“All the ones I need to cover.”
“Why was your father hiding under a Mexican passport?”
“I don’t know. He was paranoid. I guess he thought the DGI was going to kill him, which is just crazy—a million Cubans have defected and the DGI is going to go after him?”
But then those doubts again. The gun. Karen’s escape plan.
I hesitate and continue almost to myself, “Shit, Paco, maybe he wasn’t so paranoid, maybe they did come after him.”
“What do you mean by that?”
We stop at a traffic light. Paco repeats his question. The light goes green, snapping me out of it.
“Oh, I was just rambling, I don’t mean anything. The important thing is I’ve got what I need to go on.”
Paco nods again. “Well,” he says finally, “if you’re happy with what you’ve got then I’m happy.”
“It doesn’t matter two fucks whether you’re happy or not, Francisco,” I say with irritation. Stupid kid. I should never have told him anything, should never have brought him in.
We hit Pearl Street.
Everything’s closed, but the big plate-glass windows are still illuminated. I read off the names for the last time. Versace. Donna Karan. Armani. Ralph Lauren. Hermès. Harry Winston. De Beers. Starbucks. Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Another Starbucks. The mystery bookstore. The hand-woven yoga mat shop. The Tibetan shop. The organic food store. Power Yoga. Mystic Yoga. Dance Yoga. Namaste Yoga. The BMW dealership, the Mercedes dealership.
Not a cop anywhere. None necessary. No crime. Briggs runs a tight ship.
We drive through the last stoplight and finally get on the road to Malibu Mountain.
Paco slows at Jack Tyrone’s house and stops outside the ranch-style house next door. The lights are off. Youkilis is asleep.
“You’re sure about this?” Paco asks, his voice descending half an octave, an attempt to sound more mature. A punk kid, yes, and yet there’s something about him that isn’t young. “You know about the alarm systems and guard dogs and that kind of thing?” he says in a flat voice that has no hint of condescension about it, but still, it’s annoying. He’s second-guessing me. Hinting again that this is a man’s job.
“I’ve been in the house three times. I’ve scouted the alarms. I know where they are. I’ve got the fucking code. I know what I’m doing,” I say firmly.
“You think you know,” he says in an undertone.
“Thank you for driving me, but I want you to go now, Paco. I’ve prepped as best as I can. If it fucks up it’s my fault and I don’t want you or anyone else involved.”
“I don’t mind,” he says.
“Yeah, but I do.”
I unclick the seatbelt and grab the backpack. I put my hand on his leg. “Paco, when I get out of the car, I want you to drive back to the motel and go to bed. I don’t want you driving up and down this road haunting me. I want you out of the picture. I need this, Paco, I need you to promise me that you’ll do that.”
He shakes his head in the dark. “If that’s what you want . . .”
“It is what I want. This belongs to me.”
He hesitates. “Will you at least tell me your plan?” he asks reasonably.
“No. I don’t want you following me.”
Paco sighs, rubs his chin. “You don’t want any help from me at all?”
“It’s not like that. You would be a terrific help. But this is about me. Me and Ricky and Mom. That’s why I’m here. To get some of the answers, to get some part of the truth.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to sleep.”
“Try.”
“Tell me when you’re going to be back.”
“I, I don’t know. I suppose I’ll be back before noon.”
“And if you’re not?”
“It means I’m in jail or dead.”
“Mother of God,” he mutters.
“If they do arrest me or kill me, they might come to the motel asking questions.”
“Don’t worry about me, María. Worry about yourself.”
“I do. I don’t want you dragged down in the wreckage of my sinking ship.”
“Jesus, look at you. You’re shaking,” he says, taking my hand.
“I’m all right.”
“Do you need a better coat?”
“No, this thing is really thick, there’s a layer of fleece and a layer of something else.”
“Let me come with you. You don’t know what you’re doing. I was with the guapo army in the jungle when I was eleven.”
“This isn’t like that. This requires finesse.”
