The Water Knife

  Angel dropped his phone onto the ground and stomped it until the plastic broke. He reached in and found the chip and ground it down with his heel. Popped the battery. Gathered all the pieces and threaded his way out through the claustrophobic plywood alleys until he reached the open boulevards.

  He found a Jonnytruck stationed on the street. He paid his dime and, after leaving the contents of his bowels in its methane composters, he left the cell phone’s pieces in the toilet as well.

  He climbed out and watched the Jonnytruck drive off, playing its siren song of bathroom for hire as it drove down the darkening boulevard, taking away all possible chances of tracking him.

  Only when the Jonnytruck rounded the corner did Angel feel truly safe. For ten years Julio had presided over Phoenix, sitting in the dealer’s chair, tossing cards out to everyone. Maybe he’d just turned in the last couple weeks in order to jump on this big score, but Angel wasn’t willing to bet his life on it.

  He headed back into the squats, mulling the implications. They’d have to go over every failed operation, every unfortunate accident, every bit of bad information and try to figure out if it had been their own fault or Julio stabbing them in the back. Case’s networks were dead in Phoenix. Everything would have to be rebuilt.

  Angel paused in front of a cigarette seller. The guy was all set up, running a small glass fridge off a solar panel and battery, Coca-Cola and Negro Modelo looking icy inside. Beside him an old guy wearing a John Deere ball cap was watching the news on a tablet. He had copies of Río de Sangre stacked beside him and a small Santa Muerte shrine as well.

  The photo on the blood rag’s front page was courtesy of Lucy’s friend Timo. He’d captured a Texan, crucified against the gates of a community just south of Phoenix. The dead man had gotten the full Santa Muerte treatment. Little bottles of liquor and black roses all around him, a warning to others who tried to storm the community’s walls.

  The cigarette seller caught the direction of Angel’s gaze. “It’s open season.”

  “Maybe I’m Texan, too,” Angel said.

  The blood rag seller laughed. “You ain’t near beat down enough.”

  Angel bought another phone, watching idly as the Blue Mesa Dam disaster played out on the man’s tablet. A slow-motion replay of the boulder wall collapsing, brown rushing torrents of water and debris churning down through the canyon. More images. The flood crashing through a town on the riverbanks. Rushing on, a torrent so big it was impossible to fix a scale to.

  The old guy gave him his change in a mix of dollars and yuan coins. Angel dropped one in his friend’s Santa Muerte shrine. Little votive candles flickering, a couple painted skulls, cigarettes and liquor offered. Along with a dead rat.

  That was a new one to Angel.

  Didn’t normally see rats offered to the Skinny Lady.

  He dropped a yuan coin into the dish with the rodent body, hoping for his luck to improve, but not betting on it.

  CHAPTER 32

  When Lucy climbed the ladder to the squat, she found its door unlocked and the rooms dark.

  “Hello?”

  She pushed the door wider, trying to spy Angel. It was nearly black inside. The curtains leaked a little light from the Red Cross tents down in the plaza, but it wasn’t enough. She widened her eyes, trying to force them to adjust, then was overwhelmed by the feeling that someone was inside, waiting for her. Waiting to grab her and finish what Julio had started.

  She backed out as fast as she could. Behind her someone coughed. She spun, almost falling off the ladder.

  Angel was perched above her, a couple ladders over, hidden in shadow. Watching.

  “Goddammit!” she said. “Don’t do that!”

  “Shhhhh,” he said, and climbed down to join her.

  She slugged him in the arm when they were both inside. “Why the hell did you do that?”

  He didn’t seem to mind. He flicked on a small flashlight, panned it across the darkness, then turned on the little lantern that hung over the table. It sent harsh beams swinging around the room. Lucy squinted in the light.

  “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

  “Just keeping an eye out.”

  “For what?”

  “Don’t really like the feel of this place.” He went to peer out the window.

  “I didn’t think you were the picky type.”

  “Not that. Something…” He shrugged. “Feels like a forest fire’s about to start.”

