by B. B. Hamel
“Don’t talk to me about being mature.”
I laughed and grinned at her. There was the anger again in her voice. “Okay. Just trying to say that I agree.”
“Then say that instead.” She sighed, exasperated. “I think you’re a cocky asshole and I think you ruined my life, but this is happening. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“This is happening,” I agreed.
“So we might as well try and get along.”
“That works for me.”
“Okay then. Let’s find a diner and eat.”
I smiled to myself and made my way to the right lane. I got off at the next exit I found and pulled over at the first gas station I saw.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Well, we don’t have phones, so we need to ask for directions.”
She laughed. “I have my phone.”
“Fuck,” I said, eyes wide. “Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“Have you used it?”
“No. I’ve been saving the battery.”
“I need it. Please.”
She dug the phone from her pocket and handed it over. I ripped off the back, pulled the battery, and tossed them both out the window.
“What the fuck!”
“They can track these things,” I explained.
“You could at least warn me.”
“Sorry. Didn’t want an argument.”
She scowled. “Whatever. Go get directions.”
She was quiet after that as I went inside and got directions to the closest diner from the guy working the register. I was worried that she’d had her phone for so long, though I wasn’t sure how much info it was really transmitting. Still, it probably gave the cartel some idea of where we were, but I didn’t want to panic her. We drove another few miles and pulled into a blue and gray, beat-up looking place, complete with semitrucks in the lot and potholes all over the place.
“Perfect,” I said as we climbed out.
“Why’s this perfect?”
“The crappier the diner, the better the food.”
“Yeah? They have a lot of diners in Mexico?”
“No. But I did spend some time across the border now and again.”
We walked into the building, the ’50’s-notaglia décor a hilarious mix of doo-wop and proto-punk. We were seated immediately.
“What was it like, anyway?” she asked after the waitress brought us both sodas.
“What was what like?”
“Mexico.”
I shrugged. “Not bad, actually. Mexico City is pretty huge. Aside from the crime, it’s pretty fun.”
“You mean, aside from you and your people.”
“Pretty much.”
“What did you do for them, anyway?”
“Stole cars at first. Ran packages, did security. Grunt stuff, basically.”
“Just at first?”
“It got a little different after that.”
“Like what?”
I paused and took a sip of my drink. A memory came back to me, harsh and unwanted.
She was tied up in the trunk like a hog, her eyes wide and wild, her hair a mess. My stomach dropped as I looked up at El Tiburon and his three goons, each of them grinning.
“What you think, gringo?”
“She’s pretty.”
“No shit, man. But what you think?”
“What are you asking me here?”
El Tiburon walked closer. I could smell his cheap cologne and the tobacco he always chewed.
“She’s gonna be one of our new girls, you know? Work her in the factory.”
I nodded. I knew they employed poor peasant girls to work in their drug factories, weighing and packing the bags and doing whatever else they needed. Usually, they kept the girls naked to make sure they weren’t stealing.
“She’ll be good for that.”
“Yeah, man. After, if she works out, you can have her.”
“Have her?”
He stood close, grinning this evil grin, while the girl squirmed in the trunk. “Have her as your bitch. Use her how you want then get rid of her.”
“How do I get rid of her?”
“How the fuck you think?” He mimed shooting a gun.
I felt sick to my stomach and looked at her. One day, when El Tiburon was sick of looking at her, I’d be expected to rape her and eventually murder her.
“Sounds fucking good to me,” I said, keeping my face straight, though inwardly I was sick to my core.
“Well?” Lacey asked me, drawing me back into the present.
“Nothing you want to hear about.”
She was about to say something else but the waitress returned and took our orders. As she walked away, I spoke up before Lacey had a chance to start asking more questions.
“What was college like?”
“Okay, I guess. I did a lot of studying.”
“Didn’t party all the time?”
“Sometimes. Not as much as other people, I guess.”
“Come on. Don’t tell me you weren’t out getting wasted and meeting guys every night?”
She laughed. “Hardly. That wasn’t really my college experience.”
“What a shame. You’d have been really popular in Mexico.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Look at you. Nice skin, beautiful hair, curvy fucking body.”
“Curvy? Don’t call me curvy.”
“It’s a good thing.”
“Curvy is what they say in bad romance novels, though.”
I laughed. “You read lots of bad romances?”
“Sometimes. Don’t change the subject.”
“Okay. What I’m trying to say is, you have an incredible body.” I leaned forward, smiling at her, looking into her eyes. “You always have. I never stopped thinking about it.”
“I bet. You were probably too busy with your Mexican girlfriends.”
“Sometimes. But none of them tasted quite like you do.”
She blushed and looked away. “Don’t bring that up.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. I can’t help myself around you.”
“Try harder then.”
“Tell me more about college.”
