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  “Sure”—Marie smiled at him and batted her eyelashes—“if my husband comes.”

  Don Toto shrank. Concha laughed. “She got you that time, Toto. Howie’s probably a home-run hitter, too, eh,” she whispered to Marie.

  “Home run every time at bat,” Marie said, nodding.

  Concha ribbed don Toto. “You’re in the wrong league. Better go back to the viejitas at Saturday bingo!”

  Don Toto shook his head. “Quiet. Let’s watch the game.”

  Drinking beer and wolfing down hotdogs they settled down to watch the game, cheering loudly when El Gallo struck out an opponent.

  “He’s hot!” Concha jumped up and waved her pennant. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” Around her the crowd took up her chant. “Hot! Hot! Hot!”

  “I never saw anyone enjoy a game more,” Howard said.

  “They don’t get out much,” Sonny replied. Then he told him what he had found out about Akira Morino from Turco. “I think she had the money on her,” he concluded.

  “So where is it?” Howard asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Sonny answered. He emptied his beer cup. “I don’t know a lot about Japanese culture, but he has a wife and kids back home. They overlook a lot of fun for the salary men after working hours, but not bastard kids. In Morino’s position it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The last excuse his board needs to throw him out.”

  “An abortion would have taken care of the complications,” Marie suggested.

  “Unless she really wanted a child,” Sonny said. Is that what Gloria wanted?

  “What if she was blackmailing Morino?” Rita said.

  Sonny cocked his head. “What?”

  “She’s told Turco she will help him, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So she needs to raise a lot of money.”

  “Morino’s got the money, but Morino can’t let it be known Gloria is carrying his child.”

  They looked at each other.

  “So abortion is not a solution. She’s never had a kid, now she’s pregnant. She wants a kid, her child. But Morino would not want it known—”

  “Possible,” Sonny agreed. He hadn’t thought of Gloria as a blackmailer, but why not? She was a strong, decisive woman. There was little love left between her and Frank, and suddenly she found herself pregnant, and the baby’s father pressing her to abort it. But did she need the money for Turco, or for something else?

  Howard interrupted them. “Mira.”

  They paused to watch Maloney. He was down three—two when he belted the home run, and the stadium went dead. “Damn,” Howard groaned, “he gave him the fastball! Maloney’s a fastball hitter and the sucker gives it to him!”

  El Gallo turned to the crowd, smiled his broad Mexican smile, and shrugged. Next time, he seemed to say, I’ll get him next time. How could the fans be mad at a guy like that? Even as Maloney rounded third, Concha and Toto jumped up and cheered for the pitcher.

  “Gallo! Gallo!” they shouted, and the crowd took up their chant, on their feet, stamping on the bleachers and shouting, “Gallo! Gallo! Gallo!” So what if they were behind a point? It was only the fourth inning.

  “The question is, would Morino give her the money?” Sonny asked as the cheering subsided.

  “Yes. If he loved her,” Rita answered. “Or was really scared she’d have that baby. There’d be no mistaking it wasn’t Frank’s.”

  “Was there really any money?” Howard asked.

  Sonny shrugged. He didn’t know. He told them about meeting Veronica and Raven.

  “Did Raven know Gloria?” Howard asked.

  “He denies it, but that’s what I have to find out,” Sonny answered.

  “In the meantime,” Howard said, “the scalpel you picked up at Raven’s place? Blood of bovinus.”

  “Cow? I figured.”

  “One more thing,” Howard said as they settled back to see if El Gallo could get his pitching under control. “Cops checked all the mortuaries. There’s a new one up in the Heights, Dawn of Life. The owner has old mortician tools of the trade, a small collection. He had an old hand pump, the type morticians used to take out to ranches without electricity. And he reported it missing. No prints, nothing else taken, just the old hand pump.”

  The Dukes won the game, and Sonny drove his three exuberant friends home. By the time he got them there, they had mellowed down and were singing corridos. Don Toto wanted to continue the party insisting the Fourth Street Cantina was open till 2:00 AM.

  Sonny, with don Eliseo’s help, prevailed. “Everyone to bed,” he said as he dropped each one off. “Party’s over.”

