“I’m not sure,” I said slowly when Gus didn’t respond. “We haven’t really worked out the kinks yet.”
She smiled before growing serious. “Well let me tell you this, there are some things in life that you can do by the seat of your pants and there are others you need to plan. What I said about Bernal being careful, it’s no lie. He’ll smell you a mile away if you’re on his territory. If he has his ex-girlfriend, and they’re in the place they used to share together, I would bet he wouldn’t give her up easily. You’re obviously after her for a reason. He was too.”
I swallowed hard and tried to bury the seeds of doubt that were popping up in my head, the fact that I was green, new to this, didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I was a tattoo artist for crying out loud, not a vigilante. Hell, I wasn’t even a bounty hunter like this middle-aged lady was. I had absolutely no skills to my credit except that I knew how to fire a gun and could kick the shit out of any unarmed man. And I doubted I’d be able to throw a couch and get away with it a second time.
“Well, thank you for your time Lydia,” Gus suddenly said, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay for pie, but the kid is right. We need to get going so we could start planning.”
I quickly took my piece of pie and wrapped it in a mound of napkins from the dispenser. “For energy,” I said, trying to give her an easy smile. I think I failed. Her own smile faltered in return.
As we were leaving the shop, I saw Lydia pull Gus aside and whisper to him, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come. For company? Just for old times?”
He grunted. “I’ll be alright, Lyd.”
“I worry about you. You’ve been through so much, and this man, Bernal …”
“I’ll be seeing you.” He patted her on the shoulder and I quickly turned and headed to the car so they wouldn’t know I’d been eavesdropping.
She waved goodbye for us, standing on the stoop of her shop, as we got into the car and roared off down the sunny, dusted, desert streets, sand it seemed I could never escape.
I shot Gus a look. “I guess we need a plan.”
“We need a plan and a prayer,” he said. He eyed me over his glasses. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
I did. Yet knowing it didn’t make it easier.
I started nibbling on the pie – absolutely messy but delicious – and got to thinking. We would descend upon Ocean Springs soon.
Tomorrow I might be able to hold Ellie in my arms again.
Tomorrow I might also lose everything.
Ocean Springs definitely wasn’t what I pictured when I thought of Mississippi. Granted, we had driven through Biloxi and Gulfport, still a mix of new casinos and post-Katrina destruction. But Ocean Springs was fresh and charming. A little too quaint for someone like Javier, though what did I know?
We pulled into the small town in the late afternoon, the humidity swept away by the incoming breeze of evening. We didn’t even spend a night in a hotel, instead Gus had me take over during the idle of the night, somewhere in Texas. He figured it was safe enough to not draw any suspicion, our car anonymous amongst the others on the dark stretch of highway.
While he snored from the backseat, utterly out in a matter of seconds, I had more time to think and go over the plan.
Gus had known where Ellie shacked up with Javier, in case of emergencies. We were able to locate it using his cell phone’s GPS, as close into the street view as we could go. Looked like a nice place, a fact that kind of picked at my heart a bit. It was ridiculous to be jealous over this, over something that happened a long time ago, but I couldn’t help it. I always was a jealous guy. I guess it came from insecurities and all that nonsense. Well, that’s what the shrink had told me all those years ago when my father would shuttle me off to him once a week. Even though I knew that Ellie despised Javier, that she was in a terrible place and needed my help – our help – I thought about what must have attracted her to him in the first place. What caused her to give up on her revenge and live with this man? The beauty of their house and the location disguised the truth.