Sonny thought of the various groups around New Mexico that had fought the storage of nuclear waste at the WIPP site in the underground salt mines near Carlsbad. The fight had gone on for years, in the courts and out.
He looked closely at the man and felt the fervor of a religious fanatic. His intense gaze reminded Sonny of pictures of saints he had seen, men burning with the divine spirit, or the eyes Goya painted. Eyes of the prophets of the desert, men of righteousness. Pájaro was more than a Greenie, more than an activist citizen concerned about WIPP trucks carrying nuclear waste down New Mexico roads. He was a very committed man.
“We’re going to get this state up in arms,” Pájaro continued. “On June twenty-first we’ll have people blocking the highway from Los Alamos to Santa Fe. The DOE and the Senate has to know we don’t want the test. To allow the test now is to open the door to WIPP!”
“That’ll take some doing,” Rita said. She, too, was studying Pájaro intently.
“We need all the help we can get,” Pájaro said.
Sonny shrugged. “I’ve never been involved in the antinuclear—”
“And yet your father died of cancer,” Pájaro interrupted. “He was working in the GE plant down in the valley, and he died of cancer. Someone like you working with us could really get attention to the issues.”
How the hell did he know that? Sonny wondered, irritated that the man would bring up his father’s death. His father had been a night watchman at the GE plant in the South Valley, and the plant was a subcontractor to Sandia Labs. Who knew what kind of contamination seeped down into the South Valley water table from the labs and the air base on the hill?
The radioactive junk had taken his father’s life, Sonny was sure of that. He felt a kinship with those who fought for stricter control of the poison. Pájaro’s group was the most strident. They flatly didn’t trust the government, and with the recent release of information that told of injections of large doses of radioactive isotopes into hospitalized patients in the fifties, who could blame them?
“We’ve been keeping tabs on cancer occurring in the South Valley,” Pájaro said and put his hand on Sonny’s arm. “We read the papers, make notes, pinpoint where the person lived and worked.… A pattern forms. Your father died of leukemia, right? Cancer linked directly to the poison the base has been dumping for years. Did you know that area in the South Valley has the highest rate of cancer in the city? The pollutants are there, man, we know it and DOE knows it, but everybody denies responsibility and nobody wants to clean it up!”
He paused, lowered his voice, and whispered in a confidential tone, “Hell, it’s not just Los Alamos that has the garbage buried in its backyard, it’s right here in your city! They have more shit stored at Sandia Labs than Rocky Flats! Why don’t you join us? Join Nuclear-Free Earth,” Pájaro said, “and you can make a difference.”
Anthony Pájaro was a preacher, the chief priest converting those who hadn’t yet seen the light. Nuclear proliferation and the entire industry that produced nuclear waste was the Armageddon he warned about.
“Any nation on earth can build a bomb,” he continued, “or nuclear power plants, and the more that are built, the more nuclear waste is created. It’s madness, Sonny, insanity. Everybody knows it’s crazy, but nobody wants to be the first to admit it! We know we can’t store the stuff! It remains radioactive for centuries! The only thing for us to do is stop producing the poison! Shut down WIPP!”
Sonny nodded. Yeah, the WIPP site was a temporary solution, they couldn’t go on stockpiling radioactive waste forever. Mother Earth was being disemboweled; the caverns that were her womb were now poisoned with barrels of nuclear waste. She was impregnated with plutonium, the deadliest element known to mankind, but she would resist. She would spew it out, if not now, sometime in the future. She would thwart science and technology, and when she did the catastrophe created would make Three Mile Island or Chernobyl look like a picnic.
“I don’t usually get involved in these political things, either,” Tamara said, sensing Sonny’s reluctance, “but this is to save our state. Our Earth.”
Yeah, that and after-hours with Pájaro, Sonny thought.
“Think about it, Baca. It’s the feds and the DOE that’re running this state! Cramming all the shit from Rocky Flats and Los Alamos down our throats. Now they want to store the Pantex junk here! All those nuclear bombs beings dismantled are sitting up at Kirtland! We don’t have to take it!” Pájaro squeezed Sonny’s arm.
