Sonny parked his truck next to a black BMW. Tamara Dubronsky’s car. Sonny walked into the park and made himself inconspicuous under a giant elm. There, from the outer fringe of the crowd, he surveyed the festive atmosphere of the gathering. Colorful balloons filled the air. People held antinuke signs: Anti-WIPP, Pro-Earth, A Nuclear-Free Earth. Like a political rally, Sonny thought. The crowd was clearly caught up in the excitement.
At a table at the center of the crowd sat the man himself. Not the crazy Raven Sonny had met in the jail cell, but his mask: Anthony Pájaro. He was smiling, greeting people. Select members of Nuclear-Free Earth sat at the table with him, but none of the cronies Sonny had tangled with in Estancia.
Other groups opposed to WIPP had come to see what Pájaro had to say. Most of the groups had early on resisted a coalition with his group, but it was June 19, only two days until the experimental truck loaded with dirty nuclear waste rolled out of Los Alamos to the WIPP site in Carlsbad. The coalitions against WIPP felt it was now or never for a concerted effort. Despite his dangerous ideas, Pájaro, they sensed, was the only one who could bring them together.
Sonny recognized friends from the South Valley group who were trying to get Super Fund money to clean up a huge, polluted area. He waved. A fleeting image of his father reminded him he still had unresolved business. Maybe when this case was over he would join the fight again.
Clean Earth, he thought, who in the hell could be against a clean Earth? He scanned the crowd and recognized undercover city cops working through it. He saw people he knew, including the FBI boys who had worked him over the afternoon he visited Raven’s compound. One of them spotted Sonny, nudged his partner, and frowned. Then they both disappeared into the milling crowd.
Sonny turned his attention to Raven. What a masquerade. As Anthony Pájaro, the man was sure of himself, exuding confidence as he shook hands with well-wishers. In his dark pants and white shirt with the ruffled collar, he radiated confidence. His raven-black hair was done in a ponytail. The Zia gold medallion glittered on his chest. Aggressive reporters pushed forward to get shots of him.
Rosa Guerra, a community activist from the South Valley, sat at Raven’s side. She rose and her thin voice thundered in the microphone, greeting people, introducing the panel, explaining that they were gathered there to plan the biggest anti-WIPP rally ever held in the state of New Mexico. In just two days the WIPP truck would roll out of Los Alamos, and they were going to be there to protest. When she was done warming up the enthusiastic crowd, she introduced Raven.
“Now let’s hear from the person who has been able to bring us together in our fight! A man who has just gotten out of jail, where he was imprisoned under false charges by those who would stop our fight! Anthony Pájaro!”
The crowd cheered as she handed the mike to Raven.
Raven’s small group was enthusiastic, clearly under his wing. Today his job was to persuade the others to lay their bodies on the line and stop the truck from rolling. And if that concerted action didn’t work, Raven had his own plan.
“Before I answer questions,” he began, “I want to read a statement. Some of you know I just got out of jail. Yes, the so-called law of this state threw me in jail for my beliefs. This is supposed to be a free country, but if the cops want you in jail, they drum up charges. They claim I was growing marijuana. But they let me out of jail without charging me, so where’s the marijuana I was supposed to be growing?”
“Maybe the cops smoked it!” someone shouted, and the crowd laughed and cheered.
Raven smiled. “Yeah, they want me in jail! Why? Because I’m fighting for a nuclear-free Earth! The FBI had trumped up the charges. They don’t want me, and all of you, in Los Alamos on Friday when the WIPP truck loaded with high-level plutonium waste rolls! But we’re going to be there, aren’t we?”
The crowd cheered. He worked the crowd, turning to speak to each of the different groups present, urging unity of all the groups against WIPP. The crowd listened intently.
Sonny, too, was listening intently when he felt someone at his side, smelled the fragrance of a perfume he recognized.
“Darling.” Tamara Dubronsky smiled up at him. She wore a white, flowing summer dress, a large straw hat, and dark glasses.
“How nice to see you,” she whispered, peering over her glasses, leaning forward for Sonny to kiss her cheek.
