Latitude 38

by Ron Hutchison

  “A and C Tours?” Sergeant Diaz looked at Diego. “The one on Fisherman’s Wharf?”

  “Yes,” Diego nodded. He dug deep until he found a smile. It felt unnatural on his face.

  “Hate to disappoint you lovebirds, but A and C is out of business.”

  “Out of business?” Diego moaned.

  “You hard of hearing, Mr. Sanchez?” Sergeant Diaz sounded like a man spoiling for a fight.

  “No, it’s just that—”

  “Out of business.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Diego said.

  “Now…hands on your heads!” Sergeant Diaz said quite suddenly.

  “What?” Diego said, looking stunned.

  “Put your hands on your head!” Sergeant Diaz ordered. He looked at Adriana. “You, too, Mrs. Sanchez. Lock those fingers. You both know the drill.”

  “Officer, we haven’t done anything to warrant a search,” Diego argued.

  “Lock your fucking fingers on top of your fucking heads!” Sergeant Diaz shouted, a vein on his forehead bulging.

  Perhaps alerted by Sergeant Diaz’s abrasive tone of voice, the pit bull assumed an aggressive pre-attack mode. Its pink lips receding in a guttural snarl, its upper and lower canines protruded grotesquely.

  Diego looked at the dog, glanced at Adriana—her lips were quivering and her fingers were already locked atop her head—and then did as he was told.

  “It’ll be okay, Adriana,” Diego said.

  Sergeant Diaz dropped the leash onto the sidewalk and told the rust-brown pit bull to sit. He searched Adriana first, stepping behind her and patting her down. Sergeant Diaz ran his hands under her arms and down her back. He then stepped in front of Adriana with a smirk and said, “I found a Derringer inside a woman’s vagina last week. A transvestite in Dolores Park.”

  “Aren’t you the lucky one,” Adriana said. She had tried to sound unafraid, but Diego detected the growing fear in his wife’s voice.

  “She was dressed up like a man,” Sergeant Diaz said with a sick profanity. “I found that unusual because most transvestites are men dressed up like women. Do you find that unusual, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do.” Adriana glanced at Diego, her eyes pleading for help.

  Diego fought to keep his wits. There was a man waiting to take Adriana and him across the border. They were supposed to meet him at nine p.m. It was almost nine p.m. Diego could not jeopardize that meeting. He had to control his anger. He had to do whatever it took to get through their unpleasant encounter with the sick son of a bitch standing before them.

  Don’t jeopardize the meeting, Diego thought.

  “Do you have a Derringer inside your vagina, Mrs. Sanchez?” He stepped closer to her, his putrid breath on her face.

  “No,” Adriana said, turning away, a distinct sliver of fear coming through in her voice.

  “Maybe I should see for myself,” Sergeant Diaz said.

  “Officer, please!” Diego said in a loud voice. “My wife’s not well!”

  Its satanic eyes fixed on Diego, a ribbon of ghost-white slobber hanging from its pink lips, the pit bull took a step forward with a menacing growl.

  “Oh, not well. That’s too bad,” Sergeant Diaz taunted. “Perhaps she needs to see a doctor.” He turned and looked at the dog. “Sit.” The dog sat.

  “She’s seen a doctor, an oncologist,” Diego said, trying to control his seething anger.

  “An oncologist, you say?” Sergeant Diaz mocked. “She must be dying.” He looked at Adriana with a grim smile. “Are you dying, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “We’re all dying,” Adriana said with sudden resolve. “Some sooner than others.”

  Good girl, Diego cheered silently.

  “Feisty, this one,” Sergeant Diaz said, looking at Diego. “I like a feisty woman.”

  Diego wanted to turn and kick the cop between the legs. Hard. He wanted to hear the cop moan and fall to the ground. He wanted to do this—indeed, in his mind’s eye he imagined it—but managed to suppress the raging alarm that was warbling inside his head.

  Don’t jeopardize the meeting.

  But Sergeant Diaz was finished with Adriana—he’d seemingly lost interest in his perverted bullying—and he stepped over to Diego. “Off with your trench coat, Mr. Sanchez!”

  “Yes, of course,” Diego said, relieved that he was now the target of the sergeant’s harassment. He removed his coat. As he did, the small manila envelope stuffed with $80,000 spilled out of his pocket and onto the sidewalk.

  “What’s this?” Sergeant Diaz said, picking up the envelope.

  Every muscle in Diego’s body constricted.

  “Travel brochures,” Adriana blurted. Her hands were still laced on top of her head.

