The Wrong Goodbye

29.

“So,” I said, washing down a bite of chips and salsa with a swig of Dos Equis, “when’d you realize you had the sight? Uh, the ability to divine, I mean,” I added lamely.

Theresa laughed. “You gotta loosen up, honey —ain’t no need to dance around the fact I’m blind. I mean geez, you try to shoot a guy once, and he gets all worried about offending you.”

“Funny, that,” I said.

We were sitting in the back room of Theresa’s shop, me and Gio on a thrift-store dinette set, Theresa lounging in an oversized beanbag chair in the corner. The room was draped all over with richly colored fabric just like the front room of the shop. An oversized lava lamp sat in one corner, next to an air mattress and a pile of blankets. A galley kitchen with a mini-fridge and a toaster oven occupied one wall. The sink was piled with dishes, and a pair of toothbrushes lay next to it. Looked to me like Gio had been crashing here, and his woman with him.

My hearing was back to maybe fifty percent, and a few minutes’ cleaning up my face in the shop’s restroom revealed only minor cuts and scrapes beneath the blood. I’d emerged to discover Gio’d laid out a snackfood feast, as well as the promised beers. I hadn’t realized until I saw the food how hungry I was. And after twenty minutes of shoving food into my face, I’d only just begun to slow. Guess skim really takes it out of you. No wonder Danny had looked like shit.

“As for my ability to sense what lies behind the curtain,” Theresa continued theatrically, “I guess somehow I’ve always known.”

Gio snorted.

“Something funny?” I asked.

“Just the fact she’s fulla shit,” he replied. “Ter can’t see the goddamn future any more than she can see your hand in front of her face.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“He’s not,” Theresa said.

“But the cards–”

“– are marked,” she finished. “You notch the edge ever so slightly with your nail —usually suit on the right-hand side, card value on the left. Something my daddy taught me when I was a kid. Got me kicked out of Binion’s more than once.”

“More than once? I was under the impression once you get kicked out of a casino, you’re never let back in.”

Theresa smiled. “That’s mostly true,” she said. “But the first time they kicked me out, I was a lanky boy of twenty-three. One of the benefits of starting out a Terrence and becoming a Theresa is you get a do-over on the mistakes you make in youth. Or a second chance to make them all over again.”

Ah, so that explained her height, her voice —her broad, well-muscled frame. But right then, I was far more curious about the hand she’d dealt me before the shooting started, and the reading she’d doled out. “The cards you laid down today —did you pick them?”

“Nope,” she said. “Never do, and today’s deal was no different; they came up how they came up. All I did was read ’em.”

“Then it’s time to burn those cards —they hit a little close to home for my taste. If you didn’t select those cards, something else did, and whatever that something else is, your deck —and by extension, you —are now on its radar. Even if you weren’t harboring a fugitive from hell,” I said, nodding toward Gio, “that kind of attention is best avoided.”

Theresa shivered at the thought, crossing her arms and hugging them tight to her chest. “You got it, darlin’. If I’da thought for a second any of this shit was real, I’da stayed good and far away. Fact is, my daddy was a confidence man, and in a way, I suppose, I was taking after him when I opened this place. He always said the mark of a good grift is folks walk away feeling like they’re the ones getting something out of it, and by that measure, this gig of mine is as good a grift as you’ll ever find. Folks want to believe. They want the comfort of knowing there’s a plan for them. But believin’s hard. You can’t just tell ’em what they want to hear —you gotta make a show of it. My pop, he was all about blending in, looking like the marks he set his sights on. For me, that ain’t never been an option. But in this business, being peculiar’s more an asset than a liability. Folks find Otherness mysterious, hard to fathom; it’s that mystery that helps ’em believe. And baby,” she said, extending her arms as if inviting appraisal, “if you want Other, I ain’t nothing but. But that’s all this gig has ever been: a grift. If I could see the future even a little, you can be damn sure I would’ve ducked when that shitfuck decided to break a bottle across my face.”

“Jesus,” I said. “That’s how you got your scars?”

Theresa nodded, her massive, parted Afro bobbing as she did so. “Once upon a time, I was a showgirl at The Flamingo.”

Gio interjected. “Topless dancer, she means.”

“Funny —you never seemed too hung up on my title back then,” she said. And then, to me: “It’s where we met. Gio was a regular. This was, of course, before he had boobs of his own to look at.”

