Do They Know I'm Running? (10 page)

Roque didn’t know how he’d survived it, not that Happy had come back unscathed. The sullen moods he’d always been known for now seemed not just more severe but even a little sinister—but who could fault him for that? And yet he never complained, not about what happened in El Salvador or Iraq or anything else. Roque sometimes marveled at that, how Happy stared life down, standing there at the edge of every moment, unrushed, unworried, as though, by expecting nothing anymore, not from life, not from people, he’d somehow been set free.

At the same time, within the family, he was kind. He spoke to Godo like an equal, not a rival, not that they didn’t get into it now and then. Like a pair of dogs in a pit sometimes, those two, but not near as bad as before he went away. And he showed Tía Lucha a level of deference even she found unsettling. The only person he treated the same as before was Roque. He was the one person Happy still expected something from.

Meanwhile, at the back of the truck, Puchi was explaining to the parents-to-be how it would go. The couple could pay an extra three grand to get their stuff unloaded or everything stayed in the truck, the crew would drive away and put everything they owned in storage until they came up with the money. It was their own fault, he’d tell them, not quite those words, their failure to realize that the initial low bid was just an estimate (a lie—the lowball quote was presented as final), and that only once their belongings were loaded could a full and fair price for the move be calculated (another lie—the setup was in play from the start).

Insinuated but left unsaid was a hint of accusation. The couple had been greedy, hoping to score off a bunch of wetbacks, rather than pay the going rate. Well, they deserved what they got and it would only get worse if they didn’t play smart. American Amigos Moving wasn’t licensed, so the couple had no real recourse. There was no agency to complain to, no cops to call; this
was a civil matter, the officers would say, not a criminal one. That was the mind-bending irony at the heart of the scam, your only shot at justice was with a company that was straight to begin with. Basically, the lovely couple could cough up or get screwed. Puchi was explaining all this with Chato sulking nearby in his hairnet and hoodie and work gloves, chewing on a toothpick, smirking at the lady, eye-fucking the man.

“When I was in Iraq,” Happy said, “sometimes the foreman would tell us to drive the route even if there was nothing to carry. Several times a week we did this, one direction or both. This one time, I hauled a single bag of mail, nothing else, on a fucking flatbed. Know why? Because the company was getting paid by the trip, not the load.” He glanced at Roque, smiling as though the things he knew could cripple the mind. “This is a war zone I’m talking about. You never knew what was out there. But hey, shut up, it’s money. You die, tough luck. It was insane, the arrogant dumbfucks you had to deal with, the I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude, the rip-offs, but the geniuses who run things, they’re all, Hey, don’t ask questions, you’re fucking with the war. So you think this couple here’s getting screwed by us? Trust me, they’ve already been fucked so bad by Uncle Sam we’re practically the good guys.”

Even given all Happy had been through, there were limits to what Roque would swallow. “That’s messed-up thinking.”

Happy nodded and said, “Maybe so.” Lighting another smoke—he’d developed an incredible habit during his years away—he added, “I was just trying to make you feel better.”

Roque glanced toward his mirror again, just in time to see the history teacher shove Puchi in the chest. “Ah nuts,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“What?”

“We got a scrapper.”

Roque hustled to the back of the truck and was shortly joined by Happy. The history teacher, who was lanky but muscular, had
Puchi in a headlock now, the two of them thrashing around on the ground. Puchi wasn’t fighting back very hard. In fact, unless Roque was mistaken, Puchi was laughing.

Meanwhile Chato hovered nearby, the same nervy smile on his face he wore no matter what was happening. In the driveway, the woman with the basketball belly stood there aghast, hands in the air, watching her husband try to claim back some manhood. She was dressed in a shapeless smock, a stretched-out cardigan, kneesocks with worn heels, scuffed clogs. Roque wondered what they intended to name the baby.

