Trust Me

by Richard Z. Santos

  Charles put his notepad on top of Olivia’s postcard.

  “I’ve been researching all morning,” he said. “There’s no historical connection between Geronimo and the San Miguel tribe,” Charles said. “Or even between Geronimo and New Mexico, really.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Jordan’s been finding the same. She knows how to get on Wikipedia too.”

  Salazar turned and leaned her back against the window. Charles spun his chair completely around. Somehow, he had become a visitor in his own office.

  “Their claims don’t make sense,” she said. “The official Apache nation has no idea who these guys are, but Jordan thinks maybe they’re not lying. Maybe someone convinced them that Geronimo’s their uncle and they should reclaim their birthright. This sort of thing has happened before.”

  “Is that any better? If they were lying, they could be tripped up. But if they’re committed to something that’s not true, they’re fanatics.”

  Salazar gave him a slight nod of approval, and Charles felt like he had won a medal.

  “You and Jordan need to stop whatever bickering is happening. Work together. You get paid too much to silo yourself.”

  “Hey, I’m trying. I even invited her and Lou over to dinner.”

  “Oh, I just hate to miss that.”

  “Until the Apaches show us proof, can’t we go ahead and start building again? At a different part of the site, away from the grave. We have San Miguel’s permission.”

  “It’s not a grave. It’s a body in the wrong place.” Salazar shook her head. “Restarting right away is what Cody wants, but we can wait a little longer. We need to hear the Apaches out. If we go around them, they’ll sue us to hell and back. Sometimes these groups only want someone to listen.”

  It could be weeks until construction restarted. He considered asking Thompson out to lunch again. He might not tell his old friend about the casino, not yet, but a few crumbs could help everyone.

  “Can I ask about Branch?”

  Salazar’s face drew still. She looked too steady, too ready to lie. He knew he needed to focus on what was in front of him, but his thoughts kept running to Olivia. How she had married the type of man she used to rail against: mean, loud, blind to others. It had been bothering Charles all morning. He took Salazar’s silence for a go ahead.

  “Last night he seemed to take it all so personally,” Charles said. “And he’s put so much into this operation. The house is phenomenal. The cars. The offices. But even if the other project falls apart, he’ll be okay. Getting a cut of the airport parking alone could double his wealth, right?”

  He hoped Salazar would spill more about the casino, but she stayed quiet.

  “Why does he care so much?” he asked.

  This time her silence was more weighted, less contemplative than before. Charles had always wanted to master the knowing pause, but he could never hold back. He always kept trying to weave words into a solution.

  “Do you care about money?” Salazar asked.

  Charles shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”

  “Him. Not at all. If he cared, he’d be too timid to make any. Thirty years ago, a twenty-something kid borrows money from his first wife and buys a patch of dirt south of Albuquerque. Just a little square that wasn’t part of the Isleta reservation and that no one else even noticed. Terrible location. No utilities. An accident on the map. He didn’t have any plans for that land. It was worthless, but it was his. Then, he bought another patch and sold cars. An actual used car salesman, but that didn’t matter because now he owned even more land.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the man I met last night.”

  She agreed. “About ten years ago, that strange ugly dusty patch of ground starts pumping out millions. It’s all his.”

  She spoke as if the power of the words could transport them back to the primordial ooze that Branch had emerged from, coated in dollar signs and luxury.

  “The next year, one of his other patches struck oil. Then he bought another patch and did it again. And again, the year after that. The rest of us are venal and ambitious. Cody Branch doesn’t have to lie to himself about what he wants.”

  “Now, he wants an airport and . . .”

  Salazar broke eye contact and started towards the door. “The Apaches’ lawyer found my cell phone number,” she said. “They’ll be here tomorrow morning. I’ll run the meeting. Jordan will provide historical perspective, but it’s up to you to get them to spit out the number. Cody’s going to write a check. We need to know how big. Then, Geronimo can hitchhike back to Oklahoma.”

