Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (23 page)

"Don't be a chili pepper."

Behind me to the left, a rough whisper, like a rasp across
soft white pine. One hand squeezes the back of my neck, the
other extends to pry my fingers off the Safeway cart. Hands in
leather golf or driving gloves, wearing a tee, his arms rife with
intricate tattoos, not prison ballpoint-pen black but professional, multicolored inks swirling around the name Dial. I can
see that the tat artist who did the full sleeves on both arms
used thicker ink; the word Dial covers an ancient tat reading
Diablo.

I half duck, trying to turn away, but a smaller man on my
right wedges his body against me, so I pull the cart toward its,
taking tension momentarily off Dial's fingers, and then shove
the cart toward the organic apples, peaches, and pears, an
elderly couple recoiling as it punches into a free-standing display, the man's face puckering with indignation then quickly
dropping a plastic bag of tomatoes, shrinking away from Dial's
tats and his cold stare. The tomatoes roll across the floor but
nobody pays them any attention.

"She might have a gun," the smaller man says, his voice
strangely familiar, "tucked down in her back."

"Forget the gun," Dial responds. "Is this her?"

"Yes."

I'm trying to see their faces, but Dial puts a martial arts
grip on my upper left shoulder, pinches a nerve. I recoil, gasp,
my left arm flops around, I'm staggering from the pain but
they hold me upright and, like a two-person team carrying a
bashed-up athlete off the playing field, they frog-march me out the wide Safeway entrance. Dial's hand shifts from my neck to
under my arm and across my left breast, almost lifting and carrying me along. Sweat pops everywhere from underneath my
headband, running down my face. My body flowers with sweat
that fountains between my breasts and underneath the sports
bra. I'm sweating from panic but also the rapid transition from
Safeway's aircon into the muggy April ninety-degree Tucson
midmorning air.

The parking lot is jammed, but nobody really notices us.
I decide to shout for help but Dial squeezes my throat. I can
barely breath. I can't see an out, so I relax my muscles, trying
to flex my fingers, get strength back. The other man's hand
slides under my tee and against my bare back, moving down
inside my waistband.

"You still tuck that pistola back there," the second man
says.

I recognize the voice.

"Rey?" I say. "Rey?" Disbelief.

"When you went running, you carried it back there."

He palms my Beretta from the small of my back where I
carry it in an unbelted nylon rig. Dial fumbles in my handbag,
grabs my keys.

"Rey Villaneuva?"

"Yeah," he says quietly.

"Is that really you?"

Rey Villaneuva. Once my PI partner. Once my lover. I
haven't seen him in, in, I have to think, it's been ... what ...
five years? Seven? I cut a glance at his worried still-handsome
face half hidden by that familiar shock of unruly black hair,
which glistens with water as though he'd stuck his head under
a faucet and run his fingers through it instead of a comb. He's
wearing brown khakis, the kind he once creased daily with his own iron, but now looking like he's worn them for weeks
without washing. The direct sunlight catches flecks of gray in
his hair and his week-old whiskers.

"What do you want from me?"

"To create a legend," he says.

They hustle me to a silver Escalade with tinted windows,
parked next to my Subaru Baja. Ronald Jumps the Train sits
behind my steering wheel, the other man in the passenger
seat. Dial swings me hard against the Escalade; Rey's shoulders slump, he won't meet my eyes.

"Rey," I say. "What are you doing here?"

"Working, working," he answers finally. "Just working." He
still cant look up at me, he cuts his eyes left and right repeatedly. Dial tosses my car keys to the guy in my Subaru's passenger
seat. Dial pulls out a Glock fitted with a laser sight. He pops a
switch, the red laser dances across his palm, across my face.

"You know what this is?" I nod. "Right now, there's another on your daughter."

"Excuse me?"

"She's vacationing up in Sedona. With your granddaughter."

I nod again, mute. He gently strokes a thumb down my
nose.

"You're a PI?"

"Yes. Yeah, yes. Why?"

"You work for the Navajo Tribal Police? The drug unit?"

"Why are you, why, why are you doing this?"

Dial nods at Rey, like, Your turn here.

"Laura," Rey says. "Do you still find people? Create legends? New ID, everything?"

"My daughter? How is she involved in this? My granddaughter?"

"What he's really asking," Dial says, "do you still make up
really good ID?"

"Yes, but-"

"ID can pass any test? Even if it's fake?"

