Do They Know I'm Running? Part 3

IT WAS AFTER NINE BEFORE ROQUE COULD BREAK AWAY. TiA LUCHA begged off work to spend the day searching for Tio Faustino; Roque sat by the phone in case she called. Come nightfall he put some dinner together from leftovers, made sure G.o.do got his medicine, watched a little TV with him in his room. Finally, when the first six-pack was history and G.o.do dropped off, Roque pulled on his sweatshirt, turned off the ringer on the phone, slipped out for Mariko's. He'll wake up at some point and find himself alone, Roque thought, and that could go a dozen different ways. But he's not the only one with needs.

Jogging up Mariko's block, he noticed a strange car parked out front, lights on in her living room. He waited outside for the man to leave-graying blond hair, yuppie rugged, North Face vest, Timberland boots, a mere peck on the cheek as he said goodbye-waited ten minutes longer, then walked up and rang the bell.

"You had company," he said when the door opened.

Winegla.s.ses lingered on the living room floor near the futon, one empty, the other half so. The bottle sat uncorked off to the side. Given the spa.r.s.e furnishings, the bare walls and hardwood floor, the arrangement resembled sculpture.

She stared, those dark almond eyes. "You're not going to turn jealous, are you?"

There was no smell of s.e.x. And she was dressed in a bedraggled pullover and drawstring pants, everything bulky and shapeless, not the stuff of come-hither.

"Who says I'm jealous?"

"Because it would be dreadful form, given the age difference."

He warned himself: Steady. Don't get sucked in. "You know, it's hard to keep up. One minute, I'm so d.a.m.n mature. The next, when you want to put me in my place-"

"I have friends, I have clients. Sometimes we meet here. You can't be part of that world."

Roque's chest clenched; the knot felt cold. "I said I wasn't jealous."

Mariko studied him-not without a hint of longing, he thought. "In my experience, it's always the ones who tell you they're not jealous who are."

"Maybe that says more about your experience than it does about me."

He went to kiss her. She turned her head, offering her cheek.

"It's been a long day." She crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, smothering them beneath the nubbly sweater. "I have a client consult early tomorrow."

"They took my uncle away." It was smarmy and manipulative, he realized that. But he had to get her to drop the put-upon snit she was hiding behind. He deserved better.

The almond eyes turned gla.s.sy. "What are you saying?"

"ICE. La migra La migra. They nabbed him at the port and we don't know where he is. My aunt and some of the other women from the trailer park have gone down to the federal jail in San Bruno, see if they can find anything out."

"Who's looking after your brother?"

"G.o.do's fine. He won't really need me till morning." There, he thought, that puts things plain.

"I can't let you stay."

Roque forced a smile. Can't? "I didn't ask to."

"Not in so many words."

"Not in any words."

"You're angry."

"You're talking to me like I'm a problem."

Just outside, a neighborhood cat in heat emitted that distinctive guttural howl.

"Look, I'm sorry about your uncle."

"Yeah. It's f.u.c.ked. But you can't let me stay."

"You said you didn't want to."

"I said I didn't ask."

"My G.o.d." She pushed her hands into her wild black hair. "What are we fighting about?"

"I'll go." He turned for the door.

"Roque, I don't have what it takes for this."

He glanced over his shoulder. "For what?"

"For what's happening, right now, between us."

"And what's that?"

"Stop it!"

"Stop what? I'm serious."

"This game you're playing. This thing thing that you're that you're doing." doing."

"Huh." He struck a pose. "This thing."

"If you want to talk about what happened with your uncle, we'll talk. But there's something else going on and I just don't have what it takes to deal with it right now."

"Maybe I should come back when you do."

"And what the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

She was shouting. But he'd become invested in seeing her cry. Somebody, somewhere was supposed to cry.

"I'm just saying, maybe I should come back. Tonight's, you know, not good."

The rutting cat cried out from the dark again. Mariko said, "No. Please don't."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to leave and not come back."

The cold knot in his chest dropped like a stone into his stomach. "What are you saying?"

"We both knew this couldn't go on forever."

"I didn't know that." He wondered if that was true. "The guy who left-"

"Here it comes. I knew it."

"I love you."

She brought herself up short in the middle of an unpleasant laugh. "No, you don't. You just like the way it sounds."

"Why are you insulting me?"

"I'm telling you the truth. If that's insulting-"

"The truth? Agents busted into our trailer today, looking for my cousin. They almost got into a shootout with G.o.do, I mean they were this close this close, okay? Then, way I hear it, my uncle got chased from his truck at the port, run down like a crook. He's been hauling loads there five years, suddenly he's a security risk, the fascist f.u.c.ks."

"Things are different now. You know that."

"My uncle's in a cell someplace. At least, that's the best I can hope for. But in a few weeks, maybe less, he'll be on a plane to El Salvador, not much me or my aunt or anyone else can do about it. And we kinda need Tio's cash input at the moment. Money's kinda tight."

"Maybe it's time you thought about a job."

The tone, he thought, so snide, so bogus. "Okay. You're right. I should go."

"And not come back."

"You don't mean that."

"I don't? I said it-I can't take this, okay?" A tear scrolled down her cheek. He reached out to hold her but she tore herself away. "Get out!"

"Why are you-"

"Get! Out!" Out!"

She looked around, saw the empty winegla.s.s on the floor and stooped to pick it up. c.o.c.king her arm, she readied herself to hurl it.