  “Yeah, for us,” Concha complained, “but not for you.” She looked at Rita. “Ah, it’s nice to be young. Batter up!” she cheered as Sonny and Rita helped her to the door.

  “Hope so,” Rita whispered.

  25

  The next day, Morino’s assistant called and invited Sonny to a hurried and impromptu meeting. Sonny silently gave thanks to Tamara as he drove downtown.

  Sonny pulled up at the stoplight in front of the Hyatt. It was nearly seven, the streets were empty, the downtown workforce had disappeared. Two homeless men stood looking at the people sculpture that stood on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The long afternoon shadows tinged the air with nostalgia.

  The light changed and Sonny found a parking space near La Galería. As he walked to the hotel, he passed the two homeless men, two out-of-luck young men, one Chicano, one Anglo. More and more the streets of the city were peopled by young, homeless men. They stood on street corners during the day and held up signs that read “Food for Work. God Bless You.” They took handouts, loose change from the guilty at heart. Now they were probably on their way to the river, where they slept. During the summer they set up cardboard huts along the river bosque. Those camps were home at night.

  Not much different from the migrants of the thirties, Sonny thought. The Depression. The new technology sweeping across the land created jobs for some, liberated some, and still created a class of untrained unemployed who couldn’t lift themselves out of the quagmire.

  Morino’s office was a suite on the top floor. Morino’s assistant, a young, very courteous Japanese man greeted Sonny. He looked as if he had just graduated from the Japanese equivalent of an Ivy League school, Sonny thought, except that this Ivy Leaguer was carrying a small automatic under his suit jacket. Sonny felt nervous. Had he entered the murderer’s den?

  “Ah, Mr. Sonny Baca. Very glad to meet you. Come in.” He led Sonny into the receiving room. “Please sit.” He smiled, snapped his fingers, and a Japanese woman dressed in a kimono appeared with a tray. Two small porcelain cups sat on the tray. The design on the cups was that of a dragon in a soft orange, almost an apricot color, the proverbial dragon rising into blue sky.

  “Sake,” the assistant said. The woman poured. Sonny took the cup she offered; then she set the tray on the table and withdrew.

  “Please be comfortable,” the assistant said. “I shall inform Mr. Morino you are here.”

  Sonny sipped the warm wine. It was mellow, a taste he wasn’t used to, but good. He looked at the design on the cup and relaxed in the chair. The dragon on the cup was ferocious, bulging eyes staring out with fury as it rose along the curve of the porcelain cup. The dragon was the sun king in stories he had read. It rose from the depths of a lake and ascended into the sky. A sun god. A Señor de la Luz, Sonny thought, sipping.

  The dragon was also the Quetzalcóatl of the Aztecs, the plumed serpent, the snake with feathers. As serpent he was earth energy, the intuitive side of the human psyche, with wings he could fly and partake of sun energy, the highest consciousness. Earth and sky met as one in this ancient deity from Mesoamerica, the intuition and the clarity don Eliseo sought.

  Sonny remembered reading something by Ben Chavez. The dragon of the Orient and Quetzalcóatl were related. Maybe don Eliseo could be a Buddhist monk, or a shaman of the Russian steppe, a monk in Tibet, head
shaved, thin body wrapped in orange cloth, turning the prayer wheel, living on beans or rice, letting the light fill him.

  Quetzalcóatl was the god of illumination, civilization, cultivation, knowledge, and wisdom. Lord of the Dawn. Lord of Light. He was the earth god who had become a Señor de la Luz. It was all there, just like don Eliseo said, and it wasn’t a New Age theory. This knowledge had been part and parcel of don Eliseo’s world for ages. In Catholic Spain, in Jewish Spain, in Moorish Spain, in the esoteric knowledge that swept from Egyptian history across the Mediterranean to meet with the “light wisdom” of the Americas, which was related to the Orient, which was related to … the round world.

  The round Zia sun. The strands of light spreading around the world.

  Gotta listen to don Eliseo, Sonny made a mental note. Who knows, I may be on the path to becoming a Señor myself. He chuckled. Nah, I like to screw around too much, he thought. Can’t be on la movida and hope to become a Señor. La movida chueca, the urge to party, las ganas that drove men into strange bedrooms, the arms of women. Never satisfied, always glancing at the curves that came striding down the street, the breasts, the lips, the sensual smile, the invitation.

