Coyote Kings - Excerpt

We're not back in the Coyote Cave eight minutes and fourteen seconds when the
doorbell indicates that someone wants to see at least, but not restricted to, one of us. As
Hamza is currently indisposed (with his microscopic bladder, the biggest shock is that
he doesn't drive around in a motorised Port-a-Potty), I check the door monitor.

I know this woman: short, dark hair, mid-forties, Mayan or Aztec features. Why's she
crying?

I open up. "Mrs. Itzel, what's wrong?" I try to usher her in, but she doesn't seem to want
to move off of the porch, or maybe she can't see me through her tears. "Hey, is it? Is
something wrong with Sylvia?"

"She, she's missing, Mr. Yehat--I haven't seen her since this morning... I thought
maybe, you know, she come to your camp--"

"C'mon, Mrs. I, c'mon inside. Lemme getchu a glass of water. You want coffee? Come
on--" I tug her gently until she finally relents, guiding her around piles of junk until I
get her to sit down and hand her a few tissues for her tears.

"Hamza, c'mon out here--we got a situation!"

I hear the siren call of his flush, and he appears, a wandering knight returned from the
crapsades, ready for a new mission. And for once, an important one.

"Ye, what is it? Oh, Mrs. I, hi! What's--what's...? Are you--hey, is something wrong with
Sylvia?"

In a second his whole posture's changed, and suddenly he's down beside her at her
knee while I'm pouring water in the kitchen. He's taken her hand and is stroking it, his
glance searching every part of her face as if his eyes were themselves a comforting
embrace.

And I can see into those eyes myself, right into his imagination, see tiny little Sylvia,
already ten but no bigger than a six year old, ultra-cute, features straight out of an
ancient Mayan painting, no neck, looks like either the sweetest little girl you've ever
seen or maybe an under-nourished forty-year old. Every day we hold Coyote Camp
she's there, and every time she shows up I have to stop myself from hugging the
stuffing out of her.

And I'm not only worried about Mrs. I, I'm worried about Hamza. He's emotional--he
doesn't have my adamantium constitution. If she's missing, he could go to pieces like
Sylvia's mum.

By the time I put the water down next to Mrs. I., Hamza's telling her not to worry, that
everything's gonna be okay, and he starts repeating back to her everything she
must've told him about a) where Sylvia usually goes if we don't hold camp, b) how she
was dressed when she left, c) where her friends and aunties live, and d) where she'd go if
she were upset or afraid or angry.

But I know Hamza doesn't care about any of that information. He must've just asked
her to tell him so she'd feel better, so she'd feel like she was helping find her own girl
after probably looking in vain for five or six hours, all the while wondering what I'm
wondering, whether some sick fuck has stolen her, done things to her. Turned her...
off.

"Don't worry, Mrs. I.," I tell her, helping her up. "We'll find her. As soon as we've got
her, we'll bring her home."

I show her to the door, ask her if she needs someone to come pick her up, but she says
she's going to keep looking since the police won't help for another day and a half.

I lied when I said we'd find her.

Because, whether she's alive or... or... Hamza's the one who'll do the finding.

Once Mrs. Itzel is out of the door, I see Hamza go into his mode. I've seen him do this
with a thousand things, do this for a thousand reasons, ever since I've known him.
There was only one thing he lost that he never found again.

But that's a totally different case than this one here.

Wait, look at him! Standing near the door, saying nothing, not moving... his eyes
bigger, bigger, staring into nowhere and nothing, and then fluttering shut... his
breathing so slow, so still, so silent... and finally stopped.

Five seconds.

Ten seconds.

Fifteen.

"The armoury!" he snaps, shoves his feet into his shoes and bolts out the door.

"Hamza, wait up!" I yell, pulling my own sneakers on and jetting out after him. We run
north up 108th Street, east down 106th Ave. After three blocks I'm barely keeping up
and my lungs are burning (curse these jimpomatic death sticks I've been buying...
and curse Hamza if he finds out I've cursed them) and I'm calling out, "Wait up!"

But he's going faster, pulling out ahead... aw, shit. I plow through my own
lung-spiking agony and keep going. Hamza zips across the green field in front of the
massive red-brick fortress called the Prince of Wales Armoury, streaks over the
parking lot, scrambles all along the base of the building, left, right, looking, searching--

"Ye! YE!"

I finally catch up, my lungs feeling like they're inflated by a highwayful of diesel
exhaust, and I look down where Hamza's looking. Down a stairwell.

On the wet litter-strewn concrete at the bottom of the stairwell is the crumpled body of
a ten-year-old girl who looks either six or forty.

"Good god," I choke out.

Hamza's face: his eyes have hospital beds in them, mental wards, dark and rainy
alleys, graveyards.

I haven't see his eyes like this since... well.... since--.

We descend the stairs.

Hamza touches the little girl's face tentatively, tenderly, tensely.

"She's alive!" he whispers. "SHE'S ALIVE!"

"SHE'S ALIVE!" I yell. "HEY! HEY! HELP! We got an injured girl, here! My god, she's
ALIVE!"

"Should I pick her up?" he asks me.

"Better not," I say quickly, holding him back. "Could have a spinal cord injury--we
don't know what's wrong with her yet. You go get an ambulance. Royal Alex is just
across the street--Emergency's on the left! I'll watch over her."

"Why don'you go and I'll watch over her?"

"You c'n run faster!"

"Freakin cigarettes--I told you one day--"

"GO!"

Hamza dashes up the stairs.

I wipe my cheeks, my nose. "There, there, Sylvia. Everything's... everything's gonna
be okay."
By the time the ambulance is here, Sylvia's woken up and has been crying and I've
been holding her in my arms while she still has to sit on the concrete.

Her one leg's moving just fine, so she hasn't got any spinal problem, but apparently
she'd been chasing after a cat she called a "mud-proof cat," whatever that is, stumbled
over something and fell down here and broke her leg and screamed and screamed but
no one could hear the poor little jimpette scream (she has a very quiet voice, you
know, even for a child). She finally must've passed out from the pain, but she woke up
and whimpered some more, passed out, and so forth, until we found her.

Until Hamza found her.

"I swear, Hamziana Jones," I tell him after I've given Sylvia the hug and kiss I always
meant to before handing her off to the EMT, "this time you amazed even me, and I've
seen you do this before. How the hell do you do it? Howdja know where she was?"

"I'ont know. I just figure, like, where could she be? And then I realised here. It's no big
deal. If you'd thought about it you woulda hit on the stairwell, too."

"Not likely. Even with my superior brain, I wouldna thought of this place in six
hundred and twelve years. I don'think I even knew it existed, actually."

I slap him on the back, squeeze his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go tell Mrs. I." We start
across the field.

"Y'know, Hamz, you could be a professional adventurer. A detective. A private dick."

He chuckles.

"Seriously. You can find anything. Always have. Why not? You hate your job. You
could really do it. You could earn a mint doing P.I. work."

"Oh, right... having beautiful daughters of missing scientists seducing me before they
try to rob and kill me? Or spending the rest of my life spying on deadbeat cheating
spouses and tracking down lost Elvis collectible plates? Forget it."

"Okay, then, a public dick. Finding kids, like today!"

"Where's the money in it?"

"Like you care about money. C'mon, Skywalker," I say, putting on my best James Earl
Jones, "how far will you go... to avoid... your destiny?"

"As far the end of this alley if I don't get to a john right away."