Do They Know I'm Running? Part 26

"I suppose we could get the locals to dredge around, look for a weighted body." He found himself ambivalent on the merits of finding Happy dead.

"Ask," Pitcavage said, pulling a stick of gum from his pocket, peeling away the foil.

"Sure."

"If he's alive-and halfway smart-he's in Mexico already, maybe El Salvador." He balled up the foil wrapper, dropped it discreetly, chewing noisily. "He's got connections down there, or am I wrong?"

"Of a sort, yeah."

"You see him running somewhere else?"

"No. El Salvador, because it's familiar. Mexico, because it's Mexico."

"He gets caught, tries to use his CI status to buy his way out? The lid comes off this thing and there won't be any putting it back on." Pitcavage crossed his arms, the unhappy prince. "We become the idiots who green-lighted a comical case with a bent snitch. That's something I can live without. Which reminds me: You've shut the thing down. Or Orpilla has?"

"Of course."

"But you've still got two of the relatives, the CI's father, his cousin or something, wandering around Central America somewhere."

"Along with the interpreter, the Iraqi, Palestinian, whatever. Samir Khalid Sadiq."

Pitcavage winced. "f.u.c.k me."

"They were in Guatemala last time we knew for certain. The cell phone we had a bead on went dead about a week ago."

"A week?" week?"

"Jon-"

"And your CI had what to say about that?"

"Said his cousin turned the phone off, save the battery. It's not like they're staying in Sheratons down there, 220 wall sockets everywhere they stop."

"And you believed him?"

Lattimore felt a sagging weight, pulling him down, losing the crucial inch. "At that point, I had no reason not to."

"A week. Jesus."

"Not a whole week. Four days. Maybe five."

Pitcavage pinched the bridge of his nose. Posturing. "Give me your sense of the locals."

Toeing a clump of dead gra.s.s rooted in a crack in the driveway, Lattimore said, "I haven't caught wind of any axes to grind, if that's what you mean."

"They're not going to a.s.s-f.u.c.k us in the press?"

There's a picture, Lattimore thought. "Not yet."

"Until they can't close the thing. Then they'll start pointing fingers, say one of the two still at large was a federal informant. Oh how lovely that will be."

"Like I said, I'm not sensing any agendas."

"Make sure it stays that way. Let them know, as far as cooperation's concerned, anything and everything's on the table. It's not going to be the usual one-way street. They want you to sharpen pencils, you do it. They want you to blow every drunk in the holding tank-"

Another picture. "There any chance we can get a wiretap on the aunt's phone? She may be the only point of contact between our CI and the three guys heading north for the border. That's likely our best bet for getting a bead on everybody."

"Under t.i.tle III? Not a chance." Pitcavage went to spit out his gum, caught himself; it was a crime scene, after all. He glanced down at the foil wrapper but didn't pick it up. "Prove to me her phone's being used to advance criminal activity, show me there's no other way to advance the investigation, maybe. But not if we're fishing. Locals might have better luck under state law, which returns us to the subject of making nice. Keep them happy. For your own sake if no one else's."

He clapped Lattimore on the back with staged camaraderie, then turned and strode back toward the street, signaling the ample blonde in the prim gray suit to come along. Lattimore wondered how long they'd been lovers.

He went back in, saw Dunn wrapping up with Lourdes, gestured him into the living room. He worked up a good-buddy smile. "I know somebody you're going to want to talk to."

TWO NIGHTS NOW, G.o.dO STILL HADN'T COME HOME, NO CALL, NO MESSAGE on the machine. Lucha decided to remake his bed as though that might conjure him back. The sheet felt papery crisp beneath her hands as she spread it flat, tucked it tight, that bracing smell. For a moment at least she felt something like hope, even happiness, opening a window to let in some air. What a stench that boy could have, so much worse since he came back from the war. Not just the wounds. He didn't take care of himself. She grabbed the trash basket and went around the room, collecting balled-up tissues, shredded bits of newspaper-he did this as he watched TV, like a hamster lining its cage-candy wrappers, beer cans. Next she gathered his dirty clothes into a pile, shrinking from the smell. Finding one particularly rank tennis shoe, she hunted for its mate, got down on her knees, checked beneath the bed. The shotgun and pistol were gone. She checked the nightstand, rifling open the drawer. That gun wasn't there, either, nor the pills.

