I lied, she says. When you asked if I had any weapons.
Of course you did.
She drops the stinger carelessly and stares at me.
Do you think you could kill me with your bare hands?
Yes, she says.
I do have one valuable kidney, safe in my belly.
So you keep telling me.
Isn’t that why you brought me here?
For once she doesn’t stare at my eyes. Her gaze drifts between my teeth and throat and I think she’s preparing to kill me. The tanto is in my left hand, slick with the dog’s blood. I shift it to my right hand and remember the last time I cut her. She was naked and she trusted me. I couldn’t bear to cut her again. I pull the .38 from my ankle holster and lift it slowly, as if it weighs ten pounds. I aim at her chest, at the cool hollow between her breasts.
Maybe, she says. Maybe I thought I could still deliver you to Gore. But it was a bad risk. Then you threw yourself in my lap and you practically begged me to come here.
And you had two fucking tickets to El Paso.
You idiot, she says. I gave you my ticket and bought another one later.
I tell myself she’s full of shit. She stinks of it. The other ticket was for Isabel. They were working some kind of switch on brother Jerome and it went bad somehow. I stare at her, trying to summon the laser red dot that will make her a faceless target. Her hair is damp and hangs to her shoulders in black twists. The skin beneath her sharp green eyes is swollen. Her mouth is a pale red slash. I wonder when she last slept.
She is unflinching.
When did you change your mind? I say. Or why.
Jude smiles. Irrelevant.
Oh, you’re adorable.
Do you ever wonder what I did with it? she says. Your kidney.
I would rather daydream, I say.
I like that about you. She takes a step toward me.
And the heroin, I say. Do you wonder what I did with it?
Heroin, she says. I wouldn’t be caught dead moving that shit.
I shrug and gaze up at the sun. Jude takes another step.
Listen, she says. When I found that wig in your bag I was jealous.
I see a thousand red dots. Jude takes the gun away from me. I don’t resist and it slips from my fingers like a shared piece of fruit.
Listen to me, she says. I don’t get jealous, ever.
I don’t believe you.
She glances at my gun and smiles.
The safety is on, she says.
That’s funny.
You might kiss me, she says.
I give her a quick, dry kiss on the side of her mouth. The kiss of a brother. My knees buckle and I crouch down beneath the sun, waiting for it to finish me. I don’t look up. Jude gathers our weapons and helps me to my feet.
What now? she says.
I would love to kill somebody. But I’m so tired.
She grins. Luscious Gore lives just around the bend.
Maybe he could buy us dinner.
Okay, she says. It’s okay.
The heat is unreal. I take off my expensive leather jacket, murmur an apology to Alexander and leave it in the sun.
*
The road twists and doubles back, intestinal. The little green icebox holds the vital organ of an anonymous dog. Again we rest. I take off my pants and sit on the ground, my thighs white and skeletal. Jude gives me a look and I tell her I might as well get a tan.
We walk side by side, now. Jude carries the icebox.
This will be putrid before dark, she says.
There’s nowhere to buy ice in the desert, I say. Diamonds are easier to come by.
She looks at me oddly. What happened to that silly hat? she says. The one Henry gave you.
It’s in my pocket.
Please put it on. Before you have a stroke.
A fork in the road and we are forced to choose. Jude says she doesn’t remember a fork. I sit down and hold my head in my hands. Jude walks to the top of a rise and stares into the distance.
Haven’t you been here before?
Never, she says.
I thought you were a secret agent.
She laughs.
The platypus, I say. Is that a duck or a fish?
Shut up.
Flip a fucking coin.
No, she says. I believe it’s to the left.
Why? We haven’t seen any tracks for miles.
Only because it’s so dry and stony.
Why the left, though?
I just feel it, she says.
*
Water. A dirty, crippled little stream but it’s beautiful. I drink cautiously, and I remember Henry’s warning that he would kill me if I should throw up in his car. I laugh and cry and roll in the dust as if I’m simple. Jude squats on her haunches, wolflike and brown from the sun. Water glows like silver on her lips.
