The Ultimate Good Luck (20 page)

“Do you like this game?” Zago said, still engaged by the screen.

“Not much,” Quinn said. It made him uneasy to have Bernhardt behind him, and the air was too thick.

Zago looked up at him with an annoyed look. His eyes moved less quickly than his face. “Baseball?” he mumbled. “You appreciate
that
game?”

“Sure,” Quinn said.

Zago set his hands on his knees. “Una pasatiempo, nada más,” he said and shook his head. “It is not a sport,” he said. He looked up at Bernhardt as if he was disappointed.

“That’s if you don’t like it. I
like
it,” Quinn said.

“I
don’t
like it,” Zago said. His cheeks twitched. “Why do you want to have someone killed, señor?” he said.

Quinn glanced quickly at Bernhardt. Bernhardt was expressionless. “That’s not what I want,” he said. He looked at Zago again. “I want to get a guy out of the prisión. That’s it.”

“That demands that someone is killed,” Zago pronounced solemnly, staring up at him without blinking.

“Not to me it doesn’t,” Quinn said.

Zago let his thick hand rise and fall back on his thigh in exasperation. “Your friend is a goddamned son of a bitch,” he said. He caught a look at the flickering screen.

“I can’t help that,” Quinn said.

“He steals two kilos of Colombiano from me,” Zago said, still engrossed by the set.

“He
says
he got something in a hotel room and the immigration police took it off him at the airport. He said he doesn’t know how much was there.” He felt uncomfortable standing in the room with the old man paying only broken attention. It was another waste of time.

“Why would you be here, Señor Quinn, if that was so?” Zago said patiently. He placed his hand on his chest. “He received four and two are not at the air terminal. I am not wrong.”

“It’s not what he says,” Quinn said.

“And that is why you are here, Señor. Because what he says is not the truth. And you must help him.”

“Maybe your kid only delivered two,” Quinn said.

Zago looked at him and at Bernhardt, who had not uttered a
sound. “No,” Zago said wearily and shook his head. “Not possible as a thought.” He sighed. “Do you want to get your brother out of the prisión, Señor?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Quinn said. There was nothing else to say.

Zago tampered with a knob below the TV screen. The picture flopped sideways, then went right. “Then you must tell your brother to return the Colombiano, ahorita. Quickly.” He nodded at his own words.

“What if you’re wrong?” Quinn said.

“Then your brother will be in the prisión until someone kills him. And that will not be too long.” Zago’s fingers fidgeted on his legs. “Señor Bernhardt is a good lawyer. But he cannot make miracles.”

“What about Deats?” he said. He was trying to locate Bernhardt in the transaction now, figure just when in the scheme Bernhardt had come to seem like a good idea to Zago.

“Mr. Deats has difficulties,” Zago said softly. “He can go on with his difficulties or we can stop them tonight. Depende.”

Zago was going to kill Deats no matter what, he could just take his time or hurry. That was all it came to. Whether Zago hurried or didn’t hurry. It was simple.

“And what if I don’t convince him?” Quinn said.

“I think he will be reasonable,” Zago said. “He will speak honestly to you.
I
have convinced him.” Zago stood. He wasn’t as big as the impression he gave sitting down, he was only slow and heavy-boned. “When I am young,” he said expansively, “I am myself a socialista, like you, like my wife.” He smiled as if the thought both pleased him and amused him. He put both his hands under his suspenders. “It is in my heart. But I found out it is necessary to work to live. My son is now at Stanford.” Bernhardt was opening the door behind them. He had not spoken. Zago extended his thick hand. “Happy dreams, Señor.” He smiled. “Y buena suerte.”

Something had been decided, and he wanted it clear. “What about Deats?” he said.

“Do not worry about Señor Deats,” Zago said consolingly. “He is no longer your problem. He is mine, now. And I will protect you.” He held out his hand and Quinn put his in Zago’s large warm palm. Nothing felt under his control. All his choices were made for him. Sonny had the only option that mattered anymore, and that was exactly, he figured, the way God intended it.

R
AE STOOD BESIDE
the Mercedes, waiting for Bernhardt. Quinn stood in the middle of the court, watching the garage door. There was a chill now that the floodlights couldn’t warm, but he didn’t want to get in the car yet. He was working through Sonny in his mind, figuring just exactly what the responsibilities were, at what point you had to bolt. Sonny was stringing it all out and he was having to put it back right. And that made him feel stupid and mad.

