David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

– Want to know what my uncle said, just as he was heading off with El Turco? He couldn’t have it on his conscience, watching you get handed over to whoever these people are up in Agua Prieta. That’s like him. He has the biggest heart in the world, a sad heart, a strong heart, but generous too. I know, whether or not it’s your own damn fault, he will do whatever he can to help you. Now I need to ask you, are you worth it? Look me in the eye, tell me, what can you offer him back for a sacrifice like that?

Her whole face turned to stone.- I didn’t ask for this .

– It’s the way he is .

– El Turco will never -

– Forget El Turco .

– They’ll find my mother, my brother .

– We have a few days. Call them, tell them to go, hide, stay with somebody. Ask the priest at their church, maybe. We can find some way to get them north, join you in the States .

– With what money?

– Forget the money for now. We’ll -

– Stop it! She grabbed her hair in her fists, eyes shut.- What is wrong with you? Is your uncle as much of a child as you are?

– Call me whatever names you like. But don’t mock my uncle .

– You think it’s only my family they’ll go after? You think they’ll leave yours alone? Not to mention you, your uncle. You think I can live with that? Assuming of course I have time to worry about such things before they kill me .

– Know why the world’s so fucked up? Nobody fights back. They get used to their misery. Sometimes they fall in love with it. Some shitbird like Lonely starts fucking with them? They bargain. They deny. They cave. And it’s always the assholes who get the power. The greedy, the small, the paranoid. They have the say-so. You go along or you suffer . Roque was reciting almost verbatim a rum-fueled tirade he’d received one night from Lalo, after a guitar lesson. Lalo, the great believer, the artist.- Doesn’t have to be that way. You can stand up .

– Be my guest. But not on my account .

– You don’t need to live afraid .

– What’s in this for you? Okay, your uncle’s got this nice-guy death wish, but what’s in it for you? You want to make me a star? You think I’m gonna like you? You think I’m gonna fuck your brains out?

He took the keys out of the ignition, opened his door.- I’m gonna get something cold to drink while we wait. You want something, let me know .

She reached across the car, grabbed his arm.- Stop being nice to me. Hear me? How fucking dare you . Her grip was fierce. Tears welled in her eyes.- Fuck you, understand? Don’t be nice to me. I know what you think, how you feel, what you want. I know you better than you know yourself. Stop it .

“WHERE’D THAT THING COME FROM?”

They were back at the old farmhouse, the one Efraim’s people lost to the county. Manure and pond scum tanged the air, the trees thick with the twiddly chirp of sparrows, the screeching caw of blue jays. Godo was supposed to teach the crew how to clear a house today, show them how it got done in the Suck, the Green Monster, the Gun Club: the Corps. What for, exactly? Never ask a question you’d rather not know the answer to.

Vasco’s crew had a history of takeovers, restaurants a favorite, the occasional home invasion. They’d put all that aside for low risk, high return: the mover scam, the mortgage hustle, the copper rip-off, none of which paid out like before, not with the economy in a ditch. Apparently they wanted to go back to what they once knew best, just kick it up a notch. Old dogs, new tricks. I’m here to train the dogs, Godo figured. Just don’t let it go beyond that. Once Tío gets back, the family can wash its hands of these losers for good.

Puchi and Chato played coy the whole drive out, all glances and giggles, homely sisters with a secret. Now with the trunk popped, Godo could see what the secret was: an AK-47, a real one from the looks of it, not a semi-auto knockoff or a kit model. They were surprisingly hard to find in the States, unless you wanted to pay through the nose. Everywhere else, third world especially, they were common as kickstands.

Puchi lifted the rifle from the trunk. “Some guy, told us he worked security in Iraqistan? He sold it to us, in the parking lot at People’s Fried Chicken. You know, over in Richmond, near the Empress?”

Godo felt like somebody’d plucked his spine. Worked security, he thought, contractors, and the black SUV throttled up to the checkpoint, honking its horn, Godo getting smack from the driver, giving it right back as the broad-shouldered muj in the flowing abaya sauntered up, Gunny Benedict stepping forward-

Shake it off, he told himself.

He refocused on the Kalashnikov, recalling the distinctive chug of the weapon, remembering too, hitting the deck, inhaling dirt as incoming rounds chewed up nearby concrete. You could always tell the ones coming straight at you by the crack.

He said, “What’s the Empress?”

Puchi sighted the weapon, aiming across to the barn. “Card room, man. San Pablo Dam off-ramp, see it from the freeway. You know the one.”

Guess I do, Godo thought. His memory felt like chowder sometimes.

On closer inspection he confirmed it wasn’t a jigsaw model, rigged together from a parts kit like Efraim’s M16s. The hand-guard, pistol grip, buttstock all looked authentic, even battle-scarred, virtually identical to the ones he’d seen over there. It had full auto, the true mark of illegality, with the thirty-round banana clip, a felony in California, even by mail. “You bought this in a parking lot?”

“Man, you gotta check this place out.” Puchi settled the gunstock on his hip, striking a combat pose. “Like a fucking bazaar. Freaky how much hardware moves through that place.”

Chato, smoke-eyed, scratched at his ear, adding, “Chicken’s for the pits, though. They do something weird with it.”

Godo had heard that more than a hundred thousand Kalashnikovs like this one, not to mention tens of thousand of Glocks, all intended for the Iraqi police, had vanished. Poor controls, shoddy oversight, squirrelly paper trails. Some cases, the guns found their way to the mujahideen, meaning the U.S. helped arm the insurgency, the kind of story that made you want to cry, that or kill somebody. It didn’t surprise him to learn at least a few found their way back here.

“You said the guy who sold you this worked security?”

“That’s what he told me, yeah.”

“He say what company he was with?”

Puchi shrugged. “Didn’t think to ask.”

“Harmon Stern Associates, that name ever come up?”

Chato, back from his chicken reveries: “This thing good as what you carried?”

Godo sighed. The kid had a Chihuahua for a brain. “What are you talking about?”

“I hear you guys secretly wished, like, you had AKs, not M16s.” Trying to sound in the know. “Don’t jam so easy. Heavier round.”

Godo assumed he was mimicking the guy they’d bought the gun from. “It’s not as accurate,” he said. “But yeah, you can rough them up, drag them through a swamp, pour sand down the barrel, even set the damn things on fire, they don’t get touchy like a sixteen. Had to clean my piece at least once a day over there, twice sometimes.” Back to Puchi, “How could I meet this guy, this security dude, one who sold you this thing?”

Puchi did something with his lips, a creepy pout of a grin. “We’re supposed to meet him again tonight, talk about scoring more of these, depending on how we like this one.”

Godo recalled Happy’s warning: Don’t get talked into anything. Did this qualify? He couldn’t help himself, he wanted to meet this character, this fella who worked security in Iraqistan. This guy who sold banned guns out of his trunk in the parking lot of a second-rate fried-chicken house.