sse and Johnny started forward, but Felipe stopped them with a hand, “Not until we find the girl.” He pulled out his wallet and took two fifties from it. “These are yours,” and he handed them to Raul.
Raul rubbed them between his fingers and smiled. Godoy said, “Now, where is she?”
Raul sneered at the Barbosas, then said to Godoy, “El Longbranch. Mingo Cruz has her.”
Elvis said, “Oh, man.”
Godoy said, “E, you know the layout up there?”
“Well man, ahh been in there a couple times, if thass what you mean.”
“Then you will draw a diagram for us, and then we will make our plan.” Godoy turned to Raul, “And you will join us.”
“Hey, I just wan’ the money. I don’ wan’ no troubles.”
Godoy pulled his pistol and pointed it at Raul’s face. “Nobody’s going to have a chance to warn this Cruz person we are coming.”
“Look, I’m not goin’ to talk.”
Godoy smiled, “I know you’re not,” Godoy handed Jesse his pistol and said, “Cover him until E and I are through.”
Jesse grinned at Raul and said, “Be my pleasure.”
Elvis and Felipe went through the back door of the Hartbrak Hotel and found some typewriter paper and a Bic pen. Elvis sat at a table near the stage and drew, using the edge of an aluminum napkin holder as a straightedge. He was quick and fluid, and had the drawing finished in five minutes. “Thass the way I remember the layout, man. I figure it hasn’t changed much. You go in the back, you got access to both floors.”
“Fine,” nodded Godoy. He tapped Elvis on the shoulder and said, “Let’s show the others.”
“Look man, ahh don’ really want any of this. It’s your gig, ya know?”
“E, Stay with me until this is finished. I’ll make you happy you did.”
“We talkin’ money here, man?”
“Yes, a good sum.”
“Like, American dollars?”
“Oh yes. For you, five figures.”
Elvis rubbed his hand across his face, further smearing the dark, greasy marks, “You got yourself a partner. Let’s TeeCeeBee.”
“What?”
“TCB. Takin’ Care of Biz, yah know? It’s mah code, mah insignia. Had Priscilla a necklace with that on it, looked good, too, man.”
Felipe had no idea what Elvis was talking about, and he shook his head as he led the way out the back and to the shed while E hummed Viva Las Vegas and practiced his karate moves.
***
Hunter had to stop and ask directions four times before she could find the way to Outlaw Road. The first three people wouldn’t say anything, but Hunter waved a twenty at the last one, and he told her how to go. He left her with a warning before she drove off, saying “You should not go to that bad place. Beautiful women who go alone to Outlaw Road never return.”
It still took her thirty minutes to get there, and as she drove on the dirt road and topped out on a small rise, Hunter saw the town. The shock caused her to slow down. The harshness of it made Hunter feel as if someone had raked her eyes. Outlaw Road was so primal and unadorned that it appeared stripped to the bare essence of what composed a town. Wooden buildings were unpainted, except where the signs above the saloon doors spelled out names. Adobe buildings thrown together with raw mud bricks listed to the sides and had cracks running along the walls like jagged lightning. Here and there, long-abandoned adobes had disintegrated over the decades, leaving melted walls stubbed like rotten teeth.
There were only a few trees, all gnarled mesquites, and there was no grass or landscaping anywhere. Hundreds of trash piles littered every open area. Most were rusty things like cans and engine parts or old wire, but there were also mounds of gray splintered lumber and humps of discarded items so old and weathered they were unidentifiable. The trash scattered around almost every building in town. Some were completely surrounded by it, with only narrow trails through the debris allowing passage to the doors. Bits and pieces of paper fluttered everywhere: against the sides of houses, stuck against greasewood at the outskirts, and everywhere the desert winds would blow them. Here and there, old outhouses and abandoned buildings were jumbles of partial walls and roofs where they fell in on themselves. What looked out of place were the electric and phone lines, and the small satellite dishes everywhere. Some houses had three or four attached to the roof and walls. Hunter could see two or three large dishes, too. She glimpsed few vehicles, but the three or four she did see looked new.
When she stopped at the first building on what she figured was the main street, Hunter felt as if she was in a ghost town. There was no activity, no one walking around, and no businesses seemed open. The building in front of her was a saloon, and she walked to the door. It was locked. She pounded for five minutes before an emaciated man with ugly teeth and half an ear asked her what in the hell she wanted.
Hunter softened his demeanor with a twenty-dollar bill. He opened the door and stepped outside to take the money. As he folded the bill and put it in his pocket, Hunter asked if he had seen a little girl, about thirteen, come into town.