Desert Noir (9781615952236) (23 page)

“Woman, we have to talk.”

“Don't call me woman.”

“Okay. Guy, we have to talk.”

“No we don't.” I hung up the phone.

I don't love him, I don't love him, I don't love him
.

Jimmy looked over at me, frowning. “Are you going to fight with everyone today?” “Don't start with me.”

I picked the phone up carefully, listened for a second to see if anyone was still on the line, but heard nothing but the reassuring dial tone. I dialed Pima Paint and Collision. After a few rings, Michael Sisiwan answered, out of breath. He told me the Jeep was ready.

Suddenly the day looked a whole lot better.

Ten minutes later I was at Michael Sisiwan's garage, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation. What color had they chosen? Yellow? Maroon? Army green? The whole thing was like Christmas, but I reminded myself not to get too optimistic. After all, I'd experienced more than a few downer Christmases in my lifetime.

Mr. Sisiwan and his crew looked as apprehensive as it's possible for Pimas to look. Some looked towards the Superstition Mountains, some towards the ground, some towards the concrete sound barrier that kept the freeway noise out of the quite streets of Scottsdale. No one met my eyes, and I didn't think it was because of the usual tribal politeness. They were worried.

I forced a bright smile. “I'm anxious to see it. What color did you decide on?” 

Mr. Sisiwan elevated my own anxiety when he said, “You remember that you told us to be creative?” 

I made my smile wider. “I sure did.”

There was silence for a while as we watched a coyote chase a roadrunner across the field next to the body shop. Just like in the cartoons, the coyote lost again.

As the coyote trotted off, disappointed, Mr. Sisiwan apparently decided there was no point in putting off the moment of truth any longer. “You wait here. I'll bring your Jeep around.” 

The coyote disappeared into a drainage ditch, and the other men went back to looking at the mountains, the freeway, the city limits. I did some looking around myself, picking out a particularly odd-shaped saguaro across the road. The cactus was holding up two arms, as if caught in a bank holdup. But lower down on the main trunk, another limb had begun to grow straight up in what could have passed for the groin region, if it had been human.

It reminded me of Dusty.

I heard the crunch of gravel, then the familiar motor of the Jeep behind me. The Pimas stared even harder at their various focal points as I turned around to see what color they had chosen for me.

“Oh!” was all I could say, when I saw the Jeep. “Oh!” 

Mr. Sisiwan climbed down from the driver's seat. “You don't like it?” 

“Oh!” The lump in my throat made it impossible to talk.

“If you don't like it, we'll repaint. No cost.”

I blinked my eyes, hoping they would think it was just the desert's damned, ever-present dust. “It's… Oh, it's…” 

“How about a nice white? Or black? Very neutral. We can do that, easy. I know that this… Well, what we did, it's not for everyone. Here, let me take it back to the shop.” 

Now the other Pimas focused on a hawk floating in an updraft. It hung there, as silent as the old Pima gods.

“Don't you touch that Jeep!” I yelled, finally breaking out of my trance and snatching the keys out of Michael Sisiwan's hands. “Don't you even
think
of repainting it!” 

One of the Pimas rolled his eyes towards me as I slid my hand along the Jeep's fender. “It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” I managed, before my voice failed me again.

Why was it that anger raised my decibels, but when it came to joy, I usually fell silent?

The Pimas had painted the body of the Jeep the color of sandstone buttes at sunset. But the deep, heady rose served merely as background for the pale Hohokam petroglyphs which now marched across the Jeep's hood, sides and fenders. On the driver's side of the Jeep stood Earth Doctor, the father-god who built the earth and everything in it. Walking away from him were his first creations—Elder Brother, Coyote, Snake, Eagle. Splashed across the hood was the labyrinth where Earth Doctor sought refuge when Elder Brother humiliated him by usurping his power.

Along the passenger side door were the rising waves which destroyed First World because of the people's wickedness, but riding atop the waves was Coyote in his reed boat. Clinging to the sky by their sharp talons Night Singing Bird and Sky Hawk.

On one fender danced Kokopelli, the flute player. On another, Spider Woman wove her magic.

