I left Alpha angry. Six years later, I was still angry. But anger, like faith, as Larry reminded me, doesn’t put chow on the table. His threat to kick me out of his hangar reinforced what should have been glaringly apparent to me long before: I needed a steady job.
I decided to head inside despite the heat and check the classifieds on Craigslist. I rolled out of the hammock and was bending down to strap on my sandals when my phone rang again.
FOUR
Gil Carlisle, my former father-in-law, had a West Texas drawl smooth enough you wanted to rub your cheek on it. He never raised his voice. He never had to. A self-made oil tycoon who had more money in the bank than some Third World countries, he almost always got what he wanted on his deceptive country-boy charm alone. And on those rare occasions when charm didn’t do the trick, his platoon of $1,000-an-hour lawyers usually did.
“Bet you’re wondering why I’m calling,” Carlisle said over the phone.
“I know why you’re calling, Gil.”
Savannah had tried to get me to go to the police, to tell them what I knew about the real Arlo Echevarria. I knew when I said no she’d likely go sobbing to her daddy. Now daddy was calling, the master of silky persuasion, bent on convincing me to do what his daughter could not.
“You heard about Arlo, I take it?” he said.
“Savannah told me.”
“A damn shame is what it is. I’ll tell you what, Cordell, sometimes I just don’t know what this world is coming to. I truly don’t.”
“It came to that a long time ago, Gil.”
“Well, I suppose there’s some truth to that, son.”
The last time Gil Carlisle and I had spoken was when Savannah and I were lurching through the sudden death of our divorce. He’d called from his Lear jet en route to a business meeting somewhere in Europe to let me know how truly disappointed he was that things hadn’t worked out between his daughter and me, and how he always genuinely appreciated having me as a son-in-law, even if he never did get around to inviting me to go dove hunting with him on his 3,000-acre spread outside Lubbock, what with his busy schedule and mine. Then he warned me, sweet as honey glaze on a side of mesquite barbequed beef, that if I ever tried to claim as community property so much as one thin dime of Savannah’s trust fund, I’d find my ass in court faster than a three-legged sheep chased by a pack of coyotes. I told him I didn’t give a shit about Savannah’s money. He hung up without saying another word.
And now, here we were, years later, talking like all of it was water under the bridge.
“My little girl’s hurtin’, Cordell,” he said. “Nothing worse on this earth than for a father to see his baby girl in pain. Rips your guts up. You’ll do anything to stop that kinda pain. I mean, anything.”
Mrs. Schmulowitz emerged from her house lugging a galvanized watering can and began dousing the pots of pink geraniums that lined her back porch. I shifted the phone to my other ear and kept an eye on her to make sure she didn’t fall off the top step.
“I’d appreciate you talking to the police, telling ’em what you know,” Carlisle said.
“There’s nothing I can tell them they don’t already know, Gil.”
“Savannah tells me otherwise.”
“Savannah’s mistaken.”
There was a pause. Then Carlisle said, “Listen, Cordell, if I’ve learned one thing thirty years rootin’ around out in the patch, making hole, it’s that there’s never been a sticky situation that couldn’t be unstuck. How much we talkin’ ’bout here?”
“Are you offering me a bribe, Gil?”
“I’m trying to pay you for your valuable time, you stubborn donkey, is what I’m trying to do! Hell, I’ll have the money wired direct to your bank account if that’s what you want. All you gotta do is go talk to the police. An hour out of your day. That’s it. Don’t sound too sticky to me now, does it?”
“I’m not interested in your money, Gil.”
“Well, then hell, hoss,” he laughed, “you’re the only one.”
I was certain he’d checked out my credit report before calling. He knew damn well I was interested in his money. Given my financial straits, I was interested in just about anybody’s money. With the possible exception of Mrs. Schmulowitz’s.
“OK, here’s the deal,” Carlisle said, “I’m flying out to El Molino tonight for a business meeting. I’d sure like it if you could find the time to come on up a spell. We could do breakfast, pow-wow this thing. There’s a little café right there at the airport. Food’s real tasty. Ate there awhile back.”
“I’m not much of a breakfast eater,” I said.
“All right. Lunch, then.”
“It’s a long way to go for lunch, Gil.”
“Not for a crackerjack pilot who’s got his own airplane.”
My head ran through everything I had to do tomorrow: Get up. Look for a job without success. Sink deeper into depression.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “I’m pretty booked tomorrow.”
“Well, I don’t doubt it, a man of your many talents. Look, Cordell, I’m just gonna cut right to the chase. How does twentyfive grand sound? You fly up to El Molino in that little ol’ plane of yours, enjoy a nice meal on yours truly, you’re back home come siesta time. No strings attached.”
Twenty-five grand. With no strings attached. I could pay off Larry and still have enough left over to cover the engine overhaul on the Duck.
“C’mon, hoss,” Gil Carlisle said, his voice as silky as a Texas waltz, “you got nothin’ to lose. What do you say?”
I said, “I’ll see you around eleven-thirty.”
I rolled out of bed early the next morning and straight into my patented, ten-minute exercise routine. Push-ups, reverse push-ups, crunches, lower back spasms, quit. Endorphin rush is a cruel hoax. Anyone who’s ever played contact sports at the collegiate level can attest to that in later life. Aerobic exertion is nothing more than pain heaped atop pain. The only relief comes when you’re finally done with abusing your musculoskeletal for the day. Which I more than was.
I stood up and stretched my aching lumbar. A lizard skittered past me and disappeared under the deco pink Frigidaire that came with the apartment. Kiddiot liked bringing in lizards to play with them. The only problem was, after awhile, he’d get bored and go back outside to take a nap or a sunbath, while his reptilian friends invariably found their way under the refrigerator. I used to pull the fridge out from the wall to set them free. But they didn’t want freedom. They would go scurrying from under the refrigerator to under the matching pink stove to die there. Or under the bed to die there. Or under my pressboard, ready-to-assemble Ikea nightstand or dresser. Or under the purple Naugahyde couch that Mrs. Schmulowitz picked up at a police auction (“Nobody else bid on it! Can you believe that?”). Sometimes, the lizards Kiddiot invited in even managed to die behind the molded, one-piece plastic shower stall in my “bathroom,” which was really nothing more than a corner of the garage cordoned off by two flimsy stud walls covered with sheetrock. To make the garage feel bigger, Mrs. Schmulowitz had the entire place painted hospital ship white. To make it feel more homey, she’d put down braided rugs. Over the apartment’s lone window, which afforded a picturesque view of the alley, she’d hung frilly gingham curtains, more suited to a little girl’s room. The cumulative effect did little to obscure the fact that the place was still a garage. But what the hell. It kept the rain off my head on those rare occasions when it rained in Rancho Bonita. Plus, at $750 a month, including utilities and high-speed internet service for my laptop, it was a relative steal by local standards. Throw in the free brisket dinner every Monday night during football season, and I had no complaints.