Do They Know I'm Running? (33 page)

“Now, I’ll take you overland to Arriaga. We’ll get off the bus a little before the checkpoints, walk around, catch the next bus.” He glanced up at Roque. “I take it you’ll drive the car. Personally, I think that’s a hassle. Perfectly safe on the bus, safer in my opinion, but you made your choice, Lonely got his piece of that too—I envy the cocksucker, man, the angles he plays—but fine, you
got a car. You realize, they catch you moving
migrantes
in it, they can take it away? Deport you and take the car to boot, fucking American passport won’t mean dick.

“Anyway, me and your uncle, the Arab and the girl, we meet up with you in Arriaga. I call my source, he tells me which routes are clear, which ones got roadblocks right now. We take the clear route, head through Oaxaca, which is the only real rough spot after Chiapas, then it’s on to Mexico City where we’ll take a rest. You’ll need it, trust me.

“From there, things are a snap till you get to the U.S. border. Checkpoints are run by the army, you can buy your way through, fifty bucks, sixty tops, assuming they don’t fall for the docs we’ve got for you.” He sat back, closed the notebook, wrapped the rubber band around it and tucked the pencil into place. “That’s something to keep in mind, okay? We got voter registration cards for you—not you,” he said to Roque, “I mean the other three, you got a passport. Big mistake, phonying up a driver’s license—how many Mexicans got a car? But they register to vote, get the shit knocked out of them by the local
jefe
they don’t. That ID’ll cure a lot of headaches, trust me. But you go ahead. You listen to what El Chusquero’s man tells you. Let me know if it doesn’t sound like crazy talk. It don’t, you wanna do it, I wash my hands of you. But don’t come back here thinking you can try us twice. This is business, not charity.” He rose from his chair, puffing out his chest. “Sunset’s a little before eight. I’ll be back at nine. If you’re here, we go. If not, good fucking luck, my friends.”

TÍO FAUSTINO STOPPED ON THE NARROW STAIR AS HE AND ROQUE
returned to the room. His face looked ashen. “You were very strong down there. You’ve changed, do you know that?”

Don’t tell me, Roque thought. You’re so proud. “I’m tired of being screwed with.”

Tío Faustino smiled wearily. “A big part of learning you can handle yourself is knowing what it feels like to get your ass kicked.”

It was too uncomfortable to fit all four of them in the room unless everybody stood, so they kept the door open and Roque sat in the hall as Tío Faustino recounted what Beto had told them. An angry fly caromed against the dingy corridor walls. The overhead light flickered. Samir unsurprisingly voted to stay with
the salvatruchos
. Lupe deferred to the group. Tío Faustino glanced over his shoulder at Roque with the same sad warmth he’d shown on the stair, at which point something crystallized.

Roque said:—
I’ll agree to stay with Beto and the
salvatruchos
only if you, Samir, agree to let us work something out with El Recio in Agua Prieta. I’ll buy Lupe’s freedom somehow, stay behind myself, whatever it takes. But I’m not going to watch her get handed over
.

Tío ventured a quixotic smile. Samir leaned forward to say something but Lupe beat him to the opening.—
It’s none of your business
.

—
I’m talking about my conscience. Whose business is it?

—
This is unfair
, she said,
you can’t
—

—
You have no idea how such things work
, Samir told Roque,
the kind of men
—

—
You’re pushing your luck
, Roque said,
know that? Don’t kid yourself, you could wind up stranded somewhere in the middle of Mexico, nothing but your thumb in the air and what’s left of your luck in that bag of yours. Wouldn’t kill you to try a little harder, be a team player
.

Samir’s gaze sank into the hollows of his eyes.—
If that’s how it is
, he said quietly,
but if this El Recio says no way, the girl stays behind, then what?

—
It’ll come down to money
.

—
Really? How can you be so
—

—
I’ll deal with it then!
Roque’s voice echoed down the bare hallway. Stupid, he thought, get it together.—
Now if we’re going
with Beto we need to get out of here. I don’t see much to gain sticking around for Chepito if all we’re going to do is say no
.

