Breakfast in Rio

He sent El for cigarettes and ignored the food in front of him. He couldn't see it, which made it easy. He knew El wanted him to eat and when the big mariachi came back, he would let the man wheedle, niggle, and coax him into choking something down. But not yet, not while he needed to hold onto the chair just to know he wasn't endlessly falling. He wasn't going to risk throwing up while seated on the restaurant terrace of the best hotel in Río.

El surprised him by picking the expensive hotel. There was view of the beach—much good it did him—and he could smell the ocean. All those thong-clad lovelies were wasted on him now. However, Sands appreciated the hotel's unlimited hot water, 24-hour room service, and the bed big enough for him and El both to stretch out on. Walls thick enough that the activities in the next room weren't piped in like the audio on a bad porn film were a definite plus, too. 

He was breathing in slow, steady breaths, in and out, hoping the nausea would ease off, concentrating on his surroundings. The salt brine scent of the Atlantic, flowers and fruit on the table before him, the tiny ridges in the wicker arm of the chair he had his hand curled around...he was holding it so tightly his fingers were going to be marked. Fucking black vertigo wouldn't let up until he was off the antibiotics and painkillers and whatever anti-psychotic shit those sadists at the clinic had been feeding him the for last three weeks wore off. 

Sound was a set of high-heels click-clacking over the terrace tiles to stop in front of him. A woman, probably in a dress since she was wearing heels, and from the speed of her stride, not particularly tall. Sands had grown used to making the most of what information his senses did provide. He didn't even think about it consciously any longer. 

The clinic counselor—the one he intended to shoot before they left Río—had declared Sands had made an excellent adaptation. Well, yeah, Darwin. Fucking adapt or die. He'd also decided Sands was dangerously unbalanced and pumped him so full of voodoo juice he had almost forgotten he was blind, until El pulled him out of there. 

El was going to pay for checking him in there in the first place. Sands hadn't quite decided how, but it would come to him. 

He drew in a deep breath, noticing the woman's perfume. Chanel #5 mixed with a touch of hair spray and—he wrinkled his nose—an American laundry soap. A tourist staying at the hotel, then. 

Slowly, he raised his face toward where he calculated her head would be. She was standing between him and the sun, so her shadow fell over his face, noticeably cooler than the sun's rays. He waited, knowing all she could see was his expressionless face and the blank windows of his sunglasses. 

Blue-tinted sunglasses, but too dark to see through, El had assured him. 

"You look like shit, Sands," she declared, her voice light and raspy. 

Sands allowed himself a small smirk, because he had her identified now. 

"Oh, golly, gosh, you say the sweetest things, there, Thelma." 

She pulled the chair on the other side of the table out and sat down with a rustle of fabric. Silk, he thought. Lizzie had a taste for the good things. 

"What have I told you about calling me Thelma, Sands?" 

He pursed his lips and pretended to try and remember. "Last time, I think it was that you would carve off my wiener and feed it to a dachshund," he said. 

A sharp laugh came from her and he smiled. He listened to her open her purse—would she pull a gun and shoot him right here?—and the crackle of cellophane as she withdrew a pack of cigarettes and lit up. He contemplated asking her for one as the teasing scent of burning tobacco reached him. 

He wasn't ready to give away his blindness yet, though. 

She drummed her long nails on the table top. Lizzie usually had blood-red talons, Sands remembered. She'd sharpened one, coated it with poison, and killed a target with a scratch once. He'd really admired that. 

"You know almost every network in Mexico has been rolled up?" she said. 

Sands arched a brow and shrugged. 

Lizzie's voice sharpened. "Yeah, it started when that coup you were monitoring went south—further south—and you disappeared off the map. Rumor around Langley was you'd been taken out, but then agents started dropping right and left. —Does any of this sound familiar to you, Sands? Even Abe Heller got taken out." Lizzie paused, waiting for a reaction Sands didn't give. "Then I got to go to Ronnie Naismith's funeral." 

"You never liked Veronica," Sands pointed out, still smiling. "Or Heller." Suddenly, he was feeling much better. Just the knowledge that Heller and Veronica were dead, along with Esteban Bautista, while he and El had walked away with the key to the druglord's millions, cheered him. Sounded like Sam Davis had known exactly what to do with the take on Veronica's south of the border shenanigans. He hadn't known she was dead, but the news was sweet. 

