Do They Know I'm Running

“The Shia hated the Palestinians worse than they hated the Sunnis. And I served in the war against Iran-very odd, a Palestinian in the army, but that’s another story. The Persians are Shia too, so I was particularly loathsome to them. But the worst thing? What my own in-laws did to me.”

Tio Faustino looked puzzled. “How-”

“Two weeks after the election, my wife’s brothers came, took Fatima and our daughter away while I was at work. Admittedly, things were getting much worse. Our neighbor, he had two uncles kidnapped, a note demanding $100,000 ransom arrived. Impossible. They tried to negotiate. Next day, the two uncles show up at the morgue, drill holes everywhere. This is the Jaish al Mahdi, okay? I could tell you stories even more horrible than this, trust me.”

Tio Faustino gazed into the candlelight. “War is a kind of sickness. People go mad.”

“Two days later, Fatima’s brothers show up while I’m away. They left a letter behind, saying they couldn’t just stand by and watch their sister and niece get raped and murdered while I did nothing, as though I didn’t even want to protect them. Everything I did, every dollar I earned, was for them. But none of that mattered. They took Fatima and little Shatha and their own families and fled to Syria, but they couldn’t get in. They’re stuck.”

One of the candles burned out. Tio Faustino watched the thin curl of smoke rise. “I’m sure my son understood,” he said, “how hard it was for you, your family ripped apart like that, given what he himself has been through. Being deported, I mean.”

Roque wondered where Tio was going with this. It seemed a morbid kind of one-upmanship, a game of dueling miseries.

“A week later, the Jaish al Mahdi drove me out. Three of them showed up, dressed all in black, the oldest maybe twenty-one. They pounded on the door, spat at my feet when I opened it, then handed me a bullet soaked in blood, told me I had three hours to get out or die in the street. I left behind everything I owned but what I could jam into a suitcase. I began sleeping on pallets of rice at the warehouse in Abu Ghraib, until they found a bed for me in the worker compound. That was when Happy and I got to know each other. I went to work for the Salvadorans because they were the only ones left. The Spaniards, the Hondurans, the Nicaraguans, all gone. Everybody was getting out if they could. The thing was a disaster. And everybody figured the Americans bungled their way in, let them bungle their way out.”

A stray dog poked its head through a hole in the hedge of veranera surrounding the garden, sniffing the air, eyes glimmering. Tio Faustino hissed, raised his hand in almost comic wrath. The dog shrank away. “Why didn’t you try working for the Americans?”

“Of course I tried, the Americans and British both. They would have nothing to do with me. I know Israel gets blamed for everything, not wrongly in my view, but I have to believe my being Palestinian was why I was shunned. The Salvadorans, praise God, took pity on me. They were in Najaf, rebuilding the airport, the hospitals, a few small refineries. None of the roads into Najaf were safe. Muqtada al Sadr and his thugs put up their own barricades. And if they weren’t shaking you down, the Badr Brigade was. I told you, your son was very brave. I grew to respect him very much. Entering the city took hours sometimes. Bribes just vanished, they did nothing, but without a bribe you sat there all night or got dragged away to a secret prison, ransomed off. Or got to star in one of those special videos, where your head disappears.”

A sudden stirring in the mango tree lifted everyone’s gaze. A garrobo scurried among the branches, scaly and brown, staring back at them with elfin dinosaur eyes.

“Not to sound morbid,” Samir continued. “I just want you to understand, your son-”

A car roared up the hill, crunching to a stop in the gravel beyond the hedge. Doors opened, slammed closed. The scuffling of feet, harsh voices.

Lonely appeared, clutching Lupe by the arm with one hand, the other grabbing her hair as he dragged her forward. She bucked against his grip. Sisco lingered behind, hands buried deep in his pockets.

On impulse Roque stood up, regretting the move instantly. Who did he expect to fight, who would it save? He could feel the adrenalin crackling in his blood. Tio Faustino just sat there slack-jawed. Samir stared blankly.