"Put it down." He turned and without looking back walked out the front door. She slammed it behind him but didn't turn the lock. He wondered at that, lingering on the porch. Shortly he heard it, coming from inside, not the sound of weeping, something else, something much different, a sudden thick crashing, the splintering hollow thud of earthenware smashing against wood. By the time he snuck back in, came up behind her in the long narrow hallway, she was ankle deep in clay shards, face in her hands, shoulders heaving. And then the shelves were bare, he thought, the words sounding like a line from a fairy tale.

He picked his way through the debris, noticing how the fresh-grave smell was even more p.r.o.nounced now, wrapped his arms around her, whispering her name as he nuzzled her hair. Listening to her shallow sobs, he thought: But this was what you wanted, right? Someone somewhere crying.

Hours later, when he rose from her bed to head back home, he asked himself what it meant, to bed this woman he cared for so much when she wouldn't look at him, when even during s.e.x the tears didn't stop-unable or unwilling to climax, turning away from him as he pulled out short of climax himself, burying her fist in her mouth and her face in the pillow, steeled to his presence but no longer demanding he go.

ROQUE SLOWED TO A JOG AS HE NEARED HUNTINGTON VILLAGE. Fog drifted off the wetlands, hazing the streetlamps. The screech of a blue jay answered a distant car horn.

He wondered if the agents had come back hoping to wrap up the prior day's business, s.n.a.t.c.h the few stragglers who'd eluded them-like Happy, who hadn't been seen anywhere around here since, Christ, when, two years ago? The prospect of a confrontation, ordered to show ID, forced splay-legged against the chain-link fence with its th.o.r.n.y bougainvillea, it momentarily distracted him from what had just happened with Mariko.

He'd meant to comfort her; she'd remained inconsolable. The woman who made him feel smart, capable, a lover, a man, she'd peeled back the layers of his ego to reveal a whole new level of f.u.c.kup. He felt out to lunch, dishonest, guilty. He felt eighteen.

His chest heaved from the run as he peered through the fogged-in darkness, edging toward the trailer-park entrance, checking for sedans, clean-cut cops in bulky raid jackets. The maze of trailers sat quiet and mostly dark. The air smelled of pine and sewer muck. You go back soon, he told himself, you make sure she's okay. You stay until she talks to you.

The tinny clamor of wind chimes grew louder as he neared the trailer; he saw lights up front. Tia's awake, he thought, one more thing to tweak his guilt. G.o.do would be too, of course. I'm gonna catch h.e.l.l, he thought, for leaving him alone. Okay. Fine. Unlocking the door with his key, he eased it open, stepped inside. Glancing at the breakfast nook, he stopped short.

"Close the door," Happy said.

He was sitting next to Tia Lucha at the kitchenette table, his face bearded and stern, looking like a saint from some old Dominican prayer card. The beard was new. Always lean, he seemed gaunt now, eyes bulging from their sockets like small black plums. The rest of his face composed itself into a wary, tight-lipped scowl and his body seemed coiled, ready to bolt or lash out. He wore jeans, work boots, a plaid flannel shirt. His black hair was cropped short.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you come from?"

Happy's long-fingered hands clutched a mug of Tia Lucha's Nescafe, which he raised halfway to his lips before answering. "That's a long story."

"When did you get here?"

Tia Lucha piped in:-He's been back almost a week.

Roque was stunned. "You knew?"

-Of course not. Why would I keep something like that from you if I knew?

She seemed dazed, even fearful, an effect enhanced by the day's first smears of thick white makeup, which gave her face a clownish unreality. Her glance darted between Roque and Happy, her gifted if irksome nephew, her marido marido's fugitive son.

Roque said, "I meant no offense, Tia."

She rolled her eyes. Happy downed the last of his coffee.

Roque said, "Does G.o.do know you're here?"

Happy turned in his seat to get out. "We had our chat." He rose and offered a grateful nod to Tia Lucha. To Roque, he said, "Walk with me."

"I need to check the dressing on G.o.do's leg."

Happy glanced back down the hall toward G.o.do's room. "It can wait."

OUTSIDE, THE FOG LINGERED. HAPPY HIKED UP THE COLLAR OF HIS shirt. "You forget how cold it gets here," he said, walking briskly toward the gate, hunched forward. He cast an impatient glance over his shoulder, urging Roque to keep pace.

Once they were out on the river road he turned north, one wash of headlights after the other spraying his back as the morning's first traffic made its way toward Napa. He ignored the cars or trucks as they rushed by but Roque could tell from the dock of his head as each one pa.s.sed that he was noting who was inside.

Several hundred yards on he turned off the gravel roadbed into the parking lot for a small weatherworn strip mall-a cash-only car repair, a discount mattress outlet, a combination panaderia/tienda/envio de dinero panaderia/tienda/envio de dinero. If not for the raid the day before, cl.u.s.ters of bleary men would already be gathered in the parking lot, trying to stay warm as they waited for contractors to swing by, collect them for a day's work. Happy headed for a battered Ford pickup scalloped with rust, bearing Arizona plates. Climbing behind the wheel, he said, "Get in."

As Roque closed the door behind him, Happy lit up a cigarette, the rubbery match flame hollowing his features. After shaking out the match and exhaling a long plume of smoke, he turned to stare across the pickup's cab with a strangely menacing sadness.

"Been spending your nights boning some broad twice your age. How'd that happen?"

Roque felt the blood drain from his face. "Who told you that?"