Percival Everett - The Body of Martin Aguilera

“Do you think that was my grandfather’s body?” Taylor asked, coming out of the bathroom.

“I don’t know.”

“You said you recognized one of them.”

“Yeah. Salvador Alvarado, he owns a boot shop.” Lewis shook his head. “I don’t get any of this.”

Taylor sat on the bed. He studied the towel he held, then tossed it onto the back of the chair at the desk. “Listen, I’m just a truck driver. I don’t need any of this.”

Lewis nodded.

“I say we go to the sheriff.”

“I don’t think so,” Lewis said. “He’s been lying to us and—”

“And what?”

“I just don’t trust him right now.”

“We’d better find somebody to trust. I’m no good at this stuff and you’re… you’re just an old man.”

Lewis let it all go. The young man was upset. Who could blame him?

“Maybe things will be clearer in the morning,” Lewis said, standing. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

Taylor said nothing.

Lewis pulled the door closed behind him.

Lewis thought as he drove home. If he had not found Martin on the floor of his cabin, he would have thought nothing strange of the report of his drowning and he wouldn’t be in this mess. He was probably liable for prosecution for breaking and entering, but, and he laughed, the only people who could possibly identify him were stealing a dead person.

He wanted to stop at a phone, get Alvarado’s address from the book and pay him a call, but Maggie would be waiting up, worried sick. And better to get into this stuff about dead bodies in the light of day. There was also the possibility that Alvarado was not the man he had seen, in which case he might get an innocent, superstitious man out of bed to talk about a corpse.

Maggie was asleep on the sofa. Lewis watched her for a while. She was a small woman. She never seemed small when awake. He sat by her feet and she stirred. He took a foot into his hands and massaged it. She smiled. Her eyes opened and she looked at him.

“Back in one piece,” she said.

“What’d you expect after a goodbye like that?”

Maggie sat up and tried to come awake. Lewis pulled her close and pressed her head to his shoulder. She relaxed against him.

“Did you see him?” she asked.

“Not exactly.” Lewis could feel her eyes open more widely. “We got into Fonda’s all right, but—” He stopped, wondering if indeed he should tell her.

“But?”

“But somebody was there.”

“Fonda?”

“No, not Edgar either. Whoever they were, they stole a body.”

Maggie sat erect, pulled away and looked at him. “What?”

“We wandered into a cadaver snatch.”

“Is that what you private dicks call it?” she said.

“I’ve run this over in my head all night, allow me some fun.” He got up and walked to the empty fireplace. “I think it was Martin’s body.”

“You saw it?”

“No, I just have a feeling. And I think one of the men was Salvador Alvarado. You know how he limps.”

Maggie walked to him, put her arms around him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. All of this is just — I’m too old for it. It keeps getting deeper and deeper and I’ve forgotten to miss Martin. My friend is dead.” He shook his head clear. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s funny. We’ve sort of known each other for a while. I’ve wanted to be close to you and it’s in the middle of something like this that—”

“Shhh,” she silenced him, pressing a finger to his lips. “Let’s go to bed?”

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling.

“Get in that room,” she said and pushed him in that direction.

Lewis didn’t sleep well. He held Maggie close most of the night. She was easy to hold and he felt good with her. He liked the way she smelled. One of her small hands lay still on his chest. He removed the hand and tried to slip his arm from under her neck.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, eyes closed.

“Going to fix breakfast.”

“And you’re going to bring it to me in bed, right?”

“Nope.” He sat up and put his feet on the floor.

Maggie turned over on her stomach. “Please?”

He slapped her butt. “Get up. It’s a new day out there.”

Lewis was showered and in the kitchen when Laura woke up. The child was still in her nightshirt. She ran to him and squeezed him while he flipped a pancake.

“Hey, honey,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”

She didn’t answer, just hugged him.

Lewis looked at Maggie. He put his hand on Laura’s head and tilted her face to his. “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Bad dreams?”

“No.”

“Just loving me?”

The child smiled.

“I’m okay, sweetie.” He checked the cakes. “How many can you eat? Maggie says she can handle nine.”

Laura laughed. “Two.”

“So, how would you two ladies like to ride into town with me today?”

“Yeah,” Laura said.

Lewis looked at Maggie. “You could stand to pick up a few things.” He looked to Laura. “How would you feel if old sour-puss spent more time with us?”

“I’d like it.”

Maggie nodded.

Lewis delivered the first servings of pancakes and put the bacon on a plate in the middle of the table. He watched Laura eat and considered again sending her home to her parents. He wasn’t sure of his reasoning. It wasn’t clear that there was a threat to any of them, but someone had killed. At least, he believed someone had killed. He could always go back to the theory that Martin had not been dead when he and Laura found him in the cabin, that perhaps he had gotten drunk, hit his head and passed out.

The smoke became noticeable. “Shit,” Lewis said, turning over the burned pancake. “Sorry, Laura.”

“It’s okay to say things like that once in a while,” Laura said.

Lewis smiled and tossed the cake into the sink.

“This child is spending too much time with you, Lewis. You’re a bad influence.”

“Am I a bad influence, Laura?”

“Yep.”

Maggie made out a shopping list as they drove down the mountain. Laura studied the shadows of the hills on the plateau below, the way the sun caught the Rio Grande Gorge.

“It looks different than it does in the afternoon,” she said.

“Completely different,” Maggie said. “There are things you can’t even see in the morning that show up clearly later on. I guess that’s part of the reason so many artists come here.”

“Part of it,” Lewis said. “We still owe ourselves a fishing trip. Did I ever tell you two about the first time I drove up to Cambresto Lake?”

“No,” Laura said.

“It was the first summer I spent here. I was driving my old Jeep and so this fellow told me about a mountain lake. He said I had the right vehicle to get there.”

“Is this a long story?” Maggie asked.

Lewis gave her a side-long glance. “So, I followed his directions and drove over this incredible road. There were boulders I had to drive over. It took me twenty minutes to drive three miles.”

“It was bumpier than this?” Laura said, referring to the dirt road they were on.

“It was ten times worse. I didn’t see a single car all the way up and I was getting excited about fishing all alone and not seeing anybody.”

“And?” Maggie said.

“The place was teeming with people. It was like a parking lot up there. And not just Jeeps and trucks, but Pintos and Novas. To top it all off, there were no fish.”

Laura laughed.

Lewis fell silent. It had been Martin who sent him up there. He was amused by how much that excursion paralleled his trip to the funeral home and he thought about the limping man. It was a running joke in town that Salvador Alvarado’s limp was caused by too-tight boots.