"Yes, yeah, but listen, listen, just ... listen to me. If you've
kidnapped my daughter-"

"Don't fuck with me," Dial says, but quiet, he's really confident of himself. "Don't you fucking think you can fuck with
me.

"Rey, Rey, Jesus, Rey, what are you guys telling me?"

"You help us, nobody gets hurt."

"Help you do what?"

"We need you to create a legend," he says.

"I won't."

"I told you. I said, don't you fuck with me." Dial pulls
my Beretta out of Rey's hand. "You want to see what happens, you fuck with me?" Turning toward the two men in my
Subaru, the passenger's face in shadows. Ronald Jumps the
Train looks at me, he's so terrified I can smell fresh urine. "Tell
me again. You're a private investigator?"

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes."

"Lady?" Ronald whimpers. "Lady, can you get me out of
this?" But I have little sympathy for him. Ronald Jumps the
Train got his name at the age of eleven when he rode boxcars
pulling into Flagstaff, throwing marijuana bales out the open
door. Now he deals crystal meth, the major supplier for Gila
River and Casa Grande, so I try not to feel any sympathy at
all. But Jesus, a sudden pop-pop, a double tap as Dial shoots
Ronald dead, then pop, one more guarantee shot through his
forehead before he turns the Glock at the passenger who is
already starting to open his door.

"Me jodi!" the passenger shouts before Dial pops him too.

I'm screwed.

Dial tosses my Beretta onto Ronald's lap. What's really
really scary about Dial is that he's totally cool about just having murdered two men, and in that moment I believe him
about my daughter. He shoves me into the passenger seat of
the Escalade, sits behind me.

"Seat belt," he says. "We're going where it's quiet, you either say what we want or you don't. You don't got what we
want, we kill you." He checks his watch. "Yes or no?"

"Yes," I say.

Rey drives. Nobody talks. We take Ina to I-10 and head south
until Rey exits onto I-19. Soon I see my past rising in front of
me. Mission San Xavier del Bac, a gorgeous white mission,
the white dove of the desert. Mission San Xavier del Bac,
where Rey and I were once responsible for killing and burning
a teenager.

Five years ago.

Or seven, I don't want to think about it.

Rey slows at the edge of the mission parking lot, a barren,
uneven and unpaved stretch of ground, just a few hundred yards
from the Tohono O'odham Tribal Police center. We swing past
the Wak shopping center, the People of the River, the gates
open but nobody in sight. The Escalade bumps past some of
the concrete block houses, moves briefly along a dirt road
with, amazingly, a sign. Gok Kawulk Wog. Tohono O'odham
words. No sense to me.

Dial's cell rings. He motions Rey to stop next to an ancient saguaro cactus with seven arms and two huge holes up
where somebody'd shotgunned it in the main stem. Dial listens, murmurs a word, flips the cell closed, and holds up a
hand at Rey.

Engine running, aircon set at meat locker, we sit there for
two hours or so, gas gauge near empty. Dial occasionally leans
forward between the seats, studying my face. The full tats on
his arms are layered three deep, the most faded seem to be
81st Airborne tats from Nam. On the left arm, Killing Is Our
Business, on the right arm, Business Is Good.

A family of Gambel's quail bustles across the road, Dad
in front, Mom behind, both sandwiching a dozen new chicks
the size of fluffy walnuts, urging them from a creosote bush
to shelter under a clump of teddy bear cholla. Dial lasers the
chicks one at a time, smacking his lips in a silent pow, and
then he centers the red dot on my left eye. His cell rings again.
He listens, nods at my computer bag.

"Is that enough equipment?" he says to me as Rey checks
out the bag.

"The laptop and the satellite phone," I say. "Yes, maybe. I
can try. But not until you guarantee my daughter's safety. And
my granddaughter. Why are you doing this, Rey?"

"I work for Veronica Luna de los Angeles Talancon," Rey
answers quickly; he wants to get her name out there and over
with.

"Veronica Talancon? The drug cartel woman?"

Dial slaps the back of my head. "Show some respect. Respect for La Bruja de los Cielos."

"Rey? You work for Sonora's biggest drug cartel?" My jaw
slack, mouth open.

"Listen."

"The drug lord? You work for her cartel?"

"Yeah," sighing, shrugging, "yeah, okay? Jesus, will you just
listen to me?"

"La Bruja de los Cielos? The Witch of the Skies?" Dial
slaps my head again; Rey turns away, nodding, his chin so low it bumps his chest. "You're threatening my family because of a
vicious woman who runs a drug cartel?"