“Buenas tardes,” he replied.
“You are looking wonderful,” she whispered. “This heat agrees with you.” She slipped her glasses back on and turned to look at Raven. “Isn’t he magnetic?” she whispered.
Magnetic? Sonny thought. Yeah.
“You two are so much alike,” she said.
He decided to find out just what she knew. “Me and Raven? Or me and Anthony?”
She smiled enigmatically and turned to listen to Raven.
“You are like a crystal, coated with all the superfluous trappings of your macho culture,” she had told him when they first met. “Inside you are a sensitive person, a man who has a gift to share with the world. A view into your past lives would reveal so much. You are a man of the sun, the light within you is strong. Beneath the skin we are brother and sister. But you are afraid of the light. You need a guide to show you the possibilities. Let me be your guide. To truly know the truth you need a guide.”
I have a guide, he’d thought. Don Eliseo. When he sat with don Eliseo in the garden as the morning sun came over the crest of the mountain, he had felt the beauty of the Señores y Señoras de la Luz. A mystery was revealed. A sense of clarity came from the sharing, no need to search past lives when the moment was so fulfilling. Clarity was in the moment lived.
And Rita was a guide. Being in her arms, he felt the layers of old notions fall away revealing his real self. In her love he found his center; there he found peace, beauty, and strength. There was also a sense of knowledge, and yes, illumination. Love was a path. It was more than just the sex.
Maybe he was wasting his time here, Sonny thought. Maybe Raven really didn’t have the guts to blow up a WIPP truck. Maybe the large barrel in which the nuclear waste was to be transported couldn’t be blasted open. The containers had been designed at Sandia Labs, and each barrel was supposed to be impregnable. But no way Sandia had tested them against the dynamite charge Raven could rig up. If he could blow the container apart, or if he could just put a crack in it, the radiation would spread for miles in no time.
Raven finished reading his statement, and the reporters pressed forward with questions. He had handled himself well, Sonny thought, painting himself as the anti-WIPP hero, a man who wants to protect the earth and its people from high-level plutonium proliferation. New Mexico should not become a nuclear dumping ground for the nation, he said, playing on a theme many could agree on. He laid out his plan to bodily keep the trucks from moving. But he only vaguely alluded to the kind of violence he had in mind to back that action up.
When he was done, he raised his fist and shouted, “Power to the people! Down with WIPP!”
The small crowd responded with applause, and a resounding “Down with WIPP!” cry echoed across the sultry air. “Down with WIPP! Down with WIPP! Down with WIPP!”
“He is wonderful,” Tamara said, taking Sonny’s arm and leading him toward Raven.
Raven’s groupies were gathered around him, congratulating him, but when he saw Tamara and Sonny approach, he turned to greet them. “Tamara,” he said as he took her hand, watching Sonny out of the corners of his eyes.
“You were wonderful,” Tamara said, beaming.
“Ah, Mr. Sonny Baca.” Raven grinned. “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon. You ready to join us?”
“Not quite,” Sonny answered.
“Some men are blind.” Raven’s look turned dark.
“He needs time,” Tamara said.
“We don’t have time,” Raven replied, whispering something to Tamara as he kissed her cheek.
The crowd pressed around them, eager to talk to him, t
o ask questions, to plan details for the rally in Los Alamos, and he turned to greet them. For the moment he was in charge, the news conference had been a success: the Nuclear-Free Earth group now controlled most of the groups around the state. Individually, they had failed to stop the WIPP test shipment, but now, united, a new hope stirred. The excitement was palpable.
“Look around you,” Raven said, “these are your neighbors, people you know. They’ve made a commitment to stop WIPP. Why can’t you?”
Sonny looked at the crowd. How many around him knew Raven and Anthony Pájaro were the same man? He did nothing to hide the identities. Tamara apparently knew and accepted it. Did the others see it?
“Too busy to get involved,” Raven said scornfully.
Tamara sensed the confrontation and took Sonny’s arm. “The press is waiting for you, darling,” she said to Raven. “You have done wonderful work today. Leave Sonny to me. Come, Sonny, walk me to my car.”