It was the kind of gesture a father would make, a touch that told his son to wake up. There’s danger all around us, wake up! It was the reaching out of brother to brother, drawing Sonny into Pájaro’s confidence.
“Maybe,” Sonny replied. “Look, we can talk later.”
A television news crew working the event had gathered around them.
Pájaro smiled. “Yes, let’s talk sometime. But there’s not much time. The test is already scheduled for June twenty-first. We need to move fast. Nice to meet you. Ciao, Tamara,” he said and kissed her cheek. “Miss Lopez, a pleasure.” He smiled at Rita and turned to face the reporter who pulled at him.
“He’s a gifted man,” Tamara said, “you two would work well together. He’s going to bring this state to its senses. Now if you will excuse me, darling, I have other people to see.” She smiled and kissed Sonny’s cheek. “Enjoy the party. Good night,” she said to him and Rita as she moved away to greet others.
“A circus,” he said and turned to Rita.
“A good lecture,” Rita said and took his hand as they walked toward the bar. She stopped. “But you know, he really means it. He thinks WIPP can be made to fold up and go away. He’s intense and he’s handsome, and he has a cause. You can see women gravitate toward him.…”
“You, too?”
“I’ve never met a man as handsome as you,” she said, smiling, “until tonight.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“No. He’s good-looking, intriguing, charismatic. And he has a cause. Some women are drawn to that.”
“But not you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He can be dangerous,” she replied.
“How?”
“When anyone wants something as bad as he wants to get rid of WIPP, they’re dangerous,” she said and squeezed his hand. “Now, get me a glass of wine and I’ll let you take me home tonight.”
“Con mucho gusto,” Sonny said and turned to the bar.
11
The next morning after he showered and dressed, he put on his last pair of pressed jeans and a clean cowboy shirt with pearl snap-on buttons. After he slipped on his boots, he put on his silver and turquoise bolo tie. His father had given him the bolo the Christmas before he died. He had bought it from a Navajo man, John Chavez from Cañoncito.
As Sonny looked in the mirror, he realized for the first time the design of the tie suggested a Zia sign. The silver leaves radiated in the form of the four sacred directions, and the turquoise in the middle suggested the bright New Mexican sky. He looked closely, and there in the center was a nick of gold. The round sun.
My imagination, he thought as the phone rang.
“Sonny. Jack Randall, NewMex Life. Sorry to call you so early—”
“S’all right,” Sonny replied. He had done some work for NewMex Life and Jack Randall was apt to call at all hours.
“I just found out you’re related to Gloria Dominic.”
“Cousin.”
“God, it’s a horrible crime. But I’ll get to the point. A few months ago we wrote a two-million-dollar policy on Gloria Dominic. And the beneficiary is—”
Frank, Sonny thought. Red flags waved in his mind, more furiously than when tía Delfina sounded off about the insurance.
“The coincidence is …” Jack let his thought trail off.
“Yeah,” Sonny agreed. So why tell me all this? He knew a case like this wound up with Equifax, the investigative arm of the national insurance companies.
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“Damnit, Sonny! I wrote the application. Gloria Dominic was as healthy as a horse. Two million seemed reasonable.…”
“Was she pregnant?”
“Pregnant? What makes you ask a crazy thing like that? At her age?”
“You didn’t have your doctor check her?”
Randall groaned. “It was Frank Dominic, for crying out loud! His wife! Look, I need help.”
“Like?”
“Work with Equifax. You know Frank and the family, you know the turf. You know if I can get a suicide, knowledge beforehand, anything! We can go to court. I’ll give you ten.”
“It wasn’t a suicide!”
“Maybe, maybe, but I need something! Frank’s going to fight me in court! Even a settlement’s gonna cost us!” Jack shouted back. “I need a break!”