  “Yes, travel brochures,” Diego said. He could hear the quiver of fear in his own voice. He wondered if Sergeant Diaz had heard it as well. Anyone caught with large sums of cash these days was automatically arrested.By law, a citizen of the Republic of País Nuevo could not carry more than a thousand dollars. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle said the law was intended to reduce drug trafficking.

  “You keep travel brochures in an envelope, Mr. Sanchez?” He inspected both sides of the manila envelope. It was taped shut. “And why would you tape the envelope shut?”

  Diego fought to draw a clean breath. “Yes, uh, these brochures are from the—”

  “Officer two-fourteen?”

  The faint question had come from Sergeant Diaz’s headset inside his helmet.

  Sergeant Diaz moved the tiny microphone to one side of his mouth. “Officer two-fourteen! Copy that!”

  “Ten ninety-nine at the corner of Beach and Taylor! Officer needs assistance! Two white males involved in a possible three eleven!”

  “Ten-four. I’m on my way!”

  Fumbling for his taser baton, Sergeant Diaz picked up the leash, then turned and walked briskly down Jefferson Street.

  “Officer!” Diego called out, striding hurriedly after Sergeant Diaz. “My travel brochures!”

  Sergeant Diaz took a half-dozen strides before casting the envelope aside. It landed in a pool of dirty, curbside water. Diego quickly retrieved it.

  Sergeant Diaz vanished in the fog, his pit bull snorting and straining at the leash.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Diego groaned, walking back to where Adriana stood, the tension leaving his body.

  “That son of a bitch,” Adriana hissed. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

  “The way he talked to you….” He exhaled an angry breath.

  “I was afraid you might…I don’t know…do something crazy and we’d be arrested and miss our meeting. I was more afraid of what you might do than what he might do.”

  Diego wanted to chase down the cop, grab his revolver, shoot the dog first, then stick the barrel of the revolver up Sergeant Diaz’s ass and make him beg for his life. And then, when the begging was over, blow his anus straight up through the top of his head.

  Adriana said, “What was that business about the Criminal Justice interview?”

  “Oh, probably something about a traffic accident I had several months ago,” Diego said. “A minor one.”

  “You have to appear in person for a traffic accident?”

  “Uh-huh. You know how the government loves to waste time,” Diego said, laughing weakly. “How are you feeling? Are you…okay?”

  “I’m fine, maybe a bit shaky, but I have to tell you that this little episode has left me with some bad vibes, Diego,” Adriana said. “I think we should abandon our plan.”

  “We’re doing”—he was still so angry he could barely speak—“the right thing.” He took a deep breath.

  “Let’s go home, put the money back in our account tomorrow, and forget all about this little adventure.”

  Diego tried to compose himself.“Adriana, I am not going to watch you wither away in some hospital bed with the ward chaplain reading scripture. No way. That is a humiliating and painful death. You heard what Dr.
Chiapas said. Terminal patients are given placebos these days. Edict number something or other. The scum-sucking bastards don’t believe in wasting oxycodone or morphine or any other goddamned narcotic to ease the pain of terminal patients. It’s some secret new decree, and Dr. Chiapas told us at great risk to himself.” Diego heaved an angry sigh. “We’re doing the right thing. You should have the right to pick the time and place of a pain-free….”

  They stood looking at one another in silence.

  Finally, Diego said, “Let’s see how our meeting goes before we scratch the plan.”

  Adriana nodded faintly. “Okay.”

  They proceeded along Jefferson Street—the sound of their footfalls unnerving at this time of night and in this part of town—until they came to a long flight of stairs that led down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Once known for its delicious seafood, unique retail shops, spectacular views of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the postmodern skyscrapers, the San Francisco landmark had fallen on hard times over the past decade. It hardly resembled its glory years.

  Diego and his wife walked down the stairs to the old wharf. A neon sign off to their right read: JOEY CHIN’S CHINESE TATTOOS. It was all that lit the once-popular landmark. An elderly Asian man in a fedora was inside reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. He glanced absently at Diego and his wife as they walked past.

  Diego had visited a tattoo parlor years earlier, a few weeks after meeting Adriana. Young and impulsive and in love, he had decided to have Adriana tattooed on his arm. He arrived at the Geary Boulevard tattoo parlor full of passion. The tattoo artist had just completed the "A" when Diego sneaked a peek at the noisy device that was pricking his skin. He saw the tiny droplets of blood, immediately became lightheaded, and slumped out of his chair and onto the floor. The session came to an abrupt end, and all that remained of his daring act was the solitary letter "A" on his left arm, just below the shoulder.

