Lady in white

Deap inside the Santa Ana Water Tower In my secret lair,
known only to a precious few, I stand as I so often do,
gazing out over the city of Santa Ana pondering its bright
future. I am the the Last Frito Bandito.
My Pistolas fire for justice... and my pistolas fire true...

CHAPTER ONE:
I was just about to head home when I received a call on my
super secret red Bandito phone. I pick up the receiver and
the mariachi music spilling from it stopped.
It was my secretary.


"Yes?"
"Someone to see you Mr. Bandito"
"Well, show him in then"
"He is a actually HER Mr. Bandito"
"Well show her in then."


That's how it began.
I didn't yet know who she was...
but it was clear that Michele Martinez
knew exactly who I was... and more specifically,
she knew what I could do.
Michele had come to the best...
she had had no other choice.
There was no coyness, no hesitation in her eyes.
This, of course, was normal.

People who saught out the Frito Bandito never did so lightly.
They did so because they had nowhere else to turn.

"Help me Frito Bandito,
I have nowhere else to turn." She said

So there it was. She had said it.
The Code of the Bandito required me to help her.
It had been this way for well over a hundred years.
These words alone.
were reason enough not to send her away.

But there was more to this one.

She was different from the rest of them...
It was as plain to see as the giant sombrero
I wore atop my head.
This woman, I thought, could be part of the solution.
And there was that something else about her which intrigued me-

something in her walk.

A kind of electrified urgency trailed her.
She carried it with her into my office.
It was enough to make the fillings in your teeth hurt.

Michele Martinez introduced herself dryly
in the manner of a politician
for whom pleasantries had become second nature.
Her white sleeved arm shot forward over my desk and she shook my
hand in the same automated manner...
Her mind it seemed, was clearly focused elsewhere.

She sat herself down in a way
I would not have believed possible.
In her signature white suit.
She took the seat from in front of my desk
spun it around,
straddled it,
rested her hands and chin on the chair back,
and grinned at me and then let out a great sigh
and said,

"They're trying to kill me"


I had known this was coming.
I had known this was coming from the moment
I had first laid eyes upon her.

She had been running from something.
And weren't they always?

From my position in the tower I could see that a line of
various new models of hybrids had begun forming below.

"Damn", she said... "I was followed"

"Does everyone know about this place?"
I wondered