Do They Know I'm Running?: A Novel Read online

  She nodded. He counted it off.

  By now the track seemed full and solid, all that was lacking was the haunting high notes, the skin-tingling wail of the bruja. The girl obliged, getting it instinctively, her voice throaty but pure. He was impressed. The only problem was, at the high end of her range, she trended flat. He tried to get her pitch to lift by echoing her notes on the guitar, a howling whisper tracking her vocal line, but either she’d never had to blend before, meaning she’d never sung harmony, or she was too scared to hear him.

  Once the track was over she glanced at him shyly, fingers twined. He bit back a grin at her girlishness and again caught himself staring at her face, the two punctuating moles on her throat. He told her how much he liked her voice, how rich the tone was, how gutty the timbre, but he wanted to run through the thing again.

  —This time, he said, visualize the notes in the air, like balloons, aim for the top, let your voice skim along the upper surface. Understand?

  She swallowed nervously. Nodded.

  He recued the track, met her eye, counted off.

  They ended up doing four more takes before she nailed it, pitch and all, at which point Roque couldn’t hold back his smile anymore, if only from relief. It had been fear after all, tightening her voice. Each time, he followed her improvisations, the same harsh keening whisper in echo, riding the sustain, occasionally jumping a fifth or an octave, then settling back in, note for note. The melody spoke of longing, heartbreak, cold regret, which brought a wistful gravitas to the cocksure gangster bullshit. It made the mareros look like men, something they’d botched ridiculously on their own.

  But the really marvelous thing was watching her face change as she sang. She winced on anything above an A, clearly still limited by the bruise and gash on her cheek, maybe other wounds he couldn’t see, but her voice turned that pain into something clean and nameless. She knew what it meant to suffer, and not just a crack across the jaw. Her face surrendered to it.

  When the last take was over, Sisco let go with an almost lovelorn sigh: “Qué vergón.” Fucking great. Chiqui’s rubbery tattooed face twisted into a garish smile. Only Lonely held back. He got up, tugged his Dickies straight, adjusted the sag. “Let’s take a break, light up a blunt. Maybe a couple more run-throughs after that.”

  Roque set the Strat back gently in its chrome stand. “I’ve come a long way. I’d like to see my uncle.”

  The room went still. Lonely offered a scornful smile. “Yeah, we’ll get to that.”

  Roque thought about the boy, the beating he had coming. “Look, you do another take, it’ll just be different, not better. Right now, it’s the best it’s gonna get. Trust me.” He knew not to come on too strong, naysay the guy with his boys right there, not to mention the girl. But he couldn’t afford to let himself get conned into wasting more time. He tried to sound obliging but not cowed. Let the sadistic prick be the good guy, he told himself, a trick perfected growing up with Godo. He picked up his knapsack, making a point not to glance toward the girl.

  “Believe me, I’ve been there when it got to be take after take, till everybody’s beat and confused and bored. Once in a while, maybe, you can make decent music that way. You’re so exhausted you’re almost dreaming your way through it. But, you know, it’s luck if that happens. As it stands? You’re gonna blow people away, no joke. Now—I know my uncle’s gonna be worried, okay?”

  THEY REACHED SUCHITOTO AT TWILIGHT. AFTER THE SQUALOR OF LA CHACRA, Roque was unprepared for the cobblestone streets, the sleepy architecture, the colonial-era buildings with their eye-slamming colors, a shock of red here, a soothing turquoise there, warm fat yellows in between. A statue of Don Quixote fashioned from scrap metal jousted with a chalk-white cathedral. Plump sirvientas in pale blue livery, their hair pinned up, cradled infants and glanced down from wrought-iron balconies.

  In the distance, Roque could see Lago de Suchitlán, the lake nestled among rolling hills bronzed by sunset. At the edge of the city they took a ferry—in truth, little more than a small tented barge—crossing to a village called San Pedro Lempa.

  Sisco drove down a street of tidy but nondescript shops and houses, past a high foundry wall of arched red brick, then turned left onto a dirt lane that curved up a wooded hill, stopping in front of a yard surrounded by a tall thorny hedge, shaded by mango trees. Beyond the passageway into the yard, the house resembled virtually every other Roque had seen, cinder-block walls, tin roof, but it seemed larger than most, almost palatial, even though the guttering light beyond the curtains suggested kerosene lamps or candle flame.