I’m worried about you, she says.
And I’m not sure what I expect to find. An armed compound, with impenetrable walls and watchtowers manned by lazy snipers. Electric fences and spotlights and Dobermans. A teardrop-shaped swimming pool, with a dozen unemployed actresses sunning themselves.
An hour before sunset and the apparent prize lies before us. A dozen stone buildings, sprawling in a broken circle. A small chapel and a crumbling bell tower. An ancient rock well. It looks like a monastery, deserted years ago. The monks long dead. One building is larger than the others. Several cars and trucks are parked in front. There is a short runway to the south, an airplane hangar and a landing pad for a helicopter. A few dogs sleep in the shade of a flatbed truck, but there are no humans about.
There are no guards, Jude says.
It doesn’t matter, I say. We aren’t going to sack the place.
Do you have a plan?
No. I’m going to walk up to the front door and knock.
Look at us, she says. Bloody as two thieves.
You look beautiful.
Together we sit down in a rare circle of grass to inventory our weapons. She has Henry’s gun and the little stinger. She has a book of matches and a melted chocolate bar that she gives to me. I eat it and feel dizzy. She has nothing else. No identification, no money.
We don’t need any money, she says.
It’s true. I have three or four thousand dollars in my wallet, as useless as yesterday’s newspaper. I have the .38 and six extra cartridges. The small silver pocketknife and the slim tanto. A dented pack of cigarettes and a lighter with no fluid. I have a ballpoint pen and a dog’s kidney.
Jude says we should sleep for a few hours, and I agree.
I sink into the grass and close my eyes, wishing I were in a bathtub full of ice.
Her tongue drifts across my lips and her hand slips into my pants and squeezes my soft, sleeping penis. I open my eyes and Jude is bent over me. She takes off her shirt and I raise my mouth to her breasts but the black stone locket swings like a bitter, shrunken plum before my eyes and I reach for her throat.
I unbutton her pants and she lifts her pelvis slightly, to help me pull them down to her knees.
Her underpants are black and damp and I rip them off her.
Her teeth find my neck.
I have two fingers inside her and I whisper, is this how it was with Eve?
Her body shudders and I tell her I’m sorry I don’t have a wooden spoon. Or a portable phone. But Jude is much stronger than me. She easily kicks herself free and I now sit in the dust, wearily wondering if I want to shoot her. I’m sure she would kill me first.
Phineas, she says.
Tell me the fucking truth, for once.
I was there, she says. I was looking for you. But I never touched that girl.
You destroyed her.
No, she says. The girl was sleeping when I got there, and she was sleeping when I left.
Her name is Eve, I say. And that locket was around her neck.
Then she must have taken it off before she got in the shower. Because I found it on the bathroom sink, curled up li
ke a little spider.
thirty-seven.
It’s dark when I awake. Jude is sleeping silently on the stony ground. I look at her and I know she’s a scorpion, a killer. But I want to believe her and if this is my undoing then I will smile and swallow the poison of my choice. My throat is sore and I’m tempted to walk back to the dirty little creek, but it’s too far. I smoke one of my few remaining cigarettes and this numbs the pain. I poke Jude with my foot and she wakes with a shrug.
We walk down to the monastery, casually, as if we have come home. Perhaps we have.
I stop at the well and haul the bucket up for a drink. The water is sweet and cool. Jude doesn’t want any, and I let the bucket fall. I approach the main building, Jude behind me. When we are twenty yards away, motion-sensitive lights wash over us. A dog begins to bark. The front door swings open, and the shadow of a woman waits to greet us.
Hello, I say. My name is Phineas Poe.
The woman has the ancient, silent air of an untouchable, an indentured servant. Her face is like eroded rock. She stares at me for a long moment, then pulls the door wide.
