Revolution #9

by Peter Abrahams

  Buzz was draining the last of his beer. “What?” he said.

  Uncle Sam sighed. Then he rubbed his hands together, as though trying to generate momentum. “Well,” he said, “we’d best be going.” He rose. Buzz rose. Charlie rose.

  And Emily. “Now?” she said.

  Uncle Sam took her hand again. His was hot this time, and dry. “We won’t keep him long,” he told her. “Promise.”

  It was happening quickly. The whole day had been like that. Everyone moved toward the door. “Charlie, shouldn’t you pack something? He said a few days.”

  “Not to worry,” said Uncle Sam. “If it takes that long, Charlie can pick up new things.” He chuckled. “A whole wardrobe, if he wants.”

  But Charlie didn’t care about wardrobes; he wasn’t materialistic. That was one of the things she liked about him. Now it occurred to her that maybe she was confusing cause and effect; maybe he lived simply not for philosophical reasons, but because of an inability to make money. And now that money was in the offing, he was off, as if he hadn’t been living the life of his choice. But that was speculation, supported by nothing; and it wasn’t him.

  Buzz opened the door and went out. Uncle Sam followed. A black limo was parked across the street, with a driver at the wheel. Buzz got in the back. Uncle Sam waited on the lawn. In the doorway, Emily turned to Charlie. She looked up into Charlie’s eyes. He shied away from her gaze, stepped forward, took her in his arms. He squeezed hard.

  “I’ve thought of a name, Charlie.”

  “For who?”

  “The baby. Who else?”

  He made a funny movement, almost a shudder.

  “Zachary,” she said. “If it’s a boy.”

  Charlie squeezed her a little harder.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, a little hoarsely, as though something was caught in his throat. “I do.”

  She squeezed him back. “Don’t be too long, Charlie.”

  “I won’t.”

  They kissed. She felt his lips, his face, the strength of his arms around her. And then he was gone, across the lawn, across the street, and into the back of the limo with his Uncle Sam. They were invisible behind the blackened windows. The limo pulled away from the curb, purred down the street, turned the corner, and disappeared.

  Charlie. Her special, perfect man. And now he was rich too. She’d been off base. He was being responsible, she was being sentimental. Honeymoon: a lovely old word that had lost its meaning, like a glyph in some jungle.

  Emily went back inside and closed the door. She separated the sleeping bags and was rolling them up when the washer buzzed, signaling the end of the cycle. She went into the laundry cubicle off the kitchen and began transferring wet clothes into the dryer. There were some of her things, some of Charlie’s; and the pants with the green whales on them, left behind by Buzz. As she was putting Buzz’s pants in the dryer, she felt something in one of the pockets and took it out.

  It was an empty envelope, on Yale Alumni Society stationery. The ink had blurred, but the address was still legible:

  Mr. B. W. Svenson

  227A Charles St.

  Boston, Mass. 02114

  Emily dropped it in the trash.

  9

  Nuncio liked being the bearer of good news and always delivered it to his clients on the phone. Bad news he passed on through the mail, to keep things pleasant. Now, at ten-thirty on a morning in May, with the sun glaring through his dusty windows, Nuncio dialed Brucie Wine’s number. It rang many times before Brucie answered it, somewhat reducing Nuncio’s enthusiasm.

  “Yeah?” said Brucie, his voice thick and sleepy. Then came a horrible sound that Nuncio realized was throat clearing. He held the phone away from his ear, as though germs might be speeding through the wire.

  “Good news,” Nuncio said.

  “Huh?” said Brucie. “Are you tryna sell me somethin’?”

  “It’s me,” said Nuncio. “Mr. Nuncio.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “I’ve got good news.”

  “What about?”

  “Your case,” Nuncio said. “They bought it. You’re off the hook.”

  “Meaning?”

  Meaning? How, thought Nuncio, had he been unclear? “Meaning they dropped the charges in return for the tip. You can resume normal life.” Nuncio then made the mistake of adding, “Or not, as the case may be.”

  “Huh?”