“Hey, gimme a break,” Gio said. “I didn’t pick this body —Sam did. And believe me, hon, these things ain’t half as fun as yours.”

She arched an eyebrow, and then laughed.

“Anyways,” she continued, “it used to be they’d walk high-rollers through the dressing room, introduce ’em to the girls. One of the perks of a big bank account, I guess. One night, they bring this fella through —finance minister for some Podunk country I’d never heard of —and he and I get to talking. Before me and Gio got together, this was. After the show, we headed back to his suite, have a couple bottles of Dom, fool around a little. I thought we had a lovely time. And so did he, until he popped backstage on my night off to ask after me, and some catty-ass bitch who’d been coveting my spot on the weekend show for months spilled the beans about my former dick-having. Two nights later, I’m walking out to my car after a performance, and BAM —lights out. Crazy fucker would’ve killed me, too, if Gio hadn’t seen.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“I took care of it,” Gio replied.

Theresa said, “Took care of him, you mean.”

“I took care of both of you. Believe me, if it were up to me, I wouldn’ta done him so quick. But what was I gonna do —let you bleed out while I took my time on him?” Then, to me: “I snapped his fucking neck right quick, and then I stuffed him in my trunk and drove Theresa to the ER.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” I said, and I meant it. In life, I wasn’t what you’d call a violent man. But I learned the hard way that even a man not prone to violence will kill if it’s to protect the woman he loves. Even if it means that woman can never look at him the same again. In that sense, Gio’s a hell of a lot luckier than me.

“Damn right it does,” he said. “’Course, the fucker got pretty ripe out in the parking lot, on account of I stayed by Theresa’s bedside for the better part of three days. But we been together ever since. A shame I had to ditch that car out in the desert along with the body, though —that rotting bag of shit managed to take Ter’s sight and ruin a cherry ’73 Mustang. I’m talking Mach 1 fastback in Grabber Orange with a spoiler and a side-stripe. Better coffin than that assweasel ever deserved.”

“Boys and their cars,” Theresa said. You could damn near hear her sightless eyes rolling behind their tinted lenses. But she was smiling when she said it —a wan smile tinged with sadness, but a smile nonetheless.

“OK, I’ve got to ask,” I said. “You told me you don’t believe in any of this supernatural stuff, and yet when some stranger comes walking in here claiming to be your dead boyfriend, you welcome him with open arms. How the hell does that work?”

“My dear Samuel, are you of all people going to get all hung up on looks? The way Gio tells it, this time next week, you won’t look like this at all. You’ll be halfway around the world —another body, another job. And yet you’ll still be you. I’ll admit, when Gio walked into the shop, I was skeptical, but blind or not, it didn’t take me long talking to him before I saw the truth. Flesh and bone ain’t who you are —it’s what’s within that counts.”

I hoped to hell she was right —that this time next week, I was still somewhere in the world. Right that sec, though, I wasn’t counting on it.

“Listen, Sam,” Gio said, “not that I mind hanging out and shooting the shit, but don’t we kinda have a job to do?”

Theresa sighed. “Gio, do you really think Sam had forgotten why he came? The boy was just trying to be polite.”

“We’ve come far enough, me and Sam, he oughta know he don’t gotta wear kid gloves with me.”

“If you think he was doing it for you, then you’re even thicker than that body you’re borrowing. He was doing it for me. See, Sam here plans on taking you away from me, and he don’t expect you to come back. Not rushing you is his way of letting me have a few more minutes with you before I lose you all over again. Only there’s one thing Sam didn’t count on.”

All the sudden, I hoped to hell that beanbag chair wasn’t hiding another sawed-off. “Yeah?” I asked, resisting the urge to duck. “What’s that?”

“I’m coming with you.”

Gio balked. “The hell you are!”

“I’d like to see you try to stop me, love. You forget, I know where you’re going. You leave me here, I’ll only follow after.”

I scowled. “Wait —what do you mean, you know where we’re going? I don’t even know where we’re going.”

But Theresa didn’t reply to me, instead saying to Gio: “You’re up, love. It’s time to tell him about the crows.”

“I been doing some poking around, in case you made it back. Thought I’d see if I could track down this Danny character.”

“Uh huh,” I said, smiling ruefully. “In case I made it back.”

“OK, so sue me —I didn’t actually expect you’d walk out of that skim-joint alive. But I figured if I could keep an eye on where Danny was, I could stay a step ahead of him, keep him from collecting me a second time.”

