Two of the policemen, in a mopping-up operation, shone their flashlights around the courtyard, among the junk and broken machinery, toward the fence, even for an instant under the platform where Mike squeezed back into the darkness. But the probe was perfunctory. They had evidently made a haul that satisfied them; they started corralling their prisoners and withdrawing. One of them called to another, then a series of brief blasts on a police whistle, finally the siren, like a hysterical laugh, screeching.
The courtyard was still. The fire from the broken kerosene lamp had totally burned away. Cautiously Mike crawled out from under the platform. The moon had come from behind the clouds. It bathed the desolation of debris with a pale serenity. Everything was etched sharply and cleanly, everything separate and visible.
But no Rafo. The boy had been arrested.
Mike had been that close, almost close enough to touch him, and the kid was gone. But there was one compensation. From having been so undiscoverable as to seem an illusion, the figment had become real, responding to a name, a tangible person. And he knew exactly where the boy was—no place more secure—in the hands of the police. All Mike had to do was come to his rescue, bail him out. What a perfect way to ingratiate himself.
He started to leave the courtyard by way of the street but realized the police had gone in the same direction. Not wanting to bump into them, he departed the way he had come, through the alley. As he got to the main street, where the shoemaker’s shop was, he heard noises to his left. Down at the end of the block, clustered around a police box, was the entire raiding party—car, motorcycle, cops, the cockfighting crowd, the whole evening’s catch.
Mike shrank back into the safety of the alleyway, wondering why the police and their prisoners were lingering on the street. A patrol wagon, that was it; they were waiting for a Black Maria to come and pick them up.
He stepped out from his hiding place. As conspicuously as possible, he sauntered out into the middle of the street. He was again the rubbernecking tourist, his camera bumping against his chest. Playing the flabby role, he went limp; his head hung slackly, his arms were sloppy noodles. As he approached the police and their prisoners he waved inanely at nobody in particular and yelled “Hi!” in an unresolved falsetto voice. “Hi!” he said again as if he were abashed at coming late to the picnic.
He knew he was doing all right when the police sergeant turned away, disgusted with a nitwit tourist.
Vacuously, “What’s the trouble, officer?” he asked, pointing vaguely to all the prisoners. The policeman he addressed spoke no English but kept using the word “camioneta” and made a sound like a motor. Even though he knew the man was referring to the patrol wagon, Mike couldn’t let it go at that; he needed time to find Rafo and in the clot of people he hadn’t yet spotted the boy. So he again addressed himself to the sergeant and this time tried the latter’s native tongue. Mike found it no chore to make his Spanish sound execrable.
“Kay passuh?” he said. “Kay passuh?”
The sergeant was not going to take time with the imbecile, even if his English was better than Mike’s Spanish. “Never to mind,” he said. “Move.”
Mike smiled doltishly and started threading his way among the prisoners, offering a greeting here, a word of cheer there, and looking for Rafo.
When the camioneta arrived he still had not laid eyes on the boy. Nor was it likely he was going to, for the sergeant was bearing down on him. Mike caught sight of one of the cocks, the bronze one, and pointed delightedly to it.
“Hey—cockfighting!” he cheered. Then in a burst of chatter, “And I had to go miss it! None of these travel agents put the exciting things on the itinerary. When there’s a cockfight and a police raid, where are we? In the museum! Hey, I thought cockfighting was legal!”
“Not in the Distrito Federal,” the sergeant said. “And not if the rooster is stolen.”
“Oh, I see—stolen, huh?” His stupidity boundless, he waved to include all the prisoners. “They all stole roosters, huh?”
The sergeant gave up all interest in him. The camioneta was waiting to be loaded with the prisoners.
Mike stood by the narrow stair of the patrol wagon, saying small farewells to the cockfighters, offering them, in English and pidgin Spanish, neither of which they understood, his best wishes, consolations and his assurances that the judge would be kind, understanding and merciful to such friendly and well-intentioned sportsmen.
But when every one of them was loaded into the camioneta, not one of them was Rafo.
He waited until the camioneta, motorcycle and police car had shrilled off, then ran full tilt in the opposite direction, through the alley and back into the plaza. As he raced into the courtyard he thought he saw something move but it might have been a trick of the moon, scudding in and out of clouds, for when he himself was still, nothing stirred, nothing was alive. Yet he felt certain the boy was still here, perhaps only a few yards away.
Mike started to search. He tried the most apparent places first, the three stalls and the crawl space where he himself had hidden. Then the junkyard, pushing the debris around, kicking wooden crates and cardboard boxes, ransacking the wrecked cars. There was no sign of the boy.
Did the kid know a way out of the courtyard other than the street and the alleyway? Or had he slipped out of the alleyway right behind Mike and stolen off in the opposite direction when Mike was approaching the patrol wagon?
He positioned himself almost in the center of the courtyard and called:
“Rafo!”
He waited briefly, then continued, “All right, kid, you can come out now. The cops have gone—it’s all clear.”
