Six Bad Things

PART ONE DECEMBER 4-11, 2003 Four Regular Season Games Remaining

I’M SITTING on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out of both my ears.

I like to go swimming in the mornings. When I first came to Mexico I liked to go drinking in the mornings, but after I got over that I took up swimming and I discovered something. I have unusually narrow ear canals. Go figure. I discovered this while I was trying to sober up, paddling around in the lukewarm morning waters, and found that my ears were clogged. I tilted my head from side to side and banged on my skull, trying to dislodge the water, but no luck. I plugged my nose, clamped my mouth shut, and blew until it felt like my brain might pop out of my ass. No good. I crammed Q-tips up my ears, prodding at the blockage. That’s when things got really bad. For a few days I walked around half-deaf, feeling like my entire head was packed with waterlogged cotton. Then I went to a doctor. I have a habit of saving doctors for a last resort.

Dr. Sanchez looked in my ears and informed me of the tragic news: unusually narrow ear canals. The water was trapped deep inside and my irresponsible Q-tip use had sealed it in with earwax. He loaded a syringe the size of a beer can with warm mineral water and injected it into my ears until the pressure dislodged the massive clogs of wax and washed them into the small plastic basins I held just below my ears. He gave me drops. He told me never to stick anything in my ear other than my elbow, and laughed at his own joke. He nodded sagely and told me the solution to my problem was quite simple: When my ears became clogged, I must stick a cigarette into each one and light them. The cigarettes, that is. Then he handed me a pack of Benson & Hedges, told me they were his preferred brand for the task, and charged me a thousand pesos.

So. I am sitting on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out of both my ears. The cigarettes burn and create a vacuum in my ears, sucking the moisture into the filters. I have a towel draped over each shoulder to catch the hot ash as it falls. I’ve been doing this a couple days a week for years and it always works. Of course, I do now smoke two packs of Benson & Hedges a day, but there’s a downside to everything in life.

The sun has dipped far in the sky behind my back and the reds of the sunset are reflected in the perfect blue sea before me. A soft breeze is caressing my skin and I adjust my sarong so that it can waft higher on my legs. The heat of the cigarettes has become intense. I reach up and pinch them out of my ears, careful not to squeeze so hard that the waxy fluid trapped in the filters leaks out. I dump them into an ashtray near my feet, slip the towels off my shoulders, stand up, and start walking toward the water. The beach is pretty much abandoned. A ways off to my right I can see a small group of local boys covered head to toe in sand, kicking a soccer ball around on their homemade field. In the opposite direction, the silhouette of a pair of lovers kissing. When my feet hit the wet strip of sand near the water’s edge I give my sarong a tug. It falls to the ground, leaving me naked, and I walk down into the gently lapping waves. The beach slopes away so shallowly that I can walk upright in the water for almost fifty yards before it will cover my head. I walk in the water with the sun sinking behind me, hearing the soft slap of the tiny waves quite clearly in my unclogged ears. I’ll probably have to do it all over again when I get out, twisting the cigarettes into my ears, lighting them, and waiting patiently while they burn down, but it will be worth it. I want to take one last swim today. I’m going home tomorrow and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back here.

MACHINE GUNS wake me up in the morning, but they’re just in my head. I have my backpack ready by the door, the waterproof money belt draped over it. I go to the bathroom and stand under the showerhead. The water is a gentle warm sprinkle, not the thing to snap you out of a nightmare. Still sleepy, I close my eyes. Pedro explodes past me backwards, his torso stitched open by a cloud of bullets. My eyes snap open. I walk out of the shower and drip water across the bungalow floor to the boom box. I search the CDs for something loud. Led Zeppelin? Something fast and loud. The Replacements. I put in Pleased to Meet Me, the opening chords of “I.O.U.” blare out, and Paul Westerberg starts screaming. I turn it up.

I finish my shower, pull on a pair of cotton fatigue-style pants, grab keys, sunglasses, my papers, and a hefty wad of pesos. I check the money belt, make sure the extra passport and ID are where I can get to them easily, and strap it on. A tank top, short-sleeve linen shirt, a pair of trail sneakers, and I’m dressed. I grab the backpack and sling one strap over my shoulder.

– Come on, cat.

Bud leaps from the comfy chair, walks over to the kitchenette cabinet, and meows.

– Sorry, Buddy, no time. You can eat at Pedro’s.

He meows again. I walk over, grab him by the nape of his neck, and put him on top of the pack.

– Fresh fish at Pedro’s. Trust me, it’ll be worth the wait.

I turn off the box, take a last look around. Did I forget anything? I mean, other than not to fuck up my life again? Nope, all taken care of. Back door bolted, storm shutters padlocked. Good enough. I walk onto the porch and set Bud and the pack down next to the door.

I’m pulling the tarp off the Willys when I see a white Bronco turn off the trail a quarter mile down the beach and come bouncing across the sand toward me. Could be they just have a few more questions, but I don’t think cops roll up on you at dawn to ask questions.

I drop the tarp, wave, and point to the bungalow with a big smile on my face. One of the Federales in the Bronco waves back. I walk to the bungalow, grab Bud and the pack, step inside, lock the front door, go out the back, and dash across the sand into the jungle that is my backyard. All I have to do is get to Pedro’s and I’ll be OK. Unless the cops are there too.

THIS IS how things get fucked up again.

Once every three months you walk to the grocery next to the highway and use the pay phone to call a guy in New York. And this one time you call, and he tells you about a story everyone back there is telling.

– Say you’re a guy and you’re out taking a walk and you get thirsty and it’s hot, so what you really want is a beer. Thing is, it’s really hot, August hot in the City, with the garbage piled up and stinking, and the people with dogs that they don’t pick up the shit after, so you don’t want a beer from a deli, not even one of those sixteen ouncers from the bottom of the ice barrel the places put right out on the sidewalk. It’s so hot and the street stinks so much from garbage and dog shit and piss, what you want is a cold beer in a cool dark room. So fuck the can from the ice barrel, you’re going in this bar right here that you know it’s a bar ’cause out front is a neon sign that says BAR.

You tell the guy you get the point and wonder if maybe he can get to the payoff. You hear the gurgling sound of a bong over the long-distance line. Then he starts talking again, in the unmistakable voice of someone trying to hold in a gargantuan lungful of smoke.

– So you go in and it’s just what you hoped for, cool from the AC, dark ’cause the window is tinted. There’s maybe something good on the juke like Coltrane, “My Favorite Things,” but not too loud. And not crowded ’cause it’s the middle of the day in the middle of the week; just the bartender and a couple regulars.

There’s a huge whoosh over the phone as the guy lets the smoke out, but he doesn’t cough. The guy you’re talking to hasn’t coughed on a hit since he was maybe twelve; he would consider it unprofessional at this point is his life. The thought of smoke knocks against something in your head and you dig in the pocket of your shorts for a cigarette.

– So you sit down and the bartender puts down the paper he’s looking at and he comes over and he’s never seen you and you’ve never seen him, but he gives you a little nod and you nod back ’cause you know you’re each other’s people ’cause he’s working in a bar in the middle of the day and you’re coming into one at the same time. You tell the guy, Bottle of Bud, toss a twenty on the bar, he opens the fridge, grabs your beer, pops the cap, sets it on the bar, takes your twenty off the bar, and walks to the register.

No cigarettes.

– Bartender comes back, drops seventeen bucks in front of you, which, three bucks ain’t too bad for a bottle of Bud in New York these days, so you feel pretty good about that. You guys do the nod thing again and he goes back to his paper. You wrap your hand around that bottle and take your first sip. It’s coooooold. Bartender reads his paper, bar hounds over there, one is doing a crossword, one is just chain-smoking and making his Old Crow last. You drink your beer, listen to the music and you’re having a pretty good day, figure you’ll stick around that place and drink the rest of that twenty.

You know what he’s talking about. You’ve had days like that.

– And that’s when the door bangs open, some dingleberry comes in, orders a fucking margarita so now the bartender has to work and he sits down right next to you and starts with the fucking chatter. There goes your mellow, right out the window.

You think about the pack of smokes sitting on the little table on your porch at home. Down the phone lines, the bong rips again, and you know this story isn’t getting any shorter.

– This dingleberry, he lives in the place, but you can tell by the way the bartender doesn’t give him the nod and the way the boozehounds turn their stools away from him a little that they all wish he would fucking move out. Right now he can’t believe his luck, a new fucking face in this place he can chew the ear off of. He starts right in with, Hey my name’s so and so and I do such and such and ain’t it hotter than a bitch out there and this bartender he can’t make a good margarita to save his life and here’s the secret to a good margarita. And the questions. What’s your name anyway? Ain’t seen you here before, you from around here? You never been here before, you don’t know about this place? Everybody knows about this place, how can you be from around here and not know about the old M Bar, the old Murder Bar?

You stop worrying about the cigarettes.

– Yeah, the dingleberry calls the place the Murder Bar. It’s that place, you know the one. They had it closed for a couple years? Well, now it’s open again. So he tells this story about the place, how it’s not really named the Murder Bar or even the M Bar, that’s just what people from the neighborhood, people in the know, call it ’cause they were living here when it happened. He tells you, Feel around under the ledge of the bar, the wood there, you can feel the holes that are still there from when they shot the place up and killed all those people in here. And he’s right, the holes are there. They sanded them down so you don’t get any splinters, but the holes are there, man.

You hear the guy on the phone take a quick drink of something and you know exactly what it is. You can almost smell it, the warm bite of Tullamore Dew.

– Now the dingleberry starts telling you about it, how a guy that used to work in this place, when it was the bar before this one, got in some kind of money trouble or something and came in the place one night to rob his own boss and he went haywire and ended up blowing away everybody in the place, like twenty people in cold blood. How it didn’t end there and how you must have heard this story, how the guy went on a killing spree all over the city. God knows how many people he killed, including some cops. And then this psycho, this murder machine, this maddog, how he just plain disappeared. FBI put him on the Most Wanted list for awhile, but he got bumped for some bigger names, Middle Eastern names. Cops got bigger fish to fry in the City these days. So, the thing is, no big deal right? It’s just a story and people tell stories all the time especially about the kind of shit that went down in that bar, regardless of how this dingleberry may have the facts all fucked up. This ain’t the first and it won’t be the last time you hear a version of this story. Except now, he gets all intimate with you, leans in close, ’cause he’s got the real skinny, he says. Tells you, This guy, who did all this killing, he didn’t have money trouble, well he did, but the money trouble he had was how many people would he have to kill to get this big sack of cash that all these people were after. Tells you, There was this bag of cash and the killer was looking for it and some black street gang from the Bronx called the Cowboys and a whole precinct of dirty cops and the Tong, and the Russian Mafia and even this semipro professional wrestler called the Samoan Tower.

You think about things. A gun going off in a Chinese kid’s mouth. A big Samoan in the middle of a cafe, blood gushing out of his left temple. A cop on his back in the rain, waiting for you to finish him. The brothers who beat your woman to death, ripped open by your bullets.

– And the maddog is the one who came out on top, took all that money, like twenty million easy, and slipped off to someplace warm, south of the border, Mexico way. Out of sight. But that kind of cash? The guy says, That kind of cash, that’s like treasure and people want to hunt for it. And they do. Like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, if Sam Peckinpah directed it. People go hunting for this maddog and his loot. All. The. Time.

You think about being hunted. What that feels like. You think about going through it again, and curse yourself for forgetting the damn cigarettes.

– Anyway, that bit about the money and Mexico and the treasure hunters is a coda to this particular story that you have never heard before, which is why you are hearing this story right now from me.

And that is how things start to get fucked up again. That and the backpacker with the Russian accent.

THE BUCKET is right on the beach. It’s a small place, a thatched palm roof over a bar, no walls. Stools don’t work on the beach, so eight rope swings hang from the beams, and sets of white plastic tables and chairs are on the sand. There’s no electricity. Pedro hauls bags of ice down here every morning on his tricycle and dumps them into corrugated tubs full of bottles of Sol and Negro Modelo. If you order a cocktail, you get the same ice the beer sits in. If you want to eat, Pedro has a barbeque he made by sawing a fifty-five-gallon drum in half. You can get ribs, chicken, a burger, or whatever the fishermen happen to bring around that day. Every now and then Pedro’s wife will come down with her comal, make fresh tortillas, and we get tacos.

I’m at The Bucket around nine, after my morning swim. Pedro gets the coffeepot off the barbeque grill, pours me a cup and drops yesterday’s Miami Herald in front of me. His wife gets the paper every day when she goes in town for the shopping or to pick up the kids from school. Pedro brings it to me here the next day. I glance at the sports page. Dolphins this, Dolphins that.

Pedro has chorizo on the grill and a frying pan heating up. He cracks a couple eggs into the pan, gets a plastic container of salsa from the cooler bag on his tricycle, and stirs some in, scrambling the eggs. He takes a key from his belt, unlocks the enameled steel cabinet beneath the bar, grabs the bottles of booze, and starts to set them out. I walk around to the grill, give the eggs a few more stirs, and dump them onto a plastic plate. The chorizos are blackened, fat spitting from the cracks in their skin. I spear them, stick them on the plate next to the eggs, and sit back down on my swing at the bar. Pedro brings me a folded towel and sets it next to the plate. I open it up and peel off one of the still warm tortillas his wife made at home this morning. I stuff a chorizo into the tortilla, pack some of the eggs around it, fold the thing up, take a bite, and sear the inside of my mouth just like I do every morning. It’s worth it.

Pedro is about my age, thirty-five. He looks a little older because he’s spent his whole life on the Yucatan. His face is a dark, sun-wrinkled plate. He’s short and round, has a little pencil moustache, and wears heavy black plastic glasses like the ones American soldiers get for free.

He tops off my coffee.

– Go fish today?

I look out at the flat, crystal blue water. Up in town the tourists will be loading into the boats, heading for the reef to go diving or to the deep water to fish. The local fishermen here have already gone out and Pedro’s boat is the only one still in, anchored to the shore by long yellow ropes tied to lengths of rebar driven into the sand. I could fish, take the boat out by myself or wait for Pedro’s brother to show up and go out with him for an evening fish. If he doesn’t have a job tonight.

– Not today.

– Nice day for fishing.

– Too nice. I might catch a fish. And then what? Have to bring it in, clean it, cook it.

No, no fishing today.

– Game on later?

– Every Sunday, Pedro. There’s a game every Sunday except for the bye week.

– Who today?

– The Patriots.

– New England.

– Right.

– Fucking Pats.

– You’re learning.

I MET Pedro up in town a few years back when I first came to Mexico. I came to Mexico hot. Running. I walked out of the Cancun airport, got into a cab, and told the guy I wanted to get out of Cancun, down the coast somewhere. Someplace smaller. He took me about an hour down the road to a little vacation town. Small hotels along a nice strip of beach. It was OK for awhile. The tourists were mostly mainland Mexicans, South Americans, or Europeans. Not many North Americans at all. Then they started building this giant resort community on the south end of town and that was it for me.

I found this spot: driving distance to town, a handful of locals with vacation palapas, some expatriates living in bungalows, some backpackers and day-trippers looking for a secluded beach. But no bar. Pedro was working in the place I spent most of my time in. I knew he wanted his own business and he knew I wanted a place to hang out. We made a deal.

I’m a silent partner. I pay my tab like any customer and nobody knows I backed Pedro to open the place. I gave him half the bar for moving here to run it; he’s working off the other half. Shit, I could have given him the whole thing outright. I got the money. God knows I got the fucking money.

THE DAY-TRIPPERS are starting to drift onto the beach. They hear about it in town or read about it in Lonely Planet and come looking for unspoiled Mexico, but they’re usually pretty damn happy they can get a cold beer and a cheeseburger. The expats will come around in the evening when they get back from fishing trips or working in town. The locals mostly show up on Friday and Saturday evening to drink. Me, I drink soda water all day, haven’t had a real drink in over two years. It’s the healthy life for me now. I take another sip of coffee, light the first cigarette of the day, and get back to the sports page.

The Dolphins have a problem. Their problem is a head coach who happens to be an idiot. I have a problem. My problem is the Miami fucking Dolphins of the National fucking Football League. When I got down here, I found out I couldn’t give up sports. I tried to get into futbol, but it just didn’t click. A basketball season is like a basketball game, only the last two minutes count. And, unless I was ready to watch bullfights, that left football. Baseball? Yeah, I like baseball. I would have liked to have spent the last three years watching, listening to, and reading about baseball just like I did the thirty-two years before them, but that’s one of the things I had to give up. I got into football because I always hated football and nobody looking for me is gonna look for a guy who likes football. It makes it harder for people to find me and kill me.

And you know what? After three years of watching football, I hate it more than ever. But I hate the Dolphins’ idiot head coach more than anything else, because I am a sucker who has developed a bad habit of caring about the Dolphins.

Fuck me.

A classic warm-climate team, the Fins always start fast and collapse come the winter. All reason and all past history indicate that the Fins should be sliding. But they are not. Their new rookie running back, Miles Taylor, is shattering first-year records left and right and, despite his gutless teammates and inept coach, he has them winning consistently.

I am not deceived. In the AFC West, Oakland, San Diego, and Denver have been playing out of their heads and all look play-off bound. Miami will need to edge past the New York Jets if they want to get to the post season. Right now, despite the teams’ identical 9-3 records, the Fins are in first because they beat NY in an early season matchup at Miami. But even if they keep that lead for the next three games, it will be at risk on the last day of the season when Miami travels to New York for the finale.

Even my limited experience has taught me that you can always depend on Miami to do one thing: lose on the road against a division rival in December. Bet on it. So I will enjoy the wins they have now and not count on getting any more. Maybe if they miss the play-offs their coach will finally be fired. One can hope.

By noon there’s about twenty people spread along the half mile of beach and three more sitting at the bar with me. Pedro takes the radio from beneath the bar, clicks it on, and twirls the dial till the fuzzy sounds of WQAM Miami come through. He extends the antenna, alligator clips one end of a wire to it, clips the other end to the sheet of chicken wire that covers the palm roof. Suddenly the signal jumps in loud and clear.

I sit at the bar, sip seltzer and smoke, and listen to the game. Some pretty Spanish girls in bikinis stop at the bar to buy some beers. One of them smiles at me and I smile back. She asks me for one of my cigarettes and I slide her the pack. I watch as she and her friends walk off down the beach, and she glances back at me and smiles again. I wave. I like pretty girls.

The game drones on predictably. The Fins jump out early with three unanswered touchdowns, stand around while the Pats cut into their lead just before the half, and then come out flat for the third quarter. By the start of the fourth quarter, they’re hanging on to a three-point lead and the coach is calling plays as if they were still up by twenty-one.

