When Pigs Fly, Page 2

  Damn. Now George was back in Mack’s life. Mack pulled a Tecate from the refrigerator, popped the cap off the bottle and walked back to sit on the living-room couch. He took a long, cold swallow of the amber Mexican beer and wished he could wash away his melancholy. He planted his elbows on his knees and stared at the tile floor.

  Got a cold one for me? A Bud for a bud? I’m dry as dust here.

  Mack laughed aloud. He could swear he just heard George’s voice.

  Mack was retired now, on an Arizona vacation that had extended from one month to eighteen and had morphed into semi-permanent residence in a modest adobe home among the chollas and the ocotillos. He placed the urn on top of a bookshelf in the living room. There were four shelves with a eclectic blend of tomes by the likes of Tony Hillerman, Kathy Mackel, Leslie Meier and David Daniel. On the wall hung a road sign from Route 66, a painting of a Hopi Kachina, a photo he’d taken of the desert in bloom and framed photos of kith and kin galore from back East. There was a television, usually off, and a computer, usually on.

  Mack placed the urn on the floor next to the computer, wishing his black cloud would lift. George, he thought, I’ll show you some of the sights and then drop you off at the Grand Canyon. You’re gonna love it there.

  You’re the boss, Mack. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the adventure.

  The blast-furnace air eased up in the evening. Mack pulled his Dodge into the parking lot outside The Snake in the Grass, the cheapest bar on his side of town. Most of the customers looked half his age, studs wearing jeans and cowboy boots, with packs of Marlboros tucked into rolled-up sleeves, testosterone and smoke, good-looking women wearing halter tops and tight shorts and high-gloss lipstick.

  Not my kind of place, Mack thought, which is why I’m here. He found a small table in a corner near the rest rooms and ordered a Jack Daniel’s, straight up. He told the waitress he’d like to run a tab, please.

  The drink arrived, and Mack held it up to the light. Mister Daniel, he thought, we haven’t met. My name is Mack Durgin, and I’m told you’re an excellent listener.

  Indeed, Jack Daniel had nothing whatever to say, proving to Mack that he had found one damn fine conversationalist. The side window reflected the green neon snake that coiled, rattled, and struck over and over to the bass line of some godforsaken excuse for music. The building next door glowed from distant lightning and then faded again to black. Now and then, patrons walked past him to use the rest rooms, close enough for him to smell the colognes, the tobacco, the skin scents.

  “Hey, good-lookin’. Is there room at this table?” The stranger was gorgeous in her own cheap way, with a spectacular body mostly inside a pink vinyl miniskirt and a blouse designed to make men sweat. She looked great even through the bottom of Mack’s glass.

  “For you there is. What’s your name and what’ll you drink?”

  “Juanita. Juanita Lopez. I’ll have a Tequila Sunrise if you don’t mind. What’s yours?”

  “Mack Durgin. And my friend here is Jack Daniel.” Mack turned and caught the attention of the waitress across the room.

  Juanita waved at the glass. “Oh, hi, Mister Daniel. We meet again.” She primped her curls and wiggled into place in her chair. “You look very serious,” she said after they ordered a pair of Tequila Sunrises. He looked at her, saw four breasts, knew he was drunk.

  “I saw an old friend today.”

  “Um, that’s nice.”

  “He was dead.”

  “Oh my God! What happened?”

  “No, I’d bore you. And I don’t want to bore a beautiful woman.”

  Juanita’s breasts rose as she absorbed the compliment. “Did you report it to the police?”

  “It’s not like that. He died some time ago. My parents had his ashes, and they just sent them to me.”

  “Oh-h-h. Why didn’t they go to your friend’s family?”

  “You have beautiful eyes.”

  “Thank you.” She blinked, and Mack’s heart skipped a beat.

  “George’s wife left him and took the kids, and he had no other family that I know of. My parents thought the world of George and figured I did, too.”

  “Were they wrong?”

  “No. And yes. I knew him since fifth grade. By God, you couldn’t have a better friend in a fight, but he couldn’t keep his hands off a bottle or a breast.”

  “Ooooooh. Trouble,” she said, pronouncing it truh-bull. She held her glass by her fingertips and French-kissed the rim.

  “Once I thought I’d stand by him no matter what, but by the time he drank himself to death I wasn’t so sure anymore.”

  “He’s dead and you’re still mad at him.”

  “Not mad. Conflicted, I guess.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I told you. His eyes wandered and his hands followed.”

  “Okay, but what did he do wrong?”

  “Wrecked marriages.”

  “Yours?”

  “Nope. Nothing could’ve done that.”

  “That’s really sweet. Where’s your wife now?”

  “Back in New England.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “Poor baby. We could go back to your place. Or if you’re in a hurry we can just go to your car.”

