by Неизвестный
But what felt absolutely terrific was that I had little sense of despair, anger, depression, or anxiety. Just give me a few days, I thought. So, when I thought about Nasso saying comprende, yeah, I did understand. I'd just play my own game.
Wait for my chance.
Just give me time to find Jonathan, I thought. Forget about smugglers, money trails, US Marshals and Attorneys and all policemen.
If I find Jonathan, I can ask him where my daughter is.
Spider. She was the key, she was understanding, she was peace. I had a purpose now, I had a focus, I had the way out of my anxieties.
Find Jonathan. Reinvent my identity again. Then I'm gone. Bye bye.
17
We turned left somewhere near 32nd Street, pulled onto 4th Avenue, and turned left again past more of the clustered, rundown homes I remembered from my South Tucson nights a year ago. But Wheatley's block somehow stood apart from other blocks. Since it was almost eleven, the neighborhood was very dark. But I could see that front yards were neatly groomed, a few with grass, most with rocks and some kind of cactus. None of the porches had dilapidated couches, there were no broken toys and swing sets visible, no abandoned and stripped cars at the curb.
We passed a house fenced on one side with a tenor twelve-foot-high fence, topped with rolled razor wire. A sudden wall of rain came down the street toward us, the droplets fat as small pebbles and blurring the purple and green neon lights of a bar and dancehall two blocks in the distance. We sat in the car, watching the rain approach us, like entering a carwash and moving into the spray nozzles. Raindrops drummed and danced up and over the car, passing by so quick that the hood was clear as water gushed down the rear window.
Wheatley lived in a traditional stucco and frame South Tucson home, with faded aluminum siding on the east wall, bent aluminum awnings over the front windows. Taá pulled into her carport, and as we got out, the wall of water headed straight down 32nd Street for a block until it gradually veered into front yards and disappeared over roofs into the night. The night sky was clear and hot and dry again. The rain had no cooling effect at all, nor did it raise the humidity.
A flat-chested, older Mexican woman in cutoffs and an Arizona Diamondbacks tanktop waved at us from the yard next door. A large potbellied pig snuffled and snorted its way up to the fence dividing the two lots. Grayish-white, large jowls, a huge, round snout that poked at me through the fence.
“Hi, Sophie,” Taá said to the pig.
“Are they raising it for food?” I asked as Taá unlocked her back door.
“Sophie's a pet. Started out a year ago no bigger than a Yorkshire terrier. Now Sophie weighs in somewhere around one twenty. She sleeps at the foot of the bed and dances to cumbia music.”
“I'm surprised somebody doesn't take her, sell her to a butcher some night.”
“It's a safe neighborhood,” Taá said from the stove, putting on a kettle of water. “Two doors the other side of here, a family from Ghana had an idea of how we could group together against anybody who might break into the houses, steal whatever, threaten the people. We organized six houses like a compound. Three on this street, the three houses that back us towards 31st Street. We put in that tall fence you saw, some razor wire. Totally illegal, but one of the six houses belongs to a South Tucson cop, and then of course there's me. At least three people are in the compound at any given time. You like tea?”
“Can't stand it.”
“Sorry. No coffee here.”
I went down a short hallway, saw three computers lined up in one bedroom. A slab of foam lay on the floor, with sheets and a blanket flung to one side. Photographs covered almost every square inch of wall space. Black and white, color, some printed from computer files. Many photographs of Indians, probably Apaches. But other pictures of Hispanic men and women.
“You like my vato collection?”
She waved her palm over a group of photos of Hispanic men at parties, picnics, bars, playgrounds, and even schools. Some posed with their cars, some with their girlfriends or children or wives or parents.
“I was doing a job, trying to find a child pornographer operating out of Nogales. I had no trouble getting into the websites and downloading pictures of all the adult males. Something about the websites made me think they were in Nogales, so I spent two months down there. Even had a small apartment. Got to love the people. Even after I found the pornographer, I never forgot the people.”
“And these are Apaches? Your family?”
“Apaches, yes. My family? I never knew them. They left me at a hospital when I was only a few hours old.”
“And what's in all those?”
A row of four-drawer file cabinets against a wall.
“My data. All my cases, all my people. I have a terrible memory, so I keep data on everybody. Lots of files. Most of them from older cases. I don't even know what's in those drawers. I'm like that woman in that movie, something about living dangerous? In Malaysia?”
“The Year of Living Dangerously? The Linda Hunt character? Billy Kwan?”
“Yes. When I'm on a case, I'm. . . well, I'm obsessed. I get a lot of data.”
I turned toward a group of pictures, all of the same woman, tacked up in the far corner of the room. Taá abruptly switched off the light and showed me her bedroom.
“You can have the regular bed. I pretty much sleep with my computers.”
A standard double bed, the mattress stripped, but a set of pale green sheets and pillowcases laid out for me. I went into the living room, which had almost nothing in it.
“Where's your TV?”
“Haven't got one.”
“I thought you said you watched wrestling on TV?”
“Sports bar.”
“How about a stereo? CD player?”
“Nope. Got a radio for you, though. Open the carton.”
