The Ultimate Good Luck (26 page)

Quinn tried to think if this was a boy he’d seen her with in the Portal. “This’ll do,” Quinn said. “Let’s just get on with it.”

Muñoz’s eyes darted at the ceiling, then back as if he had avoided saying something. Quinn could see high on the walls, but not low. They were white with no windows, though most of the studio felt behind him. The lantern hissed and Muñoz took a firm breath. “Your brother is in the cárcel?” he said softly.

“Right,” Quinn said.

Muñoz’s eyes trained on him thoughtfully. “It is a terrible place,” he said.

“In a world of bad places,” Quinn said.

Muñoz thought a moment, then smiled appreciatively. “Is true. But I can bring him out for you. It is not difficult.”

“That’s odd,” Quinn said, “because it’s been really difficult for me so far. You understand?”

“My brother is the guardia,” Muñoz said with authority. Muñoz was a student. He had that bullshit unassailable certainty about him. “So it is possible to let your brother out,” he said, “and to take him where it is safe.” Muñoz’s eyes held steady. You couldn’t know what that steadiness meant, except he was eager.

“Where’s safe?” Quinn said.

“Las montañas,” Muñoz said. “Hay muchas lugares. There are many places safe there.” Muñoz looked confidentially at Susan Zago.

“What do
you
want?” Quinn said.

Susan Zago translated.

“Money,” Muñoz said, and looked serious.

“How much?” Quinn said.

“In dólares,” Muñoz said. He paused a moment to think. “Five thousand,” he said firmly. “There is the risk. It is more.”

“When would it take place?” he said.

“You don’t have time to wait, do you?” Susan Zago said abruptly. She stepped out of the dark.

“I’ll find time,” he said.

“Esta noche,” Muñoz said quickly.

“And I pay when he’s out, right?” He guessed the answer, but he wanted to hear it.

“No,” Muñoz said emphatically. “You pay now.” He blinked several times.

“Half. And half when he’s safe,” Quinn said.

Muñoz looked at Susan Zago oddly, as though he had failed a connection. She spoke something in quick Spanish, and Muñoz held the lantern higher so that the kerosene smell became richer. “You must trust us,” Muñoz said. His eyes flickered but he wasn’t angry. “I will show you.” Muñoz stepped past into the dark half of the studio.

Quinn was aware of the rain beating on a skylight at the end of the room. Muñoz stepped toward the far wall, holding the lantern up, until the yellow began to illuminate something unusual he could only partly see. Muñoz came near whatever it was and the light clarified a shape wrapped in clear plastic, leaned against a wood chair. Behind the chair several framed canvases were stacked against the wall. One he could see was of a terrace over-looking a harbor with pennants flying at the edge of the blue water.

“See,” Muñoz said, and pulled away the plastic. Deats was in the chair. Muñoz folded the plastic so that Deats’ head was exposed. A purple bump spoiled the middle of Deats’ smooth forehead. His eyes were half-open, and his arms had been tied back with cloth, and blood had come out his nose and run into his mouth. Muñoz stared at Deats appraisingly, then looked up at Quinn with confidence. “Es Señor Deats,” he said in a proud whisper. He held the lantern near Deats’ face so that the light made Deats’ khaki skin shine, then held it up again in the dark.

“You’re showing this to the wrong customer,” Quinn said. Deats wasn’t different from any other dead man, just nothing there. But
he didn’t want to look at Deats again, and the entire room seemed different, as if it had suddenly become too familiar.

“It’s what you paid for,” Susan Zago said flatly. “It’s what Carlos was arranging for you.”

“Sometimes it is necessary to kill someone,” Muñoz said, standing holding the lantern. “So you must trust us now,” he said.

He realized everyone was offering pledges of steadfastness all of a sudden. “Let’s just get the fuck on with this.” He turned back to Muñoz.

“Pay us now,” Muñoz said. He held the lantern in front of him. “It is business.”

“You bet,” Quinn said.

