Moist (28 page)

It dawned on him that maybe what he found so compelling and sexy about Cindy was not her body but her brain, her personality. She was smart and funny and unlike anyone he'd ever met before. She was interested in things: people, places, ideas, words. She was curious. And she wasn't afraid.

He watched as she paged through his script, her interest and delight in everything. She was so beautiful, her pink pigtails in post-sex disarray, her surprisingly strong body lying brazen and naked on top of the covers.

“Amado, I don't read Spanish.”

Amado smiled.

“You want me to read it to you? To translate it?”

“Yeah.”

She squirmed under the covers, like a little kid about to be tucked in.

Amado began to read.

. . .

Maura sat in an extremely uncomfortable chair next to Don's desk. She amused herself by leafing through a catalogue of
law-enforcement equipment. Holsters, handcuffs, Tasers, pepper spray, Kevlar vests, all kinds of cool stuff. Even the different styles of shoes appealed to her. She was going to ask Don if you had to be a police officer to order from this catalogue, or if you could just be a normal citizen. It would be fun to dress up like a policewoman and handcuff Don to the bed. Maybe with these cool plastic cuffs; strong, light, and affordable. Perfect for civil unrest. And if Don felt uncomfortable about using firearms in bed, maybe this nightstick would be the ticket.

Don hung up the phone and turned to her.

“I've got a question for you.”

“Yeah?”

“How well do you know your ex-boyfriend?”

Maura thought about it for a second. She knew Bob as well as you could know someone. They'd been intimate. They'd shared their hopes and dreams. But then they'd never been as intimate as she and Don had. It was a difficult question.

“Why?”

“Well, I've got two severed arms. One is unidentified. The prints on it don't match any in our existing database. Although I'm sure if the body of a one-armed gangbanger showed up I'd find a match.

“The other belonged to Max Larga. Your ex, Bob, delivered Larga's arm. Larga was a client of yours. Larga was supposed to see you, but Bob came in and saw you instead. Yet Larga's car was parked by your office.”

Maura stared at him, blankly.

“I don't follow.”

“Let's assume that Larga wasn't involved in a crime, that he didn't have anything to do with the Mexican mafia.”

“So what did Bob have to do with it?”

“That's what I want to know.”

Maura shrugged.

“I honestly don't know. But I don't think Bob was mixed up with any mafia types. I mean, I can't imagine it.”

Don fixed his serious, I've-got-bad-news expression on his face.

“You may not like this, but I'm starting to think that Bob had something to do with Larga's disappearance.”

Maura burst out laughing.

“Cool.”

“Cool?”

Maura tried to contain herself.

“It's just, well, it's just that if you knew Bob . . . it's unbelievable. If he really did, well, wouldn't that be cool?”

Don started to say something, then caught himself and heaved a sigh.

“Let's go try and find him.”

Maura jumped up.

“Cool.”

. . .

Bob and Esteban had just finished signing the last of the signature cards. The bank manager, a reedy-looking dude in a fancy suit, smiled at them.

“Thank you very much.”

Esteban nodded.

“The money will be wired into this account by the end of business today.”

“Excellent. And with a sum that large, might I suggest some investments that will not only protect it but allow it to
compound and grow at a rate well above what you normally get with a savings program?”

Bob looked at Esteban.

“What do you think?”

Esteban smiled at Bob.

“Why don't you decide, Roberto. Take the man's card and talk to him about it tomorrow.”

Bob had the manager's card in his hands before he could blink.

“Thanks.”

“Call me anytime, Roberto. My home number is on the back.”

Esteban stood. Bob followed his lead.

“I'll call you tomorrow.”

The men all shook hands. Bob followed Esteban to the door. He spoke quietly to Esteban.

“I didn't know banks were so nice.”

“You never opened an account with twenty million dollars.”

. . .

