Fifty Grand

15 THE BOOK OF CHANGES

The arithmetical process of elimination. Our two primary suspects and Esteban were three of the solutions to the case, but they weren’t all of the solutions, and I knew I wouldn’t be comfortable until I had dealt with every possibility, no matter how remote. At this last stage of the game I knew I was going to have to see about Ricky’s golf cart. I probably should have investigated this one first, but I’d been putting it at the back of my mind. It would be a ridiculous way for a man to die. Run over by a purple golf cart whose speed topped out at ten kph, but all ways to die were equally absurd and somehow in all this craziness it wouldn’t have been inappropriate.

The Scientology Drop-In Center was next to Donna Karan.

I decided to drop in.

Metallic walls, massive air-conditioning pods, dark, uncomfortable-looking chairs around an ebony coffee table. Scientology magazines, newsletters, booklets, and of course various texts by L. Ron Hubbard. The reception desk was a long curve of black marble. I’d never seen black marble before and I was impressed.

I stood there and ran my fingers along the grain.

The receptionist looked up.

Pretty, with a Stepford hairdo and dress, she had a glazed Hero of the Revolution expression about her.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if I could see Toby Armstrong. I’m an insurance inves-”

“Oh yes. Toby’s available right now if you want to go in. It will have to be brief, he’s auditing at two. IV Room number two, first on the left.”

IV Room #2.

Toby was sitting behind a desk, surfing the Web on a tiny silver Toshiba laptop. He was skinny with a raggedy gold sweater, blond hair, and a sallow, distant expression. His eyes were black, tired, and startled when I came in unannounced. He quickly pulled down the cover on the Toshiba.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes, I read that you crashed a golf cart at-”

Toby stood and offered me his hand. It was moist, limp, the nails dirty and bitten to the quick. He rubbed his face, sat back down, and reached into a drawer under his desk. He brought out a long white booklet and a pencil and passed them across to me. He didn’t appear to have taken in what I had begun to say. “I suppose they told you that this is going to have to be quick. I’ve got an audit at two,” he muttered.

“So they said.”

He stood again, his left eye twitched alarmingly for a moment, and then, abruptly, he left the office.

“Wait a minute,” I said. I went to the door and tried to follow him but it was locked from the outside.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” I called out.

The door opened and the receptionist came back in. She was holding a glass of water.

“Oh, please take a seat, Miss…”

“Martinez.”

“Please take a seat, Miss Martinez. Just fill out that questionnaire and Toby will be back in to see you in a moment. And do drink the water, it’s very dry in here.”

She gave me a winning American smile and I found myself sitting.

The door closed.

I drank the water, opened the questionnaire.

I faked the career history and personal data pages, info dumping a fictional CV I was quite proud of. Inez Martinez 3.0 was a young Latina from Denver, who had become an insurance agent after attending Harvard University. Hmm, was that credible? Harvard, well, it was too late now. I’d made her magna cum laude and a member of the basketball team.

I started answering the other questions. It was amusing. A distraction.

They grew increasingly weirder as the pages turned.

Q. 43: “If your mother divorced your father and married someone of a different race would you A) Be angry? B) Be happy? C) Be worried about the opinion of others? D) Have no opinion?” I wrote D.

Q. 89: “When you are hunting and the quarry enters your sights, do you squeeze the trigger with A) Satisfaction? B) Regret? C) Joy? D) Emptiness?” I wrote D again, thinking about nightmares of dead men in the desert.

Q. 100: “If it were proven that there was life on Mars would you A) Move there? B) Stay on Earth? C) Question the findings of the scientists? D) Reevaluate your religious beliefs?”

Q. 102: “Where are you most at ease: A) The nonsmoking section of a cinema? B) A discotheque? C) An airport departure lounge? D) An airport arrivals lounge?”

I had just finished question 200 and closed the booklet when Toby came back in.

“That was good timing,” I said.

He took the booklet. “No, I was watching you through the monitor. Enjoy your vitamin water?”

I had barely touched the glass and now I was relieved.

“Vitamin water?”

“Drink it, it’s good for you. B Complex mostly, one hundred mg of niacin and lots of other good stuff. High potency, not like that crap in 7-Eleven. Better than coffee. Drink up.”

“Uh, no thanks.”

Toby began drawing a line through my answers, forming a kind of chart.

