One of Us (3 page)

They didn't reply, but merely looked me up and down, as is the wont of such people. The third cop hung back a little, casting a glance at the license plate of my car.

"It's mine," I said. "The papers are in the glove compartment."

Too late I remembered what was next to the papers and under a map. A gun. It was mine, licensed, legal—with a serial number and everything—but it would still be a very bad thing to have cops find. The Baja peninsula isn't bandit territory, but it's heading that way. Twenty years ago it had looked as if fleeing Hong Kong money might claw the Baja up into respectability, but the cash had kept on moving, and now the dark country was taking over again, seeping down from the hills and turning the eyes of the people inward. The cops are very keen that it's them pointing the guns at people, not the other way round.

"Mr. Thompson?" the middle cop said. I tightened my grip on the door.

"Yes," I replied. There was no point in lying. Any part of my body had it stamped there in amino acids. "How'd you guess? I just look like a Thompson, or what?"

"Someone who sounds like you just had a little trouble in Housson's," he said, something that wasn't really a smile moving his lips. "With a clock."

"Well, you know how it is." I shrugged. "They get on your nerves occasionally."

"I couldn't afford such a thing," the middle cop said. "Mine still runs on batteries."

"Probably works properly, then," I said, trying to be comradely. "And you don't have to feed it."

"What are you doing in Ensenada?" the third policeman asked abruptly.

"Vacation," I said. "Few days off work."

"What work?"

"Bar work." Used to be true. I've done most things at one time or another. If they wanted to test me on pouring beer and making change, they were welcome to it.

They all nodded together. Little, uninterested nods. The fact that this was all so chummy should have made me more relaxed. It didn't. It made me feel tense. No one had asked me for money. No one had asked for my papers. No one was hunting through the cavities of my car or body for drugs.

So what were they doing? I hadn't done anything, after all. Not really.

Then I heard it. Quietly at first, the sound of a car approaching in another street. Nothing exceptional about that, of course: I'm familiar with the internal combustion engine and its role in contemporary society. But I couldn't help noticing that the cop in the middle, the one who appeared to be leading this crew, glanced toward the end of the block. I followed his eyes.

Initially there was nothing to see except tourist couples walking hand in hand across the intersection, their cheery voices calling as they pointed out souvenirs to each other. For a moment I had a flash of the first time I came to Ensenada, many years ago. I remembered realizing that every bangle and every rug, every copyright infringement and Day of the Dead vignette, had been stamped out somewhere in a factory and that no one here was selling anything unique or genuine. Realizing that, and not caring. Spending days eating fish tacos at two for a dollar, loaded high with fixings and chili, down by the fish market, where the world's most disreputable pelicans battled for scraps in a flurry of brown feathers. Cruising in the late afternoon, country on the car stereo and Indian kids on every street corner, selling subcontracted Chiclets to support their mothers' habits. And nights of shadows and distant shouting, patterns of light on water and wood fires in run-down chalets; cold breezes on the rocks at the waterfront, the warmth of someone who loved me.

That's why I used to come back to Ensenada. To remember those times, and the person I was when they'd happened.

But the car that slowly moved into position wasn't a beat-up old Ford, and there was no one in it that I knew. It was a squad car, and that's what the cops around me had been waiting for. It was a trap, either because they knew who I was, or because it was a slow night and they just felt like it. Either way, it was time to go.

I braced my hands against my car door and whipped it out quickly, catching two of the cops in the stomach and sending them stumbling painfully backward. The remaining cop scrabbled for his holster. I swung a kick at his hands, smacking into his wrist and sending his gun skittering along the pavement. It had been a big night for kicking. Lucky I kept in practice.

The cops in the car saw what was happening, and the vehicle leapt up the street toward me. I jammed the key in the ignition and had my own car moving before I'd even shut the door. There were shouts from the cops behind as I yanked the car around in a tight bend, scattering grit like a line of machine-gun fire, heading straight for the police vehicle.

