authority, to being in command. Likes it. His back is straight and his belly fat is contained. Not like the Americans of
“You. What’s your name?”
“Maria.”
“Maria. Course it is. You know what the problem with your fucking culture is? No fucking originality. Indian blood. Fucking ten thousand years and no one invents the wheel. Shee-it.”
“Maria, Elizabeth,” I improvise.
“Where are you from?” he asks.
“Yucatan.”
“The Yucatan. I know it. Ever been to Chicxulub?”
I shake my head.
“Fuck no. Why would you? That’s where the comet hit the Earth that wiped out the dinosaurs. Why would you want to go there? Jesus, no fucking curiosity either.”
I nod and our eyes meet and I look down at the concrete floor.
“And what do you do Maria, Elizabeth?” he says, coming close, his sternum an inch from my nose.
He’s wearing cowboy boots, boot-cut black jeans, and a long wool overcoat. On another man it would be a costume in lieu of a personality, but not him. This is his attire. And you couldn’t see it unless you were looking, but I am looking, and the bulge is a gun in his coat pocket.
He puts his finger under my chin and tilts my head.
His eyes are blue-gray, distant, like ash.
“I was a maid,” I say. “I worked in many of the Western hotels in Cancun.”
“This ain’t Cancun,” he says.
Pedro senses trouble. The others think I’m lucky, but Pedro knows I’m good. He’s never seen moves like that before. I’m not a cop or a
“She has worked also as a nurse and she is strong and she is good with children,” Pedro says.
The man sniffs me like a bear. “Whored before?” he asks in Spanish.
I shake my head.
“Well, if you’re gonna start, you better start now. Getting too old as it is.”
He turns to Pedro. “Is she a breeder or what?”
Pedro shrugs.
“You got kids?” the man asks me.
“No.”
“A hundred a week, domestic. Hard fucking labor. But five times that giving working guys a little R-and-R. Think about it. Esteban will give you the lowdown,” he says.
He touches my cheek with his forefinger. Paco flinches, but I look at him to show that it’s all right. The man smiles and strokes my hair. I decide that-despite the plan-if he touches my breasts I’m going to kick him in the ballsack and when he’s down I’ll attempt to break his nose with the bottom of my shoe.
He looks at me for a long ten seconds.
What do you see there, friend?
Do you see the future? Or the past? The dead men in the desert, one with his head blown off, bodies black with egg-laying flies.
And what do I see when I look at you?
A hint.
A glimpse.
Before New Mexico I hadn’t so much as killed a fish. But now I know there will be more.
I’m shaking.
Maybe it should be you, Ricky. I don’t think I can do this either.
The man parts my hair to look for lice.
No, if this gets worse I won’t kick him. I’ll just go home. I’ll quit the game and go.
“She ain’t lousy,” he says.
“They are all clean,” Pedro insists.
He opens my mouth with two fingers. The smell of tobacco, leather. He nods to himself.
“You could make a lot of money… Yeah, I like this one. She could pass for white if she weren’t so dumb. Ok, you’ll do, step over here.”
I walk behind him. Away from the others. The gap between me and them no longer merely metaphorical, but now delineated in geography. Paco twitches, looks at me, looks away. He wants to be on my side of the invisible line.
The American lights a cigarette.
Silence.
Smoke.
Snow.
The air in the warehouse perfumed with diesel and Marlboros.
“You are taking one?” Pedro asks, outraged.
The American nods.
“Now you are making the joke,” Pedro says.
“I don’t see anybody laughing,” the man replies.
“This is, uh, madness,” Pedro insists. “Do you know the risks that we run?”
“I don’t like what you brought me. Whatcha gonna do about it? Tell me, little man, whatcha gonna do?”
Pedro spits on the concrete. “You are right,” Pedro says. “I am nothing. You must not have to worry about me. But the people I work for-”
The American cuts him off. “Before you say something you’ll regret, let me stop you right there,
“Five hundred dollars!” Pedro says.
The man nods, throws down the cigarette, clenches and unclenches a fist. His hands are huge. Bigger than my whole head. Meat axes. Hold a basketball upside down with his fingertips. And they say a lot. Tan line where a ring used to be, but no wedding band. Divorced. Knuckle scars. Hint of a tattoo running up his wrist. The bottom of an anchor. Navy. Marines. Something like that. A bruiser whose wife left him when he blew his last chance and beat the shit out of her.
“Take it or leave it. Take ’em all back, for all I care,” he says.
“I take them all to Denver. I take them to Kansas City!” Pedro protests.
“Do that,” the American snaps.
“This would not happen in L.A.,” Pedro seethes.
“We’re not in L.A.,” the American says.
Pedro plays the angles, dreaming cartels and professional icemen who’ll deal with this Yankee fuckface.
“Where is Esteban? I want to talk to Esteban,” Pedro says.
“Esteban’s busy, but it doesn’t matter, you ain’t been listening, this is my town. I say who stays here and who goes.” His voice a rasp. Metal grinding on metal-grinding on us. He’s the vise and the plane and we’re the thing in the jaws to be scraped clean.
“I do not do fieldwork, but I do construction. I lay down bricks. I am skills, my hands are, uh,
“And you speak English,” the man replies.