  Salazar walked out of the room. Charles still struggled with all the moving pieces. There was power here. Wealth without any of the baggage of east coast money. No ancient alliances or unions or half-remembered favors waiting to be cashed in. Thompson said it was dirty and then bragged about his comfort. Maybe this was Charles’ kind of dirty.

  He tossed the notepad aside and picked up Olivia’s postcard. Tonight, Mrs. Branch would be able to answer some questions.

  FOURTEEN

  THE PARKING LOT WAS EMPTY, and Angie never showed up before six pm, but Gabe was still paranoid. He brought two ounces for the kid. Not enough to decimate his own stash, but enough to earn him a good chunk of Helen’s money. He put the baggie into his vest pocket and had double-checked the zipper at every light.

  Gabe felt damp. He was still sweating out the meth. He wondered if he smelled like disinfectant and plastic drugs.

  Heat shimmers danced in the soybean fields across from The Pig. The bar itself looked rundown, even abandoned in the daylight. He resolved to buy back that sandblaster. It was hard work, and the sand cut up the inside of his nose and mouth, but cleaning driveways had to be better than waiting out in the open for some dumb kid.

  Gabe looked up and down Route 116. This was too obvious. There was nothing else out here. A truck went by, taking some guys out to a field. They all turned their heads to look at him, and one guy waved.

  When the kid’s red Camry appeared in the distance, Gabe tracked it with his eyes, worried it was someone else, worried it was the kid. The car pulled up next to Gabe’s bike. Music, really only bass, boomed from the car. The kid left the engine on and the music running when he opened the door. This gangster looked like a baby in the daylight. Gabe hated him. He hated the acne clustered on his chin. He hated the tight hemp necklace and he really hated that knit cap.

  The kid flicked his chin up in the air. “’Sup?”

  “Four hundred!” Gabe shouted over the music. “Two ounces.”

  The kid pushed out his lips and shook his head. “Nah, I think three-fifty.”

  “Four. You tried it. Let’s get this done.”

  “You in such a hurry, Pops, then we can do it for three-fifty.”

  Gabe pictured the kid using this story like a cudgel against his friends. Fuck you, guys, I’m the one with the balls to go deal with the old Mexican.

  “You trying to negotiate?” Gabe shouted.

  “I think you need to sell this shit, and I don’t think you’re a real dealer.”

  “This isn’t a flea market, kid.”

  The kid shrugged and turned around. “Fuck yourself, then. Our stuff wasn’t that good. I’m not trying to stress right now. You’re old, and you’re weird.”

  The kid stepped towards his car and opened the door. The music boomed louder.

  “You came all the way down here,” Gabe shouted.

  Gabe stepped to the kid, hating his arrogance, hating his beat-up car pumping out that brain-rattling music.

  “Three-fifty, fine, but I’m pinching a bud off.”

  “Nah, I can get smoke in town from people who know what they’re doing. I don’t trust you.”

  Before the kid could duck inside, Gabe grabbed his arm. “Hang on a second.”

  The kid flinched, one foot still on the ground and the other in his car. “Dude, get off me!”

  “Let’s talk about . . .”

  “Get off me!”<
br />
  He shoved Gabe in the chest, rocking him back and sending a twinge of pain through his ankle.

  Gabe reached forward and grabbed the kid by his throat. He squeezed just enough to silence him. The kid’s eyes went wide and almost bulged in time with the music. The hemp necklace felt rough against Gabe’s palm. The kid shook his head very slightly and brought a hand up to Gabe’s wrist, softly, not clawing or pushing. The wrist hung on Gabe’s arm, barely skirting the skin, like a bird on a wire.

  Gabe let go. His chest ached like he had been the one holding his breath.

  The kid screamed. Not a word or a cry for help, but the high-pitched scream of a child stung by a wasp on the playground. A sound to make any decent person look up.

  “Okay, okay,” Gabe said. “Okay. It’s okay.”

  The kid screamed again and fell in the dirt, hitting the back of his head on the open door.

  He sat on the ground, rubbing his head and sniffling. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie and handed over a wallet and phone. Gabe opened the red plastic wallet, took out four hundred and tossed the bag of weed into the car. The kid scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door before Gabe could hand back the wallet and phone. Gravel and dirt kicked up into Gabe’s face as the kid peeled out of the parking lot.

