Once More to Die

by Jim Johnson

“Good thing I’m in shape,” she said aloud to herself.

  “Damn sure are,” Tommy mumbled.

  She half dragged him out the back door. They stumbled to the shower. The only clothes he still wore were his underwear. They were sweat-soaked anyway. She held him up against the wall and turned on the shower. The nighttime air was much cooler. She directed the showerhead at him and he grumbled. Soon they were both soaked. She found herself very cold, but she held him there. His temperature was moderating somewhat, according to the newly calibrated palm of her hand. She ought to rent herself out to hospitals and save them money from buying all those fancy thermometers.

  As usual, she wondered at the skies. Here in the clear air of Arizona, you could see millions more stars than you could in Florida. She guessed that was because of humidity diminishing your view rather than Arizona skies having vastly more stars than Florida. Real good, college girl. Next time take more science courses.

  After maybe ten minutes, he seemed to revive slightly. “Son of a bitch.” He looked at her in the spill of light from the back door. “We showering together?” His voice was groggy.

  She realized she was still dressed only in panties and a bra. “Sort of.”

  “Goddamn.… just my…luck.” He put his other arm on her shoulder and pulled her closer. His knees began to buckle.

  “Back to bed.” She leaned him against the wall and grabbed a towel off the rack and dried him. She stripped his shorts off resolutely. He didn’t seem to notice.

  She laughed harshly. “After all your jabs about seeing my nude body in the shower, now it’s my turn.” Somehow, it was not satisfying to make the point. He wore a chain around his neck with an intricate silver cross, a fact she found strange about him.

  She dragged him back inside and put him in a chair. Quickly, she changed the sheets and managed to get him back in bed. He fell asleep immediately.

  She went back outside and dried off. In the bedroom, she dug out her stuff and dressed.

  She looked at his sleeping body and asked, “What in the fuck am I gonna do?” She shrugged to herself. “You’re not gonna die off on me, Tommy Atkins.”

  After a while, he began tossing and turning and she felt his temperature rising again. “Damn it.”

  Again she bathed him with cold, wet cloths. She got him to drink water infrequently. She found that if he was awake, he was more responsive and she could get more water down his throat. She couldn’t quantify how much he sweat out, but it was plenty. Dehydration was going to be a problem. She opened the front door and the back door and turned on the whole-house fan and created a nice cooling breeze. That wasn’t going to work during the day.

  She continued to try to keep him aware so he could rehydrate. During one of these times, she asked about medicine.

  “The prison doctor gave me chloroquine or some fuckin’ thing.”

  She’d found a bottle of Gatorade and made him drink it for the electrolytes and sugar, in addition to the liquid. If football players drank it during the games, she reasoned it would work on malaria.

  He pushed the drink away and started to slump down.

  “Not yet. Drink more.”

  “Don’t wanna. Gotta sleep.”

  “In a few minutes, drink this.”

  “’Kay.”

  She had to keep him awake so she could get liquids into him.

  “Tell me about Angola, Tommy. What were you doing there?”

  “Killing Cubans, nothing personal.”

  “Tell me.”

  “’Kay. We were assigned to the Congo, shit, I dunno, it was Zaire or Republic of or some goddamn name at the time.”

  “We? Who are we?”

  “My unit.”

  “Army?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Marines?”

  “I was in the Marines before this. Then I mustered out.”

  “Mercenary? Here, drink some more.”

  “Sure thing, college girl.” He sounded like himself, but he wasn’t. Suddenly, he grinned, a fierce and deadly thing. “Tough motherfuckers we were.”

  “Who, Tommy?”

  “Us. The Légion étrangère.”

  “The Foreign Legion? The French Foreign Legion?”

  He coughed and spewed water all over them both. She put the glass to his lips again. “Drink.”

  Over the next hours, she coaxed the story out of him. He was very much like an innocent child, not hesitant about answering questions or shading answers.

