The deputy said, “Thanks for checking in on me, Sheriff. And thanks for giving that bastard some back for me.”
Able patted Troy’s arm in farewell then went up a floor and dropped in on Shawn O’Hara. An overweight black nurse was just finishing a check-in and scribbled something on his chart and hung it back on its hook at the foot of Shawn’s bed. Shawn still looked like a mummy. Able said to the nurse, “How’s this tough guy doing?”
The nurse looked at Able’s uniform and frowning said, “You’re not Tell Lyon are you?”
Able sensed Shawn watching him. Able said, “Hell no! Chief Tell Lyon is an asshole. Jesus may love him, but I surely don’t. I’m Sheriff Able Hawk. But there would be some problem if I was Lyon? That the drift of your question?”
The nurse said, “Mr. O’Hara has asked that Tell Lyon not be permitted access to Mr. O’Hara. The only New Austin policeman Mr. O’Hara will see is William Davis.” The nurse, one Wendy Fahy, Able saw from her tag, walked over and patted Shawn’s shoulder. “You okay alone with this one, sugar?”
Shawn winked with one black-and-purple eye—the lid still swollen and drooping. He gave her a thumbs-up.
Wendy waddled off, all ass and elbows, pushing a cart. Able took up her place by Shawn’s bed and said, “We got the ones who beat you, Shawn. Every damned one of them. They’re all in jail.”
Shawn typed, Tell me everything.
As Able started to do that, Shawn began typing notes.
Scowling, Able said, “What the hell? You mean to report this yourself?”
Shawn typed, Who else?
* * *
Tell reached the stage at 3:55 P.M. Patricia split off from him as they approached the show trailer. She wandered into the watching crowd, moving as far to the front as she could.
A nervous Mayor Ernest Rice spotted Tell and motioned him to the back of the trailer-stage where the staircase up onto the platform was positioned.
“Cutting it close,” Rice said testily, “aren’t you?”
“Five minutes to spare,” Tell said with a shrug. “And I am on duty, you know. Trying to keep this festival quiet and without incident, just as you asked of me. Making sure those demonstrators stay off the grounds.”
“So we’ll keep this short,” the mayor said. “I’ve told the emcee to announce us together. That way, we’ll step out together and you’ll be on hand to translate what I say from word one. How do we best do this? Probably don’t want to be talking over one another.”
“No,” Tell agreed, “we don’t. You’re reading from a prepared text. Your sentences look short. Just stop at the end of every second sentence and I’ll repeat what you’ve said.”
The mayor clapped Tell on the back. “Thanks again, Jefe.” He said that last word with a too-strong southern Ohio accent, like some hick mocking a Mexican. Frito Bandito stuff.
Tell played along, though. He said, “You sure you’re not fluent in Spanish, Mayor?”
The emcee introduced them and Mayor Rice grinned at being called “Ernesto.” His smile disappeared as the more enthusiastic cheers and applause for Tell ensued.
Mayor Rice gave his halting speech with its awkward intermissions for Tell’s translations. When it was over, there were cheers for “Ernesto” and “El Léon.”
At Rice’s urging, Tell made a brief statement. Nothing too substantive—just his stated admiration for the town and good people of New Austin and thanking them for being so welcoming. He made a vow to concentrate efforts on stemming local drug trafficking.
Someone in the crowd yelled in Spanish, “What about Thalia Ruiz? What are you doing about that, Jefe?”
In Spanish, Tell said, “I’m working very hard to get Thalia justice. And I will do that, soon. I’m working with Able Hawk to do that. We have a definite suspect.”
There were some boos at the mention of Able Hawk’s name. Some cheers too, but mostly catcalls. Tell held up a hand for quiet. He said, “Able Hawk is working hard, hand-in-hand with me, to bring Thalia Ruiz’s killer to justice. We hope to make an announcement soon about an arrest. I’ll only add my personal observation that Able Hawk was friends with Thalia and he has in fact taken her family—her daughter, mother and cousin—into his own home. We will—Able and I—see justice done for Thalia, and for three other Latino women who died under similar circumstances. Women we believe were murdered by the same man or men who killed Thalia Ruiz. Hawk and I will catch this killer. This is our shared pledge.”