Perhaps, Mike thought with misgiving, the boy didn’t understand English after all. No, that couldn’t be. Even if he hadn’t spoken it in the first six years of his life, he’d be having a use for it now. Living chancily, hand to mouth in a city full of gringo tourists, full of suckers, English was a tool he would have kept sharp.
“Rafo!” he called again. “Listen. I’m not a policeman. I’m a Yankee. I’ve got a deal for you. Money. You can come out now.”
Silence. The boy wasn’t taking the bait. Mike said, under his breath, “Little son of a bitch.” Then momentarily losing his temper, “I know you’re here! Come out, you little bastard!”
He heard a sound behind him. He turned.
Not a boy but a gamecock. Rafo’s white rooster. It moved out from a mound of debris. It strutted nonchalantly a few steps across the courtyard. It stopped, raised its wings briefly, flapping a little pride into the air. Then with an extra show of virtuosity, it fluttered up on a cardboard box, crowed once, fluttered down again and continued its debonair promenade across the courtyard.
Slowly, Mike sidled up to the bird. It didn’t mind. Nor was it frightened. Lightning fast, Mike swooped down on it; lightning fast, the cock skittered away. Another studiedly innocent approach by Mike, again the rooster eluded him. Suddenly losing patience, Mike surrendered guile and went after the chicken with waving arms and crashing awkwardness, rushing, pouncing, lummoxing. All he got for his efforts were a couple of bad spills, a bruised hand and a skinned knee—with the cock preening on top of the cardboard box again. Abruptly Mike moved and, as the rooster flapped away, he reached, not for the animal—but for the box. He grabbed it and, hardly thinking or looking, tossed it.
“Ha!” he yelled. “Got you, chickenhead!”
The cock was under it, moving the box crazily. Mike put his foot on the carton. The movement stopped. Carefully stooping, he lifted an edge of the box from the ground and stuck his hand in. With a yelp of pain he withdrew it instantly—the rooster’s peck had drawn blood.
He studied the box. Quickly now, with a vengeance, he reached down under it and grabbed, daring the beak to dismember him. Triumph—he came out with the cock. He held it by one leg as the chicken squawked in outrage. He clutched its other leg and put t
hem together in one hand. Mike, the victor, looked down at the raucous white bird. “Shut up,” he said, without a grudge. And, good loser that it was, the bird was quiet.
Mike went back to the middle of the courtyard. As if he were in the spotlight of an arena, he paused a moment, then again called to the boy. No blandishments this time. Tough.
“All right, kid. Let’s talk business. I got your rooster. Right here—in my left hand. If you can see me you can see him. Now, if you don’t come out I’m going to reach down with my right hand and ring your chicken’s neck. So I’ll count to five. And before I hit five you better get your ass out here. Okay. One—two—three—four—”
One of the awnings moved. Out of the rigging, the boy dropped to the ground. He landed neatly. Still slightly crouched, he didn’t move. Simply waited.
Mike said nothing.
They stared at each other. The boy on the platform, the man half a courtyard away squinted in the moonlight, each trying to see what was in the other’s face. Neither stirred. The boy held the quiet; so did Mike.
Then.
“Come down,” Mike said softly.
The boy weighed it. When he did drop down off the platform, he didn’t take another step. They appraised one another again. Then, simultaneously it seemed, as if with mutual respect, the man and the boy moved toward each other. Slowly, very slowly. At last they were reasonably close—perhaps fifteen feet between them. The stopping was at Rafo’s choice—he was near enough. Deferring to him, Mike didn’t move closer.
Rafo was the first to talk. His speech was accented. Not so much Mexican-accented as gutter-accented—he spoke more crudely than he had to.
“Give him to me.” The boy pointed to the rooster.
“First we have to talk.”
“Okay—talk.”
“Not here.”
The boy was suspicious. “Where you take me?”
“Wherever you say.” Mike replied, as openly as he could. “You want some coffee?”
The boy didn’t respond immediately. He was examining. Everything. Mike thought some momentous counteroffer was about to be made.
“I want Orange Crush,” the boy said.
Mike tried not to smile. He nodded.
They left the courtyard together. Not really together. At least fifteen feet from each other, Mike still carrying the rooster, Rafo keeping his eye on it. And on the man.
* * *
• • •
It was a shabby little café, part indoors, part out. A midday comida place, it was practically deserted, for it was closing time, nearly ten at night. Mike and Rafo were seated at an outdoor table. The cock’s leg was tied by a string to a rung of Mike’s chair.
Rafo took the one last sip of his Orange Crush. He studied Mike carefully and said:
“You are making a joke, yes?”
Quietly, “No, I’m not making a joke.”
“You are really going to kidnap me?”
“Yes, I’m really going to kidnap you.”
The boy investigated the possibility. “You are loco?”
“No,” Mike said soberly, “I’m not loco.”
“Caja de mierda!” Under his breath.
“What does that mean?”
“It means this is a box of shit,” said Rafo.
He took the boy seriously. “You think so?”
He took the man seriously. “Mister, you must be stupid. Why you’re going to kidnap me? For ransom?”
“Something like ransom, yes.”
“Then you are stupid.” Rafo went on. “You think my mother is going to pay ransom for me? She hates me. If you ask her to send ransom, she will send you my clothes.”
