Kissing Arizona (19 page)

They stuck monitoring gadgets all over her, she told him, and watched her vital signs as she walked and stretched and flexed. ‘I wasn't flexible before,' she said, ‘why would I need to be now?' Will thought Aggie was probably not the easiest patient St. Joseph's ever helped through stroke recovery.

While she vented about the week just past, he thought hard about the weeks and months ahead.

He and Sarah had fallen in love the same week Denny's mother disappeared. Will had resigned himself to waiting for Sarah's life to get sorted out a little, before he asked for anything more formal than their occasional get-togethers in his bare-bones casita on the east side of town.

Now, though, Aggie's illness had changed everything. Aggie was going to need help, and her lifelong habits of independence would make that hard for her to accept. Denny needed a home she could count on. He knew he wanted to keep Sarah in his life, and he was sure she felt the same about him; they hadn't been shy about showing their feelings. But driving all over Pima County every day to school and work and doctor's appointments was going to get old in a hurry.

So all week, while he cooked and washed dishes, fetched things to the hospital and answered hurried emails, he had been thinking about what other arrangements might be possible. It helped that Denny, with her finely honed instincts for staying afloat, had put aside her earlier doubts about the reliability of boyfriends and jumped on board the good ship Will Dietz.

‘Will said he could pick me up after soccer practice,' he overheard her telling Sarah. And once she said on the phone, with a laugh, ‘Will's here, between the two of us we'll find
something
to cook.' He wasn't the only one, he realized, trying to show he was a team player. Seeing how much she liked to learn things other kids didn't know, he began to teach her how to identify cars on the street, so they'd have something more to work on when they'd run through all the burrs on his Dremmel.

Friday afternoon, negotiating curb-to-curb traffic north east across Tucson with Aggie in the car, Will Dietz thought she had probably obsessed over the healthcare system long enough, and might be ready to calm down and have a conversation. When she did, he was going to ask her if she thought three generations of scrappy females and one beat-up cop could live happily ever after in the same house.

She liked him enough, he thought, to overlook how little money he had to contribute to such a scheme. If she bought into the basic idea he'd explain how he could make up the difference with sweat equity and a secure future. Get Aggie on board, Will thought, keep Denny willing to help the way she's been doing lately. Feeling like a juggler with two oranges, a glass of beer and a box-cutter, he worked his quiet way across Tucson, dreaming of the solution to this odd family's housing problem.

TEN

‘
O
h, look at all the trees,' Vicky said. She hadn't said a word since they left Douglas, so her voice startled the other three people in the car. They all looked around at the small town, the towering cottonwoods. There were fruit trees, and vines – the lush green foliage looked unreal after the desert they'd just come through. ‘What is this place?' Vicky asked them. ‘It looks like a . . . whaddya call it? . . . oasis.'

Bernice said, ‘You never been to St David before?'

Vicky shook her head. She had hardly ever been any place by car.
Soon as I
get a good job I'm going to start saving for a car.
She wasn't old enough to get a driver's license yet, but her practical side told her she'd be plenty old enough by the time she'd saved the money.
And in the meantime I can be shopping.
The thought of walking around a used car lot with a salesman, asking about gas mileage and terms, made her feel grown-up and powerful, and right now she needed all the powerful she could get.

‘There's a nice little stream over there and a vineyard that's run by the . . . what's that place where monks live?' Bernice asked the two in the front seat.

‘A monkery,' Dick said.

‘Ah shee, a
monastery
, come
on
,' Freddy said.

‘So I ain't religious, so bite me on the neck,' Dick said.

‘Don't do it, Freddy, he'll be all over you like a cheap suit,' Bernice said, and they all snickered like fifth grade boys on the bus.

Vicky smiled vaguely and looked stupid, which wasn't hard because her mind was becoming too occupied with plans to leave much attention for them. Rolling along this smooth highway in a beautiful car, getting closer to Tucson every minute, had been very pleasant until now, and she longed to stay in the dream world they were trying to create for her.

