Desert Angel (21 page)

She stuck the phone in her pocket. Out the front door she crossed the street and used scrub brush for cover till she reached the crew cab. The doors were locked. Made sense with important stuff inside. She didn’t want to break a window, walked around the rear of the vehicle looking for another idea. The back of the cab had a split window. Scotty’s old truck had the same thing. When you put a camper on the back you could reach through the window to get something or you could just open the thing for ventilation when it was hot.

She climbed into the truck bed using the stock rails for leverage. Held her breath when she got to the window. It was closed, but was it locked? No! She spread the sides apart. Could she reach through far enough to unlock a back door? No. Could she climb through? This was the first time she ever remembered thinking she was glad for small boobs. She was able to scrape through the opening as far as her hips but that was it. Wiggling, she turned herself to the side and reached for the door handle, pulled it, and the lock clicked up.

She climbed down from the bed and began with the door she’d unlocked. A jacket and extra hat were on the seat. Under a blanket on the floor she found his shotgun. It was long and heavy, and she left it alone. She pulled the front door lever and opened the driver’s side. Change in one of the drink cups, fast-food sacks on the passenger floor. Under the seat, a hard, heavy lump wrapped in a cotton T-shirt. Unfolded, it was a pistol. Not the kind where you could see the bullets. It was the best she could do. Lucky to have anything at all. She shook out a Burger Boy sack and stuck the gun in it. Had she used up all her luck? Maybe. She took off running across the field for the highway.

*   *   *

O
NCE YOU NO LONGER CARED
, hitching was easy. She got a ride within minutes. A flatbed driver hauling planter boxes. Said he was headed to El Centro, happy to drop her in Brawley. He looked at her more than the road but he didn’t touch her. She closed her eyes to shut him out but immediately had the feeling she was falling, and it got hard to breathe.
What am I doing?

She had to open her eyes to keep from screaming. To her right, out the passenger window, the sky was faded, empty of clouds, and rough brown ridges were stacked into one another, looking scorched like she was already in hell.

She was going to die. Today. She could feel it. And then worse … what if she got too scared to pull the trigger when she finally found him? What if Scotty threw her over his shoulder and carried her to his truck and started touching her? Drove her out somewhere in this barren … and then she’d join her mother, another body in the sand. Acid was in her throat and then her mouth and she hurriedly rolled down the window to spit.

She clutched the gun to her middle, held it tight to stop the sudden cramping. She couldn’t let that happen. Not that way. She had to shoot him. What a stupid life when the most important thing you ever do is pull a trigger. And after that? She guessed she’d pull the trigger again. And that got her to thinking about never seeing Rita again. And Momo and Norma and Ramón and Abuela … She kept her face turned toward the window so the driver wouldn’t see the tear tracks and want to talk to her.

30

The driver let her out on Main at the stoplight a block from the pawnshop where he had to turn south to El Centro. She wasn’t ready to walk through the door or even look in the window. She went instead to the alcove in the alley. The Cadillac sat in its usual place, and next to it was a dark green extra-cab pickup, jacked up a little, clean, new tires. Angel knew. And the knowing made her completely hollow. She’d never had a sensation like it. No stomach, no heart. Breathing and muscle, that was all.

She would go in through the back door. She pulled out the gun and let the paper sack fall to the ground.

Angel could feel her heart drumming. She had only been sitting and walking. It seemed weird to be out of breath. In the quiet, she could pick out the noise of an air conditioner, and occasional sounds of trucks gearing down for the stoplight out front. She knelt for a moment behind the pickup bed and watched the back door. She had thought it was screened but now she could see it was some kind of safety glass that had wire all through it. Was it unlocked?

She tried to remember what she had seen a couple of days ago when she looked in the front window. A horseshoe of counters. A gross man with an enormous stomach sitting on a high stool behind the one at the back, reading. Behind the man, there had been a curtained opening probably leading to a storeroom. So behind the glass door she was watching? Probably a storage area. And then would come the curtain she’d seen connecting to the salesroom.

