Shadows Across America

by Guillermo Valcarcel

  He reflected that in such a desperate situation, reverting to one’s core beliefs was part of the process. After one of the few periods in the email, she begged Bear to tell him because she couldn’t. Ethan, who knew her well, tried to read between the lines, but there wasn’t any resentment, accusation, or hidden message. It was a harrowing cry for help from a distraught mother, an outpouring of the anguish she’d been through in the past three days. Maybe all she wanted was for someone to lie to her, anything to lift her spirits in a hopeless search.

  On the one hand it was frustrating that she hadn’t sent it to him, not just because of their relationship but also his connection with Michi. But on the other, it was understandable: he hadn’t answered her for years. He read it three more times and each time felt more chilled.

  “Have you told Candy?”

  “No, I thought I should tell you first.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. What should he do? Michi’s father had left before she was born, and her mother had given her the same name to reinforce the fact that she was the only thing that truly belonged to Michelle. She’d grown too used to constant movement and instability, plagued by lotharios, passing encounters, con men, and generally unreliable, occasionally dangerous adventurers. All that instability had had its effect: Michelle had grown tough but also extremely practical, sometimes frighteningly so. It was her only defense against the world. Michi, the invisible daughter, had quietly moved into Ethan’s life, and he’d begun to think of her as family. Then, just when they’d started with the adoption papers—the prospect of marriage was another regular cause of arguments—they’d disappeared.

  Losing Michi had been just as painful as losing Michelle, if not more so. In many ways, it was the real cause of Ethan’s depression. There was one aspect of the breakup that he hadn’t revealed to anyone. It still tormented him. It hadn’t just been Michelle who’d written: Michi had started to send him letters a few weeks after they’d left, but he hadn’t been capable of answering them. When the first one had arrived in his mailbox, he’d thought it was from her mother until he’d seen the childish handwriting. The shock had been so great that he hadn’t been able to open it. He’d spent months living in fear of another one arriving, and eventually three more had. He’d suffered from a nonsensical emotional paralysis. He’d needed her so badly that those envelopes should have been his salvation, but they’d done nothing but stir up despair that incapacitated him for days. He hadn’t opened or torn up any of the letters but kept them in a box along with other old documents. In the end he’d moved, just so he wouldn’t know whether she was still writing to him.

  “I don’t know what to think or what to do.” His stomach was churning. “They’re all wrong.”

  “Let’s go home, have a cup of coffee with Candy, and decide what to do,” Bear said, clearly concerned by Ethan’s disorientation. “When we’ve worked it out, you can talk to Ari, or we can do it together if you like.”

  “No, sorry, I was a million miles away. I’m starting to think a little more clearly now. Will you help me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I need . . .” Ethan was sweating. “I need to see my accountant. Will you come with me?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “You know very well.”

  “You want to go down there? And what are you going to do, Ethan?”

  “It’s just an idea. The first thing I need to do is find out if I can afford it.”

  “We can lend you the money.”

  “Are you kidding? Do you know how much it’ll cost? It could be weeks or months. You couldn’t even if you wanted to. You’re going to tell Candy that you’re giving me money to go find Michi? You’ve got plenty to deal with as it is.”

  “Maybe. But you don’t need to go see your accountant. You know what he’s going to say.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I’m suffocating.”

  Ethan left the restaurant, but instead of heading back to the car, he walked down the street to the corner and then back again. Bear was waiting for him at the door. Ethan walked up and down again. Bear could hear his breathing growing faster with each pass. By the fourth, Ethan’s face was bright red, as though he’d been running for half an hour. He bent over, gasping for air. Bear didn’t move.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Huh, huh, huh. Yeah. You know what I think?”

  “I think you need to sleep on it. Or at least talk it over with Ari.”

  Ethan felt the tension rising, the adrenaline bubbling up inside of him like a soda, his fear increasing. “When will we get another chance? Tony won’t be there tomorrow.”

  “What if he’s already gone?”

  “Then I’ll have to come up with another plan.”

  “Ethan, you’re being crazy.”

  “How much is it, Bear?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s enough to pay for the trip. Can you help Ari at the office for a few weeks?”

  “Ethan, I’ll do whatever you ask, but this is crazy. Also: it’s Tony, man. We can’t do this to Tony. Can you imagine how people will look at us afterward?”

  “I can’t just let him go—it’s like he’s been served to me on a plate. And you know what? I doubt this is a coincidence. Strange things are going on. If we don’t do this now, and I can’t . . . I’m not saying that I’m going to look for Michi.” He was finding it difficult to speak; his hands were trembling. “I don’t mean that I’m definitely going. I mean that I need to be able to. If I decide to go tomorrow, and we don’t find him . . . if I want to go, and I can’t afford it . . . Christ, if I don’t do anything for her, how long will I regret it?”

  Ethan parked the SUV in the lot next to Tyrone’s Corolla. Both men got out, and they started toward the bar.