But she was a second-generation border crosser, so from the time she was old enough to start school she had known that she lived in a dangerous world. Also that people like Freddy O. did not give free rides to stranded Mexican girls and expect nothing in return. Her mother had not wasted breath on anything so mild as ‘Don't talk to strangers.' From Marisol Nuñez the message had always been: ‘Everybody hates us, nobody wants us here, the Anglos will send us back first chance they get.' And when Vicky entered fifth grade she added, ‘And remember, all men are pigs with girls. Don't trust nobody.'

The rest of Vicky's survival tactics had been picked up within a couple of blocks of her house in south Tucson, from tough little gang-bangers trying to impress her by describing the tactics of gangs they hoped to join.

So she had agreed to go with Freddy O. assuming that rape was the obvious hazard. And thinking, even if she couldn't fend him off, how much different could it be from what she had been doing with Jaime? She had willingly traded her virginity for help with a trip to Arizona, why get picky about the details now?

But after Stella went in that rest room and came out neatly dressed as Dick, and more urgently after Bernice grabbed her by the throat, it became clear to Vicky that she was riding with a trio of planners who had come to Agua Prieta to find someone like her. Their confidence and the slick way they handled the necessary supplies indicated they had done all this before. Common sense suggested their plan involved sex. What else did she have that they could want?

She had heard tales about what men did to girls they were breaking in for use as prostitutes. She did not allow herself to even consider the more ominous possibility that perhaps they simply enjoyed torturing young girls. Bad enough to think about gang rape and beatings, drug addiction in windowless rooms. She felt herself begin to tremble. To stop, she forced all the bad thoughts into a cold place at the back of her brain, and began to plan.

She needed to wait until she was at least close to the south side of Tucson, where she would recognize some landmarks. So she pointed to the pretty trees in St David and the car became one soft green chat room, everybody commenting on the sights, the wine that was made here and the good fruit in the fall.

At Benson, Vicky saw fast-food signs and said, ‘Ooh, I'm so thirsty. You think maybe we could get a soda at one of these drive-ins?'

Freddy said, ‘I don't like to have those big drinks in the car, honey.'

Vicky said, ‘Oh,' and sighed. ‘Those tacos were so salty.'

Bernice said, ‘Yeah, c'mon, Freddy, don't be a stick. We're all dyin' of thirst back here.'

‘I don't want no messes in my fine green machine,' Freddy said.

‘Well, you know,' Bernice said, stretching her long legs, kicking the back of Freddy's seat, ‘even us peons that never got our GEDs, usually we can drink one whole soda without spilling anything.' She said it softly but there was suddenly a feeling in the car, like thunder from a distant storm.

Dick turned on the front seat and said, ‘Dawg, now, stay cool, OK?'

Freddy sighed and muttered something to himself as he pulled off the highway toward the 7-Eleven sign. Vicky got the super-size coke-flavored Slurpee, rattling with ice. She said, ‘Ahhh,' when Freddy handed it back to her, gave him a big grin and thanked him.

He said, ‘How about this, the girl can smile.' He got extra napkins and handed them around, making sure everybody had at least two.

She made a big show of drinking it, but only took small sips, because she wanted it to last all the way to Tucson. She was careful with the napkins, keeping them away from the drink so they'd be dry.

They rolled past the railroad yards at the east edge of Tucson, and Bernice, who seemed to enjoy educating this little Mexican hick who had apparently never been anywhere, pointed out the long conveyor belts carrying coal up to the power plant. Vicky pretended to be interested so Bernice went on to explain the loading docks where the trains picked up products from the factories making solar panels and electronics. They passed the exits for the airport and for Highway 19 to Nogales. Vicky praised the bright-colored designs on the highway overpass, telling herself to get ready, she was close.

Freddy took Exit 261 and was soon rolling north on Sixth Avenue, past the familiar signs for pay day loans and Food City. At the stop light on Twenty-Ninth Street, Vicky saw her chance. The street was busy, full of cars. She thought about what would get all three of these people to look the same way. Pointing left toward the setting sun she said, ‘I wonder what all those cops are doing over there?'

