Do They Know I'm Running

by David Corbett

  “Inspired guesswork.” McIlvaine reached across to a nearby table where a menu sat unused and plucked it for his own use. “The receptionist said you were out, the hour suggested lunch, I decided to wander around the area, take my chances.” He pushed up his glasses, reading a nearby chalkboard listing specials.

  “That’s all you wanted, company for lunch?”

  “No need to sound so put-upon. I’m not expecting a fanfare but I do have news I think you’ll find useful, if you haven’t already received it.”

  Lattimore, resisting a smile, took a sip of his lukewarm coffee. Since the screwup with Happy the information chain had gone into lockdown. The case was infamous, no one wanted his name near it. Memos and e-mails gathered dust somewhere out in the bureaucratic nowhere. Not one single agent outside the country would return his calls. “I’m all ears,” he said.

  Folding his hands across his midriff, McIlvaine settled into his chair. “I heard the news, the bad business on your end. Quite a cock-up, as our British friends would say.”

  “Yes.” Lattimore tasted the grit of his coffee dregs. “British friends, one can’t have too many of those.”

  “Oddly enough, you’re near half right.” The waitress bustled past and he caught her eye, tipping his menu back and forth as a signal. “Turns out my friend in the Green Zone knew a Brit journalist doing a story on the Al Tanf refugee camp. He got in touch, I scratched out a list of questions, ones I thought you’d want answered given our previous discussion. Well, unhappily but not too surprisingly, he came up empty. There is no record of a woman named Fatima Sadiq in the Al Tanf refugee camp, nor any woman named Fatima with a daughter named Shatha, or more generally a woman married to an interpreter working for the coalition, the Salvadorans in Najaf specifically. Nothing, nada. Sorry. Now who knows how doggedly this Brit asked his questions-it wasn’t really his focus, after all, just one of those quid pro quos one accepts in a war zone.”

  The waitress materialized. McIlvaine ordered a grilled liver-wurst and Swiss on corn rye with pepperoncini and onions, mustard not mayo, coleslaw side, iced tea with extra lemon, then handed her the menu and watched her flee.

  Lattimore, prompting, “Andy?”

  “Where was I…” He adjusted his glasses, glanced at his watch. “Ah yes. Perhaps your Samir’s Fatima, if she exists, has moved to another camp, Trebil for instance. Maybe she’s gone back to Baghdad, meaning she could be God only knows where.

  These are not people who trust the government or the press, the Palestinians, I mean. They feel very much hunted and betrayed. But there’s something else too. Something rather curious.”

  A busboy delivered a dewy tumbler of iced tea and a saucer of lemon slices. McIlvaine fussed the straw from its wrapper. The busboy, a Latino, vaguely reminded Lattimore of Happy’s cousin Roque and he suffered a sudden flash of misgiving, wondering where the kid might be.

  “My friend spoke to a contact he’s developed, a man once very well appointed within the Mukhabarat. Obviously, this is very sensitive. I can’t tell you any more than that about the man.”

  Like I could burn him from here, Lattimore thought.

  “But he remembered a Palestinian named Salah Hassan from the al-Baladiyat neighborhood. The man was arrested for trafficking in foreign currencies sometime after the end of the Iran-Iraq War.” He began squeezing lemon into his tea, one wedge, two. “Curiously enough, this Salah Hassan had a wife named Fatima and a daughter named Shatha. And after her husband’s imprisonment-they cut off his hand, like they do with thieves, then stuck him in a prison somewhere to be forgotten-the woman, this Fatima, she not surprisingly fell on very hard times. There are brothels in Baghdad, obviously, though they’re known to favor green lights, not red. Apparently this Fatima had a small but very devout clientele. But once Saddam’s regime fell and the Mahdi militias began their persecution of the Palestinians, which became quite indiscriminate after the bombing of the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, she grabbed her daughter and fled the area and no one is willing to admit they know where she ran off to. Assuming anyone knows. Maybe one of those devoted patrons stepped up, whisked her off to his tent in Araby.”

  The waitress returned to the table, this time with McIlvaine’s sandwich and coleslaw. Setting it down, she turned her attention to the remains of Lattimore’s lunch and cocked an eyebrow. He leaned back so she could clear. Earlier, he’d considered flirting-innocently, of course, unless she responded-but McIlvaine was like a sexual black hole. Once she was gone: “This source of your friend’s, any chance he got a look at the document you showed me, the one linking Samir to the Mukhabarat?”