Susan Zago said something in Spanish. Muñoz stopped walking and frowned at her as if she had suggested something that insulted him. He looked at Quinn, then reached suddenly for his pistol with the lantern hand. The glass chimney swagged his leg and the bail caught the hammer, and Muñoz peered down at it oddly as if he didn’t understand the mechanics of it. Quinn already had his gun in both hands, pointing at Muñoz’s shirt pocket. The lantern jigged up and down as Muñoz carefully unclasped the bail from the hammer.

“Don’t do that,” Quinn yelled. He couldn’t think of the right Spanish words and it made him feel stupid, as if he wasn’t going to be able to make the boy understand before he had to shoot him.

“No, no,” Susan Zago said. She extended both hands, palms out. Her face was panicky. “Basta, querido mio,” she said. She looked at Quinn beseechingly. “He’s just a baby,” she said. “He isn’t doing this right, please. You haven’t given him a chance.”

Muñoz looked up at her and pursed his lips tightly. Her alarm seemed to disappoint him, and he looked womanly, like someone caught impersonating a man.

“Tell him just leave the fucking gun alone,” Quinn yelled. He heard footsteps outside and squeezed on the grips. Muñoz stared at the pistol pointing at him, then raised his own slowly. “Come
on, for Christ’s sake,” Quinn said, and he shot Muñoz high in the chest.

Susan Zago screamed. Quinn got himself turned quickly in the direction of the door, the pistol out in front of him. He couldn’t see Muñoz, he couldn’t take his eyes off the door. He couldn’t release a breath and get another one, and he had the fear that Muñoz was going to shoot him. Susan Zago stood up in the dark. “You fuck. God damn you fuck,” she screamed, and the door opened behind her. A body came into the frame very low, and there was a yellow and red flash and the room was full of noise, and Susan Zago was in silhouette, then knocked sideways as though someone had grabbed her shoulder and flung her out of the way. He put three rounds into the door opening and slid sideways, and whatever had been in the door went out and something metal hit on the floor, then everything stopped. Susan Zago was lying on her stomach in front of him, not moving or making a breathing sound. Muñoz began jabbering in Spanish, his face to the floor, the lantern leaking fluid so that a flame began to travel on the tiles. There was the hot metal smell in the air, and Quinn had a roaring in his ears, as though he was dying and could hear it coming. He pushed back to the wall and waited for the boy outside. He put the gun exactly where he had it before and let himself slide so that he was aiming the pistol up through his bent legs. Muñoz kept jabbering for a minute, then suddenly took a deep exhausted breath and exhaled in a way that made his lips flutter, and then he was quiet and the room was quiet.

He needed out, though he wasn’t sure yet who was outside or how even to get to the door. There was a strong kerosene smell in the room now. Muñoz’s pants had caught fire and begun to burn with a lazy yellow flame, and Quinn wanted outside before the flame lit the room. He pushed away from the wall and rolled toward the door. It was raining, and he couldn’t hear a small sound distinctly. There was a machine gun on the floor, and when he looked through the door he saw someone was lying against the stone balustrade. The rain made a soughing noise
and beat loudly on the skylight inside. He got on his stomach, squirmed onto the gallery facing the way he had come, and rolled behind the dead man. The dead man was the boy who had killed Bernhardt, his slick hair and the soft features slightly disarranged. The boy still smelled like disinfectant. He had been shot in the neck and the flesh of his arm was torn and he felt soft. His glasses were still on. Quinn peered up over the boy’s chest toward the steps. There was no way to see both ends of the gallery, and there was no way to tell which direction anyone would take around the paseo. He waited what felt like ten minutes to see a movement. Water drained off the baluster and washed blood down the front of the dead boy’s shirt, and Quinn realized if he lay any longer he would get caught in the building and somebody would shoot him.

He got on his feet and crept low along the balcony, gun out in front of him, and came round the steps. No one was there, though a gun was on top of the baluster. He knelt against the cold stone and listened for anything, the sound of footsteps or sirens or whistles or an engine in the street, and he could hear nothing to believe someone was coming or that the commotion had been noticed at all. He stood and looked down the second tier of the building through the rain and dark, and could see nothing. The door to the studio was invisible and nothing seemed out of order. Everything was just as it had been for ten minutes.

