Thin Air

by Robert B. Parker

  "Tequila," Chollo said.

  There were entwined snakes tattooed on the bartender's forearms. When he took the bottle of tequila off the shelf behind him and poured us two shots, the muscle movement in his forearms made the snakes move. He put the bottle back and bent over, rinsing some glasses in the sink beneath the bar. I took a sip. It was the worst stuff I ever drank. Especially in the forenoon. Chollo took a sip of the tequila. His face remained expressionless. He said something to the bartender. The bartender didn't bother to look up when he answered. Chollo translated.

  "He says we do not have to drink it."

  "What did you tell him?" I said.

  "I told him his horse had kidney trouble," Chollo answered.

  There were two men sitting with a woman, all of them Hispanic, at a table close to the bar. The rest of the bar was empty.

  "I'd like to speak with Freddie Santiago," I said to the bartender.

  He looked up briefly from his rinsing and looked at me without speaking. He had small eyes, made smaller by the puffiness around them. Some of the puffiness was age, and probably booze, some of it was scar tissue. Then he looked back at the sink. Two young Hispanic men in workclothes came in the room and walked straight to the bar. The bartender straightened and went down the bar to talk with them. There was a short conversation. They gave him cash. He took an envelope from under the bar and handed it to them. They left without looking at anyone. The bartender came back down the bar.

  "Green cards?" I said pleasantly, being chatty.

  The bartender rang the money into the cash register without paying any attention to me.

  "Green cards," Chollo said.

  A tall gray-haired guy in rimless glasses came out of the door at the end of the bar. He had on a three-piece blue suit. He looked at us for a while and then strolled down the bar. He spoke to Chollo in Spanish. Chollo nodded at me.

  "You're looking to speak to Freddie?" the gray haired man said.

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I'm looking for an Anglo woman who might be with a guy named Luis Deleon in Proctor."

  "So?"

  "A cop and a priest both told me that Freddie Santiago was the Man in Proctor."

  "True."

  "I want his help."

  "And what does Freddie get?"

  I shrugged.

  "I'll discuss it with Freddie," I said.

  The gray-haired man looked over at Chollo again. Chollo was leaning on the bar, watching the interaction of the two men with the woman at the table near us. He looked like he was having trouble staying awake. The gray-haired man nodded to himself and turned without saying anything else and went back through the door at the end of the bar.

  We waited. The two shots of what might have been tequila sat in their glasses on the bar. We were brave, but we weren't suicidal. At the table near us the woman stood and went toward the ladies' room. The two men leaned forward and talked animatedly, their heads close together while she was gone.

  A group of eight teenaged boys came in. They were Anglo and all of them underaged. Two of them wore green and gold Merrimack State warmup jackets. One of them, a heavy kid, strong and fat, who probably played football, yelled to the bartender.

  "Hey Dolly, beer, huh? All around."

  The bartender began popping the caps off brown beer bottles and placing them on the bar. No glasses. The kids came over to get them. The bottles had no labels on them.

  "Ten dollars," the bartender said.

  "Why don't we run a tab, Dolly? You don't trust us?"

  "Ten dollars."

  The fat kid grinned and put a ten-dollar bill on the bar.

  "All the time we come here, Dolly. All the fucking good times, and you don't trust us."

  Dolly took the ten-spot off the bar and rang it into the cash register and leaned against the back of the bar looking impassively at the kid.

  "Laugh a minute, Dolly," the kid said and turned and swaggered back to his table.

  Toughest kid on the football team, probably. It would have taken Dolly maybe fifteen seconds to put him in the hospital. The gray-haired man appeared at the doorway at the end of the bar. He said something to Dolly, who came down the bar to us.

  "There," he said and gestured with his head toward the doorway.

