He wouldn’t wonder about the lost time.
Cavagnolo acted like his knees were stiff and he couldn’t get up. I pushed his chair close.
“You want revenge for what happened to Gino? Let me handle it and stay out of my way,” I said.
Cavagnolo sneered. “Go screw yourself.”
“No, screw you.”
If zombies were involved, I had to destroy the infestation without human intervention.
Cavagnolo brushed dirt from his shirt and the back of his pants. He acted like we’d merely gone through a minor spat, but in his heart, I knew he wanted my dismembered corpse in a trash compactor.
I beckoned for Cavagnolo to accompany me through the office and out the door.
Vinny was gone, probably taking his buddy to the doc. The black pickup had moved to the other side of the street. Cleto eyed me from behind the steering wheel; his passenger watched through the open front window.
“Sal, some of your boys might decide to take me out on spec. Bad idea. Make sure we all stay friends. If I have to shoot, believe me I’ll use you for target practice.” I poked him in the side to emphasize my point.
Cavagnolo’s face went steam red with humiliation, but unless he wanted to die like a fool, what choice did he have?
We circled the Toyota and I checked for footprints in case somebody planted a little explosive souvenir under the chassis. Looked clean.
I stopped by the driver’s door of the Toyota. “Remember, make sure your men stay cool. You don’t want to start trouble in public like this. Might affect your cozy arrangement with the feds.”
Cavagnolo’s eyes could’ve burned holes though me.
I waved to his goons and drove off.
I checked my rearview mirror. Cavagnolo hustled across the road, oblivious to the mud. He got his cell phone and gestured in my direction.
This wasn’t over.
CHAPTER 27
I needed something with more detail of the area than I could get from my Colorado road map. I drove east toward Alamosa, the big city of the San Luis Valley, to find better maps.
A Chevy Blazer appeared behind me. Sunlight reflecting off the windshield kept me from seeing the driver.
The Blazer tailed me for a minute, then zoomed close to smack my rear bumper. My Toyota shimmied. The moron driver was trying to ram me off the road.
Had to be one of Cavagnolo’s men. I didn’t have time to waste with this bullshit. I’d better take care of this loser quick.
I eased to the shoulder. The Blazer pulled behind me.
The driver got out. He wore sunglasses. Because of his ponytail I recognized him as Cavagnolo’s driver from a couple of hours ago. Apparently he’d dropped Phaedra off and had orders to bring me back to Uncle Sal. Or shoot me.
Sorry, you little punk. Not today. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.
His aura was an undulating bubble of confidence. He stood as tall as his five-foot-plus frame would allow. After making an obvious adjustment of the drape of his jacket over what had to be a pistol, he started for me in a tough guy swagger. Cavagnolo’s errand boy was as intimidating as a shih tzu wearing a spiked collar.
I took out my contacts and put my sunglasses on.
I waited with my window down.
The punk halted two paces from my door. “I got a message from Sal.”
My biggest complication would be getting his sunglasses out of the way. I acted like I didn’t hear him.
“What?”
He took off his sunglasses to demonstrate his seriousness and hooked them into a jacket pocket. His eyes showed no fear. Either this kid was high or merely stupid. I’d vote for both.
He reached to pull his jacket off his hip.
I gave a grin that belonged on the Joker. “Hold on.” I removed my sunglasses and gave a super-duper jolt of hypnosis.
His eyes dilated wide like everything in his mind wanted to spill out through them. His aura burned red hot. He slouched, mouth open like he wanted to catch bugs, and his head sagged toward me.
“Good boy,” I said. “Come here. Give me your right hand.”
He advanced and placed his hand on the windowsill. I took his hand in mine and caressed the web of flesh between the thumb and forefinger. His aura dimmed.
I could send the kid away or hurt him. Too easy. He was on Cavagnolo’s payroll and would have to learn the price of taking his money.
“Now go back to your Blazer, take off all your clothes, and lock them inside. Then stand with your back to traffic, bend over, and grab your ankles.” I patted his hand and sent him off.
