That was the woman who had come down the stairs, the young woman in the red Corvette. Now she was presiding over the cocktail party as if she’d been doing it for years.
“It’s no secret,” Dominic said. “She came to work at the bank last summer.… I don’t have to explain. It just happened, that’s it.”
Okay, Sonny shrugged, so Dominic was screwing someone half his age. It was no skin off his nose. If Jerry Anderson found out his daughter was sleeping with Frank Dominic, he would probably kill the man. Or maybe he knew, and from one hombre dorado to the other, it was okay. The power struggles took place both in the boardrooms and in the bedrooms: lose one, win another down the road.
“It was all over between me and Gloria. Everybody knew that. She knew it. Maybe there was never anything there. We were, as they say, good business partners. She did her thing, I did mine. Anyway, Ashley will tell you I was with her the night Gloria died.”
“Alibis can be bought,” Sonny interjected.
Dominic stiffened. His dark eyes flashed fire. “I tried to level with you, Sonny. Because of Gloria. I don’t have to tell you a damned thing. It’s time for you to leave.” His jaw muscles tensed.
Okay. Sonny thought, I’ve touched the right nerve. I might as well probe deeper.
“Will she testify in court?”
Dominic nodded. “Court? You’ve gone off the deep end, Sonny. Really playing detective, aren’t you. Is it Delfina’s idea to have you bothering me? Both of you are so wrong. Ashley told Garcia she was with me—”
“Ah, what a neat little arrangement. Papa Dominic likes the young woman, and Garcia gives his blessing and, more important, keeps it quiet. And Gloria is forgotten. Is that it?”
“That’s enough!”
“You really don’t want Gloria’s murderers found, do you?”
Dominic straightened a cuff, touched his gold cufflink, and glanced out the door where his guests waited.
“You’re boring, Sonny. I used to think you were a bright young man. Gloria bragged about you. But you’re boring. What happened to Gloria had nothing to do with my interests.”
“You knew she was pregnant,” Sonny said, taking his chances.
For a moment Dominic looked as if he were going to strike out. The blood vessels along his temples throbbed.
“Pregnant? Where the hell did you get that? You’ve dreamed up some wild stories, haven’t you? Or maybe you get the stories from Delfina. Come, come, Sonny. You know the old woman hates me.”
“Was she pregnant?”
Dominic slammed the desk in front of him. “Damn you! You keep insisting on the most ridiculous—All right, I’ll tell you! You really didn’t know Gloria, did you. I’ll share a secret. We couldn’t have kids. She was hurt when she was young. She had scars. Oh, they didn’t show, but they were there. She didn’t want children, so she had her tubes tied. Now you come up with this crazy idea.”
“Tubes tied,” Sonny repeated.
“She was abused as a child, and she couldn’t get rid of the nightmares. In fact, they were getting worse. She was reaching for help.…”
Dominic paused, and for a moment he dropped the mask of power that protected him. For a moment he was a man feeling a mixture of past emotions he had once shared with his wife.
“They abused her, Sonny, her own.… They hurt her deep inside.”
Sonny hesitated. The feeling of sympathy for the man gave way to a feeling of helplessness. He knew he couldn’t trust Dominic, and he knew Dominic had enough money and influence to buy a doctor’s statement that would prove Gloria was incapable of bearing children. Dominic could buy anything! Yet the flash of emotion seemed real.
“I—”
“I think you’ve said enough,” Dominic cut him off, scowling. “You really didn’t know Gloria, and you dare to come here with wild stories. Who are you really working for, Sonny? The opposition? Yeah, maybe that’s it. You know there are a lot of people in this city who would do anything to beat me! Both Marisa and Walter Johnson would love for you to go to the paper with a story like this! You know that, don’t you?”
Sonny nodded, hesitantly. Yes, he knew.
