The Lonely Silver Rain (12 page)

"Look out!"

"Jesus Christ, McGee! I saw him. I wasn't going to run into him."

A pair of toucans flew over the road twenty feet high and a hundred feet ahead of us. They fly with their bills hanging down. They make little irregular swoops as they fly. They do not look as if they really enjoyed getting around that way. Their breast is of the interior colors of their favorite diet, papaya.

"So what makes you so happy Browder?"

"The Old-timers against the New Boys. It is going to be tough to split them up because they are both antsy about the Canadians moving into the Miami area. Canadian mobs. But this whole thing about the girl from Peru offended the New Boys. Latin heritage and all. So when they find out she was raped and killed by the son of one of the Old-timers, and the Old-timers have been trying to throw you to the Peruvians to get the pressure off and save their kinfolk, it isn't going to sit too well. Shake the tree and things fall down."

And so we went skimming up the rough and narrow highway to Cancun, passing the trucks and buses at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, the hot wind whipping at us. Browder hummed happily over the sounds of wind and engine and from time to time he would laugh.

"If they found out you're in drug enforcement, what would happen?"

"It would depend on how much they think I know. Maybe only a good thumping by persons unknown. Or maybe I would drive into a canal."

"Rough way to live, isn't it?"

"I came looking for it. We've got a fifteen-year-old daughter-no, she's, sixteen now-she OD'd on some kind of a crazy mix of speed and horse two years ago. The high school was full of it. She passed out and in the hospital she stopped breathing, but they got her going again, except she's a vegetable. She used to be a pretty girl. Our marriage wasn't solid enough to handle that. So I'm undercover and my ex-wife teaches in night school so she can spend more time with Nan. What I want to do, one way or another, is nail some of the sanctimonious bastards who control the drug trade without ever getting their hands dirty. When you make any kind of a case against one of them and by some miracle get a conviction, the appeal procedures take five to seven years, and if guilty is still the verdict, they spend ten months in a federal country club. The ones we haul in are the people who bring the product in and handle it and peddle it. They get the long sentences and they can be replaced overnight. What I want to see is a nice drug war. Like six or eight years ago. Car bombs, fire bombs, bodies in the trunks of Cadillacs. Important bodies."

"What's going to happen with me, Browder?"

"As soon as I can spread the word, they will be off your case."

"How soon will that be?"

"I'm working on how I should do it."

"Don't let me spoil your concentration."

The jungle grew deep on both sides of the road, grew tall right up to the edges of the two traffic lanes, a green blur as we sped past. From time to time we came to a tall stick with something on top of it, a marker for the path that would lead back to one of the jungle huts of the descendants of the Maya. On top of the stick would be a piece of plastic, a tire, a celluloid doll or a beer can. Buzzards circled aloft, dipping down to chomp the slain creatures on the concrete.

Browder was a fast driver and not a good driver. He would get too close to a slow-moving vehicle before edging out to take a look down the highway. When he passed he cut in quickly even with nothing approaching and nothing bullying him from behind. The expert driver moves out into the passing lane when he is at least fifteen car lengths from the vehicle he is passing. Then he can move back without haste if it is not a good time to pass. Once by, he makes his angle of return to his lane as long and gradual as is consistent with what is ahead of and behind him. The good driver takes his foot off the gas when there is anything ahead he does not understand. We came to a place where big green branches had been cut and put in the oncoming lane. it was a warning. There was a disabled VW camper with branches in the road behind it as well, a hundred yards, and more from the camper. Browder didn't slow. As we approached at high speed he saw a tanker truck beginning to turn out to pass the camper. It was coming toward us. Browder accelerated and got as far to the right as he could. We brushed the jungle as we sped by the big high bumper of the tanker truck. Browder yelled curses. "Goddamn maniac truck driver!" he hollered.

I said, "You are a rotten driver." This is like telling someone he has no sense of humor, or that he's a poor judge of character.

