I Don't Like Where This Is Going (20 page)

PATIENCE LATER HEADED
for the Main Street shops to look at jewelry. I said I'd be right here obsessing about vapor lock. I caught Virgo's attention and ordered another cocktail. He closed his book, using a drink stirrer as a bookmark, and hopped to it. A couple walked in. The elegant silver-haired gentleman took off his sunglasses, slipped them into his jacket pocket, and ushered his young companion to a table across the narrow room from mine. His smile was bright, his forehead sloping, his eyes avocado-green, like my mother's refrigerator. He wore a tailored black suit, a starched white shirt, and a pink-and-blue-striped silk tie. His nails were manicured and polished. The young woman wore a red strapless dress and silver wedge sandals. Her eyes were dark and her hair shoulder-length and brown with blonde highlights.

Virgo brought my drink. I asked him what he was reading. He said, “
Self-Esteem Affirmations, Volume II
.” And then he recited an affirmation. “I am in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.”

When my table neighbors got their glasses of red wine, I held up my vodka and tonic, and we drank to Virgo's worthy
self-regard. Virgo smiled and said, “I am making the right choices every time.”

I said, “I'm Wylie Melville.”

The gentleman's name was Clifton Luciano and hers was Bella. “I just go by the one name,” she said. “Like Lady Gaga.”

I said the obvious. “That's two words.”

Bella smiled. “Two words but one name. ‘Lady' is her title.”

Clifton told me no, Bella was not his daughter. She was his wife and business associate.

“What's your line?”

“Sales.” Clifton glanced at Bella and smiled. “You are looking at the last of a dying breed, Mr. Melville: the door-to-door salesman.”

“Really?”

“I've been a commercial traveler since I was thirteen. I've sold Fuller brushes, the Cadillac of cleaning products. I've sold vacuum cleaners, Japanese knives, cookware, yo-yos,
Encyclopedia Britannica
, miracle cleaner, illustrated Catholic Bibles, and indestructible dinnerware. I could sell a TV to a blind man and knee socks to an amputee. I favor a life on the road. I'm a people person—love that face-to-face contact.”

“What are you selling these days?”

“A product that sells itself.”

“And what's that?”

“You're looking at it.”

And with that, Bella smiled my way, drew her tongue along her lips, raised an eyebrow, and cocked her head.

I said, “This is a joke?”

Clifton said, “What can I do, sir, to get you into this woman today?”

“You're pimping your wife?”

“Managing her career.”

She said, “I'm a big girl. I know what I'm doing, and I like what I'm doing.”

Virgo appeared. “Care for another?”

Clifton said, “And our handsome young waiter finds himself once again in the right place at just the right time.”

PATIENCE AND I
drove south out of Austin and into the desert listening to Marcella Riordan perform Molly Bloom's soliloquy on the CD player. “Isn't this exquisite?” I said.

“She does go on about bottoms, doesn't she?”

We were thirty miles outside of Austin when the car coughed and sputtered. Molly said
yes
; I said
NO!
I turned off the CD and clenched my jaw. Patience rubbed my neck and told me to breathe from my diaphragm. Five miles later the car bucked, lurched, and rattled. I slammed my fist on the steering wheel. Patience said that wasn't going to solve anything. I said, “Don't start, okay?” I cursed that son of a bitch Carl, the goddamn thief. And then the car ran smoothly again. I willed it to run, but after a mile or so, the car trembled, gasped, and died just beyond the Shoshone County line near the alkali flats.

I said, “I cannot fucking believe this.”

Patience told me to try my cell and call Carl to come tow us back. But there was no service. I got out of the car, walked ten steps, tried the phone again, walked ten more steps, tried the phone. And ten more. And then I tossed the phone across the highway and started walking south. Patience got out of the car and asked me what I thought I was doing. I suppose she thought I was going to explode, but she didn't want to be the detonator. She told me I needed to recombobulate. I told her I was going for help. She let
me go and retrieved my phone, which was scratched but intact and workable.