  Everything went quiet. In seconds, the Camry disappeared around a curve in the road.

  Gabe had the cash. He also had the kid’s cheap wallet and cell phone. When he tried to light a cigarette, the tip kept bouncing out of the flame.

  That happened. It happened, and now it was over. Gabe could shrug it off. The kid would get high later and tell his friends a story, maybe impress a girl. Everyone got what they wanted.

  The cigarette was gone, so Gabe sat down in front of The Pig and smoked another. Then, he saw a car on the horizon coming his way. His hands were still shaking and he was a little dizzy, but Gabe flexed and relaxed his fingers until he caught his breath. He tossed the kid’s phone and wallet into one of his saddlebags. When he glanced at his own phone, there was a text from Rose: Hey youre kinda famous right now. Online and stuff.

  He stashed his phone, double-checked all his zippers and looked over his shoulder. It was okay. “No one saw,” Gabe muttered to himself. “I’ll make it. No one saw.”

  FIFTEEN

  INSTEAD OF PREPPING for the meeting with the Apaches, Charles spent the afternoon googling Olivia and practicing his disinterested look. It seemed Branch had not yet been deserving of splashy coverage when they got married. Since then, she appeared in the background of countless photos: groundbreaking ceremonies, events where Branch handed over large checks to children’s hospitals and so on. It was not enough to answer any of Charles’ questions. Back at the house for a shower, Charles almost expected her to be waiting again. His eyes jumped, looking for her shoes by the door. Nothing. That’s a good thing, he reminded himself.

  The show was on Canyon Road, which was lined with art galleries and souvenir shops inside pink adobe buildings. Paintings of sunsets framed in thick, blocky wood frames stood in windows, and ristras of dried red chili hung from each doorway. It was impossible to tell which buildings were old and which had been sanded down to provide an authentic feel. Waiters buzzed around the party with glasses of champagne. Charles knew no one and felt self-conscious in his plain black suit. Most of the crowd was older and had the shiny skin and relaxed designer clothing of early-retirees. White men with long hair and blue jeans, but also Rolexes and hand-made shoes, stood next to women, most of them younger by quite a few years, wearing simple dresses with so much turquoise jewelry that Charles was impressed they could walk in a straight line. Actually, Charles noticed quite a few people were already having trouble walking straight. Did the wealthy of Santa Fe always dress like old hippies, or was this the art gallery uniform?

  He wandered away from the crowd and picked up a flyer.

  Olivia Reyes Branch is a New Mexico native who studied art in Chicago, Paris and Los Angeles. The artist describes her work as ‘ultra-realism’ because it uses the fantastic to portray the truth about humanity’s daily existence.

  After grabbing another glass of champagne, Charles turned to a painting: a bright acrylic rendering of a decrepit house with a torn screen door and a wooden porch with holes in the planks. In the front yard, a family of skeletons was throwing a party. One skeleton grilled bones, a skeleton kid in blue shorts and a red T-shirt jumped rope, while a skeleton girl in a frosting-pink dress swung a broom handle at a piñata hanging from a tree made of beer bottles. The skulls wore expressions that ranged from joyous to terrified.

  The room filled and the crowd started to relax. Sometime after his second glass of champagne, a man started talking to him about which restaurants to avoid. It seemed like he listed every restaurant in the city. Another person listed the hotels in Taos with the worst views. The glad-handing, the mood that accompanies important people mingling but not dwelling on important matters, not yet, felt familiar to him.

  An older woman with curly red hair and tight, high-waisted blue jeans approached him. The man Charles had been speaking to quietly slipped away. The woman’s hair was above shoulder-length but pulled back in a short riot of a ponytail.

  “Fresh victim?” She pointed at Charles and arched an eyebrow.

  His champagne stopped halfway to his mouth. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m afraid the same people always come to these things, and I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Guess I stick out,” he said.

  “Sure do.” She smiled. “Name’s Janice Chávez.”

