Hummingbird Salamander(36)

I read more, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept hoping it was misdirection. You’re drawn to the visual, but maybe that was the least important part.

There was a monkey with a broken leg in the jungle out side of Quito. Javier, a guide, wanted to put it down, but she had them catch it. Make the monkey a splint, put it in a cage to recover. It’s frightened in the cage. I don’t know if she ever set it free or where. She never mentioned the monkey again.

On that same Quito expedition she had encountered the naiad hummingbird. Or had sought it out. Or had found them for sale in a local market as love charms, dead and dried out. I was reading too fast. As if I would find some key or some clue that would leap off the page to help me.

Allie barged in again. I closed the file, set it on my desk. Frustrated anyway by my lack of focus, or perhaps what I began to see as Silvina’s lack of focus. Or a straight answer.

“Just one more,” Allie said, with no apology in her voice. The sheet for the bar drinks with “Jack,” which had to be filed separately as “Meeting with potential client.” I’d made up a last name. “Fusk.” Jack Fusk. No one ever checked. Just like no one ever cared about Larry taking clients to strip clubs.

But “hummingbird” had jogged loose another fear. Something about the torn-out eyes of the foxes.

Was the hummingbird still in my gym locker?





[42]


I parked up the hill from the gym, on a side street, then walked down to the strip mall. I didn’t think I’d been followed, but I wanted some distance from my destination. I wanted to get the lay of the land from up high. A short walk, but a long one in terms of how at the top of the hill lay the rich neighborhoods. Then a strip of scruffy forest, hidden by a tall, wooden slat fence, that no one had developed yet, and then the parking lot.

Outside was a guy I knew vaguely, eating a burrito from the fast-food place down the street and smoking a cigarette. I knew he’d spend a half hour lifting heavy weights or working the tired heavy bag over in the farthest dark corner. Oddly comforting to see him.

But inside, all that evaporated.

One look at Charlie’s face and I knew.

“Your locker was broken into,” he said, in a flat tone.

“You didn’t call me?”

I hurried over to the lockers, saw the broken lock, dangling. Everything was still there. Except the hummingbird. I’d known this could happen. I’d tried to steel myself to the possibility. But the absence was stark.

My locker wasn’t the only victim. They’d gone down the line, busting off the locks. Saving Charlie a major repair bill: only a couple dozen people bothered to use locks.

“When did it happen?”

“I don’t know. They jimmied the door in the night. I came in, stuff was all over the place. I just finished cleaning up.”

“Do you have surveillance footage?”

The look Charlie gave me was incredulous. A lot of people used that gym because Charlie said he didn’t use cameras.

“Here’s the license number of that SUV I saw hanging around. Someone else saw it again yesterday.” He handed me a scrap of paper.

“Thank you, Charlie!”

But I should’ve realized he wasn’t looking at me in a friendly way. Or I wouldn’t have said what I said next.

“Do you know people who could hide something for me?” I was thinking of the journal in my purse.

“Know people? Know what people?” With scorn. “No. Get the hell out. Take your bag of junk with you.”

I straightened up. I was one step behind what was happening. Again. The panic returned. Hard to doubt his tone. Something about the contempt for my go-bag hit harder. Like he’d always been judging me.

“Charlie—”

“You leave now and you don’t come back here. For a good long time. I don’t want any part of what this is. Remember— I told you someone was following you.”

A gut punch. But it made me mad, too. Reflexive. Like, I didn’t understand the old world was receding from me.

“No, I’m not going to do that. I’ve been a member of this gym for—”

“Leave or I’ll call the cops,” he said. “Trespassing.”

“What the fuck, Charlie!” Call the cops … on the one who’d been robbed. Unfair. Like I was playing a role where I was the innocent.

“Cops or get the fuck out!”

I knew he’d do it. The expression on his face told me. The set of his body, like he wanted to punch me. And that’s when I knew for sure Charlie owned the place. And it was all he had.

“Can I come back when—”

“Get the fuck out.”

So I got the fuck out.





[43]


Halfway back up the hill, I realized someone had followed me from the gym. A glimpse back revealed a bulky man in a suit. Shitty haircut for dull brown hair, washed-out features. Very wide shoulders. Maybe fifty and a powerful build, only a bit gone to fat. Laboring on the incline. Built for a different kind of labor.

Quickened my pace, determined to get to my car, then slowed again. What if someone else was waiting at the car? Then fast-walked again. I had no choice. There was no one on the street, just a few cars passing by. I’d reached the part with the fence and the small woods. I got ready to use my phone to call the police. Hesitated. Realized just how complicit I was in … something. I’d broken into an apartment. For example.