The light over his mother’s porch steps flashed on. Rolly ducked down behind the truck cabin.
“Hello,” said his mother. “Is someone there?”
Rolly lifted his head.
“It’s me, Mom.”
“What are you doing, dear?”
“How did this truck get here?”
“You’ve got a visitor.”
Rolly stepped out into the light.
“Who is it?”
“A young woman. She’s in here with me.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, dear. Why are you acting so strangely?”
“I thought it might be someone else.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
Rolly walked to the bottom of the steps.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” said his mother, indicating the plastic bag.
“Dinner.”
“Come on in, dear. We’re having tea. I’ll make you some.”
His mother turned back inside the house. Rolly climbed the steps, followed her into the warm light of the kitchen, wrinkling his nose at the onslaught of rose hips and incense. A teen-aged girl sat at the kitchen table, holding a large, white mug painted with yin and yang symbols. She had long black hair and wore a dark blue Mexican blouse with bright yellow daisies stitched into the fabric. She looked like one of the girls in the pictures on Marley’s computer, like the girl in the coroner’s photographs. She smiled at Rolly, young white teeth beneath cabernet lips, then fixed her eyes on his with a charcoal black stare. She wasn’t the least bit deceased.
“What’s your name?” Rolly said. The girl stared at him.
“¿Como se llama?” said Rolly’s mother.
“Me llamo Rio,” the girl said.
The chorus of the song blazed into Rolly’s head. He saw the little doctor’s face, his fierce teeth, a pair of pink panties balanced delicately on the point of a scalpel. He thought about what might happen to them if the doctor returned.
“We have to get out of here,” he said. “All of us. Now.”
La Muchacha
(The Girl)
Rolly opened the front door of the Villa Cantina, showed the girl in. A crowd stood inside, waiting for tables. He took Rio’s hand, worked his way through the waiting customers to the hostess station. Vera was perched on a stool behind the stand, overseeing the late night reservations.
“I need to thee Hector,” said Rolly. His tongue had bloated up again from the Perkushen.
“What’s this all about?” Vera said, as she sized up Rio, assessing the level of trouble Rolly had dragged in.
“I need thumun who thpeak Thpanish.”
“I speak Spanish.”
“Thumplathe private.”
“Hector’s helping out in the kitchen. You’ll have to wait.”
Rolly nodded.
“You want a table?” asked Vera.
Rolly looked at Rio. He was hungry. She probably was, too. It wouldn’t hurt to eat. It might do them both good. They wouldn’t have much to talk about with his limited Spanish, but they’d be safer hidden away in a booth, just another mismatched couple out on a first date.
“OK,” he said.
“It’ll be twenty minutes.”
They took a seat in the waiting area. Rolly gave Rio what he hoped was a reassuring look.
“Un hombre,” he said, searching for the words. “Un hombre que habla ethpanol aqui.”
Rio nodded, turned her head to survey the scene. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the customers – date night couples dressed to impress, groups of friends absorbed in chummy banter. Rolly sighed, closed his eyes. The dense chatter of the crowd grew distant and soft, as if someone had wrapped pillows around his ears.
His mother was safe, at least for now, ensconced with their neighbors, Doug and Will, the gay couple who lived next door. His mother had let them use her kitchen last summer, while theirs underwent renovation. As Rolly saw it, they owed her, but it wasn’t a hard sell. The two men welcomed her, without much fuss. He warned them against opening the door for anyone they didn’t know, to call the police if they heard anything funny, that he’d return in the morning.
“Rolly?” a voice said, interrupting his feather-bed thoughts.
He opened his eyes. Vera stared down at him.
“Yeah?”
“Hector said to put you at the chef’s table.”
“Wherth that?”
“Back in the kitchen. He thought you could talk while he worked.”
“Thure, fine.”
