A/N: My apologies for being away so long. Back now.
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El knew a moment of doubt that he could stay alert for a long story, but realized how important it might be. He took some more pills and washed them down with the beer, harboring his strength. Then he told Sands what had happened.
Sands questioned him closely about many details, and seemed to find significance in things El didn't.
"El Club Dumas?" he asked. "You're shittin' me."
"No. Why?"
"Nothing, go on."
Sands questioned him in great detail about the bar. El was forced to recall everything he could of the layout, the furniture, the men inside, and all of the strange decorations on the wall.
"Why do you want to know this?"
"You never know what might be important. Keep going."
So El explained how some El Mariachi impersonator had been expected, thinking Sands might find that important, but Sands only laughed. And continued to laugh as El tried to finish the tale. Coming from a man El had heard scream with agony, anger, and with terror, the laughter sounded unnatural. "What is so damn funny?" he asked, finally done with the story, and sinking again toward sleep.
"It's fucking idiotic, that's all. You want to protect your goods from bandits, so you make it look like they're being carried by some famous badass. But when the badass you picked has a price on his head . . . this is so twisted, I think I know who it is."
"Who?" El asked, hearing his own voice from a distance.
"A aranha vermelha," Sands said.
What? El's tired brain fished around for meaning. Not English, not Spanish, but . . . oh. Portuguese. La araña roja. The red spider.
Now that was an odd thing for Sands to say, he thought, and he began again to dream.
This time he was aboard a spaceship, with a long row of people in suspended animation. But as he walked down the dark hall, the brightly lit containers became crystals holding large insect-like beings. At the end of the row a crystal held a large red spider. El's dream-self became annoyed. "I get it," he said, and woke himself up.
Lustral light in the pre-dawn showed his familiar bedroom still with an alien occupant. Sands slept in a makeshift bedroll not too different than the one he'd been lying on for weeks, half-dead from depression and the physical after effects of his months-long cocaine binge. But now he lay across El's closed bedroom door without even a mattress, looking for all the world like a Sancho protecting Don Quixote. El banished that thought hastily. Sands would never play Sancho, and he'd probably pop Quixote in the head for taking on windmills like a dumbshit. But still, there he was, sleeping across the door, a cache of loaded guns under one outflung arm. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. He hadn't noticed that before.
El's head felt more clear than it had since before he'd been shot. The medicine, he realized, had been adding to his muzziness. He was free of it at the moment, and the pain from his thigh was still tamed. El moved to see if he could sit up. Agony lanced through him and he froze, gasping. The new pain continued to burn like a flame, but faded gradually as if it were out of fuel. Cautiously, he reached for the pitcher of water and a glass; poured, and drank. Then he drank again, until the pitcher was empty. All the while he studied the room, particularly the chair where Sands had been sitting. He did not see the black velvet bag that held Delgado's diamonds.
Not that he had expected to. Sands undoubtedly had the gems on him somewhere. El sighed. If he wanted to see the diamonds, he was going to have to talk to the agent.
One thing he did see - Father Soto's battery operated radio/tape deck stood on a table next to Sands's chair, its insides exposed in a jungle of wires and other parts. Huh. El remembered the guitar he had given Sands as a possible crutch to help distract him from the worst of his cravings. Sands had smashed it into kindling. But the radio he had used until the batteries died. Had he now taken out another fit on the boom box?
So many mysteries only Sands could explain. La aranja roja was the foremost. "Sands," El said, his voice strong and clear. Sands did not move. "Sands," he called again. The man made no response. "Shelly," El tried. Nothing.
All El's senses snapped into full alert. Was Sands a corpse on his doorstep? Damn, why hadn't he insisted Sands give him a gun? Where was the dog? The rain had stopped; the increasing dawn-light was yellow - not filtered through rain clouds. The smell of smoke! No, he had been right. It was cigarette smoke, and fairly recent. Sands had been alive not too long ago. "Sands!" he yelled.
From beyond the door came barking. Sands did not move. The door shuddered as the excited dog leaped against it. After three prods in his side from the bowing door, Sands moved slightly. "What the fuck?" he asked, weakly, his hand closing on a shotgun.
Relief and concern flooded El at once. "It's the dog!" he yelled. "Don't shoot it." But Sands showed no sign of his earlier quick reactions. He got slowly to his feet, using the shotgun for a lever, and dropped onto the chair. "What kind of sentry are you?" El demanded. "You don't even wake up?"
Sands rubbed a palm across his forehead and empty eye sockets. "Yeah," he said, "either I can't sleep at all or I sleep in a fucking coma. What time is it? And what the hell did you want?"