drawn, but after a quick glance first at Godo, then the glass shards on the floor, he made a show of setting his gun down just inside the doorway. Calmly, to the other two agents: “Holster your weapons.”
Freckles rucked up his shoulders. “He’s got a shotgun-”
“Holster your weapons!” Still using the doorway for shelter, he said to Godo, “It’s okay. Let’s all calm down.”
Godo kept the Remington shouldered. “Who says I’m not calm?”
“You’re back from OIF, am I right?”
Godo cocked his head a little, to ease the stress in his neck. “Thundering Third.”
The agent in the doorway nodded, eyes fixed on the shotgun barrel. “Okay, then. Excellent. I’m not saying this to yank your chain, okay? But I’ve got you beat by a decade or so. I deployed with the First Battalion, Third Marines during Desert Storm. Spent most of my tour in Kaneohe Bay, though.”
“Lucky you.”
“What say we all take a deep breath-”
“Get the two cowboys the fuck outta my house.”
Freckles: “We’ve come here for Pablo Orantes.”
Godo, incredulous: “Happy?”
“Pablo Orantes, where is he?”
“He’s in fucking El Salvador. You should know-you’re the ones who deported him.” Godo gestured with the Remington. “Now get the fuck out of this trailer.”
Widow’s Peak hadn’t budged. Freckles said, “Is Pablo Orantes on these premises?”
The third agent, taking all this in, finally eased through the doorway into the trailer, eyes still fixed on Godo, a way to make sure there were no misunderstandings. His hair brushed the ceiling, even with a slight forward lean. He looked older than the other two, crow’s-feet, brush of gray at the temple, necktie beneath the raid jacket lending an odd formality. The jacket was blue, not black. Snapping his fingers to make sure he got the other two agents’ attention, he then gestured subtly for them to stand down. “I’ll handle this.”
“We’re here for a fugitive alien named-”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
Only then did Roque notice how woozy he was; unconsciously, he’d been holding his breath. Sucking in a mouthful of air, he let his body slump heavily against the wall.
Freckles, focusing on Roque for the first time: “Is that Pablo Orantes?”
“I fucking told you, ass wipe, Happy’s in El Salvador.” Godo turned to the older agent. “Get them to leave.”
“I’ll do that. Meanwhile, be wise to lower the shotgun, don’t you think?”
“They leave first. I’m not getting queered by these two.”
“Nobody’s doing anything to anybody. These two agents are going to step outside, right here in the carport. You and I will talk through what needs to be talked through. We square?”
“They broke in.”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“I was in my rights.”
“We’ll discuss that.” He gestured for the two agents to pass in front of him, out the door. They did, unhappily- Freckles first, then Widow’s Peak, who exchanged one last eye fuck with Godo. The two agents perched at the foot of the doorstep, at which point the older one said, “Okay now. I’ve asked politely. Lower your weapon.”
Slowly, Godo let the barrel of the shotgun drop, his shoulders unclenched. For the first time, Roque noticed the pungent stench of sweat, not just the others, himself too, then another odor, fouler still-infection. Godo’s dressing, still unchanged.
On the sofa, Tia Lucha shuddered and put her face in her hands. The agent extended a gentling hand and said, “Everything’s okay,
Godo, swaying a little, steadied himself with the wall, then raised himself up again with a shoulder roll, like a boxer manning his corner. Loud, so the pair outside could hear: “I grease those two shitbirds inside my own home? Not a jury in America would convict me.”
“Let’s both be grateful you don’t have to test that theory.” The agent picked up his pistol from the floor and holstered it. “Shall we sit?”
“I’m good where I am.”
The older man’s glance tripped toward Roque, as though wondering if he weren’t, in fact, Pablo “Happy” Orantes. Tio Faustino’s son. Roque and Godo’s cousin, in a manner of speaking. Turning back to Godo, he again looked hard at the ruined face. “You’ve been stateside since when?”
Godo wiped at some sweat and uttered a small, ugly, disbelieving laugh. “My turn to ask you something.” His pitted skin shimmered in the kitchen light. “Tonight, when you plant your ass on the couch, front of the TV, you and those two glorified rednecks outside-when you’re watching yourselves, watching all the people in these shitbag trailers get rounded up, ask yourself why. They do what you want. They do it cheap. But you watch all that. And when the next bit comes on, the one about the war, when the names of the dead scroll by: Rodriguez, Acevedo, Castellanos, Hernandez…” He counted them off, each name a finger. “Hear what I’m saying? Come on, look me in the eye, tell me honest, two jarheads, goddamn Thundering Third, right? Tell me to my face that doesn’t fuck with you.”
Four
PERCHED HIGH BEHIND THE WHEEL OF HIS FREIGHTLINER CAB, Faustino impatiently raided his lunch of cheese and beef tongue
He was waiting in his queue at the Port of Oakland, the complex as vast as a city itself. At every berth, longshoremen in hard hats scurried beyond the fences like dug-up termites, forklifts growling to and fro and belching smoke amid cursing shouts and horn blasts and siren shrieks. Jumbo cranes hoisted freight containers from the cavernous holds of cargo ships, the vessels so huge they dwarfed the piers to which they were moored.
Hundreds of truckers like Faustino-out of bed by three, down here by four-thirty to snag a place in line-sat idly in their rigs, waiting hours for a single load. And while they sat, they sweated the constant back and forth of cops and overeager port security flacks who hoped to pop them for a bum taillight, bare tread on a tire, excessive exhaust, anything. Most of the trucks were old-Faustino drove a ’94 day cab-and offers by the Port Commission to help finance new ones were laughable. Who could afford the monthlies, the interest, let alone the hike in insurance? Even the anti-exhaust systems they were hawking, ten to fourteen thousand a pop, were out of reach for most guys.
It sounded like a lot to outsiders-hundred dollars a load for just a drayage run, from the port over to the warehouse in Alameda, a matter of minutes-but the way they made you sit, wasting away the hours, you were lucky to get two runs a day.
And the nickel-and-dime stuff ate you alive. Faustino did his own repairs, juggled his accident coverage with his registration payment month by month, part of the constant trade-off, shortchanging one thing to make good on another. Near impossible to meet costs, let alone get ahead. Desperation became a kind of genius, making you sharp and clever and tight with a dollar, but it was their hole card too. The shippers had you by the throat and they knew it.
With his forefinger, he scooped up a smear of cheesy
Meanwhile, outside his window: “Check this out-I’m moonlighting last weekend, hauling rock? Heavy load, incline. Boost gauge hovers around nine psi. Been a while since I drove a boost, but ain’t that high?”
A circle of drivers, arms crossed, gathered on the pavement, biding time till the line budged. Risky, Faustino
