Boneyard 11 is the initial book in the BORDERLINES series, novels taken from scripts of the television series. All rights to any characters, properties, or teleplays from that series are reserved to Linton Robinson and Border Accomplices Productions.
Published on SmashWords by: Adoro 2011
All rights reserved.
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CONTENTS
Dedicated To
Clarita
It wasn't going to stop unless she did something about it. She moaned and squirmed under the tousled turquoise sheets, but the nasty pulsations went on and on. A slim, pale forearm punched out from under the covers, slender fingers tipped with immaculate rose nails fumbled gracelessly on the nightstand. A Kawabata paperback fell to the floor, losing her bookmark. Two bottles of prescription sleeping pills rattled and tumbled. She knocked over a sleek digital travel alarm with violet digits indicating a ridiculous hour. She found the phone, lifted the receiver and let it drop back down. The shrill piping continued. The cell phone, then. Uh-oh.
She snaked the slim Nokia back under the sheets and mumbled sleepily, muffled by morning fogginess and 600 count pima cotton. "This is Nan. I think."
The phone chittered frantically as a long, shapely leg emerged tentatively from the bed clothes and manicured toes felt around the deep green pile. "Just because I'm a call girl doesn't mean I like calls at..." The sheet lifted enough for an accusing view of the clock. "Eight in the morning! Omigod, Maru, if I could handle morning I wouldn't have worked nights all my life."
Her foot found the sheepskin slipper and snuggled into it as the phone jittered louder in her ear. "Now?" She exclaimed. "There?"
"What?" Another foot slid to the floor and reconnoitered for the other slipper. "It sounds like a cattle call. Who's the client? The Godfather? Satan?"
The phone chirped twice and Nan sat up convulsively, the sheet falling away to reveal the clean, calm beauty of her classic Nordic features. She stared at the phone, as if demanding answers. After a full-body shudder and a violent shake of her nimbus of silvery hair, she spoke to it more seriously. "Oh. Okay, I'll be there in a half hour."
She shifted her hips and stood up, the sheets sliding off her lilac silk teddy. Her body was as fine-limned as her face, all slim curves and smooth muscle tone. She spoke into the phone once more before clicking it shut. "But don't forget who comes through for you. You old whore."
She tossed the phone on the bed and bumbled towards the bathroom, then reversed direction and pushed open the glass-paned doors to the front room. Flinching from the brutal morning sunlight, she moved through the sterile Danish post-modern order of her so-called living area. Her steps grew firmer as she padded into the efficient kitchen, shook off the pills and got with the program.
"First things first," she muttered, flipping on an elegant Swedish coffee maker pre-primed with bottled water and dark Yucatan grounds, then backtracking to the bathroom.
The teddy slipped silkily down chiseled calves as she waited a moment for the shower spray to warm up. She stepped inside and closed the glass doors, raising her face to the warm water. "Welcome back my friend," she grumbled into the needle spray, "To the show that just won't end."
The whole place looked like a home office made over into a whorehouse by Martha Stewart. A perfect fit for Maru herself; a dated, cushily upholstered, over-decorated little cupcake on the shiny side of fifty. Everybody assumed her real name was Maria something, but nobody had known for sure for over thirty years, back when she was turning tricks herself instead of being the prime local broker for the very top crust in commercial grade love.
She dithered around the doilied red velvet furniture in her living room, not showing a bit of dealership pride in the unusual display of her whole line of goods, currently standing against one wall trying to look ravishing on short notice. The girls, ranging from highly fetching to drop-dead gorgeous, were either black or Hispanic, except for "Nikita", whose pale white skin and black hair threw her deep blue formerly-Soviet, eyes into startling contrast. They lounged against the wall like mugs in a lineup, unsure of the situation.
One sure thing: nobody wanted to offend the two men, big physical Latino types who looked dramatically out of place in the perfumed cushion of Maru's parlor. The older one that she called Alfredo was obviously a scarred street veteran who'd fought his way up to perks like his expensive Brooks Brothers suit. He leaned against the door to the kitchen at ease, offering the young hookers only an incurious gaze. The one that had them on their toes was Mongo.
He was a big block of muscle with a tight, dark face that looked as though a handsome mannequin for some roughtrade leather boutique had come off the line a little too angular and cock-eyed. His chopped-off hair was lacquered up into a stiff, vertical crest above his low forehead, the latest word in cholo chic. The presence of all this high-ticket pulchritude had put him on his volatile macho mettle, his consciousness hovering a few inches south of the sea crocodile belt that brought together his whole barrio mobster look. Tied the thousand dollar Armani in with the red acetate shirt printed with skeletons in sexual positions and the cowboy boots hand-stitched from endangered species skin. This was a young man continually on the prod, and this particular cattle call was no exception.
He gave the girls another oily, cloying scan and spun around to Maru, who skittered away towards a bookcase crammed with collectible Barbies in 'ho rags.
"Listen, he's had it with the raza bitches," he sneered at her. "Who needs some puritanca little Chicana breaking your balls, then crossing themselves when you come?"
Maru eagerly nodded assent to that wisdom, glancing to Alfredo for assurance. She hoped he was in charge of this checkered-assed punk.
"And who wants any of those bushy-haired jungle monkeys?" he went on. "The only white putona you come up with isn't even a blonde."
The black escorts bristled at that assessment and Maru flopped placating hands at them. But Mongo was relentless, looming over Maru like a Doberman menacing a Pomeranian. "We said your best lookers, didn't we?"
He dripped scorn and malice, waved a dismissive hand at the girls against the wall. "The fine blonde white stuff."
"If I'd had entrance lines like that, I might have made a go of the acting thing." Everybody turned to the foyer, where Nan slouched against the doorway in a Bacall pose, her enticing body graced by a clinging sheath and shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair curving softly around the pale oval of her serene face. She moved into the room, raking Mongo with a dazzlingly fake smile.
"Hi, I'm Nan. But you can just call me Stuff." She walked past the staring Mongo towards Maru, tossing back, "Apparently."