  Through the doorway was a big office, wainscotted in dark oak, the walls painted forest green. Along the back wall was a dark oak bookcase lined with hardcover books. I could see the complete works of Booth Tarkington and Mark Twain among others. There were some minions in the room, probably bodyguards, but the central figure was the middle-sized guy who sat behind a big Victorian library table, his hands folded quietly before him on the green leather table top. He was a trim man in a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt, and a silver silk tie. There was a silvery silk handkerchief in his display pocket. His clothes fit him well. His nails were manicured. His dark face was leathery and pitted as if from a childhood illness. His nose was prominent. There were deep grooves running from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth. He nodded at us when we came in.

  The gray-haired man said something in Spanish. Chollo translated for me.

  "They are both wearing weapons, Chief."

  "I understand the word `Jefe,"' I said.

  "Hell," Chollo said. "What do you need me for?"

  "Let them keep the guns," Santiago said. He was looking at Chollo.

  He spoke to Chollo in Spanish.

  Chollo translated, "Who are you?" and answered in Spanish.

  Santiago nodded.

  "It will save us time," he said, "if we all speak English. You are Mexican, I can tell by the accent."

  "Si," Chollo said. "East LA."

  "Had you been from around here," Santiago said, "I would have known you."

  He looked at me without moving his head. "And you?"

  "Name is Spenser," I said. "I'm looking for a woman named Lisa St. Claire. She's missing. I heard she might be in Proctor with a guy named Luis Deleon."

  "And you wish my help?"

  "Yeah."

  Besides Santiago and the guy with the gray hair, there were three other Hispanic men leaning on various walls of the room looking deadly and scornful, like a bunch of extras in a George Raft movie. In fact, the whole place had a kind of theatrical quality, as if it had been designed specifically as a dangerous gangster office. Freddie Santiago didn't take himself lightly.

  "Why do you think she is with Deleon?"

  "He is apparently her former boyfriend. There is a message on her answering machine the day she disappeared from a man who might have an Hispanic accent. He says he'll stop by."

  "That's all?"

  "They say the romance was a hot one."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "You think that's enough reason to come poking your Anglo nose into my city?"

  "It's more reason than I've got to poke it anywhere else."

  Santiago smiled briefly.

  "What will you do if you find her?" he said.

  "That'll depend on her circumstances. First I'll find her."

  "And her husband? Where is he?"

  "Somebody shot him."

  "Dead?"

  "Almost."

  "And this young man?" Santiago nodded at Chollo.

  "My translator."

  "And valet, perhaps? Does he lick your Anglo boots clean as well?"

  Neither Chollo's voice, nor his face, showed any expression.

  "You should be careful, Senor, of your mouth," he said gently.

  Santiago said, "Julio, throw the Chicano out."

  One of the background thugs heaved himself languidly off the wall and walked toward Chollo. He was maybe four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. He had the bored look that thugs work so hard on. He put a hand on Chollo's arm. Chollo's hands moved so fast I couldn't quite tell what he did, but Julio was on the floor gasping for air and clutching at his throat, and there was a 9mm automatic in Chollo's hand.

  "Mi
stake, Jefe, to let me keep my gun. You think because there are five of you and two of us…"

  "Baptiste," Santiago said. "You and Tomas take Julio out until he stops choking."

  The other two loungers came forward, watching Chollo out of the corner of their eyes, and got Julio on his feet and helped him from the room. Chollo didn't put the gun away, but he let the gun hand drop to his side, the barrel pointing at the floor.

  "You are quick to take offense," Santiago said.

  "We will get along better if you remember that," Chollo said.

  Santiago smiled.

  "I try to get along as well as I can," he said. He looked back at me. "And, you, Spenser, are you also quick to take offense?"

  "Not me," I said. "I am a pussy cat."

  "That may be," Santiago said, "though you do not look like a pussy cat."

  I smiled like I had a mouthful of canary and let it pass.

  "I will think about your situation," Santiago said. "And, truthfully, will consider if there is anything there for me. If there is, I will be in touch."

  I took my card from my shirt pocket and put it on Santiago's green leather table top.

  "Call me," I said.

