‘He should have told me!’ said Snow. ‘If he’d told me about his predicament, how bad things were . . .’
‘Get real, man. Think about it. He warned you constantly. You simply didn’t want to listen.’
‘He didn’t tell me the whole story. I never understood . . . he never conveyed to me how serious it was.’
‘Maybe he thought you were smart enough to fill in the blanks. Or maybe he believed you were as much a friend to him as he was to you. Maybe he thought you respected him and actually paid attention to what he said. Big mistake, huh?’
Snow stood mute, absorbing what Canelo had told him.
‘It was casual with you,’ Canelo said. ‘You thought it was cool to have a fag who owned a night club for a friend.’
‘That’s not how it was!’
‘Sure it is. You’re like a half-ass method actor, man. One who almost buys into his character, but can’t quite get there.’ Canelo gestured at the door. ‘Get the fuck out.’
Snow balked at leaving. ‘It’s not like you say. Maybe I’ve made some missteps, but I . . .’
‘Maybe? Fuck!’ Canelo’s scorn was a physical force. ‘Nobody cares how you see the situation. Your viewpoint doesn’t mean dick. Now beat it! If I were you I’d leave the country. Guillermo wasn’t good with pain. He probably ratted you out when they tortured him. Even if he didn’t, I’m getting an urge to tell the next cop who comes in that you were talking shit about the PVO. I’m not kidding. Nothing’s stopping me and I may not be able to resist the temptation.’
IV
Following his set-to with Canelo, Snow returned to his apartment and packed his bags, shaken by what the bartender had told him and frightened not just by his threat, but by the world of threat, a world of maniacs and bloody politics of which he had, of course, been aware, yet never thought would menace him. He intended to catch the first plane north, wherever it was bound, but as he waited for the taxi and afterward, on the way to the airport, his guilt concerning Guillermo elbowed his paranoia aside and he wished for some way he could make a stab at redemption. He had nary a clue of how to go about this, but perhaps fate conspired to assist him, for on reaching the ticket counter he discovered that the destination of the first available flight was Miami – that provided the platform for the germ of an idea. An hour later, en route to that city of second-rate glitterati and leathery, sun-dried MILFs, he debated whether or not it was worth the risk and concluded that he could safely take a first step and pull back if things went badly. And so, upon landing in Miami on a humid Wednesday afternoon, Snow rented a cheap motel room in Coral Gables and prepared to initiate an affair with Luisa Bazan.
Every second Friday Luisa would check into a suite at the Bon Temps, a boutique hotel in the heart of South Beach, where she would reside until Sunday night. She had invited him to meet her there several times, offering to pay his airfare, and he had made his excuses. Now he hoped she would be amenable to an encounter (lately she had been testy toward him, impatient with the unconsummated relationship) and he also hoped that he could get to her before she secured the services of a cabana boy for the weekend. On the Friday evening after his arrival in Miami he staked himself out in the hotel bar, the Tres Jolie, and waited there without result until after midnight. He had steeled himself against this possibility (her schedule was governed by her husband’s whims) and he was certain she would come eventually – but waiting for another week to pass was more difficult than he presumed and he nearly abandoned his scheme. What, after all, could he learn from Luisa in one weekend that would alter the situation? She would likely have no salient information about the PVO and, even if she did, how could he use it? It was a crazy idea that had seemed for a moment wonderfully crafty and wise, one of many similar strokes of genius that had misdirected the meandering course of his life. The only consideration that stayed him from leaving Miami was that he had nowhere to go. He had blown his job at the private school, he had no friends to speak of in Temalagua, what with Guillermo dead, and no support system now that he had been banned from Club Sexy. No purpose, no real direction. He refused to contemplate the horror of returning to Idaho. That left him with the image of an addled, gray-bearded Snow drinking the dregs of his life away in some misbegotten Central American hell, with ‘Margaritaville’ and ‘The Piña Colada Song’ dominating the soundtrack and a tattooed female lizard by his side, watching for symptoms of terminal weakness that would allow her to rifle through his pockets for money and drugs. This picture in mind, the prospect of a weekend with Luisa Bazan acquired a fresh gloss.
At half past seven on the next Friday evening, Luisa flounced into the Bon Temps, spike heels clacking on the marble floor, her impressive rack rendered more impressive yet by a ruffled blouse that exaggerated every jiggle, blond streaks in her beautifully coiffed hair, and clingy slacks that made her ass seem iconic, like the majestic rump of a horse cast in bronze and mounted by a heroic warrior with a plumed hat and sword. Were she to put on ten or fifteen pounds more she might be able to pose for a fetish magazine, but for now she resembled a voluptuous sexual cartoon. From the reception desk you had an unobstructed view into the Tres Jolie – the bar was crowded with a group of yelping and whooting twenty-somethings having a starter drink before hitting the clubs, and Snow had positioned himself so Luisa would be likely to notice him, hanging his jacket over an adjacent stool to prevent anyone from sitting beside him. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she chatted up the receptionist, a bellboy, the manager. When she spotted him her face emptied and she took a step toward the elevators, as if intending to sneak past the bar without acknowledging him, but then she adopted an expression of haughty reserve and approached to within an arm’s length and said, ‘Craig?’
Snow glanced up and smiled – a well-rehearsed smile of boyish delight to which a dash of sadness was added.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘The school . . . they told me they didn’t know what happened to you?’
He persuaded her to sit and told her an equally well-rehearsed story consisting of half-truths and outright lies. He had, he said, experienced an emotional crisis. Thinking that he would never be able to exorcise the residue of feelings for his old flame, he’d decided that the most honorable thing he could do for Luisa was to remove himself from the picture and, obeying an impulse, he bolted. It was an act of desperation, perhaps of cowardice, for which he apologized. He had wanted to say goodbye, but she was a woman whom you did not say goodbye to easily. If he had come to her, her beauty, her spirit . . . they would have been too great an allure and he would not have been able to sustain the courage of his convictions. En route to Miami, however, he experienced an epiphany. He couldn’t think of anything other than Luisa. Her scent, her mouth, her sensitivity, the very sum of her pervaded his thoughts and nowhere could he find a trace of his obsession with his former love. It was a consummate irony, he said, that by running away from the object of his desire he had dissolved the bonds that prevented him from attaining it, though it was characteristic of the ironies that seemed to rule his existence.