Samir’s deep-set eyes drew back even further. He clutched his bag. “No.”
“There’s all variety of shit going on here behind the scenes, Samir, I can’t control none of that. But Godo and me, we can’t go home no more. You don’t go with these people, this honcho from Dallas, we’re up for grabs.”
Samir looked like a touch might knock him down. “I saved your life.”
Happy looked away. “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, actually.”
“Ask me-”
“Roque tells me you’re damn handy with a gun. Funny how I never saw that side of you. Not even when we were in the middle of a firefight.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
Lupe, sensing a wrong turn somewhere, looked to Roque for reassurance but he had none to give. Godo blocked the door.
“This American, this man from Dallas.” Samir pointed, as though the city were only a short walk away. “He is CIA. You give me to him”-a finger snap-“I disappear.”
“I don’t know that.”
“They will hood me, torture me. I’ll end up in some secret prison. Worse, get handed over to someone else, the Egyptians, the Thais. Let them do the dirty work.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they can.”
Happy reached into his back pocket, withdrew a mangled pack of Marlboros, shook one free, lipped it. “Maybe all they want to do is talk.” The cigarette bobbing. “That be so terrible?”
“And tell them what?”
“Whatever.” Using a Zippo, Happy lit up, shrugged. “Everything.”
“And if I have nothing to tell them, nothing they want to hear, what do you think happens? Think they believe me?”
“Could be they want you to infiltrate a mosque, maybe a sleeper cell, maybe just a bunch of deadbeats hanging around some café, talking tough about jihad. You want asylum? Looks like you’ll have to earn it.”
Samir turned one way, another, looking for a way out. “You don’t understand.”
Happy exhaled a long plume of smoke. “You keep saying that.”
A nervous laugh, disbelief. “What else can I say?”
“No one understands. Not as far as you’re concerned.”
“Why are you angry with me?”
“I’m not-”
“What have I done? Why betray me like this?”
Happy took another long drag. “Who are you, really? Let’s start there.”
Again, the hand across the heart. “I have never once lied-”
“I have no idea who you are.”
Roque glanced toward the door, wondering what if anything Godo felt about all this, but except for a vague impatience there was nothing in his expression to read. Sure the Arab was a pain in the ass but this was over the top. “Happy, what are you getting at?”
“Butt out, Roque.”
“No. You don’t tell me that, not after everything-”
“This don’t concern-”
“This isn’t necessary, okay? I told you, this guy in Naco-”
“For fuck’s sake, you stupid? He’s a cop! I don’t care whose uncle he is. You gotta trust me on this, you go to this guy to get you across, you’ll never be heard from again. Okay? Especially with our friend here in tow.” He gestured toward Samir, then Lupe. “Same with her.”
“Happy-”
“The patrón wants a songbird, Roque. They all do down here. One of the perks of being el mero mero. He’ll make her a star. Life could be fucking worse.”
“Now you’re the one who sounds stupid.”
“Not like they’re gonna pimp her out, okay? Everybody’s being so fucking dramatic.”
Again, Lupe looked to Roque for some reassurance. There was none to find. She turned to Happy, incensed, scared.-Tell me what is happening. Not him. Me.
Before Happy could answer, a caravan of four SUVs turned off the road into the development, headlights raking the forward houses as the engines throttled down for the switch from pavement to gravel.
Roque turned back to Happy, took a step toward him. “What have you done?”
Happy didn’t move. A twinge of his eye, a blink. “I have no clue who that is.”
Samir lunged toward one of the windows, hiking his leg over the sill, ducking down. He was halfway out when Godo sailed across the room, caught him, grabbing him by the shirttail first, then a crippling punch to the small of the back, like some instinct from the war had taken hold. Lupe, seeing the door unguarded, bolted, she was gone before Roque could stop her. He grabbed his knapsack, followed, glancing back from the doorway as Godo headlocked Samir, twisting him to the floor. Happy just stood there, tip of his cigarette a curl of ash as he stared in the general direction of the oncoming vehicles, looking as though to move would be an admission of something he still felt a need to keep private.
THE DARKNESS ACROSS THE DESERT FLOOR FELT IMPENETRABLE, WORSE than inside the house, but once his eyes adjusted Roque caught Lupe’s silhouette vanishing past a snarl of cacti. He hurried after her just as the SUVs braked and men poured out. Over his shoulder, he recognized the huelepega from earlier, passing through the headlight glare, looking not quite so feeble now. They’d known, he thought. They had a lookout.
He caught up with Lupe, snagged her arm. She fought back, throwing an elbow, a wild kick.-Let go!
– Quiet! Get down.
He dragged her behind a thicket of underbrush circling the base of a massive saguaro, its barbed arms snaking up and out in all directions. They both panted from exertion, trying to stifle the sound. The dogs from earlier had reappeared around the house and now skittered away as perhaps a dozen men surrounded it, all of them armed. Headlights lit up the house from two sides. From somewhere in the foothills a coyote howled, then one of the men called out, addressing Happy by his given name.
– PABLO, STOP BEING SUCH A HOPELESS ASSHOLE. COME ON OUT.
Happy, recognizing the voice, figured the Spanish was a play to the others, the men setting up the kill zone. Doesn’t matter what I say or don’t say, he thought, it’s all an act. This is what I get for mocking a snake.
Godo gestured everyone down, out of the light streaming in through the windows, then belly-crawled to his duffel, shook it open and began pulling out the weapons, the shotgun, the Kalashnikov, the pistols. He flexed his gauze-wrapped hand, then slammed a magazine into the AK, the others already loaded. To Happy, he said, “I’m assuming you know who’s out there.”
A burst of machine-gun fire ripped along the outer walls of the house, a few rounds pitching in through the window, tearing pieces of cinder block away like shrapnel and leaving clouds of chalky dust behind.
Happy said, “The ones I told you about.”
– Come on, Pablo. What, you think I wouldn’t figure this shit out, all that crap about wanting to do me a favor? You got the Arab and the girl in there. I understand, I do. Nothing terrible is going to happen to them. Nothing terrible will happen to you. Play it smart.
“Where’s Roque?” Godo asked.
“The girl ran out. He went after her.”
“They think she’s in here.” Using his teeth, Godo began tearing the gauze away from his hand, peeling it off in shreds. Shortly, he broke into a smile. “They got away, her and Roque.”
The lucky one, Happy thought. The magical one.
“I won’t go with those men,” Samir said. He lay across the room, staring at the glassless, light-filled window. “A man cannot choose when he will die, only how.”
Godo flexed his naked hand, still black and red from its burns. “That’s deep.” He wiped a smear of ointment onto his pant leg. “Kinda premature, though.”
“Don’t hand me over to them. Kill me. Say it was self-defense.”