Don't get worked up over nothing, she told herself, sitting on the bed. He'd talked the past few weeks about going out with a group of friends, target practice, the shooting range, showing them a proper respect for their weapons. He said it helped him get over his nerves, so noises didn't make him jump quite so much. And he had, she thought, seemed more relaxed, more focused, stronger. Then, like that-poof, gone, no word. It was like him in some sense, so thoughtless, so unpredictable. And yet she couldn't shake a bad feeling. Her dreams had been strange and violent but that had been true since they'd sent Faustino away and it had only grown worse after Roque went down to bring him back. She spent all day trying not to think of what might happen to them, only to have it float up without warning in her sleep.

Then there was Happy. He came and went, sometimes the crack of dawn, sometimes the dead of night, careful to the point of paranoia. Still, his visits were a comfort. He'd changed, grown more respectful. More like his father. He too had vanished, not a glimpse of him for days.

Her loneliness seemed heavier, harder to bear. She felt afraid.

A moment later-was it longer?-the phone rang and she tripped over her own feet, banging into the doorway, running to answer it. Gripping the receiver with both hands, she shouted into the mouthpiece, "Si. Alo?" "Si. Alo?"

"Tia Lucha?"

It was Roque. He sounded odd. Different.

-Where are you?

-Tia ...

-Tell me-where are you?

-Somewhere in Mexico. Tia- -Are you all right?

-Is Happy there?

Why would he want to speak to Pablito?-I haven't seen him for days. The same for your brother. Roque- -G.o.do's not there?

-No one is here. I am here. What's wrong? Talk to me. For the sake of G.o.d and his angels, she thought, get a grip on yourself. The line went still for a moment, just the hiss of static.-Roque?

-Tio Faustino ...

His voice trailed away. Lucha felt her stomach turn to stone. The taste of copper rose from her throat, her ulcer. As though she were suddenly standing somewhere else in the room, she heard herself say:-No.

-Tio Faustino is dead, Tia. I'm sorry.

She braced herself against the table. No ... No ...

-There were bandits on the road, hired killers, somebody. I don't know who it was. I don't know why they attacked us. We buried Tio in a cemetery here, behind a church, the priest has been very kind. I'm so sorry, Tia. I wanted to bring him home for you. I wanted ...

The hand holding the receiver drifted downward as Lucha stared at the Dia de los Muertos figurines on her display shelf, the skeletal mariachis, the unicyclist, the doctor and nurse with their patient in his bed. The truck driver. The bride and groom. Come November, she would have to choose which grave to decorate for the holiday, her sister's close to home here or Faustino's far away in Mexico.

Setting the phone down gently, she glided back to her room, unaware of her own footfalls, and pulled open the closet doors. Faustino's clothes hung there tidily, waiting for his return. One shirt in particular caught her eye, her favorite. It was long-sleeved and white with pearl b.u.t.tons, gold piping across the shoulders and at the cuffs, a cowboy shirt, but the collar had a subtle touch of embroidery along the edge, very delicate and yet manly. Faustino, with all his simplicity, his rustic manners, his ample belly, had always looked so elegant in it, so handsome. He wore it sometimes when they went out to dinner and the waitresses always smiled at him. And I would get jealous, she reminded herself, and then we would argue. She lifted the sleeve to her cheek, closed her eyes, waited. What kind of monster are you, she thought, unable to muster a single tear for your marido? marido?

A knock came hard at the trailer door and it felt like a hand plunging into her chest. The shirtsleeve dropped, she was stumbling toward the sound, saw the phone hanging by its cord where she'd dropped it. A voice called out, "Police! Open up!"

"NO OFFENSE, MIND YOU, BUT I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HONESTLY thought you could pay some clown at one end of the pipeline and think he'd get you all the way home. Those days are over, folks. Have been for a while."

His name was Rick Bergen, the resourceful American eccentric the priest had collected. Floating somewhere in his middle years, he was suntanned, well fed but not pudgy with a full head of ash-blond hair. Laugh lines creased his eyes, a handclap of a smile.

They were gathered around the dining-room table, Bergen and Lupe and Roque and Samir. Father Luis had gone off to bless a local fisherman's lancha; lancha; Dolor was mending altar linens in the sacristy. The basket of Dolor was mending altar linens in the sacristy. The basket of chapulines chapulines sat at the center of the table, back for an encore. Everyone but Bergen ignored them, though his enthusiasm was almost infectious. sat at the center of the table, back for an encore. Everyone but Bergen ignored them, though his enthusiasm was almost infectious.

"I relied on my cousin to arrange that side of things," Roque managed to say. He still felt only half there, the other half still on the phone, waiting for Tia Lucha to come back on the line.

"Your cousin misunderstood the playing field," Bergen said.

