Do They Know I'm Running

“And if I have nothing to tell them, nothing they want to hear, what do you think happens? Think they believe me?”

“Could be they want you to infiltrate a mosque, maybe a sleeper cell, maybe just a bunch of deadbeats hanging around some cafe, talking tough about jihad. You want asylum? Looks like you’ll have to earn it.”

Samir turned one way, another, looking for a way out. “You don’t understand.”

Happy exhaled a long plume of smoke. “You keep saying that.”

A nervous laugh, disbelief. “What else can I say?”

“No one understands. Not as far as you’re concerned.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“I’m not-”

“What have I done? Why betray me like this?”

Happy took another long drag. “Who are you, really? Let’s start there.”

Again, the hand across the heart. “I have never once lied-”

“I have no idea who you are.”

Roque glanced toward the door, wondering what if anything Godo felt about all this, but except for a vague impatience there was nothing in his expression to read. Sure the Arab was a pain in the ass but this was over the top. “Happy, what are you getting at?”

“Butt out, Roque.”

“No. You don’t tell me that, not after everything-”

“This don’t concern-”

“This isn’t necessary, okay? I told you, this guy in Naco-”

“For fuck’s sake, you stupid? He’s a cop! I don’t care whose uncle he is. You gotta trust me on this, you go to this guy to get you across, you’ll never be heard from again. Okay? Especially with our friend here in tow.” He gestured toward Samir, then Lupe. “Same with her.”

“Happy-”

“The patron wants a songbird, Roque. They all do down here. One of the perks of being el mero mero. He’ll make her a star. Life could be fucking worse.”

“Now you’re the one who sounds stupid.”

“Not like they’re gonna pimp her out, okay? Everybody’s being so fucking dramatic.”

Again, Lupe looked to Roque for some reassurance. There was none to find. She turned to Happy, incensed, scared.-Tell me what is happening. Not him. Me.

Before Happy could answer, a caravan of four SUVs turned off the road into the development, headlights raking the forward houses as the engines throttled down for the switch from pavement to gravel.

Roque turned back to Happy, took a step toward him. “What have you done?”

Happy didn’t move. A twinge of his eye, a blink. “I have no clue who that is.”

Samir lunged toward one of the windows, hiking his leg over the sill, ducking down. He was halfway out when Godo sailed across the room, caught him, grabbing him by the shirttail first, then a crippling punch to the small of the back, like some instinct from the war had taken hold. Lupe, seeing the door unguarded, bolted, she was gone before Roque could stop her. He grabbed his knapsack, followed, glancing back from the doorway as Godo headlocked Samir, twisting him to the floor. Happy just stood there, tip of his cigarette a curl of ash as he stared in the general direction of the oncoming vehicles, looking as though to move would be an admission of something he still felt a need to keep private.

THE DARKNESS ACROSS THE DESERT FLOOR FELT IMPENETRABLE, WORSE than inside the house, but once his eyes adjusted Roque caught Lupe’s silhouette vanishing past a snarl of cacti. He hurried after her just as the SUVs braked and men poured out. Over his shoulder, he recognized the huelepega from earlier, passing through the headlight glare, looking not quite so feeble now. They’d known, he thought. They had a lookout.

He caught up with Lupe, snagged her arm. She fought back, throwing an elbow, a wild kick.-Let go!

– Quiet! Get down.

He dragged her behind a thicket of underbrush circling the base of a massive saguaro, its barbed arms snaking up and out in all directions. They both panted from exertion, trying to stifle the sound. The dogs from earlier had reappeared around the house and now skittered away as perhaps a dozen men surrounded it, all of them armed. Headlights lit up the house from two sides. From somewhere in the foothills a coyote howled, then one of the men called out, addressing Happy by his given name.

– PABLO, STOP BEING SUCH A HOPELESS ASSHOLE. COME ON OUT.

Happy, recognizing the voice, figured the Spanish was a play to the others, the men setting up the kill zone. Doesn’t matter what I say or don’t say, he thought, it’s all an act. This is what I get for mocking a snake.

Godo gestured everyone down, out of the light streaming in through the windows, then belly-crawled to his duffel, shook it open and began pulling out the weapons, the shotgun, the Kalashnikov, the pistols. He flexed his gauze-wrapped hand, then slammed a magazine into the AK, the others already loaded. To Happy, he said, “I’m assuming you know who’s out there.”

A burst of machine-gun fire ripped along the outer walls of the house, a few rounds pitching in through the window, tearing pieces of cinder block away like shrapnel and leaving clouds of chalky dust behind.

Happy said, “The ones I told you about.”

– Come on, Pablo. What, you think I wouldn’t figure this shit out, all that crap about wanting to do me a favor? You got the Arab and the girl in there. I understand, I do. Nothing terrible is going to happen to them. Nothing terrible will happen to you. Play it smart.

“Where’s Roque?” Godo asked.

“The girl ran out. He went after her.”

“They think she’s in here.” Using his teeth, Godo began tearing the gauze away from his hand, peeling it off in shreds. Shortly, he broke into a smile. “They got away, her and Roque.”

The lucky one, Happy thought. The magical one.

“I won’t go with those men,” Samir said. He lay across the room, staring at the glassless, light-filled window. “A man cannot choose when he will die, only how.”

Godo flexed his naked hand, still black and red from its burns. “That’s deep.” He wiped a smear of ointment onto his pant leg. “Kinda premature, though.”

“Don’t hand me over to them. Kill me. Say it was self-defense.”

“They’re going to kill us,” Happy said, talking to neither of them in particular. “He thinks I went behind his back. That can’t be forgiven. There’s nothing to say. I can’t make it right, not with them. And I’ve seen how they kill people.”

Godo picked up the shotgun, chuckling miserably as he racked a load of nine-shot into the chamber. “Vamos rumbo a la chingada.” We’re on our way to join the fucked. He turned to Samir and hefted the Kalashnikov. “I hear you know how to use one of these.”

The Arab began to crawl across the room, inching on hands and knees, butt high, head low, made it halfway across when another spray of machine-gun fire, this one longer, rocked the small house. He dove down, covering his head as bullets rang against the tin roof and tore away more of the wall. Once the firing stopped he scurried the rest of the way, joining Godo near the door as the dust swirled and drifted overhead.

– I’m not fucking around no more, Pablo. Hands on your head, you and everybody else, one by one through the door, or we gonna smoke you out.

“That sounds like an MP5.” Godo edged closer toward the door, hoping for a peek. “They’ll have trouble with muzzle lift. Bitchin’ little gun, though.”

“They’re off-duty cops, soldiers,” Happy said. “Maybe even special forces.”

“The Bean Berets,” Godo said.

Samir cradled the AK-47 with a kind of weary admiration. “I wish I had a bayonet.”

Godo chuckled again, a little less miserably. “Good attitude.”

“Give me the Glock,” Happy said. “It’s the one I know best.”

Godo slid the pistol across the plywood floor. “Don’t plug yourself in the leg.”

Happy leaned forward for it, dropped the magazine, made sure it was fully loaded, then slammed it home