Dive bartender flowers i.., p.40
Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert, page 40
Evie, for her part, thinks the shit is heaven in a zip-lock bag.
She doesn’t know what time it is but just a minute ago she saw the sun through the bathroom window and it was only an orange slice in the western sky.
Darkness would arrive soon.
Gave her something to think about other than the layer of brown scum on the bathtub.
She knows she should be nervous. Fuck, night is coming on and she’s still stuck here with the wife murderer. But she doesn’t feel even the slightest twinge of anxiety. Everything is right with the world.
Her mind puzzles over the incongruousness.
Only thorn in her side is a tiny, tiny voice deep in her head whispering of the toxicity and contamination to her body and soul from these drugs. It’s a sleazy, unclean feeling and she doesn’t like it but she just shrugs it off because it’s easy to send packing with another hit of powder, be it coke or be it smack.
And she has a mission, you know, a reason for her intoxication.
Arturo has been wearing out the thin green carpet in the living room with his constant trips to peek out the window. And now that it’s nearly dark the trips are getting even more frequent and the gun is in his hand more often.
But now that he’s sitting at the table thinking about doing a speedball, she figures it’s time.
“Was your mother Mexican, Arturo?” she says, her voice soft, with as much warmth as she can muster.
“Yes,” he says, looking up from crushing coke with the butt of the pistol.
“I can see the Latino features in your face. They are difficult to hide, even though you try hard.”
“I was raised as an Anglo by my father,” he says, talking slightly above a whisper, every muscle, ligament and tendon pulled tight. “That’s the way I like it.”
“What was your father like?”
“He worked for the railroad. He liked to drink. He yelled a lot. He punched. That’s pretty much it.”
“Do you remember your mother?”
“Yes.”
“I bet she was beautiful.”
She sees a tiny flicker in his eyes, a momentary softening, perhaps sadness or pain.
“She was. But she left us and that made her ugly. I hope she rotted from syphilis like a whore deserves.”
“My mother was also Mexican. We have the same heritage, you and I. We are like brother and sister, you know?”
One side of his mouth sags and the other side lifts slightly. “If you say so,” he says, then goes back to working the powder.
She knows he’s thinking about his mother now. And it seems as if some invisible force is rolling through his body trying to find a way out.
He’s looking at her, pistol held loosely in his hand, mouth open. Then she sees his mouth tighten, his eyes get narrow and the tendons in his jaw start flexing as he pats the drug residue off the pistol butt.
“I have a feeling that both of your wives were Latinas,” she says. “Am I right?”
“Goddamnit, Evie,” he yells, face reddening, spit flying out of his mouth. “You have to shut the fuck up. This is s’posed to be a party and you keep forgetting. Maybe you’re trying to make me crazy, huh? And only the second one was a Latina.”
“We have to talk about something, Arturo. I’m just saying what comes to mind. I didn’t mean anything by it. Here, let me fix you a nice dose of warmth and comfort... you can forget all the women who’ve done you wrong.”
“Promise me the world but give me hard drugs, huh? You are a sly one, Miss Raines.”
“We have to make do with what we get in life, Arturo.”
“So after the speedball, you gonna give me that dance?”
“Arturo, honey, I don’t mean any offense by this, but when’s the last time you took a shower?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Well, dear, again no offense, but you are a tad on the overripe side. You definitely need to take a shower before any dancing takes place.”
“So you can grab my keys and drive off? Think I just fell off the turnip truck?”
“Take your keys in the bathroom with you. Take your gun. Take the dope. I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere. It’s nearly dark outside. Didn’t you say you’d drive me to town after dark?”
“I’m way too fucked up to drive.”
“Okay, so go take a shower. I promise you I won’t leave. And when you come out I’ll have a speedball waiting for you. Think of this as a chance to work on your trust problems.”
“Jesus, the shit gets me high for fuckin’ sure, but it don’t make me a goddamn moron.”
“I won’t go anywhere, I promise. I’ve got no desire to return to that rock star life. Especially in this condition.”
Arturo squints at her, his face all crooked, then goes back to preparing the dope. But his hands are shaking too much and he’s spilling the powder and having a hard time getting it in the spoon.
“Here, let me do that,” Evie says. “I’ll fix it right. You go and clean up.”
Arturo tilts his head to the side like a puppy dog and looks at her with a curious smile. “All right,” he says, setting the spoon down on a section of newspaper with small piles of powder on it and lifting his keys off the table. “When you said you had no desire to return to that life, what’d you mean by that? Were you fuckin’ serious?”
“I’ll tell you a dirty little secret that nobody else knows, Arturo.”
His eyebrows lift.
“I’ve discovered that I hate the music business. The people who run the record labels are a bunch of bloodsuckers. The promoters are all crooks. There’s a layer of slime everywhere you turn. And, for me, being on the road is like being terribly alone in a crowd of strangers.”
“You don’t like traveling around entertaining your fans?”
“I love the performing; it’s the rest of the shit I hate. Maybe if I had all this dope with me, (gestures at the baggies on the table) I could probably find a way through. You see, Arturo, I have these problems in my head. I get in these moods. You ever heard that Hendrix song, “Manic Depression?”