She tried starting the car. When it hesitated, she revved the engine, and it caught. She pulled out onto the highway. After a hundred yards or so, the car shimmied, skipped, but settled itself. I heard her approaching, turned, and walked back toward the car. She slowed, stopped in neutral. Pumped the gas. I hopped in. We had to pull over every three or four miles to let the stalled car recuperate, and in that way we made it to within six miles of Pesadilla. Where we were stopped, someone had fit a mannequin's head atop a rusted barbed-wire fence post. They'd put a white plastic fedora and yellow sunglasses on the tanned head and tied a paisley necktie to the post at the mannequin's throat.

And that was when three cowboys in a pickup saw us stranded, made a U-turn, and stopped. I told the men about our predicament and about Carl's diagnosis and glaring incompetence. The men laughed. Grady Hall introduced himself.

I said, “Carl's absent assistant! He mentioned you.”

Grady introduced Nacho and Chili. The men nodded. One of them tossed a beer can into the sagebrush.

Grady said, “Easiest thing to do is we'll tow you into town.”

“We really appreciate your doing this. You don't know.”

The cowboys towed us in to the Smoky Valley Garage. Grady introduced us to Tinker Beaty. Patience found the ladies' room key in the office, attached to a cowbell. Tinker took a shop rag from his pocket and slid under the car. I said, “Can I buy you boys a drink before you head back?” Grady said, “Sure can,” said they'd meet me across the street at the Full Moon Saloon. Tinker slid out from under the Mirage and held up the fuel filter. “Here's your vapor lock, pardner. So clogged with dirt and shit won't nothing get through. Let me see do I have a replacement.”

Patience put the key back on its hook beneath the old metal advertising thermometer. On the thermometer cans of Dubl-Duty motor oil were lined up at an angle, one behind the other, so all you could see was
DUTY DUTY DUTY
. And then Patience noticed a small black dog curled beneath the metal desk, obscured by piles of grease-smudged
Chilton
manuals. Patience crouched down and said hello. The dog lifted its head, sniffed the air, and slapped its tail on the floor. Patience said, “What's your name, baby?”

Tinker told me, “I don't have a filter for this particular car, but I can jury-rig one to fit. Get you folks on the road again. First chance you get, you have a proper one fit on, hear?”

Patience said, “What's the dog's name?”

Tinker said, “Doesn't have one.” And then, “This'll take a while.”

We walked outside. I told Patience it would be rude not to show our appreciation. Patience had a bad feeling about the cowboys.

“We'll buy them a drink, thank them, then say our goodbyes.”

“They're bored. And that makes them dangerous.”

I kissed her nose, took her arm, and we crossed the road.

The Full Moon was dark and quiet. I bought a round of drinks for the table, beers for the cowboys, water for Patience, whiskey for me. We were the only folks in the bar except for the bartender, who spent her time pulling slots by the bar, smoking cigarettes, and drinking something green. She had an unfortunate do-it-yourself tattoo on her right shoulder: N
O
R
EGERTS
.

I told the boys this was our first trip out West. We were from Everglades County, Florida.

Grady said, “You're a long way from Flaw-duh.”

“Couple of thousand miles,” I said.

“Why?”

“Seeing the country.”

Grady looked at Nacho and Chili. They smiled, leaned back in their chairs. Chili said, “Ain't got no job?”

“Taking some time off.”

Grady said, “So you're like a couple of drifters out for what you can get.” He smiled.

Nacho said, “You in some kind of trouble?”

“No.”

Grady said, “Lacy, sweetheart, another round for the table on my good friends here.” And then Grady touched the top of Patience's hand. “I never did catch your name, darling.”

“No, you didn't.” Patience wore a black sleeveless blouse and her right arm was tattooed wrist to shoulder in an intricate Islamic geometric pattern of stars and diamonds that seemed to fascinate our three amigos.

I said, “Hands to yourself, Grady.”

Grady suggested a friendly game of Texas hold 'em. Chili took a deck of cards out of his pocket. Patience looked out the window to the garage, where the black dog was pissing against the gasoline pump.

I said, “I don't gamble.”

Grady said, “Small stakes. Friendly game. Five-ten. Two-fifty buy-in. How's that?”

“You two ain't going nowhere till your car's fixed,” Nacho said.

Me and the cowboys bought our chips from Lacy and moved to a corner table. I bought fifty bucks' worth, figured I'd let them win that and consider it payment for services rendered—a small price to pay for rescue, if you think about it. Lacy dealt for the house. Grady put on his sunglasses. Chili lit a cigarette. Nacho spit tobacco in his dip cup.

