The Ultimate Good Luck

by Richard Ford

  Bernhardt was still wearing the beige suit. He drove out toward the Avenue of the Niños of Chapultepec, which divided the middle-class from the poor districts, then switched back toward the airport highway. There were soldiers in the dark streets, patrolling specified houses, teenagers in camouflaged helmets sporting big M-16s. They looked condensed and undernourished in the shadow lights, like true guerrillas, their faces identical and obscure.

  Bernhardt merged out onto the peripheral boulevard at the boundary of the slum barrios, into a district where the town buses turned back toward the Centro. There was little traffic, and the helium lamps gauzed the air and made it hang in the night. Bernhardt didn’t speak. He drove a mile on the periférico, past the airport turnoff, then took a road that crossed the Atoyac and the train line from Mexico City, and went into the palms where there was suddenly no light, and the road became laterite. They were close to where the men beside the Pepsi truck had disappeared into the riverbed, and Bernhardt had begun to drive faster.

  “Does it matter if you hit somebody?” Quinn said.

  Bernhardt shook his head. He watched the road attentively as it narrowed into the dense palms. “The law makes more trouble than the good you do to stop. If no one is caught the death is bad fate. But when the law takes you, it wants to determine why things. Why do you do this? Why you do that? And if you don’t mean to, there’s no why, and they never let you go. But the man is still dead.” Bernhardt elevated his chin in affection for his explanation.

  “Where’s this going?” He thought about Rae in the Centro. It was making him edgy to be away.

  “It will take only a few minutes.” Bernhardt flicked up the brights, and Quinn could see up the long corridor of palm trunks diminishing quickly into a hole of darkness. It felt like a picture from a dream in which events never completely conclude.

  “Do you fear becoming old?” Bernhardt asked expansively, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “I fear not becoming old a lot more,” Quinn said.

  “How many years are you?”

  “Just thirty-one,” Quinn said.

  Bernhardt smiled. The dash light made the frames of his glasses shine. “For you, though, love is a place where you don’t grow old. Is that right?”

  “Sure thing. You put your finger right on it.” He had a feeling he’d see Deats tonight, but he couldn’t guess why. Bernhardt was trying to keep his mind occupied.

  “I do fear it,” Bernhardt said emphatically. He kept his chin high. “I am forty, a young man. But I consider sometimes suicide. It is only fear of being old, do you agree?”

  “I go the other way,” Quinn said. “At least I hope I do.”

  “You were in the war,” Bernhardt said. “You don’t think of suicide now.”

  “Maybe later,” Quinn said. He stared at the undifferentiated wall of trees. “What’s happened with Deats?” he said.

  “Nothing,” Bernhardt said.

  “But it’s getting done right?”

  “Yes. But it is best to be very cautious now,” Bernhardt said. “Mr. Deats is not a mystery. But he is a problem to be solved. And we must take pains.”

  Bernhardt stopped the Mercedes in the dark in front of what looked like an implement shed Quinn wouldn’t have noticed in the trees, though the shed was built partway into the road so that you could hit it without looking for it, and past it the road quickly dwindled into a pony path and disappeared. The air swarmed up sweet and heavy in the darkness, and there was no noise besides the car ticking. Inside the shed a green candle struggled to illuminate a plank bar that had been set up on oil cans and a glass basin in the dirt underneath it with a hose siphon leaking some kind of mescal.

  Bernhardt walked around the shed and into the gallery of bamboo, taking a blind path that led immediately past a row of rattan shanties with sheet metal roofs, lower than his head and invisible from the road. They walked into a shallow ditch and up beside what smelled like a trough of smoking vegetable refuse that made Quinn’s eyes sting. Some of the shanties had papers on their fronts fanning a strike at the technological college, but no one was inside any of the doors, and the thought of a strike in the undergrowth seemed funny. The path through huts reminded him of two things at once, neither one funny and both dangerous: a ville on the coast below Phan Rang where there was a woman who had said something to him in French that he was willing to get killed to check out again. The other was of almost any place on any trail in-country that became a sudden killing zone, some dense place you took fire first at the waist, then the ankles, and had no place to return it, and lay shot-up, waiting until you got it stuck in your ear. Memory seemed like an account full of the wrong currency.

