Fifty Grand (36 page)

He was already fragile, on edge. He began to simper and, sipping my vitamin water, confessed that he had been drunk the night of the golf cart incident, but he’d only been trying to drive from the Scientology Center on Pearl Steet to his apartment on Arapahoe, that there was no way he could get up the mountain, and in any case everyone had been given strict instructions to stay away from Mr. Cruise’s estate and not to invade his personal space. The sheriff’s department hadn’t cared.

Still, he groaned, he knew it was wrong to get drunk, it was weak, and if
they
found out that he’d been drinking he could get into big trouble. He wanted to talk about it but I’d had enough.

I assured him that his secret was safe with me, exited IV#2, and, forsaking
forever my chance of being accomodated in Tom Cruise’s bunker when the aliens returned, walked back out into Fairview.

Within a minute I had dismissed Toby from my mind and had steered my trajectory back onto its proper course.

Got to eat. Call Esteban and eat.

The long road back.

The motel.

Upstairs, look for Paco.

A note: “Overtime! See you tonight!”

Stomach rumbling. Needed some food.

I had money left.

Paco said there was a good burrito place downtown on Logan Street. Good because it was too greasy for the white people and it was cheap.

Out again.

Sun, but a chill in the air, and a hundred meters from the motel Mr. New York Plates still there in a turning circle by the forest. Sipping a coffee, reading a
Denver Post
. Latino, bald, forty, chubby. Shifty-looking character, possibly an INS agent, possibly not.

I crossed the street.

“Good morning,” I said to him.

He pretended not to hear.

I tapped the glass.

Window down, paper down. “Yes?” he said in accentless American.

“Do you know the way to San Jose?” I asked.

He grimaced. “I’m a stranger here myself,” he said.

“A stranger in paradise, well, that’s ok. Have a nice day.”

The window whirred back up.

Now that he’s been made, I’ll never see him again, I thought with what turned out to be poor powers of prescience.

I walked down the hill.

I was wearing my third change of clothes of the day. Blue jeans, black shoes, a red blouse, and a raincoat Angela had left for some reason. Didn’t she watch the movies? All those Yuma flicks with Bogart, it’s always raining in L.A.

Main Street. Gray clouds. Few people about.

A family with kids. A gaggle of high-maintenance girlfriends buying apresski gear. Half a dozen individuals sitting outside Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee and Tea, some of them still defiantly in flip-flops and shorts.

They didn’t notice me.

I didn’t register them.

I did see Mr. New York Plates again, following me on foot.

An INS agent almost certainly—the FBI investigating a murder in the New Mexico desert would surely do a better job.

I found the intersection for the burrito place, turned the corner on Logan, and ducked down an alley.

Garbage cans, Dumpsters, squirrels.

I waited for Mr. New York Plates.

He passed by in a hurry.

I waited until he had turned at the next block and then I ran back up the hill to the Wetback Motel.

His Toyota was still there in the turning circle.

On my second day in the force Lieutenant Díaz showed me a trick with a coat hanger that can open practically every car on the planet. I’ve used it many times. But I didn’t have a coat hanger, and why not give the INS a little of their own back?

I picked up a log and smashed the passenger’s-side window, opened the door, looked inside the car.

A sleeping bag, McDonald’s wrappers, soda cans, a water bottle filled with urine. Nothing interesting until I found a digital camera in the glove compartment. I took it, slipped it in my coat pocket, and went back down the hill again.

Our paths did not cross as I had hoped they would.

I found the burrito place, ordered a beef fajita, and scanned through Mr. New York Plates’s photographic work on the digital’s tiny screen.

Pics of the motel, of trees, several of squirrels, of himself, and finally the jackpot: several shots of me, Esteban, Paco, and a few of the others.

Yeah—INS. Didn’t bother me but I’d have to warn Paco. He should have gone to L.A. If they deported him now he’d be back to square one again. Poor kid.

I ate the burrito and drank a warm Corona.

“You’re not good at this,” Mr. New York Plates said in Spanish.

I looked up.

“Not good at what?” I asked, attempting sangfroid.

He didn’t look angry, just tired. He put his hand out. I gave him the camera and he put it in his pocket.

“I like the ones of the squirrels best.”

“What else did you take?” he asked.

“Well, I was spoiled for choice: the bottle of urine or the McDonald’s wrappers?”

“Good day,” he said and turned to go.

“Wait. Who are you?” I asked.

“Me? I’m someone who doesn’t like to get dicked around by stupid fucking bitches!”

“I can’t imagine you get much opportunity if that’s an example of your small talk.”

He sighed. “You think you’re smart? We’ll see how smart you really are,” he said and walked out of the restaurant.

I didn’t think of a snappy comeback until he’d been gone five minutes. “I’m only smart in comparison to some.”

It was happy hour, so I ordered a Negra Modelo and considered him for a while, but I didn’t have enough information to work up many hypotheses. And besides, I had other tasks.

