J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 03 - No Time To Hide

by J. D. Trafford

  “Love you.” Michael kissed her on the lips.

  “I love —”

  Bells and hooting filled the canyon. Spotlights blinded them from the United States side of the canyon. Then somebody yelled, “You kids want to be left alone, or can we all come in for a swim too.”

  Michael recognized the voice.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Chester “Cheeto” Strauss was always up for a good time. He had no interest in wearing a suit or following in his father, grandfather, or great-grandfather’s footsteps. His family was filled with lawyers who had descended from lawyers who had descended from lawyers and so on, tracing back to a few barristers in Manchester, England.

  He went to law school solely because it was a condition of gaining access to his sizable trust fund. Once he graduated, Cheeto took off. He started working as a river guide and had never looked back.

  When he had decided Colorado was too cold, Cheeto moved south to a shack along the Rio Grande, which housed four other river rats. That’s where he’d lived for the past three years, although now he was thinking about moving to somewhere in South America. He’d heard Chile had some nice big water.

  “How’s the boy wonder doing?” Cheeto grinned at Michael.

  “Better if you’d have waited another fifteen minutes to arrive.” Michael looked at Andie, sitting on the other side of the bonfire.

  Cheeto howled, and then threw another log on the fire. “I bet.” Cheeto looked at Andie. “You two make a real handsome couple. Although Mikey looks like he’s gotten a little loose in the cage in his old age, if you know what I mean. Should’ve let him come visit me more often, get a real workout.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Andie said.

  “Don’t think too long, honey. Cheeto is always on the move.” He walked over to the cooler and removed three large plastic bags of food and then found a few pots.

  He walked back over to the bonfire where Michael and Andie were sitting. Cheeto spread out some coals, and then turned toward the group of adventure tourists he was guiding down the river. They were about thirty yards from the bonfire, sorting through their packs and trying to set-up camp in the dark.

  “Our dinner shall be served in just a few minutes, my acolytes.” Cheeto shouted at them. “Come on over when you’ve finished with your tents.”

  Cheeto, then, looked at Michael and Andie, and lowered his voice.

  “Bet you guys are hungry for some chow?”

  ###

  The dinner tasted amazing. Perhaps she was starving, but it was the best spaghetti Andie had tasted in a long time. She wanted another serving after the first two, but was too full.

  She handed Cheeto her plate, and then walked up a slight hill to their tent.

  Andie unzipped the front, climbed inside, and then slid into her sleeping bag. She was exhausted, and it felt good to lie down. She turned her head on the soft pillow and rolled over onto her side.

  Michael had already settled in for the night.

  “Not bad accommodations,” he said.

  Andie took in the small two-person backpacking tent, and then asked the question that had been on her mind the entire evening. “Are you really trusting a guy named ‘Cheeto’ to smuggle us across the border?”

  “We’ve already made it across the border,” Michael said, referring to their brief swim from the southern to the northern side of the Rio Grande.

  “You know what I mean.”

  She was serious, and so Michael stopped joking.

  “He just plays dumb.” Michael leaned over and pecked Andie on her forehead, a little kiss. “Perfect LSAT score. Nearly perfect grades at Columbia. He didn’t go by the name Cheeto back then. He was Chet, and he was right there with me, top of the class, but he refused to play the game. He rejected an opportunity to be on law review, refused clerkships, and never went to a job interview. He didn’t want anything to do with being a real lawyer. He said the law made his dad miss his first six birthday parties because of various legal emergencies. His dad didn’t exercise, ate rich foods, and died when Chet was in college. Chet decided early on that he was going down a different path. So now he’s Cheeto, and apparently having a pretty good time.”

  “Does he know what’s going on with you?”

  Michael thought about the question, and then said, “We’ve talked.”

  “I’ve just never heard you mention him before.”

  Michael nodded. “He’s a guy friend.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning we can go years without talking, and we don’t take it personally. It’s just life.” Michael shrugged. “We’re friends and we help each other out when we need to.”