  They walked until Bernhardt seemed to recognize one of the shanties and turned, his face pale and wide in the dark. He motioned with his hand and leaned through the mosquito netting that covered the door.

  The air inside was cool and smelled like battery acid. Quinn felt exhilarated, though he was blind and his eyes were dilating too slowly.

  Bernhardt suddenly struck a match and held it up. Against the straw wall was a wood cot and the outline of something white laid out on it. Above the cot was a poster of Elvis Presley wearing his yellow satin suit and red, white, and blue guitar, and looking ornery. When Bernhardt moved near the cot Quinn could make out a man in a muslin communion suit rolled up to the calves and a red sash tied in folds around his waist. The man appeared to be sleeping, though there was a long purple scar on his head that had cut off the helix of his ear, and made it clear the man wasn’t sleeping.

  Bernhardt knelt and put the match near the man’s face. “Dionisio,” he said loudly, as if he was trying to wake the man up. Bernhardt stared at the damaged face, which was candle-colored and had ulcers. “Hermano,” Bernhardt said. Quinn felt suddenly that someone had entered the room. He turned and stepped back quickly, but no one was there, and Bernhardt’s match died. He felt exhilarated again and unreachable, as though everything he had seen had been sucked out of existence. A second match hissed, and Bernhardt was looking at him, waiting for the light to make him able to speak.

  “This is the man who sells your brother cocaine,” Bernhardt whispered. The match plumed up brightly between his fingers. Bernhardt looked at the man on the cot beside him. “Dionisio,” he whispered, and turned back toward the cot. He drew the match to the man’s cheek, held it close as though examining something infinitesimal on the surface of the skin, then extinguished it there.

  Bernhardt drove them back toward town quickly. The night felt appealing. Quinn wanted to let it go. Off the valley floor he smelled sweet Cordillera sage as they reached the vapor light and the empty boulevard where the city took up.

  “What was the kid’s name?” There was no reason to get worked up over a kid he wasn’t acquainted with. Dead boys didn’t bother him. But he didn’t know why he had to see it. It made him feel set up.

  “Dionisio Angel Perez,” Bernhardt said casually.

  “Who’d he run for?”

  “Many,” Bernhardt said.

  “Deats?”

  “Yes.”

  “So did Deats cut him?”

  Bernhardt glanced at him sideways, then up and down the empty yellow boulevard as he crossed it toward the Centro. “The police catch him fucking with a woman in his car, you see. And they say he has to pay them money because it is illegal to fuck in the car when it is not for your wife.” Bernhardt took a deep breath. “So. He give them money and they go away. But in a little while they come back, very borracho, and they say to give them more money. And Dionisio pleads he has no more. So the police go and bring machetes, they take him out into the trees and cut him. Then they run away to the mountains and we never see them again. Maybe they are guerrillas now.” Bernhardt turned up the greasy cobbled street that ended in the lights of the Centro.

  “Did you kill him?” Quinn said.

  “No,” Bernhardt said solemnly and shook his head, attending the street. They passed more houses guarde
d by soldiers who gazed at the car hypnotically. “The police,” Bernhardt said. It was the story Bernhardt wanted to impress him with.

  “Did I have him killed?” Quinn said.

  “No.”

  “Did Deats?”

  “The police,” Bernhardt insisted and looked at him seriously. It was a warning.

  The Mercedes pulled out into the Avenue Guerrero, which boundaried the zócalo. The Christmas lights were on in the trees, the kiosk was full of beige-uniformed musicians. The cafés were jammed, and the Portal was a carnival. He liked it that way at night, as if the day had condensed the best part of itself down to this. Rae was sitting where he’d left her, halfway down the Avenue Hidalgo side of the square, alone. Seeing her made him feel happy for a moment.

