Danny smiled. “That’s right.”
“What brings you out our way? Fisherman?”
“Salesman,” Danny said. “Hospital equipment.” The words sounded odd, as if they described someone else. His head felt light. “And I guess it’s time I got on back. Phone?”
The man nodded at the door. “Pay foam over by the beer.”
The nice woman watched him fill the slot with quarters. His hand shook. If Carla didn’t answer, he didn’t know what he’d do. Somehow, he felt if he didn’t hear her voice right this minute, he’d never get home.
Three rings. Four. He crumpled his empty Coke can.
“Hello?”
He said her name like a plea.
“Danny! Danny, thank God, where are you?”
He told her the story — again, as if speaking of another man. Some aimless fool who wouldn’t be missed. “I’m tired, Carla. I’m coming back now.”
“I’ll get Libbie, okay? We’ll grab us some Mexican food or something, how’s that?”
“Sure. It’ll take me a couple of hours.”
“Come on by the house when you get to town. I’ll need to change. Danny? You be careful, all right?”
“Sure.”
He thanked the woman at the counter.
“Any time,” she said.
Outside, the man was pulling a blue tarp over a stack of wood. “Stay dry, Mist’ Salesman,” he called to Danny.
“You too. I sure did enjoy your blues.”
A few miles down the road, he pulled the car over. His chest throbbed. He’d been so tight, the expansion of relief — its slowness, its unfamiliarity — pained him. He walked a few yards into withered holly bushes, spilled the remaining bullets out of the Seecamp, and tossed them into an oak grove. Then he reared back and hurled the gun as far as he could into the trees. He didn’t hear it land.
Virgin of Guadalupe candles washed Chimichanga’s plaster walls in murky orange light. Libbie dipped a tortilla chip into a mulcahete brimming with green salsa. All evening she’d watched cooks step furtively through the restaurant’s back door with trays of beans and rice. Through a window lined with white light bulbs (shaped like laughing skulls) she saw them cross the parking lot, tap on the wooden shed out back, and hand in the food. Hugh had told her the place sheltered illegal aliens.
She couldn’t believe Betty was sitting beside her. She wore a long red dress and pretty black shoes. In nearly twelve years, Libbie had never seen Betty in public. Earlier, Carla had told Libbie, “I don’t know how he did it.” Danny had met her at her house after phoning from the Thicket — “Some weird story about the woods.” When she’d gotten home after work, he and Betty were sipping tea, talking and laughing like old friends. “He asked her to come out with us and she said, ‘Yes.’ Just like that.”
Libbie remembered how charming Danny had been, despite his loudness, when Anna Lia first brought him to the Warwick. An open-faced, good ol’ Texas boy. He listened well. Like Hugh, he enjoyed the company of women — a rare quality in Houston men.
Carla said she’d pressed him about the gun. He swore he’d gotten rid of it.
Now he was standing by the jukebox talking to Marie and her boyfriend Ricky, who was taking a break from the kitchen. Danny wore one of Edgar’s bright print shirts, flamingos and crabs. Carla said he’d been filthy.
Marie said, “It’s forgotten. Don’t sweat it.” She patted Danny’s arm.
“I like these chips,” Betty said. “They’re salty.”
“That’s a very pretty dress,” Libbie told her. “Where’d you get it?”
“Sissy bought it for me a couple of years ago.”
“I tried to get her to go to the symphony,” Carla said. “She wouldn’t come out for me.”
Betty giggled.
Libbie ordered another round of margaritas. Carla kept an eye on Danny and her sister, while Libbie looked after Carla, who was depressed about her breakup with Edgar (“He’s a world-class prick. I should be happy tonight.”). Every twenty minutes or so, Libbie went to the pay phone to leave a message for Hugh or to check her machine.
Betty drank iced tea. Now and then she’d sip Carla’s margarita. “Christmas chips!” she said. “In cardboard boxes shaped like Santa’s boot! Isn’t that a good idea?”
“If there’s one thing Texas doesn’t need, it’s another tortilla chip,” Carla said.
“Just a thought…”
Danny ambled back to the table. “How you doing?” he asked Betty.
She beamed.
“This isn’t too much like a party?”
“Not yet,” Betty said.
“Let me know if it gets hard.”
“Okay. Danny, will you help me sell my Christmas chips?”
“Sure.”
Carla stared at the two of them as if she were watching an exotic magic trick.
“So, you and Marie … you figure out the record store?” Libbie asked Danny.
“I don’t know. She wants to keep it going, has some ideas for boosting sales. I could sell it to her, I guess. She thinks she could get a loan.”
For the third time tonight, Betty reached across the table, touched Danny’s arm, and said, “It was so sad about Anna Lia.”
“Yes, it was,” he answered patiently.
A waitress arrived with chili rellenos, tacos al carbon. A doleful waltz poured from the jukebox speakers.
“Libbie, if it’s not too much trouble, could you give us all a ride to the service tomorrow?” Carla asked. “You have the most room.”
“No problem. Are you coming, Betty?”
She glanced at Danny. “Maybe.”
He ordered another Carta Blanca. He was drunk, but not bad drunk, Libbie thought — at least not yet. A pleasant tipsiness, with a hint of sadness underneath.
She excused herself again. No answer at Hugh’s. “Me,” she told his machine. “Please please call me. I’m at Chimichanga now, but I’ll be home tonight. Any time, no matter how late. We really need to talk. I’m sorry, Hugh. I miss you.”
A happy polka from the jukebox. She stood by the bathroom, wiping her nose with a Kleenex. Nearby, in the kitchen’s beaded doorway, one of the cooks told a short, stout man, “Three new families tonight. From Oaxaca.”
“Go to the storage room. See do we have any more sleeping bags.”
The city’s hidden stories. Libbie tucked the Kleenex into her pants. The cook noticed her, frowned, then vanished out back. Flamenco guitar. Shouts, glass-scrapes, a hiss of steam in the kitchen.
Back at the table, Carla was sitting alone. Danny and Betty were dancing. “How you doing?” Libbie asked, rubbing her friend’s shoulder.
“So-so. The tequila helps.”
“Have some more.”
“You know what got me the most? His goddam arrogance. He flat-out admitted that Betty drove him crazy, so he’d yell at her. Flat-out said it. No regard for how it made me feel.”
Libbie sipped her drink. It sent a chill through her head: a snowball melting in the middle of her brain. “He was a prick, Carla.”
“I know.” She licked the salt off her glass. “But I sure do miss him right now. Hell of a week, eh? Nothing from Hugh?”
“Nothing.”
“He’ll turn up, sweetie.”
“I completely ignored him — ”
“You had good reason. My god, he’s got to know that. He’s not the kind to disappear on you.”
Libbie nodded. “You ready to say good-bye to Anna Lia?”
“I swear, it feels like she’s here still.”
“It does,” Libbie said.
“Look at those two.” Danny twirled Betty, then pulled her back and caught her in his arms. “All our lives I’ve known her routines, predicted how she’ll think and act, protected her … suddenly, tonight, I don’t know who she is.”