"Listen," he says. "I mean, just listen to this, okay? I mean,
I'm just a go-between. Just a connection, a fixer. Just trying to
stay alive here."

"You're wasting time," Dial says. "You're useless. Let's go.
Drive."

"Wait, wait a minute. What do you want?" I ask again.
"And where are you taking me?"

"What Talancon wants, what she needs, Laura," Rey says
quietly, but looking me right in the eyes, "what Talancon
needs is a brand-new, best-quality, never-fail, platinum-grade
U.S. identity. What you call, in your business, you call it creating a legend."

"I don't do that anymore. I'm legitimate. I do computer forensics on corporation databases. I'm completely, totally legal.
Rey. Listen to me. This is a bad idea."

"This is way past a bad idea," Rey says.

"You're not listening to me." Dial flips open his cell, a finger on the keypad. "I've got five minutes left to call Sedona. I
don't call, a sicario pops your daughter."

"Jesus Christ, Rey. You're just making this up." I talk directly to Rey, I won't acknowledge that Dial is in charge. He
doesn't care what I acknowledge or think or whatever, he just
dials, listens, puts the cell on speaker-phone. "Five minutes
my ass. This is a bluff."

"Eating dinner at LAuberge de Sedona," a voice says.
"Down by the creek. Kid's in a high chair, wearing a pink
jumpsuit, Mommy's in a yellow tank top. Nice tits."

"Okay, okay," I say into the cell. It's not a bluff. Panic,
trying to sound calm, hoping I project willingness to go along
instead of terror at the situation, and in the back of my mind, nothing forming, but back there, trying to figure a plan to get
out of this alive. "Okay, I'll do it. Don't-"

Dial flips the cell closed, motions to Rey who just nods
and shifts into drive.

"Where are we going?"

"Talancon is hiding in Sahuarita. She got across the border, but no time for plastic surgery, so she's got to fly out of
Tucson quick, like, tomorrow. She can't do that without a
whole new identity. And you're the expert."

"Just to find the right connections will take days. A week,
maybe more."

"Talancon figures she's got eight, maybe ten hours to arrange a safe out."

"Impossible. Ugh." Dial slaps the back of my head. He
knows the sweet spots back there, three times he's whacked
the same place and it's starting to vibrate with pain.

"I'm nothing here, Laura," Rey says. "Don't you see that?
If you do this, Talancon will pay whatever you ask."

"Don't shit me, Rey. You've already threatened my daughter, my granddaughter. If I give this woman, this Talancon, if I
give her a new identity, she'll kill me. She'll kill you, she'll kill
anybody in her way just like those two back there."

"Yeah. Well. I don't bring you to Talancon right now, Mr.
Dial here will pop me and you, no hesitation. That's your
choice. Come with us or die." The sunset lights up his face,
his color bleaching to white, corners of his mouth sagging.
"Yes or no?"

Dial slaps my head again.

"Yes," I say finally. "Yes. I'll do it.
"

Sahuarita, Arizona. Just south of Indian reservation lands.
Bustling with new houses going up, their framed skeletons crowded with carpenters, plumbers, electricians, everybody
trying to get rich.

Rey winds along a narrow street, twisting through smaller
roads until we stop at the dead end of Calle Zapata at the edge
of a pecan orchard. A Ford crew-cab pickup faces out to the
street and a woman sits at a battered redwood picnic table
behind the gated front wall, a vivid view of the Santa Rita
mountains behind her. Dial grips my upper arms, marches me
in front of him toward the table.

Veronica Talancon bites carefully into a Sonoran hot dog,
sipping occasionally from a bottle of Diet Sprite. A slim, tiny
woman, barely taller than five feet. Gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, the Witch of the Skies.

"Miss Winslow," a quiet voice, calm, measured, steady.
She wipes bits of chili from her chin. "Thank you for coming."

"You threatened my family. Did you really expect I'd not
come?"

"Look at this," she says, gesturing at what's left of her
food. "The all-American hot dog, made in Mexico, wrapped
in bacon, stuffed inside a fresh bun and loaded up with tomato
and onion chunks, grilled onions, mustard and mayo and a
jalapeno sauce with a guerito pepper. Two nights ago, I had
lobster flown in from Maine on my private jet. Tonight," gesturing at the cracked adobe house and yard full of weeds, "this
is my whole kingdom."