"Haven't had one in almost a year," Holly said, "but I take it a day at a time. Can't and must. I like that."
Had she actually known all along what the finger tattoos meant? Ralph couldn't tell.
"Only way to break the can't-must paradox is with the help of a higher power, so I got me one. And I keep my sobriety medallion handy. What I was taught is that if you get wantin a drink, stick that medallion in your mouth. If it melts, you can take one."
Holly smiled--the radiant one Ralph was coming to like so well.
The side door of the van opened, and a rusty ramp squalled out. A large lady with an extravagant corona of white hair rolled down it in a wheelchair. She had a short green oxygen bottle in her lap with a plastic tube leading from it to the cannula in her nose. "Claude! Why are you standin around with these people in the heat? If we're gonna roll, we should roll. It's getting on for noon."
"This is my mother," Claude said. "Ma, this is Detective Anderson, who questioned me on the thing I told you about. These other ones are new to me."
Howie, Alec, and Yune introduced themselves to the old lady. Holly came last. "It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Bolton."
Lovie laughed. "Well, we'll see how you feel about that when you get to know me."
"I'd better go see about our rental," Howie said. "I think it's that one parked by the door." He pointed at a mid-size dark blue SUV.
"I'll lead the way in the van," Claude said. "You won't have any problem followin along; not much in the way of traffic on the Marysville road."
"Why don't you ride with us, honey?" Lovie Bolton asked Holly. "Keep a old lady company."
Ralph expected Holly to refuse, but she agreed at once. "Just give me a minute."
She beckoned Ralph with her eyes, and he followed her toward the King Air as Claude watched his mother turn her chair and roll back up the ramp. A small plane was taking off, and at first Ralph couldn't hear what Holly was asking him. He bent closer.
"What do I tell them, Ralph? They're sure to ask what we're doing here."
He considered, then said: "Why don't you just hit the high spots?"
"They won't believe me!"
That made him grin. "Holly, I think you handle disbelief pretty well."
3
Like many ex-cons (at least those that didn't want to risk going back inside), Claude Bolton drove the Dodge Companion van at exactly five miles an hour under the speed limit. Half an hour into the trip, he turned in at the Indian Motel & Cafe. He got out and spoke almost apologetically to Howie, who was behind the wheel of the rental. "Hope you don't mind if we have a bite," he said. "My ma sometimes has problems if she don't eat regular, and she didn't have any time to make sammitches. I was afraid we might miss you." He lowered his voice, as if confiding a shameful secret. "It's her blood sugar. When it goes low, she gets fainty."
"I'm sure we could all use a bite," Howie said.
"This story the lady told--"
"Why don't we talk about it when we get to your house, Claude," Ralph said.
Claude nodded. "Yeah, that might be better."
The cafe smelled--not unpleasantly--of grease and beans and frying meat. Neil Diamond was on the jukebox, singing "I Am, I Said" in Spanish. The specials (which weren't very) were posted behind the counter. Above the kitchen pass-through was a defaced photograph of Donald Trump. His blond hair had been colored black; he had been given a forelock and a mustache. Below it someone had printed Yanqui vete a casa: Yankee go home. At first Ralph was surprised--Texas was a red state, after all, as red as they came--but then he remembered that if whites weren't the actual minority this near to the border, it was a close-run thing.
They sat at the far end of the room, Alec and Howie at a two-top, the others at a bigger table nearby. Ralph ordered a burger; Holly ordered a salad, which turned out to be mostly wilted iceberg lettuce; Yune and the Boltons went for the full Mexican, which consisted of a taco, a burrito, and an empanada. The waitress banged a pitcher of sweet tea down on the table without being asked.
Lovie Bolton was studying Yune, her eyes bright as a bird's. "Sablo, you said your name was? That's a funny one."
"Yes, not many of us around," Yune said.
"You come from the other side, or are you natural-born?"
"Natural-born, ma'am," Yune said. Half of his well-stuffed taco disappeared at a single bite. "Second generation."
"Well, good for you! Made in the USA! I used to know an Augustin Sablo when I lived way down south, before I was married. He drove a bread truck in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. When he came by t'house, my sisters and I used to clamor for churro eclairs. No relation to him, I suppose?"