"I despised the stuck-up bitch and I only went to the funeral to make sure they buried her deep enough she couldn't claw her way back out," Lizzie snapped. "But that doesn't mean you should get away with setting her up." 

He tipped his head and murmured in an undertone, "Gosh, I wonder what would." 

"So what happened, Sands? One of the cartels finally make you an offer for enough that you decided to change sides? I suppose that's why you're here in Río, to get a new face to go with the big pay-off." 

"That's funny, Elizabeth," Sands said softly. "In fact, it's absolutely hilarious, because I did get greedy and stupid, but I was doing my job, walking my beat, and that's why I'm sitting here in fucking Río." 

He cocked his head again. "Do I look that...different?" 

"You look like a junkie after a three day nod." 

He nodded. He probably even had the track marks to go with his new look, thanks to the ham-handed nurses at the hospital. He wondered what was taking El so long, but didn't let himself worry. El could take care of himself and woe to anyone that fucked with him. 

"The Company will want to debrief you, once they know you're alive." 

"No kidding?" he asked sarcastically. Lizzie's cigarette smoke was teasing him unmercifully. 

Lizzie laughed. 

"Listen," he said, "I really, honestly, do not care what the Company thinks or wants any more. It's just—," he made a flicking motion with one hand, "—just, so not my problem, you see. And you can tell them that, really, because I'm not coming back. Ever." 

"The Company is just about blind down there now. We need your information." 

"You know, Lizzie, I think that's what they call irony. Your employer, my former employer, will just have to find someone else to do their dirty work." 

"Aren't you the one who said the show must go on?" 

He waved his hand. Blindly. 

"Stand-ins, Lizzie, stand-ins." 

He could almost hear her frown at him. Then her nail tapped against the dish in front of him. "Are you going to eat this?" 

"No." 

She slid the plate across the table. "I love melon." 

"Help yourself, sweetcheeks." 

There were more people on the terrace than before, the sound of voices and cutlery on china masking some of the cues Sands used to orient himself. He frowned, hoping to hear the sound of El's familiar footsteps, even minus the telltale spur. 

"The Company still wants the President of Mexico taken out, Sands. They can't send in a second-rater to do it. You're the only one who could pull it off," Lizzie said, after chewing and swallowing a piece of fruit from Sands' plate. "Why isn't he dead, anyway?' 

A snort of disbelief and amusement escaped him. Then he realized how much he'd changed. Once he would have been actively plotting to take out El Presidente, offended that his elegant plan had been knocked off the rails by El and intent on finishing what he'd started. 

"Yes, well, you might find it's a little more difficult than you'd think," he said. "I can't do it. Besides, he's good for Mexico." He used El's words, amused to find he meant them. "He's a good man." 

Lizzie burst out laughing. 

Sands offered a small, insincere, tight-mouthed smile. "Listen, Mexico's still my beat. I've bled enough for the bitch, she's made me hers." 

"Oh, my God, you've gone native!" 

Sands laughed raggedly. He was still laughing as El strolled up. He felt the man's heat just behind him. 

"Problem?" 

Sands shrugged. "No sé." 

El sat down next to Sands, who wondered exactly what armament the mariachi had on him. He didn't doubt El had at least two guns. Lizzie would be armed, of course. Lizzie's fondness for big handguns, along with her big brown eyes, was the reason Sands had dubbed her Thelma the first time they worked together. Personally, he had a twenty-two shoved in his boot-top and a dagger in the other. Both were a touch out of easy reach while sitting at his ease, though. 

"You haven't eaten." 

"I told you I wasn't hungry. —Did you get my cigarettes? Because I'm going to be pissed off if you didn't," Sands said. 

El produced the cigarettes, lit one, and placed it in Sands' fingers. He drew in the first hot rush of nicotine and smoke, letting it spin through his head and veins, and exhaled through his nostrils. "Mucho gracias, what took you so fucking long?" 

"Making sure your friend didn't have anyone with her." 

He heard Lizzie start at that and knew she was looking at El more carefully, as a threat instead of a good-looking side of meat. 

"Elizabeth Samuels," she introduced herself. 

El made a wordless sound of acknowledgement. 

Sands exhaled again and said, "Don't mind it, Lizzie. It doesn't use a name, just an article. Right, The?" 

El sighed tiredly. "Do you always have to be this way, Sands?" 

"Why, yes, I do, my guitar playing friend. Unless, of course, some asshole at this table who shall remain nameless, signs me into some cheap ass hospital where they proceed to do fucking excruciating things to me and drug me up to my nonexistent eyeballs," Sands said liltingly. 