Remembering how the man looked, Angel guessed he sat most of the time, so where would Scotty be? Probably behind one of the counters, working on something. Stringing a necklace of teeth, taking a pistol apart, lubricating a trap, something like that. He usually kept his hands busy. Would he be armed? Probably not carrying more than his skinning knife, but there were racks of guns in arm’s reach. And probably bullets in a drawer or in a case on the back wall. She would go in and surprise him. The fat man would probably drop to the floor and she would shoot Scotty before he could load a pistol. Shoot him and … leave? Turn the gun on herself? No, she’d run. She bet she would.

She snuck between the car and the pickup, edged along the back wall of the shop. In the afternoon sun, the light stucco burned and the aluminum door was even hotter. She got a handful of T-shirt, tried the handle, and it moved.
Unlocked. Okay. Down to this. No going back.

Something was bothering her, niggling at her attention, something she was forgetting. The unlocked door? Was Scotty out back somewhere and she had missed him? She leaned down far enough so she could look under the cars. Didn’t see feet. Maybe he went out for a couple of minutes and left it open ’cause he’d be back soon. Or maybe the elephant just forgot to lock it. Whatever it was, she couldn’t remember. When she pulled the handle down, the hinge made a tiny clink and then stayed silent. She paused and, when no alarm went off, slipped inside.

*   *   *

T
HE BACK ROOM WAS DARK
, its only illumination coming from the passageway to the front. Angel now saw that the entry wasn’t a curtain but rather translucent plastic straps that hung from ceiling to floor. In the dimness she could make out wire baskets on cheap shelves around the walls. The wall at her left had a workbench against it, and next to that a half-open wooden door to a toilet. Angel listened but didn’t hear anyone in there. Careful not to bang into anything, she stepped forward to the straps. Distorted shadows moved across the light, giving her creeps. People walking by on the street? Customers? Scotty? She pushed one strap a half inch to the side and looked through.

Snowboards and guitars, paintings and hunting bows hanging high on the walls. Shelves filled with musical instruments, boom boxes, and cameras. In spite of the glare from the front window, over the front door she could see a large hawk perched on a section of varnished post. That looked like some of Scotty’s work.

The fat man was sitting on a stool behind the back counter to her right, moving his lips in and out as he concentrated on untangling necklace chains. He wheezed softly with each breath. Angel grimaced when she smelled his body odor.

She stepped to the other side of the entryway. Saw shelves of motorcycle helmets, drums, a long sawhorse of saddles and bridles. She still couldn’t see Scotty. The stool creaking got her attention. The fat man leaned to the side and turned up the speed of a standing fan that swept the room. Angel leaned back, gave him a minute to get engrossed in the necklaces again, and then edged farther into the door until she could see the whole room. No Scotty. But she was sure that was his new truck in the back parking place. Okay, she would wait.

She leaned back against the doorjamb and noticed her top was soaked with sweat. Made herself ignore it. She must have zoned out for a moment, because she was hearing footsteps but hadn’t heard the man get up. She lifted the gun and wheeled into the door. The fat man was bent over a couple of feet away, putting a CD in a stereo. He straightened as she faced him and pointed the pistol at his stomach. The man dropped the CD. “Don’t!” he yelled. He lowered his voice, pleading. “I don’t know you.” A dark stain spread onto the front of his slacks.

Angel didn’t want this. Didn’t have a plan for this. “Where’s Scotty?” was all she could think of. Angel’s hand cramped and she accidentally squeezed the trigger. She yelled, surprised, but nothing happened. The pistol didn’t fire.
What the?
This had happened before! What did she have to do? She pulled at the top of the gun but it was stuck. Looked at it. A lever was jammed in a notch. She thumbed the lever down, but the man reached her as she raised the pistol again and knocked it out of her hand, sending it clattering to the floor behind her. She kneed him as hard as she could under his stomach, hoping for the groin, and he stumbled back a step and doubled over. Angel didn’t notice as she focused on putting her whole body into the next kick like she’d had to once with her mom’s trucker friend. The man got this kick square in the nose instead of the nuts. That ruined him and he toppled into the doorway, tearing down the plastic straps as he fell.

