Richard Ford - The Ultimate Good Luck

Rae stood at the window in the room watching the zócalo while he read the note. Students from the technological college had begun a demonstration in the park. He could hear bursts of exhortative Spanish shouted through a bullhorn, followed by cries of approval from the people who had gathered. The bursts concerned the police, and then fighting to the end of something, but he couldn’t understand the rest. He remembered the soldiers lined along Manuel Ocampo, and the paper posters on the fronts of the shanties where the Mexican boy had been dead. They didn’t matter now.

He put the letter on the table and thought about a place for the money. Every place was obvious, though there wasn’t any pure reason to think anyone wanted it anymore, if they ever had.

Rae picked up the note and read it standing at the table. It was in letters printed with a black sketching pen. It said:

Mr. Harry Quinn,

I see your problem, and I can help you with it. I’ll drive to pick you up at eight o’clock. No compromisos.

Susan Zago

Rae put the letter on the tabletop and walked back to the window and looked out. “Are you going?” she asked. Her voice was taut. There was a loud shout of appreciation and some applause from the demonstration. Someone yelled “God damn it” into the bullhorn, and there was applause.

“No,” Quinn said. He stood in the middle of the room still imagining a place for the money. “Unless I have to,” he said.

“Why would you have to?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any goddamn idea why I’d have to.” He sat on the bed beside the Varig bag. “Sonny’s just got to play it straight now. No more fucking around.”

“Are you going to see him?” she said.

“I can get in at four if everything’s all right.”

“You mean if somebody hasn’t killed him?” He looked at her without speaking, his hand on the money bag. “What about Zago?” she said. She wasn’t going to lose it again. She was reliable, and there wouldn’t be any more slips.

“I’ll call him. I’ll go out in the car. Whatever. I just want to try to get him out.”

“I’d rather not go to the prison today,” she said. She blinked as though she’d said something he hadn’t heard. She came and knelt at the foot of the bed, staring at the chalky tiles.

“You just might not see him again,” Quinn said. It didn’t matter. But he wanted to go through it to the end.

“You know,” she said, kneeling, talking with animation. “I dropped my necklace this morning while you were getting the tickets, and do you know what I found when I picked it up?” She didn’t look at him, looked closely at the floor.

He watched her without answering. She was trying to smile. “Somebody had written in pencil on this floor, ‘Flint, Michigan, 194,000 population, Automobiles, A wonderful place to live.’ ” She looked up at him oddly, her hair in her face. “I thought those dead people were in this room. It made me cry because we were going to get out and they weren’t.” Tears were in her eyes, and she began to rub out the writing with her hand. “Just say I’m sorry,” she said and shook her head.

He said, “Do you want to take a cab ride down to Mitla?”

“I’m going to sleep now,” she said. She sat beside him on the bed, tears on her face. “Why do you think Bernhardt ditched her?” she said.

“I could come up with some reasons,” he said.

She put her hands in her lap and stared at the open window. “You can’t depend on somebody who’s on the ropes. He must’ve been smart enough to know that. He just wasn’t smart enough to know what to do about it.”

“Maybe he loved her.”

“Don’t say that, Harry,” she said.

“Is that the other half of your theory?” He picked up the Varig bag.

“You can’t depend on somebody who’s on the ropes,” she said accusingly.

“What about me?” Quinn said. “Can you depend on me?”

“I don’t know about you,” she said. “It’s fucked up where you’re concerned.”

“I already said that. But I could put you on a bus tonight,” he said. “I don’t care.”

“Just go fuck,” she said, crying. “I don’t have any place to go. If I did, I would, but I don’t.”

“I’ll be back then,” he said.

IN THE LOBBY the Germans were sitting against the wall behind their suitcases-on-wheels. They looked resentful. They watched him at the desk as though they suspected he was being given privileges they weren’t allowed to have anymore.

Quinn wanted the money in the lockup. There was no good place for it, so the obvious had become practical. The clerk took the bag and gave him the box key without showing him the fit, then asked him in English if he was interested in a tour of Monte Albán. He said no and asked for the phone. The clerk seemed annoyed and led him into the office where the lock boxes were, and where the air had stale smoke in it. The Germans watched cynically when he went behind the desk and began whispering. The clerk handed him a directory and disappeared into the lobby.

He wanted to tell Zago the deal was still on, and deliver what Zago wanted as quick as he could get it. The document of release expired in two days, and a lawyer would have to get another one. So it was impossible to start over now. The best that was left was to keep Sonny alive. There wasn’t time to get him out.

No one answered at the first Luis Zago, and he dialed the next, watching the door to the lobby. He could hear the Germans mumbling and the clerk’s feet scuffing the tile floor. In the park there were shouts from the demonstration.

The voice that answered spoke in English. He hadn’t expected it, and he waited a moment, thinking. He wanted to speak Spanish, but Zago’s wife would know who it was.

“Let me speak to Luis Zago,” he said quickly.

“He’s not here,” Zago’s wife said.

He kept his eyes on the door for a sign of the clerk. “Do you expect him?”

“Is this Mr. Quinn?”

“I need to talk to your husband pretty bad. Can I talk to him?” he said. He felt stupid. The Mexican telephone was stupid, and he felt like a tourist calling home for help.

“He’s out of town, Mr. Quinn. He won’t be back for a week.” She paused a moment. “Am I going to see you tonight?” She sounded amused.

The idea that Zago was unreachable opened like a lightless room. He understood she was lying, but it didn’t matter if he couldn’t get to Zago right away. Bernhardt had been the only contact, and he was out of it. He wondered for the first time who had killed Bernhardt and why they’d bother. “No,” he said.

“Maybe you’ll change your mind,” she said. “There’re no obligations.”

“Just tell me how can I reach your husband,” he said.

“I don’t think he wants to see you anymore,” she said cheerfully. “But I do.”

“Forget it,” he said, and put down the receiver.

In the lobby the Germans were gone and Rae stood in the middle of the lobby, crying. “I was waiting for you to come out on the street, and you didn’t come,” she said. “I thought something happened to you.” She began walking back toward the stairs.

“I made a call,” he said.

She was sobbing. “Then you should tell me, God damn it.”

He put his arms around her at the bottom of the stairs. There was a cheer out in the park. “It’s all right,” he whispered in her ear.

“No it’s not,” she said. Her hair was damp and smelled stale. He took the lock-box key and put her hand on it.

“This is the bag,” he said softly. He turned and looked across the lobby for the clerk, but no one was behind the desk. The lobby was deserted, though a waiter in a white jacket stood in the atrium scalding glasses in a pan of water for the comida. All the tables had white cloths on them, and the light was watery. He could hear the glasses tinkling. “It’s behind the desk,” he said.