I needed something with more detail of the area than I could get from my Colorado road map. I drove east toward Alamosa, the big city of the San Luis Valley, to find better maps.
A Chevy Blazer appeared behind me. Sunlight reflecting off the windshield kept me from seeing the driver.
The Blazer tailed me for a minute, then zoomed close to smack my rear bumper. My Toyota shimmied. The moron driver was trying to ram me off the road.
Had to be one of Cavagnolo’s men. I didn’t have time to waste with this bullshit. I’d better take care of this loser quick.
I eased to the shoulder. The Blazer pulled behind me.
The driver got out. He wore sunglasses. Because of his ponytail I recognized him as Cavagnolo’s driver from a couple of hours ago. Apparently he’d dropped Phaedra off and had orders to bring me back to Uncle Sal. Or shoot me.
Sorry, you little punk. Not today. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.
His aura was an undulating bubble of confidence. He stood as tall as his five-foot-plus frame would allow. After making an obvious adjustment of the drape of his jacket over what had to be a pistol, he started for me in a tough guy swagger. Cavagnolo’s errand boy was as intimidating as a shih tzu wearing a spiked collar.
I took out my contacts and put my sunglasses on.
I waited with my window down.
The punk halted two paces from my door. “I got a message from Sal.”
My biggest complication would be getting his sunglasses out of the way. I acted like I didn’t hear him.
“What?”
He took off his sunglasses to demonstrate his seriousness and hooked them into a jacket pocket. His eyes showed no fear. Either this kid was high or merely stupid. I’d vote for both.
He reached to pull his jacket off his hip.
I gave a grin that belonged on the Joker. “Hold on.” I removed my sunglasses and gave a super-duper jolt of hypnosis.
His eyes dilated wide like everything in his mind wanted to spill out through them. His aura burned red hot. He slouched, mouth open like he wanted to catch bugs, and his head sagged toward me.
“Good boy,” I said. “Come here. Give me your right hand.”
He advanced and placed his hand on the windowsill. I took his hand in mine and caressed the web of flesh between the thumb and forefinger. His aura dimmed.
I could send the kid away or hurt him. Too easy. He was on Cavagnolo’s payroll and would have to learn the price of taking his money.
“Now go back to your Blazer, take off all your clothes, and lock them inside. Then stand with your back to traffic, bend over, and grab your ankles.” I patted his hand and sent him off.
He turned about and walked robotically to the Blazer. Since he was giving oncoming traffic the full moon treatment, I should’ve told him to stick a flower in his butt.
I wanted to wait until the cops came by. Better not push it. I put my contacts back in, signaled left, and accelerated onto the highway.
I reached Alamosa in ten minutes. With a population of eight thousand people, it was small town, but compared to Morada, Alamosa was a megapolis.
I found a sporting goods store and bought a compass and a topographical map of the Morada area. I gassed up, hit an ATM for more cash, and headed back to Morada.
I thought about what Cavagnolo had said. Maybe it’s an inside job. Who? For what reason? Was the insider working for the reanimator? If so, why?
I passed the spot where I’d left the punk kid in all his glory. He was gone and a tow truck was snagging his Blazer. I think the cops got him.
Back in Morada, I cruised the streets. The county buildings sat on F Street, on the tidy south side of town. The rectangular lines of the courthouse reminded me of a humorless, square-hipped chaperone. The jail was around the corner. I saw a state trooper’s patrol car and a van with sheriff’s marking but not Cavagnolo’s punk kid.
I stopped by the county museum in my hunt for clues. What I was searching for might be as obvious as an old framed letter, if I knew where to look. But there was no mention of zombies or walking dead among the artifacts belonging to the pioneers or Utes. I read a display of “sightings,” meaning UFOs, in the valley. A shiver ran through my kundalini noir. I’ve had enough of extraterrestrials for a decade.
The sun dropped close to the ragged horizon on the west. Long shadows slanted across Morada. I needed a drink, something to eat, and a place to stay-in that order.
The prudent course of action would be to head east to Monte Vista or Alamosa. Get away from Cavagnolo’s convenient reach. But if he wanted more trouble, I’d make it easy for him to get another lesson.