Angel gave the counter a glance to see whether there was something to hit him with. Indian rugs, plastic sort trays of jewelry. Nothing useful. She eyed the wall rack behind her, but the rifles were locked together with a metal cable through their trigger guards.

“Hi, honey, I’m home.”

Angel froze. He must have come in through the front door while she’d been busy.

“I’ve been thinking about you, baby, and I was right. You still look good enough to eat.”

She could hear him continuing to walk toward her, but she couldn’t make herself turn around. Couldn’t stand to see his face. “Stop!”

“Sure, sweetie. We got a lot of time to get reacquainted.”

She thought she heard him take another step.

“What did you do with Arthur?”

A moan came from the floor behind the counter.

What had he seen?

“You stab him? I’m surprised he noticed it. Hey, Arthur, you okay?”

The man groaned something.

She was pretty sure Scotty took another quiet step but she still didn’t turn. “Stop! I mean it.”

“Relax. You came to see me, honey. I’m just making sure you get a proper welcome.”

It sounded like Scotty hadn’t seen the scuffle with the fat man. Didn’t know her pistol was a few feet away on the floor. Since he’d come in off the street, he probably wasn’t carrying a gun. So she had to move before he got hold of her.

“I like that little butt, but how come you don’t look at me? You got some burns you’re hiding?”

Torching the trailer.
Angel could hear by the sound of his voice that he was pretty close, and if he could see her butt behind the high counter, he was way too close.

She wheeled and he stopped maybe eight feet away. With her hands below counter level she searched for the opening to the cabinet under the glass top. She had just seen hunting knives. Big hunting knives.

Scotty put his hands on his hips. “You know, Sweet Cakes, I can’t tell you how often I thought about seeing you again. And that Rita’s smokin’! She lonely?”

“Don’t take another step or I’ll kill this guy,” Angel said, making her face look hard and serious.

Now Scotty put his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay! Okay. Jeez. Don’t go mental. I’m not going to hurt you in the middle of a store.” He took his eyes off her. Spotted a stool near him that customers would use. “Hey. You stay cool and I’ll sit down here and we can talk.”

Angel shook her head. And where was the damn catch to the cabinet? Her fingers found a round metal lump.
Locked.

“Easy, Ainge. I’m going turtle slow here. Just sit and talk. That’s all.”

Angel quit shaking her head. Watched him pull the chair away from the side counter and a little closer to her. Even though the front window was tinted, him sitting with that brighter backdrop still made him a little hard to see. Okay, let him talk while she figured out what to do. “This your new business?” she asked him, scanning the room with her eyes and in the process trying to locate her pistol, see how far away it was.

“Just money, honey,” Scotty said, half sitting, putting a boot on a stool rung. “You know me. Like to be outside.”

Angel took a step to her left and leaned her elbows on a folded rust-colored rug. Felt slowly with her foot, hoping to touch the gun.

“You know the sad truth, baby, your mama wasn’t no damn good. And she rode me like a dog. I don’t know if you miss her but I don’t.” He waited for Angel to speak.

She tried to look like she was listening, pushed up with her hands and readjusted her position another step toward where the pistol must have wound up.

“I got something I bet a dollar you don’t know,” Scotty said, little smile, sincere. He nodded. “Yeah, I tried to hurt you a little.”

Angel pictured the flaming trailer.
Liar!

“And yeah, I been after you.” Scotty shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was going to say next. “But truth is, I missed you.” Scotty looked away like he was embarrassed. “Truth to tell, I kind of, uh, you know, like you.” He looked at the floor.

Angel was having trouble concentrating on her search.
Is he nuts?
But could this buy her more time? “I, uh, I thought about you a lot, too,” she said, trying to keep her face, her expression absolutely still. She turned to the side as if to think this over. When she turned back, she was another step farther and her left foot bumped metal.
Bingo.

“Gimme a sec, here, sweetie. I mean it. You think you could maybe put this all behind us and we could get together?” He paused, studying her for a response. “I got a dynamite trailer now. Give you like fifty a week spending money. We could, you want to, go somewhere. Vegas. L.A.” His voice was so reasonable, so even. Scotty at his best.