Friday, December 1
Tanner, at the front door, saw the girl being hustled off the property by the rent-a-cops. Same girl, wide-eyed and earnest, who’d been in Agostino’s office and Cobb had ejected with such pleasure.
She’d brought a stack of flyers to pass out. Agostino would go nuts if he got wind of it. But she kept to the edges, unseen from the door.
He checked ID’s, smiled, ignored the occasional flirty glance. Crave was built for flirty eyes, flirty minds, flirty hands, even more so now that the contest had become such a hot item.
The rent-a-cops wandered inside minutes before the first show. The deejay cranked the volume, making the front doors vibrate.
Tanner walked out to the boulevard. There she was, huddled in the lee of an old van plastered with Crave signs. He shortened his stride, raised a hand in greeting. She stepped forward, the chill wind whipping her long hair like tattered flags.
“Sidewalk’s public property.” Her mouth set in an obstinate line. “I’m not going anywhere until I find out what happened to my sister.” She looked up, examined him with frown-narrowed eyes. “Oh. You’re the more-or-less nice one, aren’t you? Here.”
She thrust a flyer at him. He took it.
“My sister. Angelina,” she said. “I was supposed to come but at the last minute I couldn’t find a babysitter. My husband’s in Iraq. Ange had saved for this, even got a Groupon for us. She thought she could sell mine. So she went.”
“You know she got here? What’s your name?”
“Luz Acero. Angelina Ortega’s my sister.” She pointed to Tanner’s flyer. “She’s three years older than me but we look alike. Did you see her Wednesday night?”
He looked at the photo: a black-and-white copy of a color glamour shot. The sisters had a strong resemblance. “How do you know she even got here?”
“She texted me during the show.” She fumbled in her purse, juggling the flyers and a plastic shopping bag and an umbrella that wouldn’t close. She brought out her cell phone. “Here. Hold these. I’m so cold I can’t...”
He held the stuff. She brushed her fingers over the phone and brought up a photo. Turned the phone so he could see.
Angelina Ortega had snapped the enormous visitor as he’d clanked onto the stage, gold g-string peeking from his gangsta outfit. She’d sat, Tanner now remembered, in the middle, at the tip of the stage. She’d obviously been alone, nobody to grab and scream with when the best moves came.
“You remember her, don’t you? She was there! But that jerk says he never saw her.”
“The place was jammed. He might not have seen her.”
“But you saw her,” she insisted. “You did. I saw it on your face.”
“I saw scores of pretty, dark-haired women. Did I see your sister? I don’t know.”
But he did know. He also knew that if Angelina Ortega had been gone for two days and hadn’t contacted this teary-eyed girl, the news could be bad. It wasn’t his job to tell her stuff like that. And it might not be true. Her sister might’ve met someone, gone off for a fling…
But Angelina Ortega had been in Crave Wednesday night. She hadn’t had a lot to drink, he didn’t remember seeing her in the bar. She wasn’t the brunette Agostino had scored. He didn’t know what had happened to either woman.
But Angelina Ortega? He was going to find out.
***
Just after nine, Tanner’s phone produced a miracle. His pulse leaped when he read it.
—See you at eleven?
—Okay.
Green didn’t look up from his receipts when Tanner said he wanted to leave early. “Yeah. Go ahead.”
They met by chance in the vestibule, and agreed to take separate cars to a never-closed diner that had secluded rear booths and home-made baklava to die for. Jan drove a flashy late-model silver Sebring convertible with a black top and black leather interior. The right rear quarter panel had a serious crumple.
“Man, that must’ve hurt,” he said. “Were you in it?”
“No. Some moron in a parking lot. I was heartbroken. I love this car. The cost to fix it is unbelievable.”
He ran his hand over the damage. “Cheaper to go to a DIY junkyard, find another panel. Easy enough to swap out.”
She looked at him uncomprehendingly, pushed her hair back as the wind flipped it. “Do what?”
“Girls,” he said, shaking his head. “You got no common sense. Simple thing like replacing a quarter panel and you get all— Ow! I give up!”
She had a nice, hard punch. “Guys,” she said, grinning carnivorously. “Shall I follow you, guy? You really know the way? Or do we go in circles all night because you can’t ask for directions?”
“Nobody’s awake to ask. Get in, lady, and follow your leader.”
She did, and parked at the edge of the diner’s lot away from other cars. He watched her stride across the pavement, her ridiculous shoes giving her a highly sexy walk. He pictured her in only the shoes, but couldn’t sustain it. He wanted to know what was going on in her mind before he did further fantasizing about her body.
