Do They Know I'm Running?: A Novel Page 19

  Roque sighed. Skank, no. But he’d always found it interesting that Tía Lucha’s favorite word for being in love, agarrado, derived from the word for a fight, agarrón.—If you’re not together, I don’t get it. Why slap you around if you’re knocked up? What’s it to him?

  She shook her head in bemused disgust.—You really have no clue.

  —How can I have a clue when you won’t tell me anything?

  —You have eyes in your head.

  —Okay, fine, I’m blind. I’ve got bad habits too. Want to hear about them?

  —He owns me.

  Feeling self-conscious, Roque gazed past her out the window. The terrain was more dramatic here, steep hills, jagged rock outcroppings, small misshapen trees.

  —What do you mean, he owns you?

  —Oh for God’s sake—

  —Tell me. I mean it. I want to know.

  A cop on a motorcycle shot past them, coming over a hillcrest from the opposite direction. Off the road, a spanking-new pickup sat parked outside a windowless hovel.

  —I answered an ad for a singer, this casino in the capital? I came in, looked the place over. The lounge was packed on weekends. I thought, Wow, this could work out. I could make a name, build an audience, you know? Lonely and his chamacos, they worked security. I should have seen right there the thing was wrong. Nobody with real money, the kind of people who can change your life, none of them would come near a place where those fools hung out. Even the bigwigs in bed with the maras know better than to be seen with them. The owner of the place, he looked like he was on something, like he was sleepwalking. That should have tipped me off too.

  —Meaning what?

  —Meaning they’d taken the place away from him, Lonely and his crew. A protection racket, probably, taxing a piece each week, then little by little or all at once they just took over. Great places to launder money—casinos, nightclubs. I could feel something screwy but I wanted the job too bad. The owner, his name was Miguel, old man from Sonsonate, he was very sweet, very quiet. I thought he was being polite.

  Then Lonely says he likes my voice. The crowds dug me, man: Friday, Saturday night? It was a scene, I loved it. So yeah, Lonely, he wants to help my career. He’ll get me a recording session, burn a CD, take it around to the radio stations. He’s not always a complete shit-bag, you know—he actually says this to me. I can be half nice, he says, when there’s something in it for me. I fell for it. Then he told me the other half of the bargain. There’s a cathouse half a block away, the customers who know about it buy chips from the casino cage then take them down, so the girls have to cash out at the casino to get paid. Harder to steal that way.

  The terrain flattened out again and thirty yards beyond the next turn a sawhorse blocked the road, bearing a sign reading: PUESTO DE REGISTRO. Orange cones veered traffic to the berm, where a trio of uniformed cops waited.

  The group didn’t look too motivated. Two sat off in the grass, smoking, watching the clouds cross the sky, while the third, a bucktoothed chavo with a scraggly fade, shirttail out, waved the car on desultorily, shotgun slung from his shoulder. Dress code must be lax out here in the sticks, Roque thought as he eased past the youth and his dead eyes. If all the checkpoints are like this, he thought, we’ll be home in three days. He didn’t even need to smile.

  He drove on a ways, checking his rearview, see if the cops changed their minds.—So Lonely, this place, this brothel, in return for this recording gig—

  Lupe cackled.—Recording gig. Yeah.

  There was no way to win with this girl.—Okay, the promise of a gig, whatever. He forces you to work there. That’s how he owns you.

  She turned to stare at the scraggy hills.—Yeah. He forced me.

  Roque waited.—What are you saying?

  —I knew I’d screwed up by then, screwed up bad. I couldn’t see a way out. Except maybe, if I got careless.

  Roque was thunderstruck.—One of your johns?

  —It didn’t matter who. Not to me. Not then.

  —You could’ve gotten AIDS.

  —But I didn’t. Lucky me. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes like small black marbles.

  —Lonely found out.

  —That was the first beating, the one I got right before you showed up in La Chacra. To punish me for being such a sloppy whore. He never did figure out what I was really up to. Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t get an abortion—children are a gift from God, no matter how they are conceived—so he decided to make a lesson out of me.

  He wondered what the bruises were like where he couldn’t see.—You lost the baby.

  —Who would wish a child on me where I’m going? God saw fit to show the little one some mercy. I thank Him.

