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.
âDominguez. Where did you get that name?â
âRun one of your hacker searches. Youâd find out.â
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.
âIâve searched for your real name for years.â
âI have no real name,â she snorted. âLike you, I have lots of identities.â
âSpider Begay.â She shrugged. âI filed the birth certificate. In Flagstaff.â
She shrugged again.
âSo Spider Begay disappeared two years after that birth certificate?â
â You disappeared. Thatâs what he said. What Daddy said. When I met him in Mexico. Do you know where he is now?â
âNo.â
She nodded toward the steel door at the far end of the room.
âWhere is he?â she asked.
âWho?â
âMister Law.â
âNathan Brittles?â
âOh, câmon, mom. You donât believe thatâs his real name, do you?â
âHe has a lot of ID. But I really donât care about him right now.â
She saw I was curious.
âCheck out John Wayne,â she said cryptically.
âI saw the movie. What do we do here? Why are we here?â
âHe coming in? Or what?
âTell me, Spider.â
âDominguez!â
âAbbie, then.â
âItâs not aaaaa-beeee .â Flat A sound, long E sound, said derisively. â Ah. Bay . Ahbay. Donât you, like, know any Mexican?â
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.
âLetâs get to it,â she said flatly. âCall him in.â
âThis is between us,â I said, standing up. âYou want him in here, you deal with him and Iâll just go home.â
After a minute of standoff defiance, I headed toward the door. Iâd 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 wasnât 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.
âGet John Wayne,â Spider yelled.
The CO cocked her head at me.
âBrittles,â I said.
âWait one.â
She closed the door, the bolt shot home. Neither Spider nor I moved. Two minutes later the CO came in again.
âOn the phone.â
âGet him off the fucking phone, get him in here!â Spider screamed.
âYour call,â the CO said to me, arms out wide, palms up, a shrug.
âWeâll wait.â
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 wasnât 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.
âSorry.â Panting, slightly out of breath. âI was out in the parking lot. Cell phones donât work so good in here. Listen.