On the other hand, maybe it was just him. Sonora had changed him, and not for the better. The narcos’ women, their contorted faces, their furious screams, the surreal quality brought on by his own exhaustion, his certain knowledge that he wasn’t getting out alive, lodged in his mind like a thorn festering. Those moments would never leave him. He no longer trusted women. Hell, he didn’t trust himself.
“Thoughtful,” Jan said after they’d ordered. She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Want to share?”
“You hate Richie Agostino,” he said. “Why?”
She closed her lips in a hard line. “What’s to like,” she said tightly. “He’s a goddamned troll.”
“But it’s real personal with you. How come?”
“You work there. Better we don’t discuss it.” She looked up as the baklava and drinks arrived, smiled at the waitress.
Tanner scowled. “You think I’d tell him what we talked about?”
Stone-faced, she pulled the teabag out of the little metal pot, squeezed it with her fingertips. Laid the squashed bag in the saucer. Poured a half cup. All the while thinking furiously, he figured.
“Maybe” She caught his look. “No. I don’t think you would.”
“It’s something big,” he guessed.
She sipped her tea. “Let’s talk about other things. Where you’ve been recently, or the movies...or the weather. Cleveland, even.”
He sat back, suddenly drained. “There’s a rhinoceros sitting on the table between us and you want to talk about the damn weather?”
“You put the rhinoceros there. I don’t know you. You work at that joint and your boss,” she gave a soft snort of distaste, “is that toad.” She shook her head slowly, and her thick hair swung about her face. “I really don’t know you. Or your loyalties.”
“Certainly not to Richie Agostino.”
“Commendable.” The blue eyes were shuttered.
“I had a really good friend, Walter. Married his childhood sweetheart. They had two lovely daughters, lived the dream to the hilt. On their thirteenth anniversary, Sarah announced she was a lesbian and wanted a divorce and he could keep the kids. Walt thought he knew her. He didn’t. I thought I knew her. I didn’t.”
“So the subtext is nobody ever knows anybody?”
“No, that’s—”
“I got it. Trust nobody because you’ll never be sure.” She picked up her fork, stabbed it into the honey-soaked pastry as if it needed killing. “I rest my case.”
Tanner reached for his wallet. The waitress swooped in, all teeth and good cheer and the tab, which she slid on the table with a little flourish. “How’s everything going, folks?”
“Not so good,” they said in unison.
***
Tanner’s nightmares came rolling in, grimacing faces like south-of-the-border carnival masks screaming muerte, muerte al gringo, work-calloused hands wielding whips, fire- hardened sticks, strips of knotted rawhide, fist-sized stones. Women in tight, garish clothes, large breasts rolling inside tank tops, bare feet advancing and retreating, muscled arms flailing. Blood spattering on their cinnamon-hued skin. His blood.
Suffocating heat filled his lungs, the sand under his bare feet burned. Someone poured water in front of him. He couldn’t reach it, watched it darken the sand and vanish. He screamed.
Jerked awake. Cat jumped back from his flailing hand.
Hot, damp sheets twisted around him; the bottom sheet had worked loose. Everything burned, as if he’d been set alight. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. His gasps sounded loud in the middle-of-the-night calm, the only other sound the faint, distant bass line from a car over near Blind Pass.
He was certain he wouldn’t sleep again tonight; the dreams possessed him. Omega’s pet psychiatrist had warned him they would stay with him for a while.
“The torture was bad enough,” she’d said, “but the shame you associate with it doubles the trauma. Expect problems for six to twelve months. Minimum.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “If you keep seeing me.”
“It was my fault,” he’d said.
“No, it wasn’t. You were betrayed. One of the men had been bought.”
“I should’ve—”
“Shoulda-coulda. You’ve got one helluva god complex, Mr. Tanner.” She pulled out a sheet of paper, took a marker and scribbled something, big letters. Handed it to him. “Put this over your sink and look at it as you brush your teeth. Then say it ten times.”
I am not omnipotent.
Hell, that was for sure. He’d gotten separated from the unit: the traitor at work. Looking back, he should’ve known he was bought. I am not omnipotent. But he should’ve known, the tells had been there.
For two days the indians had hunted him, for two days he took them out one by one as he came upon them. Before long, they smartened up and went out in fours and sixes and then he’d been truly on the run, at times staying only steps ahead of them.
By day, he’d sought shade and scanned the cloudless sky, saw only vultures and hawks riding the thermals. Once he’d heard a chopper, but was too weak to reveal himself: what if it was a narco chopper? Their equipment was usually better than the federales. The helicopter left. The heat remained. The relentless hunt went on.