  McIlvaine stuffed a paper napkin into his collar, gripped half his sandwich in both hands and leaned forward over his plate. “It’s a contact sheet, that’s all. At some point he was brought in for an interview. That’s all you can infer from it reliably. Whether there were others-contacts I mean, interviews-it’s impossible to tell. Sorry, nothing else on that end to report.”

  Lattimore smiled absently, wondering how long courtesy would demand he sit there watching the other man eat. Hearing the unmistakable popping growl of a Harley 110 V-Twin outside, then the distinctive potato potato potato of its idle as it backed to the curb, he felt an immediate pang of longing-the empty road, freedom. It occurred to him that Samir might have been one of this Fatima’s devoted johns, one whose ardor went haywire, to the point he married her in his mind, plotted to get her and her daughter out of Iraq forever. He was clawing his way to America, trying to find her the future she deserved, one for which she would be slavishly grateful, if he could ever find out where she was. Weirder things had happened, he supposed, especially when pussy was involved.

  “By the way,” McIlvaine said, speaking through a mouthful of liverwurst, “any idea where our would-be terrorist might be at the moment?”

  Forty-One

  THEY ROSE EARLY AND DROVE THROUGH MILE AFTER DEEP-GREEN mile of banana, papaya and mango groves on their way north from Lázaro Cárdenas with its massive industrial port.

  “They used to call this stretch of road Bandido Alley,” Bergen said at one point. “The whole state of Michoacán was pretty much a playground for the Valencia cartel. Then the army came in, put up roadblocks, cracked down on drug labs, burned pot fields. Drove the trouble off the coast and into the hills, at least until after dark. No guarantee it won’t come back, of course, but for now I think we’re safe.”

  The checkpoints grew fewer in number over time and the Eurovan invariably got waved through. As the sunlight hit its noonday pitch the terrain grew dramatic, the road winding steeply along mountainsides that dropped off into crashing waves. When the road leveled out again the vine-covered hills to the east were wreathed in filmy cloud, the palm-rimmed beaches to the west almost monotonous in their perfection, untouched by tourism or development. On some the surf was wild and unwelcoming, on others it dissolved in a rumbling hiss onto vacant sand. Roque began to understand the stubborn pride of Mexicans, as well as their despair.

  They stopped for gas in a beachfront hamlet, buying it from a bowlegged woman smoking a pipe who siphoned it from a drum. A little farther on they lunched on fresh ceviche at a seafood bar and stocked up on water for the afternoon heat.

  The hours grew hallucinatory, dissolving into sweaty sunlit dreams of roadside shrines, wild hillsides, makeshift cornfields, thatched enramadas and palapas, interspersed with signs marking iguana crossings, armadillo crossings, warnings against hunting raccoons.

  Once, they found themselves bestilled inside a pastel cloud of butterflies.

  When they struggled through Manzanillo with its cruise-ship crowds, Bergen told the story of a woman known as Mountain Girl, one of Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, who gave birth to her daughter Sunshine in the decrepit local hospital, only to flee her room one night when beach crabs, crazed by the full moon, stormed the newborn’s bed.

  Colima dissolved into Jalisco, the villages thinned out and the Costa Alegre began, with its sculpted mans
ions on the cliffs and scowling guards at the gates: crisp uniforms, wraparound shades, machine guns. “Nice place to visit,” Bergen cracked, “if you’re Mick Jagger.”

  As the sun dropped into the ocean beyond the Bahía de Banderas, Puerto Vallarta came and went in a blur of colonial-era cobblestone streets, roadside market stalls, the rebuilt promenade. “Just a little ways more,” Bergen said, to explain why he wasn’t stopping. “I know I’ve warned off driving at night but we’re so damn close. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  They took the main highway toward Tepic, then cut off toward the coast, the road a rustic two-lane obstacle course of cavernous potholes, fearless chickens, slinking dogs. Here and there between nameless hamlets a bar appeared, nothing but a box of concrete trimmed with Christmas lights and barbed wire, a jukebox throbbing inside-cumbia, chuntaro, grupero-while outside jubilant drunks wandered the roadbed or stone-eyed men stood with arms crossed, watching the strange van rumble past.

