John Connolly - The Black Angel

“Yes,” she said. “I think those in need find you, but with them come those who cause misery and hurt.”

Her arms gripped me tighter, and her nails dug sharply into my back.

“And I love you for the fact that it pains you to turn away. I love you for wanting to help them, and I’ve seen the way you’ve been these last weeks. I’ve seen you after you walked away from someone you thought you could help.”

She was talking about Ellis Chambers from Camden, who had approached me a week earlier about his son. Neil Chambers was involved with some men in Kansas City, and they had their hooks pretty deep in him. Ellis couldn’t afford to buy him out of his trouble, so somebody was going to have to intervene on Neil’s behalf. It was a muscle job, but taking it would have separated me from Sam and Rachel, and would also have involved a degree of risk. Neil Chambers’s creditors were not the kind of individuals who took kindly to being told how to run their affairs, and they were not sophisticated in their methods of intimidation and punishment. In addition, Kansas City was way off my turf, and I told Ellis that he might find the men involved were more amenable to some local intervention than the involvement of a stranger. I made some inquiries, and passed on some names to him, but I could see that he was disappointed. For better or worse, I’d gained a reputation as a “go-to” guy. Ellis had expected more than a referral. Somewhere inside, I also believed that he deserved more.

“You did it for me, and for Sam,” said Rachel, “but I could tell the effort that it caused you. You see, that’s the thing of it: whichever way you turn, there will be pain for you. I just didn’t know how much longer you could keep turning away from those who reached out to you. I guess now I know. It ended today.”

“Rachel, she’s family to Louis. What else could I do?”

She smiled sadly.

“If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else. You know that.”

I kissed the top of her head. She smelled of our child.

“Your dad tried to talk to me outside.”

“I bet you both enjoyed that.”

“It was great. We’re considering going on vacation together.”

I kissed her again.

“What about us?” I asked. “Are we okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I love you, but I don’t know.”

With that she released me, and left me alone in the kitchen. I heard her climb the stairs, and there came the creak of the door to the bedroom where Sam lay sleeping. I knew that she was looking down upon her, listening to her breathe, watching over her so that no harm would come to her.

That night, I heard the voice of the Other calling from beneath our window, but I did not go to the glass. And behind her words I discerned a chorus of voices, whispering and weeping. I covered my ears against them and squeezed my eyes tightly closed. In time, sleep came, and I dreamed of a leafless gray tree, its sharp branches curving inward, thick with thorns, and within the prison that they formed brown mourning doves fluttered and cried, a low whistling rising from their wings as they struggled, and blood upon their feathers where the thorns had pierced their flesh. And I slept as a new name was carved upon my heart.

The Spyhole Motel was an unlikely oasis, a resting place for travelers who had almost entirely despaired of ever finding respite before the Mexican border. Perhaps they had skirted Yuma, tired of lights and people, longing to see the desert stars in all their glory, and had instead found themselves facing mile upon mile of stone and sand and cactus, bordered by high mountains they could not name. Even to stop briefly by the roadside was to invite thirst and discomfort, and maybe the attentions of the Border Patrol, for the coyotes ran their illegals along these routes, and the migras were always on the lookout for those who might be colluding with them in the hope of making some easy money. No, it was better not to stop here, wiser to keep moving in the hope of finding comfort elsewhere, and that was what the Spyhole promised.

A sign on the highway pointed south, advising the weary of the proximity of a soft bed, cold sodas, and functioning air-conditioning. The motel was simple and unadorned, apart from a vintage illuminated sign that buzzed in the night like a great neon bug. The Spyhole consisted of fifteen rooms set in a wide N shape, with the office at the end of the left arm. The walls were a light yellow, although without closer examination it was difficult to say whether this was their original color or if constant exposure to the sands had resulted in their transformation to that hue, as though the desert would tolerate the motel’s presence only if it could lay some claim to it by absorbing it into the landscape. It lay in a natural alcove, a gap between mountains known as the Devil’s Spyhole. The mountains gave the motel a little shade, although barely steps from its office the heat of the desert winds blew through the Devil’s Spyhole itself like the blast from the open door of an incinerator. A sign outside the office warned visitors not to wander from the motel’s property. It was illustrated with snakes and spiders and scorpions, and a drawing of a cloud puffing superheated air toward the black stick figure of a man. The drawing might almost have been comical, were it not for the fact that blackened figures were regularly found on the sands not far from the motel: illegals, mostly, tempted by the deceptive promise of great wealth.

The motel derived as much of its custom from referrals as from those who saw its sign in passing on the highway. There was a truck stop ten miles west, Harry’s Best Rest, with an all-night diner, a convenience store, showers and bathrooms, and space for up to fifty rigs. There was also a noisy cantina, frequented by specimens of human life that were barely one step up from the predatory desert creatures outside. The truck stop, with its lights and noise and promise of food and company, sometimes attracted those who had no business being there, travelers who were merely tired and lost and seeking a place to rest. Harry’s Best Rest was not meant for them, and its staff had learned that it was prudent to send them on their way with a suggestion that they seek some comfort at the Spyhole. Harry’s Best Rest was owned by a man named Harry Dean, who occupied a role that would have been familiar to his predecessors on the border a century before. Harry walked a thin line, doing just enough to satisfy the law and keep the migras and Smokies from his door, which in turn usually enabled him to stay on the right side of those individuals, mired in criminality, who frequented the shadier corners of his establishment. Harry paid some people off, and was in turn paid off. He turned a blind eye to the whores who serviced the truckers in their rigs or in the little cabanas to the rear, and to the dealers who supplied the drivers with uppers and other narcotics to keep them awake or bring them down as the need arose, as long as they kept their supply off the premises and safely stored amid the tangles of junk in the back of their assorted pickups and automobiles, the smaller vehicles interspersed among the huge rigs like bottom-feeders following the big predators.

It was 2 A.M. on Monday, and the Best Rest had quietened down some as Harry helped Miguel, his bar manager, to clean up behind the counter and restock the beer and liquor. Technically the cantina was no longer open for business, although anyone who wanted a drink at that time of night could still be served at the diner next door. Nevertheless, men continued to sit in the shadows, nursing their shots, some talking together, some alone. They were not the kind of men who could be told to leave. They would fade into the night in their own time, and of their own accord. Until then, Harry would not trouble them.