Patience joined us and said, “Kind of looks like we got three against one.”

Grady said, “Shuffle up and deal, Lacy.”

Lacy shuffled, boxed, released. “Put up your blinds, gentlemen.”

I lost twenty bucks on the first two hands. Patience whispered in my ear, “You're giving money away.”

Nacho hadn't taken his eyes off me except to glance at Grady when he was under the gun.

Patience said, “Wylie, you don't have to play every hand. Make them earn their money.”

Grady smiled. “You can't win if you ain't in.”

Lacy said, “Blinds.” She dealt. Patience told me I should fold my pair of nines. I told her Grady was bluffing.

She said, “How do you know?”

Grady said, “Listen to your girlfriend.”

I raised him all of my chips and asked myself why I was doing this.

Nacho and Chili folded. Lacy dealt Grady a six on the river. He smiled. I looked at Patience. I called him.

Patience said, “Really?”

“He's dancing his chips, checking his cards. He's sending me a telegram.”

I took the pot and felt stupid. All this was going to do was lengthen the game. I apologized for my testosterone and tried to give the men back their money, call it even.

Grady said, “We don't want your fucking money.”

Chili said, “But we would like a taste of her.”

Patience picked up her purse. “We should go.”

Grady said, “Are you a Jew?”

I said, “What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I'm not.”

Chili said, “A Jew would never admit it.”

I said, “What is this about?”

Chili said, “You look like a Jew to me.”

I realized that there might not be any law here in Pesadilla. There certainly was no security in the bar.

Nacho stood up so quickly his chair fell over. He put a finger in my face. “You and me, we're going to have it out. Let's go.”

Grady held Nacho's arm. “Not now.”

I noticed that Lacy was gone, her cigarette still lit in the ashtray.

Grady seemed to be reading my mind. “A man could go missing in Shoshone County, and they wouldn't find a trace.”

Tinker poked his head in the door and told us the car was ready. “Gentlemen,” I said, “it's been real.” I left the chips on the table, took Patience by the elbow, and led her out of the Full Moon, to my great relief. What an unholy mess there might have been. I told Patience, “Don't look back.” Lacy leaned against the hood of a battered Willys jeep, adjusting the strap of her blouse and smoking a cigarette. When she saw me, she dropped the cigarette, crushed it out on the gravel, and walked back to the Full Moon. I asked Tinker if there was a police station nearby.

“County seat's sixty miles that-a-way.”

“No deputies in Pesadilla?”

“There's only fifty-four of us here. We take care of our own.”

The ring finger on his right hand was missing.

He said, “Crimes of passion, mostly.”

“You know those boys inside?”

“A bit.”

“Assholes,” Patience said.

He told us he was from Denver when I asked.

“So how did you end up here at the end of the road in the middle of nowhere?”

“I got lost.” He handed me a receipt. “Found myself at the Luck Be a Lady Motel down the road.”

“Lost?”

“Long story short: My wife. My brother. My bed.” He told us Pesadilla wasn't always so dead. He pointed toward the mountains and told us about a played-out marble quarry ten miles away. “When that was operating, this was one lively East Jesus.”

ON THE WAY
out of town, we passed the vaguely familiar man from the Coffee Shop and the Shell station, sitting in his idling truck at the crossroads, scratching his beard. Patience noticed him first and said she'd seen him in Winnemucca at the bar where we stopped to have a drink. She took out her notebook. I said, “What are you writing?”

“His license plate number. Make and model. Bronze Dodge Ram.”

We headed south. We hadn't gone five miles when the car coughed, rattled, and lurched. I shook my head and stifled a scream. Patience, who'd been writing more in her journal, said, “It's okay.”

I said, “It's not okay. Don't say it's okay when it's not. Okay?” I briefly considered turning around and having Tinker fix his shoddy jury-rigged repair job, but I kept imagining Grady and friends gleefully awaiting our inevitable return. I held my breath, and the car ran smoothly, but what would happen when I exhaled? Patience pointed out a bullet-riddled yellow warning sign by the side of the road with a stooped stick figure dragging a shouldered cross toward the highway. Jesus crossing.