“You blame yourself.”
Godo shivered. “Minute I felt something wrong, you know? I shoulda lit that fucker up.”
“You do that over there? Wax women?”
“He wasn’t no woman, Hap, that’s the-”
“You didn’t know that, is my point.”
“No. No. Some level, I knew. It was wrong, you know?”
“You guessed, Godo. You suspected. And you take out a woman on a bad guess, think of the shit you’da been in.”
Godo shook his head helplessly, miserably. “You’re not getting it.”
“You’re letting hindsight fuck with you. Time don’t work like that.”
“Wow. That’s deep.”
“Go ahead and mock, asshole. I’m trying to help you.”
“I got locked in, you know? The crap between me and that damn driver.” Godo looked up into the night sky, the fat clouds, the spray of stars. “So fucking like me.”
“No, what’s like you? Letting it eat at you like this. There’s nothing you coulda done. I know you wish there was but…” Happy let his voice trail off suggestively, the silence into which all wishes vanish. “Sure as shit no way you can change it now.”
“Stop fucking telling me that.”
“I’ll stop when you look me in the eye, convince me you’ve got this shit squared away. I told you, I’m gonna need you tomorrow. You’re the one I gotta rely on. Tell me I can do that.”
Godo felt chilled to the bone. “There’s something else,” he murmured.
“Like what?”
“I’m not saying I can explain it, but more and more I picture this guy, this Snell, I see his face in that Blazer-backseat, passenger side. I swear to God it was him.”
Happy didn’t say anything at first, just pulled his cigarettes from his back pocket, tapped one out, crouched over to light up, then glanced toward the house. The kerosene lantern Efraim had brought back flickered in the living room where everyone was gathered, its waxy light shuddering along the bare walls. “Don’t take this wrong, okay? But you been through what you been through, your mind is gonna fuck you up. It’s gonna want to explain what can’t get explained. Try to make sense of the crazy bullshit. All right? But it ain’t the guy. You’re making it up.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know this, okay? You go in there tomorrow thinking what we gotta get done has anything to do with what happened back there-I’m sorry man, I get it, this sergeant who bit it, he meant something to you, it’s totally fucked what happened-but you go in there with this on your mind, we’re all screwed. You can’t make it right. You sure as hell ain’t gonna make it right you walk in there tomorrow looking for payback. It’s a job. We gotta keep it clean. Somebody gets hurt, the whole thing spins outta control and we’re seriously fucked that happens. Keep it simple. We’re jacking an asshole, period. He’s smart, he hands everything up, everybody lives for another day, right? He’s stupid, we improvise. I’m betting he’s smart. And I’m betting he’s not your guy. Even if he was, he wasn’t the one driving, right, the prick who got in your face?”
Godo was gnawing on his lip. “Maybe he was one of the guys on our BOLO list.”
“So what if he was? Besides, that was true, you’d remember the name.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Godo winced, feeling lost. “I dunno…”
Happy sucked on his cigarette, face turning red in the ash glow. “Sure you do. You’re just blocking it out because you want to get even.”
“Listen, there were rumors of counterfeit access cards being used by some of the contractors, access levels jacked up to G-15, gave them the right to enter weapon storage. They’d get their hands on Russian and Iranian stuff, MAG-58s and AKMs, some German MP5s, sell it on the black market there. I wonder if this guy didn’t figure a way to get stuff like that shipped over. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Godo-”
“It makes sense. Admit it, it’s possible.”
“Fuck, anything is possible. Look, put it to rest, man. It’s over, you’ve talked it out. It don’t have the power over you no more. It can’t. Am I right?”
Godo knew what answer Happy was after, felt less sure he could give it to him. But he nodded assent, wanting not to talk about it anymore. Another rush of wind rocked the branches of the walnut trees, a chorus of whispers. Glancing toward the house, he thought he saw, beyond the rubbery lantern glow through the picture window, a small tumbling shadow flutter up and away from under the eaves. An exorcised demon, maybe. He couldn’t shake the feeling it was the wrong demon.
Thirty
THE NOONDAY SUN HAMMERED SHADOWS TO THE GROUND LIKE sheets of tin, while inside the musty room a slow trail of furry brown ants caravanned along the wall. Roque sat hunched at the window, squinting into the light, chin resting on his crossed arms, waiting for the Chamula woman to come along, the one who came down from her paraje in the hills every day to sell firewood or chickens or her specialty: popcorn. Las palomitas, she called it. Little doves.
She was one of three distractions he’d found for himself in as many days, holed up in Arriaga at this so-called hotel. In truth, the place was a picadero, a cross between a flophouse and a shooting gallery, where his contact, a nod named Victor, hung out with his fellow salvatruchos and spike-jockeys all day.
It was a testament to the fear the mareros instilled in the locals, despite the druggy excesses, that Roque could park the Corolla on the street with no fear of its being messed with. Even the cops and vigilantes, not to mention the dozens of strangers straggling through town, knew enough to give it a wide berth. Still, he kept the distributor cap locked up in the trunk and watched the car whenever he could, fearing that the one time he let his guard down would be exactly when something happened.
The second distraction he’d afforded himself since arriving came courtesy of a dog-eared Peterson Field Guide, left behind in Julio’s taberna down the street by a birder trekking through the area. Roque paged through the color plates with bored devotion, mesmerized by the otherworldly names: loons, honeycreepers, limpkins and coots, jacanas and nightjars-also known as goatsuckers-bushtits and trogons and black chachalacas.
The mystery of the thing was this: The birds seemed to exist nowhere but inside the book. The only winged creatures he’d seen in town were vultures and blackbirds: grackles and cowbirds, if he’d identified them correctly, the latter being a brood parasite, explaining why it had driven off virtually every other species, pushing them up into the mountains.
Kill the young, he thought. The key to success.
He missed the guitar, its stubborn tuning, its thin sound. He remembered the clanging racket it made when Chepito’s sidekick smashed it against the roof, the Corolla barreling down the crowded street, horn blasting, scattering the fairgoers. It taught him something, that escape. The importance of idiot will. Refusing to give in. He felt a little larger in spirit now, a little bolder, a little more buxo, as Tía Lucha would put it-quick on his feet.
There was nothing quick here, just tedium. He’d asked Victor if he could buy a disposable cell phone somewhere to check in with Happy, maybe even talk with Tía Lucha, but the idea got nixed.-No such thing as wiretaps or warrants here, Victor had said, cops just listen in whenever they fucking feel like it. Forget a cell until you’re north of Oaxaca. Roque had wanted to respond: Right, and you guys communicate how? But it seemed best not to push it, the same way asking too many questions felt not just stupid but dangerous. Still, he missed everybody. It would be ten o’clock there, two hours behind. Tía would be at work. God only knew where Happy or Godo might be.