  Apparently, when Tommy was a very young man, somewhere in his early teens, he was a bolita runner in Tampa. Bolita was a Cuban game brought to Florida in the 1880’s and run out of Ybor City, a part of Tampa. Bolita being a numbers game operated by the mob. It was like the lottery, they drew numbered balls out and paid off those who had those numbers. Tommy brought the betting numbers sheets in with the money. Or he collected, depending on the middleman. Of course, law enforcement finally caught a couple of the middlemen, not the big bosses. Tommy, being a juvenile, was by then eighteen and the judge kindly gave him a choice: jail or the United States military. He chose the latter and wound up in the Marines. The Vietnam War was over by then, but he served overseas in various locations. When his enlistment was up, he mustered out from his post in Germany and took a train to Paris where he took another train to Marseille and then a taxi to Aubagne nearby—where the Foreign Legion’s headquarters were. The training was easy for a recent Marine; the hardest part was learning enough French to get by with until he became more fluent. Fortunately, his English sufficed, as there were recruits from all over the world.

  Eventually, his unit was posted to the Congo, Zaire, whatever it was called at that time. Kolwezi, a city in the mineral rich Katanga Province of Zaire. Rebels and Cuban “mercenaries” instigated a take-over attempt. Murder, rape, kidnapping and hostage taking ensued. The Legion parachuted in and saved over two thousand Europeans and maybe three thousand Africans. They remained after the battle and quietly went on patrols and action against the Cubans; and that included the neighboring Angola. María Elena knew full well that at the time Castro was renting out soldiers, whole armies, to foreign powers. It wasn’t as catchall as it sounded: Castro’s troops were bought and paid for by the Soviets who, in turn, wanted to install Marxist regimes throughout Africa in the global chess board that was the cold war.

  After due consideration, María Elena decided that Tommy Atkins had decided to help her for reasons other than to make up for “killing Cubans” in Angola and Zaire. He certainly had no remorse, for they, and their allies, were “a rag-tag bunch of rapists who came and raped and killed in the name of freedom fighters.”

  But certainly a fascinating résumé was emerging.

  A couple of hours after dawn, his delirium disappeared in exhaustion and so did his talkativeness. She still had not found out why he was in prison. She thought that he’d sleep for at least a couple of hours.

  Making up her mind immediately, she liberated a pocketful of cash and jumped in the SUV.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: HER

  From the Internet, she knew there were pharmacies in downtown Nogales. She parked off the road in a safe place near a McDonald’s and walked several blocks. She’d learned from Tommy to not park near where you’re going to be unless you need a quick getaway.

  María Elena skipped national pharmacies and chose a rundown looking one near the border. She went in and asked the girl at the counter if she could talk to the pharmacist.

  The pharmacist was a balding, short man.

  “I’ve somebody I can’t move,” she told him. “He has a bad relapse of malaria and says he’s taken something called chloroquine in the past to combat it.”

  “Do you have a prescription?” he asked.

  “No, sir, frankly I don’t. I can’t get him to a doctor. He’s too big for me to move.” Well, sort of, anyway.

  “Call an ambulance.”

  She shook her head sadly. “We’re way off the beaten path, without real roads out there
. No 911 service can help.”

  “The Sheriff’s office will be glad to help.”

  “Do you have the medicine?”

  “I do, young lady, but you need a prescription.”

  Jesus. What’s it going to take to get through to him? She turned on the charm. “Sir? Is there any way I can simply get a supply of chloroquine without a lot of formality?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  She took a deep breath. “I have plenty of money.”

  He eyed her warily. “I sympathize. But let me tell you what. The state would pull my license in a nanosecond. I can’t, even if I wanted to.” He shook his head and went back behind the counter.

  Dammit. Wouldn’t you know it, an honest man.

  The girl behind the counter sidled over. “Señorita? Right over the border, there are many farmacias. They can help you.”

