“Just take it from my stack,” said the guy at the desk. “Want to join us?” he asked Hawley.
The men at the table leaned forward in their chairs. The other Navajo gave Hawley the once-over and returned to his beer. But the one with the freckles kept staring. He had hair the color of motor oil, and marks that blossomed across his face and neck like a rash. There was something about those freckles that made Hawley’s stomach ache.
“What’s the game?”
“Hold ’Em.”
Hawley was tempted. He hadn’t held cards in nearly a week. He watched as the man with the freckles reached over, grabbed some chips from the desk guy’s pile and threw them in the center of the table. The man’s wrists were covered with homemade tattoos, the kind done in prison. One was a serpent with nine heads on nine separate, twisting necks that disappeared up his sleeve, the other was the number 187, the section of the California penal code for murder. The ink was still fresh. The edges had not faded.
The clerk slid a key across the counter.
“Thanks,” said Hawley. “I’ll pass.”
He made his way back to the truck, pulling his shirt over his face to keep the sand out of his eyes, then drove around the back of the building and pulled into the parking spot with his room number spray-painted on the asphalt. He climbed the stairs to the second-floor landing, carrying his bag full of guns and the money, which he’d been keeping in a jar of black licorice. The bills were stuffed in rolls down in the bottom and the thin strips of candy were layered on top, like a pile of shoelaces. He hated licorice and he figured most people didn’t like it, either.
The motel room smelled like corn chips and cigarettes and there was a hole punched though one of the walls. On the bedside table was a clock, the digital kind with glowing numbers, but he couldn’t get it to work. His own watch had stopped in Denver, and he didn’t know what time it was. He put the bag full of guns in the closet. Then he unzipped the side pouch and took out his Beretta and set it on the bedside table.
When he was a boy Hawley’s mother had taught him how to handle a gun. Take a breath, she told him, take a breath and let half of it out. She’d said it so often that he nearly always breathed this way, even when he didn’t have a gun in his hands. He took in what he could and he held half of it back and that’s how he kept himself steady, day to day, year to year, every time he squeezed the trigger.
Hawley went into the bathroom and turned on the light. He had a bad case of trucker’s tan, his left side all burned from keeping the car window open. He turned on the shower and stepped into the cold water and washed the sand out of his hair. When he got out he wrapped a towel around himself and then he got back into his jeans. He’d just turned on the TV when he heard a knock on the door.
It was a girl, maybe twenty years old. She was nearly as tall as Hawley. She had a black eye, her blond hair pulled back tight in a bun and seven or eight piercings lining the sides of her ears, sets of tiny hoops looped one after the other and a purple feather dangling from the top like some kind of fishing tackle.
“I’m locked out,” she said.
Hawley kept his hand on the doorframe. “Can’t the front desk let you in?”
“No one’s there,” she said, “and I saw your light on.”
Hawley wondered if she was a hooker. Then he saw that she was carrying a baby. It was about six months old and she had it in a sling with her coat zipped up around it.
“Wait,” Hawley said. He closed the door on her and took the licorice jar out of his duffel bag. He made sure it was screwed tight and put it in the toilet tank. He grabbed the Beretta and slid the chamber to see that it was loaded and tucked it into the back of his jeans and pulled his shirt over it. Then he opened the door again. “I’ll go check with you,” he said.
They went through the storm to the other side of the building. The girl walked backward against the wind, holding up the sides of her coat to protect the baby. The front door to the motel was locked and the lights were out. Hawley put his hand to the glass and peered in. It was too dark to see anything.
“I told you,” the girl said.
Hawley banged on the window. He considered busting the lock. The baby started fussing and the girl bounced up and down on her toes. Then another big gust of wind came and they both got sand thrown in their faces and the baby started to cry.
“Let’s go back,” said Hawley. He put the girl behind him this time and held his arms out so he’d get most of the sand and not her and the baby, and when they reached his room he let them in.
“Those guys will probably be back in a minute or two,” he said.
The girl unzipped her coat. Her black eye was only a few days old, still bloodshot, with a streak of dark purple along the nose. “Is it okay if I change him?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” said Hawley.
She took the baby out of the sling and put him on the bed. He was dressed in blue pajamas printed with elephants. There were snaps along the side and the girl pulled them open and undid the diaper and then she grabbed both of the baby’s legs with one hand and lifted his bottom in the air and slid the diaper out. The baby stopped crying as soon as she did this.
“How long you been at the motel?” Hawley asked.
“About a week,” the girl said. “Only ones here, besides that guy from California.” She opened her purse and took out a fresh diaper and put it under the baby. Then she took out a tube of white cream and rubbed some between the baby’s legs and across his behind before she closed the diaper and snapped the sides of the pajamas up. The baby stared up at her face from the bed and kept waving his arms back and forth and opening and closing his fists, reaching for her the whole time.
The girl rolled the dirty diaper and used the plastic tabs to close it. “You got a trash can?”
Hawley looked around the room. “Maybe in the bathroom. Here.” He reached out and she gave the dirty diaper to him and he carried it across the room. It was warm and heavy against his fingers, like a living thing. He put the diaper in the trash and washed his hands. When he came back the girl was sitting on the bed and she had a bottle of vodka on the table.
“You want a drink?” she asked.
Hawley always wanted a drink. “Sure.”
“I don’t have any cups.”
Hawley went back into the bathroom and got the plastic-covered glasses by the sink. He handed her one, and they ripped open the little bags and slid their cups out. She poured a finger for them both. “Cheers,” she said.
Usually Hawley drank only whiskey or beer. Vodka was the drink alcoholics drank, because you couldn’t smell it on them. It was what his mother used to drink. He remembered the bottles. He’d even saved one for a while, after she’d left, until his father found it and threw it out. This vodka was cheap stuff and it burned Hawley’s throat on the way down. The girl swigged hers fast and poured another.
“What’s your name?” Hawley asked.
“Amy,” she said.