Rescue From Planet Pleasure Read Online Free PDF

upper lip and a spot above his chin. Nubby hairs poked from his jaw. He adjusted a frayed baseball cap so that it sat farther back on his head. His complexion resembled the leather in the pocket of an old catcher’s mitt.
    I removed my sunglasses and studied his aura. The glowing orange sheath bubbled serenely like the liquid in a lava lamp.
    Coyote was over five hundred years old. The bastard son of a Jewish conquistador (on the lam in the New World from the Inquisition) and Doña Marina a.k.a. La Malinche—the indigenous maiden who became Hernán Cortés’ interpreter, advisor, and concubine—Coyote considered himself the very first Mexican.
    His dark, almost black, eyes reflected a wariness and cunning from being on the lookout for centuries, always suspect and so hunted like his animal namesake.
    “So you’re Coyote?” Jolie asked.
    “All day and tomorrow, chiquita. ”
    She tilted her head. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
    “I knew you’d be here.” He walked between us toward the tower.
    Jolie stepped close behind him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “There are more important things to know.” He began stamping his foot around the base of the tower.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    He rapped a knuckle against the steel pole and it echoed hollow. “These things have a sigmoidoscope inside.”
    Sigmoidoscope? I was surprised he could pronounce all the syllables. “You mean like for a colonoscopy?”
    Coyote halted and stared at me, the shine in his eyes dulling with confusion. Blobs in his aura formed into question marks. His ability to manipulate his aura was one of his many tricks.
    “Felix means an up-your-butt examination,” Jolie explained.
    The creases around Coyote’s eyes deepened when he grinned. “A butt check?” He thumped the tower again. “With one of these? You’re a funny guy, ese . Kind of freaky but that’s your business.” The question marks turned into exclamation points then dissolved back into random blobs.
    “Then what are you—”
    “An earthquake detector chingadera .” He returned to stamping around the tower.
    “A seismograph?”
    Coyote rolled his eyes at Jolie. “Now he gets it. That’s what I said.” He chuckled and whispered to himself. “Butt check. Que pendejadas .”
    Now I was confused. Jolie shrugged and gave me a WTF look.
    Coyote started down the slope toward the Porsche. Jolie and I trotted after him.
    “Are those towers earthquake detectors?” She sounded disappointed.
    “No chica . They are exactly what you think they are.”
    Jolie shot me a second WTF look.
    “Get used to it,” I said.
    Coyote reached the Porsche. He stuck his head through the driver’s window. He sniffed and bent lower. Jolie and I watched him inhale deeply as if he was taking in the aroma of a fragrant flower. Pleasure sparked through his aura. He straightened and turned to Jolie. “This is where you sat.”
    She crossed her arms and tapped one foot. Her aura crackled with the same annoyance that matched her tight frown. The low angle of the afternoon sun cut into my eyes and I put my sunglasses back on.
    Coyote craned his neck to check out the owner of the Porsche, still unconscious in the backseat. Coyote licked his lips. “Shame to waste all that blood. Oh well.”
    He crossed his arms and blinked I-Dream-of-Jeannie style. The trunk popped open. He chuckled. “And they say you can’t learn nothing from the television.”
    Jolie and I were so rushed to get to Fajada Butte that we hadn’t examined the trunk. It contained matching Gucci luggage in masculine black leather with gold trim—two suitcases and a wheeled carry-on.
    A briefcase that I had gone through before sat on the front seat. Didn’t contain much of interest. Business papers. A laptop with porn.
    Coyote unzipped the carry-on and told Jolie and me to search the suitcases.
    I ran my hand through suits and trousers. “What are we looking for?”
    He stuffed socks inside his jacket.