The man dressed, Roque thought, as though hoping to be invisible: simple sport shirt, tan linen slacks, no jewelry beyond a weatherproof watch. He could have vanished in any crowd of expats. When asked what it was he did, he'd replied simply that he "tried to help out here and there." At one point he let slip that he was a pilot, or had been.

Roque stared at the tiny basket of fried gra.s.shoppers as though the things might come alive. "My cousin paid the same people to come across just a few months ago." He heard his voice as though he were sitting in a different room. "It worked out okay then."

Bergen snagged a fistful of chapulines of chapulines from the basket, tumbled them like dice in his palm, popped a few in his mouth. "Your cousin got lucky." from the basket, tumbled them like dice in his palm, popped a few in his mouth. "Your cousin got lucky."

Across the table, Lupe had drifted off into her own world, unable to follow the English. When she glanced up, Roque ventured an absent smile. Pregnant, he thought as she timidly smiled back. I won't punk out like my old man, end up nothing but a question.

Samir slouched in his seat, one arm hooked across his chair back, eyeing Bergen like he was poisonous. "Okay. We are unlucky. Are you here to help or call us names?"

Bergen chafed his hands to rid them of lingering bits of insect. "I'd say that depends. I need to know a little more about who I'm dealing with. You in particular." His eyes shuttered with vaguely hostile mirth. "And don't lie to me. I've spent some time in your part of the world, not just this one. I don't fool easy."

Samir, thin-skinned as always, rose to the bait. "Let me tell you something, I have not lied to you. What have I had time to lie about? You have been blah-blah-de-blah ever since you walked in the door."

That seemed only to amuse Bergen further. "From what I hear, you proved yourself better than average with a weapon out there the other night. You held off an ambush almost single-handed."

"Not true." Samir nodded toward Roque. "I had help."

Bergen's smile lamped down a notch. "You've got a military background. You're an Iraqi Arab. You told that much to Father Luis. You either come clean with me or you can find your own f.u.c.king way to America."

Even Lupe, lost behind the language barrier, detected the change in temperature. She glanced back and forth between the two men, who were locking eyes, then turned to Roque for rea.s.surance. He offered a shrug, still feeling strangely disembodied, as though floating over the table, watching himself.

"I was in the war with Persia," Samir said finally with a flutter of his hand, as though nothing could be more matter-of-fact.

"Excuse me but I find that puzzling," Bergen said. "Palestinians normally didn't serve in the Iraqi military, even in the war with Iran."

"How do you know these things?"

"Like I said, I'm no stranger to that part of the world. Besides which, I'm a pilot. You spend a lot of time hanging around airfields, waiting for people and things-or money-to show up. Plenty of time to catch up on your reading."

Samir leaned in toward the table. "A pilot for who-the airlines? The CIA? The cartels?"

Bergen chortled, it was all grand fun. "We'll talk about me when the time comes. How did you wind up in the army?"

"When will come the time to talk about you? Why not now?"

"I'm not the one looking for a favor."

Outside, Father Luis's ancient Volkswagen puttered up the gravel drive from the coastal road. Somewhere, a dog started barking.

"So that's how it is," Samir said. "We're in need, at your mercy. You know all the promises we have had. And what we paid to get them. Until you show me you have something real to offer, not just more promises, I have nothing to say."

A faint scent of gasoline wafted in through the open window as the door to Father Luis's Volkswagen slammed shut and his footsteps crunched the gravel. Nodding that direction, Bergen said, "The padre vouches for me. Who vouches for you?"

"And what do I know of this priest?"

As though on cue, Father Luis appeared in the doorway, nodding toward his company, oblivious to what they were saying. Dusting off his gla.s.ses with a handkerchief, he looked in need of a nap and a shave. Roque wondered if Samir might not be on to something: What did they know of this man? Returning his gla.s.ses to his face, the priest blinked and smiled, then shuffled off to join Dolor in the sacristy.

"Oh what the h.e.l.l, let's move the ball down the field." Bergen made one last attack on the basket of chapulines chapulines, tipping it toward him, looking for the last few tidbits. "No, I did not fly for the airlines. I was trained in the air force, served my first tour at Ramstein which, as you may or may not know, has airlift and supply responsibilities for the Middle East. I got transferred to Davis-Monthan in Tucson just in time for the invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause-or as we called it, Operation Just Because. I bagged out of the service after my second tour and found work in Phoenix, flying businessmen around, them and whoever they wanted to impress or bribe or screw. Flew all over the Southwest, plus Cancun, Belize, Baja, down here. You meet a lot of colorful people in the air, especially in a Gulfstream. I met a few who had some seriously out-of-the-way projects, so far out in the middle of b.u.mf.u.c.k nowhere the roads were a rumor. I got work hauling in gasoline, food, clothes-and no, I didn't fly back with a hold full of dope. Never. It was a pretty decent living for a while, until the men I transacted with left for a meeting one afternoon in Colima and never came back. That happens down here, as I'm sure you can guess. I didn't care much for the men who took their place. Since then, I've been improvising."