I want to see Mr. Gore.
She coughs. Mr. Gore is having his dinner, sir.
That’s okay, says Jude.
She turns without another word and leads us through a dark, stony room where two black dogs sleep among weapons and umbrellas and expensive coats. Antique swords and longbows are mounted on one wall. There are several humped coatracks and countless pairs of shoes and dusty boots. A glass case holds hunting rifles and a few handguns. The woman walks slowly, her long brown skirt rustling with the sound of fallen leaves.
Jude nudges me. What are we doing here, Phineas?
I don’t know. I really don’t know.
Aren’t you the least bit afraid? she says.
Of what?
Aren’t you afraid that I might come at you with a knife, that I might cut you open again?
Not really. I don’t think Gore has any more money.
Is that the only reason?
You warned me about getting misty with you.
The old woman takes us through another doorway, into a room that is lit with perhaps a hundred candles. The walls are lined with bookshelves and the furniture is leather, cracked and dusty. In the center of the room is an empty hospital bed, the sheets turned back. The bed faces a wide-screen television.
The boy is dead, Jude says. He didn’t make it.
No, I say. The sheets would be stripped.
The woman leads us to the kitchen. It is brightly lit and warm. The table is set for dinner, with fine silver and china. On one side of the table is an upholstered wingback chair that must have been dragged in from the living room. A young man is curled in the chair, apparently asleep. He is wrapped in blue and yellow blankets, faded and worn thin. His skin is extraordinarily white, his hair long and fine and seemingly colorless. The boy is dreaming and his eyes flicker rapidly behind lids so thin they can hardly block out the light. He is impossibly skinny, and I wonder if he weighs more than ninety pounds. I wonder if my kidney would have done him any good, if he might have lived even six undeserved months. At the head of the table is a heavy, bald man in an electric wheelchair. His skin is dark and cracked as leather, his eyes naked and gray as oysters. One arm is shriveled and useless, a distended flipper, an evolutionary error. The other arm is grotesquely muscled.
Who is it? he says. Who’s there?
Phineas Poe, I say. And this is Jude.
Do I know you?
No. I don’t think so.
Jude says softly, we know your son.
I have two sons, he says.
Jerome, I say. We know Jerome.
He wheels around and stops before me and he is obviously not feeble. I hold out my hand and smile as he crushes it. He is clearly blind, but he seems to smell me or operate by sonar. I wonder if he sleeps upside down. Gore smiles, and his teeth are shaped unlike any human teeth I have ever seen. They glitter like bits of glass and small sharp stones on the beach. If I waved my hand before his face, like a child fascinated by the blind man, I think I would lose a finger.
He is gentle with Jude’s hand, which amuses me.
I’m sorry, he says. Jerome is not here. He’s gone on a long business trip and I don’t know when he will return. To be true, I had hoped he would be home by now.
His eyes are like sundials. They don’t waver. I am uncomfortable, standing over him. He relaxes his gaze and points at the table.
Please, he says. Sit down. You must be tired.
I clear my throat. I have a small gift for you, Mr. Gore.
Jude glances at the icebox, then at me. Her eyes are bright with disgust.
How kind, says Gore. And please, call me Luscious.
He sniffs the air as I remove the dog’s kidney, still wrapped in my shirt. I lay it gently on his plate, and watch as he slowly unwraps it with one hand. The kidney is surely putrid, alive with maggots, but it might as well be a box of chocolates. His expression doesn’t change. I wildly remind myself that he’s blind, he’s blind. And he doesn’t know who the hell I am.
I’m afraid I don’t understand, says Gore.
And I have made a terrible mistake, I say. This was meant for Jerome.
I put the plate down on the floor, whistling softly. The two black dogs appear and quickly eat the organ of their cousin, growling at each other. The shame surges through me like a forgotten bodily fluid.
Will you please join us for supper? says Luscious.