  “Okay.” Andie repositioned her tiny backpacking pillow, then rolled over onto her side. “In Cheeto I trust.” She was nervous about the next day. There was certainly going to be an encounter with a park ranger or an immigration agent.

  “In Cheeto we trust.” Michael leaned over and pecked Andie on the cheek. “Now let’s get some sleep.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “You gonna let me go?” Kermit leaned back in his chair, grinning at Agent Armstrong. “It’s getting late, and I’ve been sitting in here for hours, going coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know.” Armstrong leaned across the table, and then he lowered his voice. “I need you to answer all my questions.” A smirk.

  “I think I have a right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to love, freedom to hate, and the freedom to shut my trap from time to time.” Kermit sighed and looked up at the fluorescent lights. “Seriously, dude, are we accomplishing any of the great tasks of mankind right now?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me where Michael Collins and Andie Larone are?”

  “Mentally or physically? Because that’s a pretty vague question. Even the physical location is difficult to identify given the chaotic dance of internal energy and the subatomic bopping of our little neutrinos and leptons. Have I ever mentioned my groundbreaking work involving quantum chromodynamics?”

  Armstrong’s eyes started to bug out, and he tried to control his temper.

  “I think you have already shared with me your theories.” He looked at his watch. “I think we spent about an hour on the subject, which is about an hour too long.”

  Kermit shook his head.

  “You’re just scared.” Kermit looked away. “Not unusual for a simple man like you to be afraid of the unknown, afraid that what he sees with the naked eye is not an accurate depiction of the environment in which he resides.”

  “I need you to answer my questions,” Armstrong said.

  Kermit ignored him. “We must recognize that we only see representations of life, but not life itself,” Kermit said. “We see and speak in generalities rather than specifics, approximations rather than measurements. Did you know that a cup of flour is never actually a cup of flour? Just a best-guess estimate using an imperfect tool in the midst of a myriad of factors like the fineness of the wheat’s grind, the altitude, or the moisture in the air.”

  Agent Armstrong pushed back his chair and stood. Kermit’s constant babbling, his odor, and the confined space had gotten to him.

  “Physically,” Armstrong put his hands on his hips. “Where approximately did they go when they left the airport, physically? And I’ll accept an estimation.”

  “I don’t know, it’d be less than an estimation. It’d be total speculation because I was cruising with the birds at the time. I saw nothing with my own peep-peeps.”

  “Why don’t you speculate, then?”

  “I don’t like to speculate,” Kermit looked up at the ceiling. “I dream.” He smiled, and then added, “Do you know who also likes to dream?” Kermit didn’t wait for an answer. “Lawyers. Lawyers dream a lot. Speaking of lawyers, I think it’s about time for an attorney.”

  Armstrong didn’t like that idea. He knew that an attorney would shut down all questioning, and so Armstrong held out his hands and
softened his tone.

  “What about this trip? What are you doing here?”

  “You probably know about Father Stiles. I plan on going to his funeral. I’m also here to do a little business.”

  “Business?”

  “I got a book idea that I’d like to pitch.” Kermit cracked his knuckles. “It’s like a children’s book for adults, sort of a naughty introduction to my theories of QCD and hair.”

  “Why would an adult want to read a children’s book about quantum physics?”

  “Why do adults like to bounce on trampolines?” Kermit countered. “Because it’s fun, muchacho. That’s why we do it.” Kermit slapped his hand on the table. “Do you ever play ‘crack the egg’ on a trampoline?”

  Armstrong clenched his jaw. “No.”

  “Well, it’s hilarious.” Kermit laughed. “Anyway, this book is titled ‘Why Too Much Hair Down There?’” Kermit paused and smiled, letting the revelation of his amazing idea linger for a moment in the U.S. Customs interrogation room. “Great title, huh?”

