Telephone

by Percival Everett

  “You said you’d let me know first.” He was getting angry.

  “I did, didn’t I.” I looked across the landscape. I couldn’t imagine a place more desolate. “Okay, I will. I need to run these numbers. You have to remember that all I’ll be telling you is whether there’s a possibility that there is oil down there.”

  “I get it.”

  “And if I tell you there is a possibility, you plan to look for it yourself?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then where would that leave me?”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  I left there that afternoon seeming unhappy. My armpits stank from sweating through my lies. I didn’t know what I was doing. If they figured me out, I was pretty sure they would kill me. The image of those women in the warehouse was stuck in my head.

  I drove back to my motel room, called home, watched CNN, and took a hot bath in the insanely small tub.

  In the notebook I left in the wash on the compound:

  Regarding previous ventures in the area: Section A is primarily a dip slope of the Sierra Blanca–Jicarilla Mountains. It is not as structurally deformed as the other two test sites. It consists of eleven of the twenty test drillings that were performed in the considered area. Six of the tests in Section A are spread in an east-west orientation to allow reasonable deductions about the area.

  Four tests penetrated igneous rocks in the Permian sedimentary rocks. Also, four of ten tests penetrated probable Precambrian rocks, indicating the sedimentary stratum is at least 1,500 feet thick and at maximum 2,425 feet.

  From surface observations of the early unproductive sites compared to my observations of two of the sites I have examined, it is my belief that one of them is likely to yield. Though the sniffer offered nothing promising, I am deeply impressed by the microfossils uncovered by modest digging.

  I lay back in the tub and imagined Jeff and his cohort reading that page. I resolved that I would not return there the next day.

  But I did drive to Bingham for breakfast. I wanted to talk to DeLois. She was pleased to see me. It was early, and she sat in the booth across from me.

  “I was afraid you would come back,” she said.

  “Takes more than a couple of neo-Nazis to scare me away.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “They scare me plenty.”

  “What do you know about them?” I asked.

  “They were here when I got here. That was five years ago. There’s a bunch of them. I think they live together, but I don’t know. They must work in one of the quarries or mines. There ain’t no other jobs worth having.”

  “How did you end up here?” I asked, hoping that it didn’t sound like a judgment. If she did hear it that way, she didn’t let on.

  “A man.”

  I nodded.

  “I grew up in Socorro. My father was military and for some reason figured this would be a good place to retire.”

  “And the man?”

  “Him? Jackass. He was fifteen years older than me. He was a manager at one of the gold mines. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Even the assholes who owned the mine were poor. Anyway, it was the same old story. He went to buy a goddamn pack of cigarettes and never came back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  DeLois laughed. “No biggie. It took me four months before I realized he was missing.”

  “And this bunch of guys?”

  “Why are you so interested in them?”

  I shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “I figure they’re survivalists or some shit. They often have guns in the racks, but that’s not so strange around here. Ain’t nothing to hunt though. Weird thing. They got these girls that they drive by in a bus, an old school bus, maybe once a week. Off to Socorro or San Antonio, I’m guessing. They never bring them in here.”

  “The county cops ever check them out?”

  “A trooper rolls through here once in a while. Nobody cares what anybody does out here. Tell the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got themselves a meth lab up in the hills someplace. What about you?”

  “I don’t have a meth lab,” I said.

  She laughed. “What are you doing here? There’s no oil around here.”

  “There might be.”

  She gave me a look. “Do you have a family?”

  “A wife.”

  “No kids?”

  “A daughter. I used to have a daughter.” I said it not only because I didn’t want to talk about Sarah but also because I was trying to adapt to a world without her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What about you? Kids?”

  “Thank God I didn’t have any with that bastard. Too late now.” She looked at me for a while without talking. “You be safe.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but you be careful. Those boys are bad news. They scare me to death, and they ought to scare you too.”

  “Oh, they do. I’ll be careful, DeLois.”

  a pocketknife, a tarp, a map, a compass, a shovel, a canteen

  I had told an unknown person in a strange roadside diner that I would take care of myself, and it struck me, quite heavily, that I had not shown the same courtesy to my patient wife. I had left Meg to deal and cope with the saddest of all possible situations, and I would have been hard pressed—no, simply unable—to tell her why. I did not know why myself, and yet I did, quite obviously. I wished that all that I was involving myself in was merely a game, and I double wished that my daughter was again herself and playing the game with me, plotting moves as one would on a giant sixty-four square board. I considered my love for Sarah, and it brought me to consider my love for my wife. Life, and especially recent life, had pressed a wedge between us. I still felt my love for her, and at this significant distance, coming to terms, as I was, with the loss of our child, I refused to resign to the belief our love was lost. I would later write her a long and gentle, explaining letter. Dark ink on white paper. Ink on folded paper was always better than an email, perhaps better than a voice on a phone or in person. The scratching of strange symbols on leaves, marks that could be just as easily meaningless as much as they could offer meaning, like the mysterious microfossils that I had touted as geologic clues to deep and covered history and future fortune.

