Richard Ford: The Ultimate Good Luck

The terrain now was high-mountain cordillera, pleated and folded into a long blind valley of brown unclassified earth turning chalk green downrange and curling toward the higher peaks like sandpaper. Once in a while, you could make out a red tower pricked above the palm plats in the tiny distant pueblos, but the land itself was degraded and upended. It was not the kind of landscape he liked. Not a complex landscape. The light was too clear and unvarying. In the States these mountains would have names, but here the sense of permanence was expressed differently, by an anonymity that made you aware of seeing only half a mountain, as if the other side could all be painted orange.

The people on the road were all Zapotecs carrying bound woolens and water tins into the mercado. Now and then a group of children danced at the edge of the road dangling iguanas on strings. The iguanas stroked slowly in the air while the children flailed them at the cars, but all Quinn could hear, fading, were cries that sounded like “good-bye, good-bye.”

“If he had not signed a confession,” Bernhardt said, “it would be easier now.” He cleared his throat. “If he was braver.”

“He wouldn’t be our boy then,” Quinn said. Something about Sonny’s name made Bernhardt uncomfortable. He never spoke it. “So what do you do with a fucking iguana?” He looked back at the children traipsing away from the road toward a bombed-out adobe with no roof. It was never verifiable if most Mexican houses were half finished or half torn down.

“Set them loose,” Bernhardt said authoritatively. He paused a moment. “Sometimes I buy one.” He smiled in a comradely way. “And then I set it loose down the carretera. What could I do with it?”

Quinn faced the road again. “Let ’em keep it,” he said. “Just pay off.”

“They don’t want iguanas.” Bernhardt shook his head. “They are a nuisance. Why would they want them more than you do?”

Bernhardt was the Mexican lawyer he had paid to get Rae’s brother out of the prisión. He had gotten on to Bernhardt through the consulate, who said Bernhardt had had success with American druggies, had reliable principles, and wasn’t cheap. Bernhardt liked Americans and smiled a lot and seemed to have good connections with the administración de justicia. He was the best you could do. He reminded Quinn of the U.S.I.A. officers he had seen in the war, expensive suits, slightly balding, and a positive temperance that made you want to trust him. At best he figured Bernhardt wasn’t bored enough to get involved if there wasn’t a chance to buy Sonny out.

Bernhardt said he had a judge ready in two nights to execute a document of release for ten thousand dollars, and Rae was bringing cash on Mexicana in the afternoon. Bernhardt wanted to know nothing about money until the moment he needed it, and today they were simply making the drive as though nothing was going down, to let Sonny know he was leaving. If the human flow changed or if an insider got down in his Super Plenamins and smokes, word moved that a release was coming and everybody lined up for a handout. But if the release went off fast only the alcaide had to be paid, and that was it. It was going to be necessary to purchase the official document of release in the afternoon, and then get Rae, which was what Quinn was waiting for and the only stake he figured he had in anything.

Ahead, the army had arranged a new checkpoint on both sides of the road, with two sandbagged M-60s and plenty of help. Bernhardt stopped back of the barricade, showed his driver’s license and his prisión card, and was passed through. The soldier looked at Quinn through the window but didn’t check.

Beyond the barricade on the opposite shoulder a line of second-class buses waited in the dust to be inspected, swagged to the side with passengers going to market day tomorrow, bundles and baskets piled on top and all the greasy windows filled with attentionless Zapotec faces, staring out at the highway. The soldiers were making everyone in the first bus stand out and haul their belongings off the top-carry and open them. More soldiers watched from under the plank hut while the searchers cruised through the Indian passengers, pointing at bundles and yelling to make the women raise their dresses while the men stood awkwardly with their arms up. Quinn thought about Rae having to raise her skirt for soldiers. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. In the waiting buses people were dropping fruit peels out the windows, and as the car eased down the line a pig’s face peered out a window all alone.

“Pistols and explosivos,” Bernhardt said very professionally. He steered casually along the row of buses without watching the searches. “Storms come, and birds can’t fly to the sea, you know?” He smiled.

Quinn stared at the pig’s impudent face. “Do they find any?”

“No,” Bernhardt said confidently. “But they arrest for appearances. In United States, people respect money. But in Mexico, only soldiers . Tuesday you see nothing here. Last night an interception and today there are soldiers. Things could become difficult.”

“I’ll just count on you to stay clear of those difficulties.”

“I hope it is possible,” Bernhardt said.

Back in the line a red Dodge van was waiting for inspection. It had good tires and a gold university door seal. Inside were three rows of American college girls all talking at once and looking out the dusty windows at the front of the line. The driver was a Mexican tired of putting up with horseshit. He wasn’t going to get fucked, and he wanted out of the sun. Quinn watched the girls go by. He wondered which ones would have to pull down their jeans for the soldiers and what they would tell whoever was paying for the trip. It was going to be an adventure.

“It can quickly become a time for responsible laws now,” Bernhardt said and shook his head gravely. Bernhardt had big square incisors that were always moist. But he didn’t show them now. “Mordida is a source of irritation,” he said. “Like guerrillas. You do not have guerrillas in the United States. You are lucky.”

“We live right, I guess,” Quinn said, watching the valleyscape open like a fan.

“Perhaps one day. American cities invite it,” Bernhardt said significantly.

“I’m in the here and now,” Quinn said. “I can’t worry about that.”

Bernhardt looked at him seriously. “But you are in this now, Mr. Quinn. So you should know it intimately.” Bernhardt glanced at the mirror and at the highway narrowing into the desert. Bernhardt liked heavy-duty comparisons, and he wasn’t stupid about it, but some just didn’t hold your attention as well as others. Bernhardt could make you impatient. “A man wants to give his wife a life so pleasing nothing in it wouldn’t remind her of him. You see.” Bernhardt looked at him seriously. “Is that not right?”

“It beats me.” It was the orthodox lie Mexican men told themselves to make themselves feel like gods on earth. It was shabby, but everybody believed it.

“It is true,” Bernhardt said firmly and drew a breath. “But the guerrillas are like a man whose wife fucks everybody but him and there’s nothing he can do. He never pleases. He is never pleased. So he robs banks, shoots soldiers, blows up, sells narco, disparages everything. And everyone is dis pleased. And if your wife’s brother traffics narco then he is like a guerrilla, an irritation, and people do not want to do a favor for him.” Bernhardt turned and watched the highway glide by with satisfaction.

“Love’s a hardship, right?” Quinn said.

Bernhardt looked at him as if they understood one another perfectly. “Exactly,” he said, pleased. “It smells always of extinction.”