Do They Know I'm Running

by David Corbett

  It took a bar or two for her voice to find its center and the lyrics at first seemed lost in the roar of the fire and the distant surf. As the chorus came around, though, she had the crowd with her, a few even daring to sing along:

  No pretendo ser tu dueño

  No soy nada, yo no tengo vanidad

  I don’t pretend to be your master

  I am nothing, I have no vanity

  Their voices spurred her on. The next verse bloomed with even deeper feeling and as she came back around to the chorus the others chimed in more devoutly, their gravelly voices harmonizing in tone if not pitch. As the song concluded, the klatch of tripping bikers erupted into whistling applause. A few wiped away tears.

  Lupe leaned down toward Roque, gathering her hair away from her face. “‘Sin Ti’,” she whispered.

  He felt stunned.-Are you sure?

  She didn’t answer. Instead she stood up straight again on the rickety platform of chairs and called out:-On our way north, we lost someone. His name was Faustino. He was the uncle of Roque here. He was very kind to me. He believed in me. I would like to sing this next song in his memory. It meant a lot to him, because he too lost someone, lost her long ago.

  She signaled to Roque that she was ready. He played the introductory chords, a lump in his throat-how is she going to sing, he wondered-but as her cue came around she closed her eyes, balled her hands into fists and lifted her face toward the night:

  Sin ti

  No podré vivir jamás

  Without you

  I will never be able to live

  He had heard her sing often over the past few weeks, under so many different circumstances. He had not yet heard her sing like this. You’re going to break these crusty bastards’ hearts, he thought, if not mine. Had he not loved her already, he would have been helpless then. Again the bikers sang along on the chorus, their voices a growling background hum. They understood. They knew loss, they knew remembrance, even tripping their brains out, and this time, as Roque ended with a strumming flourish and Lupe wiped her face, their applause was a benediction.

  That night the two of them slept in a corner of the clubhouse, tucked inside a single musty sleeping bag, pressed together, legs entwined. The others lay nearby, so there would be no lovemaking, but she lay her head upon his heart and he stroked her smoke-scented hair until sleep claimed first her, then him. Outside, the fire raged all night, bikers milling in and out, seeking beer or food, their voices subdued in a nameless reverence. Once, when Roque eased awake, startled by some sound, he noticed through fluttering eyelids that Samir was sitting against the wall, clutching his knees, staring at the two of them snuggled together, his face veiled with shadow.

  Forty-Two

  TWO DAYS AFTER THEY DID THE COP AND HIS FAMILY THE BOA got sick. The thing wasn’t eating. El Recio implored it, cooed to it, tried all its favorite snacks-live fetal rats, baby mice, bunnies-let it coil up in its favorite chair, stroked its mottled scales. He said they felt cold. How else the fuck they gonna feel, Happy thought, it’s a goddamn snake. But he knew what was happening, suspected even El Recio knew. God doesn’t take it out on you when you sin, that wasn’t how it worked. He’s not content with an uneasy conscience, he wants to push you into the flames, strip you of everything but the desire to die, watch you beg. And so he takes it out not on you but on those you love-wasn’t that what you’d done to him?

  El Recio threw on a shirt, said they were going out. He wanted to buy a heat lamp.

  “You’ll burn him up,” Happy said. “Why not just put him in the oven?”

  El Recio froze. “What’d you just say?”

  Happy caught the hinge in El Recio’s voice. The eyes, though, were far worse.

  “I said you might burn him up.”

  “Her.”

  Get me out of this, Happy thought. “Her. Sorry. You might burn-”

  “You said stick her in the oven.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I was trying-”

  “You want to eat La Princesa?”

  “No. No. Look, I just came by to talk about those houses-”

  “Want to eat my baby?”

  On and on it went, Happy constantly trying to get back to what he came to say-an offer he wanted to make, a favor if looked at right-but the skinny calvo just turned everything into drama. Finally, like a hotheaded madrecita, he shoved Happy down the hallway, out the door, tears in his eyes, screaming not to come back until he could show some human feeling.

