David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

“It may be a blessing in disguise, this connection with El Chusquero.” A trio of shirtless boys slinked toward the table to beg. Tío Faustino shooed them off. “If we put our lot in with him from here on out, we may not have to hand the girl, Lupe, over to that sniveling little coward’s connection in Agua Prieta, I can’t recall the name.”

“El Recio.” Roque remembered it well, it meant Tough Guy. “What about Samir?”

“As long as he gets to America, he’ll have no complaints.”

“Are you joking? He’ll have nothing but complaints. You saw him. He hates her.”

“That’s not-”

“He’s developed this thing for her. He’ll only be happy if he sees her suffer.”

“Don’t exaggerate. While you were upstairs serenading El Chusquero with the girl, I was down in the cellar with El Turco, okay? He’s not a monster.”

“You’re only saying that because he saved Happy’s life.”

“Nonsense. He just knows, the way it stands, his fate is tied to hers.”

Tío Faustino rubbed his eyes and when his hands came away Roque noticed how much older he seemed than just a few days ago. His stubble was bristly and gray, the sagging flesh beneath his eyes was the color of tea, his hands shook. Only driving seemed to soothe him and it would be days at least before he was back behind the wheel, assuming they were lucky.

“Besides,” he continued, “it’s not a bad idea to remember where our confidence in that pack of salvatruchos got us.”

“Tío, who knows what El Chusquero’s really up to here? He’s not doing this out of kindness, it’s going to cost. And Happy made it clear, there’s no more money. This last payment’s the end.”

“Maybe we could work something out.”

“No, Tío, listen to me. I know how the guy thinks. He’ll strand us in the middle of nowhere till we pay. And let me repeat: There is no more money.”

“So you’re okay then with handing that girl over to some padrote.” Pimp.

“Good God, how can you say such a thing? I just-”

“We’re not going to have a lot of choices. This one presents itself. I say we consider it. Unless you-”

Tío Faustino broke off his sentence, stiffening imperceptibly, eyes veiled. He seemed to be saying, Don’t look. Shortly, however, the newcomer who’d caught his eye was grabbing a nearby chair, dragging it over to their table through the gravel. Finally, as the chair came close and the stranger plopped down, Roque glanced his direction.

HE WAS HANDSOME LIKE AN EXOTIC ANIMAL, LATE TWENTIES, indio features and muscular, his flat bronze face astonishingly smooth-skinned. His arms were tattooed but his hands, his face, his neck were clear. He wore a Giants cap and an immaculate T-shirt.

“Roque, Faustino-hey.” Their names rolled off his tongue naturally, without affected familiarity. “I’m Beto, your guía . Take you from here to Agua Prieta.”

Roque remembered the name, he was Lonely’s man in Tecún Umán. His English was solid, the accent soft, that lilting musicality few Latinos lost.

Beto gestured to the Indian woman working refreshments for a third tamarindo . She dug one from her cooler, tottered over, money changed hands. It gave everyone a second to think.

Finally, Tío Faustino said, “You’ve lived in the States.”

Beto laughed. “Yeah. Up around Salinas.” He fussed with the straw for his tamarindo , punctured the plastic bag, took a sip. “Worked construction, I was a carpenter, till I got snagged running a stop sign. Believe that? Bad luck, man. Now I can’t go back for ten years.” He checked out the patio area, then a shoulder roll, a bodybuilder tic. “Getting used to it here. Life’s okay. And who needs the constant paranoia, right? Crazy back there now.”

Roque said, “Look, we don’t know who we’re supposed to be dealing with.”

“Nothing’s changed.” Beto’s eyes darted between Roque and Tío. “We’re good to go.”

Tío Faustino said, “How did you know where to find us?”

“This shithole?” Beto glanced up at the cracked and moldy stucco wall of the posada. A large black pijuyo perched on the edge of the roof. “This is my town. What goes on here’s my business. Look, you guys paid for us to get you to the States. That’s what I’m here to do, my leg of the trip anyway.”

A group of Mayan women in traditional traje wandered into the courtyard from the street, clearly lost. With birdlike titters they bowed a group apology, turned around, vanished.

“This is the one day of the year you can cross over without showing documents,” Beto said, explaining the crowds. “There’s another fair right across the river. Mexicans come here, Guatemaltecos go there, trade goods, just for the day. Try to get farther than Tapachula, they’ll nail you. But you should see the mob down along the river. Hundreds of people, these crappy little rafts, scrap wood lashed to inner tubes. It’s nuts.”

“It hasn’t been the easiest trip for us, either.” Roque ignored a warning glance from his uncle. “But you probably know that.”

Beto smiled acidly, then glanced around again, making sure no one was in earshot. “Captain Quintanilla, that what you mean?”

“We never heard him called anything but El Chusquero.”

Beto shook his head, whispered, “El Choo-scay-ro,” like the punch line to a raunchy joke. “Toad-faced fuck. You realize that whole ambush on the road was a hoax, right? Those guys at the roadblock, they were his men, I don’t care what he told you.”

Roque and Tío Faustino sat there, taking that in. Finally, Tío Faustino said, “They got shot. Two of them. Straight to the head.”

“No, trust me.” Beto tottered his fingers, a puppeteer.

“That makes no sense,” Roque said, at the same time realizing it was possible. He hadn’t seen the shootings up close, everybody else ducking down inside the car, terrified. “Why go to all that trouble just to kidnap us anyway?”

“Who knows what goes through that sick fuck’s head? I’m telling you it was bogus. Captain Quintanilla’s way of amusing himself, jerking the chain, adding a tax for moving you through Jutiapa. He makes it look like a gang thing. Something goes wrong, one of you dies, he can walk away, hang it on us.”

Tío Faustino sat back in his chair. “I can’t believe this.”

“Now, let me guess, I’ll bet he’s pushing to get you to cross over to Oaxaca with his people here. Don’t do it, my friends. You’ll die.”

Beto struggled for a notepad stuck in his back pocket. A pencil stub was fastened to it with a rubber band. He opened it to a page where there was a crude map of the coast.

“They’ll send you by boat. Pick you up around here,” he pointed with the pencil, “little outside Champerico, take you to a huequito , a little smuggler’s cove, outside Puerto Escondido. That’s what they say. But how you supposed to get the rest of the way through Mexico?”

“They told us they’d take us overland,” Tío Faustino said, “all the way to the States.”

Beto tossed the pencil down. “Seriously? They tell you two boats, two whole boats, just vanished the last couple months? They tell you fifteen poor fucks drowned just last week? What was left of the boat washed up in pieces. Shit that floats outta Haiti’s got better rep than that.”

High in the conacaste branches, a zanate cawed. The pijuyo on the roof’s edge fled. The zanate swooped down, took its place, a leathery curl of something, flesh maybe, in its talons.

Tío Faustino said, “How are we supposed to trust you?”