The Water Knife

Lucy is led somewhere indoors and is strapped to a chair. When her captors take the sack off her head, Lucy sees “gleaming instruments of torture on the kitchen counter” (208). A man greets her by name. He has tattoos running up both arms: “a dragon coiled up one arm, and on the other, an image of La Santa Muerte, Lady Death, displayed in intricate glory” (208). As Lucy studies the man, she realizes that he is one of the fake cops from the morgue. Lucy notices that this man has someone with him, but it isn’t Angel. When Lucy asks where Angel is, the man responds, “He’s a little slow to figure out how Phoenix works. We’re doing this party without him” (209). Outside the window, Lucy can see a glimpse of the Central Arizona Project canal. The man begins to torture and interrogate Lucy. He wants to know everything Lucy knows about the senior water rights that Jamie was selling. The man tells Lucy that Jamie had promised to sell him the water rights but instead sold them to California. The man also tells Lucy that even though Jamie claimed to have sold the rights to California, California doesn’t have them.