Alfredo shifted on his feet, taking notice for the first time that morning. "Not blonde, exactly," he said appreciatively. "But definitely fine."
Nan shrugged and snatched off the wig, finger-fluffing silver-blonde hair in a short, athletic cut. "If you don't see what you like," she beamed, "Just ask."
Alfredo gave her a friendly grin and nod as she leaned over to kiss Maru on the cheek. The older woman was shooting her eyes around like marbles on a drumhead, trying to telegraph the whole setup and her apprehensions about it. Nan winked and wheeled elegantly to face Mongo, slipping the wig into place and smoothing it down.
The young hood had done nothing but stare artlessly at Nan since she entered, leaning forward on the balls of his feet like a birddog spotting a grouse. He liked what he saw, took it as a challenge, and was getting worked up over it. He moved towards Nan, encroaching her personal space, giving her the once-over twice removed. Nan nonchalantly stood her ground.
"Not bad, not bad," Mongo muttered, the petulance in his voice replaced by a toughfellah version of a coaxing purr. "This is more like it here, the real goods."
"Would you like to take a look at my teeth?" Nan opened her mouth to show off a white gleam. "Check for my VIN number?"
"These original equipment?" Mongo asked her with a leer, trying to stare down and intimidate her through sheer bulk. He raised a hand, fingers splayed as if to grasp a peach off a table.
"OEM," Nan replied, effortlessly meeting his imagined cobra gaze. "But listen. Free for looky-loos, but any contact starts up the old meter."
Mongo reached out anyway, slowly and sensually moving his cupped hand to make the contact she'd just denied.
"I said keep your hands to yourself, greaseboy," Nan snapped, blowing off all the patently fake charm. She slapped his hand away, glaring at him without temper, just a studied, dismissive contempt. Behind him Maru was stricken, frantically waving her hands and shaking her head. Against the wall, the chorus line of tarts drew a collective breath and waited wide-eyed for the results.
He reacted instantly, grabbing her by the nape of the neck and pulling her face up to his own, his other hand reaching to cup her ass.
Somehow Nan's hand was already in her purse. It came out flashing a small automatic pistol, which she dug into Mongo's groin hard enough to make him gasp. He went rigid, his eyes bulging.
"Well, well," Nan murmured with no trace of humor, "The incredible shrinking man."
She moved the pistol significantly and spoke with the incisive bite of a knife slapping into a chopping block. "Now back the hell off."
Mongo stepped back gingerly, removing his hands and instinctively holding them up at shoulder level, his palms toward her.
Maru shot a panicked glance at Alfredo, who was apparently not going to do anything about seeing his associate under the gun. He was watching the scenario like the wall girls. Front row seats for a little morning drama.
"Okay, Tiny Tim," she said, "Now close your eyes."
Mongo recovered enough of his shattered macho cool to give her a hateful glare instead of obeying. Nan slid the gun up his belly and chest and pushed it hard into the side of his throat. "You close those eyes or I'll close them for you, you needle-dicked sleazeball."
Fighting agonized resistance from his every instinct, Mongo fluttered his luxuriant lashes then squeezed his eyes shut.
Whereupon Nan measured him carefully and drove a full, powerful kick directly into his crotch. He jackknifed, fell to the floor and lay there retching.
Nan gave Alfredo a look and saw no trouble from that quarter. She stepped to an over-wrought recliner and plopped down. Filching a cigarette from Maru's pack on the coffee table, she brought the gun up to the tip, pulled the trigger to produce a flame from the barrel. She lit up, drew a deep drag, and blew smoke from her nostrils.
Maru leaned on a chair, her knees shaky with the quick release from panic. She shot a worried look at Mongo, struggling not to toss his enchiladas all over her new carpet. Alfredo moved towards Nan, smiling and miming a silent applause.
"Please excuse our in-house idiot," he told her. "Could I ask you to come down to the car with me, take a few Polaroid shots?"
Nan looked him over out of the corner of her eye, brought the pistol lighter to her lips, blew off imaginary smoke and dropped it back in her purse.
"We've already made arrangements with Maru," the big thug assured her.
Across the room, Treshanna, a black prostitute as tall, angled, and savage-looking as Grace Jones, mused, "Be takin' polaroys out in the car?"
Alfredo gave her a half-smile, but spoke to Nan. "We just represent the client, you understand?"
She replied with a cool nod and he turned to glare down at Mongo with his fists on his hips. Big, gnarled fists with some nicks out of them, Nan noticed. Much like his face.
"You can call me Alfredo."
"Hi, I'm Nan."
He nodded as he booted the groaning Mongo lightly in the ribs, "Hey Mongo, you gonna open the door for the lady? Sí o no?"
Mongo rolled away from him and pressed up to his knees. He looked at them both and Nan knew that there'd been a real possibility of him shooting them all. She'd sized up Alfredo as the authority of the two from the first, but what she saw burning in the kid's eyes just then offered no safeguards. He lurched to his feet, staggered to the door, fumbled it open and blundered out, leaving it open. They could hear him clumber painfully down the stairs.
Nan turned to Alfredo, a delicate eyebrow cocked, "Honestly, you can take the boy out of the barn, but..."
Alfredo laughed for the first time, a baritone rumble that told Nan a lot about the man. He held his arm towards her politely to usher her out. "Oh, yeah," he told her, "I think you'll do just fine."
As the door closed, Maru heard Nan say, "Do what?"
She practically collapsed in relief, and so did her whole stable. Four cigarettes snapped out like switchblades, straight to trembling, over-coated lips. Maru motioned them all to sit at the kitchen table and headed straight for the cabinet to grab glasses and a bottle.
"Hijole," Mariposa, a leggy Veracruz girl with butterscotch complexion, breathed. "I was scared she was gonna get us all blowed down right here."
"I hear that, honey," Treshanna said, reaching for the shot Maru had just poured. "What a ball-bitin' bitch."
Maru jumped up and leaned towards her, clapping her hand over the drink. "Hey slut! Don't ever dis Nan around me, you hear?"
