We got into my Toyota and headed east a block on Abundance Boulevard. There wasn’t much in Morada, but fortunately, the town had a liquor store, they weren’t that backward. I stopped on the curb outside the store and gave Shawna a twenty and a ten.
“Any good vodka.” I had to qualify that. “Make sure it doesn’t look like lighter fluid.”
Shawna flashed teeth the color of buffed porcelain and went inside. I took out my contacts and did a sweep of the street and traffic. Nothing suspicious. I put my contacts in.
Shawna came back carrying a paper bag. “I got Grey Goose. A bottle of tonic. A lemon. Some ginger ale.”
“Where to?”
She aimed a long fingernail down the street. We passed the traffic light when she told me to slow down. “It’s on the left.”
A lighted plastic sign outlined with flickering bulbs announced DeLuxe Restaurant Motel. Shawna said to park behind the restaurant.
The DeLuxe was an old motor court with a ground-in smell of cooking oil and wet garbage. Small rooms faced the compact asphalt square of a parking lot. Floodlights at the corners of the eaves didn’t do much except make the shadows appear that much darker. Pickups with rifle racks in the cabs were nestled in the carports between rooms. Every bumper had an NRA sticker.
Shawna directed me to an empty spot at the right corner. It didn’t surprise me that when Shawna got out, she already had a plastic key tag in her hand. It also wouldn’t surprise me if she knew my name as well.
“You always this prepared?” I asked.
“Oh, honey,” she replied, “me and the owners go way back.”
Shawna set the bag with the liquor and goodies on the doormat next to a Folgers coffee can containing kitty litter and cigarette butts. After unlocking the doorknob, she twisted the key into the deadbolt and grabbed the doorknob. She jiggled the key and thumped her shoulder against the door until it opened.
She flicked on the room lights.
I opened my coat and waited by my Toyota, convinced this was a setup. But I detected nothing. Even my sixth sense drew a blank.
I grabbed my backpack and entered the room. The place smelled like the bottom layer of a neglected laundry basket. Shawna put the Grey Goose, tonic, and ginger ale next to plastic disposable cups on the dresser. I nudged the door shut with my foot.
I set my backpack on a card table covered with green contact paper. A placard on the wall above the table admonished:
ABSOLUTELY NO COOKING OF ANY KIND IN THE ROOM.
NO HOT PLATES. NO CAMPING STOVES. NO STERNO.
NO SMOKING. NO CANDLES. NO INCENSE.
NO DRESSING OF GAME IN THE BATHTUB.
PLEEZ UNLOAD GUNS BEFORE CLEANING.
Bullet holes punctuated the last warning.
Shawna grabbed a small plastic tub from the dresser and offered it to me. “We need ice. Go to the back door of the kitchen and ask for some.”
I walked past her to check the bathroom. “You get it.”
Shawna shrugged, took the bucket, and left.
No one waited behind the bathtub curtain. The bathroom window faced a cinderblock wall on the other side of a narrow alley. Steel bars covered the window.
The bed was a couple of twins pushed together. Duct tape held the legs tight. Underneath I found a roach clip, a knee-high stocking, a couple of .270 rifle cartridges, and a copy of the Alamosa Valley Courier. The paper was from two days ago. The headline of a front-page article read: “Local Business Owner Missing.”
Someone else had disappeared?
A quick glance told me that the business owner was the latest of area residents who had vanished. The article mentioned a loving wife and family and, only as an aside, introduced a gambling problem and debts.
Yet another zombie recruit?
I left the newspaper under the bed. I stuck my pistol in a pocket of my barn coat and laid the coat over the back of an unraveling wicker chair. I took off my boots and socks. I stood barefoot on the carpet, closed my eyes, and calmed my senses, making myself aware of all sensations, from the texture of the carpet against the bottom of my feet to the drum of air inside my ears. My mind was a smooth pool of water and every disturbance rippled across its surface.
There was the rumble of traffic on the boulevard. I heard television programs from the adjacent rooms. A radio tuned to a sports call-in show. The creak of a rusty hinge. Phone calls.
Steps approached the door. The quick steps belonging to a woman.
I pulled myself from the trance just as Shawna shoved the door open. The cascade of outside air chilled my feet.
She came in and put the bucket and ice on the dresser. She moved her shoulders and hips to a tune only she could hear. “Let’s start the party.”
I locked the front door behind her.
Shawna unsnapped her jacket and tossed it over the foot of the bed. “You never told me your name.”
Details. As if she didn’t know.
“Felix Gomez.” I dropped ice into cups.
“Nice name, Felix. Like the cat.”
“So I’ve heard.” I made vodka tonics with twists of lemon.
Shawna plopped her skinny ass on the mattress. “What’s in your bag of tricks?”
Plenty.
She yanked off her red cowboy boots and scooted them under the bed.
I had a lot of questions for Shawna and I’d get to them in a minute with hypnosis.
She started on her vodka tonic and punched buttons on the clock radio. “We need some goddamn music.” The clock kept flashing 12:00 and the speaker belched static. She turned the volume off.
Shawna guzzled half of her drink and handed the cup back to me. “Put some fire in this motherfucker.”
“What do you mean?”
“Too much tonic. Don’t be stingy with the vodka. If I wanted a sissy drink, I’d follow you to Denver.”
Denver? That made a big blip on my stink-o-meter. I never told her I was from Denver. Another question for hypnosis.
Shawna rested against a pile of pillows fluffed across the headboard. Her boobs sagged within the tube top.
I handed her a new drink with maybe one molecule of tonic floating between the ice cubes.
She sipped and gasped in approval.
I asked. “What do you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“For money?”
Shawna gave the most noncommittal of shrugs. Her breasts wobbled like a bowl of watery mashed potatoes. “This and that. Favors, mostly.”
“What kind of favors?” I knew that answer already.
She stroked her stockinged feet against the bedcovers. “Let me show you.”
I took the cup from her and went to the dresser. I took out my contacts and faced her. “No, let me show you.”