The gunshot jolted Martin awake. It was followed by a couple of other gunshots, crashing sounds, some screaming. Martin tried to move his head, he wanted to see what was going on. But he was just too stoned. He knew, deep in his brain somewhere, that he should probably be scared. But his face held a dreamy Demerol grin, as if what he was watching was amusing.

A big blurry figure, it must be the sheriff, crossed the edge of the bed firing a pistol. Man, was that thing loud. Martin
could feel his arms and legs twitching involuntarily with each report. There were a lot of shots now, and Martin felt like he was doing some kind of cool new dance. Like something the kids on MTV might be doing. Strapped down an' twitchin'.

Martin felt his face get splattered with something wet. For a second he thought it was his own blood, that he'd been shot. But the liquid was clear and kept raining down in a constant stream. Martin turned his head toward the flow of fluids, and saw that his IV drip had taken a hit.

Bummer.

. . .

They met Amado at a Japanese noodle place downtown. Esteban watched as Bob used his chopsticks to scoop fat noodles out of a gigantic bowl of soup and noisily slurp them down. Amado sat across the table with some kind of punk-rock girl. Cindy Kim. Esteban thought that was
un poco raro.
Doesn't she have a last name? Even Selena had a last name.

Esteban liked udon, but realized that it was necessary to tuck a napkin in under his chin to keep the soup from splashing all over his suit. He wished they were eating something a little less wet.

Amado slid a manila envelope across the table to Esteban.

“I need a favor.”

Esteban grinned. They always do. They always come back and beg you for something. That's the best part of being powerful. They always come back.

“I asked a favor from you.”

Amado looked down at his soup.

“I'm sorry, Esteban. I'm just trying to make a change.”

Esteban carefully ate some of the pork floating in the soup. Couldn't they have gotten
media noches
somewhere?

“I will need a favor in return.”

“I can't do what I used to do.”

Amado held out his one arm to demonstrate.

“I need two arms.”

“I haven't asked you to do anything yet.”

Esteban could see that it pained Amado to even have to ask this favor. Although part of him wanted to make sure that Amado understood he was still the boss, another part of him genuinely cared about Amado.

“Amado, you know I will help you.”

Bob chimed in.

“We're family.”

Esteban looked at Bob. He must've seen that in a movie or something, but the mention of family touched both of the men at the table. Amado turned to Cindy.

“We've been through a lot together.”

Cindy just smiled. Esteban liked her. There was something about her. She was different from the other women Amado had been with. It signaled to him that Amado had made a change.

“I know you've got friends at Telemundo.”

It was true. Esteban knew everyone.

“
Cierto.
”

“I've written a script for a
telenovela.
”

This took Esteban by surprise.

“¿Qué?”

“I wrote a script.”

Cindy interjected.

“It's really good, too.”

Bob looked at Amado.

“That's cool.”

Esteban was still trying to process the information.

“You wrote a script?”

“
Sí.
And I want to know if you could get someone at the Telemundo to read it.”

“¿Tu eres un escritor?”

Amado shrugged.

“Un guionista. Sí.”

Cindy looked at Amado.

“
¿Guionista?
What's that?”

“Scriptwriter.”

Esteban and Amado locked eyes.

“Of course I will help.
Seguro.
”

“Gracias,
Esteban.
Muchas gracias.”

“De nada, amigo.”

Esteban looked over at Bob; Amado followed his look.

“I have a few things to clear up and then I'm going back to Mexico for a while. Roberto is going to look after things.”

Amado shot Esteban a look.

“Roberto?”

Esteban nodded.

“The favor I ask is that you watch out for him while I'm gone.”

Bob nodded.

“I might need, you know, a mentor or something.”

Amado smiled.

“I will always help Roberto. We are family.”

. . .

Thick smoke swirled around the ventilator as the air conditioning blew into the room. The smell of cordite hung in the air and assaulted Martin's nose. It was stronger than any smelling salt and smacked him right out of his stupor. There were now lots of people in the room. Doctors, a few nurses, many policemen. One of the nurses was fixing the IV bag. That was a relief.