He turned about and walked robotically to the Blazer. Since he was giving oncoming traffic the full moon treatment, I should’ve told him to stick a flower in his butt.
I wanted to wait until the cops came by. Better not push it. I put my contacts back in, signaled left, and accelerated onto the highway.
I reached Alamosa in ten minutes. With a population of eight thousand people, it was small town, but compared to Morada, Alamosa was a megapolis.
I found a sporting goods store and bought a compass and a topographical map of the Morada area. I gassed up, hit an ATM for more cash, and headed back to Morada.
I thought about what Cavagnolo had said. Maybe it’s an inside job. Who? For what reason? Was the insider working for the reanimator? If so, why?
I passed the spot where I’d left the punk kid in all his glory. He was gone and a tow truck was snagging his Blazer. I think the cops got him.
Back in Morada, I cruised the streets. The county buildings sat on F Street, on the tidy south side of town. The rectangular lines of the courthouse reminded me of a humorless, square-hipped chaperone. The jail was around the corner. I saw a state trooper’s patrol car and a van with sheriff’s marking but not Cavagnolo’s punk kid.
I stopped by the county museum in my hunt for clues. What I was searching for might be as obvious as an old framed letter, if I knew where to look. But there was no mention of zombies or walking dead among the artifacts belonging to the pioneers or Utes. I read a display of “sightings,” meaning UFOs, in the valley. A shiver ran through my kundalini noir. I’ve had enough of extraterrestrials for a decade.
The sun dropped close to the ragged horizon on the west. Long shadows slanted across Morada. I needed a drink, something to eat, and a place to stay-in that order.
The prudent course of action would be to head east to Monte Vista or Alamosa. Get away from Cavagnolo’s convenient reach. But if he wanted more trouble, I’d make it easy for him to get another lesson.
The closest tavern was My Final Bender. I’d turned by this place earlier when I followed Cavagnolo on the way to the Elkhorn garage. I parked under a linden tree next to a Ford Escort that should’ve been junked ten thousand miles ago. Smoke curled from under the hood, which was held in place with a knotted length of garden hose.
The wooden door to the tavern had more gouges in it than a workbench in middle-school shop class. Two pillars of smoke swirled above the mounds of cigarette butts flanking the door. Inside, I expected country, but hip-hop belted from cheap loudspeakers hanging from nails in the dingy plaster walls.
Yellowed masking tape held a faded menu to the wall. Bold underlined letters scrawled with black marker announced: No Foood!
The yeasty smell of forgotten beer replaced the reek of tobacco smoke. Two guys at the bar nursed drinks and gummed unlit cigarettes.
A sign covered the center of a spiderweb of cracks in the mirror behind the bar. The sign read: NO SMOKING. STATE LAW YOU FUCKERS.
The only way this joint could’ve been more of a dive was if it was located in an Alabama swamp. If the other patrons had no quarrel with the trailer park ghetto decor, then I doubt any of them would’ve noticed that I cast no reflection in the mirror.
A short Latino wearing an aloha shirt as long as a muumuu worked the billiard table. The dress code for the day must have been thrift store special.
I picked a seat midway down the bar and took care
not to rest my arms on the sticky places.
Mr. Munchkin in the aloha shirt sidled next to me. Gleaming white cross-trainers gave him Mickey Mouse feet. “Whaddaya want?” Matching rings protruded from his lower lip, right nostril, left eyebrow, and around both ears. He must have been deathly afraid of magnets.
“Manhattan.” In a clean glass, please.
The music became especially loud. Something about a homie’s true love for his 12-gauge. Other than the beat, sounded perfectly country western to me.
Mr. Munchkin shouted: “We got beer. And we got beer.”
I was so overwhelmed by the ambience I missed noticing that all the liquor bottles on display were empty.
“Beer then.”
“Then what?” Mr. Munchkin asked. “We got Bud Light. Miller Lite. Corona Light.”
“Only light beer?”
“We’re a healthy bunch. Gotta watch the calories.” He flashed teeth capped with yellow gold.
“A Corona.”
“Bottle or glass?”
