by David Cole
“Residents of Tucson. Phoenix. Sierra Vista.”
“You look at bank accounts? Money transfers, that kind of thing?”
“Yes.”
“That explains it. I live in Maryland. I was just down here on a temporary assignment. All my money flows through Maryland banks. It was two months ago, if you ever want to go check.”
“Two months ago?”
“Yeah. And since then I’ve spent every single fucking minute of every fucking hour planning to pay them back.”
We went through the open door into a large, two-storied building, the bottom floor entirely open and one hundred feet square. Above it, a balcony ran along the three sides. A dozen or more people were at different workstations.
Boots. Everywhere. In all stages of completion. A riot of colored leathers, designs, styles, heels, heights, the comfortable smell of leather. Sixteen-inch-high boots of zebra skin, with tufted zebra hair sticking out two vertical inches from heel to top.
Jo led me to an old Mexican working on a boot last worn so incredibly smooth it must have been a hundred years old. He wasn’t much younger.
“This is Jaime,” she said to me.
He got up without a word and we walked outside.
Jo spread a large topo map on the hood of her Land Rover. Jaime ran a grizzled finger up and down the map, nodding to himself. He opened his mouth and I thought he was going to tell us something, but when he smiled I could see that long ago somebody had cut out his tongue.
He pointed.
“That’s your village?” Jo asked.
Jaime nodded.
“Muchos gracias,” she said.
He touched a finger to his forehead, went back inside.
“When I escaped from the campo, I got food and water at this village. I had no idea where it was. I’d been running for hours. Maybe overnight. I don’t know. I’ve been asking people for almost two weeks, until I found Jaime.”
“Are you going to get the Federales to start looking for the camp?”
She folded the topo map, her face a contorted mask.
“Kyle is doing that. He’s a kidnap and rescue person.”
“I saw the movie,” I said. “But his name wasn’t Kyle.”
She licked her upper lip, twisted two fingers through her hair.
“You’re a little drunk,” she finally said. “Let’s just go back to Tucson. I’ll explain on the way. But first, I want to show you where I’m living in Nogales.”
We crossed over one of the drainage tunnels I remembered from a year ago. I looked down at the brackish water and saw three young boys running in from across the border, plastic bags bouncing across their shoulders as they ran to freedom, across the line, away from the colonias, to a wonderful life in the Estados Unidos.
Jo wound her way up a narrow street to the top of a hill. In the distance I could see the border fence. Sheets of old U.S. Air Force temporary runway materials, left over from the Vietnam war. The sheets were stacked vertically and held in place with supporting metal rods anchored in concrete bases. It looked rickety, it looked tempting. All across the hilltops I saw video monitoring posts.
A battered Chevy half-ton pickup was crammed into a tiny carport next to a small house. She pulled up behind it.
“You sure you don’t want to come inside?”
“No.”
Kyle appeared in the doorway, a child beside him, a girl, maybe seven, eight years old. She held his hand loosely, not so much for protection as just for pleasure.
“Revenge,” she said to herself, thought about it, turned to me. “And you also want revenge, I bet.”
“Revenge? For what? Against who?”
“Whoever kidnapped your friend.”
“Hostage, her husband told me. They just took her hostage.”
“Whatever. Don’t you want revenge on the people who took her?”
“That’s not me, Jo.”
“Bullshit. That’s everybody. We all want revenge. Against our bosses, our parents, our high school enemies, against anybody who’s really gotten to us. At times, even revenge against part of ourselves.”
“Not me.”
“Well. If you need help, I’ve got a lot of money. I’ve got my own private plane. If you want to work with me, I’ll throw money at you for anything.”
“Thanks, Jo. But I can’t see I’ll ever need that.”
“Well,” Jo said, “I’ve got to pee. Just wait a sec, then we’ll go up to Tucson.”
“You going to help her?” Kyle asked after she’d gone inside.
“I don’t know yet.”
“She’s got a real need, that Jo. Needs help, bullies people to get it. Pays people to get what she wants. Money means nothing. If she brought you here, to her base, you’ve got something magic that she wants to use up.”
“Rich,” I said. “Rich and spoiled. She’s got that smell on her.”
“Smell?”
He said it in two syllables. Sme-ell.
“She smells of…I don’t know, getting whatever she wants.”
“I can feel that,” he said. “But she’s paying me well.”
“What do you do, really?”
“She’s trying to find the camp, where she was held for three weeks. She wants me to find it and destroy it.”
“Destroy?”
“Take prisoners. Blow up the camp.”
“She’s an asshole,” I said.
“Hands down. If there was an Olympic event for narcissism, she’d win the gold, silver, and bronze. But she thinks you’ve got something she needs. What is that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Ready?”
Jo came out, bright-eyed. Her bathroom was obviously well stocked with drugs of different kinds. Her nostrils flared, she smiled widely, teeth in a solid row of dominoes, white, neat, straight.
“See ya,” Kyle said.