  “Charlene says there’s a lot of tension right now.”

  “I can feel it.”

  He looked like it. He kept pacing, moving from the window to the door, peering down at the claustrophobic alley below, then back to the window for another look out at the pump. To her surprise, on his last circuit, he crouched down beside the window and came up with a couple of beers. He pried one open with the top of the other and offered it to her.

  “Sorry about scaring you,” he said.

  The way he said it made Lucy think he meant it, even if he didn’t say it with a great deal of style.

  He sat down at the table, wincing. It reminded her of her own scars and pains. Her body felt as if it had been through a meat grinder.

  “Feel like I got the evil eye painted on me,” he said. “Been a long time since I felt like this. Like shit’s all going to go wrong.”

  “When was the last time?”

  He frowned, looking troubled. “Long time ago. Long, long time.”

  “Working for Case?”

  “Before then. Down in Mexico. Narcos came after my family.” He shrugged. “My dad was a cop, and someone decided he was a problem. He didn’t even know what he did or who he’d pissed off. Might have just been that they went after the wrong guy. Got mixed up about who they were supposed to be killing.” He took a sip of his beer. “So they came and they killed my mom and sisters while they were walking up to the house. Just cut them down. I was inside. I saw them getting shot, and I ran. Ran out the back and went over a wall and got glass in me when I did, and I just lay there in the dirt. And on the other side I could hear them shooting. When I snuck back, I found my dad there, and he was crying. Soon as he saw me, he grabbed me and said we were going to El Norte.”

  “When was that?”

  “I was ten, I guess. It was back when the southern border still meant something. People had to wetback it over the Rio Grande or hike the desert. My dad, he was law enforcement…” Angel trailed off. “I remember us driving up the highway, fast. Speed bumps kept slowing us down. You been down to Mexico? They got big speed bumps down there, on the highway, so you don’t just slam through some little pissant town. I remember my dad kept cursing. Chingado this. Mierda that. He never cursed, and he was cursing the whole way. That was the scariest part. Him cursing but it not being angry. It was him pissing his pants, being afraid…” He trailed off again.

  Lucy realized that she hadn’t taken a sip of her beer in a long time. It was warm in her hand. She wanted to drink, but she didn’t want to stop Angel from talking. It was the most she’d heard him say about anything. She could feel herself waiting, sitting there and waiting, hoping for more from him.

  Angel said, “He put me in the trunk to get across. Told the border people he was doing some training. Just drove right across in his cop car. I don’t know who he paid. How he did it. ’Course, when you run north, you got to run north far enough. My old man was smart enough to know he needed to run, but he didn’t count on them following. Those cartels, they’re thorough. Only people who really got their shit together, seems like.”

  “You’re sure he wasn’t narco?” Lucy said. “It seems like a lot of trouble for someone who didn’t do anything.”

  “He said he wasn’t. But then again, truth and lies…” Angel shrugged and winced again. Rubbed his shoulder. “Who the hell knows what you’re going to say to a ten-year-old.” He laughed and tilted his beer. “That Cali guy, he had himself a girl.”

  Lucy was confused by the change of subject. ??
?You mean the guy from Ibis? Ratan?”

  “Yeah. Old Mike Ratan had himself a good time.”

  “I heard Julio talking about shooting her.”

  “No.” Angel shook his head. “He only saw one girl. There was another one, hiding under the bed. That’s how I found you. Some teenager, and she’s selling herself, trying to get by. Ends up in the middle of this shit.” He grimaced. “I should have given her more money.” He touched his shoulder and winced. “What a mess this has turned out to be.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better than Julio.”

  She laughed darkly, remembering Angel coming through the door, his gun out, and her feeling—what?

  Relief.

  Stunned relief that this strange, scarred man had come for her. That someone was there to make the hurting stop.

  She stood and went over to him.

  “Let me see.”

  He flinched away at first, then allowed her to lift his shirt and peel away the dressing. His shoulder was a mess. She glanced around the squat, spied the empty jugs of past inhabitants. “I need to get water. I’ll be back.”