  Santiago nodded.

  "And you, my Mexican friend, are you moving here from Los Angeles?"

  "Just here to visit my friend," Chollo said, "the pussy cat."

  "And what do you do in Los Angeles? When you are there?"

  "I work with a man named del Rio," Chollo said.

  "Ahh!" Santiago said, and smiled as if this explained much.

  Chollo smiled back, and as he was smiling the gun disappeared back under his coat.

  "Ahh!" Chollo said.

  He was on his feet now, pacing. She watched him struggle for calm, twirling the cigar slowly between his fingers. He had delicate hands, as she always imagined a surgeon's would be, and when he talked he used them expressively. He used everything expressively. His face was very alive, no matter how much he tried to keep it smooth. His eyes were big and they moved continuously, looking at everything, shifting endlessly. He had a big video camera in his hand, though he wasn't using it and appeared to have forgotten it. As he paced, he moved in and out of the small circle of light by the table.

  "You cannot," he said. "You cannot keep saying these things to me, Angel. I love you too much. I cannot hear it."

  "Then let me go," she said.

  He had paced out of the light circle and she couldn't see him in the dark room. She had no idea what time of day it was and already was beginning to lose track of how long she'd been there.

  "That is like asking me to die," he said.

  He came back into the light, his narrow, beautiful, boyish face lit by the lamp on one side, still in darkness on the other. A half face, volatile and compelling… and crazy, she thought.

  "Keeping me here is asking me to die," she said.

  "To be with me, to live in wealth and excitement forever with me, is to die? Do you know who I am? Do you remember? Do you know what I have become? I have money, more than you can imagine. I control everything here. You can have anything you want."

  "I want to be free," she said.

  "Of me?"

  "Everything isn't about you, for crissake, Luis. I want to be free, period. I want to choose what I'll do, and where I'll go, and who I'll love. Can't you understand that?"

  "I too will choose, and I choose you," he said. "What has happened to you, Angel? The Anglo princess that used to make love to me, shamelessly? Are you now tired of the foolish Latino boy? Have you now decided to be an Anglo again and marry a stiff Anglo man and wear white panties and go to church?"

  She could feel how shallow her breathing was. "If I'm going to make love, Luis, I'm going to do it shamelessly, you know? There's nothing going on to be ashamed of."

  "We will make love again," he said. He was back out of the lamplight circle again and his voice came seemingly disembodied from the darkness.

  "No," she said and her voice was steady, although her breath came more rapidly as she was saying it. "We won't. Maybe you can force me to fuck you, but we won't make love."

  He was silent in the darkness. Then the bright camera light came on, and the camera began to whir. Behind the light she heard him say, "I have learned, chiquita, to take what I can get."

  Chapter 27

  Chollo and I were riding in the backseat of a silver Mercedes sedan through Proctor. Freddie Santiago sat in the front seat and the gray-haired guy with the rimless glasses was driving. There was a black Lincoln behind us, carrying five guys with guns, in case someone tried to spray-paint Freddie's windshield. It was another raw spring day, heavy with the threat of rain, which had not yet been delivered. It was nearly noon, and the unemployed men stood in groups on street corners. Some were on the nod. Some simply stood, their hooded sweatshirts too threadbare, their baseball jackets too thin, shoulders hunched ineffectually as if even the spring warmth were not enough to ease the chill of despair. On one corner there was a fire in a trash barrel, and eight or ten men and boys were around it. There was a quart bottle of something in a big paper sack passing aimlessly among them. "Probably sherry," said Freddie Santiago. "Package store house label. Costs $2.99 a quart, gives you a pretty good bang for the buck."

  "Tastes like kerosene," Chollo said.

  "Si. But taste is not the point," Santiago said. "Like most people here they have much time and little money. Sherry helps pass the time."

  "So does work," Chollo said.