Yune's olive complexion darkened a bit--not quite a blush--but the look he shot Ralph was amused. "Yes, ma'am, that would have been my papi."
"Well, ain't it a small world?" Lovie said, and began to laugh. Her laughter turned to coughing, and her coughing turned to choking. Claude thumped her on the back so hard the cannula flew from her nose and fell into her plate. "Oh, son, lookit that," she said when she had her breath back. "Now I got snot on my burrito." She resettled the cannula. "Well, what the hey. It came from inside me, it can go right back. No harm done." She chomped.
Ralph began to laugh, and the others joined him. Even Howie and Alec joined in, although they had missed most of the interplay. Ralph had a moment to think how laughter drew people together, and was glad Claude had brought his mother along. She was a hot ticket.
"Small world," she repeated. "Yes it is." She leaned forward so that her considerable bosom pushed her plate forward. She was still looking at Yune with those bright bird eyes. "You know the story she told us?" She cut her eyes to Holly, who was picking at her salad with a small frown.
"Yes, ma'am."
"You believe it?"
"I don't know. I . . ." Yune lowered his voice. "I tend to."
Lovie nodded and lowered her own voice. "Did you ever see the parade in Nuevo? Processo dos Passos? Maybe when you were a boy?"
"Si, senora."
She lowered her voice further. "What about him? The farnicoco? You see him?"
"Si," Yune said, and although Lovie Bolton was as white as she could be, Ralph thought Yune had fallen into Spanish without even thinking of it.
She lowered her voice further still. "Give you nightmares?"
Yune hesitated, then said, "Si. Muchas pesadillas."
She leaned back, satisfied but grave. She looked at Claude. "You listen to these folks, sonny. You've got a big problem, I think." She winked at Yune, but not as a joke; her face was grave. "Muchos."
4
As the little caravan pulled back out onto the highway, Ralph asked Yune about the processo dos Passos.
"A parade during Holy Week," Yune said. "Not exactly approved by the church, but winked at."
"Farnicoco? That's the same as Holly's El Cuco?"
"Worse," Yune said. He looked grim. "Worse even than the Man with the Sack. Farnicoco is the Hooded Man. He's Mr. Death."
5
By the time they got to the Bolton home in Marysville, it was almost three o'clock and the heat was like a hammer. They crowded into the small living room, where the air conditioner--a noisy window-shaker that looked to Ralph old enough for Social Security--did its best to keep up with so many warm bodies. Claude went out to the kitchen and brought back cans of Coke in a Styrofoam cooler. "If you were hoping for beer, you're out of luck," he said. "I don't keep it."
"This is fine," Howie said. "I don't think any of us will be drinking alcohol until we settle this matter to the best of our ability. Tell us about last night."
Bolton glanced at his mother. She folded her arms and nodded.
"Well," he said, "the way it turned out, there really wasn't nothing to it. I went to bed after the late news, like always, and I felt all right then--"
"Bullpucky," Lovie broke in. "You ain't been yourself since you got here. Restless . . ." She looked around at the others. ". . . off his feed . . . talking in hi
s sleep--"
"Do you want me to tell it, Ma, or do you?"
She flapped a hand for him to go on and sipped from her can of Coke.
"Well, she's not wrong," Bolton admitted, "although I wouldn't want the guys back at work to know it. Security staff in a place like Gentlemen, Please ain't supposed to get all spooked, you know. But I have been, kind of. Only nothing like last night. Last night was different. I woke up around two, out of a nasty dream, and got up to lock the doors. I never lock em when I'm here, although I make Ma do it when she's here alone, after her Home Helpers from Plainville leave at six."
"What was your dream?" Holly asked. "Can you remember?"
"Somebody under the bed, lying there and looking up. That's all I can remember."
She nodded for him to go on.
"Before I locked the front door, I stepped out on the porch to have a look around, and I noticed all the coyotes had stopped howling. Usually they howl like everything, once the moon's up in the sky."
"They do unless someone's around," Alec said. "Then they stop. Like the crickets."