  May was about to turn into June. The middays became hotter, but mornings and evenings remained bearable, even cool when the clouds rolled in to deliver thunderstorms. That was usually in the afternoon, but a day of solid rain kept me close to my motel room one day. My only excursion out was to the little grocery market a mile and a half down the freeway. I went there for bread, cold cuts, fruit, and any kind of cookie. As I pulled off the exit and glanced at the small parking lot, I saw a school bus. There was a man leaning against the bus, looking like he was waiting, on his cell phone having a not terribly animated conversation. He might have been one of the men I had seen at the compound. I parked and he paid made me no attention. Inside the store I walked through the produce section. I did recognize a man from the compound, a skinny fellow who had been by the door of the house. I walked past him. He might have noticed me, but if he did, he didn’t care. He was busy watching several women who were shopping. They were brown skinned and would have blended into the environment had they all not been dressed in polo shirts and khaki pants. I walked to the far side of the store and browsed the cheese section. I was very near two of the women.

  In a soft voice, I said, “Estoy aquí para ayudar.”

  They looked at me and hurried themselves along.

  I approached another couple of the women. I felt like a sex offender in training. The skinny man couldn’t see me now, and I said the words again.

  One of the women turned and stared at me. She was frightened.

  “Lo siento,” I said.

  She said nothing still, but she also did not run away. She looked up the aisle toward the front of the store, then back at me.

  I took the first note from my pocket, held it on my open palm for her
to see. “Did you send me this?” I asked.

  She looked like she might scream. I held my hand away from me to calm her. I turned to leave, not wanting to scare her any more than I had.

  “Espera,” she whispered.

  I turned back to face her. That was when the skinny man’s voice scratched down the aisle. “Hey, hurry it up, chicas.” The way he said chicas made the word sound harsh and insulting.

  “Rosalita Gonzalez,” she said softly, then, “Ciudad Juárez.”

  “Come on,” the skinny man shouted.

  The woman turned immediately and moved toward the checkout. The woman with her whispered something I could not hear, but the women to whom I had spoken shushed her quite clearly. I hurried through my shopping with hope of falling into line at the register behind her. When I got there, however, they were through and being herded onto the bus.

  I watched them drive away as I paid for my food.

  “Fifteen fifty-three,” the cashier said.

  I gave him a twenty. “That was an odd sight,” I said.

  “What?”

  “All those women dressed like that.”

  He shrugged, handed me the bills, and the coin change slid out of a machine next to me. “They come in here every Sunday. Some kind of religious group, I guess.”

  “The men with them look pretty rough,” I said.

  “I guess,” the man said. I looked at his tattoos, and it occurred to me that he didn’t look so different from the compound men.

  “I just meant they didn’t look like churchgoers.”

  He stared at me rather blankly. He might have nodded. Regardless, I was left feeling awkward and anxious.

  I made my way north to the state police station at the southern edge on Socorro. It was on a frontage road along the freeway and looked very much like a hardware store. The office was manned by two officers, both white, both alarmingly similar in affect to Jeff and Roger.

  “What can we do you for?” the mustachioed one asked me. He was seated, but he was very wide.

  “I’m not certain,” I said. I was afraid to speak, not because I feared they were involved or sympathetic to the Nazis I had met, but because my story simply sounded so crazy. The notes hidden in clothes ordered on eBay, a paleontologist masquerading as a petroleum geologist camped out and spying on their neighbors to expose their slavery ring. Being here was a bad idea. My silence attracted the attention of the second cop.

  “Sir?”

  “I was wondering how long it will take to get to El Paso from here.”

  They exchanged glances.

  The mustache said, “About three hours.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Sir, what’s your name?”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Excuse me.” The mustache stayed after me. “Maybe I should just write down your name.”

  “No, thanks.” I walked out. I was certain one or both were watching me.

  The mustache followed me out of the building and watched as I got into my car. I didn’t like his posture, the way he seemed to lean toward me. I didn’t like his voice. He scared me, and I didn’t like that.

  Halfway to my car, the sky opened completely and drenched me. I sat behind the wheel and listened to the rain pounding on the roof. “Ciudad Juárez” she had said in the market. What was she trying to tell me? I knew that the town was just across the border from El Paso, and I knew now that it was just a three-hour drive down the interstate. Without knowing what I was looking for, I headed south.

  a pocketknife, a tarp, a map, a compass, a shovel, a canteen, a poncho

  I drove across the bridge into Mexico, from a slightly large American town to a large Mexican city. I pulled off to the side of the road and sat. I always felt, or at least imagined that I felt, some kind of sensation when I was on foreign soil, perhaps a kind of exhilaration, maybe the promise of something novel. I could not deny that I felt that as I sat there, but it was short lived. Rosalita Gonzalez. How many women named Rosalita Gonzalez must there have been in Mexico, in Ciudad Juárez? I had no idea what I was looking for or even why. Hell, I didn’t even know what I had been doing in New Mexico for the past almost two weeks. I knew that I was being a coward by staying away from my home.

