Trouble in Taco Town Read online

  Unfortunately, the origins of Spellcraft were lost to the ages. Although Scriveners made their living by writing words and phrases for the Handless, they were adamant about passing on their traditions orally—or not at all.

  It took us three tries, but we finally found the road to Taco Town just after moonrise. It was a little touristy place like Pinyin Bay, except the trees were taller and the lakes were smaller…and at the end of the main drag, instead of a boardwalk with a few carnival rides and a fishing lodge, there was a hill topped by a moderately large taco.

  Yuri put the truck in park, squinted through the windshield, and said, “Huh.”

  We’d expected there to be a giant taco. We hadn’t expected it to be swarming with birds.

  Unfortunately, there was a gate across Salsa Lane and it was locked up tight, so we couldn’t drive any closer. But that was probably for the best. Nighttime was really dark in Minnesota.

  We circled back around to the only motel in town, a 50s roadside two-story affair with a central courtyard and a flickering neon sign that read Masa Motel. The parking lot was full of cars, and we ended up wedging into a spot by the dumpsters back behind the pool.

  I slung my messenger bag around my shoulders, climbed out of the truck, and got my bearings. When we cut across the courtyard, I realized what I’d initially taken for a kidney-shaped pool was actually no kidney at all, but a taco. How delightfully kitschy. Too bad it was too cold for swimming. And the pool was drained, except for some traces of snow at the bottom.

  As we strolled across the courtyard, I looped my arm through Yuri’s. The way his outrageous biceps squish my fingers never gets old. And the way he tenses up—like the KGB’s gonna leap out from behind the nearest stationary object and read him the riot act for being gay—is less and less pronounced these days.

  The last few weeks, we’d spent most nights together at Yuri’s cabin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the most charming little hideaway you could ever hope for, and it leaves us both smelling like the cedar wood chips in the gerbil cage we’d inherited from Mr. Flint…which is a lot more pleasant than I just made it sound. Anyway, the cabin is ah-MAZE-ing. Even so, the bunk leaves something to be desired, and I was eager to see Yuri sprawled out on a nice big bed. Wrapped in a fluffy white robe. Watching me with smoldering bedroom eyes. Easing open the terrycloth tie….

  “Dixon.”

  “Um…yes?”

  “What now?”

  Oh, right, we’d need to check in before anyone could tempt me with an open robe. Yuri paused at the office door, where a hastily scrawled No Vacancy sign was taped to the glass.

  I said, “If we’re really nice, maybe they’ll make room for us.”

  Yuri gave the jam-packed parking lot a sidelong glance.

  I forged ahead. “Mom always told me, you never know till you try.”

  “Your mother said that?”

  Actually, now that I thought about it, my mother’s actual advice was, If you don’t get what you want, force it out of the weakest link. But I’m sure someone’s mom said that first thing at some point.

  The motel lobby was done up in a decor that was part southwest Aztec, part northern pine. It was all a little worn and faded, but the triangular shapes complemented each other really well. But it was hard to really get a feel for it with all the boxes.

  It looked like a delivery person just dumped a shipment in the middle of the floor and took off. The boxes were stacked all around the concierge desk—brown corrugated cardboard printed all over with beans, and happy smiling cartoon faces. Pinto beans, I presumed…until I stole a look at one of the labels.

  “Yuri? Do they have tofu in Russia?”

  “Russia and China share a four-thousand kilometer border.”

  I had no idea how long a kilometer might be—but it sounded pretty impressive anyway.

  There was a call bell on the lobby desk, and I gave it a few dings…and then a few more, just to make sure whoever was on-duty heard me. I was pondering what tofu borscht might taste like and whether I should try dinging louder when a woman in a square-shouldered pantsuit came out and said, “Are you here with the gluten-free tortillas? It’s about time!”

  She seemed pretty ticked, so I plastered on my winningest smile. “Sorry, no. Just passing through town and hoping to find a room.”

  “Can’t you read? We’re booked solid!”

  “But we’ve come such a long way.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Look, if it’s a matter of waiting for the maids to finish changing the sheets, we can just hang out in the lobby.”

