In Big Trouble

Chapter 11

Hector's was not the type of place listed in the yellow pages, or in San Antonio's Chamber of Commerce magazine. But Mrs. Nguyen, embarrassed by her uncharacteristic lack of vigilance on Tess's behalf, called a cousin whose daughter had a friend who knew a guy who sometimes hung out with bikers. A family scandal, as it turned out, and Mrs. Nguyen was on the telephone for quite some time, clucking over the shame of it all, even as she passed keys to the La Casita regulars and kept one eye on her Mexican soap operas.

Finally, she rang off. "It's ice house, out in the country," she told Tess from her side of the bulletproof glass. "Way out Pleasanton Road."

"Ice house?" It was the second time today Tess had heard this strange term. The HEB clerk had claimed you could buy a phone card at one.

"Like package store, but with places to sit, maybe a pool table. But it's not a nice place, not for nice young lady."

"No problem. I'll just take my gun."

"Good idea," Mrs. Nguyen said, nodding vigorously, although she certainly never needed a gun. Her office was an impenetrable fortress-Mrs. Nguyen not only had the protection of the glass, but she slipped into a back room to make change or run credit card receipts, locking the door behind her.

"I was joking, Mrs. Nguyen."

"But you got gun, why not take it? Is legal here, to have guns. Except maybe not for you. And maybe not in bars. They usually have signs, saying no guns. But you take yours, and keep in car. Better safe than sorry."

At home, Tess had found it irritating when the people in her life-Kitty, Tyner, her parents-pulled this protective stuff. Here, she felt lonely without their scolding. She agreed to be careful.

A few miles south of Loop 410, San Antonio seemed to disappear, and darkness swallowed Tess's Toyota. And while the sky was crowded with stars, they provided no light. It was hard to believe there was anyone or anything outside the path of her headlights, much less some biker bar that turned its stage over to an avant-garde polka-bluegrass band at closing time. Then Hector's suddenly surfaced like a mirage from the shadowy, flat countryside.

It wasn't much to look at: a low cinderblock building dwarfed by an enormous patio outlined in Christmas lights. No sign, but it must be the place, judging by the mix of vehicles in the lot-a few motorcycles, mostly Harley-Davidsons; some banged-up, castoff family cars, the kind driven by college students; and a smattering of expensive foreign cars, which probably cost more than Tess made in a year. Someone was slumming, she thought. What was the point of having money if you couldn't lord over people who didn't?

She checked her watch. It was a few minutes shy of 2, and customers were lined up along one end of the patio, at a long waist-high refrigeration case on wheels. A portable bar.

"Still serving?" she asked when her turn finally came. The bartender was an older man with thick, long sideburns that had probably cycled in and out of fashion several times over the years he had worn them.

"Sure," he said, unscrewing the cap on a generic cola and pushing it toward her, then pocketing the five dollars she handed him.

"No change?"

"Monopolies are a bitch, ain't they?"

"Don't gouge, Sam," a woman's clear voice cut in. "Either give her some change, or give her a beer."

"She with you, Kris?" The bartender sounded contrite. "Sorry, I didn't know. I thought she was one of those new kids who keeps showing up, ever since the band got written up in the Eagle." He exchanged the cola for something called a Shiner Bock. "Any friend of yours and Rick's is a friend of mine."

He moved to the end of the bar, to wait on another customer. Tess noticed he was pulling the beers from plastic coolers, not the metal ones built beneath the portable bar, and taking only cash, no credit cards.

"Loophole in the liquor law," explained her defender. "After two Hector's is a private social club, for members only. If Sam doesn't know you, he won't sell to you."

"So am I member now?"

"Yeah, that's why you didn't get any change from your five dollars. Beer is two dollars a bottle, and you can get set-ups-cokes, ginger ales, tonic-for a dollar. There's also food, although this isn't much of an eating crowd. Just bags of chips and pork rinds, and fresh tamales when Sam's wife gets inspired."

Her newfound friend was a blond, perhaps twenty-five, in an embroidered white blouse and dangling silver earrings. The costume was clearly meant to be Mexican, but on this milk-fed, apple-cheeked girl, the effect was more St. Pauli girl on her night off.

"Well, thanks," said Tess, who was unused to the kindness of strangers. "You made this out-of-towner feel pretty welcome. I'm Tess Monaghan."

"Kristina Johanssen," the girl said, thrusting out her hand. "Hector's can be pretty overwhelming on first visit. But you're in for a treat. How did you hear about Las Almas Perdidas?"

It took Tess a beat to recall this was yet another name for Crow's band. "Actually, I go pretty far back with them. The guy-Ed-used to be in a band up in Baltimore, Poe White Trash."

"You know Ed Ransome?" Kris asked breathlessly. "Really know him?"

"We worked together in my aunt's bookstore-"

"Too cool. Enrique-" Kris grabbed Tess's hand in hers, which was warm and sweaty as a little girl's, and all but dragged her to a nearby table, where a tall, bored-looking man sat. He was as dark as she was fair, and wore clothes that looked more suitable for a country club dance-white shirt, blazer, khakis. "Enrique, this woman knows Ed Ransome."