"Come to think of it, I couldn't hear them, either. And Ma's garden out back is usually full of em. I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep. I remembered I hadn't locked the windows and got up to do that. The catches squeak, and that woke Ma up. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her to go on back to sleep. I climbed into bed and almost drifted off myself--by then it had to be going on three--when I remembered I hadn't locked the window in the bathroom, the one over the tub. I got the idea that someone was climbing in through it, so I got out of bed and ran to see. I know it sounds stupid now, but . . ."
He looked at them and saw none of them smiling or looking skeptical.
"All right. All right. I guess if you've come all the way down here, you probably don't think it sounds stupid. Anyway, I tripped over Ma's damn hassock, and that time she did get up. She asked me if someone was trying to get in the house, and I said no, but for her to stay in her room."
"I didn't, though," Lovie said complacently. "I never minded any man except my husband, and he's been gone a long time."
"There was no one in the bathroom or trying to get in there through the window, but I had a feeling--I can't tell you how strong it was--that he was still out there, hiding and waiting for his chance."
"Not under your bed?" Ralph asked.
"No, I checked under there first thing. Crazy, sure, but . . ." He paused. "I didn't go to sleep until daybreak. Ma woke me up and said we had to go to the airport so we could meet you."
"Let him sleep as long as I could," Lovie said. "That's why I never made any sammitches. The bread's on top of the fridge, and if I try to reach up there, I lose my breath."
"And how do you feel now?" Holly asked Claude.
He sighed, and when he ran a hand up the side of his face, they could hear the rasp of his beard. "Not right. I stopped believing in the boogeyman right around the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but I feel all upset and paranoid, the way I did when I was on the coke. Is this guy after me? Do you really believe that?"
He looked from face to face. It was Holly who answered him. "I do," she said.
6
They were silent for a bit, thinking. Then Lovie spoke up. "El Cuco, you called him," she said to Holly.
"Yes."
The old woman nodded, tapping her arthritis-swollen fingers on her oxygen bottle. "When I was a little girl, the Mex kids called him Cucuy and the Anglos called him Kookie, or Chookie, or just the Chook. I even had a pitcher book about that sucker."
"I bet I had the same one," Yune said. "My abuela gave it to me. A giant with one big red ear?"
"Si, mi amigo." Lovie took out her cigarettes and lit one. She chuffed out smoke, coughed, and went on. "In the story, there were three sisters. The youngest one cooked and cleaned and did all the other chores. The two older girls were lazy and made fun of her. El Cucuy came. The house was locked, but he looked like their papi, so they let him in. He took the bad sisters to teach them a lesson. He left the good one who worked so hard for the daddy who was raising the girls on his own. Do you remember?"
"Sure," Yune said. "You don't forget the stories you hear when you're just a kid. That storybook version of El Cucuy was supposed to be a good guy, but all I remember is how scared I was when he dragged the girls up the mountain to his cave. Las ninas lloraban y le rogaban que las soltara. The little girls cried and begged him to let them go."
"Yes," Lovie said. "And in the end, he did and those bad girls changed their ways. That's the storybook version. But the real cucuy don't let the children go, no matter how much they cry and beg. You all know that, don't you? You've seen his work."
"So you believe it, too," Howie said.
Lovie shrugged. "Like they say, quien sabe? Did I ever believe in el chupacabra? What the old los indios call the goat-sucker?" She snorted. "No more than I believe in bigfoot. But there are strange things, just the same. Once--it was on Good Friday, at Blessed Sacrament on Galveston Street--I saw a statue of the Virgin Mary cry tears of blood. We all saw it. Later, Father Joaquim said it was just wet rust from under the eaves running down her face, but we all knew better. Father did, too. You could see it in his eyes." She swung her gaze back to Holly. "You said you'd seen things yourself."
"Yes," Holly said quietly. "I believe there's something. It may not be the traditional El Cuco, but is it the thing the legends are based on? I think so."
"The boy and those girls you told about, he drank their blood and ate their flesh? This outsider?"
"He might have," Alec said. "Based on the crime scenes, it's possible."
"And now he's me," Bolton said. "That's what you think. All he needed was some of my blood. Did he drink it?"
