by Gregory Ashe
Tean tossed his salad with a fork, distributing the vegetables, picking out the fried chicken tenders and setting them on a plate, ignoring the orange dressing that had come on the side. He ate a few of the cherry tomatoes, which were surprisingly good. The lettuce was crisp and cool.
“Oh my God,” Jem said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry, ok, but please don’t punish me like this.”
“Like what?”
“Put the goddamn dressing on the salad.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. But please don’t make me watch you pick out all the good fried chicken, completely ignore the spicy southwest dressing, and rabbit-munch your lettuce. Please. I made a mistake, but I’m a good person at heart, and this is cruel and unusual.”
Tean set down his fork.
Jem offered an uncertain smile. “I’m sorry?”
With a shrug, Tean pushed the chicken tenders toward Jem. Jem broke off a piece and dipped it in the dressing. Tean went back to his salad.
“Tean, please, I’m—”
“It’s fine. Let’s forget it; I don’t want to talk about it.”
He forked another cherry tomato.
“No,” Jem said. “I will not stand by and witness this travesty of a meal.”
“Will you please—”
Jem took the fork from Tean’s hand, grabbed the knife from where it rested on the table, and cut up the chicken tenders. After placing them back in the bowl, he picked up the dressing.
“I don’t like—”
“Teancum Leon, if I don’t know what you like and do not like after months of watching you abuse food, I never will. I know you think you don’t like dressing. But really you don’t like a lot of dressing. And I’m adding the perfect amount, and you’re going to like it, and then maybe you won’t hate me.” He tossed the salad, forked lettuce, tomato, chicken, and crispy tortilla strips, and passed the fork to Tean. “Now I won’t feel like I stood idly by during the salad equivalent of an airplane crash.”
Tean accepted the fork and put the food in his mouth.
Jem raised an eyebrow.
“It’s good.”
Jem shrugged.
“And I don’t hate you.”
Jem tried another of those hesitant smiles.
“But can you please tell me what’s going on with you?”
Jem clutched the table so hard that his knuckles popped out against his skin, blanching from the pressure. Then he relaxed and said, “I think you’ll like the cowboy beans too.”
“Ok,” Tean said with a sigh. “When you’re ready.”
They ate in quiet for a while. The family at the table next to them left in a herd, with Harold still trumpeting something about his rafting experience—something to do with an air pump. The silence was comfortable enough, or it would have been if Tean hadn’t worried about what it was hiding.
Skittish animals, Tean thought. Wild things. A foal caught in a juniper tree. You couldn’t move too fast, and you couldn’t always come straight on. Slow, from the side. A tiny smile crossed his face. Too hard, too direct, and you could end up like poor Gouverneur Morris, trying to solve things with a whalebone.
“You know what I really want to understand?” Tean said casually. “Why were Blake and Tanner staying here? At the lodge, I mean. I’ll be curious to know what Ammon thinks.”
“What Ammon thinks?”
“Yeah, I think he could really provide some insight.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“He’s a cop. He knows stuff like that.”
“Give me a break.” He glanced around as though seeing the lodge for the first time. “This isn’t exactly the kind of place drug dealers would stay. Too many families. Too much traffic. Too many good citizens.”
“Maybe they just really liked the lodge.”
“Maybe.” Jem hemmed. “I’m not sure that’s the right question, though. The right question is where were they partying while they were here? Those guys didn’t come down here to play tiddlywinks with Brother and Sister Johnson from Beaver, Utah.” Jem’s gaze came up, his eyes clear and fixed on Tean. “Oh, before I forget: I called Ragnar on your phone and left a message saying you were desperately in love with him and needed his magic dick to make you feel better.”
“You did what?”
With an explosive grin, Jem shook his head. “Nah. I just wanted to test your outraged voice.”
“I hate you.”
“Yeah, that’s good. Like that.”
“No, I really hate you. Scipio and I are going to sleep in the truck tonight. No, scratch that. You’re sleeping in the truck tonight.”