A shaggy backpacker wanders up the beach and over to the bar. He shrugs out of his pack and takes a seat on the swing next to mine. Pedro is poking at some ribs on the grill. The guy is sitting backwards on the swing with his elbows on the bar, looking at the ocean. He glances over his shoulder at the radio. The Pats have just pinned the Fins on their own two-yard line. He looks at me and nods his head.

– Football.

Nothing odd about that, a perfectly reasonable observation. Except that he says it in a Russian accent, which is not something we get a lot of around here. Me, I take it in stride, just spit-take my seltzer all over the bar. I’m smooth like that. The guy slaps me on the back while I choke.

– OK?

I nod and wave my hand.

– Fine. Choke. Fine.

I point at the radio.

– Fucking Dolphins.

He shrugs.

– American football. Too slow.

The Fins try to run up the gut three times, get one yard, and punt miserably to their own thirty-five. Pedro comes over and the guy orders a shot of tequila and a Modelo.

– Hockey, very fast, good sport to watch. You like hockey?

– Not really.

– European football, soccer?

– Not really.

– But to play, yes? Americans like to play soccer, but not to watch.

– I guess.

The game comes back on. New England tries a play-action pass down the sideline. It’s complete. The receiver dodges the cornerback and sprints for the goal line. I hang my head, ready for the inevitable New England game-winning touchdown. The Fins’ strong safety hammers the receiver. The ball pops loose into his hands, and he’s running upfield. I jump off my swing and pound my fist on the bar.

– Go, go, go, go!

As he runs the ball all the way back for a touchdown.

– Yeah!

The backpacker guy nods his head, smiles like he approves of the play, takes a sip of his beer.

– What about baseball? You like baseball?

JUST AFTER sunset I walk back up to the north end of the beach. I pass the group of Spanish girls. They have a little overnight camp set up about a hundred yards from my bungalow. They’ve slipped shorts or baggy cotton pants on over their bikini bottoms in deference to the marginally cooler evening air. Two of them are walking in from the tree line that stretches the length of the beach, their arms full of deadwood for a fire. The girl with the nice smile is sitting cross-legged on one of the blankets they have spread on the sand, braiding the hair of the girl in front of her. There are five of them, none can be more than twenty-three. I try to remember what I was doing when I was twenty-three. I was still in college, studying something I never used. Christ, why wasn’t I camped out on Mexican beaches with girls like these?

I watch her quick hands weaving hair as I walk past. She looks up at me, smiles again.

– Buenas noches.

In that Spanish Spanish accent.

– Buenas noches.

She tilts her head toward my bungalow.

– Su casa?

– Mi casa.

– Bonito

– Gracias.

Tossing the strands of hair between her fingers the whole time, slipping a rubber band from her wrist when she gets to the end of the braid, cleverly twisting it into place. The girls with the wood arrive and dump it in a pile next to the blanket. She hops up, starts digging a hollow in the sand for the fire and gives me a little nod as I continue on to the bungalow. Behind me I hear Spanish chattered far too quickly for me to follow. There’s a great deal of laughter and I get the distinct feeling I’m being talked about. But it’s nice to be talked about by pretty girls, no matter what they might be saying.

THE BUNGALOW really isn’t much, but she’s right, it’s bonito in its way. Wood walls up to about waist level, topped by screen windows that circle the one-room building, with heavy storm shutters. The whole thing is set on pilings that lift it a foot above the sand, and topped with the same palm thatching as The Bucket. I step up on the porch, past the canvas-back chair, small wooden table and hammock, and dig the key from the Velcro side pocket of my shorts. In the normal course of things, if I was just a guy down here living on the beach, I wouldn’t really need to lock my door. But I’m not that guy and I do need to lock my door. I have secrets to hide. I open the door and secret number one says hello.

– Meow.

I GOT into some trouble when I lived up in New York. I did a guy a favor and I got into some trouble for doing it. The favor he asked me to do that led to all the trouble, to me being on the run in Mexico, was he asked me to watch his cat. I said yes. And here I am three years later, still watching his cat.

BUD JUMPS down from the bed and limps over to say hi. One of his front legs was pretty badly broken in all that trouble. And some of the fur on his face grows in a weird little tuft because he has a scar from the same encounter that broke his leg. The guys that did the leg-breaking and the scarring are dead. Someone felt bad about that, not Bud. He rubs his face against my calf and I bend down, scoop him off the floor, and drape him over my shoulders.

– Jesus, cat, you’re getting fat. You are a fat fucking cat and no two ways about it.

I walk to the low shelf that holds my boom box and CD collection. I rummage around until I come up with Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel. Gram and Emmylou’s harmonies twang out of the speakers. I open one of the kitchenette cupboards, grab a can of Bud’s food, scoop it into his bowl, and he leaps off my shoulders and digs in.

– Enjoy it while it lasts, cat. You’re going on a diet.

It’s pretty dark now, so I light a few candles. Like The Bucket, my place has no electricity, just batteries for the boom box, and candles and lanterns for light.

I take off my shirt and sit in my comfy chair. My face, arms, and legs are a deep, reddish brown from my years here, but my torso is white. Just like I don’t follow baseball or talk about my cat, I don’t take my shirt off in front of other people. They would kind of notice the livid scar that starts at my left hipbone, wraps around my side, and stops a couple inches from my spine. I took a bad beating up in New York and my kidney almost ruptured and had to come out. Later, some guys wanted some information from me and got the clever idea that I might be encouraged to tell them what it was if they started ripping out my staples. It was a really good idea because I would have told them anything, except that I didn’t know anything. Yet. Anyway, I keep the scar covered around people because if I didn’t, and anyone asked them if they knew anyone with a big kidney scar, they could happily say yes and I’d be a step closer to dead.

I leave the music on and walk down to the water. I usually do this naked, but I keep my shorts on tonight because of the girls right over there sitting around their fire. The water is perfect. It’s always perfect. I wade out, lean back, let my legs drift up and my arms float out until I am bobbing on the surface of the Caribbean, looking up at the stars. And for half a second I almost forget the Russian backpacker who set up his tent at the opposite end of the beach. The one who might be here looking for me and the four and a half million dollars that the New York Russian mafia thinks is theirs.

I have that money.

But it’s mine.

I killed for it.

BACK THERE at the bar, he sat and waited, the baseball question floating between us while I took another sip of seltzer.

– No, never got into baseball much. Just the football really.

Pedro comes over with some ribs for me. The backpacker is mostly quiet while I listen to the Dolphins actually hold onto a fourth-quarter lead and win the game. Of course, the radio tells me that the Jets have just beaten Buffalo, so we’re still locked in a death march to the last game of the season. But hope springs eternal after every win. And next week the Jets have to go to Green Bay, where come December the Packers treat opposing teams the way Napoleon got treated once the Russian winter hit him. Meanwhile, Miami gets to play 2-11 Detroit, at home. So you never know. God, I’m such a sucker.

I light a cigarette. The backpacker points at the pack.

– Benson Hedges.

– Want one?

– No. Don’t smoke. You know, only Russian doesn’t smoke in whole world.

– Huh.

– Father smoked Benson Hedges.

– Oh.

– Died, lung cancer.

– Yeah, it’ll get ya.

– No smoking for me.

– Good call.

It’s late afternoon. People are packing up on the beach after baking all day. Pedro is sitting on the far side of the bar with his guitar, strumming almost silently, whispering a song to himself. No one else is at the bar. I take a paperback from the rear pocket of my shorts, bend it open till the spine cracks a little, and lay it flat on the bar in front of me. The backpacker turns around on his swing to face the ocean again, still sitting right next to me. I read the same sentence a few times. He cranes his neck and tries to see the title of the book printed at the top of the page I’m staring at. I hold up the book, show it to him. East of Eden.

– Good book?

– Yeah.

I flatten the book on the bar again and stare at the sentence, waiting.

– Vacation here?

I surrender, flip the book facedown, light another cig, and turn to face him.

– Nope, live here. That’s my place up at the end of the beach. What about you, been on the road long? Doing the whole vagabondo thing or just on a quick vacation?

Which is how I end up spending the next hour chatting with Mikhail the Russian backpacker who really likes to be called Mickey.

He’s in his early twenties and has a round face and the kind of patchy beard and scraggly hair that all backpackers aspire to. He tells me that his family is originally from Armenia, but was in Russia for five generations, how his father was an importer/exporter of some kind who moved the family to America in ’95, which is where the Benson & Hedges caught up with him. He tells me about his four years in Jersey City and the four he spent at NYU in the film department and how he’s been on vacation since last May, but he has to be back after New Year’s to start graduate work in the second semester. And as he’s sucking on his ninth or tenth tequila since he first sat down, I’m thinking that if he really is a Russian gangster hunting me, he has the best cover act ever. Then he leans closer to me, shaking his head.

– I say my father was importer and exporter of goods, but truth is different.

He does another shot of tequila and chases it with sangrita.

– Truth, he was “business” man.

He says it so I hear the quotation marks.

– Wanted me in “business” with him. Mother was actress, married him for money. Big fucking deal, you know. Everybody in Russia married for money if they could. Mother was so happy I wanted to be artist like her. Pissed father off, pissed him fucking off. But I go to film school. Make film about dancer marries gangster. He dies before he can see film. Fucking “business” man.

I nod my head.

– Businessman, huh?

He’s crying now, big Russian tears.

– Big-shot “business” man.

He slips off the swing, almost hangs himself on the ropes. I steady him and get him standing. He wipes the tears from his eyes.

– Thanks you. Got to put up tent. Sleep.

He stumbles away from the bar.

Pedro comes over.

– Didn’t pay his tab.

– Get him tomorrow, he’s not going anywhere.

– Russians. Can’t drink tequila.

– But don’t get in a vodka-drinking contest with one.

“Business” man.

I chew on that for awhile, until Pedro’s brother buzzes up in his dune buggy with Rolf. They take fuel cans and fishing gear out of the buggy and start hauling it all down to the waterline. I go over and lend a hand.

– Hola.

Rolf bumps fists with me.

– Que pasa, dude?

– Nothing.

He grabs one end of an ice chest, I grab the other and we lift it out of the buggy. Rolf is an American expat: a dreadlocked, nipple-pierced, surf bum vagabond from San Diego who washed up on the Yucatan about ten years ago. He mostly works up in town as a diving instructor for the tourists. He got into business with Pedro’s brother because he likes the action.

They do actually run night-fishing excursions, but I can tell from the amount of fuel I’m now shouldering out to the boat that they won’t be catching anything tonight. Pedro’s brother, Leo, is up in the boat. He has the same flat face and short round body as his brother, but the roundness covers muscles made hard by hauling fishing nets. He easily one-hands the fifteen-gallon fuel can I’ve carried to the boat and tucks it away in the stern. Rolf splashes up, pushing a sealed plastic tub that bobs low in the water. I boost up onto the gunwale and help Leo pull it aboard. Through the translucent plastic I can see a GPS rig, a high-power halogen spotlight, battery cells, and the AK-47 they bring along for these trips. Leo nods his thanks as we clunk the tub down in the bottom of the long-hulled, open fishing boat. I jump back into the water and head for shore. Looking back at Leo, I give him a thumbs-up.

– Via con Dios.

– Always, man, always.

Then he’s yanking the engine to life. I pass Rolf on his way to the boat with a six-pack, the last of the supplies. I bump fists with him again.

– How many?

– Just two. Supposed to be offshore in a raft. We’ll see.

– Luck.

– Fuck that, dude. See you in the morning, you can buy me a beer.

– You got it.

At the bar Pedro and I watch the boat grind off into the surf.

American policy says that any Cuban who can reach U.S. soil legally or illegally will be granted residency, but they’re sticklers on that “soil” part. Get stopped in the water a foot from dry land, and forget it. And since 9/11, those Coast Guard gauntlets around Florida have become a bit more intense. The average Cuban peasant will still get in his raft and cross his fingers. But if you have a couple bucks, you can get guys like Leo and Rolf to help you out. They’ll shoot out to Cuba, pick you up, and bring you back to Mexico, from where, the thinking goes, it’s a lot easier to get to America. And if you fail, it’s still a hell of a lot nicer than Cuba. The money usually comes from a relative here or in the States, because, let’s face it, nobody in Cuba has a pot to piss in, and if they do, they don’t really need to leave.

Pedro watches until the boat disappears from view, shaking his head. Leo is his younger brother and Pedro worries about him. I could tell him they’ll be fine, but that’s no sure thing. It’s around two hundred miles from here to Cuba, a long haul in open water for a boat like that. And they don’t bring that AK along just for the sharks. Anyway, nothing I can do about it. I push away from the bar.

– Hasta manana, Pedro.

– Hasta.

And I head off to take my swim.

I LIFT my arms out of the water in a slow backstroke, then roll myself over and start to swim in earnest. I swim long and hard, making sure to look up at the girls’ fire on the beach from time to time so I don’t end up bobbing halfway to Cozumel. When I’m good and tired, I swim in to shore. I can see that the girls are passing around a couple bottles of something and I think I can smell a little hash on the breeze.

Back at the bungalow, Gram Parsons is just starting in on “Hickory Wind.” I peel off my shorts, drape them over the porch rail, grab the towel I left there, wipe most of the sand from my feet and lower legs. Inside, I pull on a pair of cutoff jeans. The music ends and I throw in some Bill Withers. I grab a bottle of water, my book and a lantern, and go back out on the porch. The smiling Spanish girl is standing there in the sand at the foot of the steps, holding an empty two-liter jug.

It takes a couple minutes to fill the jug from my water tank. Through the open door, I can see her reclining sideways in the hammock, her feet dangling over the edge. I should put on a shirt, I should put on a shirt before I go back out there. But I don’t. I bring out the filled jug, set it at her feet on the porch, and sit down on the chair.

– Gracias.

– De nada.

She plays with the jug with her toes, tilting it this way and that, daring it to fall over. I pump up the lantern, light it, and turn it very low. The waves slap lightly and the lantern hisses. Her hair shines black. She’s wearing shorts and has a small scarf tied around her chest. No tan lines on her shoulders. The jug falls over. I lean out of my chair and right it before more than a cup can glug out. She giggles, points at one of my many tattoos, the one on the inside of my left forearm. Six thick, black hash marks. She asks something I don’t understand.

– No comprende.

She asks again.

– Sorry, my Spanish, not very good.

Turns out her English is great.

– American. We thought you were Costa Rican.

– No.

– Yes, because, the color is right. With the German blood, you know? And also your accent, your Spanish, is somewhat like that, and you do not act American.

– Thank God for that.

– Si, gracias a Dios.

She laughs.

– But we like Americans also, but here they are always so drunk.

– I don’t drink.

Her toe grazes the jug.

– Except the water.

– I like the water.

– And you smoke.

– Do you want one?

– No.

She rocks in the hammock.

– Do you want to smoke with us? With me?

She takes a small baggie out of her pocket and shows it to me. I can see papers, a little chunk of hash, a tobacco pouch. I haven’t been high in months, but it’s not like the booze. There’s no rule…

– Sure.

She smiles, and wobbles around in the hammock getting herself balanced cross-legged.

– Something flat?

I toss her my book. She looks at the title before putting it in her lap.

– Steinbeck. I read for school, The Grapes of Wrath, about American farm laborers and the Great Depression.

– Good book.

– I liked it.

She takes a rolling paper from the bag and sprinkles tobacco into it. I shift uncomfortably on my chair. Watching a pretty girl roll a smoke. Something inside me shakes its head.

– Before, I asked about the tattoo. The lines. What are they for?

The tobacco is spread evenly and she starts to grate hash over it, tiny flecks falling into the European-style joint. There are things I don’t like to remember, things I mostly forget.

– They’re things I don’t want to forget.

– What things?

– Things I did. Bad things.

– You’ve done only six bad things in your life? You are very good, then.

– These were very bad.

She’s rolling the joint between her fingers now, rolling it out smooth, tucking in the edge of the paper, pinching it with her thumbs. She runs her tongue across the glue strip, rolls her thumbs upward, spinning the whole thing into a tight, experienced joint, then pops the whole number in her mouth, covering its length with the thinnest film of her saliva. She holds it out to me, eyes sparkling.

– What kind of very bad things?

On cue, “Ain’t No Sunshine” starts to play.

In New York, four years ago, a woman lays spread-eagle on a table, her body covered with bruises. Dead.

– You should go.

– Como?

– I really think you should leave now.

The edge in my voice. She still has her arm extended, the joint offered to me.

– Que pasa? Is there something?

– Go away. I want you to go away.

My body starting to tremble.

– You are sick? Can I?

– Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck off my porch. Go back to your fucking friends.

Keeping my voice as steady and quiet as possible. Watching her flinch back from the first obscenity. Struggling out of the hammock, all her grace disappeared in the face of my abuse.

– Just get the fuck away from me.

Stumbling off the porch and running away, across the sand to the safety of the fire as I pick up the water jug and fling it into the darkness after her.

I kill the lamp, walk through the door over to the boom box, kick it to the floor, and the song ends. I go around the room, pulling the rods that drop the storm shutters, close and lock both doors. Bud is hiding under the bed.

– That’s right, cat! Better fucking hide, know what’s good for you. Fucking cat! Fucking cat! Nothing would have happened, nothing without you. You! Stupid! Fucking! Cat!

I’m screaming now. Bud is terrified. I tear the back door open and run. I run across the twenty yards of sand to the tree line where the jungle begins and then I run through the jungle, tripping and falling a dozen times before I huddle in the roots of a tree, shivering and sobbing, hugging the trunk.

Having been reminded of Yvonne who liked to roll her own cigarettes, and who is dead because of me. Having been reminded of the six men I’ve killed, two by accidents of a sort and four in cold blood. And crouched here all night long, wretched and sobbing, I never once feel sorry for myself. Because I’m a maddog killer and I deserve everything I get.

THE FRIEND’S name was Russ. He gave me the cat to watch and then he disappeared and then guys started showing up and hurting me and killing my friends because Russ had failed to let me in on a key piece of information. He had failed to tell me that there was a key hidden in the bottom of Bud’s cage, a key that unlocked a storage unit that contained a bag that contained four-and-a-half million ill-gotten, whistle-clean dollars.

Still, things turned out a fuck of a lot better for me than for Russ. He ended up dead from having his head beat in with a baseball bat. That’s a fact I know for certain. I know because I was on the other end of the bat when it happened. I didn’t really mean to kill him. My reason was fogged at the time. A barroom full of my friends had just been machine-gunned to death. Anyway, he wasn’t the last guy I ever killed.