  Nuncio sighed. “You’re in the clear, Brucie. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Whatever you say.” Brucie hung up. No thank-you, no good-bye. Nuncio switched on his Dictaphone. Could a client sue his lawyer on the grounds that he had failed to understand that he was no longer under indictment? Probably. Nuncio dictated a letter to Brucie spelling out the good news.

  · · ·

  Brucie’s arrest had not been, as Brucie thought, a matter of random bad luck, or even, as Nuncio thought, the inevitable result of Brucie’s stupidity. The truth was that Brucie had an enemy he knew nothing about.

  Brucie’s enemy stood just under five two and weighed 103 pounds. Rodolfo Chang had always wanted to be a cop, but he was far too small and so he settled for a job as a field agent for the INS. He had a master’s in criminology from San Francisco State, spoke Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese, and worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. What made him so dedicated was the existence of his many cousins, aunts, and uncles, none of whom he had ever met, in Mexico and China. They were always seeking his help in coming to the United States. Rodolfo Chang steered them impartially toward the proper channels, forwarding all necessary documents at his own expense and advising patience. The thought of these desperate and poor cousins, aunts, and uncles, all waiting their turn, made Chang intolerant of those less-patient types he sometimes turned up in dark, improper channels. Chang had little mercy for corner-cutting would-be Americans, and none at all for the bloodsuckers profiteering from them, profiteering bloodsuckers like Brucie Wine.

  Not long after Nuncio woke Brucie with the news, Rodolfo Chang’s beeper went off. Chang was sitting in a café near the waterfront, drinking his third coffee. He’d been up all night, waiting for a fishing boat packed with Hondurans that hadn’t come. He called the office, was put through to a clerk he knew at the D.A.’s.

  “Heard about your pal Brucie Wine?”

  “He’s not my pal,” said Chang.

  The clerk snickered. “That’s why I called. Thought you’d like to know that Brucie walked.”

  “What are you talking about? He hasn’t even gone to court yet.”

  “And he’s not about to. A deal went down, charges dropped.”

  “What kind of a deal?”

  “Hey, don’t get mad, Rudy, I just work here. Gotta run.” And he hung up before Chang could say, “Don’t call me Rudy.” He hated being called Rudy.

  Rodolfo Chang spent the next two hours at the office, trying to find out about Brucie Wine’s deal. All he learned was that word had come down from a level of the Justice Department that, in terms of his own influence or his boss’s or his boss’s boss’s, might as well have been heaven itself. He stalked outside, got into his car, slammed the door and yelled “Shit” and “Fuck” at the top of his lungs. A woman passing by stopped and stared, then walked quickly on. People weren’t used to seeing Chinese faces contorted like that. Rodolfo Chang couldn’t help it; he looked Chinese, but he had his mother’s temperament, extravagant and Latin, the temperament of a much bigger man. He was trapped in a body of the wrong race and size. Chang turned the key, holding it down longer than necessary, making the starter squeal the way he wanted Brucie to squeal, then sped out into traffic without looking and headed for Brucie’s shop.

  · · ·

  Brucie’s shop was a three-story Victorian that had been in his family for generations but didn’t look as though it would survive Brucie’s stewardship. Chang parked across the street from the sagging structure and waited. A man wrapped in a blanket went by, pushing
a shopping cart loaded with green plastic garbage bags and talking about moonglow in Spanish. Chang knew at once he was a U.S. citizen, although he couldn’t have explained how, and didn’t give him a second glance. A few minutes later an old car rolled up the street, burning oil, and stopped in front of Brucie’s. It was an American-made car, a Chevy, and bore a California license plate, but Chang knew just as quickly and certainly that its occupants were not U.S. citizens. He copied their plate number in his notebook.

  In the front of the Chevy sat a man and a woman with a baby on her lap; in back, three or four kids. The woman counted some bills from her purse and gave them to the man. He got out of the car, walked up to Brucie’s shop, spent almost a full minute eyeing the sign that read “Wine Printing and Engraving,” and knocked on the door. After a while he knocked again, waited some more. He stuck his nose against the glass and peered in. His wife called to him in Spanish: “Louder, you fool. Don’t be so timid.” The man banged the door, then looked around furtively in case anyone had heard. He saw Chang. Chang pretended to be searching for something in the glove compartment. When he looked up, the man was getting into his car. The engine made a few explosive noises and blue smoke erupted from the exhaust. The Chevy drove off.

