had stiff black hair and big eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. Pender had gone to high school with him, made fun of him, in fact, about those eyebrows. And being Japanese.
"Joe," Satoshi said, giving his hand a quick, professional shake. "We dropped by because we're checking all businesses along the freeway. We'd like to ask you a couple questions."
"This is about that robbery last night, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"News said the guy got fifty grand. That d
oesn't sound right for knocking over a bar."
"Forty-three grand," Robert Opp said, leaning in. He was older than Satoshi, sort of doughy, but just as serious. "And the place he robbed was a topless club. Gentleman's Choice."
"You familiar with it?" Satoshi said.
"I've sunk a couple there, yeah."
Opp's expression went from police-friendly to police-stoic. "What makes this case so important, Joe, is that a man was shot during the robbery. One of the bouncers. He died this morning."
"You guys have any idea who did it?"
Satoshi took a folded paper from his uniform pocket and handed it to Pender. Pender unfolded a copy of a photograph. A young hard-ass with a teardrop tattoo under one eye stared up at him. There was an unusual name printed at the bottom: Yrigoyen.
"How the hell do you pronounce that?"
"Ear-eh-GOY-en," Satoshi said.
"Sounds Armenian."
"Mexican National."
Pender handed the paper back. "I still don't see how this guy gets forty-three large, even from a titty bar. What he do, make the girls cough up their g-string money?"
"He did," Opp said, reddening. "He also got the manager to open his private safe, at gunpoint."
"Jesus."
Satoshi and Opp were looking at him expectantly now.
"Are you trying to ask me if I've seen this asshole?"
"We think he's still somewhere in town," Opp said. "The first thing we did was throw a cordon up on the highway, in both directions. And we warned the Border Patrol to double-check everyone trying to get into Mexico. So, odds are he's hiding. And no offense, but we've heard things about these storage places. How people will live in units sometimes, or hide evidence, because the managers don't ask too many questions."
"We're not trying to sound accusatory," Satoshi said.
Pender smiled to show them he wasn't taking this personal, despite the fact he never had a criminal record. Not even a ticket. Despite the fact some of the money he made went to city taxes, which in turn went to paying the salaries of city officials. Including a certain Jap cop and his fat buddy. But no, he wasn't offended.
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