  As Roque prepared to get out, Sisco made his first remark of the trip. “In case you’re curious—the mamita? Her name’s Lupe. Girl is fucking fly, no?”

  It couldn’t be a good thing, Roque thought, knowing any more about her. He forced a shrug. “Pop the trunk, I’ll get my bag.”

  As he grabbed his knapsack Sisco sidled alongside. A flip smile played across his face, made all the more unnerving by the red glow of the taillights. “Mejor un bombón para dos,” he said, “que una mierda para uno.”

  It was the first time he’d spoken more than a word or two of Spanish: Better a candy for two than a piece of shit for one. Roque felt his mouth go dry. No matter what he responded, it would get back and that could only harm the girl. Lupe.

  “It’s not my concern,” he said finally. “I’ve got enough on my hands as is.”

  Sisco drove off in a spume of exhaust and Roque stood there, watching the taillights disappear beyond the first hill. Rewinding the whole miserable situation in his head, he wondered how badly he’d misjudged things.

  Turning back toward the fenced-in yard, he called out, “Tío?”

  The stillness didn’t feel threatening, just empty. He wondered if he hadn’t been stranded, no one around, a little revenge, courtesy of Lonely, who’d seen right through his feigned indifference for the girl. Then a rustling stirred from deep within the house. Shortly a tiny woman appeared in the doorway, Indian braids, a simple white blouse that matched her apron, a long dark skirt. She carried a flickering kerosene lamp.

  Roque had no idea what to say to her.

  Thankfully, Tío Faustino appeared, edging his way past with a murmured word, then hurrying across the packed dirt yard.

  Roque dropped his knapsack and prepared for the embrace, a fierce homesick hug, and soon he felt the trickle of dampness on his uncle’s rough cheek.

  “Roque, Roque, Roque. Mi hijo. Al fin. Estás aquí.”

  My son. Finally. You’re here.

  HAPPY SHOOK OFF THE COLD RAIN AND CHOSE A TABLE NEAR THE back, a midweek lunch crowd, banter and body heat and the raucous aromas of a Vietnamese kitchen. Almost instantly the waiter appeared—three chins, ratty sweater, Asian comb-over. Happy, picking a number at random, ordered a bowl of pho, a ginger-laced soup with noodles and grilled meat, served with mung-bean sprouts, sliced hot chilies, sprigs of fresh cilantro. What he found himself craving, though, was a cigarette. As always his stomach roiled. The diarrhea was back.

  He’d never know, he supposed, the cause, whether it was what happened in the Salvadoran prison that night or the skunky untreated water he and all the other foreign workers got for bathing and laundry in Iraq, day in, day out, seeping in through the eyes, the skin, the mouth, courtesy of a private company awarded the contract for on-base services by the Pentagon, a no-bid deal worth billions. If the latter, he could count himself lucky in some regards, all he’d lost was his appetite. He knew other men with incurable rashes, seeping abscesses, whole limbs flaring red with infection. He could conjure a bad itch just thinking about them.

  He turned the card over in his hands, obtained from Tía Lucha: Special Agent James Lattimore, Federal Bureau of Investigation. The embossing on the card felt oddly reassuring. A straight cop, according to Roque, not that the kid knew just how bent cops could get. Regardless, Happy didn’t have much choice; he couldn’t just walk in to the FBI vestibule, ask for the most honest guy they had.
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  He studied the restaurant’s clientele: government workers, library patrons, museum day-trippers, law students, tattooed punks, flaming gays, Tenderloin trannies, even a few Vietnamese. He tried to imagine who the spy might be. The freckled plump brunette two tables over, picking at her split ends and reading a paperback titled Dead-Ex? Or the buff preppy in the Men’s Wearhouse suit, thumbing away on his BlackBerry. Maybe the throwback Italian with his shameless gut and the Philly hair, racing form spread across his table as he jawed into his cell. Don’t rule out the scruffier sorts, he thought. One in particular caught his eye, a pierced waif in tasseled leathers with goth eye shadow and a stubbled head, hunched over her food like she was still in juvie, a snitch maybe, recruited, bribed, coerced by Lattimore to serve as his scout. And don’t ignore the couples, either, though by and large they seemed far too preoccupied with each other to eavesdrop on anybody else.