The girl waved. She’d not said a word, but she did smile. They watched Jo back out, turn around, and drive away. Before she swung into the first curve, I checked my side mirror and the two of them hadn’t moved, the girl waving bye bye.
Just north of Nogales I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. Jo tried to talk to me, but I paid no attention, thinking that I didn’t want to be around this woman any longer, didn’t want to be around anybody, wanted to be alone.
“There’s a Hertz rental car place,” I said. “Drop me there.”
I could see the machinery working, inside her head, struggling with my change of plans, struggling with not being able to spend another hour with me. Because of Meg’s bipolar condition, I know, you see. I know when somebody’s furiously trying to work out an alternate solution to something that had been hardwired as the plan. Her face soured at the realization that I was dismissing her.
In the Hertz parking lot, she didn’t even stop, went back out on the street, drove around the block and back into the lot, and when I tried to open the door I didn’t dare because she kept driving ten feet ahead, shifting, driving ten feet backward. She didn’t like leaving me.
“How do I contact you?” she finally said.
“I’ll call you.”
She took a small tooled leather case from her purse, pulled out an engraved calling card with just two phone numbers written on it.
“Top one is my personal cell. Bottom is my private answering service. When will you call me?”
“Soon.”
“I can help you,” she said firmly. “Kyle and I, we both can help you.”
“I’ll call you.”
“When?”
“Soon,” I said irritatedly. “I’ve got things of my own to do, and right now, I really don’t want to tell you about anything.”
I slammed the Land Rover door shut, but with the top down, we were still looking at each other. It wasn’t like shutting somebody’s car door and they’re inside, looking out, and you’re outside, walking away.
“Deal,” she said, shifting into Drive and pulling away without anoth
er word.
Hardly, I thought. I didn’t want any part of her or her friend Kyle. I didn’t want any part of kidnappers and camps in the jungle or the mountains or desert or wherever. I didn’t want any part of violence, action, being in the middle of things. I worked with computers, I spent whole weeks without seeing a single human being.
I really wanted to go back to that kind of life.
I’d promised Meg I would find her, but I’d already justified handing that responsibility over to Rey, who knew a lot more about action and violence than I did.
laura
I’ve not been good at this business of keeping records. It must be one of my many procrastinations against this stupid record-keeping, this journal. Sometimes I think I don’t really care if I ever get rid of my anxiety attacks, my panic syndrome, my taking Ritalin…
except here’s a woman who just bought a thousand Ritalin as though they were M&M candies, a woman who snorts it for godsakes, will I ever get that bad?
I took five more.
I tell you what really freaks me out.
Revenge.
Damn that woman for mentioning the word. She can have her revenge, I don’t give a rat’s ass for her problems, but I don’t want revenge on anybody, I just want to get Meg back, except…except…there’s the breather, there are those email messages…I am trying to think clearly here, that’s why I started recording again, I have to be very very clear that somebody wants revenge against me.
But who?
Three people have come after me in the past three years. The Navajo cop in Tuba City, who nailed the rattlesnake to my trailer door. Audrey Maxwell, in Tucson. But she and her son are dead. Taá Wheatley and the butcher woman, I never did know her name, they’re both dead.
It has to be about money. Somebody who embezzled or stole or ran money laundering, somebody that Don and I tracked down and who was later arrested and convicted.
What really bothered me was that people seemed to be suggesting that I might take revenge on Meg’s kidnappers.
I can’t deal with violence. I want no part of this.
Three more ten-milligram Ritalin pills. This is my real problem, how to stop taking these.
17
“Your car is ready, Señorita Emily.”
“Señorita,” I said with a smile. “I like that.”
“But surely you are that young?” the Hertz agent said, reading my driver’s license as he gave me the rental form to initial in three places and sign twice. I could tell he couldn’t pronounce the last name correctly.
Flettre.
I hated to use the same fake ID that the Mexican Customs people had taken, but it was the only ID kit I had with me.
“Flet…ter?” he tried.
“Flet-tre.”
He moved his lips silently, grinned, shrugged.
“I gave you a brand-new Grand Am,” he said proudly, seductively. “Plus, I’m not supposed to do this, but I wrote up in your contract, right here, I gave you the okay to drive the Grand Am across into Mexico.”
“I won’t be doing that, thanks.”
“And how can I contact you in Scottsdale, Señorita Emily?”
“You can’t.”
“Some people think Nogales is a nothing town,” he said. “But I can show you places where I live. Across the line. We could cross over anytime, Emily.”
He unpinned his Hertz nametag and set it on the counter beside the contract.
LUIS
In black etched letters on a cheap brass rectangle.
“Where’s the car?”
Moving to the first name, Emily, was too much.
“I’ll bring it around.”
“Just give me the keys. I’ll find it.”
“If you need anything, ask for me. Ask for Luis.”
Yeah. Right.
Out back, a gleaming red Pontiac Grand Am GT1 with only 752 miles on the speedometer. Luis stood at the opened chain-link gate, underneath the coils of razor wire, smiling, waving me through like a matador.
A block from the Hertz agency, I rethought what I was doing and found another public phone to call Don.