I kept the car on course, flooring the pedal, but I knew I was going to have to turn. You don't play chicken with the Mexican police. They tend to win. I caught glimpses of tourists watching as I hammered down the road, their mouths falling open as they realized there was local color in prospect, and that the color was likely to be red.

In the front, the faces of two cops stared back at me through their windshield as they got closer and closer. Their passenger looked a little nervous, but one glance at the driver told me what I already knew. If there was going to be a domesticated egg-producing squawker in this confrontation, it sure as hell wasn't going to be him.

At the last moment I yanked the wheel to the right and went caroming off down a side street, narrowly avoiding rolling the car into a storefront. People scattered in all directions as I cursed my luck and tried to figure out what I was going to do next. Behind me I heard the scream of tires as the cops performed an inaccurate U-turn, cracking a few parked cars in the process. I hoped everyone had the proper insurance. It's false economy not to, you know, and there's a place about fifty yards from the border where you almost believe that what you're being sold is worth something. I forget the name, but check it out.

There weren't that many options available to me—you can either leave Ensenada up the coast or down. I figured on going up, but I had to try to convince the cops I was heading the other way. I made a series of hard turns toward the southern end of town—ignoring lights, screaming over the main drag at seventy, and in general displaying extremely little concern for the finer points of road safety. Cars ended up swerving onto the sidewalk, the drivers shouting after me before they'd even come to a halt. I could see their point, but didn't stop to discuss it.

After a couple of hectic minutes I couldn't see anyone in the mirror following me, so I made a sudden left and slowed the car down, pulling in to park neatly between two battered trucks by the side of the road. I edged far enough forward that I could see the crossroads, and then killed the engine. Heart thumping, I waited.

It worked. People don't really expect you to park in the middle of a car chase. They sort of assume you'll keep on driving. After a few seconds I saw the police car go flying over the intersection, but I stayed put a little while longer, wiping the sweat off my palms onto my jeans.

Then I very sedately reversed out of the space and pootled off up the street.

ON THE WAY BACK to the border I tried to call a friend of mine on the Net, a guy called Quat, but there was no reply. I left a message for him to get in touch with me as soon as possible, and just concentrated on not driving into the sea. I was pretty calm by then, telling myself the Mexican cops had just been fishing, rousting a conspicuous Americano for kicks.

Outside Tijuana I stopped to get some gas from a run-down place by the side of the road. I could have waited until I got to the other side of the border, but the station looked like it needed the business. While the attendant was gleefully filling my car up, I took the opportunity to throw the remaining packets of Kims in the trash, and get some proper cigarettes at contraband prices.

I also elected to make use of their men's room, which was a questionable decision. The gas station claimed to be under new management, but the toilets were evidently still under some old management, or more probably governed by an organization that predated the concept of management altogether. Possibly the Spanish Inquisition. The smell was bracing, to say the least. Both of the urinals had been smashed, and one of the cubicles appeared to be where the local horses came when they needed to empty their backs. If so, someone needed to introduce them to the concept of toilet paper, and explain where exactly they should sit.

The remaining cubicle was relatively bearable, and I locked myself in and set about what I had to do. My mind was on other things, like what the hell I was going to do when I got back home, when I heard a knock on the door.

"I'll be out in a minute," I said, zipping myself back up. Maybe the attendant was just worried he wasn't going to get paid.

There was no answer. I was groping through the same sentence in pidgin Spanish, when suddenly I realized it wouldn't be the gas jockey. He had my car keys. I wasn't going anywhere without them.

The knock came again, louder this time.

I looked quickly around, but there was no way out of the cubicle—except, of course, through the door. There never is. Take it from me, if you're ever on the run, a toilet cubicle isn't a great place to hide. They're designed with very little functional flexibility.

"Who is it?" I asked. There was still no answer.