Or the first.

IN THE morning I go back to the bungalow. I pick up the boom box and the spilled CDs and pop the shutters open. The Spanish girls’ camp is gone and the area has the look of having been broken up quickly in the dark. Sorry, girls. So sorry.

This isn’t easy. Living isn’t easy. But the less I expose myself to life, the easier it is. The less chance there is that something might remind me of who I am. Boozing made it easier, but I don’t want to booze anymore. Because it shouldn’t be easy. With the things that happened, the things I did, life shouldn’t be easy. So last night is a reminder: keep your life small, keep the people in your life few, and keep them in front of you. Because life isn’t easy. And you can lose control of it in an instant.

Bud watches me from the bed until I come over and sit down next to him. Then he climbs into my lap, stretches, and rubs the top of his head against my chin.

– Sorry, Buddy. You’re a good cat. Not your fault, I know that.

He jumps off the bed and walks over to the cabinet where his food is. I take the hint and get off my ass to feed him.

– Yeah, I know, apologies are like assholes, right? Want to make me feel better, feed me.

I leave him to eat and go into the little bathroom. It’s just a tiled chamber with a showerhead at one end and a small commode at the other. A rain tank with a filter unit is on a small tower right outside. That takes care of my washing-water needs, and Leo brings me a few five-gallon jugs of drinking water every week.

Where I really luxuriated when I had this place built was the septic tank. That cost a pretty penny, as does getting it pumped. But, trust me, when you grow up with indoor plumbing, you are simply not prepared for the places most people in the world have to crap.

I wash up and find several cuts on my arms, legs, and feet from my run through the jungle. I sterilize those and take care of them with a few Band-Aids. Then I go for my morning swim, get my ears clogged so that I have to do the cigarette trick, put on shorts and a guayabera shirt, lock up, and walk over to The Bucket, where I find Mickey already sitting on my swing, drinking from my coffee cup, and reading my paper. And I start to remember very clearly just what it feels like when you really want to kill a man.

I MADE that call to Tim back in August. I’d been going out to the pay phone by the highway every three months to call him at home. He’d let me know what was up, if the cops were still poking around. And they poked. I mean, in the forty-eight hours I spent running around Manhattan getting chased, the death toll reached fourteen. At the time, it was a pretty impressive number. Then some really fucked-up people rammed a couple airplanes into these tall buildings in New York and I dropped off the radar.

So things had been quiet for awhile. That shit never seems to last. After Tim told me his story about people maybe looking for me in Mexico, we changed our MO. I started calling him every week at a pay phone in Grand Central.

And it didn’t take long for Tim to start noticing some things.

– What do you mean, “things”?

– I don’t know, man.

– Well that helps, Timmy.

– OK, so people, they like to talk to me, right? Always, on the bus, whatever, I’m the guy people sit next to and like to just start talking to. And, mostly, so, OK, I got ears, use ’em, right? But then, lately? I think I may have noticed something, a trend in the topics of conversation.

It’s starting to rain on me; fat, warm drops.

– Timmy?

– Yeah?

– Can you please get to the point?

– Crime, seems like people, all the time, want to talk to me about crime.

The rain gets heavier and, all at once, is a deluge.

– Want to talk about, Is it better now than it was before? Is the mayor doing all he can? Seems it was better when Rudy was around. With exceptions, of course. Shit happened even when big bad Rudy was sheriff around these parts. And then, some guy might chime in, Yeah, like remember that time? And guess what time he means?

Water is pouring down my body. I might as well be in the ocean.

– And even one of the guys at work one day pops out with, Hey, remember that guy went berserk, that guy you knew him? What the hell was that about?

The dusty ground has already turned to mud.

– So what I’m telling you here is that I think I’m noticing some things. A trend in conversations wherein people, some I know and others I don’t, are asking questions of me that frequently lead to you.

The rain stops and the sun comes out and hits my drenched body. And I tell Tim, fuck it, get your boss to give you a transfer and get the hell out of town. Now.

That’s what he did, got his boss to move him to his western operation. I sent money to cover moving expenses and whatnot, because it pays to take care of the only man in America that knows where you are. And that’s how Timmy ended up dealing grass in Las Vegas.

And I ended up being on edge every time I heard a Russian accent.

PEDRO SEES me walking up to The Bucket. I gesture at Mickey’s back and Pedro shrugs his shoulders. I lean on the bar next to Mickey. He looks up from my paper, smiles. It’s a pained smile, the smile of a man in the grips of a savage hangover.

– Good morning.

– Yeah. Look, no offense, man, but that’s my cup.

– Cup?

– That cup you’re drinking coffee from? I bought it in town, brought it all the way down here because I wanted a really big, heavy cup for my coffee.

He looks confused.

– I’m sorry, it was…

– And that’s my paper.

– These things, they were, you know, on the bar.

– Yeah, Pedro does that for me, has my stuff waiting for me. Because I live here and I pay him extra for it to be that way.

Pedro has his back turned to us, rotating my chorizo and stirring my eggs. His shoulders are shaking as he tries to keep from laughing. Mickey starts to slide the paper and coffee cup over to me.

– No, Mickey, that’s OK, just leave everything there.

Pedro is starting to lose it, little pops of laughter escaping from his mouth.

– You are sure? It is OK?

Puppy dog all over his face, he just wants to make me happy. Just to end the noise of my voice so his head will hurt a little bit less.

– Yeah, just leave it there.

He smiles, relaxes a little.

– Thank you. I am very embarrassed.

– Yeah, just leave it there, ’cause that’s also my swing you’re on and I’ll want my things right there when you get up so I can sit down.

Pedro gives in. Guffaws. Mickey gets tangled in the ropes again and almost falls from the swing. I grab his arm and direct him onto the next swing over.

– I am sorry. I did not know this was for you. I sat and I thought…

I sit. Still laughing, Pedro brings my plate, the tortillas, and a cheap plastic cup for Mickey. I stick a chorizo into a tortilla.

– Hangover?

– What? Yes. Hangover.

– Pedro, bring the guy a Modelo.

I finish making the little burrito and hand it to him.

– Eat this and drink that beer. Trust me, I know what to do to a hangover.

HE KEEPS his mouth shut this time and I pass him sections of the paper as I finish them. He eats the food I give him and drinks the beer and then the coffee and then I tell him to drink water for a few hours and he’ll be right as rain. He’s grateful as hell. He’s not really a bad guy, and it turns out he’s leaving tomorrow anyway. He’s planning to start heading north, but really wants to get over to Chichen Itza before he moves on.

– And then I must go home.

– School?

– Christmas. My mother must have me home for Christmas.

Christmas. Right. It’s December and Christmas is at the end of December. How did I forget that? But I know why I forgot it. Because I wanted to. I always used to go home for Christmas, too. And I don’t like to remember what it was like. How nice it was.

Before I know it, I’ve volunteered to give him a lift to the ruins tomorrow.

He insists on paying for breakfast and I let him. Then he takes his water bottle and walks off to loll in the sand and sweat out the rest of the hangover. Pedro picks up my plate and wipes the bar.

– He was asking about you.

– What?

– Before you got here.

– What?

– How long have you lived here. Where do you come from. Do you work.

Little shit bastard.

– So?

– So?

– So what did you say?

He looks at me and snorts through his nose.

– Cabron. I kept my mouth shut.

– Sorry, sorry, man.

– I don’t talk about you with no pinche tourist.

– Mea culpa, Pedro, it’s cool, I know you wouldn’t say anything.

I stick out my hand and he takes it.

– Si, si, but you have to watch that shit. I never talk about you.

– Claro.

Shaking his head, he starts scraping the grill. He never scrapes the grill. I light a smoke. The only way I can make up for insulting him will be to stay up late into the night while he gets drunk and we sing songs together and repledge our friendship. No relationship, no number of psycho girlfriends, can prepare you for how easy it is to hurt the feelings of a Mexican man.

I’m worrying about how to make it up to him, along with the prospect of playing “Am I really a Russian gangster?” with Mickey on a three-hundred-mile drive, when the boat pops up on the horizon and Leo drives it right up on the beach so it will be easier to lift out the Cuban with the huge machete gash in his thigh.

IT’S NOT like Mexican immigration has to fight a pitched battle to keep illegals from flooding the country, but what Leo and Rolf are up to is against the law and it would be best to keep a low profile. Mickey is dozing on the sand down by his tent; other than that, no one is on the beach yet. Pedro drove the dune buggy home last night and brought it back this morning, but it’s a rocky mile to his place and the Cuban has been bounced around plenty in the boat.

We have him on the bar. The other Cuban is holding tight to the tourniquet they made out of a belt and put at the top of his friend’s thigh. The Cuban’s foot is ice cold from lack of circulation. Fuck, his whole body is cold and clammy from shock.

– My place.

Pedro stays to get the bar ready for business, and Rolf takes care of the boat while I help Leo and the other Cuban carry the injured guy to my bungalow. Leo was one of the guys that I hired to build the place, but he hasn’t been inside since. No one but Pedro has been inside.

Bud runs for cover when we bang through the door.

– The table.

We set him on the table.

– Leo, there’s a first aid kit under the bed.

He goes for it. The other Cuban is still clutching the tourniquet, staring at his friend’s face. I take hold of his fingers and pry them free. He looks at me. I nod my head.

– Tranquilo, tranquilo.

His eyes are bugging from his head.

– Toallas.

He shakes his head.

– Toallas. Bano.

I tilt my head toward the bathroom.

– Ahi. Muchas toallas. Si?

– Toallas, si.

He goes to the bathroom for the towels. Leo puts the big, green first aid kit on the table.

– How long you been in Mexico?

– Awhile.

– Your Spanish sucks.

– Fuck off, Leo. Hold this.

He takes the tourniquet from me while I open the kit, find some latex gloves and slip them on.

– OK.

I take the tourniquet back and start to loosen it.

– You might want to put on a pair of these. Last time I checked, AIDS was epidemic in the Caribbean.

– Puta madre.

He puts on the gloves. The other Cuban comes back with a stack of towels. I’m prying my fingers under the tourniquet where it’s dug into the guy’s skin. I pull it loose. Blood gushes onto my table. It’s not spraying, so the artery’s not severed. Then again, I’m working with a few classes I took about fifteen years ago for an EMT certificate I never got so what do I know? I cram a couple towels against the wound, take the other Cuban’s hand, put it on the towels, and press down. He gets the idea and holds the towels in place. I pull off my blood-slicked gloves, roll on a clean pair. Leo is just standing there.

– Massage the guy’s foot.

– Say what?

– Massage his foot.

– Por fucking que?

– I don’t know, maybe to get the circulation going so it doesn’t die and have to be cut off.

He starts a stream of curses under his breath and rubs the foot. I find the suture set. With my free hand I get the bottle of antiseptic, bite the cap off, pour some on the needle, then hold the bottle over the wound. The other Cuban guy pulls the towel away and I pour antiseptic into the wound. The guy on the table moans a little and his leg jerks. I empty about half the bottle, then use one of the towels to wipe some of the blood away. The gash is long, shallow at the top, cutting deeper as it gets closer to the knee. The blood is just oozing now; that first flood, a reservoir that had been held back by the tourniquet.

– OK, Leo, kind of hold the flesh together here.

His curses pick up in volume, but he puts his fingers on either side of the wound and pinches the edges together. Is this right? There are probably capillaries and shit in there that need to be put back together. Should I leave the wound open for a real doctor?

– So are you going to sew this shit up or what, man?

I sew the shit up.

– Who did it?

– He did.

Leo has his head inclined toward the other Cuban, who is sitting next to the table now, looking pale and ill.

– Why?

– We got out there, man, and find these two cabrones in a leaky raft with a couple bottles of rum, a sack of coconuts, and a machete. Fucking peons are hacking the tops off the coconuts and pouring in the rum. Drunk like American kids on spring break. Wild On Cuba in a sinking raft.

– That satellite TV is gonna ruin you.

– What the fuck, where do you think I learn the English? Maybe you should have watched MTV Latin before you came down here. Learn how to speak the language, man.

– So what happened, they get in a fight?

– We pull alongside and culo there stands up with a coconut and the machete so he can make us a cocktail.

– No.

– He swings at the coconut, misses and hits his buddy in the leg instead. Puta fucking madre. Blood everywhere. Screaming.

– Why didn’t you leave them?

Leo looks at me, looks at my hands sewing the leg back together.

– Why are we in your house, man? Su casa is not mi casa, you know. So why are we here?

I tie off another little knot.

– We didn’t leave them because the fucker’s leg was almost cut off, they were drunk in a leaky raft, blood everywhere, and sharks in the water.

– Got it.

It takes awhile to stitch him up. Rolf shows up when we’re about halfway done and comes in. My sanctum sanctorum: Grand fucking Central. I tell him where the plastic garbage bags are and he starts mopping up blood and bagging ruined towels. When I’m done I pour more antiseptic over the wound, gently wipe the leg clean, and feel the foot. It’s warm. We pick him up and start to carry him to the bed.

– Do you need help?

I twist my head and see Mickey standing in the doorway that Rolf left wide open when he came in. Bud meows.

– A cat. I did not know you have a cat.

HE SHOWS up early the next morning. I’m already outside getting the Willys ready. Mickey pitches his pack in the back and we’re ready to go. I roll us slowly down the beach, stop at The Bucket and tell Mickey to wait for me in the truck. Pedro has a sack for me with a couple water bottles and some tortas his wife made.

– You are taking him to the ruins?

– Yeah.

Pedro shakes his head.

– What?

– You have your secrets. I do not know nothing about them.

– So?

– So I do not know how is the best way to keep them.

– I’m just giving the guy a ride so he doesn’t have to take the bus.

– The man who asks the questions, you are giving him a ride.

– Pedro.

– Not my business. I do not know shit.

And he’s scraping the grill again.

– Pedro.

– Si.

Great, now I’m getting the Spanish treatment.

– I’ll see you tonight.

– Si.

– Maybe we can sing some songs when I get back.

– Si, jefe.

I’m walking away when he shouts.

– The bar needs limes.

– Sure thing.

I get in the truck and pull onto the trail that cuts to the highway. I need to get Mickey out to the jungle. Bodies rot quickly in the jungle.

I TOLD Mickey we didn’t need help and Rolf walked him back onto the porch and closed the door. We got the Cuban onto the bed. Leo and me cleaned up while the other Cuban sat with his friend. I lit a smoke.

– Now what?

– I’ll go get the buggy and we’ll get him the hell out of here.

I pop one of the shutters open. Rolf and Mickey are standing next to the porch, chatting. Ten or fifteen people are dotted over the beach now.

– He can stay till evening.

– Claro?

– Yeah, he needs to stay in one place for at least a couple hours anyway.

– Thanks, man.

– Where you gonna take him?

– Mi casa.

Leo lives in town, about an hour’s drive.

– Their cousins are probably there waiting for us. I should drive up and chill them out.

– Call Doc Sanchez while you’re there, get him to meet you when you bring this guy back. Fix that mess I made.

Leo points out the window at Mickey.

– Him?

– What about him?

– Is he cool?

– Good fucking question.

Leo grabs Rolf and they take the buggy. I sit on the porch steps with Mickey.

– These guys had some trouble and I’m trying to help them out. You understand?

– Of course.

– It’s not the kind of thing that it would be good to talk about. Even when you get back home.

– Yes, I understand. With my father’s “business,” there were things I could not talk about.

– Right. Good.

I get up and walk to the door and peek back inside.

– But, sometimes, people would, you know, talk anyway. And I would hear things.

– Uh-huh.

Both Cubans are squeezed onto the bed, asleep.

– Stories.

– Yeah.

I should have told Leo to hit a pharmacia in town for some antibiotics.

– When we go to Chichen Itza tomorrow?

– Yeah?

We should be getting them into him now.

– You should bring a million dollars with you.

I turn from the window.

– Otherwise, I will tell my father’s “business” partners where you are with their money and your cat.

I look down. There are droplets of blood on my feet, sand stuck to them. I rub my feet together to grind them off.

– We’ll have to go to Merida, to the bank. My safety deposit boxes are there.

HE STILL wants to stop at Chichen Itza to see the Mayan ruins. Guy’s banking on a million at the end of the road and he wants to get some snapshots from the top of Kukulkan. Whatever.

I turn north onto Mexico 307 heading for 180 West, the toll road outside of Cancun. I stop at one of the Pemex stations on the highway and gas up. Mickey’s not talking, still waking up. It’ll take about an hour to get to Cancun, another two or three to Chichen Itza.

We swoop onto the 180. There’s hardly any traffic. I put the pedal down and open the Willys up a little to clean it out. It’s a 1960 Utility Wagon. A previous owner chopped the roof off and installed a ragtop. I bought it when I moved to the beach; had Baja tires put on because the trail floods out at least a couple times every month. I don’t really drive it much. I used to not drive, period. Not since the time in high school when I rammed my Mustang into a tree and killed my best friend. Rich. I used to have nightmares about Rich. But that was a long time ago. And I’ve killed more people since then.

Mickey’s waking up and becoming his chatty self.

– This place, I love it, you know.

– Huh.

– The whole peninsula, jungle, all the way to the beaches. It is beautiful. I started in Mexico City, you know, and that was wonderful, but very much like Manhattan, but if it were always hot. And then, I went to Guadalajara and to Puerto Vallarta and around the coast to Acapulco and east to Oaxaca and then into Guatemala and Belize and then up to Quintana Roo and the jungle and the beaches and the Caribbean and it is the most beautiful thing that I have ever found, and also very lucky for me, I think, because that is where I found you.

He wants me to know it’s nothing personal.

– And I did not come down here to look for you, you know. I wanted to see Mexico and get drunk on beaches and fuck women, but I had heard the stories.

– Tell me about the stories.

– Oh.

He starts to laugh.

– Oh, are they pissed at you. My father, when he was still alive and in “business,” I can remember I was at school and came home to their house for a visit to see my mother. And my father, he was very angry. Stomping, slamming, cursing. And he said your name! And, you know, I had heard your name because this had just happened with all the people being killed and your picture was in the newspapers and on the TV and I was living in Manhattan for school and I was very scared of you. Really. Everyone I knew was scared. And then I go home, out of the city until the killing stops, and I go to my parents and my father is cursing your name. And many people were cursing you, but this was, he was cursing you like he would curse me when he got angry, like you did something to hurt him.

Great.

