Fifty Grand

“Have I broken a law?” I ask.

“Well, if you were whoring here and not cutting Esteban or myself in, I’d say that you were breaking a law, but I don’t think you’re whoring, are you?”

I shake my head.

“No, María, I don’t think you’re whoring, because I don’t think you need the money.”

“I do not understand, señor.”

“It’s just a hunch, but something tells me you don’t need the money that badly,” he says with another grin.

The cold is making me tremble. No. It isn’t the cold. I force myself to stop it.

“If I haven’t done anything wrong, I’d like to go back inside,” I tell him.

“You’re not going anywhere until you answer me a few questions.”

“Ok.”

“‘Ok’… Yeah, that’s the fucking spirit. Ok. How long have you been here? Three days. You should know the score by now. Question number one. Whose fucking town is this?”

“Your town, señor.”

“My town. Absolutely goddamn right. My fucking town. I’m the sheriff. I’m the representative of the republic. I’m the fucking Lord High Executioner. That’s right. We got Tom Cruise but it’s my fucking town.”

His voice has risen. His face is red.

Something’s happened. He’s found something out.

Did Paco blab about New Mexico? Have the federales followed our trail here? What has leaked? Calm. Keep calm. It’s ok. Remember the Havana rule: say nothing-twice.

He unbuttons his coat, places his boot on the arm of my chair, and continues. “You think something could happen here and I wouldn’t know? You’re very much mistaken, señorita. From Malibu Mesa to Wetback Mountain and all the way to fucking Vail, I know what’s going on. It’s my job to know. Get me?”

“Yes, señor.”

“The last time I existed in a state of ignorance was Gulf War One. We thought we were the invasion but we were only the diversion. No one’s played me like that since. No one and certainly not some Mex cunt who’s too fucking proud to whore for us. Why are you so fucking proud? You think you’re going to get Jackie here to marry you? You think he’s going to knock you up? Is that your fucking plan? Or is blackmail more your game? Play both angles at the same fucking time?”

The other shining leather boot lands on my chair with a clump. He crosses his legs and those eyes bore into me.

Take it easy, I tell myself. He doesn’t know anything for sure. He’s still fishing. He’s got something but he doesn’t see everything. Yet.

“No answer?” he says.

“I don’t know what you mean, señor.”

“What did you hear? What rumors are they spreading in that Mex motel of yours?”

Spittle flying from his lips. Real anger in his words. And now I’m afraid. Afraid of those big hands more than the gun. Beat me to death with two blows.

Again an image of a naked body, yellow and blue, bloated, a skull for a face, maggots for eyes. That’s me there in that soft brown earth, under those big trees, unloved, unfound forever.

He pauses to get his breath back, squints at me. “Well?” he says.

I’m supposed to answer.

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say truthfully.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about? I think you fucking do. I think someone has been shooting their mouth off and you’ve seen the chance for a few dollars more. A chance for the big score. Is that right? I mean, why concern yourself with blow-job money when you can shoot for millions?”

Anything I say will only provoke him.

He waits me out.

“Perhaps you could tell me what I have done wrong?”

He nods, smashes his fist into his hand, gets up, and walks behind me. I stare straight ahead. If I don’t look back the monster won’t be there. Right, Dad?

A car driving past on the road. A helicopter landing at the Cruise house.

Surely he can’t kill me out here with all these potential witnesses.

His breath against my cheek.

“You were at the Pearl Street Garage in town. Asking questions about an incident last May.”

The grave. The trees.

I’m fucked. Should have bribed Jackson.

Hector’s first rule of police work: secure your snitches. But where would I have gotten enough money on a salary of thirty dollars a month? Burned most of my savings on the coyote. And besides, Jackson told me about you, why wouldn’t he tell you about me?

And now. Fucked.

Don’t say anything. Don’t deny it, just say nothing.

Briggs takes a long breath, breathes out. Cream, coffee, tobacco. “So why does Little Miss Nobody want to know about a dead Mex? What are you, María? A blackmailer? An opportunist? An undercover journo? What’s in it for you, Señorita X?”

His gloved hands pinch a fold of skin at the back of my neck. He twists it.

Pain. Terrible pain as he lifts me off the seat.

“I could fucking paralyze you with this if I wanted to,” he says or seems to say-I can barely hear him through the fire in my nerve endings.

I try to hit his arms. My legs kick out.

“Stop it!”

“Speak, you little bitch, speak and tell me everything. Why did you go to the garage? Did Esteban put you up to this? What does he want to know?”

He squeezes so hard that I’m seeing stars, passing out…

One second, two, blackness.

He lets go the pinch. My head slumps forward.

He’s facing me.