Epiphany Jones

by Michael Grothaus

  I look down the aisle and make my way again to the rear window. About an hour ago we passed a car on the shoulder of the road. As we drove by it pulled back onto the highway behind us. It’s been trailing back there ever since, its square headlights visible in the night as other cars overtake it, and then speed by us.

  Back in my seat I swallow a couple of my 486s to suppress my anxiety and grab the bus company’s generic tourist magazine from the sleeve on the seatback in front of me. The route map on the back shows Ensenada on the Pacific coast and Veracruz on the Gulf. I wonder where we are now, but when I look out the window all I see is the dark, purple sky over the cracked expanse of central Mexico.

  I feel my forehead and it’s warm with fever from my infection. I wake hours later. The large digital clock at the front of the bus says its half-past midnight. The desert is pitch black and inside little orange floor lights dimly illuminate the cabin. Paranoia compels me to check my surroundings. Across the aisle a little old lady snores softly. Her newspaper rests on the seat next to her. The back of a few heads sprout from seats closer to the driver. Behind me, there’s another three people scattered throughout the bus – all sleeping. I peak down the aisle again to look out the rear window. There’s still a car behind us, but it’s farther away now. I can’t make out the shape of its headlights. I can’t tell if it’s the same one.

  The gun in my pocket presses against my thigh. I’ve never used one in my life before, but I’m glad I have it. If Epiphany is looking for her daughter it makes her even more dangerous. How many moms wouldn’t kill to save their child? And she already has.

  The bus jostles and I cry out a little as my stab wound hits the armrest. If my pain had a name it would be Epiphany Jones.

  When I fall asleep again I dream I’m back in Chicago. There’s a ticker-tape parade in my honour. The city knows that I was an innocent man framed for a heinous crime. The mayor and I ride in the back of an open-top car, waving at citizens screaming my name. ‘At great personal risk, Jerry Dresden apprehended and brought to justice a most dangerous and wicked woman,’ the mayor shouts. ‘The videotape proved everything!’ My mom and Donald smile at me from the car in front, and on a float behind us, Epiphany is tied to a stake. She’s being burnt alive.

  I wake to a growing fever and a new fear that’s crept into my mind: What if the tape wasn’t recording? Why should I believe anything Epiphany says? What if it’s blank and she took it because she knew I would only come with her if I thought it proved my innocence?

  A road sign says it’s two hundred kilometres to Veracruz. It’s now past eleven and the sun is shining brightly. There are more cars now behind us in the distance, some have round headlights, some square. I tap the woman across the aisle and gesture towards the newspaper she’s discarded. For the slightest moment she looks at me as if we know each other but then she smiles, obviously mistaken.

  I can’t read Spanish but the pictures keep me occupied. There’s an article that seems to be about jobs or the economy. A graph shows little Lego-looking workers with arrows going up or down next to symbols for the peso, euro, dollar and pound.

  On another page is an article about the orphanage fire in Ensenada. A photograph shows a young girl crying as a medic treats her on-site. Another split-picture shows the orphanage before and after. Truthfully, the fire didn’t make it look much worse than it already was.

  Then I flip the page to find myself staring back at me. My graduation photo takes up four columns of text. Really, I should start a scrapbook. In the article, beneath my photo, the words ‘Chicago’, ‘Van Gogh’ and ‘US’ appear several times. I fold the paper shut, but for the remainder of the trip the old lady across the aisle casts inquisitive glances.

  It’s early afternoon when we arrive at the bus terminal in Veracruz. When we pull in I look back to see if any of the cars follow us off the main road, but they all drive past. The terminal is packed and it takes a while for the herd of arrivals to make their way through the exit gates. Outside the crowds mix with taxi drivers and a few policemen directing traffic. Some just stare into the flux of people who are coming and going. I don’t see Epiphany anywhere. Back the way I came I notice two police who look a bit agitated and I think of the newspaper in my backpack that’s now folded around the gun. Would Mexican police really be looking for me?