Scattered calls of “Viva El Léon!” and “Viva El Gavilan!”
Tell held up both hands. “Enough of that,” he said. “A moment of silence for Thalia Ruiz and all the other lost ones.”
The silence held for a minute—just a few coughs and babies’ cries.
Tell said, “Amen.”
He left the stage to cheers and more vivas. Patricia was standing by the bottom step, awaiting him. “That was so sorry dreadful,” Tell said.
Patricia was squinting up at him—squinting against the sun. She looked miserably hot. Tell put his hat on her head. She smiled, adjusting his hat, and said, “It was better than fine, Tell. It was honest and straight. Maybe not what they expected, but surely what they needed.”
“You’re a lovely liar, Patricia.”
“That prayer at the end—I didn’t know you had a religious streak,” she said.
“I don’t. Or haven’t for some time.” He ran the back of his hand across her damp cheek. “This heat is too much for you, isn’t it?”
“Would be nice to find some air conditioning,” she said. “Be good to relax and cool off before you hustle me off to your cousin’s place.”
“Restaurant?”
“Our place would be better,” she said. “The AC cranked up and no clothes. If you’re through here, now, I mean.”
“I’m finished,” Tell said, wrapping an arm around her bare shoulders, her skin hot and moist to the touch. “I think you have a little sunburn,” he said.
“Nothing too bad.”
“Pick up some food on the way? Belgian waffle? Maybe an elephant ear, or a funnel cake?”
“How about Italian? And wine since I can drink, again. I’m really up to here with carnival food and Latino culture.”
“Italian then,” Tell said. “And early to bed?”
“Very early to bed and very late to sleep,” she said, smiling. She took his arm from around her shoulders and held his hand. “I’m glad you wore that uniform today, Tell. If you’d worn that black Nazi rig you usually do, and with all those cheers, well, I think watching you speak up there would have been like watching a Nuremberg rally.”
* * *
Able had to carry Evelia from the theatre. They’d had to catch a later showing, and despite the blasting soundtrack, she’d fallen asleep during the last twenty minutes of the film. He got her into the car without waking her.
Sofia Gómez watched Able see to her grandchild and said, “It was her first movie. Thank you so much for taking us out. I just liked watching her face watching that big screen. Thalia always talked of taking her to a movie, but time just got away, I guess.”
“It was my pleasure,” Able said. Hell, he should have taken Thalia and her daughter to a movie ages ago. Hell, several of them.
He took Sofia’s hand to steady her as she reclined back into the passenger seat of his car. He realized Sofia’s was the first woman’s hand he’d touched like that since his wife.
“First movie I’ve seen in a theatre in several years myself,” Able said, hearing a brittleness in his voice. “Don’t remember them being so damned loud back in the day.”
He closed her door and walked around the rear of his car and got behind the wheel. Despite the fact the sun was down, the car was hot inside. Able started the engine, lowered the power windows and turned the air up. He backed out of the space and pulled out onto the road. The speed limit was forty-five and the wind through the windows blew out the close, hot air. Able rolled the windows up and knocked the air conditio
ner down a couple of notches. “Early yet,” he said. “You up for a little drive?”
“That would be very nice,” Sofia said. “Thank you again for all you’ve done for us. Without Thalia’s income, I don’t know what we would have done.”
Able waved a hand. He smiled and said, “That’s nothing. That little girl back there, losing her mother, you losing your daughter … that’s the thing. How is Evelia doing? Does she grasp what’s happened?”
“Of course not,” Sofia said. “She thinks her mother is angry at her. Or sick. She insists her mother will return, despite everything I say to the contrary. Maybe, if we’re all lucky, if Evelia is lucky, the days will stretch and Evelia will forget to remember that her mother isn’t here. Maybe she’ll even forget her mother. That will be terrible in its way. But easier maybe for Evelia. And the big house and you, nights like this one, they distract her.”