The old gods were not banished to the Underworld—they were still alive and living in the Arizona sky, its mountains, in the Pimas' hearts.

And on my Jeep.

Weeping didn't go over big with the Pima so I struggled for control. “You have honored me,” I managed.

The soaring hawk above lost its fascination for the Pimas and they walked slowly over to the Jeep, a rarely revealed pride in their eyes.

“You know them, then, the old gods?” one asked, a man of about sixty. “We're all Christians now, and even most of our own tribe has forgotten them.”

Thanks to Jimmy, I knew them. I began calling out the gods' names and telling their stories. “After the flood destroyed First World, Elder Brother angered Earth Doctor by making a new race of people,” I recited, Jimmy's lesson fresh in my mind. “But these Second World people, they were as selfish as most of the First World people were wicked, and they did not appreciate the life Elder Brother had given them. So they rose up and they killed their creator. They reduced Elder Brother to nothing but bones.

“But it's hard to kill a god. After several seasons had passed, the bones of Elder Brother rolled towards one another and Elder Brother sprang up, resurrected. Oh, he was angry!” I pointed to the jagged lightning they had painted above Elder Brother's head.

“Seeking vengeance, he traveled east to the road of the sun and he walked that road all the way across the sky to the west where it went into the Underworld. There he found Earth Doctor and the few good First World people the gods had allowed to escape the flood. With them, Earth Doctor created an army.” 

Here I paused and smiled. “The army traveled to Second World and gave Elder Brother the vengeance he desired.” 

Now the Pimas were all smiling at me. Genuine smiles, not business ones. Except for one, a young man with a shaved head, wearing gang colors.

He frowned. “I didn't know that.”

Mr. Sisiwan gave him a long, hard look. “You would if you listened to your elders.” 

Now the frown turned on Mr. Sisiwan. The young Pima glared at him for a moment, then walked back towards the shop. Apparently my glib and perhaps insensitive recital of Pima legend had landed me squarely in the middle of a family dispute.

My discomfort must have shown plainly on my face, for Mr. Sisiwan said, “Paul is Jimmy's brother. Are you as familiar with Christian legend as you are with Pima?” 

I nodded, remembering the Baptist family I used to camp with. They'd drilled me in scripture for two years, and then gave up in disgust when they discovered all that Bible reading I'd been doing was concentrated on one book, the X-rated
Song of Solomon.

“Then you remember the story of the Prodigal Son, who was welcomed home with open arms.”

I nodded again. Where was Mr. Sisiwan leading?

Now Mr. Sisiwan looked grim. “A lot of the times people forget that not everyone was glad to see the Prodigal Son return. His brother, who had been living at home and behaving himself, resented the big fuss the family made over the Prodigal.” He paused, began to say something, and then apparently changed his mind. “It is good that you like your Jeep. We enjoyed painting it for you. Now. Let us go settle up the bill.” 

The other Pimas went back to their various work assignments and I followed Mr. Sisiwan out of the glare and into the shop. When the bill turned out to be surprisingly low, I began to argue, but he would have none of it. The paint job was a paint job. The Jeep didn't have much surface area, so they'd saved on materials. And the petroglyphs? An opportunity to bring the old gods alive again and maybe educate the Anglos at the same time. Why charge for that?

As I drove my freshly painted beauty away, I remembered something the writer Dorothy Parker had once replied, when a friend of hers, who had been having trouble with her family, turned to Parker and complained, “Oh, Dorothy, life is hell!” Parker, whose parents were both dead, grinned and said, “Not for orphans.” 

Parker knew something I was just finding out, that belonging to
any
family set you up for disappointment, anger and heartbreak. So why did the whole world insist on singing the praises of family? As a counter-argument, why not take a look at Clarice, Evan and Serena. Their parents had a marriage intact enough to please the Pope, but what good had that done the siblings? Had the lack of divorce truly kept the family together? Hadn't the family's very intactness helped set up a system of dysfunction that wound up crippling them all? Serena was certainly a mess, and Evan wouldn't be winning any medals come Mental Health Week. And poor Clarice? She had been so desperate for love that she'd run straight into the arms of a psychopath.

