The Dragon Griaule (43 page)

Sunday evening, after a final copulation, a bouquet of tearful goodbye kisses, Luisa limo-ed off to the airport, promising to return in two weeks’ time. She had paid for the suite until Monday morning and told Snow that he should stay the night and charge whatever he wanted to the room, but cautioned him about over-tipping and, semi-playfully, advised him not to bring up any girls. The admonition was unnecessary – Snow was whipped. He ordered a thirty-dollar cheeseburger, fries, and two Cokes from room service and sat on the balcony, eating, watching combers rolling in, reduced to wavelets by the time they hit shore. Too tired to think, he lay down on the bed around eight-thirty and slept until one. South Beach would be still going strong and he briefly considered rejoining the party. Ten years before he would have, but now he went to the refrigerator and opened a bottle of water and stood at the kitchen counter, attempting to concentrate on the big issues: what next, whither, and so forth. He noticed a shadowy bulk at the end of the counter and switched on a light. A striped gift box – inside was a camp shirt he had admired in a shop window and a pill bottle containing about twenty blue capsules and a note. The note was in Spanish and read:

I can’t carry this through customs. For God’s sake, don’t take more than one at a time.

*

It was signed with a lipstick imprint and a cartoon drawing of a tubby little heart.

Snow pocketed the pills. He was still getting dark webs in the corners of his vision from the previous night. Distended or broken capillaries, he figured. But there might come a time when a blue pill would seem an appealing option. Feeling vacant, lethargic, he rode the elevator to the lobby, staring at his reflection in the mirrored walls, and went out to the deserted pool area and lay back in a lounge chair. A thin layer of clouds diminished the stars. The rectangle of placid aquamarine water lit by underwater spots and surrounded by empty white chairs complemented his mental state. He closed his eyes and thought about Yara, Guillermo, Tres Santos, redemption, but arrived at no clean answer to the question they posed. Now that he knew something, it seemed he understood less than before. One thing was clear, however. None of his passions were American and perhaps he was no longer an American but a citizen of some international slum, a country of losers without borders or passports or principles. The idea that he had wasted his life brought forth a self-pitying tear. He supposed everyone felt this way at one time or another, even people with lofty accomplishments to their credit, yet they had some basis for redemption, a foundation upon which to build a new life, whereas he did not.

‘Hey!’ said a voice above him.

A skinny kid of thirteen or fourteen in baggy swim trunks and a navy blue T-shirt peered at him through strings of long brown hair. ‘Is it too late to go in the pool?’

‘I think so, but I don’t know for sure,’ Snow said. ‘You could dive in and find out.’

‘My dad’ll kick my ass if I get into trouble.’

‘You down here with your folks?’

‘My dad and his girlfriend.’ The kid flopped onto a chair beside Snow – his lugubrious, bored-shitless look was the same that had dominated Snow’s expressions during his teens, and he had a cultivated flatness of affect that armored him against potential human interactions . . . and yet he appeared to want company.

‘How’s that going?’ Snow asked.

‘It fucking sucks.’

The writing on the kid’s T-shirt was in small lower-case white letters and read:

i went with my father to south beach, the home of wicked, beautiful, diseased women with unnatural desires, and all i caught was this lousy t-shirt

‘I like your shirt,’ said Snow.

The kid glanced down at his chest and sniffed. ‘My dad had it printed. He thinks it’s funny.’

‘But you don’t, huh? Why you wearing it?’

‘Because if I wear it long enough, like every day, it’ll start pissing him off.’

The water in the pool lapped against the tiles, the distant surf hissed, and a breeze stirred the chlorine smell.

‘How come you were crying?’ the kid asked.

‘Huh?’

‘You were crying when I came over.’

‘Oh . . . yeah.’

‘How come?’

‘I was remembering this old movie.’

‘Which one?’

‘
Bladerunner
.’

No sign of recognition registered on the kid’s face.

‘You ever see it?’ Snow asked.

‘Nah. What’s it about?’

‘These people, they’re called replicants. They’re clones, they only have a lifespan of a few years. Twelve, I think. Which makes them angry. They do all this dangerous work in outer space, in the far-flung corners of the galaxy. They fight humanity’s battles. They’re better than people. Stronger and better-looking. So like I said, they’re angry, and a few of them return to earth to try and learn if they can get an extension. Have a longer life, you know.’

‘What happens to them?’

‘I don’t want to spoil it for you.’

‘I probably won’t ever see it. I’m more into games.’

‘They die,’ said Snow. ‘There’s no cure, no remedy, and the bladerunners, these special cops who hunt runaway replicants, they kill them.’

The kid thought this over. ‘You’d think they’d name the movie after the replicants.’

‘Yeah, you’d think. I guess Bladerunner sounded sexier.’

‘It’s kind of sad,’ said the kid after a few beats. ‘But I wouldn’t cry about it.’