“And you, Sofia?”
She shrugged. “You know what I feel. You know loss too, Able.”
That echoed Tell. Able wondered if he wore his grief on his face in some way.
He said, “It’s good to have you in the house. All of you. Hell, it’s the first time in years I look forward to meals in that place.”
“It’s a beautiful home,” Sofia said.
“You’re a kind liar,” Able responded. He reached over and gave her hand a fleeting squeeze. “The place is careworn, neglected. Looks like something an old cop and a young student would allow to settle around their sorry selves.”
“I can see what it was,” Sofia said.
“You mean when there was a woman in the house. I can too. I can remember. Maybe the question is, can you see what it could be again?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sofia said.
“I’m thinking of doing some furniture shopping tomorrow,” Able said. “Would you come along, Sofia? You and that angel in the backseat? I need to pick out a couch and some chairs. Sure would be nice if my selection didn’t end in some expensive embarrassment.”
Thirty minutes later, Able palmed into the driveway of his home. They stepped out into the muggy night. Able said, “I’m not sure I can carry her up all those steps in this humidity without stroking out. And it’s brutally hot over that garage, even with the window air conditioners. My daughter’s bedroom is standing empty. How about if we put you and Evelia up in the main house tonight? Turn up that air conditioner until our teeth chatter?”
* * *
Tell felt her body tauten there under his tongue, her thighs trembling and back arching. Her head thrashed side to side. Patricia gave herself over to it for as long as she could stand it. When it became too intense for her she knotted her fingers in his hair and urged him back up. “It’s gone from exquisite to too much,” she said huskily. “Come to me.”
He settled in alongside her and she wiped his lips with both hands, then kissed him, tasting herself on his mouth and tongue. “Soon as my heart stops pounding,” Patricia said, “it will be your turn.”
“No, not like that,” he said. “You’re ready, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way, together.”
Patricia said, “I can’t promise that.” She stroked his thigh, said, “I don’t want to leave tomorrow, Tell. I should be here. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Able Hawk’s insisting on keeping me up to my ass in deputies and electronic surveillance,” Tell said. “I’ll be far from alone.”
She rolled onto her side, catching her breath at the spasms still seizing her body, the fluttering between her legs. Her fingers trailed through his chest hair, down across his belly and closed around him, moving gently back and forth, stroking him. Patricia said, “Seems to me, based on things read and said, that Salome never left Chris when he found himself up against it.”
“Different dynamic,” Tell said, voice thickening. “She was being hunted too. And Salome once had to shoot someone to save Chris a few years back. I’d never put you in that position. And I’ll never risk loss again. I can’t ever run that risk again. We’ll get through this week and I’ll close this case. Then I’ll take that job in Cedartown, and we’ll have our good life together. Maybe get to work on having that child.”
He realized she was moving down the bed, her long black hair tickling his chest and then belly. He closed his eyes as he felt her mouth, warm and wet around him. She paused what she was doing to him just long enough to say, “Children.”
FORTY EIGHT
Shawn was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder. He was momentarily in a panic, as he had been several times waking up since his beating. Each time, he had been awakening, trying to say something, or to scream, and found that his mouth wouldn’t open. It was like those dreams he had so often as a kid—trying to run from something, but finding himself moving in slow motion. Eventually, struggling out of sleep in a panic, he’d remember he was in the hospital and what had happened to him—that his mouth wouldn’t work because it was wired shut.
Squinting his eyes, Shawn tried to focus on the face pressed down close to his. In his confusion, he thought perhaps it was Patricia. Blinking through sleep, Shawn realized it was the face of a sneering Mexican kid. Shawn slid straight into panic.
“Hey, pendejo,” the stranger said, grinning at him. “I missed the big party when my friends fucked you up so well, hombre. My man, Jésus, he is upstairs now. The cops fucked him up for what he did to you. Your cop friends knocked out all Jésus’s teeth and ripped off an ear. I came to visit and the fucking nurses sent me away. Whores say the doc is going to cut off my man’s leg ’cause the maricón pigs fucked it up so bad. So I thought I’d come down here and visit you instead.”
