Hot Sur (66 page)

At the far end of the dining room, María Paz laughed with her new friends, ignorant of everything. Rose observed how she drank her orange juice, smeared butter on her bread, and brought the fork to her mouth. Suddenly she stood and walked toward the buffet. This is it, Rose thought, and prepared to move, but her friends followed her and were with her at once. María Paz served herself a bowl of granola and milk and returned to the table.
This is taking way too long,
thought Rose.
Jesus Christ, the horrors that could unfold while this woman finished a bowl of granola.
He could make better use of this time, he decided, and went looking for the concierge to ask about his dogs.

“Not to worry, sir, they’ll have them back by noon,” he was told. “Today they were taken mushing.”

“Taken what?”

“Mushing, sir.”

“Mushing?”

“It’s a sled sport, sir.”

“They make my dogs pull sleds.”

“No sir, how you can say such a thing? They go running alongside.”

While Rose was trying to find out where his dogs were, María Paz finished breakfast and left the dining room with her new friends, catching the shuttle that took them to the slopes. Rose got there just as it left and chased it in vain: the minibus moving up the road and out of sight.

Rose returned to the chalet. He was not concerned at all about his unshaven face, his putrid breath, or the fact that his pajamas were poking out from under his clothes. He just needed to switch his shoes for boots, get his wallet, car keys, identification documents, and fill their bags with their things. He bolted to the reception desk. He wanted to check out, he begged a methodical receptionist. An urgent matter had come up and it was imperative that he settled his account, he told her. “Please, miss, if you can hurry, this is urgent.” Because he didn’t cancel in advance, she charged an extra day. He paid without protest and returned the keys. He loaded the Toyota with the suitcases, stacking them in whichever way, and was about to take off when he remembered Ming’s gun. He had hidden it in the chalet, on top of one of the rafters in the ceiling. He went back to the reception desk, asked for the key, waited an eternity for it, got the gun, and then headed for the slopes lost in thought. He would pick up María Paz, do a drive-by to get the dogs, then retrace the marathon journey that got them here, but in reverse. The only difference would be that before they had the luxury of devoting five days to the trip, and now the days
were numbered minutes.

Rose hurried to Los Amigos Bar and got a table on the deck. From there, he had an ample view of the slopes, and he would be able to locate María Paz. But the minutes passed and she was nowhere to be seen. The one who appeared was the waiter, brandishing a menu.

“Nothing, thank you,” Rose said, trying to dismiss him.

“Sorry, sir, if you don’t order something, you can’t sit at these tables.”

“Then a coffee.” The waiter was standing in front of him, blocking his view.

“Would you like something to eat with that?”

“Anything.”

“The chorizo quesadilla like before?”

“Fine.”

“With red sauce?”

“Perfect.”

The ribbon of skiers glided down the mountain rhythmically, weightless and silent, a gentle, lunar undulation. Then they sat in the chairlift, went up in the air, and came back down, because it was not a linear ribbon but a Mobius strip, and they all advanced within it in an eternal procession. All but María Paz, who at some point had exited the circuit and did not appear. Soon it was ten thirty.

“I was dehydrated with anguish,” Rose tells me. “I felt I was losing weight every minute. I rejected any plan to contact the authorities or to go out and search for her with dogs, and paramedics on snowmobiles, because I didn’t want to draw any attention to her. So far, we had slipped by completely clean, no evidence or even suspicion that we were being trailed, and it was essential that it remain that way. On the other hand, every hour that I let pass could be fatal.”

Rose decided to figure out how long it took to go up in the chairlift and ski back down. He zeroed in on one specific lady, clearly a beginner, wearing a particularly bright orange suit. He would time her and use her to set parameters. The woman in orange passed by him, turned at the end of the slope, took the chairlift, disappeared at the top, and in exactly twelve minutes came into Rose’s view again. She went back up, this time reappearing in less time than before. Rose averaged the times and estimated that in the time he had been waiting, María Paz should have passed by him five or six times. Yet nothing. There must have been an explanation, and Rose could only imagine the worst. What if she had broken a leg and been taken to the hospital? What if she had smashed against a tree and cracked her skull? Or if the police had found her and stopped her! Take it easy, Rose told himself, or at least breathe, and try to keep a smidgen of calm. First of all, he couldn’t despair, even if the situation was pretty desperate.