  “Are you actually talking about —”

  “Pubic hair.” Kermit answered. “Through the use of humorous illustrations, this book charts our society’s recently developed aversion to pubic hair and why this war is actually depleting our energy and ability to find inner happiness.” Kermit touched one of his dreadlocks, believing that it would change the magnetic field of the room in his favor.

  “Of course it all started with ‘Sex and the City’, season 3, episode 14.” Kermit smiled. “You remember that one?”

  Armstrong shook his head. “I’m not familiar with that one.”

  “I can tell you all about it.” Kermit opened his mouth to describe a Brazilian wax, but stopped himself, sensing an opportunity. “Or you could just let me go.”

  Agent Armstrong stared at Kermit. The room was silent as the two evaluated their options. Finally Armstrong lowered his head in defeat. The possibility of an extended conversation with Kermit Guillardo about pubic hair was too much.

  “We’re done.” Armstrong turned and opened the door. “Get out of here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was jacket weather. Although the rocks at the top of the canyon still radiated heat from the previous day, the bottom was cool. The early morning wind also added a chill at odds with the desert surroundings.

  Cheeto crouched at the edge of the river. He finished washing the remaining breakfast dishes, while Andie and Michael laid their packs down in a pile of gear. Then they helped the others fill the large waterproof bags and load the rafts.

  They pushed away a little after eight in the morning. The river’s current pulled them out slow, and then they started to paddle. There were two rafts, each with eight people in a raft.

  Andie and Michael rode with a newly married couple on their honeymoon, a middle-aged couple from Chicago, and a Japanese exchange student. Cheeto guided them all from the back.

  The other raft was louder. It was filled with Tri-Delts from the University of Texas at Austin and a female guide from Boseman, Montana. The female guide was the opposite of the sorority girls in every conceivable way, but unlike high school, she was now being paid to tolerate the gaggle of queen bees.

  The two rafts followed the gentle river for an hour, and then the guides steered them toward shore. When they got close to a rocky wash-out, Cheeto and the female guide steered the rafts to shore. They jumped off the back. Each splashed through the shallow water, grabbing the handles along the side and at the front of the raft and pulling hard until the rafts were beached.

  Everybody got out, stretched their legs, and took the opportunity to jump around.

  Although they couldn’t see them, the group heard the churning waters of a series of rapids called “Rock Slide.” Huge boulders had fallen a long time ago and created the most difficult water in this portion of the canyon. If crews didn’t paddle hard enough through the middle, the raft would flip amidst the whitewater and whirlpools.

  Cheeto finished talking privately with the other guide, and then he turned to the group, clapping his hands to get their attention.

  “Okay,” he said. “This is it. We make it through this, and then it’s an easy drift to our final destination.” Cheeto looked at the sorority girls. “The water’s pretty low right now, so it’s not as bad as it could be. But I’m going to take the sorority girls for this final run.” He paused and looked at the queen bees, none of whom were giggling at the moment. “If you get sucked down in a whirlpool —remember — don’t try and swim out of it. Tuck your knees into your chest and let the life jacket do the work to bring you up to the surface.” Cheeto scanned the whole group of rafters, making eye contact with each one. He wanted them to know he was serious. “But the best idea is to not flip and not get sucked into the hole in the first place. Okay?”

  The group nodded, and Cheeto gave them a thumbs-up. “Okay. Then let’s paddle hard.”

  ###

  There was a collective gasp as they rounded the bend.

  The churning water filled the canyon with deafening noise. Michael stole a glance at Andie, and then tried to figure out how the guide was going to safely steer them around the gigantic boulders and narrow passages.

  He looked around to see if there was a place to escape and portage the raft, but the limestone rose straight up on both sides, revealing just a sliver of sky. The only way out was through. Then he heard their guide start screaming at them.

  “Paddle, paddle, paddle.”

  Michael put his head down and started paddling harder than he had ever paddled in his life. He didn’t look up. He didn’t watch where they were going or how close they came to the boulders. He just paddled.