  “I think we should go back,” Adriana said, squinting into the gloom that surrounded them, alarm in her voice.

  Diego was about to agree with his wife—he’d read in the Chronicle that many street freaks called the old wharf home these days and he had no desire for such a late-night encounter—when he spied the sign. “Over there.” He gestured toward a building on the other side of the boardwalk.

  Adriana peered through the haze. “Uh-huh. Yes, I see it.”

  The structure, or what was left of it, was cast in the reddish glow of Joey Chin’s neon sign. A weather-beaten sign atop the building identified it as A & C ADVENTURE TOURS. The wooden building appeared to be a few days from total decay. The gray paint was peeling and the walls were bowed.

  They walked across the boardwalk to the building, which was suspended above San Francisco Bay by a collection of massive poles. A faded sign in one corner of the window told them A & C Adventure Tours was out of business. Diego looked through the window. It was dark inside.

  He groaned. “I hate to say it, Adriana, but it appears that psychopath was right.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “What?”

  She nodded at the sign.

  Diego studied it again. At the bottom someone had written the words "Back Door" in longhand.

  “Back door?” Diego drew an anxious breath. “What does that mean?”

  Adriana shook her head. “I haven’t a clue.”

  He looked into her glassy, Z-patch eyes. “How’s my girl?”

  “The salt air feels good in my throat.”

  “But no pain?”

  She shook her head. “Not much.”

  “And your headache?”

  “Better.”

  Adriana has eight patches left, Diego thought. Perhaps in eight days they would be across the border. Perhaps in eight days they would have found a doctor, one who would offer his benevolent services to a dying woman.

  Every word of Dr. Chiapas’ bleak narrative streaked through Diego’s mind at warp drive: “Adriana, you will be laid on a table in an examination room much like this. Your doctor will hook you up to an IV and 150 milligrams of sodium thiopental will be administered. Thirty seconds later you will fall into a peaceful sleep. The doctor will then flush the intravenous line with a solution of saline. He will next administer 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant. A minute or so later your breathing will stop. The IV is again flushed, and a lethal dose of potassium chloride is administered. A minute later your heart will stop. The procedure is completely painless and will take no more than—”

  “Diego, what should we do?”

  Diego shook the painful images from his mind. He gestured at the cryptic message scrawled at the bottom of the Out of Business sign. “Let’s investigate this mysterious back door.”

  Adriana looked at him with a timid smile. “Okay, let’s.”

  Hand in hand, they followed a catwalk around the side of the dilapidated structure. At the rear of the building they came to a rusty metal door that had been left ajar. A pale shaft of light fell through the crack.

  “Wait here,” Diego said.

  “Be careful,” Adriana whispered.

  “Oh, you can bet on that,” Diego said in a jittery voice.

  Diego stepped to the door and gave it a gentle shove with his foot, the stark light from within blinding him. Standing motionless in the doorway, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the light, which radiated from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The room was small—a cracker box room with no windows. Boxes labeled Uncle Clay’s Dried Fruit were stacked in one corner. Several wooden canoe paddles—at least Diego thought they resembled canoe paddles—stood in another corner. Four aluminum snowshoes hung from one wall.

  Diego raised his hand to block the glare. He could make out the outline of several shadowy human forms on either side of the room, and the muscles in his legs tightened. Before him—seated on wooden benches attached to opposite walls—were two men and a woman. He could see them clearly now. Like bashful students at a middle-school dance, the men were seated on one side of the room, the woman on the other.

  The men were in their late twenties. Nicely dressed. Ivy League look. Metrosexuals. One of the two was an Asian in a leather hoodie. Square-jawed and boyishly handsome. The other was a light-skinned African-American in dreadlocks. He had a long red scarf wrapped stylishly around his neck.

  Diego guessed the woman to be in her fifties, probably Latino. She wore a large crucifix around her neck, which she fondled nervously. She had childbearing hips, and her lips were painted white. (It was the latest craze.)

  They stared at Diego in silence.

  “Am I in the right place?” Diego asked in an uneasy but cordial voice, directing his question to the Asian man.

  “You Arnold Cutbirth?” the man asked.

  “No, I’m Diego Sanchez. I’m looking for Cutbirth.”

  “Then you’re in the right place,” the man said. “We’re looking for him, too. Take a seat. I’m Yong. This is my friend Sam.” He gestured to the African-American man seated next to him.