Erin eyed him over the blanket. “If you know so much, then where is Charlie Bravo? Is he close to us? Did he make it through the hurricane?”
“This I do not know. Charlie Bravo brings the money?”
“He’d better bring the money or Saturnino will skin me alive.”
“Saturnino will burn in hell.”
“He looked pretty bad off the other night.”
Atlas didn’t answer for a long moment. “Saturnino does not recognize his father. Or others. He has not spoken one word of Spanish but he now speaks some language no one knows but him. He sleeps greatly. He wakes up for a few minutes and he stares at people without comprehension and he eats. They say he eats gigantic amounts. Then he prays in the language that no one knows. Then he falls back asleep for hours and hours more.”
“Something tells me he’ll steer out of it. Has he skinned many people?”
Atlas did not look up to face her.
“Oh, God,” she said.
“Would you like a Bible to read?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It is a dependable comfort.”
“A friend of mine had a seizure at the Guadalajara airport. She was coming home from a vacation in Zihuatanejo. In the hospital they did a scan and when the doctor came in to tell her the results he said he was not sure how to interpret the scan. He told my friend to have a more advanced test when she got home to the United States. And he gave her a Bible in English, with a page marked and a passage underlined about how you can face death with God and He will be your comfort. And this terrified her worse than anything she had ever read. I do not want a Bible.”
“But the Bible also says you can face life with God and He will be your guide. And I thought you might do this because…”
“Because what?”
She caught him looking at her reflection in the full-length mirror.
“Because you have two lives that need to be guided.”
She looked away from the mirror to the mournful gray sky outside. She wanted to cry and she wanted to kill Saturnino. Maybe Armenta too. It feels like my skin is off already, she thought. They can all get to me but I can’t get away. They all know me but I don’t know them. They all see the baby growing inside me but I see nothing in them but this hell on Earth.
“I don’t want a Bible.”
“I brought you one anyway.”
“What’s in that package you put on the table?”
“A gift from Owens. I deliver it only. I don’t know what it is.”
Atlas popped the cotton napkin and folded it into his trademark scallop before setting it at her place. From the serving tray he took the Bible and set this beside the napkin. Then he took the tray in one hand and walked over to Erin. He held out his other hand in a fist and she put down the book and held out her open hand.
He dropped something small and light into her palm, then he bowed slightly, smiled shyly and left the room.
She knew what it was without looking. She could feel the encapsulated drama of it, right there in the palm of her hand: the winds of Ivana and her pestilential rains, the softness of the bird’s feathers as he labored through the heavens on nothing but his own slight wings, the movement of Bradley’s pen across the fabric.
She opened the tiny canister and worked out the patch and read the words. Read it once. Twice. Three, four, five times. Got it, she thought. Yes, I know how to find that place. I think I do.
She placed it between her mattress and the box springs, deep toward the center of the bed, undetectable and difficult to find unless you knew right where to look.
She stood, short of breath. He’ll be here the day after tomorrow, she thought. Tuesday! One day before Charlie brings the money. Blessed Tuesday. Fat Tuesday. I’ll be at the cenote. We’ll get there. The baby and I will get there and we will be waiting for you.
The day after tomorrow!
She went to the table and opened the package. It was a plastic shopping bag with the name and logo of a Chetumal market on it, its handles tied neatly into a bow. Inside she found a freshly laundered white dress and one of the sheer white rebozos the lepers wore.
She walked behind Armenta down the hallway toward the elevator. She wore a long dress and a light shawl over her shoulders and the dress rubbed on her abraded back but at least her legs were free. She had taped the Cowboy Defender to her upper calf and she knew without a doubt that she could use it. Violence has set me free to use violence, she thought, like this country, like the world.
Armenta carried the Hummingbird in its case. She could smell the soap and shampoo on him. He wore a black-and-white paneled bowling shirt and raw silk trousers and the broad mesh of his huaraches shone with polish. The satellite phone and others hung from his belt. His face was cleanly shaven though the lines in it were deep and dark as always. He had attempted to tame his hair, which showed some comb tracks and patches of aromatic product, but was still a thatch. They rode the elevator looking straight ahead in silence.
He opened the door of the recording studio and stepped in ahead of her and turned on the lights. Erin walked in and felt the cool and the heavy hush that lightened her heart a small degree.
Armenta leaned the guitar case against one of the gear racks and waved her to follow. At the far wall he opened a closet door. Erin saw the mikes hanging on their dowels.
“Here,” he said. “Look at the selection in the mic locker.”
She looked down at the Neumanns and AKGs and Sennheisers. She was a longtime fan of the cheap Shure 58 for stage, but there was no such budget equipment here.
“Which microphone do you like?” he asked.
“I don’t need a microphone,” she said.
“If you record with me.”
“I won’t record with you.”
“But if you did record with me, which mic would it be?”
“You can’t beat the 251.”
He took down one of the ELAM 251s and closed the closet door. He went back and took up the Hummingbird case and walked into the tracking room.
Through the window she watched him take the mic to the vocal booth and set the guitar outside an instrument booth. He waved her in. She stepped into the shimmering aural brightness of the tuned room. She could tell that this space had been designed to use the reflections and peaks of sound to best effect. She suspected that even a spoken voice would sound beautiful here and she could not restrain herself.
“I have to hear this room,” she said. Her words came out with dimension and specificity. Uncluttered, she thought. Bottom, top, middle. No noise. Then the room closed around them and they were gone.
“You must hear it with music.”
“It’s as good as the rooms in L.A.”
“I have stood in the Boston Symphony Hall.”
“My old church in Austin had really good acoustics.”
“I designed this room myself. I used mathematics and a computer program that is a room peak calculator. You cannot have a tracking room that peaks or builds up in the frequency. These result in key and pitch and this you do not want. What is incorrect must be tuned out and what is ideal must remain. There are materials and designs that are to reflect. And some that are to diffuse and some to absorb. But the goal is not to create death.”
“I think you mean deadness.”
“Yes, deadness. You want the correct reflections. And the correct sonics. You must approximate…deadness. But not to create deadness total.”
She went to the Yamaha and brushed the keyboard lid with her fingers but did not lift it. An elaborate and beautiful accordion sat on the bench, gleaming ivory-and-black enamel with mother-of-pearl and gold inlays, and black straps of intricately tooled leather.
“Play only one note,” said Armenta.
She lifted the lid and struck middle C and listened to the note shimmer, then sustain and fade.
“I want you to write a song about me,” said Armenta. “I want you to describe the life of poverty that becomes wealth. By using the bravery and the hard work.”