  They were fighting the river. On the first dip, the raft tilted to one side. Michael thought for sure that they would flip, but the raft corrected itself.

  “Keep going. Paddle. Paddle. Don’t stop.”

  The current kept pushing them toward the rocks, but the guide somehow found the breaks in the current and steered them away at the last moment. Until, eventually the canyon widened and the river spat them out into calm waters.

  It was a sudden change, going from violence to calm. Adrenaline switched to relief, and most couldn’t stop themselves from laughing or giving a cheer. A couple sorority girls asked if they could go again.

  ###

  The pull-out was a campsite run by the National Park Service. There were a half-dozen people waiting to greet them as the rafts glided to a rocky shore. Most of them worked at the tour company that had arranged the whitewater rafting trip, but there was also a park ranger and an immigration agent.

  “I got this,” Cheeto whispered to Michael as he walked past Michael toward the agent and the park ranger.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “Another beautiful morning to be doing what we love.”

  The agent smiled, and he and Cheeto shook hands.

  “Always a pleasure, Cheeto.” The agent let go of Cheeto’s hand. “Anything strange happen?”

  Cheeto shook his head. “Just the same ol’ death defying acts of stupidity for meager profits.”

  “I hear ya.” The agent surveyed the group, lingering a bit on the sorority girls. “Looks like you had a surly crew this time.”

  “Not too bad.” Cheeto shrugged. “Looking forward to a warm shower, however.”

  “You all going to Maria’s tonight?”

  “Only place in town.” Cheeto handed the immigration agent a stack of papers. Then he caught the eye of one of the tour company employees, and gave them the approval to start loading the rafts and gear onto the truck.

  “Okay,” the agent said after giving the papers a cursory review. “Everything looks good here.” He slapped Cheeto on the back. “See you tonight at Maria’s.”

  Cheeto stood and watched the border agent walk over to his jeep and drive away. Then Cheeto turned and walked back to Michael and Andie.

  “That’s it?” Michael asked.

  “That’s it.” Ch
eeto smiled. “They randomly stop cars on the road out of the park, but they don’t have any computers or anything. They’re mostly just looking to see the color of your skin and whether you’ve got some Mexicans in your trunk.”

  “Well then,” Michael said. “God bless America.”

  “No,” Cheeto said. “God bless Texas, ‘cuz in Arizona they’d shoot you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Brea Krane stared at Agent Vatch and U.S. Attorney Brenda Gadd.

  “I want to know why every time you all say you’re going to arrest this man, you don’t.” She looked at her brother, then back. “We’ve cooperated fully with your investigation, given you thousands of documents. Now every time you say he’s going to jail, he’s actually quite free.”

  “We’ll get Collins.” Gadd leaned forward and tried to put her hand on Brea Krane’s hand, a consoling act, but Brea pulled back.

  “I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I can barely sleep at night.”

  This statement was a lie. Brea Krane didn’t really have any strong feelings about her father. By all accounts Joshua Krane had relatively little interaction with his two children. Brea Krane and her brother, Brent, were raised by a series of nannies until they were old enough for boarding schools.

  Vatch grew tired of the performance.

  “Listen if it’s the money that you’re worried about, we’ve now got it all frozen.” Vatch’s narrow mouth bent and his tongue flicked. He couldn’t resist a poke at why Brea Krane and her brother were really interested in the case. “Of course there are creditors, which will have to be sorted out before any release of funds, but that’s not of my concern right now.”

  Brea Krane ignored Vatch’s slight. She was business. “How do you know you’ve got all the money frozen?”

  Brea Krane was twenty-eight, tall, thin, and with striking features and an M.B.A. from Harvard. She was the product of Krane’s first marriage. Clearly intelligent, she had no genetic relationship with her stepmother, who had quickly found another rich patron after her father’s death and the pre-nuptial agreement with Brea’s father held up in court. Her stepmother had no interest in Michael Collins, and the children hadn’t seen her in years.