James Siegel - Detour

Paul remained mute. He’d already been deaf and dumb far too long.

“You’d probably like an explanation. Okay. It’ll pass the time. Where in the world do I start? Oh yeah. Colombia. I can bore you with my trials and tribulations as a DEA agent in good standing. As our man in Bogotá. I can chart for you the moment I went from gung-ho to who-are-we-kidding? The moment when I realized it was all a charade, politics, Vietnam with a different jungle. I could bore you with all that claptrap, but it would be like the whining of a child. So let’s talk like adults.”

He looked into the rearview mirror.

“You okay back there, sweetheart?”

“I’m marvelously comfortable, thank you.”

“ Marvelously comfortable. Glad to hear it. Not too much longer to go. I’m so used to kids asking are we there yet? ” He glanced back at Paul. “Beretta. Bore-tip bullets. In case you’re wondering.”

“Where are we going?”

“Metaphorically, to hell in a handbasket. Speaking of we as a nation, of course. I understand your concerns are more personal. We’ll get to that. Do you know what a DEA agent makes, Paul? No? Let’s put it this way—when Bush so generously decided to let the rich get richer and the deficit get larger, he wasn’t doing me any favors.”

A police car was cruising up to them in the right lane.

The bird-watcher closed the two inches of open window. Cranked the music louder.

“Remember, Paul. I’m an official agent of the U.S. government and you’re someone facing federal drug charges, not to mention indictment on several newly minted antiterrorist statutes. Your only ally in this car is a mental case. Sorry, darling. Just calling a spade a spade. To be blunt, Paul, I can shoot you on the spot and get a couple of pats on the back from Nassau’s finest. Understand?”

“Yes,” Paul said. The police car was almost parallel with them. A female officer glanced out the window at them. The bird-watcher had placed some kind of badge on the dashboard. The officer smiled, nodded, turned back around.

“Wonderful, well done. Still comfortable back there, darling?”

Ruth didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Oddly enough, I never actually ran into Mr. Riojas in Bogotá,” he said. “Not until our government decided in its infinite wisdom to have him exported to U.S. federal prison. Sometimes we need to show everyone how swimmingly the war on drugs is going. We need someone’s head on a platter. He has a very big head. The fact is, he outlasted his usefulness, like Noriega. Back in the days when all we cared about were the little lefties in the hills, Mr. Riojas was very useful. He was like one of those Colombian vampire bats—ugly as hell and God forbid one should ever show up in your attic, but boy do they do a number on the mosquito population. They perform a useful function. Until they don’t. Someone decided Riojas had become a liability. We paid off who we needed to, and one day I get the call. Mr. Riojas is coming home for trial. And who do you think gets picked to escort the notorious fugitive to justice?”

The bird-watcher reached forward, readjusted the radio. “She’s got a voice on her, all right, but frankly, it’s hurting my ears. How are yours?”

“Working fine,” Paul said. He’d begun tumbling numbers in his head, numbers he summoned front and center for immediate review.

Accident ratios for a typical SUV.

“Great. Still good back there, sweetheart?” addressing himself to Ruth.

“The road sign said Commack, ” Ruth said.

“Right you are. Commack. You’re my official navigator, okay?”

“I’m not entirely confident I’m up to the task,” Ruth replied.

“Oh, sure you are. Just keep looking at the signs and you’ll perform the task quite nicely. What a vocabulary,” he said to Paul.

“Where are we going?” Paul said. “What are you going to do with us?”

In a typical year 31,000 occupants of passenger vehicles are killed in traffic accidents.

“Would it kill you to let me finish the story? Where was I? Oh, right. On a plane home, with public enemy numero uno. By the way, we’re talking private jet—plenty of legroom and a shitload of cold Coronas. What we do for the really bad guys. It’s amazing what you start talking about in the back of a plane when you have nothing else to do. He’s not a terrible guy, really. A bit excessive on the violence thing, sure, but pretty much on a par with your typical Special Ops guy. Talk about sociopath with strong sadistic impulses. Those guys are brutal. ”

“Riverhead,” Ruth said. “One mile.”

“That’s it, honey. Right again. You’re doing a fabulous job. In case you’re interested, Paul, I can get the Beretta out of my shoulder holster and into firing position in exactly 2.6 seconds. No lie. We hold tournaments when we start going wacky on surveillance. I’m the official DEA record-holder.”

Of all vehicular fatalities in any given year, sport-utility vehicles account for over 28 percent.

“I would say Mr. Riojas was a bit dejected on the ride home. He could see the handwriting on the prison wall. He was clearly preoccupied with loose ends. There was a piece of unfinished business that seemed particularly top of mind. He’d made a vow, which he’d yet to fulfill. Vows are kind of sacred to these fellows, especially when they make them to their Santeria gods. Apparently, even drug lords imbibe the opiate of the masses. Regardless, he’d made a vow and damned if he wasn’t going to see it through. You can guess what we’re talking about, can’t you, Paul?”

“Exit 70,” Ruth said.

“One more exit to go, people. Keep up the good work, Ruth.”

Most fatalities involving sport-utility vehicles are due to rollovers, of which SUVs have the highest rate among all vehicles, approximately 36 percent.

“It seems a certain ex-mistress of his had the temerity to leave him flat. Carrying his child too. What’s a fellow to do? It’s not like he didn’t tell her what was in store for her if she ever ran away. He’d spelled it out. He swore it on a stack of chicken heads. Still, off she went. It took him three years to find her. When he did, he went, okay, a little overboard. He took his time, used all his formidable skills. I’m not condoning that kind of brutality. But it’s kind of like charging a jungle animal with intolerable cruelty. It’s their survival instinct, how they get to stay king of the jungle. He related it to me in a most matter-of-fact voice. How he decided things. Who’d watch whom? Who first: mother or daughter? He picked mom. He admitted how surprised and delighted he was at how long she lasted. Only there was a fuckup. One of his executioners apparently had a crisis of conscience and went vamos with the kid. So now what? Riojas had only completed half the vow. He’s not the kind to give up. He kept looking for her. Got to the point where he was pretty sure she’d been smuggled to America. Which didn’t really discourage him. You know why he was telling me all this, Paul?”

Fifty-eight percent of SUV rollover crashes are caused by extreme turns.

“He sensed a man willing to listen. Not just to a story. To an offer. Think of me as Cortés hearing the first stories of Latin American gold. And what was he asking me to do, really? Not spring him—he was astute enough to realize that was out of the question. Simply to fulfill the promise of a doomed and shattered man. By the time we touched down in Miami, I’d agreed.”

Forty percent of SUV rollovers are caused by alcohol consumption.