Steve Martini - The Arraignment

Someone raps on the door from outside.

“Yeah, what is it?”

One of guards comes in. It’s the man in the yellow shirt, a rifle slung over his back. He crosses the room to the desk and leans over, whispering something into Ibarra’s ear.

The loafers come off the desk and Ibarra sits up straight. There’s a quick conversation in Spanish, whispered and hushed tones. Then Ibarra waves the man away with the back of his hand. The guard leaves.

“I am told you have other cars with more men out there somewhere. You say you come looking for property, but it sounds like you don’t trust me. That’s not good for business.”

“One can’t be too careful,” says Adam.

“No. You want to call these people, tell them to come in here so we can all sit down and talk?”

“I don’t think so.” Tolt smiles at him.

“I didn’t think so.” Ibarra is left to figure his next move.

“Salud.” Adam lifts his glass and takes a drink.

The Mexican joins him and I follow. The whiskey is smooth, something expensive, just warm enough to give that amber glow as it spills down my insides, anything to keep the joints at my knees from clattering against each other.

Ibarra continues to finger our wallets, pulling every scrap of paper out. He takes his time. My eyes wander to the slab of stone, with its gypsum edge exposed, leaning against the wall across the room. Then something hits the window outside near where I’m sitting.

Jorge hears it and pulls one of the blinds with a finger to look outside.

“Que es?” says Ibarra.

“Nada.” Jorge lets the blind close, then looks at me.

I shrug.

As he turns to look at his boss, I sneak a peek over my shoulder out toward the cars.

Julio, who sees my eyes through the slit of the blinds, gives me a furtive gesture, head nodding and a thumb below his waist, pointing vigorously in the direction of the cars.

An old model Buick is stopped in a cloud of dust just this side of the black Suburban. Two men get out. One is Hector Saldado.

“If you’re finished with us, we’re gonna go.”

“You’re gonna go when I tell you,” says Ibarra.

I look at my watch. “You’ve got less than a minute and our people are gonna be in here. Make up your mind.”

Adam is looking at me, wondering what I’m talking about.

I walk over to the desk and pick up the two wallets along with our licenses and papers Ibarra has spread around on top of it. He doesn’t try to stop me.

“Come on, we’re leaving.” I head for the door. Tolt gets off the chair and follows me. I hear footsteps on the plywood platform outside, the voices of two men speaking in Spanish just beyond the door. Another second and Saldado will be inside with us.

Jorge is off the couch. When I look up, he has planted himself like a boulder between us and the door. He looks at Ibarra for direction. Arturo hesitates for a second, looks at us, little slits, then nods to Jorge. He steps out of the way and opens the door.

In the time it takes him to do this, I reach behind me like a relay runner grabbing for a baton and take the folder out of Adam’s hand. I raise it to my face just as Jorge opens the door, shielding my eyes from the sun, and my face from Saldado’s view.

“Jaime, como esta?” Arturo Ibarra is greeting the other half.

As I step out onto the platform, I glance down and see two feet in pointed cowboy boots directly in front of me. I step around them.

“Excuse me.”

Adam follows along.

By the time we step off the platform, Julio already has the car door open. Herman is inside behind the wheel with the engine running.

Without looking back, I duck my head inside and scurry across the seat. Adam is right behind me as Julio slams the door closed and jumps into the front passenger seat.

None of us says a word until we’ve covered at least a mile on the dirt road, and then Adam explodes: “What the hell happened? We could have been killed. Why didn’t your men stop Saldado out on the road?”

The best that Julio’s people can figure is that Saldado returned to the trailer by a different route. Besides, they were looking for a van, not the Buick he returned in.

“Son of a bitch,” says Adam. “Why the hell do you people think I hired you? So I could get my ass shot off?”

“We thought we had it covered,” says Julio. He is looking straight ahead, out through the windshield, avoiding eye contact with Adam, who is furious. Tolt is bouncing up and down on the backseat, leaning forward, his face six inches from the back of Herman’s head.

“You thought. Did any of you think to scout the road? To see who’s in the vehicles as they go by? No. Your man up there on the other road with us. He got a good look at Saldado through the glasses. He knew what he looked like.”

“How they supposed to look in all the cars come on that road?” says Herman.

“That’s their job,” says Adam. “That’s what it means to be a professional. You can’t do the job, then you ought to find another one.”

“I do my job just fine,” says Herman.

“Don’t you talk back to me.”

Julio reaches over with one hand just above the seat and nudges Herman to shut up.

“If I wanted to get my ass shot off, I could have tied myself to a tree and let you take shots at me with that blunderbuss under your arm. Not that you could hit anything. Damn near got us shot out on the road going in, pulling that thing out.”

“Calm down, Adam. Nothing happened,” I tell him.

“Nothing happened,” he says. “Where the fuck were you? And what was that crap about Jamaile Enterprises?”

“We didn’t get a rise on Jamaile,” I tell him.

“You sure as hell got one out of me. Son of a bitch. You could have gotten us killed.”

“They would have killed us no matter what we said if it hadn’t been for the other car out on the road.”

“He’s right,” says Julio. “They wouldn’t believe us until I permitted their man to talk to my driver on the radio.”

“You screwed up,” says Tolt. “Admit it.”

“If it makes you feel better, fine,” says Julio.

“It’s not his fault,” I tell him.

“Bullshit.”

“Adam.”

“What?”

“If Julio hadn’t recognized Saldado when he did, you and I would have been sitting there sipping bourbon when the Mexican walked in and started peeing in my glass.”

“That’s true,” says Herman.

“When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” Adam tells him. “And as for Julio, if he’d done his job right, we wouldn’t have had to worry about Saldado. I have a half a mind to call the office in Mexico City and have them send somebody who knows their job.”

“And as for you.” He looks at me. “How the hell did you know he’d let us go? Forcing the issue like that. He could just as easily have had that muscle-bound idiot shoot us. We could be lying back there dead right now.”

“If Saldado had come in and seen me, we would be dead,” I tell him.

I can see the chip in Herman’s tooth through tight lips in the rearview mirror as he grips the wheel with both hands and looks at me, thankful that there’s someone else to share Adam’s tongue-lashing.

“Take me to Cancun. I’m paying a fortune for these two idiots,” he says.

He sits back, quietly steaming for several seconds, arms folded, his face turned away from me, looking out the side window. Then the second rush. Adam starts doing what every angry lawyer does best, cross-examining everybody around him, demanding answers that don’t exist.

“Where did he go when he left? Tell me that.”

“Who?” Julio turns to look at him. He shouldn’t have asked.