"I am an excellent driver!" he said. "Excellent! What's wrong with you?"

"I know. You've never had a serious accident."

"Never!"

"Then you are a very lucky man. You are a rotten driver. You are a hazard on the road. You go too fast for conditions. You don't know how to pass. You don't slow down when you should. You want everybody to get out of your way."

After he stopped being very, very angry he said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Absolutely. And I don't want to be found dead in this comedy outfit."

"Want to drive?"

"Soon as you can find a place to get off the road and I can get these boots off."

"And then I'll tell you what's wrong with your driving, McGee."

Always eager to learn."

I had discarded the hat, which had cost me thirty-three dollars. I had put it on the head of a twelve-year-old Mexican, to his infinite delight. The imitation-lizard boots I left under the bed, after I had bought sandals at a hotel shop. I kept the eye patch in my pocket, but I don't know why. I thought if I saw Nancy Sheppard again by the pool, I would present her with the damn ugly thing. Anyway, I was a lot less conspicuous. Which was, as it turned out, a good thing.

The line seemed endless. When I stood tall I could see that after the payment of departure tax, the carryons went through a security X ray, and once cleared you carried them on into some sort of big lounge with plastic chairs to await the announcement of your flight.

No matter how many times you vow you will never stand in line again for anything, you get trapped. The lighting inside the big terminal was dim. The brighter light was at the check-in counters and outside the glass doors over on the other side of the big room we were in.

I was a half step ahead of Browder. He was close and to my left. Beyond him were a man and a woman, short and smiling, wearing identical yellow shirts which said "I Love Cancun," They were kicking a duffel bag and an imitation Gucci suitcase ahead of them.

Browder lurched against me and clutched at my left arm. I thought he had tripped over his carryon. As I turned to steady him, his grasp loosened and he slipped away from me, and fell loosely, facedown, limbs sprawling. He had bought a pale gray guayabera shirt that morning in the hotel shop where I bought the sandals. It was nailed to the left side of his back, fairly low but angled upward; by something that had a narrow three-inch handle wrapped in black electrician's tape. There was a spreading red stain around the point of entry. His carryon was gone. I could not see anyone leaving in a hurry. The people behind him looked absolutely normal and quite horrified.

A woman screamed. I put my fingertips on the absolute silence of his throat. He seemed to settle more closely to the floor. "Who did it?" I asked the people who'd been behind us.

"Who did it? Who knows? Somebody hurrying. I didn't look."

There were sharp whistles and the security guards came on the run. The people closest to it had moved back away from the body. Then the line continued. It merely curved around the fallen man, everybody on their way to pay their six hundred pesos, catch their flight. They kicked their luggage along. I wore my carryon with my elbow clamped down on it. I edged into the moving line a little ahead of where I had been. "Wasn't that man with you?" a woman asked me. "No. We were just chatting."

"What happened back there?" a man asked. "Somebody fainted. Some man," the woman said.

I had made my choice just quickly enough: I looked back. The police were stopping people, hauling them back to the scene of the crime and trying to interrogate them. It was obvious that El Brujo, a very serious man, had decided to cut the loss he had suffered. Or one of his people, Martin or the man with the weapon, had decided that the money would be worth some risk. Browder had come to make the buy, so he would be the one with the money, too bulky to wear in a money belt. I could feel the book through the canvas of my carryon. They would expect Browder to have the money. Even though I did not think they would risk a second chance as soon as they discovered they were wrong, I was anxious to get past Security and into the departure lounge.

Browder had made his own life decisions. He had taken his own risks. He had bought his own ticket. Nothing would be gained by my hanging around. And if I did, I might be invited to join Browder. I had not liked the man, even though I respected his dedication and his courage. In spite of all my rationalizations, in spite of all my very good reasons for melting into the crowd and fading away, I still felt chickenshit about it. It didn't help at all to realize that I was doing exactly what Browder would have done had the narrow blade punched into my heart with equal professionalism of thrust and angle. Staying would have done absolutely no good at all. But it would have felt better than leaving. Once through Security I found an empty chair that backed up to a wall. There I pretended to read the book I had picked up at the hotel newsstand. I had gotten to the part where a buried cat came back to life, but couldn't walk well.