Shawn’s hand was still resting on the remote control that raised and lowered his bed, controlled the television and could summon a nurse. Shawn stabbed the nurse’s call button repeatedly. The Mexican gangbanger laughed and tossed the other end of the remote control across Shawn’s chest. He said, “Unplugged that before I woke you up, asshole. You’re just meat here now. Waiting to be taken down. Can’t walk, I see. Can’t defend yourself or call for help. Next time I come back—and I will be back—I will bring my big knife. Take away a piece of you to give to Jésus’s girl. You’re a writer, right? Maybe I’ll take your fingers or a whole fucking hand.”
As though he suddenly remembered something, the stranger held up a finger in “Ah-hah!” fashion.
With his other hand, he pulled a switchblade from his pocket and sprung its blade. “Guess this would do the job well enough, huh, amigo? I mean, it’ll cut through finger bones easy enough.”
His eyes wide, Shawn looked at the Mexican. Shawn traced the signal cord from his heart monitor to the wall socket. He grabbed the cord and pulled it loose from the wall. Maybe the nurses would construe it as Shawn going into some kind of cardiac arrest or even flat lining. At least they would have to come to investigate why his vitals monitor that fed back to their station had gone dead. Or so Shawn hoped.
Seeing the wall plug pulled seemed to unsettle Shawn’s attacker. He hid his knife in his jacket pocket and edged to the door. He leaned around and looked down the hall toward the nurses’ station. He moved quickly back to Shawn’s bed. “You ain’t safe here, pendejo. You see that now. I can see it in your fucking eyes. I will be back for you. I will come back to cut you down. I will kill that fat ass El Gavilan and the other—Lyon—too. All of you going to die.”
The Mexican cholo’s gaze skittered to the edge of Shawn’s bed. He unhooked and lifted the renal bag fed by Shawn’s catheter and pulled out his knife again. He slit the bag near its top and then sprayed the strong-smelling contents into Shawn’s face.
Shawn’s eyes burned with his own chemically fortified, dark-with-blood urine. The bandages absorbed much of it, but some went up his nose, almost drowning Shawn.
His attacker looked a last time over his shoulder at the door. Shawn rubbed at his burning eyes with his fingers. Through the stinging blur he saw the Mexican grab the laptop by Shawn’s bed—the laptop
containing Shawn’s notes and journals and the stories he’d composed for the paper about his own beating.
The young Mexican slid the laptop up under his shirt and held it there with his left hand. “See what I can fence this motherfucker for,” he said to Shawn. He moved to leave, then hesitated again. He suddenly grabbed hold of Shawn’s right hand. He winnowed down to Shawn’s middle finger and jerked back hard until the bone snapped. Shawn screamed through his wired-tight jaws and mouth packing.
“Write with that, asshole,” Shawn’s attacker said. “Next time I visit, I am gonna cut off all your fucking fingers.” He waved at Shawn and slid into the hall.
Shawn heard the squeak of shoes retreating toward the nurses’ desk. But he heard no sound of footfalls coming the other way—no indication anyone was coming to check on him—nobody rushing to see why his vital signs had ceased registering.
Fucking incompetent cows.
His eyes burned with tears and his own urine. Shawn held his mangled hand up to his face and saw his finger was skewed backward at a right angle to his hand. The finger was already turning black and blue and was swollen to twice its proper size.
Sobbing now, sickened by the smell and taste of his own urine up his nose and down his throat, Shawn looked around for something to throw through the door—something that might make some noise or attract attention to his room. He picked up the unplugged remote unit thrown across his chest. With his left hand, he awkwardly slung it at his room’s door. The unit hit the handle and clattered to the tile floor of the common hallway.
Shawn thought, Maybe that will get that fat nigger nurse’s attention.
THEN
The Border Patrol’s Christmas party had started at the HQ, but then drifted down the street to a bar as things got on and the craving for harder liquor took hold.
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