I found the phone Esteban had left for me.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” Esteban asked.

“María.”

“What’s up? You wanna borrow the car?”

I did want to borrow the car. I needed the car tonight, but that’s not why I was calling.

“No.”

“Good. Fucking walk to town. Fed up with people using my property for their personal convenience. You all have it easy. Twenty years ago you’d all have had to work for a living. Don’t know what I was thinking. Don’t even try it. I’ll have them check and see if it’s in use with the GPS. Same to everyone else—no one uses the car until I get back on Monday. Give them an inch they take a mile.”

“I haven’t used it at all.”

“Somebody’s been driving it. I’ve logged it. Abusing their privileges. Oh yeah, and what’s this I hear about you asking questions about some accident? Briggs left a crazy message on my voice mail.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What?”

“A private investigator’s been asking everyone questions about an incident that happened here in May. He’s been hired by the Mexican consulate in Denver. Apparently someone killed a Mexican on the Old Boulder Road and he noticed that your car was involved in an accident around then. He thinks you might be implicated somehow.”

I took the phone from my ear while Esteban threw out a complex series of curses involving the man’s mother and all sorts of unlikely forms of intercourse.

When he was finished I pressed home the point. “What should I tell him? He wants to have your car towed to a lab for a forensic examination.”

“My God, I leave town for one day and Briggs is going crazy and they’re towing my car? What the hell is happening out there?”

“Look, Don Esteban, it’s ok. I can handle this. He seems to be a little taken with me, but what should I tell him?”

“This is so fucked. I hit a deer. And that was a week before that accident. I was with Manuelito and Danny Ortega. We swiped an old doe. Jesus. And besides, everyone knows what happened to that dead Mex.”

“Oh—”

“Oh yeah, that’s no secret, one of our friends up the hill killed that poor bastard. Those fuckers. Briggs covered it up for them, I’ll bet my life on that.”

“One of the Hollywood people?”

“They can do anything they want in this town. That’s why we gotta squeeze a big tip outta them. Has anyone mentioned tips to you yet? Christmas isn’t far off.”

I ignored the sidetrack. “So I should I tell the investigator it was one of the Hollywood people?”

“No, no, don’t tell him anything. This isn’t our concern. Say nothing.”

“Ok.”

“But I know. Oh yeah, they think they can keep me out of the loop? That’s bullshit. Yeah, and just between you and me I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

“Who?”

“Well, I can’t say over the phone. It’s not exactly confidential formation. You remember him. He smashed up that big white Bentley. You know who I’m talking about? From the party? I think he’s one of the houses you clean. No big secret.”

Silence.

Youkilis.

And everybody knows.

And no one cares.

“Are you still there, María?”

“Yes.”

“You sweet-talk him, María, don’t let anyone touch my car. I’ll fucking kill them.”

“Ok.”

“Ok. Good. Hold the fort. I’ll be back. See you Monday.”

It wasn’t late. The room clock said nine but Paco was already asleep, exhausted from a day’s overtime.

I needed sleep too.

Quietly I stored my supplies in the backpack and wrote a quick note for Paco. It didn’t convey much of anything. “Paco, you’ve been more than a friend, but this next step belongs to me alone. If all goes well I will see you tomorrow before I take the bus to Mexico. If all does not go well, I want to thank you for everything. Love, María.”

I read it, reread it, thought of crumpling it, left it.

I laid out my clothes, the backpack, the keys to Esteban’s car.

I climbed under the sheet. Closed my eyes.

My head hurt. The wires were all fucked.

Next door a man stumbled in, drunk. He pushed his bed across the floor with an ugly screeching noise. He started to sing. Paco didn’t stir. Poor kid. I examined his face. The bruise on his cheek from New Mexico had turned yellow. He looked young, vulnerable. We were all vulnerable. We were all on the box here. Above the trapdoor.

Time went past without sleep choosing to descend.

I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to eleven.

Fuck this. Call Ricky. Talk to him.

The lobby. Deserted. Early for America but late Mex time. Everyone up since four digging ditches or removing brush or cleaning rooms or minding kids or making food.

I took out the calling card and rang him direct. Please be in, just this once,
hermano
.

“Ciao,”
he said.

“Isn’t that goodbye?” I asked him.

“Honey, it’s you!”

“It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“Good . . . Listen, Ricky, I thought I would let you know, I’m going to try for it tonight.”

A pause. “Is it our boy?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes. You were spot on, Ricky. I’ve wasted enough time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t want to say over the phone.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

A longer pause. My phone card minutes being eaten up.

“I talked to Mom yesterday. She sent you a message,” he said at last.

“From Mother? There’s a message from Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you know how she is,” Ricky said sheepishly, preparing me for something about Yoruba gods or a warning about rapists or a request to pick up some oranges for Dad so he could sell them at the Pan American Games.

Ricky cleared his throat. “She says to tell you that she cast the fifty-second hexagram. You’re to study the fifty-second hexagram. I think it’s a reference to the I Ching.”