She sighed and sipped her drink. “It was freedom, you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I had classes and stuff to go to, but also a lot of free time. I worked, but even still I could do pretty much whatever I wanted.”
“What did you want to do?”
“Read, mostly. Make sure I got good grades. Hang out with friends.”
“Sounds pretty nice.”
“What about you? I mean, you haven’t said much about living in Mexico.”
I sat back as the waitress returned with our meals. We began to eat in silence, distracted by the food. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I was putting a burger and fries into my mouth.
It wasn’t until I finished half the meal that I decided to speak.
“I lived in apartment.”
Lacey looked up at me. “What?”
“In Mexico City. It was above this old bar, a real piece of shit, but the owner liked me. Sometimes when I got back from a job late at night, he’d sit there and drink tequila with me and tell me stories about being in the military.”
“What was his name?”
“Felipe, I think, but I called him Señor Anciano and he called me Cara Blanca.”
“What does that mean?”
“White Face, basically. And he was Mister Old Man. I remember this one time I got back around three or four in the morning, and he was just closing up.” I paused and took another bite, chewing and swallowing before continuing. “I walked in and helped him sweep up, and he told me this story about how he had a threesome with two American girls. I asked him how he made that happen, and he laughed and said the one girl was missing a leg, so it was really like a two-and-a-half-some.” I smiled and shook my head. “He was crazy as shit. And an asshole.”
&nbs
p; Lacey laughed. “How old was he?”
“At least in his eighties. And he could drink me under the table if he wanted to.”
“That’s amazing.”
“I had this other friend, this kid who ran errands for the cartel guys sometimes. He’d bring me the paper in the morning and sometimes get me beer and food.”
“How old was he?”
“Maybe twelve.”
“That’s so young. Why was he hanging out with cartel guys?”
“He was poor. When you’re poor and you live in Mexico City, you either stay poor or you join a cartel.
“He wanted to join?”
“Maybe eventually. But I remember this one time, I had gotten home from a job late the night before and was pretty flush. He showed up with the paper and some espresso the next morning, and I was so hungover that I accidentally paid him with a hundred dollar bill.” I grinned and shrugged. “He stared at it for a second then burst out in tears of joy. I didn’t have the heart to take it back from him.”
“That poor kid.”
“Nah. He had it okay. At least he was involved with the cartels.”
“Isn’t that a bad thing?”
“Yes and no. The cartels may do some fucked up shit, but they also help people. Mexico is like anywhere else, with all different kinds of people, but it’s especially hard for the poor. They turn to the cartels to provide services the government can’t or won’t.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Not many people do. Because for the most part the cartels are all fucked-up evil pieces of shit.”
“And yet you worked for them.”
I frowned and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Yes, I did. But like that kid, I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Camden,” she practically whispered. “What happened down there?”
And I wanted to tell her. Looking into her big eyes, practically pleading with me to give her some proof that I was not just a total dirt bag, that I was not the scum she thought I was, I wanted to spill everything.
I wanted to tell her about getting caught stealing cars by the Mexican police and how I spent two months in jail. Until one day, this American guy shows up and offers me a deal. He said I could work with them to try to infiltrate a notorious and dangerous cartel, or I could rot in jail for another few years.
He said he worked for the government, but he never said exactly how. I assumed he was CIA, but he never admitted to anything. He and a few others gave me money and tips and supplies, and I slowly infiltrated El Tiburon’s cartel, all because the American government needed someone on the inside.
That was how I met Trip. We were both working undercover, and our handlers eventually decided we should work together. And so for nearly four years we worked our way through the ranks, feeding information back to the Americans, and all the while they kept telling us we were almost done, just a few more months.
Until finally, one day I woke up and the old man was knocking on my door. He told me that I needed to leave town right away, that the cartels knew who I was. And then he was gone and wouldn’t speak to me again.
I wanted to tell her all of that. Everything I did in Mexico, every fucked up thing that ate at me from the inside, I did because the Americans wanted me to, said it was for the greater good. Once I was involved, there was no escaping, not from the cartel and not from the Americans. They owned me, bit by bit.
But they said that if I ever told anyone about their involvement that I’d be prosecuted for all of my crimes. They seemed to be everywhere and know everything. I couldn’t fuck with them, not yet, even though it seemed like they had turned their backs on me.
I never raped or murdered that girl. I killed for the cartel, but never an innocent person. Still, I could have saved her, could have saved so many girls, but I didn’t. I didn’t blow my cover, like a good operative.
They had me. Until one day, they didn’t anymore, and I was on the run.
“People get lost,” I said finally, unable to tell her any of that. “Let’s get out of here.”
She blinked and looked away as I flagged down the waitress and asked for the check. I paid in cash and we left. Lacey was back to being moody and silent, but I didn’t care. My brain was swirling with my past, with the things that had happened and the things that were happening.
