FOUR
Miles stood in line at Luisa’s Drive-Thru, a Mercedes in front of him, a homeless man who smelled of dollar wine next to him, and a pickup truck loaded with truant high-school kids behind him, gunning the motor.
When he’d first arrived in Santa Fe, Miles had crafted a careful series of policies and camouflages to keep people from realizing he was Dealing With Issues. Don’t answer Andy in public, resist jumping at sudden noises, close his eyes and stand still when a flashback invaded his mind. He didn’t want to stick out, be noticed, devolve into the street-corner crazy raving at ghosts. Because if you acted crazy, you landed in the asylum.
Today his fit-in-with-the-normals policy was in the toilet.
Luisa’s Drive-Thru was an entirely accurate name for the tin-roofed, simple establishment on a curve of the busy Paseo de Peralta. It offered no counter service; customers used the drive-up window or nothing. So a man who walked everywhere stuck out, standing in line between the cars. On the stroll over he had spotted a gaunt street person he knew named Joe, a man in his late fifties, laid waste by alcohol. He figured Joe received few invitations to dine, so he’d said as he walked past, ‘I’ll buy you lunch at Luisa’s if you want.’ And Joe, without a word, had followed him.
The federal witness and the homeless drunk stood between the two cars, having spoken their orders into the microphone, and now were waiting patiently in line to reach the order window.
Behind him, the pickup’s engine revved in motorized machismo. Miles heard the laughter, hollow and cruel, of stupid children.
‘Hey, losers!’ a girl called. Miles glanced over his shoulder. The girl sat close to the driver, a thick-necked kid with a shaved-close head. Miles saw the girl was the brain, the boy the brawn. She was beauty-queen pretty but an ugly, taunting sneer slashed her face. Three other kids crowded the cab.
‘Hey, losers!’ Beauty Queen yelled again. She wore a cocky confidence born of her loveliness and her knowledge of how to use it. ‘Get a car, why don’t you?’
The pickup jolted an inch closer to his leg. He ignored it.
‘They’d leave you alone if I wasn’t here,’ Joe said in his low, beaten whisper.
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ Miles said. ‘An ass is an ass.’
The girl, secure in the presence of her personal grizzly bear, laughed. Loud enough to be sure that Miles heard. ‘It’s a drive-through. Not a walk-through. What’s the matter with you?’
Miles thought he looked normal. Not mental. But he wondered, in the sidelong glances he often earned, if there was a mark on him, a shock in his eyes, that announced damaged goods to anyone seeking a victim or a mark. Joe walked in slow retreat to the other end of the lot, eyes riveted to the pavement. The pickup jerked closer, barely nudging the back of his knee. Miles stood his ground.
The Mercedes in front of him pulled away from the order window, revved out into the traffic along the loop of Paseo de Peralta.
Miles didn’t walk forward to claim his order.
The pickup’s horn blared. ‘Hey! Move it along!’
Miles stayed still. Andy, next to him, said, ‘What’s your damn problem?’
‘Retard! Move it along!’ Another long honk. The bumper edged into his leg again, forcing him to take a step. Laughter.
Slowly, Miles walked up to the order window. Luisa, the owner, worked the window and she filled a plastic bag with Miles and Joe’s meal, beef and chicken tacos wrapped in thin foil, cups of beans and rice.
‘Hey, there,’ she said. ‘How are you? What’s all this honking?’
‘Just kids,’ Miles said.
‘Asshole!’ Beauty Queen leaned on the horn. Now Miles looked at them; the football player grinned. ‘Move it along, Two Wheels,’ the boy called.
Miles handed Luisa the money, in exact change. He noticed she kept the napkins, the salt, and the homemade salsa packages and the sugar packets on a shelf.
‘Just a second, Luisa, and I’ll be back,’ he said, grabbing several sugar packets and a straw. He walked around the pickup, shaking the sugar packets at the football player and Beauty Queen.
He popped the gas cap open and wedged the first sugar packet in place to shove it inside when the driver’s brain cells clicked in unity and his door flew open, the kid staring at Miles in shock.
‘I’ll beat your ass into the ground!’
‘Not another step,’ Miles said, ‘or you’ll have one sweet ride.’
The football player stopped. ‘Don’t, man!’
‘Then drive off,’ Miles said. ‘Why do you want to be an asshole?’
‘What’s the matter?’ Beauty Queen pushed on the boy’s broad back. ‘Just go beat his ass.’
‘Sugar in the tank. Ruins the car,’ Football Player said to her in a low, strained voice.
Miles suspected it wasn’t enough sugar to do real damage, but Football Player didn’t know that. ‘Etiquette lesson for today, be nice to people who don’t have a car. I dump the sugar, the no-car group includes you.’
‘Smack his ass, Tyler,’ Beauty Queen yelled.
‘Yeah, Tyler, try to smack my ass. Maybe you’ll win or maybe I’ll show you how to respect your elders. But one more step, it’s definite you’ll be truckless.’
Tyler froze with indecision, stuck between Beauty Queen’s braying enthusiasm for violence and a sureness that Miles would poison the gas tank before Tyler reached him.
‘Tyler. Kick his ass!’ Beauty Queen screamed.
‘Tyler, use your brain.’ Miles started whistling ‘Sugar, Sugar’. He saw DeShawn’s sedan wheel hard into the lot, pull into a parking space.
After a pause of five seconds, brain won. Tyler got back into the truck, peeled away. Miles could see the girl hollering and gesturing at the boy.
Miles walked back to Luisa’s window, put the sugar packets and the unopened straw back on the counter. ‘I cost you their lunch business,’ he said, sliding her an extra twenty. ‘Please accept my apology and this as payment. And three Cokes, too, please, Luisa.’
She got him his food and the Cokes without a word.
He walked a bag of tacos over to Joe, who stood with hung head and shamed frown.
‘Here you go,’ Miles said.
‘Thanks,’ Joe said. ‘Sorry I left you alone. Them kids. I just can’t take it. The meanness.’
‘No worries. They’re gone. You come see me at the gallery if they bother you.’
‘I set foot on Canyon Road, the fancy-asses call the cops.’
‘Not if you come see me, okay?’
‘Thanks.’ Joe took the bag of food and the Coke, gave a polite nod, and walked down the street.
Miles got into the Ford sedan and handed the taco bag to DeShawn. Pitts was a big-built guy, an ex-college football player, with a shaved-bald head. The sedan fit him like a too-tight suit. He wished he’d read Allison’s note before he called DeShawn, because he wouldn’t have asked the inspector to have lunch with him.
She wants your help. Not anyone else’s, so keep your mouth shut. Don’t bring DeShawn into this. You can be the man you once were. Help her, on your own.
‘Thanks, man. But feeding bums and fighting with kids?’ DeShawn said. ‘You know, bud, the idea is to not draw attention to yourself.’
‘Good to see you too.’
DeShawn handed him a chicken taco, snagged a beef one for himself. They started to eat. DeShawn demolished the first taco, wiped his mouth clean. ‘First things first, Miles. I did a quick check. There’s not a psychiatrist or a medical doctor or a psychologist licensed in New Mexico named James Sorenson.’
Miles swallowed soda. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Maybe you got his name wrong.’
‘I… must have. I haven’t been sleeping good, I must have misheard.’ He didn’t know what else to say. ‘I tried to call Allison back this morning, to find out more about the program, but she’s not answering her phone.’ That part was truth; he’d tried to reach her, repeatedly, after getting her note. But he’d only gotten her voice mail, and he just asked her to call him back. But Sorenson wasn’t a doctor – why had she introduced him as such?