  I flinch as someone grabs my arm. It’s Epiphany. She’s wearing this cute blue sundress, a wide-rimmed cream hat and white strapped sandals. The large sunglasses and yellow shoulder bag complete her look as American-chic tourist. And I remember what LaRouche told me: Be inconspicuous. Be invisible.

  Her dress doesn’t have any pockets. The videotape has to be in the yellow bag. In my backpack, I can feel the weight of the gun. But it’s too crowded to do it here. Pull the gun now and the police would be all over me. Epiphany would have plenty of time to take off.

  ‘Didn’t Momma tell you to get some new clothes?’ she says.

  ‘Uh, yeah. I spent it on medicine,’ I lie and jiggle the backpack. ‘Antibiotics and all. You know, infection from the stabbing.’

  Epiphany ignores my dig, instead explaining in her vague Epiphany-way why she had to leave early. ‘I made a mistake,’ she says. ‘If I didn’t leave town, I would have put Momma’s life in danger.’

  Too late, I think, and I almost feel bad not telling her what’s happened to LaRouche. Almost.

  Epiphany tells me we leave for Portugal tonight. There’s a man we have to meet in thirty minutes to pay for our passage. Tonight he’ll sneak us onto his boat. And nothing sounds worse to me than taking a cruise with Epiphany. I’d probably order the wrong thing at dinner and she’d have the maître d’ stab me. And through all of her explaining her plan, she never once mentions my wound. She never once mentions setting me up; getting me stabbed.

  And that fear, it creeps back into my mind. What if there’s nothing on the tape? What if it’s just a bluff?

  But that’s what the gun is for.

  And relax, would you? I’m not going to straight up murder her. The gun’s just here to give me some power over her; to make her give me the tape. I’m not a cop and I’m not an action star. The tape is the path of least resistance to proving my innocence. Let the cops find Epiphany after I’ve proved to them I didn’t do it. My troubles end with the tape, but first I need to view what’s on it. And if it is blank, well, then I guess I’ll have no choice but to use the gun to take Epiphany by force.

  So as Epiphany keeps talking about our itinerary, I wince and grab my back. ‘I don’t think I can go with you to meet the guy right now,’ I say. ‘I need to … I need to sit.’

  This doesn’t fit into Epiphany’s plan. She looks at me suspiciously, so I press my eyes closed and grab onto a railing. I make it look like I’m about to fall over. But Epiphany’s not a fool. She knows why I’m here. Denying it would only make her more apprehensive.

  So I say, ‘I’m not going to lie to you. The second you give me that tape, I’m gone.’ I wince as I take a deep breath. I bite my teeth together in a fake attempt to stifle another fake moan. ‘But you have it, so I’m doing what you want.’

  I’m not the best actor, but my fever lends credibility. My sweats are real. Plus my wound does hurt. Just not as bad as I make it look.

  ‘I’m not much good if I pass out,’ I say. ‘Are you going to carry me to the boat?’

  I give another muffled cry.

  A cagey look sits on her face. And then Epiphany says, ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen.’

  Stand back, ladies and gentlemen. That’s an apology – Epiphany Jones style.

  ‘I got these for you,’ she says, almost timidly, and reaches into her yellow bag and hands me a bottle of co-codamol and another of ibuprofen. And if I weren’t planning to rob her at gunpoint in a few hours, I’d be a little touched.

  I wave her apology away like I’m a big martyr. ‘Let’s just do what we need to do. The sooner I can get back to my life, the better.’

  But Epip
hany, she looks like she’s still on the fence.

  So I say, ‘I mean, I did just come all the way here on the bus. If I was going to take off I would have done it then. Besides, I hardly slept.’ Except when I dreamt about burning you alive, I want to add. ‘I just need some rest.’

  But she’s nothing if not cautious.

  ‘Fine. Here, look.’ And digging in my backpack I pull out my bottle of 486s. I rattle them in front of her. ‘You know I need these for my condition. Take them. I’ll get them back from you when we meet tonight.’

  And Epiphany, she finally says, ‘OK,’ and slips the bottle of 486s into her yellow bag. Then she pulls a tourist map out and marks a little circle on it by the docks. ‘We’re to be there at nine for transport to the boat. That gives us six hours. I’ll meet him now to pay. You rest. I’ll meet you back here in ninety minutes.’