He bites his lip and we sit there holding hands like children.
“I’m going to go,” I say, my voice barely above a croak.
He leans across the seat and kisses me. “You’ll need these,” he says, and gives me his Mexican cigarettes.
“Hey, and for sugar, this.”
An orange.
I get out of the Range Rover, shoulder my heavy backpack, and close the door. He turns on the engine and drives back down the mountain.
I wait until the Range Rover’s lights are gone before I pull on the ski mask.
I look at my hands. He was right. They are shaking.
And now I feel utterly alone.
Scared.
Maybe I could do it tomorrow.
No. Tomorrow I have to leave for Mexico and I have to be in Havana the day after that, otherwise Hector and Ricky and Mom will all get taken.
“Ok,” I whisper to myself.
I walk to the rusting metal box next to Youkilis’s gate.
I key in the code.
The gate swings open.
I step inside and stand there.
After half a minute the gate closes behind me.
I might as well go on. It’s like launching a raft into the Gulf Stream: once the current takes you there’s no going back.
Snow is still falling. Lighter now. Little diamonds on my jacket and padded black sweater.
I scope the place. No lights. No sound.
I walk over the gravel drive to the path.
Clouds drifting across the half-moon. The night holding her breath.
I fumble in my pocket and touch the key.
I look over the wall at Jack’s house. The house is dead but he might still be awake watching the tube in the master bedroom.
I wonder how his party went at the Cruises.
How will you take it if I have to kill your buddy?
I walk down the zinc-colored footpath, making footprints in the snow.
If it all goes to shit those footprints will be useful to the cops.
I reach the front door and take the maid’s key out of my pocket.
Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
I put the key in the lock, turn it, and push. The door opens.
I now have thirty seconds to put the correct code into the alarm box. I walk in, flip open the box, and key in 9999—the default. The red light flashes green.
Big breath.
I close the front door.
I take the backpack from my shoulders, unzip it, and remove the flashlight and the gun. Reshoulder it, walk upstairs. Nineteen steps on the curve. Second door on the left. This is the time for surprises. A houseguest. A new dog. A whore from Denver. An old girlfriend who’s driven up from Vail. Jack, feeling lonely, staying over.
I wait for something. Anything. The tension is bending my back like a coconut palm.
Nothing. Yet. Stand there at the top of the stairs.
The carpet I’ve cleaned and cleaned. An ancient Greek drinking vessel. A poster from the motorcycle show at the Guggenheim.
Autographed pictures. Friends of Jack, friends of Peter. Famous friends only. Clooney, Affleck, Pitt, and the neighbors, Cruise and Tambor.
The master bedroom.
The handle.
Bladder feels full. A noise. Look behind me—nothing.
Ski mask restricting my field of vision, making me claustrophobic, jumpy.
Pressure on the handle.
The door opens.
I go in.
The TV’s on, bathing the room in a zigzaggy blue light. Gun up. Flashlight off. Fumbling, I drop the flashlight and it crashes to the floor with a thud. Down on one knee, raise the gun. Wait . . . Nothing.
Stand again. Check the corners. Go in.
Youkilis lying there on top of the bed, naked, asleep. The TV playing images on his belly.
I walk to the bed. Look at him. Deep gone. Drug sleep. Scan the room. No one else.
Back to the TV. Perfect if he’d been watching child pornography or a snuff movie or something bourgeois and decadent, but it’s not, it’s just the Discovery Channel. A show about blue whales.
I turn it off.
He doesn’t stir. He’s sleeping, spread-eagled with a grin on his face. A ten-milligram tab of Ambien and a glass of hundred-year-old cognac must be the recipe for bliss. What if he’d taken the whole packet of sleeping pills? That would let me off the hook. Wouldn’t it, Dad? Wouldn’t it, Ricky?
I roll up my sleeve and look at my watch. 1:30.
Where did the time go?
I stand there with the gun pointed at him.
He’s not even snoring. And he’s happy.