– But then, I did not know anything until later. When he was sick and his friends would come over to talk “business” at the house where my mother had put in the hospital bed and hired the nurse, and I would come home sometimes on the weekend to visit. But they were not really talking, you know, “business” with him. They drank vodka and told stories and tried to make him laugh, but all of them always ended up crying. But in a way that was good, you know?

The jungle presses right up against the two-lane blacktop. We’ve passed a tour bus and a couple trucks and an abandoned VW Bug. There will be two toll stops and one gas station between here and Chichen Itza. After that, nothing until we join the regular road at Kantunil.

– Sometimes I would listen to the stories and always there was the one that they would tell. The story about you and how you killed so many of their men and stole their money and they would curse you and drink to your death and curse you some more. And they would then talk about where you had run to and what they would do when they found you. And, but, you know, they would almost always say something about you in Russian that would mean you were a sly, crafty, tough bastard and that they would have done what you had done if they could have, but that they would kill you anyway.

Every so often there are little dirt trails cutting off the main road and into the jungle. These lead to small rancheros that are, almost without exception, abandoned. People buy these little plots of land hoping to have a place in driving distance to the beach, but the jungle always kicks their ass. Turn your back on it and the jungle is at your back door. Any one of these little roads would do. I could say I needed to pull off and take a leak.

– So of course, you know, when I came to Mexico I knew your story and I had many times heard my father’s friends talk about you and that they thought Mexico was a place you could be, and I had seen your picture and a picture of your cat from the TV. But I did not come here to look for you, but I also remembered to look a little, because it would be stupid not to. But not for them. I don’t look for them, for my father’s friends and their “business.” I would not do that to you, tell them where you are so they can kill you, but I am not so stupid that I do not want something, you know, to not tell them. So the million dollars is a good deal for both of us because you will still have so much and it will be so much more than they would give me.

I spot one of the trails up ahead, slow the Willys, and start to pull off.

– What?

– I have to go.

– Me too.

I drive a hundred yards to a partial clearing. Sure enough, there’s a cinderblock house, abandoned and being disassembled by the jungle. I shut off the engine, climb out, and undo my fly. But I don’t have to go. I hear Mickey get out the other side. A groan as he stretches, a zip and then splashing. I button up, turn, and there’s Mickey, his back to me, watering a tree. There’s a piece of broken cinderblock right at my feet.

I get back behind the wheel. Mickey gets in next to me. I start the engine.

– Hang on.

I get back out, turn my back, and undo my fly again. Because now that I know I’m not gonna kill this guy, that I can’t kill him, I can pee. I get back in the truck. Mickey smiles.

– Missed some?

– It crawled back up.

– I hate that.

– Yep.

I steer the truck back onto the highway, going west. I’ll take Mickey to Chichen Itza. I’ll climb the temple steps with him and walk around the ruins. And when it’s time to go I’ll tell him the truth, that the money’s not in Merida, it’s back at my place. I’ll take him home, give him the million, and send him on his way. Then I’ll start looking for a new place to hide, a new country. I’ll do it that way, take the chance, because I don’t want to be a murderer again. I don’t want to be a maddog.

A COUPLE hours later we pull off at the exit for Piste, drive a couple miles of open road and then through the town itself. Every time we have to slow for a speed bump, kids mob the car with mass-produced Mayan souvenirs. I ease the truck through them while Mickey laughs. On the other side of town it’s another mile or so to the National Park where the ruins are. I take a ticket from the parking guy, find a spot, and turn off the engine, killing a mariachi-rock version of “Twist and Shout.”

The rain is coming down hard and people are coming out of the park, climbing into their cars and refilling the tour buses. I look at the sky, look at Mickey.

– Might not stop for awhile.

– I like it, let’s go.

He reaches in his pack and pulls out his poncho and rain hat. I do not have a poncho or a rain hat. We get out of the truck and I am soaked through before we get halfway to the main building. Once we are safely under cover the rain slackens to a gentle drizzle. Fucking Caribbean. I have to buy Mickey his ticket. He tells me he owes me. We go through the turnstile, past the gift shop, the bookshop, the coffee shop, through another turnstile where they snap on our wristbands, and then into the park itself. You walk through a little tunnel of trees. Into a clearing, and there’s Kukulkan. And you know, it is pretty cool.

I’m not big on sightseeing, but I’ve been out here a couple times in the last few years, enough to pick up some details, and now I play tour guide for Mickey. He wants to save the climb up the temple steps for last, so we start with the Ball Court. We stand at one end and look down the length of the stone stadium. Mickey nods his head.

– Big.

– Two hundred and seventy-two feet by one hundred and ninety-nine.

– Big.

We walk down the court and stand under one of the stone hoops mounted at midpoint on either side of the Court. Mickey leaps and tries to touch the bottom of the rim, but can’t get close.

– That is where they put the heads through to score?

– Nah, they used a rubber ball.

– I thought heads?

– No. The Toltecs, when they took over, there’s some evidence that they might have sacrificed the losing team.

– And they played like soccer.

– Any part of your body but your hands.

– See, soccer rules. Much better than American football.

I can say it now.

– I don’t like football. I like baseball.

– See, you know, I know this about you also. But still, soccer is also better than baseball.

I turn my back and walk toward the rest of the ruins.

WE DO the Temple of Warriors and the Thousand Columns and the smaller features of the main clearing, and then Mickey is ready for the climb. Kukulcan, aka The Temple, aka The Castle, aka The Pyramid, aka El Castillo: it’s why people come here. The seventy-nine-foot ziggurat built over a smaller pyramid that is still housed inside. There’s debate over whether it was built by the Mayans or the Toltecs, but they both seem to have used it as a place of worship and sacrifice, and also as a calendar of some kind. There are ninety-one steps on each of the four sides and a small temple on top representing a single giant step. Do the math: three hundred sixty-five steps altogether. Neat. There’s more! Kukulcan was a golden serpent god, and on both the spring and autumnal equinoxes, shadows that look like writhing snake bodies play on two of the staircases. No shit. But mostly, mostly, it’s a long fucking climb up a stone staircase on something around a forty-degree incline. A climb that will be made in the rain today. Rain that is getting harder.

Mickey trots up, of course. I keep a pretty brisk pace, but, having a stronger sense of my own mortality, I take time to plant each foot firmly on the rain-slick steps, gravity tugging at my back the whole way up. We’re climbing the west stairs, which have been restored and even have a handrail running up the center. The north stairs have also been restored, but only have a rope strung from top to bottom. The east and south faces have been allowed to erode so tourists can get a sense of the condition the place was in when it was found. I pass a couple people crawling down backward on all fours, but nobody going up.

Mickey is waiting for me at the top, arms thrust up in a V. He wants me to take a picture of him like that with the jungle in the background. I do. A few people are up here, hiding just inside the temple, waiting for the rain to ease off before they go down. Mickey wants to go inside the temple and see the Jaguar Throne.

– You go ahead.

– No, but you must go with me.

– I’ve seen it.

– You can show me then.

– Look, it’s tiny in there and I don’t really like tiny places. Besides, it’s smelly.

He steps a little closer to me, still smiling.

– No, but, you know, you really must go with me because I do not want you to be alone.

Jesus H.

– Mickey, can I have a word with you?

We edge around the outside of the temple, away from most of the people, to the east face of the pyramid. Looking out over the endless jungle.

– What is it?

– I’m not going anywhere. What I am going to do is keep our bargain. I’m gonna give you a million dollars to keep your mouth shut because I don’t want to die. I’m not looking to ditch you, so just go poke around inside and then we can look at the Observatory if you want and then we’ll drive back to the beach and I’ll give you your money.

He squints at me.

– We will go to Merida and you will get me the money.

Sigh.

– The money’s not in Merida, it’s at my place.

– You said Merida.

– I lied.

– Why?

– Because.

His mouth tightening into a straight line.

– You wanted to take me to Merida, for what? To do something. To do something to me.

– Look.

– No! You cannot fuck with me. I know what this is, what you were trying. My father was in “business,” I know about “business.” You were thinking to kill me.

And funny as it may be, him saying it fills me with shame.

– Yeah. Yeah, I was.

– Fucking, fuck. I cannot trust you.

– Let’s just.

– I will tell you what we will just do. You, you will take me to the money and you will give me two million. No, you will give me three million.

He’s getting loud and spittle is flying from his lips. I look around to see if we’ve drawn an audience, but the rain is letting off and the other people are moving to the north and west sides to climb down.

– Mickey.

– Do not call me Mickey. That is for my friends. You now call me Mikhail, like my father named me.

– You need to settle down, and we’ll work this out.

– It is worked out, you will give me three million or I will tell where you are.

I can keep my cool here. I know I can.

– You’re going to get a lot of money, but I will not give you three million. I can’t.

He throws up his arms in disgust.

– You are wanting, you know, to bargain with me? You are selfish. Yes, because this is not just about you.

– What do you mean?

– A selfish shit dog of a man.

– What do you mean, not just about me?

– My father’s friends, they are not stupid, they know where your family lives. And you, selfish man, want to bargain with your family’s life?

– No, I don’t.

And I push Mickey down the rubbled east staircase of the Temple of Kukulcan. The first human sacrifice here in nearly a thousand years.

ON THE way home I stop in town to pick up a few things at the store. I go to the Chedraui, Mexico’s version of Costco. I find the tape gun and reinforced packing tape I want, but none of the cardboard boxes they have for sale are big enough. I grab some cat food and a few other things, then go outside and pull around to the loading dock. They have a big pile of discarded boxes and the guys let me take my pick.

It’s after ten when I get to The Bucket. There must have been a couple folks hanging out late because Pedro’s just locking up the booze. I turn off the Willys and walk over with a huge sack of limes from the Chedraui.

– Sorry I’m late.

He takes the limes and stuffs them into one of the cabinets.

– No problema.

– Everything OK today?

– Si.

He looks at the Willys.

– You dropped off the Russian?

– Yeah. I dropped him off.

IT TOOK over an hour for the Federales to show up.

In the meantime the local police throw a tarp over Mickey and keep me sitting on the steps next to him. They don’t shut down the park, just wave curious tourists away from the body, and share their Boots cigarettes with me because I left mine out in the truck.

Over the years the reputation of the Mexican police force has taken a beating. Everybody has heard stories of Mexican traffic cops scamming tourists for mordida, planting pot on unsuspecting kids on spring break, and the notorious involvement of the military in the international drug trade. And most of it is just plain true.

These guys get paid next to shit to do shit work and are given shitty equipment with which to do it. What’s the worst job in the world? Mexican cop. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the Federales who show up to question me turn me upside down and start shaking to see how much cash falls out of my pockets. Instead, they turn out to be honest, hardworking cops just trying to do the job.

Sergeants Morales and Candito are appallingly young, neither can be more than twenty-two, but they seem quite good at what they do. Which may be unfortunate for me. Their English isn’t good enough to make up for my Spanish, so we conduct our interview through a translator. One of the tour guides from the park.

We sit in a small room in the park’s administration building. Morales and Candito light Marlboros and give me one and the tour guide lights one of his cheap Alitas. The room chokes with smoke and they start asking questions about me and Mickey.

I tell them I just met Mickey a couple days ago and don’t really know much about him. I tell them how I offered him a ride on my way to Merida. They ask me why I was going to Merida and I tell them I was just going up for a couple days to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and do a little shopping. They ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m retired. They observe that I seem youthful to be retired and I tell them I made a certain amount of money on the stock market before the American economy folded. All of which is consistent with my FM2 immigration documents, U.S. passport, and the other ID that Leo supplied me with two years ago. Then they ask me what happened.

I tell them how Mickey wanted to climb the pyramid even though it had started raining, how we went around back to look at the view, how he wanted to stand near the edge while I took his picture, how his foot slipped on the rain-slick stone, and how we reached for each other, our hands colliding rather than grasping, sending him tumbling down the steps. And Sergeant Morales rattles something in Spanish to Sergeant Candito, who looks at something in his notebook and rattles something to the translator, who turns to me and asks me if I could please tell them what that was about, the argument?

– Um, argument?

The translator says something in Spanish and Sergeant Candito answers and the translator turns back to me.

– The sergeants have a statement from a witness that you and your friend were arguing and they would like to know if you can tell them.

– That was nothing. I mean, we were arguing, but it was just about me wanting to get going and him wanting to stay longer. That’s all.

The translator translates and Morales looks at Candito and Candito looks at Morales and they both look at the translator, who shrugs his shoulders.

And they let me go.

Of course they let me go. I’m an American citizen of some apparent wealth who has chosen to live and spend that wealth in Mexico.

But they keep my passport.

Which means they don’t buy it.

And they don’t buy me, either.

I SIT at the bar. Pedro pops the top off a seltzer for me and I tell him that Mickey is dead. I don’t tell him the truth. This is not because I don’t trust him. I do. I don’t tell him the truth for the same reason I’ve never told him who I am and what I’m running from: to keep him the hell out of trouble.

Pedro finishes cleaning up, opens a beer for himself, and sits on the swing next to mine.

– Dead.

– As a door nail.

– Como?

– A door nail. It’s a turn of phrase.

– Sure.

He squeezes a wedge of lime into his beer.

– Nails that are special just for doors?

– I don’t know.

– What is so dead about them?

– I don’t know.

– Deader than… a coffin nail?

– I don’t know.

He nods, finishes his beer, crawls up onto the bar, and leans far over so he can pluck another from the nearly empty tub. He wobbles, almost falls, but I grab his belt and pull him back. Pedro slides onto his swing.

– Gracias. So what now?

– Nothing.

– They took your passport.

– It’s no big deal. The guy was clumsy, he fell, the cops will investigate, and it will be over.

I drink my seltzer and Pedro drinks his beer.

– But I’ve been thinking about taking a trip.

– Claro.

– Maybe you could talk to Leo, tell him I might want some help.

– Claro. Cuando?

– Soon.

– American time, si?

– Yeah.

– OK.

I help him dump the water from the ice tub and offer him a ride in the Willys. He declines and pedals off on the tricycle. I drive over to my bungalow. I take my groceries, the tape gun, and the cardboard box inside. Bud is restless and darts around the room when I come in. I can see a little pile of cat poop in the middle of the room. He never does that.

– Not getting enough attention these days, guy?

He looks at me like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which I suppose is literally true, but he knows, he always fucking knows. I clean up the crap, open a can of cat food, and sit on the floor next to him while he eats.

– Better?

He makes a little rumble in his throat that I interpret as a yes, so I flip on the boom box and put in Wish You Were Here. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” starts playing and I get to work.

Out to the back porch. I open the footlocker and grab the shovel. It’s developed a thin sheen of rust, like many of my tools. I should really keep them oiled, but I like the rust. It reminds me of old farm equipment piled in the yards of houses on the outskirts of my hometown.

Home.

I push that thought back down. Soon, but not yet, I can think about home.

I go back in, drop the shutters, and drag the bed into the middle of the room. I put a candle on the floor and feel around for the crack between the tiles.

WE HAD a great time building The Bucket and my bungalow, me and Pedro and Leo and a couple of their cousins. We hung out on the beach, working hard in the morning, taking a nice long siesta, then more work, then kicking a soccer ball around for an hour or two while the sun went down. Then everyone else would head home and I’d camp out to keep an eye on the tools and materials.

The Bucket was a breeze. We dug the holes for the pilings by hand, sank them, buried them, and built the roof frame. Then we built a box frame for the squared horseshoe of the bar, faced it, and anchored it to some four-by-fours we also sank in the sand. And that’s about all you want to do for a beach bar because the whole thing is gonna blow away every few years when a hurricane blasts through. The bungalow was a bit more involved. We hired a guy with a Cat to come down and drill our piling holes extra deep, framed the roof and floor, nailed plywood over the floor, and planked the walls. Then the pros came in.

The pros were three brothers, their father and grandfather, and about ten of their little kids. These are the guys who do the palm thatching. They came in, took one look at the roofs we’d framed, tore them apart, and put them back together. Then they spent two days walking around up there, bundling and tying palm fronds together in such a way that a trapeze artist could drop on them from five stories and wouldn’t break through. It was cool. The plumbing and sewage guys came during the next week and put in the water tank, toilet, sink, shower, and septic tank. And all that was left was the tiling, which I did myself.

I FIND the crack.

I keep a flat, stainless steel bottle opener on my keychain, but I don’t use it for opening bottles. It’s there for one purpose only, and this is its first time doing the job. I slip it into the crack, flex it, and pull slowly upward. The edge of a square of tile and plywood lifts away. I wedge my toe against it before it can fall back. I drop the bottle opener, get a fingertip grip on the panel, lift it up, and set it off to the side. Now comes the fun part: standing in a space not quite a yard square and shoveling sand in the dark.

I first dug this hole on one of the nights I spent alone on the beach. We’d staked out the frame for the bungalow, but hadn’t started building it yet. I picked the spot where I planned to put the bed, dug a hole, and got a big box from the bed of the Willys. Then I lowered it into the hole and filled it in. After the bungalow was done, I built the secret panel into the floor. Of course, I didn’t realize then that when the time came to dig out the box I’d be doubled over with my back in knots, rapping my knuckles on the edge of the hole in the floor with every stroke of the shovel. It takes awhile.

The shovel clunks into the top of the box. It’s one of those indestructible packing cases rock bands use to haul their equipment in. I get down on my knees to clear the sand away from the lid and twist and flip the clasps. The top pops off and there’s a Hefty bag inside. I squat, grab the top of the bag, heave it out of the box, up through the hole, and into the bungalow. I put the top back on the box and jerk the handle side to side, wiggle it free of the sand, and into the bungalow. Then I push the sand back into the hole, which leaves me with an only slightly smaller hole because the box is no longer in it. I end up slithering around under the bungalow, scooping sand to the hole to fill it in. Once again, it takes awhile.

When I’m done with the sand I put the plug back in the hole in the floor, push the bed into place, and open the Hefty bag. The money belt is on top, prepacked with a hundred grand American. I put that to the side. Underneath is a Ziploc bag. I put that to the side. I’m not ready yet. Beneath that is a huge block of plastic-wrapped money. And seeing it for the first time in around two years, I remember just how confusing dollars can be when there are over four million of them together in one place.

You really do get more for your dollar in Mexico. After I leased my beach property, built my bungalow and The Bucket, and put a nice chunk in a bank up in town, I still have just about four million right here.

My mad money.

And I am mad now, make no mistake, I am mad as hell.

THERE WAS a moment as Mickey fell away from me, arms outstretched, hands grasping, where I might easily have grabbed him and pulled him to safety. But I didn’t try. I watched his body twist in the air and his arms flail as he tried to brace himself for the first impact. He crashed against the steps and his head jerked and slapped the stones. He bounced and tumbled all the way down, blood pinwheeling from his body.