Treshanna placed a spread-fingered hand sporting two inch blue nails to her amazing breast and batted eyelashes like Venus flytraps. "Yeah? What you gone do 'bout it?"
Maru sat back down and handed her the glass. "Tell her what you said, see if she kicks that fat off your butt."
The girls all laughed a little too hard and simultaneously tipped back straight shots of Tequila.
Amarylis, the other black whore, licked a drop from the corner of her mouth and mused, "So who's the client, anyway? The Klueless Klan?"
"Don't ask," Maru said darkly, pouring again.
"Somebody don't mind discriminating race," Treshanna told her seriously, "That's for damned sure."
"That Alfredo's who I think he is, huh?" Mariposa asked without expecting an answer. "Not too bad looking. I mean, a guy his age."
Maru nodded fondly and winked. "You should have seen him twenty years ago. And damn well-hung."
Questioning eyebrows shot up around the table.
"You know," Maru said, giving it a beat. "For a Mexicano."
Treshanna shrugged and reached for her glass. "I was gone say."
Magdalena Gaspar, ten year old Mexican-American Princess known as Magi to her many friends, adoring teachers, and shattered family, knelt prettily beside her plush pink bed to pray. It was a picture some Chicano Norman Rockwell might have done: a sweet kid in soft flannel Hello Kitty nightgown, hands folded piously, wide black eyes turned upwards in supplication.
From the doorway her mother Chela watched fondly, but hoped the prayers would get wrapped up so she could zip downstairs in time to see the cliffhanger at the end of her telenovela. It wouldn't be unkind to describe Graciela Gaspar, nee Floresta, as a fading Latina hotty and she could still show a good turn-out with the proper preparation. She leaned against the doorjamb barefoot in cutoff sweatpants and a Luis Miguel t-shirt, eavesdropping her daughter's chat with God.
"...and please bless Tia Rosalinda and her sick cat," Magi intoned. She paused and shot a glance at the doorway, where Chela still stood watching, then blurted out, "Te lo pido estas cosas, Señor, en nombre de tu Santo Hijo. Amén." She scrambled up into the bed, snuggled in, and blew a kiss to her mother. Chela smiled and blew one in return before switching off the light and hurrying back to catch Mirada de Mujer.
Magi was out of the bed and back on her knees instantly, clasping her hands in the dark and speaking with a palpable fervor. "Y Señor, please watch out for my Papá and keep him safe. Amén."
She quickly skinned back up into the bed and lay watching the light reflected off the pool dance and weave across the ceiling until she fell asleep.
Hard to tell is which is weirder here in The Joint, he'd often thought; dealing with the other cons or the damned guards. But so far Gaspar had found the worst was trying to communicate with anyone from "the outs". It was like they lived on a different planet from the one he was getting used to so fast it sometimes scared him.
Not that he had many of these stupid conversations through the thick glass that made everything seem like a fish tank full of marine specimens talking on cheap, buzzy telephone handsets. He always met with his attorney Manny in a private room, his business associates and friends couldn't visit due to conviction records and his ex-family hated his guts. He was losing contact with what he didn't even think of as the Real World anymore. And after less than a year inside. He'd had to do something. And was about to get his first clue on how well that something might work out. He wasn't all that optimistic.
He looked at Nan when she came in, admired her looks in an abstract "under glass" kind of way, but in no way associated her with the polaroids he'd screened or why he was sitting in this embarrassing little booth toying with a greasy plastic handset. Then the guard pointed him out and she came over to sit in front of him. ¡Hijole!
They stared at each other a moment, neither getting an easy grip on what they were looking at. The word that came to him was "innocent". She was a major looker, no doubt about it, but there was something vulnerable in her delicate features and bone structure. A fragile quality with a faint ache in the eyes. He felt a stirring he couldn't identify. This wasn't what he'd expected to drag in, but he was getting a much better feeling about the operation.
What Nan saw wasn't as advertised, either. She had known the name immediately, but had never seen a picture of the man himself. He was rough enough to fit the bill, no doubt about that. Even pushing fifty, showing signs of soft living and a little puffy from prison food, he was obviously one tough hombre; the stocky body softened but still brutal. His face was hard and brown, but the inevitable mustache was too thin to complete the ruthless appearance. And the slightly slanted cast to his eyes gave him a sort of Fu Manchu thing. But the phrase that came to her mind was "commanding presence." Well, he'd commanded her presence, hadn't he?
What surprised her was his eyes. She'd expected an opaque, reptilian regard, but what she saw was intelligence and a very human interest. He wasn't looking at her like a John, but like a guy who wanted to know her better. Hope his first line isn't, What's A Nice Girl Like You, she thought. She smiled through the submarine glass and picked up her handset.
The first words he heard her say were, "I know we advertise outcalls anywhere in the county, but I'm betting they frown on it in here."
His voice was deep and somewhat chilly, distorted by the poor quality of the phone hookup. "Just a matter of arranging things properly."
She laughed, a silvery tinkle that nailed him, but good. A sound from some world alien to the stark, drab one he inhabited. "Wow," she said, "So you really are some sort of Godfather."
"Property of the State, these days." He showed her an unexpectedly open smile. "But no numbers, please. Just call me Gaspar."
"Ah, one of those single professional names like Madonna and Iman. Good branding strategy for finest domestic and imported contraband."
He didn't smile, just looked into her eyes through the thick window. He had an impulse and went with it. "Maybe their real first names are Humberto, too."
Nan didn't smile either. She had an instinctual tip-off that he'd just confided something to her. A man not given to easy confidence. She said, "Hi, Gaspar. I'm Nan."
He gave a half-nod that somehow managed to be courtly. There was a dignity behind this guy, but she'd seen men who had that air only because they could back themselves up with damage and death. And he was certainly in that category. He was making no move to control the conversation, just watching her. But in a removed way. Not the acquisitive edge she was used to. Maybe I'm losing my touch, she joked with herself. Somebody had to say something, though.
"But I wouldn't be wrong in thinking of you as a dangerous criminal? And potential esteemed client, of course."
