“Just once. I didn’t pick up anything, but I thought with both of us we might get lucky.”
I took a bite of donut and sipped some coffee, “Roll it when you’re ready.”
I ate three donuts and Hondo ate two as we watched the events three times. I finished my second cup of coffee and said, “Let’s watch it once more.” Hondo started it again. This time I concentrated on another vehicle that the pickup passed after banging into the Firebird. It was a white stakebed truck hauling mirrors. The mirrors were strapped to the outside of the truck bed on racks. I caught a flash of a reflected face in profile as the pickup passed the stakebed. “Stop it and rewind a little bit,” I said.
Hondo did and I pointed the stakebed out to him as I filched the last donut. He stopped the film as the face came into the mirror.
It was blurry, but we could make out that it was a black man with a gunfighter’s moustache and a black cowboy hat that was shaped and curled and fit him like he was the real deal. Hondo inched the footage forward but we were at the end of the film and unable to make out anything else.
I popped the last of the donut into my mouth as he turned off the tape and looked in the donut box. “Didn’t you leave me half of that last one?”
I chewed and swallowed, “I thought you wanted me to eat it so it wouldn’t sit around and attract ants.”
“You ate four donuts.”
“I figured you probably had a couple when you bought these, sort of like an appetizer, and that was why you only had two.”
Hondo shook his head and poured us some more coffee. While we drank, I told him about visiting the car dealership.
Hondo said, “She’s about half ghost the way she can move around in broad daylight and nobody sees her.”
“I’m going back to the car lot later,” I said. “Look around behind the place and see where she came from.”
“I think I’ll call up Vick and see if our African American cowboy rings any bells with the Sheriff’s Department.”
“Don’t forget, Vick’s still put out with us.”
“He won’t be much longer. Hunter called right before you got here and said she’d mailed us a care package of Julios.”
Hunter is Hunter Kincaid, our beautiful, tough, straight shooting Border Patrol Agent friend who lives in Texas. Julios are some fabulous tortilla chips made near San Antonio. We were all addicted to them and Hondo and I ate the last bag we had. It was one of the big bags too, almost the size of a pillowcase. Vick knew it was his and that we had it because Hunter called and told him she’d sent it to us.
Vick caught us when he came to the office that day and opened the door without knocking. I had the bag tilted up and was pouring the last tiny pieces of chips into my mouth when he yelled, “Vandals! You’re a couple of vandals!”
He scared me so bad I jerked the bag, and salt and chili powder and all the other spices left in the bag found their way into my eyes and nose. It felt like someone poured fire into my sinuses. Tears flowed and my nose ran clear liquid as I hacked and sneezed and wiped my face.
When I could see again, Vick said, “Serves you right,” and he left. He never did tell us what he wanted that day.
Anyhow, since then he’s been a little testy.
CHAPTER 4
That afternoon I drove Shamu down a side street by the car dealership, and the car wash guys saw me and waved me to the wash rack.
The Fisherman said, “Hey Baca, you got our little catfish all dirty. Leave her here so we can clean her up for you.”
“It’s not a catfish, it’s a-” Fisherman held his hands up in surrender while the others grinned and grabbed the water hoses and rags.
I said, “What are your names in case I see you on Comedy Central and want to tell friends I knew you crazies before you hit the big time.”
Fisherman pointed to the taller one and said, “He’s Oscar and the one next to him,” he pointed at the barrel-chested one with the chin whiskers, “He’s Tomas. I’m Atticus. Our last name is Rodriguez.”
“Atticus?” I said.
He nodded, “Mom was a big reader. Must have read To Kill a Mockingbird fifty times.”
“Atticus Rodriguez.”
“Don’t think that wasn’t fun growing up with.”