Vera led them to the back of the restaurant, into the kitchen, seated them at a tiny booth near the back exit. The kitchen looked even more crowded than the dining room as Hector’s staff, a motley bunch dressed in white aprons and hair nets, minced cilantro and onions, folded tortillas around steaming fillings, doled out green and red sauces on brightly colored plates. They barked to each other in snippets of Spanish and English, dashing from stovetops to storage bins, too busy to give more than a cursory glance at the middle-aged man and his pretty young companion who’d appeared in their kitchen.
Vera left them with a bowl of guacamole, chips, a trio of salsas. Rolly grabbed a chip, scooped up a hunk of the chunky green dip and shoved it in his mouth. Recovering his manners, he indicated to Rio that she was welcome to partake. She took a ladylike portion, chewing it slowly as she looked around, wide-eyed, soaking up the scene like a sponge.
Hector emerged from the frenzy.
“Hola,” he said.
“Hola,” Rolly replied.
“For special guests,” Hector continued, indicating the table. “Just like the high-class joints.”
“Theem a little cramped,” Rolly said as a waiter squeezed through behind Hector.
“That’s what makes it special,” Hector replied. He turned to Rio, “Buenas Noches, Señorita.”
Rio batted her eyes, tilted her head like a little girl and smiled. She hadn’t spoken one word on the drive down.
“Thee dunthn’t thpeak Englith,” Rolly said. “I need to athk her thum quethdionth.”
“Are you drunk or something?”
“No.”
“You sound drunk.”
“Ith painkillerth.”
“What happened?”
“Thumbody hit me. Lithen, thith girlth in trouble. Sumbodeeth lookin’ for her. He, heeth a killer.”
“No shit?” said Hector, raising his eyebrows. “A killer?”
“Heeth looking for me, too.”
“Eechi Mama, Rolly. Why don’t you go to the cops?”
Rolly shook his head.
“The polith might depaart her,” he said.
“Wait,” said Hector. “She’s one of those girls we saw on the computer, isn’t she?”
“I think tho,” said Rolly.
“Geez, Rolly. You got cojones.”
“Nahh...”
“You’re muy loco.”
Rolly shrugged. He wasn’t brave. He wasn’t crazy. That left just plain stupid. He had shelves of stupid stacked up in his brain, like bottles of Kahlua at a Tijuana tourist shop.
“Ayúdame,” said Rio.
“What’d thee thay?” Rolly asked Hector.
“She’s asking for help,” said Hector.
“How about it?”
“I’m kinda busy, right now,” said Hector, looking like a bug had flown down his throat. It was easy to carry a picket sign, spout politics over café con leche, much harder when it got down to cases, when reality showed up at your door.
“Por favor,” Rio said again. “Ayúdenos.”
Hector sighed, swallowed the bug, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a set of keys.
“Vera will kill me for this,” he said, tossing the keys on the table. “Outside back, there’s a studio apartment up the stairs. We stay there some nights when we’re here late and have to open up in the morning.”
Rolly grabbed the keys.
“I should call Rob
erto,” said Hector.
“Whoth that?”
“My lawyer. He handles all the green card stuff for my employees.”
“No. No lawyerth. Not now.”
“OK,” Hector said. “I’ll be up in a while, when things settle down here.”
Hector turned, headed back into the fray. Rolly stood, signaled for Rio to follow him. He grabbed the basket of chips and guacamole and pointed towards the back door.
“Thith way,” he said.
Rio frowned, then stood and followed. They walked out the back door, into a narrow alley that smelled like old grease. A rickety stairway led up the back of the building. Rolly climbed the stairs, rebalanced the chip basket on one arm as he tried different keys in the lock. He found the right key, lifted the tumbler and opened the door. He looked back down the stairs. Rio stood on the bottom step, drenched in a pool of light spilling out from the kitchen. She looked as if she might run away, out to Tenth Avenue, into the city. She had a thirty-foot head start over flat pavement. She was young. He’d never catch her.
From a rarely used corner of his brain, Rolly extricated a few more words of Spanish.
“No peligrotho,” he said, recalling the words he’d seen on yellow warning signs. “No peligrotho. Eth bueno.”