"It was a clerical error." 

"What happened to him?" Lizzie asked, directing the question at El. 

Before El could answer, Sands said flatly, "Do not talk about me like I'm not here, Elizabeth."  He might have gone native, but the natives in this case were a mean bunch of motherfuckers. One good kick would send the table over. He could have his knife out of his boot and buried in Lizzie's throat before she ever got that hand cannon out of her purse. 

"All right," Lizzie said cautiously. She knew Sands could be dangerous as a pissed-off scorpion. 

Satisfied, Sands leaned back and waved the half-smoked cigarette dangerously close to El's face. He knew it, because he heard the involuntary breath El drew in. He smiled nastily. "No, I've decided El can tell you." 

"You want me to tell her everything?" El asked. "Who is she?" 

Sands ducked his head and smiled with real delight. "Are you jealous?" 

"Suspicious. I don't trust anyone who knows you." 

"Oh, good call, my friend. No, you really shouldn't trust Lizzie here. She works for good old Uncle Sam, who still wants El Presidente sent on that long ride into the sunset, so to speak." 

"CIA?" El's accent made it sound like Si-ya. 

"Can you dig it?" 

He imagined El giving Lizzie that smoking, judgment and wrath-of-god all in one look that Sands had seen just once, when he offered him the chance at Marquez. Bastard should just call himself Nemesis. 

"God damn it, Sands, what the hell are you doing?" Lizzie exclaimed. "Have you lost what little was left of your mind?" 

He shrugged. "I trust him." 

El snorted, laughing at that. "Then you've forgiven me for persuading you to do this?" 

"No, I'm still going to make you pay," Sands replied conversationally. "You'll never see it coming." 

"I thought that was you," El muttered. 

Sands froze and then threw his head back and laughed almost hysterically. El acted so damn serious all the time, it was easy to forget his sarcastic sense of humor. Sands was probably the only man still alive that knew about it. Except for Fideo, if he hadn't pickled his brain into permanent amnesia by now. Not that it was that funny, but Sands couldn't stop laughing. 

El pulled the cigarette away, dropped it, then grabbed Sands' shoulder and shook him, once, harshly. "Stop it." 

He pulled himself together. "¡Perdón!." 

El squeezed his shoulder.  To Lizzie, El said, "He's having a bad—" 

"—year," Sands interrupted. 

"—morning," El finished. 

She stirred restlessly. 

El lit another cigarette and tucked it between Sands' fingers without being asked. A something—plate, ashtray, Sands couldn't tell by the sound—was pushed in front of him to catch the ashes. Coffee was poured into his empty cup. El knew he wouldn't ask for it and wouldn't reach for the carafe and risk knocking it over. 

When El guided his free hand to the cup, he heard Lizzie draw in a quick breath. He smiled mirthlessly. "Golly, Lizzie, are you just getting the idea now?" He sipped some of the coffee. 

"You're blind," she stated. 

"As can be," Sands agreed. He set the cup down and tapped one of the sunglasses' lenses with a finger. "I don't know what it looks like behind these now. El says the quacks down here did a good job. But it must have been a picture before. You see, I got picked up on the Day of the Dead by the cartel and Barillo had his pet torturer scoop my eyes out." 

He took two leisurely puffs on his second cigarette before Lizzie finally spoke again. 

"You're not joking, are you?" 

Sands lifted one shoulder. 

"Oh, Jesus, Shel." 

He tipped his head. "You still want to look me in the eyes, Lizzie, or whatever they've popped in to keep me from scaring the kiddies?" 

"You don't have to—" 

He pulled the sunglasses down his nose and turned his face directly toward Lizzie. Blinked, grateful he could still do that, eyelids sliding over the strange not-thereness of the ocular implants. The last two surgeries had attached the implants and the special plastic 'eyes' that went over the custom-fitted orb that took the place of each eyeball. It was attached with a titanium peg. He could move the artificial eyes, hell, he could even roll them. 

But he couldn't see with them. It was all cosmetic. 

"Well?" he asked. 

He heard Lizzie lean forward and then a hand was drifting close to his face. El's breath picked up. Lizzie's fingers brushed closer. Sands didn't blink. 

"Some of the scars are still red, but they look like they'll fade. The eyes look real. Very dark, just like yours were." 

He pushed the sunglasses back up anyway. They were a habit he wasn't going to break. 