  Just what the world needs, Roque thought, a devout Catholic lounge singer.—This latest beating. What was that for?

  Lupe laughed quietly, lowering her chin.—You really are a boy sometimes.

  —Look—

  —Because he can. Because he likes it. Remind me just how fucked I am.

  Up ahead, he saw the sign, hoisted over an open roadside restaurant: CHALETE DE CHITA. He pulled into the sand parking lot and turned off the ignition but didn’t get out. A hint of rain still scented the wind but the clouds were high overhead, looking starchy and white, like dumplings. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with her courage or fault her for being so stubborn. Like I’m one to judge, he thought, or she’d listen regardless.

  —Want to know what my uncle said, just as he was heading off with El Turco? He couldn’t have it on his conscience, watching you get handed over to whoever these people are up in Agua Prieta. That’s like him. He has the biggest heart in the world, a sad heart, a strong heart, but generous too. I know, whether or not it’s your own damn fault, he will do whatever he can to help you. Now I need to ask you, are you worth it? Look me in the eye, tell me, what can you offer him back for a sacrifice like that?

  Her whole face turned to stone.—I didn’t ask for this.

  —It’s the way he is.

  —El Turco will never—

  —Forget El Turco.

  —They’ll find my mother, my brother.

  —We have a few days. Call them, tell them to go, hide, stay with somebody. Ask the priest at their church, maybe. We can find some way to get them north, join you in the States.

  —With what money?

  —Forget the money for now. We’ll—

  —Stop it! She grabbed her hair in her fists, eyes shut.—What is wrong with you? Is your uncle as much of a child as you are?

  —Call me whatever names you like. But don’t mock my uncle.

  —You think it’s only my family they’ll go after? You think they’ll leave yours alone? Not to mention you, your uncle. You think I can live with that? Assuming of course I have time to worry about such things before they kill me.

  —Know why the world’s so fucked up? Nobody fights back. They get used to their misery. Sometimes they fall in love with it. Some shitbird like Lonely starts fucking with them? They bargain. They deny. They cave. And it’s always the assholes who get the power. The greedy, the small, the paranoid. They have the say-so. You go along or you suffer. Roque was reciting almost verbatim a rum-fueled tirade he’d received one night from Lalo, after a guitar lesson. Lalo, the great believer, the artist.—Doesn’t have to be that way. You can stand up.

  —Be my guest. But not on my account.

  —You don’t need to live afraid.

  —What’s in this for you? Okay, your uncle’s got this nice-guy death wish, but what’s in it for you? You want to make me a star? You think I’m gonna like you? You think I’m gonna fuck your brains out?

  He took the keys out of the ignition, opened his door.—I’m gonna get something cold to drink while we wait. You want something, let me know.

  She reached across the car, grabbed his arm.—Stop being nice to me. Hear me? How fucking dare you. Her grip was fierce. Tears welled in her eyes.—Fuck you, understand? Don’t be nice to me. I kn
ow what you think, how you feel, what you want. I know you better than you know yourself. Stop it.

  “WHERE’D THAT THING COME FROM?”

  They were back at the old farmhouse, the one Efraim’s people lost to the county. Manure and pond scum tanged the air, the trees thick with the twiddly chirp of sparrows, the screeching caw of blue jays. Godo was supposed to teach the crew how to clear a house today, show them how it got done in the Suck, the Green Monster, the Gun Club: the Corps. What for, exactly? Never ask a question you’d rather not know the answer to.

  Vasco’s crew had a history of takeovers, restaurants a favorite, the occasional home invasion. They’d put all that aside for low risk, high return: the mover scam, the mortgage hustle, the copper rip-off, none of which paid out like before, not with the economy in a ditch. Apparently they wanted to go back to what they once knew best, just kick it up a notch. Old dogs, new tricks. I’m here to train the dogs, Godo figured. Just don’t let it go beyond that. Once Tío gets back, the family can wash its hands of these losers for good.

  Puchi and Chato played coy the whole drive out, all glances and giggles, homely sisters with a secret. Now with the trunk popped, Godo could see what the secret was: an AK-47, a real one from the looks of it, not a semi-auto knockoff or a kit model. They were surprisingly hard to find in the States, unless you wanted to pay through the nose. Everywhere else, third world especially, they were common as kickstands.