“Let’s go back to the room. We’re going to find where Blake and Tanner have been spending their free time. You’re going to need your outraged voice.”
17
In their hotel room, Jem sat on his bed and dealt out the credit cards in two rows. Six cards: four Visas, two Mastercards. Joseph Mendez, Joseph Mendez, Chandler Nash-Moore, Destiny Briones, Wendy Cowling, Wendy Cowling. Scipio came over, nosed at Chandler Nash-Moore, and nudged the Visa off the bed.
Scooping up the card, Tean said, “I don’t think the credit card companies will issue a statement unless we can provide an address, a date of birth, some sort of identifying information.”
“Probably not.” Jem hesitated, and then he slid one of the Wendy Cowling cards forward. Then he slid it back. “I need you to help me with this part. Which of these cards are premium?”
“What do you mean? They’re credit cards.”
“Right, but even credit cards have tiers. I’ve never had one, well, not one of my own, so I haven’t bothered to dig into it too deeply, but you can sometimes tell by the materials. This black one is thicker, see?” He touched one of Wendy Cowling’s again. “And someone clearly took more time to design it.” He looked up. “What?”
Tean shook his head. “I know I promised not to try to push you into things, not to try to fix your life, because it doesn’t need fixing. But can I give a brief plea that you will reconsider college? I know you don’t believe how smart you are, but Jem, please.”
“I noticed a few tiny details. And no talking about college until I can read Dick and Jane Go to a Sex Dungeon all on my own. Research, please.”
After a few minutes of tapping, Tean said, “The one you pointed to, the black one. And the shiny blue Visa. No, behind that one. They’re the premier cards.”
Jem moved them to the top. The Visa had been issued to Chandler Nash-Moore, and the Mastercard to Wendy Cowling. He glanced around. “Did you see a local directory? Something like that?”
Tean grabbed a faux-vinyl portfolio from the desk and passed it over.
“Watch and learn,” Jem said with one of those rare, genuine smiles that fully revealed his crooked front teeth. He dialed a number, held the phone to his ear, and said, “Yes, hello, I need to speak to someone who can help me with a fraudulent credit card charge. Yes. That’s fine, thank you.” To Tean, he mouthed, Manager. “Yes, Chandler Nash-Moore. Can you look up transactions by card number? Let me give you mine.” He read off the number. “I’ll hold.” To Tean, he mouthed, I’m holding.
“Yes, I got that part.”
Jem flipped him the bird. “Yes, thank you Ms. Fluitt. You’re sure? Perfect. Thank you so much.” He disconnected the call. “One restaurant down. One hundred million to go.”
“Wait, that actually worked?”
“Of course. Nobody’s suspicious when you want to give them your credit card number. Let’s split these up.”
“This isn’t really my thing.”
“Too bad.” Jem flashed another smile. “It’ll be good practice. We’ll make a morally bankrupt homosexual out of you yet.”
“That’s not—”
“With a feather boa. And high heels. If they kick up dust about this, you can tell them that the card was lost and you’re trying
to collect receipts to prove to the bank the times and dates of the charges you claim were fraudulent. Oh, and use *67 to make sure your number is blocked, so they can’t see who called.”
“Wouldn’t the bank already have that transaction information? And wouldn’t the bank’s fraud department handle this?”
“Of course. But that’s the thing about bureaucracy: they make you do crazy-ass things that nobody understands, so nobody will question you.”
They split up the list, working through the restaurants. Tean surprised himself by having a good time doing it, and the rush of success when he finally got a hit—a roadhouse up US-128—made him grin and squeeze Scipio in a hug that made the Lab squirm free and lick Tean’s hair.
“Good fucking job,” Jem said, slapping his knee. “Now write down the info and keep working.”
The real pleasure, though, was watching Jem. He wasn’t just good. He was unbelievably good. He changed voices without seeming to think about it. He made jokes. He laughed. He flirted. He said weird, unreal things that somehow people seemed to swallow: “This is a neo-capitalist bank, sir, and if you’ll remember the Reagan doctrine, you’ll understand a proto-receipt reprint policy.” And then, with one of those real grins to Tean, mouthing, What the fuck am I saying?