Raven smiled. “Yes, perhaps you can persuade him. But there isn’t much time left, Mr. Baca. Two days. Remember, two days. We want your body on the line when we close down the Los Alamos highway.”
He laughed and turned to the news reporters who eagerly sought individual interviews for the six o’clock news.
“He has a way with people,” Tamara said to Sonny as they walked out of the park. “He’s the only leader they have.”
“Who?” Sonny asked.
“Anthony, of course.”
“And Raven?”
“You are playing word games with me, darling. Please don’t. I trust Anthony, and I am committed to this cause because I know the evil of this deadly power. The cold war is only on hold, don’t you see that? Madmen all over this world, from North Korea to Iraq, want to get hold of nuclear weapons. War will come, nuclear war, if we don’t stop this madness. And with war, the Earth freezing over.…”
She paused and shivered, even though the day was hot.
“Yes, the scientists predict a cloud will cover the sun, a new ice age will cover the Earth.”
“But the cold war is over,” Sonny said.
“I don’t believe it,” she replied. “The governments have always lied to us. The arsenals are still immense. No, my dear, the world is still ruled by fear. The only way is to get rid of the weapons once and for all.”
“Can I ask you about Gloria?” Sonny asked as they reached her car.
“Darling, you can ask me anything.”
“She was seeing Akira Morino.”
“They had become, shall we say, attached.”
“Were they lovers?” Sonny asked and opened her car door.
“How well did you know her?” Tamara turned the question on him.
“Not as well as I thought,” he admitted.
“I know she was an ambitious woman,” Tamara offered. “In many ways she was the moving force behind Frank’s plans. A very strong woman. I think she grew tired of his womanizing. Women like Gloria are not spurned easily. But in this case she didn’t act quickly enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t trust Frank Dominic as far as I can throw him,” she whispered as she leaned forward and brushed his cheek with a kiss. “Very few in this city turn their back on him.” She got into her car and put the key in the ignition.
“You don’t think that he—”
“Dear boy, you tell me. You’re the detective.”
“Did Anthony Pájaro know Gloria?”
“Why would he? This was not Gloria’s cause.”
“How about the rumors that Raven is going to blow up a WIPP truck?” Sonny said, deciding to gauge her response.
Tamara frowned. “Anthony doesn’t believe in violence. This is gossip stirred up by the news media. They are trying to discredit his work. Anyway, I’m going to call Morino and put in a good word for you this afternoon, as you asked. Ciao,” she said and drove away. Traces of her sweet perfume mixed with the car’s exhaust and dust.
“Yeah, hasta la vista.”
Where would it end? he wondered, getting in his truck and driving to Rita’s.
On the way Sonny checked in with Howard, but nothing new had developed at the lab. Leroy Brown was still in jail, and the news media had returned its attention to the mayoral race. As predicted, Gloria’s murder was slipping out of the public eye and into the police’s back files.
Howard was no longer on the case. A man had been drowned in a South Valley irrigation ditch. He was found covered with a plastic sack covering his head, gagged and bound, a typical dope deal gone sour, and Howard was assigned to gather evidence.
“One of Turco’s boys,” Howard said. “Looks like the Juárez mafiosos have struck.”
“The noose tightens on Turco. Gracias, ’mano.”
“Take care,” Howard warned.
“Ten-four,” Sonny said and drove to Rita’s. He had the feeling he was being followed, but when he checked the rearview mirror, there was no tail in sight. Paranoid, he thought. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, too much was crowding in too fast, and he felt lost in a quagmire without answers.
He told Rita his thoughts as they sat on her porch and enjoyed the cool of the evening. “Gloria Dominic’s murder has moved to the back page,” he said. “Frank is running his campaign as if nothing had ever happened. Garcia doesn’t give a damn if the whole thing disappears and goes away. With Leroy Brown in jail, all is supposed to be safe.”
What would Elfego Baca do? Sonny thought. Charge in and take command. Elfego Baca had been the doer. Legend had it that as a young man, el Bisabuelo had walked into Alburquerque from Socorro with Billy the Kid. They were fifteen or sixteen, two pimply-faced young men walking from Socorro into the big city of Alburquerque to seek their fortune.