  Chang stayed where he was. The old car had barely disappeared from view when a black Trans-Am roared up the street and braked to a hard stop. Chang recognized the car. It was the same one the police had pulled over on the Golden Gate Bridge, acting on Chang’s tip that there were stolen passports inside. They’d found no passports but had done even better, from the cops’ point of view, seizing 192 grand in counterfeit bills. And now, twenty feet away, there was Brucie Wine, free as the goddamned air.

  Brucie, shirtless and holding a can of Bud, got out of his car. He had a skinny chest, a potbelly, a graying rat tail hanging down his back. He glanced around as though looking for someone, checked his watch, glanced around again. Then he tilted the Bud to his lips; his Adam’s apple bobbed in the sunshine. He tossed the empty can onto the street and whistled.

  An ugly dog sprang out of the car. Chang didn’t like the look of that dog at all. He reached into his pocket and touched his nine-millimeter pistol. Brucie closed the door with care, locked it, tried the handle to make sure it was locked, and chained the dog to a No Parking sign within striking distance of the car. Chang took his hand from his pocket. He didn’t like dogs of any kind, but especially those bigger and stronger than he was.

  Brucie checked his watch one more time, then walked to the front door of the house and let himself in. He was gone for a long time. Chang had nothing to do but wonder what was going on inside. After a while he decided to hazard a peek in one of the windows. He crossed the street and had one foot on the sidewalk when he heard a growl. The dog was facing him, chain pulled taut, muscles popping, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. Chang turned and got back in his car.

  Not long after, Brucie came outside. He had another Bud in one hand and a stack of blue cards in the other. Social Security cards. Chang knew what they were immediately, the same way he could identify a U.S. citizen from across the street. He toyed with the idea of drawing his gun and busting Brucie on the spot. But what was the point? They’d had more evidence the last time, and it hadn’t stuck. Chang sat quietly. This time he would build a case that no one could deal away.

  Brucie unchained his dog. Man and dog got into the Trans-Am. Brucie pulled away from the curb, burning rubber like an adolescent. Chang followed. The beer can soon came floating out of Brucie’s window, bounced on the pavement and off the bumper of Chang’s car. Chang, perched on the phone book he needed to see over the dash, his tiny feet on the blocks attached to the pedals, spoke aloud. “You’re dead meat, asshole,” he said. He didn’t let Brucie out of sight.

  10

  Buffalo wings, two double cheeseburgers with fries, a sausage burrito, and a sixty-four-ounce pitcher of Bud. Yvonne laid it all in front of the men at the back table. Their eyes swiveled from the game on the big-screen TV and locked on her: various parts of her, that is. It was a lousy job. Yvonne went back to the kitchen and picked up the tray for table two: a Coors and a shot, three drafts, ribs for four. Paco was shaking the grease off a basket of onion rings. He saw her and got that pouting look on his face. Some kind of male contagion was in the air. She’d seen epidemics like this before. “T-shirt fit okay?” Paco said, with a trace of accent; so fit sounded like “feet.”

  Yvonne shrugged. “I guess so.” You leering bastard, she added to herself. Last week he’d issued them all new T-shirts, black with “Paco’s Sports Bar and Restaurant” written in glitter. They fit tight, hers the tightest. Paco was delighted with the effect. Gave the place a little class, he thought. His kind of class was nipples pressing under black cotton. Yvonne didn’t care: Paco’s grubby bar was just a stage set, and Paco and his customers, speculatively watching the way her body moved under that T-shirt and her jeans, were without importance, bit-part actors in a play they didn’t even know was in performance. They didn’t count. Only Felipe counted.

  It was a Wednesday night. Felipe was off at seven, she was off at eight, and Delores was working four to midnight at the nursing home in Santa Whatever-it-was. That gave them four hours, less twenty minutes or so, which was the difference between Delores’s driving time and theirs.

  Felipe walked in at five after seven. He was wearing his uniform—“Armored Trucking Services, Inc.,” read the crest on his shirt—but he’d checked his gun at the garage, a few blocks away. He looked for her the moment he came through the door. He had no cool at all. He saw her, grinned like a boy on Christmas morning, and sat at table three, one of hers. Yvonne brought him a draft.