“Not a half-bad plan,” I admitted.

“Thanks. So anyways, I remembered what you told me ’bout his bugs being crows, and that gave me an idea. An idea that led me to this.”

The laptop was slow and ancient, the YouTube video grainy. A well-quaffed bottle blonde behind a desk emblazoned with the call-letters KABC. She sat frozen mid-blink as the laptop struggled to load the video, a graphic of a common crow hovering to the left above her.

Finally, the video began.

“For over thirty years,” she said, her words rendered tinny by the tiny laptop speakers, “the corner of Cesar Chavez and Mednik Avenues in East Los Angeles has been home to one of the largest Dia de los Muertos processions in the nation, attracting observers and participants from all around. This year, however, it seems a whole new crowd is interested in joining the celebration. And what could be a more appropriate addition to the Day of the Dead festivities than a murder of crows?”

The image shifted. Now the screen displayed a busy intersection, two four-lane roads crossing beneath the diamond-bright midday sun. The camera was angled from one corner of the intersection to the other, its focus trained on a vibrant mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, her hands as ever in prayer, the whole of her surrounded by radiant light.

Of course, she was hard to see past all the crows.

They perched along every inch of the stone wall on which the mural had been painted. They sat atop the streetlights and the power lines. They hopped along the sidewalk, heads cocked, as though looking for a tasty morsel dropped by the passersby. As though looking for the soul Danny owed them.

The piece cut again, this time to a chain-linked parking lot, flush with cars. The fence was packed with crows —silent, unmoving, and sitting damn near wing to wing.

Another cut. Now we were looking at a city park, a baseball diamond worn to dust by countless pairs of running feet. Crows pecked lazily at the infield dirt, and speckled black the outfield. The fence behind home plate looked to be made of them —dark feathers gleaming in the sunlight, that shine amplifying their movements and creating the impression that the clamshell canopy itself was squirming, twitching, alive.

The anchorwoman had been talking the whole time, but of course I hadn’t heard a word. When I tuned back in, I heard her say, “…officials are baffled as to the cause of the recent infestation, which stretches from McDonnell to Vancouver Avenues west to east, and has been reported as far north as Dozier Street and as far south as the Pomona Freeway. Local business owners have expressed concerns about the animals’ impact on foot traffic, but Animal Control insists they pose no threat —and organizers of the upcoming Dia de los Muertos celebration assured KABC tomorrow’s festivities will proceed as scheduled.”

Dia de los Muertos. The Day of the Dead. A holiday that dates back to an ancient Aztec practice —to a time when humankind was young, and magic commonplace. A holiday on which it’s said dead souls return to walk amongst the living, and the living attempt to draw back the veil of death, inviting communion with those they’ve lost.

If that wasn’t where worlds draw thin, I didn’t know what was.

I shut the laptop lid, clapped Gio on the shoulder. “Nice work. Now let’s go get that son of a bitch and end this.”

“But, Sam…” he said, his jowly face tinged with worry. “Those things… they’re waiting for me. Is it wise for me to just go waltzing in there?”

“They’re not waiting for you, they’re waiting for your soul. Your soul, as delivered by Danny. They won’t take it any other way —they can’t.”

“You sure about that?” asked Theresa. The question had some steel behind it.

“If they could take his soul, he’d be gone for good already. I interred his soul once before, thinking it was the Varela soul Danny swapped it for. It didn’t take.”

“When the time comes,” she said, “you best not be thinking you can trade my Gio to get this Varela back.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

“You try, you won’t be dreaming ever again, you hear me? I’ll find a way to end your ass for good.”

“Ter!” Gio admonished.

“No,” I said, “it’s fine. Theresa, you have my word I won’t hand Gio over to Danny.” As for ending my ass for good, Theresa’d have to get in line.

“How do I know your word is worth a damn?”

“You don’t. But my word is all I’ve got.”

“The hell it is,” Gio said. “You got us. Now let’s roll.”

We grabbed the shotgun. We grabbed the chips. We grabbed some cash from Theresa’s register, and as many Red Bulls from the fridge as we could carry.

We were in such a goddamn hurry to get the hell out of Las Vegas, we blew a stop light at the corner of Twain and Dean Martin. Then we hauled ass onto I-15 south toward Los Angeles, oblivious to the traffic camera that snapped picture after picture of our departure.