  I say, ‘Thanks.’

  And she says, ‘And Jerry, if anything happens; if we can’t find each other – be at the docks at nine. That’s where your videotape will be.’

  I follow the sightseers and the sounds of rumba music until I come to a large outdoor market. It’s one of those markets designed to suck money from tourists who are killing time waiting for their cruise ships to depart. The magazine on the bus told me about this place. The stalls are full of prints of Mexico, ceramic plates showing generic images of beaches that could be anywhere in the world, and little bottles of sands labelled ‘volcanic ash’. There are T-shirts, mugs and watches; key chains, pens, and shot glasses. If you can put ‘Mexico’ on it, it’s sold here.

  But what I’m here for isn’t a souvenir. I’m here for the tourists carrying their MiniDV cameras around with them – the kind of camera Roland used to record his sessions on for insurance purposes whenever he photographed a painting. From the looks of it, I’ve got more than a few choices. And I mean, how hard can it be? I’ll just wait until one of the tourists put their bags down to try on an authentic, indigenously carved tribal mask and then swoop in just like Epiphany did in the bus station in Chicago and grab their bag. Then I’ll have what I need to view the tape.

  And just as I pick my dumb, unsuspecting victim, shouts suddenly break through the crowd. I turn and notice a man. He’s got dark hair and a black leather jacket. But before I can remember where I’ve seen him, the two police running from his direction slam into me.

  And my heart, it sinks into my stomach.

  And my head, it keeps screaming, ‘No, no, no!’

  And the last thing I see before the two policemen force my face into the dirt is the man in the leather jacket, smiling.

  21

  Perro

  Jordan Seabring is on a boat in the Caribbean. She’s sunbathing in this little red bikini while her friends are in the water, diving for treasure. This is the movie that solidified her as the next Hollywood ‘It Girl’. This is the movie that made her a household name. This is the movie that put her in the minds of men across the world. There’s side-boob everywhere.

  Seabring plays a total bitch who opens to taking chances when she falls in love with a lowly boat captain, who ends up having terminal cancer. We’re at the part when she has to decide between playing with her rich friends in the water or helping the captain fix the boat’s motor. We’re at the point when she says – something dubbed in Spanish.

  Then again, everything in this tiny jail is in Spanish. I’m sitting on a cell bench, shirtless and shoeless, being watched not closely at all by a lanky police officer who’s reclining at his desk, engrossed in the movie on the black-and-white TV.

  He is one of the cops who arrested me. When it happened I kept hoping to see Epiphany, of all people, in the crowd that formed. She would have been able to help me escape – somehow. In the cell, I look at the clock on the wall. She’s expecting me at the bus station right now.

  When they searched my backpack they found the gun wrapped in the newspaper. Because of that, in front of the whole damn crowd, they made me strip to my underwear and searched me. They took my fake passport. My pain pills. After they were convinced I didn’t have any more weapons concealed in my anal cavity they let me put my pants back on, threw the newspaper on the ground and packed me into their shitty car.

  The lanky police officer at the desk abruptly sits up as another officer with a large beer belly comes in. They speak quickly, glancing at me. Compared to the detectives in Chicago, these police seem so amateur. I can’t believe they actually had the resources to track an American fugitive down.

  The beer-belly officer says something else to the lanky one, who turns the TV off and then rubs his fingers together and presses a buzzer on the desk. The front door clanks open and a man walks in carrying my newspaper, which the police discarded. I can tell it’s the same one because it’s ripped from where they tore the gun from it.

  The man who walks in is the same man who was smiling when he saw me get tackled; the familiar one in the leather jacket. He speaks briefly in Spanish to the officer with the big belly and then addresses the lanky officer at length. The officers grin at each other.

  And now I know where I’ve seen this man before. I literally ran into him at the produce stand in Ensenada, the night I got stabbed. He’s not a cop. You can tell that by the way he casually pulls out a large roll of euros, dollars and pesos, all mixed together, and bribes the two police officers to unlock my cell before they leave the room.

