Moist (26 page)

“What's going on?”

“That's what I'm trying to determine. I'm hoping you can help.”

“Of course I'll help.”

Don looked at her and then pulled out a cookbook.

“Do you recognize this man?”

He showed her the picture of Larga on the cover.

“Yes. That's Max Larga. Although you know that, because his name's right there on the cover of the book.”

Maura caught herself.
Why do I feel so nervous?

“Do you know him?”

“Sure. He's a client.”

Don nodded.

“This is important. When was the last time you saw him?”

Maura thought for a second.

“I can tell you exactly.”

She went to her desk and pulled out her schedule book. Looking through it, she realized that she might need to take out an ad in one of the holistic newspapers. Business had been slack.

“He was supposed to come the other day, but he didn't show up.”

Don wrote down the exact date and time.

“You sure he didn't show up?”

“Yeah. I was annoyed. He didn't even call.”

“We found his car in the parking lot.”

Maura blinked.

“That's weird.”

Don nodded.

“Yes. Yes it is.”

. . .

Bob turned on the car's radio. He hit the scan button, and station after station came into the car, blared a commercial, and then drifted off into a static void. Didn't anyone play music
on the radio anymore? It was all talk. Somebody selling something. Even the news was selling something. Bob believed that people watched the news on TV or listened to the news on the radio so they could feel superior. They didn't want to be informed, they weren't interested in politics, half the time they didn't even vote. People watched the news so they could say,
I'm better than the poor fuckers fighting floodwaters in Iowa; I'm smarter than the guy driving wildly down the freeway to avoid arrest. My life is better, not because of the luck of being born in the First World, but because I am inherently superior to the hungry masses rioting in Botswana, robbing banks in Van Nuys, and selling their bodies on the streets of Bangkok.

Bob's theory was that the news comforted people by showing them how horrifying the rest of life was. You couldn't help but feel safe and smug when confronted with the stupidity that raged outside your walls.

At least that's what Bob thought. So he didn't pay much attention to the news.

Finally, the radio landed on an AM station and stuck there. It was in Spanish. It was all talk. But Bob could tell from the passion and inflection in the speaker's voice that it was religious. A preacher speaking Spanish, imploring people to follow the word of God. Bob liked the cadence of the preaching. It was somehow reassuring.

Bob could not help but marvel at the fact that he was still alive. Twice in the last few days he'd been kidnapped and marked for death. Only each time he'd gained a reprieve. He had been lucky. He had cheated death.

There was a reason for it. He was sure of that. He didn't know what the reason was. It was somehow connected to
Felicia. They were in love. Was it love that kept him alive, or some higher power? Maybe love was the higher power.

The preacher continued to spread the word of Jesus as Bob drove down from the mountains and into the Valley. Bob knew that he was on a path. He could feel it. He didn't know where it was heading, he couldn't foresee the twists and turns that he knew lay ahead. But he'd been trusting his instincts, relying on luck, and so far things were unfolding in miraculous ways.

There was a reason he was lucky.

As he drove toward Felicia's house, Bob was overcome by two distinct feelings. The first was a great sense of relief that traveled from the top of his head down to his sweaty toes, and made his blood pulse and his lungs suck in big heaps of air. He was alive. The sun was shining, the trees were waving in the wind. He could see the world in all its glory. The other feeling that tugged at him, and this urge was even more compelling than a feeling of general well-being and appreciation for the beauty of life and the surrounding world, was the sensation of being incredibly horny.

He couldn't wait to get home to Felicia.

. . .

Martin had walked about three miles when he saw a pickup truck heading toward him. He stopped in his tracks. His adrenal glands began to furiously pump adrenaline through his body. He was finding it difficult to stay upright. He clenched his teeth and fought back the urge to barf.

This was probably Amado. Martin knew he needed to stay calm, stay focused. He clenched the Glock tightly in his
pocket. When Amado got close, really close, he'd whip that sucker out and just start blasting.