"Both, yeah." He held up a blunt finger and wagged it. "But my proposition is completely legal."
"Okay, a proposition," Nan nodded pertly. "That's familiar ground. Legal is somewhat less familiar."
"But you've got no jacket. No priors." Actually that was a matter that had made Gaspar curious. He circled the finger to take in the booth, the visiting area, the entire R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility. "Or you wouldn't be allowed to visit."
"So that's why Alfredo and that Manny guy gave me the third degree about my troubled past." She didn't know why she hadn't thought of that. "No, I've had a very careful career. Also why I wasn't worried about those tests at the clinic."
"Just means you're smarter than average." He looked at her with a wry smile teasing one corner of his tight lips. "Alfredo said he asked you about your record and you said, 'You're wondering if a whore is a criminal or not?' I love it."
"It's really funny now that I know who was really asking."
"Alfredo likes you. He thinks you're the one."
Nan's smooth white brow furrowed slightly. "Well, the Oracle said so, but I've had a few lingering doubts."
Gaspar didn't respond to the reference, but was getting more interested the longer he talked to her. Which, the clock over the guard's head indicated, would only be for five more minutes. Initial visit, non-relative, non-legal.
"I might make you an offer," he said, raising his hand like a cop signaling to stop, "Please, no movie gags. Think of this as an audition."
She looked around the stark room with the big, motionless guard and the hunched figures trying to communicate with loved ones in exile. "Audition for what? Prisoners Of Love?"
"You're in business, right? You advertise. Promote."
"Ironically, lawyers can take out ads now, but not whores. Where's the justice in that?"
Gaspar waved a hand like an emcee introducing a performer. "So make me want to give you money."
Nan studied him for a long moment. She's scanning me, Gaspar thought. Trying to read me for what I expect, what I'll pay for. Well, good luck honey.
She abruptly hung up, stood, posed prim as a prep school virgin for a beat, then pulled open her blouse to display the pale perfection of her breasts to Gaspar's view.
His eyes widened appreciatively. In a rare unconscious movement, he leaned forward and kissed the glass in front of her faintly pink nipples. Just as the guard grabbed her from behind and spun her away from the glass.
"What the hell you think you're doing?" the guard demanded. He shoved her away from the booth, motioning for her to cover up. Nearby visitors stared at her, not to mention the row of inmates goggling through the glass.
She buttoned up, looking at the guard contritely. "Sorry, phone sex always gets me so turned on."
Which put the guard decidedly off-guard. She winked at him and murmured, "So do badges."
Gaspar saw what she said, and the guard's nonplussed reaction. He laughed out loud. "When was the last time a woman made me laugh?" he asked himself out loud.
The guard recovered into a stiff, official posture and tone. "You're going to have to leave, Ma'am."
He turned and glowered, "Gaspar, you're on report."
Nan nodded understandingly. "Conduct unbecoming of a felon?"
This time Gaspar's laugh was an open, full body expression. "Oh, I think we've got a winner here."
The inmate beside him, a slight, shifty black burglar, said, "Shit yeah, you do." His wife glared at him, turned to stare daggers at the blonde hussy.
Gaspar yelled, loud enough to be heard through the glass, "You'll definitely do!"
As the guard firmly escorted her out of the visitor room, Nan called back over her shoulder, "Do what?"
***
The paint was fresh, and a few sad trappings attempted a look of sanctity and good tidings, but nothing could make the room out to be anything other than a cement box owned by The System, equipped on an overstrained budget, and only half-heartedly functional for mass spiritual needs. The clergyman looked pretty much the same. Prison Chaplain is not a highly sought-after calling. Inmates are an unreliable flock, their piety often misrepresented. And conjugal relations among them are seldom blessed by even the generic, official states of matrimony, much less Holy Wedlock.
The same guard from the visiting room stood stiffly by in a fresh uniform. He'd taken an interest, actually, but was there for reasons of ritual witness, not security. The chaplain looked like government issue: graying, hardened from use, and somehow shopworn. His black suit hung loose and his backwards collar was yellowed. He read from a black book, not being overly familiar with this particular rite of passage.
"By the authority vested in me by the State of California," he intoned, "I now pronounce you man...
He glanced perfunctorily at the groom. Gaspar had on new, starched denims, and wore an expression that was somehow proud and sheepish at the same time.
"...and wife."
The good reverend glanced at the bride with a great deal more interest. Nan was radiant in a very short, veiled wedding dress cut to cling, flatter and suggest that Fredericks of Hollywood had added a bridal line. Gleaming white, although both dress and veil were polka-dotted with tiny red appliqués of kissy lips. She held her bouquet of pink roses with a chaste expression.
"You may kiss the bride."
Gaspar raised his hands to lift her veil, somewhat restrained by his handcuffs.
"Awww," Nan cooed, "A double ring ceremony."
She turned her head to accept Gaspar's gentle kiss on her cheek, which brought her eyes to the guard, who couldn't seem to decide whether to roll his eyes in disgust or applaud and throw rice.
"And there's just something about a best man in uniform."
The guard smiled, shaking his head, and Gaspar chuckled. He patted her shoulder awkwardly with his manacled hands. He leaned close and Nan could smell bay rum. Did they have state-issue aftershave, she wondered. He said, "See you on the honeymoon."
"He's powerful, all right. And rich. And a smart cookie, I guess," Maru said tentatively, like someone unqualified to judge. "Basically, he gets what he wants."
"Does he now?" Nan mused. She lifted the steaming cup to her lips and sipped tentatively, then blew across the frothy surface. "I think that depends a lot on what he wants."
"That's my motto, right there." Maru did one of her occasional self-aware smiles. "Give 'em what they want."
"I thought it was, The Customer Always Comes First."
"That's optional."
Nan laughed with the jolly little madam. She laughed a lot around Maru, which is why she liked to hang out with her sometimes. She didn't socialize with any of the other "girls" in her trade. Not with much of anybody, she sometimes realized. She worked, kept herself in shape, kept herself educated. Other than that, all she expected from the world was that it would let her sleep. Not that it always obliged such a simple desire.