One of the guys at the other end of the bar hacked and coughed into his armpit. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and returned to his Bud Light.
“Bottle,” I said.
“Wise choice,” replied Mr. Munchkin, “’cause we ain’t got no glasses.”
I debated whether I should chance drinking anything, much less staying. The grime in this place was a bigger threat to my well-being than Cavagnolo.
The front door opened. A big-haired frosted blonde entered. She had the hard look of a has-been party girl taking the express lane from thirty to senior citizen. She stopped beside me and laid her pink sequined purse on the bar counter.
The blonde peeled off a denim jacket with pile lining and revealed a tangerine tube top squeezing a pair of leathered breasts. Shiny earrings hefty as horseshoes drooped from her earlobes. Her blue eyes were the color of faded ink.
She parked her narrow jeans on the adjacent stool. Her perfume would’ve made a skunk cry for a gas mask.
The woman raised one painted eyebrow in a come-hither look as subtle as a tire iron smacking my nose. “Buy a lady a drink?”
Lady, what lady?
I glanced around the bar to gauge the others’ reactions. This was a place where livers came to die, not for tourists to hook up with the locals.
Mr. Munchkin arrived with a Corona Light for me and a Bud Light for her. He didn’t ask her, the usual? Nor did he ask if I was buying.
She picked the bottle by the neck and raised it in a toast. “Appreciate it.”
I’d lost my thirst and let beads of sweat collect around my bottle. “What gives…”
She completed the question like she had practice. “Shawna.” She propped an elbow on the edge of the bar, leaned on that arm, and gave a pensive look like she was trying to figure out how much money I had in my pocket. “And you?”
“You didn’t let me finish my question. I was going to say, what gives with you being here?”
“Thought you might like some company.” She took a pull on the Bud and left a smudge of lipstick.
Shawna had popped into the bar the minute I sat down and had singled me out. Maybe she’s a hooker-in Morada? — and that’s why the regulars took no notice.
Or something else was going on.
“How about a real drink?” I asked.
Shawna put the beer down and reached for her jacket and purse. “That’s what I’m talking about. Lead the way, cowboy.”
CHAPTER 28
We got into my Toyota and headed east a block on Abundance Boulevard. There wasn’t much in Morada, but fortunately, the town had a liquor store, they weren’t that backward. I stopped on the curb outside the store and gave Shawna a twenty and a ten.
“Any good vodka.” I had to qualify that. “Make sure it doesn’t look like lighter fluid.”
Shawna flashed teeth the color of buffed porcelain and went inside. I took out my contacts and did a sweep of the street and traffic. Nothing suspicious. I put my contacts in.
Shawna came back carrying a paper bag. “I got Grey Goose. A bottle of tonic. A lemon. Some ginger ale.”
“Where to?”
She aimed a long fingernail down the street. We passed the traffic light when she told me to slow down. “It’s on the left.”
A lighted plastic sign outlined with flickering bulbs announced DeLuxe Restaurant Motel. Shawna said to park behind the restaurant.
The DeLuxe was an old motor court with a ground-in smell of cooking oil and wet garbage. Small rooms faced the compact asphalt square of a parking lot. Floodlights at the corners of the eaves didn’t do much except make the shadows appear that much darker. Pickups with rifle racks in the cabs were nestled in the carports between rooms. Every bumper had an NRA sticker.
Shawna directed me to an empty spot at the right corner. It didn’t surprise me that when Shawna got out, she already had a plastic key tag in her hand. It also wouldn’t surprise me if she knew my name as well.
“You always this prepared?” I asked.
“Oh, honey,” she replied, “me and the owners go way back.”
Shawna set the bag with the liquor and goodies on the doormat next to a Folgers coffee can containing kitty litter and cigarette butts. After unlocking the doorknob, she twisted the key into the deadbolt and grabbed the doorknob. She jiggled the key and thumped her shoulder against the door until it opened.
She flicked on the room lights.
I opened my coat and waited by my Toyota, convinced this was a setup. But I detected nothing. Even my sixth sense drew a blank.
