Cool in Tucson (15 page)

“I see it!  Will you give me a break, Miss Busybody?”  Mom gunned the motor to get ahead of the truck and Denny heard a screech of brakes, looked back and saw a man sitting in his pickup with his hands in the air in an attitude of angry disbelief.

After that she concentrated on the toes of her shoes and whispered one of the prayers Grandma Aggie had taught her years ago, “Hail, Mary, full of grace
¾
”  Not that she expected any help from Heaven.  She figured if there’d been anybody up there assigned to her case he’d already had plenty of chances to show up and be useful.  But the familiar words of the prayer brought back the comfort of Grandma Aggie’s lap, years ago when she was little, and that helped her be quiet.

The big parking lot in front of Fry’s was crowded.  Mom started saying right away, “Oh, now look at this mess, oh, there’s one—no, there’s a stupid motorcycle in there, why can’t they park those things on the sidewalk?”  She always got very sorry for herself in parking lots, taking it personally when she couldn’t find a place near the store.  Besides, Denny could see, she was anxious to get the beer and cigarettes and get back to the smelly man before he got angry.  In a few minutes she said, “Listen, I’m just going to pull into this handicapped space here, nobody’ll know the difference.”

“You can’t do that, you’ll get another ticket.”

“I never got a ticket for parking in a handicapped zone, what are you talking about?”

“No, that’s right, your tickets are all for speeding, aren’t they?”  Denny was hungry and mad and wanted to pass some of the pain around.  “Go
on
, Mom, you can’t park here!” 

“I’ll only be gone two blinks, and look, I’ll leave the motor on so you can have the A/C, you stay in the car and I’ll be right back, okay?”  And she was gone.

Denny watched tired, hungry-looking people hurrying in and out of the store, pulling sullen children along, pushing others in strollers.  Before long they all looked alike, and she was tired and beginning to be very hungry.  The air conditioner was set too low, and being hungry made her colder.  She found an old pillowcase behind the seat and wrapped it around her legs.  Then she unbuckled her seat belt and lay down on the seat, pulled the neck of her T-shirt up over her head and slipped her arms inside too so her breath would warm her up. 

Inside, in the gloomy half-light, she imagined she was a dog named Granite in a book she loved called, “Child of the Wolves.”  In the far north woods of Alaska, following a caribou herd, she ran with the wolf pack until she fell asleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Driving back from Benson with the setting sun in his eyes, Hector smiled at the memory of the things Aunt Lucia said to his mother on the phone while he stood waiting to talk.  “Listen Here, Carmencita, what you been feeding this boy of yours?  Ooohh, my gosh, he’s gettin’ so tall and macho, I have to lock the door to keep the girls out now when he comes around.” 

She kept on flirting around him like that while she fixed his
huevos rancheros
and beans.  Of course he knew she was just trying to keep him there until she found out why he was out of Tucson and which way he was headed.  All his aunts were helping Mama keep an eye on him, he knew that.  So as soon as he got in the house he asked to use her phone to call home.  Called Mama, said Hi like there was no big deal, said he got a chance for some extra work over here and did she want to talk to Aunt Lucia now?  No use getting Mama and the aunts all stirred up, plenty of noise in the world without that. 

When he finished eating he asked Lucia if he could put the SUV in her shed out back.  They had to move out a couple of old tables she was refinishing, and some strings of peppers.  She didn’t mind the bother but he thought she only half believed his story about doing a little detail work with a friend.  He locked the Trader Joe’s bag in the jack compartment of the Ford and asked his aunt could he sleep awhile. 

“Ooohhh, you bad boy, you been out tomcattin’ all night, huh?”  Giggling, she started up the old swamp cooler in the little room where her son stayed when he was in town, and the hum was perfect.  Hector slept till she woke him, as he had asked, at three o’clock.  He phoned Julio Mendoza, made a deal for him to bring over a set of plates after work.  Drank a couple of beers and had a snack while he waited, called to check on his fake ID every half hour but Estes never answered.  Julio brought a joint along to smoke while they changed the plates, so they took their time, didn’t finish till after ten. By then Lucia was dozing in front of the late news, said sure he could stay over.

Estes finally answered around nine the next morning.  Hector gave him the name and numbers he wanted and he said, “Okay, this won’t take long, I’ll have it ready tonight.”

“Can’t I get it any sooner?  Like to leave this afternoon.”

“Nah, it takes a while to dry.  Late afternoon’s the best I can do.” 

Something in his voice made Hector think Estes probably hadn’t done any work at all on his passport and visa, might be just starting on them now.  But he had already paid eight hundred dollars, half the price, and this was no time to start looking for another guy who made counterfeit records.  So he just said, “Fine, then, five o’clock?”

“Gotta pick up my kid at five.  Make it six, six-thirty.  Well, listen, I might have to stop for groceries, make it seven.”

Gritting his teeth against anger, Hector agreed to seven, but added, “But I’m gonna be in a big hurry by then, so be sure you’re ready, know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, Hector,” Estes said sarcastically, “that doesn’t seem complicated, I believe I follow that all right.”  He hung up before Hector could tell him where he could put that shit. 

So then he was left to wonder,
Is that little prick gonna skip with my money and
leave me with nothing?
  It didn’t figure, though.  Estes had lived in that same house with a wife and two sons for four years that Hector knew about, done jobs for two of Hector’s cousins.  He had a part-time job as a graphic artist downtown somewhere and hung some freelance art in galleries around town.  Why would he skip today?  He was probably just feeling mean from the heat.  Anglos got like that. 