“Yeah. ‘Manic depression is a frustrating mess.’”
“You got it, I really understand where Jimi was coming from when he wrote that.”
“Jesus, I never would have guessed.”
“Yes, Arturo, even rock stars have their head problems. Probably more than the average person, come to think of it. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
He squints at her, his eyes like those of a salamander, yellow and red and devoid of emotion, “I’ll go clean up,” he says. “But I ain’t gonna take no shower—maybe what they call a French bath, you know? So I’ll be able to hear what’s going on out here. And when I come out you’re going to give me that dance.”
“We’ll have to wait for the right song,” she says, watching Arturo drop the car keys in the gym bag.
Then he gets stiffly to his feet and slithers into the bathroom carrying the gym bag like he’s going for a workout.
113
This is my chance, Evie thinks, hearing the bathroom door close.
She can just walk right out the door and start down the road.
Walking.
Alone.
In the dark.
Forget it.
She’ll be waiting at the kitchen table when he gets out of the bathroom.
She knows it’s crazy but she wants him to see that she didn’t lie to him. That she’s still here waiting like she said she would be.
She knows it’s twisted and fucked up and she isn’t thinking right—but her head won’t go anywhere else; she’s locked in.
Except for thoughts that things might be better if she just said fuck it and gave herself a big load of scag and floated off to oblivion on the magic carpet. She pushes the thoughts away but they clank down in the back of her head and leave her empty and cold.
And craving more dope.
Now the air around her seems thin and brittle and devoid of warmth and the music coming from the radio is tinny and grating. But a small bit of H from the spillage on the newspaper puts a fuzzy blanket around her head and she sets to work on Arturo’s hypo.
She waits for his return for what seems a long time. She’s wondering what the hell he could be doing in there that’s taking so long. Thinking of the possibilities opens a door in her mind to a black and scary place.
She snorts another combination to close the door and some lyrics come to her:
I know (one beat pause) what you did to her
I know why you’re going down
I know—you put her in the ground.
You act like there was no crime
But I know you should be doing time
You gave in to your twisted rage
And now you’ll spend your life in a cage.
And then she sees Arturo coming through the living room all dressed up in nice clothes—a sharkskin suit, no less, and a white shirt open at the collar—and they don’t look like he got them at Goodwill. He’s shaved his beard except for a droopy mustache like Burt Reynolds wears and he’s got on a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators. A gray felt cowboy hat completes the picture, and now, really for the first time, she can see the resemblance to the big-time movie star.
Arturo stops at the entrance to the kitchen and spreads out his arms, as if to say, Ta da, look at me. There are two little scraps of bloodied tissue stuck to his face but he’s beaming like a kid and it reminds her of little brother Javier at Easter when he was eight years old and showing off the new suit momma and daddy just bought him. The boy standing in the living room with his arms spread out just like Arturo is doing.
Except Javier didn’t have a gym bag full of dope in his hand.
“Got my speedball ready?” Arturo says, his eyes at half-mast and his shoulders slumping as he moves slowly to the table and sits. He sets the gym bag down on a chair and looks at her.
Evie picks up the syringe and gets to her feet, walks by his bloodshot, questioning eyes into the living room and then turns and holds out the needle.
“Here it is, Arturo, all ready for you. Relief is just a shot away. But I think it’s only fair that you pay me for it.”
He turns in the chair and cranes his neck to stare at her.
His eyes look so very tired, she thinks.
“You serious?” he says. “You want money? Here...” He reaches inside the gym bag and lifts out a gallon size plastic bag filled with cash. “Your fiancé—oh, excuse me, I mean Clayton Cook—brought all the ingredients of a successful marriage. Money, dope, and rope.” He laughs as he struggles out of the chair. “But let’s not kid ourselves, Ms. Raines. If I want that spike, all I have to do is come and take it.”
“Of course you can, Arturo. You’re a big strong macho man and I’m just a girl singer. But I don’t want money. What I want is for you to tell me your secret. I told you about how I hate the music business so now it’s your turn to truth tell. And, just so you know it, everything I’ve ever heard about Burt Reynolds says that he’s a nice guy who doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“Sorry, Evie,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just get nervous when it gets dark. I would never hurt you. I love you.”
She’s not sure she believes him. What kind of love is that?
“What secret are you talking about?” he says, moving toward her.
She darts away from him, goes to the couch and sits down at one end. “I think you have a gusano, Arturo.”
“Gusano? I don’t know what that means. I told you I was raised Anglo. Only Spanish words I know are the basics: Puta, dinero, fiesta, amigo, hombre, taco, burrito, salsa, huevos rancheros—which, by the way, have lit a fire in my belly.”
“Gusano means worm. Mexicans use it when referring to something that is eating at you.”
“Of course I got something eating at me. I’m on the run from the law for fuck sake.”
She sees the defiance in his eyes but it’s starting to break down, perhaps giving way to resignation.
“I think the gusano has something to do with why they’re after you,” she says.
He goes to the couch and plants himself in the middle, closer to Evie than she wants. “All right,” he says, his voice weary. “I’ll tell you. Just give me the spike. I need it.”
