Caught (28 page)

He had a taxi stand with fifty vehicles; he owned three midsized vessels. He had been a drug runner and an informant. He was fit and unfathomable.

The cape caught on the animal’s horn and a terror set up in the bull. There was nothing graceful now. It had been stabbed twice and its haunches shivered. It ran a few tight circles, shaking its great bone of a head. It was comical, the cape on the horn, causing a peripheral and stagnant terror. The bull had lost its animality, was all big brown girly eyes, coquettish and mannered.

Hippies, said Hernandez. Children. Something in the stalls had caught his eye. It was a redhead in a bandana and halter top.

The girl was lanky and pale and hunched, she was making her way over the knees of spectators toward the end of the row. She wore a long patchwork skirt. Patterson wasn’t sure what Hernandez meant. He appeared disgruntled.

They are so free in your country, Hernandez said. Then the cape fell off and the bull trotted to the centre of the arena and stood still. It appeared that Patterson would have to accept a lecture on the desultory longing that had passed through a generation of North American kids. It was what he wanted to crush in Hearn and Slaney; his own daughter had fallen prey to it, he didn’t need to be lectured.

The bull had given up or pretended to give up. It would not co-operate. It would not bother to make its own death worthwhile or full of sentiment.

Do you know Lorca? Hernandez asked.

Was he at the meeting with Intelligence last week? Patterson asked.

García Lorca, Hernandez said.

Patterson didn’t answer. Delores read Lorca. He knew who Lorca was. This guy in his linen with his toned chest and gold chains. Hernandez crossed his arms and his shirt collar fell open and Patterson saw a cross. The man lifted his chin toward the redhead across the arena; she had squished herself between two Mexican men.

Playing with fire, Hernandez said. It’s the pill.

Yes, said Patterson. This was something they could agree upon.

The pill is to blame, Hernandez said. Patterson had come across the flesh-coloured plastic dial, labelled with the days of the week, in his daughter’s brassiere drawer. A rotating wheel with a window.

The wheel turned and allowed you to press the pill from behind through a foil cover so it popped out the little window. Her bras and girdles and a nest of stockings. He had been looking for pot. He had asked her if she’d tried it and she’d said no. But he didn’t trust her. He trusted her but he felt compelled to check.

He had not thought of his daughter’s bras and stockings and girdles as the undergarments of a young woman but when he found the pill packet he felt the sexual static like electricity and flicked his hand out of the drawer as if burned.

The pill, you think the pill is the problem, Patterson said.

Young women, Hernandez said. They have turned against their fathers.

Patterson’s daughter had turned away from everything he and Delores had tried to give her. He thought of the little girl she had been. How she would stand on a chair in the kitchen and fall forward into his arms. How tightly she held on to his neck. How she leaned against him while he talked to his wife in their small kitchen. She needed to be leaning on him or climbing on him as soon as he came home from work. She loved showing him her printing, a little scribbler full of letters, nonsensical rhymes about rain or talking dogs. She played the piano for him, her legs swinging hard under the stool, banging out
“Hot Cross Buns.”

A drop of sweat inched down Patterson’s cheek. The crowd sent out a small complaint, a collective yell toward the bull. The crowd didn’t want to see the animal acquiesce. If some part of the bull was timid or polite, or willing to compromise, the crowd wanted that part cut out and served on a plate.

Hernandez spoke unaccented English. Or if there was an accent, Patterson could not detect it. The man’s eyes were almost black and Patterson could see a wily intelligence.

Patterson always made a point: engage the eye of the contact; hold the eye. It was a sort of flirting.

They were both essentially untrustworthy men; they were savvy to the ways of trust and saw it was predicated on a flimsy belief system. Trust was an unwillingness to think things through.

It was a collapse in the ability to reason, an intoxicating sentimentality. The ornate work of giving in.

His little girl: he thought of her in the plastic swimming pool they’d bought for her birthday, he thought of her kicking her legs and clots of mown grass on the surface, she was what? — five or six — and the chocolate cake on the patio and her little friends from next door.

Two
banderillas
wagged from each of the bull’s shoulders. Then the animal got frisky again. It was dying. It charged and the hooves danced up and kicked out and the matador draped the animal’s head and hop-stepped. The bull disappeared in the red flash and came back.

