Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  He wiped his face.

  “Amigo,” Alberto said, “are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Just getting some air.”

  “With your suitcase?” Alberto laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  He grinned at Chris and started walking to the back of the car. The light-skinned driver was out and lifting the trunk lid. Chris walked over and watched. The driver pulled out six wide, thin boxes the size of rock ’n’ roll posters and stacked them up against the rear fender. Cars were noisily hustling by, choking the air with oil and gasoline fumes.

  Chris wiped his face with his hand. It came away sweaty.

  “You want to help me with a couple of these?” Alberto said.

  He looked at Chris’s face and smiled.

  “Mr. Chris,” he said, “there are at least four or five billion people on the planet right now, none of them any more important than any other unless they decide to be. The only thing that makes any one of us any different is that decision. The decision you have to make.”

  “Give me a break,” Chris said.

  “Just help me carry these upstairs. You still have the room, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Alberto said. He paid the driver, and then a bellboy came out and he directed him to put the boxes and Chris’s suitcase on a luggage trolley, and the three of them went inside and upstairs to Chris’s room.

  The bellboy laid the boxes on the already made-up bed. Alberto tipped him. The bellboy left.

  “Sit down, amigo,” Alberto said.

  He went to the first box and lifted off the lid. He removed a colorful hand-embroidered, woven thread painting of a Caribbean seascape with sailboats, displaying it for Chris.

  “That’s it?” Chris said.

  “That’s it.”

  “Where’s the cocaine?”

  Alberto laughed. Dressed in a gray Armani suit, a perfectly starched white dress shirt, a blue Armani tie with small irregular red ellipsoids, a dark blue cashmere scarf, and an $18,458 Hublot mocha-colored watch on his left wrist, he turned the painting, displaying the narrow edge.

  “It’s here,” he said, “pressed in a sheet between the fabric and the canvas backing.”

  “How do I know it’s there?”

  “I’ll open one, but if I do there might be a problem when they come off the plane.”

  “How is that?”

  “The dogs might be able to smell it then.”

  “So I’m just supposed to trust you.”

  Alberto grinned and let the painting fall back onto the bed, opening his arms and palms out in the air.

  “Do you realize the situation you’re in?”

  “We’re both in,” Chris said. It was true. As long as he didn’t make the phone call to the lawyer the eighty-four thousand wouldn’t be released.

  Chris realized he’d stopped sweating. Maybe it was just the air-conditioning. Maybe he still had some control.

  “Let me ask you a question,” said Alberto. “You went to a university?”

  “I did.”

  “Where?”

  “University of Washington.”

  “That’s in Seattle, Washington, yes? I, myself, went to Cornell, and have a degree in chemical engineering, so we’re both two fairly intelligent men. Would you say that’s true?”

  “Right now I don’t know about me,” Chris said.

  Alberto laughed.

  “That just proves you are. And what did you tell me earlier, that that eighty-four thousand you now owe us was borrowed from sources in New York who wanted one hundred and twenty thousand by the end of the week, or one hundred and eighty thousand by the end of the following week?”

  “Correct.”

  “So if you don’t go through with this you are now thirty-six thousand short, plus you have to try to take that money back into the States with you by what, stuffing it down your socks?”

  Chris didn’t say anything. Suddenly it felt hot to him again.

  Alberto snapped open his phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “An art supply store.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “For six Art Voyager portfolio cases,” Alberto said, then into the phone: “Hey, Ramon, it’s me. We need six cases.”

  He paused.

  “Yes, the twenty-four by thirty-six by three-inch ones.” This was said in Spanish.

  He listened again.

  “Room eight thirty-three.” This also was spoken in Spanish. Then to Chris: “Do you agree?”

  Chris nodded. It was the issue of trust. He hoped to Christ Zack knew what he was doing. It was entirely clear that he, Chris, was just the tool, at everyone’s mercy. He had no leverage. He didn’t even have enough money of his own to buy even one emerald. He had thought for five hundred he could have gotten at least one good one. That had been shot to hell. The only thing the dealer had shown him was chips. Chips that could have been green bits of glass for all he knew.

