I finished my report and turned it in.
I worked my shifts. Everyone in town played the surface charade of politeness but their actions were devoid of warmth. Their nods of hello were perfunctory. They spoke to me briefly and about nothing of consequence. My calls for service dipped to almost nothing.
I felt more like an outsider than ever before.
On my days off, I drifted down into Mexico, hanging out in La Cuidad Juarez and listening to music. I saw several beauties there, but none had the grace or mystery of Isabella.
She drew me back. She drew me to the Tres Estrellas, where she worked. I rolled back into town and straight to the bar.
The twang of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire danced out of the jukebox. There was a momentary dip in conversation when I entered and walked to the bar. Or maybe it was my own paranoia, after the week I’d had.
Isabella watched me from behind the bar as I slid onto a stool. Her eyes held a curious mixture of emotions, none of which I could quite place. A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She threw the white towel over her shoulder and walked over to me.
“Carlos,” she said, and rolled the ‘r.’ She leaned forward on the bar. The movement accentuated her cleavage. The scent of her perfume, musky but with a hint of orange, wafted over me.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. It was the first personal attention I’d had in a week that wasn’t cold or distant. And it was from Isabella.
“I really need a drink,” I said.
The hint of a smile grew into a sultry promise. “I think I can take care of that for you, vacquero.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said, surprised at the sudden undercurrent of sexual tension.
“What’s your pleasure?” she asked. When she finished speaking, her full lips remained pursed in my direction.
I tried to swallow, suddenly nervous.
“Tequila?” she whispered. “Beer?”
My throat was dry and I forced myself to swallow.
“Something else?” she asked innocently, but her eyes told a different story.
“Cerveza,” I managed.
The smile spread knowingly across her face. She was taking delight in her effect on me. Without a word, she retrieved a bottle of Carta Blanca, popped the top and set it in front of me. Then she drifted away.
I sat and sipped the cold, bitter brew.
No one spoke to me.
Sip by sip, I drained the beer. Without being asked, Isabella replaced it. I sat still and wondered about things. She’d been cool and distant to me ever since I’d been forced to shoot Pete Trower right here in this same bar. I realized with a jolt that he’d died just a few feet from the stool I sat on.
So why the change?
Every once in a while, I glanced up at the long mirror behind the bar. I recalled how it had been shattered by a bullet from Pete’s pistol that terrible night a year ago. I could still almost smell the acrid odor of gun smoke in the air. Could still see Pete’s pained eyes when he asked Isabella if she could ever love him.
I downed another beer and another and Isabella slid bottle after bottle in front of me. I drank her in along with my Carta Blanca.
The bar heated up as patrons filled the stools and the tables and the dance floor. The jukebox roamed from Mexican to country to classic rock and back again. No one said a word to me. I was alone in a sea of boots, buckles and cowboy hats.
Except for her.
I met her eyes several times over the evening. Most of the times she gave me a mysterious half-smile, like a Mexican Mona Lisa and flicked her gaze away. But once she caught my look and held it. Her eyes smoldered. I imagined her in the half-light of her bedroom, staring at me with those eyes out from underneath her long hair falling down.
She was a dream.
A voice ruined the moment.
“You think you’ll ever get into that?” Jack Talbott sneered at me from three barstools away.
I turned to him. Renny, who taught third grade at the elementary school, and Sal, who managed the Salvation Army Thrift Store, sat between us. Both shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
“Never happen,” Talbott said. “Never ever.”
I stared at him for a moment, my brain dulled by the many beers and maybe even more by Isabella’s presence. Then I drawled, “Ain’t you supposed to be in jail or something?”
Renny and Sal slipped off their stools in unison and moved away.
Jack didn’t show any anger. He smiled his best Public Jack smile. “I was out before you made it home that night.”
“That’s temporary,” I said and smiled back at him. “Soon as you go to court, you’ll get to spend a little more time in the gray bar hotel. It don’t matter who you are.”
Jack shook his head. “I already went to court.”
My smile faltered. “When?”
“This morning. Saw Judge Chavez.”
I squinted, trying to work things out. I didn’t get a subpoena to appear for testimony.
“Funny thing,” Jack said smoothly. “You weren’t there.”
“I was — ”
“Whoring down in Mexico, way I hear it,” Jack finished. He motioned his head toward Isabella. “Probably trying to find some of that, right? Just a more basic version?”
Anger rushed up my shoulders and into the base of my skull. I tightened my hand around the beer bottle. The song on the jukebox ended. Aside from the occasional clink of glasses, the bar was silent.
Jack waited for the music to start up again, then leaned forward and spoke over the strains of Travis Tritt. “Since you weren’t available and my wife refused to testify…well, Judge Chavez said he’d just have to rely on the police report.”
The report would be enough, I thought. I nailed him in that report.
“’Course, there wasn’t any report.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
Jack’s smile broadened. “I guess you’re not much of a cop, Carl. Making arrests and then not filing reports and all.”
“I turned in that report,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
He shrugged. “Not according to the Chief of Police, you didn’t.”
“I did,” I said, unable to stop the thick words from falling out my mouth. “I wrote every word of what happened.”
“Really?” Jack asked. “Did you keep a copy?”
My jaw fell open. I didn’t answer.
Jack slid off the stool and stepped in close to me. The rich aroma of his aftershave washed past my nostrils, out of place in this bar full of people who worked for a living. My anger returned. I wanted to blast him in the head with the bottle in my hand, but I knew if I did, he’d win.
“Welcome to the big leagues,” he hissed in my ear. He motioned at Isabella with his head. “Enjoy that attention while you can. She probably thinks you’re hot shit, mister big cojones, but this game ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot.”
Before I could answer, he turned and sauntered out, returning hellos with a wave and nod.
I called in sick the next morning.
The dry, dusty Texas air gusted through my small back yard, bringing the faint whiff of cattle with it. I sat on the back steps and sipped water, nursing a hangover. My thoughts climbed around the problem in front of me, grappling with my options. I didn’t see that either of them were good ones.
Stay in La Sombra and wait for Jack to find a way to get revenge.
Leave town and start over somewhere else.
I sipped the water, swallowing past the taste of bile in the back of my throat.
When I got my discharge from the Army at Fort Bliss, I was already in love with Texas. After growing up in Plasti-California, I found the genuine friendliness of the Lone Star State refreshing. The men always seemed straightforward and honest to me. And the women were kind, even in their rejections. Everyone seemed ready with a smile or a helping hand.