Bernice said, ‘Where?' and they all looked. While Bernice was turned away Vicky pulled the lighter out of her pocket, where she'd been keeping it ever since Bernice made fun of it in the rest room. She snapped off the bobble head, lit both napkins, and dropped them into the shiny shopping bag at Bernice's feet. They blazed up and the whole bag caught fire. Vicky reached across the seat back and dumped her entire Big Slurpee down the front of Freddy O. He screamed and began to curse.

Vicky yelled, ‘The car's on fire!' She dropped her wig into the sack to keep the flames going, and began pulling on the door handles. ‘Let me out!'

Bernice turned as the back seat filled with smoke, screamed, ‘Open the doors quick, Freddy!' and reached for Vicky.

When Vicky felt the strong hand clamp around her left arm, she raised her right hand gripping the sharpened nail she had palmed all the way across town. She shoved it hard into Bernice's ear and said, softly, ‘Let go of my arm or you're dead.' When the grip didn't ease at once she pushed harder. Bernice screamed in pain and dropped Vicky's arm as the locks popped on the doors.

The lights changed just then, but as two female figures burst out of opposite sides of the car and a billow of smoke and flame followed them out, the vehicle in the lane to Vicky's right hesitated long enough for her to dart across the street to the sidewalk.

Running full tilt along the sidewalk and into the asphalt parking lot on her right, she heard Bernice yelling ‘Forget the stupid soda, help me get the fire out!' Behind them down the street, car horns blared, and soon she heard sirens coming.

She never looked back, or slowed. She ran as fast as she could, through the bank parking lot and around behind the building, out the back driveway and across the street, between two parked cars and down an alley. She reached Fourth Avenue and ran across it, into a side street where the spaces between buildings were smaller. She ran alternately north and east until she saw a place where she could stand between two leafy bushes, just off the sidewalk, and catch her breath. As she stopped panting and calmed down, she decided running was too obvious. She would be safer walking.

Dusk fell as she walked along quietly, feeling grateful to Carlos, the ugly braggart who had guided her across the fence and into the desert, then deserted her quickly in Agua Prieta. He had always treated her with contempt, but he had been right about one important thing. Around a fire two nights south of the border, he had boasted, ‘I always carry two weapons. One is concealed but fairly easy to find. If bandits or border patrol search me, I look angry when they find it. Usually they will stop looking then and I get to keep the one I have better hidden.' Vicky's second weapon had been hidden in her sanitary pad, which she did not need to wear that day but had rightly guessed that even very curious men would not want to examine.

When it was nearly dark, beside a jojoba bush under a street light on Twenty-third Street, Vicky found a spot she felt sure was free of cactus spines and dog shit. She looked around – it would be embarrassing to be seen doing this, but she had promised herself. When she was certain no one was watching, she knelt and kissed the earth.

She stood up quickly and walked on. At the end of the block she looked across the street and laughed out loud. On the porch of the stucco house on the corner, her sister Luz was sitting in a rocker. Vicky had found Tía Luisa's house.

ELEVEN

‘
I
'm like that Johnny Cash song,' Phil Cruz told Sarah. ‘I keep my eyes wide open all the time.'

A week after their initial contact in the jail, he'd asked for a meet. ‘A situation report,' he called it, but after a couple of minutes Sarah decided he mostly just needed to vent. Supervising a witness as tricky as Calvin Inman, Phil Cruz wanted her to understand, was a total ratfuck. ‘Do you realize if I take my eyes off him for one minute that piece of pondscum could wreck my career?'

‘Aw, come on. How could Calvin do that? All the firepower's on your side.'

‘I have to give him
cash
,' Phil said. His face got paler while he spoke and his freckles stood out. ‘He has to make the restitutions himself, you understand. I can't use an informant with outstanding warrants, and I can't be involved in satisfying them, he has to do that himself. By the time I use what he knows, this miserable crook has to be squeaky clean.'