“Well, this will give us some idea,” he said. “If I wasn’t pressed for time, we could do the proper thousand-question test; that’s the real deal.”

“Uhm, look, Toby, I’m an insurance invest-”

“Ah, you’re from Denver! Denver, Denver, Denver!” Toby exclaimed, his eyes wide, his fist pounding the table.

“What about it?”

“Denver holds a special place in our pantheon. Is that the right word? No matter. It was in Denver that Battlefield Earth takes place, surely Denver’s claim to fame as a city.”

He leaned across to me and his eyes now took on a furtive expression.

“Do you want me to spill? Do you think you can handle it?”

“Spill.”

“There are some of us who don’t think it’s a novel at all.”

“No?”

“No. Not a novel, but a…” he lowered his voice. “Prediction.”

“Ah, I see.”

“That’s just between us.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why some of us think Mr. Cruise has moved to Colorado. And when Xenu returns… No, forget that, I’ve said too much, but let’s just say that the rumors about Mr. Cruise’s bunker aren’t just rumors.”

I leaned back in the chair while Toby finished his chart. When he was done he passed it across the table and began explaining it. It looked like the stock market index after a turbulent week, but according to Toby the fluctuations weren’t the problem, the problem was that the high points and the low points were in the wrong places. My life was a mess, I was rudderless, confused, clearly unhappy; however, there was an answer. He further explained that the Church of Scientology could help me iron out these personality defects, with the assistance of vitamin water, the thousand-question audit, and motivated people like Toby.

After this little speech he began biting his nails and, when he thought I wasn’t looking, exploring his ear canal with the eraser on the top of the pencil.

When he began nibbling at the eraser I decided that as amusing as this all was, I’d had just about enough of it.

I was a serious person, here on serious business.

I gave him my card and heavy hit him with words like “dead Mexican” and “hit and run” and “intoxication” and “manslaughter” and “leaving the scene” of an accident.

He was already fragile, on edge. He began to simper and, sipping my vitamin water, confessed that he had been drunk the night of the golf cart incident, but he’d only been trying to drive from the Scientology Center on Pearl Steet to his apartment on Arapahoe, that there was no way he could get up the mountain, and in any case everyone had been given strict instructions to stay away from Mr. Cruise’s estate and not to invade his personal space. The sheriff’s department hadn’t cared.

Still, he groaned, he knew it was wrong to get drunk, it was weak, and if they found out that he’d been drinking he could get into big trouble. He wanted to talk about it but I’d had enough.

I assured him that his secret was safe with me, exited IV#2, and, forsaking forever my chance of being accomodated in Tom Cruise’s bunker when the aliens returned, walked back out into Fairview.

Within a minute I had dismissed Toby from my mind and had steered my trajectory back onto its proper course.

Got to eat. Call Esteban and eat.

The long road back.

The motel.

Upstairs, look for Paco.

A note: “Overtime! See you tonight!”

Stomach rumbling. Needed some food.

I had money left.

Paco said there was a good burrito place downtown on Logan Street. Good because it was too greasy for the white people and it was cheap.

Out again.

Sun, but a chill in the air, and a hundred meters from the motel Mr. New York Plates still there in a turning circle by the forest. Sipping a coffee, reading a Denver Post. Latino, bald, forty, chubby. Shifty-looking character, possibly an INS agent, possibly not.

I crossed the street.

“Good morning,” I said to him.

He pretended not to hear.

I tapped the glass.

Window down, paper down. “Yes?” he said in accentless American.

“Do you know the way to San Jose?” I asked.

He grimaced. “I’m a stranger here myself,” he said.

“A stranger in paradise, well, that’s ok. Have a nice day.”

The window whirred back up.

Now that he’s been made, I’ll never see him again, I thought with what turned out to be poor powers of prescience.

I walked down the hill.

I was wearing my third change of clothes of the day. Blue jeans, black shoes, a red blouse, and a raincoat Angela had left for some reason. Didn’t she watch the movies? All those Yuma flicks with Bogart, it’s always raining in L.A.

Main Street. Gray clouds. Few people about.

A family with kids. A gaggle of high-maintenance girlfriends buying apresski gear. Half a dozen individuals sitting outside Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee and Tea, some of them still defiantly in flip-flops and shorts.

They didn’t notice me.

I didn’t register them.

I did see Mr. New York Plates again, following me on foot.

An INS agent almost certainly-the FBI investigating a murder in the New Mexico desert would surely do a better job.