  Happy stood there in the mud-washed street, staring across the ripening sewer trench as the door slammed shut, the noise scattering the crows that’d perched in a paloverde tree in the empty lot next door. Cupping his hands, he shouted, “Lo siento.” I’m sorry.

  Through the door, El Recio bellowed back: “Me vale madre.” I don’t give a damn.

  On their way back from the job the other night, El Recio had told Osvaldo to stop the car as they passed a cluster of empty houses halfway between Cananea and Agua Prieta. Ghostly in the moonlight, they were part of a project that was only half finished, like so much of Mexico, at least the parts Happy had seen. El Recio said he and a partner were going in on three of the properties and he was worried about thieves, vandals.

  Happy and Godo had gotten the sense they were drawing too much attention at the hotel, sooner or later someone could come around, find out about the weapons and God only knew where that would end. So Happy had figured they’d go down, squat in one of El Recio’s houses, ward off anybody who came around to rip out the copper or the woodwork or the rebar or anything else they could turn around for cash. He didn’t exactly say no, Happy told himself. If worse comes to worst, I’ll buy him a new fucking snake.

  He wandered about the fringes of Agua Prieta, bought some tamalitos at a vendor truck and headed back to the hotel. The girl, Paca, was there again, another round of English. From the sound of things, the lesson plan was a little more basic today: roof and window, shirt versus blouse, fork knife spoon. Apparently the mother had come by yesterday, thanking Godo, helping rewrap the gauze on his hand. He seemed more relaxed. Maybe he’d gotten laid.

  As Godo fingered open the tinfoil wrap of his tamalitos, Happy’s cell began to trill. Their eyes met, Happy dug the phone from his pocket. Again, an unknown exchange. If anyone was using this to track where I am, he figured, they’d have found me by now. He flipped the phone open, put his ear to the welcoming hiss.

  “Happy? It’s me.”

  Happy mouthed Roque’s name, letting Godo know who it was. “Where are you?”

  “The bus station in Guaymas.”

  Southern Sonora, Happy thought, though over on the Sea of Cortez. “Not so far.”

  “No. We’ll be there soon. Look, Hap-”

  “Samir there?” He thought of what El Recio had said, about the Americans, the deal they’d struck with Don Pato. How to explain that, after the man had come so close.

  “Yeah. He’s good. Pain in the ass sometimes but good. Look, there’s something-”

  “And let’s not forget the girl-Lupe, am I right?”

  The hiss surged, thrumming like a hive. “I was about to tell you about that.”

  “Kinda late in the game, wouldn’t you say?” Happy felt a curious absence of anger. Still, the point needed to be made.

  Roque said, “How did you hear about her?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s not like you and I had a chance to talk much the past week.”

  “That’s not an answer, neither.”

  “Tío and I were trying to figure something out. A way to help her. It’s complicated.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Who she belongs to. They’re waiting for her.”

  Another silence, longer this time. “Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “It’s not negotiable.”

  “With who-them or you?”

  Happy felt his chest clench, like
someone had tightened a screw. “I don’t deserve that.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just, if you knew what we’d been through-”

  “I could say the same. So could Godo.”

  A door slammed down the hall, then footsteps. Two men tramped toward the stair, one a murmur, the other a braying laugh. Their shadows flickered in the crack beneath the door.

  “What do want from me, Hap? I didn’t tell you about Lupe because I wasn’t sure what to say. I am now. This guy we met in Oaxaca, he has an uncle who’s a cop in Naco. He can help us get across, no El Recio.”

  Happy went cold-a cop? “You don’t know,” he said, wrestling the memory back into its hole, “what you’re playing at.”

  “As far as anybody knows, we all died in the ambush with Tío. Five bodies burned up inside our car, no way they’ve ID’d who’s who yet. You can say you got a call from Tía Lucha, she heard from Oaxaca about the car. Understand? We’re dead. There’s no one to hand over.”

