El Gavilan (27 page)

Billy nodded, setting chins in motion. “Heading out?”

Tell held up the file folders sent to him by Able Hawk. “Going to go look at the dump sites. Or near as I can come to them, based on what’s in these. Just want to get a feel for the places. And doing that, I may get some notion of the ones who’d drop them there.”

Billy paused, hand poised over the Krispy Kreme box. “That’s all Vale County, skipper.”

“That’s why I’m taking my own SUV.”

“Stay in contact then, Chief,” Billy said, looking worried. “Walt Pierce is a goddamn whack job. I know one of his new deputies, fella name of Tom Winch. Bastard fills my ear with stuff about Pierce. Old Tom, he’s terrified of his boss. And he says Pierce has a real hard-on for Able Hawk and you.”

Tell smiled. “In that order?”

Billy selected a sugar-dusted, jelly-filled doughnut. “I’ll clarify that with Winch, next time I see him.”

FORTY ONE

Patricia was about to head out to the hospital when Luz called. Luz had been scarce since Patricia’s mother and father had posted bail to get her out of county jail on the prostitution charges brought against her by Able Hawk. Luz said, “Could you meet me for coffee, Patricia?”

“Trouble, Luz?”

“I want to say goodbye.”

* * *

“I’m so ashamed,” Luz said, staring into her coffee mug. “After all you and your parents have done for me. Giving me the job at the restaurant. And then I …”

“I just wish you’d called me before you, well … before you started doing
that
,” Patricia said. “I just wished you’d done that.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Luz said. “So I did that terrible thing. Made myself a whore.”

“You’re not a whore,” Patricia said firmly. “For God’s sake, you’re not
that
.”

“I am. I did it eight times. Twice, I actually loved it. They were bachelor parties. Three men there one night, all good looking. The sex was
so
hot. And I got paid for having that great time. The next night was an old man. Fat. I got paid then too.”

“Oh, Luz …”

“I’ve been hiding. I didn’t realize what it was like. Didn’t realize how the ones who make the connections for you can be … possessive.” Patricia nodded, only half-understanding. She presumed Luz was trying to avoid using the word “pimp.” Patricia guessed that whoever had “turned her out,” to use a phrase she’d learned from Tell, was now threatening Luz in some way.

“My mother’s very sick now,” Luz pressed on. “Worse than before. I can’t get Elizabeth here. And would I if I could? Would I bring her to this place where her mother became a
puta
? Where this man, this Tomás Calderone, threatens to cut off my nose if I don’t return to work for him? I’m going back to Mexico, Patricia.”

“Do you know what it will take for the two of you to come back here again someday, when you’re ready? Do you know how much harder it could be as things stand now? With the Minute Men? With the National Guard on the border? With that wall maybe coming?”

“I won’t be coming back, Patricia. I can’t make it here. There I was poor. But I was okay. I wasn’t a whore. I don’t want to come back here, ever.”

“You’re sure?”

“More than anything. But I’m pregnant, Patricia. Maybe from the party. I can’t afford another child. And I can’t afford to be pregnant, not now, not having to care for Mother and for Elizabeth. I’m going to the clinic now. To take care of it. I—I wondered if you’d sit with me, help to see me through it.”

Patricia’s hand was pressed to her own belly. “I … can,” she said without enthusiasm, not wanting to do it. “Sure Luz. Sure. Okay.”

* * *

Patricia drove Luz in silence. She stopped at the bank and withdrew a thousand dollars. She forced the money on Luz, who looked nauseous. “To get you home more quickly after,” Patricia said. “Use some of it tonight for a hotel. I’ll drop you there. You can’t go home with this Calderone dude after you.”

“But my stuff … ?”

“I’ll pack it all for you and bring it by your hotel. If you’re going to do this, you need to do it now. Right away. Get out before this bastard can hurt you.”

“But you wouldn’t be safe in my place, cleaning it out.”

“I’ll go in with Tell, or one of his people, then,” Patricia said. “Maybe one of Able Hawk’s deputies. Did you tell Hawk,
El Gavilan
, about Calderone?”

“No. Tomás said he would kill any of us who told. So we didn’t.”

“Well, plan on leaving tomorrow. I’ll drive you to the airport. Do you have money for the fare?”

“I have the ticket.”