  Suddenly, there he was, standing in the restaurant doorway, impossible to miss, ducking a little so as not to smack his head. He made eye contact with no one and no one with him, then his gaze found the back of the room.

  Happy felt his throat clench shut, thinking: He wants, he can slip the cuffs on right here, reentry after deportation, anywhere from two to twenty years in federal stir. Everything crumbles into dust then. But he’d felt the man out, half a dozen phone calls already, letting him know who he was, reminding him of the standoff at the trailer, his cousin the crazy jarhead with the fucked-up face, all as prelude to a discussion of what he, Pablo “Happy” Orantes, had to offer.

  He recognized the type from Iraq, the square but savvy American, lanky build, steady gaze, easy gait, smile of a troop master, heart of a killer. He wore a trench coat over a sport jacket and tie, and his hair had wisps of gray at the temple. Shaking out his umbrella first, he ambled over to Happy’s table, pulled out the available chair, extended his hand.

  “Pablo? Jim Lattimore.”

  The offered palm was cold from the walk outdoors, the handshake firm and quick, the voice like whiskey. He draped his coat on the back of his chair and sat.

  “You can call me Happy.”

  An impassive smile. “Okay.” The waiter approached with a menu, Lattimore waved him off, ordering from memory, round steak and brisket, plus hot green tea. Nodding toward Happy’s soup, he said, “That’s going to get cold.”

  Happy couldn’t help himself, he chuckled—nerves, suspicion, relief—glancing down at the rainbow skim of cooling fat, then back up at the scarily smart face. “You could play yourself in a movie, know that?”

  It took a second for Lattimore to process the observation. “The opportunity’s never arisen.” He paused, leaning back in his chair as the waiter set down his tea. “That could probably be said about a lot of people. You, for instance. Not to say I pictured you perfectly from your voice on the phone, but even if you hadn’t been the only Hispanic in here, I think I would have figured you for my guy.”

  Happy’s craving for a cigarette intensified. My guy? “What you see, what you get.” Shivering from a sudden brisk chill, he glanced around for the source of the draft, found none.

  “Few people can really hide who they are. I get lied to every day, every cop does. A mask is harder to come by than most people think.”

  Okay, Happy thought. Got to that quick. “I’m not lying.”

  “I hope not.”

  In their previous phone connections, Happy had laid out the basic parameters of what he had to offer: Vasco Ramírez was ready to bankroll the movement of a terrorist into the country on behalf of Mara Salvatrucha, in exchange for sole control of a cocaine smuggling operation through the Port of Oakland. Happy had explained the involvement of his family, who he was, what baggage he brought to the table, probed a little of where Lattimore stood, what he could reciprocate, what he couldn’t, all discussed cat and mouse, no cards shown, bluff and counter-bluff.

  Strangely, Lattimore was less than thrilled with the case, at least from what Happy could tell given his reaction so far. He’d said, “You have any idea how many desks I’m going to have to clear this with?” From that and a few other remarks, Happy’d gathered that the thing was a clusterfuck of such grotesque proportion any agent in his right mind would say “Not me” and walk. But Lattimore wasn’t backing away, he was just peeling the onion. Truth be told, Happy found his reaction encouraging.

  The balding waiter showed up with Lattimore’s pho, then held out an inquiring hand toward Happy’s, wearing a vaguely offended frown.

  Happy said to Lattimore, “You want it? Take it back to the office, have it for lunch tomorrow. I dunno, whatever your hours are, maybe dinner tonight.”

  Lattimore glanced up and held Happy’s eyes with his own. He was looking for something, reading.

  Happy added, “I didn’t put anything in it.”

  Lattimore chuckled, then glanced toward the waiter, shook his head no. As the waiter carried it away—a perk for the dishwasher, maybe, or something to reheat for another customer—Lattimore unwrapped his chopsticks. “I’m going to have to 302 this meeting. Write it up, I mean. I’ll also have to log my receipt. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s just tidier, at this stage, if I don’t buy you lunch.”