I found the intersection for the burrito place, turned the corner on Logan, and ducked down an alley.

Garbage cans, Dumpsters, squirrels.

I waited for Mr. New York Plates.

He passed by in a hurry.

I waited until he had turned at the next block and then I ran back up the hill to the Wetback Motel.

His Toyota was still there in the turning circle.

On my second day in the force Lieutenant Díaz showed me a trick with a coat hanger that can open practically every car on the planet. I’ve used it many times. But I didn’t have a coat hanger, and why not give the INS a little of their own back?

I picked up a log and smashed the passenger’s-side window, opened the door, looked inside the car.

A sleeping bag, McDonald’s wrappers, soda cans, a water bottle filled with urine. Nothing interesting until I found a digital camera in the glove compartment. I took it, slipped it in my coat pocket, and went back down the hill again.

Our paths did not cross as I had hoped they would.

I found the burrito place, ordered a beef fajita, and scanned through Mr. New York Plates’s photographic work on the digital’s tiny screen.

Pics of the motel, of trees, several of squirrels, of himself, and finally the jackpot: several shots of me, Esteban, Paco, and a few of the others.

Yeah-INS. Didn’t bother me but I’d have to warn Paco. He should have gone to L.A. If they deported him now he’d be back to square one again. Poor kid.

I ate the burrito and drank a warm Corona.

“You’re not good at this,” Mr. New York Plates said in Spanish.

I looked up.

“Not good at what?” I asked, attempting sangfroid.

He didn’t look angry, just tired. He put his hand out. I gave him the camera and he put it in his pocket.

“I like the ones of the squirrels best.”

“What else did you take?” he asked.

“Well, I was spoiled for choice: the bottle of urine or the McDonald’s wrappers?”

“Good day,” he said and turned to go.

“Wait. Who are you?” I asked.

“Me? I’m someone who doesn’t like to get dicked around by stupid fucking bitches!”

“I can’t imagine you get much opportunity if that’s an example of your small talk.”

He sighed. “You think you’re smart? We’ll see how smart you really are,” he said and walked out of the restaurant.

I didn’t think of a snappy comeback until he’d been gone five minutes. “I’m only smart in comparison to some.”

It was happy hour, so I ordered a Negra Modelo and considered him for a while, but I didn’t have enough information to work up many hypotheses. And besides, I had other tasks.

I found the phone Esteban had left for me.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” Esteban asked.

“María.”

“What’s up? You wanna borrow the car?”

I did want to borrow the car. I needed the car tonight, but that’s not why I was calling.

“No.”

“Good. Fucking walk to town. Fed up with people using my property for their personal convenience. You all have it easy. Twenty years ago you’d all have had to work for a living. Don’t know what I was thinking. Don’t even try it. I’ll have them check and see if it’s in use with the GPS. Same to everyone else-no one uses the car until I get back on Monday. Give them an inch they take a mile.”

“I haven’t used it at all.”

“Somebody’s been driving it. I’ve logged it. Abusing their privileges. Oh yeah, and what’s this I hear about you asking questions about some accident? Briggs left a crazy message on my voice mail.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What?”

“A private investigator’s been asking everyone questions about an incident that happened here in May. He’s been hired by the Mexican consulate in Denver. Apparently someone killed a Mexican on the Old Boulder Road and he noticed that your car was involved in an accident around then. He thinks you might be implicated somehow.”

I took the phone from my ear while Esteban threw out a complex series of curses involving the man’s mother and all sorts of unlikely forms of intercourse.

When he was finished I pressed home the point. “What should I tell him? He wants to have your car towed to a lab for a forensic examination.”

“My God, I leave town for one day and Briggs is going crazy and they’re towing my car? What the hell is happening out there?”

“Look, Don Esteban, it’s ok. I can handle this. He seems to be a little taken with me, but what should I tell him?”

“This is so fucked. I hit a deer. And that was a week before that accident. I was with Manuelito and Danny Ortega. We swiped an old doe. Jesus. And besides, everyone knows what happened to that dead Mex.”

“Oh-”

“Oh yeah, that’s no secret, one of our friends up the hill killed that poor bastard. Those fuckers. Briggs covered it up for them, I’ll bet my life on that.”

“One of the Hollywood people?”

“They can do anything they want in this town. That’s why we gotta squeeze a big tip outta them. Has anyone mentioned tips to you yet? Christmas isn’t far off.”