I was a different person than I was when I last saw her. So much had happened, and I knew so much more about the world. Still, whenever I got around her, those old feelings came bubbling back into me.
I was going to have to let her think that I was still a liar. There was no other way.
All that mattered was keeping her safe.
I’d let her hate me a thousand times over if it meant she could live for another day.
9
Lacey
I didn’t know what to make of his stories.
It seemed so human, so normal. He had an apartment, he had friends. He drank tequila with a crazy old sexist man.
And yet there was a darkness that he wasn’t talking about. I knew he was leaving out a lot of his day-to-day life. If he worked for the cartels, he had to have been doing something bad. It wasn’t the sort of organization you joined to sit at a desk.
On some level, I knew he had changed. He had grown, turned into something stronger and sleeker. And yet I still melted when he got near me. I wanted him to tell me what he wanted to do to me, but I also couldn’t stand to hear it.
I hated him and wanted him, and that made it all so much harder.
Lying in bed at night, I kept remembering the first day we all realized he was gone.
Dad and Lynn weren’t married yet, but I figured they would be soon enough. Dad got a call from Lynn early on in the morning, and he asked if I had seen Camden recently. I hadn’t, not for a day or two, but that wasn’t unusual. Camden came and went and wasn’t the type to give constant updates on what he was doing with himself.
Still, Lynn was worried. We stayed up all night calling and calling his phone, wondering where he was. I remembered the pit in my stomach, terrified that he was dead in a ditch somewhere. Dad figured he was just in jail and couldn’t remember anyone’s number to call. Which was typical, since we all rely on cell phones to stand in for our memories these days.
The next morning, we still hadn’t heard from him. Lynn called the police, but they didn’t know where he was, either. They put out a missing person’s report, but that didn’t do anything. The truth was, nobody wanted to look too hard for the local thief. Nobody cared that he had gone missing, aside from his family.
It was all the waiting that really killed me. It was the total silence. He never said goodbye or told me what he was going to do. One day he was there and things were fine, and the next he simply wasn’t anymore.
Part of me wished he were dead. At least if he were dead then we’d have a body and we could at least try to move on with our lives. It would have been devastating and horrible, but we could have healed if we knew the truth. Instead, he just went away, and from that moment on none of us were ever the same. The ambiguity made it so much worse.
It was like he was still there. He was both alive and he wasn’t. We couldn’t mourn him, because we had nothing to mourn. He left without a word and left us with nothing, just a gaping hole where he had once been.
I hated myself for a while. I hated that I wished he were dead and I hated that I missed him so much, and I hated that I didn’t try to save him from whatever it was that took him away. I knew that was crazy and there was probably nothing I could have done, but I still tortured myself to no end about it.
Because it was Camden. He was a mess and he was angry at the world for failing to live up to his expectations, but he was beautiful and smart and funny, and he was gone.
Which was what made sitting in a car with him feel so strange. It was him, but it also wasn’t the same guy that left me. He was all that and so much more.
We drove in silence for most of the day. I was still
so angry and confused that the idea of small talk almost physically repulsed me, and he didn’t seem like he was going to try to drum up conversation anytime soon. That was fine, but typical Camden.
“Where are we?” I asked a few hours into the trip.
He checked a sign. “Somewhere in North Dakota, I think.”
“You think?”
“I’m not exactly using a GPS.”
“You do know where we’re going, right?”
He grinned at me. “We’re going north to Juneau.”
“Yeah, but, I mean, the roads we’re taking.”
“I have a map.”
I gaped at him. “You seriously don’t know, do you?”
He laughed. “Relax. I have the route generally planned out. It’s more or less the same road until we hit Washington, anyway.”
I shook my head and looked away as the night wore on. We stopped and got cheap food at a little deli right off the highway, but he insisted on eating in the car. We kept moving, pushing the speed limit every once in a while but not driving recklessly.
We were, after all, driving across the country in a stolen vehicle. While it was true, that thought didn’t make me feel anything. Frankly, I was beginning to get used to accepting hard truths and moving on from them. Maybe I was getting harder and tougher, too.
By the time Camden signaled that we were stopping for the night, my bladder was full and my legs ached. I was shocked by how tired I could get sitting in a car for hours at a time with nothing to do but listen to crappy music on the radio, but it really took a lot out of me.
My back ached as Camden pulled into the parking lot of an old, beat-up motel. I got out and stretched, looking at its dismal façade.
“This is the worst one so far,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s pretty ratty.”
“Why don’t we find somewhere else?”
“Because it’s almost midnight and we’ve been driving for something like twelve hours.”
“Fair enough.”
“By the way,” he said, tossing me my bag, “we need to ditch this car and get another.”
“Why?”
“Been driving in it too long. Cops could be looking for it, or the cartel could be tracking it.”
“How would the cartel track it?”
“They have more resources than you’d think.”