  Puchi lifted the rifle from the trunk. “Some guy, told us he worked security in Iraqistan? He sold it to us, in the parking lot at People’s Fried Chicken. You know, over in Richmond, near the Empress?”

  Godo felt like somebody’d plucked his spine. Worked security, he thought, contractors, and the black SUV throttled up to the checkpoint, honking its horn, Godo getting smack from the driver, giving it right back as the broad-shouldered muj in the flowing abaya sauntered up, Gunny Benedict stepping forward—

  Shake it off, he told himself.

  He refocused on the Kalashnikov, recalling the distinctive chug of the weapon, remembering too, hitting the deck, inhaling dirt as incoming rounds chewed up nearby concrete. You could always tell the ones coming straight at you by the crack.

  He said, “What’s the Empress?”

  Puchi sighted the weapon, aiming across to the barn. “Card room, man. San Pablo Dam off-ramp, see it from the freeway. You know the one.”

  Guess I do, Godo thought. His memory felt like chowder sometimes.

  On closer inspection he confirmed it wasn’t a jigsaw model, rigged together from a parts kit like Efraim’s M16s. The hand-guard, pistol grip, buttstock all looked authentic, even battle-scarred, virtually identical to the ones he’d seen over there. It had full auto, the true mark of illegality, with the thirty-round banana clip, a felony in California, even by mail. “You bought this in a parking lot?”

  “Man, you gotta check this place out.” Puchi settled the gunstock on his hip, striking a combat pose. “Like a fucking bazaar. Freaky how much hardware moves through that place.”

  Chato, smoke-eyed, scratched at his ear, adding, “Chicken’s for the pits, though. They do something weird with it.”

  Godo had heard that more than a hundred thousand Kalashnikovs like this one, not to mention tens of thousand of Glocks, all intended for the Iraqi police, had vanished. Poor controls, shoddy oversight, squirrelly paper trails. Some cases, the guns found their way to the mujahideen, meaning the U.S. helped arm the insurgency, the kind of story that made you want to cry, that or kill somebody. It didn’t surprise him to learn at least a few found their way back here.

  “You said the guy who sold you this worked security?”

  “That’s what he told me, yeah.”

  “He say what company he was with?”

  Puchi shrugged. “Didn’t think to ask.”

  “Harmon Stern Associates, that name ever come up?”

  Chato, back from his chicken reveries: “This thing good as what you carried?”

  Godo sighed. The kid had a Chihuahua for a brain. “What are you talking about?”

  “I hear you guys secretly wished, like, you had AKs, not M16s.” Trying to sound in the know. “Don’t jam so easy. Heavier round.”

  Godo assumed he was mimicking the guy they’d bought the gun from. “It’s not as accurate,” he said. “But yeah, you can rough them up, drag them through a swamp, pour sand down the barrel, even set the damn things on fire, they don’t get touchy like a sixteen. Had to clean my piece at least once a day over there, twice sometimes.” Back to Puchi, “How could I meet this guy, this security dude, one who sold you this thing?”

  Puchi did something with his lips, a creepy pout of a grin. “We’re supposed to meet him again tonight, talk about scoring more of these, depending on how we like this one.”

  Godo recalled Happy’s warning: Don’t get talked into anything. Did this qualify? He couldn’t help himself, he wanted to meet this character, this fella who worked security in Iraqistan. This guy who sold banned guns out of his trunk in the parking lot of a second-rate fried-chicken house.

  Goading, Chato said, “So you gonna show us how to dice the pie or what?”

  “Slice,” Godo corrected. He felt a migraine clawing at the backs of his eyes. “The phrase is ‘slice the pie.’”

  They collected the rest of the weapons from the trunk and trooped inside the empty farmhouse. Godo took possession of the AK. Glancing around until he remembered the lay of the place, he marched them down a back hall, chose a bedroom, squared himself in front of the door.

  “This spot right here? It’s called the fatal funnel. Most dangerous place in the house.” He snapped his fingers, rousting Chato from a daydream. “Stand clear till you have at least some idea what you’re up against. Use the wall as a shield.”