  “You’re not a computer,” don Eliseo said. “You’re a man.”

  Yeah, Sonny thought. I can choose.

  He thought of Tamara. She used the joy of the orgasm not only for the moment, not only to get high, but to connect to the past lives, to reach for the light. Connecting to the past meant sharing in immortality, returning to the first moment in the dawn of time when the light exploded. There lay revelation. There lay the birth of don Eliseo’s Señores y Señoras de la Luz.

  But she used it to stay young. Vanity clothed even Tamara. Each new orgasm not only connected her to her chain of memory, it provided a sense of youth, immortality. That’s why she dreamed of past lives, so she could live forever. In Tamara’s chain of being, there was no room for doubt. She had been a princess in the court of the sun king, and history was replete with sun kings. Quetzalcóatl and the Chinese dragon were sun kings, even don Eliseo’s Señores y Senoras de la Luz were children of the sun. The gods were reflections of the sun.

  For don Eliseo, being filled with light meant understanding how the Señores y Señoras came into being. Clarity was a way of knowledge. The blessing of life they brought. They were the ancestors, and the spirits of the ancestors lived. They were prayed to, masses and rosaries were offered, on el Día de los Muertos you visited their graves, prayed, drank, took a picnic lunch to share with them. The ancestors were the santos!

  Sonny looked into the cup. The warm sake had flowed into his veins. Should try this stuff more often, he mused. He finished the cup of sake and looked again at the design on the cup. Good stuff. A pleasant feeling enveloped him.

  Like sex, thoughts could be a pleasure, he thought, allowing his mind to wander through the connections it was making. So, what if the original souls of the ancestors are still here, on Earth, all around? They came daily, spoke, entered dreams, could be called upon for help, and then you died and you became one. Went to visit los antepasados, the ancestors who had become pure soul. No more flesh, no more reincarnation, no heaven or hell, just pure light. Clarity. Then you joined the dance of the Lords and Ladies in the morning and came to bless life on Earth. That was a pleasant thought.

  He put his finger in the cup and swished it around, put the finger to his mouth and tasted the last of the sake. Ah, good. Should he pour himself another? Maybe it would take away the nervous feeling he was trying to control. No, he needed a clear head when he spoke to Morino.

  He placed the cup on the table and looked around. The room was in Japanese decor, subdued tones, screens, paintings of misty mountaintops, gnarled pines, paths disappearing into the clouds. Here Akira Morino greeted his business guests and outlined his plans. Supplicants came to be granted wishes by the king of technology.

  Just like the old patrón system of the state. The humble peons of the small villages used to approach the patrón with hat in hand, to ask a favor of the rich boss man. Los ricos dispensing favors. Sonny hated the system. It was petty and demeaning to the poor, to those without power.

  “Fuck the patrones,” he whispered, “and all the fucking politicos in Santa Fe who act like patrones!”

  Maybe Morino was just another kind of new patrón, like the mayor when she was dispensing favors, like those legislators in Santa Fe who got elected and got a little power and became patrones, petty mafiosos, granting small favors here and there, but hoarding power and keeping the poor in check.

  Morino had lived in Mexico, so he knew the culture. An interesting man, Tamara had said, extremely knowledgeable on many things. The man devours books. He’s read about Elfego Baca and is surprised there’s not a statue dedicated to this man in the city.

  We don’t honor our heroes, Sonny thought. Chicano heroes have been erased from the white man’s history. Forgotten.

  Sonny heard Japanese voices, turned, wondered what Morino would say or deny about Gloria. The more he learned about Gloria, the more he realized how much more there was to her than the part he knew. She knew what she was getting into if she helped Turco. She must have realized the possible consequences. Or was the money really for herself?

  Morino entered the room, bowed, and greeted Sonny cordially. “It is an honor,” he said, shaking Sonny’s hand.

  “Yes, an honor,” Sonny said nervously. The man’s presence was overpowering. A guy like this doesn’t break easy, Sonny thought.