  “Watch the barman. He’ll be behind us—armed, probably.”

  “If we’re lucky, it’ll be a bat.”

  “If we’re lucky. And we won’t know if there are any customers or someone in the back.”

  “That could work in our favor.”

  “We need to cover the doors,” Ethan said, his expression hardening. “Do we both go in the front or come from both sides?”

  “We don’t even know if he’s still there. We’ll go in together.”

  They slowly pulled back the curtain so their eyes could adjust to the dark. This wasn’t the kind of place where people lingered over their lunch. The bar was still empty. First, they located the barman and then confirmed that Tony was still there. His companion from earlier had left, and Tony was slumped in front of a tablet, idly tapping away. At another table, two young guys were drinking beer. Ethan and Bear assumed that they were Tony’s guys, waiting for orders, though it was clear they were like Tyrone, posers more likely to run than fight. The bounty hunters were more worried about the barman, who looked like a professional. Tony looked up. His expression changed. His smile grew more bitter, but he tried to keep his composure.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to come back.”

  “Tony, you need to come with us,” Ethan said. “This is my move. Bear has nothing to do with it.”

  Bear pointed his gun at the barman, while Ethan covered the kids at the table, who didn’t react at all.

  “Then he should have stayed at home,” Tony said, standing up to show that he wasn’t armed. “Bear, if you’re not a part of this, then you can leave. I’ll go quietly with Ethan.”

  Bear remained focused on the barman, who didn’t look like he was in the mood to back down.

  Ethan went over to Tony, keeping his gun trained on the two underlings. They stared at him with bulging eyes, their engines revving. They’d forgotten their drinks but didn’t know what to do with their shaking hands. The longer the situation went on, the more unstable it became. If Bear’s man wasn’t cooperative and he had to go in to get him, he’d be turning his back on them, and that worried Ethan. The four adults knew what they had to do, but these kids didn’t seem to know their roles. They mi
ght behave and wait for Tony’s orders, or they might try to be heroes. Or, even worse, they might just get scared, and then they’d be even more unpredictable. And that was exactly what was happening. Ethan could see it coming.

  “You two, stay there. Keep your hands raised, right up. Keep them where I can see them.”

  They looked for Tony’s approval, but he offered no instructions. They were lost, and he was encouraging their confusion. Their eyes met, and Ethan took advantage to increase the pressure.

  “Your fucking hands! Didn’t you hear me?”

  Bear, trying to keep facing them, backed along the bar to immobilize the barman, but the employee stepped back, just out of reach. Bear sighed in annoyance and swept the glasses from the bar with a crash. The barman understood the threat and froze. The underlings jumped back like a pair of frightened cats, and one tripped against the table, knocking it down. The clatter of the beers and plates echoed around the large room. Tony instinctively stepped back, and Ethan pointed his gun at him.

  “Stay there.”

  Bear looked at them, grunted, and leaped with surprising agility onto the bar to grab the barman by the collar. The first kid, pushed back by the table, tripped on his chair and fell backward, shoving his companion, who, wild with fright, took cover behind the table. Squinting, he took a revolver he’d clearly never used before out of his pants and aimed it blindly at the strangers. The first shot rang out sharply, unleashing a brief bout of chaos. Tony went for the booth to take cover, but Ethan blocked his path. The second kid curled up behind a chair and started to scream, covering his head. The barman got away from Bear while the shooter continued to fire blindly with his eyes closed. Bear turned his Remington to where the firing was coming from but immediately switched back to the barman, who was reaching for something under the bar. The barrel of a Mossberg appeared in his hands. Ethan grabbed Tony by the hair, lifting him up. The third shot smashed a bottle a few feet away from Bear, but he ignored it. Deafened by the kid’s panicked screams, he aimed at the barman and raised his voice threateningly.

  “Drop it, or I’ll blow you away!”

  The random shooter somehow aimed his gun at the source of the sound and instinctively let off his last three bullets. Bear was watching his man, who’d dropped the sawn-off shotgun. The first bullet hit Bear’s vest, but the two others went right into his side under the protective straps. He let out a gasping scream and collapsed among the stools, increasing the confusion. Tony shouted something amid the commotion, and Ethan saw his best friend fall, tangled up in a footrest and a stool, his gun three feet away. With that image in his mind, he pointed his gun at the table and fired. The table exploded into shrapnel, and smoke filled the room. The shooter dropped his gun. He had no idea what he’d done. Ethan turned around in time to see the barman stand up, taking advantage of this turn of events. Ethan anticipated him with a shot aimed a foot away from his head. The barman reared back from the explosion next to him while glass and wood flew everywhere, cutting into his cheek. Ethan, who was just as disoriented, used the only fraction of a second he had to get ahold of himself. He refrained from firing again, steadying his trembling legs and wavering voice.

  “Drop it! Drop it! Hands up!”

