7. What's in a Name?

There, beneath the curves of an electric guitar, is a cache of weaponry that, in the right hands, would make the St. Valentine's Day massacre look like a game of spin the bottle. You don't have shit like this if you don't know how to use it. I have no clue what any of it is in technical terms; my gun is a good-quality, off-the-shelf automatic with enough stopping power to slow someone down if I wing them or stop them outright if I get in a good shot. Ho-hum. I don't even remember what brand it is. This stuff looks deadly just lying there.

"How the hell did a nice girl like me wind up surrounded by all these damn pistoleros?" I mumble, staring at the Mariachi's stash.

"No nice girl knows a man like Sands," says a husky voice from the couch, startling me. I look into a pair of amber eyes that regard me speculatively.

Not making any sudden moves, I sit back and rest my hands on my knees, in plain sight. The open guitar case yawns between us like Death Valley. "Headache?"

"Sí."

"Want some aspirin? Acetominophen? Ibuprofen? Sands has a supply laid in."

"Sure. And some water. Please."

Maybe I'm making a fatal mistake, turning my back on him on the strength of his beautiful brown eyes. All I know about him is what Sands told me, and god knows how much of that was bullshit. But I get up and walk down the hall to the dispensary, where I find a bottle of OTC caplets with the seal on the bottle intact. I detour to the kitchen on the way back, and run tap water into a glass.

The mariachi is sitting up on the couch, hair hanging in his face when I return. As far as I can tell, it doesn't look like he took anything from his hoard. I offer him the glass, and unwrap the caplets in front of him, shaking two of them out of the bottle onto his palm. "Thank you, Carolina," he murmurs, and downs them with a sip of water.

"My name is Kate. Short for Catherine." Okay, so he doesn't remember my name. He's got a head injury, that's not surprising.

"Kate...of course."

"Sands told me about you," I inform him, sitting back down on the carpet. The couch is the only furniture in the room; when I said this place was empty, I wasn't kidding. "But he kept refering to you as 'El Mariachi'...what's your name?"

"That's as good a name as any," he shrugs. "Plenty of people call me 'El'." He rakes his chin-length hair back with his fingers. It's the color of mahogany and wavy.

'El' as in 'the', I remember Sands saying. "Sure, why not?" I say cheerfully. "It could be short for Elwood, that's a good name for a musician." He gives me a fish-eyed stare. "Or - I've got it! Elvis!"

"No!" he says loudly. "Absolutely not!"

I give him my most angelic look. "Elton?"

"No!" I don't know why I'm happily pushing the buttons of a guy who's loaded for bear, but this is the most non-lethal, non-automotive fun I've had in - oh my god, I'm flirting - so rusty at it we many both need tetnus shots, but yeah, Kate, admit it: flirting. He's trying to glare at me, but his lips twitch. I flutter my lashes at him, and he cracks up. In a minute, we're both shaking with laughter.

The ice is broken. "You want to call me something? Fine, call me 'George Washington'."

"Oh...kay. Although I suppose on this side of the border, that would be Jorge."

"George will do."

I'm gonna hug him and squeeze him and call him George, a Looney Tunes soundbite pipes up in my head, and I start laughing again. "Anything you say, George."