  “No, my place is good. It’s only three or four miles.” He paid his tab, and they walked out to the parking lot, where music and laughter mixed with sounds of mufflers and souped-up engines. The sun had gone down, and the worst of the heat had dissipated. “Drive me home and we’ll come back here in the morning for my car,” he said, and they climbed into her red Camaro. She slipped the key into the ignition and back out again—and in and out, her mouth parted, as subtly as a boom box at a wake.

  “Lead on, McDurgin,” she said as the engine came to life. Lightning stroked the distant blackness and loosened rumbles of warning thunder. Mack rolled the window down and inhaled the tang of wet creosote bushes and Juanita’s orange-blossom cologne. A woman with four breasts, or had he just seen double? Was he two, three, or four sheets to the wind—and how did one calculate such things, anyway? Juanita—Wahneeta—launched into a discourse on cuticle science and aromatherapy, about which Mack presumed she bore incredible knowledge and sagacity.

  Soon they pulled into his carport and went inside the house. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Your pad looks great!”

  That wasn’t true, which Mack knew even in his current condition. “I just pick up now and then.”

  “Like I picked you up,” she chirped.

  Mack tried to fight off his melancholy. Did he really want to go through with this? No, by God, there had to be a thousand reasons why not: He didn’t know this woman, he was too drunk, she was probably married, this was the awful road George Ashe had traveled (wasn’t it?), Mary’s framed photo stood on the nightstand by the bed, he’d promised her there would never be another, and—and—there were probably nine hundred and some-odd other reasons he couldn’t think of right now. On the other hand, here stood a reincarnation of Mae West who seemed to think him nice. “I’m widowed,” he said.

  Juanita’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “That’s so sad.” She bracketed his face with her soft palms and kissed his lips. The feeling in Mack was electric, as though the Energizer Bunny were leading a big brass band through his shorts.

  He awoke the next morning, hours later than usual, peering out through the fog in his brain. The house felt empty—no Juanita, no wallet, no cell phone, no watch, just the lingering scent of a woman gone. Hot sun burned its way into the empty carport. An iguana stood on the stucco wall behind the house and flicked its tongue in Mack’s direction. Today would reach a hundred and eight degrees, and the sun was already well into its relentless climb. Mack picked up the receiver on the wall telephone and stuck his tongue back at the lizard. It skittered away. He was relieved to see his car keys on the kitchen table, and he vaguely remembered having left his car in the parking lot at The Snake in the Grass. After a brief chat with t
he police department, he called to cancel his MasterCard and found out that he had already purchased a four-thousand dollar plasma TV in Tucson that very morning. They made TVs that expensive? He didn’t know, but now he was pissed.

  He washed down a handful of Tylenol for a shattering headache, then stepped out the front door and looked down the empty dirt road. The front yard was all gravel and barrel cactus, and the road to town a graveyard waiting for his bleached bones.

  In the shimmering air, a mirage appeared—not the kind you see on the Interstate’s endless stretches of asphalt, but the vague form of a woman. She took gradual shape as he stood still, afraid to step toward her lest she evaporate. Mack sensed her beauty, if such a thing were possible without catching a single detail. Maybe last night’s bender had tangled his thoughts, or maybe it was today’s scorching heat.

  The woman was Mary, his wife of thirty years, who had died two years ago on the eve of their long-planned trip to Arizona. Mack had been inconsolable for days, sad for weeks, lonely for months. Then a year and a half ago, he came to Arizona for a vacation by himself and never went home, renting a house in the hamlet of Pincushion. Now she furrowed her brow the way she’d always done when Mack’s foolishness frosted her.

  “About that woman,” Mack said.

  “You’re Dumpster diving for dates, dear. Don’t.”

  He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “Ciao, love.” She faded into the desert.

  Down the hill, a police cruiser stirred a cloud of dust as it wound past the saguaro and the old wire fence. Mack closed his eyes and said a prayer of thanks. The blue and white Crown Vic sported a gumball on the roof and “Pincushion Police” on the door. A young, wiry cop stepped out and asked the usual questions. “Sounds pretty embarrassing,” he finally said with a smile. “We’ll see about your car.”

  When the cop left, a cactus wren let out a raucous cry that sounded like a backfiring muffler.

  Chapter 3

  Same time, back East

  “Rule number one, B and E.” Ace quizzed Frosty. They were casing the back of a home in Lowell. The neighborhood was full of old ranch houses and split-levels from the ‘60s, with overgrown maples and pine trees and tree roots that buckled the asphalt under driveways. Most of the kids around here were grown, and the parents were likely all off to work to pay for their mortgages and second honeymoons and save for retirement. Still, you had to be careful.

  “Be sure no one’s home,” Frosty replied.

  Ace smiled. His little brother was catching on. They hid behind a pine tree and looked at the back of the cute bungalow, out of sight of other houses. Its gray shingles were all curled up and covered with pine needles, and its gray clapboard siding looked like somebody hit it with a hammer in eleventy-two places. An old lady walked down the side stairs, all prim looking with her white hair and her purse, and got into a van already full of old folks. The codger van backed down the driveway and headed toward town. Instinct told Ace there was something special in this house, something even better than the high-definition TV they’d lifted last week, though instinct didn’t tell him exactly what.