  She planted her hands on her hips and glared. She had an impressive glare, with good eye contact and expressive eyebrows. “Look how late it is. The sheets were all changed hours ago. And the rooms are full. Every last one.”

  I skootched a bit closer, leaned in conspiratorially, and said, “Listen, I know how these things work. There’s an extra ten-spot in it for you if you can hook us up. Promise, I won’t mention it to the owner.”

  “I am the owner!” She pointed at the name tag on her lapel. Olive - Owner.

  Guess I couldn’t argue with that.

  “I’ve been up since dawn,” she said, “and I’ve still got a million things to do. Unless you’ve got a gross of gluten-free tortillas for me—in which case, I’d give you my own bed—then go get a room in Grimford and let me get back to work.”

  I looked at Yuri hopefully. Who’s to say what he kept in his truck? But he gave his head a subtle shake.

  As Olive turned to leave, I pulled out my phone and said, “Wait—before you go—can you just tell us if you recognize this man?”

  As a visual aid, Sabina had sent me the best pictures of her father she could dredge up. Although my uncle Fonzo is a handsome guy, the most recent shots weren’t flattering. He looked kind of sweaty and dyspeptic in the one we’d finally decided on—he might have been recovering from the flu. But it was, unfortunately, the most current likeness.

  Annoyed, Olive gave the phone a cursory glance, then paused and looked closer. Her mouth opened. Closed. Then compressed into a tight line as she turned on her heel, and stomped off.

  “Well, that was weird.” Maybe Olive remembered a vacant room that had somehow slipped her mind.

  While I wandered through the boxes, Yuri pulled out his phone and did a little recon. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Grimford is over an hour away, and the nearest gluten-free tortillas are in a health food store in Minneapolis. And it doesn’t open until morning.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what they expect all the third-shift celiac folks to do when they’re in urgent need of a late-night burrito. There’s a business opportunity if ever there was one. Say, maybe I should see if Olive would like a hot tip for a nifty side-hustle.”

  Yuri slid the call bell out of reach. “If there’s no room, no amount of sweet-talking will make one appear. If Grimford has a vacancy, we should book it now and hit the road before it gets any later.”

  As we headed out, another customer was just climbing out of a bright orange, double parked VW Beetle with the vanity plate BUGGIN. I paused to hold open the door. She was probably my mom’s age, a full-figured Black woman with her hair in a smart twist. She wore khaki head to toe, with lots of cargo pockets, an impressive utility belt, and sturdy brown boots. She looked like she was dressed for safari, or at least a segment on the local news where she’d hold up moderately exotic animals from the zoo and hope they didn’t pee on her.

  Maybe she’d be interested in taking some salamanders off our hands….

  “If you need a room,” Yuri told her, “don’t bother. The place is full.”

  Safari Lady planted her hands on her hips and glared at the back of the No Vacancy sign. “But I’ve come such a long way.”

  I shook my head sadly. “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “The nearest motel is in Grimford,” Yuri said.

  “Unbelievable! I passed through Grimford an ho
ur ago.” She whipped out her phone. “I’ll bet there’s a YourBNB that’s closer.”

  Ooh, good idea. I did the same, and found a cute little coach house just a few minutes away. Not only did it have a really good star rating, but there were jacuzzi jets in the bathtub…and I could think of a few interesting diversions that involved me, Yuri and several simulating jets of water. But when I tapped to create a booking, the status changed to unavailable.

  Safari Lady pocketed her phone and said, “Well, that worked out for the best. Not only was the place I found cheaper than this motel, but there’s a jacuzzi tub. I’m off to treat myself to a good, long soak.”

  As I watched her pull out of the lot in her bright orange Bug, it occurred to me I should’ve asked if she’d be willing to share. Maybe she was in the market for something other than gluten-free tortillas—something that Yuri and I would’ve been able to barter. Oh well, maybe next time. I told Yuri, “We made it to Taco Town, anyhow. And there’s a flashlight in the glovebox. Might as well jump the gate on Salsa Lane and get a look at the Big Taco.”