  She grabbed a jug and went down to the pump, standing in line with everyone else for her turn. She considered using her card, then dug for cash. Anonymous was better. She was down to the bone for paper money, but she came up with a couple of yuan coins. Enough to fill the jug anyway. She estimated wrong and ended up with overflow. Had to give it to the person behind her.

  When she came back, she was surprised that he was waiting patiently, right where she’d left him. “Not ambushing me twice?”

  “I watched you from the window.”

  Of course he had.

  “We can’t waste this,” she said. “Not until I get more cash.”

  “You’re careful with it,” he said, sounding pleased.

  “You don’t live in Phoenix as long as I have without learning a few things.”

  Except what I wasted back at the pump.

  She wondered why she was hiding that fact from him.

  What am I trying to prove?

  She tipped a glug of water onto the shirt and blotted at his wound. The lantern cast difficult shadows. She plucked his flashlight from his hand and inspected the mess of his wounds. “I think I got all the shrapnel out. I think you’ll be fine—”

  Her voice stalled. He was looking up at her with impossibly dark eyes. She swallowed. She couldn’t look away.

  Oh.

  She felt his fingers at her tank top, tugging, pulling her toward him.

  “Oh,” she said again, out loud.

  Oh.

  “What the hell.”

  She let him reel her close. His arms slid up her body, pulling her closer. He was strong. The strength, and the hunger in his eyes, should have terrified her, yet all she felt was safety. She let him draw her to him, into his lap. Trying to be gentle as she settled onto him, trying not to hurt his wounds.

  She cupped his face in her hands, staring into his hunger. She kissed him. Kissed his scars, his cheeks, his lips, all the while staring into those dark eyes. He pulled her to him, impossibly strong. She couldn’t have pulled away if she’d wanted to, and she didn’t care.

  I don’t even know him.

  And yet she was desperate to feel his hands on her body.

  He scooped her up, lifting her. God, he was strong.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” she heard herself whispering between kisses, and he just laughed, as she kept trying to devour him, and then they were collapsing onto the mattresses together, kissing and touching.

  She felt his hands cupping her breasts, slipping over her nipples, tugging questioningly at her tank top, pulling it up. Yes. Lucy reached down and peeled the shirt up, aware of herself exposed, the bruises and whiplines and cuts that Julio had inflicted on her skin, not caring, not afraid to show herself to Angel. Proud, even.

  Look at me. Look at what I’ve taken. Look what I’ve survived.

  They were both scarred. They were the same.

  She watched as he struggled to peel out of his own shirt.

  “Let me,” she heard herself whispering.

  The shirt came off. His hands fell to her waist, tugging at her jeans, dragging them down over her hips as she worked feverishly at his belt buckle. She felt his hands gripping her ass, pulling her close, and then they were kissing, again and again. Licking. Biting.

  His belt came free, leather sliding through loops. She was dimly aware of his gun hitting the floor—where did that come from?—a passing thought, unimportant as she fumbled with his zipper and plunged her hand into his pants, wanting to feel his cock.

  God, she wanted him. He was terrifying, yet she couldn’t make herself stop wanting. She was wet. He hadn’t even touched her, and she was wet. His jeans came off. Her own as well. Her underwear.

  Naked, they embraced. She ran her hands over his body, his chest. Lean muscles. Scars. Ancient gang tattoos. She reached for his cock again, gripping him, reveling in his hardness, and then he was on her, pushing her onto her back, kissing her neck, his hands running down her body, taking possession. Kissing and licking, working across her savaged breasts, nipping at the hollow of her throat, kissing along her jaw. She arched, pressing her body against his, wanting to feel his skin against hers, his sweat slick against hers, his cock hard against her cunt.

  Angel’s gun was on the floor, inches from her outflung hand. As she lay on her back, she could see it, lying abandoned on the scarred plywood. The gun he’d used to shoot his friend. The man who made the bruises Angel’s lips now kissed. It hurt to feel Angel’s touch, yet it was a pleasure, too. Proof that she was alive, the slashes and bruises a map of her survival that Angel now traced with lips and teeth and tongue.

