A small black object drifted serenely over them, forty feet in the air, quiet as a ladybird. It hovered there for some time, then flitted away.
Cookie called out that it was safe to go. The group returned to the path. Soon the barbed wire all but ran out. Cookie hopped off his bike and pushed it into the bush. The group followed suit.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. Take a look at that desert, because she wants to kill you. But she’s the only chance you have. And, if you follow my instructions absolutely, you’re going to make it. Understand?’
There was a fearful murmur.
‘Now make sure these are tight on your feet.’ From his bag, he handed out squares of old carpet along with a few rolls of duct tape. ‘We need to hide our footprints.’
Cookie was the first to scurry through the gap in the barbed wire. Then the woman with her boy in her arms. Then the rest.
Keeping low, Iwata followed them into America. It was a strange sight: a small detachment of terrified and exhilarated people casting long shadows over the pale badlands. The group trekked through the cold dark, leaned forward into the bitter wind, looking down at their carpeted feet.
After a few miles Cookie held up his hand and the group halted. ‘Nobody has come for us yet so the sensors must have taken us for animals passing through. The carpet did its job.’
‘How long do we get to stop?’ someone asked.
‘Two minutes. Anyone needs the bathroom, now’s the time.’
Cookie wandered over to a towering bank of cacti. The men in the group followed him and somebody made a timid joke about bar toilets as the steam from the piss drifted up. Cookie glanced at Iwata. ‘Where you from, friend?’
‘Far away.’
‘Don’t want to tell me? Well, it’s a free country.’ Cookie’s teeth were white in the gloom. ‘Listen, the group needs a sheepdog to bring up the rear. You look like you’ve got the lungs for it. Don’t let anyone dawdle.’
Iwata nodded and gritted his teeth against a brisk wind.
‘That’s the spirit. You’ll fit right in here.’ He shook himself off and walked away.
When Iwata returned to the group, he took up the rear. Once again, the small, pathetic shuffle of feet over rocks, feet over rocks. A sad, quiet rhythm.
23. Good News
A few hours before dawn, somewhere in the dark hills of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Cookie whistled and the group groaned to a halt. He pointed to a cluster of tall mesquites and they laid out what blankets they had, using backpacks as pillows. The boy crawled into his mother’s jacket and she buttoned it over him.
‘It feels bad, Mami.’
‘I know it does, my love. Close your eyes.’
The cold wind surged around them, sounding like a coming train. At Cookie’s invitation some of the men climbed to the top of a hill. Besides Iwata, there was a cheerful Honduran named Edwin, and a Guatemalan, Diego, who hid his youth under a cap. They looked out across the desert in silence, smoking knock-off Fiestas. A bottle of mezcal was produced and three of them took trembly sips, their wet lips freezing but their bellies burning contentedly. They made hushed small talk about what their new lives would be like. When the mezcal was gone, they went back down the hill.
Iwata laid his things down and Diego settled nearby. Both men looked up at the sky, the cold stinging their eyes.
‘Where are you headed?’ the younger man asked.
‘LA.’
‘You got family waiting for you?’
‘Not really.’
‘I have a cousin in Phoenix. My mother is at home with my little brother …’ Diego lost his words now, the mezcal stirring his emotions. Iwata remained silent. When the young man spoke again, he was brighter. ‘My little asshole brother is glad I’m doing this so that I can buy him a PlayStation.’
Iwata laughed, his eyes closed.
‘I was expecting a big wall – weren’t you?’ Diego shrugged in his sleeping bag. ‘Maybe I’ll be able to get him that PlayStation after all.’
Nobody replied. The desert wind sounded like a raging sea.
A rare morning of winter sun in Chōshi. The sky is an empty blue, the ocean gabbles and chatters peacefully against the cliffs. A bell buoy can be heard in the distance, its single note clanging.
Iwata wearily climbs the stairs to his apartment, seagulls cawing above him. He hopes Cleo does not want to talk today; he needs sleep. Iwata opens the door and hangs up his keys. He’s glad they won’t have to live here much longer, in this box at the end of the world.
