Chapter Twenty-Three

Gonzales and Donovan didn't stay to eat dinner but started toward town as soon as they had concluded their deals for the day. Melinda gave them disapproving looks, but she took what was left of the money and ration books and promised to give them to Amalia when she returned from her errands. "I hope you don't plan to be out late," Melinda said, glaring more at Donovan than Gonzales, who she considered a hopeless case.

"I'm just tagging along to see more of the town and have a real beer, if I can find one. I'll be back early."

Once they got to the main drag, Gonzales hailed a bicycle rickshaw and they were treated to a swift, bouncy ride down the dusty street, then through a few increasingly dismal side streets until they found themselves in a suburban slum of ramshackle huts, abandoned cars and broken mobile homes. Not even weeds seemed willing to grow in this barren moonscape where the hard-packed earth was scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding rock. Scraggly chickens and a few lean mutts poked among the trash at the margins of rusting fences. Dirty children ran up to the rickshaw with their hands out, clamoring for coins. A few sullen men sat in the doorways of their shacks, drinking uncertain homebrews out of old bottles and staring vacantly as the rickshaw clattered past. From inside one of the hovels, a baby shrieked.

After a few more bends in the road, Donovan saw a sprawling concrete block of a building, silhouetted against the darkening sky. It had been designed to mimic native adobe but was now just a cheap architectural abandonment. The exterior glittered with sickly pink lights hung on long strings draped over the walls and around two big windows facing what was left of an asphalt parking lot. Bicycles, horses and a wagon were tied to posts in front and there were a few electric and coal diesel scooters as well. All of these were guarded by two big men with shotguns who strode back and forth casting distinctly suspicious looks on anyone who tried to approach a mode of transport without showing a chit to the greasy-haired teenager who was keeping tabs. As their rickshaw pulled into the driveway, they could hear the crash of frenetic music, vaguely Tejano with a native drumbeat and something else going on that Donovan couldn't place.

"So what do you think?" Gonzales asked as he tipped the driver.

Donovan looked around, excited to find himself in a place where something was happening, no matter how irrational, after so long in the country. He stepped around a young man who even at this early hour was on his knees puking into a patch of yellow weeds. "I think this will work."

They pushed their way through the knot of men hovering around the doorway and entered a large open space that in spite of the promise of the lights at the windows, was dimly lit and of questionable cleanliness. To their right stretched a long bar backed by shelves of bottles of all description, although Donovan knew from experience that most of the bottles probably contained the same thing--local rotgut being passed off as imported liquor.

Scattered around the bar were a few tables where men played cards or engaged in animated discussions with each other and whores, most of whom seemed to be local Hispanic and Indian girls with dusky skin, dark curls, bloody lipstick and brightly colored dresses. On the other side of the room were several pool tables, their felt surfaces in varying states of patching and repair. This area was more brightly lit than the bar and was full of men and garishly painted women tossing back drinks and taking shots at the colored balls, laughing or cursing as the balls ran up against the seams in the poorly repaired felt.

Toward the back was the doorway to the dance hall and Donovan could see people moving around to the chaotic thumping of the music. A rangy redhead stalked out of the room and looked around, sullenly sizing up the crowd. Underneath her heavy makeup, her skin was waxy, tinged with blue around her eyes, collarbone, and the slender joints of her wrists, as if she were bruised. The dim light reflected off the spangles of her dress, only partially disguising its poor cut and drooping hem. She walked over to the bar, found a spot near the bartender's well and said a few words. The bartender, a short dark man with a hook nose, nodded and poured her a double shot.

Clutching her drink, she leaned against a blank spot on the wall, surveying the room from the rim of her glass as she sucked down the harsh brown liquor. Three men, made bold by the local moonshine, approached her, drawn by her unusual coloring and the flame of her waist-length hair, even though her face was too angular, her manner too desultory to be attractive.

Gonzales noticed Donovan wasn't following him to the bar and stopped to see what he was looking at. "She's a strange one," he said. "I noticed her here last night."

"Did you get anywhere with her?" Donovan asked, pretending to turn his interest to his drink options.

"I didn't even try." Gonzales put a foot up on the brass rail and motioned the bartender over. "Bourbon," he said. "House is fine. And whatever he wants." He made a motion with his head to indicate Donovan.

"How about some scotch.”

"You got it." The bartender took a couple more orders and began racking up glassware.

"The scotch is probably the same as the bourbon," Gonzales pointed out. "All of it likely distilled last week from some local farmer's cornfield."

"Yeah, but you got to ask, you know. You never know when you might get lucky." Without intending to, Donovan found his gaze wandering back to the redhead, who was still talking to the men, forcing a smile and sucking on her whiskey with determination.

The look wasn't lost on Gonzales. "If getting lucky is what you're after, I wouldn't bother with her."

"Is she not what I think she is?"

Their drinks arrived and Gonzales tossed the bartender a silver coin. "Oh, she's a whore, all right," he said, taking a gulp of his home-distilled bourbon and grimacing. "And if you like them with an attitude, I guess she's the one for you. But me, I can't do it if they don't seem to want it. I mean, I know none of them do this for kicks, but if they can't at least pretend they like me a little. . ."

"I hear you," Donovan said. "I’m not really interested in her. Just curious. She doesn't fit in."

"I know that's right." Gonzales looked around the room. "But hey, it's too early to be thinking about the girls. They'll be here all night and we ain't even got started yet." He spotted what he was looking for and gave Donovan a grin. "I see there's a game going on over there," he pointed. "You up for some poker?"

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