And right there, I answered the old question, What would you do if someone threatened your family?

I’d kill him.

I PUT the money back into the packing case, cut the cardboard box so that it lies flat on the floor, then place the case on top of it. I wrap the case in cardboard and enough reinforced packing tape that you’d have to saw your way through. That done, I get into the shower and rinse off all the sweat and sand stuck to my body. Finally, when all the cleaning is done and the box is standing near the door and I’ve tugged a sarong around my body, I take the lantern out onto the porch, light a cigarette, and open the Ziploc.

The first thing I pull out is the police photo of the bruises on Yvonne’s dead body. Nowhere to go from there but up.

I haven’t looked at the photo for years. I haven’t needed to. I can see it whenever I want to, just by closing my eyes. Now, I look at it, study it, close my eyes and see the same pattern of bruises flashed against the inside of my eyelids. I will never look at it again. With my eyes still closed, I tear the photo into eighths. I open my eyes, put the pieces in my ashtray, and set a match to them.

– Sorry, baby.

But I don’t really need to apologize. Not to her. Not for this. She would have approved of this gesture, would have done it herself long ago. Yvonne Ann Cross, not one for carrying ghosts around.

Next are three business cards.

First: Detective Lieutenant Roman. Roman, the hero cop gone bad who orchestrated the slaughter at Paul’s Bar. A snapshot from my memory: a pile of bodies, my friends, on the floor.

Second: Ed. Brother of Paris. The DuRantes. Bank robbers. Killers. A snatch of brain-movie: In their car, bullets from my gun erasing Ed’s face. Paris’s last word, his brother’s name.

I toss the cards on the tiny fire and look at the third.

Third: A glossy black card with the name Mario embossed in gold gothic script. I smile, remember pot smoke and disco music in the back of his Lincoln as he drove me to the airport and the plane that brought me to Mexico. Nice guy, Mario. I burn him.

I take an envelope from the bag. Inside: the ID and credit cards of John Peter Carlyle, a man who never was. The custom-made identity I came to Mexico with. I won’t be able to travel in Mexico as the man I’ve been for two years, not while the cops are looking into Mickey’s death. My real name isn’t an option. But I might be able to get away with being Carlyle again. I flip open the passport, look at the photo. I’m twenty pounds heavier now, an even two hundred, bulked up through the shoulders and chest from all the swimming, but with a little roll of rice and beans around the middle. The hair that was buzzed and bleached in this photo is now a sun-lightened brown and collar length. Once clean-shaven, I now have a short beard. And the tattoos. Tattoos scattered across my chest and down my arms, tattoos that were meant to help hide me, but have become a way of marking the passage of time. I don’t look anything like this photo. I can cut my hair and shave so I look more like Carlyle, but I will also look more like the man I was, the man wanted for murder. Fuck it, the passport’s date of issue is years old, there’s no reason I shouldn’t look different. I stuff it and the rest of Carlyle back into his envelope and set him aside. There’s only one piece of paper left in the Ziploc.

United Flight #84

12/20/00

Depart: New York JFK 8:25 AM

Arrive: Oakland 11:47 AM

A ticket home, old and out of date. It had been meant to get me there for Christmas. I didn’t make it that time, maybe this time I will. It burns quickly.

I FILL out the International Airway Bill, stopping for a moment when I get to the boxes where I’m supposed to write in the total value for carriage and customs. If I value this thing at less then two hundred bucks, it may very well zip past customs with nary a look. Then again, in the U.S.A.’s current state of heightened security, some clever boy could notice that a guy in Mexico has paid more to ship this box than the stated value of the contents. And that is an invitation to have this thing ripped open by people wearing yellow biohazard suits. Option two: value it at a couple grand, fill out all the supporting documentation, have it go through customs the old-fashioned way. Of course, this involves someone picking it up at a post office in the destination city to pay the duty fees. A great way to get ambushed by Feds. Tricky. This is why I’m at the Pakmail in Cancun, talking to Mercedes. She is going to help me ship four million dollars to America via FedEx.

I finish the Airway Bill, putting the value at two thousand and listing the contents as books. I take a piece of paper from my wallet. It lists the titles of a number of difficult-to-find to semi-rare Mexican art and history books I’ve been collecting. The titles, that is, not the books. I write those titles on the Pro Forma Invoice. To make things extra special tidy, I also have a Certificate of Origin that I had notarized earlier when I stopped by my bank to pick up a few things.

I lift the box onto the scale and Mercedes makes a little woof sound when it tips in at over sixty kilos. She makes the sound again when I hand her the Airway Bill and she sees the destination. Like most service workers in Cancun, her English is good. She says everything with a little song. I like it.

– Lotta money.

I sing back at her.

– Lotta money. You got that right.

She giggles, smoothes the various shipping labels onto the box, hands me my copies, and rings me up for something more than two thousand pesos. I pay in dollars. No big deal in Cancun. She takes another look at the invoice.

– Your friend likes to read.

– I don’t know, he just bought ’em from me.

– eBay?

– Yeah.

– I love eBay. Bought these on eBay.

She’s pointing at her earrings. I bend down to get a closer look. They’re little Miami Dolphins dolphins, leaping through the air, wearing tiny football helmets.

– Fins. Alright. Hell of a year, huh?

– Oh sure, but now…

– Yeah, I know, late season, but they look good with Taylor.

– Oh!

She jumps up and down a little.

– Miles! I love him! He’s so cute.

She stops jumping.

– But his ankle now.

– What?

– His ankle.

Oh no.

– Please don’t tell me.

– On the TV last night. Sportscenter. Very bad.

The Pakmail is right in the middle of a giant strip mall, so it only takes a minute or two for me to find a news kiosk with a copy of today’s Miami Herald. It’s on the front page: “Taylor’s Ankle Fractured, Docs Say Four Weeks Minimum.”

THE FOOTBALL season is a long season. It’s not as long as the baseball season and they only play a tenth as many games, but the abuse your average starting football player absorbs in one game is at least equivalent to what a baseball player suffers in ten or twenty. Thus, one of the keynotes of prevailing wisdom among NFL coaches: as the season waxes, the practices wane.

– So this moron, this spastic that they actually pay to coach the team, decides the guys weren’t hitting hard enough on Sunday when the Pats were making their run. So what’s he do? He calls contact drills. Contact drills in fucking December! So the starting defense is out there, running around, knocking the shit out of the scout squad. And you know those poor chumps are hating it. I mean, these guys get paid about minimum wage and now they have to run around and get the crap pounded out of them by a bunch of psychos who’re pissed at the feeb who’s running the show. Meanwhile, the starting offense is down on the other end of the field, shooting the shit, and running pass drills in their shorts, right where the defensive guys can see them. Now tell me, you ever heard of a guy named Dillon Walker? No, you haven’t. The reason is that Walker was a hundredth-round pick defensive back who, until last Sunday, was a scout scrub himself. However, due to a series of injuries that have ravaged the secondary, he has been elevated to backup and even has a slim shot at starting free safety this Sunday should the gods not smile on Terrence Lincoln’s severe turf toe. Needless to say, this is a man with something to prove. And he’s proving it, flying around the field, hitting anything that moves, trying to show Coach his heart. For example, the scrubs run a little out, and they complete it. This is an out mind you, a play within ten yards of the line of scrimmage, a play the free safety should not be anywhere near. And he’s not, he’s ten yards away when the receiver steps out of bounds. Ten yards away, running full out, helmet down so he can launch himself at the poor scrub five yards out of bounds. And standing right on the other side of this scrub, who is standing there? Standing there and, I don’t know, talking on his cell to his agent about how he’s gonna spend all his bonuses or maybe chatting up a cheerleader, setting up a threeway with her and her fifteen-year-old sister or whatever the fuck twenty-two-year-old millionaires do on the sideline at practice, standing there is Miles Taylor, who is promptly crushed beneath the scrub and Dillon fuckstick Walker.

I pause long enough to light a smoke and inhale half of it.

– Walker bounces right back up and heads for the field, shit-eating grin on his face, ready to huddle up with the D and brag about the massive knock he just put on that pussy scrub. Dumb shit can’t figure out why everyone is standing around on the field, their faces white, staring at something behind him. So he turns to take a look and gets steamrolled by the entire starting offensive line, who have just watched him take out their bread and butter, the guy who has been helping them to earn their bonuses. And all those D boys, the ones who have been running around hitting in full pads while the offense took it easy, they take serious fucking umbrage. Riot. The O and D go at it; starters, backups, everyone except the scrubs, who wisely clear the field. And in the midst of this melee, as the coaches are screaming and trying to pull everyone apart, Miles Taylor stands up to announce that, hey, he’s fine, right before a huge mass of three-hundred-pounders lurches onto him and crushes his ankle.

I inhale the second half of my cigarette.

– I swear to God, I swear to fucking God, if I ever see that fucking retard coach walking down the street, I’m gonna stab him in the neck with a fucking fork. I hate football, I hate it.

– So is that what you called to talk about?

I breath deep and get my shit back together.

– No, Timmy, it’s not.

– Oh. So what’s up then?

– What’s up is I’m sending you a package.

– You’re sending me what?

– I’m sending you a package.

– What package?

I’m standing at the pay phone in a Pemex near the Cancun airport. From here I can see the billboards for T.G.I. Fridays, Senior Frogs, the Bulldog Cafe, etc., that line the road to downtown. My pulse is still racing from my rant about Miles Taylor’s ankle, so I light another cigarette. ’Cause, hey, that’ll calm me down.

– Timmy, I’m sending you the money.

Silence.

– Timmy?

– Are you fucking nuts?

– Look, I’ve thought about this.

I have thought about it. A lot. And it breaks down like this:

A) Tim is an ex-junkie. He is an alcoholic. He is a deliveryman for a drug dealer. He lives in Las Vegas. He is clearly the last man on earth any sane person would send four million dollars to.

B) Tim knows where I am. He knows about the money. He knows about the several rewards available for information leading to my capture. He knows about the money the Russians would pay for my head. And for the years he has been privy to this information, he has kept his mouth shut.

C) I am going to cross the border into the United States illegally. I cannot be caught with the money. If I am caught with the money all bets are off. If, however, the money is out there, I will have something to bargain with. I will have a tool with which to bargain for the safety of my parents.

D) I. Can. Not. Be. Caught. With. The. Money.

– I DON’T care if you’ve thought about it, I don’t want that shit anywhere near me. This is fucking Vegas. Did you know people out here train themselves to smell money? No fucking joke, I mean, I was happy to get outta Gotham and lie low and all, especially seeing as it’s on your dime, but I am not planning to spend my life here, because, basically, this town sucks. People are fucked up here. It’s all the money floating around, they can see it and play with it, but they can’t have it and it just makes ’em want it more. So the minute they smell it on you they come after it. Do not send me that fucking money, because I love you, you know that, but there are fucking limits to what a man can do. OK? Are we cool on this?

– I already sent it.

– What?

– I already.

– Where?

– To your apartment. It should be there the day after tomorrow.

– Man. Man! I cannot believe you fucking. Fine! Fine! It can get here whenever it wants, but I will not be here to receive. You got me? I will not be here. Good-bye.

But he doesn’t hang up.

– Did you hear me? I said good-bye.

I take a last drag off my smoke, drop it on the ground, and crush the butt.

– Someone found me, Timmy. He found me and threatened my parents and I killed him. And now I’m coming home.

– Oh, shit.

I EXPLAIN how it will work. How FedEx employs customs brokers who usher their customers’ goods through U.S. Customs, pay all duty and taxes, and have the package delivered right to the recipient’s door along with a bill for services and fees. I tell him all the paperwork is in more than shipshape, that the only danger is if the package is singled out for a random search. I tell him I don’t know the odds against that, but he’d have a better chance hitting the jackpot on one of those million-dollar slots.

– I’m not sure how long it will take me to cross over, but I hope to be in California by early next week. All you have to do.

– Shit, maaaaaaan.

– All you have to do is hang on to the package, just stick it in a closet until I call and then you’ll just call FedEx and have them pick it up and bring it to me.

– Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

– I’ll… listen. When you get a page from number code four-four-four followed by a phone number, that’ll be me. Just call me at that number and.

– Can’t you come get it yourself?

– I need to stay with my folks, Tim. Until I can figure out a way to deal with the Russians, I need to stay and keep an eye on my folks.

– Yeah, OK.

– And, Timmy, listen to me. If someone does come for it, I mean the law or the Russians, all I want you to do is give it to them and just sell me out. Nothing is gonna happen, but if it does, do whatever you have to do to stay alive and out of jail. Anything they want. Got it?

– Oh, I got that part, you bet I do.

– OK. So what else, is there anything else?

– Couldn’t you come straight here instead and just?

– No. You know I can’t.

– Yeah, right. Look, just take care of your folks. I gotta go.

This time he does hang up.

THERE’S THE usual collection of sunbathers spread around the beach, and a few hanging around the bar. Pedro is flipping burgers on the grill. I park the Willys next to The Bucket and get out. Pedro waves his spatula at me.

– Hola.

– Hey.

I go behind the bar, grab myself a seltzer from the tub, and go stand next to him at the grill.

– You get a chance to talk with your brother?

– I called.

He gives the burgers a flip. They look good. I open the cooler, rip off a lump of ground chuck, and start kneading it into a patty.

– What’d he say?

– Nada.

– He can’t help?

– He didn’t say anything.

I throw my patty on the grill as Pedro crumbles queso blanco on top of the ones he’s making.

– He didn’t say anything?

– Si.

I watch the cheese melting.

– Why didn’t he say anything?

– He was not home.

He chortles as he scoops the patties off the grill and onto buns. I grab the spatula from him as he places the burgers on paper plates with a handful of tortilla chips on the side and takes them to the folks at the bar. I poke my burger around the grill while he opens a few beers for his customers. He comes back and takes the spatula from me.

– You have to… You move it and… aplastar?

– Uh.

– Aplastar. Like this.

He makes little pressing motions with the spatula.

– Squash?

– Yeah! You squash the poor thing. All the juice, the good part, you squash it out. You got to wait. Tranquilo.

So I wait while he lets the burger cook, puts the cheese on it, toasts the bun, and hands it to me when it’s all done. And he’s right: I do try to rush the things and they’re never as good as his. Pedro makes a great burger.

– So do you know when he’s gonna be back?

– Back?

– Leo.

– He’ll come tonight. Talk to you.

– Cool.

I stand there and eat my burger while he looks at me funny.

– You going to talk to them?

– Who?

– Them.

He points up the beach toward my bungalow. And for the first time I look that way and see the white police Bronco parked out front and the two guys in blue uniforms sitting on the porch. Sergeants Morales and Candito.

I drive over. They stand up and brush off the seats of their pants.

– Senor.-

– Buenos tardes, Sargentos.

I gesture toward the front door.

– Entrar?

– Si.

– Si, gracias.

I don’t really want to invite them in, but it would be monumentally rude not to, especially seeing as I am perfectly innocent, have nothing to hide, and want only to help these men to do their job. I open the door, usher them into the cool shade inside, and we all stand there for a moment.

– Bebidos?

– Si.

– Si, gracias.

So I get us all lukewarm bottles of Jaritos from a cabinet and we all take a sip and Sergeant Candito looks at Sergeant Morales and tips his head in my direction and Sergeant Morales slaps his forehead.

– Si, si, claro.

And he pulls my passport out of his pocket and hands it to me. We all have a nice chat. It’s a hard chat because there’s no translator this time, but pidgin Spanish and pidgin English win out.

When we’re all done they have assured me that all is well. They are so sorry they have inconvenienced me. I’m starting to relax a little, and Bud comes scampering out from under the bed.

Candito squats down.

– Ay, gato.

He pets Bud, then stands up.

– He is a nice cat for you?

– Yeah.

And I can’t help but notice that Sergeant Candito now has a look in his eye as if he’s just run into someone whose face he should know, but he can’t quite remember why.

LEO COMES by after dark. He sits on my porch and sips Carta Blanca. I smoke and tell him exactly what I need. Leo listens, nods his head when I’m through.

– When?

– Tomorrow?

Leo shakes his head.

– No, man, too soon.

– Day after?

He squints, stares out at the water.

– Yeah, I think so.

– How much?

He shrugs.

– For me, nada. But something for Rolf, some other people…

– How much?

– Ten thousand U.S.

I go inside, come back out and hand him twenty thousand.

– And ten for you.

He looks at the money.

– I don’t want that.

– Leo.

– Fuck you, I don’t want it.

– Leo.

He peels off ten grand and tosses the rest back at me. I set it on the porch next to his knee.

– Leo, it’s gonna be dangerous.

– Chinga! What do I fucking do for a living, maricone?

– More dangerous than that, it could get. People, the people who are looking for me might come around. You might have to hide for a little while if they do.

– Hide? Fucking!

He starts spewing Spanish, stuff about me and my mother and pigs and what I can do with my money and what he’d do to anyone who came around and thought they could make him hide. He runs out of steam after a couple minutes, drains the rest of his beer, starts to say something else, stops himself, and throws the empty bottle toward the water. We hear it thunk down in the sand.

I get up and walk over, pick it up and bring it back. I sit down and nudge the money closer to him with my toe.

– If they come. They’ll be killers if they come, Leo. Take the money. I’m a pussy little girl and it will make me feel better if you take the money.

He snorts. I start talking in a high voice.

– Take the money, Leo. You can burn it later. Just let me see you take it. Make me feel better because I’m such a mujer.

He picks up the money and walks into the darkness.

– Be at my brother’s at sunrise, day after tomorrow. And learn fucking Spanish, man. A mujer is a woman. A nina is a little girl.

WHEN PEDRO shows up the next morning I’m already at The Bucket, with the grill fired up and the coffeepot gurgling. I help him unload the ice and a couple cases of beer, then tell him to sit down. He sits on one of the swings.

I heat up some refried beans, throw a couple of the tortillas he brought from home on the grill, and fry two eggs. I smear the beans onto a plate, put the hot tortillas on top, then the eggs, then pour his wife’s salsa over the whole thing. I put it in front of him and pour his coffee in my cup with lots of milk and sugar like he likes it. He looks at the plate of huevos rancheros, and then at me.

– I had breakfast two hours ago.

I SPENT close to a year sitting at Pedro’s bar doing my drunken gringo act. He was pretty patient with me, I have to say. Some of that was because I was a great tipper, but we also hit it off from the start.