I grabbed my backpack and entered the room. The place smelled like the bottom layer of a neglected laundry basket. Shawna put the Grey Goose, tonic, and ginger ale next to plastic disposable cups on the dresser. I nudged the door shut with my foot.
I set my backpack on a card table covered with green contact paper. A placard on the wall above the table admonished:
ABSOLUTELY NO COOKING OF ANY KIND IN THE ROOM.
NO HOT PLATES. NO CAMPING STOVES. NO STERNO.
NO SMOKING. NO CANDLES. NO INCENSE.
NO DRESSING OF GAME IN THE BATHTUB.
PLEEZ UNLOAD GUNS BEFORE CLEANING.
Bullet holes punctuated the last warning.
Shawna grabbed a small plastic tub from the dresser and offered it to me. “We need ice. Go to the back door of the kitchen and ask for some.”
I walked past her to check the bathroom. “You get it.”
Shawna shrugged, took the bucket, and left.
No one waited behind the bathtub curtain. The bathroom window faced a cinderblock wall on the other side of a narrow alley. Steel bars covered the window.
The bed was a couple of twins pushed together. Duct tape held the legs tight. Underneath I found a roach clip, a knee-high stocking, a couple of.270 rifle cartridges, and a copy of the Alamosa Valley Courier. The paper was from two days ago. The headline of a front-page article read: “Local Business Owner Missing.”
Someone else had disappeared?
A quick glance told me that the business owner was the latest of area residents who had vanished. The article mentioned a loving wife and family and, only as an aside, introduced a gambling problem and debts.
Yet another zombie recruit?
I left the newspaper under the bed. I stuck my pistol in a pocket of my barn coat and laid the coat over the back of an unraveling wicker chair. I took off my boots and socks. I stood barefoot on the carpet, closed my eyes, and calmed my senses, making myself aware of all sensations, from the texture of the carpet against the bottom of my feet to the drum of air inside my ears. My mind was a smooth pool of water and every disturbance rippled across its surface.
There was the rumble of traffic on the boulevard. I heard television programs from the adjacent rooms. A radio tuned to a sports call-in show. The creak of a rusty hinge. Phone calls.
Steps approached the door. The quick steps belonging to a woman.
I pulled myself from the
trance just as Shawna shoved the door open. The cascade of outside air chilled my feet.
She came in and put the bucket and ice on the dresser. She moved her shoulders and hips to a tune only she could hear. “Let’s start the party.”
I locked the front door behind her.
Shawna unsnapped her jacket and tossed it over the foot of the bed. “You never told me your name.”
Details. As if she didn’t know.
“Felix Gomez.” I dropped ice into cups.
“Nice name, Felix. Like the cat.”
“So I’ve heard.” I made vodka tonics with twists of lemon.
Shawna plopped her skinny ass on the mattress. “What’s in your bag of tricks?”
Plenty.
She yanked off her red cowboy boots and scooted them under the bed.
I had a lot of questions for Shawna and I’d get to them in a minute with hypnosis.
She started on her vodka tonic and punched buttons on the clock radio. “We need some goddamn music.” The clock kept flashing 12:00 and the speaker belched static. She turned the volume off.
Shawna guzzled half of her drink and handed the cup back to me. “Put some fire in this motherfucker.”
“What do you mean?”
“Too much tonic. Don’t be stingy with the vodka. If I wanted a sissy drink, I’d follow you to Denver.”
Denver? That made a big blip on my stink-o-meter. I never told her I was from Denver. Another question for hypnosis.
Shawna rested against a pile of pillows fluffed across the headboard. Her boobs sagged within the tube top.
I handed her a new drink with maybe one molecule of tonic floating between the ice cubes.
She sipped and gasped in approval.
I asked. “What do you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“For money?”
Shawna gave the most noncommittal of shrugs. Her breasts wobbled like a bowl of watery mashed potatoes. “This and that. Favors, mostly.”
“What kind of favors?” I knew that answer already.
She stroked her stockinged feet against the bedcovers. “Let me show you.”
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