  Lucy pulled him to her, holding his head to her ravaged breasts, reveling in the hurt of it. She’d been pursuing death all her life, even as she pretended to avoid it. However much she might have denied it, she’d been desperate to fall into this vortex, and now she was inside it fully. More terrified and alive than she’d ever been.

  She ran her hands over the water knife’s muscled scarred back as his tongue slid down her belly. She moaned.

  Yes.

  Wanting his tongue to travel lower, to pry between her legs, kissing, licking…

  There.

  Lucy arched hard, tightening her thighs around his head. He responded, his tongue flicking against her clit. She heard herself gasping and crying out, not caring if the refugees heard her through the thin walls. She was wet. God she was wet. She loved his tongue…

  He surfaced, sliding back up her body, smiling, and she pulled him to her, kissing him, eager to taste herself on his lips, to hold his scarred dark face close to hers, to feel the stubble rake of his cheeks.

  He was hard against her thigh. Lucy felt a surge of pleasure at how desperate he seemed to take her, and then he was pressing her down. She opened her legs, gripping his ass, encouraging him, arching as he pressed into her, filling her. Her breath caught—Yes. This. Yes—and then he was fully inside her.

  She caught another glimpse of Angel’s pistol, abandoned on the floor. Couldn’t stop staring at it as they fucked. Mesmerized, drunk on the pleasure of being penetrated, and feeling wildly alive at the sight of the discarded tool of death beside them.

  In an instant her life seemed to make sense. She had always needed this. To live on the fine ragged edge between one thing and the other. Between living and dying. She had always been this way. Anna couldn’t understand it. Her family couldn’t understand it, but now, as she fucked, it felt as if the whole mangled city that she called home made sense.

  She could hear the whistles of Texas bangbang girls as they hunted for customers, the pinging of the Red Cross pumps as they finished filling a refugee’s water jugs. The crying of children in jumbled squats, and the shouts of body lotería winners as they gathered around their phones, hoping for a big score. Life, all around her. Struggling and surging and trying so very hard to su
rvive in the face of all the horrors the world had to offer.

  On this ragged edge, she was alive.

  She clutched this man called Angel, who she was sure would be the death of her, and she pulled him deeper into herself. Gasping, she tried to fill herself completely, driving herself against him, filling herself with him, overwhelming herself, and still it wasn’t enough.

  She took his hands and pressed them to her throat. “Hold me,” she whispered.

  His fingers tightening on her neck. “Yes,” she whispered as his hands tightened. “Like that.” Her voice became ragged as his fingers gripped her tighter still.

  She’d stayed.

  She’d come to Phoenix to see a place dying, but she’d stayed for the living. Trying to divine something meaningful from this place’s suffering. What does a place that falls apart look like? What did it mean?

  Nothing.

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  It just tells me how badly I want to live.

  She fucked in the dark zone, surrounded by people who faced the whirling sawblade of collapse, and she urged the water knife’s strong scarred hands to grip her tighter still as he reared over her. She pressed her hands against his, encouraging him, egging him on. Feeling his strong fingers.

  There.

  Powerful hands that had killed untold numbers now held her. Now controlled her as he drove deeper into her. He seemed to know her needs.

  “Tighter,” she whispered.

  Tighter.

  Iron fingers took possession of her breath. She felt her heart thudding against his grip. He was death. He was taking her as death took all things. He thrust into her again, and she arched against him, overwhelmed with need. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. She was surrounded by death. There’s no way out.

  “Tighter.”

  This was what she needed. To lose herself, entirely. To be annihilated. She was desperate for it. She was desperate to feel alive. To know that she risked everything and still lived. His sweat burned on her ravaged tits, her ribs, her belly as he plunged into her. Filling her. Using her. She wanted him. God, she wanted him. She imagined him thrusting through her entirely. Impaling her like this, with his hands around her throat.