Maru's social life was anybody's guess, but Nan figured it wasn't that much different from her own. Her apartment looked like the kind people have when they don't like to leave home if they could help it. Which is why Nan invited her to the Hotel Del Coronado for coffee. The classic look of the old wooden deck, the obsequious service and the air of deep-dish money were all heady delights for the pudgy procuress.
Maru was apparently on her wave length because she suddenly said, "Married. Wow. I don't run around with a lot of married women."
"Just their husbands." Nan gave her a soft smile. "I can't believe it myself, really. I mean, not that it's 'really', really. But still, hitched is hitched. Maybe we can rent some children or something. Lease an Airedale."
Maru laughed. She didn't always understand Nan's sense of humor, but she enjoyed what she did. She pointed an elaborately over-manicured finger between Nan's eyes and pronounced, "Cinder-fucking-Ella."
Nan laughed out loud. Perfect. Pretty Woman meets Goodfella. "Well, he's sending me a coach."
"You need coaching?"
"A limo, you wiseass. Maybe it's a stretch pumpkin."
"Limo?" Maru puzzled. "To go where?"
"Our honeymoon, silly." Nan touched her fingers to her heart and heaved her breast wistfully. "Don't you know he's going to take me somewhere just fabulous?"
Nan lounged in the wide leather seat, her light touch on the fingertip control toggles leaning it soundlessly back. She wished she could just doze off to the gentle, expensively-suspended purr of the big car bowling along the empty desert roads on top of Otay Mesa. She'd slipped into the front seat as soon as Alfredo pulled the burnished black Mercedes to the curb in front of her sidewalk table at Croce's. It was probably silly meeting him there. Not wanting her own husband, for Pete's sake, to know where she lived. Like they hadn't known all about her from the jumpoff.
She didn't like being inside opaqued car windows. She wasn't that crazy about cars at all, for that matter. She'd wondered about it before. How many thirty-two year-old career women made six figures and had never owned an automobile? She wrote it off to her deep-seated distaste for all the registration, fingerprinting and data-giving. Which was better than thinking that maybe automobiles represented a work environment to her. Thoughts that might lead back to her early days, doing business out of backseats. Which was not a situation she much cared to revisit.
Besides, she wanted the chance to talk to this Alfredo some more. Size things up as much as she could. Barreling the car across the peculiar urban wilderness of the Mesa, he looked as impassive as you'd expect a bodyguard to look; face as stolid and impenetrable as one of those Mexican stone heads. But he'd seemed friendly towards her from the start. Somebody it would pay to cultivate, was her assessment.
She fiddled idly with the window controls, popping a slit of hot, buzzing air open and shut. The big driver glanced at the distraction. Nan took her hand off the buttons and said, "Are we there yet?"
He looked at her blankly. "Little nervous?"
"Well, a girl always has those first night jitters. Did I save myself for the right guy?"
He looked back at the road. "Cute. But I guess what it is, I just don't think of you..."
"As a whore? I don't either, I guess. But enough about me. What about him? What if we don't click? He doesn't like me after awhile? I'm betting the prison doesn't much go for Wife Of The Week."
"You're concerned about the Boss? That's funny." He looked at her again, his face more open. "Yeah, he's taking a chance on you, in a way. That you'll be worth the bother. No tryouts before marriage, you notice. You hook up and that's that."
"Kind of charmingly old-fashioned."
He laughed. She did have a fun way of looking at things. Time would tell, of course. "It's old-fashioned a lot of ways," he told her, getting serious.
"Let me guess." She pondered prettily, index finger under her chin. "High fidelity?"
"You got it," He slowed the car, gave her full attention. "You're a married woman. Exclusive."
"Know what, Alfredo?" She met his eyes squarely. "I'm all for it."
She leaned back, looked forward and speaking quietly. "That was a lot of what made me go for this setup. No more take-out."
He nodded his understanding noncommittally. Then she surprised them both by blurting harshly, "No more fucking men."
He nodded again. Made sense. But he had to make it completely clear. "Just so you know the score. And you probably figured out there's going to be people keeping an eye on you."
"Suits me fine. A girl can't have too much protection these days." She raised a finger, suddenly thinking of more immediate matters. "Speaking of protection, how does that work? Should I bring in my own? Do they have little machines in the restrooms? Can I put on my teddy? Can he ask his cellmate for a little privacy?"
"Cellmate. Funny," he grinned. "Don't worry, you get plenty of privacy. They got these nice trailers. You know, mobile homes. The whole boneyard is trailers.
She leaned forward to look over at him, which took him aback. He quickly amended, "Conjugal visitation area."
"The Boneyard. Now that's a charming bit of American folklore. What's it called at the women's prison?"
"Same thing, I guess," he replied brusquely. "That's what married inmates get: boneyard visits."
"Sure, they'd call it the same thing. The universal commodity that makes the world go around."
He kept his eyes carefully on the road and said in voice so soft it was almost menacing, "You shouldn't think of yourself like that. Commodity, goods. You know what I'm saying?"
"Oh, please. Do I look like Julia Roberts to you? All this is, a mobster figured out how to get his ashes hauled in the lockup."
Alfredo's jaw tightened. He jerked his hands roughly, and put an oversize foot on the brakes, spinning the car off the shoulder in a roostertail of dust. He turned and leaned toward Nan, who shrunk away from the anger in his suddenly fierce and threatening face, reaching behind her waist for the door handle. She'd located the lock overrides before she'd even fastened her seatbelt.
"Figure it out, chica," he scolded her. "You're not a whore anymore. Not even a girlfriend. You're the wife of a powerful, important man. You understand that?"
He must have seen the comprehension in her face because he leaned back, eased the tight clench of muscles in his face. "You had your past, now you have this future. Live up to it, is what I suggest."
Nan relaxed, her pose softening. She faced forward in her seat, hit the button to bring it to upright, and smoothed down her skirt. She tipped down the lighted vanity mirror on the visor, patted her hair.