"Try not to get so carried away, sweetheart." Enrique's drawl was a surprise, the first genuinely Texan accent Tess had heard. It didn't seem to belong with the flan-colored skin and the Aztec warrior profile. "It's not like he's Willie Nelson or Merle Haggard. Hell, he's not even Freddie Fender."

"Oh, Enrique." While Kristina's vowel sounds were Midwestern flat, she trilled the R in her beloved's name with admirable skill. "You and that country music. Just my luck to finally find a Mexican boyfriend, only to discover he has the soul of LBJ."

"I think of myself more in the Kennedy mode, darlin'," he said, stretching out his long legs. His studied preppiness ended at his feet, where he wore well-shined black cowboy boots instead of tassel loafers. "Handsome, charismatic, great political future, women falling over me."

Kristina snorted. "You're more likely to defend a Kennedy than be one."

"I can only hope one of them runs afoul of the law in Bexar County," he replied placidly. "The case probably won't be as challenging as some of the capital murder cases I've tried, but then the check won't bounce, either."

Kris turned back to Tess. "This is my boyfriend, Enrique Trejo. I'd like to say he's usually not this obnoxious, but the fact is, he's a much bigger cabron most of the time. That means asshole."

"Rick Trejo," he said, holding his hand out to Tess. "And as long as we're having this little Spanish lesson, I wish I could introduce Kristina as mi novia, my betrothed, which sounds far more elegant than girlfriend or old lady, but she keeps refusing my pleas to make her an honest woman."

"Enrique." Kristina punched him on the arm-not some little fake girl punch, but a good, solid thump. "Don't involve strangers in our private life."

"Excuse me, but who brought this woman over to me? Miss, Miss-what is your name?"

"Tess Monaghan."

"Miss Monaghan, can you imagine why any woman in her right mind wouldn't marry me? I'm an attorney-"

"Well, there's one reason," Tess said.

"I'll ignore that. Lawyer jokes demean only those who tell them. As I said, I'm an attorney, with a thriving practice and the best winning streak of any criminal lawyer in the county. I'm handsome. Not being vain, just stating the facts of life as my mother has explained them to me."

"She does," Kristina put in. "She almost swoons every time he stops by. ‘Oh Ricky, que guapo.' She calls me la flaquita-the little skinny one. And I'm not even skinny by most people's standards. She thinks he can do much better than some Wisconsin gringa."

"And yet I don't want to do better," Rick said, pulling Kristina into his lap. "I'd settle for you, sweetheart. So what do you say? Say yes right now, and I'll let you have this goddamn punk conjunto music at the reception and you can walk down the aisle in one of those stupid Oaxacan dresses you love so much. I'll wear a guayabera, I'll let you fill our house with crap from your gallery. But you have to say yes right now."

"Shhh." She clamped a hand over his mouth, but she was laughing. Tess had never seen a more mismatched couple, or a happier one. "They're about to start."

The band emerged from the building at the edge of the vast patio. They had shucked their eighties costumes from the Morgue, and their eighties ennui along with it. This was an inspired, revved-up group, and the audience fed its energy. Emmie was right-the accordion, as wielded by the keyboard player, reinvented old songs and made the new ones soar. Tess felt a strange surge of pride, watching the couples get up to dance, hearing the slap of tapping feet on the poured concrete floor. Poe White Trash had never been this good. Crow had found his muse in Texas. Or in Emmie.

For she was the one everyone watched. She wasn't holding anything back and her full voice proved a huge, powerful thing with a life of its own. Tess finally understood why the voice was spoken of as an instrument. This was a separate entity that happened to live inside Emmie. As the set progressed, the voice seemed to grow stronger and stronger, while Emmie looked frailer. Her voice was like an incubus, drawing all the strength from her and she surrendered to it gladly, joyously.

After a fast thirty-minute set, the band broke, and while Crow disappeared inside Hector's, Emmie mingled with the crowd. With the men in the crowd, at any rate, flitting from table to table, bumming smokes from surly biker types. The surlier, the better.

Tess spotted the same moon-faced security guard from the Morgue, puppy eyes fixed on Emmie. He had it bad, she could tell-his dark skin was flushed with his yearning, his eyes had the same fixity of purpose that Esskay brought to a biscuit. Tess caught his eye and, feeling sorry for anyone lost in such a hopeless crush, waved for him to join them. He hesitated, then starteu walking over, keeping his gaze on Emmie as long as possible.

"Tess Monaghan," she reminded him. "I saw you last night."

"Steve," he said, stopping as if he smelled something very bad, then jerking his chin toward Rick Trejo. "I didn't know you were with him."

"We just met. They kept the bartender from gouging me for a generic cola."

"Yeah, Mr. Trejo is a real stickler for legal technicalities. It's the big issues he's not so good on. I gotta get back to work. Enjoy the rest of the show." And he shouldered his way back through the crowd, until he was back at his post near the stage.