  4

  At the foot of Salsa Lane was a low, flat-roofed chain of souvenir shops done up trading-post style, with a taco stand on one end, a T-shirt pagoda on the other, and a tanning salon in the center. Despite the fact that it was now getting on toward most peoples’ bedtimes, the T-shirt pagoda still had a light on. Not only that, but there was someone there scraping bird poop off the plate glass window: a middle-aged guy with a thick red mustache. He was all in hunter’s plaid, right down to the wool cap with ear flaps. He paused in his scraping as we got out of the truck and called out, “Store’s closed. Come back tomorrow.”

  His scraping had revealed an array of Taco Town postcards in the window. I took a look, and there it was: sun-faded, but definitely the same one Uncle Fonzo had sent. And better still, inside the store, beside a mannequin in a Taco Town visor, was a Post Office service window. Talk about luck! “Actually,” I said, “I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help? I’m sure it’s unlikely you’d remember every single customer….” Crickets chirped. “But we think he may have sent a postcard within the last few days.”

  I pulled out my phone and flashed the picture, and the guy said, “Oh, I remember that character, all right.” He offered his hand and said, “Reginald.” We shook and introduced ourselves, then he said, “I’m not surprised trouble’s following him. We should have known his claims were too good to be true. But when your town’s livelihood is on the line, you’ll believe anyone who gives you hope.”

  He invited us into the shop, which was brimming with brightly colored Taco Town tchotchkes and smelled like wet corn chips. There was a staff break room in back, an afterthought of a room with a kitchenette, table and couch. Yuri and I settled at the table while Reginald set out three taco-shaped mugs and put on a kettle.

  While our tea steeped, he launched into a story. “It all started with a lousy review on Yelp. Someone said our Big Taco looked more like a hunk of roadkill, and the town took a referendum to refinish the finish—a finish that’s done the Taco proud for a good many years, I might add. But when we had restorationists come in from St. Cloud and take a look, the price they quoted us would’ve wiped out the town’s treasury.”

  Reginald pulled off his earflap hat and swabbed his brow with it. He was bald except for a ring of red hair around the edges and a little tuft on top.

  “Well, then this Fonzo character came rolling into town—if that’s even his real name.”

  I opened my mouth to say, Of course it is…. But Yuri nudged me with his knee, and I kept quiet.

  “Yep, there he was, in a powder blue convertible, with a sharkskin suit and his hair slicked back all fancy. He saw the crowd around the Big Taco, and he took a look himself. And once the restorationists were on their way back to St. Cloud, he took me aside and said to me, ‘What if you don’t need to fix that Taco?’

  “‘Of course I do,’ I told him. ‘Up close, you can see it’s got some major problems.’

  “We looked at the Taco together for a good long minute, then he said, ‘Is that adobe?’

  “I was excited, because most people think it’s just concrete or maybe stucco. ‘Yep,’ I told him. ‘That is adobe. Not to be confused with adobo.’”

  No doubt it was the same line he gave all the tourists—he paused as if he was expecting a laugh. I managed a weak titter. Yuri narrowed his eyes—Russian humor is different, no doubt.

  Reginald went on. “He took a good look at the adobe, then said to me, ‘The natural world is full of wonder. What if I told you I can help the Taco fix itself?’

  “I know I’m coming off as the world’s biggest patsy now, but you’d have to know this Fonzo character. He had a certain way about him.”

  I did know him. And I would have to agree.

  “Maybe if he didn’t come to us on the tail of those restorationists, the price he quoted would have been crazy. But after hearing what those crooks from St. Cloud wanted, this guy’s price seemed like a bargain. So once I paid him, he went up there with a bucket of water, threw in some pine cones he’d gathered from the woods, and painted it all around the base.”

  Spellcraft was so much easier when you could just come right out and tell your client your actual process consisted of writing words on a slip of paper.

  Yuri steepled his fingers. “When did you first notice something was wrong?”

