Chapter 19

The next morning I called Alan and Al. He answered, and I explained that Al's dad had made a tape and I wanted to give her a chance to listen to it. He made affirmative noises, and passed the phone to his wife, since he had to get to work. He runs a building contractor's operation, and as I know running your own business can be hectic, unless you've got the cash to smooth out the bumps. Alan makes a good living for his family, but he's upper middle class, not lower upper class the way I am.

"Alan says that my dad has something to say to me," Al said when she got on the line.

"Yeah. He listened to what you said, and then said he wanted to do likewise."

"Will he come looking for me?"

"He says not."

"Do you believe him?" With that question she sounded frightened.

"I don't know." As I said it I surprised myself. I really didn't know whether I believed him, where until then I'd thought I didn't.

There was a moment of silence before Al spoke again. "Bring it over," she said finally. "I won't guarantee I'll listen to it, but bring it."

I hung up and went to get dressed. Cecelia was gone, taking Darlia to school, so I had the house to myself. While I fastened the snaps on my shirt I went into the study and fired up my computer, and opened the blinds on the windows. The sun was in the east, of course, but the morning light came in and turned the room, with its dark furniture and paneling, into a pleasant place. I actually like dark rooms to a point, and any room that's got books all over it can't be all bad. Still natural light is better than artificial.

I tucked in my shirt and went into our bathroom to brush my teeth. I'd shaved the night before in the shower according to my custom, and my face showed just a slight darkening from the night's stubble. My heavy mustache covered my upper lip, and swept down like walrus tusks beside my mouth and actually extended a little below my jaw. If I've got to shave, I'm glad I can grow a decent mustache; having to shave without being able to raise real whiskers must be irritating.

With my teeth clean and my clothes in place, I grabbed a pair of socks from the drawer and went into the living room. I got them on, and my boots, and left Cecelia a note so she'd know where I was going. And then I grabbed my light jean jacket, it being warm enough during the day that I could start off with that, and put my hat on my head, and set out on my errand.

Al lived in a house her husband had built near the intersection of Montgomery and Jefferson, not far from Ross Plaza. I pulled up in front of the house, locked the Blazer, and headed for the front door. Al opened the door and waited for me, and when I got there I gave her a hug. We're old friends, older than most of my friendships in Albuquerque, for I'd met her the year after I moved to Albuquerque, the year before I met Cecelia.

She led me into the breakfast nook – something I'm glad we don't have in our house, since for some reason I can't explain I don't like 'em – and sat me down with a glass of orange juice, a plate of buttered toast, and a bowl of cinnamon sugar. "I know you don't eat breakfast, Cowboy, but this is a snack."

I grinned at her. "You sure you ain't been planning tactics with Cecelia? That's her kind of line." I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on a piece of toast, shook the excess off into the bowl, and took a bite. "You got a tape player around here?"

"Yes, an old one, but I checked it and it works."

"Cool. I got mine out in the Blazer, but I forgot to grab it when I climbed out."

She nodded, and got up, I supposed to get the machine. I was right, for she was back in a minute or two with one that indeed looked old, as though she'd had it since before DVDs were around. She plugged it in and held out her hand. I took the tape from my pocket and handed it to her. She fitted it into the machine, and closed the lid – and stared at the tape player.

"You gonna play that thing, Al?"

She looked up at me, and I don't know when I've seen such a fierce look on a woman's face. Just then her overbite seemed like fangs, ready to slash and tear. "I don't know, Cowboy. Why should I? Why should I listen to some old man whining about things when I suffered more than he ever could?"

"It's not a bunch of whining, Al."

"And now you're on his side? If so you can get out of my house right now."

I stared at her for a moment, a modified version of the cop stare I use to intimidate reluctant subjects I'm trying to get information out of. She lowered her gaze, but didn't say a thing, and finally I told her, "I ain't on nobody's side, Al. I'm on the side of the truth, and of justice. And yeah, you an' me both know that God put justice on the side of the oppressed, and you been plenty oppressed, but still – I ain't on his side nor yet yours."

"But I'm your friend, Cowboy. I expect you to act like it."

"And I will, Al. That's why I'm here. That's why I didn't just give your dad your address and collect my fee."

"Why didn't you tell him you couldn't find me?"

"You're the one who wanted to make a tape, Al."

"Oh shut up!" she screamed, jerking up from the table and running out of the room. I sat for a moment, remembering things from her past – the bruises she'd had from a john's fists when I helped Alan take her off Central Avenue, the flatness of her belly when she was newly pregnant by another john in Phoenix, the fear in her scream when her pimp showed up in Albuquerque while we were packing her stuff ... the memories came in no particular order. And I knew that whatever I remembered about those days, her memories hurt a lot worse. I'd seen her when she was a prostitute. She had lived as a prostitute.

I got up from my seat, with only half my toast gone, and went hunting. I found her in the bedroom she and Alan shared, sitting on the bed, looking out the window into her backyard, where the pool was covered for the winter. Her back was straight, and she made no sound, but tears were running steadily down her face. I sat down beside her, and though I wanted to hug her I suspected that just then it would be the wrong thing to do. Her memories were of such gestures being merely sexual, gestures of using rather than of concern.

"Why are you doing this, Cowboy?" she asked.

"Because you're my friend."

"So friends hurt each other?"

"Sometimes, what friends have to do to help each other winds up hurting. It's not that friends want to hurt each other, but that there's pain on the way to the goal."

"Don't tell me that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger. I've been through a lot that didn't kill me, and it didn't make me stronger, it almost destroyed me."

"I wouldn't say that anyway – it's hogwash. There are things which don't kill you but leave you nothing but a wreck, and we both know that and so should everyone else who's got half a brain."