Richard Ford - The Ultimate Good Luck

“Are you getting us in trouble now?” she said, still facing the dim marble stairs up to the room. Her voice was accusing.

“No way,” he said.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’ve really had enough now.” She began the stairs without looking back at him.

There were no buses on the highway and few cars that weren’t heading south toward Chiapas. The Germans had seemed to want to leave town in a hurry, and that was a bad sign. Up in the mountains the sky was bruising up to rain, and he could see the pale curtains distinctly farther down the valley. The south had a wide, softened prettiness in the rain light, and the entire landscape seemed to be under a different authority, as if it had become familiar. The children who sold iguanas were gone, their adobe empty and ruined. One iguana was left strung to the electric pole, hanging motionless in the cool sunlight.

The army inspection had been reinforced. He recognized none of the faces, but none of the soldiers had white puttees or orange epaulettes. There was a bivouac behind the wood shelter with tents set up in facing rows. There were two new six-by-sixes and another sixty bagged to face toward town. When he drove in under the awning, the soldiers manning the sixty swiveled the target irons slowly toward the windshield and stared impassively. There were no cars at the inspection, and the corporal took his turista card inside the shelter, copied something onto a clipboard and showed it to another soldier, then returned it without comment. When he drove back out onto the road the soldier wrote down his license number. It was all routine and unimportant, but it made him think about the Americans at the airport and what they saw at the end that probably seemed routine. Maybe just a jeep, or a soldier holding a light, or someone waving. There was never any way to get spared, then, no way for anyone to know what you were doing or where you were. Everything was bad risk. It all screwed down to make you feel as far away as possible from anything that cared about you.

He sat alone in the visitation, facing the yellow door. The cafeteria had the same sweet urine stink from the day before, though it was empty except for the guards at either end. The visiting hour was nearly over and the guards were bored and careless. Water had seeped from the walls and the pools were full of dead beetles. Outside someone was methodically kicking a ball against concrete.

When Sonny stepped into the room, he had a wide gauze bandage on his head that was thick over his left ear. His hair had been cut to his scalp and his face looked too white. He looked as if he wasn’t sure where he was, and might cry but didn’t want to.

“Did they let you see medics?” Quinn said automatically, when Sonny was in front of him. He pushed the Gauloises pack across the table. He wasn’t sure Sonny could speak, and that was everything now. “What in the fuck happened?” He rested his hands on the table. He wanted to take Sonny’s hand, but he didn’t want to be conspicuous. Someone continued kicking the ball outside.

“My ear,” Sonny said softly. Tears suddenly swelled out, and he shut his eyes and pressed his lips against his teeth.

He wasn’t sure he could make Sonny understand, though he thought the situation had to be pretty clear. “Now listen,” he said, “they know you skimmed it.” He glanced at the two guards who were watching Sonny oddly.

Sonny looked dazed. He seemed to want to portray disappointment but didn’t know how. “What’s going to happen, Harry?” he whispered. He raised his hand to touch his ear, then put it back under the table.

“Did you hear what the fuck I said? You’ve got to give it back, or they’re going to blow you up.”

Sonny’s blue eyes blinked. “Who?” he said.

“Zago.”

Sonny shook his head and smiled. “I don’t know him,” he said. His eyes glazed as if words were in his head but wouldn’t get organized and he was waiting for them to do that. “Two guys came in to cut my hair last night, you know. They said I was coming out. Then they took scissors and cut off my ear.”

“Zago did it,” Quinn said. “You’ve gotta quit this shit. You understand?”

Sonny blinked again. His eyes looked like Rae’s eyes expressing something he’d seen Rae express, bewilderment over too much at once. “I didn’t lay any shit off, Harry,” Sonny said in a practiced voice. He let his gaze drop to the Gauloises box. “I picked it up in the room. I took a cab. Some dudes in white shirts came in the airport and grabbed me and I got set up.” He let his eyes wander slowly toward the exit at the far end of the cafeteria. “Where’s Bernhardt?” He stared at the yellow door as if he thought Bernhardt was going to walk through it.

“Look, God damn it.” He grabbed Sonny’s hands and squeezed. He didn’t want to freak him. “Why would they think you did it if you didn’t do it?” he said softly. “This is just business, O.K.? It’s all business.”

Sonny stared at him. His pupils were wide and deep. He felt like he could see inside Sonny’s brain. “Maybe,” Sonny said, “somebody’s fooling somebody else. That’s been done, hasn’t it, Harry?” Sonny smiled. He moved his hand again toward his ear, then stopped halfway and put his hands on the table, and began to move his head down toward where his hand was. “My ear doesn’t hurt,” he said. “They gave me a shot. I don’t feel it.”

“Why get me in this, God damn it?” He felt desperate, though it wasn’t an unsatisfying feeling, just a familiar one, almost a calming one.

“It looks good,” Sonny said very softly, almost muttering.

“To who? Who gives a shit?”

“Maybe they had an argument, you know,” Sonny said. He couldn’t keep his head still and his eyes began to rove. Whoever had been kicking the ball had stopped, and the absent noise hollowed the silence in the cafeteria. Sonny’s blood stream was loading up now. “You know, Harry,” he said. “I had a dream this morning. I was standing by my Cadillac, holding a basketball, and there was a hedge beside it and a field with some woods in it. And the trunk of the car was all full of my shit, and there were four hats. And somehow some Mexicans came up and took the hats and put them on and started to leave. And I said, ‘Those are my hats, man,’ and they said, ‘We’re Mexicans, you don’t own anything.’ ” Sonny smiled. “And that was all. I didn’t argue. Though I thought they were doing something wrong. And they stayed out in the field where I could see them, wearing my hats.” His smile widened.

“Please cut this shit out,” Quinn said and looked down. Both guards were watching him strangely. One glanced at his wrist watch and said something to the other one, and both looked at him again. “Dionisio’s dead, man. Carlos is dead. This shit is up. They’re all over you.”

Sonny stared intently at the box of Gauloises, his eyes bright. He seemed frustrated but not even aware of it. “You know,” he said, “it’s a goddamn good feeling to fuck somebody you don’t know.” He looked up proudly, as if he’d discovered something wonderful.

“Why is that?” Quinn said.

Sonny smiled. Someone started kicking the ball again, the hits popping as if there was a hurry. “Well,” he said slowly, and grew silent again. “If you start finding out things the next thing you know she’s saying, ‘Why don’t we do it as much as we used to?’ And then you’re all set up, you can’t do anything, and you’re out of control, you understand? You don’t want to be there, do you?” Sonny took a deep breath and held Quinn’s hands and squeezed them. “If you don’t know anything though, Harry, you can fuck her till piss turns to Popsicles and everything’s great. That’s where I made my mistake with Kirsten, you know, I found out too much, tried too hard.” He smiled. Flies were on his bandage. Sonny was sweating out of enthusiasm for the idea he had in his head. It kept him from being afraid. In whatever way, Quinn thought, that he was like Sonny, he hoped he had better ideas.