"Not too bad, Shel," Lizzie said. "Really." 

"It's not like I'm the one that has to look at them, anyway," he said. He jerked his thumb at El. "He insisted we come down here and get the fakes." 

"The doctor in Mexico City recommended it," El said. "You needed surgery to repair the mess Guevara left so there wouldn't be any more infections, anyway." 

A shudder ran through Sands just from the mention of Barillo's 'doctor'. He'd dreamed of the drill again during the night and woke screaming. The nightmares had been back with a vengeance since his latest hospital stint, what with the drugs and the restraints they'd put him in. He'd relived the Day of the Dead every night since. Ajedrez looking down at him and saying, "Sorry, baby," Barillo's monster-mummy face, Guevara's smile ... The hands that held him down and the whine of the drill as it came down into his eye, the sound mingling with his own scream. 

He really could have done without that trip down memory lane, thank you so much, but El had insisted. For a while, he had begun thinking El had abandoned him in the hospital, which hadn't helped his unsteady state of mind either. It was over though, Sands told himself. He was rich, free, over twenty-one and had his own seeing-eye mariachi to fuck and feed and otherwise entertain him. Time to quit sulking and hit the road. 

"Great," he said. "It's done. Let's just stop by the clinic, I'll shoot that needle-happy eunuch a couple of times, and go home." 

El went very still beside him. "You want to go home?" His accent had thickened. 

Sands stubbed out the cigarette in the plate before him and swiveled his head toward El, ignoring Lizzie. He went over what he'd just said, trying to guess what had upset the mariachi, because he heard the hurt in El's low voice. He just didn't understand it. Normally, El would be remonstrating him for threatening the doctor's life, but he'd let that completely pass by. 

"Yes, El," he said, as though addressing an especially dull-witted child, "Home. Mi casa. Well, really, su casa, since I have no idea what happened to my apartment in Culiacan, but there wasn't anything there that mattered. Not like my car ... which, even if it wasn't long gone, wouldn't do me much good now, would it?" 

"You want to go back ... to Mexico?" El said, sounding unsure. 

"Yeeess," Sands drawled. He got it then. Really got it. His voice rose a little. "You thought I'd go back to the States? You know, it's a good thing you're pretty and fast with a gun, El, because sometimes I think you've got a block of wood instead of a brain. —I mean, who would watch your back if I didn't stick around?" 

Lizzie snickered. 

"Shut up, Lizzie." 

"Right, right, it isn't even that you're blind, Shel," she said. "It's just the idea of Sheldon Sands watching anyone's back ..." 

"The stupid, stubborn guitar-plucker attracts trouble like flies to shit." 

"So that's why you're going to stay with me," El said. 

Sands blinked. No one could see it, he couldn't even see it, but the reflex was still there. "I am not a fly," he said in disgust. 

"You buzz like one and you're a lot of trouble. You sting and bite and annoy everyone." El sounded very satisfied with himself. Sands just ignored him, magnanimously refraining from pointing out that if he was a fly, El was a shit. "No one can get rid of you." 

"Fuck you both," he said. "—I've changed my mind. I do want something to eat. Huevos rancheros. El, go get me some." 

El chuckled and got up. Sands listened until he heard him walk away. Then he faced Lizzie, miming attention even if he couldn't see her. 

"Listen up, sugarbutt, I'm going back to Mexico, because Mexico's mine. I bought my citizenship with my sight. You tell the Company that. Tell them they can start up new networks, because it's cool; Veronica and Heller were the ones in bed with the cartels and since they're both taking dirt naps now, everything is just hunky-dory again. But you tell them to stay away from me, and if anything, even a fucking hangnail, happens to El Presidente, every bit of dirty dealings I ran for them, including the assassination attempt, is going to come out. Savvy?" 

"You want me to tell them you're threatening the CIA, Sands? You are insane." 

"Of course, I am, and they know it. That's what's so much fun," Sands said boyishly. He smiled at her. In her direction, at least. "Now, run along, El will be back soon." 

"You are a crazy bastard, Shel," Lizzie said as she got up. She reached over and tapped his cheek with her long nails. "But I'm glad you're not dead." 

"So am I. Now fuck off." 

She laughed and walked away. 

Sands sat back and waited for El, enjoying the sun and the breeze off the ocean for the first time in too long. He really was glad he wasn't dead. 

He was going home. 

And woe to anyone who fucked with him, too.

-fin