Thin Air

'It is my mother,' he said. 'Isn't she beautiful?'

Too much makeup, Lisa thought. Hair's too big, skirt's too tight.

'She gave me the camera, an eight millimeter. She taught me how to use it.'

The camera steadied and then a young boy came into the picture. He put his arm around his mother's waist. She put her arm around his shoulder, and they stood and smiled into the camera.

'And that is me, with my mother,' he said.

The scene cut clumsily to another picture. The same woman, dressed differently, but no better, Lisa thought. She was sitting on the lap of a heavy-set, red-faced Anglo man in a loud sport coat. Her short skirt was high on her thighs and the man's hand rested on the inner part of her thigh above the knee.

'That is a friend of my mother's,' Luis said. 'My mother had many friends.'

The woman in the camera smiled and gestured at the camera to stop filming. It kept on, and then stopped abruptly.

'I took all the old films and had them transferred to video, ' Luis said. 'That way even though she's gone I will have her still.'

Chapter 34

There was a Subway sandwich shop in a shopping center off Route 93, a little west of Proctor. I pulled in and parked in front of it. Chollo looked at the sandwich shop.

'What's this,' Chollo said, 'your native cuisine?'

'Good Yankee cookin',' I said.

'Get me a ham and cheese sub,' Chollo said. 'No hot peppers.'

'No hot peppers?'

Chollo shrugged.

'Now and then,' he said, 'I am untrue to my heritage.'

'Hell,' I said. 'It happens. I don't always eat potatoes.'

'Cultural genocide,' Chollo said.

I went into the shop and bought us a couple of sandwiches and some coffee and came back. Chollo took a sip of coffee and made a face.

'What the fuck is this?' he said.

'You must have got mine,' I said and we swapped.

'You drink that?' Chollo said.

'You get used to it.'

'Why would you want to?'

'You may have a point,' I said. 'What went on in the house?'

Chollo put his coffee into one of the holders in the middle console and began to unwrap his sandwich.

'They bought my story,' Chollo said. 'Deleon knew of Mr. del Rio. I told him we had talked with Freddie Santiago, but we weren't happy. Said Freddie looked kind of tired to me. Said Mr. del Rio and me thought we might need a younger guy, some fresh blood to run this end.'

Chollo picked up half of his sub sandwich and took a bite. He managed not to get any on himself, and I wondered how he did it. Susan always claimed that when I ate a sub I looked like I'd fought with it. He chewed happily. I waited. The hot coffee steamed the inside of the windshield a little so that the only clear reality seemed to be here in the car, where the food was.

'Deleon liked that,' Chollo said. 'Got him excited. Says he's just the man for the job. Says he's got the perfect setup. So I say, lemme take a look around, see what you got here, and we take a tour.'

Chollo drank some coffee. I waited.

'Three things,' Chollo said. 'One, Deleon's a froot loop. Two, there's a locked room with a guard outside on the second floor. It would be the corner on the second floor, where the windows are covered with plywood. Guard pretended he was just hanging around, but he was guarding. And there's a new padlock on the door. I said to Deleon, `What's in there?' and he says it's his private quarters. Says `I alone have the key.' Like fucking Basil Rathbone, you know? Except he's speaking Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent.'

The good thing about listening instead of talking is you can eat while you do it. I was finished with my sandwich, Chollo just took his second bite.

'What's number three?' I said.

'Walls are sandbagged, windows are all wire-meshed or boarded over. There's a lot of ammunition, lot of food. For crissake, they got a garden on the roof, maybe a dozen shooters, plus women and kids. Buildings are all connected through sheltered access. We gotta go in there we can do it, but I don't see how we do it without we blow up some women and kids.'

'Probably why they're there,' I said.

'Now that's cynical,' Cholla said. 'Nothing as cynical as a cynical Yankee.'

'Yeah, you're probably right,' I said. 'Why do you think they're there?'

'To keep people from assaulting the place for fear of killing the kids,' Chollo said.