Dragonfly Bones by David Cole Page B

suddenly looking down, nothing else changing in her body, still sitting like she had a pole up her ass, years of anger at me, at somebody, and here I was as a release for the anger. And then she took a deep breath, hunched her shoulders, let the breath out with a slow sigh, and rolled her head side to side, muscle tension probably cramping her neck.
    It was something to build on.
    â€œDominguez. Where did you get that name?”
    â€œRun one of your hacker searches. You’d find out.”
    Rude.
    A whole different attitude. For the first time, I wondered ifshe really knew what to do with me, with her mother, facing her mother, two adults, two strangers.
    â€œI’ve searched for your real name for years.”
    â€œI have no real name,” she snorted. “Like you, I have lots of identities.”
    â€œSpider Begay.” She shrugged. “I filed the birth certificate. In Flagstaff.”
    She shrugged again.
    â€œSo Spider Begay disappeared two years after that birth certificate?”
    â€œ You disappeared. That’s what he said. What Daddy said. When I met him in Mexico. Do you know where he is now?”
    â€œNo.”
    She nodded toward the steel door at the far end of the room.
    â€œWhere is he?” she asked.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMister Law.”
    â€œNathan Brittles?”
    â€œOh, c’mon, mom. You don’t believe that’s his real name, do you?”
    â€œHe has a lot of ID. But I really don’t care about him right now.”
    She saw I was curious.
    â€œCheck out John Wayne,” she said cryptically.
    â€œI saw the movie. What do we do here? Why are we here?”
    â€œHe coming in? Or what?
    â€œTell me, Spider.”
    â€œDominguez!”
    â€œAbbie, then.”
    â€œIt’s not aaaaa-beeee .” Flat A sound, long E sound, said derisively. “ Ah. Bay . Ahbay. Don’t you, like, know any Mexican?”
    I swore. A border phrase, a slang phrase, the rudest I could think of. That shocked her. No telling if it was because of theinsult, or because it was said by her mother. Another attitude. Negotiation with anger.
    â€œLet’s get to it,” she said flatly. “Call him in.”
    â€œThis is between us,” I said, standing up. “You want him in here, you deal with him and I’ll just go home.”
    After a minute of standoff defiance, I headed toward the door. I’d only gone a few steps when she surged out of her chair, slamming it against chairs behind her, grabbed a plastic ashtray from another table, and hurled it like a Frisbee, like a discus, like a deer slug out of a twelve-gauge, sailing it three inches from my head. I ducked, but she wasn’t aiming it at me. Flew all the way down the room in a flat trajectory, cracking against the door and dissolving in shards. The bolt shot back with a loud click, a CO appeared with her hand on a baton.
    â€œGet John Wayne,” Spider yelled.
    The CO cocked her head at me.
    â€œBrittles,” I said.
    â€œWait one.”
    She closed the door, the bolt shot home. Neither Spider nor I moved. Two minutes later the CO came in again.
    â€œOn the phone.”
    â€œGet him off the fucking phone, get him in here!” Spider screamed.
    â€œYour call,” the CO said to me, arms out wide, palms up, a shrug.
    â€œWe’ll wait.”
    Spider immediately went to the other door and pounded on it with her hands. The CO quickly shut and locked her door, the second door opened, a second CO appeared. Spider held out her wrists to be hooked up. Once the handcuffs were on, she left without a word.
    Â 
    Brittles arrived fifteen minutes later. There wasn’t anything I could do, alone in the visiting room. No other inmate received a visitor, whether by accident or planning to keep the room empty for me.
    â€œSorry.” Panting, slightly out of breath. “I was out in the parking lot. Cell phones don’t work so good in here. Listen.