The boy was trying to make a joke of it, but it wouldn’t do to laugh. Keep taking him seriously, Mike told himself.
“Why does she hate you?”
Rafo evaded the question. “Because my mother is crazy.” He laughed to label it another joke.
Only half a joke, Mike thought. “In what way?”
“Clean,” he answered. “She wants everything clean. Even dirt—she wants it to be clean.” The laughing had stopped. “She don’t care what I do as long as I am clean. I will never be clean enough for my mother!”
“Is that why she hates you?”
He tried to say it casually so Rafo wouldn’t feel the point of the probe.
Rafo’s temper flared, wilder than Mike expected. “Who knows? She hates me! She brings home a strange man today, another strange man tomorrow and she says I should call them all ‘father.’ I say to her how many men can I call father?—as many as you sleep with?—so she hates me. One of those bastards, I spit on him, so he hits me to teach me manners. I say to him, ‘You son of a bitch, don’t you teach me manners while you’re fucking my mother!’ So she hates me. I call her whore—in front of the whole world I call her whore—so she hates me!”
Mike was about to ask more questions but suspected the subject was no longer safe. Even kidnapping was a safer one. “So, if your mother doesn’t give a damn about you,” he said, “she won’t give me any trouble, right?”
“I will give you trouble.” He poked at himself proudly. “Me! How you think a fellow like you can kidnap a fellow like me?”
He didn’t want to make a challenging issue of it, but he wanted Rafo to know he meant it. “Just throw you in the back of the truck and drive you across the border.”
“And I am going to let you do this, yes?” Rafo asked. “I will just sit in the truck with my thumb up my ass, yes?”
“If that’s where you want it.”
“You go to hell, gringo!” It was a different kind of anger than he’d shown in speaking of his mother. This was anger as a weapon, with no hurt to himself at all, tough and punishing. “I’m going to get up now, and I’m going to walk down there, down the street. And I’m going to take my rooster with me. And if you grab me, if you touch me with one finger. I will start to scream. I will scream to everybody that the dirty gringo is trying to fuck the little Mexican boy.”
He got up. With a deft movement he yanked the string that tied the rooster. It snapped. As he started to walk off, Mike said as coolly as he could, “Walk ten feet and I’ll have you arrested.”
“What?”
“You’re wanted by the police,” Mike reminded him. “I’ll see they get you.”
It’s no good, Mike thought, the boy can’t be frightened that easily. But Rafo waited one breath too long. He was wavering.
Mike tried to say the words neutrally, without abrasion. “Sit down.”
The boy was more shaken than Mike had realized. A note of the child came back in his voice. “I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“A cockfight within the city limits,” Mike replied. “You also stole the cock.”
It gave Rafo a moment of trouble, but the shadow passed quickly. A thought occurred to him and he was no longer intimidated. He sat down. “Okay, Smart Gringo,” he said. “Here I am—you got me. Now—what the hell are you going to do with me? What good am I to you? Who is going to give you money for me? Who? Who will give you one goddamn peso for me?”
“Your father.”
Rafo’s normally sharp-witted face looked almost dull with bewilderment. “Who?”
“Your father. He’ll give a peso for you. More than a peso.”
“. . . My father?” It was beyond belief.
“Yes.”
“He send you for me?”
“Yes.”
“He tell you to kidnap me—from my mother?”
“Yes.”
“He pay you to do this?”
“Quite a lot, yes.”
“You’re a liar, gringo!” He lost his equanimity again. “My father don’t see me for five years. He don’t even ask for me. When it is my birthday he don’t spend one lousy dollar f
or a present. And him? He is going to give you a lot of money for taking me to him? You are full of shit.”
Mike let the echo of the outbreak die away. Then, making a point of his deliberateness, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his billfold.
“Let me show you something.” Slowly, carefully, he sorted through his cards and handed Rafo one of them. “My name is Mike Milo. I work for your father. Here’s my employment card.”
Rafo barely looked at it. “Who cares about that? I still don’t believe you.” But his voice wasn’t quite as certain as before.
“Let me show you something else.” Again the protracted search through the billfold, to slow things down and give the boy some self-doubting time. At last Mike found what he wanted. It was the snapshot of Rafo himself. He handed it across the table. The boy gave the photograph close attention.
“You know who that is?” Mike asked.
“Is . . . me,” Rafo said tentatively. “When I was . . . living in Texas.”
Mike said quietly, “He wants you to live there again.”
No luck. He wasn’t getting to the boy. Rafo was on the offensive again.
“Tell him to go to hell!” he said. “I don’t need him anymore. I make a few pesos, I steal a few pesos. Who needs him?”
Shrewdly Mike backed off a little. “Is that what you want me to tell him?”
“Yes!”
It’s not working, Mike thought. He’d had the witless hope that he’d get the boy’s consent to his own kidnapping. That way, it wouldn’t have been kidnapping at all, he’d simply be escorting the boy northward, across the border—just as Howard had said—to his waiting father. It would have simplified everything. But the boy was too sharp, he wasn’t taken in by Mike’s lie about his father wanting him.
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