  “Thank you.” She’d already figured that out, but wanted to try the American side first. She hadn’t wanted to go through a formal border crossing, even with her new ID. She had an idea. “Could maybe you go over there for me? You work in the business and know what I need and can talk intelligently to them.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I could. But, if the border officers find me bringing prescription medicine, I might lose my green card. I cannot do it.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  She walked out the front door and observed a pod of young men walking toward the border. “In for a penny, in for a pound. Not an old Cuban proverb.” She turned and followed them.

  She was acutely aware of the time. Tommy would probably be out for another hour or two. Her sense of urgency clamored. While she’d left him a note and a couple of bottles of water next to the bed, she wasn’t confident he’d wake up with any clarity of mind. Most likely, he’d slip back into delirium or coma or worse. No matter what, she would not let him down.

  The south Arizona heat pounded down on her as she followed the marked walk through the customs and border security. High chain link fences loomed over her; concrete walls crowded her. Border security officers were lackadaisical, but paying attention nonetheless. Going into Mexico from the U.S. was not a problem. She walked through and under a building, a great structure over her head spanning the road and the pedestrian walkway. She guessed there were offices and walkways above. The young men laughed and pushed on through customs. The security merely waved them on, and along with them, María Elena. Others were following them. María Elena stretched her neck studying the officers and their procedures; however, this wasn’t the re-entry passage so it didn’t matter. Though it did appear that people were walking through freely with no waiting like you’d think of in an airport security checkpoint. The Mexican entry was even less formal. Following the example of others, she waved her newly acquired RFID passport card.

  Soon she was walking down the street in Nogales, Sonora. The young men she’d followed headed off one way, punching each other in the arms and making jokes. Doubtless, they were headed for Boys’ Town, the area where the most bars and whore houses were located.

  The northern Mexican sun pounded down upon her equally merciless as the south Arizona sun.

  María Elena looked around as she walked. Nogales, Sonora, at this point was much like Nogales, Arizona. Off in the distance, she saw the city climb up nearby hills. It was hot and dusty. Not far into the city, she found a street where several pharmacies were located. She passed the first couple on the general principle that the first ones would be tourist traps. Most of the pharmacies had large, English printing on their windows that proclaimed: PHARMACY. Only in small print did she see: FARMACIA.

  At the third pharmacy she had little trouble. It appeared to be a mom and pop operation. She explained about the malaria and symptoms and the heavyset woman pharmacist nodded and spoke good English. “Yes, chloroquine. That’s what you want. What does the patient weigh? The dosage depends on weight.” He looked serious. “Overdosing is very bad.”

  María Elena did not know. However, she’d half carried him in and out of the cabin. “I’m guessing two hundred pounds, maybe two twenty.” Not much fat either, she thought. And, apparently, better to underestimate to prevent overdosing.

  Behind the counter were hundreds if not thousands of bottle and vials and boxes. The pharmacist rummaged around and scooped some tablets into a large vial and put them in a paper bag.

  María Elena went to pay her, and the pharmacist asked, “Would you like a prescription for those?”

  “I have the meds, why would I need a prescription?”

  The lady shrugged. “Border security may search you and question these. It has a label, but you never know. For ten dollars more I can consult a doctor and get a prescription.”

  María Elena sighed. You can’t fight city hall no matter where you are. “Okay.” She noted a pharmacy school graduation certificate from someplace in Phoenix. That would also explain the pharmacist’s excellent English. María Elena had determined not to use her Spanish in case she might learn something unexpected.

  The pharmacist went through a door in the back and was back in a few minutes with a printed piece of paper which assured the world that this was a legitimate prescription for chloroquine, with specific patient dosage information. “Please, do not overdose. It is difficult to do; you’d have to take most or all of these tablets.”

  María Elena remembered her last period. It had been a painful one and she had none of her own stuff from Florida. She addressed this with the pharmacist and the pharmacist smiled knowingly and dug around in the back and gave her a three month supply of birth control pills. She smiled when she handed María Elena the package. “Now you will be safe.”