Patterson would meet Slaney and bring him to a bank where he would withdraw forty thousand dollars and Hernandez would be waiting on the sailboat along with the rest of the soldiers and he’d accept the bribe.

They need provisions and fuel, Hernandez said. The men have already repaired the sails.

I’ll be there to oversee the exchange, Patterson said. Hernandez stared hard at the bull. He didn’t answer.

I’m down here to keep an eye, Patterson said. We got them on three counts if they make it back to Canada. These kids will never see the light of day.

We will meet again on the sailboat, then, Hernandez said. He turned to shake Patterson’s hand.

What Patterson admired was the way the animal jackknifed all that weight, turning from the cape to charge it again. The momentum behind each buck and shudder.

He loved that the fight was fixed. Every step planned and played out. Always the bull would end up dead.

It was the certainty that satisfied some desire in the audience. The best stories, he thought, we’ve known the end from the beginning.

You’re Coming with Me

Slaney came down
the stairs of the hostel and Roy Brophy was standing at the common room window watching the surf. He was wearing new jeans and a rope belt and a white cotton shirt with a Nehru collar.

Brophy was looking out at the sailboat. The new sails were up and the sun on the white canvas was very bright and the sea was full of sparkle.

Roy, Slaney said. Patterson turned around.

Doug, how the hell are you? The men shook hands. Patterson gripped him hard and he met his eyes. Slaney’s hair was longer, curly and black, and his eyes looked bluer because of the tan and he’d lost weight.

Heard you had quite a trip, Patterson said.

Quite the wind, Slaney said. Not something I’d like to try again, let me tell you.

She’s looking pretty good out there now, Patterson said. They both turned toward the boat. Patterson had a jocularity, Slaney thought, that was a notch too upbeat. The handshake had gone on for a second too long. The man was perspiring.

Thanks for coming down, man, Slaney said.

No sweat, Patterson said. I’m happy to help. I know how things work down here. I have to look out for my investment.

They serve a half-decent breakfast here, Slaney said. You want something?

I’m ready to hit the road. It won’t take us an hour. You guys are planning to sail tomorrow, right? We go to the bank and get the money and the authorities are waiting on the sailboat for us the next day. We hand over the money; they count it. You guys are good to go. I don’t foresee difficulties. We want to get you guys back to Vancouver, start turning a profit.

That sounds good, Slaney said.

Sound good to you? Patterson asked.

That sounds fine.

They thought it
was the potholes before they realized a flat. They rolled into a garage on the side of the road. Slaney jacked up the Jeep and removed the tire.

There were chickens running around in the gravel outside and a clothesline with a few rags on it. There was a child on a weathered stoop with a doll. The little girl had on a faded red dress and when the Jeep came up the drive in a cloud of dust she stepped back inside the house and watched them through a screen door. She stood in the shadows of the hallway but one knee, covered in the red skirt, was pressed against the screen.

A man in a white undershirt took the tire from Slaney without a word and dunked it in a trough of water and slowly turned it, holding the tire upright with just the tips of his fingers.

Three men appeared from the fields behind the house. They gathered around the tire and watched and didn’t speak much. Whatever they said was in Spanish. Brophy stood with his hands on his wide hips, his back to the men, looking at the wall of tools.

Look at that, Slaney said. A jet of bubbles rose in the water near the tire’s rim and the man lifted it out and held it up to his chest and Slaney could see a piece of green glass jammed in the rubber. The man brought it over to a work counter and Slaney and Brophy went outside to share a joint.

You have a family? Slaney asked.

I’ve got a daughter and a son, Patterson said.

And you got a wife, Slaney said.

Wife and kids, Patterson said. I’d say you’re about my daughter’s age. Give or take.

You’re a contractor, Slaney said.

I’m a contractor, Patterson said. Almost twenty-five years.

I just want to know who I’m dealing with, Slaney said. He could hear a bell tinkling nearby. It sounded clear and eerie, a tiny warning bell. Something was rustling in the dirt on the other side of the garage.

I’m here to get your money and make sure it goes through the proper channels, Patterson said. I’m acquainted with the people down here.

You’re a friend of Barlow’s, Slaney said.