I cracked open a cardboard box and took out a Grundig short-wave receiver. Great, I thought, no television, no music, just Radio Moscow. Backing into the kitchen, I watched her dip spoonfuls of Lapsang souchong tea into a wire mesh ball, drop it into a cracked ceramic teapot, and pour boiling water. She pulled out a three-by-five pink note card from underneath a refrigerator magnet and laid it in front of me.
“I've got a list of possible frequencies that your ex-husband might be using.”
“Don't use that word.”
“Husband? Sorry. Here's a list of different frequencies where we've monitored the pirate radio transmissions from Basta Ya. So, what do you think?”
“About him, not much.”
“No. I meant, do you like my house?”
“Can I leave? Right now?”
To her credit, she blushed.
“I thought so,” I said. “I guess the answer is that I don't much care about your house. Look, I'm tired. I just want to sleep.”
“Take off the jumpsuit. What do you want to sleep in?”
“Usually a pair of running shorts. A loose tank.”
While I shucked out of the jumpsuit, she rummaged through several cardboard boxes and finally held out some lime green Nike shorts and a faded tee with the arms cut away. She left me momentarily while I changed, and returned with what looked like two large wristwatches.
“Please lie back on the bed. I've got to strap these on your legs.”
“Security anklets?”
“This one's a digital tracker.”
Without apology she locked it onto my left ankle. The second device was heavier and she had to adjust the straps several times before I was comfortable.
“Like a pet collar. There's a security barrier buried in the lawn, right at the perimeter fence. Once I turn it on, this collar is active. You try to go past the security barrier, you get knocked on your butt. Works just like a stun gun.”
“Do you mind,” I said sarcastically.
“You didn't think I was just going to drift off asleep and let you roam the neighborhood. Now the house is yours.”
“I need some shoes.”
> She laid two boxes on the bed. A pair of white and green Nike sneakers, a pair of black New Balance walking shoes.
“We matched up your shoe size. From what's in your closets.”
“Wouldn't it have been easier to just bring up some of my clothes?”
“You can go into the backyard,” she said, ignoring my question. “Just don't get too near the fence. The stun bracelet is set to start tingling at a distance of ten feet. Five feet, you'll get zapped. Okay. So. I'll be in my workroom. Good night.”
She closed her workroom door.
I picked at both anklets, but they were fastened tightly. The straps were canvas braided with wire mesh.
You tell me, how do people deal with not having a television set? And if they've got one, how do they exist without being connected to cable TV?
I wandered Taá's house for half an hour before I realized what was wrong. TV is one of my major food groups, and I was starving.
Dragging out the carton, I opened it and took out the Grundig short-wave receiver. It needed batteries, but also had a power cord, and I got it operating quickly and figured out how to punch in digital frequencies.
I figured out how to work the automatic tuner—just like a car radio except here, instead of going through a limited number of AM or FM stations, I was going through the world. I heard a Muslim call to prayer, an Asian woman, probably Chinese from the sound of the different vocal tones, talking animatedly. Lots of languages, lots of voices, lots of stations. I switched to the seven-meter band and noticed that the auto-tuner found mostly Spanish-language stations.
I started to isolate those stations with male voices and set up a program that moved through the half-dozen frequencies on which at one time the Basta Ya radio station had operated. One voice sounded familiar, then another. I decided to concentrate on monitoring broadcasts on the hour and half-hour.
It was almost exactly two o'clock. A woman's voice streamed Spanish, her pace somewhat like an automatic machine gun, and then a three-note chord sounded and another woman's voice in English announced the daily broadcast of Basta Ya.
And there was Jonathan.
He spoke in Spanish. I understood none of it. Entranced, I listened instead to the modalities of his voice. The last time I'd seen him I was on my knees, my nose and mouth bleeding. He'd slung Spider under his left arm, his right fist around a Winchester .30-30. When I'd tried to get Spider away from him, he'd swung the rifle butt into my face. I touched my lips, remembering the moment, staggered that I felt no anger or hate. Through all my crazy years, I'd wondered if he was still alive, if Spider was alive, where was she, what did she look like.
The broadcast ended. I kept the radio on the same frequency, and a half-hour later the broadcast was repeated. Taped. Since it was in Spanish, I had no idea of dates or times, no idea if the broadcast was recent or something made months before. After listening to it again, and then again, I finally turned the radio off and lay on the bare mattress.
If he was alive, I would find him.
Once I found him, I'd learn how to find Spider. Nothing else mattered to me. I was willing to give up anything to find my daughter.
We convince ourselves of these truths, you see, without even knowing if they're true. How else do we survive the savage assaults from our memories?
18
I couldn't sleep.
An old song ran through my head.
Couldn't sleep, wouldn't sleep. . . I didn't remember the lyrics.
At some point during the night, Taá had dragged the foam pad from her workroom into the living room. She lay on her side, totally naked, her mouth half open, her lips and closed eyelids quivering to some dream. I turned my head away, embarrassed, and looked back at her body and realized how much younger she was than I. No wrinkles, her breasts falling gently down, no marks anywhere on her body.