‘The saddest part is the replicants aren’t just stronger and better-looking. They live more intensely than regular people, even the cops that shoot them.’

‘I knew a guy who got shot by the cops once, but he was an old sleazebag.’ The kid stripped off his shirt. ‘Fuck it!’

He did a racing dive into the pool and swam furiously yet efficiently, showing off several strokes, with an especially strong butterfly. Snow refocused on his troubles, but his thoughts kept returning to Rutger Hauer, tears in rain, and when Daryl Hannah killed the toymaker. Romantic bullshit. He wondered if the book was better. The kid hauled himself out of the pool, dripping, and sat down, gathering his hair into a ponytail and squeezing water from it.

‘You didn’t stay in long,’ said Snow.

The kid acted surlier than he had before swimming, as if his nifty strokes had proved a point. ‘I didn’t want to get caught.’

‘You’re a pretty good swimmer.’

‘I’m all right.’

He picked up his T-shirt and slung it over his shoulder, preparing to leave.

‘I’ve got a problem,’ Snow said, struck by the irrational notion that the kid might have answers, that he had been sent by God or fate or a controlling interstellar agency. ‘A decision I’m struggling with. That’s why I was so emotional earlier. It wasn’t about the movie.’

This put the kid on the alert. ‘Yeah?’

Without going into much detail, Snow sketched out his problem.

‘You’re joking, right?’ said the kid snottily. ‘Take a shit job in
some dead-ass place or go have a big weird adventure in another country? Where’s the decision? I’d be down there already.’

Snow didn’t care for the kid giving him attitude. ‘If your old man let you go, you mean.’

‘Fuck you, you pussy!’

The kid hurried away toward the hotel.

‘Some oracle,’ said Snow.

V

Under a threatening sky, with the bumpy, leaden underbellies of the clouds passing low overhead, winded from altitude (eight thousand feet) and exertion, Snow sat on a ridge top high above Tres Santos, eating a chocolate bar and peering at the village through binoculars. Except for two striking additions, the place was as he remembered – an impoverished outpost of humanity whose sorrows were obscured by distance, lent the illusion of tranquility by a lack of definition. Tres Santos was laid out on a relatively flat stretch of ground bounded by two rocky hills, their lower slopes forested with pine, the boughs ghost-dressed with rags and streamers of morning mist. A red dirt road with ruts brimming with rainwater angled away between the worn hills, leading toward the village of Nebaj. Whitewashed one- and two-room houses ranged a cross-hatching of muddy streets, many having a vegetable plot and banana trees for a back yard, and there were wandering pigs, goats, a cantina with a hand-lettered sign above the entrance, Cantina Alhambra, and a couple of dinged-up mini-trucks, Toyotas, both painted a bilious yellow. Surmounting the hill to the east stood the most impressive of the additions – a stubby white building without windows or doors or any feature whatsoever, jutting up from the summit like a strange, geometrically precise tooth from a moldering green jaw. At the base of the hill, about one hundred feet from the edge of the village, was a long single-story structure of pink concrete block with multiple doors and windows – it brought to mind an elementary school annex.

He replaced the binoculars in their case and finished the chocolate bar. An updraft made him shiver. He pulled the cowl
of his sweatshirt over his head and zipped up his windbreaker, wishing the overcast would lift. He’d forgotten how cold it could get in the highlands. He shouldered his backpack and started down the hill, losing sight of the village once he was among the pines. With every step he felt lighter, more buoyant, as though the stupidity of what he was doing, the sheer pointlessness, somehow allayed his fears. Near the bottom of the hill he caught sight of Tres Santos again and his resolve faltered, yet not until he set foot on the dirt streets did his pace slow and weakness invade his limbs. He felt as though he were going against an invisible tide flowing in the streets, striving to bear him back among the pines. From his previous visit he surmised that the men of the village were working in the fields that terraced the gentler slopes on the opposite side of the hills, but now their absence seemed evidence of desolation. The women, who normally would wave or peek from their doorways, hid behind curtains and the one person who came forth to greet him, a naked toddler gnawing on a pulped mango, was snatched back into the shadows by his mother. No music, no chatter. Tension was a stench into which the smells of ordure and diesel fuel and cookery were folded.

The Cantina Alhambra was dingy and cramped, with plaster walls adorned by a religious calendar and the framed photo of an elderly Mayan man in a shabby suit coat posing stiffly for the camera – a black crepe ribbon cut diagonally across a corner of the frame. Three wooden tables and eight chairs were scattered about, and fencing off the rear of the room was a crudely carpentered counter behind which stood a pretty girl of fifteen or sixteen with an impassive air, glossy wings of hair falling down her back, and strong Mayan features. She wore a white
huipil
with a pattern of embroidered roses across her breasts. At her rear was a doorway covered by a red-and-white checkered plastic curtain. She spoke neither English nor Spanish, only Mam, the language of the region, and Snow was forced to pantomime his desire for coffee. She produced a bottle of beer and a dusty glass. Snow decided it wasn’t worth the effort to attempt a more accurate definition of his needs. He carried the beer to one of the tables and sat with his back against the wall, looking out
at the empty street, now and again glancing at the girl, who swiped idly at the countertop with a rag.