The closest tavern was My Final Bender. I’d turned by this place earlier when I followed Cavagnolo on the way to the Elkhorn garage. I parked under a linden tree next to a Ford Escort that should’ve been junked ten thousand miles ago. Smoke curled from under the hood, which was held in place with a knotted length of garden hose.
The wooden door to the tavern had more gouges in it than a workbench in middle-school shop class. Two pillars of smoke swirled above the mounds of cigarette butts flanking the door. Inside, I expected country, but hip-hop belted from cheap loudspeakers hanging from nails in the dingy plaster walls.
Yellowed masking tape held a faded menu to the wall. Bold underlined letters scrawled with black marker announced: No Foood!
The yeasty smell of forgotten beer replaced the reek of tobacco smoke. Two guys at the bar nursed drinks and gummed unlit cigarettes.
A sign covered the center of a spiderweb of cracks in the mirror behind the bar. The sign read: NO SMOKING. STATE LAW YOU FUCKERS.
The only way this joint could’ve been more of a dive was if it was located in an Alabama swamp. If the other patrons had no quarrel with the trailer park ghetto decor, then I doubt any of them would’ve noticed that I cast no reflection in the mirror.
A short Latino wearing an aloha shirt as long as a muumuu worked the billiard table. The dress code for the day must have been thrift store special.
I picked a seat midway down the bar and took care not to rest my arms on the sticky places.
Mr. Munchkin in the aloha shirt sidled next to me. Gleaming white cross-trainers gave him Mickey Mouse feet. “Whaddaya want?” Matching rings protruded from his lower lip, right nostril, left eyebrow, and around both ears. He must have been deathly afraid of magnets.
“Manhattan.” In a clean glass, please.
The music became especially loud. Something about a homie’s true love for his 12-gauge. Other than the beat, sounded perfectly country western to me.
Mr. Munchkin shouted: “We got beer. And we got beer.”
I was so overwhelmed by the ambience I missed noticing that all the liquor bottles on display were empty.
“Beer then.”
“Then what?” Mr. Munchkin asked. “We got Bud Light. Miller Lite. Corona Light.”
“Only light beer?”
“We’re a healthy bunch. Gotta watch the calories.” He flashed teeth capped with yellow gold.
“A Corona.”
“Bottle or glass?”
One of the guys at the other end of the bar hacked and coughed into his armpit. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and returned to his Bud Light.
“Bottle,” I said.
“Wise choice,” replied Mr. Munchkin, “’cause we ain’t got no glasses.”
I debated whether I should chance drinking anything, much less staying. The grime in this place was a bigger threat to my well-being than Cavagnolo.
The front door opened. A big-haired frosted blonde entered. She had the hard look of a has-been party girl taking the express lane from thirty to senior citizen. She stopped beside me and laid her pink sequined purse on the bar counter.
The blonde peeled off a denim jacket with pile lining and revealed a tangerine tube top squeezing a pair of leathered breasts. Shiny earrings hefty as horseshoes drooped from her earlobes. Her blue eyes were the color of faded ink.
She parked her narrow jeans on the adjacent stool. Her perfume would’ve made a skunk cry for a gas mask.
The woman raised one painted eyebrow in a come-hither look as subtle as a tire iron smacking my nose. “Buy a lady a drink?”
Lady, what lady?
I glanced around the bar to gauge the others’ reactions. This was a place where livers came to die, not for tourists to hook up with the locals.
Mr. Munchkin arrived with a Corona Light for me and a Bud Light for her. He didn’t ask her, the usual? Nor did he ask if I was buying.
She picked the bottle by the neck and raised it in a toast. “Appreciate it.”
I’d lost my thirst and let beads of sweat collect around my bottle. “What gives…”
She completed the question like she had practice. “Shawna.” She propped an elbow on the edge of the bar, leaned on that arm, and gave a pensive look like she was trying to figure out how much money I had in my pocket. “And you?”
“You didn’t let me finish my question. I was going to say, what gives with you being here?”
“Thought you might like some company.” She took a pull on the Bud and left a smudge of lipstick.
Shawna had popped into the bar the minute I sat down and had singled me out. Maybe she’s a hooker-in Morada? — and that’s why the regulars took no notice.
Or something else was going on.
“How about a real drink?” I asked.
Shawna put the beer down and reached for her jacket and purse. “That’s what I’m talking about. Lead the way, cowboy.”