Iwata realizes his wife is laughing. It’s a beautiful laugh and he’s relieved to hear it; it’s been a long time. Then he sees her.
Cleo is in the kitchen, standing on tiptoes by the window, flashing her breasts to the street below. Iwata looks out of the window and sees three confused fishermen looking back up at him. ‘Cleo, what the fuck are you doing? Have you lost it?’
‘Oh, relax. I’m just bored.’
Iwata considers his wife. She is thinner. Paler. Pink around the eyes. Normally so blue, they seem glazed these days.
‘Clee, if this is about me and Hoshiko –’
‘No, it’s really not. I forgave you, you should too. Anyway, I’m in a good mood today. Why don’t you shut up and come give your wife a kiss?’
Iwata puts down his bag, which is heavy with case papers. He takes off his shoes in the genkan and pads over to Cleo. He kisses her on the lips lightly but she clamps her arms around him and pushes her tongue into his mouth. It’s been so long since he’s felt this that it’s like a new sensation.
She pulls back, her lips pursed, her eyes dreamily removed. ‘When you kiss me, I feel like I’m standing on top of a mountain.’
‘Are you sure you’re –’
Cleo lifts herself into the sink and leans back against the window sending plates clattering. She spreads her legs and pulls her knickers to one side. ‘Come on.’
‘I need to shower,’ he says.
‘I don’t care about that. I like it when you smell.’
‘I care.’ Iwata turns away and struggles out of his tie-knot. Then he flicks on the radio and begins to boil water. ‘Do you want tea?’
‘No.’ Cleo hops sourly off the sink and sits at the table. She begins to scratch her scalp. ‘How was your night?’
‘Fine.’
‘Only fine?’
‘Only fine.’ His attention is snagged by the radio.
… confirm that convicted cult leader Takashi Anzai, leader of the Children of the Black Sun, was executed this morning at 5 a.m. Masatake Kuramoto, director of Tokyo Detention House, said the condemned made no statement and rejected his last meal. Despite the unusual length of Anzai’s incarceration before his execution, Mr Kuramoto declared the hanging to be ‘a textbook application of justice’ … Sport now, and the Chiba Lotte Marines threw away the lead last night against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, going on to lose the best-of-three first stage of the Pacific League Climax Series …
‘Kosuke, if you won’t touch me, talk to me at least. I want to know how your day went. And don’t say it was fine.’
‘Now that I think of it, I do have some good news.’
‘Ohh, tell me!’
He realizes something. ‘Where’s the baby?’
Cleo’s mouth twitches. ‘Asleep.’
Iwata checks his watch. ‘It’s 11 a.m.’
‘She was tired. I put her down.’
‘At 11 a.m.?’
‘Yes, at eleven-fucking-a.m., Kosuke.’ Cleo’s face hardens for a second, then she smiles. ‘Now, come on! What’s the good news?’
He takes his techou out of his pocket and tosses it to her. She opens the leather pocketbook. ‘This doesn’t say “Assistant Inspector”.’
‘I know.’
Cleo shrieks, leaps up and embraces her husband. ‘This is amazing!’
‘We’ll be out of here soon enough.’
‘But how, you said they hated you –’
‘The new s
enior inspector? He left. Tokyo called. Morimoto asked me if I would fill in.’ Iwata extricates himself from his wife’s embrace and pours water into a cup. The aroma of the brown rice tea is soothing.
‘We should go out and celebrate.’
‘I have to work again tonight.’
‘I mean now.’ She is scratching her scalp again, violently now.
‘Now?’ He laughs. ‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, let’s drink a fucking beer. Or I know! Karaoke! We can sing our song.’
Iwata puts down the tea, an odd cold twisting through his gut.
‘Cleo, what’s going on?’
She smiles flimsily. ‘What do you mean?’
Iwata goes into the bedroom to check on Nina. She is sleeping; no sign of anything wrong with her. Iwata returns to the kitchen. ‘I come home to find you flashing strangers from the window. Then you want to have sex, even though you’re on and you hate that. Now you want to go drinking in the middle of the morning and you know I’ve worked through the night. That’s what I mean, Cleo.’
