Empty Pockets (23 page)

Shane had a long, dull drive to L.A. He didn't feel like doing it. He stopped the van and parked and walked back across the street. The trees and houses at the edge of the park formed a natural bowl. The light was leaving the sky, melting the houses and trees and park into the dark.

He went out on the lawn and lay down on the grass.

The sound of the bicycle on the long path came toward him, the spokes of the bike making a whirring rill—a playing card
attached between the spokes snapping against the wires as they turned—that increased and then faded as the boy went by.

Shane lay there. The mornings had been cool, the afternoons warm, the evenings cool again. The sound from the bicycle was gone. The grass was cool and damp. The work season was over with. He heard the crickets start up. He lay there for a while longer, his eyes open, and saw the small orb of soft light that was Venus appear in the dark. He opened his hands and felt the coolness of the grass. A slow wind began flowing across the lawn. Several cars, their headlights on, went by along the street. The wind was warm. The night grew quiet. He saw other stars appear. He sketched their lines—Orion, Polaris, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper—across the dark. There was an order out there. He realized he'd never had a chance.

Together Again

“I
hope you don't blow up at this. I don't think you will because now there are no more secrets between us. Trying to make it alone can really set you apart. I found myself turning from the things that really make me happy because I had no one to share things with. So I tried to overcome these feelings of gloom and depression by stopping being alone all the time and by starting to share my time with someone. Things went along okay, not great, but okay. I started feeling better somewhat, to a certain extent. But things didn't turn out exactly right. You know who I'm talking about. You saw him that one time and didn't like him. You were right. We were always arguing because of silly little incidents, him wanting me to be something I'm not. He was talking about marriage, and so on, trying to pin me down, which just made me pull away more, made him more insane, and just forced me back down into myself, which was what I was trying to get away from in the first place, which won't happen. We just don't fit. So I am sick at the whole scene. He doesn't want to turn loose, but I'm getting over him. Whatever he wants I don't care. I don't know what I'm going to plan next, or what you want to do. When and if you work out your romantic involvement with that little girl, or girls, and you feel that you seriously want to be with me, then that will be the time for us to come together to try to build again what we know we could really have with each other.”

Emeralds

S
itting on the suitcase on the curb outside the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Bogotá, dripping with sweat, air temperature sixty-four degrees out, Chris thought, Well, God is either with you or he isn't. Look at this as just a test. Until you gave Zack those tickets, the whole thing was done on trust. He didn't owe you a penny until then. As soon as you bought them he owed you the twenty-five hundred back, Tori's twenty-five hundred. He will either come through or he won't. He wouldn't send you into a situation knowing it was different than he represented. He's always been honorable as long as you've known him. Break it down. One thousand for the four men on the horses; then one thousand each for them not to look in the jars they had to deliver to Zuniga; then one thousand to the lawyer in Medellín whose secretary won't release the eighty-four thousand without you making the call. Then, when you called Tori, what did you tell her? This would be the one and only time? That after this it was done? That was what the money was for? That we would both make lots of money? And this
is
the only time. And then you said, “They
are
crazy. All they do is smoke crack, get wired, and chase cunt. When I saw them in New York, and Zack just walked in and handed me the ninety thousand and walked out, saying only, ‘Okay, it's up to you now,' I knew they were crazy. And then they were so fucked up they were trying to open doors that weren't even doors to their rooms.” Then her saying, “I can't believe you did this. I hope this goes okay for you, but even if it does I don't think I'll be here.” The unbelievable coldness in that. And then the scummy emerald dealer coming in the room here, saying, “Okay, go out and shop around. Look at everything and see how much your five hundred dollars will get you, even with any of the wholesalers. You will not get better than these.” And now you've got what, a suitcase full of dirty clothes, your passport, and nothing else? No, you've still got
your five hundred. Your thoughts are all over the place. Just chill the fuck out. If you go back now, you'll be short the six thousand, no, the fifty-five hundred. How'll you explain that . . .?

An old 1984 blue-and-yellow Mercedes taxi pulled up and Alberto Ramon Zuniga got out and Chris slowly stood up, conscious of the sweat on his face.

He wiped his face.

“Amigo,” Alberto said, “are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Just getting some air.”

“With your suitcase?” Alberto laughed. “I don't think so.”

He grinned at Chris and started walking to the back of the car. The light-skinned driver was out and lifting the trunk lid. Chris walked over and watched. The driver pulled out six wide, thin boxes the size of rock 'n' roll posters and stacked them up against the rear fender. Cars were noisily hustling by, choking the air with oil and gasoline fumes.

Chris wiped his face with his hand. It came away sweaty.

“You want to help me with a couple of these?” Alberto said.

He looked at Chris's face and smiled.

“Mr. Chris,” he said, “there are at least four or five billion people on the planet right now, none of them any more important than any other unless they decide to be. The only thing that makes any one of us any different is that decision. The decision you have to make.”

“Give me a break,” Chris said.

“Just help me carry these upstairs. You still have the room, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Alberto said. He paid the driver, and then a bellboy came out and he directed him to put the boxes and Chris's suitcase on a luggage trolley, and the three of them went inside and upstairs to Chris's room.

The bellboy laid the boxes on the already made-up bed. Alberto tipped him. The bellboy left.

“Sit down, amigo,” Alberto said.

