I became irritated. “I know what a güero is. Güero caca leche.” That meant white man who shits milk.
“Oh.” Tracy looked at me, obviously aware of my irritation. “Well, I just want to say that I really like working with you on this whole CBD hybrid thing. If you want any help with your bud and breakfast just let me know. I know a lot of field workers who could help you with cleaning, building, maybe being maids, that sort of thing.”
“What? Oh, yeah. You mean people you don’t need at Leaves of Grass, extras hanging around looking for work? Sure, that’d be great. Lytton closed the sale on the old motel, so we just have a thirty day escrow before we can start work around the end of June.”
“You got a name for it?”
“Yeah. Smoky Mountain High.” I’d just made that up on the spot, but it was good enough for now. “Let’s go.”
Then we were at the bar, where I learned more people’s stories. I learned that the stunning, confident beauty Bellamy Jager had been a high school friend of Maddie and June, but she’d been sucked up into a cult. The ink slinger cum adult film actor Knoxie Hammett had saved her.
I knew Fox intended to save me. Or did he? I had to find out if he really worked for the fucking Joneses.
At the One Finger Salute, I had to endure sitting next to Fox at a long table with other Bare Boners and Bone Lickers. The roar of chatter layered above twanging country rock was enough to drown out any subtleties of conversation, and I kept glancing up at Fox’s beautiful, impassive face to see if anything betrayed him.
Of course, all I saw was a man completely in control of himself, a master of all he surveyed.
When it was time to walk to the square where they’d burn the bike, Fox took my hand. The sincere smile he graced me with was beyond question. Only evil guys in movies had the ability to thoroughly and completely fool their victims. Or didn’t they say Ted Bundy’s mode of operation was to hypnotize women into a false sense of security? With his good-looking charm, he’d skillfully set the stage to entrap them. Is that what Fox was doing? Setting me up until he could pop me off?
But he could’ve done that at any step of the way. And he’d told me his real name. At least, I thought he had.
“So Fox,” I said in a light tone, swinging our locked hands, “tell me more about your brother.”
I carefully watched his face. He did look around to see who might be listening. But the surging mass of stoned, high, euphoric partiers could care less what we were saying. Wolf and Tracy walked nearby, along with Knoxie and Bellamy, and Ford and Maddie, but they were all lost in their own worlds. Still, Fox drew me closer and leaned down to speak.
“Trent was our parents’ second and last kid. Once they realized he had MD, everything fell apart. My father blamed my mother for having lied, for not telling him she knew she carried the gene. I don’t know when he got involved in gun running, but he blamed her for that, too. My teen years were spent overhearing his conversations with guys named Eduardo and Alejandro.” I opened my mouth to speak, but Fox beat me to it. “I know what you’re going to say. How ironic I wound up conversing with guys named Carlos and Juan.”
“Yes, I was going to say that.”
“Well, it didn’t start out that way. After they divorced and stuck Trent in a ‘home,’ I vowed to become a lawyer, to fight for his cause. No one else seemed to give a shit. My mother said her fingers were just worked to the bone, and my dad was off in Laredo.”
Laredo. The Jones’ backyard, or so I had thought. I butted in. “Was it the Jones cartel he worked for? Reason I ask, when I was held in their warehouse in Corpus Christi, all I used to hear about was Laredo. That was their main port.”
I definitely felt him stiffen. I was clinging to his arm, and although he kept walking, there was a robotic tension to his step. “No, not the Joneses. The fucking Avilars.”
“Oh.” I’d heard of them. They had a dedicated military wing that used submarines to smuggle in the Gulf of Mexico. “They’re rivals of the Joneses.”
He only said, “I know. And now I can’t help my brother aside from sending money, because I’m stuck here.” He corrected himself, looking down at me and clasping my hand in both his large palms. “You know what I mean.”
He must have hypnotized me with his warm, loving gaze, because I heard myself saying, “I know what you mean.” And grinning like a moron.
By that time, ZZ Top’s “Tush” was blaring from the square. I could see the bike they were to burn lifted ten feet above ground on scaffolding. A few guys with jerry cans were up there splashing diesel on wooden pallets that had been piled up around the base. We were latecomers to the display, so we squeezed in next to Wolf Glaser, who had Tracy sitting on his shoulders.