The neighborhood was one of those forgettable developments shooting up everywhere now, the houses all basically the same, neat but slapdash, too close together, bottom rung on the American dream. No one was looking out their windows at the wrestling match. Why bother? The new neighbors would be gone, or you would, before any favor could be returned.

Finally Puchi broke free, stood up, brushed himself off. Sure enough, he was chuckling. The teacher scrambled to his feet, scavenged around for his glasses. “You’re not getting away with this!” Tufts of hair stood out from his head, his face shiny and red.

Puchi signaled to the crew: Back in the truck. “Let’s go,” he said.

The teacher found his glasses. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I have to call the office,” Puchi said. “You attacked me.”

“You’re cheating us!”

“May be an extra thousand on top of the three you already owe. Have to call, find out.”

That was when the woman spoke up. “For God’s sake just pay them, Peter.” Her eyes were dull with disappointment but her voice had an odd allure. Throaty, an alto, it reminded Roque of a young Celia Cruz. The man’s head snapped toward her. Something between them suggested a bitter history and Roque guessed the baby played a part in that. He sensed as well that the
woman had reached a truce with her life in a way the man resented.

“How am I supposed to—”

“Peter, please,” she cut him off. “Don’t make things worse than they already are.”

Listen to her, Roque thought, but the guy just seemed more pissed. Turning back, he said, “This is why people want to send you all back where you came from. For Christ’s sake, we’re on your side.”

Of course you are, Roque thought. Who else would be chump enough to hire a company with a name like American Amigos Moving? But that was when the guy did the strangest thing. Spinning toward Chato, he lashed out with a wayward backhand. “What the hell are you grinning at—
eh, pendejo?”

The guy wants to get pounded, Roque thought, so he can hold it against his wife, but then Happy stepped in. With one arm outstretched to keep Chato at bay, he met the man’s eye, not threatening, almost sad. “Let us unload your things,” he said quietly. “We’ll get you into your new home, then we’ll be gone.”

“Listen to him, Peter.”

“Whose side are you on, Belinda?”

“Let me help you,” Happy said. “Let’s get this thing done.”

Smooth, Roque thought, like he was daring the guy: Raise your game. Trust me. Strange coming from Happy, who expected nothing from people anymore. Stranger still, it worked.

Happy and Puchi and the history teacher drove off to wire an extra three grand through Western Union. Roque and Chato waited on the sidewalk while the pregnant wife locked herself inside the house, nothing but her and the bare rooms and all that fresh paint. Roque chased chord progressions around in his head, visualizing the various fingerings for the inversions, wishing he were someplace else. Chato patted his hairnet, murmured insults, did a couple dozen push-ups, shadowboxed, cracked his knuckles, the whole time wearing that same wiggy smile.

When Happy and Puchi came back in the truck, the teacher parked across the street, slammed his car door and told the crew to unload everything on the driveway, he didn’t want them inside his house. That seemed to work for all concerned. The guy could either lug it all in himself in a pique of sucker’s pride or call whatever old friends wouldn’t hold his cheap
tacaño
stupidity against him.

“Don’t think this is the end of things,” the guy said when Puchi and Chato climbed up into the back of the now empty truck. “I’m calling the Better Business Bureau. I’ll post notice on the Web. I’ll make it my daily business to see nobody gets screwed by you fuckers again.”

Too late, Roque thought as he slammed the door to the cab. They had jobs lined up through next month, same scam as for these two birds, if not through American Amigos Moving then Nuevo California Shipping and Transport or Marko’s Movers or half a dozen other names, each with its own ad on the Internet, each with its own sham address. It was part and parcel of the American way of life, cheap Latino labor. Who with his head on straight could act surprised if once in a while the tables got turned?