On the nightstand next to him there’s an open drawer. I look in. A Ziploc bag filled with drugs and currency. I take it, sit on the bed.
“I really don’t want to do this,” I whisper to myself. Then don’t. Go. Walk back down the hill, get a good night’s sleep and the bus to El Paso. Go. Ricky won’t mind. Mom doesn’t care. Karen’s moved on. It’ll be better for everyone. Go, little birdie.
I stand but before I’m even on my feet the chemical messengers have done their work and my synapses have flashed back through one of the good times. Before the affairs, before the blowups, before Santiago. Dad laughing as Ricky and I steer the ferry on the first run of the day, the sun rising over the bay, seagulls on the deck, water sluicing through the gunwales.
Another time: Aunt Lilia’s wedding, Dad in a blue suit, Mom in a black dress, me holding his hand in a sepia photograph and dancing with him to a Yuma tune.
And one more: Ricky, Dad, and me watching Cuba win everything at the Pan American Games, me complaining of thirst and Dad from nowhere producing mangoes he had hidden for hours.
You took all of this, Youkilis. You ended it and now it belongs to you.
You own it and I want it back.
I walk around the bed.
I look at him and force myself to poke him in the ribs with the gun barrel.
“Ugh,” he says and doesn’t move.
I poke him again.
Another “Ugh.” But he still doesn’t wake.
Damn it. Now what?
Use it, Mercado.
Yeah. Use it. I roll him over. I put his hands on his back above his ass. He starts to snore. He’s way deep. Fathoms. Kilometers. I put the flashlight on the bed, take off my backpack, and remove the duct tape.
Five minutes later it’s done.
His wrists are duct-taped together and the Ambien-cognac combo has kept him out.
The next step?
The car.
I go back downstairs and through the kitchen to the garage. I need the keys he keeps on a hook by the door.
I turn on the flashlight and there they are, but even if they hadn’t been there it would have been ok. Every Cuban knows how to hotwire.
I pop the trunk and throw out a crate of seltzer, a pair of ski boots, and a lawn chair.
Nice and roomy.
Back upstairs.
Sleeping beauty sleeps still.
I rip off another line of duct tape and slather it over his mouth.
That’s what wakes him. He groans. Jolts upright. I flip the lights. Ski mask, gun, the twenty-first-century equivalent of the devil in the forest.
Screams behind the tape.
He scrambles away from me, falls off the bed, and bangs his head on the nightstand. I let him lie there for a minute to gather his wits. Then I point the gun at his heart. It’s in this moment I decide that I’m not going to speak. Not a word until he’s at the lake.
He looks at the gun and nods his head. He struggles to his feet.
I point at the door and sidle around the bed so that he’s ahead of me.
He turns and stares at me. He’s wondering if this is a nightmare.
Yeah, it is.
I point at the door and give him a little push and he walks ahead of me, slowly, onto the landing.
I flip the lights.
All that stuff.
The celeb pics. Caricatures. Expensive art I hadn’t noticed before. Small postwar Picasso lithographs. Jack’s preferences are for the big and splashy but Youkilis, if I recall, attended Princeton. Taste. Class. Discretion.
He comes to the stairs, hesitates, looks back at me, afraid.
What’s he thinking? That I’m going to push him?
I point down. He shakes his head. He’s trembling all over. His penis has practically disappeared.
I point again, this time with the gun.
Gingerly he makes way down the inside part of the curve, rubbing against the railing with his left arm. His back twitches at the bottom and he takes another look at me.
I don’t like it.
He’s up to something, I better keep an—
Suddenly he trips and falls against the phone stand. The phone and a notebook and a cell phone clatter to the ground on top of him.
Accident? Was he trying to call 911? Quickly I pick up the phone and put it back in the cradle.
He’s groaning. He’s cut himself across the chest. I have no sympathy. I kick him in the ribs and direct him to get up. His eyes are calmer, less wide.