None of this was very comforting for a foster child searching for her real family. If I ever found my people and they turned out to be like any of the Hyaths, who knew what I'd do. Slink off into the sunset? Move somewhere and change my name?

When I arrived back at the office, I couldn't bear to hide the Jeep in the parking lot so I parked it in front. A few tourists still milled around, checking out the galleries. Their faces lit up when they spotted the Jeep, and a couple of them wandered over to look at her more closely. Even Cliffie emerged from Damon and Pythias to ogle her.

“Well I'll be damned!” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “You're finally rid of that Pepto-Bismol pink. High time, neighbor.” 

“Yeah, I was tired of being the neighborhood eyesore.” 

Now he winced. “I'm afraid Clarice's place was that.” Then he turned and went back into his gallery.

Leaving me wondering.

Just how far would Cliffie go to raise the tone of the neighborhood?

 

The next morning, the
Scottsdale Journal
read like a Jay Leno monologue.

A hot air balloon sailing over a Phoenix suburb was struck by what the chamber of commerce called “the world's tallest artificial geyser,” and had to make an emergency landing in a lake. Fortunately, all the tourists on board could swim.

The Arizona Puppet Theater was robbed, the thieves making off with Mr. Creepy, a ridge-nosed rattlesnake; Ms. Crawly, a desert tortoise; and Mr. Wild, a bald eagle.

Another article informed me that a new study had discovered that Arizona was the sixth most dangerous state in the nation. To help combat those statistics, the Arizona legislature had voted to chemically or surgically castrate the rapists of children.

I groaned, and said to Jimmy, “If you value your mental health, don't read the paper this morning.” 

“Already have. Which one bothered you the most? The new crime statistics? Or the castrated rapists?” 

I thought for a while. “Nah. I'm all tore up about Mr. Creepy. What have we come to in Arizona when not even a puppet is safe?” 

Still, the morning turned out to be fruitful. Jimmy's check on Gerado Allesandro, Serena Hyath's husband, revealed that yes, he was a bit of a crook. A naturalized citizen, he'd once been convicted of telemarketing fraud, although his attorney had been able to get his sentence reduced to time served and a lengthy probation. He was now the focus of a government securities investigation.

Those Hyaths. They certainly knew how to pick 'em.

The morning got even better. Alicia “Bunny” Germaine, the department store CEO's missing girlfriend, had made recent charges on her platinum Visa, all local. Wonder of wonders, one charge turned out to be for the first and last month's rent deposit on a luxury apartment not too far from Desert Investigations. Chortling with satisfaction, I picked up my carryall and headed over there.

After a few quiet knocks at the apartment door, a young woman answered it. She was blond, very pretty in a Hollywood starlet sort of way, and she looked like she'd just crawled out of bed.

“Miss Germaine?”

The young woman nodded. “What can I do for you?” Her voice was husky, filled with erotic promise.

I flashed my ID, and instead of looking frightened, she smiled. “Brian's caught up with me already, huh? Well, come on in, Miss Jones. You don't have to keep standing out there in the heat like some encyclopedia salesman.” 

Feeling oddly off-balance, I walked into an exquisitely furnished apartment. Bunny had either hired a decorator or she had a much more highly developed sense of taste than the average department store CEO's mistress. The living room was decorated in cool off-whites, accented with dashes of turquoise and copper. Large bouquets of fresh flowers filled the air with subtle scent. And hi-de-ho, boys and girls, above the eight-foot-long cream brocade sofa hung a George Haozous almost as gloriously bloody as my own.

“Nice painting,” I said.

Bunny raised her eyebrows. “You think?”

“I've got a Haozous, too.
Apache Sunset.”

She smiled. “Mine's called
Revenge
. Tasteful, isn't it?” 

“I especially love the nicely placed arrow through the cavalry captain's eye. Look, Ms. Germaine, we have to talk about a certain diamond necklace.” Without being asked, I sat down on the sofa. It turned out to be filled with down and I sank about two feet. Just the kind of sofa I needed in my place. I made a mental note to look at her credit card receipts again; I wanted the name of her furniture store.