But it wasn't Amado. It was the park ranger.

The pickup stopped in a cloud of desert dust, and a lanky young man, his face looking like it had been hit with a blowtorch from all the acne and sunburn it had experienced, hopped out. The ranger had a concerned expression.

“Hey, mister, are you okay?”

Martin didn't know how to answer that question. It seemed so stupid that he felt like shooting the guy right then and there.
Just look at me,
he thought,
how could you ask that question?

“I fell and hit my head.”

It was probably better not to kill the ranger.

“Let me take a look at it.”

The ranger walked close to Martin and looked at his scalp.

“I think I need to go to the hospital.”

The ranger nodded.

“I'll say you do.”

The ranger helped Martin into the passenger seat of the pickup. Martin suddenly felt weak. Like he was going to black out. The ranger hit the air conditioner and did a quick 180. The cold air dried the sweat on Martin's face, sending a chill through his body. It wasn't a bad chill, it was a good chill. It would be the chill of the hospital, the cold stinging burn of antiseptic and suture. The cold air of safety.

As the pickup left the trail and started off down the paved road toward town, Martin got another kind of chill. The chill you get when you see the Ramirez brothers go flying by in an SUV.

Ah, fuck. This was bad.

He became lightheaded. In fact, he felt his head detach from his neck and float. It would've drifted out the window if it had been open. A prickly sensation rushed through his arms, and then everything went black.

Martin passed out, his head lurching forward and hitting the dashboard. The ranger looked over, dismayed as the wound had opened and a soft trickle of blood was dripping on his pickup's interior.

The ranger grabbed a box of tissues and, taking out three or four, smushed them into the wound. The tissues stuck up, out of Martin's head. They waved in the air-conditioned breeze as they slowly turned red. Like a beautiful rose.

. . .

Maura had seen these interview rooms on TV shows. Drab, institutional, kinda grotty. But what you couldn't get from television was the smell. The sweet, gag-inducing perfume of fear and desperation. She was surprised. You'd think it wouldn't be so noticeable. But there it was. Unmistakable. Pure animal fear.

The smell didn't just nauseate her, it infected her. Soon her skin was covered in a cool, clammy sweat. Nerves jangled and on edge. The smell rising off her.

Why?

What had she done wrong? Why was Don being so weird with her? She wondered if this was what he was really like.

Don entered the room carrying a cup of hot tea for her.

“I'm really sorry about this.”

Maura took the tea. She didn't feel like talking.

“It's just easier if we can run through the sequence of events again.”

She sipped her tea.

“Are you okay?”

Maura thought about how to respond to that question. She decided no response would be the simplest.

Don gave her an earnest and loving look.

“Maybe bringing you in wasn't such a good idea. I'm really sorry.”

She didn't give him anything in return.

“I'm just stuck. This is a big case for me and it's just getting weirder and weirder. The only clue I've got, the only lead whatsoever, is this connection between you and Mr. Larga.”

Maura blinked. His honesty had helped her. Helped alleviate some of her fear. Now she was just pissed off.

Don doodled in his notebook.

Maura sipped her tea.

After a beat, Don tried again.

“Please?”

Maura didn't say anything. She kept her breathing regular. Her eyes remained soft, not showing any of the anger or emotion that was building up inside her, hot, gaseous, and continuously expanding like the lava dome of Krakatoa.

She watched as Don squirmed in his seat. Now he was sweating. She decided to speak.

“Do I need a lawyer?”

Hit with a Buick's worth of guilt he crumpled like a cheap, imported bumper.

“Oh, no. No, honey. Nothing like that. You're not under arrest. You're not even a suspect. I just . . . I just thought—I'm sorry. I've messed everything up.”

She kept her poker face on, but she was enjoying this. She'd managed to turn the tables on Don. She could barbecue him if she wanted. She could get him to do anything.

“You're going to have to make this up to me.”

. . .

