Summer Cool

21

The address turned out to be a jewelry store on the edge of Tucson, an ornate little house at the end of a cluster of houses that stood out because there was a sign over the front door that said, “Enrique Quinones, Jeweler,” and because the house itself was painted turquoise blue. The trim was painted in silver, which made the place look like a large, square piece of Indian jewelry.

When Paine asked for Quinones inside, saying, "Bob Petty sent me," the woman he asked, a walking advertisement for the place, with black hair pulled back and knotted, dark skin, almond eyes, Indian turquoise jewelry around her neck and on her ears and hands, said, "Sure, wait a minute," and went into the back. Paine stood in what should have been the living room, but which had been turned into a showroom, with glass cases, wall shelves with fluorescent lighting above them, a counter with a cash register, Navajo rugs on the floor. Easy listening music floated out from speakers behind the counter. An air conditioner purred softly in one window. Paine smelled Chinese food cooking somewhere in the back of the house.

Quinones came out, holding a.44 Magnum at arm's length pointed at Paine. "Into the back," he said.

Paine went in front of him, down a short hallway past the kitchen, where the saleswoman stood in the doorway looking at the two of them with alarm. Behind her, on the stove, a wok loaded with vegetables steamed.

"Go out front, Maria, and take care of things," Quinones said.

"But-"

"Just go."

She went, slowly, looking back at them.

"Keep walking," Quinones said to Paine.

They passed a bathroom, a closed door, a linen closet. At the end of the hallway was an open door into a dim room and Quinones pushed Paine ahead of him into it.

There was a chair by the far window, and Quinones turned Paine, frisked him, and then sat him down in it. "Don't move your hands," he said. "Keep them on your lap or I'll blow your head off."

Paine said, "You like Chinese food?"

"Shut up," Quinones said, and then he jerked his hand forward, raising the butt of the Magnum, and hit Paine hard on the side of the head.

When Paine came back, he heard voices. He was on a low cot or mattress on the floor, on his side, his hands tied behind him, trussed to his bound feet. It was almost dark. The side of his head he had been hit on faced the mattress, and it hurt.

Someone snapped a light on in the next room, and Paine saw the outline of light around the door. He heard voices though the door, muffled but audible.

"Why don't you just go away?" Quinones was saying. He sounded scared.

There was a laugh, which sounded like Bob Petty's. "Sure," was Petty's reply.

"I don't like it," Quinones said.

Petty laughed again, a sardonic sound. "What choice do you have? You always were piss-kneed, Quinones."

"That was all so long ago. .

"To me, it seems like yesterday."

"I just want it all to go away."

"That's not an option, Quinones."

"Please-"

"Just do what I say."

"Tiny-"

Petty's voice grew angry. "Shut up."

"What about your friend?"

"I'll take care of that."

The two voices stopped. Paine heard footsteps approaching his door. A key rattled metallically in the lock, and the door opened. An outline stood there, in front of weak light. The door closed, leaving Paine and the figure in the darkness.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you, Jack?"

"You taught me, Bobby."

"Maybe I did."

Paine heard Petty feeling along the wall, and then a low-wattage light came on across the room. Everything looked sour yellow.

Petty came and stood over him. He was big and square, and looked more solid than ever. The sleeves of his shirt, a dark green one unlike the ones Paine had found in his closet, were rolled up. He leaned down closer and Paine tried to look into his eyes. In the bad light it was like looking into a face of stone. The eyes were like flat marble in a marble face.

"I hope you quit after this, Jack," Petty said flatly, and then he hit Paine in the face with the hard front of his fist and then hit him again.

Paine tried to move, to get out of the way of the blows, but there was nowhere to go. Petty hit him expertly in the face and the ribs and kidneys. Paine felt like a slab of meat on a butcher's table. After a while, to dull the hurt, he tried to detach his mind, to think of himself as a dead block of meat that he was examining from a distance.

Petty didn't speak, but went about his work methodically. After what seemed like days, from a receding place, Paine heard Petty grunting with exertion. Paine's left eye was nearly closed, but he looked up and saw that Petty was sweating. Petty paused for a moment to catch his breath before going to work again.

After what must have been years, Paine saw that the piece of meat on the butcher's block that was himself was in very bad shape, and he could no longer detach himself from that poor slab of beef and it became himself again and he heard himself cry out with each blow.

And then Petty stopped his work, and the heaving catch of breath and the crying that Paine had become was the only sound in the room, until he heard Petty say flatly, "I hope you realize I mean it now, Jack," before the room and the world got very dark and went away.

When Paine came back to consciousness there was a hint of light in the room from the next door. Daylight, perhaps, or a light on in a farther room. Paine managed to turn himself on the bed. His head, his body, hurt terribly. He lay on the mattress for a few moments, willing the throb in the slab of meat that was his body to subside, and finally it did to the point where he could move.

He tried to move into a sitting position but could not. Instead, he arched his back, grabbing his feet with his hands, and began to explore the knot Quinones had made.

It was good, but if he had remembered better, he would have put another loop into the truss that would have made it impossible for Paine to get out of it. But he didn't do that, and after a while Paine had loosened one noose around one foot enough to slip the foot out. The other foot followed. Fifteen more minutes and he had loosened his hands and rubbed blood back into them.

He sat up on the bed.

His body began to throb again. He sat perfectly still, letting the ache do its work.

Finally, he stood, again letting his head have its way, and walked to the door.

It was locked, but it was a cheap bathroom lock and a half minute with his penknife released it.

He eased the door open.

There was still night darkness in the house. The light came through an open door at the far end of the room he had entered. It was a storage room, boxes of silver chains and clasps, plastic bags of turquoise stones. Boxes filled with white cardboard gift boxes.

Paine went into the outer room, slowly, delicately, painfully.

He was in the cellar of the house. Basement windows showed blackness from outside. There was a workshop, a lathe, a drill press, racks of jewelers' tools on pegboards hung on the walls. A single overhead bulb with a pull chain was on by the stairs.

Paine stepped on the stairs and smelled blood.

The door was open at the top; Paine saw more light in a hallway. As he approached the top the smell of blood was very strong.

An arm lay on the floor across the opening into the cellar, the hand palm up. It wasn't attached to anything.

Paine stepped over it, and saw that the hallway was littered with human limbs.

He found their heads in the living room of the house, the showroom. They were on the sales counter by the cash register, facing one another. The woman's long black hair had been carefully curled around the neck; her earrings did not dangle, two long ovals of turquoise on silver hangers resting on the counter. Quinones's head regarded her; it looked as though his left eye were staring at her earrings.

Paine went to the front door. It was open, warm desert night air filtering into the shop. The moon was up, waxing toward full_; the outside world looked nearly as dreamlike as the inside of the jewelry store.

Perhaps because it all looked like a dream, or perhaps because he was getting used to it, or getting angry, this time Paine did not vomit.