“Dirt—”
“God, yes! It’s going to be a dirty fight! Frank’s tough! Fucker’s got us by the balls, and I’m caught in the middle!”
Sonny smiled. Pendejo, did you just learn that about Frank?
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a client.”
“Frank?”
“No, a nice old lady who has an interest in the case.…”
“Who?”
“Confidential.”
“So what? As long as it’s not Frank, I don’t care.”
“Sorry, Jack, but I can’t.”
“Okay, okay, but if you change your mind, I need your help. I’ll double the price.”
Twenty grand? He’d never even dreamed of making twenty grand on any investigation. It was a temptation. But he wasn’t into selling his services to look for dirt, not on Gloria.
“No, sorry.”
“Don’t say no. Say you’ll think about it. You’ve got my number. You find anything and I’ll buy it.”
“Adios,” Sonny said and hung up the phone. Tía Delfina gave me twenty bucks to find Gloria’s murderers, but twenty bucks won’t buy a week’s groceries. A couple of lunches maybe. But he had been hired, and he would stick with his tía, for Gloria’s sake. For his.
He needed to talk to Gloria’s housekeeper and to Leroy Brown, Dominic’s ex-gardener. He flipped through the yellow pages and jotted down the number and address listed for Veronica Worthy. Leroy Brown’s number appeared under Zia Lawn Care. It had a San José barrio address. Sonny dialed, waited. A rough voice answered.
“Leroy Brown?”
“Speaking.”
“My name’s Sonny Baca, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Not doing lawns anymore,” the man answered. “Lemme give you the number of a friend—”
“I want to talk to you about Gloria Dominic.”
There was a pause. “You police?”
“No, a friend.”
“Already told the police everything,” Leroy Brown said, and the phone went dead.
“Well, I’ll just have to go by after the funeral and talk to Leroy in person, whether he likes it or not,” Sonny said to himself. He put on his dark blue jacket and black cowboy hat. He looked in the mirror, removed the hat, and slapped it against his thigh. He needed a new one, something more dressy, a straw Stetson for summer.
He tossed the hat back on the dresser. He wouldn’t wear one today. Hell, he’d just have to take it off in church. The kind of crowd that was going to be at Gloria’s mass didn’t wear cowboy hats, especially not one as dusty as his.
He went out and called buenos días to don Eliseo. The old man was sprinkling the grass in front of the house.
“Vas al funeral?” don Eliseo called.
“Sí.”
“Que descanse en paz.” Then he added, “I’ll water your grass. Va estar bien caliente hoy.”
Sonny thanked the old man, got in his truck, and drove to Rita’s. She was sitting on her porch steps. Roses lined the porch, surrounding her, filling the morning with their perfume. The flash of a green-throated hummingbird flitted from one rose to the other, then rose quickly and was gone.
“Buenos días.” She stood and greeted him.
He took her in his arms and kissed her. “You’re as beautiful as a hummingbird,” he whispered.
“That’s nice to hear.” She smiled. She picked up the four roses she had cut. “For Gloria,” she said.
He smiled and smelled the roses. The aroma was subtle.
“Gloria’s ghost is in my dreams.…”
“You should see Lorenza,” she suggested as they got in the truck and drove south on Fourth.
Lorenza Villa was a friend, a curandera who had returned to the old teachings of the healers of the villages after having completed a degree in nursing and counseling. Later, she studied in Mexico with curanderos. Deep stuff, something even Rita didn’t discuss much. Something that had to do with the nagual, the animal spirit of the person.
“I might—”
“She can help.”
Sonny glanced at her. She was dressed in a black skirt and white blouse, and she wore a scarf across her shoulders, not the rebozo that she often wore in the cool evenings but a small dark scarf.
“I guess,” he said, and he wondered why the image of Gloria wouldn’t leave him. Was she calling to him? He was sure he had heard her voice when he viewed her body.
“I had flowers sent to the church,” Rita said.
“Thanks,” Sonny said. “You think of everything. So why these four?”
