Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

“Ok.”

“But I know. Oh yeah, they think they can keep me out of the loop? That’s bullshit. Yeah, and just between you and me I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

“Who?”

“Well, I can’t say over the phone. It’s not exactly confidential formation. You remember him. He smashed up that big white Bentley. You know who I’m talking about? From the party? I think he’s one of the houses you clean. No big secret.”

Silence.

Youkilis.

And everybody knows.

And no one cares.

“Are you still there, María?”

“Yes.”

“You sweet-talk him, María, don’t let anyone touch my car. I’ll fucking kill them.”

“Ok.”

“Ok. Good. Hold the fort. I’ll be back. See you Monday.”

It wasn’t late. The room clock said nine but Paco was already asleep, exhausted from a day’s overtime.

I needed sleep too.

Quietly I stored my supplies in the backpack and wrote a quick note for Paco. It didn’t convey much of anything. “Paco, you’ve been more than a friend, but this next step belongs to me alone. If all goes well I will see you tomorrow before I take the bus to Mexico. If all does not go well, I want to thank you for everything. Love, María.”

I read it, reread it, thought of crumpling it, left it.

I laid out my clothes, the backpack, the keys to Esteban’s car.

I climbed under the sheet. Closed my eyes.

My head hurt. The wires were all fucked.

Next door a man stumbled in, drunk. He pushed his bed across the floor with an ugly screeching noise. He started to sing. Paco didn’t stir. Poor kid. I examined his face. The bruise on his cheek from New Mexico had turned yellow. He looked young, vulnerable. We were all vulnerable. We were all on the box here. Above the trapdoor.

Time went past without sleep choosing to descend.

I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to eleven.

Fuck this. Call Ricky. Talk to him.

The lobby. Deserted. Early for America but late Mex time. Everyone up since four digging ditches or removing brush or cleaning rooms or minding kids or making food.

I took out the calling card and rang him direct. Please be in, just this once, hermano .

“Ciao,” he said.

“Isn’t that goodbye?” I asked him.

“Honey, it’s you!”

“It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“Good… Listen, Ricky, I thought I would let you know, I’m going to try for it tonight.”

A pause. “Is it our boy?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes. You were spot on, Ricky. I’ve wasted enough time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t want to say over the phone.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

A longer pause. My phone card minutes being eaten up.

“I talked to Mom yesterday. She sent you a message,” he said at last.

“From Mother? There’s a message from Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you know how she is,” Ricky said sheepishly, preparing me for something about Yoruba gods or a warning about rapists or a request to pick up some oranges for Dad so he could sell them at the Pan American Games.

Ricky cleared his throat. “She says to tell you that she cast the fifty-second hexagram. You’re to study the fifty-second hexagram. I think it’s a reference to the I Ching.”

“Yeah. I know. Did Chinese my first year, remember?”

“Yeah.”

More silence, more talk without words.

“What happened to her, Ricky? Do you think it was Dad leaving or the time in jail?”

“Nah. It’s just one of those things.”

A voice in Ricky’s apartment asked him something. “Hold on,” Ricky hissed with his hand over the receiver.

Let him go. He can’t help. “I have to run. I love you, Ricky.”

“I love you too, big sis. Remember, you don’t have to do anything, you can just come home.”

“I know.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Bye.”

“Ciao.”

I hung up, looked at the phone. Ricky hadn’t helped. I didn’t feel validated. I felt worse. I felt bad and cheap, as if this whole thing was some monstrous vanity project. Jack and I weren’t that far apart. I should have seen it in the desert. Should have seen it before now.

The script fluttered in the wind: Mercado walks back to her room. Close-up on her face. She looks tired. She turns the door handle. The door creaks. She goes inside. The room is filled with moonlight…

Too slow. Skip to the end. Is that me walking on Malecón or am I on some slab in the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office?

The last page had been ripped out.

I sat on the bed. Good old Paco, still out for the count. A million TV ads for sleep aids in this country. You want a good night’s sleep? Work like a fucking Mexican.

I slipped between the sheets, set the alarm for two hours hence. Pulled the covers over my eyes and tried to get some z’s. After all, two hours was better than nothing and there was going to be an even longer day ahead.

The highway goes silent. The forest holds its breath. The mountain sleeps. The image of the fifty-second hexagram is also a mountain-the youngest son of heaven and earth. The male principle is at the top, the female principle beneath. It is a hexagram denoting stillness. But in the Book of Changes rest is only equilibrium between forces. Movement is always on the verge of breaking out. Why that one, Mother? But then again, why any of it? Why the cards, the yarrow stalks, the Santería church? Why would someone who has no future care about the future?

My eyes flutter. Open.

The floor. The wall. The two beds.

I haven’t slept.

Paco’s still out. I can tell when he’s deep down because it’s almost as if he’s dead. When he does meet the horseman they’re going to have to hold a mirror over his mouth.

As if reading my thoughts, he smiles. One of those little grins that means so many things. He’s got back doors, does Paco.

I walk to the window. Snow coming down like cherry blossoms. Floating. Not the way I imagined it to be. In the old reel-to-reel Soviet flicks that we used to get on Saturday nights it always seemed harder, more painful, somehow. Not soft like this. Why would all those French soldiers fleeing Moscow complain about this? It’s beautiful.

My watch says 12:30. It’s already Monday. Shit. I have to go.

I grab my clothes, open the front door, ease out the heavy backpack.

Better to get dressed on the outside walkway than risk having to deal with him. If I tell him he can’t come, he’ll see it as an assault on his manhood.

Snowflakes as big as mandarin oranges. I put out my hand and catch a few. Lick them off.

Dress: black jeans, black long-sleeved T-shirt, thick black sweater, black ski mask, light jacket, black gloves, black sneakers. I check the backpack: rope, knife, sledgehammer, duct tape, road map, two guns.

Snow over everything.

It’s ok.

I zip the main pocket, heave it on my shoulders, go downstairs.

Ice crystals on the bottom steps. The smell of pine and laurel.

I walk to the Range Rover, throat dry, eyes filled with tears, knees shaking.

Not cut out for this. They saw that in Cuba, or they would have promoted me before now or invited me to join the DGI. They knew I wasn’t made for the rough stuff. Few women go high in the Party brass, but some do and are rewarded with those elusive travel visas to Vietnam or North Korea or China.

They don’t hand those out to lightweights. Like me.

I take out the car key, press the button, the car unlocks. Always seems like a miracle.