  “Here,” Alberto said, handing over his phone. “Call the attorney. Then I’ll call downstairs and take care of the bill.”

  Three hours later, having made the call to the attorney’s secretary, Chris got out of another Mercedes at El Dorado International and, struggling with the six art cases, took them to the Delta ticket counter, bought a one-way ticket for himself for the midafternoon flight to Bonaire, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, and checked the cases aboard, watching them being lifted one by one by the pleasant black girl in the Delta uniform and placed on the black conveyer belt and whisked out of sight.

  Sitting at a table looking out over the runways and the sunlit mountains just beyond under the smooth blue Colombian sky, Chris wondered why they hadn’t been taken to the x-ray machine, but then wasn’t it better that they hadn’t been? It certainly was.

  He looked at his watch.

  The flight was scheduled to leave in thirty-five minutes..

  At security the screening line was short, with white-helmeted soldiers with short machine guns clipped to shoulder straps standing at port arms along the sides, and Chris reached the gate while people were still boarding.

  He sat down in one of the cushioned chairs facing the doorway and watched as the thirty-five or so people going to Bonaire went through the doorway, and then heard his name being paged over the loudspeaker, asking him to please report to the gate for immediate boarding.

  He got up and walked away down the concourse, hearing his name being called several additional times.

  He went into the men’s and washed his face and hands, combed his hair, went into a stall, and sat down and waited.

  When he was certain the flight had left he went back out and ran down the concourse, looking out the long windows, seeing a silver airliner with the bright blue-and-red-tipped Delta tail airborne and heading out over the mountains.

  When he reached the gate counter he slowed and asked the same Delta girl, “Was that the flight to Bonaire that just left?”

  “It is,” she said. “Are you Christopher Fredericks?”

  “I am. I was supposed to be on that flight.”

  “You didn’t hear yourself being paged?”

  “No, I didn’t. What time is the next flight?”

  “Just a minute,” she said. She picked up a phone, turning her back to him, the cord curling over her blue-coated shoulder, and said something he couldn’t hear.

  “Is there another flight this afternoon?” he said.

  She raised her free hand, meaning just a minute, then hung up the phone and said, “We’ll see what we can do. Would you have a seat, please?”

  Chris walked off and sat down. At least the plane was gone. And so were the paintings. That part of it was no longer his problem. He had done what he was supposed to do. Zack would be in Bonaire to get the paintings out of the baggage area. In the old days you needed the ticket stubs for that. Thank God that had been done away with. All he had to
do now was sit and wait until she told him when the next flight was, thank her profusely, then go back out to the ticket area and buy the next direct flight to Miami.

  “Mr. Fredericks?” someone said.

  Chris turned and saw a very short, dark-skinned Colombian in a blue business suit, tie, white shirt, and polished black shoes leading two policemen walking toward him.

  “Mr. Fredericks?” the short man said again, looking right at Chris as he stood up. “Did you just miss your flight?”

  “I did,” Chris said.

  “Would you come with us, please?”

  “Come where?”

  “Just come with us, please.”

  The two policemen, machine guns strapped over their shoulders, moved forward and each took one of Chris’s arms.

  “What is this?” Chris said, completely panicked now. Had they scanned the paintings before putting them on the plane?

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Your luggage was checked on the plane, wasn’t it,” the short man said, “and you didn’t get on the plane?”

  There were beads of sweat on the dark skin of the man’s upper lip. He had a white handkerchief and was dabbing them off.

  “Obviously,” Chris said. “I fell asleep before they boarded. I’m not used to the time change.”