I stand over the dogs like a mummy, fascinated by the simplicity of this transaction. I imagine the flesh of rabbits and mice that passed through the dead dog, the worms that burrowed through his corpse and into the earth. I see the blackflies that picked through his fur and wonder if the eggs they left behind have hatched. Soon the two black dogs lick the plate clean and wander away. Jude grabs at my sleeve and whispers for me to sit down. Luscious rings a silver bell, and now the old woman appears to serve us a simple meal. She places a loaf of fresh bread in the center of the table, with a brick of yellow cheese and a knife. She brings us each a steaming bowl of stew and a plate of rice and fruit.
Jude leans close to me. You’re a freak.
I wonder, says Luscious. Would you mind not whispering? It makes me anxious.
Jude flushes and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her embarrassed.
I’m so sorry, she says.
Oh, he says. It’s all right.
Jude looks away, her eyes drifting over the stone walls.
I love the house, she says.
Thank you. It’s fallen into disrepair, I’m afraid.
Was it ever a monastery? she says.
Yes, he says. Two hundred years ago, when this was Mexican territory. A rather eccentric order of Franciscan monks.
How were they eccentric? she says.
They took the Eucharist quite literally.
What does that mean, she says. They were cannibals?
I like to think so, he says. But the order died off abruptly, in 1809. A yellow fever epidemic, mass suicide. There were numerous stories. Most of their records were destroyed by looters.
Perfect, says Jude.
The hunger in me is stunning. I eat for several minutes without pause, and I feel the blood respond in my starved limbs. Jude picks moodily at her food.
I’m not sure how long the boy has been awake, but I feel his eyes on me like arthritic hands. I turn to look at him. His eyes are such a dark brown they seem bottomless in his white face. He has the thin, curved lips of a young girl, and his fine cheekbones are sharp, too sharp. I glance at Jude and she frowns, as if to say yes, he’s painfully beautiful.
Strangers, he says. What a treat.
His voice is a scratched whisper, cold and curiously threatening.
Horatio, says Luscious. How do you feel, boy?
Better, he says.
Would you like a drop of wine? says Luscious.
Please introduce me to our guests.
&nbs
p; I extend my hand. Phineas, I say. And my wife, Jude.
Jude sinks her fingernails lightly into my thigh.
Hello, she says.
They are your brother’s friends, says Luscious.
Horatio smiles. Somehow, I don’t think so.
What do you mean, boy?
I just have a feeling, he says.
Our clothes are bloody, of course. And our faces.
Horatio shakes his head as if he can hear my thoughts. Jerome likes to be surrounded by people who are afraid of him, he says.
Hush, boy.
Oh, but it’s true.
Jerome has countless flaws, says Luscious. But they are not for you to number.
Fingers crawl my legs like a gang of insects and I know that Jude is restless.
Does anyone have a cigarette? says Horatio.
I hesitate, then extract my nearly crushed box of cigarettes. There are seven left. I place one between his lips and light a match for him. His skin is smooth and pink in the glow and I have a sudden uncomfortable desire to see his chest, his torso. To see if it is the color of marble, if it looks wet.
My son is ill, says Luscious.
Isn’t it obvious? the boy says.
I light a cigarette to share with Jude.
What’s wrong with you? she says.
Horatio smiles, a brief flicker.
I suppose my most immediate problem is that my kidneys are failing and I will soon be unable to process my own waste. He laughs. I have a problem with sewage.
Luscious sighs. You were always nasty, even as a child.
I’m sorry, he says. I just think it’s funny.
How old are you? I say.
Seventeen, he says.
One of the best years.
I thought so, he says.
Of course, high school is unpleasant.
Luscious waves his good hand and Jude watches it like a diving moth.
He isn’t in high school, says Luscious. He finished last year.
Good for you, says Jude.
Horatio sneers. I’m going to Stanford, in the fall.
The serving woman drifts through unseen, clearing away the dishes.