  “I had my eye on the Big Taco—even though the guy told me I probably shouldn’t watch, I couldn’t help myself. I love the Big Taco. And I was excited to see the moment where our fortunes turned.”

  In the distance, birds called.

  Reginald sighed. “It’s not as if birds never perch on the Taco. They do. Even with all the trees in the world at their disposal. There’s even a stubborn robin that builds a nest inside the lettuce topping every spring. We’ve got all kinds of birds around here, but I remember the one that showed up after the pine cone treatment ’cause I’d never seen one like it before. I was excited—can you believe that? When it was just the one, I was actually excited….”

  He shook his head and set out the tea. I took a sip. It was good—what made it into my mouth, anyhow. The taco-shaped mugs were adorable, but they weren’t exactly conducive to drinking.

  “Within the hour,” he said, “there were two. Then ten.” He gestured in the Big Taco’s general direction. “And now look what we’ve got on our hands. You know what the funny thing is? Those damn birds shouldn’t be here. We looked it up. The crested carrion titmouse is only found in New Mexico…and once in a while around Wichita, depending on the migration patterns and the jet stream. And just our luck—those birds are rare. Someone posted a picture of them on Facebook and it went viral, and before we knew it, Taco Town was crawling with birders.”

  I said, “I’ll bet that was good for business.”

  “Ha! That’s exactly what we thought! Those people rolled into town just like the birds. One or two, then little clusters, then a whole flock. There was a steady stream at the motel, checking in all day long, one after the other, until every room was full. And the next morning, Olive served her famous huevos rancheros at the breakfast buffet…and all hell broke loose. The birders went nuts. Yelling, crying, carrying on. One of them tied herself to the chafing station in protest, and another one scrawled Bird Murderer in yellow paint all over the parking lot.”

  I’ll bet that was a sight to see. “We were just over at the motel. How did we miss the graffiti?”

  “Well, it rained a few hours later and washed the paint away, but that’s not the point. It was some fine print on the motel’s paperwork—more of a slogan than an actual binding legal statement, but one of those nasty birders was a retired lawyer, and he threatened to sue….”

  Yuri scowled. “What was this ‘fine print’?”

  “Satisfaction guaranteed or your next night’s free.” Sloppy wording—not unlike a lot of the wonky Spellcraft I run across. “Some long gone ad man proba
bly liked the way it rhymed. Anyhow, when the birders spotted the guarantee, they all extended their bookings by a week, then complained about the food so they could weasel out of paying for the second night. And once Olive caved in to that, they started complaining about everything from the towels to the toilet paper just to see how far they could take it.”

  Yuri stood and strode to the window and edged aside the blinds to check out the Big Taco, looking dashing and dangerous, like a secret agent in a blockbuster action thriller. The Taco’s silhouette was visible against the starlit sky. Above, titmouses—titmice?—glided in lazy circles. “All it would take is someone with good aim and a shotgun to give those people a reason to leave.”

  “My thoughts exactly!” Reginald cried. “But the darn birds are endangered—and if we shot ’em out of the sky, those egg-sympathizers would turn us in faster than you can say ‘over easy.’”

  I wasn’t entirely sure Yuri meant killing the birds, not the birders, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  Reginald said, “Obviously, those creeps in Udderville sent that Fonzo character to sabotage the Taco.”

  I really wished he’d stop calling my uncle that. “And they would do that because…?”

  “Because they’re jealous—always have been. Their Mother of all Udders attraction isn’t half as popular as the Big Taco. But now that it’s being picked apart by the crested carrion titmouse—which we can’t even shoot because they’re endangered….” He shook his head sadly. “All because of one lousy review. And that Fonzo character.”

  Before I could let Reginald know I’d had quite enough of his “character” rigmarole, Yuri cut in with, “We want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Running off with Taco Town’s hard earned cash!” Reginald was obviously very invested in being angry, but the steam went out of him quickly and his shoulders slumped. “I haven’t seen the guy in a few days, but I can ask around in the morning.” He took a final slug of his tea. Half of it dribbled down his neck. “I should’ve known there was no such thing as a self-fixing Taco.”