He walked down into the open court where the light was grainy, and through the archway to the street. He looked out the entry down Bustamante. He could see the glare of blue lights where the truck repairs were still working, but there were no figures in between. He stepped into the cool street, the gun in his shirt, and walked toward Susan Zago’s car. It was a shuck, all of it, but you just couldn’t tell from the outside. You had to go all the way inside to find that out, like Bernhardt had said, and then you were in too deep. He thought about Bernhardt saying how much everybody wanted to please his wife, and that the guerrillas never pleased and never
got
pleased. Muñoz, he imagined, had probably
never been really pleased in his life, but still managed to look spoiled and disappointed when he got lit up, as if it was the first time in his life things had ever gone really bad, and he didn’t like it. He’d probably been coping real well, Quinn thought, until that very moment.

At the corner of Jiquilipán a mound of garbage was piled outside a vegetable market. A movie was letting out up the street, the lights on the marquee yellow and flatted by the rain. The movie was playing
The Sound of Music
.

Everything seemed let out, all the tricks, and it was stupid to have a gun now. He looked down the empty street, then took the gun and pushed it in with the soft vegetable mulch as far as his arm would go, then started quickly up Jiquilipán without looking in any other direction but the one he was going. He wondered, as he walked, if he’d perfected something in himself by killing three people he didn’t know, when he had come at the beginning, simply to save one, and if now he had pleased anybody anywhere. Though he thought if he hadn’t pleased anybody, at least he’d tried to, and had performed it under control, and he hadn’t coped so bad all by himself at the end. He thought, in fact, that he’d done fine.

T
WO MEN HAD BEGUN
dismantling a Willys in the street at 2:00
A.M
. One stood while the other pried at the fenders with an iron bar, like a cow being skinned, then the duties were reversed. There was no reason for it Quinn could see, but they were making a big racket in the street. A blue bus sat in front of the government palacio, a black 8 painted on its roof. A pair of the white puttee soldiers stood in the zócalo watching the men peeling metal off the jeep, though after a time they wandered away into the shadows of the Portal and became invisible. The rain had quit and water had collected on the concrete promenades, and crows were asleep in the jacarandas. He sat at the window and watched the Centro for any activity he could feature as significant, but there wasn’t any. He had taken too many pills now and he felt dead inside.

He had checked at the administración for a call from the consulate, but there had been none. He had gone back to the room, undressed, and gotten in the shower to wash the garbage off his arms, and for a long time he stood in the warm water and trembled until the water overcame the cold feeling and until he thought the worst of it was over. It was soldier shakes, and they always went away.

Rae had sat on the bed and watched while he buttoned his shirt in the white light. She had a pint of Cuervo Gold on the
bed beside her. When he finished she said, “Where’s your gun?” and looked at him distantly.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“Did you shoot somebody with it?” she said.

“Everybody,” he said.

“What’s about to happen?” she said.

He pulled the chair to the window and sat looking out at the zócalo bathed in the greenish rain light. “Nothing,” he said. “We have to leave.” He opened the tequila and took a drink. There wasn’t much left.

“What about the police?” she said.

“They’re not coming.”

“Aren’t we in trouble?”

“We’re not in
anything
. We’re just getting out of here tomorrow,” he said. The rain had slacked, and he watched the streets around the zócalo for police vehicles.

“What about the consulate?” Rae said.

“They didn’t call,” he said. “We’re out of time.”

Rae’s face was pale as though she had cried a long time and couldn’t do it any more. “Did she kill Bernhardt?”

“They wanted the bucks,” Quinn said. “They thought he’d get it first. That was all. So yeah.” He had the same feeling of falling again, of being high up alone, trying to look down but not succeeding. He knew in a little while that would stop, like the scared shakes stopped.

“That’s not
all,”
Rae said calmly. “He ditched her, didn’t he?” She paused. “Do you not want to talk to me about that?”

“Not very much,” he said.

She lay on the bedspread and closed her eyes. “You’re not to feel bad, though,” she said. “I know how people get in trouble now.”

“Bad luck,” he said.

“No. It’s bad character. It’s very simple,” Rae said. “But there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried. But I’m really sorry.”