  “Hi, Carol,” he said. He rolled the r—his accent was a little stronger than Paco’s. Yvonne liked the sound and was glad she’d chosen a name with an r in it. She was Carol to Felipe and the gang at Paco’s, where she worked off the books, but it wasn’t her real name. Neither was Yvonne, if you wanted to be a stickler about it.

  “Hungry?” she said.

  He heard deep meanings in the word and answered with double underlinings. “You wouldn’t believe how hawngry.”

  Yvonne didn’t like too much familiarity in the bar and he knew it. She snapped out her pad. “What’ll it be?”

  Felipe looked crestfallen. He ran his finger down the menu and ordered ribs. Felipe was a carnivore. She could smell it through his skin when she got close enough. “Your nails are dirty,” she said, then returned to the kitchen and put in the order. Hawngry tonight. She almost laughed out loud.

  Felipe left a few minutes before eight. Yvonne balanced her receipts and went out the back door at ten after. Her car was parked in the alley. It was a blue Tercel. There were thousands of them. Yvonne wondered whether Felipe had ever even looked at the license plate. Almost certainly not, but when the time came, she would take precautions anyway. She got in, drove into the street and down the block.

  Felipe’s car was parked at the corner. It was too dark to see the velour dice hanging from his rearview mirror. Yvonne flashed her lights. He pulled out ahead of her and she followed him past an auto salvage yard, a tire retreader, then along a fast-food strip and onto the freeway. Felipe was driving fast. Hawngry tonight. Soon—she hoped it was soon—he’d be hawngry forever. She swung into the passing lane and sped under an overpass. Someone had spray-painted “Amerika” on the concrete abutment. She hadn’t seen that in a long time. It cheered her up.

  Felipe lived in the sprawl down the 880. Yvonne had never bothered to learn the name of the particular town. How could it be a town, with no border and no center? It was just exit 41B to her. She followed Felipe off the ramp and into a neighborhood of boxy houses, low-rise apartment buildings, and dusty lawns with litter on them.

  Felipe and Delores had a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a crumbling stucco building. There was a single-leafed palm tree out front and an unstable staircase in back. They climbed the staircase, Yvonne behind, because she di
dn’t feel like having her ass patted. Felipe unlocked the door and they went inside. Yvonne breathed in the smell of the Third World, or what she took to be that smell. She hadn’t been out of the country for a long time. Felipe closed the door and switched on the light.

  The place was a mess: curlers, Mexican magazines, Felipe’s barbells, all scattered on the living room floor; dishes in the sink; leftovers on the counter; dust on everything. Felipe didn’t seem to notice. He turned, put his arms around her, stuck his tongue into her mouth and began rooting around. He made a groaning sound. “I been dreaming of this,” he said. Yvonne knew it was true. She was the stuff his dreams were made on, an Anglo vision that was realized once a week, their three schedules permitting.

  Soon—because time was always a factor in their relationship—they were in the bedroom. It was messy too: clothes all over the floor, opened Coke cans on the bedside table, an ashtray full of butts, beds unmade, and Delores’s see-through black baby dolls entangled in the sheets. They got undressed and lay on the bed, leaving the baby dolls where they were. Yvonne felt the cheap synthetic material under her thigh.

  Delores’s bridal photograph stood among the Coke cans. It showed a young, smiling woman, copper-colored, black-haired, trim. The problem was she didn’t look like that anymore, Felipe had said. Now she was fat. Another problem was that she didn’t like giving him blow jobs and never had, skinny or fat. Oh, she would do it, all right, but she didn’t like it, and that irritated Felipe. He was muy sensitivo, he explained.

  The funny thing was that he never asked Yvonne to give him a blow job, never even gave her head a subtle little push, which was the kind of thing she would have expected him to do; and so she never did. He liked to lick her instead. That was mostly what their sex life, which was all they shared, was about. Delores blew Felipe, Felipe licked Yvonne. Some sort of class structure was being replicated, Yvonne knew: the entire U.S. immigration policy could probably be portrayed in one pornographic triptych. She smiled at the thought.