She puts her head in her hands, her fingertips wet with the oily blood from her scalp, and mumbles, ‘I can’t, Kos.’
‘You can’t what?’ Iwata sits next to her and places a gentle hand on the small of her back. Her whole body is trembling.
‘I’m having thoughts,’ she whispers.
‘What thoughts?’ Iwata does not know what this means but it terrifies him all the same.
‘Of dropping her on purpose. I can’t help it.’ Cleo peeks at Iwata through her fingers like a scared child. ‘She keeps on saying things to me.’
‘… Who?’
‘Who else? Nina.’ She looks over her shoulder with wide, manic eyes. ‘Keep your voice down; she’ll hear you.’
Iwata feels something give out in his chest. He knows there is no way back from this. ‘But Clee, Nina doesn’t speak. Her brain isn’t … You know this. I don’t understand.’
‘That’s what we thought,’ Cleo whispers into his ear. ‘But they lied to us. She does speak, she does. She says things to me when you’re not here. She knows when you’re gone.’
Iwata grasps his wife by the shoulders and embraces her, as if proximity will shake her out of it. ‘Cleo, the baby can’t speak. Nina won’t ever speak. I don’t – I don’t know what this is. Why are you saying this stuff?’
Cleo runs to the front door. ‘I can’t be here anymore!’ she wails.
Iwata catches her on the stairs. Terrified, he clamps her arms by her sides in a bear hug. ‘It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Stop now. It’s okay.’
‘She fucking speaks! She asks me to hurt her!’
Iwata puts all his weight on her to contain her.
She can only grunt now, her skin scarlet. ‘Don’t you understand? There’s something inside that child. Something wrong.’
The bell buoy clanging is like Mass. Beneath him, his wife is hyperventilating. Iwata curses himself for having ignored the signs, for telling himself she was just unhappy.
‘We’re going to get you help, Cleo. We’re going to get you help right now.’ He knows there is no we. He knows they are alone.
At 7.30 a.m. the group were on the move. Though the sun had not long risen, they were already sweating. Nobody spoke; there was only the crunch of footsteps, a sluggish ambling across a sea of baked sand, the uneven sloshing of the water jugs.
Edwin made a joke about spotting a scorpion at which nobody laughed. Later, the woman with the boy began to lag behind, their faces pale. Iwata encouraged her to keep the pace. She looked at him and nodded with a smile but did not speed up. Without saying anything, he took the boy from her and put him on his shoulders. He expected it to feel like agony but there was only a distant pain. The boy dug his little hands into Iwata’s hair to steady himself. Freed from the weight, the woman thanked Iwata and walked a little faster.
When the sun was high in the sky and the entire group was panting Cookie led them to the shade of some whitethorn acacias. The blossoms were vibrant in the sun, and all around them there were quail brush, mormon tea and mountain mahogany. The dead scrub on the scorched gold hillocks looked like horse hair. The group ate their provisions robotically, their bodies aching, their feet burning beyond sensation.
‘Hey.’ Edwin turned to Diego. ‘Why do Guatemalans laugh three times when you tell them a joke?’
Before he could reply there was a distant crackle of automatic gunfire. Three quick, short bursts, then a loud crump of an explosion.
‘What is that?’ Iwata asked.
Cookie shrugged. ‘Finish up, friends. Time to go.’
At dusk they passed a massive boulder marked with spray paint:
TO THE SONS OF BITCHES WHO WORK THIS ROUTE WITHOUT PERMISSION – WHAT IS OWED WILL BE PAID. IN BILLS OR IN MEAT, YOUR CHOICE.
Cookie said nothing as he led them past the rocks into a narrow gully. At the other end of it there was just another desert expanse. The group bowed as they exited the gully, hands on their thighs, exhausted by the relentless endlessness of it.
The little camp huddled under the freezing moon in another circle, this one smaller than the one before. The night sky was brighter than the day, an infinite arc enplumed with green blackness and rhinestone stars. Half of the group was already asleep before they had even eaten.
Iwata chewed on oatcakes, which he shared with the boy and his mother.
‘Mami,’ the boy asked, his mouth dusty with crumbs, ‘tomorrow I want to ride on the man’s shoulders again.’
