David Putnam - The Replacements

“Cancer? Is it cancer?”

“I can’t tell. No one can until there are tests. It could be anything.”

My knees went weak. “How long have you noticed the symptoms?”

“He hasn’t been eating right for a while and, when he does, it’s a little at a time. Haven’t you noticed his weight loss? I’ve been trying to get him to go to the clinic for about two weeks now. I was about to tell you, then all this mess happened. He’s going to be real mad I told you. He said that if I didn’t tell you, he’d go to the clinic tomorrow after you left.”

I nodded, taking in this news and weighing it against canceling the trip. What price did one have to pay to do the right thing? This one could come with a heavy toll. “How bad do you think it is?”

She put her head back on my chest. “Bruno, don’t worry about it. There’s nothing to worry about until there are tests. Odds are, this is something minor.”

The limo pulled up out front, the headlights illuminating the trees and other houses in diffused blacks and grays.

Decision time.

She said, “I didn’t want you to go without knowing. It’s probably nothing. Tomorrow we’ll know more after he sees a doctor. I’ll call you first thing, I promise.” She reached down and picked up the valise. “Come on.”

She wasn’t going, but carried the valise to show me in some small way she approved of the trip. She went out the door into the night. I could do nothing else but follow along like a wayward orphan.

The walk down the flagstone entry to the street went on and on as I fought the desire to stay behind, to let someone else handle the problem thousands of miles away, a problem that had the potential to impact our lives to an unimaginable degree.

Over the six months before we’d left the States, Dad had aged twice as fast. He’d literally wilted right before my eyes. I assumed that the stress from hiding the kids caused this damage. Cancer studies have proven that stress is a serious causation factor. I couldn’t have deterred him from getting involved with bringing the children to Central America. He’d always been a protector of the neighborhood.

But this wasn’t necessarily cancer. I had to keep telling myself this wasn’t cancer, this was something minor, like an intestinal virus.

Marie, slightly ahead, passed through our ornate wrought-iron gate. “Look at this.”

Her words pulled me out of my conflicted thoughts. On the sidewalk, large painted white letters reflected the limo lights. “I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU BLACK RAT BASTARD.”

What else could go wrong? I muttered, “Shit.”

She squatted, touched two fingers to the paint. “It’s still tacky. Who did this?”

“I know who it is.”

“Who?”

“You know how I’ve been trying to get the guys at the bar to tell me why they’re here?”

“You mean outing your friends? I told you that was a bad idea. Wait, there was only one left. Don’t tell me this is that crusty old man, Jake Donaldson?”

“Yeah, ol’ Jake Donaldson. And you were right, I probably shouldn’t have been trying to find out their dirty little secrets. Turns out, he’s a murderer on the lam. He’s no one to mess with. He saw me with Barbara. He thinks I ratted him out and Barbara is here to take him back. Now he wants to get even.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He comes around here again, I’ll take a ball bat to him, make him wish he was back in the States on death row.” She wasn’t just saying this to make me feel better; she really would take a bat to him.

I remembered the story about him, how he’d shot and killed a black kid out on the sidewalk, and now he’d tagged me on my sidewalk. I wasn’t going to feel right leaving with this hanging. Although, he wanted me, not Marie or the children. He wouldn’t necessarily go after them, not when I was the target. In fact, not being around might even be better. I preferred deluding myself. Crazies were unpredictable.

Marie read my thoughts. “Trust me, I can handle this.”

Her tone changed back to the familiar Marie and made it easier for me to get in the limo. I stepped up to the back door. The driver got out, came around, and opened it for me.

“What’s with the limo? Wait, I don’t want to know. Save it for when you get back, and then you can tell me the whole story.” She went up on tiptoes to peck me on the cheek. Not good enough. I took hold of her and kissed her hot and wet and deep until we both gasped for breath when we broke. I hugged her and whispered, “I love you more than you know.”

“Ditto. You just come back safe, you hear me, Bruno Johnson?”

My throat closed up. I could only nod. I let go and shot into the limo before I changed my mind. The door closed with the finality of a jail door clanging shut.

I had expected the driver, an embassy employee, to look like Oddjob from the 007 movies, close-shaved hair, shoulders humped with muscle, without a visible neck. Instead, Mr. Kim sent a young, slightly built Korean man dressed in an expensive suit. He watched the mirror as we pulled away from the curb.

“Can we please make a detour?” I asked.

“Of course, I have been told to help in any way possible.” His English came with a hint of East Coast accent, my guess, somewhere close to Boston.

“Calle Buena Vista. The salmon-colored hacienda. You can’t miss it.”

“Yes, sir.”

I mulled over the options. Within ten minutes, the driver pulled up to the intercom recessed into a cairn of flagstone rocks. I rolled down the window and pushed the button. Nothing. I pushed the button again and held it down.

“Jesus, Bruno, is that you?”

I stuck my head out the window so the hidden camera got a better angle.

The large heavy gate slowly swung open. The driver continued up the drive and pulled through the porte cochere and stopped by the open front door. Ansel stood in the doorway in a kelly-green silk robe. I didn’t get out. I wanted him to come to me. He hesitated, and then came down the steps.

“What the hell, Bruno, a limo?” He ventured closer, holding his robe together in a feminine way with both hands. His normally curly red hair was combed off to one side and mussed. His freckled face creased by a pillow.

I said, “I need a favor.”

He looked up and down the limo. “Sure, pal, anything you need.”

“I…ah… got called back to the States on business and…”

He leaned in closer, lowered his voice. “You can’t go back. You’re like the rest of us. They’ll nail your black ass to the wall for mortgage fraud.”

I hadn’t told the guys about the children, the real reason I came to “The Rica.” Instead, I had told them that I had fled the US just ahead of a major indictment for identity theft. I told them that I had created a gallery of fake persons with their own histories, and refinanced lots of homes at the peak of the market. According to the cover story, I had fled with twenty million.

“Trust me,” I said, “I know what I’m doing and I have no choice. I have to go.”

“Sure, sure pal, what do you need me to do?”

“You know that thing with Jake Donaldson?”

Ansel slapped the sill of the door. “Sure, that was really something, wasn’t it? Who would have thought, huh?”

“You saw how he pointed his finger at me when he walked away?”

“You know, Jake, he was just mad. He’ll be back at the bar like nothing happened. Trust me on this, I know people.”

“He painted a threat on the sidewalk out in front of my house.”

“You’re kidding me, right? No shit?”

“Yeah, and I don’t think anything will happen, and I don’t expect to be gone that long, but, could you-”