  “Charles O’Connell.”

  He shook her hand. She was one of the few women not wearing thick bracelets or a turquoise watch. No jewelry at all, Charles noticed.

  The woman’s smile was probably twenty years older than his, but her jeans hugged her body, and she seemed to be coiled, full of energy. Her lack of interest in the crowd was compelling.

  “How are you finding our fair mountain city?”

  He let out a quick, involuntary laugh. “Takes some getting used to. Haven’t really seen much of it, to be honest. Mostly working.”

  “On what? Something classified by the government?”

  “Yes, I’m building a UFO death ray.” Charles smiled at his joke. “No, it’s the airport.”

  Janice sipped her champagne. “Well, don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. These people might cast you out if they discovered your shameful occupation.”

  “I hadn’t quite realized until the other day there was any real opposition.”

  She gestured around the room with her glass. “People are always scared of ‘the new.’”

  “I’m working with Cody Branch,” he said after a moment. “And Diana Salazar. You familiar with them?”

  “As much as anyone can be. Those two keep close counsel.” Janice smiled and looked toward the paintings. “Have you seen the art?”

  “I have. It’s nice.”

  “I hate it. The woman’s not as talented as we’ve all been led to believe. Alas, if you’re wealthy enough, you can inflict your hobbies on poor innocents like us.”

  Charles noticed people doing their best to look at the two of them without actually looking at the two of them.

  “I’m afraid we all have to pay fealty to the oh-so-talented Mrs. Branch,” Janice said. “It’s expected. The governor’s likely to slither in any moment now.”

  Charles tried to sound neutral. “You seem to have strong feelings about Mr. and Mrs. Branch.”

  Janice exchanged their glasses for fresh ones. Her mood became as bubbly as the champagne. “Enough of that, we must talk about your job. I’m sure it’s the most fascinating thing.”

  Her excitement flattered him. “No, no, no. Not until yesterday.”

  “Is it really him? Geronimo’s vengeance all these years later? Quite poetic, don’t you think?”

  “We don’t think it’s him. We’re taking the Apache claims seriously, of course, but, y
ou know, what are the odds that it’s actually Geronimo? Is Mr. Branch definitely going to be here? I thought he might be too busy.”

  Charles looked around the room, distracted by the thought of Branch and Mallon stalking in behind him.

  Janice laughed. “Oh, he doesn’t let her go out alone. But if they believe it’s Geronimo, and if the press want to believe it’s Geronimo, then it is, right?”

  “Funny, I said the same thing today, and Diana agreed.” Charles smiled, but Janice twisted her mouth.

  “So, what do you do?” Charles asked. “Other than look at art you don’t like?”

  “I spend most of my time trying to gouge my ex-husband for more money. It’s both my vocation and avocation.”

  They laughed. He started to realize why people seemed to avoid this woman. She clearly did not give a fuck, and it was amazing. He pictured her drowning in champagne with pool boys and cowboys half her age. Tonight, she would buy a painting she hated, just because she could. Maybe she would burn it and put out the fire with a bottle of wine.

  “You must allow me to buy you dinner soon,” she said. “I’ll tell you all the juicy bits that Diana keeps close to her wizened breast, and you can tell me about your work.”

  “I’m not sure my job is a good trade for ‘juicy bits.’”

  “Oh, working with the people you’re working with? You’re bound to be next year’s absolutely juiciest bit. Who owns that land, right now?”

  The question came fast as a needle, but Charles kept smiling. “Well . . . the tribe, San Miguel, sold it to the county. So, it’s county land, mostly.”

  “But the county handed it over to an airport authority, correct? To run the actual operations.”

  Charles thought of the suited cubicle dwellers. “Right,” he said. “Yeah, it’s pretty technical stuff. Janice, I’m sorry I don’t know that I should be . . .”

  “Jan. It must be Jan.”

  Her smile started to look as if it had been crafted in a desert workshop. He should stop drinking champagne. Charles found it difficult to explain himself in New Mexico. It was as if the air rendered normal words obscure.