I ignored the sidetrack. “So I should I tell the investigator it was one of the Hollywood people?”

“No, no, don’t tell him anything. This isn’t our concern. Say nothing.”

“Ok.”

“But I know. Oh yeah, they think they can keep me out of the loop? That’s bullshit. Yeah, and just between you and me I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

“Who?”

“Well, I can’t say over the phone. It’s not exactly confidential formation. You remember him. He smashed up that big white Bentley. You know who I’m talking about? From the party? I think he’s one of the houses you clean. No big secret.”

Silence.

Youkilis.

And everybody knows.

And no one cares.

“Are you still there, María?”

“Yes.”

“You sweet-talk him, María, don’t let anyone touch my car. I’ll fucking kill them.”

“Ok.”

“Ok. Good. Hold the fort. I’ll be back. See you Monday.”

It wasn’t late. The room clock said nine but Paco was already asleep, exhausted from a day’s overtime.

I needed sleep too.

Quietly I stored my supplies in the backpack and wrote a quick note for Paco. It didn’t convey much of anything. “Paco, you’ve been more than a friend, but this next step belongs to me alone. If all goes well I will see you tomorrow before I take the bus to Mexico. If all does not go well, I want to thank you for everything. Love, María.”

I read it, reread it, thought of crumpling it, left it.

I laid out my clothes, the backpack, the keys to Esteban’s car.

I climbed under the sheet. Closed my eyes.

My head hurt. The wires were all fucked.

Next door a man stumbled in, drunk. He pushed his bed across the floor with an ugly screeching noise. He started to sing. Paco didn’t stir. Poor kid. I examined his face. The bruise on his cheek from New Mexico had turned yellow. He looked young, vulnerable. We were all vulnerable. We were all on the box here. Above the trapdoor.

Time went past without sleep choosing to descend.

I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to eleven.

Fuck this. Call Ricky. Talk to him.

The lobby. Deserted. Early for America but late Mex time. Everyone up since four digging ditches or removing brush or cleaning rooms or minding kids or making food.

I took out the calling card and rang him direct. Please be in, just this once, hermano.

“Ciao,” he said.

“Isn’t that goodbye?” I asked him.

“Honey, it’s you!”

“It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“Good… Listen, Ricky, I thought I would let you know, I’m going to try for it tonight.”

A pause. “Is it our boy?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes. You were spot on, Ricky. I’ve wasted enough time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t want to say over the phone.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

A longer pause. My phone card minutes being eaten up.

“I talked to Mom yesterday. She sent you a message,” he said at last.

“From Mother? There’s a message from Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you know how she is,” Ricky said sheepishly, preparing me for something about Yoruba gods or a warning about rapists or a request to pick up some oranges for Dad so he could sell them at the Pan American Games.

Ricky cleared his throat. “She says to tell you that she cast the fifty-second hexagram. You’re to study the fifty-second hexagram. I think it’s a reference to the I Ching.”

“Yeah. I know. Did Chinese my first year, remember?”

“Yeah.”

More silence, more talk without words.

“What happened to her, Ricky? Do you think it was Dad leaving or the time in jail?”

“Nah. It’s just one of those things.”

A voice in Ricky’s apartment asked him something. “Hold on,” Ricky hissed with his hand over the receiver.

Let him go. He can’t help. “I have to run. I love you, Ricky.”

“I love you too, big sis. Remember, you don’t have to do anything, you can just come home.”

“I know.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Bye.”

“Ciao.”

I hung up, looked at the phone. Ricky hadn’t helped. I didn’t feel validated. I felt worse. I felt bad and cheap, as if this whole thing was some monstrous vanity project. Jack and I weren’t that far apart. I should have seen it in the desert. Should have seen it before now.

The script fluttered in the wind: Mercado walks back to her room. Close-up on her face. She looks tired. She turns the door handle. The door creaks. She goes inside. The room is filled with moonlight…

Too slow. Skip to the end. Is that me walking on Malecón or am I on some slab in the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office?

The last page had been ripped out.

I sat on the bed. Good old Paco, still out for the count. A million TV ads for sleep aids in this country. You want a good night’s sleep? Work like a fucking Mexican.

I slipped between the sheets, set the alarm for two hours hence. Pulled the covers over my eyes and tried to get some z’s. After all, two hours was better than nothing and there was going to be an even longer day ahead.