  "There is no work," Santiago said, "except perhaps your kind, my Mexican friend. This was a fine bustling mill city once, a Yankee city. Did you see the fine clock tower on City Hall? Lots of Canucks and Micks came in to work the mills. Some Arabs, too. Then the Jews came in and organized the mill workers, kicked up the prices, and the Yankees moved everything out… south, where the workers weren't organized and the niggers would work for half what they were paying up here."

  Santiago paused and lit a cigarette with a gold lighter. He checked to make sure no shred of tobacco had fallen on his white raincoat. Spring outside the car was in full flourish early this year, but the impact of it in Proctor was slim. No flowers bloomed, no birds sang, none of nature's first green came golden from the earth.

  "So there's nothing to do here, and nobody to do it."

  "A perfect opportunity," I said.

  "Exactly," Santiago said. "So the spics move in. And now there's nothing to do and a lot of people to do it."

  Santiago exhaled smoke through his nose and smiled at us. He was sitting half turned in the front seat, his left arm on the back of the seat. He seemed pleased with his small history of Proctor.

  "So now there are the leftover Micks, who run the police force, and us, who run the city."

  I looked out the car windows at the lackluster tenements covered with graffiti.

  "Not too well," I said.

  "No, not well at all," Santiago said. "For we cannot get together. As your Mexican associate can tell you, the concept of Hispanic is a gringo concept. We are not Hispanic, or, as they say on his side of the country, Latino. We are Dominican and Puerto Rican and Mexican. We are like your Indians in the last century. We are tribal, we fight each other, when we should unite against the Anglos."

  "They weren't actually my Indians," I said.

  Santiago turned forward in the seat and rested his head against the back of it and closed his eyes. He took a long drag on his cigarette and slowly let the smoke out. The smoke hung in the car. Some other time, I thought, I'd discuss the dangers of second-hand smoke with him. Right now I was being quiet, waiting for him to get where he was going.

  "I have worked very hard," Santiago said, "to unite these people in their common interest."

  The car turned right past a burned-out store front. There was no longer any glass in the windows, and the front door hung ajar on one hinge. Leaves and faded parts of newspapers had blown in and piled up against the back walls. Diagonally down one of the dark side stre
ets I saw the church where I had talked with the priest who drank, and I realized that we were now twisting through the narrow streets of San Juan Hill. Behind us, the black Lincoln had come up close.

  "But…" I said.

  "But I am hindered by…" He paused. His head back, his eyes still closed, he seemed searching for words. Finally he shrugged and continued.

  "Your man Luis Deleon, for instance, is such a person as hinders me."

  I looked at Chollo. He nodded. I knew this was going somewhere and now we were nearly there.

  "This is a feast, Senor Spenser," Santiago said, exaggerating the "Senor," in mockery of me or himself, I wasn't sure which.

  "This is like the carcass of a great whale. There is enough for many sharks to feed. There is no need to fight. But Luis… he is young, he cares nothing for larger questions. He and his people say San Juan Hill is theirs."

  Santiago shook his head sadly.

  "As if one could own a slum, or would wish to," he said.

  "Who owns the rest of the barrio?" I said.

  Santiago turned back toward us. He smiled brilliantly.

  "I do," he said. "But it is not such a slum, and I am a beneficent owner."

  "Yeah," I said. "It looked great till we got in here."

  "Give me time, Senor. I have not had enough time. I have spent much time putting down unrest and eliminating troublemakers."

  "Except Deleon."

  "Si."

  "How come he's still in business?" I said.

  "He presents a challenge. He is himself a dangerous man." He looked at Chollo. "Volatile?"

  "Same in English," Chollo said.

  Santiago looked gratified.

  "Volatile, and well armed. He has a large, well armed following also. And where they live… it is a… how do I say…?"

  He looked at Chollo, making a looping gesture with his hand.

  "Laberinto?" he said to Chollo.

  "Maze," Chollo said.

  "Exactly. It is a maze in there, tunnels connect houses, food stores, barricades. It is a nut that would cost a lot in the cracking."