I had been in town for a couple weeks and spent most of the time in my room, growing facial hair, drinking, and lying low while news about me had a chance to die down. One night I lurched over to the main drag, Calle Cinco, and ended up getting my first tattoo: a heart wrapped in a banner that said MOM & DAD.

Afterward I started walking toward the darkness at the end of the street. That’s where I found Pedro, working at a little patio restaurant with no one in it. I took a stool and he asked me what I wanted. There was a huge menu of drinks hanging behind the bar.

– Surprise me.

He fills the glass with ice, pours 151 over it and pineapple juice and orange juice and almond syrup and Coco Lopez and grenadine, shakes it, floats some dark rum on top, takes a very long straw from a box on the bar, cuts it in half and sticks both halves into the drink, and puts it in front of me on a little napkin. I pick it up, the napkin sticks to the bottom of the glass. I take a sip.

– Wow. That’s good.

– Mai tai.

– No kidding. You know, I’ve never actually had one before.

I take another sip.

– This is great.

He points at the bandage on my shoulder.

– Tattoo?

– Yeah.

– What?

I set the drink down and peel up the bandage. He reads it.

– Mom and dad.

– I love my mom and dad.

– Bueno.

He lifts the sleeve of his shirt and shows me his shoulder: MAMA y PAPA.

– I love my mom and dad. Mi madre y mi padre. Mama does not like this. She say… uh… tattoo are for criminals. See.

He turns and lifts the other sleeve. There’s a little homemade tattoo underneath, like the ones my buddies Wade and Steve gave themselves in high school. They’d wrap thread around the shaft of a sewing needle, then dip it in India ink. Ink would drip out of the thread down to the point of the needle while they poked their skin, making tiny anarchy As or spelling out OZZY. This one is a little vertical line, a triangle attached to the top half pointing to my right. He smiles.

– Mama, she beat my ass for this.

I turn my head, look at it again.

– What is it?

He laughs, points at the tattoo.

– P.

Points at himself.

– Pedro.

Ten months later, when nobody had found me and shot me and I had failed to drink myself to death, I started thinking about what might be involved in staying alive and staying hidden. I knew I was going to need some papers, a passport most of all. Pedro was the only person I trusted enough to ask for help. It turned out he trusted me too.

HE TAKES a couple bites of the eggs for politeness’s sake, announces them fit, and tells me to eat the rest. I take the envelope from my back pocket, hand it to him, and start to eat. He opens the envelope and takes out the government leases and all the other legal documents regarding The Bucket and my bungalow.

– I went to the safety deposit box yesterday.

He’s looking at the papers.

– No.

– I signed over both the leases to you.

Shaking his head.

– No.

– Pedro.

– No.

He goes behind the bar and starts banging things around.

– Pedro. If I ever make it back.

– Back. The policia gave you back the passport, yes?

– Yes.

– So no problema, you will come back.

I lift my bottle of seltzer from the bar and trace little lines through the ring of water it leaves behind.

– This is the old trouble, Pedro. My old trouble. The trouble you don’t know about.

He stops banging things. I set my bottle down, look at him.

– Please. I was alone. Yo desamparado. Until you, I had no friends.

He looks at his feet. He picks up the papers, puts them neatly in the envelope and slips it into his pocket. Then he reaches out and puts his hand on the bar, palm up. I cover it with my own.

– Amigo.

He squeezes my hand.

– Eternamente, por siempre jamas.

– Forever and ever.

THE DAY-TRIPPERS clear out around four, and an hour later Pedro locks up. I take a couple swims, having to unclog my ears with the cigarettes after each. By the time the sun is down the local kids have finished their soccer game, the lovers I watch kissing retire to their palapa, and I have the beach to myself. I go into the bungalow, leaving the door and all the shutters open, light some candles, and start to pack.

Bud rouses himself from a nap and wanders over to see what’s up. He keeps stuffing his head in the pack, getting in the way every time I try to put something inside.

– I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no room for you.

He meows as I push him aside so I can pack the bundle of protein bars I bought at the Chedraui.

– I know we did it last time, but that was then and this is now. Besides, this time I have a place for you to stay.

Now he’s got the entire front half of his body stuck in there, rooting around. I pull him out and toss him on the floor.

– Cool it.

He hops back on the bed. I get everything stowed, close up the old army surplus pack, and put it next to the front door. I dig the money belt out from under my mattress, stick the John Carlyle papers inside along with my ID, and drape it over the pack. I close the front door, blow out all but one of the candles, and lie on the bed. Bud jumps down to the floor and walks to the other side of the room.

– You’ll like it at Pedro’s.

But he’s not buying it. Bud is a bachelor cat who has only lived with bachelor men, first Russ and then me. Pedro’s got the wife and three kids. Bottom line, Bud’s gonna get chased around some and have his tail yanked a few times. Of course the option is for me to try and haul him to the U.S. and infinitely increase the odds of my getting caught.

– It’s just not gonna work this time, guy.

I’m staring up at the ceiling, but I feel it when he jumps back onto the bed. He walks around me a couple times, then flops on my chest. I scratch his head, careful not to touch the scar, because he doesn’t like that. He starts to purr.

Fuck. I’m gonna miss this cat.

THE NIGHTMARE that wakes me up is a new one. I’m at Paul’s Bar the morning of the massacre. Instead of my old friends getting killed, it’s people I know now. Timmy, Mercedes from the Pakmail, Leo, Rolf, the smiling Spanish girl. And I’m the one doing the killing, walking around the bar with a machine gun, murdering all the people. Until they are all dead, all except Pedro and two others. He’s standing in front of the others, shielding them with his body. And I can see them, and it’s my parents.

And I kill Pedro.

And aim the machine gun.

And I wake up.

A half hour later I’m crashing through the jungle, clutching Bud to my chest, with Sergeants Morales and Candito running after me.

THANK GOD for the swimming. Without the swimming I would have collapsed by now. Of course all that wonderful muscle tone isn’t helping out with the searing burn in my lungs. Over thirty years without even trying a cigarette and I had to start. It was quitting the booze that did it. Drop one addiction and pick up another. Fucking idiot.

I trip over a tree root. Which is what I get for not paying attention to where I’m going.

I can’t put my arms out to brace my fall without losing Bud, so I twist my body around and drop hard, the pack absorbing most of the impact. I start to get to my feet and hear Morales and Candito calling out to each other. They’re a ways back there and they’ve stopped running. They’re asking each other where I am. I get to my knees and peek out from behind my tree. But this being a jungle, I can’t see more than a few feet.

What I need to do here is stay cool. Cut out all the crashing around and sneak my way to Pedro’s. Bud twists out of my grasp and streaks off back toward the bungalow. Toward the cops.

There has to be, there simply has to be a statute of limitations on cat-sitting. I run after him. Almost immediately the sergeants hear me and they’re yelling again and coming in my direction. I trip over another root.

And it catches me.

I start to shout, but Leo wraps a hand over my mouth. We make eye contact. I nod. He uncovers my mouth and hands Bud to me. I hear rustling as Morales and Candito creep by on either side of us, trying to zero in on me. The sound dies and Leo puts his mouth right against my ear.

– This way.

He’s holding his arm straight out, pointing in the same direction the cops just went.

– Straight as possible, you’ll come out by Pedro’s.

– Cops.

– Shut up. Rolf will be there.

– What about.

– And hang on to the fucking cat.

He gets up and starts running loudly, and I hear the cops yell and take off after him. I head for Pedro’s.

I POP out of the trees about twenty yards from Pedro’s house, just off the highway. I can see the dune buggy parked out back and Rolf standing in the yard. I sprint over and Rolf catches me as I stumble the last few feet.

– Leo. Gasp. He. He. He. Gasp.

– He find you?

– Yeah. Gasp. He.

– Inside, dude.

We go through the screen door, he leads me to the kitchen.

– We saw them go past on the highway and head for the beach. Leo took off to warn you or whatever.

– He drew them off.

– Cool.

– No, we got to.

– Dude, we got to get you out of here is all we got to do. Leo’s cool. Those guys will never find him in there.

In the kitchen the table is covered with food. Pedro is sipping coffee, listening to ranchera music. He clicks off the radio. His wife, who is usually on her way to town with the kids by now, is at the stove. She turns and gives me a tight-lipped smile.

– Buenos dias.

– Buenos dias, Ofelia.

She gestures to the table.

– Comer.

She’s made a huge breakfast, a farewell. We’re all supposed to sit at the table and have breakfast together, and I’m late. Rolf grabs a tortilla off the table, slaps some beans into it and takes a huge bite.

– Gracias, no, Ofi. We got to split. Andele muchachos big time.

I look at all the wonderful food and smile at her.

– Bonita, bonita. Muy bien. I’m so sorry. Gracias.

She nods.

Rolf is getting ready to grab something else off the table. She pushes him away and starts packing food in a plastic bag for us. Pedro puts down his cup and stands.

– Leo?

Rolf waves his hand.

– He’s goose-chasing the cops, he’ll be fine.

Pedro shakes his head. Ofelia finishes and hands me the bag of food.

– Gracias.

She puts her hands on my shoulders, pulls my face down close to her mestizo features, and kisses me on the cheek. Rolf grabs me and pulls me toward the door. Pedro follows us. We’re halfway out when he puts a hand on my shoulder and points at Bud, still in my arms.

– Amigo.

– Right.

I hold Bud up so I can look at his face.

– OK, Buddy, time to go.

I hand him to Pedro. He curls up in his arms and starts purring. And that’s that.

Pedro reaches into his pocket, takes something out, hands it to me, then turns and walks back into the house. Rolf hustles me to the buggy. I look back. Through the screen door I can see Pedro’s three kids running into the room screaming.

– Ay, gato!

Good luck, cat.

Rolf fires up the buggy and guns it onto the highway as I take the holy medal Pedro gave me and loop it around my neck. Christopher, patron saint of travelers.

WE’RE HEADED down 184, the local highway that cuts across most of the peninsula. Rolf is driving with his knees, both hands in his lap, trying to eke flame from a Bic to light a joint in the roaring wind of the open buggy. He gets the doobie going and takes a hit.

– Voila!

He offers it to me, I decline and he keeps at it, smoking it like a cigarette.

– Dude, check the bag, man, see if Ofi packed us any breakfast bread.

I dig one of the sugared rolls out of the bag and hand it to him.

– Thanks.

– So, Rolf.

– Yeah?

Crumbs fly from his lips, he’s got the roll in one hand and the joint in the other as he pulls around a slow-moving pickup, passing it before a blind curve on the two-lane road.

– I have this thing about cars and speeding.

– Don’t worry, dude, I’m a good driver.

– Right now you aren’t inspiring much confidence, and seeing as how this jalopy has no seat belts, I was hoping you might slow the fuck down.

– Tranquilo, muchacho. No problem, man.

He decelerates.

– Thanks. So?

– Yeah?

– What’s the plan?

– The plaaaaan. The plan is beautiful. You are going to love the plan.

– And?

– OK, it’s total secret-agent style, the stuff I really love. None of that two-drunk-Cubans-in-a-boat shit. We are on our way to Campeche.

He draws out the last syllable: Campechaaaaaay.

– Actually, before Campeche, we’ll pull off to this place called Bobola.

– What’s there?

– Leo.

– Leo?

– Got to have Leo. He’s the man who knows the people. If I try to deliver you? No go.

– Yeah, but last time I saw him he was getting chased by a couple cops.

– He’ll get rid of the Federales and borrow Pedro’s car. He’s probably at their place right now digging into that food.

Nice thought.

– So where does Leo take us to?

– The Campeche airport. You afraid of flying, too?

– No.

– Good. I’ve seen this plane and you don’t want to be afraid of flying. So this guy with the plane will fly you across the gulf to Veracruz. There, Pedro has a guy, an American with an excursion boat. He’ll take you on, put together crew papers for you and everything, and take you back to his homeport.

– Which is?

– Corpus Christi, U.S.A., man. I know it sounds weird, but there’s actually some pretty good surf in Texas. The general vibe in that state is all fucked up, but they have some decent waves.

Then he plugs a Tool tape into the deck, cranks the volume, and that’s it for conversation.

The 184 wanders in and out of about a dozen tiny towns before it hits Ticul, where, Rolf says, we’ll jump to the 261. Each town is peppered with speed bumps to keep the through traffic from blasting over the pedestrians as drivers try to get the hell to somewhere else, but this is a detail Rolf seems to have a habit of forgetting. Fortunately, as the day waxes and Rolf smokes more and more of the cheap Mexican brick-weed he’s carrying, lead seems to drain from his foot. At Ticul we stop, gas up, and he drives the buggy into the middle of town, announcing that it’s time for lunch and an early siesta.

– What about Leo?

– We aren’t supposed to meet him for hours, man. The dude you’re flying with, he doesn’t like being airborne during the day. There’s a great taco wagon here by the park. We can grab some snacks and take a nap on the lawn.

– Yeah, except that the cops are looking for me and sunbathing in the middle of town might not be the best thing right now.

– Dude, do you know how long it takes for a Mexican APB to go out? Let alone, man, to places like this. Chill. We’ll grab a couple fish tacos and refrescos and find some shade.

He stops next to a tidy little park, gets out, and turns to face me.

– Besides, dude, if there’s any trouble, I’m armed.

And he lifts the tail of his Spitfire Bighead T-shirt, revealing the butt of the pistol tucked in the waistband of his shorts.

– So no worries, man, let’s eat.

And surprisingly enough, not only are the tacos great, but I do actually manage to drop off and take a nice little nap. Despite the stoned-out-of-his-gourd, gnarly-brained surf jockey sleeping next to me with a gun in his shorts.

THE SUN has crossed well past its zenith when Rolf shakes me awake.

– Dude, we totally overslept.

We’re off the 184 now, heading south on 261. Rolf is laying off the weed and has both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road. And I got to say: when he’s paying attention, he is a pretty good driver. The road turns west at Hopelchen and the low-hanging sun shoots into our eyes. Rolf slips on a pair of Dragon Trap shades, a flame motif burning down the arms. I put on my own cheap Ray-Ban Aviator knock-offs.

– We gonna make it?

– No problem, man. But there is a need for speed.

So he speeds.

A few miles outside of Campeche we turn south onto a one-lane road. We bump along for a couple more miles, then roll into Bobola. When I say this place looks like the modern equivalent of the town in A Fistful of Dollars, I certainly don’t mean to emphasize the word modern. We pass a handful of houses, then come into the square. It’s a classic: cobbled street circling a tiny park, lots of trees, and a big church the Spanish left behind. There’s a guy selling ices out of the back of his pickup, and a couple kids buying. Nobody else. Rolf drives us around the park, past the ice man and onto one of the dirt streets that branches off of the square. He parks about a hundred yards up the street.

– OK.

– OK?

– That’s the place.

Across the street is a tequilaria.

– What now?

He looks around.

– Looks like Leo’s not here yet, dude.

– So?

– Well, I know you’re not a drinking man, but I could use one. Come on.

We cross the street and walk into the bar. It’s dark inside and it takes a moment for our eyes to adjust from the afternoon sunlight outside. That’s why it takes so long to realize that the two guys over by the bar, the only two guys in the place, are Sergeants Morales and Candito. That’s also why it takes a moment more before we realize the pile of stuff on the floor next to them is actually Leo, who has very clearly had the shit beaten right out of him.

DESPITE WHAT many popular movies would have you think, the simple fact that Morales and Candito are Mexican does not make them stupider than shit. They have me: a somewhat mysterious and wealthy American involved in a somewhat mysterious death. And they have that odd little moment when Bud wandered out from under the bed and Candito gave me that funny look. Given the current level of digital technology, it probably wasn’t too hard to poke around until he got rid of that nagging feeling that he had seen me somewhere before.

OBSERVATIONS: THE bar is empty except for the five of us, at a time of day when one would expect otherwise. Morales and Candito have parked their Bronco somewhere off the street where it cannot be seen. They have no backup; backup would have come crashing in by now. They have thrashed Leo and dragged him in here.

Hypothesis: They have cleared out the bar, chosen not to call in any other cops, and have Leo displayed here to communicate some message. What message? Well, one assumes it concerns funding their early retirement.

How do they know I have four million? They may very well not. But they know I have money, and I’m sure they want all of it.

THE GUN in Rolf’s waistband is a revolver, a .32 or a .38, carrying five or six rounds. I’m guessing the pockets of his shorts aren’t crammed with extra ammo, so if this turns into a shoot-out we’re gonna be pretty well fucked.

Me, I’m all for bargaining. But first Rolf shoves me to the floor, yanks the gun from his shorts, and squeezes off two quick shots before he dives behind a table.

One of the bullets smashes into the bottles behind the bar and the other one smashes the bone in Morales’s right thigh. I know this because I can see shards of it sticking out through his shredded uniform pants.

Rolf is huddled behind a table made out of an old tequila barrel. It looks sturdy and might actually stop or deflect some bullets. I knock over a card table with a thin sheet metal top emblazoned with a Sol advertisement, and hope nobody shoots any spitballs at me. I can hear Morales screaming high and shrill and Candito trying to quiet him.

– Tranquilo. Tranquilo. Tranquilo. Tranquilo.

The screams soften until there is just a constant, strangled keening coming from deep in Morales’s throat. I peek out from behind my useless barricade. Candito, kneeling next to Morales, has taken off his belt and turned it into a tourniquet much like the one the macheted Cuban had. I look over at Rolf and see that he is starting to edge around his barrel, gun first.

– Rolf!

He ignores me, positioning himself to take a shot, but at the sound of my voice Candito stands, pulls his service piece, points it at Leo, and yells something in our direction. Rolf ducks back down.

– Fuck!

Candito yells again, but I still don’t catch all of it. Rolf yells something back.

– What does he want?

– He wants me to throw out my gun, dude, what the fuck do you think he wants? Keep quiet next time, I almost had him.

Candito yells again.

– So throw your gun out.

– No fucking way.

– He’s gonna kill Leo.

– Bullshit. That hick cop has never shot anyone in his life. He’s pissing his pants right now. Besides, dude knows that if he kills Leo I’ll fucking blast him.

– How does he know that?

– Because I told him.

Candito yells again and this time I get the word dinero. Bingo. Rolf looks over at me.

– He says he just wants the money.

– Yeah, that figures.

I open my shirt, lift my tank top up, rip the Velcro seal, and tug the money belt from around my waist. I take five grand and the John Carlyle ID and stuff them in my pockets.

– Tell him I’m gonna stand up.

– Dude, don’t do that.

– Rolf, I’m hiding behind a beer can, I might as well stand up.

– No, dude, I mean don’t give him your fucking money.

