Thin Air

it at this time of year. Now that the dogs were gone, the street was empty. No traffic moved through the neighborhood. No ice cream trucks, no police cars, no women pushing babies in carriages with the clear plastic rain shields down. When the rain came it killed the wind. I could see it falling before it reached me. I watched it march toward me up the silent street, falling straight down, a thin, beaded curtain of it, turning the pavement dark as it came. When it hit the car, I turned the windshield wipers on intermittent, just enough so I could see if anyone was coming toward me with a gun.

The guy on the roof had disappeared, probably inside someplace or under something. If we ever had to take a run at the place it might be good to wait till it rained. Nothing happened. No one moved. Time trudged past me very slowly. I started to make a list of all the women I'd slept with in my life, trying to remember all the circumstances. I wondered if it was disloyal to Susan, and found myself thinking about whether it was or not, rather than with whom I had done what. Maybe she thought about the people she'd slept with.

How did I feel? I decided I didn't mind, unless she thought of them with longing. So I went back to remembering my sex life, but I was careful not to long for anyone. The rain was harder now, too hard for intermittent. I changed it. I looked at my watch. Chollo had been in there for forty minutes.

I thought about Brenda Loring. She was a nice woman. She had great thighs. I liked her. But I loved Susan. Through the clear wiper arc on the windshield I saw Chollo come out of the tenement and walk toward the car. He seemed to be in no hurry. But he would look like he wasn't in a hurry if he was being chased by a bull. I glanced at my watch again. An hour and five minutes.

Chollo got in the car and closed the door behind him.

'How'd it go?' I said.

Chollo grinned.

'Luis embraced me when I left.'

'How sweet,' I said.

'You cold gringos don't understand us hot-blooded Latinos,' Chollo said.

'You want to wait for your blood to cool,' I said, 'before you fill me in?'

'Lunch,' Chollo said. 'First I need lunch.'

'Maybe I can find a Jack in the Box,' I said.

'My native cuisine,' Chollo said. 'How thoughtful.'

I turned on the headlights and put the car in gear and we drove away.

Images of herself tied to the chair were added to the other images on the monitors that glowed soundlessly in the dim room. He had come in with his video camera and videotaped before he cut her loose.

'It is business, querida. I am sorry it had to be this way. But I cannot trust you yet not to be crazy. Let me get some skin cream for you, where the tape was.'

I can control myself, she thought. If I can do that, I can do anything.

'Who was here?' she said.

'There were important people here, Angela, they have sought me out. They want me to help them here with their business. They admire me. But why should you think about business? Your beautiful head should be thinking beautiful thoughts.'

'So why didn't you want them to know about me? What are you afraid of, if they are such good friends of yours?'

'People should know of me and my business only what they need to know,' Luis said. 'Only what I choose for them to know.'

'Who was that woman who tied me up?'

'Rosalita,' he said. 'She is nothing. She has always thought I belonged to her.'

He paused as he spoke, watching the latest videotape.

'I'm sorry, chiquita, that you had to be tied.'

'-No,' she said, herself surprised at the strength of her voice. 'No, you're not sorry. You'd like me bound and gagged for you all the time.'

'What can you be saying? Did I not rush in here and untie you as soon as I could?'

'Don't be so literal. Don't you understand that the image of your feeling for me is embodied in those tapes, the picture of me bound and helpless, hauled in here on a dolly, tied and gagged when there's visitors. I'm yours in a way that offers me no choices.'

'There are pictures of you and me at the beach,' he said. 'Pictures of you and me on stage.'

'You don't want a lover, you want a slave.'

'Angel, I am your slave.'

He was beginning to pace again.

'Since my mother… Wait, let me show you. You've never seen my mother.'

He disappeared behind one of the theatrical flats, and in a moment the image on the monitors changed. There was a picture of a young Hispanic woman. Long dark hair, high breasts, black tank top, white miniskirt, white boots. The camera movements were sudden and jerky. The images were slightly indistinct, and the color was odd, like a colorized movie, but she could see how much she looked like Luis.