Tean just shook his head and placed the next call.
After a while, it wasn’t as fun, but it remained surprisingly easy. They finished bars and restaurants and moved on to hotels, starting with the priciest ones in the area. Tean was talking to an uppity young man at a place called Tafone when things got strange.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Chandler-Nash. I cannot believe something like this happened. Please hold for a moment.”
On the other bed, Scipio was licking a combination of Jem’s ear and the cell phone, and Jem was trying not to giggle as he said, “No, no, that’s just my pet peacock, Balthasar. Balthasar, present colors!”
Tean waved frantically, and when Jem, still giggling, disconnected, Tean placed his call on speakerphone.
When someone came back on the line, it was a different voice, deeper, older, more self-assured. In one of Jem’s movies, Tean thought, he would have been the snooty maître d’ whom the wild and crazy kids outsmarted.
“Mr. Chandler-Nash, this is Adrian. I’m deeply, deeply sorry to hear about the possibility of fraudulent charges. First, I’ll admit that we’ve been worried after you stopped coming in. Are you all right?”
“Well,” Jem whispered, “are you?”
“Yes,” Tean said. “I’m fine. An emergency. I had to leave town.”
Jem pointed at Scipio, who was washing the undercarriage. “Tell him about Balthasar,” Jem whispered.
Tean waved furiously for silence.
“I can assure you that we haven’t placed any charges since the initial hold, Mr. Chandler-Nash.”
Jem was making a rolling motion, and Tean had no idea what that meant, so he asked, “Not even incidentals?”
“No, sir. Absolutely not. Any incidentals will be charged to the villa,” a note of doubt crept into Adrian’s voice, “the same way you charged your drinks and meals to the villa.”
Jem drew his hand across his throat in a cut-it-off gesture, and Tean said, “I’m sorry, of course. I’ve been swamped with paperwork trying to get this resolved. Thank you so much for your help.”
“Sir, if the card has been compromised, would you like to provide us with a new one so that we can—”
Jem reached across and disconnected the call.
“Holy cow,” Tean said.
“Holy shit,” Jem said. “Try it with me: holy shit.”
“Why were they renting a villa at Tafone but staying here?”
“My guess,” Jem said as he hopped off the bed, “is that they’re putting up their party friends there. Someone they want to impress. Or keep happy.”
“Whoever Tanner’s working on with this drug thing?”
“Maybe. I think that’s a good possibility. Let’s find out.”
They used the lodge’s Wi-Fi to preload the directions out of Moab and south on US-191 to The Tafone, which from its website appeared to be a boutique hotel with satellite villas available for rent, everything a whitish-brown stucco with oxidized-green metalwork and brightly colored azulejos. After giving Scipio another run at the dog park, they headed to the Ford.
They drove west first until they hit Moab, then south along the town’s main thoroughfare. It was evening, the sun balanced on rimrock, the day’s heat already fading. The tourists were out in force, crowding the city’s narrow sidewalks, jamming the streets, laughing and drinking and eating on shaded patios. One woman was carrying a giant insulated mug that said MAMMY’S DESERT SUNSET; her t-shirt was covered with an oversized icon of a battery, only instead of the usual bars that showed the level of energy, it showed a half of a margarita glass. DANGER DANGER LOW-BOOZE BITCH MODE ACTIVATED.
“Good Lord,” Tean muttered.
“Please, please, please buy me that shirt for my birthday.”
“You just had your birthday.”
“Tean, please. I am not joking with you right now.”
And then they were past Moab, past the tourists, past the spilled drinks and the vomit and the middle-aged men who insisted on wearing body-shaping swim shirts. On their left, civilization trickled away from the city: a tin barn with a bullseye painted on the corrugated roof; frame houses behind windbreaks of singleleaf pinyon and yellowpine, bulldozers and dump trucks butting up to an excavation that marked where more homes were being put in. A strand of power lines ran south like a garrote.