Bob felt good. He rolled off Felicia, their bodies slippery from sweat, and lay on his back gasping for air. She rolled on her side and looked at him.

“Oh, Roberto.”

Bob didn't know what to say, so he ran his hand down her body until he found her hand. He held it tightly.

Felicia let out a sigh and curled up next to him, drifting off to sleep. A contented purring sound rising from her throat. He felt her breasts pressing against his ribs, felt the weight of her leg as it rested on top of his. Her warmth. The rise and fall of her breathing. The blood flowing just under that soft brown skin. He wanted to stay here, in bed, with Felicia for more than a few weeks or months.

Bob's brain slammed on the brakes. He came to the shocking realization that he wanted to stay with Felicia for the rest of his life. He was in love.

He wanted to stay alive and enjoy this for as long as he could. Until something happened and the two of them tore each other's hearts out and went their separate ways. Although Bob held out a good deal of hope that you could actually have a long-term, mutually satisfying relationship
that didn't end in heartbreak. Perhaps he was naive. But he didn't care.

It seemed like for the first time in his life he'd been lucky. All those times when the other guy got the girl, the job, the last copy of the collectible first-edition comic that he had spotted. Yeah, he was due for a little luck.

Still, luck runs out. You always hear that. Somebody's luck ran out. Bob realized he'd need more than just luck. It was time he took an active interest in his long-term survival. Particularly if he wanted to continue being employed in this new line of work.

He catalogued the various methods of self-defense. Learning to shoot a gun seemed obvious enough. But guns have drawbacks. They go off a little too quickly. You could shoot someone accidentally. You could get arrested for carrying them. Bob realized that guns had a negative vibe for him. He just wasn't a gun person.

He wasn't a knife person either. Too messy. Maybe he could learn kung fu or some equally deadly martial art. He'd discuss it with Esteban. Learn from the old pro. Stay alive.

Bob drifted off to sleep.

. . .

It took a few minutes for everything to come into focus. It was like a dream. Diffuse light glaring through the curtains. The hundreds of little holes in the ceiling tiles. You could count them. Across the room, some dark silhouette watching TV. The sounds of a baseball game.

Martin was groggy, disoriented. He had the pleasant sensation of being stoned on some kind of painkiller and the
unpleasant sensation of having his arms and legs strapped down onto a bed. With some effort he lifted his head up.

He could see his hands, with little plastic tubes going into his arm. Something—water, food, drugs—was being fed directly into his body from above. He tried to move his arms again, this time seeing the thick nylon straps that secured him to the bed.

Now what?

As the room came more and more into focus, so did several extremely unpleasant physical sensations. His throat, for one, was parched. As though the membranes had shrunken and cracked like a dry lake bed. His head, where that fucker Roberto had clobbered him, hurt with a kind of insistent slicing pain. And, oh, this can't be happening, there was some kind of tube shoved up his penis and into his bladder. He was catheterized.

“Water.”

Did he say that? If he had, he hadn't meant to. He'd wanted to keep quiet until he came to his senses.

“Water.”

That was him. That croaking sound was coming out of his mouth.

“Thirsty?”

“Water.”

The silhouette stood and came over to him. Martin could tell right away that it was some kind of law-enforcement person. The man held out a plastic cup. Martin lifted his head and grabbed the flexible straw with his lips. He slowly sucked the icy fluids down. Nothing. No drug, no sex, no fabulous food, nothing ever tasted so good.

“Don't drink it all.”

The officer pulled the cup away. Martin laid his head back.

“Glad to see you're awake. We didn't know when you were going to snap out of it.”

Martin didn't know what to say.

“We've got a lot of questions for you.”

“What?”

“I'm the sheriff out here, and you're our mystery man.”

The sheriff stood up and patted his beach ball of a beer gut.

“What were you doin' out there? Didya think you could sell heroin in the desert?”

Martin was confused, and then he remembered. The packets of smack he'd taken from Norberto. The ones he'd planned to stick in Roberto's pocket.