  “Rule number two?”

  “Double check rule number one.”

  Ace nodded and picked up his cell phone from where he’d dropped it on the ground. Those shiny green leaves they were standing in, they weren’t poison ivory, were they? Luckily, they both wore latex gloves so they wouldn’t leave prints. He punched in a number. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Anybody else was home, they would have picked up by now. His nose itched, and he scratched it. But the itch was playing keep-away—every time Ace scratched, the itch moved—behind his ear, down to his Adam’s apple.

  Nice thing about robbing old people was their places seemed so homey, with afghans, stale-smelling boxes of kitty litter, and pictures of great-grandchildren looking so freaking adorable. Ace and Frosty just wanted to score a couple bills, maybe the old folks just cashed their Social Security check or left their Bingo winnings on the nightstand. There were moral standards to uphold, naturally, so Ace would never take all the cash. If he found a couple of fifties, he’d take one and leave one. If he found only one, he’d take it but feel bad. What if it was all the poor geezers had?

  Ace and Frosty went down in the bulkhead, which was rotting at the hinges. Right away they both caught a face full of spider webs they had to pick off their tongues. They hated spiders. Frosty said the ones that didn’t have poison sacs in their ass might carry plague germs that make your skin explode. Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t full of shit, as little brothers often are.

  Piles of junk were all over the place. National Geographics, possibly every one published since Honest Abe chopped down the cherry tree. Dolls, garden hoses, dozens of cardboard boxes, a rusty bicycle, lamps, a green lawn mower, a radiator with a crank in the front that must have been popular in the Ice Age. Ace stepped on something, and a rake handle whacked him in the face. That stung like a hornet and made him see lots of purple and lemony spots for a minute, but Ace wiped his face and didn’t notice any blood.

  They tiptoed up the cellar stairs, every one creaking as quiet as a bullhorn. They pushed a door leading past the end of a hallway and into the kitchen, which was as quiet as Ace’s heartbeat. A bouquet of flowers decorated the kitchen table. Frosty sneezed quietly into his shirt. Then he opened the fridge, and Ace pushed it shut. Pictures of kids and puppies decorated the fridge door, and a magnet held up a lottery ticket and a few envelopes.

  “This is business,” Ace whispered, flipping through the mail, his face hurting like he’d been hit with a stick. There were no checks, and he knew the lottery ticket was a loser, because he made it his business to know stuff like that. They went through the kitchen cabinets and even under the sink, since old people hid valuables in odd places. Frosty looked at Ace and shrugged.

  In the living room, a fireplace mantel held family pictures and bric-a-brac. Ace checked it all out quickly while Frosty looked under a bunch of papers on the coffee table. They were careful never to toss a place; they wanted to be long gone before anyone guessed what had happened. They lifted sofa cushions, and Ace pocketed seventy-five cents. Sometimes all you got didn’t even pay for gas money. The side tables didn’t have anything worth squat, and a peek under the couch just turned up an army of dust bunnies. The carpet had a couple of stains Ace didn’t even want to think about; he picked up a scrap of paper and put it in the trash.

  They went down a dark hall and pushed open a bedroom door. There were lace curtains, a king-sized bed with a brass frame and a library book on a blue pillow, an exercise bicycle with a white towel draped over the handlebar. A small rack of pink dumbbells sat on the carpet by the wall. Frosty poked inside an open package of Depends sitting next to the dresser. Nothing interesting there. On the wall hung a framed photo of a woman standing in front of an old shack and a big cactus. The picture was stained and creased, and the lady was older than Moses’ aunt. He looked behind the frame: no hidden safe.

  Ace flipped through a Bible that sat on the dresser, but found no money stashed inside. Ditto the drawers filled with creams, pills, powders, lipsticks, rollers, coins, loose stamps, and a whole confusion of the mysterious underthingies women wore. Where was all the great stuff his instinct told him about?

  When he opened the nightstand drawer, he saw an envelope with a handwritten return address:

  Mack Durgin

  RR #1

  Pincushion, AZ

  He looked inside and pulled out a snapshot. For a second, Ace’s blood stopped flowing through his veins. Officer Mack Durgin, Lowell P.D.! Memories washed over Ace’s brain—of Officer Durgin arresting them, testifying in juvie court, picking them up, letting them go, warning, watching, offering lame advice, and generally screwing up their plans. Best way to stay out of trouble, he’d said once, is don’t touch what’s not yours. Really, where would America be with an attitude like that? We’d still be trading with the Indians. Officer Durgin was a tall, solidly built cop wi
th sandy hair and wrinkles around his eyes that some people had a funny name for—pigeon toes or crow’s-feet, Ace couldn’t quite remember which.