“Yeah, we’re days away from the election and they would love to pin something on me. What’s done is done, Sonny. Gloria’s dead. I know she would want me to go on. We had gone our different ways, but she had faith in me. She knew what I could do for this city! If I get elected, I’ll be in the position to change this city. The people you see here”—he gestured toward the patio—“also trust me. They share my vision. They want to move on. Gloria’s dead and no one can bring her back. The gardener has been apprehended, and everybody wants to put Gloria’s death behind them. People want to forget about the killing! Get on with their lives! Don’t you get the message?”
Sonny felt his fists clench, a shudder passed through his body. Dominic’s business interests wanted the world to be neat and clean, an environment in which the Río Grande could be diverted to build a Dominic Disneyland with water canals and boats for tourists and casinos for gambling. They wanted what happened to Gloria swept under the rug. Howard was right: the cops had arrested Brown and the case would be put on a shelf, then it would die.
He felt beaten, confused by Dominic’s persuasion and his own conflicting feelings.
“Yeah, I get the message,” he said. “But I’m not going to stop digging. I’m going to get whoever killed Gloria! I owe it to her! I’m not stopping just because some unsuspecting gardener’s been arrested on trumped-up evidence.” He turned and walked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
He thought he heard Dominic’s gloating laugh behind him, imagined he heard Ashley Anderson walk up to Dominic’s side and laugh with him. “Nothing at all like his old bisabuelo,” Dominic would say.
It hurt to get into his truck. He was sore all over, his ribs were badly bruised. Some day, he thought as he sat in the truck. He wished he had a cigarette, but he had promised Rita to quit. Rita, that’s where he needed to be. To tell her what happened, to have her heal him.
Sonny looked at his trembling hands. A gray sheen covered them. He rubbed his fingers and thought he felt again the fine texture of the ashes he had touched when he reached into the urn that held Gloria’s ashes. The glassy texture, something like the wings of doves crumbling beneath his touch.
Frank was right about one thing. Sometimes he wondered if he knew anything at all about Gloria, about who she was after she came back from LA. But he did know the dark secrets of her past. As a little girl, Gloria grew up poor and tormented. Her life had been a nightmare. She had told him part of the story. One night in her apartment she was particularly sad, she drank a lot of wine. She cried. Sonny held her.
“It started when I was thirteen,” she said, “and there was nothing I could do. I slept in a small room at the back of the house with my brother. One night my father came home drunk … he came into my room. I was too frightened to resist. I remember the pain, that’s all. Everything else I’ve blocked out. I thought of him as a devil sent to punish me. Because I was a woman. For two years he used me when he was drunk, and there was no one I could turn to for help. I think my mother knew but pretended not to. And my brother knew. They said nothing, did nothing, and I, too, learned to be silent. Silence, Sonny, all I knew was silence. I let the creature enter me. I felt I was to blame. I grew ugly inside. Then my brother came on to me one night, and something snapped. I scratched his face as deep as I could, and I ran out into the night. I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew I had to get away. I found a man, and he took care of me. But in exchange for a place to sleep, he also used me. I was only fifteen, and I was already a whore. They made me a whore. That’s what I thought I was, for so long.…”
Is that why tía Delfina hired me? Sonny thought. She wanted to make up for the years of abuse that had fallen on Gloria? She was haunted by the crime she had allowed in her home?
Around him the slow, enveloping darkness of summer was seeping through t
he valley, bringing the slow dance of soft shadows. A waxing moon came over the Sandias to hang over the valley. A nighthawk flew from the river, its darting flight a thing of beauty. Sonny pushed a button on his radio. At the sports stadium the Dukes were warming up to face Tacoma. In the peaceful old settlement of Ranchitos, don Eliseo would be sitting down to his simple supper of tortillas, beans, a chile stew with meat. The Lords and Ladies of Light had blessed the valley with another day of life, and the old man would give thanks.
Sonny sniffed the air. The coolness of the river wafted across the valley. Respite from heat. Still no smell of rain in the air. Only the green, sperm smell of cottonwood leaves.
He thought again of Rita, and he realized his thoughts weren’t organized. They were running, like coyotes in heat, along the dark bosque of his mind. That wasn’t good.