But the little stab of uncertainty came and went, making it all the harder to kid with Aunt Lucia as he helped her change the sheets on his bed, and replace the furniture and peppers in the shed after he got Ace’s car out.  They played some hearts to pass the time, he managed a few lame jokes and hugged her hard the way she liked when he thanked her and said good-bye.  She’d be on the phone with Mama as soon as he drove out of the yard, and he didn’t want a lot of questions waiting when he got to his house.  Get in, get the money and a few clothes and get out, that was his plan.  He’d thought about telling Mama on the phone that he was going to drive down to Mexico for a week or two.  Maybe he’d make up an invitation from a friend.  But the thought of all her questions on top of everything else he had on his mind was just too exhausting.  He decided to wait and spring it on her as he was leaving the house.  Hop in the car quick and be gone before half those questions even got out of her mouth.

Sometimes lately he had begun to see that it wasn’t all a plus, having all these devoted women in his life, talking sweet and cooking for him.  Damn, you could send your laundry out, you know?  And not be so obligated.  Here he was trying to learn to be a tough guy, doing all right too, he’d just killed a man and got away with it, and still he had to worry about upsetting his mama?  It was crazy, he’d be a lot better off when he was out on his own. 

When he thought how close he was to that, to getting started in the drug business in Mexico and holding his own among other hard men, driving around like a big shot in Ace’s flashy car, every mile he drove he felt better. 
One of these days I’ll come back to Tucson and be bigger than Rudy Ortiz
.

Signs for RV parks and casino gambling began to flash by and he was starting to see the big jets slanting in toward the airport up ahead, when in the rearview mirror he noticed a Pima County sheriff’s car behind him.  He was staying two miles over the speed limit, no trouble there.  The plates had been changed, there was no way anybody…he watched for a couple of miles and the sheriff’s car just hung back there. 
What the fuck?
  He broke a sweat and felt his heart knocking against his ribs. 

He had intended to go home and pack before he went after his papers, but at Exit 270 he made a sudden decision and pulled off the highway onto Kolb Road. 
Might as well find out right now if he’s following me. 
He drove north watching the rear-view mirror, but he never saw the sheriff’s car again.  The shock of feeling he was being watched had rocked him, though, so now he felt like a huge target in the big glossy SUV.  He pulled into Fry’s, drove through the swarm of cars in the lot till he got around in back by the delivery bays, and parked against the building out of sight of the street. 

Sitting there with the air still blowing on him, he started to think about the fact that while the SUV was perfect for a trip to Mexico, in Tucson it was a risky vehicle for him to be driving.  The new plates might keep the cops off his tail, but Ortiz and all the people who worked for him must be looking for Ace by now.  And if one of them saw a dark blue Ford Excursion they weren’t going to be looking at any license plates, they’d be looking at the driver.  If Ortiz saw him in Ace’s car…he started to sweat again.

The thing to do, he decided quickly, was lock up this car and leave it here, up against the building where there was a good chance it would be overlooked for a couple of hours.  Go out front, find an older car that would be easy to break into.  He had his old ring of ignition keys with him, most of them would still work…he hadn’t boosted a car in a while but he still knew how to do all but the newest models. 

Sure.  Didn’t have to be anything fancy, just so it would run for a couple of hours.  When he was done running his errands he’d come back and trade cars again and take off for Mexico.  Whatever vehicle he grabbed, he could have it back here while the cops were still filling out the paper work.  Park it in a different part of the lot, they’d find it eventually and everybody would figure it was kids joyriding.  Okay, a plan!  He grabbed the Trader Joe’s bag out of the back and locked up.

He meant to start looking at the cars farthest from the store, where there were fewer people around.  But as he passed the handicapped parking spaces up front, out of habit he scanned the door locks and saw this old Dodge Dart, sitting right there unlocked, with the keys dangling in the ignition. 

He looked around quickly.  It felt like a trap. But there was nobody nearby, and nothing in the backseat but a pile of old clothes.  He was in the driver’s seat putting it in gear in two seconds. 

He pulled onto Kolb road and headed south, going with the flow of traffic and looking for his first chance to make a U-turn and come back up to Princeton Road where Estes lived.  But traffic was heavy and fast, and in a minute he decided it would be better to turn right on Stella and circle back to Golf Links where he could get the light and get back on Kolb going north.  He put on his turn signal, sped up and tried to fake out the Camarro on his right to get into the turn lane.  But the bastard leaned on his horn and shot past Hector’s front bumper with inches to spare.  Hector hit the brakes and cursed. 

In the backseat, a small figure sat up suddenly and said, “What happened?”

Hector’s heart hit his ribs again.  A person?  He had only seen a pile of rags.  Now a small scared face was watching him, cars were blowing their horns all around and he couldn’t think.  And the light was fading so he couldn’t tell for sure if it was a boy or girl asking, “Where’s Mom?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Janine came out of the store carrying two heavy bags, glad to know she’d left the car right next to the doors.  The sun had gone down while she was in the store but heat was still buckling the asphalt in the parking lot.  The contrast with the bone-chilling cold inside the store was disorienting; she felt like a time-traveler zapping between widely separated climates.  Besides, she was still a little foggy from several beers and a number of long drags on a roach.  So when her car wasn’t right there where she knew it should be, she stopped and looked around, wondering,
What, did I come out the wrong door?