  “Who else is involved?” Quinn said. He knew Bernhardt wouldn’t wait and he wanted to know something important. Bernhardt wove through the wide street, eyes intent on pedestrians.

  “You are,” Bernhardt said casually. “But not in that way.”

  “Why do I have to be?” He glanced quickly at the crowds in the square, then back at Bernhardt.

  Bernhardt turned down the south side of the zócalo and angled to the curb. “My father is dead, now, two years,” he said distractedly, and paused a moment. “I have to leave my government career to come and support my mother and my brothers. I am like you in that way. I don’t want to. But I am involved.” He smiled, staring out through the windshield. “I leave my wife because it is too much in the country in Oaxaca to please her. She is a profesora.” Bernhardt was staring at nothing.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Quinn said. “Does he get out now because the kid’s dead?”

  “No,” Bernhardt said. He looked at Quinn now oddly.

  “So why do I have to see that? Just for laughs?”

  Bernhardt reached across and opened the door. “You will know what I am trying to do for you now,” he said. “You see what I have to see. You are involved.”

  The street noise blared inside the car. The band was playing exuberantly. Quinn got out and shut the door, then looked in through the closed window.

  “Don’t get me shot,” he said through the glass. “I wouldn’t like that.”

  Bernhardt shook his head and smiled, then looked at Rae. “In the morning we will go to the prison with your wife,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He inched off into the traffic leaving Quinn alone on the street.

  13

  AT THE BUNGALOW he went straight to the money. The tiles were in place, and the grouting was firmed. It seemed too obvious a trick to pull, though he wasn’t exactly sure, here, if he could recognize the obvious. But the tiles made him feel like he could trust Bernhardt, since if Bernhardt had wanted the money this would’ve been the easy way.

  Rae sat on the davenport in the dark. He turned off the bathroom light and stood in the doorway where he could see out the window down the hill. The place he had been was straight off, beyond the Centro lights, below the distinguishable dark of Monte Albán. It was a place that didn’t exist now.

  “Did you think somebody was going to steal your money?” she said. She was calm, as though things were all happening to somebody else.

  “There’s that chance,” he said.

  “Are you worried?” Rae said. She shifted her weight on the davenport.

  “Not yet,” he said. There wasn’t any reason to think anything but that Bernhardt was getting Sonny out of the joint. Sonny either got out or he didn’t. Quinn wondered what Deats was doing, what was happening to him at that very moment.

  “Is Bernhardt worried?” she said.

  “He’s not a worrier,” Quinn said.

  “It scares me,” Rae said, though her voice sounded encouraged. “I don’t want it to. I don’t want to be scared. Isn’t that ridiculous? I just got here.” She got off the davenport and came and put her arms around him in the dark. “Do I look desperate?” she said.

  He could feel her staring back into the darkness of the bedroom, her breathing shallow. “Not right now,” he said.

  “One of those boys in town asked me if I wanted to fuck him,” she said sadly. “I told him no. But it made me feel lonely. Isn’t that strange? I wasn’t even mad at him. And then it made me feel scary.” Her hair smelled sweet and thick.

  “That’s how you know you’re grown up,” Quinn said. “What used to make you mad makes you lonely. You find out you can’t change anything.” She wanted something, he knew, to make her feel better. “He was probably in love with you and couldn’t find the right way to say it.”

  She put her cool hand on the back of his neck. “I don’t like that,” she said softly. “It’s not funny.” She was quiet a minute while she held him. It made him feel safe. “I didn’t know if you’d come down here for me,” she said. “I was afraid to call you. I’m sorry it’s awful.”

  “It’s gotten better.” He put his arms around her. The measure of her ribs seemed almost too delicate and insubstantial to be actual.

  “I’ll tell you my secrets,” she said, close to him. “Do you want to know? I’ve never told you.”

  “Some other time,” he said. He put his fingers up in her hair where it was warm.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” she said. His eyes wandered in the night sky. He didn’t think he had a secret now. “I hate it,” she said. “Nothing’s worse than secrets to me.”