And yet, Roque told himself, that was just another kind of messed-up thinking, like
tigueraje
, the peculiarly Latino answer to conscience. If something was there for the taking, only a fool wouldn’t grab it. It explained a lot of things south of the border, like how a subcontinent filled with basically decent, generous, hardworking people, millions upon millions of them, could be enslaved for generations by a handful of smug, prissy, sadistic thieves. Sooner or later, you bought in. You learned: Gotta go along to get along, every man has his price, greed is the grease on the wheel. You recognized the
tigueraje
in your own soul.

Happy’s cell phone rang. He plucked it from his coat pocket, listened briefly, and said first “Okay,” then “
Cuídate
” before snapping it shut and stuffing it back in his pocket. To Roque, he
said, “I’ll drop you off at home. Start packing. You’re on the redeye to Comalapa.”

HAPPY SEEMED UNUSUALLY SOLEMN ON THE DRIVE TO THE AIRPORT
, even by his standards, but that didn’t keep him from repeating the same instructions over and over. Roque nodded absently, occasionally adding a “Sure” or “I get it” just to convince Happy he was listening. As they pulled up to the curb outside the international terminal, Happy put the truck in park, clicked on his flashers and reached across the seat for Roque’s arm.

“One last thing. This is important.” Happy licked his lips, an odd show of nerves. “You’re not gonna just be bringing my dad back. Okay? There’s another guy coming.”

Roque felt like a hundred pounds of deadweight just got lashed to his back. “How long you known this?”

“He’s Iraqi, I met him over there. His name’s Samir.”

Something wasn’t getting said. “Iraq?”

A woman cop pacing a nearby crosswalk let out an earsplitting whistle shriek, trying to get traffic to move. The crowded terminal glowed and hummed, a temple of chrome and glass.

“He was our terp, for the company I worked for. He went out on convoys with us.”

“How am I supposed to find him?”

“It’s taken care of.” Then: “He’s a good guy. If things get tricky, you can trust him. He’s smart, he knows his way around. He can help you.”

The roar of an airliner in takeoff drowned out everything else for a moment, the honking horns, the cop and her whistle, the cries of the skycaps, the loudspeaker announcements. But Roque felt it even stronger than before, a charge in the air, something left hanging.

Finally, Happy said, “Samir saved my life.”

It came out like a guilty secret. Roque couldn’t help feeling
he’d just been enlisted in an impossible promise. “This another one of those long stories you’re always coming up with?”

“Yeah.” Happy seemed to drift back from somewhere far away. “You better go. But ask him about it. Samir. He’ll tell you.”

Roque murmured, “Whatever,” and reached for the door handle, but Happy reached across the cab again, gripping Roque’s shoulder and turning him back. Their eyes met. Happy’s were hard and grave as he said, “I’m proud of you—know that? We all are.”

EVEN THE STUFFED PANDA ON THE SOFA REEKED OF CIGARETTE
smoke. Happy nudged it aside to sit, conceding he wasn’t really one to judge, given his own habit of late.

The bear belonged to Vasco’s daughter, Lucía, who often got stranded here for hours. “Time to myself,” the mother called it, which struck a more suitably parental tone, Happy supposed, than “heading out to tweak with the bitch patrol.”
El otro equipo. Las marimachas
. The other team. Lesbos. That’s what Vasco called them, at least when Chula, his wife, wasn’t in earshot.

Vasco ran Puchi and Chato’s crew, a mishmash of rough-edged and luckless Salvadorans, most of them present or former Brown Town Locos who’d outgrown street dealing. They had big-heist pretensions now, with hopes of being regarded as bona fide
salvatruchos:
members of Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13. The gang had become to Salvadorans what La Eme, the Mexican Mafia, was to
mejicanos
, bigger even, because their territory covered all of Central America south to Nicaragua, and cities as distant as Boston, Washington, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco and the hub: Los Angeles. But as yet it was a sprawling, hydra-headed mess. No one had established the kind of command and control that could confer on any of its would-be
clicas
status as bona fide or bogus. There were too many wannabes, even out-and-out phonies.

But that was Happy’s in. He had a message from the emperor. He had status to confer.