"What was that about?"

"He's a cop," Rick said. "Steve Villanueve."

"A rent-a-cop, you mean. I met him at another club last night."

"No, he's a city patrolman. A lot of them do security work for extra dough. Mr. Villanueve is a good cop, but he's young, and he takes things personally. A guy he pulled over for speeding last year ended up getting popped in a sexual assault. It's not my fault the judge threw out the case when he found out the victim had seen the suspect on television before the police brought her in to see a line-up."

"He raped a woman," Kristina said, her voice small and tight.

"He was suspected of raping a woman. Hey, I did it pro bono, sweetheart. Doesn't that make me a good guy?"

"He got arrested two months later for another attack."

"The band's starting," Rick said, his tone resigned. The happy couple suddenly seemed less happy. "Let's just listen to the music, okay?"

While the first set had been revved up and fun, a dancing set, Las Almas Perdidas was quieter and more contemplative this time around. Music to go to bed by, and you could define that anyway you wanted. These songs were slow, bittersweet. They could put you in the mood to grab a stranger, but they also provided a suitable soundtrack for going home alone.

After five songs, Crow spoke from the stage. His face was flushed from exertion, his voice ripe with what could only be called pride. No wonder he and Emmie phoned it in at the Morgue, Tess thought. They were saving their energy for their real music.

"We're going to close with something a little different, but give it a chance," he said. "We call this medley Sondheim con salsa."

He didn't even like the Broadway composer, Tess recalled, a little miffed. Sondheim was her passion, and Crow had often mocked her for it, damning it as too clever, the kind of music where the smart lyrics were there to form a barrier between the listener and the composer. Of all the things Crow might have carried out of the burning house of their relationship, Sondheim would have been her last pick.

Maybe it was intended as parody instead of tribute. The medley Crow had concocted drew on the considerable number of songs Sondheim had written for those on the verge of a nervous breakdown, thanks to love. "You Could Drive a Person Crazy." "Losing My Mind." "Not a Day Goes By." Was he making fun of the words by setting them to these new rhythms? No, with the help of Emmie's heartrending voice, he was making them sadder still. Especially on the last, "Every Day a Little Death"-a song about surviving betrayal in a marriage. But the song could have been about any broken relationship, with its incantatory accounting of how lost love turns up everywhere in one's life. In buttons, in bread. In a sweater the color of sauteed mushrooms. In a greyhound's breath. In a bagel. In a neon Domino's sugar sign, blazing red across the harbor. No, that had belonged to her and Jonathan.

Tess wanted to turn away, embarrassed by the nakedness of Emmie's yearning, but it was impossible to take one's eyes from her face. As she rasped out the final words, her head dropped and her knees buckled a little, and it appeared she might faint. Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw Steve start to move toward the stage. Crow was watching, too, but he didn't seem quite as concerned. Another second passed, and Emmie lifted her head, blew a kiss to the audience, and waved good night.

The patio lights came up and the audience erupted into a standing ovation. Without thinking, Tess jumped to her feet with the others, managing to upset the small metal table at which they sat. The resounding crash seemed to echo forever across the patio, and the people in the audience ducked reflexively. The sound of an overturned table was not unknown at Hector's, Tess thought, although it probably signaled the beginning for a fight, not some dumb woman's clumsiness. She was now the center of attention, and when Crow saw her, a smile broke over his face-a sunny, guilt-free grin, as if he had no memory of the trick he had played on her just that afternoon. He put down his guitar and the crowd parted, allowing him to walk straight to her.

"You're still here," he said.

"Evidently."

"You didn't rat me out, did you? You didn't tell my parents where I was?"

Maybe that was all he had wanted to know. But what in her motel room could have told him that?

"No," she said. "I made sure they know you're okay, but I didn't tell them anything else. You asked for seven days. You've got it."

"So why are you still here?"

Good question. One of the big questions, as Emmie might have pointed out. Why was she here? Tess had thought she was staying because she didn't trust Crow to stop running, and because she needed to know what he was running from, and if it had any connection to the death of some ex-felon named Tom Darden.

So why was she at Hector's? Because Crow had searched her room, because Emmie had dropped enough hints. Maybe Crow had wanted her here, so she would know that he wasn't spending his life cranking out bad music in some tourist trap. Why was anyone anywhere? It was past three A.M., and she had been up for almost twenty-one hours and she was fresh out of answers for even the easiest questions. She only knew she was standing in a little circle of light in the middle of some vast darkness, and Crow was grinning at her as if she had passed some test. She wondered what it was.

"You want breakfast?" he asked. "I could probably find a place where you can get two bagels, toasted, one with cream cheese and one without. And I'll make sure the waitress keeps your coffee cup filled to the brim, although she's more likely to call you honey than hon. But it would still be your usual, just like back in Jimmy's."

Finally, a question she could answer.

"I don't want my usual. I've driven sixteen hundred miles, crossed five state lines, and entered a new time zone. I want something I've never had before, in a place I've never been before."

Crow smiled. "I think that can be arranged."