Two official-looking men came in and stood looking carefully around at the people waiting. I tried to make myself a size smaller. They gave it a good long look and went out. My flight was called. I had no boarding pass and so I was stopped at the glass doorway. There were about a dozen of us.

A flight attendant came out to the head of the ladderway from inside the aircraft and held up four fingers. The man at the doorway waved and she went back. "Broo-dare? Broo-dare?" he called out, looking inquisitively at us. No luck. Broodare was not answering any more calls. Not on this earth.

"McGay?" he said. "McGay?"

I showed him my ticket and he gave me a boarding pass. I got on and the attendant said, "Thirty-one C, sir."

Three abreast. I was on the aisle, next to a bald priest who was next to a fat brassy blonde in the window seat. I kept willing the airplane off the ground. I kept trying to make myself a few pounds lighter. After an interminable time we trundled out to the runway, lumbered down to the end, turned, came back and suddenly broke free, rising and turning, looking down to see the white lines of beaches, jumbles of concrete, blue sea, green jungle, cars and buses crawling.

It was full dark by the time I boarded my houseboat. I checked my security system and then felt for the lock with the key. I unlocked it and then when I put my hand on the latch, I yanked it back quickly. I thought I had put my hand over some sort of large bristly bug on the latch. I moved to the side so my shadow wouldn't be on the latch. And I saw that it was a stick figure of a cat made of pipe cleaners. This one was blue and it was taped to the latch. I pulled it free when I went in, and I put it with the other one I had found. There was an innocence about the cats, but at the same time a sinister flavor. They did not represent somebody having fun. Communication is a process of interpreting symbols. Words are symbols. Gestures and gifts and touchings are symbols. In any life we misinterpret more than we should, perhaps because our deepest intentions are at odds with the messages we project. The cats bothered me because they touched a memory I could not completely unearth. I could see an edge of it, but I could not make out the whole. It was a fossil, deep in my geology, a stratum long covered.

I had no wish to turn on lights. I was thirsty. I found the water jug in the refrigerator and drank directly from the jug, deep and long. Then I stripped off what was left of my clown suit with the pearl buttons and the oversized zippers. The shirt smelled of airplane, of people jammed into an airless intimacy for too long-tobacco smoke, perfume, beer, engine oil and sweat.

I stretched out on my double-king bed, hands laced behind my head, looking up at the dark overhead. Somebody came burbling into their slip, and the Busted Flush heaved a little, sighed a little, as the slow bow wave carne by. A line creaked, and something in the galley tinkled. I felt grainy and spent. Tongue tip found the edge of a questionable tooth. A cramp began to knot my right calf and so with thumb and forefinger I pinched my nose shut with considerable force and held the pressure until the cramp faded away. A Chinese solution. Acupressure, just as steady pressure at the right point on the inside of the wrist, three finger widths from the heel of the hand, will inhibit nausea.

Another surge moved the Flush. In the sense of movement a boat is a living thing. It is a companion in the night. Each boat has its own manner and character. The Flush is an amiable, stubborn old brute. Like a fat dog, she can be made to run, but not for very long, and then will pretend more exhaustion than she feels.

My mind wheeled in concentric circles until, with nowhere else to go, it lit on Browder. I got up and turned a light on to find the phone number I had scribbled. I dialed it. A voice answered as before, repeating the last four digits of the number. A male voice with a robotic tinniness to it, like a talking toy.

I said, "Scott Ellis Browder was knifed to death in the Cancian airport at one-fifteen today." There was no answer. I wondered if anybody had heard me. And then a voice said, in a low heavy tone full of exhaustion and despair, "Oh shit!" And the connection was broken.