  The tightening in his chest loosened a little, making him feel light-headed. The thing could work, he thought. It was lunacy, it was tempting the devil. But…

  “Samir there? Something I’d like to talk to him about.”

  “Can it wait? The bus is leaving and I need to know where we can meet up with you.”

  He glanced over at Godo, fingers smeared with cheese and grease from the tamalito. The ugly one, he thought, the broken one. And I’m the stupid, worthless one.

  Then there was Roque. The magical one.

  “There’s a place south of town,” he said. “I’ll give you directions.”

  ROQUE HUNG UP THE PHONE, OPENED THE FOLDING GLASS DOOR TO THE phone booth and followed Lupe and Samir to the bus. Bergen had dropped them at the station, handed them some cash for tickets plus a little extra for food. Pingo had gone with him-all that talk of hooking up with the union in Nogales for a work permit, utter bullshit-but he’d given them his uncle’s name and contact information in Naco.-He’s solid, he’d said, he’s tough. He won’t screw you.

  Samir glanced over his shoulder as they passed through waves of diesel exhaust from the idling buses.-What did he say? The Arab had reverted to pest since they’d left San Blas, his impatience a kind of itch that everybody was obliged to scratch.

  – He’s looking forward to seeing you again.

  – No problems?

  After all they’d endured, it seemed the most ludicrous question imaginable.

  The bus was a throbbing tube of road-worn chrome, twenty years old at least, but luxurious compared to the chicken buses they’d seen farther south. Roque and Lupe climbed on board and sat near the front, plopping down side by side in vinyl seats patched with tape, clasping hands, hers cool inside his, trading the occasional smile. Samir sat alone behind them, so restless Roque felt like reaching around and smacking him one. Not that he wasn’t anxious himself. The driver sprawled in his seat, reading a wrestling magazine as he waited for stragglers, the time of departure apparently far more fluid than they’d feared. All that rush, he thought, now we sit, knowing it wasn’t the delay bothering him. Something he’d heard in Happy’s voice-or rather, something he hadn’t heard-it unnerved him. The words over the phone had seemed adrift, beyond weary, no feeling, no heart. Everyone’s been through a lot, he reminded himself, Happy’s comeback, feeling a twinge of shame. He’d expected to get dumped on, cursed, called a weakling and a failure for letting Tío die, then felt vaguely undone when it didn’t happen. Come on, he thought, resisting an urge to bark at the driver, let’s go, feeling the nearness of home as an urgency, at the same time knowing he was simply afraid.

  Forty-Three

  EVEN THE BUS DRIVER SEEMED CONFUSED, NOTHING BUT A CLUSTER of half-finished houses, the middle of nowhere. Twilight only enhanced the desolation. Spidery ocotillos and crook-armed saguaros manned the surrounding plain, at the edge of which dust devils swirled in the cool winds funneling down from the mountains. Overhead, a lone hawk caught an updraft and soared in its flux, a small black afterthought in a blackening sky.

  The driver rechecked his odometer, confirmed they’d traveled the distance from Cananea that Roque had mentioned, then opened the door, wishing them luck as they gathered their things and shuttled out onto the roadbed. None of the other passengers looked at them. To make eye contact was, ironically, to become visible, and everyone bore a secret, even the children. Their bodies were freight, their lives for sale. The bus pulled away in a plume of black exhaust, its headlights plowing the dusk, and Roque couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been tricked.

  Shortly, he realized they weren’t alone. On the stoop outside one of the unfinished houses a scrawny huelepega with matted black hair stuffed his face inside a brown paper bag, sucking up the glue fumes inside. A pack of dogs sulked nearby, trembling, sniffing the air. Then came a pistol shot-the dogs scattered, the gluehead crushed his bag to his chest, jerked to his feet and shambled off into the scrub.

  Where in God’s name is he running, Roque thought, wondering if they should follow.

  The gunman revealed himself, easing around the corner of one of the nearer houses. Pistol at his side, he approached with trancelike slowness, offering no greeting.

  Samir put his hand to his heart. “It has been so long, my friend. My God, you terrified us.”

