Do They Know I'm Running

the only woman she knew who went to such trouble anymore but only a fool trusts the open-mindedness of strangers. After a moment of stunned silence, Regina the checker broke into an uneasy smile. Alion the bag boy raised a power fist. The others quickly turned back to what they were doing.

The manager’s office lay back off the storage room. She climbed the three wood steps to the door and knocked. A muffled voice called from within, “It’s open.”

The manager on duty was named Rafael, a muscular Tongan with a high tight fade, a meticulously groomed Fu Manchu. His necktie was loose at his unbuttoned collar, one of his shirttails had worked itself free. A half-eaten lumpia laced with brown Chinese mustard and the discarded banana leaf from a patupat, both courtesy of the Filipino bakery next door, sat in a Styrofoam container on his desk. “Lucha, hey-whazzup?” He too stared for a moment at her face, then gestured her into a chair.

Lucha hugged her purse to her belly, taking a second to compose herself. A fly careened about the remains of Rafael’s dinner. “I am going to need extra shifts,” she said, “if you can.” It seemed wise to stop there. No need to explain what the money was for-mention a lawyer, there would be no end to the rumors.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” Rafael wiped his lips with a napkin. “Let’s take a looky-look at the schedule.” He plucked a clipboard from the top of the file cabinet behind him, pushed back the top page. “Gina’s been screaming for time off, her kid’s got some kinda skin problem. You want her Wednesday ten to six, Friday noon to close?”

Lucha realized at that moment that in just a short while she would be returning to the empty trailer, spending the night there, nothing and no one to distract her from what she was feeling. And what would happen when these people found out what Godo and Happy had done-would she still have a job?

“Lucha?”

She snapped to. “I’m sorry. Could you say that again?”

“You okay?”

“Yes. Yes. Tired, maybe.”

He repeated the shifts he had to offer. She said, “Starting when?”

“Day after tomorrow. That soon enough?”

“That would be fine.” She considered asking for an advance on her paycheck but felt she stood a better chance by asking Monroe, the day-shift manager. He liked her-she reminded him of a babysitter he’d had growing up in Chula Vista, he said-and the extra shifts would serve as a kind of collateral.

“Hey, almost forgot.” Rafael picked up his pad of message slips, ripped one free, tossed it across his desk. It fluttered to the floor, he said, “Sorry,” and Lucha said, “It’s all right,” and they both bent to pick it up. Lucha got there first. It contained one word, “Pablo,” and a phone number. Rafael said, “That came in through the message center maybe, I dunno, two o’clock?”

She stared at the handwriting as though it came from another world. Leaving his office, she walked though the store waving a curt goodbye to everyone, whether they looked up or not, then went outside to the pay phone in front of the store, opened her pocketbook, took out her change purse and inserted three quarters into the slot. A disposable phone, she thought, that was his style. He picked up on the second ring.

– You lied to me, you son of a bitch. You told me Godo wasn’t involved in anything and that was a goddamn lie. You got him into this and now he can’t get out and shut up! Shut up and listen to me! They took me to the house in Crockett, told me about the robbery, the man you killed. I had to face the woman you kidnapped you selfish little shit, she may never see her daughters again. And now let me guess, you need my help. Well let me tell you something-your father is dead too, how’s that? Roque called me today, he told me, your father is dead, killed by bandits. Bandits like you. Look what you’ve done. This whole thing was your idea. You always thought you were smart. You’ve never been smart. You’ve always been the stupid one. The worthless one. Don’t come back, understand? If I so much as see you I will call the police, if I don’t kill you myself.

She slammed the phone so hard against its chrome-plated stirrup it banged out of her hand. She fumbled for it, got it under control, redoubled her grip, then slammed it home again, over and over, harder, faster, time and time again until the plastic earpiece shattered, exposing the copper coils and tin diaphragm beneath. She threw it down, staring in disgust.

From behind Alion the bag boy said, “Fuck, Lucha. Be trippin’.”

She pivoted toward the parking lot, finger-raking her hair to hide her face, chin down, sucking in jolts of air as she stormed to her car.

Thirty-Eight

A SINGLE BARE BULB SCREWED INTO A WALL SOCKET LIT THE bathroom mirror. El Recio, naked except for tattered slippers and a silvery brown boa constrictor coiled around his shoulders, leaned over the basin, brushing his teeth. Happy stood in the doorway, waiting. A small desert gecko hid in the corner, outside the snake’s reach, lurking behind a coffee can stuffed with foul tissues, the toilet barely usable because of the trickling water pressure.

Beyond the bracing whiff of shit, the house smelled of fresh cement, rotten fruit rinds and raw sewage from outside. They were in one of the new developments, if that was the word, on the outskirts of Agua Prieta. Happy had driven two straight days to get here, checking into a transient hotel downtown with Godo, then discreetly asking around, finding his way to El Recio. He was light-headed from lack of food, his body humming with adrenalin and foul with sweat.

El Recio drooled a thin white spume into the sink. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, guey. Ain’t heard nothing from nobody down south about moving your people across.” He’d spent most of his life banging around Tucson, his accent flat and hard. “You say you paid them? News to me. I ain’t seen nothing. Ain’t heard nothing.” He affected a shrug, not wanting to disturb the snake. “Way it is.”

Happy only half heard, Tia Lucha’s voice still echoing inside his brain: The stupid one. The worthless one. Let the scrawny bitch talk, he thought, she’s not your mother. Your mother was a hero, she died on Guazapa volcano.

El Recio rinsed, spat, then stuck the toothbrush behind his ear. He had a manly, misshapen, bone-smooth head and stood tall for a mejicano, over six feet, but so skinny his veins popped. He gave the snake an attentive, leisurely stroke. “You want to get somebody over the wall, you know the freight. Fifteen hundred a head.”

“I already paid,” Happy heard himself say. “Twelve large per.”

“Not me you didn’t.”

“It’s a lot of money. It was supposed to get them all the way.”

“Look, you got a beef with Lonely, go down and talk to him about it.” He gestured for Happy to make way, he and the snake were coming out.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Call, then.” He edged past and shuffled bow-legged toward the front room, the tattoos down his back blending with the boa’s mottled scales.

Happy, following: “Every number I got, plug’s been pulled. Best I get is a ring nobody answers. If you got a number-”

“Last time I say this, right? Ain’t my fucking problem.” Entering the front room, he regaled the rest of the company with a hearty scratch of his balls. Over his shoulder: “You paid twelve thousand per head-for real? Man, those faggots musta seen you comin’.”

Them or you, Happy thought. He couldn’t figure out who exactly was screwing him. The fact Lonely couldn’t be reached smacked of rip-off and yet maybe there’d been a raid down there, everybody popped or driven underground, something El Recio, sly motherfucker, would no doubt recognize as the genius of luck. He could say anything, demand whatever, who’d contradict him-how could he not know how much got paid and why? Either way, Happy thought, I’m stuck. And the kicker? My old man’s dead. All that money and trouble to keep him safe. A restless sorrow fluttered inside his chest. He saw the wisdom of keeping that to himself. It would only make him look weak.

The front room was bare except for a large-screen TV, a leather sofa, an armchair that didn’t match. El Recio’s