A boy attending a small herd of goats along a path through the cornfield started tooting a recorder. Beyond him, the sky seemed triumphantly blue, streaked with bright cloud.

Samir said, "Why settle here?"

"I'd been to the area off and on, carting clients down here to the beaches or up to Oaxaca de Juarez for the art. I bought myself some property through a presta nombre presta nombre, a name lender. Foreigners can't own property within fifty clicks of the coast and I didn't want to go through a fideicomiso fideicomiso, a bank trust. Had plans to build myself the beach house of my dreams. It's a charming place. People think goats are the devil, black dogs are good luck, mescal cures diarrhea and skunk meat clears up acne.

"Anyhoo, prices started going through the roof the past few years and greed never sleeps. My presta nombre presta nombre got himself in serious need of a kidney that never materialized-don't think I didn't try to find him one-and under Mexican law his heirs inherit the property, not me. His widow and kids knew a bargain when it fell out of the sky. But I like it here, didn't feel like letting them run me off. They want to cheat me, they can look me in the eye. Not that that's a problem, mind you. The Mexican conscience knows how to adapt. Thousands of years of getting screwed will do that." got himself in serious need of a kidney that never materialized-don't think I didn't try to find him one-and under Mexican law his heirs inherit the property, not me. His widow and kids knew a bargain when it fell out of the sky. But I like it here, didn't feel like letting them run me off. They want to cheat me, they can look me in the eye. Not that that's a problem, mind you. The Mexican conscience knows how to adapt. Thousands of years of getting screwed will do that."

Outside, the boy with the recorder had mercifully wandered out of earshot with his goats, which may or may not have been devils.

"Now that's my story, or the part that's relevant. Let's get back to how you wound up in the Iraqi military."

Samir made a token snort of protest, fluttered his hands. Then he settled deeper into his chair. "I didn't want to, believe me. Saddam was just throwing bodies at the front, same as the Persians."

"All wars are lousy," Bergen offered, "but that one-"

"It was butchery. Obscene. But I came to realize there was no choice, it was enlist or else. I was studying English and Spanish at university, was beginning some cla.s.ses in Portuguese, Italian. I wanted to work in radio, maybe TV. But the Mukhabarat, they had other ideas. They came to where I was living-my first apartment, overlooking the Tigris, I had just turned twenty-and they drove me to their ministry near the Al-Wasati hospital.

I was put in an interview room on the top floor, at the end of a long hallway of cells, and they made me wait for hours, the door locked.

"Finally a captain came in and sat down. A guard stood behind him at the door. The captain had a folder and he very politely apologized for any inconvenience. He was plump and bald and wore reading gla.s.ses and I thought to myself how much he looked like one of my professors. And just as I was thinking this he asked how I enjoyed my cla.s.ses, like he could read my mind. I told him I liked them very much, I hoped to perhaps work for the foreign ministry. You know, make it look like we were on the same team.

"He asked if any foreigners had approached me, any reason at all. I said no, none. He seemed disappointed. I was afraid he didn't believe me. Then he asked that I contact him should I receive any job or research offers by noncitizens, even visiting professors. Even Arabs. I of course agreed, even though I knew what this meant. If I didn't report some contact, I would be the one under suspicion. But there was no one to report. I'd have to hand up someone innocent."

Lupe yawned-so much talk, none she could understand-then formed a cradle with her arms and laid down her head.

"I went home, tried to think of what to do. You have to understand what it was like, living under Saddam. Once you were a target there was no place to hide. At some point it came to me: Why not join the army? The war had been dragging on for eight years, Iraq fighting for a stalemate, the Persians fighting to win. Without the Americans we would have been done for. But the Kurds were mounting skirmishes in the north, the Shia in the south-this, I realized, was why the Mukhabarat had come for me. They were becoming suspicious of all outsiders in the country. If I enlisted, it's not like they'd turn me away. They were executing ordinary Iraqis who refused to serve, then making the families pay for the bullet. I realized my friend the captain might think I only joined to be a spy but I could not afford to do nothing. I had to prove my loyalty. This was the only way I could see to do that without harming someone else."