To quiet the machine inside his head that predicted disasters, he spread open a napkin, took out a pen, and sketched a makeshift map as he tried to concentrate on planning a whirlwind trip to reach Violeta. They were about two thousand miles from Montpelier, Vermont: thirty-six hours behind the wheel. María Paz was a horrible driver, as Rose had already seen, and if the highway patrol stopped them and asked for a driver’s license, they were fucked. But they would have to take turns. Eight hours each, while the other rested and slept. He had to schedule in stops for going to the bathroom, refueling, grabbing a few strong shots of espresso, and letting the dogs stretch out a bit. Rose plotted pit stops of one or two hours, in such places as Winona, Kansas; Topeka, Kansas; Caseyville, Illinois; Dayton, Ohio; Harborcreek, Pennsylvania. And one last one in Wells, New York. And yet, pushing it to the limits, assuming no problems arose, it would take them two days and nights. Or three, if at any time they were overcome with exhaustion. He didn’t even want to think of all that could happen to Violeta in two or three days and long nights. They couldn’t take such a risk. What if María Paz took a plane? She would have to present documents to fly. What if Rose just went ahead? No good either, he couldn’t abandon María Paz and his dogs like that.

Because María Paz was still nowhere to be seen, Rose made a decision. It was reckless, but at least it was a decision: he would call the police, notify them of the danger, and say that a serial killer was headed for Montpelier. He would ask them to put the school under surveillance around the clock and tell them about Violeta, a sick and very vulnerable girl who was in mortal danger. Violeta who? That’s the first thing they would want to know. And Rose didn’t even know her last name, not to mention everything he would have to remain quiet about, or justify, if they were to interrogate him. But above all, who was going to listen? Why would they believe him? And if they did believe him, it would be even worse, the area swarming with police, so María Paz could not even get close to her sister.

Have you not learned your lesson, you fuck?
Rose chided himself. Under no circumstance should he continue to make decisions on his own, at his own discretion, veering this way and that without consulting her. That’s just how he had been doing it, and the result had been disastrous, criminal, unforgivable. No, he decided he could not make such a move behind María Paz’s back, particularly one on this scale, which could save them, but could also just as likely doom them. At that moment, the waiter approached the table again. He butted into the scene so often, Rose thought, that by this point he had earned a supporting actor role. This time, he brought Rose a copy of the
New York Times
, which he knew Rose liked to read, although in that area of Colorado, the editions were always a day behind. Rose, who was certainly in no mood to read anything, pretended to peruse the outdated paper, more than anything as a gesture of good will to the good man who was insistent on offering top-notch service, and who now asked if Rose would like some more coffee.

“No,” Rose said. “I’m good, nothing else.”

And that’s when he saw one of the headlines. “Prominent Lawyer Brutally Slain in Brooklyn.” From a picture spread across two columns, Pro Bono looked him straight in the eyes, still very much alive and with a dandyish air. It was not a crime-scene picture, but a studio shot, taken years before, cropped so he appeared only from the neck up. Nobody would guess that he was a hunchback, Rose thought as he gazed at a white, empty point in the distance and the woman in orange passed by once, then a second time, and a third, and perhaps a fourth time before Rose emerged from the depth, breaking the ice that sealed him in his reverie, and dried his tears with the napkin on which he had drawn the map.
Good-bye, my elegant friend.

After talking with Buttons on the pay phone, Rose returned methodically to his table on the terrace and sat down again. “And where the hell have you been?” Buttons admonished him, and Rose had to lie: “I took off to get as far as I could get away from everything.” The waiter approached to ask if he was okay. He nodded his head, but he knew that he was showing fifty years on his face that hadn’t been there fifty minutes earlier. Suddenly the still air stirred, and a pair of gloved hands grabbed him from behind.

“I wasn’t surprised or frightened,” he tells me. “I just thought my time had arrived as well. It seemed only logical.”