I had my gun with me, but that was no answer either. I'd like to think I've grown up, but it could just be that I've gotten more frightened. I was never a big one for firearms, and encouraging situations in which I might get my head splattered across walls had even less appeal than it used to. The gun's little more than a souvenir, and I haven't fired it in anger in four years. I've fired it in boredom, as my old CD player would testify, but that's not really enough. You have to keep practicing at senseless violence, otherwise you forget the point.

Extreme politeness seemed the only sensible course of action.

So I pulled the gun out, yanked open the door, and screamed at whoever was there to get the fuck facedown on the floor.

The room was empty. Just dirty walls and the sound of three taps dripping out of unison.

I blinked, and swiveled my head both ways around the room. Still no one. My eyes prickled and stung.

"Hi, Hap," said a voice from lower than I would have expected. I slowly tilted my head that way, bringing the gun down with my gaze.

The alarm clock waved up at me. It looked tired, and was spattered with mud.

I lost it.

"Okay, you fuck," I shouted hysterically. "This is it! Now I'm finally going to blow you apart."

"Hap, you don't want to do that ..."

"Yes, I do."

The clock retreated rapidly toward the exit. "You don't. You really don't."

"Give me one good reason," I yelled, racking a shell up into the breech and knowing that nothing the machine could come up with would be enough. By now we were back out in the lot, and I was aware of the gas guy standing by the car gaping at us, a smile freezing on his face. Maybe it wasn't fair to take the situation out on a clock, but I didn't care. It was the only potential victim around apart from me, and I was bigger than it was. I was also fading big-time. My temples felt like they were full of ice, and a patch of vision in my right eye was turning gray.

The clock knew that time was running out, and spoke very quickly. "I was trying to tell you something down in that smelly place. Something
important
."

I aimed right at the a.m./p.m. indicator. "Like what? That I have a haircut booked at four?"

"That I'm good at some things. Like finding people. I found you, didn't I?"

Finger on the trigger, one twitch away from sending the clock to oblivion, I hesitated. "So? What are you saying?"

"I know where she is."

CHAPTER TWO

I got into it the same way as most people, I guess. By accident.

It was a year and a half ago. I was staying the night in Jacksonville, mainly because I didn't have anyplace else to be. At the time it seemed like whenever I couldn't find a road to take me anywhere new, I wound up back in that city, like a yoyo bouncing back to the hand that threw it away in the first place. I was planning on getting out of Florida the next day, and after my ride let me off, I headed for the blocks around the bus station, where everything costs less. Last time I'd worked had been two weeks before, at a bar down near Cresota Beach, where I grew up. They didn't like the way I talked to the customers. I didn't care for their attitude toward pay and working conditions. It had been a brief relationship.

I walked the streets until I found a place going by the inspiring and lyrical name of Pete's Rooms. The guy behind the desk was wearing one of the worst shirts I've ever seen, like a painting of a road accident done by someone who had no talent but an awful lot of paint to use up. I didn't ask him if he was Pete, but it seemed a fair assumption. He looked like a Pete. The rate was fifteen dollars a night, Net access in every room. Very reasonable—yet the shirt, unappealing though it was, looked like it had been made on purpose. Maybe I should have thought about that, but it was late and I couldn't be bothered.

My room was on the fourth floor and small, and the air smelled like it had been there since before I was born. I pulled something to drink from my bag, and dragged the room's one ratty chair over to the window. Outside was a fire escape the rats were probably afraid to use, and below that just yellow lights and noise.

I leaned out into humid night and watched people walking up and down the street. You see them in every big city, mangy dogs sniffing for a trail their instincts tell them must start around here someplace. Some people believe in God, or UFOs: others that just around a corner will be the first step on a road toward money, or drugs, or whatever Holy Grail they're programmed for. I wished them well, but not with much hope or enthusiasm. I'd tried most types of MAKE $$$ FAST!!! schemes by then, and they had gotten me precisely nowhere. Roads that begin just around corners have a tendency to lead you right back to where you started.