“Zago’s wife fucks Bernhardt,” Rae said calmly, tapping her fingers on the hood of the car.

“Is that it?” he said.

“It’s like he wants to believe she won’t surprise him anymore,” she said. “Except it worries him. It’s real queer. Maybe it’s just Mexicans.”

“Did you like the paintings?” he said. There was no use talking about it. If Bernhardt wanted to put that up as earnest money he could. Somebody always fucked somebody else, but nobody gave a shit.

Rae thought about the paintings for a moment. “They were just therapy,” she said without an edge. “She wanted to know if I loved you. She asked me if I thought love was visible and uncontingent. Isn’t that sweet?”

“What was your opinion?”

Rae turned toward the open end of the court where nothing was visible in the darkness. The question seemed to have an extra dimension. “I told her it was. I didn’t really take to her.” Rae seemed isolated in the court, almost unreachable. “What was Zago like?” she said.

“A grocer,” he said. “A fat old grocer.”

“His wife’s much younger,” she said.

The door opened and the Mexican in white shoes leaned out, holding the knob. Bernhardt emerged after him, and Quinn began walking toward the car.

“Sonny’s such an asshole,” Rae said. She was looking at where the stars should’ve been.

“We’re way past that now,” Quinn said.

“But I want you to know I know it,” she said and took his arm. “My motives weren’t very pure; you’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“I’ve always suspected it,” he said. He opened the back door to let her in the car.

The lights at the army inspection had been turned out. Soldiers still lingered in the shadows, drinking mescal and gazing into the dark. Low lights glittered across the fields where the marginales had settled. Their effect was of great inertia, of no life, like a photo negative held to a dim light.

Bernhardt took a drink from his bottle and gave it over. The air in the car was cool. Rae had gone to sleep on the back seat.

“What is it like to wait?” Bernhardt said. He seemed at ease and drove with his elbow out the window.

“It’s boring,” Quinn said, “mucho boring.” The mescal made a warm place in his gut. It was smart to use it now. It would make him sleep without pills. Mescal was the pure distillate of drunkenness, and that’s what he wanted. It was worth risking bad dreams.

“Fastidioso,” Bernhardt corrected and smiled. “In Spanish, means to be too careful. Maybe you are too careful, see too narrowly.” Bernhardt looked out at the black highway. He was cheerful. “Your wife is beautiful, you have nice memories together, your senses are engaged, you should take pleasure in what’s pleasurable, not be bored.”

“Is that what you do?”

“If I can,” Bernhardt said agreeably. “It is a way to take perspective on good and evil.”

“O.K., so what’s evil?” Quinn said.

Bernhardt looked at him as if he should know the answer. “Feeling so bad,” he said and smiled.

“And what’s so good?”

“Not feeling so bad,” Bernhardt said, smiling more broadly. “I don’t think that’s the way you see it.” Bernhardt looked at him as though it was a joke.

“Was it tough finding me?” Quinn said.

The car neared the first confluence of city streets. Vapor lights drifted up the periférico, but there was no traffic. The empty boulevard opened wide and gaseous into the distance. The city was sealed. Bernhardt took his pistol from under the dash and put it inside his shirt. “You found me, I think,” he said. “No?”

“I want to know what your part is in all this, all right?” Quinn said. He wanted, for once, to see all the lines run back to origin. It was just a matter of seeing it done. That was all you could get out of it now.

“I am like you,” Bernhardt said briskly. He fingered the frame of his glasses so that they sat higher on his nose. “In by accidence.”

“You’re not Zago’s man?”

“I work for you,” Bernhardt said confidently. “You find that impossible?”

“You didn’t know Sonny was asshole deep in with Zago? I’m supposed to conclude that?” He had hoped Bernhardt wouldn’t run it back this way.

“You pay me for what I know, Mr. Quinn,” Bernhardt said. “It’s possible to know a thing, suspect a thing, but not to be compromised.” He looked across the car amiably.

“Why make me see that boy, then?” Quinn said.

“For me,” Bernhardt said quietly. “I told you. You are in Vietnam, but this is a different thing. You need to
see
what you are involved in here. It’s better.” Bernhardt’s eyes were bright and glimmering. He took another strong drink of mescal. “You say you like to see things. You should trust me,” he said and smiled.

“Why did Zago zap him?” Quinn said.

“Señor Deats,” Bernhardt said authoritatively.

“Then how did you even know about it?”

