Pain Management

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything. You asked me a question; I answered you.”

“Yeah. You did. Some people say you were a mercenary.”

“Some people say Elvis lost weight recently.”

She went quiet again. I went back to where I’d been.

“How bad do you want that girl?” She broke the silence. “The one you’ve been looking for.”

“Bad enough to finance a suitcase of the stuff you want so bad.”

“Not enough.”

“There’s a budget,” I said. “And it’s got a ceiling.”

“Not cash,” she said softly. “A trade.”

“I don’t have any drugs. And you don’t have the girl.”

“You can help me get drugs. And I can help you get the girl.”

“You said that before.”

“I know I did. I was telling you the truth. Some of it, anyway.”

“Sure. Okay, turn her up and we’ll talk.”

“I don’t think so. But I will show you enough to make you believe me.”

“Look, I already told you about ‘caring.’ Don’t knock yourself out trying to make a believer out of me.”

“You don’t have to believe anything. Just tell me what you have so far—whatever you’re willing to, that is. I can work from nothing . . . or nearly nothing . . . but it would go a lot faster if you’d . . .”

“Here’s what I know,” I said. And gave her an edited version of the truth.

She listened carefully, nodding her head at various points, but not taking any notes. When I was done, she said, “I’m going to take you back now. Tomorrow, be around. It doesn’t matter where. Three o’clock. Call me. I’ll pick you up. And take you a lot closer to the girl than you’ve been since you started, see if I don’t.”

When I let myself back into the loft, Gem was there.

“Were you successful?” she greeted me, as if I’d been out trying to sell encyclopedias door-to-door.

“I might have gotten closer. Or I might be getting hustled. I can’t be sure yet.”

“How have you eaten?”

“Fine.”

“Yes? Very well, then.”

She approached me. Tentatively, as if not sure of her reception. As I stepped to meet her, I could see her eyes were closed. I kissed her lips, lightly. Her arms went around my neck.

“I was afraid,” she whispered.

“Of what?”

“That you would be gone.”

“It’s not that dangerous a—”

“Not dead. Gone. Gone away from me.”

“I—”

“I know you will go. I was afraid you would just . . . vanish. Without saying anything to me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She stepped back slightly, her hands still clasped behind my neck. “Yes you would. If you thought it was . . . if you . . . if it made sense to you, that is what you would do.”

“Why would it make—?”

“Stop it, Burke. You are not a good dancer. Come back into the bedroom with me. I want to show you something I bought.”

It turned out to be a simple ottoman, just a solid rectangular lump of black leather with some kind of pattern in red on its top.

“What is it? An antique?” I asked her.

“It is old, but that is not its beauty. You do not like it?”

“I don’t dislike it or anything. It doesn’t race my motor, that’s all.”

“Be patient,” she said, tugging her jeans down over her hips. When she was nude, she positioned herself over the ottoman on her hands and knees.

“Walk around it,” she said, throatily. “Look at it from all angles. Perhaps you will appreciate what I have brought you then.”

I never made the complete circuit.

“Are Flacco and Gordo back, too?” I asked her the next morning.

“Si,” she said, mockingly.

“What’s that all about?”

“They speak better English than you do.” She chuckled. “I don’t know why men play those games. Machismo. It sounds so much stronger in Spanish, yes?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who tries to speak Spanish, miss. I tried that once—it almost cost me my life.”

“Truly?”

“Oh yeah. Square business.”

“Tell me?” Gem play-begged, kneeling next to where I was sitting.

“You want to hear about how stupid I was?”

“Oh yes!” she said, smiling.

I leaned back in the chair, tangling my hand in her long black hair. “You know I was in the war in Biafra . . . ?”

“Of course.”

“Well, by the time I showed up, the rebels were pretty much surrounded. They’d lost their only seaport, and very little food was getting in. There were only two routes for it: overland through Gabon, or by night flight from Sao Tome, a little Portuguese colony island just off the coast.

“The island was like any small town. Only smaller. They didn’t get tourists. There wasn’t but one reason to be there: every visitor was there for the war.”

Gem shifted position slightly, just to let me know she was paying close attention.

“I was trying to make my connections to catch a ride on one of the merc planes, figuring out who to approach,” I went on. “So I spent a lot of time just hanging out. Anyway, in this bar, I met a guy . . . Evaristo, I remember his name was. He was being friendly, showed me how the nut-bowl trick worked. . . .”

“What was that?”

“When you bought a drink, the guy behind the stick would ask if you wanted the ‘nuts.’ He said it in English, but I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I always passed. This ‘bar,’ it was right on the beach. White sand, so pure it looked new. The place was made out of wood, and it was left open on one side. No doors, no windows, no wall, no nothing. When they closed, I guess they just took the stock home with them.

“One day, Evaristo is in there with me when the bartender asks me about the nuts. Evaristo nods his head at me, like he was saying, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ So I did. The bartender hands me a covered wooden bowl full of . . . well, nuts, I guess. And seeds, and all kinds of things I wasn’t going to put in my mouth. Evaristo, he grabs the bowl, closes the cover, and shakes it. Sounded like the way a dried gourd rattles, you know?

“In two minutes, the place was full of birds. Amazing birds, like I’d never seen in my life. I guess they were parrots of some kind. Huge things. Colors I never even knew existed. Evaristo opened the bowl, scattered the nuts all over this wooden plank they used as a bar. The birds hopped up there like they were used to it. I mean, they were close enough for me to touch, and it didn’t bother them at all. I’d never imagined such fabulous things, and there they were, right on top of me.

“I was just a kid then. Nineteen. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. I bought Evaristo a drink, to thank him and all. And we got to talking. It wasn’t a whole lot of talking, because he didn’t speak much English. I knew the island was under Portuguese control, but it sure sounded like Spanish to me. Evaristo, he showed me a picture of his wife. ‘?Muy blanco, eh?’ he says. I tell him, yeah, she sure is.

“He smiles, and I figure I got enough street Spanish to get by; maybe we could talk. Like I said, I was a kid.