Geno, catching a glance at the picture, muttered, "Ain't we funky."
Chester cut him with a look.
"We got this tradition in Mexico," Feo said, ignoring them both. "Ballads. We call them corridos. It's how we sing the praises of the outcasts, the unlucky ones, the tragic ones, but also the bandits, the narcotrafficantes, the pandilleros. Anyone who understands what it means to suffer, but also to fight." The dude had picked up a bit of a Texas accent, and it was weird, hearing the Mexican and the Texican wrestling in his voice. Gave him a case of the mush-mouth.
Skillet watched him like a cat perched beneath the hummingbird feeder.
"You people," Feo continued, "have such a tradition also, no?"
"Called raconteur." Chester too could be a man of few words. You people, he thought. "When do you need this by?"
Feo rose from his chair, that slashing smile. "How hard can it be?"
Harder than Chester thought, as it turned out, but he'd taken the money and so was stuck. The problem was simple: how to pen something apt that wasn't at the same time offensive. It proved the better of him-he put it off, scratched out a few sorry lines, cast them aside:
Only the homely
And the angels above
Know how to suffer
The pain called love
Mama would shoot me dead onstage, he thought, if I dared sing that out loud. She'd been a torch singer famous up and down the bayou country, Miss Angeline her stage name. She'd died when Chester was seven, the cancer setting a pattern for women he'd lose.
Seeing that Chester was suffering over the lyrics, and sensing in that the chance for some clowning, Geno tried his hand too, singing his version over lunch, a plate of fried chicken and string beans with bacon:
She is my monkey
I'll make her my wife
Gonna be funky
For the rest of my life
Chester glanced up from his own plate, jambalaya with shrimp and andouille. "You looking to get me killed?"
Geno veiled his grin with a shrug. "Not before payday, no."
Two nights later, Feo showed up unannounced at the club they were playing, gripping an Abita beer, working a path through the crowd to the bandstand. He offered no greeting, just gestured once with a cock of his head.
Desperate for an idea-something, anything, quick-and unnerved by the small man's stare, Chester turned to the band and counted off the first thing that popped into his head:
My monkey got a cue-ball head
A good attitude and them long skinny legs
No sooner did the lyrics escape than he felt the sheer disastrous lunacy of what he'd done. And the band hadn't played the tune since forever, execution falling somewhere between rusty and half-ass, a dash of salt in an already screaming wound. The gleam in Feo's eye turned glacial. The bottle of beer dropped slowly from his mouth, and the mouth formed an O, then reverted to slit mode as he vanished. Chester thought maybe that would be it, a feeble wish, but then he spotted him at the bar between sets, and at the end of the night, like a bad itch, he turned up again, drifting across the parking lot as they loaded up the Flyer.
Approaching Chester: "Got time for a word, cabrón?"
Chester led him off a little from the others, not sure why. "Nice night-no, mon ami?" Cringing. Lame.
"You were supposed to write me a song."
The boys in the band sidled up, watching Chester's back.
Chester worked up a pained look, phony to the bone. "I thought I did."
"That thing you played?"
"It's called 'Who Stole My Monkey?'"
"Bartender tells me it's an old tune, written by some dude named Zachary Richard. Not you. You're Chester."
"He's my uncle," Chester lied.
"Still ain't you."
Chester tried an ingratiating smile. "How's about a few more days?"
"And you insult my girl too?" Feo held Skillet and Geno with his eyes, warning them that he could take all three. "You diss me twice? Know how much money you could make writing me love songs, güey?"
Got a fair idea, Chester thought, just as he knew how many grupero musicians had been murdered the past two years by cats just like this. The situation had snuggled up next to awful, but before he could conjure his next bad idea, the Mexican turned away. Chester saw a whole lot of luck heading off with him.
Over his shoulder, in that inimitable mush-mouth Texican-Mexican, Feo called out, "Fuck all, y'all!"
Inside the car, Geno broke off his solemn humming. "I'm also guessin'," picking up his thread, "that we ain't gonna call the law on this."
"If we were-" Chester began.
"We'd a done it by now."
"Correct."
You don't call the law to help you fetch a stolen bus when there's an ounce of coke on board, not to mention a half-pound of weed, a mayonnaise jar full of Oxycontin, and enough crank to whirl you across Texas a dozen times and back. Small wonder we're broke, Chester thought. They'd stocked up for the road, a lot of away dates on the calendar. Sure, the stash was tucked beneath false panels, nothing in plain view, but all it took was one damn dog.
Getting back to Geno, he said, "Long as you're in the mood for guesswork, riddle me this: think our friend the music lover, before skipping town, scooped up this chimp-faced punch he loves?"
Geno's eyes bulged. "In our bus?"
"He'll ditch it quick, trade down for something more subtle. Or so I figure. Skillet?"
As always, silence. In time, a stubborn nod.
True enough, they found the Flyer with its distinctive black-and-gold design sitting on the edge of the interstate just outside Houston. Maybe he feigned a breakdown, Chester thought, stuck out his thumb, jacked the first car that stopped. Maybe he just pulled over to grab forty winks.
"Ease up behind," he said, drawing the.45 from under his belt. "Let's see what happens."
Geno obliged, lodged the tranny in park. "You honestly think he's up inside of there?"
"That's one of several scenarios I could predict." Chester let out a long slow breath. "What say we not get stupid?"
Chester kept the gun down along his leg-wouldn't do for a state trooper to happen by and spot two armed African American gents with their fat dago sidekick sneaking up on a fancy tour bus in evident distress. They lurked at the ass end of the Flyer, waiting to see if the old in-line six turned over, a belch of smoke.
Geno glanced at his watch. "Wait too long, we'll be dealing with po-po."
Chester felt the engine panel, noted it was cool to the touch. "I'm aware of this."
"Like, Rangers."
"Indeed."
"Just sayin'."
"Duly noted."
They ventured single file along the bus's passenger side, Skillet in the lead, his crouching duck-walk straight out of some Jim Brown blaxploitation joint. Chester, lightheaded from fear, began imagining as a soundtrack a two-step rendition of the theme from Shaft.
Reaching the door, Skillet tried the handle and found it unlocked. He let it swing open easy. A glance toward the driver's seat-empty-then a glance back toward Chester, who nodded. Crouching, pistol drawn, Skillet entered, the others right behind.
The stillness was total, all but for the buzz of flies. No one there, except for the seat at the back, dead center. She wore a black miniskirt with a crimson top bunched in front, no stockings, shoes kicked off. Long skinny arms you couldn't miss.
Geno put words to the general impression. "What happened to her fucking head?"
Chester searched for Lorena while Skillet probed the hidey-holes, unscrewing the panels, bagging the dope he found untouched within. Geno kept an eye out for troopers. Chester could feel his heart in his chest like a fist pounding on a door, sweat boiling off his face, but the accordion was nowhere to be found. Thief wants me to follow, he thought, that or he's got a mind to hock her.