“You still able to rig up simulated phone connections?”
“Of course. Where to where?”
“London. I’ll give you the number, you patch me in. Is Alex there?”
“Ah, you think a secretary in London says ‘what up’ and ‘dude’?”
“So write her out a script. I will only talk to Kyle Callaghan.”
“Just kidding. She did a Malaysian accent for me last week. Hold on.”
Various clicks on the line, a switch to that slightly whistling rush of a transatlantic connection, just a touch of voice delay as I heard Don saying test test test, and then a phone rang.
“Hello?” Jo said.
“Good evening, ma’am,” Alex said in a Liverpudlian accent.
“It’s afternoon. Who are you?”
“Transatlantic bell for Mister Kyle Callaghan, if you please.”
“A bell?”
“Is Mister Callaghan still at this number?”
“Just a minute.”
Exasperated, Jo dropped the phone.
“Yes?” Kyle said.
“Don’t let on that it’s me,” I said. “Your office is calling, not me.”
“Yesss?”
It came out yisss.
“Do you know who this is?”
“Of course, mate.”
“Can you get out of there? By yourself, and meet me?”
“Bit tough, mate, we’re right occupied.”
“Don’t be cute. Do you know where the police station is?”
“Yisss, I could be there. If it’s that important. Hang on…”
I heard him talking to Jo.
“Fax coming through for me at the Nogales police station. Company business, I’ve got to pop over there.”
“Get a pizza,” Jo said in the background. “Get Diet Coke. The liter bottles.”
“Ryeght,” he said. I almost heard him blush.
“You know where it is? I’m already there.”
We went around to the front of the Nogales public building, by the pond with the sculptures, and sat on the grass.
“Here’s what I need you to do,” I said.
“No Jo?”
“Right.”
“I’m the Kiwi, I get to say that.”
“Kiwi? You’re a fruit?”
He laughed with great delight.
“Englishman’s a Brit. A Limey. Australian’s an Aussie. I’m a Kiwi.”
“And I’m your mate?”
“Nah. Mate…that’s a guy. You’re…you’re…”
What were we? Don’t go there, I thought.
“So? What?” he asked.
“I need you to be a cutout.”
“That’s old spy school. George Smiley.”
“Who?”
“What? You never read le Carré?”
“Tinker, Sailer…something.”
“Yes.”
“Why does it always sound like you’re hissing when you say that?”
“You mean, yisssss?”
“Yissssss.”
“Lul Kiwi. Um. Lul. Little. What’s to do, then?”
He was very careful to keep things close at hand to business. I couldn’t read him, I didn’t want to read him.
“I need you to arrange a month’s rent of a total luxury suite of rooms in Tucson.”
“Luxury. Ah. That’ll be a new thing.”
I handed him a list of three buildings I knew had penthouses, office suites, rentals in buildings that also had top high-speed computer lines.
“Only on the top floor,” I said.
“Who’s got the money?”
“You work that out with Jo.”
“Without telling her what it’s for.”
Not a question.
“Not yet.”
“Look. I know you’ve got something on…”
“On?”
“Happeni
ng. Is that what you say? Cooking?”
“I’ve got a top computer person coming in,” I said. “He’s handicapped. In a wheelchair. Sets up a ton of equipment, need lots of space.”
I found myself talking in Kyle’s clipped, shorthand way of speech.
“This man, he’s your mate?”
“He’s my soul brother.”
“Brilliant! When do you need this done?”
“By tonight. And that’s another thing. You’ve got to arrange for Jo to pick this guy up, fly him here, actually, I mean, fly him to Tucson.”
“She’ll go for it? Without knowing we met here?”
“Tell her we met. Tell her I had to do it this way. Phone lines tapped, whatever excuse you want to make up.”
“High-speed connections,” he said to himself. “Can I move my base up there?”
“No reason you can’t.”
“Right. I’m…how do you Yanks say it. I’m on top?”
This time I blushed, but I knew what he meant.
“I’m on it,” I said. “That’s what you say.”
“Right. I’m on it. How do I let you know when it’s arranged?”
“I’ll call your house.”
He thought it through.
“So, if it’s all right to call me at the house later, if it’s all right to tell Jo about this…why did you want to meet me here, without her knowing?”
I didn’t know the answer to that one.
“I don’t know the answer to that one,” I said aloud.
“Right. Bloody well right, Laura. I don’t know the answer either.”
His lips brushed against my cheek, in the next instant he walked to his car.
I watched traffic constantly, all the way to Tucson. Once in the city I drove through a lot of one-way streets, turning unexpectedly, and when I was finally satisfied that nobody was following me, I went to my house.
What I hadn’t counted on was the stalker.
When I finally sat down in my workroom, there were fifteen messages from the office phone waiting for me.
The last message was totally freaky.
No Anthony Hopkins this time. A man’s voice, calm, almost unaccented.
“Hello, Laura. It’s Victorio. I’ve seen you on CNN.”
I turned on my TV, fumbled with the remote to key in the CNN channel.
