Page 44 of It Takes a Thief

Although we were going to bury a hated enemy and liberate some sex slaves—all a totally moral and high-minded business—Maddy worked her way into my thoughts. As we rode east closer to the Navajo Nation, I thought of her living in some tiny, scumbag apartment with just the barren desert for a view. Maybe a laundromat or some social services building. I’d had dealings with native gangs. They gathered in backroad canyons burning cedar logs, gulping home brewed whiskey, roaming like Rez dogs. Dressed completely in black, at knifepoint they’d take what they wanted from trading posts and tribal ghettos.

These were the thugs Maddy now had to deal with on her own. I had no doubt, as she said, that it was enhancing her career path and giving her something worthy to do. What the hell did I do that was worthy, aside from saving the ass of my club once again? We did Toys for Tots runs, but that was probably just to make ourselves look and feel good. Well, wasn’t that what it was all about?

Maddy had always wanted to help others, even when it put her in mortal danger. She was always the first jogging to the ambulance curb, the first to volunteer for preschool shit—the first at organizing the policeman’s ball. I loved this side of her. She wasn’t the typical MC Prez old lady, chain smoking and lording it over everyone else. She was polite, mild-mannered yet tough, content to live in the background of my main events—my highway jobs, pushing back on rival’s turf encroachment, smoking someone.

I missed Maddy like fuck. I missed her warm body curled up against my chest in bed. Her smiling—or sometimes grumpy—face by the coffee pot in the morning. She was often out on the deck working on her laptop. She loved the view from Mescal Mesa, the pinnacles, the sandstone turrets jutting from a landscape that resembled a layered party cake at sunrise. Not that I did it too much, but I missed the chance to take our kids somewhere. Some place educational, or even fun, like the county fair. Had we ever done that? I scoured my brain. I had no memories.

“What’s wrong?” Slayer asked Duji. “You walk like your bones are out of alignment.”

“That’s because they are,” said Duji, holding his hip. “I probably need a fucking hip replacement.”

I’d decided to bring Slayer, the sicario, and my two oldest stalwarts, Duji and Faux Pas, on this critical run. They’d have to forego some singer-songwriter music festival or some such shit, but I wanted them to remember their worth to the club. And Slayer and I had returned to, if not a back-slapping state of affairs, at least a civil one.

Slayer said, “I have this Feldenkrais method. It aligns the bones perfectly so you don’t feel the tiniest of pains.”

Duji put his hands on the small of his back and stretched. “I already do Feldenkrais. It ain’t doing shit.”

“I got a text,” said Faux Pas, looking at his phone. “My daughter Sophie says that photo on the computer screen? The one of the old-timey woman riding a horse? She says it’s some fictional character named Claire from a TV show called Outlander.”

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, pondering the meaning of this.

Of course, we had no idea about the meaning, so Duji said, “Let’s get this done. Slayer will pretend to be one of Noodlum’s suppliers, right?”

Tobiah had found out the YouTube video had been made right before we’d viewed it the day before, so we were praying the whole complex operation was still at the Saguaro Inn.

“Right!” declared Slayer. “With my fine, upstanding Spanish accent, I will lure the asshole into a false sense of security. It’s another gorgeous day to be Santiago Slayer!”

“I’ll bust in first with my Colt Python,” said Duji. “I’ll nail the motherfucker in the head the second I see him. No lectures, no grand gestures and”—he looked pointedly at Slayer—“no dramatic speeches.”

“Aw,” whined Slayer. “I like to let pendejos know why I’m offing them.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’d like to do the offing. His rage seems to be directed at me. He singled me out for some reason, so let me do the honors.”

Duji stepped back a step and tried to bow, but his hip prevented him. “It’s all yours.”

“Meanwhile,” said Faux Pas, “we’re backup to hit any stray cockbites who happen to be in the room. He might have backup. He would if he’s smart.”

“He’s stupid in certain ways I don’t understand,” I said. “Slayer told me about his brain injury. If we knew his weak spots, we could exploit them.”

Slayer said grandly, “If his temporal lobe was damaged, he could have seizures. From his behavior, this seems to be possible. Your President McKinley’s wife was plagued by petit mal seizures. During state dinners the President would drape a napkin on her face. The great Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy. After his first major attack, any minor trigger could bring him to the ground, thrashing and foaming.”

Duji scoffed. “What are you, some kind of fucking neurologist?”

“I had medical training in Mexico.” That was how true Mexicans referred to Mexico City.

Faux Pas asked, “You could’ve been a doctor, but became a sicario instead?”

“Sometimes,” said Slayer haughtily, “they are one and the same. Some people become very spiritual after temporal lobe damage.”

I said, “Well, we don’t know any of this shit for sure. And I’m not waiting for some clarinets or obnoxious perfume to set him off. We’re doing this the usual way.”

“All right,” the other three agreed.

Armed with a plan, we set off for the Saguaro Inn.

We parked next door at a donut store. I didn’t see his lame Super Glide in the motel’s parking lot, but another rice rocket parked next to a rape van gave us an idea which room they were in. The blasé front desk guy willingly gave us Noodlum’s room number when we handed him a twenty.

“Manten tu boca cerrada,” Slayer told the guy. Keep your mouth shut.