– Just tell him I’m standing up and not to shoot.

– OK, but I’m telling you we can get out of this, no problem.

He shouts at Candito and Candito shouts back.

– He says do it slowly. Hands up and all that.

– Right.

I hang the money belt over my shoulder, put my hands on my head, and slowly stand up. Morales is sprawled in a large pool of his own blood, still making that hurt animal noise, his right hand clutching the tourniquet, his left clawing and scratching at the floor. Candito is standing, blood stains on the knees of his pants, pointing his gun at Leo’s head. Leo is still crumpled and motionless, unconscious for all I can tell. I take my right hand from my head and lift the money belt from my shoulder. Candito yells and I freeze.

– Rolf?

– Yeah?

– What was that?

– Just the usual. Don’t fuck around with him or he’ll fucking kill Leo and then you. That kind of stuff.

– OK.

I hold the money belt out in Candito’s direction, nodding my head.

– Tranquilo, amigo.

The gun pointed at Leo’s head is shaking, sweat is pouring down Candito’s twitching face, and I realize that Rolf is right. This guy is scared pissless. I know the feeling.

– Tranquilo, OK?

I swing the money belt once and toss it to him. It lands neatly at his feet. He keeps the shaking gun pointed at Leo as he squats down. The fingers of his left hand fumble one of the compartments open and he pries out a thick sheaf of bills. His eyes flick to the money. He lets it and the belt fall into the edge of the puddle of Morales’s blood, then he stands back up and starts screaming at me, the gun vibrating.

– What the fuck, Rolf?

– That’s what he says, dude.

– What?

– He wants to know what that shit is, how much?

– It’s about seventy-five thou.

Rolf looks at me.

– No shit?

– Yeah.

– Dude.

Candito yells at us. I take my right hand from my head and point at the money belt.

– Tranquilo, amigo. Setenta cinco mil.

He tilts his head, shakes it.

– Setenta cinco mil?

– Si.

Then he’s screaming again, too fast for me to follow.

– Rolf?

Nothing.

– Rolf?

Nothing. I look at Rolf. He’s staring at me.

– He says fuck your mother and fuck your seventy-five grand. He wants to know where the real money is.

– Tell him that’s all there is and he can take it or leave it.

– What’s he talking about?

– Fucked if I know. Just tell him that’s all there is.

Rolf tells him, and Candito sprays curses and bends over to press the gun against Leo’s head.

– He doesn’t believe you, dude. He says give him the money or he’ll shoot Leo.

I look at Leo heaped on the floor. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. And it’s not like I can run out, call Tim, and have him ship the money back to me.

– Tell him there is no fucking way in heaven or earth that he is ever going to have more than what he has right now. That’s all there is. Tell him if he leaves now, he can keep the money and probably still work it out so he keeps his job and keeps his partner alive. Tell him if he wants to shoot me he might as well do it because I’m about to walk over there and see if Leo is OK.

– Cool.

Rolf tells him. Candito looks from Leo to the money to me as I walk out from behind the table and start to cross the room toward him. Then he bends, scoops up the money belt, points the gun at me, and backs away shouting. I hold my hands out in front of me.

– Tranquilo.

– He says tranquilo yourself. He says he’s gonna take the money and go get the doctor and when he gets back we should be the fuck out of here and if we hurt his partner he’ll hunt us down and blah blah blah.

I stop walking and watch as Candito backs himself around the tiny bar to a doorway covered by a Virgin of Guadalupe curtain. He reaches behind himself and pulls the curtain aside, jabs the gun at me three times, emphasizing that I should not fucking follow him, then ducks through the doorway. I can hear his feet sprinting away on the gravel outside.

– Rolf.

He pops up from behind the barrel.

– Dude, that was tense.

I kneel next to Leo and roll him onto his back. His face is beaten and bloody. At least one of his teeth has been knocked out. I put my finger alongside his throat; his pulse is steady and strong. Rolf walks over and looks at his best friend.

– Motherfucker.

He looks at Morales where he’s still sprawled on the floor, mewing, his eyes rolling in his head.

– Mother. Fucker.

He raises the revolver, shoots Morales in the face, and spits on his corpse.

– Rolf!

I’m staring at what used to be Morales’s face.

– Rolf! What the fuck are you doing?

– You see what this dick did to Leo, dude?

– You don’t just. You don’t just. What the fuck?

– Dude! He fucked up my best friend.

I look at the lines tattooed on my forearm, and find I have nothing else to say.

– So what now?

– You take Leo in the buggy. There’s only the one road in and out of town, so just cruise out to the highway, park, and I’ll drive out in their truck after I take care of the other guy.

– Rolf.

– Hey! You hired the pros to get you out and shit got fucked up. That’s cool, you paid, but now shit’s got to be taken care of. These cops? They know who Leo is, where he lives. Get it? So untwist your panties and help me get him to the buggy, ’cause I got a pig to ambush.

And what do you say to that except Yes, sir?

LEO STAYS unconscious as we put him into the passenger seat of the buggy. I get behind the wheel and fire it up. Rolf slaps me on the shoulder. He’s holding the revolver and has Morales’s 9 mm dangling out of his hip pocket.

– Just turn north when you hit the highway and pull into the trees. I’ll be there in a few.

He walks back into the bar. The town is dead silent, motionless except for one painfully skinny stray dog that limps across the park. I pull onto the road out of town. Behind me I might or might not hear gunshots. It’s hard to tell over the roar of the buggy’s engine.

Back on the 261, I pull into the trees where Rolf told me to. I get out, grab my pack, and hoist it onto my shoulders. It should be about twenty kilometers from here to Campeche. If I stay near the highway I can walk and be there in several hours. Or maybe I’ll take a chance and stick my thumb out. If Morales and Candito were working alone no one will be looking for me. If not, they’ll find me soon enough. I lick my fingers and rub a little blood from Leo’s forehead, but there’s nothing I can do for him. I check his pulse again, still strong, and put my face close to his.

– I’m sorry, my friend.

And it’s time to get moving again before anyone else gets hurt.

I HITCH a ride with a family from Cancun that are on their way to Campeche to stay with relatives for Christmas. I sit in the back seat of their Jeep, between their two small sons. The boys are quiet for the first couple miles, but get over their shyness and are soon pointing at their own body parts and at things in the car, asking me to tell them what they are called in English.

– Ashtray. Headrest. Ankle. Gearshift. Eyebrow. Toenail. Booger.

They giggle after every word and try to repeat them back to me. Their parents sit quietly in the front seats, holding hands, seemingly happy just to have a break from entertaining the kids. They drop me off in the middle of the city and I take a cab to the airport.

Campeche is a state capital and a tourist destination; the airport has everything I need. I go to the departures board and find a flight. I call Aeromexico from a pay phone and get transferred to an English-speaking agent. She says I can’t make a reservation without a credit card number, but assures me there is room on the flight and tells me how much it will cost. At the American Express counter I get about ten thousand pesos worth of traveler’s checks.

I have to make a decision here about which identity to sign the checks with because that’s who I’ll be flying as. I’m about to give the guy at the counter the Carlyle passport when I remember that all it has is a three-year-old entry stamp and no visas. Not a problem with AmEx, but it will be a problem if anyone in a uniform needs to see it.

I give him the passport I’ve been using for the last two years. Of course there is a problem there as well. When Morales’s and Candito’s bodies turn up, the Federales will look into their recent cases and start asking questions. Soon, they will find that I have disappeared. After that they’ll be looking for this identity. Of course if Rolf didn’t get Candito, all of this is moot. Because Candito will be coming after me, the real me. And all this is just too confusing anyway; too many variables and too few options for a guy who needs to get the fuck out of Mexico. I sign the checks and walk over to the Aeromexico counter.

Buying a one-way ticket with cash is just as big a no-no in Mexico as it is in the States, the kind of tip-off that screams SMUGGLER OR TERRORIST! to any well-trained airline agent and has them buzzing security. That’s why I’m using the traveler’s checks and buying a round-trip ticket. It also helps that I’m flying nowhere near the border.

The airline man finds me an aisle seat on the flight and announces the total.

– Siete mil y cinco cien.

I sign a bunch of checks and slide them over along with my passport. He checks the signatures and prints up my ticket to Cabo.

THE FLIGHT gets in around one in the morning. I walk out of the airport, get mobbed by cabbies, all trying to carry my pack for me, and climb into the closest hack. The driver asks me what bar I want to go to. I have him take me to a hotel instead, the Hyatt. I pay for my room for one night with more traveler’s checks. It will make it easier for the Federales to track me this far, but I can live with that. I’ll be dropping off the radar first thing in the morning.

In the brutally air-conditioned room I take a shower, flop on the bed naked, and smoke cigarettes. Soon the last of the adrenaline seeps from my body and I fall asleep. I wallow in utter blackness until four hours later when my wake-up call sends me jumping at the ceiling to dangle by my fingernails like a frightened cat.

Cat.

Shit.

I miss my cat.

CIVILIZATION ON the Baja, such as it is, clings either to the long ribbon of Highway 1 or to the coast, demonstrating two principles of survival: that life can be sustained either by water or by cars. It takes about two seconds of travel time beyond the edge of Cabo to feel that you are passing through one of the more forlorn wastes of the third world, which is apt, because you are. At the ABC terminal I pay pesos for the first bus going north. It will only get me as far as La Paz, but that’s fine with me. I just want to get moving.

We roll up Highway 19 and I stare out the window at a landscape that puts me in mind of nuclear blasts. My brain turns on itself and I start thinking about all the things that can go wrong. It’s a long list and it keeps me pretty busy for the three hours it takes to get to La Paz.

I HAVE an hour to kill. In the cantina across the street from the depot I’m able to buy a few packs of cigarettes; Marlboro Lights as they don’t carry Benson & Hedges. The place is quiet, just a few other people waiting for the bus, and the mother and daughter team behind the counter. I get some coffee and blow smoke rings at the TV, where the news is playing. The sound is off, but I watch it anyway. So it’s really impossible for me to miss the moment when photos of Sergeants Morales and Candito are flashed on the screen with the caption my spinning brain can’t translate except for the words cimentar, which I’m pretty sure means found, and muertos, which any asshole knows what it means.

BAJA HIGHWAY 1 is more a theory than an actual road, an impossibly long and narrow strip that connects Cabo with Tijuana. Upkeep on the highway is constant, but hopeless. The substructure of the roadway is sand or shale or crumbling coastal cliff face. Erosion has the upper hand here. Crews work endlessly to maintain this lifeline, but it’s a losing battle and they know it. You can see it in their eyes when you pass them every hundred miles or so.

I have an aisle seat right up front where I can watch every oncoming vehicle that plows head-on toward us before veering to the side and scraping past. Hours of it have numbed me. All I can do now is twitch as the driver casually one-hands the steering wheel, balancing us on this rail of death as yet another semi slams by and rocks us in its slipstream. It’s only about a hundred and fifty miles to Constitucion, but by the time we get there I already feel like I’ve been on the bus for days. We have a half hour to stretch while passengers get on and off. If I time it right, I can smoke about ten cigarettes.

There is only one other white guy on the bus. We make brief eye contact and he lifts his hand-rolled smoke toward me. It’s a joint. I shake my head and he turns and walks off a bit from the rest of the passengers to smoke. I wouldn’t mind a little toke, but I need to avoid falling into any casual conversations with people who might be able to identify me later.

I smoke three cigarettes, grab a bottle of water and a couple pork tamales from a vendor, and get back on board. An hour later we start to climb the coastal mountains that run up the edge of the Golfo de California. That’s where the ride starts to get really fucking scary. The 1 is still just as narrow and in the same state of disrepair, but now it twists and turns around safety-railless blind corners. The driver continues to steer with just the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. I am now seriously wishing I had smoked some of that joint. I get Steinbeck out of my pack and try not to look at the little memento mori altars that commemorate beloved victims of highway death every mile or two. I know exactly what it looks like when a body flies through a windshield and I don’t need to be reminded.

THE BUS station at Santa Rosalia is just a counter in a bodega. We pull in well after dark. I stand in line for the bathroom inside, then go out to smoke. Right across the road from the station is a massive concrete breakwater. I walk out onto it a little ways to kill myself a little more. The guy with the joint comes up behind me.

– Hello.

He has a French accent.

– Hi.

– American?

– Yep.

He nods. He’s got another joint, offers it to me.

– Thanks.

Not wanting to be a hero on the next leg of the trip, I take a big hit. He points at the joint.

– I could not do these long rides without it.

– Yeah, I could have used it on that last stretch.

I take one more hit and pass the joint back. He licks the tips of his fingers, pinches the cherry off, and drops the roach into his cigarette box. We start back toward the bus. He inhales the sea air deeply. There is a slight chill. I realize it is December and I am heading north for the first time in years. It will be strange to be cold.

– Do you have something to read on the bus?

I nod.

– Yeah, but I’m still reading it. I saw some books in the bodega.

We walk into the bodega together. The books are next to the cooler, mostly in Spanish, but there are a few tattered second-handers in English on the bottom shelf. I pull out a bottle of water from the cooler, grab a second one, show it to him.

– Want one?

– Yes, thank you.

I turn for the counter, catch something out of the corner of my eye, look again because I’m stoned and this can’t be real. I grab a book from the rack and go pay for everything, my heart pounding. Frenchie was right there when I picked up the book. Did he see it?

He joins me outside and I give him his water. He doesn’t look at me funny, just takes a sip.

– Thanks.

– Sure.

He holds up a beaten copy of The Client.

– The movie was crap, but I have never read any of his books. Maybe they’re good?

– Don’t count on it.

– What did you get?

– Oh, one of those true crime things. I’m a sucker for that shit.

The bus pulls back out. Most of the passengers are starting to settle toward sleep. I click on my overhead light and pull the book from my grocery bag. I hold it close to my body, like a poker hand. It’s by a guy named Robert Cramer and it’s called The Man Who Got Away. It is the unauthorized story of my life and crimes.

AT GUERRO Negro we cross over from Baja Sur to Baja Norte and soldiers come on board the bus. This is particularly bad timing as I’ve spent the last several stoned hours reading about the forces that warped me as a child and the role my parents played in turning me into a killer. By the time I realize what’s going on, it’s too late to hide this book, which features several photos of me, including the three-year-old booking shot on the cover.

One soldier stands at the front of the bus while another walks down the aisle. Behind me, he asks only one person for a passport. When a French accent replies I know what to expect: this will be a passport check for gringos only. There are more soldiers outside, all armed with assault rifles. Are they looking for me or is this normal? Do they control border traffic like this all the time? If I give these guys the Carlyle passport there will be all kinds of questions about how I’ve been living illegally in their country for three years with no visa. If the search for Morales’s and Candito’s murderer has gone far enough the other passport will get me dragged off this bus by my ankles. And shit, which passport is in which pocket, anyway? Why did I get stoned?

The soldier behind me barks something and the French guy starts a stream of denials in Spanish. The soldier at the front of the bus raises his weapon and takes a step into the aisle. I close the book, tuck it between my thighs, and crane my head out into the aisle to see what’s going on back there. It’s pretty easy to figure out what the ruckus is about because the soldier is holding the French guy’s open knapsack in one hand, and what looks like about a quarter kilo of weed in the other. They get the French guy off the bus and you can see by the looks on the soldiers’ faces how delighted they are to be busting a white guy for a change. The last one has just climbed off and the driver is getting ready to close the door when the soldier steps back in and looks at me.

– Frances?

– No. American.

– Los Angeles?

I shake my head.

He narrows his eyes.

– San Diego?

I shake my head again, desperate not to be associated with either of these clearly undesirable locales.

– New York.

I move my hand, toward my pocket, offering to get my ID for him. Hoping he won’t want to see it.

He waves his hand at me, shakes his head.

– New York?

– Yeah.

– September eleven.

– Yeah.

He nods slowly, sadly, then smiles slightly and sticks up his thumb.

– Go Yankees.

I stick up my thumb.

– Yeah. Go Yankees.

He gets off the bus, and I make it to the can before I piss my pants.

THE FACTS of Robert Cramer’s book were drawn from public records and exclusive interviews he conducted during the year of “exhaustive research” he spent writing The Man Who Got Away. He also refers to an episode of America’s Most Wanted that seems to have featured me. The mind boggles.

The list of people he claims to have interviewed includes a couple childhood friends, an old neighbor, my fifth-grade teacher, my high-school counselor, my Little League coach (whose statements about my competitive nature Cramer makes great hay of), one of the surgeons who operated on my leg, two old girlfriends (who don’t seem to have said anything too embarrassing), a few of my college professors, some former “regulars” from Paul’s Bar (whose names I don’t recognize), and the parents of Rich, the boy, my friend, who I killed when I crashed my car into a tree. Cramer quotes them as saying I showed no emotion at their son’s funeral (true), never contacted them after (true), and had dragged him into a ring of juvenile housebreakers before his death (not so much true, as Rich was already a member of said “ring” when I fell in with him and my other delinquent friends, Steve and Wade).

Cramer dwells for some time on the “killer” competitive instinct my parents programmed into me as they sat on the bench at my baseball games with their “impossible to meet expectations arrayed about them.” He consults a psychologist to diagnose the impact of my baseball accident and to attest to how it forced me to channel those instincts into other areas; thus my brief life of petty crime. He exposes my failed attempt to find a healthy outlet as evidenced by my six-year sojourn through college without receiving a degree. He charts my “loner” ways after my college girlfriend “abandoned” me in New York. And finally, he points to the eventual alcoholism that lit the fuse on all my inner rage and stifled need to win, to “beat others.” And I am certain that if I had Robert Cramer in front of me right now, I would teach him all about beating others.

I AM standing at the top of Kukulcan. It is night and I am surrounded by all the people Cramer talked to for his book. They are lined up along the edge, their backs to the drop behind them. I push them one by one into the pitch darkness that surrounds the pyramid until I get to the end of the line, where I find my mom and dad.

I lurch awake with a slight cry. Still on the bus, still night. The book is open in my lap, facedown, the cover exposed. The old woman in the seat next to mine looks from the grainy black-and-white photo of my short-haired, clean-shaven former self and up to my shaggy, sweaty face. She gives me a sweet smile.

– Pesadilla?

Pesadilla. Nightmare. A word I actually know in Spanish. I nod, closing the book, tucking it into the pack beneath my seat.

– Si, pesadilla.

She smiles again, takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. Still holding it, she points into the darkness outside.

– Catavina.