  Happy stopped short, no reply, only a drifting smile, cut loose from the eyes. Turning toward Roque, he said simply, “Hey,” his voice raspy and soft.

  Roque said, “You okay?”

  “The girl,” Happy said. “She speak English?”

  “Not much.” Roque reached for her hand. “Not well.”

  Happy looked at their clasped hands, then her face, regarding her as though she were a problem he couldn’t hope to solve. “Remind me, her name?”

  A sudden wind kicked up whips of dust. Everyone shielded their eyes.

  “Lupe,” Roque said.

  Realizing they were talking about her, she offered a shy smile. Happy turned away, gesturing with the pistol for everyone to follow as he led them back to the last house, the only one with a roof as far as Roque could tell. Inside, the walls were bare-no cabinets, no trim, no fixtures-the floors naked sheets of plywood that gave a little underfoot, a spooky sensation in the gathering dark. Cinder blocks sat propped on end like stools, nails lay scattered here and there amid trails of sawdust and cigarette butts and empty pint bottles. Even with the openings where windows should have been letting in air from outside, the room stank like an ashtray.

  “How you like the place?” Happy glanced around like he was thinking of buying. “You wouldn’t believe what they want for it.”

  Roque wondered where Godo was, the thought of seeing him again cropping up in his mind like a stone in his shoe these past few days. Missing him, wanting no part of him. First their mother, then Tío, who to blame? Who else?

  Happy went on, “Came here to watch the place for the guy who owns it. Can’t figure out if we were too early or too late.”

  Roque heard it. We. “So Godo’s here somewhere.”

  From behind, a thundering: “Call the law!” He filled the doorway, shouldering a duffel. A ragged slide down his arm to the floor-whatever was inside clattered dully. Noticing the look on everyone’s face, he grinned. “Hold the applause.”

  Roque felt a sudden coil of inner heat, so much held in check over the last few weeks, all of it now boiling up. “You sorry motherfucker!”

  “Stop sniveling.” Godo spread his arms. “Time for abrazos.”

  Roque didn’t move. He couldn’t. “Stop fucking around.” His glance darted toward Lupe, who seemed baffled. Me too, he wanted to tell her.

  Godo approached. “Who says I’m fucking around?”

  “You’re being a dick.”

  “Because I want a hug from my hermanito?”

  Before Roque could answer Godo swallowed him up in his arms, a warm musty funk rising from his body as he rocked a little back and forth. In a whisper, so no one else could hear: “I
know you’re fucked up about losing Tío. Don’t carry it with you. Let that shit go.”

  For a moment, Roque couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Who was this person, what had he done with Godo? He swallowed a surge of weepiness and managed to say, “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Godo pressed his head against Roque’s. “Whole lotta sorry to go around. Not just you. It was all of us. We all lost Tío. Don’t carry that alone.” He gave two fierce slaps to Roque’s back and let him go. Loudly, for the others: “There. That so fucking unbearable?”

  Dazedly, Roque embraced Happy as well, for the sake of symmetry if nothing else. Introductions went around. Samir, as always impatient, asked if they were crossing that night.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” Happy said. The way it came out, everyone sank. “The people we arranged things through to begin with-I know, we don’t owe them nothing at this point but hear me out-they know something about you. An American showed up, talked to the patrón who runs things along this stretch of the border. You’re supposed to get handed over to him, this American. He represents some company out of Dallas.”

  Samir’s deep-set eyes drew back even further. He clutched his bag. “No.”

  “There’s all variety of shit going on here behind the scenes, Samir, I can’t control none of that. But Godo and me, we can’t go home no more. You don’t go with these people, this honcho from Dallas, we’re up for grabs.”

  Samir looked like a touch might knock him down. “I saved your life.”

  Happy looked away. “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, actually.”

  “Ask me-”

  “Roque tells me you’re damn handy with a gun. Funny how I never saw that side of you. Not even when we were in the middle of a firefight.”

  “You don’t understand.”