By Walter Agnew Moore II

They sped past the dry river bed.  "It's either no water, or too much," said the driver.  Lobo looked across at him and nodded.  Lobo liked taxi drivers.

The man continued:  "So, are you down here on vacation, or do you work here?"

"A little of both.  Monterrey's a good town," said Lobo.

"Well, we need to get you a good girl, get you to stay."

"I've got one here, if she'll ever pick up the phone."

"Damn," said the driver, "What is it with women?  You come all this way to see her, and she won't answer?  I'd be on that machine yelling: 'Hey, slut!  Pick up the goddam phone and talk to me!'"

"Yeah..."

"Hey, you ought to do fine here.  You speak really good Spanish for a Gringo.  Here, take my card, call me up when you need a ride back to the airport."

"Sure thing."

"Here you go—El Escarabajo—you want me to wait for you?"

"Huh?"

"You want me to wait, here, outside?"

"No, no...  I'll just call you when I'm ready to go, to go back to the airport."

El Escarabajo was actually three nightclubs in one, built in tiers into the side of a hill.  Lots of pink neon and bluish glass brick, it had the feel of a fancy health spa minus the weight machines or half the lightbulbs.

Lobo went into the largest of the clubs, the upper one.  Mario was working the bar, wearing a black toboggan cap and a t-shirt with "El Escarabajo" scrawled in red.  Several assistants were putting bottles of beer into coolers by the bar and pouring buckets of crushed ice over them.

Mario looked at Lobo:  "Hey, it's the big guy!  What do you want to drink?"

"A Sol.  You seen Juan?"

"Not yet.  He doesn't work tonight, but you may catch him down in the Karaoke bar later."

"Is he there now?"

"I haven't seen him."

Lobo sipped his beer and watched the room fill with people.  Mostly groups of attractive 20-somethings, University students dressed casually but well.  It cost even more to go to school here than in the States.

Rich kids, he thought.  Customers.  He smiled.

After a few minutes, Lobo left the empty bottle on the counter and went down to the Karaoke bar.  A manager he didn't know greeted him.  "Hello, my friend, what can I get you to drink?"

"What you got?"

"Vodka, rum, whiskey, tequila..."

"I am in Mexico."

"Tequila it is.  I'll make you a drink, it's very salty, you drink a sample, and if you like it, I'll make you a big one."

"This is good—what do you call this?"

"A 'Paloma'.  Here, we'll make you a big one."

"Hey look," said Lobo, "Maybe you've seen Juan?  Or Marisol?"

"Not tonight, maybe they'll be in later..."

"Yeah, well, my name is Lobo.  They know me.  I'm Marisol's boyfriend, el Gringo.  Except she won't answer the phone."

"Marisol won't answer her phone?  That doesn't sound like her."

"Exactly.  But even more, I need to talk to Juan."

"Sure, yeah.  Hey, excuse me..."

The manager walked back into the office.  A minute later he came back to the bar and said, "I just called Juan for you, he said to tell you he is happy that you are here, and he asked you to stay and enjoy some free drinks on him until he can get over here, OK?"

"Thanks, first good news all day."

Sweet.  Lobo was in.  There would be work, a new ID, anything he needed.  This was a good town to lay low in.

As a rule, back in Texas, Lobo avoided any bar that had karaoke, drunk office workers mangling classic rock hits that he didn't like even when performed by competent musicians.  Still, he liked sitting in this part of El Escarabajo.  The songs they played were mostly top-40 Mexican ballads that he'd never listened to before, and the girls who got up on stage to sing them were beautiful in the smoky light.

Right now, four young women were up there together singing off-key to a salsa beat, drunk, smiling, stepping in time to the music while they watched the lyrics on the prompter.  Then at an instrumental break in the singing, they all four raised their right hands over their heads and twirled.

Adorable, every single one of them.  Marisol had looked like that the night he'd first seen her, singing up on that little stage with her head thrown back, smiling.  When the song had finished, she'd stepped down, caught her foot on something, and had stumbled into him as he stood there watching her.  He had kissed her right at that moment.

Not long after that, she'd gotten pregnant.  Then she'd had the abortion.  He had been empty.  But they had kept seeing each other, slowly at first, and it had been a new start.

She would come down to Laredo from Monterrey every weekend.  Against Lobo's protests, she bought tampons and kept them under his sink.

Lobo had forgotten that the tampons were there, until one day he was looking for his needle-nose pliers, and they weren't in the drawer, they weren't in the tool-box, weren't under the sink either, but he could swear that unopened box of tampons had been there for more than 2months.

Marisol had blushed and smiled and looked off to the side when he had mentioned it.

Right now Lobo felt a sudden queasiness. He walked over into the tiny mens' room and felt a gag coming on, but his stomache settled before anything came up.  He checked his hair in the mirror, then went back into the bar and ordered more complimentary tequila.

Lobo looked up from his third or fourth drink and didn't know how much time had passed.  Some guys had come in and were sitting with the girls who had been singing.  One couple was making out a few feet away.  The manager was saying something to Lobo, but all Lobo knew was that suddenly he was going to puke for sure.  He thrust through the crowd to get to the bathroom, bumping chairs and table edges along the way.

The door was locked.  Somebody's voice came from within.  Lobo knew he only had a few more seconds before he threw up.  The latch to the "damas" restroom was locked as well.  He turned and walked quickly to the exit, jaw clenched tight.  He took a sharp right along the front of the building, starting to stoop and hold his hand over his mouth as he rapidly duck-walked into a tiny alley, not so much a passage as a gap between the front of El Escarabajo and another building.

Lobo braced his shoulder against the gritty blocks of the wall and jerked as he heaved up all the drinks.  An air-conditioner hummed nearby, pumping out warm damp air.

Lobo wiped his face and spat several times.  He brushed the back of his hand on his forehead and felt sweat.  Christ, he had gotten out just in time.  It could have been worse—he could have had the shits.

Juan would be here any minute.  Lobo stood up straight and brushed himself off, rubbed his mouth and chin one more time, and walked back out front.  He decided to stretch and breath a little of the clean night air before going back in.  Maybe he'd switch to Coaca-Cola, something in those drinks didn't go down right.  Everybody would think he'd just stepped out, nobody saw him puke, except maybe those two taxi drivers standing next to their cabs at the edge of the parking lot.

"Taxi, sir?" said one.

"No thanks,” said Lobo.  He looked at the driver's cigarette with its wisp of smoke and breathed in through his nose.

"Something bad to drink?  You OK now sir?"

"Yeah...  One drink too many."

"You got to be careful, sir..."

The taxi drivers turned their heads as the truck drove into the lot, and Lobo followed their gaze.  It was a dark blue pick-up truck with police markings and a black roll-bar.  Two men were riding in the back wearing dark blue coveralls and ballcaps, cradling bull-pup assault rifles across their knees.  Their faces were hard.  The truck pulled right up in front of the entrance to the Karaoke bar and the two men in back swung their polished combat boots over the side and jumped out while two others got out of the cab.  They didn't flash the lights or give any warning.  They just walked right in, guns angled slightly down, knees bent just a little.

Lobo turned to the driver who was holding the cigarette:  "I need a taxi."