  “You don’t understand—ah, never mind. And, I wish, but it ain’t happening.” She’d offered herself half-heartedly to Tommy, but he had the grace to decline. While that part was a relief at the time, she wondered if anything was wrong with him, despite his denials. And now she was happy, since her last period had been no fun at all. After being on the pill to regulate her period and minimize the cramps, her first one off the medicine was memorable.

  Soon María Elena was approaching the border crossing. To facilitate her trip through customs, she opened the top two buttons of her shirt suggestively. It worked as she breezed through the Mexican side, merely showing her passport card. She suspected you could get through locally with only a driver’s license, but what the heck. Her trick worked as they paid more attention to her breasts than her documentation.

  She walked behind a couple across no-man’s land toward the U.S. side.

  Right in the middle, somehow she knew that right now Tommy Atkins would be pausing. She glanced around. Above and in front of her loomed the runway with glass windows. Either they were super reflective and she could see nothing inside or they were tinted. She fancied a flash of light or reflectivity that in her paranoid mind screamed that someone was watching her with binoculars.

  The couple ahead slowed and María Elena saw that there was a long pedestrian line waiting to get to the customs area. Strange. It hadn’t been there when she crossed an hour or so ago.

  “First time in a long time,” the woman told the man ahead of her.

  “Bureaucrats,” he replied.

  What had Tommy said? Beware. The sixth sense. Something here wasn’t right. It might well not be about her. But it well might be solely about her.

  Immediately, María Elena made a decision. A quick glance showed her a few more uniformed border guards checking all the cars. And the traffic was beginning to back up.

  “Dammit!” said María Elena, snapping her fingers.

  The couple turned to look at her.

  María Elena touched her Kyle Busch hat. “I’d forget my hat if it wasn’t stuck on top of my head,” she told them. She turned and walked back to Mexican customs. She waved at them. “Forgot something, be right back.” They merely watched her and she insured that her walk was sexy.

  Soon she was back into the city. Was she being paranoid?
Maybe. Why would they have changed from lackadaisical to focused and thorough within an hour? A tip about a drug runner? Could be. But her dealings with the federal government told her that they had facial recognition software. Or it could be that someone belatedly remembered her picture or description. After all, she was on the terrorist watch list or some similar list up there in Washington. So, too, had been her father. He’d speculated that it was the CIA or FBI’s way of being able to track them when they went out of the country or tried to fly somewhere.

  Whatever, she couldn’t afford to take the chance. Even if the alert were not for her, she might well get caught up in the net. And then what would happen to Tommy? She clutched the bag of chloroquine tightly and walked faster.

  Her sense of urgency was growing. Already she’d been gone longer than she’d budgeted for. Tommy needed her.

  And another thing. “Sorry, Kyle.” She took off her Kyle Busch #18 M & M’s hat. There was a box of trash outside a small clothing store and she dropped it in.

  Traffic drove along beside her. Where to go? She headed the way the young men had earlier. Some of the slabs of sidewalk were cracked and others broken. Most of the pedestrians were Americans. Boys’ Town. Whatever she ended up doing would be illegal and that would be the place for illegality. Tommy would already have a plan forming. But she had no idea. The only thing she could come up with was to find the bus station and follow people who were carrying their belongings. Maybe they’d lead her to an illegal border crossing. There were plenty of downsides to that one, including time. That would likely take a couple of days. And might well lead to confrontation with border guards who were well armed. Or worse, drug dealers, she’d read, usually accompanied groups of folk trying to cross the border illegally.

  On her walk, she noted that traffic in this country was just as bad as she’d encountered in the U.S. Oh, well, a virus we’ve given them, she thought, though she knew heavy traffic was not an American exclusive event. Some of the border fence she saw was constructed of old corrugated tin sheets like they used to put together Quonset huts. More people ignored the traffic and crossed the road. Sometimes men, women, or children hit her up for money or tried to sell her small items such as cigarettes, matches, cigars, chewing gum by the stick, prophylactics. There was a central municipal area that held several metal statues, one of which looked like Neptune with a spear through his head. She did not take the time to figure that one out.