He went to the first box and lifted off the lid. He removed a colorful hand-embroidered, woven thread painting of a Caribbean seascape with sailboats, displaying it for Chris.

“That's it?” Chris said.

“That's it.”

“Where's the cocaine?”

Alberto laughed. Dressed in a gray Armani suit, a perfectly starched white dress shirt, a blue Armani tie with small irregular red ellipsoids, a dark blue cashmere scarf, and an $18,458 Hublot mocha-colored watch on his left wrist, he turned the painting, displaying the narrow edge.

“It's here,” he said, “pressed in a sheet between the fabric and the canvas backing.”

“How do I know it's there?”

“I'll open one, but if I do there might be a problem when they come off the plane.”

“How is that?”

“The dogs might be able to smell it then.”

“So I'm just supposed to trust you.”

Alberto grinned and let the painting fall back onto the bed, opening his arms and palms out in the air.

“Do you realize the situation you're in?”

“We're both in,” Chris said. It was true. As long as he didn't make the phone call to the lawyer the eighty-four thousand wouldn't be released.

Chris realized he'd stopped sweating. Maybe it was just the air-conditioning. Maybe he still had some control.

“Let me ask you a question,” said Alberto. “You went to a university?”

“I did.”

“Where?”

“University of Washington.”

“That's in Seattle, Washington, yes? I, myself, went to Cornell, and have a degree in chemical engineering, so we're both two fairly intelligent men. Would you say that's true?”

“Right now I don't know about me,” Chris said.

Alberto laughed.

“That just proves you are. And what did you tell me earlier, that that eighty-four thousand you now owe us was borrowed from sources in New York who wanted one hundred and twenty thousand by the end of the week, or one hundred and eighty thousand by the end of the following week?”

“Correct.”

“So if you don't go through with this you are now thirty-six thousand short, plus you have to try to take
that
money back into the States with you by what, stuffing it down your socks?”

Chris didn't say anything. Suddenly it felt hot to him again.

Alberto snapped open his phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“An art supply store.”

“For what purpose?”

“For six Art Voyager portfolio cases,” Alberto said, then into the phone: “Hey, Ramon, it's me. We need six cases.”

He paused.

“Yes, the twenty-four by thirty-six by three-inch ones.” This was said in Spanish.

He listened again.

“Room eight thirty-three.” This also was spoken in Spanish. Then to Chris: “Do you agree?”

Chris nodded. It was the issue of trust. He hoped to Christ Zack knew what he was doing. It was entirely clear that he, Chris, was just the tool, at everyone's mercy. He had no leverage. He didn't even have enough money of his own to buy even one emerald. He had thought for five hundred he could have gotten at least one good one. That had been shot to hell. The only thing the dealer had shown him was chips. Chips that could have been green bits of glass for all he knew.

“Here,” Alberto said, handing over his phone. “Call the attorney. Then I'll call downstairs and take care of the bill.”

Three hours later, having made the call to the attorney's secretary, Chris got out of another Mercedes at El Dorado International
and, struggling with the six art cases, took them to the Delta ticket counter, bought a one-way ticket for himself for the midafternoon flight to Bonaire, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, and checked the cases aboard, watching them being lifted one by one by the pleasant black girl in the Delta uniform and placed on the black conveyer belt and whisked out of sight.

Sitting at a table looking out over the runways and the sunlit mountains just beyond under the smooth blue Colombian sky, Chris wondered why they hadn't been taken to the x-ray machine, but then wasn't it better that they hadn't been? It certainly was.

He looked at his watch.

The flight was scheduled to leave in thirty-five minutes..

At security the screening line was short, with white-helmeted soldiers with short machine guns clipped to shoulder straps standing at port arms along the sides, and Chris reached the gate while people were still boarding.

He sat down in one of the cushioned chairs facing the doorway and watched as the thirty-five or so people going to Bonaire went through the doorway, and then heard his name being paged over the loudspeaker, asking him to please report to the gate for immediate boarding.

He got up and walked away down the concourse, hearing his name being called several additional times.

He went into the men's and washed his face and hands, combed his hair, went into a stall, and sat down and waited.

When he was certain the flight had left he went back out and ran down the concourse, looking out the long windows, seeing a silver airliner with the bright blue-and-red-tipped Delta tail airborne and heading out over the mountains.

When he reached the gate counter he slowed and asked the same Delta girl, “Was that the flight to Bonaire that just left?”

“It is,” she said. “Are you Christopher Fredericks?”

“I am. I was supposed to be on that flight.”

“You didn't hear yourself being paged?”

“No, I didn't. What time is the next flight?”

“Just a minute,” she said. She picked up a phone, turning her back to him, the cord curling over her blue-coated shoulder, and said something he couldn't hear.

“Is there another flight this afternoon?” he said.

She raised her free hand, meaning just a minute, then hung up the phone and said, “We'll see what we can do. Would you have a seat, please?”

Chris walked off and sat down. At least the plane was gone. And so were the paintings. That part of it was no longer his problem. He had done what he was supposed to do. Zack would be in Bonaire to get the paintings out of the baggage area. In the old days you needed the ticket stubs for that. Thank God that had been done away with. All he had to do now was sit and wait until she told him when the next flight was, thank her profusely, then go back out to the ticket area and buy the next direct flight to Miami.