“When you’re back with your mother and daughter, let me know, and I’ll send you another thousand.”

“It’s too much,” Luz said.

Patricia said, “It’s nothing. Really—it’s not enough.”

* * *

It was several hours later that Patricia drove to the hospital, depressed and shaken.

The abortion clinic had been a nightmare. Patricia had to run a gauntlet with Luz through a thicket of demonstrators. One, a preacher, had spat on Patricia. Luz wasn’t yet showing, so it was any fanatic’s call which of the young women was going inside to kill her baby. The demonstrators evidently decided it was Patricia. The preacher called her “
puta
,” his lip curled.

They waited in a room with a mix of pregnant girls and women. Some were alone. Some were there with mothers, somber boyfriends or tight-jawed brothers. Some with other women who were there, like Patricia, for support.

Patricia sat with Luz through a brief counseling session. When they described the procedure, Patricia became nauseous and excused herself, vomiting in the sink. It was late morning, and she’d missed breakfast between her early class and her time with Luz. She returned just in time to hug Luz as she went back for “treatment.” That was the term the counselor used for what Luz was to do. As though it was an illness that Luz suffered from—a condition to be corrected.

Then, after, the two of them had to again run that gauntlet of protestors to reach the car.

Alone, glad to be away from Luz, who angered Patricia now—who disgusted her even—Patricia had to drive through four levels of the hospital’s parking garage before finding an empty parking space. She followed a color-coded stripe through twisting corridors that stank of medicine and turned her stomach again. She followed the red stripe to the intensive care unit. She inquired at the nurses’ desk for Shawn’s room number.

“Mr. O’Hara is not accepting visitors,” a heavyset black nurse said, not looking up from a chart she was examining.

Patricia said, “But I came here because Shawn—because Mr. O’Hara—
asked
that I come.”

The nurse held up a finger, remembering something. “You’re Patricia, aren’t you? Shawn asked I give you this.” She handed Patricia an envelope. Patricia took it and slit it open with her index finger. She winced as the envelope’s edge cut the side of her finger, blood staining the letter inside. Distractedly, Patricia said, “But Shawn did ask that I come by personally.”

The nurse held out a hand, offering Patricia a Band-Aid for her paper cut. “He said you were to be given the letter,” the nurse said, “but not to be allowed back. He’s a mess, honey. Ask me, he wants you to see him after we make him pretty again.” Patricia half heard her, concentrating on Shawn’s message. The nurse paused, looking at Patricia’s face. She said, “You okay, sweetie?”

Patricia’s chin trembled. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding. She backed away, staring at the letter. She twisted her ankle as she turned and ran down the corridor to the elevator.

Shaken, she walked as fast as she could to her car, limping slightly and wincing from the pain in her ankle. She got in her car, turned the air conditioner up high and read Shawn’s note again:

Patty,

Congratulations on the engagement.

Jesus, but you move on fast.

Seems like not two weeks ago you were sucking
my
cock.

Me, I won’t be using my own mouth for a while, or so the doctors say.

Guess it’s a good thing I’m a writer, huh?

One night
. If you’d waited one more night to kick me loose, none of this would have happened to me, you know.

It’s your fault, P. It’s
all
your fucking fault.

So thanks, Pat. It’s been a hell of a short ride, lady.

Wish I could say you were worth it.

You know, it’s evidently so bad—my face I mean—that I can’t even get them to let me look in a mirror. So I figure myself for a monster now.

Thanks, Patty. You changed my life, ’Tish.

Maybe someday I can return the favor. I’ll be giving it a lot of thought as I’m stuck here like this.

About all I can do now is think, thanks to you.

All best,

(The former) Shawn O’Hara

Patricia wadded up his letter, then, hesitating before throwing it out the window, she unfolded it and read it again. She wondered about the last lines of the letter. She wondered if they conveyed a real threat. She smoothed the note, folded it up and slipped it into her purse. She couldn’t imagine showing it to Tell with that dig about fellatio.

The bastard. The goddamn self-centered monster.

While she waited for the idle to kick down on her car, Patricia pulled out her cell phone and called information. She asked for a non-emergency number for the Horton County Sheriff’s Department. She thought about asking Tell for help with Luz, but he was shorthanded and focused on the murder investigation. She jotted down the number and called the Horton County Sheriff’s Office. When she identified herself, she was surprised to be passed directly along to Able Hawk.

