‘But we’re gonna pull your fangs.’ He picked up Ruy’s rifle, cradled it under one arm. ‘No point in letting you run around armed and everything like you were an adult.’
‘You’ve…’ Ruy stopped himself.
‘What say, man?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You thinking mean thoughts, Ruy. I can tell.’ Mingolla nudged Ruy’s knee with the rifle barrel. ‘C’mon, man. Spit it out.’
Ruy glared at him.
‘Well…’ Mingolla came up into a crouch, letting the barrel drift back and forth across Ruy’s chest. ‘Anytime you feel the need to talk, don’t be bashful.’ He put an arm around Debora. ‘Try to make it during the day, though, will ya? We keep pretty busy at night.’
Following this conversation, the character of Ruy’s attentions toward Debora underwent a transformation. He took to favoring her with ardent stares and despondent looks, to scribbling poems in a notebook, to gazing listlessly at the scenery: the very image of lovesickness. It was as if in revealing his true nature, he was also revealing the sappy core of his passion. Nothing except Debora commanded his interest, and though Mingolla was grateful for Ruy’s lassitude, preferring it to his previous aggressiveness, he found that he could no longer count on him for assistance in negotiating the wilderness. Ruy responded to Mingolla in monosyllables or not at all, and even when they encountered serious obstacles—obstacles as the town of Tecolutla—he exhibited no concern, but merely shrugged off Mingolla’s questions and said he didn’t care what they did.
Mingolla did not want to enter Tecolutla. Even from the pine ridge above it, he could sense an ominous air to the place, one that the view through his binoculars did nothing to dispel. It was big for a high-country town, sprawling across the saddle between two hills, lorded over by a cathedral of crumbling gray stone with tilted vine- draped bell towers that had the look of vegetable chessmen whose board was in the process of being overthrown. The other buildings, the houses and shops, were not so imposing, but were equally ruinous, charred and broken and fettered with creepers, and under the thin mist that covered the valley, the town appeared insubstantial, to be either fading in or out of existence.
‘Ain’t no way ’round it,’ said Tully. ‘Anyhow, we might find us some gas down dere.’
‘I don’t see any movement.’ Debora lowered her binoculars. ‘It’s probably deserted.’
‘Y’ever here before?’ Mingolla asked the question of all of them.
‘It’s an Indian market town.’ Corazon nodded at Debora. ‘She’s probably right. I doubt anyone’s livin’ there. When the Indians abandon a place, they rarely come back.’
‘Okay,’ said Mingolla. ‘Let’s try it.’
They made two passes through the town before risking a stop; they roared down the empty streets, guns poked from the windows, the engine of the Bronco sounding incredibly loud in the stillness. Finally they pulled up to the cathedral, which fronted a shattered fountain in the main square. The doors of the cathedral were massive, cracked open a foot, the wood dark and studded with iron like the door of an ancient prison, as if the Catholic God were something to be kept under restraint. The square was cobbled, weeds protruding from breaks in the stone, and facing the church was a pink stucco cake of a hotel on whose facade was written in circus-style letters HOTEL CANCION DE LAS MONTANAS.Some rusted tables and shredded umbrellas sat out front, the remains of a sidewalk cafe.
‘Sometimes dese hotels got generators,’ Tully said. ‘Might be some gas lyin’ ’round in dere.’
Judging by the sumptuous rags of the draperies, the size of the reception desk, the silvercloth stripe visible in the moss-furred wallpaper, the hotel must have catered to the wealthy, but now it was tenanted only by lizards and insects. Thousands of slitherings stilled when they entered the lobby; their footsteps shook down falls of plaster dust. As they walked along a hallway past an elevator shaft choked with epiphytes, Mingolla turned to say something to Tully and saw that Corazon was missing. He asked where she was, but Tully hadn’t noticed her absence and had no idea.
‘I’ll fetch her,’ he said.
‘No, I’ll do it.’ Mingolla started toward the entrance, but Tully caught hold of him.
‘What’s de matter, mon? She likely just wanderin’.’
‘Maybe,’ said Mingolla.
‘You can trust her,’ Tully said.
‘Who says I don’t?’
‘Your face sayin’ it, mon.’
Mingolla pulled away from Tully. ‘I’ll check it out. You keep looking for gas.’
‘She ain’t up to not’in’!’ Tully said, but Mingolla just waved and sprinted back out into the square. Corazon was standing by the cathedral doors, peeking inside. He called to her, and she jumped.
‘You scare me,’ she said as he came up.
‘What’re you doing sneaking off like that?’
‘I wanna look in the church.’
The rose in her eye seemed to him—as it had in the past—a Sotomayor signature, a clever advertisement of power and folly.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Nobody.’
‘I’m not interested in your goddamn philosophy. I wanna know what you’re doing… who you’re working for.’
She stared at him deadpan.
‘I don’t trust you,’ he said. ‘So you better talk to me.’
‘You wanna know somethin’,’ she said, ‘why don’t you just look inside me? You strong enough to do what you want.’
‘I’ve already done that.’
She looked startled.
‘Back on the boat,’ he said. ‘I checked you out a coupla times. You seem okay. But there could be things hidden inside you I can’t get at. Traps. Commands. Things you don’t even know about.’
‘Well, if I don’t know ’bout ’em, I can’t help you.’ She pushed the door wider. ‘I’m goin’ in.’
He followed her into the nave, and they stood facing each other beside a stone baptismal font. In the half- light the rose appeared to be hovering deep within her skull, and the tip of her braid, hanging off the side of one shoulder, looked to have vanished in inky shadow. ‘So tell me ’bout yourself,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to Tully.’
‘What
‘Just livin’.’
Mingolla considered her minimalist nature, compared her to Nate and Don Julio and Amalia. it was quite possible that she was like them, a broken toy, and the fact that she professed minimalism as a policy would be just the sort of twist Izaguirre liked to employ in his creations. But he couldn’t be sure, and he was still hampered by morality in his judgments; he couldn’t act upon mere suspicion, especially where Tully’s woman was concerned.
Corazon pushed through the inner doors, and Mingolla hurried after her, gagging on a thick fecal odor. Sounds of grunting, clucking. He started to ask Corazon another question, but then noticed that the altar was illuminated by four candelabras: an island of light floating in a black void, centered by a filigreed silver cross big enough upon which to crucify an infant. Wings whirred above their heads, and from behind them came an echoing boom, the sound of the outer doors closing and being bolted. The scrape of a shoe on rough stone somewhere near, and someone tried to snatch Mingolla’s rifle. He wrenched it free, heard footsteps pattering off, and ducked behind a pew. Probing the dark, he contacted a number of minds. Maybe a dozen. He could have stunned them, but was unwilling to show his hand in front of Corazon. He fired a round into the air.
‘Don’t!’ Corazon pulled at the rifle. ‘There’s nothin’ bad in here. I can feel it.’
He shook her off, fired another round high. ‘I want lights in here!’ he shouted. ‘Or I’ll blow your butts away!’
‘Please!’ said Corazon. ‘Don’t