  Then they were walking him fast down the concourse and they came to a steel door and the short man swiped a plastic card through the security lock and the door opened and they entered and hustled him down the steel stairs, their footsteps clanging loudly in the concrete shaft as they descended to ground level. Chris asked again what were they doing as the little man opened an outside door, didn’t answer him, and led the way to another exterior door which he again opened and the four of them went in this door and down a corridor and into an office and through it into a concrete-walled room with a single bed and a sink and toilet and told Chris to sit down on the bed.

  “What is this?” Chris said.

  “We need to keep you here until we know the plane has safely landed.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know what you put aboard the plane. We do know you didn’t get on it.”

  “You can’t do this,” Chris said.

  “Please,” the little man said. “If there is no problem, there will be no problem. We’ll get you on the next flight and reimburse you for your trouble. Please bear with us. This is a matter of the utmost gravity. We have received a phone call that an explosive device has been placed aboard your flight, an anonymous phone call. It is our responsibility to treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.”

  “You think I put a bomb aboard?” Chris said. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “We don’t know yet. Perhaps FARC, perhaps no one.”

  “That’s crazy,” Chris said.

  “Please,” the short man said again. “If you would like something to eat or drink just let us know.”

  The two policemen went out first, then the man.

  Jesus Christ, Chris thought. What if someone did put a bomb aboard? I’ll be so fucked! As if you already aren’t. What the hell was FARC? A revolutionary group?

  He looked at the dull red door with the small eye-level window, not even thinking to try it. Where would he go? Where could he go? The U.S. embassy? Explain that he was here to buy emeralds and found out he didn’t have enough money? That he had put on an airliner six paintings filled with cocaine that were to be taken off by a different American in Bonaire, and then flown on into Puerto Rico, and next to be taken on to Miami in the morning?

  There’s got to be a way out of this, Chris thought.

  He couldn’t think of one.

  He lay down on the bed, put the pillow under the side of his face, and immediately fell asleep.

  An hour later the short, dark-skinned man and the taller of the two policemen came back and looked in through the thickly glassed circular window at the sleeping American.

  They opened the door and went in.

  “Look at that,” the policeman said in Spanish. “Like a baby. Not a care in the world.”

  The short man laughed.

  “No,” he said in Spanish, “in my experience when someone goes to sleep right after they’ve been arrested, it means they are guilty. The innocent ones stay awake. They are nervous, agitated, and angry. Not this man. This man is guilty of something, but of what?”

  “Perhaps of the stupidity of missing his flight.”

  “Certainly that,” the short man said.

  “At least if there is a bomb it will explode out over the sea and not over the city,” the policeman said.

  “Yes, that is true,” the short man said, who gently shook Chris’s shoulder now, and watched his face as he opened his eyes.

  “What is it?” Chris said.

  “Your flight has landed safely in Bonaire. You are free to go.”

  “I am?” Chris said. Then quickly said, “Thank God! Great! What about my luggage?”

  “It will be held for you.”

  “Great,” Chris said again. “That’s just great.”

  “Thank you very much,” Chris found himself saying, offering his hand. Why are you doing that? he thought. You should be indignant, not relieved.

  The dark-skinned man took the hand and squeezed it with his own.

  “We’ve got you on tomorrow’s early flight,” he said, “and we’ve booked you a room in the Intercontinental Hotel. This courtesy is ours. We apologize for the inconvenience. Let me give you my card, should you have any questions.”

  He handed Chris a card that read: Hector Gomez Signorelli, Lt., Policía Nacional, Bogotá, with two phone numbers, one his personal cell phone number.

  Upstairs, Chris shook Gomez’s hand again and said he understood perfectly, “You are only doing your job,” and that as a traveler he appreciated the concern for the safety of others that the police, by necessity, were forced to undertake.

  They shook hands one more time, Chris looking down at the little man, seeing something in those eyes he particularly didn’t like. Then Gomez turned and walked off, swiped his card again, and vanished into another unmarked door.

