David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

“Your cousins?”

“There’s no connection there. Not yet.”

Lattimore raised an eyebrow. “Yet?”

“Vasco put down a condition for laying out the money. Godo, my cousin, he comes on board, teaches the guys a thing or two about weapons, stuff he learned in the marines.”

Lattimore paused. “And that would be useful to him, this Vasco character, why exactly?”

“He figures this thing goes through, the money’s real, he’s gonna need heat.”

Lattimore trolled through his bowl for another strip of meat, fished it out, let the broth drip off, brisket this time. “What about the other cousin? The younger one.”

“Roque?”

“Pretty soon he’s going to find out he’s got a very interesting passenger for this trip he’s about to make.”

“I told him about it, before I put him on the plane.”

“Told him what, exactly?”

“You’re right.” Happy scratched his ear. “I didn’t tell him he was a terrorist.”

“Because…?”

“Because he’s not. And because that would just freak Roque out.”

“What about the people down there?”

“They think he’s some guy I brought back from Iraq. Which is the truth, by the way.”

“Okay, we’ll get to that. I’m just trying to feel my way through this conspiracy you’ve created, figure out the reach.”

“Right now,” Happy said, “far as I know, just me and Vasco. But once he gets his guys in gear, they become part of it, right? They pull jobs to make the money so things move ahead, they’re in, even if they don’t know exactly what the money’s for.”

“Basically. Yes.”

“Okay. It’s just-”

“But as of now, this minute, as best you can tell me, there’s no one in El Salvador who thinks they’re doing anything but helping ship your father and some essentially harmless Arab dude up the pipeline. Have I got that right?”

Happy felt a trickle of sweat winnow down his back. He wished he knew what the correct answer was. “Yeah. That’s right.”

“If the guys on the Salvadoran end found that out-”

“They’d make me pay.”

“You sure they haven’t guessed?”

“If they had, I’d have the bill already, believe me.”

Somewhere in the room, someone sneezed, somebody else laughed. From the kitchen, the sudden bright sizzle of meat hitting hot oil. “Remind me,” Lattimore said, “what are we talking about here, per head.”

“Twelve grand. Twenty-four total.”

“They’re not making you pay for your cousin Roque too?”

“He doesn’t need a coyote. He’s got a passport.”

“But they’re offering protection along the way, right?”

“Look, I let them shake me down for more, I look like a stooge. Guys like that, they think you’re over a barrel, they’ll ass fuck you just because they can.”

The plump brunette paid her tab, down to quarters and dimes, wrapped her frayed hair in a scarf, tucked her paperback into a purse the size of a saddlebag, then got up to leave.

“Okay,” Lattimore said. “But twelve grand per, that’s still on the high end, don’t you think? I’ve heard nine, coming all the way from El Salvador, unless you’re talking about a boat.”

“What’s your point?”

“No point. Just thinking out loud. Could be they’ve already factored in a terrorist surcharge.”

“Reason the amount’s as high as it is, I’m paying for a car. No way I’m making my old man jump trains to get here like I had to. Fucking brutal. He’s tough and all but he’s not young, know what I’m saying? And Samir, if they thought he was really a terrorist, believe me, I’d be paying fifty, maybe a hundred grand to get him here. No, I told them the story-”

“What story?”

Happy bristled, then reminded himself: Chill. “The truth.”

Lattimore cocked his head a little to one side, the merest of smiles. “Well, if you don’t mind, how about giving me a dose.”

“You saying I ain’t been straight with you?”

“It’s a little too soon in the process for me to know one way or the other. I’m hopeful.”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“That’s nice to hear. Now, about Samir.”

The craving for a smoke became overwhelming, he almost asked if he could duck outside for just a quick drag or two, but Lattimore, he’d read delay as deceit.

“Where should I start?”

“A full name would be nice.”

“Samir Khalid Sadiq.”

Licking his teeth, Lattimore took out a notepad, jotted it down. “And you met him…?”

“He was a terp, the company I worked for. He studied English and Spanish at Baghdad University, was pretty fluent in both. He always hoped to travel someday, Spain, the States, maybe Latin America.”

“Pretty ambitious dream for the average Iraqi.”

“He’s Palestinian, actually.”

Lattimore stopped writing, cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“They’re no small minority in Iraq. Saddam liked having them around, to show some kind of support for the cause but he was, like, this paranoid motherfucker. Palestinians got certain work privileges but were watched real close. Samir told me all this, I didn’t know squat about Iraq or Palestine or anything over there till I was dropped down into the middle of it.

“Samir was happy as hell the Americans showed up. He figured he could get a job working for the military, the press, State Department, whatever, and that would be his ticket out, you know? So he begged around, got the brush-off from you guys, no answer as to why, but kept on looking and ended up with us. Rode in my cab a couple times, when we convoyed between Najaf and the Isle of Abu-that’s what we called the warehouse compound at Abu Ghraib, that or Rocket City. The Salvadoran troops were stationed in Najaf, we handled their resupply and the redevelopment projects there.”

“How did he end up in El Salvador? Samir, I mean.”

“I’m getting to that. The Shiites hated the Palestinians, the grief started almost as soon as the Americans showed up. But once the 2005 elections were over, and the Shia parties took power? Palestinians are Sunni and without Saddam around they no longer meant shit to nobody. Regular Sunnis could give a fuck. Shiite militias came around, making threats, nailing up handbills telling people that any Palestinians better leave their homes now or they’d get the boot, maybe the torch. That was before the mosque in Samarra got hit. Once that happened, all bets were off. The militias, especially Sadr’s thugs, the Jaish al Mahdi? They just began picking people off. Samir lived in the al-Baladiyat neighborhood of Baghdad and the cocksuckers just lobbed in mortars. No joke. Next came the death squads, house-to-house dragnets, roadblocks. Guys got whacked right there on the spot, bullet to the head, and their families were told to leave or face the same. Samir was, like, especially vulnerable, because he was working with the coalition. So his wife’s brothers, they say enough is enough, they take their sister-Samir’s wife, her name’s Fatima-and his daughter away, wind up at the refugee camp near Al Tanf.”

“That’s in, what, Syria?”

“Along the border. Syria won’t let the Palestinians in. Neither will Jordan. They don’t want Palestinians to get the idea that they can resettle permanently anywhere, except, you know, Palestine.” Happy watched as the buff preppy in the everything-must-go suit walked out and the goth girl tried to poach what he’d left behind on his plate, only to have the waiter swoop in like a bat, clear it away. “Samir was left in his house all alone, which was just an invitation. You never knew when the Mahdi motherfuckers were gonna throw up a checkpoint or come prowling around and his national ID card says right there he’s Palestinian. So he walked away from everything he owned, began sleeping at the Isle of Abu. He tried to get the Americans to listen to him, give him some sort of asylum, so he could bring his family over here? Like talking to a wall, if he was even lucky enough to get some low-level desk jockey to hear him out. That’s when he began to think he’d have an easier time getting to El Salvador.