Slowly and painfully he put his truck in gear and headed toward Fourth Street and Rita’s Cocina.
17
Sonny awakened hugging the pillow. Consciousness came slowly as the gray-pearl light of dawn filtered through the haze of his sleepless night. He had been dreaming that he was making love to Rita, a voracious love, a consuming, sweating, groaning type of love, wild with animal fury and heat. She whispered in his ear, “Make love to me!” She coaxed him and pressed her moist body against his. He groaned with desire, his body tense with the need to enter her and find release.
“Make love to me, amor,” she cried. He had never felt her so aroused. Her strong hands caressed his back and kneaded his shoulders. Her fingers moved down along his stomach and to his sex, touching him tenderly, but do what she would, he remained flaccid.
All night he had been haunted by images of her naked body, her moist curves. Her long dark hair flowing around him, the perfume of nopal blossoms, intense reds and purples, the white yucca flower rising into the blue sky like bells on a staff, the desert blooming with love. Her dark eyes were full of love, her nipples erect and lovely as dark peach blossoms, her thighs a warmth of flesh pressing against him, and her lips hot when she kissed him.
She kissed his mouth and face, his ears, his throat, and down his chest to the flatness of his stomach. Her fingers touched every part of his body, but he couldn’t respond! The lovemaking only created frustration, a pain he couldn’t release.
Soaking wet, Sonny moaned and opened his eyes. Damn, it wasn’t even daylight! Outside, a morning jubilation of birds filled the air.
He turned on his back. The nightmare, he thought, was a reflection of what had happened last night. He had gone to Rita, but for the first time he hadn’t been able to make love. She had been waiting for him, dressed in a red chemise and panties. Candles burned on her dresser, the soft aroma reminding him of childhood visits to church, mass and its solemnity, the Kyrie Eleison being sung by the chorus of women at the back of the church. The red of roses filtered through the room. Cans of cold Bud sweated in the ice bucket, and his favorite chicken tacos smothered with green chile were waiting for him.
“God, I’m tired,” he said and told her about his visit to Raven’s compound and to Dominic’s as he undressed. He needed to bury himself in her, allow her love to wash away the bad day.
“Yes,” she whispered, “I’ll give you a rubdown. You can rest.…”
“I don’t want to rest”—he kissed her—“I want you.”
He unsnapped his shirt and admired her as she reclined against the Sonn pillows. “And I want you.” She smiled and pulled the lace ribbon of her top, revealing her round, inviting breasts.
“Your bruises,” she said, softly touching his lips, which had puffed up.
“The hell with my bruises,” he answered. Then he paused. Somewhere he thought he smelled the fragrance of lilacs. He felt sick.
“Lilacs?” he said.
“No, no lilacs. I got rid of that perfume,” she replied. “Come.” She held out her arms. She was in the mood to be loved.
He finished stripping, lay beside her, and kissed her. The taste of her kisses would wash away the scent of lilac. He loved the smell of her body when they made love: a deep, satisfying earth smell, like the fragrance of chamisa after a rainstorm, like tortillas cooking on the comal. Home, warmth, excitement. But when Rita drew him into her arms, nothing happened.
The image of Gloria in his mind hung over him like a veil, her touch cold, and he recoiled from it.
“You’re tired,” Rita whispered.
He slipped on his back and groaned. What the hell did it mean? He rubbed his stomach and felt the itch that had been bugging him for days. He scratched softly, the round circle, the four radiating lines, the sign of the Zia. He looked at the candles. The wax smell filled her bedroom, mingling with the lilac scent. He thought he heard the cawing of a crow.
Rita lay her head on his shoulder. “Rest,” she whispered and caressed his chest.
Sonny stroked her soft, round stomach and traced a circle tenderly around her navel. He touched the soft rim and paused to let his finger feel the dip in the center. She was the only woman whose navel he had ever caressed, he thought, and the thought surprised him.