  He demonstrated as he spoke, flattening his back against the plaster. The migraine flared white and red behind his eyes.

  “First thing? Check does the door open in or out. That dictates how you sweep the room. This one opens in. Stand on the side closest to the knob—why?”

  Puchi and Chato just stared, breathing through their mouths. Efraim said softly, “Fatal funnel.” Godo loved the guy.

  “Specially if the room’s dark and the hallway’s lit? Do not and I mean do not lean across the doorway to reach the knob. Okay. Tuck your weapon in tight against the body. Soft-check the knob.” He lowered his voice to a hush. “Gentle. Don’t give yourself away. If it’s not locked, turn, push—don’t slam it open, that’ll just make it snap back.”

  He let the door glide back in a slow easy arc.

  Chato screwed up his face. “Why not just kick it in? Show the motherfuckers who rules.”

  Godo wanted to butt-stroke him with the AK. He turned to Efraim. “You tell him why.”

  “Fatal funnel.” It came out sounding almost philosophical.

  “And if the door’s not locked,” Godo added, “why risk getting your ass shot?”

  “Fuck you both,” Chato said. “I seen it: Check out YouTube you don’t believe me. Motherfuckers are kicking in the fucking doors.”

  Godo decided to wrap the rest up quick: Step back from the doorway to prevent getting your weapon snatched, give yourself room to fight; shoulder your piece, crab-walk in a half circle across the fatal funnel, sweeping the room in twenty-to thirty-degree angles. “Do not cross your legs as you move. You trip, you’re dead. Shuffle, fast—hey knucklehead, Chato, heads-up, this is slice the fucking pie—the longer you’re exposed in that doorway, the more likely you end up dead. Be aggressive. You see something? Shoot. Check foreground, background, ceiling, floor—fast, fast, you linger, you’re dead—then move to the next slice.”

  He had their full attention now. Repetition of the word “dead” tended to do that.

  “Okay, you’ve still got the two areas at extreme angles on either side of the door, deep back near the far corners, right? Maybe nobody’s there. Maybe there’s one guy, you don’t know which side. Maybe there’s
two, one on each side. You commit—choose one side, step into the doorway, strong-side foot forward, aim toward the space, but check back over your shoulder, boom, just a glance, tenth of a second tops. Be decisive, keep moving, that’s your advantage. You see something, pivot, drop to a knee, fire up at the guy, chest shots, head shots. If there’s two, hit the guy behind you first, then pivot back for the one in front. If you’re still alive, clear the rest of the room.”

  He guided them through stairwells next, same fundamentals, different geometry, emphasizing decisiveness, mobility, aggression. Efraim, as always, proved the model student, careful with his footwork, mindful, precise. Next to him, even Puchi looked sorry. At times the vato showed real promise, the makings of a stone killer, but at some point his concentration always broke, he played down to his audience, Chato. It became just another round of what-the-fuck to them, sharp one minute, sloppy the next, no clue how easy it was to die. Christ, you didn’t even need to be stupid. He’d seen it, men he knew, buddies, crashing through a doorway, responding to the shadow in the corner a snap too late. And yet only a sniveler could be so weak, he thought, as to convince himself there’s a smart way to die.

  ROQUE WATCHED THE THREE FIGURES EMERGE FROM THE SHADOWS of the southerly ravine. Humilde led, with Tío Faustino trudging behind with a bit of a limp. He looked thinner from a distance too, something Roque dismissed as a trick of the eye. Samir brought up the rear with an ungainly lope, clutching the soft leather bag at his hip. No zopilotes lazed overhead, waiting for someone to falter. A good sign, Roque supposed.

  Lupe was curled up in the backseat, sleeping, pretending to sleep. He remembered what she’d said, How dare you? Get used too often, he supposed, kindness begins to look like nothing more than step one in getting screwed. He wanted to feel for her. He wanted to feel clean. He wasn’t sure either was possible. Or wise.

  He glanced back at the three men laboring up the ravine. A cooling wind caught their backs, though he suspected the day would heat up soon. By early evening they’d be in Tecún Umán, the opposite end of the country, assuming the roads were clear, no problems at the checkpoints. They were to go to the Posada Rico and ask for a man named Beto. He would take care of the border crossing into Mexico and through Chiapas.