  The isolated stretches grew longer, the darkness so thick it felt like their headlights were boring a tunnel and they were barreling through it, jostled by the bad road, swarmed with dust.

  It was in one of those mid-hamlet stretches of pitch-black night that the headlights appeared behind them. They seemed to float independently, buoyed by the darkness like fireflies, then the engines could be heard and Roque realized they were motorcycles. Shortly everyone turned around to look.

  “They’re getting closer,” Roque said.

  “I’m aware of that,” Bergen replied.

  Soon the pack was right behind, eight of them riding two abreast, the riders’ silhouettes in the dust clouds, muscular arms slung from ape hangers, wind-raked hair. Samir stared at them, face skeletal in the joggling light. “And you said leave the weapons behind.”

  Bergen dodged a rat-size tarantula scuttling across the road. “You think we’d even have gotten this far, past all those checkpoints, if there’d been a gun in this van?”

  “What good will it have done,” Samir said, voice rising, “to get this far only to end here?”

  “Relax, ace. We haven’t reached the end. Far from it.”

  The motorcycles made no move to pass but seemed content to herd the van along from behind. Soon the salty tang of the surf broke through the smells of gasoline and dust. Just off the road, at the end of a rutted lane lined with sprawling jacarandas and guava trees, another bunkerlike building sat, barred windows glowing with caramel-colored light. Another two dozen motorcycles sat outside, a ragtag collection of café racers, dirt bikes, crotch rockets, choppers, rice burners, trikes. When Bergen hit his signal and braked for the turn, Samir leaned forward and hissed, “What in the name of God are you doing?”

  Bergen downshifted and the van lurched, slowing. “Stopping for the night,” he said. “Unless you have somewhere else in mind.”

  He pulled into a sandy spot beneath a sagging palm and killed the motor. The riders backed their bikes into the line outside the clubhouse, the revving engines a thunder roll in the settling dust. Some of the other members filled the lamp-lit doorway, tossing beers to the new arrivals. Beyond them, a fire roared in a barbecue pit.

  Samir hand-mopped sweat from his stubbled face. “You know these people?”

  Bergen opened the door and the overhead light flickered on, fixing the Arab’s expression. “I think that would be a reasonable inference.” His voice was free of mockery. “You know, a little gratitude wouldn’t kill you.”

  As everyone else extricated themselves from the van, Bergen opened the back and withdrew one of the cardboard tubes with a rolled-up painting inside, then thumped it against his leg as he strolled toward the clubhouse entrance, the others straggling behind. The surf tumbled onto the shore beyond the tree line, breaking on the beach in surges of foam, the sharp scent of brine mingling with that of wood smoke and roasting fish.

  A scrum of bikers waited outside the glowing frame of the doorway. Bergen held the cardboard tube aloft and called out to the nearest one, a princely muscular vato with swept-back hair and a soul patch furring his lower lip.-I have a little art for you, Chelo. A masterpiece.

  BERGEN SAT DOWN AT ONE OF THE LONG HAND-CARVED TABLES AND several bikers joined him, including the one named Chelo, the leader. Roque and Lupe and Pingo and Samir, all but ignored, stood there idly until one of the bikers flashed a dentally challenged smile and gestured them grandly to an empty table. As Bergen unrolled his painting Roque took a second to get his bearings-an old Wurlitzer jukebox, two pool tables, a few bumper pinball machines. The bar looked like it had been salvaged from elsewhere and a banner hanging behind it read:

  Los Mocosos Locos-San Blas, Nayarit

  The bikers themselves were refreshingly stereotypical-shaved heads on some, tangled manes for the rest, a spattering of Fu Manchus, two or three chest-length beards, bandannas, harness boots, black leather chaps and vests with the club’s colors emblazoned across the back: a whorl-eyed skull over crossed six-shooters. It was like walking into a remake of Angels Unchained, except the skin shaded darker, the swagger wasn’t half as pompous and everybody spoke Spanish. Still, Bergen looked like a golf coach in their midst, with Roque and the rest his scraggly fourfold shadow.