  “Please, let us be comfortable. We will sit on the terrace.” Morino motioned, and they stepped outside. “From here the view is exquisite. I sit here in the afternoon, when it is cool.”

  The sun was setting over the West Mesa, its tongues of flame cast a bronze sheen on the evening clouds.

  “Quite a view,” Sonny agreed.

  “Yes. Finally we have the relief of clouds. It will rain soon.”

  The assistant who had followed them onto the terrace placed the tray with the sake on the table and poured; then he disappeared. Morino handed Sonny a cup and bowed.

  “I have come to love this city,” Morino smiled, looking west, toward the green bosque of the river, into the suffused summer sunset turning a soft apricot color, orange, wisps of mauve.

  “At night the lights glitter like diamonds. I have never been in a city where I felt so comfortable. It has become my home.”

  He spoke eloquently and with sincerity. Sonny followed his gaze and looked at the city. The last light of the day bathed the sky and valley in a soft glow. The summer evening air was pleasant, cool, and clear, a sensuous reward for those who had lived through the hot day.

  “You are Gloria’s cousin,” Morino said.

  “Yes,” Sonny answered.

  A moment ago Morino’s voice had been bright and gay; now it was subdued, sad. Sonny remembered the night he had seen him at Dominic’s. The man had been grieving.

  “We have a saying. Here, in New Mexico, we’re all primos, related one way or another,” Sonny said.

  Morino nodded. “Like Japan. We have been insular. So has New Mexico. You have been a nation unto yourselves for so long. Perhaps that is one reason I am drawn here.”

  “But a colonized nation,” Sonny reminded him. “There’s a difference.”

  “All nations are products of colonization,” Morino said. “A new migration comes and a new culture is layered on the old. Those who remember their history dream of it as Utopia, but it is not so. As much as I identify with your view, with your history, I also sense the inevitable movement of history. So I see the influx of migrations into this river valley as its strength. Now, New Mexico has been discovered again. The Californians are coming in. People with money from Los Angeles—”

  “The Japanese,” Sonny said and lifted his sake cup.

  Morino smiled. “Yes, even we are tempted by this land. There’s no retreating from that. You will continue to see this thing you call colonization, and in a small way, I
am part of that change. But my contribution can be positive.…”

  Sonny shrugged.

  “I understand your reluctance.” Morino smiled. “Right now you are thinking, ‘They all say the same thing.’”

  Sonny smiled and Morino laughed. Morino emptied his cup of sake and poured again. “To our friendship,” he said.

  “To Akira, the morning sun,” Sonny replied.

  Morino looked closely at Sonny. “Ah, you’ve done your homework.”

  “The same sun which rises over Japan rises over New Mexico. We call it the Zia sun.”

  Morino arched an eyebrow. “I have lived in Mexico,” he said. “I read the history of the ancient Aztec civilization. They were worshipers of the sun, and they made blood sacrifice to the sun.”

  Morino nodded and grew pensive. He sipped from his cup, looked at the display of colors of the afternoon sun, and mused. “The Aztecs were once a powerful people,” he said after a moment.

  “The technology of the Spaniards destroyed them,” Sonny said. “The Spaniard had rifles and cannons, firepower. That same technology can destroy the Earth.”

  “That is one view,” Morino said. “The other is that the nation of the Aztecs had become a nation unto itself. It had developed a high sense of consciousness, and it was no longer willing to learn from its neighbors. It could not respond to the Spaniards’ onslaught because it could not understand the stranger. So, one may say, to not understand the stranger is suicide.”

  Interesting, Sonny thought. The man has thought through the conquest of Mexico. He has also thought through the final conquest of New Mexico.

  “So I should understand you.…”

  Morino cut in. “You said yourself, you’ve already done some homework. You want to understand the stranger, or the opposition.”

  “Yes,” Sonny agreed.

  “But opposition and competition are words we take from the world of politics and economics,” Morino replied. “We need not be opponents. I take seriously the history of this area. I want to learn more about the people. There are beautiful traditions here, Mr. Baca, but if the people don’t embrace the fruits of the new technology they will disappear like the Aztecs. Perhaps we can find a common ground.”