Hunters Run Page 0,105

of the real pain. The loss. He was coming to understand better now why it came out the way it had. It hadn't only been to avoid the appearance of weakness before another man. He needed to tell it to himself that way too. And that was harder for Ramon to do now that he had seen all that he'd seen. He kept meaning to go see Griego, but he never quite got around to it.

Almost a week after Ramon had left the hospital, he woke before dawn, haunted by dreams he couldn't remember. He slipped out of bed, pulled on a robe, and, as quietly as he could, took Elena's good whiskey from its hiding place behind the kitchen cabinet. It took him three drinks and almost an hour to get the courage to open a link to the city directory and search for her. But there she was. Lianna Delgado. Still a cook, but at a new place now. Her address was down by the river. He'd probably walked past it a hundred times, stumbling back from the bars. He wondered if she'd ever seen him, and if she had, what she'd thought. Elena mumbled something and shifted in her sleep. Ramon killed the link, but the idea that had taken root out there in the wilderness was growing again in the city.

He had wanted to be someone new, had been ready to be someone new. Start again. So why not now? All the things he had done and suffered could pass away from him just as easily now with his old name and face and self as they might have had his twin lived. It only meant doing the things that needed to be done: leave Elena, find a new place for himself, a new van to work with, some other way of being himself. Himself like he'd always been, only better. And then, when he was cleaned up and solid, when he had something in the bank and didn't have to beg off a woman just to keep from sleeping in the pinche park, Lianna was in the directory. He could call her or, if he had the balls, go to her house like a schoolboy singing at his lover's window. He was Ramon Espejo, after all. He was a tough sonofabitch. The worst that would happen was that Lianna would turn him away, and if it broke his heart, so what? He was strong enough to make a new one. A better one.

In the next room, Elena yawned and stretched. Ramon took one last clandestine pull at the whiskey bottle and silently returned it to its place, rinsing the glass out before slipping into the bathroom to brush the scent from his breath. If Elena found out he'd been breaking into the good stuff without her, there'd be hell to pay.

"Hey, baby," he said as she shambled into the kitchen. Her hair was in disarray and her jaw set a little forward.

"You couldn't make some fucking coffee?" she replied. "I feel like shit."

"You should stay home," he said. "Take a day off."

"It's Sunday, asshole."

"Sit," Ramon said, gesturing to the cheap plastic-and-chitin chair at her kitchen table. "I'll make you some food, eh?"

She managed a smile at that, her black mood thinning a little. Ramon surveyed the contents of her pantry carefully, consulting the freshness readouts on the sides of the cans and boxes and having a little trouble with them. He might have had a little too much of the whiskey. He just needed to seem sober long enough for a little of the alcohol to burn off.

He got a can of black beans, a couple of tortillas, some eggs from the back of the refrigerator, and a hunk of cheese. A little green chili, and it would be huevos rancheros. It was a good meal because with a little practice it could be made in a single pan. Ramon had enough practice cooking it in his van that he could probably do it even a little drunk.

"So you gonna get a job in town now?" Elena asked.

"No," Ramon said. The beans dropped from their can to one side of the heating skillet, hissing and popping as the juice started to boil. He reached for the eggs. "I figure I'll go talk to Griego about renting a van. I figure if I promise him a part of the cut, it'll only take me three or four good runs to pay the thing off."

"Three or four