  A cop pulled up behind me, got out, and approached my window. “Hello, señor,” he said. “Do you need some help?” he asked in fair English.

  “No, officer. I’m just thinking.”

  “I’m afraid you will have to think somewhere else. This is a high-traffic area. You are a traffic hazard here.”

  “Can you tell me how to get to the police station?” I asked.

  “Do you have a problem?”

  “No, I just need the police station.”

  “Do you want the city police, the state police, or the federales?”

  I had not thought the matter through. “The federales, I guess.”

  He gave me directions. It was not close. “Park in a lot,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “If you park on the street for too long, a cop very much like me will take the license plate off your car.”

  I looked at him.

  “Americans like to ignore parking tickets and just drive home.”

  “Parking lot. Thanks.”

  “Are you okay, señor?”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  I drove the route suggested to me, my country to my left, within sight almost all the way, until the road veered right and away from the Rio Grande. Another left turn and I was at the headquarters of the federal police. I took the advice given and paid a quarter to park in a lot. The building was not nondescript, but there was nothing distinguishing about it and hardly worth describing. Inside there was less of a bustle than I had expected. There was no counter but a desk behind which sat a small woman in street clothes.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked in English.

  I felt strangely insulted that I was so clearly American. “I’d like to speak to someone about a missing person,” I said.

  She looked at me suspiciously, picked up a pen. “Who is the missing person? And where did you lose her?”

  “I didn’t lose anybody,” I said.

  She questioned me without speaking.

  “I think I found someone.” I looked beyond her at a wide flight of stairs. The uniformed men walking by paid me no attention at all, conspicuously so. “Who should I talk to about that, about having found someone? I’m not certain that she’s missing, but I think she is. Could I just talk to someone?” I was talking too much, and I could tell that my English was becoming difficult for her to track.

  “Have a seat over there, please,” she said in a rehearsed way. She pointed at several wooden chairs lined against a wall. No one else was seated. “I will see if I can find you someone.”

  In short order I was joined in the line of chairs by two men, who seemed to be together, and a woman with a young child, a boy or a girl, I couldn’t tell. After a good thirty, perhaps forty minutes, I was about to revisit the woman at the desk when a tall, angular man made eye contact with me as he descended the stairs. He wore a dark blue shirt with a large six-pointed star sewn over his heart. I noticed that his black boots were extremely shiny at the bottom of his dark blue trousers. I stood as he approached.

  “I am Lieutenant Deocampo.”

  “Zach Wells.” I shook his hand.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “I was told you believe you have found someone. May I ask what you mean by that?” He looked at his watch.

  “Is there someplace we can sit down?”

  He didn’t sigh, but he might as well have. “Come with me.”

  I followed him up the stairs and along a busy corridor to a small rectangular room that was not his office. It might have been an interrogation room, but it seemed somehow too friendly, and there was a window.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Wells.”

  I did, looked thro
ugh the window at the clear sky.

  Deocampo sat beside me. “Yes, Mr. Wells?”

  “I understand that a lot of women have disappeared here.”

  “This is true. It is a sad reality.”

  “I met a woman the other day. She said her name was Rosalita Gonzalez. I suppose that is a very common name.”

  “Very common.”

  “I have this notion that she might be missing.”

  “Why do you think that?” he asked.

  “I met this woman in a store in New Mexico. She told me her name and mentioned Ciudad Juárez.”

  “That is hardly a reason to think she is missing.”

  “I believe she is being held against her will.”

  “You met her in a market?”

  “She was being watched.”

  “I see. Why didn’t you go to the police in New Mexico? I am a policeman in Mexico. I have no power in the United States.”

  “Of course.” I felt stupid. I had no idea why I was sitting in that room with him. I blew out a breath and pressed on. “Perhaps you can tell me if there is a Rosalita Gonzalez who has been reported missing.”

  Deocampo stared at me for a long few seconds. He walked across the room to a small table on which sat a very old computer. He worked there for a few minutes, then stopped and studied the screen silently.

  “Rosalita Gonzalez was reported missing three years ago. She was twenty-three at the time.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do you know how many Rosalita Gonzalezes there are in Mexico and the United States?”

  “A lot,” I said.

  “How old was this woman?” Deocampo asked.

  “It was hard to tell,” I said. “She could have been twenty-one or forty.”

  “I am a policeman in Mexico, Mr. Wells.”

  “I know.”

  “Three hundred and six,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Three hundred and six. That’s how many women have been killed or gone missing, most of them killed.”

  I nodded.

  “I cannot help you. Go home.”

  a pocketknife, a tarp, a map, a compass, a shovel, a canteen, a poncho, a trail

  I wanted to go home, in fact. But I told him, “I need to know. This person asked me to help her.”