HE MADE A SHOW OF LEAVING THE OLD GUITAR IN THE LOBBY, AS
though to guarantee their return, then they ambled out as a group to the fair. Crowds still swarmed the narrow streets, providing cover as the four of them drifted farther away from the posada. Tiny Mayan women marched with woven baskets atop their heads, men carried drowsy children draped across their shoulders, the rest of the throng just bobbed and swayed in the darkening twilight. Roque glanced behind every few seconds, to see who might be following, but it was impossible to tell.

They walked in aimless circles for half an hour just in case, then headed for
the feria’s
central arcade, comprised of long low tents, where concessions served food. They ordered heaping paper plates of grilled chicken, fried yucca, black beans, papaya slices for dessert, deciding to wait until nine o’clock as innocently as possible, so if Chepito happened to find them they could say convincingly they’d simply wandered out for dinner, lost track of time.

Shortly after eight, fireworks erupted over the still-crowded river, the stuttered explosions deafening. Roque took the show as cue to venture back to the posada but before he did he sat down next to Samir, who was watching a mother several tables over feed her crippled boy.

Leaning in to whisper, Roque said, “Happy told me you saved his life. He said I could rely on you. I haven’t found that to be true, to be honest.” Samir turned his gaze from the mother and son, his eyes hypnotic in their vacancy. “You’ve been a major pain in the ass as far as I’m concerned. Did Happy get it wrong?” Overhead a rocket shrieked with a quivering tail of smoke into the pitch-black sky, paused for a breath, then detonated like a thunderclap in a green-and-white starburst. The crowd gasped
and cheered and sighed. Roque got up to leave. “Look after my uncle. Take care of the girl. Live up to what Happy said about you.”

He worked his way back through the dwindling crowd to the posada and chose a dark spot between two vendor stalls to settle in and wait for Beto. The working girls were still gathered out front, watching the last of the fireworks. Some of the roughnecks from earlier came and went as well, refreshed with beer. A quarter before nine, Chepito and his sidekick showed up, materializing from the stragglers still wandering about. The two men vanished inside—a minute passed, then two, then five. Chepito and the other man returned to the porch, the latter carrying the cheap guitar now, holding it by the neck like a club. They questioned the hookers, one of whom pointed the way Roque and the others had taken earlier, toward the river, not the fair. Good, Roque thought, go.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

He shot to his feet, spun around, knocked the hand away.

“Easy,
cabrón.”

Roque’s skin was slick with sweat. “I didn’t know who you were.”

“I get that.” Beto leaned out into the street, looking each direction. “I already rounded up your uncle and the other two.”

“How did you know where to find them?”

“You keep asking me that.”

Roque wiped his face. “We’ve decided to go with you, not El Chusquero.”

“Yeah. That’s been explained already.” Beto reached into his jeans, withdrew a box of Chiclets, shook two pieces into his palm, sharing one. “Look, I’ll get your uncle and the other two across the river, we’ll pick up a bus on the other side. You should go get your car before those two
huecos
looking for you figure that’s where you gotta end up.”

A fight broke out in the middle of the street, down the way,
near the posada. The hookers started cheering, wading into the fray, bawling out the names of the adversaries: Chepe, Zumbo.

“Get to the bridge,” Beto said. “Tell the border agent you’re heading for Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, someplace on the coast. Follow the highway all the way to Arriaga. Go to the railway station. There’s a hotel across the street. Ask for Victor. He knows you’re coming.”