“The four sacred directions,” she answered. “I’ve been thinking. If those who murdered Gloria are using the Zia sign as their signature, they are misusing a sacred sign, a sign very significant to us. They’re taking its power away from us. We have to fight back. The four is sacred. It’s also a feminine number. We can’t allow it to be used by those who do evil.”
Yes, Sonny thought and opened the door of the truck for her. She’s right. The Zia sun is sacred, a deity of the Río Grande pueblos, the Tata Sol of the Chicanos. A sacred symbol, a living reality worth fighting for.
On the way to the church he told her about Howard’s theory, that it was possible Gloria Dominic was pregnant when she died, and Rita sighed and murmured a prayer.
“Dios mío, it only gets worse.”
The police had cordoned off the streets around the church. Parking was difficult to find, so by the time they entered the church the mass had already started. They walked slowly down a side aisle looking for seats until Sonny spotted Howard. In here, Howard motioned, and he squeezed the people down the row to make room for Sonny and Rita.
“Quíhubole,” Howard whispered.
“Qué tal?” Sonny answered.
At the altar the archbishop was conducting the mass. He and the attending priests were attired in gold-brocaded robes. One of the altar boys swung the censer and wisps of sweet incense curled upward.
Frank Dominic had spared no expense, Sonny thought as he looked at the altar, where a profusion of flowers spilled around the gold coffin.
The mystery of Christ, Sonny thought, el Cristo de don Eliseo, el Nazareño de los penitentes of Chimayó, the God of his mother, was born, died, and rose again. Ritual. The event was relived in ritual; by re-creating the event, the participants could enter the mystery, be cleansed by experiencing the birth and death of Christ.
“And on the third day he arose from the dead.…”
The morning was warm, and even though the doors were open the packed church was stifling. The sweet perfumes of the women and the smell of wax and incense thickened.
From where he sat, Sonny had a good view of the mourners. The city’s most powerful business leaders, attorneys, bankers, congressmen, and of course, all the city hall politicos were in attendance. All wore their grieving faces, all were dressed in dark elegance. The women wore sedate summer dresses or dark suits. Even at the mass for the dead, those who had wealth showed it off.
Everything about the funeral was precisely orchestrated. From the moment Gloria was pronounced dead, Dominic’s office staff had taken over, the services were quick
ly planned and all the important people of the city called. No small-town rosary for Gloria; Frank had pulled out all the stops. Her death was turned into a precisely orchestrated social event.
Across the aisle sat Sam Garcia and his wife; in the front row sat the governor, a senator, and a congressman. Even Dominic’s nemesis, Marisa Martinez, the mayor, sat with her father.
In the front row Sonny spotted his mother, in black. Next to her sat his tía Delfina. Next to his mother sat Max. Solid, hombre de la tierra, hombre del South Valley, Max. Maximiliano. A hard worker, a man of the valley. In some ways he reminded Sonny of his father. A short, stocky man; curly peppered hair; dark, thick eyelashes. Puro manito, puro Nuevo Mexicano. A sort of stoicism filled those men, Sonny thought. They were men who took care of their families. In spite of all the hard times, the dirty work they had to do just to survive, they carried an inner peace.
He glanced at Rita. Her eyes were closed, praying, or listening to the eulogy the archbishop had launched into. Beauty emanated from her face, an aura of beauty.
I should marry her, Sonny thought, quit fucking around. Forgive me, Father, I thought “fucking around” in church.
Lord, all the training he had received during catechism had taken. Confess every sin. No sinful thought is too small. God sees all, hears all, knows all. Remembers all.
“There in the house made of luz, casa de luz, en la mañanita, when the sun comes over the mountain,” he heard don Eliseo’s voice. “Casa de luz! The Lords and Ladies of the Light come to fill the house with light.”
Sonny groaned. He felt someone watching him and looked across the aisle at Tamara Dubronsky. She smiled, a dark, seductive smile. She wanted him, she was waiting. Maybe he would take her up on that, sooner or later—