I sat in my chair, sore where I had hit the ground and from whatever had hit me. The events of the day replayed in my mind, beginning with the vision of the man on the cross-upside down-soaring silently into the gorge. I shuddered at the memory, and my mind wandered on to Momma Anna’s strange assignment and the stone she called the “Old One.” I got up and went to get the tiny black river rock out of the pocket of my jeans. I brought it back to my chair and rubbed the smooth surface between my thumb and index finger as I remembered the startled faces of the three men I caught going through my Jeep. All three looked Hispanic, in their forties, plainly dressed in jackets and jeans. What on earth did they want with my book?
I ate my pies and I drank my tea. And as the quiet of the night and the fatigue of the day settled on me, I grieved the loss of my book. It was the only copy I had, all those hours given to it gone now, and for nothing.
Father Ignacio had been right. I was lonely. Right then, I yearned for the book like a lost love. I wanted to pick it up, to feel the smooth, cool deerskin cover. I tried to remember how many shrines I had mapped, which ones I had sketched. I went through the book in my mind, page by page, trying to see what I had written.
The names the father had given me were in the stolen book. One of them was the tract by Padre Martínez, I remembered that. But for the life of me, I could not remember the other name. I tried to remember it as I sat there, staring at nothing, twisting at the ends of my hair with my finger, unable to think of anything else for the moment. Or perhaps not wanting to think of anything else, grateful for the distraction.
Finally I got up and took my mug and the cloth towel to the sink and set them on the counter beside it. On the table was the paper towel I had taken off of the door. I held it up and read again the curious summons from Bennie. What did “Woman down” mean? I would have to find out tomorrow.
8
I woke the next morning with a plan. I was going to start over on my book, do it all again. And this time, make copies of everything.
I brewed some coffee while I took a shower, then sat at my table and ate a bowl of cereal while I made a list of things to do that day before starting my night ride duty. I packed my backpack with items I would need. The first thing on my to-do list was to go see Bennie.
The red dirt parking lot in front of the Golden Gecko was deeply rutted from the snowmelt. As I rode the dips, I jounced and jostled in my seat. A row of five pickups lined the front part of the building near the door. The pink and blue neon Open sign buzzed in the one small window, and the plain plastered face of the adobe building basked in the bright morning sunlight. The only other sign was a big carved wooden gecko mounted on a post by the road. It had once been painted all over with gold enamel, but the paint had peeled and flaked off in patches, making the place’s namesake look more like a spotted salamander.
When I opened the car door, I felt the sting of clear, cold air on my face, and the bright sun hurt my eyes. I squinted and got out, narrowly missing a puddle of red clay and icy water. The smell of grilled chorizo, onions, and peppers wafted from the groaning grease fan on the roof. I walked toward the entry and heard the faint sound of a jukebox.
When I pulled open the heavy door, the sound grew louder and I made out the harmonies of Los Lonely Boys serenading through the speakers. Inside, the Gecko was like a dark cave. I stopped to let my eyes adjust until I could see more than the neon beer signs over the bar. The aroma of warm tortillas and breakfast burritos mixed with the sour smell of last night’s stale beer in the closed room.
On the left was the black, yawning mouth of the empty, unlit stage. In front of it, in disorderly rows, stood tiny tables with chairs upturned on them. Built in the late 1950s, the Golden Gecko was a famous nightclub in its heyday. Film crews maintained an almost constant presence in northern New Mexico then, unable to supply enough westerns to meet the seemingly insatiable demand. The Gecko, conveniently located on a two-lane blacktop near several scenic film locations, served as a watering hole and recreational outlet for the casts and crews and attracted brand-name celebrities as both entertainment and clientele. But in the sixties, the glamour of westerns began to wane, and with it, the Golden Gecko. Since then, the place had been alternately closed and opened for long periods of time, resurrecting and then dying in a variety of incarnations: a strip club, a dinner theater, even an exercise and dance studio. The Gecko was now open in a dual role: as a restaurant through the week and as a club featuring rock and country bands on the weekend.
A group of men, mostly Anglos, were sitting at the tables in the right half of the room, talking loudly among themselves, guffawing over something one of them had said. They turned to look at me when I came in, and a little wave of sniggering and elbowing erupted as I felt their eyes scanning my figure. There is something about dark places that makes some men forget that they have daughters or sisters or mothers. Or manners.
I walked across to the counter. I could feel grit under my boots from all the mud the breakfast crowd had tracked in. White diner plates stained orange from red chili shared the tables with wadded-up napkins and plastic soda cups. The men were now silent, all eyes on me. I nodded as I came close. One of them nodded back.
There was no one behind the bar. I heard dishes clatter in the kitchen, so I stepped around the end of the counter and went on back. A man leaned over the grill, spritzing it with a spray bottle then swabbing it with a rag, sending up a hissing cloud of chlorine-scented steam each time the spray hit the hot metal plate. He turned and picked up a stack of dirty plates from the island counter in the center of the kitchen and headed across the room to the dishwasher.
He hadn’t seen me, so I moved a step farther into the kitchen. When he turned around to get more dishes, he gave a start, stopping in his tracks, his eyes opening wide with surprise. “¡Ay, señorita!” In a thick Hispanic accent, he said, “I didn’t see you come in. You surprised me.”
“Sorry. I was just looking for Bennie.”
“Bennie went to the trailer in the back to get something.” He picked up the next stack of plates, turned away, and started rinsing and stacking them in the rack of the dishwasher.
I stood for a moment wondering what to do next-wait here or go out front and sit with the sharks. The man stole a worried glance over his shoulder at me and seemed embarrassed when I returned the look. There was something unnerving about his surreptitious peeking.
He was a large man with a barrel-shaped torso. He looked like he had done time in the ring: his nose was wide and flattened, and his lower lip was bisected by a badly healed scar. His forehead also bore a scar over one brow and to the side of one eye. He looked over his shoulder again, and when he saw that I was still there, he turned to address me directly, wiping his hands on his apron. “Señorita, what are you doing here?”
“I told you. I need to talk to Bennie.”
“You should wait out there.” He gave me a stern look as he pointed back through the doorway into the main room.
As if to help me make up my mind, I heard chairs scraping on the floor and tables jostling as the crowd out front broke up and left. I turned and walked through the kitchen doorway back into the dark club. The jukebox was silent now, all the customers gone. I headed around the counter and was going toward a table to sit down when, from the kitchen, I heard the sound of a door opening and then slamming shut again.