I knelt beside her, listened to her steady breathing, watching veins in her throat and right breast throb with her heartbeat. No voyeuristic stuff, not me. I wanted to make sure she was sound asleep. I stood up, but kept watching her in the dim light coming in from the street. She sniffed, licked her lips, rolled onto her back, and began snoring. High on her left breast I could see two puckered scars and knew they were bullet holes.
I went immediately into her workroom.
Ignoring the file cabinets she said contained old data, I jimmied the lock on what looked like the newest of the lot. The drawers rolled out soundlessly, all of them filled with hanging folders, labels meticulously color-coded in some unknown scheme in tightly written, black-ink capitals. I flicked through an entire drawer of files and recognized nothing. Opening another drawer, and another, I looked at every file tab until I stopped short.
Meg Arizana.
I started to pull out the file, then remembered what had seemed vaguely familiar about the group of photos in the corner. Not daring to turn on a light, I moved a mouse, and one of her computer monitors came to life.
Before she'd gone to sleep, Taá had covered the entire corner with sheets of paper and other pictures, everything tacked up in a hasty, random pattern. I carefully unpinned all the new stuff and was stunned to see Meg.
Twenty photographs at least, maybe thirty.
Meg in every kind of clothes. Inside, outside, a school, a playground. No shots of her daughter, I noticed, and then froze. In three of the pictures, Meg was lying nude on a bed and smiling at the camera, one shot actually showing her with a beckoning finger. It was the bed I'd just been trying to sleep on.
I left the pictures uncovered and went back to the file cabinets, certain of what I'd find. I left all the file cabinets unlocked, the pictures of Meg uncovered. After an hour, I had two folders which I took into the bedroom.
Reymundo Villaneuva (aka Ramon Vargas)
Laura Winslow (aka Marana, et al)
The folders weren't new. The one on Rey was creased, stained, obviously older than the one on me, which contained copies of all the documents Dance had shown me.
I read everything.
For the first time ever, I was aware that my role had shifted.
For years, I'd hunted other people.
Now, people were hunting me.
I curled tightly on the mattress, clutching the files, and fell asleep.
Early next morning, I woke to the angry cries of mourning doves. It was already hot, the air inside the small bedroom smelling metallic and antiseptic. I'd started out sleeping in a tee and panties, but must have pulled them off while I slept.
The folders were gone.
Dressing, I walked barefoot past Taá's workroom. I could hear a clicking noise outside, from the rear of the house. Pouring myself a glass of water, I went out the side door and saw an automatic sprinkler ticking over in the backyard of the house behind me. It was quiet, hot, a cloudless sky marred only by vapor trails from two high-altitude jets, probably fighters from Montham Air Force Base. Her yard was small, but incredibly well gardened and groomed. A small aluminum work shed stood in a back corner, partially shielded by some bushes. I heard the toilet flush and went to confront Taá inside the house. She sat calmly at the kitchen table.
“So you saw the pictures,” she said.
“Of Meg? In your bed?”
“Are you bothered by the pictures? By what you know?”
“I'm bothered by those files.”
“I told you. I'm like Billy Kwan. When I work a case, I'm obsessed with whoever is involved. Nasso is always on me to not get so involved, but I can't help it. I met Meg four months ago when we were working an abuse case. Through her, I heard about Rey. I had to track him down. I do have some computer hacking skills, it wasn't hard. He really didn't try to hide the name change. I don't even think he meant to hide it, as though he decided he'd just play another role for a while, then maybe get back to his regular life. Whatever that was. I never met him. I never told Meg.”
“And why do you have the file on me?”
“Meg once showed me your house. Where Meg killed tha
t woman. She mentioned your name, said you'd disappeared, could I help find you. I built a whole file of who you were but had no idea of who you'd become. If you read the file, you saw there's nothing in there about Laura Cabeza.”
“So.”
“So. Want some breakfast?”
She filled a teakettle and put it on the stove. Turning on a burner, the auto-pilot clicked and clicked, lit the flames, but she was lost in thought. I reached over and turned off the burner, and she jerked back into awareness of where she was.
“So. Now you know some things about me. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. Are you still, um, still seeing Meg?”
“No. That's why her daughter ran away.”
“She's changed her name from Loiza to Amada.”
I could see her make the mental note. I knew she'd update her files later.
“Partly. She couldn't tolerate the idea that her mother was sleeping with another woman. Cared about another woman. Her daughter hoped that Meg and Rey would get back together. But then Meg stopped taking her medication. After six days, they both went nuts.”
“I know what that's like. To go cold turkey with medication.”
“Not pleasant.”
“So where is Amada now?” I asked.
“Living with Rey.”
“In Nogales?”
“No. At his father”s old place, somewhere down in Sonora.
I'm not sure she'll stay there much longer. He's got satellite TV, but you were there once, you know there's not a whole lot a fifteen-year-old girl wants to do in the middle of nowhere.“
“I'd like to see Meg.”
“Want to go this afternoon? For lunch?”
“I don't need lunch. I'd just like to see her.”
“You know she does those weird things?” Taá said.
“Performance pieces.”