"Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people." - Mark Twain
Chapter 9
A Soft Booth and a Hot Cup of Coffee
Once Sam entered the town of Carrizozo, he immediately went to where he could rest. He knew the place. He had been there before. Another hazy memory...
Carrizozo sat at the crossroads of Highway 380, connecting San Antonio to Roswell; and Highway 54, linking Santa Rosa to El Paso. Sam slowed down for the small, dusty town of about a thousand residents and turned onto Highway 54. He saw a diner on the corner called Four Winds Restaurant. Although it was not terribly late, many places in this town closed early, but here the fluttering neon sign reading OPEN still shined.
Sam pulled into a parking space, turned off the Harley, and entered the restaurant cautiously. No Italians in suits. That was a plus. A teen barely old enough to work took Sam to a seat. He set his helmet to the side and looked around. Only one other person was in the restaurant, a woman with mocha skin, black hair cut below her ears, tight acid-washed jeans, and a t-shirt from a Selena concert. Realizing she was watching him, Sam uneasily smiled and nodded back, then buried his face into the menu.
In dive diners like this, there was always one safe bet.
"I'll have the cheeseburger, fries, and a cup of coffee."
"Wouldja like to try our green chili cheeseburger?" the waiter asked.
"Sure, why not," Sam smiled. New Mexico prided itself on its green chilis. It was almost an insult to order a cheeseburger
without that mildly spicy topping.
The coffee tasted old, but Sam hardly cared. Just a minute later, the waiter returned to refilled the downed mug.
"Nice bike." The words had a heavy Mexican accent to them.
Sam looked up from guzzling his second coffee cup and found the woman's dark eyes on him. "Oh, uh, thanks."
She came over and sat at his booth. "I never come up to strangers," she confessed softly, although they were the only ones there, "but I owned the same model in college. It's still sitting in my parents' garage. It's a sweet ride."
He never would have pegged her for a biker chick. "It kills my rear," he admitted.
She chortled with tightly closed lips. "
Sí, mine too. I got a custom seat, made all the difference. My brother could set you up. He has a shop in El Paso, does good work."
"Well, I'm heading that way but...I won't have time."
"Passing through, eh?" she nodded, realizing most people in a dive diner like this were on road trips. "Where're you heading?"
"Mexico," he said automatically.
"Is that right?" she smiled with a deviously playful twinkle to her dark eyes. "
¿Sabe usted hablar la lengua española?" Do you speak the Spanish language?
"
Lo hablo fluido." I speak fluently. Sam suddenly chuckled. Somewhere in his addled brain, he spoke Spanish. "What's your name? Or should I continued to speak Spanish to prove my claim?"
"Araceli de la Rosa.
¿Y usted?" And you?
Sam realized that giving the name of this person he was in might be a bad idea. What if someone in the town was searching for Theodore Nyt? He had to keep a low profile. "Samuel Beckett. Call me Sam."
"
Waiting for Godot."
An eyebrow shot up with intrigue. "Impressive that you recognize my namesake."
"I pulled a double major in Literature and Mechanics. I figured if I couldn't become a teacher, I could fix cars in my brother's shop."
They spent a while together, relaxing as they talked about the area. Memories surged in Sam's mind. Araceli was shocked at how much he knew of the State and the attractions around them.
"You grew up here?" she asked.
"Nope. Dairy farm in Indiana. But I lived here...for a time," he added, feeling sad and homesick.
The food finally arrived. Sam was so busy talking, he did not realize that the service was so slow for just the two of them.
"You gonna eat?" he asked, nibbling the fries.
She waved aside the offer. "I'm fine. Just coffee. Well, maybe one fry," she decided, hesitantly taking one from his platter. "They smell good."
"Eat up! You look starved."
Sam bit into his green chili cheeseburger, froze, and moaned in gustatory ecstasy. His stomach had been gnawing on him since he first leaped in. The trail snacks he nibbled in Socorro did little to ease the pang. Now...there was nothing quite like a freshly ground patty, local green chilis, and cheese melted right into the meat.
"Wow! I thought the Owl had good GCCBs. This burger is great!" He took another huge bit. "Of course, it could just be because I haven't eaten since...I'm honestly not sure when." He saw her staring at the juices dripping from the burger and swallowing hard. "You sure you're not hungry?"
She pouted in shame for staring at him. She delicately took one more french fry. "Just coffee," she muttered.
"So, if you don't mind me asking, do you live around here, or are you passing through too?"
"Well...I
was passing through," she pouted, swirling the fry into some ketchup. "I was on my way from Santa Rosa to visit family in Socorro, Texas, for my mama's birthday. Then my truck broke down. I have no money to repair it. Honestly," she blushed, "I was living out of that damn truck for a few weeks. Lost my job, got evicted, had to sell the last of my stuff for food and gas. I was planning on moving in with my parents. I spent my last dollar buying this coffee."