He nodded towards the open door. Rio crossed her arms.
“Es verdad?” she said.
“Yeth. Verdad. Mi Verdad. Mi no peligrotho.”
Having told Rio he was truth itself, and not danger, he flashed a smile, the last and best weapon he had in the world. It was a goofy, lopsided thing many women had trusted over their own common sense, the scruffy grin of an abandoned Labrador retriever who only needed a little care and affection to become a faithful companion.
It still worked. Rio uncrossed her arms, climbed the stairs. Rolly entered the apartment, found the light switch. A naked light bulb glared from the ceiling. Rio stepped in beside him like a tentative house cat assessing new digs.
The apartment was small, a bit forlorn, saved from grimness by the decor on the walls - large fans made from palm fronds, colorful photos of rural Mexican towns, pop-art posters of Latino revolutionaries – Cesar, Pancho and Che. A full-sized bed stood at the opposite end of the room, below a garret window. Two chairs and a table, made of tanned hides stretched over rough-cut wooden frames, stood against one of the walls. A vase of declining flowers sat on top of the table, next to a portable CD player, a bowl of fruit and a yellow notepad. An open door led into a bathroom on the opposite side of the room.
Rolly placed the guacamole and chips on the table, motioned for Rio to sit and partake with him. As they munched along in the glaring light, he found himself wondering how old she was - fifteen, sixteen, possibly older. Her skin looked as smooth as coffee ice cream. He wanted to touch it. He took another chip, stabbed it into the guacamole. That kind of thinking would only lead to new levels of hell.
He turned away, surveyed the room again, spotted something stashed under the bed that looked like a guitar case. He walked to the foot of the bed, knelt down and slid the case out, undid the brass latches and opened the lid, revealing a mahogany-topped Taylor acoustic. He lifted the guitar from the case, took a seat on the end of the bed, strummed a few chords, and adjusted the tuning. The guitar was beautiful, with a silky smooth action and resonant tone. He looked back at Rio. Her eyes remained bright and curious. The rest of her face told him nothing.
He leaned into the guitar, playing more forcefully, stretching the strings, plucking out country-blues licks, combining phrases and turnarounds from songs that he knew, testing his vocabulary with a new voice. The strings were bright, fairly new, but there was no brittleness in the sound. He’d tried Taylors before, never quite saved up enough money to buy one. Running a restaurant paid better than detective work.
He looked back at Rio. She smiled at him. Music was the international language, after all, the one that needed no translation. He remembered the song on the record, the one on the CD. Jungle Love. He fiddled around a bit, trying to get the guitar part, the rhythmic figure. It started on the root, then up an octave, back and forth on the fifth and the seventh. There was one other note in there, as well. He found it - the major sixth, then fiddled around a bit until the sequence sounded right. He looked back at Rio to see if she’d noticed, if he’d made an impression. If the riff sounded familiar to her, she didn’t show it. She didn’t smile, either.
He needed to pee, wondered if he could chance it. He stood up and walked to the bathroom, nodded at Rio to indicate he wouldn’t be there long, closed the door. He waited a moment, half-expecting to hear the clip-clop of tiny heels across the floor and down the staircase. Nothing happened. He turned to the toilet, unzipped. As his flow wound down to its final drops, he heard an unexpected sound from the other side of the door - guitar and voice, the sounds he loved most dearly in life.
He flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and opened the door. Rio sat on the bed, the guitar in her hands. She looked at him. He smiled. She sang in a soft voice, bright and pure as a shiny copper bell. He imagined her on a Sonoran hillside, dressed in a white cotton dress and leather sandals – a goatherd tending her flock, singing ‘Cielito Lindo’ as she hiked through the cactus and sage, sad and lonely. It wasn’t an old canción she crooned now, though. The words were in English, but she sang them just fine.
I like touching you baby, all night long.
Anaconda baby, our love so strong
In the river baby, or on my knees
Vines are creeping, and I can’t breathe
I am lost, in your jungle love,
I am lost, in your jungle love.