  With that small admission, said with embarrassment at the pettiness of the great bureaucratic wheel ready to crush them both, Happy sensed the exact measure of his folly. He could finally calculate the full faith and credit of the damage this might do not just to him but to everyone in the family, everyone he meant to protect. It felt like the whole of his life, clutched in a stranger’s fist. It felt like the weight of the world plopped onto his back but not before it had been calculated down to the micro-ounce by faceless nobodies in a million identical cubicles buried underground in some bunker near Quantico. But what other options did he have? Every time he tried to think of another way out, whatever ideas came to bear soon drifted off like mist. Wishful thinking wouldn’t cut it. It was up to sheer will now, that and luck.

  “I trust your judgment on the paperwork,” his voice so quiet he barely heard it himself.

  Lattimore picked a strip of lean steak from his bowl. In the background, the Italian with the throwback bouffant struggled from his chair and lumbered out into the rain, no coat, racing sheet held aloft for an umbrella. “Who else knows about the terrorist angle to this thing?”

  Happy drifted back. “Vasco’s the only one I’ve mentioned it to. I don’t know who he might have talked to about it. My guess is nobody.”

  “Your cousins?”

  “There’s no connection there. Not yet.”

  Lattimore raised an eyebrow. “Yet?”

  “Vasco put down a condition for laying out the money. Godo, my cousin, he comes on board, teaches the guys a thing or two about weapons, stuff he learned in the marines.”

  Lattimore paused. “And that would be useful to him, this Vasco character, why exactly?”

  “He figures this thing goes through, the money’s real, he’s gonna need heat.”

  Lattimore trolled through his bowl for another strip of meat, fished it out, let the broth drip off, brisket this time. “What about the other cousin? The younger one.”

  “Roque?”

  “Pretty soon he’s going to find out he’s got a very interesting passenger for this trip he’s about to make.”

  “I told him about it, before I put him on the plane.”

  “Told him what, exactly?”

  “You’re right.” Happy scratched his ear. “I didn’t tell him he was a terrorist.”

  “Because …?”

  “Because he’s not. And because that would just freak Roque out.”

  “What about the people down there?”

  “They think he’s some guy I brought back from Iraq. Which is the truth, by the way.”

  “Okay, we’ll get to that. I’m just trying to feel my way through this conspiracy you’ve created, figure out the reach.”

  “Right now,” Happy said, “far as I know, just me and
Vasco. But once he gets his guys in gear, they become part of it, right? They pull jobs to make the money so things move ahead, they’re in, even if they don’t know exactly what the money’s for.”

  “Basically. Yes.”

  “Okay. It’s just—”

  “But as of now, this minute, as best you can tell me, there’s no one in El Salvador who thinks they’re doing anything but helping ship your father and some essentially harmless Arab dude up the pipeline. Have I got that right?”

  Happy felt a trickle of sweat winnow down his back. He wished he knew what the correct answer was. “Yeah. That’s right.”

  “If the guys on the Salvadoran end found that out—”

  “They’d make me pay.”

  “You sure they haven’t guessed?”

  “If they had, I’d have the bill already, believe me.”

  Somewhere in the room, someone sneezed, somebody else laughed. From the kitchen, the sudden bright sizzle of meat hitting hot oil. “Remind me,” Lattimore said, “what are we talking about here, per head.”

  “Twelve grand. Twenty-four total.”

  “They’re not making you pay for your cousin Roque too?”

  “He doesn’t need a coyote. He’s got a passport.”

  “But they’re offering protection along the way, right?”

  “Look, I let them shake me down for more, I look like a stooge. Guys like that, they think you’re over a barrel, they’ll ass fuck you just because they can.”

  The plump brunette paid her tab, down to quarters and dimes, wrapped her frayed hair in a scarf, tucked her paperback into a purse the size of a saddlebag, then got up to leave.

  “Okay,” Lattimore said. “But twelve grand per, that’s still on the high end, don’t you think? I’ve heard nine, coming all the way from El Salvador, unless you’re talking about a boat.”