“I can take care of me,” he said.
“Then I don’t want to marry you,” she said angrily. “I don’t want to be tied to you if everything turns to shit out there. You understand?”
“That’s fine,” he said. “But if you want to go, you better come on.”
She left things in the house where they were.
Ahead of him a Pepsi truck had driven off the airport road and blundered onto its side. All the Pepsi bottles had spilled on the ground and two Mexicans without shirts were standing in the field drinking Pepsis, other bottles already stuck in their pockets and down their pants. They were drinking fast, turning the bottles straight up in the air, though the truck was on fire and there was a chance it might explode. In the rearview he saw back toward town the red flasher on a police bus. Both Mexicans seemed to see the flasher at the same time and started running suddenly out into the muddy field that ended on the dry Atoyac riverbed. They ran like children, their arms thrown out wildly, disappearing abruptly into the chase of the river. He made a wide turnout to avoid the truck, a brand new cab-over Mercedes with PEPSI stenciled backward in red script across the blunt nose. When he got beyond the cab he could see in the mirror the driver inside, his face sprouting blood and jammed up into the windshield as if he had been trying to escape through the front of the truck when something came from behind full force and smacked him. Rae didn’t need to see that. It would make her think the wrong thing, like the American girls gone out of the van in the morning. Everything got harder.
The airport terminal was cheap tinted glass and concrete, and enclosed too little space. It gave you the feeling of having been half built, then abandoned, so that one end had needed to be blocked off.
Rae stood in the middle of the lobby, watching the soldiers. The other passengers had maneuvered themselves close to the baggage gate and were keeping their eyes on their business. The soldiers were holdovers from the interception, and were left around as cautions for new arrivals. They were combat-readies, and had done some shooting and looked serene.
“Does the army meet all the flights?” Rae said. The soldiers had begun leering at her.
“They think you’re hot stuff,” Quinn said, keeping his eye on the steel baggage doors. “Forty of them would be happy to show you a good time.”
She took his arm and hugged it, ignoring him. She had on a green leotard, black jeans, and tinted glasses. She looked like a low-budget tourist. “Are you still protecting the deer, Harry?” She smiled at him.
“I gave it up,” he said.
“You still let the marines cut your hair, though, don’t you?” She intended to be friendly now.
“I wanted you to recognize me,” he said.
“I’d always know you, Harry,” she said and looked back at the soldiers, holding his arm tighter. “Big smile. Ecstasy on your face.”
“Where’ve you got the money?” he said.
She pulled a strand of red hair away from her cheek. “In my Varig bag. I didn’t think to tape it to my thighs.”
A lot of money meant dope, and he wanted it brought in inconspicuous. No one checked luggage coming in. Coming in was easy. Getting out was the bitch.
He kept watching the gate. “My father died,” Rae said matter-of-factly.
“Did he know about this?” Quinn said.
She had stared at the soldiers a long time. “He thought it was droll. He thought the maladroit ought to be punished.” She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m a little stoned,” she said, “but I’m glad you quit wardening. It didn’t really suit you.”
Soldiers could smell dope in a shit house, and no one could stop them if they decided to search you, like the college girls out on the highway. It wasn’t smart. But she was freaked. “Are you holding?” he said, and took a look at the soldiers lining the exits.
She kept smiling. “I smoked a number on the plane,” she said. “My last. I’m quitting in your honor. It just didn’t seem right. Why don’t you tell me how Sonny is?”
He didn’t want to think about Sonny now. Sonny seemed a long way away. “He’s alive,” he said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means he’s in el slammer. It’s not a hotel.”
“Is he getting out?” she asked calmly and looked at him. Her eyes were afraid.
“That’s why I’m here,” he said.
“I see,” she said and looked away.
Taxi drivers had begun combing the passengers for fares back to town. “Downtown” was all they could say, and it was making the passengers nervous. Anxiety was your usual accompaniment. You flowed down it or you flowed against it, but you didn’t float out of it. It was like the war, and you acclimated the same way, by never being out of it long enough to expect anything better. He felt like he’d made a good adjustment.
A jeep growled behind the accordion gate, and the steel doors suddenly banged up and the crowd moved in. Two fat Mexican boys began hurling bags through the opening. Across the plain of the Atoyac, the wrecked Pepsi truck was clearly visible in the distance. A long blanket of grey smoke had been persuaded back toward the city on the breeze that trailed the rain. Police flashers were swirling on the road.
“What’s that?” Rae said curiously. She stepped forward and started out through the open gate toward the truck. She took his arm and kept him from moving up into the crowd for the Varig bag.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“Sure you do,” she said and smiled. “That’s exactly what you see. Nothing’s innocent to you.”
“I’m trying to lose that knack,” he said. “It’s in your honor.”
She gripped his arm tighter. The soldiers were pointing out toward the smoke. “It’s out of your control,” she said, staring transfixed. “It’s your instinct.”
The other passengers were yelling in a confused English-Spanish and pushing bags back through the crowd. The taxi drivers had formed a line preventing anyone from getting to the exits. They stood holding white cards that said TAXI, and were smiling. The Pepsi truck exploded suddenly, a dark smoke puff followed by a bright orange swell. The noise took a second to arrive, and arrived diminished. “What’s the matter with this place?” Rae said.
“It’s full of Mexicans,” he said, easing her into the crowd toward the gate. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I’m sorry I made you bankroll this. I didn’t know what else to do.” She glanced at the soldiers uncertainly. “I don’t know why I thought I had to do this.”
“Because you love me,” Quinn said, and put his arm around her.
“I guess that’s it,” she said. Her mouth was constricted. A short, fat Texas woman began giving her a deferential look. Rae pulled loose and let herself be pushed back through the pressing crowd, while Quinn moved toward the money.
Where the Pepsi truck was burning there were a lot of police. Three blue minibuses blocked one lane with flashers popping, and several plainclothesmen with machine guns were marshaling cars onto the muddy shoulder. Stray officers were stopping vehicles and making drivers show papers. There was no reason for it, but there was nothing else for them to do. The driver was lying on his side on the pavement away from his truck, his face frozen and messed with blood. Some of the police were guarding him as if they thought he might be of some use later on. One of them was taking the driver’s picture with a Polaroid. Quinn had his tourist card out, but when he passed by the policeman directing traffic, the policeman called “quickly, quickly,” and waved him on.
“What’s that about?” Rae said. She had the blue Varig bag on the seat under her arm. He had made her count the money in the parking lot, where he could see it. She turned and looked back at the Pepsi truck.