On their right, though, red-rock mesas glowed in the evening light. Juniper and pinyon pine, of course, because this was their country, the leaves dusty and brown, the branches gnarled. But also prickly pear, dagger-bladed yucca, fishhook cacti, blackbrush. Russian thistle, looking meaner than hell. The slender cane stems of ocotillo, the flowers long gone. Even determined little tufts of matchweed along the shoulder of the freeway. Already as the desert cooled, life was emerging to prowl the narrow band of hours when the temperature was tolerable. A jackrabbit huddled behind a straggly clump of sand sage. Something moved higher up the mesa, disturbing a clump of Spanish bayonet on one of the narrow ledges. Some sort of rodent, Tean guessed. A rattlesnake’s dinner.
The Tafone looked a little harder used in person than it had in the pictures. In places, the white-brown stucco had crumbled away, exposing the metal laths underneath. The oxidized green of the metalwork showed trails and drips of reddish-brown rust. A blacktop road led southwest away from the main building, which served as the hotel proper, toward several free-standing villas. More stucco. More red-tile roofs.
Five villas, to be exact, arranged in a half-circle, with the Tafone’s main building just far enough to offer the illusion of privacy. Tean and Jem parked the Ford, got out, and walked. Three of the villas were empty; the red-orange dust on the patio furniture and the silent fountains made it clear that the hotel wasn’t wasting extra resources keeping empty units in sparkling condition.
That left two villas: the one on the north end of the half-circle, and the one on the south. Tean and Jem went north first. Some sort of Mercedes SUV was parked alongside an Audi in the circular drive. Lights showed in the windows. When Jem stepped off the drive, heading for the side of the house, Tean whispered, “Watch out for rattlesnakes.”
“What?”
“Rattlesnakes. Places like this, with food waste and garbage, attract rodents, and rodents attract snakes. Just keep your eyes open, that’s all. Well, and your ears.”
“Just keep my eyes open?”
“And your ears.”
“What the hell kind of place is this?”
“It’s a desert.”
“A desert with rattlesnakes,” Jem whispered furiously. “You took me to a desert with snakes?”
“Well, pretty much every—”
“Great, Tean. This is just perfect. We’re i
n snake country. Now I have to be on high alert. The minute I let my guard down, I’m toast. One day I’m going to be innocently taking a whiz—”
Tean blinked “Can you do it guiltily?”
“—and a rattlesnake is going to bite me right on the tip of my dick—”
“That seems very unlikely.”
“—and not in a good way!”
“There’s a good way?”
Jem let out a high-pitched noise. “I cannot do this with you right now. This is why people invented axes and backhoes and nuclear bombs: so we wouldn’t have to get our dicks bitten off by snakes.”
“Jem—”
“No, I can’t. I cannot do this with you. Just—just be quiet. We’re trying to sneak around, if that’s not too much to ask.”
It didn’t seem like a good time to point out who was making most of the noise, so Tean laid a finger over his lips and nodded. With another of those suppressed, high-pitched noises, Jem led the way. They were halfway around the villa when a chorus of voices reached them.
“London, don’t chase your sister with a squirt gun! Not in the house, you two, not in the house! Bill, will you try telling them?”
“Have another drink, Charisse?”
“God, Daddy, I will. I really will.”
“And see if the ball-and-chain wants one too.”
“I didn’t realize she’d reached the legal drinking age, Daddy.”
“Be nice to your new stepmother, please.”
Jem waved toward the front of the house, and they reversed course.
“No way,” Jem said when they were walking back down the drive. “That’s too many moving parts, and you don’t want to bring friends and family along for something like this—they’re the ones who might point out that it’s a risky investment, or they might want to double check your numbers, that kind of thing.”
“I’d like to take this opportunity to explain that out of the approximately seven to eight thousand venomous snakebites every year in the United States, only five are fatal on average.”