“This is a foreign country down here,” Sunderson said, helping himself to another tortilla wrapped in aluminum foil and another portion of stew.
“No shit. That’s why I can’t wait to get home. I went into a grocery store and they’d never heard of rutabagas.”
Sunderson headed for Tucson, stopping at the airport to exchange the SUV for a less expensive compact. He stopped at the diner hoping to see the girl who had directed him to the fire camping site. She wasn’t there and he felt a specific pang of disappointment. He left her a thank-you note that included his cell number. Back in his car he suddenly realized that the address Clayton had given him for the Great Leader was a street near the Arizona Inn. It wouldn’t do to let his immediate presence be known but he gambled on a drive past. Dwight-Daryl was in the side yard of an expensive house playing doubles badminton with three girls well under eighteen. On the way out of the cult site he had grabbed the day pack he’d eyed and was eager to look at the contents. He mulled over the whole, deep mud bath of human sexuality admitting to himself that you surely didn’t see the best as a cop. Returning to Tucson his thinking had been confused by the sheer number of attractive women walking around, especially near the university, after a week in the wilds in which he had only seen the one female at the Conservancy cabin. The fresh look reminded him of the nondirectional yearning he had felt toward females in high school when the excitement of simply hugging a girl had made him dizzy. In the expensive market he stopped in before leaving the city he lamely pushed his cart around behind a knockout in her thirties but then she caught on, turned, and frowned and he reddened. He bought steak, shrimp, and a pile of fruit and vegetables. Everything looked delicious after his week of stupid privation. At the checkout register the woman he had stalked pulled her cart in behind his and he raised his hands in a mime of apology. She smiled shyly which relieved him of his immediate sense of being a fool.
Back in Patagonia it wasn’t quite drink time so he made a cup of instant coffee and thought over some plans he had made. He was thinking about calling Lucy in New York and trying to get her to come to Tucson and infiltrate the cult in the guise of a wealthy woman. The drawback was that she was a tad unstable. He tried to dismiss the question of how long his ex-wife would follow him like a ghost and whether there were other Diane doppelgangers like Lucy? Probably.
He slowly unpacked the contents of the cult bag. There were a half dozen issues of Barely Eighteen, which he leafed through with no particular interest, not being turned on by photos. A spiral notebook with Dwight-Daryl’s handwriting was a severe disappointment. The first page was titled, I Am Many, but the following pages were in code which he would have to FedEx to Mona, or maybe just take back home as he was thinking of hightailing it after Thanksgiving. Comically there were a number of small bottles of Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis to keep the Leader’s pecker up. It added up to not much but then he shook the magazines to make sure and eureka the third contained a printed-out e-mail and digital photo in between the pages featuring Candy the High School Dropout. The photo was an electrifying one of Mona on a sofa with her skirt raised and no undies. Sunderson blushed and turned the photo over on the table. The e-mail was from Carla and read, “Dearest, here’s a photo of the creep, which might turn you on though she’s a bit old for your taste. I went down on her for an hour which you would have liked watching. Love, Carla”
Sunderson began to sweat and reached for the absent whiskey bottle. How could he have forgotten to buy whiskey or wine? Mona had said nothing had happened that evening. One of them was lying and he hoped it was Carla. In any event he had a fine piece of evidence, perhaps not enough to convict but plenty to cause a heap of trouble. He brooded as he made a salad not wanting to fry a rib steak without having a bottle of wine to go with it. The loaf of French bread was fair and he was inclined to feel virtuous even though he had simply forgotten the whiskey. He finally stored his groceries and was amused to see his cell phone in the refrigerator. He had assumed it wouldn’t work in there but he was of course wrong. What the fuck, he thought, being electronically ignorant. He took out his notebook and jotted down messages from Berenice for the Thanksgiving dinner, one from his mother telling him that he was, as always, a disappointment, a cheery one from Marion, and three from Mona saying that someone had broken into her house and stolen her computer. To his surprise there were five messages from Melissa, which frightened him because of Xavier’s threat at dinner. He called anyway feeling a memory-driven nut itch.
“I want to see you,” she said.
“I don’t want to die.”
“Xavier is at his apartment in New York City because there’s a war between everyone. His people are hiding out down in Obregon. Anyway it causes too many problems to kill an American.”
“How nice. Why do you want to see me?”
“Companionship. Everyone else is afraid of me.”
“The Wagon Wheel bar ASAP,” he said, pressing the off button then calling Mona.
“I’m sorry about your computer. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Everything’s in there. I feel like I lost my past.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
“No shit. Can you still turn a doorknob? Where the hell were you?”
“Camping in the wilderness without my cell. Cooling off. I found that raised-skirt photo of you in the Leader’s day pack. He can be nailed for possession of child pornography.”
“I’m a child? I better tell the guy that fucked me an hour ago.” She laughed.
“That’s not funny,” he said lamely.
“It was fun. Why should I be faithful to you? You won’t touch me no matter how much I tease you. I don’t really like to do yoga at dawn. Everything was for you, darling.”
He hung up. Now he really needed a drink. He called Berenice and said he’d be there for Thanksgiving dinner and turned off the phone before she could get started on his week’s disappearance.
The first double shot and Pacifico at the bar made him glow. Alcohol beat the shit out of the Shroud of Turin as a miracle though the fair-sized crowd of drinkers didn’t look merry.
“Where you been, cutie?” Amanda asked.
“Camping.”
“Oh bullshit. A pretty Latino named Melissa is looking for you. Also a guy named Kowalski although he didn’t look like a Kowalski. He wondered if you had left town. He doesn’t know that I know his name but he’s a low-rent P.D. from Rio Rico. Mostly divorce cases.”
“Thanks.” Hearing Kowalski’s name made him glad he had the photo and Carla’s e-mail in his sport coat pocket. It occurred to him that Kowalski must have been retained by Dwight-Daryl. He decided to kick his ass if he saw him again.
All of the men in the bar had turned to the door while Sunderson was rehearsing violence and refusing to recognize the abrupt limitations of his age, the way the years drew closer daily, and the fact that Kowalski, being much younger, might very well kick his ass. Where is the considerable strength of yesteryear? Mostly gone.
He finally turned and saw Melissa at the door, impatient to be acknowledged, wearing a blonde wig and a waist-length fur jacket. The outfit didn’t work but he still felt a tingle. What’s with blonde hair and black eyebrows? It looked silly and vulgar. He beckoned her toward the side table farthest from the jukebox, which was playing a Latino lament. He had been avoiding gringo stations on the car radio in favor of the Latino, finding it remarkable how often the word corazon was used. Amanda brought him another double and a beer and Melissa a predictable white wine.
“What’s a corazon?” he asked.
“It’s the heart, stupid. I’m taking you to Spain on Xavier’s dime.”