  Keeping the gun trained on the barman, he pulled Tony’s hair. The barman dropped the Mossberg without firing and patiently put his hands behind his head.

  “Out! Get out of here! You: on the ground, for fuck’s sake! On the ground, hands behind your back!”

  Tony obeyed him, but they were both on autopilot, moving without thinking. They went through the established routine while their attention was fixed elsewhere, entirely occupied by their friend’s inert bulk. Bear had fallen, and they could see his body amid the rising clouds of dust floating through the air like ash after a fireworks display.

  2

  The Beast

  The Beast looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He liked to call himself the Beast; it made him feel powerful and prepared him for the aggression to come. He had a gaunt face and a fixed, piercing stare. He liked the word piercing too. It was something a woman had once said to him before she’d discovered his true nature. It excited him—not that he fully understood what it meant. He told himself that he was an invincible conqueror, the omnipotent master of all he surveyed. Herds of women belonged to him; they were his possessions. His gaze tamed them, because it was so piercing, before revealing to them his terrible power. He was a cruel destroyer, a beast without conscience or pity. He would teach them lessons until they fully understood the grandeur of his evil. The Beast was a powerful, fearsome harbinger of doom; his piercing eyes promised death and unimaginable pain. He seethed with resentment, although he preferred to think of it as just another facet of his greatness, not his primary impulse. He felt no hatred toward his victims; he didn’t even scorn them. Deep down in his rotten soul, they were nothing more than a consequence of the satisfaction demanded by his ego. He was their lord and master, and he could mistreat them as he wished, the way one might break a toy. Bewitched by his own gaze, convinced that the word piercing had obscene, disturbing connotations, he pulled up his shirt to examine his scars. Then he stroked them indulgently. He pulled his shirt back down. Now he felt ready, hungry for action.

  He turned the key in the ignition, and the great animal rumbled to life with a threatening roar, inhaling the aroma of the thousand oil wells on which it fed. The truck growled as it headed uphill, and he revved the engine like a hell hammer announcing his presence to the world. Reveling in his own brutality, he drove up to the shack just off the road. Night had fallen, and the wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs, most of which were connected to the public grid, glowed from the inside, revealing the gaps between the boards, while the sounds of multiple televisions leaked into the tense, quiet night. Outside, however, there was no one to be seen. At night in the slums of Latin America, the outdoors belonged to beasts like him.

  The shack opened up, and a wiry girl appeared, a thick mane of black hair wrapped around her neck like a feather boa. She was wearing red high heels that were utterly impractical on the dirt road. She gave the truck a challenging, flirtatious look and stretched out her right leg, showing off her tiny, frayed cutoffs. She waved her leg like an invitation.

  “So, honey, what’ll it be?” she said in a rough coastal accent. “You in the mood tonight, old man?”

  The Beast licked his lips. Two nights of generous payment to soften her up and earn her trust. Young whores could be very trusting.

  “Get in, babe. Tonight, I’m gonna show you my palace.”

  The girl laughed in a mannish way. “No, honey! My mom won’t let me go off with strangers. We do it here.”

  The Beast jumped out of his truck, pleased to be able to show off his gleaming cowboy boots, which were soon covered in a layer of dust, and his open white shirt. She wasn’t used to these kinds of clothes; it made her suspicious. He noticed.

  “What do you think, babe? I look good, don’t I? Here, touch them if you like. They cost over five hundred dollars. Snakeskin, handmade just for me.”

  The girl looked at them more curiously when she heard the price, although she still thought they were ridiculous. It occurred to her that this bastard might have something worth stealing in his old trailer. Confusing her curiosity with admiration, he took her gently by the chin.

  “I want to do it at home tonight, honey. It really turns me on. And I’m not a stranger anymore, am I?”

  The girl shook him off in annoyance while she weighed up the potential risks and benefits. As they talked, another figure appeared in the doorway. The Beast smiled at the silhouette, whose expression was impossible to read in the dark.

  “Come on, madam, tell your daughter that she’s safe with me.”

  He took out a wad of bills, more than triple what he’d paid on the previous visits, and put it in her hand. Both women were stunned. The madam tried not to show her excitement, but she couldn’t help licking her lips as she counted the
money. The Beast puffed out his chest and fixed his eyes on the girl in an absurd attempt to impress her. She met them with the tough glare of a girl who’d grown up on the streets.

  Feeling irresistible, he murmured, “How do you like my piercing eyes?”

  She had to stifle a laugh. Then she turned to her mother, who nodded imperceptibly, and took his hand.

  “They’re great. You’re a hottie.”

  But the Beast caught the hint of mockery. The insult wounded his pride, stoking his resentment still further. I’ll show you who’s in charge, you whore. You’re about to learn the meaning of fear.

  After they got into the truck, the girl brazenly opened the glove compartment and looked inside.

  “Do you have any gum? There’s a field over there where it’s great to do it . . .”