  Outside, Chris took a taxi, and after leaving the airport had it stop at the first mercado he saw with a payphone box. Calling Zack, Chris immediately heard Zack cheerfully say, “Everything all right?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  “Everything’s fine, my man,” Zack said. “Just get on a wee-hop to Miami and we’ll see you there. Listen, we’re changing hotels. We’ll either be at the Raleigh or the Delano. I don’t know yet. You’ll catch us at either one. And we’re gonna party, dude, you know that.”

  Back at the airport Chris used his Visa card and took the 6:00 p.m. American Airlines flight to Miami. It was a direct flight, and going through customs back into the u.s. was a pleasure, not a hassle.

  It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when Chris found Zack and Kevin and Ronald at the rooftop spa and bar of the Delano, drinking shooters of tequila and snorting thin lines of the uncut cocaine off the glass tabletop.

  “Well,” Zack said, “no shit, here comes the gunslinger, looking for his pay. Sit down, big boy. Have a line. You won’t believe this quality. It’s unbelievable. Lifts your skullcap right off . . .”

  “No, thanks,” Chris said. “Just my money.”

  “As promised.” Zack laughed. He looked very happy. “Plus what I owe you for fronting us the airline tickets, right? Here . . .”

  He bent down and pulled a student’s backpack from under the table.

  “You pay the hitters back yet?” Chris said.

  “One hundred and twenty gs—every bill of it,” Zack said. “You just missed them.”

  “No. I think I saw them coming out of the elevator in the lobby. A tall one and a short one, both with short hair.”

  “Yeah, a tall one and a short one, both with greaseball mustaches and short hair.”

  “Yeah, I saw them. That’s who you sold the load to?”r />
  “No.”

  “Can I ask who?”

  “No,” Zack said, unzipping the backpack now next to the coke.

  “I’m cool with that.”

  “You can have it either in cash or in powder. Up to you. If you take powder, you’ll make double.”

  “But I’ll have to sell it.”

  “That’s right,” Ronald said.

  “I don’t sell drugs.”

  “Give him the money,” Ronald said.

  Zack slid the pack over to Kevin and said, “Count out twenty-five, plus twenty-five hundred small for the tickets.”

  “Twenty-seven five then,” Kevin said.

  “Twenty-seven five,” Zack said.

  “Plus another two hundred for the extra night in Bogotá,” Chris said.

  “Sure,” Zack said, bending down to snort another tiny line. Rising back up, a finger to a nostril, he said, “Boy, is this stuff righteous or is it righteous? How was Bogotá?”

  “Scary,” Chris said.

  Zack laughed. “I’ll bet. You get any emeralds?”

  “No,” Chris said. “That whole crap about emeralds is bogus. You have to have money to buy emeralds—real money.”

  “Well, you got it now. You ready to do this again?”

  “You know what?” Chris said, reaching out and taking the stacks of hundreds that Kevin was sliding across to him, putting them inside his jacket pocket, “I am. When?”

  “I’ll call you,” Zack said. “Have a drink.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Chris said, standing up. “Give me a week. Then call whenever.”

  He bumped fists with Zack, then walked off along the bar, not looking at anyone, heading toward the elevators.

  “Cool dude,” Kevin said, he and Ronald watching him go.

  “He is,” Zack said.

  Not looking back, Chris reached the elevators. He could still hear them talking, but not what they were saying.

  He didn’t care what they were saying.

  He stepped inside, pushing the down button. As the doors closed, he took Lieutenant Gomez’s card out of his wallet, looked at it as the elevator started its descent, then tore the card in half, letting it drop on the floor, thinking, Fuck him. He’s got nothing on you. You’ve got enough money now to get some real emeralds, money you can legally make just like you planned. And now you’ll make even more money, your deal with Tori can be finessed; it’ll be a lot easier with all that cash sitting out on the table in front of her, no way will she leave, but if she does, the hell with that, too. Worse things can happen. There are a lot of other women out there. Besides, she’s not going to leave. Not now, she won’t.