No one answered him, but Ralph could actually see the thing that looked like Terry Maitland doing just that. He could see it with dreadful clarity. That was how far this insanity had gotten into his head.
"Was that him here last night, skulking around?"
"Maybe not physically here," Holly said, "and he may not be you just yet. He might still be becoming you."
"Maybe he was checking the place out," Yune said.
Maybe he was trying to find out about us, Ralph thought. And if he was, he did. Claude knew we were coming.
"So what is going to happen now?" Lovie demanded. "Is he gonna kill another kid or two in Plainville or in Austin, and try to get my boy blamed for it?"
"I don't think so," Holly said. "I doubt if he's strong enough yet. It was months between Heath Holmes and Terry Maitland. And he's been . . . active."
"There's something else, too," Yune said. "A practical aspect. This part of the country's gotten hot for him. If he's smart--and he must be, to have survived this long--he'll want to move on."
That felt right. Ralph could see Holly's outsider putting his Claude Bolton face and muscular Claude Bolton body on a bus or a train in Austin and heading into the golden west. Las Vegas, maybe. Or Los Angeles. Where there might be another accidental encounter with a man (or even a woman--who knew), and a little more blood spilled. Another link in the chain.
The opening bars of Selena's "Baila Esta Cumbia" came from Yune's breast pocket. He looked startled.
Claude grinned. "Oh yeah. We got coverage even out here. Twenty-first century, man."
Yune took out his phone, looked at the screen, and said, "Montgomery County PD. I better answer this. Excuse me."
Holly looked startled, even alarmed, as he took the call and walked out on the porch with "Hello, this is Lieutenant Sablo" trailing after him. Holly excused herself as well, and followed him.
Howie said, "Maybe it's about--"
Ralph shook his head without knowing why. At least not on the surface of his mind.
"Where's Montgomery County?" Claude asked.
"Arizona," Ralph said, before either Howie or Alec could reply. "Another matter. Nothing to do with this."
"What exactly are we going to do about this?"
Lovie asked. "Do you have any idea how to catch this fella? My son is all I got, you know."
Holly came back in. She went to Lovie, bent, whispered in her ear. When Claude leaned over to eavesdrop, Lovie made a shooing gesture. "Go on in the kitchen, son, and bring back those chocolate pinwheel cookies, if they ain't melted in the heat."
Claude, obviously trained to mind, went out to the kitchen. Holly continued to whisper, and Lovie's eyes widened. She nodded. Claude came back with the bag of cookies at the same time Yune came in from the porch, stowing his phone back in his pocket.
"That was--" he began, then stopped. Holly had turned slightly, so her back was to Claude. She raised a finger to her lips and shook her head.
"That was nothing," he said. "They picked up a guy, but not the one we've been looking for."
Claude put the cookies (which did look sadly melted in their cellophane bag) on the table and glanced around suspiciously. "I don't think that's what you started to say. What's going on here?"
Ralph thought that was a good question. Outside on the rural route, a pickup truck trundled by, the lockbox in the bed reflecting bright spears of sun that made him wince.
"Son," Lovie said, "I want you to get in your car and drive to Tippit and get us some chicken dinners at Highway Heaven. That's a pretty good place. We'll feed these folks, then they can go back t'other way and spend the night at the Indian. It ain't much, but it's a roof."
"Tippit's forty miles!" Claude protested. "Dinners for seven people will cost a fortune, and be dead cold when I get back!"
"I'll heat everything up on the stove," she said calmly, "and those dinners'll be good as new. Go on, now."
Ralph liked the way Claude put his hands on his hips and looked at her with humor and exasperation. "You're tryin to get rid of me!"
"That's it," she agreed, butting her cigarette in a tin ashtray heaped with dead soldiers. "Because if Miss Holly here is right, what you know, he knows. Maybe that don't matter, maybe all the cats are out of the bag, but maybe it does. So you be a good son and go get those dinners."
Howie took out his wallet. "Allow me to pay, Claude."
"That's all right," Claude said, a trifle sullenly. "I can pay. I ain't broke."
Howie smiled his big lawyer's smile. "But I insist!"