‘No, Santi. It’s not up to you.’
Iwata smiled at the woman. ‘How old is he?’
She smiled down at her son. ‘Five.’
‘He’s very brave.’
‘He just doesn’t say much.’
‘I can respect that. Where’s his father?’
‘He died three years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The woman looked up at him. There were scars on her cheek, one of her teeth was missing. ‘Do you have a son?’
Iwata shook his head.
‘You’re good with kids. You should find an American lady.’
‘I’ll let you know when I meet one.’ He gestured around the empty desert and she laughed.
She wrapped Santi, who had fallen asleep in her jacket, and said goodnight.
Iwata laid down and felt the cold beneath him. He smelled apache plume and turpentine bush; he could hear the distant wailing of coyotes.
Closing his eyes, Iwata thought about Evelyn Olivera. Her cousin Adelmo Contreras. Mara Zambrano. He recalled the body hanging from the bridge. He recalled the sound of Detective Valentín’s final breath. He recalled the dazed eyes of the girl strapped to the bed. Iwata knew these things belonged to him now.
24. Scorpion
At sunrise the group were trooping through the heart of a desert too barren for a name. Despite all the precautions, some had angry sunburns, others were vomiting every few hours. Iwata was now hounding half the group not to lag behind, Santi clinging to his back.
When the early afternoon sun was at its most brutal, the group took refuge under a walnut tree. Provisions that had been intended to last five nights were running low already. Cookie went behind some ocotillo to piss, and Iwata followed.
‘They’re not doing well.’
‘Nobody does out here,’ Cookie replied.
‘How far to Tucson?’
‘We have to circle around the mountain and approach from the north. Maybe two days.’
‘They won’t make that. They need rest.’
‘They’re resting.’
‘More than five minutes. They’re exhausted.’
‘This isn’t my first rodeo, brother. The quicker we get out of the desert, the longer these people live. You want to hang around and admire the scenery, that’s up to –’
Between their heads an ocotillo stem exploded. In the empty desert the shot sounded like a space shuttle lifting off. Iwata hit the ground. Cookie fumbled out a gun f
rom his pack. There was another shot, a zipping noise and then a loud splat. He fell backwards, his forehead blooming open.
‘Everyone down!’ Iwata shouted. But the group had already bolted.
Iwata crawled behind Cookie’s body, prised the gun away and squinted into the distance. The next gunshot gave him the location. High up on a hill, two men in front of a white truck.
Iwata fired twice. The shooter took cover. Then Iwata was up and running after the group, two hundred yards ahead. ‘To the right! Get to that rock!’
Nobody was listening. The next bullet shattered the kneecap of an old man. He buckled and started screaming. Up ahead, Diego made it behind the massive bluff. Then Edwin. A final shot twanged off the rock a few inches from Iwata’s head as he rounded it and fell to the floor.
‘Where’s the woman? The boy?’ Iwata gasped.
Diego pointed back to their walnut tree. ‘They ran into the cactus field. Where’s Cookie?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Who’s shooting at us? La Familia?’
‘Doesn’t matter who,’ Edwin spat. ‘We wait him out until nightfall, then we walk away.’
‘And if he comes in the dark?’
‘I’ve got this.’ Iwata held up the gun. ‘But we can’t wait until nightfall.’
Edwin shook his head. ‘Speak for yourself. You think I’m leaving this cover?’
‘The woman and the boy are back there. The water as well.’
‘For all you know, they’re dead too. We can last until nightfall without water.’
‘And after that?’
Diego held his head in his hands. ‘Cookie had the map and the compass anyway.’
Edwin shrugged. ‘I’ll take my chances without them.’
They fell quiet and heard the groaning of the old injured man. Iwata held up the pistol. ‘Do either of you know guns?’
Diego and Edwin shook their heads.
‘Then I’ll need a runner.’
‘Forget it. I told you.’ Edwin sat down against the rock.
Diego nodded. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘No, you fire the gun. I can outrun you.’
Edwin snorted. ‘Let the kid go, man. He’s fast, I can vouch for –’
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