  As Bergen unrolled the painting-it was the same one he’d shown at the roadblocks, the one he compared to Chagall-Chelo reached into the pocket of his leather vest and withdrew a jeweler’s loupe and a razor blade. Bergen and one of the other bikers held the painting flat; Chelo set the loupe down onto the canvas and lowered his eye to the lens. Roque, sensing what he was about to watch but unable to believe it, traded a brief stunned glance first with Lupe then Samir-only Pingo seemed unbothered-then turned back in time to see Chelo, calm as a surgeon, razor a perfectly straight section from the canvas inch by inch. When the narrow strip was clear he handed it to one of the others, who coiled it around his neck like a chain of raffle tickets, then Chelo bent over the painting again, adjusted his loupe, found the next invisible demarcation and repeated the process, painstakingly trimming another strip from the canvas, the same width as the last.

  Bergen glanced up once, winked at Roque, then returned his focus to his slowly vanishing masterpiece. One of the women, almost busting out of her leathers, came by with a bucket of iced beers and settled it onto the table for Roque and the others, while another brought a plate of mango slices, with roasted shrimp and mahimahi and pargo, marinated in lemon and chilies. The four of them dug in shamelessly, wolfing their food down with their hands, intermittently turning back to watch as bit by bit the painting vanished, carved into long shreds, each of which then got piecemealed further into squares the size of postage stamps. Fucking hell, Roque thought, backhanding the slop from his chin, we’ve been bluffing through checkpoints for two whole days with a couple hundred hits of blotter acid.

  No money exchanged hands, Roque noticed, this was a longstanding deal, credit not an issue. A bit of a character, Father Luis had called Bergen, with a very storied life. That and then some, Roque thought. And what of the priest himself? Maybe he was the impersonator warned about on the poster at the entrance to his own damn church. If so, Roque thought, my uncle lies in his cemetery, consecrated by a phony sacrament. Bringing the point home was the current procession of Los Mocosos Locos idling in, approaching their leader and collecting a hit of acid into their cupped palms, swallowing it down like a communion wafer, then heading back outside for the fire pit.

  Bergen ambled over to the table where Roque and the others sat, working on their third plate of roasted fish and shrimp.

  – Looks tasty. He plucked a fatty charred hunk of pargo from the plate, chewed with gusto.-Everybody happy?

  No one said anything. If they weren’t stunned from what they’d just observed they were tipsy from the beer, sated from the food.

  Turning to Samir, Bergen lowered his voice. “You can thank me anytime.”

  Samir looked incensed. “You used us.”

  “That a joke? I’m doing you a favor.”
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br />   “We were a distraction. A decoy.”

  Pingo, sensing the change in drift despite the use of English, excused himself, grabbing an extra beer from the ice bucket and steering a path outside. Bergen’s smile withered. “Listen, you ungrateful prick. Think of where you’d be right now without my help. If not dead, damn close. You might also consider that, should any of these good people get the idea you’ve got a problem with what you just watched-they get the vaguest notion you’re the talkative sort, as in better off facedown in a ditch somewhere-they won’t ask my permission. Now cheer the fuck up.” He slapped Samir’s shoulder like a sales manager coaxing the new guy onto the floor. “You’ve just been fed and you’ve got a place to sleep tonight. Because of me. Put it in perspective, Samir.” He pronounced it smear. “Or I’ll tell these nice folks you’ve got something you’d like to say.”

  He reached for the bucket, collected the final beer, then turned to Roque and Lupe.-You two aren’t above singing for your supper, I hope.

  THE GUITAR WAS BEHIND THE BAR, A GUILD DREADNOUGHT WITH fairly new strings. As Roque tuned and played a few test chords he smiled at the crisp sweet highs, the rich booming lows, a beautiful ax, Bluegrass Jubilee. He joined Lupe out among the others who circled the fire. The acid was starting to hit, a number of the bikers were staring into the flames as though seeing within them their own spirit faces; some picked through the charred crackling skin of the fish they’d just eaten, as though it held some mystic portent; others just sat and smiled, hugging their knees, heads eased back. The rest milled about, beers in hand, bestowing warm abrazos to every brother they met.

  For the sake of visibility and projection above the crackling fire, they fashioned a mini-stage from four wood chairs, then hoisted Lupe onto it, perched like a surfer on an unsteady wave. Roque sat in a fifth chair to her side. He strummed the opening chords of “Sabor a Mí,” suggesting they open with that. Lupe nodded her assent and, as the introduction gently concluded, lifted her chin, closed her eyes and began the first verse.