She hands him the syringe.
He prepares to put it in his arm.
She’s watching intently. Maybe too intently, she thinks. Not wanting to make him suspicious, she lets her eyes drift away.
He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly and looks at her. “I killed my second wife,” he says softly, shifting his gaze to the floor. “The Latina. You happy now?”
“Happy, I am not.” Even though she already knew the answer, her stomach twists up and goes cold. She decides to risk it: “Is that all you have to say? I think there’s more inside you.”
He puts the point of the needle against his skin and looks her straight in the eyes. “God forgive me,” he says, his voice a weak croak and his face as white as a sun-bleached steer skull, “My rage about her affair took me over.” He keeps his eyes on Evie, his lips sagging downward. “And I mutilated her beautiful body. Cut off her breasts and filled her pussy with cement.”
Then his eyes seem to sink deep into his head as he sticks the needle into his vein and pushes the plunger.
114
It’s not quite totally dark yet but Frank saw shadows moving behind the window shade of the small, green-shingled house, as he crept by.
It’s the Christmas season but there are no strings of colored lights here. No jolly, rosy-cheeked Santas glowing in the windows. Just a shitty little house sitting on concrete blocks at the end of a shitty road in a shitty corner of the world. But yeah, he’s sure they’ve got the right place because there’s a brown Firebird with Arizona temporary plates in the ramshackle garage.
It’s the heart of a citrus growing area and Frank has never been here before. All the green, leafy trees remind him of home in Minnesota somehow. Seem out of place in the desert, he thinks. He wishes he could appreciate it and enjoy the scent of oranges or grapefruit instead of the stink of stress coming from his armpits and those of his companions,
He’s imagining the worst. Can’t stop his mind from going there. Is Reynolds torturing her? Is she already dead? Has he got her tied up so he can rape her at will?
It just goes in a loop and burns him like a blowtorch.
It was dusk when they turned off Baseline Road at the fruit stand. Nearly dark by the time they parked the cars a hundred yards away from this faded green house in the shadows of an orange grove.
Now the five of them—Javier rolled up in his Chevy when they were halfway down the dirt road—are set up at the rear of the house with guns at the ready. It’s windy, dusty and unsettling.
The side door of the garage opens onto a worn patch of dirt leading to the backdoor of the house. An overhead light that anywhere else on any other night might be considered inviting and cheery is glowing inside the house. Frank can’t see anything moving now.
All the men are ready and chomping at the bit but they can’t decide what to do. They couldn’t agree on a plan of attack so they’re just standing there squeezing their weapons and shooting furtive glances at each other.
Henry and Ted, currently backed up against the rear wall of the house, wanted to rush in with guns drawn. Storm in with the element of surprise on their side. But Frank raised legitimate concerns about possible risks to Evie in that scenario and now the five of them are waiting for something to make their minds up, adrenaline building, anticipation, reaching a fever pitch.
Frank tells Bill to stay at the side door of the garage and stand on the door frame. Bill’s height and the raised door frame allow him a better viewing angle into the house.
Frank crouches and scurries up to Henry and Ted. He whispers to Ted to try the back door.
Ted slides over and quietly tiptoes up the three wooden stairs and puts his hand on the doorknob. He gives it a slight twist then returns to where Frank and Henry are waiting. “It’s locked,” he says. “But I think I can kick it open. Wood is old.”
Frank is hesitant, his mind a jumble of self-recrimination and outrageous fears. He nods to Javier, thinking family should have the final say.
Javier, itchy and impatient, raises his pistol and says, “Follow my lead, I’m going in.”
Then, “Someone’s coming,” Bill hisses.
“Back off,” Frank says. “Put the lights on him if he comes out.”
Ted jumps down and sets up on the right hand side of the steps. Frank and Bill and Javier, all staring at the backdoor, ready their flashlights and their weapons. Henry, breathing rhythmically to the left of the steps, massages the grip on the M-16.
Hearing the lock click on the door, Frank whispers, “Get ready, boys, someone’s coming,”
The door starts to move, slowly, hesitantly.
The men of the posse tense up.
Then the door swings open and the flashlights come on and the firearms are pointed and the back door is all lit up and there is Evie Raines holding a shiny gym bag and caught in the glare of flashlight beams like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
Her body jerks as the glare lights her up. She squeezes the gym bag to her bosom like it’s a long lost child and a nervous twitter escapes from her lips. Her shoulders slump and then she laughs, a sweet melodic sound, tension and fear bubbling out of her. “Jesus Christ, you guys,” she says. “You sure took your own sweet time getting here. I had to deal with the wife-murdering bastard all by my little old self. But Evie got the job done, you know, no thanks to you guys, and Mr. Arturo “Burt” Reynolds won’t be a danger to anyone for a while.”
Frank feels his own tension and fear and self-doubt dissipate into the night air like steam from a teapot. She looks totally wasted, he thinks, and very fragile. Her eyes are slits, the muscles in her face are sagging and she’s got both arms hugging the gym bag. She’s still wearing the same clothes from last night, her hair is a tangle of limp, oily ringlets and she looks generally like shit.