Sad stories from beautiful women could be considered one of Sam's weaknesses. He snapped his fingers at the waiter, who had nothing better to do. "What can you make up fast?"
The teen perked up at the opportunity for more business. "I can have the carne asada in under ten minutes."
"Get that, and a milkshake to split."
"What?" Araceli cried out. "Look,
señor, I don't even know you. I told you my sob story, but you don't have to take pity on me."
Sam gave her a disarmingly genteel smile. "It's one meal, less than ten dollars. Isn't that good compensation for the pleasure of some company after a long drive all alone?"
She pouted, but she muttered a thank you. "I want you to know, I would never accept, except I haven't eaten since breakfast."
They sat in silence for a while. Sam kindly did not eat in front of her and urged her to nibble on fries while her food cooked. Soon the waiter brought out a heaping platter of carne asada and a glass filled with the milkshake, with a metal cup with the extras. Sam gave Araceli the glass and used a long-handled spoon to scoop out the shake in the cup.
She had to admit, "When you said 'split a shake,' I thought you wanted some corny '50s one-glass-two-straws thing."
He shook his head. "Unsanitary and socially awkward even for teens, let alone adults like us." That made her laugh. He hardly seemed the type to flirt with her just to murder her later.
Sam saw a flash of white to the side and Al stepped out looking half asleep. "I am really not in the mood, Sam, but Ziggy wanted me to tell you...well,
hola, señorita!" he grinned at the lady. "Ain't she got a fine set of gazongas! Sam, I don't know how you do it."
Sam wiped his mouth. "Excuse me a moment." He left to the restroom, yet it took Al a while to stop staring at Araceli and follow him.
Sam stood in front of a urinal and looked in the mirror. The helmet head he had scratched out gave his hair a devilishly disheveled look. That too-white lawyer's smile was charming. No wonder Araceli felt she could trust him. And no wonder Theodore Nyt had weaseled his way into the confidence of such powerful Mafia families.
"What did Ziggy want?" he whispered.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." Al was still thinking of
gazongas. "Just that this town is safe. We ran a check on all hotel records for New Mexico and western Texas and cross-referenced that to known Mafia. Carrizozo checked out utterly clean."
"Utterly?"
"As in there are only four rooms being rented in the entire city. Two of those are locals wanting Valentine's Night away from the kids, one is some piece of scum from Denver who, ironically enough, is also heading to Mexico to avoid the law—Ziggy insisted he's not involved with the Mafia, so no problems for us—and the fourth is a family of four on vacation from Oregon. Ziggy said, if you want to spend the night, this is the place to do it. And of course, he wakes
me up to tell
you that it's okay to sleep." He ended his complaint with a loud yawn.
Sam finished up and went back out. Araceli had eaten most of her plate already. Sam chuckled at the half-starved lady and sat back down.
"So," he began as he picked up the messy burger, "sorry if I'm prying again, but do you have someone coming to rescue you?"
She sighed, slouched her cheek onto her fist, and looked out the window at the sleepy town. "I called my brother, but he works early tomorrow and has to stay late for a shipment. He'll be pulling an eight-hour-turnaround as it is, let alone driving three hours each way to pick me up. He said maybe he can get here by Friday night. My sister is eight months pregnant and shouldn't drive out this far. My mama doesn't drive, and my papa had a stroke last year, still doesn't have his license. That's another reason I planned to move in with them, to help around the house and do the driving. Now I don't even have a truck to sleep in. I have no idea what I'm going to do about a hotel, let alone repairing the truck and getting gas." She laughed and shook her head. "And here I am, saying all this to a total stranger. I'm really pathetic!"
Al had followed Sam instead of going back. "Sleeping in her truck?" the hologram shouted in outrage. "Sam, what's her name?"
"Araceli."
She looked up curiously.
Al punched something into his handlink, and his face paled. "Oh God, Sam! That bastard also making a border run...he never made it to Mexico. He was caught here in Carrizozo...after raping and murdering a woman named Araceli de la Rosa."
Sam tried hard not to react, but the shock was great. Araceli saw the anguish in his face.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Sam," Al cried out. "You have a few million dollars on you. You can spare fifty bucks to get her a motel at least. Come on, where's that chivalrous streak?"
That was precisely what Sam intended to do. The problem was, how to do it without seeming weird or perverted. "Nothing in this town is open twenty-four hours, not this time of year. Where do you plan on sleeping?"
She hummed and thought about it. "I've been wondering that since I got here. I walked around town this afternoon, looking to see if there was a place for someone without money to crash for the night. There's a Catholic church nearby. I could stay there and pray, but not to sleep; I wouldn't feel right. Maybe Evergreen Cemetery..."