Sipping the tepid beer failed to improve his outlook. He’d wait here fifteen minutes, he decided, no more, and then walk about the village, see what developed. And then, depending on his state of mind, he would either approach the pink building – the whorehouse, he suspected – or he would get the hell out of Dodge. At the moment he leaned toward the latter. He had satisfied his commitment, he told himself. It had been without any real purpose, a romantic gesture, a sop to his conscience, a token idiocy. Now that he had come to Tres Santos and found nothing of consequence, seen nothing that bore upon Guillermo or the skull or anything in his past, he could go home with a clear conscience.

Wherever home might be.

He lifted the bottle to his lips and a slim, pale, diminutive man emerged from the back room, pushing aside the plastic curtain. In his early thirties by the look of him, the same height as the girl, at least a head shorter than Snow, with barbered dark brown hair and a loose-fitting, button-less white shirt woven of coarse cloth. He had a TV actor’s plastic beauty, a clever symmetry of feature that appeared to be the work of a surgeon whose intent had been to create the face of a male doll with sharp cheekbones and a square jaw, yet one capable of simulating a feminine sensitivity, this implied by the largeness of his eyes and the fullness of his lips. He brushed the girl’s hair aside and kissed the side of her neck, putting a stamp on the nature of their relationship. He nodded pleasantly to Snow, rested his elbows on the counter, and said, ‘Doing some exploring, are you?’

Snow, flustered by the man’s sudden intrusion, aware of who he must be, said, ‘I’m sorry. What?’

‘Exploring.’ The man indicated Snow’s backpack. ‘Hiking. Taking in the scenery.’

‘Oh, right. I’m heading for Nebaj.’

‘Nebaj? What’s the attraction? Nebaj is a shithole.’

‘There’s a bus . . . to the city.’

‘Ah!’ The man stepped from behind the counter and, without
invitation, joined Snow at his table. Snow was alarmed to have him so near. The cantina seemed more cramped than before, as if the man occupied a much greater space than in actuality he did. His movements were deft, precise, yet theatrical in their precision, and his eyes looked to be set at a peculiar angle within their orbits, canted slightly downward, investing his stare with an unnerving flatness. He flicked his hand toward Snow’s bottle and said, ‘A bit early for beer, no?’

‘I wanted coffee, but I didn’t know how to ask.’

The man spoke peremptorily to the girl, who vanished into the back room, and then said brightly, ‘Coffee’s on the way. Care for some eggs, some tortillas?’

‘No, that’s . . . I’m fine.’

‘Itzel can fix you something. It’s not a problem.’

‘I’m not really hungry.’

‘Well, if you change your mind, it’s no problem.’

‘Thanks.’

Snow couldn’t place the man’s accent. It was definitely not Temalaguan. Possibly some place farther to the south. Argentina or Chile.

‘You know,’ the man said. ‘You look familiar.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t think you look familiar to me? That’s quite a presumption.’

‘I meant, I don’t believe we’ve met.’

‘I didn’t say we’d met.’ The man’s voice held an ounce of irritation and Snow had the impression that he was seething with anger, that anger was his base emotion.

Itzel returned with a tray bearing a jar of instant coffee, another of Cremora, a cup of hot water and a spoon. Chickens squabbled out in the street. A pig trotted by, emitting soft, rhythmic grunts. The coffee restored Snow somewhat and he hunted about for a conversation starter, something that would lighten the mood.

‘You’ve been in my head,’ the man said.

Snow was caught off guard, perplexed by this peculiar phrasing.

‘You or someone very like you,’ the man went on. ‘I’ve been trying to remember.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course not. Why should you?’

Snow’s sense of unease spiked. ‘Look, I . . .’

‘You know who
I
am, don’t you?’

‘Maybe,’ said Snow, uncertain whether or not he could pull off an outright lie.

‘So who am I?’

‘I figure you’re the guy who lives in the big house on the hill.’

‘And you believe that because . . . ?’

‘You’re obviously not from around here and yet you act like you’re in charge.’

The man chuckled. ‘I believe you know more about me than that.’

Sitting up straight, Snow said, ‘I’m not sure what you think I know, or why you’re fucking with me. I’m just going to drink my coffee and move along.’

‘That’s a real shame. Visitors are at a premium here.’

Snow’s eyes went to Itzel. She stood with her head down, hands spread on the countertop, unmoving, as if bracing herself.

‘You ought to stay a while,’ the man said. ‘I’ll put you up at my place.’