La Entrevista
(The Interview)
The song ended. Rio smiled at Rolly. He smiled back. He felt stupid. The front door opened. Hector walked into the room.
“Canta bien,” he said, nodding at Rio. She smiled again.
“Rolly?” said Hector.
“Huh?”
“You okay?”
Rolly snapped out of his enchantment.
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine. How long you had the Taylor?”
“What’s that?”
“The guitar.”
“It’s not mine. Roberto, my lawyer, he leaves it here sometimes. For when we have jam sessions in the club.”
“Thoth thingth are expenthive.”
“He does okay for himself. You want me to talk to her? I got a few minutes.”
Rolly nodded.
“Tell her I want to akth some quethionth.”
Hector spoke to Rio. She put down the guitar, looked back at Rolly.
“¿Tiene mi dinero?” she said. Hector laughed.
“Whath that?” Rolly asked.
“She wants her money.”
“Thee wanth me to pay her?”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“I thought maybe you’d know. You want me to ask her?”
Rolly nodded. The little doctor said Rio was a whore. Perhaps she’d misinterpreted the nature of his interest. He’d brought her up to the bedroom, after all.
“¿Por qué debe él pagarle?” asked Hector.
“Señor Velasquez dijo que usted me pagaría,” she said. Rolly understood the first part of her answer.
“Jaime?” he said, before Hector could translate. “Did thee thay thumthin about Jaime?”
“Who’s that?”
“Theenor Velasquez, thath wha thee thaid, right?”
“Yeah. Señor Velasquez said you’d give her money.”
“When wath thith?”
Hector asked Rio. She replied. Hector turned back to Rolly.
“When they drove up to your house. When they talked to your mother.”
Rolly nodded, remembering his mother’s description of the old man and young girl from the previous evening.
“Who’s this Velasquez guy?” asked Hector.
“Heeth dead. Thumbody killed him.”
>
“Oh.”
“Akth her when thee thaw him lathd?”
“What’s that?”
“How’d thee get hith truck?”
“She has the guy’s truck?”
“Yeth.”
Hector turned back to Rio, questioned her.
“Necesito el dinero,” she said.
“She says...”
“Yeah, I underthood that one,” said Rolly. He reached in his pocket, pulled out the cash he had left, counted it. Thirteen dollars and two quarters. He offered up a ten for her, hoped it was enough to get started. Rio scowled at him.
“Ciento,” she said. “Él me prometió ciento.”
“She wants a hundred,” said Hector. “He promised a hundred.”
“Velathqueth?”
“I guess.”
“I’ll give her ten now, the retht later, if she antherth my quethdionth.”
Hector translated the offer.
“Necesito el dinero,” she repeated, shaking her head.
“I’ll pay two-hundred... tomorrow.”
“Dos ciento, mañana,” Hector told Rio. She shook her head again. Rolly sighed.
“You got ninety dollarth?” he asked Hector.
Hector pulled out his wallet.
“I got forty,” he said, extracting two twenties. “I guess I could get more from downstairs.”
“You okay with that?”
“Yeah. I’ll go get it.”
“No. Wait.”
Rolly gave his ten to Hector.
“Tell her half now, half after thee talkth.”
Hector laughed.
“Cool, man. Just like in the movies.”
Hector addressed Rio, displaying the cash.
“Dosciento en todos?” she replied. Hector looked back at Rolly. He laughed.
“She wants two hundred now,” he said.
“Figurthe,” said Rolly.
“Esta noche,” said Rio. “No mañana. Ahora. Esta noche.”
“Tonight, huh?” said Rolly. He sighed, turned to Hector. “Can you loan me that muth?”
“You got a credit card? I could charge it and give you the cash.”
Rolly looked back at Rio. She didn’t seem as credulous as she had five minutes ago. He nodded.
“Sí,” he said “Ethta noche. Thee hath to anther thum quethionth firthd.”
Border Field Blues Page 17