“I don’t know what’s happening!” He looked down at his naked body and felt ashamed. He pulled the sheet over himself. “Today I was coming down I-40 and I just started crying. It was a mistake to go see Frank, I mean I just couldn’t think straight.… I actually felt sorry for the bastard!”
“You loved her. She was the first woman you knew as a young man.”
“I didn’t think I’d take this whole thing so hard,” he confessed, afraid his voice might break.
He turned to look at Rita in the dim light.
Her hand caressed his chest; he reached to squeeze it and felt his heart pounding.
“You’re too good to me,” he said and held his breath. The candlelight created swaying images on the wall. Gloria’s silhouette hovered there.
“What if she was pregnant twelve years ago, after our one night? After we made love?” he said hoarsely.
There, it was out, something he had not been able to say or even to allow himself to think. What if there was a child created that night? It had haunted him. He looked at Rita. She sighed.
“There’s no way to know,” she whispered, her dark and lovely face looming over his. “But now the child she was carrying when she was murdered is haunting you. Some child spirit has returned. A young soul of the universe that wants to speak with you. You have to see Lorenza. She can help.”
Lorenza would know what to do. She had gone to Mexico to study with brujos. She practiced a kind of indigenous shamanism, in the way of the good brujas, those called curanderas in the New Mexican villages. They had a way of healing, a way of knowing.
Don Eliseo often talked about the old ways of healing, but he didn’t practice. He was content to muse on the meaning of the old traditional teachings. And Rita didn’t practice the way, even though she grew the herbs used for the remedies.
“You think so?” Sonny asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Susto,” Rita replied.
Susto? Sonny thought. Fear. Fear has gotten into me. It’s draining me.
“I never felt fear like this before.”
“This isn’t like being afraid of a fight or one of those bulls you used to wrestle. This is Gloria’s spirit. Her spirit was in the room with her body. Perhaps it’s now in you. If she was pregnant, there’s also the spirit of the child she was carrying. The lost child, the child you believe could also be yours, in a larger sense. A child’s soul is trying to come to you, to help you, but it doesn’t know how. It has something to tell you. Lorenza’s the only one I know who can release the susto, release the energy Gloria and maybe her child are creating. It’s in you, Sonny, like a shadow.”
Yes, Sonny thought and scratched his stomach. Etched around my ombligo, the Zia sign.
“I’ll go see her.”
“Good,” she said and slipped out of bed for a bottle of almond oil. She massa
ged his back. The gentle caresses took out some of the fatigue and he felt better.
“I don’t need Lorenza, just you,” he said when she finished. She served him a cold beer.
“You need to eat,” she said. She put on a robe and warmed the tacos.
He sat back and let her do her ministering, sure that he had only to eat and rest and he would be all right. He was tired, but the love of this wonderful woman was all he needed. He ate greedily, eager to regain his strength.
He smacked his lips. The pleasant sensation of the hot chile tingled in his mouth; its subtle essence lingered on his lips. Every man should be so lucky, he thought.
“Delicious. That’ll fix me up.” He grinned and moved to her side.
She kissed him and caressed him softly, but the sexual energy he had always taken for granted just didn’t light up. She drew him to her bosom and whispered again that he had to rest. She sang a lullaby, the soft words a hum that lulled him to sleep. It was a short sleep, and the only image that appeared was that of a child. The child was running with a pack of dogs in the forest, but when he looked closer, he saw the animals were really coyotes.
He awoke with a start.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fell asleep. I’d better get going,” he said and reached for his pants.
“You can stay,” she offered, but he knew she needed to rest. Tomorrow was Monday and her work weeks were long. He, too, had things to do. He had to go back over the territory, organize it like Manuel Lopez would organize. Be methodical. Get over the feeling of confusion.
“Gracias,” he said as he slipped on his shirt, pants, and boots. “You need your rest. I’ll call you. Sorry about—”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about!” she snapped back. “You know that. But promise me you’ll see Lorenza.”
“I will,” he said. He bent over her and kissed her. “You’re great. Thanks for everything.”