  He didn’t want to think about that. He shut his eyes. His father used to say you didn’t have to tell everyone everything, secrets were just ancient history. And he believed that. He thought there were a lot worse things to keep than secrets.

  14

  THE VISITATION SMELLED like it had been scrubbed with piss. It was prisoners’ work, and the prisoners liked tricks. Half the ceiling lights had been turned off, and the cafeteria was cool and damp and crowded with American visitors, hippies whispering and smirking over the metal tables and the rest moms and dads in bright clothes, sitting erect, being cheerful and not noticing the smell while they chatted. It was the day for people without connections. Extra guards were at either end. Rae kept taking deep breaths.

  They had waited an hour in an anteroom while Bernhardt entered the document of release and paid the alcaide two hundred dollars to keep his mouth shut until the judge could be paid. Rae had been searched, and when she came out of the room her mouth was closed tight, and she kept blinking as if the light was bright.

  “My college degree isn’t much good to me here, is it Harry?” she said to him, her hands tightly clasped on the metal table while they waited. She had brought two copies of the Sporting News. She kept her hands weighted on them.

  “Try to smile,” he said.

  “Am I supposed to lead cheers?” she said. She had put on her tinted glasses and her hair looked darker in the bad light. No one was paying attention to them.

  The Sporting News had a color picture of Hank Aaron holding a lot of bats. The values were all too harsh. It wasn’t like life. “He’ll be fucked up,” Quinn said. “Just tell him not to do that. We don’t want him hospitalized.”

  Sonny was let in the yellow door at the end of the room, searched, then released. His expression was different. It was as if he was thinner. Something wasn’t quite right.

  Rae began smiling when she saw him and kept smiling. When Sonny got close she reached across the table and tried to touch his hands, but he hid his hands in his pockets. “I’m fucking cut,” he said and sat down.

  “Oh Jesus,” Rae said, leaning on the table still trying to touch him.

  “Fucking shit, man.” Sonny jerked his head angrily so his pony-tail jerked.

  “Just a second now,” Quinn said. Sonny wasn’t popped. His eyes were small and pencil-pointed. “Just wait a second.” He was trying to put some ideas in front of Sonny to keep him calm. Rae looked as if someone had hit her face. She seemed to want to speak but couldn’t. Quinn wanted her out, but there wasn’t any way for it now. “How bad are you?” he said. He w
anted to see a cut to be sure. This was something not to happen. He glanced at the picture of Hank Aaron with his arms surrounding the bats, smiling. It pronounced a malediction on everything.

  “I’m all right,” Sonny said in a soft voice. “I didn’t go upstairs with it.”

  “Who did it?” He wished Bernhardt were there and Rae was gone. He could hear her breathing too hard.

  “A fucking spic grease-ball. Cut me with a Sidra bottle,” Sonny said, staring down. He was furious and terrified.

  “Where?” Rae said. She had begun to sweat on her hairline.

  “My thigh,” Sonny said. He swallowed. He was scared but he wouldn’t panic yet. He would panic later, but not now.

  “Did you fuck with him?” Quinn said.

  Sonny looked up fiercely. “I don’t fuck with anybody in here, man. I’m getting out, so I don’t fuck with anybody.” He looked at Rae as if he wanted something to hurt her feelings.

  “It’s filthy in here,” she said and looked urgent.

  Quinn still wasn’t sure if he should believe it, but he didn’t have any visible choice. “Can it keep?” he said.

  “Maybe,” Sonny said.

  “Was it anybody you knew?”

  Sonny shook his head. “Forastero,” he said. “You know?” He looked at both of them blankly. He meant Deats.

  “Just forget that now,” Quinn said. “Just forget that.” Sonny looked at him coldly with an expression of betrayal. It was an expression he had seen on Rae’s face, but on Sonny it meant nothing to him. Americans at another table stood up and began embracing the skinny kid who had foot-fucked the Mexican girl. He still had on his “Try God” T-shirt, and his mother was crying and people were staring at her. Sonny glanced at her a moment and then looked back, uninterested. “Can you stay in one place?” Quinn said.