Judson Carmichael - The Scared Stiff

“What do you hear from up north?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing?” He didn’t like that.

“I talked to Lola on Sunday,” I explained. “Told her to bring the cash but didn’t say why. She’ll bring it.”

He nodded. “When, that’s the question.”

“As soon as she gets the check,” I promised. “Believe me, I want this as much as you do. But you know these bureaucracies.”

“Sure,” he said. “Well, I’ll be around.”

“Great,” I said, and he drove off, with a wave and a smile.

When Arturo came home at four-thirty Friday afternoon, I said, “Arturo, call her. You gotta call her, that’s all. What’s the problem? What’s the delay? Is Kaplan making trouble again? Is he coming back down here? Is there a screwup someplace?”

“Slow down, hermano. I’ll call her, okay?”

“Okay.”

It was a fairly long call, though probably not the six hours it felt like. At last he hung up and said, “Sit down, hermano, stop pacing; you’re gonna wear out the floor; we’re gonna fall through, land on Madonna.”

“What’d she say?”

“Sit down,” he said.

“She didn’t say sit down,” I said, but I sat down. “All right, I’m sitting down. What did she say?”

“No check,” he said.

“What? They’re not gonna pay? How can they—”

“No no no,” he said. “No check yet .”

“Okay,” I said. “I know that much. No check yet. But how come? Did she talk to our insurance man?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She told me, if nothing comes in Monday, she’ll make a lot of phone calls, find out what’s the holdup.”

“Monday? Another damn week!”

“What she gonna do, hermano? The check didn’t show.”

“The check is in the mail,” I said bitterly.

He nodded. “That’s what I figure,” he said.

“No,” I said. “That’s an American idiom. The check is in the mail. It’s ironic, see, it means the check isn’t in the mail, it means they’re gonna stiff you.”

He said, “In America, you say, ‘The check is in the mail,’ when you mean the check is not in the mail?”

“Yes.”

“Americans are crazy, you know,” he said. “No offense, hermano, not you personally, but Americans are loco.”

“Everybody’s loco, Arturo,” I said. “But so far I’m just poco loco. But if that check doesn’t show up goddamn soon, I’m gonna be multo loco.”

“Mucho,” he corrected me.

“Whatever,” I said.

No news on Monday, not a sound. “Arturo,” I said, when he came back from cabbing that evening, “I can’t stand this. I’m going nuts here. I feel like I’m nailed to the floor.”

He shook his head, sympathetic. “It is takin’ awhile,” he agreed.

“We have to call her,” I said.

“Why?” he asked me. “If she had news, she’d call us. She said, Today she’s askin’ a lotta questions, the insurance company, all them people. They got to get back to her, right? Maybe the check is lost in the mail. Maybe your post office isn’t so much better than ours.”

“It isn’t,” I said. “Tomorrow, Arturo. If we don’t hear from her by five o’clock tomorrow, we call her. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed.

Four-twenty Tuesday, and Arturo came thudding up the outside stairs, yawning and scratching his belly. He came in and saw me sitting there in that low armchair, and he said, “No call, hermano?”

“Time to phone Lola,” I said.

“Okay. Just lemme get a beer.”

He did, and came back, and made the call. I watched his face, and saw him look confused. I said, “Arturo?”

Without a word, he extended the phone toward me. I took it, and listened, and heard a recorded announcement: “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed — (five) (five) (five) (nine) (five) (nine) (five) — is no longer in service. There is no forwarding number. We’re sorry, the number you have—”

I pushed it back at him as though it were a snake. I said, “Arturo, she turned the phone off!”

“Oh, man,” he said.

“I’ve got — I don’t have any other way to get in touch with her, to find out what the hell is going on.”

“Hermano—”

“Let me think let me think let me think.”

Had she left me? That was inconceivable, but had the inconceivable happened? We were a tribe of two, we were each other’s net, it was us against the world, we were inseparable.

But we were separated. For four weeks, we’d been apart.

“Arturo,” I said, “I’ve got to get up there. I’ve got to find out what’s going on.” I was pacing again. “Listen,” I said. “Do you need a visa between Guerrera and Colombia?”

“What? No,” he said, scoffing at the idea. “People go back and forth all the time, man. But Rafez won’t let you cross the border. He’ll know if you try to do that.”

“I’ll find a way,” I insisted. “Carlos can smuggle me across, he’ll be glad to get rid of me. Then, in Colombia, I take a plane to New York.”

“And do what, hermano?” he asked, curiously bland.

I looked at him, and he was watching me with amiable curiosity, head cocked to one side. Hmm. I had to remember this was Lola’s brother, after all. I could feel loyalties shifting like tectonic plates.

“Arturo,” I said, “I don’t believe Lola’s left me.”

“Good,” he said.

“I don’t believe we can leave each other,” I said, “not really. But what explanations do I have here? The phone is turned off. You see what I mean? The phone is turned off.”

“It’s a problem,” he agreed.

“Okay,” I said. “Now, it’s possible somebody else knew about the money, and they waited until she got the check and cashed it, and then they killed her and buried her in the basement. And turned off our phone?”

“Mmm,” Arturo said.

“Or,” I said, “it’s possible she put the money in our checking account, and somebody’s holding her prisoner, making her write checks, and they turned off the phone so she couldn’t call for help. Except I don’t believe that, Arturo, and neither do you. All they have to do is leave the answering machine on.”

“Oh, man,” he said.

“In fact,” I said, “come to think of it, that’s all anybody had to do. I mean, let’s say — let’s just for an argument here say that Lola found some other guy. She didn’t, but we’re saying.”

“Sure,” Arturo said.

“So they’ve got all this money,” I said, “and they want to get away before I come looking for them, so they go to California or London or Rio or who knows where, and what do they want?”

“I dunno,” he said.

“Time,” I said. “The longest lead time possible. So do they turn off the phone? Of course not. Why don’t they just leave the answering machine on? That way, I’ll just dick around here another two — three days, maybe even another week, while they’re gone and lost for good. Why turn off the phone, Arturo?”

“Save a couple siapas ,” he suggested.

“Arturo,” I said, “they’ve got one billion two hundred million siapas.”

“Well, that’s true,” he said.

I paced. I paced. I stopped. I said, “There’s only one reason to turn off the phone.”

He looked interested. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lola knows I’m waiting for her to call. She knows if she doesn’t call me, I’ll call her. She turns off the phone. Can’t you see why?”

“No,” he said.

“Because she is in trouble,” I said, “some kind of trouble, and this is the only way she can send me a message.”