Thin Air

There were entwined snakes tattooed on the bartender's forearms. When he took the bottle of tequila off the shelf behind him and poured us two shots, the muscle movement in his forearms made the snakes move. He put the bottle back and bent over, rinsing some glasses in the sink beneath the bar. I took a sip. It was the worst stuff I ever drank. Especially in the forenoon. Chollo took a sip of the tequila. His face remained expressionless. He said something to the bartender. The bartender didn't bother to look up when he answered. Chollo translated.

"He says we do not have to drink it."

"What did you tell him?" I said.

"I told him his horse had kidney trouble," Chollo answered.

There were two men sitting with a woman, all of them Hispanic, at a table close to the bar. The rest of the bar was empty.

"I'd like to speak with Freddie Santiago," I said to the bartender.

He looked up briefly from his rinsing and looked at me without speaking. He had small eyes, made smaller by the puffiness around them. Some of the puffiness was age, and probably booze, some of it was scar tissue. Then he looked back at the sink. Two young Hispanic men in workclothes came in the room and walked straight to the bar. The bartender straightened and went down the bar to talk with them. There was a short conversation. They gave him cash. He took an envelope from under the bar and handed it to them. They left without looking at anyone. The bartender came back down the bar.

"Green cards?" I said pleasantly, being chatty.

The bartender rang the money into the cash register without paying any attention to me.

"Green cards," Chollo said.

A tall gray-haired guy in rimless glasses came out of the door at the end of the bar. He had on a three-piece blue suit. He looked at us for a while and then strolled down the bar. He spoke to Chollo in Spanish. Chollo nodded at me.

"You're looking to speak to Freddie?" the gray haired man said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm looking for an Anglo woman who might be with a guy named Luis Deleon in Proctor."

"So?"

"A cop and a priest both told me that Freddie Santiago was the Man in Proctor."

"True."

"I want his help."

"And what does Freddie get?"

I shrugged.

"I'll discuss it with Freddie," I said.

The gray-haired man looked over at Chollo again. Chollo was leaning on the bar, watching the interaction of the two men with the woman at the table near us. He looked like he was having trouble staying awake. The gray-haired man nodded to himself and turned without saying anything else and went back through the door at the end of the bar.

We waited. The two shots of what might have been tequila sat in their glasses on the bar. We were brave, but we weren't suicidal. At the table near us the woman stood and went toward the ladies' room. The two men leaned forward and talked animatedly, their heads close together while she was gone.

A group of eight teenaged boys came in. They were Anglo and all of them underaged. Two of them wore green and gold Merrimack State warmup jackets. One of them, a heavy kid, strong and fat, who probably played football, yelled to the bartender.

"Hey Dolly, beer, huh? All around."

The bartender began popping the caps off brown beer bottles and placing them on the bar. No glasses. The kids came over to get them. The bottles had no labels on them.

"Ten dollars," the bartender said.

"Why don't we run a tab, Dolly? You don't trust us?"

"Ten dollars."

The fat kid gri

"All the time we come here, Dolly. All the fucking good times, and you don't trust us."

Dolly took the ten-spot off the bar and rang it into the cash register and leaned against the back of the bar looking impassively at the kid.

"Laugh a minute, Dolly," the kid said and turned and swaggered back to his table.

Toughest kid on the football team, probably. It would have taken Dolly maybe fifteen seconds to put him in the hospital. The gray-haired man appeared at the doorway at the end of the bar. He said something to Dolly, who came down the bar to us.

"There," he said and gestured with his head toward the doorway.

Through the doorway was a big office, wainscotted in dark oak, the walls painted forest green. Along the back wall was a dark oak bookcase lined with hardcover books. I could see the complete works of Booth Tarkington and Mark Twain among others. There were some minions in the room, probably bodyguards, but the central figure was the middle-sized guy who sat behind a big Victorian library table, his hands folded quietly before him on the green leather table top. He was a trim man in a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt, and a silver silk tie. There was a silvery silk handkerchief in his display pocket. His clothes fit him well. His nails were manicured. His dark face was leathery and pitted as if from a childhood illness. His nose was prominent. There were deep grooves ru

The gray-haired man said something in Spanish. Chollo translated for me.

"They are both wearing weapons, Chief."

"I understand the word `Jefe,"' I said.

"Hell," Chollo said. "What do you need me for?"

"Let them keep the guns," Santiago said. He was looking at Chollo.

He spoke to Chollo in Spanish.

Chollo translated, "Who are you?" and answered in Spanish.

Santiago nodded.

"It will save us time," he said, "if we all speak English. You are Mexican, I can tell by the accent."

"Si," Chollo said. "East LA."

"Had you been from around here," Santiago said, "I would have known you."

He looked at me without moving his head. "And you?"

"Name is Spenser," I said. "I'm looking for a woman named Lisa St. Claire. She's missing. I heard she might be in Proctor with a guy named Luis Deleon."

"And you wish my help?"

"Yeah."

Besides Santiago and the guy with the gray hair, there were three other Hispanic men leaning on various walls of the room looking deadly and scornful, like a bunch of extras in a George Raft movie. In fact, the whole place had a kind of theatrical quality, as if it had been designed specifically as a dangerous gangster office. Freddie Santiago didn't take himself lightly.

"Why do you think she is with Deleon?"

"He is apparently her former boyfriend. There is a message on her answering machine the day she disappeared from a man who might have an Hispanic accent. He says he'll stop by."

"That's all?"

"They say the romance was a hot one."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"You think that's enough reason to come poking your Anglo nose into my city?"

"It's more reason than I've got to poke it anywhere else."

Santiago smiled briefly.

"What will you do if you find her?" he said.

"That'll depend on her circumstances. First I'll find her."

"And her husband? Where is he?"

"Somebody shot him."

"Dead?"

"Almost."

"And this young man?" Santiago nodded at Chollo.

"My translator."

"And valet, perhaps? Does he lick your Anglo boots clean as well?"

Neither Chollo's voice, nor his face, showed any expression.

"You should be careful, Senor, of your mouth," he said gently.