Then she turned to him with a shy smile. "You're right. I'm in. Let's not be late to prison."
He studied her a moment, then nodded. He pulled on the handbrake and stepped out of the car. Nan sat motionless as he walked around the front end of the car, his dark bulk distorted by the heat waves writhing off the long black hood. He opened her door and offered his forearm. "Señora Gaspar?"
She placed her hand on his arm, gracefully pivoted her legs out of the car to stand, and stepped away so he could close the door. She looked around the surrealistic landscape of the Mesa as he walked to the rear door. Thinking, it could be a new colony on Mars. The dust and desert scrub stretching out from the blacktop for miles, the ghostly runway standards of Brown Field running beside the border fence, the loom of cubical, dirt-colored Mexican and Japanese assembly factories in the distance. And straight ahead, the forbidding, expressionless hulk of Donovan. She walked back to where Alfredo was patiently awaiting her, holding open the door to the darkened interior.
He extended his arm again and she rested her hand on it as she seated herself elegantly and swung her legs inside. He leaned over to speak to her, framed by the fathomless blue of the border sky. He said, "You're going to do just fine, Señora. All I'm saying is, don't sell yourself short."
He closed the door without waiting for a reply. Nan waited while he returned to the driver's seat and pulled back into the lines of semi-trailers and delivery vans that filled the absurd connector road. She pondered a moment, then reached over to push the door lock button, which responded with a heavy, authoritative click.
Another click with much more authority: the gate of a chain link fence topped with barbed wire coils slamming shut, locking Nan into a drab, dusty enclosure with a dozen sun-faded tan single-wides. Nan looked up over the top of her sunglasses: yes, those men watching the yard from high towers were holding assault rifles. Oh, except for that one: he's got a shotgun. Probably a rebellious trend-setter.
To her left, past a double fence that partitioned off what was unquestionably The Boneyard, a few dozen inmates had left off loitering to lean into the fence watching her like a caged tiger might regard human babies in the zoo crowds. They were yelling the nastiest things they could imagine. Fortunately, she thought, they don't have much imagination.
The guard--"Corrections Officer", he'd corrected her--pocketed a cumbersome set of keys and started to walk back through three more gates to the reception area. He caught her confused pose; a small, tender-looking woman lost amid one of the most brutally masculine architectures imaginable and bayed at by a pack of animals. He turned back, rattled the chainlink to get her attention over the barrage of vile admiration and pointed. "Number eleven, ma'am. Right over there."
She looked towards the trailers and couldn't immediately summon the motivation to walk over to them. She'd spent most of her life wrapping an ugly business in the accoutrements of elegance and grace, but one glance at the fence full of inmates in slack denim and sweaty skin clambering on the wire and gibbering like a troop of monkeys crashed it all back to the ancient reality of jungle meat. She looked back at the guard, tempted to just ask for a pass. But a deal is a deal.
She must have looked as lost as before because the officer filled his lungs and bellowed, "GASPAR! Visit!"
The fact that the name instantly silenced the gallery on the fence wasn't lost on Nan. She smiled her thanks at the guard and turned back towards the trailers. The ribald heckling started up again, yardbird punks too chicken to show their fear.
Then her new husband stepped out of trailer number eleven and smiled at her. He turned to the pack of yahoos on the fence and made a gesture with his fingertips together like a pouch. They shut up. Nan looked at them, then him, raising an admiring eyebrow. He strode over to her, looking flustered.
Her first unshielded impression of the man was different from what she'd seen in the visiting area and chapel. He moved confidently here, his dominance apparent in his pose and bearing. But his face seemed less hard with the two of them alone, and his eyes were friendly.
The denim prison issue that had looked appropriate through the glass of the "fishtank" now seemed like a clumsy disguise. This was a guy for white tropical suits and a Panama hat, she thought. A big cigar. He could be some landowner kicked out of Cuba and running rackets in Miami.
"You're early. Sorry I wasn't here at the gate." He started to touch her elbow, but turned the gesture into a sweep of his arm towards the trailer. "Come on inside. Get away from this horndog trash."
Nan walked beside him towards the door, but glanced back at the staring cons. "Oh, they were talking about me? That's so flattering."
He smiled appreciatively. "This place could use a little humor."
He put his hand on the big black number "11" and pushed the door open. "Not to mention some beauty and class."
He motioned her through the door in front of him, but as she started to move past, he held up his hand. On impulse, he bent, cradled her knees and shoulders and effortlessly scooped her off her feet. She laughed delightedly as he carried her to the door. The gallery along the fence whooped and applauded at this chivalrous geste: Nan waved to them gaily as she was swept over the threshold.
***
Inside, he quickly set her down and stepped back. He closed the door, then started adjusting the blinds, tipping them up to cut the slash of California summer to a soft gold glow. Fiddling around because he's unsure of himself, Nan realized. Doesn't know quite what to do about being locked up in a bedroom with his Rent A Wife. Kind of cute.
She looked around the space, a ten-wide version of the standard hotsheet motel, but without the charm. Nothing shabby or dirty, but nothing indicating any human care involved. Built to state specs for convict carnality, she thought. The Boneyard Arms. "From now on," she told him, "Whenever I hear somebody say, 'Hey, get a room,' I'll always think of this one."
He looked around more critically, standing with his hands on his hips, frowning. Not his style either. "It's like the demo model for tidy trailer trash," he said.
The only furniture was a bed and, inexplicably, a dresser.
"I guess we sit on the bed," she ventured.
Gaspar swung around quickly, embarrassed. "Oh, yeah. Please have a seat."
She sat demurely on the end of the bed, patted the sheeny synthetic blanket invitingly. He sat an arm's length from her, looked around again. "Sorry about this place."
"Maybe next time the Presidential Suite will be vacant." She looked him straight in the eye, expressionless. "So, what have you been doing?"
"Time." He smiled, "Ask me how it's going."
"So how's it going?"
"It's going."
"You're really a standup kind of guy," Nan grinned. "Playing a tough room."