ROQUE GOT HIS BEARINGS AND FOUND HIS WAY BACK TO WHERE HE’D
parked the Corolla. The lot was marked by Christmas lights draped between poles on either side of the entrance. Pausing in an alley across the street, he waited a moment, making sure only the old man and his grandsons were there, not Chepito, not his buddy, not someone else. He dug into his pocket, pulled out a hundred-quetzal note, then another—a little over twenty-five dollars total—checking them close in the dark to be sure of their denomination, wishing he could spare more. He’d already paid the parking fee up front when he’d arrived; this was for discretion. He crossed the street, dodging a weepy drunk, then two women dragging a handcart, and approached the grandfather who was sitting in a white plastic chair, fanning himself with his hat, his youngest grandson at his feet.

“Hola, viejo.”
Roque folded the money into the old man’s hand.
“Gracias por todo
.”

Hurrying toward the car beneath the ancient ceiba, he tried to reconnoiter the area without seeming too obvious, swatting away mosquitoes with one hand as he walked, digging out his keys with the other. He could feel the old man’s eyes on his back as he opened the car door, dropped behind the wheel. The engine turned over—thank God, he thought, having feared they might have taken the distributor cap—and he put the transmission in gear, flipped on the headlights, steered his way out of the lot and into the street.

Someone started pounding on the car door with a meaty fist—Chepito’s sidekick, still carrying the beat-up guitar in his other hand. He was grabbing for the handle, trying to open the door. Roque elbowed the plunger down, throwing the lock, and accelerated.

The crowds were all but gone, he could gain some actual speed, but a pair of tottering
vagabundos
, holding each other up, blocked the way twenty feet ahead. Roque blared the horn, veering to pass them on the right, hoping to squeeze between them and the sidewalk. The henchling, running alongside, cursed and kept pounding on the car window, then lifted the guitar over his head like an ax and swung it down hard, smashing it against the roof on his second try. The instrument shattered into kindling with a jangled chord, while the two drunks half lurched, half jigged out of the way, still clasping each other. Roque sped on, braking only for the corner, picking up speed again as he laid on the horn, hammering at it with his fist while he dodged the night’s last revelers frozen in the tunnel of his headlights, stony Mayan faces materializing then vanishing in the corner of his eye as he prayed he didn’t hit anyone, didn’t harm anyone, didn’t have to stop as he headed as best he could tell for the bridge into Mexico.

SHEER LUCK THE CLEANING LADY SHOWED UP TODAY, HAPPY
thought, sitting in the passenger seat of the plain white van they’d borrowed from Vasco—Puchi behind the wheel, Chato in the back—the better to blend in here, parked down the block from the house.

Happy’s DMV connection had come through with the plate trace: Charles T. Snell, an address in Crockett, half a mile up the hill from the sugar refinery. The house was the largest on the block but like most of the others along the street it looked a little shabby, stucco and brick with flaking trim, chimney mortar gapped in places, mismatched shingles from a roof patch. A general sense the heyday was over, an old company town gone bust.

They were there to scout the place out, reconnoiter, get some ideas about ways in, ways out. In the middle of that, the cleaning lady shows up. What else could she be but a gift?

She was Latina of course, who else cleaned houses in California anymore? He had to hope that would make the whole thing easier. They’d talk
la raza
, they’d talk
la familia
. They’d talk mutual interests, like making sure no one got hurt.

She’d been inside two hours and was finally done. Walking out to her car, an ancient Mazda, she dug her keys out of her purse, dropped them on the cracked pavement, scooped them up, opened the door. The engine turned over with a bark of smoke and the car shuddered away from the curb. Happy lifted his hand, signaling for Puchi to wait until she reached the stop sign.

“Easy,” he said. “She drives like an
abuela
.” A grandma.

He wished Roque would call, days since he’d heard anything. Buy a damn disposable phone, he thought, but how could he say that till the kid got one? It was like a bad joke. And Lattimore, cranking up the heat. They needed to be able to track Samir, he said, they still weren’t sure his story checked out. “I tend to get tense when the radar goes blank. I’m not alone.” Nobody knew where they were. The mighty eyes and ears of Uncle Sam, they’d gone blind, gone deaf. And all my wannabe superstar cousin had to do is lose his fucking cell.