I wondered what Browder's real name had been. I wondered what agency he was on loan from. I would have given odds of seven to three that when he died, it would have been on the highway, passing something at the wrong time and place.

I was trying to make myself get up, take a shower, brush teeth, when I fell asleep. When I woke up a little before four in the morning, a stiff wind was whining through the boat basin and the Flush was making small erratic motions as it snubbed against the lines. And I was frozen. One of those wintertime slabs of Siberia had come sliding down into South Florida, freezing the citrus and strawberries, puckering the tourist skin, whitecapping the bays and emptying the beaches.

I got an extra blanket, got shivering into the bed and pulled the covers over me. The cold had awakened me from a dream. I had been in a poker game at an oval table, with the center green-shaded light hung so low I could not make out the faces of the men at the table. They all wore dark clothing. The game was three-card draw, jacks to open. They were red Bicycle cards. Every time I picked up my five cards, I found the faces absolutely blank. Just white paper. I wanted to complain about this, but for some reason I was reluctant. I threw each hand in, blank faces up, hoping they would notice. All the rest of the cards were normal. I could see that each time a winner exposed his hand. There was a lot of betting, all in silence. A lot of money. And then I picked up one hand and found they were real cards. I did not sort them. I never sort poker hands or bridge hands. The act gives too much away to an observant opponent. I had three kings of clubs and two jacks of diamonds. In the dream I did not think this odd. They were waiting for me to bet when the cold woke me up. In the dream I had been shivering with the tension of having a good hand. The shivering was real.

It was the coldest morning I could remember in Fort Lauderdale. I dug out my old black leather jacket, rock-climbing trousers and watch cap. The tops of my ears felt good tucked into the watch cap. People were standing around in wonder looking at the frost on the bushes, and huffing so they could see their breath before the wind whipped it away. And the wind had also whipped all the urban smutch out to sea, all the stink of diesel, gasoline, chemicals and garbage fires, leaving a sky so blue it was like the sky of childhood.

Ever since I had awakened I had a picture that flashed into my mind and winked out, over and over, a slide projector inside my head with but one slide. It showed Browder with his right cheek against the tile, his mouth and eyes half open. It showed the pattern of his hair in the left sideburn and at the nape of his neck. It showed the shape of his ear, and it showed my hand reaching into the frame to rest my fingertips against the left side of his throat. It is a very quick way. It snaps a man from life into death. When the heart is stopped with such brutal precision, blood flow ceases and the brain stops making its electrical images and all the muscles go slack. So he was Browder walking and three seconds later he was dead meat on the floor and somebody, in a hurry, was leaving the terminal with his carryon.

If I were king of the country I would decree that on a certain date, three months hence, all green money in denominations of twenty dollars and up would become valueless. Everyone possessing that money could, during the three months, bring it in and exchange it for orange-colored money. One exchange per person. Bring in all your cash, and if you have more than one thousand dollars, fill out a form explaining where you got it and how long you'd had it. There's untold billions of sleazy money out there. Untold billions that would never be turned in because possession of it cannot be explained. Bureaucracy gone quite mad, of course. But then we would be starting over, and because the gangster types would be afraid it could happen again, they would be wary about too much accumulation. By simple bookkeeping you could compute the unreturned green money and figure it as a deduction from the federal deficit, as though it had been a contribution to the government. Which, of course, it would be-as any piece of currency is a claim against the government, against society.

I tried this on Meyer at Sunday breakfast. He peered across the table at me as if he thought I had lost my wits. As an economist, he was appalled. "Please stick with what you know. Please," he said.

"If Archimedes had stuck with what…"

"McGee, listen. It is the anticipation of the declining value of money that triggers inflation. If the public anticipated that money would be worth nothing in three months, they would spend it. And they would make it come true. Too much money after too few goods."

"But…"

"Please. Your motives are pure. Your monetary knowledge is infantile. Don't spoil my hash browns. If you want to be serious about it, I will loan you some texts."

"I just stopped being serious."