Ramón began working after the other man left. He got enough ivy and stripped bark to complete the design he thought would work best for the lean-to, then hauled the cane to the raft and the river. He saw at once that his first thoughts on how best to connect the shelter to the body of the raft had been optimistic. He had to spend an hour redesigning the thing. Giving his mind over to the task, losing himself in the physicality of his work, was like taking a drink of good whiskey. He hadn't realized that the knot had formed in his gut again until it released a little. Being with his twin was totally unlike being alone. Even being with Maneck and having that fucking sahael stuck in his neck hadn't wound his guts up this way. It was being around another human-any other human. And in particular this prickly sonofabitch!
At the same time, he understood that he was also setting his twin's teeth on edge. How could he not? Better to worry about which knots best bound the cane to the branches of the raft. He was already quite aware of his own failings as a man. No reason to stew in them.
By afternoon, Ramón was satisfied with his new design, and it still took him hours to lash the cane onto the raft, build the framework, and then lace the remaining lengths together as a support structure. He set aside four long poles to tie down over the layer of leaves that would actually serve to slough off the rain. Providing, of course, that the other man ever got his lazy ass back. Ramón had been working all day. How long did it take to pull down some leaves and find a few pinche branches? They were in a forest; wood shouldn't be that hard to find.
As it happened, his twin emerged from the forest an hour or so before nightfall. He had what looked like half a bushel of iceroot leaves bound to his back with ivy and an improvised stretcher of branches trailing behind him, loaded with sticks the right size for burning. Ramón had to admit it wasn't a bad load for a man with a broken hand and no knife. The other man dropped his burden at the riverside, squatted, and cupped handful after handful of water up to his lips. High above, the Enye ships hung in the sky.
"Looks good," Ramón said.
"Yeah," the other man said, weariness in his voice. "It's okay. May need a way to keep the firewood from rolling off, though."
"We can do that."
The other man looked at the raft and rubbed his cheeks with his palm. Ramón came to stand at his side.
"Solid," the man said. "Good design. Kind of small, though, eh?"
"Didn't figure we'd both be in it at once," Ramón said. "One of us is going to be steering. Sleep in shifts. That kind of thing."
"What if it rains?"
"Then whoever's steering gets wet," Ramón said. "Or else we both crawl out of the rain like we're humping each other."
"We get wet, then. Right. You got the knife?"
He held out his hand. Ramón dropped the leather grip into the man's palm.
"Thanks," his twin said, then spun and brought the tip of the blade to Ramón's throat. The man's eyes were narrow and furious, his mouth in a wide grin that had nothing to do with pleasure. It was the expression the European had seen; Ramón was sure of it.
"Now," the man said through clenched teeth. "How about you tell me what the fuck you really are?"
Chapter 19
"I don't … I don't know what you're talking about, man," Ramón said.
The other man dug the knifepoint into Ramón's neck. Ramón felt the urge to step back, away from the blade, but he fought it. Showing weakness now would be an invitation. He forced himself to stay calm, or as calm as he could.
"You're no fucking banker," the man said, spitting the words out. "You build like that. You know how to sharpen my knife. What kind of banker knows that?"
"I told you," Ramón said. "I spend a lot of time-"
"Out at the ass end of nowhere? Yeah, because that makes a fucking lot of sense. And you just happen to come up here. A month ago. And no one gives a shit that you're gone? No one sends out a search party? That sound likely to you? And your beard. You telling me that's a month's growth on your chin? Or did the aliens give you a razor to clean up with while you were there? Your hands. You've got calluses on your fingers. That from data entry?"
Ramón looked at his hands. The hard, yellowed flesh was starting to come back a little. He balled his fists. The man's grip on the knife got stronger, the pressure against Ramón's skin hurt a little.
"You're paranoid, ese," Ramón said. His voice was steady and strong. He tried to gauge his chances of wrestling the knife away. If he threw himself back, out of the man's reach, he could get a few seconds. And the man was going to be fighting offhand. But Ramón's twin was scared and angry and crazy as a shithouse rat from what he'd been through these last days. Ramón gave himself a-little-worsethan-even odds.
For a half second, he wondered what the man would do if Ramón told him the truth. Kill him? Run away? Accept him as a brother and move on? Only the last one seemed laughable.
"And then you asked about the El Rey!" the man shouted. "What the fuck do you know about the El Rey? What the fuck are you?"
"I'm a cop," Ramón said, surprised as soon as he heard his own words. But it was clear. It was the story he had already spent days telling himself. All he had to do was turn it around. "My name really is David. The European ambassador got killed. There were some people in the crowd who said you were there. And the knife man, he matched your description."
His twin nodded, encouraging Ramón on as if he were confirming his suspicions. Which he probably was, if only because he was making it all up. Ramón swallowed, loosening the knot in his throat. As soon as he could, he went on.
"Then you take off. Skip town. The constabulary think it's a little weird, so they send me out to track you. I have spent a lot of time up north. It's why they picked me. So I find your van blown up like you had a bomb in there or some shit. I start poking around, looking for maybe your arm or something. The next thing I know, there's this flying box thing. It's just hanging there. I go to take a look, and then bam! These big-ass things with quills on their heads take my clothes, they take my badge and my pistol, put me in this fucking baby-shit outfit and start marching me around telling me I was supposed to find you."
"And so you did it," the man said, stepping an inch closer, the metal of the blade digging into Ramón's flesh, stinging like the sahael. "You followed their orders like a dog!"
"I tried to go slow at first," Ramón said. "I thought maybe I could buy you time. You know. You get back to the city, you can tell people what's happened, send help. But then we found that camp. We were too close on you. The only thing I could do was wait and hope you were smarter than the pinche aliens. And you were. So here we are." And then, because he couldn't help himself, "You would have done the same thing in my position, man. Seriously."
"I didn't kill the asshole European," the man said through clenched teeth. "It was someone else. I didn't fucking do it."
"Ramón," Ramón said, and shook off a moment of vertigo at using his own name in this way. "Ramón, you saved my ass from those demon pendejos. As far as I'm concerned, you were at my house the night the ambassador got himself cut up. The whole time."
In the silence between them, Ramón heard the distant chimes of a flock of flapjacks, like church bells. The blade wavered, but Ramón didn't move. A thin flow of blood tickled his collarbone. The knife had broken the skin. A confused, distrustful expression came over the man's dark eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"I owe you," Ramón said, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could without sounding weak.
"Guy got killed," his twin said. It was an objection.
Ramón shrugged. If he was lying, he might as well lie big. "You know Johnny Joe? You know who he is?"
"Johnny Joe Cardenas?"
"Yeah. You know why he gets away with so much?"
"Why?"
"Because we let him. You think we don't know how many people he's killed? Thing is, he works for us."
The man rocked back an inch. The blade was no longer touching Ramón's neck. Maybe sixty-forty in his favor now. Ramón kept talking. That was the thing; keep the two of them speaking.
He had to make it a talking fight.
"Johnny Joe's a snitch?" the man asked. He sounded stunned.
"For the past six years," Ramón said, trying to remember how long Johnny Joe had been in Diegotown. The man didn't seem to think the number implausible. "Keeps us informed on what's going down. And no one suspects him because who the fuck would believe it? He's a thug. Everyone knows the governor wants him hanged. No one thinks it's all bullshit and he's calling us every Sunday like he's our fucking girlfriend."