‘That’s kind of you, but I can’t afford to miss my bus.’

‘Tres Santos may not look like much, but it offers a variety of attractions for the casual tourist. Of course the main attraction is . . .’ He performed a florid gesture, as though presenting himself to an audience. ‘Me. People come from all over to ask for my advice. I counsel them, and sometimes I put on a little show. An entertainment. It’s only an exercise routine, but I’m told it’s unique.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Snow gulped down coffee. ‘Wish I had the time.’

Without warning, the man hauled Snow’s pack over to his side of the table.

‘Hey!’ Snow made a grab for the pack, but the man fended him off. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Having a peek inside.’

The man unzipped the top of the pack and began to inspect the contents.

Snow froze – then, thinking a lack of response would lend substance to the man’s suspicion that he, Snow, knew more than he had admitted, he reached for the pack again. The man caught his wrist and squeezed until the bones ground together, causing Snow to cry out. He struggled to break free, but the man’s grip was irresistible.

‘Please don’t do that again,’ the man said, letting him go.

Snow put pressure on his wrist to quell the pain and gazed out into the street. The gray sky and reddish mud, the puddles, the houses and the portion of the hillside framed by the doorway seemed to flutter, as if all the air and every object within view were made of the same inconstant stuff and troubled by a single disturbance. He was in deep shit, now. A thrill passed through a nerve in his jaw.

The man riffled through Snow’s passport. ‘Snow,’ he said, and repeated the word a couple of times, as if amused by it. ‘George Snow.’

‘Craig,’ said Snow, speaking out of reflex.

‘It says here, George.’

‘I don’t like George. My middle name is Craig. That’s what I go by.’

‘I think George is better for you,’ said the man indifferently.

He pulled out a filthy work shirt from the pack, deposited it on the floor, and extricated a pair of jeans.

‘It’s just dirty laundry,’ Snow said, and rubbed his wrist.

‘So it would appear.’ The man searched the pockets of the jeans. ‘What’s this?’

He fingered out a pill bottle, opened it, and shook three blue capsules out into his palm. ‘These aren’t prescription, are they?’

Alarmed, first by the fact that he had brought the pills through customs unawares, and secondly because he feared the man would force him to take them, Snow finally said, ‘A woman gave them to me in Miami. I didn’t realize I had the bottle with me.’

‘It’s contraband? Drugs? Are they any good?’

‘If you like to hallucinate.’

The man studied the pills and then popped them into his mouth. After a swift internal debate, realizing that if the man felt he had been poisoned he might punish him, Snow elected to err on the side of caution.

‘If I were you I’d bring those things back up quick,’ he said. ‘The woman who gave me them, she said not to do more than one.’

The man shook out two more pills and gulped them down.

‘Jesus! You need to stick a finger down your throat. Trust me, that shit will fuck with your head!’

‘Don’t be alarmed. Nothing will happen to me.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve done a shitload of drugs and one of those pills messed me up for a more than a day.’

The man seemed to take offense at this statement and said defiantly, ‘I have a strong resistance to drugs. I could swallow them all and it wouldn’t hurt me.’

Despite the man’s confidence, Snow was unconvinced, but there was nothing for it other than to hope he knew what he was doing.

‘If they don’t affect you,’ Snow asked, ‘why take them?’

‘Sometimes they affect me – they just don’t harm me.’ The man lost interest in the pack, pushing it aside with his foot. ‘Your coffee must be getting cold. Would you care for more?’

Anything to delay, thought Snow. He needed time to think how to deal with this teensy fucker. He said he would and held up his cup to attract Itzel’s attention.

‘I have better coffee at my place.’ The man scraped back his chair. ‘Bring your pack. I’ll have someone wash your clothes.’

Hoping for guidance, Snow glanced at Itzel once again, but her eyes were glued to the countertop . . . perhaps a message in itself. He thought about taking a swing at the man, catching him by surprise, but doubted that would end well. Despite his stature, the man’s strength hinted at extreme physical competence, so running was probably out of the question.

The man preceded him into the empty street and established a brisk pace, heading for the pink building, but stopped abruptly and, putting a hand on Snow’s chest, said, ‘You know who I am. Don’t deny it.’

Snow believed that if he admitted to any knowledge, it would be a fatal misstep. He could feel his heart beating against the man’s palm. ‘I’ve never laid eyes on you before today.’

The man struck him in the face – it was a light slap of the kind used to wake someone up, but his hand felt like solid bone and the blow twisted Snow’s head around and made him take a backward step.

‘I think you have,’ said the man.

‘I swear, I’ve never seen you! I don’t know anything about you!’

The man seemed dispirited, as if he had been seeking not an admission, but rather had hoped to learn something. He started walking again, The gray light flattened things out – the hill with its two buildings resembled a painted backdrop.