I’m uneasy.
He did something there. I don’t know what. But he did something.
I look at the phone and the wall—everything seems ok.
Better get the hell out of here. I point at the kitchen.
We walk in and I open the door to the garage.
I point at the garage door and while he goes ahead I swing the backpack around in front of me, unzip it, and take out the pepper spray.
He stops at the open trunk of his BMW, turns, and looks at me. He shakes his head. He’s not getting in the trunk. Trunk equals death. If he stays in the house he has a chance, but if he gets in the car he’s going to die.
I’ve been expecting this. I pepper spray him in the face.
He screams, his knees buckle. I run at him and ram him onto the lip of the trunk. He’s six-five and built, so if he falls to the ground it’s going to be a hell of a job to get him in there. I drop the gun and pepper spray and shove his pelvis with both hands. Even blinded and in agony he fights me, kicks, but it’s too late, I have him in. I punch him in the nose and, stunned and winded, he tumbles backward into the trunk.
I lift the backpack, take out the tape.
He’s sobbing, bleeding, but he’ll live.
I grab his ankles, pin them under my arm, and wrap them in the duct tape. The punch and the pepper spray have winded him and he’s as docile as a lamb. But that won’t last forever. This has to be tight.
Roll after roll.
He starts to fight and buck.
Another loop over his mouth.
I close the trunk.
Muffled screams.
I don’t feel good about this.
I stand there for what seems like forever, then go back into the house and turn off all the lights.
Back to the garage.
He’s quiet.
Maybe he had a heart attack.
It would still be murder.
I click the button that opens the garage door and open the passenger’s-side door of the BMW. I throw my gear in the backseat, get in, close the door, turn the key, start her up, and drive out.
Lights on.
Seatbelt on to stop the alarm.
The BMW drives like a tank, and I would know, since I did part of my m
ilitary service on a T-72.
The driveway. Full beam. Heart pounding.
I look behind to see if the garage door is going to close by itself.
It doesn’t.
I have to do something. I fumble around until I see a small box clipped onto the sunshade. A button says OPEN/CLOSE. I press CLOSE.
It closes.
I drive toward the gates.
Somehow they know I’m coming and open automatically.
I turn left down the mountain road.
I take off the ski mask and focus on driving.
I forgot to leave that note about being back in the afternoon. It’s ok. Forget it. The help won’t notice anything’s amiss. I’m the help.
The icy road. The trees. He starts to make noise back there.
I click the radio. Flip, flip, flip until I get a Denver classical station playing Shostakovich.
I take out the map book, hit the interior light.
Where are we?
Ah yes.
The Old Boulder Road to the first junction.
I turn the light off and drive.
Trees. Houses. The junction.
The road splits. The 34 goes east into Rocky Mountain National Park, the 125 goes all the way up to Wyoming.
I want the 125.
I recheck the map. Straight shot to the state line.
Nothing behind me. Banging from the trunk. Ahead on the 125 the lights of cars, trucks.
The snow petering off but still a nuisance. Windshield wipers. Radio louder.
I turn left onto the 125 and accelerate the BMW up to sixty.
When I get on the road, I gun it to eighty and then ninety.
Minutes go by. Ten, twenty, forty-five.
Shostakovich gives way to Purcell gives way to Mozart.
I slow down to go through the small town of Walden, which at this hour is completely dead. I accelerate again, and not long after Walden we’re in Wyoming. A sign says WELCOME TO THE COWBOY STATE. Below that someone’s scrawled “Cheney Cuntry.”
An inner voice as persistent as a teenage pimp says this is a big mistake. This is the gamble of your life. And for what? For what? You still don’t even know for sure.
Shut up. Only about twenty minutes now.
But actually the BMW gets me there in fifteen.
We’re going so fast and so effortlessly that I almost miss the turnoff for the lake.
Brakes, a skid.
I drive down the dirt road.
Pitch-black.
Here too early.
Fifty Grand Page 27