I’m close to retiring, Patterson said. But a little extra wouldn’t go astray. I have expenses. Friend, I would say no. Not a friend. I figure a man has one or two friends his whole life, if he’s lucky. That’s if he’s lucky. My brother is my friend. My wife is my friend. Barlow I would call a business acquaintance. I met Barlow because somebody gave me his name. Somebody knew I had some capital I wanted to invest. I called him up.

You called him up, Slaney said.

I called him up, asked if he wanted to get together, Patterson said. He took a long drag on the toke Slaney passed him and dropped it into the dirt, pressed down on it with the toe of his shoe. A goat had come around the corner of the garage. It looked at Slaney with its yellow eye, the vertical black pupil. The goat opened its black-lipped mouth and baaed at them. Then it trotted away, the bell piercingly sweet.

Your friend Barlow is a good cook, nice people he hangs around with, he’s got a nice girl. They’re nice people. They had me over. Singing and talking, it was a very nice evening. A young man, intelligent, doing his university, seems ambitious, and I think to myself, Okay, maybe. I’ll take a chance on this guy.

You’re in it for the money, Slaney said.

I know Hernandez, Patterson said. This is a couple of days’ work for me down here. Take a few days. This is money should my daughter decide on a university education. I see her as maybe a lawyer.

The man in the white undershirt walked past them with the tire then and Slaney went back to the Jeep with him and they had the tire back on in a few minutes.

Patterson peeled off some money from a wad he had in his pants pocket and the man looked at it and took a blue elastic band off his wrist and put it around the bills and put them away.

Slaney and Patterson drove along a dirt road for fifteen minutes more. The only thing they saw on the road was a barefoot man on a horse with a rope that was tied to the horns of a dusty white ox that plodded behind.

They found the bank and parked in front of it. The beach was a short walk away. The Jeep was hot to the touch and Slaney was sticking to the seats. He closed his eyes for a moment.

He was thinking of Hearn’s girlfriend with her hand pressed flat against Brophy’s chest. How she had shoved Brophy into the corner and interrogated him.

She had not trusted Brophy either. But Hearn wanted the trip to be a success. He wanted it so badly he was willing to talk to a guy who phones up cold, out of the blue. A guy he’s never heard of.

I’ll be at the beach, grabbing a bite to eat, Slaney said. Want me to order you something?

No, I’m careful about the food here. I’ll find you when I get out of the bank, Patterson said.

I’ll be here, Slaney said.

Don’t worry, I’ll find you.

Slaney sat where
he had a view of the beach and a view of the front doors of the bank.

The timbers that held up the thatched roof of the little restaurant were painted jaunty blue and the counter along the back wall was tiled in blue and white. A man was cutting the heads and tails off fish he was pulling from a bucket on the concrete floor. He slapped each fish down on a counter of sheet metal slathered in blood and guts and each time he brought the knife down a cloud of flies rose and settled. After every fish tail he scraped the cleaver blade over the skim of red water on the counter and sluiced it into the bucket below.

The ocean was greenish and the sand was as white as could be and a woman with a beautiful body in a white bikini stood up from her towel. Her hands swatted at her ass, brushing off sand, and she pulled on a scuba mask and fitted a snorkel into her mouth. It made her eyes bulge and her mouth look surprised and dumb. She put on flippers and walked toward the ocean like the flamingos Slaney had seen in the zoo, picking up her knees. Slaney ordered a beer and some beans and rice and fish.

He reminded himself to have a good time. He had never liked the idea of heat but it had got inside him on the last trip and it had unlocked a slow longing for salt and cold drinks. The desire for something was on the tip of his tongue, a word or belief, something half articulated that he realized he could wait for; whatever it was, he didn’t have to force it.

Slaney had cleaned off the tin plate with a tortilla and pushed the plate aside and he’d finished his beer when Brophy came out of the bank and walked down the hill to the beach with a duffle bag. The afternoon enveloped Brophy in a rippling jello of heat, and he appeared warped and elongated in the waver, the duffle bag dragging one shoulder down. When he spotted Slaney, he lifted a finger in a weak salute. Brophy’s shirt was soaked through and sticking to him and he looked cold and white like raw fish.