Into the Beautiful North(57)

“Let’s go,” Rigo said.

“Where?”

“We can go to your place,” Rigo said.

Tacho snorted.

“I’d have to take you to Sinaloa.”

“Oh, right.”

“Or back to the Border Patrol station.”

“Por Dios.”

Rigoberto gave the barkeep a credit card and pointed at both their glasses.

“Allow me,” he said.

He signed the chit and stood.

“I suppose,” he said, “we will have to go to my house. You know. To attend to your lip.”

Good Lord.

Tacho followed Rigo and was deeply gratified to settle into the leather seat of his fat BMW. Chet Baker came on the CD changer. Tacho closed his eyes. He was snoring before they’d left downtown and headed into the posh hills to the southeast.

When Rigoberto woke him, he thought for a moment he’d gone home. They were surrounded by hibiscus, bougainvillea, birds-of-paradise, lantana, sego palms, and small pine trees. The whole lush jungle was backlit by red and blue spotlights.

“Welcome,” Rigoberto said.

Tacho asked, “May I take a shower?”

Rigoberto replied, “Thank you. I was about to say, ‘Would you please take a shower?’ ”

They walked into his house, laughing.





Chapter Twenty-two



Nayeli, she’s hot,” Atómiko whispered.

“So is Yolo!” Matt replied.

Atómiko had never given up the couch. Matt had dragged his mattress out of his room, and Nayeli was in there, sleeping on the box spring and a mattress pad. Yolo and Vampi had pulled apart Ma’s bed and were jammed in the other bedroom. The two men were drunk and giggling like Boy Scouts. Matt couldn’t believe his Spanish had returned so easily, though his accent was atrocious. Atómiko didn’t care. He was enjoying his own mastery of English. They were speaking some conglomerate pidgin. He’d downed eight Tecates, and Matt could have been speaking Chinese. They found a bottle of Ma’s tequila, and Matt was veering toward cactus juice visions.

“Chingado,” Atómiko sighed as he gulped a shot of Cuervo.

“Thank you, Jesus,” said Matt.

This struck them as hilarious, and they buried their faces in their pillows and guffawed.

A door opened in the dark.

“Uh-oh,” said Matt.

Yolo came out, wearing one of Matt’s T-shirts. It barely covered her nether regions. They could see her in the streetlight glow, luminescent in the hallway.

“Morra,” Atómiko growled. “Hurt me. Damage me. Put me in the hospital.”

“Would you,” Yolo said, “please—I am being nice—please—be quiet so we can get some sleep!”

“I’ll help you sleep,” Atómiko said.

She went back and shut the door decisively.

“Oh, my God,” Matt noted.

They snorted into their pillows some more.

“Hey, gringo,” Atómiko said, “don’t you got any shorter T-shirts?”

They screamed into their pillows for a minute.

The door opened.

“I mean it!”

That was even funnier than whatever they’d found funny a minute ago.

“You are such idiots!” Yolo said.

The door slammed.

“One time,” Atómiko said, “there was this chick named Alma Rosa. She was hanging out at the dompe when the missionaries came around. I used to help the gringos give out beans and, uh, potatoes. Alma Rosa took me back by her father’s pigsty and showed me her chi-chis. Can you believe that? I guess she wanted more beans.”

Matt lay on his back, staring into the dark.

“I’m lost,” he announced.

“Huh,” Atómiko replied. “You’re drunk.”

“No. Yeah. I know I’m drunk. But it’s deeper, dude. It’s like, I’m lost.”

“Ah.”

They listened to the muffled and sparse traffic going down Clairemont Drive. The Mongols were in residence next door—they could hear the TV going. Atómiko farted explosively.

“Did you hear a duck quack?” he said.

There was thump on the bedroom wall.

“Yolo threw a shoe,” Matt noted.

“The world,” Atómiko proclaimed, moved to alcoholic profundity, “is lost! Not just you, Mateo. Look at it, vato. Look! At the ice caps! At the pinchis Arabs! Look at, uh, the border and shit like that!”

Matt could not drink any more. He put the bottle down and gave up trying to find the cap in the dark.

“Grf,” he said.

“Me?” Atómiko continued. “I was a soldier! That’s right! I was in the Mexican army! I was a sergeant! But so what—everybody in the Mexican army is a sergeant! My real name is Kiko. My mother call me that. But that was me! Soldier! How you think I became a warrior! You think I can’t kill everybody? I can kill everybody! I can kill the pinchis Mongols right now! I’ll go over there and do it!” He struggled symbolically to rise from the couch, then lay back down. “In a minute,” he said.

“So how’d you end up in the garbage dump?” Matt asked.

“I got caught stealing a chicken.”