"No!" Al yelled. "That's where they find her body in the morning."
"I'm sorry I asked," Sam began, "but now that I know, I can't let you do that. It's February. The desert at this elevation can get very cold at night, and there are storm clouds moving in."
"The news said it shouldn't rain."
"Let me get you a room."
She pulled back, glaring skeptically.
"I know, that's unconventional, a total stranger saying this," he admitted, "but I can't let a woman sleep out in the open in a strange town in winter, not when I can pay. I'm a lawyer, I have the money, don't worry about that."
"A lawyer, huh?" she muttered. "Still, if you try to get me into your hotel room..."
"No! No way," he shouted. "I'll put you up in the Rainbow Inn, and I'll go to the Chaparral Motel. Different motels, see? And if I so much as knock on your door, you're allowed to shoot first and ask questions later."
She sighed and looked out the window. The thick clouds covered all the stars. The wind had begun to pick up, tossing an empty paper cup down the sidewalk. "I'll think on it. Try to see it from my point of view. This is...rather creepy."
"I totally understand," he assured. "Honestly, do you think I could kidnap you on a motorcycle?"
She chuckled quietly. "Not with a stock seat like that ass-killer you've got. I guess, in a motel, I can lock the door on you, and I'll have a phone to call the police. A shower would be nice too," she admitted, looking at her Selena shirt in disgust. "I guess I wouldn't mind sticking it to a lawyer for once," she chuckled. "But I do have a gun on me, so anything questionable and I aim for your groin."
"Ouch!" Al cringed. "Feisty one."
"I'll head over there now. Can you walk there safely?" He gave a glance to Al as well.
"Of course I can," she said proudly.
"Ziggy says that should be fine. It's just across the street."
"Oh, and you can stay at the Rainbow Inn as well," Araceli suggested. "It's minimally cleaner." She rose up. "That coffee hit me. I'll meet you at the inn. Just have the desk clerk hold onto the keys until I arrive."
"I'll pay up here," he agreed, and called for the check.
"Well, hopefully you actually do get some sleep," Al pouted, completely jealous by his friend's constant luck with ladies. "I'm off for some shut-eye. Don't do anything stupid that'll make Ziggy wake me up again." The white door slid open, and Al stepped out with a loud yawn.
Sam realized Araceli had left her purse on the booth. While she was in the bathroom, he slipped ten one-hundred dollar bills into the purse, then paid for their meals with another hundred. That gave him some smaller bills.
He left to rent the motel room. Driving to the Rainbow Inn was hardly worth it, since it was right across the street. Sam just walked the bike over the two lanes of Highway 54. It was a small place left over from the heyday of Route 66, white walls with pale blue trim and a retro rainbow wave painted on the side. He listened to the desk clerk list his options, including some free-standing cottages in the back. Sam thought that might be nice for Araceli, a little splurge the lady deserved.
But there was a problem.
While Sam was beginning to panic, Araceli walked in. She took one look at Sam, patting his pockets and double checking his coat, and sighed.
"No money?" she asked, not too surprised.
"No, I already paid, it's...well, I'll be darned, but it seems I lost my driver's license. They need proof of ID."
"No ID and you're planning to..." She stopped as she realized how insane that sounded. Going to Mexico...on a motorcycle...with no driver's license or Visa?
He saw by her skeptical look, Araceli was beginning to piece together his dilemma. Not good! "I'll...uh...have to call the office tomorrow, see if I left it there," Sam grinned sheepishly. "Hopefully it didn't fall out of my pocket on the road."
She sighed and let the matter go. Maybe he simply lost his wallet. A bad seat and bad pants, mixed with no wallet chain, could spell one lost wallet somewhere on the highway. But then how did he still have money? It wasn't her business! "You're a lucky bastard," she grumbled. She pulled out her own ID, trying to look peeved. "The cottage?" she shouted.
"It...uh...looked roomy." He rubbed the back of his neck. "If you have to stay in town until Friday, best to stay somewhere nice, right?"
"They're really the best deal in town, miss," the desk clerk assured, far too happy for the business on the off-season.
She rolled her eyes, but her sense of gratitude got the better of her. "Thanks," she muttered. "Maybe I'll see you in the morning for coffee."
"I hope so," Sam sighed with a smile. He took his keys and went out, but he watched cautiously until Araceli was inside her small cottage. He glared around at the night. Somewhere far off, a coyote yipped and howled. No boogie men out this night. He sincerely hoped his small act of charity saved this young woman's life.
End of Chapter 9
A/N: Finally the love interest appears! In my initial outline, I had no major female characters. That had to be corrected ASAP, and Araceli was created. She caused a ruckus for my Muse. They had a major catfight, bikini-mud-wrestling style. It resulted in rewriting almost the entire outline, but I think Araceli is worth it.