Able said, “Patricia—a pleasure. Congratulations and my best to Tell. Have to say, the night I met you two, I was sure you two were the couple. I’m thrilled for you both.”

Patricia thanked him and told him about Luz. “Could you send someone to kind of watch me while I pack her stuff, Sheriff? There isn’t much there, so it shouldn’t take long.”

“No, Patricia, I won’t do that,” Able said. “Better you swing by here and drop off her keys. If that pimp of hers has threatened her he could be watching her place. Like as not, he is. I don’t want him seeing you and getting focused on you as a way to get to her. I’ll send a male and female deputy out to gather Luz’s stuff. They can make sure they’re not followed and get her belongings to her. I’ll have them drive her to the airport or bus station too. See she’s not followed.”

Patricia said, “I can’t thank you enough, Sheriff.”

“
Able
. And we’d be more than even if you could get her to give me the name of this pimp of hers before she blows town. Not that I’d try to force her to testify. I just want to know myself. Can use it to start building my own case against the low bastard.”

Patricia said, “You and your people won’t confront Luz about it today or tomorrow? You’ll just get her stuff and see her safely out of town?”

“On my soul,” Able said. She could hear the excitement in his voice. “You know this son of a bitch’s name?”

“I do. It’s Tomás Calderone.”

“I owe you a hell of a wedding present,” Able said.

* * *

Patricia dropped off Luz’s keys at the Horton County Sheriff’s Department, then drove home, Lucinda Williams on the car stereo. She played Lucinda’s moody “Minneapolis” over and over, almost calming herself from the fallout of reading Shawn’s vile note.

Once home, she curled up on the couch and tried to study for a test, but found herself too distracted. Her mind kept turning back to Shawn and his last letter. Restless, she turned on her computer, pulled her glasses back on. While her computer booted up, she got some saltines and a glass of 7-Up, hoping to settle her stomach.

When her home page came up she learned she had three e-mail messages waiting. She opened the letter from Salome Lyon first, already smiling. “Just checking to see how you and your man are doing, Patricia,” Salome wrote. She continued, “And Chris and I are wondering if you two have come to any decisions about the chief’s job here. And about us being neighbors. And Chris says Cedartown needs a ‘top-shelf Mexican restaurant.’ So please call me when you get this, sister, yeah?”

The second e-mail was a spam offer for painkillers.

The third was a mystery. It was labeled “Good news, Patricia!” The sender was someone named Wendy Fahy.
Wendy
? Patricia knew nobody with that name. The message included an attached photo, a jpg titled “nuface.”

Patricia clicked on the e-mail and read, “Heard you were just by, Patricia. So, like I wrote, no mirrors here, but I just conned my current nurse into loaning me her cell phone so I could check my office voicemail. Her phone is a camera phone. She was changing my bandages and was called out for a moment. Isn’t that lucky? See attached jpg to see what you did to me, you Mexican cunt.”

Patricia clicked on the attached photo. She looked at the ruin of Shawn’s face. She held down her bile long enough to close the file completely—so she wouldn’t have to confront that image ever again. Shawn had virtually no nose—just an implied cavity covered by the flap of dangling skin that had sheathed the bones and crushed cartilage of his nose. What was left looked a little like Lon Chaney Sr.’s nose in
The Phantom of the Opera
. Like what Michael Jackson was supposed to have left after all his gone-wrong plastic surgery. Shawn’s mouth was sunken where his missing teeth should be, like that of an old man with his dentures out. The missing teeth shortened the appearance of Shawn’s jawline and made his chin more prominent … even pointy. His head was swollen far beyond its normal size and his cheekbones were uneven … like someone had sawed his head in half vertically and misaligned the two pieces trying to put Shawn back together. His bruised and swollen eyes were hateful slits.

The file closed but the image wouldn’t leave Patricia. She stumble-crawled to the kitchen sink and threw up twice. She turned on the tap, sloshing water on the mess to move it down the drain. She cupped more water into her hands and washed out the taste from her mouth.

Patricia hung over the sink, breathing deeply through her mouth until her stomach settled. She took deep breaths until her heart rate regulated itself and the black spots left her eyes. Then she pulled out a glass and a bottle of tequila. She started to unscrew the cap, then hesitated.