She slammed the phone so hard against its chrome-plated stirrup it banged out of her hand. She fumbled for it, got it under control, redoubled her grip, then slammed it home again, over and over, harder, faster, time and time again until the plastic earpiece shattered, exposing the copper coils and tin diaphragm beneath. She threw it down, staring in disgust.
From behind Alion the bag boy said, “Fuck, Lucha. Be trippin’.”
She pivoted toward the parking lot, finger-raking her hair to hide her face, chin down, sucking in jolts of air as she stormed to her car.
Thirty-Eight
A SINGLE BARE BULB SCREWED INTO A WALL SOCKET LIT THE bathroom mirror. El Recio, naked except for tattered slippers and a silvery brown boa constrictor coiled around his shoulders, leaned over the basin, brushing his teeth. Happy stood in the doorway, waiting. A small desert gecko hid in the corner, outside the snake’s reach, lurking behind a coffee can stuffed with foul tissues, the toilet barely usable because of the trickling water pressure.
Beyond the bracing whiff of shit, the house smelled of fresh cement, rotten fruit rinds and raw sewage from outside. They were in one of the new developments, if that was the word, on the outskirts of Agua Prieta. Happy had driven two straight days to get here, checking into a transient hotel downtown with Godo, then discreetly asking around, finding his way to El Recio. He was light-headed from lack of food, his body humming with adrenalin and foul with sweat.
El Recio drooled a thin white spume into the sink. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, güey. Ain’t heard nothing from nobody down south about moving your people across.” He’d spent most of his life banging around Tucson, his accent flat and hard. “You say you paid them? News to me. I ain’t seen nothing. Ain’t heard nothing.” He affected a shrug, not wanting to disturb the snake. “Way it is.”
Happy only half heard, Tía Lucha’s voice still echoing inside his brain: The stupid one. The worthless one. Let the scrawny bitch talk, he thought, she’s not your mother. Your mother was a hero, she died on Guazapa volcano.
El Recio rinsed, spat, then stuck the toothbrush behind his ear. He had a manly, misshapen, bone-smooth head and stood tall for a mejicano, over six feet, but so skinny his veins popped. He gave the snake an attentive, leisurely stroke. “You want to get somebody over the wall, you know the freight. Fifteen hundred a head.”
“I already paid,” Happy heard himself say. “Twelve large per.”
“Not me you didn’t.”
“It’s a lot of money. It was supposed to get them all the way.”
“Look, you got a beef with Lonely, go down and talk to him about it.” He gestured for Happy to make way, he and the snake were coming out.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Call, then.” He edged past and shuffled bow-legged toward the front room, the tattoos down his back blending with the boa’s mottled scales.
Happy, following: “Every number I got, plug’s been pulled. Best I get is a ring nobody answers. If you got a number-”
“Last time I say this, right? Ain’t my fucking problem.” Entering the front room, he regaled the rest of the company with a hearty scratch of his balls. Over his shoulder: “You paid twelve thousand per head-for real? Man, those faggots musta seen you comin’.”
Them or you, Happy thought. He couldn’t figure out who exactly was screwing him. The fact Lonely couldn’t be reached smacked of rip-off and yet maybe there’d been a raid down there, everybody popped or driven underground, something El Recio, sly motherfucker, would no doubt recognize as the genius of luck. He could say anything, demand whatever, who’d contradict him-how could he not know how much got paid and why? Either way, Happy thought, I’m stuck. And the kicker? My old man’s dead. All that money and trouble to keep him safe. A restless sorrow fluttered inside his chest. He saw the wisdom of keeping that to himself. It would only make him look weak.
The front room was bare except for a large-screen TV, a leather sofa, an armchair that didn’t match. El Recio’s two underlings had commandeered the couch, nursing beers and watching some rerun of The Shield, Spanish subtitles. One was named Kiki, freckled and wiry, his long black hair knotted in a bun atop his head like a samurai. The other, Osvaldo, was thirtyish, dumpy suit, roach-killer boots, one of those close-cropped beards so trendy a few years back. A girl sat by herself in the armchair, throwing back Jägerbombers-Ripple with a shot of Jägermeister over ice. She had thin Asian eyes carved into a stony Latina face and wore a party dress, no shoes. It wasn’t clear who she belonged to.
Happy said quietly, “Look, about the fifteen hundred.” He was thinking of Samir. Roque could cross on his own with his passport. “No way I can get my hands-”
El Recio, back still turned, cut him off. “You can work, right?”
Happy’d told him about the home invasion. In the half-assed logic of machismo, it was less important the thing went bad than he and Godo walked out alive. It created expectations. He still suffered flashbacks-the contractor lying on his side, face ripped open, the girl screaming through the duct tape-and yet he could barely recall a single moment of the drive south. “Yeah. I can work.”
“Good.” El Recio gestured to the girl. She obliged with a huffing frown, hoisted her glass, uncrossed her legs and wrestled herself onto her feet, taking no notice of his nakedness. The chair clear, he uncoiled the boa from his shoulders, gentled it down into the deserted warm spot, then continued with Happy. “’Cuz I think I got something maybe could suit you.”
Happy’s cell phone rang. In unison, the two on the couch glanced up, the stubbled one growling, “Afuera, pendejo.” Take it outside, asshole. Heading for the door, Happy checked the incoming-call display. Tía Lucha was the only person he’d contacted so far on this phone, but this wasn’t a callback. He didn’t know who it was.
Letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, he stepped first across the open ditch ripe with filth that ran downhill to the sewer linkage, then past the concrete pila topped with potable water, filmed with mosquito larvae. Across the muddy roadbed, unfinished houses loomed in shadow, wands of rebar fingering skyward in the moonlight. Down the road, a few lived-in houses sported satellite dishes, courtesy of El Recio, so his own wouldn’t tip off the police.
He flipped the phone open, put it to his ear, waited.
“Happy-that you?” It was Roque.
A nervous rage crackled up Happy’s spine. “Tell me what happened.”
“Happy-”
“You know what I mean.”
Roque stammered out an explanation-a cow in the road, two trucks of gunmen, it all sounding too fucked up to disbelieve. “Tío got hurt in the accident, he was dazed, it made him an easy target. We all would’ve died if not for Samir. He was like a killing machine.”
Wait, Happy thought, that can’t be right. He recalled the ambush on the road to Karbala, when Samir saved his life. The Arab never grabbed a gun, not off the wounded, not off the dead, he never even tried. He ran and hid, then talked his way out. He lied to me, Happy thought. He’s lied to me all along and so has Lonely and every other glad-handing cocksucker who said he was doing me a favor. There are no favors.