Lonely shoved Lupe forward and she stumbled, trying to keep her feet. Even in the candlelight, Roque could see the fresh damage, the glistening lip, the crimped eye. He envisioned killing the two mareros right there, bare hands if need be, knew as well it was his powerlessness triggering the fantasy, triggering all his fantasies.

Lupe dropped uneasily to one knee, her breath ragged. Eyes blazing, Lonely stepped forward, rocking his hip as though to kick her. She recoiled from him and he laughed, then looked up and met Roque’s stare.

“Like the way she looks, jodido? She’s yours. All the way to Agua Prieta. You deliver this pinche putilla to a dude called El Recio. He’s your man, you wanna cross over. She gets handed over to him or your uncle and Turco the motherfucker there don’t make it home, get it?”

Tio Faustino rose from his chair, came around to see if Lupe needed any help. Easing the girl to her feet, he took her chin in his hand, regarded her face. She seemed responsive to the kindness. Roque thought: Hand her over, and then? Meanwhile, Samir’s whole demeanor had changed. He seemed coiled, ready to lash out if need be and yet also indifferent. The look of an animal, Roque thought.

“Where are her things?” He felt the stupidity of the question instantly but couldn’t help himself from clarifying: “Her clothes, I mean. Her stuff.”

“Her stuff?” Lonely cackled like a magpie. “You wanna talk about her stuff?”

“You know what-”

“Pack up your own fucking stuff and drag your punk ass outta here, mamon. You gotta head for San Cristobal. Guy you’re gonna meet there, his name is Rafa. He’ll be looking for your car. Pull up about half a mile shy of the border, his gas station’s there, blue lantern in the window. You see the bridge up ahead, you’ve gone too far, turn around and go back. And try not to be too fucking obvious about it.”

He took one last glance at Lupe, looking like he was gathering saliva so he could spit. Tio Faustino moved between them. Lonely grinned, turned on his heel and plodded back to the car.

Sisco lingered, hands still balled in his pockets. “You know the secret of getting past the checkpoints, right?” His eyes focused on some nebulous point outside the circle of candlelight, a grin on his lips, childish and taunting and strange. “No matter what they do, or how they ask, just keep smiling.”

Seventeen

THE COURTROOM DOOR WHISPERED OPEN, THUDDED CLOSED. Turning to glance over his shoulder, Lattimore spotted the strange man enter timidly under the indifferent eye of the bailiff, who sat perched on a stool at the back, thumbing through last month’s Ebony.

The newcomer had a wonkish dishevelment, bristling salt-and-pepper hair, a close-cropped beard, gold-rimmed glasses that sat cockeyed on his face. His jacket, tie, shirt and slacks looked like they’d mugged him in the closet that morning. The man’s glance met Lattimore’s, followed by an unsettling smile. Lattimore turned back toward the proceedings.

“We’re not asking for any more than the court provided in U.S. v. Fort, Your Honor.” Pitcavage stood at the prosecutor’s table, hands clasped behind him, a skipper on deck. His trial team, a claque of mannequins with law degrees, sat to his right. “We have no obligation to provide police reports or 302s to the defense any earlier than the Friday before testimony.”

“We can’t prepare an adequate defense under those restrictions, Your Honor.” This came from Tony Torreta, lead defense counsel, representing Hugo “Little Brother” Rodriguez, the shot caller for the Fogtown Brujos, a Mara Salvatrucha clica that ran a car-theft ring and various shakedown rackets plus good old- fashioned dope in the Outer Mission and Visitacion Valley. He was on trial with two of his lieutenants for the murder of a witness in a federal racketeering trial last spring. “We get, what, two days?” Torreta continued. “Two weekend days at that, to track down and interview more than one hundred witnesses. In an excess of caution, or bowing to the government’s paranoia, we’ve agreed not to share the witness names with our clients.”