While Gentry’s mind raced, Gamble talked about his family. “I send two-thirds of my check back to my mom and dad, been doing it since I enlisted. Still I wish I could do more for Lorita. She’s nineteen now, a great kid; lookin’ at me you wouldn’t believe how beautiful she is. I want to get her up to the States, but she doesn’t want to come. Says she wants to go to college and find a job down there.”
Eddie paused, long enough to where Court looked over at the rare silence. “We’ve got to get out of here, Sally. I got too many people counting on me back home.”
“You’ll get home. I promise.”
“I’m not leaving you, amigo. I told you that.”
Court changed the subject to follow his stream of conscience. “Hey, you said you could hot-wire a car, right?”
Eddie was surprised by the change in the conversation, but he rolled up onto his arm, smiled broadly and proudly. “Back in Riverside they called me Fast Eddie because I could boost any ride in under sixty seconds.”
Gentry nodded. “Fast Eddie. Can you still do it?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t
“Just curious.” Court let it go. He went back to working on his plan.
NINE
“Senor?”
A woman’s voice from behind startled Court, took him away from that night in the highlands of Laos, and brought him back to the warm, breezy afternoon on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Not surprisingly, she spoke in Spanish. It was a dialect Gentry found difficult to understand. “If you want to write something, will you please do it now so I can paint over it? I’d rather not have to come back later today. It is a long walk back to the road for someone in my condition.”
Court turned to the woman’s voice. She stood behind and below him, down the hill a few feet on a dirt path that wound its way from the cobblestone road that ran down to San Blas.
She was alone, her dark hair was pulled back tight, her white cotton dress blew in the warm breeze. She carried a small white paint can and a brush in her hands and a large purse on her shoulder.
She was thirty-five or so. Very pretty.
And very pregnant.
“I’m sorry,” Court replied in Spanish. He stepped down off the hill towards the dirt path. “I thought this man was someone I knew. I was mistaken.” He made to pass the woman with a slight nod, no eye contact, but she stepped in front of him. She held her head high and her shoulders back, boldly challenging him.
Court stopped.
“Who are you looking for? It’s a small town. I’m sure I know most every family interred in this cemetery.” Clearly, she knew he was lying, and from the look of her confused expression, Court’s accent had caught her attention.
He hesitated. He was busted, no sense in drawing out an obvious lie.
With a shrug he said, “I knew Eddie. I was just in the area. Thought I’d come by. Sorry. I have to catch a bus. Excuse me.” He tried to move past her again, and again, she shifted into his path.
“Eddie? You are American?” She had switched to English.
“Yes.” She remained wary; she did not smile or nod. But slowly she extended a small hand, and Court took it. “You are Eddie’s wife?”
“My name is Elena.
“My name is Joe.” He pulled the name out of the air.
He regarded the woman for a moment. “Eddie was going to have a baby?” Court winced even as the words came out of his mouth.
“He
He said nothing. Just nodded.
“You were with Eduardo in the Navy?”
“No.”
“Ah, Drug Enforcement Agency?”
“No.”
The soft features of her caramel-colored face scrunched up as she thought. “You knew him back in California or something?”
He hesitated. He hated telling people the truth. It was not how he operated. He determined to remain vague. “A long time ago, your husband saved my life, risked his own to do it. That’s really all I can tell you.”
He felt her eyes on him for a long time. Twice he glanced to her and found her staring at his face; both times he turned his head back to the gravesite.
She smiled. Said, “He saved many lives, I think. Here and in the United States. He was a good man.”
“I’m really sorry—”
“Are you here for the memorial?”
“The memorial?”
“Tomorrow, in Puerto Vallarta, there will be a commemoration of the eight officers who died in the bay. We are expecting a large turnout of locals who will come to honor their sacrifice. Will you be there?”
Gentry hesitated. “I’d love to. But I have to get back on the road.”
“What a pity.” Elena looked as if she did not believe him, which to Court meant she had a pretty decent bullshit detector. “I need to paint the cross again.” She stepped up the hill and knelt down, unsteady with the change in her center of gravity. As she opened the can of paint, she looked back over her shoulder, smiled, and extended a new invitation. “You
“I wish I could, but I’d better be heading back to—”
“You have come all this way. You and Eduardo were friends. What would he think looking down on me from heaven if I did not take you home and give you a meal for your trouble?” She knelt and began working as if the matter were decided—she covered the black graffiti with the clean white paint.
Court wanted to protest more, but he could not deny he could use something good to eat. With what remained of his cash he had just enough to make his way across the country to Tampico and buy a few
He motioned at the graffiti. “Who did that?”
“The drug lord has a
“Oh, they say he is an honest businessman. They say that he has done much good for this area. They say my husband acted without permission. But Eduardo knew all about de la Rocha; he would not have gone after him if he were a good man.” She finished her work. A few bright splotches of white had dripped on the broken brown dirt below the tombstone. “We will get him a nice headstone. Once the messages stop. It’s not worth the trouble now.” Then she stood. She let Court take the paint can and the brush, and they began walking towards the exit of the cemetery.
LAOS
2000