She said something to him about the dosage controller being damaged, but such technical terms didn't matter as long as the narcotics kept flowing. The sheriff, his arm being bandaged by one of the doctors, turned to Martin.

“Do you recognize this man?”

Martin didn't see anybody.

“Who?”

“The dead guy on the floor.”

Martin craned his neck. It was a horrible fucking mess. Broken glass, splintered wood, crap everywhere, and there, sprawled in a pool of blood, was Tomás Ramirez, as dead as a doornail.

Martin nodded.

“Yeah.”

Martin laid his head back down on the pillow.

The sheriff jumped up and screamed at Martin.

“Who the fuck is it? Huh? Gimme a name, asshole!”

The sheriff was, apparently, a little testy from the recent gun battle. He could use a nice, relaxing Demerol drip. But then, who couldn't?

Martin found the little dial and cranked it.
I don't need this aggravation.

“Don't yell, man.”

Martin watched as the sheriff's face went through a few color changes.

“I'm sorry I yelled.”

Martin suddenly felt good. The warm waves of Demerol were back stronger and better than ever. But the situation had changed. He had credibility. A little juice.

“You didn't believe me. You thought I was just some loser drug dealer in the desert.”

Several other policemen looked at the sheriff.

“I'm sorry. Okay?”

Martin didn't think it was okay.

“You didn't take me seriously. Why should I talk to you?”

“I'll take you seriously now.”

“Too late.”

The sheriff moved to smack Martin, but his wound or whatever it was suddenly caused him great pain. He moaned and collapsed in a chair.

“Who do you want me to call?”

Martin thought about that.
Call the president. Or better, call that rock star guy who's always doing things to help political prisoners. I'm a political prisoner.

“I want to make a deal. I want immunity.”

“Then you'd better tell me who you want to talk to.”

Martin liked that. The sheriff wasn't important enough to talk to. Now everyone knew it. Martin was important. He was a big-deal criminal. A political prisoner. Soon there would be concerts at Dodger Stadium to raise money for his defense fund, to raise awareness of his plight.

“The dead guy's name is Tomás Ramirez. Call the LAPD. They'll know who to send.”

Martin cranked the Demerol dial. He saw Dodger Stadium, filled with thousands of people, all of them wearing T-shirts with his picture on it. Freedom for Martin! Freedom! A band hit the stage amid flashing lasers and lots of smoke. The lead singer, his hair perfect, his sunglasses still on, pumped his fist in the air and started the chant. “Free Martin! Free Martin!”

Maybe they'd let him sing on their next CD.

. . .

Chino Ramirez tied his blue bandanna around his wrist as tight as he could, using his teeth and his good arm to pull it. He had lost some blood, but not too much. He got out of his car and hustled over to the pay phone as quickly as he could. He knew he had about twenty minutes to either ditch the car or get the hell out of town, before the genius policemen would look at the hospital parking-lot security camera's videotape and see him walk out and drive off.

He dialed a number, waited for the beep, then punched in the number of the pay phone where he was. He hung up the phone and looked at his watch.

Chino kept his eyes scanning the road for any signs of police activity. As he did, he fumbled around in his pockets until he pulled out a folded square of paper. He'd need something to cut the pain once the initial shock wore off. He wished he had nailed that fucking cop. Who knew that Martin would be guarded by some kind of psycho jarhead? They'd come in, stolen some threads to look like orderlies or whatever they were. Walked down the hall with a bucket and a
mop. Nobody's ever going to bother a Latino with a bucket and a mop. You look like you belong.

They get to the room, pull their guns, and move in real quick. Next thing they know some guy's got like twelve guns out and he's just emptying the clips at them. Chino didn't even get off a shot before he was back out the door and moving his ass as fast as he could down the hallway. He turned and saw Tomás take eight or nine hits before he went down. That's when he caught a ricochet in the wrist. Even though he was in a hospital and could've used a doctor, Chino
salió
. No point in hanging around for more pain.