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for ages.” It was María Paz’s voice. She had playfully snuck up behind him and covered his eyes with her mittens. She plopped down into the chair beside him; took off her hat, scarf, and mittens; unzipped her coat down to her waist; and shook loose her long hair. With a radiant face and a high voice full of pure joy, she asked the waiter for one Cola-Cola with a lot of ice, and started babbling about the new runs she and her friends had been exploring that morning.

“Can you believe it, Mr. Rose!” she said, tugging on his sleeve. “I went down a blue, me, María Paz, Ms. Troublemaker. Did you hear what I said? What’s wrong with you today? Why’re you so out of it? I just went down a blue run, and you’re like
nothing
? Do you know how stupid steep that is? That’s suicide on sticks, Rose.”

Rose stared off into the distance.

“Hey, Earth to Mr. Rose. What happened, you’ve been drugged or something?”

Rose left some money on the table and started walking toward the parking area. They had to leave Colorado immediately was all that he told María Paz, without turning to look at her, he would explain later.

“Hey, silly.” She ran after him, not understanding an iota of what was going on and carrying her skis, her boots, and her ski poles. “Don’t we have to return all this stuff? And the jumpsuit? Wait for me, hey, help me with this . . .”

They picked up the dogs, who were exhausted after running all morning behind a sled, and headed northward with Rose at the wheel, and at such absurd speeds that María Paz held on for dear life; Otto, Dix, and Skunko tumbled over each other at every steep curve; and the old Toyota trembled to the very edge of disintegration.

“Let’s stop, Rose,” she asked him. “Stop and tell me what’s happening, why we’re driving off like crazy.”

“Not now, later.”

“Tell me where we’re going . . .”

“To Vermont, to get your sister, before the beast of your boyfriend kills her,” exploded Rose, without making excuses or trying to soften the blow, showing María Paz the photograph of Bubba in his pyre and the
New York Times
with the news of the murder of Pro Bono.

He was glad it came out that way. It felt good: the death of Pro Bono had melted his mountain of guilt, transforming it into pure anger, and he was not affected by the horror of her astonishment, nor the deathly pallor of her face, nor her crying fits, because all Rose felt then was rage. Rage against her.

“The death of Pro Bono was the appalling proof that I had been right, that her boyfriend was a monster, a filthy murderer, something I had always known,” he tells me. “But not her, she insisted that no, that deep down the guy was harmless. My God, how could she have been so blind, and the death of Pro Bono had done me in, really done me in, and what I felt inside was anger.”

“Anger as the opposite of guilt,” I ask. “Or you had to stop hating yourself in order to hate her?”

“Either one,” he tells me, “but I was especially eager to hammer her with an ‘I told you so’ the size of the world.”

“There you go. Take a good look. Open your eyes for once,” Rose told María Paz, tapping his index finger on the papers he had just handed her. “Come down from the clouds. This is your boyfriend, so you know. This is your Sleepy Joe. The wolf that doesn’t bite, the poor little boy who’s so good we have to send him money. Are you looking? Burned one alive, and whipped the other one to death. Your lawyer. Whipped that poor old man who helped you so much to death. And my son, Cleve, knocked him off his bike and crowned him with thorns. Do you see anything in common between them, eh? I’m talking, María Paz, answer me. Do you see something in common among these poor people? You, girl. You. You are the only thing these people have in common, besides having been tortured to death by your beau. So he doesn’t kill, your macho asshole? Doesn’t kill, eh?”

“Who is the one burned, what does he have to do with me?” María Paz tried to protest.

But Rose did not even hear her; he was so busy trying to hurt her. He was aware of the pain he was causing with his words, but he could not stop himself. They had been stored for too long, and they now emerged from him with a rancor and ease that surprised him.

“A justified revenge?” I ask Rose.

“It’s possible, yes,” he responds. “Maybe I was making her pay for having loved that monster more than my son. Or who knows. All I can say is that I spoke to her like that to punish her. I noticed that her mouth had gone dry, saw the throbbing in her temples, and she shook as if it had suddenly become very cold, yet I continued, as if enjoying it.”

“So Sleepy Joe was abusive just because of money, is that still your theory?” Rose screamed at María Paz. “Well, he murdered Pro Bono three days ago, woman, three days ago, more than a week after he was handed the money that you sent him. Actually, maybe
with
the money you sent him, maybe that’s what he used it for.”