Roque had no idea what to say to her.
Thankfully, Tio Faustino appeared, edging his way past with a murmured word, then hurrying across the packed dirt yard.
Roque dropped his knapsack and prepared for the embrace, a fierce homesick hug, and soon he felt the trickle of dampness on his uncle’s rough cheek.
“Roque, Roque, Roque.
My son. Finally. You’re here.
Twelve
HAPPY SHOOK OFF THE COLD RAIN AND CHOSE A TABLE NEAR THE back, a midweek lunch crowd, banter and body heat and the raucous aromas of a Vietnamese kitchen. Almost instantly the waiter appeared-three chins, ratty sweater, Asian comb-over. Happy, picking a number at random, ordered a bowl of pho, a ginger-laced soup with noodles and grilled meat, served with mung-bean sprouts, sliced hot chilies, sprigs of fresh cilantro. What he found himself craving, though, was a cigarette. As always his stomach roiled. The diarrhea was back.
He’d never know, he supposed, the cause, whether it was what happened in the Salvadoran prison that night or the skunky untreated water he and all the other foreign workers got for bathing and laundry in Iraq, day in, day out, seeping in through the eyes, the skin, the mouth, courtesy of a private company awarded the contract for on-base services by the Pentagon, a no-bid deal worth billions. If the latter, he could count himself lucky in some regards, all he’d lost was his appetite. He knew other men with incurable rashes, seeping abscesses, whole limbs flaring red with infection. He could conjure a bad itch just thinking about them.
He turned the card over in his hands, obtained from Tia Lucha: Special Agent James Lattimore, Federal Bureau of Investigation. The embossing on the card felt oddly reassuring. A straight cop, according to Roque, not that the kid knew just how bent cops could get. Regardless, Happy didn’t have much choice; he couldn’t just walk in to the FBI vestibule, ask for the most honest guy they had.
He studied the restaurant’s clientele: government workers, library patrons, museum day-trippers, law students, tattooed punks, flaming gays, Tenderloin trannies, even a few Vietnamese. He tried to imagine who the spy might be. The freckled plump brunette two tables over, picking at her split ends and reading a paperback titled
Suddenly, there he was, standing in the restaurant doorway, impossible to miss, ducking a little so as not to smack his head. He made eye contact with no one and no one with him, then his gaze found the back of the room.
Happy felt his throat clench shut, thinking: He wants, he can slip the cuffs on right here, reentry after deportation, anywhere from two to twenty years in federal stir. Everything crumbles into dust then. But he’d felt the man out, half a dozen phone calls already, letting him know who he was, reminding him of the standoff at the trailer, his cousin the crazy jarhead with the fucked-up face, all as prelude to a discussion of what he, Pablo “Happy” Orantes, had to offer.
He recognized the type from Iraq, the square but savvy American, lanky build, steady gaze, easy gait, smile of a troop master, heart of a killer. He wore a trench coat over a sport jacket and tie, and his hair had wisps of gray at the temple. Shaking out his umbrella first, he ambled over to Happy’s table, pulled out the available chair, extended his hand.
“Pablo? Jim Lattimore.”
The offered palm was cold from the walk outdoors, the handshake firm and quick, the voice like whiskey. He draped his coat on the back of his chair and sat.
“You can call me Happy.”
An impassive smile. “Okay.” The waiter approached with a menu, Lattimore waved him off, ordering from memory, round steak and brisket, plus hot green tea. Nodding toward Happy’s soup, he said, “That’s going to get cold.”
Happy couldn’t help himself, he chuckled-nerves, suspicion, relief-glancing down at the rainbow skim of cooling fat, then back up at the scarily smart face. “You could play yourself in a movie, know that?”
It took a second for Lattimore to process the observation. “The opportunity’s never arisen.” He paused, leaning back in his chair as the waiter set down his tea. “That could probably be said about a lot of people. You, for instance. Not to say I pictured you perfectly from your voice on the phone, but even if you hadn’t been the only Hispanic in here, I think I would have figured you for my guy.”
Happy’s craving for a cigarette intensified. My guy? “What you see, what you get.” Shivering from a sudden brisk chill, he glanced around for the source of the draft, found none.
“Few people can really hide who they are. I get lied to every day, every cop does. A mask is harder to come by than most people think.”
Okay, Happy thought. Got to that quick. “I’m not lying.”
“I hope not.”
In their previous phone connections, Happy had laid out the basic parameters of what he had to offer: Vasco Ramirez was ready to bankroll the movement of a terrorist into the country on behalf of Mara Salvatrucha, in exchange for sole control of a cocaine smuggling operation through the Port of Oakland. Happy had explained the involvement of his family, who he was, what baggage he brought to the table, probed a little of where Lattimore stood, what he could reciprocate, what he couldn’t, all discussed cat and mouse, no cards shown, bluff and counter-bluff.
Strangely, Lattimore was less than thrilled with the case, at least from what Happy could tell given his reaction so far. He’d said, “You have any idea how many desks I’m going to have to clear this with?” From that and a few other remarks, Happy’d gathered that the thing was a clusterfuck of such grotesque proportion any agent in his right mind would say “Not me” and walk. But Lattimore wasn’t backing away, he was just peeling the onion. Truth be told, Happy found his reaction encouraging.
The balding waiter showed up with Lattimore’s pho, then held out an inquiring hand toward Happy’s, wearing a vaguely offended frown.
Happy said to Lattimore, “You want it? Take it back to the office, have it for lunch tomorrow. I dunno, whatever your hours are, maybe dinner tonight.”
Lattimore glanced up and held Happy’s eyes with his own. He was looking for something, reading.
Happy added, “I didn’t put anything in it.”
Lattimore chuckled, then glanced toward the waiter, shook his head no. As the waiter carried it away-a perk for the dishwasher, maybe, or something to reheat for another customer-Lattimore unwrapped his chopsticks. “I’m going to have to 302 this meeting. Write it up, I mean. I’ll also have to log my receipt. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s just tidier, at this stage, if I don’t buy you lunch.”
With that small admission, said with embarrassment at the pettiness of the great bureaucratic wheel ready to crush them both, Happy sensed the exact measure of his folly. He could finally calculate the full faith and credit of the damage this might do not just to him but to everyone in the family, everyone he meant to protect. It felt like the whole of his life, clutched in a stranger’s fist. It felt like the weight of the world plopped onto his back but not before it had been calculated down to the micro-ounce by faceless nobodies in a million identical cubicles buried underground in some bunker near Quantico. But what other options did he have? Every time he tried to think of another way out, whatever ideas came to bear soon drifted off like mist. Wishful thinking wouldn’t cut it. It was up to sheer will now, that and luck.
“I trust your judgment on the paperwork,” his voice so quiet he barely heard it himself.
Lattimore picked a strip of lean steak from his bowl. In the background, the Italian with the throwback bouffant
