Into the Beautiful North(56)

Inside, he let the dark and the lights and the heavy bass wash over him. They were playing Justice and Kid606. A bar gleamed invitingly under amber lights at the far end of the room. He let it pull him through the crowd. He had earned a drink. Several drinks.

He met Rigoberto at the far end of the rosewood bar, as he leaned over a green-apple martini and swayed to the comforting music. The men around him smelled good—Hugo and Versace. People who understood him. Someplace that felt safe. He’d downed the first martini and resisted the approach of a sad sack in very bad makeup and false eyelashes. The guy actually had a beauty mark blotted above his lip with eyebrow pencil.

“Not tonight,” Tacho said.

A handsome middle-aged man nodded to him as he pushed into the bar.

“Hello, se?orita,” the man said to the makeup queen, who went away unhappily.

Tacho accepted his second martini from the bartender.

“Do you smoke?” The man offered him a black cigarette.

Tacho shook his head.

“It’s a Sherman,” the man said. “Chocolate.”

“Chocolate?”

“The best cigarette ever.”

Tacho took it.

“I shouldn’t,” he said.

“But you will.”

The man fired up Tacho’s smoke with a lapis lighter and lit his own and dropped the lighter into his jacket pocket.

“Muy rico,” Tacho said.

“I told you so.”

The man gestured at the bartender—he didn’t have to order; the barkeep nodded.

“Who are you?” the man asked.

“Tacho.”

“A wanderer.”

Tacho nodded.

“Yes. I’m a stranger here.”

The man laughed.

“Brother,” he said, “this is Tijuana. Everybody’s a stranger.”

He put his hand out.

“Rigoberto,” he said. “Call me Rigo.”

Tacho shook his hand.

“Pleased,” he said, swoony—the martinis and the exhaustion were just about knocking him over.

Rigo sat on the stool next to him and stared at his face.

“What?” Tacho said.

“Your face,” said Rigo. He received a Johnny Walker Blue, one rock. Tacho raised his eyebrows. He had good taste, this Rigoberto. He didn’t approve of the ice, though—a waste of space in the glass, in his opinion.

“I’ve looked better,” Tacho said.

“Oh, you look good,” Rigo answered. “Just beat up.”

“The Border Patrol.”

“Oh,” Rigoberto said, a bit of distaste in his voice. “You’re a border crosser.”

Tacho laughed.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

So he told. Rigo listened with his head cocked to one side. He kept a small smile on his face the whole time. He sipped his whiskey and crunched the ice cube.

“You’re kidding,” he said when Tacho was done.

Tacho shook his head.

“Look at this trash I’m wearing,” he said. “I look good in the real world. Would I go out looking like this if I hadn’t just escaped with my life?”

Rigoberto laughed.

Everybody around Tacho was dressed well. The men danced and chatted. Tacho felt the sweet liquor move out his arms, down his legs, relaxing him almost as much as the men’s laughter. Rigoberto gestured at them.

“Professors. Lawyers. Office managers. The cream of Tijuana.” He ordered another drink. “You’re the only criminal in here.” He grinned. “Very exotic.”

Tacho didn’t think a third green-apple martini was a good idea, but Rigoberto pointed at his glass and nodded at the barkeep, and it was refilled.

“It’s boring tonight,” Rigo said. “So slow. If you want to have fun anymore, you have to go to San Diego.”

“Tell me about it.”

Rigoberto regarded this mysterious stranger with the crazy dye job. He liked Tacho. There was a certain aplomb about him. But he’d have to get him in some better clothes.

“God,” Tacho said.

“What?”

“I feel like… like I’m home.”

“Home?”

“We don’t —” Tacho smiled ruefully. “We don’t gather where I come from. We don’t have clubs.”

“Ah.”

“It’s nice.”

Tacho felt his eyes sting a little—he was more tired than he thought, he told himself.

Rigoberto raised his glass to Tacho.

“Salud,” he said.

Tacho tapped his glass to Rigoberto’s.

“By the way,” Rigo said, “I’m a doctor. I could look at that eye. And that big fat lip.” He smiled.

What a sly one, Tacho thought.

“You want to do something about my lip,” he said.

“I could. It’s a bit… swollen.”

Smiling.

“You’re devilish,” Tacho said. “Aren’t you, Rigo?”

“Devilish? I am indeed. Incarnate.”

They bumped knees.

Tacho could not believe that in his state, as tired as he was, as sad and fed up and physically sore, Rigo was getting him turned on.