Finally they’d brought in military night-vision gear. By that point it had become beyond personal, every ego pulsing for revenge, any contact dogfight vicious. Night three, he’d jumped a straggler, left the body on the trail. He’d been three hundred yards away when they found their compadre. Firing on the run, he’d done his best to pick off the rest.
But he’d been dizzy with hunger, head pounding from dehydration, disoriented and wobbly-kneed. They’d tracked him and cornered him. Four against one. His mind had gone blank and he’d dropped his rifle and raised his hands. They stripped him and carried him hours to a village. Near a pool of water. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the clear, beautiful water. They wired him to a tree six feet from the spring and left him overnight. Then they’d given him to the women.
In the darkness, remembering, his teeth chattered. Muscles cramped. When his stomach spasmed, he got out of the bed and collapsed headlong onto the tile floor. It was cool, so not like the desert floor which had put blisters on his soles. He slept.
***
“I need you to check something for me,” Tanner said to Athena on Saturday morning.
He sat at his kitchen counter, ignoring his cold toast and the battered tiger purring at his elbow. She sat in Omega’s main office in Tampa, no pets allowed. He could hear Grey Holden’s deep voice in the background.
“Ask and you shall receive,” she intoned.
He asked. She promised to put someone on it.
How’s the job going otherwise?”
“Fine,” he said, thinking of the evening ahead. “Just peachy keen.”
***
Crave was standing-room only. Women arrived in pink shirts, sporting pink ribbons and pink streaked hair. Smiling greasily, Green took their cover charges. The spotty bar-back, his black tee festooned with pink ribbons, held a pink, spangled plastic champagne bucket for additional donations. Beyond, two women in sample tees sold pink shirts with slogans. The air was festive and defiant and breathtakingly female: we will win this fight. And all the others, too.
Tanner, at the door between bar and showroom, lost count of the times he’d been ogled. A new, bigger poster filled one wall in the vestibule: screaming neon pink, with huge contestant photos. He was, he knew after viewing the line-up, the token old fart. Women paused as they spotted him, sometimes went back to check, then wished him luck. His face was splotched with good-luck lipstick.
A slender hand slipped into his, squeezed. He looked down.
“I’ve thought it over. We need to talk, fella,” Jan said with theatrical severity.
“You picked a fine time to decide that, Lucille.”
“Lousy timing is one of my specialties.” She grinned and motioned to the easel. “So you’re in the lineup? And a spy, too. Multi-talented. What a treat.”
“Not for me. You’re looking prettier than usual.” Her floppy-necked sweater was a delicious shade of raspberry. He bent down a few inches, put his mouth near her ear. Her hair tickled his temple, sending shivers across his skin.
“I’m going to be slammed until very late. Should I call you or are you going to hang here?”
“You’re asking me to leave?”
Absolutely. “Stay if you want. But it won’t be pretty.” He’d seen many of the entrants as they’d drifted in: amateurs all. He wouldn’t be alone in making a fool of himself.
Guests pushed past them in excited clusters. There were more men than usual, including a cadre of firefighters and EMTs in tight black logo’d tee shirts. He felt old just looking at them. He straightened, looked around. Was she here alone?
“Your sister with you?”
For a moment she looked blank. “Oh. No. She had other commitments. I’m going to take photos.” She squeezed his hand. “Is this going to have real strip routines?”
He shook his head. “Absolutely not. I don’t think there’s any pros in this. Course, any guy can get up there and do a few poses.”
“Including you.” She smiled and he wanted to break all the rules, even his own, and bend down to kiss that smile. “What’re you wearing for your stage debut?”
“Speedo. Bikini. Navy blue. Was either that or camo boxers.”
Just an hour before, Agostino had asked the same question. Tanner had given the same answer. Typically, Agostino had gone on, his staccato delivery guaranteed to annoy. Man had all the subtlety of a belt sander.
“Park your ass at this door until ten minutes before nine. Dred,” the bar-back, an anorexic junior college dropout, another of Three-D’s picks, “will take over then. You do the contest, then get back in your clothes. You do not mingle at the after-party, you’re an employee. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Whadaya got to wear on stage?”
“Speedo. Blue.”
“Tiny? Bikini? Pouch? Your balls might fall out? They’d love that.”
Tanner could not imagine that scenario. He would not. He shook his head. “Tiny enough.”
Several women came up to wish Agostino well and Tanner realized the big boss himself would strut his stuff. He should’ve looked at the poster more closely. What else wasn’t he seeing? Was how he saw Jan even remotely accurate? He felt unsteady, off his stride.
He looked over at her, in the corner. She watched the shifting mob of women, the more ripped contestants scattered about like pecans in mixed nuts. Her glance slid quickly over Agostino. As if she’d be contaminated if she looked too long. As if he was unclean.