"It's like everybody speaks a different language in here. But listen, just ask me whatever you want to know. Everything's been through lawyers and paperwork up 'til now."
"Don't forget those phones in the aquarium."
"You got any questions about the deal?"
"Clear enough to me." Nan shrugged offhandedly. "We're married for the rest of your stretch. Or until death do us part. I got the 'signing bonus'. Thank you. Fee per visit is pretty standard. Generous, though. I appreciate the rent part. And the lump sum if I go the distance."
He grunted. "Only thing worse than getting divorced would be getting dumped in prison..."
He broke off but she knew the next thought had been, "...by a whore." And she had to admit that would be salt in any guy's wounds.
He also realized she knew what he'd almost said and paused before continuing. "Then when I'm released we split up. Or renegotiate, I guess."
"But no performance incentives."
Gaspar stared at her.
"No major medical," she went on, "Or free agency clause."
"You had me going," Gaspar grinned. "Hey, blame your agent. It's a pre-nup, is all. Wish to hell I'd had one the first time out."
A client whining about his divorce, Nan thought. There's a novelty. I think I can sing this one without a lead sheet. "Let me take a stab. Traditional Catholic Lupe Lu dumped your butt before the ink dried on your fingerprints?"
"Good guess. She made out like a bandida, too: house, car, kids, dog, works. Both lawn mowers, fijate."
"Incarceration constitutes abandonment, I understand." She held her hair away from her nape. It was getting warm in the trailer in spite of the grumbling little air conditioner under the window. "Hey, would that work if the guy was already in prison when you married him?"
Gaspar gave her a hooded glance. "Somehow I figured you'd know."
"Not that interesting." She made a dismissive gesture. "Why would I want to void a sweet deal like this? Of course, I could go for community property. If she left you anything worth picking over."
"Good luck finding any property. Not the divorce, so much. Manny was way ahead of her. It was more like for taxes and trying to deal with the beef in the first place. Anything I got, they can just come take off. So I don't own a damn thing."
Nan broke into a full, genuine laugh that he just loved hearing. "So I managed to marry a drug mob kingpin who's flat broke?"
He nodded "ruefully", enjoying the whole thing.
"Boy I sure can pick 'em."
Now he had the good, real laugh. This babe was shaping up to be a lot of fun.
"It's pretty complicated at the moment," he told her seriously, "But it works. Checks are good, right?"
"Oh, quite good." She looked around again, noticing that the fixtures visible through the open bathroom door were all stainless steel. Some twerp designer downtown could have yuppie posers drooling over that look. She glanced back at Gaspar, sitting on the bed and eyeing her with calm, open interest. "But there's one thing I don't understand about this situation."
"Shoot. If anybody's got time, it's me."
"Aren't we supposed to take our clothes off?"
Gaspar looked down as if to check that he still had his denims on. He didn't look back up at her, said, "Oh, yeah, well... I just thought we could talk a little. Get to know each other some, you know..."
She kept a straight face. "For a wiseguy, you don't seem to have much of a handle on how the call girl thing works."
He chuckled. "Yeah, but we're married. I got no clue how the wife thing works."
"Me neither," Nan nodded. "Let's stick to what I'm good at. Lie down. Relax. Then I'll do whatever it takes to give you your money's worth."
"Well," he cracked a wide, relaxed smile, "You want to put it like that..."
"That 'get to know each other' thing was truly sweet, though," she said as she pulled off her suit jacket. "It just happens I talk better afterwards."
He lay back on the bed and spread his arms. "Know what? So do I."
"Get comfortable, Boss." She still hadn't figured out what to call him. "Kick your shoes off. I'll take it from there."
It was a fairly austere office, though actually near the top end for what an SDPD Lieutenant would occupy. Everything straight issue except the basketball hoop some previous occupant had bolted to the wall and RayRay's framed Shaft poster behind the desk. Not the remake: Richard Roundtree in full blaxploitation splendor. The brass desk plate proclaiming "Lt. Raymond Mobley: Border Crime Division" was obviously brand new. RayRay had the job attitude of a man reluctantly promoted above his level of competence.
A sturdy black man in his forties, Mobley gave off the vibe that he could step in for Shaft any time he had to. But was currently pinned down by paper complexities he didn't care for, understand or even approve of. At the moment, for instance, he was talking to--no, "liaising with"--a Fed from some messed-up agency that couldn't get its own agenda or initials straight. He leaned back and stared over his scuffed BlackTops at the guy's slick wardrobe, wondering what was the point. Right enough guy so far, though.
"I'll say this much," he said, "I like the way you don't throw your weight around."
The guy in the tailored suit spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. "I'm new. Still learning how to be a Federal asshole."
"Hey, take your time." This might not be all that bad, Mobley thought. Maybe.
What Reach couldn't understand is why a division commander with international responsibility would come to work dressed like a street cop gone bad in a cheap ghetto flick. Maybe it was the Roundtree poster. He'd risen to his current job at a youngish age largely by looking the part. He was smart and professional and had a great record as a Federal Marshall before moving up, but so did lots of guys. But they didn't look as fabulous as Sean Reach, did they? The rangy, graceful athlete's moves and wide-shouldered slugger's body that draped so well in "collezioni" suits were impressive enough, but then he had to have curly blond hair, flecked hazel eyes, and the strong, clean features of a model or movie lead.
A former colleague had called him, "pinup puss porn", but it hadn't stuck because his features were strong enough to save him from prettiness. It was a jock face, the trusted quarterback in a forties film, the sort of look men didn't resent. All that much. Single at thirty four. Go figure.
RayRay swung his legs down and grabbed two cups and the Mr. Coffee pitcher. "I'm new on this block, myself," he said as he poured the cups. "Four months back I was in Homicide. Did so good they gave me this for punishment. Seems everything is focusing on the damn border now."
Reach nodded, letting the coffee cool in his hands. "That's where I come in, all right. But listen... you don't mind my being a little curious?"