“Someone says to me, there is a boy who is injured in the cabañas, I should be interested. It is a gesture. Señor Deats and Señor Zago have difficulties. I don’t know about them very much.”

“So what’s the mechanism?” Quinn said.

“Señor Zago trusts you,” Bernhardt said. “Your wife’s brother will be released, put to an airplane, and you will return to Señor Zago what he asks for. No holdups.”

“I trade myself, then,” Quinn said.

Bernhardt seemed sympathetic.
“Sí
. But. Then you will be asked to trust your amigo and not the dueño. He understands that. That is better too.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then you should leave the country now,” Bernhardt said. “I wouldn’t blame you. You owe nothing to me.”

It seemed like the point he’d been working down to the whole time, the point of taking Sonny’s place, some necessary penance.

“Do you recognize the woman?” Bernhardt said. He seemed pleased with himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn said.

Bernhardt looked at the periférico without interest. “In the mansión. The woman there?”

“I didn’t recognize anybody,” Quinn said.

“Bueno,” Bernhardt said, and turned off the periférico up into
the dark streets toward the Centro. They passed the calle de putas. Rae was sleeping still. Bernhardt glanced sideways, but the street was empty, and there were no lights burning along the little block of whores’ cribs. “But you do see what I risk for you, though. You see that? It’s as if we are friends.”

“Sure,” Quinn said. “That’s great.”

“That’s all that matters to me,” Bernhardt said. “That’s enough. Tell me what you dream about, Señor Quinn.”

“Getting out of here,” Quinn said. “I don’t have room for anything else.”

T
WO WOMEN SAT
in the Portal de Flores, drinking beers and talking in the blue fluorescence. They looked like English women. Something in the way they sat in their chairs, too straight, holding their beers with their fingers extended. The Centro was empty except for a few police and the soldiers in campaign coats shadowing the street corners. As they passed it, Quinn peered in through the pink, Moorish arches of the Monte Albán, where they would be in an hour. He thought, for some reason, he might see Deats there. Lights inside were blue and filmy, and he could see into the atrium, the skeletal dining tables set in lines. Nobody moved and there was nothing else to see.

“I need to telephone,” Bernhardt said in a businesslike way. “Then I drive to get your luggage.”

Bernhardt didn’t notice the soldiers. He turned past the university buildings up Cinco de Mayo and rolled noisily up the cobbles.

The streetlights here were pale and gauzy. A dim, prestorm clarity froze the façades and made the sky flat and seamless. There were no cars on the street and no one was walking. When the Mercedes stopped, the street was silent and Quinn listened for sounds in either direction and heard nothing until the air softly began a low sibilance that covered everything, like the night expiring.

“Momentito,” Bernhardt said. He smiled at Rae on the seat, and got out. He unlatched the steel shutters on his office, pushed up the door, and walked inside, switching on the lights.

The rooster and the carne carbón were gone. A scrim of papers was wadded against the façade, with the rock that had kept the rooster in its place used to hold the papers down. He watched Bernhardt at his desk, dialing the phone, looking silently out at the car. He could remember catching a frog in the saw grass along the Boardman River and bringing it home while his mother slept and letting it sit a long time in a pan of water on the back porch of the first house his father rented when they left the farm. He let the frog stay in the pan until late afternoon, when the frog had accustomed itself to the house air and grown calm. And when the frog stopped paddling and began to sit still for minutes at a time, he carried the pan in the house and down the hall to the kitchen and set it on the gas and lit the ring at the lowest flutter of flame and stood beside the stove and waited. The water in the pan began to heat at once, though the flame was low and the change was gradual. The frog sat in the water and looked up at him calmly and didn’t move. And little by little, he turned the knob and watched the flame fatten and turn bluer and the frog sit in the warming water looking out, blinking and breathing, though never moving, until suddenly a fizz sparked the edge of the water, and he saw that the frog would sit and stare out past the time when it could move even if it needed to, and he took the pan off the flame and held it under the kitchen tap and watched the frog blink and blink, its mouth opening a little and closing, beginning to paddle about until it could escape if the danger was from drowning and not from boiling. He thought later the frog in the pan was an illustration of how people let certain things they’re used to go on so long that they don’t know that the things they’re used to are killing them. And he wondered now, sitting in Bernhardt’s car, just when that point exactly was, and how you knew when it was close to you, and in the rare event you did know or could guess right, just what you did to keep yourself from getting burned.