Billy the Kid and Elfego Baca. It would make a good movie, Sonny thought. They were bone weary, dusty, and hungry. They walked into the Martinez Bar in Old Town, where Billy ordered the biggest meal on the menu for him and his friend. The ladies of the cantina joined them, and they danced and sang all night. Billy lined the bar with the free drinks for everyone—except Billy. He never touched the stuff.
Late that night when the time came to pay the bill, Billy winked at Elfego, secretly moved toward a table in a dark corner and lighted a stick of dynamite he had been carrying. He put it under the table and motioned to Elfego to grab his hat. Nonchalantly he and Elfego worked their way toward the door. The explosion hurt no one, but it shook the bar and powdered black the faces of the ladies of the night and the many drunk cowboys. In the commotion the young Elfego and Billy scurried out the back door. That night, the two who had eaten and danced like kings slept in the straw of the livery stable.
“The most pleasant sleep I ever had in my life,” Elfego was to write in his diary as an old man.
“I didn’t see Billy again until March 28 of 1881,” Elfego continued in his diary. “He was famous. Every man, woman, and child in New Mexico knew his name. Billy was being sent from Santa Fe to Mesilla to stand trial for the murder of William Brady, sheriff of Lincoln County. The train stopped at the Alburquerque train depot. I went down to see him. I knew all the city deputies, but I had a little trouble getting Tony Neis, the deputy U.S. marshal who was escorting Billy, to let Billy get off the train so he could have dinner with me at the hotel. I bought him a meal, and we talked about old times. Neis was armed to the teeth, because he was afraid of Billy, but I gave my word, and Billy gave his word, no funny business. We just wanted to talk. The restaurant windows were full of faces trying to get a look at Billy. As the Lord is my witness, I didn’t know that a few months later he would bust out of the Lincoln County Jail and head for Fort Sumner, where he was finally gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett.”
“Any ideas?” Rita asked, breaking into his drifting thoughts.
“How would you like to have lunch with Armando? My brother always knows what’s really going on in the South Valley.”
22
Howard had invited Sonny and Rita to the June
teenth Celebration at the State Fairgrounds. “Do you good, compadre,” Howard said. “Let’s go chow down on some of Powdrell’s famous barbecue ribs, fried catfish, and apple pie. A man does not live on enchiladas alone.”
But Sonny declined. He was obsessed with finding Gloria’s murderer, and it seemed he’d gotten exactly nowhere since he started. Though he needed one, he had no time for a night off. There was one source who was sure to know something, so he spent the night prowling the South Valley looking for Gloria’s brother, Turco. He followed Turco’s tracks through the maze of dirt roads that crisscrossed the Five Points area, but he couldn’t get close to the big jefe who controlled the South Valley drug traffic. Turco was running scared.
In the bars and Mexican cafés where people met, Sonny heard a dozen different stories. Turco was reported hanging out at the house of such and such a friend. Or Turco was seen having a drink at one of the bars along Isleta or at the Aquí Me Quedo on Coors, but by the time Sonny showed up, Turco had always flown, if he had ever been there. Turco was moving constantly, sleeping at a different house each night. The heat was on. So why had Turco come out in the open at Gloria’s funeral? Gloria had no love for her brother; in fact, the feelings had been quite the opposite. She hated Turco for what he and their father had done to her. Could Gloria have been blackmailing him? Did Turco attack Dominic to focus suspicion away from himself?
Sonny dialed his brother’s number. A sweet voice with a Texas accent answered. “Mando’s Used Cars, Jeanine speaking. Can I help y’all?”
Sonny smiled. The syrupy drawl belonged to Mando’s current lady friend. Armando had met her in Amarillo at a used-car-dealers’ convention. She was just divorced, for the third time, but she seemed to fit Armando just right.
Armando was running his used-car business out of the Ya No Puedo Bar. His phone was a pay phone near a back booth; he had a couple of junk heaps sitting in the parking lot. That was the extent of Mando’s Used Cars.