"What, why they put a black guy doesn't speak Spanish on the beaner beat instead of a 'Hispanic'? Why we got a border operation being run by a nigger and an Aryan Honkyhood pinup boy?"
"Well, yeah, along those lines."
"God knows what you're doing here. But let me tell you, San Diego border policing makes some fucked-up politics. If they'd put a white guy on it--an "Anglo", you know--everybody would have bitched, you can see that right off."
Reach nodded, tentatively sipping his coffee. Not too bad, surprisingly.
"But if they brought some Julio on, then it starts looking token, and frankly--just between we two--San Diego ain't exactly Boston. Not even L.A. It's Omaha By The Sea. I don't think the brass trust Mexican cops to stay clean, not side with their 'border bros', push come to shove."
"But nobody can bitch about you, right?"
"Bingo, amigo. I'm the perfect political solution. Functionally useless."
"Well, I hope not. This Gaspar guy was the Big Enchilada in this area..."
Mobley nodded, "With extra salsa."
"And we've got his ass. He's got the answer for the whole schmear. If we can wring him out."
"Easy to say. But I dunno. I've been working it a little. You gotta meet my counterparts over in TJ."
"Tijuana cops are interested in him?"
"Yeah, but from like, homicide angles. The whole racket thing, too. Mostly they're seeing him as one finger of a local honcho named Altamira. Ring any bells?"
Reach thought it over. "No big brass ones."
"Major mover over there. Very low profile until last year. Then suddenly he comes out of nowhere to get elected mayor. Gaspar's his dog in the California fight, they're telling me."
"What's the connection?"
"Nothing I could put my weight on yet. But it's why I've been picking at his outfit. Keeping a monitor since he became our respected guest. Any new shit."
"Like he got married?"
"Yes, he certainly did that, all right. Miss America Emeritus. Former Miss Nowhere In Particular. She visits him once in March, next thing you know it's all matrimonial. Comes in regular."
"The trophy wife? Maybe why his old lady divorced him?"
"Could be, but he never transferred anything to her name. Not in the picture previously. Cherry as they come: No record. Make that, no records. No job, no background, no car, nada. Nada fuckin' hint."
"Hmm. That doesn't intrigue you any?"
"Shit, you got intrigued first look at her picture, huh? But I guess she'd be worth leaning on. Maybe she's a gold-digger, could be tempted. Maybe we could squeeze out some assets, some dirt. Get some associated names, shit like that."
Reach nodded. "She might be some sort of loose cannon. Who knows whose side she might come down on?"
"Be easy enough to ask her about it. You been out to Donovan yet?"
"Haven't had that pleasure."
"It's a real garden spot. Southern California penal lifestyle at its finest."
Gaspar and Nan were sitting on the bed, leaning back against the headboard in their underwear, beaded with sweat in the stuffy room. They'd placed a cheap box fan, stenciled with the Donovan label and supply numbers, to blow towards their bodies from the rickety dresser. Her dress and his dungarees hung on the bathroom door. Both sipped from cans of lukewarm soda from the vending machine out in the yard.
Nan stared at the blank wall across from the bed while half-listening to an anecdote about the oddly static weirdness that apparently went on in the dormitories. It really bugged her that there was no crappy painting hanging there, like there would be in your average "no-tell motel". A cheap K-mart print of some smudged European scene with the impasto and canvas texture faithfully reproduced. She idly wondered what style would best suit this prison playpen.
Gaspar had shown her examples of inmate art, mostly done on envelopes. Major motifs seemed to be walls, wire, chains, clocks, and calendar pages. People in the artwork tended to be fierce, noble outlaws with bulging muscles or doe-eyed, buxom women wearing nothing but perhaps an occasional gang sign. She'd have to think of what art "ism" would work here. It could be a "School", she thought. Temporalism? Maximalism? She already knew what sort of literature would find favor: Escapism.
A twist in the story caught her attention and she laughed. "He didn't really say that," she said.
"Swear to God," Gaspar held up his hand and placed the other on an invisible bible hovering in midair. "Then this Rivera guy from H Block sticks his head in and says "That'll feel better when it stops hurting".
Nan laughed again, holding her soda can against the side of her face, where strands from her short brunette wig were starting to stick to her cheek. "You've got a pretty wacky clubhouse here, all right."
"We're very carefully selected." He sipped his soda, seemed to consider pouring it over his head. "By invitation only."
"A real elite." She pushed her hair back with both hands and turned to face him. "Look, we're running short of face time here. Maybe we better get down and get dirty before checkout time."
"Yeah," he replied tonelessly. "Boy, it's hot for that stuff, though. We're already sweating like pigs."
"Excuse me?" She gave the words the full Queen Latifah treatment. "Women don't sweat. We glow. Pigs do not glow."
He nodded a mock apology and she gave his shoulder a light punch. "I would have thought you jailbirds would kill for a shot a real-life hot, wet woman."
"Well, sure," Gaspar hastened to say. "I mean, just look at you."
"Yeah, look at us. An old married couple, sitting here chewing the fat on an unmade bed."
"Hey, we got our needs, right? I mean, you're a lot younger..."
"I can take it or leave it," Nan cut in. She patted his thigh. "You're not that old, either. And not a bad lover. But there's nothing wrong with a man your age not being a horny kid."
Gaspar sat for a moment, careful not to look at her. Not a bad lover, huh? Somehow that sounded more personal than stock whore talk. She picked up on his thought and leaned close to his ear. "And no, I don't say that to everybody."
"You know what I was thinking the other day?" There was something pensive and tentative in his voice. Nan sat still, careful not to derail his mood.
"I think I look forward to talking to you more than I do the sex." He paused to take a sip of Diet Coke, surreptitiously glancing at her for any sign of derisiveness or scorn or whatever it is men fear from confiding in women.
"It feels good." He seemed encouraged to explore this a little more. "Just, you know. Talking to the wife about the life."
She waited, but he put the can down by the bed and turned to her. "But yeah, we probably ought to do something here."
"Ought to?" She couldn't decide whether to be amused or insulted. "Gasman, what is it with you?"