The Body of Martin Aguilera

Chapter Twenty-one

Lewis checked his mirror as he drove through town and saw no van nor sign of anyone else following him. He parked in the grocery store parking lot, walked across the street and into a mineral and gem shop and exited through the back door. He crossed a vacant lot and was on the dirt road that went to the Episcopal church. He walked via backroads toward the plaza, realizing just how visible a six-foot, sixty-six-year-old, black man was in these parts. He found his way to the alley that ran behind the House of Boots. The back door was open and so he walked in.

He went to the curtain and looked at the room full of customers. A woman with a massive blonde hairdo was having her pre-school son try on fifty dollar snake-skin boots. A very large man had a peculiar, high voice and he was saying the boots in question were too tight. Salvador was sitting on a stool, his back to the store room, helping a couple of homosexual men in leather pants.

Salvador’s daughter Gloria was helping the mother and the very large man. She was a pretty young woman, a little heavy, but she bore her weight well. She wore a lot of makeup on her eyes. She saw Lewis.

Lewis smiled and waved at her.

“What are you doing there?” she asked.

Salvador turned around.

“I need to talk to your father,” Lewis told her. “Salvador?”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” the old man said. He let his daughter know it was okay.

“Estos son — son.” One of the homosexual men searched for a word, standing on a thick-heeled boot.

Salvador helped him. “Corto? Apretado?”

“Which one means tight?” the man asked.

“Apretado,” Salvador said.

“Apre-tado,” the gay man said proudly, smiled at his friend. “Estos son apre-tado.”

Salvador said in English, “Would you like to try the next size up?”

“Please.”

Salvador got up and walked to the store room. He let the curtain down over the doorway behind him.

“I’m really sorry to bother you, Salvador, but I can’t help it. Please don’t be upset with me. I need Martin’s body.”

Salvador looked as if he wanted to run from his own store. He was terrified. “I cannot talk of this,” he said.

“Another life is at stake. We have to.”

Salvador turned away and studied a wall of boxes in the dim room. “I do not hear what you’re saying to me. Please, Lewis, leave now.”

“They’ve kidnapped my friend Maggie. I don’t know if you know Maggie Okada. She’s Japanese, short, about sixty. Oh, forget this—” Lewis stopped, and sighed a frown. “Salvador, I’ve been told that if I don’t turn over Martin’s body, they will kill her.”

Salvador sniffed.

Lewis turned away, then back. He thought Salvador was crying. He felt sick and guilty. He was breaking his word to this man. “I need your help, Salvador.”

Gloria pulled back the curtain and looked at Lewis and her father. “Que le ocurre?”

“Nada.” Lewis waved her back onto the floor.

The woman gave Lewis a threatening stare before going back to the customers.

“Please, Salvador.”

“I will not discuss this with you. Find Ignacio. He is a young man with a strong heart and he can talk to you. I am too old, too close to death. Please, just find Ignacio.”

“Okay, Salvador. You relax. Forget I was here.” Lewis was sure the man was crying now. “I wasn’t here, all right?”

Lewis left. He didn’t know where to find Ignacio. Had it been the evening he could have gone to the Best Western and asked Ernesto. He remembered that Ignacio for a while lived in Arroyo Azul.

He made his way back to his truck. It was already noon. The sun was high and it was hot. He longed to be up on the mountain. He wondered if all of this would go away if he just ignored it.

He pulled from the parking lot and drove north out of town, then east to Arroyo Azul. The land was beautiful out there, a small valley green and dotted with little places. Whites hadn’t moved into it yet because they were afraid of the Mexicans who were poor and who drove low-riders and played their music loud.

Lewis stopped in front of an adobe house with two junk cars on blocks beside it. An old sway-backed horse was tied to a tree with a rope around its neck. The horse looked up from its nibbling at the grass when Lewis pulled up, then put its head down again. A man was haying a field across the road. Lewis thought he had the right house. He knocked on the door.

A dog barked, then appeared, running full speed round the corner of the house. It was a Doberman and Lewis was not pleased to see him.

“Nice boy,” Lewis said.

The dog stood in the yard, between Lewis and his car, and barked, standing tense and ready. Lewis knocked again.

A teenage girl opened the door. She was pulling a robe closed about her small body.

“Does Ignacio Nunez live here?” Lewis asked.

The girl was groggy from sleep. “Yes, but he’s not here.”

Lewis looked at her face. “Are you Ignacio’s wife?” he asked, though he didn’t believe it.

The girl laughed. “He’s my father,” she said and she tilted her head down and looked up at him in that teenager way.

“Do you know where your father is right now?”

“At work.”

“Can you tell me where he’s working?”

She leaned against the door and rubbed her temple. “He’s—” She thought while she spoke. “—putting a roof on a barn. That’s what he told me.”

“Where?”

She sighed. “I think he’s over at San Luis. A man named Rubens, something like that.”

“Thank you,” Lewis said. “You have a very good memory.”

The girl smiled weakly, unimpressed by the flattery, and started to close the door.

“Could you call your dog?” Lewis asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Mala.” The dog ran by Lewis and into the house. She closed the door without another word or look.

Mala, Lewis thought as he got into his truck, Spanish for bad. He wanted to get Mala the dog and take it to see Doctor Peabody.

Lewis knew the Rubens place. It was a small ranch. He drove by pastured cattle with yellow ear-tags. Calves trotted after their mothers. Lewis could see where men were working on a barn.

Ignacio was on top, trying to line up a new piece of tin against an old seam. Lewis waved up to him, but Ignacio didn’t wave back. He did not seem pleased to see Lewis.

Ignacio scooted across the roof to the ladder and climbed down. “Hello, Lewis,” he said. “What brings you out here?”

“I’m looking for you.”

“Yes?” Ignacio unhitched his leather tool belt and let it rest over the side of the pickup bed.

Lewis let out a deep breath. “I don’t even know how to start this.”

Ignacio looked at him and seemed to anticipate the subject. “Then don’t,” he said and he turned away just as Salvador had.

“My friend Maggie has been kidnapped. I know how this sounds. I don’t really believe it myself, but it’s true. She’s been taken.”

“By who? Who took her?” Ignacio turned and faced him.

Lewis shook his head. “Ignacio, I don’t know who they are.” He felt a tear on his cheek. Ignacio was staring at it. “They want Martin’s body.”

Again, Ignacio turned away.

“I talked to Salvador and he sent me to talk to you. I’m so sorry. I’m sick about it. If there was any other way, I wouldn’t be here.”

“We let you see Martin and you said that would be it.”

“I know. What can I say? They say they’ll kill her, if I don’t give them the body.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Ignacio.”

“I can’t even talk about it.”

Lewis was sick of begging. “Fine, Ignacio, great. Save your soul by not talking about the dead, but be damned for letting someone die. Think about it.”

Ignacio said nothing, picked up his tool belt and fastened it around his waist. He was looking at the ground as he turned away.

“One other thing,” Lewis said. “Maybe you can do this.”

Ignacio looked at him.

“Switch trucks with me. Mine has a full tank and I’ll fill yours.”

“Keys are in it.”

Lewis thanked him. He took the beat up truck and drove to town and out the other side. Since it didn’t look like he was going to get Martin’s body, he decided to try the state police.