  ‘You know what I love about this country, Jerry?’ he asks in a thick Italian accent as he enters my cell. ‘Money gets you whatever you want.’ He speaks slowly, the way confident men do. The way men do when they know they’re in control.

  ‘How do you know my name?’ I say, my mouth dry.

  He smiles. ‘Good, Jerry! Good! Right to the point! I like that in people. You’re a busy man, I’m a busy man. Time is money, right?’ He unfolds the newspaper. ‘Your name is Jerry Dresden,’ he says, paraphrasing the article. ‘You murdered a co-worker and stole a painting in your home country.’ His eyebrows rise, ‘Very daring of you.’

  My gut tells me, You’re fucked, Jerry.

  The Italian continues skimming the article. ‘Unfortunately, the US authorities have had a break in the case. A young boy who was threatened into providing falsified travel documents to the fugitive – that’s you – has come forward. From his testimony the police now believe the fugitive fled to Mexico late last week.’ Another raise of his eyebrows. ‘The boy had created two passports, but, given your psychosis, the police believe you only imagine you’re travelling with someone. They are now working in conjunction with Mexican authorities … ah, well, you get the idea.’

  I sink low on the bench.

  ‘Jerry, Jerry, don’t look so down,’ he says in mock sympathy. ‘You’ve got a lot going for you. The Mexican police are a joke. They don’t keep up on the wires. They don’t know who they’ve got in their cell.’

  ‘Then why did they arrest me?’

  ‘Because I called ahead and told them to, of course,’ he says, motioning with the wad of cash in his hand. ‘I mean, how would it look if a foreigner like me abducted an American tourist in broad daylight?’

  I say, ‘I didn’t do those things.’

  The Italian, he paces around the cell. ‘Jerry, you’re not getting it. I don’t care if you did or not. Do you know why I’m here?’

  I shake my head, no.

  ‘I’m here because I’m a businessman, Jerry.’ He crouches in front of me. ‘I need to protect my interests. My interests in Ensenada, my interests in Veracruz. My interests everywhere. You understand?’

  I shake my head, no, again and the Italian stands back up. He takes off his leather jacket and folds it once before placing it on the bench. Even though he’s got to be a good fifteen years older than me, his body is the image of a person ten years younger. His T-shirt is snug over his chest and his arms are firm and toned. As I sit, shirtless, my flabby belly forms a roll at my waist. Pathetic.

  ‘The police in your country are wrong, aren�
��t they, Jerry? You are travelling with someone. A woman named Hanna.’ His pacing increases. ‘Don’t deny it, Jerry.’

  And my stomach drops. My body goes cold.

  ‘You’re Nico,’ I say.

  Nico, the trafficker.

  Nico, the teeth smasher.

  Nico, he stops in place and smiles an ironic smile. ‘See! I am right! How else would you know my name? I am flattered LaRouche spoke of me. Don’t deny that either,’ he adds.

  I scratch the edge of the bench. Is that where he’ll have me bite when he shatters my teeth?

  ‘Focus, Jerry,’ Nico says. ‘I’m after Hanna, not you.’

  ‘Why?’ I say.

  ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,’ he pauses and shakes his head. ‘A long time ago she almost cost me a very large client. She caused them a lot of trouble and I had to do much work to keep their business. But, let bygones be bygones, right?’ He pauses as if a memory has abruptly appeared in his head. ‘Forgive me, I have lied. I did search for her for a while, but after a year, I gave up. I assumed she died on the streets. Where could she have gone otherwise?’ Now he paces again and speaks without looking at me. The blood has drained from my skin. ‘But as you know, Jerry, she came back to me. The stupid girl came back to Ensenada. And why? To burn down my orphanage.’

  Orphanage?

  ‘Oh, Jerry, you know as well as I do that it wasn’t really an orphanage. It was a place where I could keep my newest girls without people thinking much of it. It’s easy to pay off the police, but if too many people start questioning what parentless girls are doing together in one house – well, that wouldn’t be good for business, would it?’

  He pauses so long, I actually answer. ‘No,’ I say. His eyes crinkle and I realise it wasn’t a question pause – just another confidence pause.