And out of the black desert around us, I see huge shapes looming in the light thrown by our headlamps. I’ve heard of this place. The Boulder Fields of Catavina; miles and miles of boulders strewn singly or in mounds or in massive piles the size of small mountains. The boulders themselves range in size from cow to house, all dropped here by glaciers that carved the peninsula however many thousands of thousands of years before any of the people I’ve killed were ever born.

I fall asleep still holding the old woman’s hand.

I WAKE to daylight just south of Ensenada. I look to my left and see the Pacific Ocean, the ocean I grew up with. The old woman is gone. About an hour and a half later we pull into the terminal in Tijuana where the Mexican bus lines end because, NAFTA aside, the teamsters don’t want them in America.

Inside I find the Greyhound counter and buy the ticket that will take me over the border. I pay the bathroom attendant fifty centavos to get in the john and clean up a little. Then I go to the lunch counter, where I see the Raiders and Broncos playing on the TV and realize it’s Sunday just before a score scrolls past at the bottom of the screen: DET 21 MIA 0 1Q.

BEFORE I get on the bus I find a trash barrel. I start by dumping Cramer’s book, follow that with torn-up traveler’s checks, the passport and ID I’ve been using for the last two years, and the Carlyle passport. That leaves me with Carlyle’s driver’s license, library card, gym card, and all the stuff you’d expect him to have in a wallet except credit cards.

I get on the bus. We drive a couple miles to the border and find ourselves stuck in a line of buses and cars, all streaming out of Mexico at the end of the weekend. The driver puts the bus in park and stands.

– It looks pretty bad out there today. It’s up to you folks, but if I were you, I’d get out here, walk across the border, and catch one of the buses in the terminal on the U.S. side.

Most of the people on the bus decide this is sound advice. It is soon apparent that if I stay here I will no longer be just one of an anonymous crowd of passengers should an Immigration officer come on board. I grab my pack and walk off the bus. It’s cool and I’m still dressed for the tropics. The sidewalk that leads to the border station is lined with vendor stalls. I see one selling long-sleeved T-shirts. I buy a white shirt with a Mexican flag on the front, Viva Mexico printed on the back. I look at the people around me, the Americans crossing back. Most are empty-handed or carry plastic shopping bags after spending the night getting drunk in TJ. I get a look at myself in a Corona mirror at one of the booths. I look like a vagabond who’s been living here for years, which is only right, I suppose, but not the appearance I want to cultivate.

I kneel by the side of the walk and dig in my pack, making sure there’s nothing in it with any of my names. I take out my Steinbeck and put it in one of the thigh pockets of my pants, then walk to a trash barrel and dump the pack. At another vendor’s stall I buy a serape and an ashtray shaped like a sombrero. There’s also a liquor store, where I get a bottle of mescal. I put on my sunglasses and walk into the border station.

The line is long but moves fast. The American officers thoroughly check the ID on anybody brown, but give just a quick eyeball for most of the white people. My turn at the front of the line comes.

– Nationality?

– U.S.

– ID.

I hand him Carlyle’s driver’s license, not knowing at all what will happen. The Man Who Got Away was published about a year after I left New York. Cramer says I disappeared virtually without a trace and that the NYPD and FBI assume I was either killed by rivals or fled the country. But that doesn’t mean he was right about what the authorities really knew, or that they haven’t put together more information since the book came out. For all I know, the name Carlyle being entered into an Immigration computer could open a trapdoor beneath my feet and send me dropping into a hole with Charlie Manson.

The Immigration officer looks at the license.

– Can you take off your sunglasses please, Mr. Carlyle?

– Sure, dude.

I push them up on my head.

– How long you been down?

– Friday.

He looks at the license again.

– From New York?

Fuck me.

– Naw, I lived out there for a while, but I came back after the economy tanked.

– Where’s back?

– Fresno.

– You know this is expired?

– Yeah, dude, but I don’t have a car anyway. I’m living with my folks right now. No work. Took the bus here.

I flash my Greyhound ticket.

– OK, but once it’s expired, a license is no longer valid ID.

– Dude! No! Shit!

– It’s OK, but get it renewed before you come back down.

– Yeah, right. Thanks, man.

He passes it back.

– Anything to declare?

I hold my shopping bag open.

– Some crap for my folks.

– OK. Have a nice day.

– Yeah, you too, dude.

I drop the sunglasses over my eyes, cross over onto American soil for the first time in three years, and see the camoed special forces types with black berets and automatic weapons. Well, that’s new.

ACROSS THE border, I walk past the Greyhound terminal and follow the signs for the trolley to downtown San Diego. It costs two bucks and takes about forty-five minutes. Having just shown that Immigration officer my ticket, I have no intention of getting on another bus. I don’t want to risk flashing the Carlyle ID anymore, so flying is out, and I don’t have any credit cards to rent a car. What I do have is a little over four grand in cash.

As we enter the city we pass through a couple sketchy neighborhoods that look promising. I hop off at 12th and Market and stand on the corner in front of a liquor store. I see a couple coin-operated news racks across the street and step off the curb. I’m in the middle of the crosswalk when I register something I saw back on the corner. I stop, turn, take a step, and almost get sail-frogged by a heavily primered VW Westphalia. The bus swerves around me, missing by inches, and I get to the sidewalk and light up. Three years of Mexico have killed my traffic instincts.

I walk over to the little stucco house behind the liquor store and it’s there in the driveway: a pale yellow 1968 BMW 1600 with a For Sale sign in the window and a sense of desperation in the air. I look back over my shoulder at the newspaper racks. Screw the Auto Trader. God knows how long that might take. I walk up to the front door and ring the bell. A little girl, maybe five years old, opens up and stands there behind the screen door. I smile.

– Hey, is your mom or dad home?

She slams the door in my face. I raise my hand to ring again, decide against it, and start for the street. I hear the door open behind me.

– What?

I turn. There’s another girl there, this one about seventeen.

– Yeah, I wanted to know about the car. I asked your sister if your folks were home.

– Daughter.

– Right. She’s a beautiful girl.

– Uh-huh.

– So. The car?

– What about it?

– It’s for sale?

– Yeah.

– Is it yours?

– Yeah.

– How much you want for it?

– Five.

– Does it run?

– Yeah.

– Can we start it up?

She squints at me.

– You a process server?

– Uh, no.

– ’Cause if I come out there and you try to stick some fucking piece of paper in my hand, I’m gonna take it and ram it up your ass.

– I am not a process server.

– I’ll get the keys.

The car starts right up. She switches on the radio to show that it works, tells me the brakes need fluid, and asks if I want to take it around the block. I pop the hood, make sure the oil is full and not too black, quickly eyeball the plugs, fiddle with the carburetor for a second to even out the flow, and shake my head.

– No test drive, I’ll take it as is, four hundred.

She turns the key, switching off the engine, and nods.

– OK, but I need a ride before you take it.

Christ.

– Where?

– ’Bout a mile. I need to drop my daughter at her dad’s place.

Last thing I need is this girl sitting in the car with me for a mile, and getting a good look at my face.

– Look, I’m sorry, but I really need to get rolling.

– C’mon, give us a ride. Otherwise I got to call the son of a bitch to come get her and he’ll take all day coming over and I’ll never get to work on time ’cause I got to take the bus now ’cause I’m selling you the car and I’m knocking a hundred off it for you anyway.

Oh, man.

– OK. I’ll give you a ride, but let’s get going.

– Thanks. My name’s Leslie. Pink slip’s inside.

The daughter is sitting on the floor in front of the tube watching MTV. A girl her mom’s age is shoving her ass into the camera. Leslie points at a chair.

– Wait here.

She goes into a bedroom and I can see her take a box down off a shelf in the closet. I stand next to the chair and watch the girl watch TV. The video ends and she becomes aware of me.

– You like Britney?

– Not really.

– I used to like her, but now she’s all dirty.

– Looks that way.

– You like Christina?

– Not really.

– My mom likes her.

– Who do you like?

– Eminem. Do you like him?

– Sometimes.

Her eyes are locked on the screen as she flips channels. Leslie walks back into the room, a massive black purse over her shoulder and a pink slip in her hand.

– Got the money?

I slip some bills out of my pocket and count out four hundred. She takes it and looks at the rest of the cash in my hands.

– You a dealer?

– No.

– Hn.

She hands me the pink slip, already signed, and I put it in my back pocket. She puts the cash in her purse and looks at her daughter.

– Cassidy, turn that off, we’re gonna go to daddy’s.

Cassidy switches off the TV, gets up, and walks out the front door without looking at her mom.

– She’s a little pissed at me right now because I told her we had to get rid of the cable.

– Right.

I wait on the porch while she locks the door, twists the BMW key off the ring, and hands it to me. I point at the trunk.

– Anything you need to get out?

– Some tapes in the glove box, you can have ’em.

– OK.

Cassidy scrambles into the backseat, Leslie gets in front and looks over her shoulder.

– Put on your belt, honey.

Cassidy sighs loudly but buckles up and we do the same. I start the BMW and pull into the street. At the first stop sign I tread lightly on the brake pedal and roll halfway through the intersection before we stop. I pull us the rest of the way across and look at Leslie.

– Told you they needed fluid.

– No kidding.

– You want your money back?

– No. Which way?

She directs me through several blocks of run-down suburbia, brown lawns, peeling paint, overgrown tree roots pushing up slabs of sidewalk, until we pull into the driveway of another stucco job, this one with a rusted and empty boat trailer in the side yard. Leslie opens her door and sticks one foot out.

– Look, will ya do me a favor?

– Depends.

– I know I said I just needed a ride here, but will you wait a second in case he’s not home and we need a ride to the bus stop? I would of called him, but the phone, ya know, like the cable.

Killing me, she’s killing me.

– Just be fast, OK?

She nods sharply, gets out, and helps Cassidy from the backseat. I turn off the car and watch as they go up the walk. The front door opens before they can knock. A guy in his twenties, wearing sweatpants and a concert T with the sleeves ripped off, comes out. He sees me in the car and points.

– Who the fuck is that?

Oh no.

Leslie looks at me.

– That’s the guy I just sold your fucking car to, you asshole.

Oh fucking no.

– See, fucker, I told you. I told you, pay your fucking support or I’d sell the fucking thing.

No more kindness to strangers. No more kindness to strangers. No more kindness to strangers.

Cassidy’s dad sticks his finger in Leslie’s face.

– You did not, you fucking bitch.

– Yes I did, I did.

She points at me.

– Go ask him. Go see, he has the fucking pink slip, you deadbeat piece of shit.

Cassidy walks past them and into the house with a shrug of her shoulders. Been there, done that.

The guy starts heading for me.

– You, cocksucker, get out of my fucking car.

Why do I keep landing in this shit? I mean, is shit just attracted to this fly or what? No matter. This particular shit is easy to get out of.

I start the car, drop it in reverse, zip out of the drive, and head back down the street the way we came in. Except, of course, I turn the wrong way out of the driveway and go straight into a cul-de-sac. Now I have to turn around and drive back past Cassidy’s dad, who is standing in the middle of the street with a ball-peen hammer in his hand. Where the fuck did he get that?

I try to steer around him to the left, and he steps in front of the car; to the right, and he’s there again. I think about just hitting the gas and going over him, but stop the car instead. He stands in front of the hood, hammer dangling at his side.

– I said out of the car.

Leslie has walked down to the bottom of the driveway.

– Stop being a dick, Danny. I sold him the car. You want to yell at someone, yell at me.

He keeps his eyes on me, but raises the hammer and points it in her direction.

– Get in the fucking house, bitch, I’ll deal with you.

– Oh, fuck off, you’re not my husband. Just ’cause ya knocked me up doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.

He turns to face her.

– Get in the fucking house before I kick your ass.

She shivers all over like she’s cold.

– Ohhhh, I’m so fucking scared. You lay one fucking hand on me and you know my dad will come over here and kick your ass again.

Danny turns back to me, face boiling red.

– What the fuck are you still doing in my fucking car? I said get the fuck out!

– Leave him alone, Danny.

– SHUUUUUUT UUUUUUP!!!

He walks toward my door, hammer hefted.

He’s smaller than me, but has one of those hard wiry builds. He could be dangerous. What say we play this one cool.

He grabs the door handle, yanks it open.

– Out.

– Easy.

I start to get out of the car. He grabs my hair, pulls me the rest of the way out.

– I said out, fuck.

He kicks me in the ass as he releases my hair and I stumble a couple steps.

Leslie is still on the curb.

– Knock it off, Danny.

He ignores her, focused on me now.

– She telling the truth? You got my pink slip?

– I got the pink slip.

– Let’s have it.

– Look, man, I paid for the car.

– That ain’t my problem. That bitch sold something ain’t hers. You want your money back, talk to her.

Leslie takes a couple steps into the street.

– That’s not fucking true and you know it. The judge gave me that car. It’s mine.

– I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. What. The. Judge. Said.

I raise a hand.

– Hey, whatever you guys have going on is.

– Give me my fucking pink slip right fucking now, asshole.

He’s holding the hammer up at shoulder level, cocked and ready to swing.

– Give it to him, Danny.

– Kick his fucking aaaaaaaasss.

– Do it. Do it. Do it.

I look over at the porch of Danny’s house. Three of his friends have come out to watch the party. They’re all about his age, one with a shaved head, one with a ponytail, and one with a greasy mullet. I am now officially being hassled by the assholes who stole everybody’s milk money.

Leslie turns to face them.

– Shut up, you dildos. This is none of your business.

The biggest of the three, or rather, the fattest of the three, he of the shaved head, gives her the finger.

– Fuck off, Leslie.

Danny jerks his head around.

– Hey! What did I fucking say about talking to her like that?

– She’s being a bitch.

– I don’t care what she’s being, she’s my kid’s mom.

Leslie waves her hand toward them, done with the whole scene. She walks toward the car.

– Come on, mister, give me a ride to the bus, he’s a fuckoff.

– Shutthefuckupshutthefuckupshutthefuckup!!!

Enough of this.

– Look, Danny.

He swings the hammer at me.

I MURDERED a man less than a week ago. I saw another man have his face blown literally off. That was… yesterday? One of my friends got beat half to death on account of me. I have four million dollars sitting at another friend’s house in Las Vegas, sitting there waiting to attract killers or cops, whoever smells it first. I’m not sure anymore who may or may not be after me: the Russians, the Mexican police, the FBI, a bunch of fucking treasure hunters like Mickey. Whoever wants me or the money, all of them, can find out where my parents live whenever they want because Mom and Dad stayed put through all the killing, and the reporters, and the cops, stayed right in the house where I grew up. And I’m really, really fucking tired.

I actually hear the sound as I snap.

It sounds good.

Just like a bat hitting a ball.

I step inside Danny’s swing. His forearm hits me in the shoulder and the hammer ends up slamming against my back. I hook him under the ribs, he folds in two. I grab the back of his head and bring my knee up into his face. He turns at the last moment so I don’t break his nose. But I can fix that.

I have his head in the open car door and am ready to slam it on his face when I realize his friends are running into the street. I drop his head, scoop up the hammer from the asphalt, and swing it in a mad arc. They fall back, but stay in a tight group, and I dive at them, shoving the fat guy back into his two skinnier buddies. They stumble, Fat Guy falling on top of Mullet Head, and Ponytail Boy windmilling his arms to keep his balance. I start kicking at the heads of the two on the ground.

– Stop it! Stop it!

I turn, hammer raised. Leslie flinches back. I lower the hammer. Leslie sticks her finger in my face.

– What the fuck are you, some kind of maniac? Ya didn’t have to beat the shit out of ’em, they’re all a bunch of pussies anyway.

The two on the ground are curled into scared little balls, their knees drawn up, hands covering their heads. Ponytail Boy has run off into one of the houses in the cul-de-sac. I throw the hammer into some bushes. Danny is on his ass, leaning against the side of the car, holding his bleeding mouth.

– Danny.

He doesn’t look up. Blood is trickling steadily from his mouth. I think he may have bit through his lip. I squat down in front of him. He looks up at me. His eyes narrow.

– Hey.

His hand comes away from his mouth and he points at me.

– Heeey.

– Get off my car, Danny.

He’s still looking at me, tilting his head, squinting but not moving. I grab his legs and pull. He scoots on his butt to keep from tipping over. I drop his legs and get in the car. Leslie has followed me and squats down next to Danny.

– Stop being a dick to him, can’t ya see he’s hurt?

I close the door and start the car. I can feel a lump growing between my shoulder blades where the hammer tagged me. I shove the stick into first and pull away. In the mirror Danny is still sitting in the street, pointing after me. Leslie has one hand on his head and is giving me the finger with her other one.

I’m almost at the end of the block when a garage door back in the cul-de-sac swings up and Ponytail Boy comes screeching out in a jacked-up black Toyota pickup with monster tires.

Great. Pursuit.

I’VE BEEN lost in these tracts for about ten minutes now and nothing looks familiar. Or rather, everything looks familiar because it all looks exactly the same. Wait a sec. That’s it. That’s the liquor store where I got off the trolley. I stop the car, put it in reverse, and back up to the last intersection. There it is, just up the street. From there I can follow the trolley tracks back toward the I-5.

It only takes a few minutes to reach a major intersection, where I see signs for the highway. I’m almost at the on-ramp when I get a look at the gas gauge. Empty. I pull into the last-chance Shell and kill the engine.

I’ve got about four gallons in the tank when the black Toyota squeals to a stop at the intersection. Danny is in the front, Ponytail Boy behind the wheel, Leslie is squeezed between them, and Fat Guy and Mullet Head are in the back.

A big red Suburban is on the other side of the pumps from me, screening the BMW from the street. I duck down a little so they can’t see me. When the light changes they’ll go right past, and I can sneak out onto the freeway.

Then I see their turn signal flashing.

They’re going to come in here.

The light changes. I pull the hose out, hang it up, and close the tank. Two cars make the turn before the Toyota. I reach into the car and hit the ignition, but stay standing so I can peer through the windows of the Suburban. The Toyota makes the turn and heads for the driveway behind me. I get in the car and ease it forward around the pumps and the Suburban, trying to keep it between me and Danny’s crew as they pull into the station. If I time it right, I’ll pop out on the other side of this behemoth, behind them, and be able to scoot away before they know I’m here.

I pull out from the cover of the Suburban. The Toyota is stopped right next to the driveway. Fat Guy has hopped out of the back and is asking what everybody wants from the store inside. They see me.

I hit the gas and squirt past them into the street. As I bounce over the curb, Fat Guy tries to climb back up on the truck, gets one leg in, and is dragged several yards before the truck stops and he is tossed to the pavement. I hit the intersection just as the light goes yellow and make for the on-ramp. I check the rearview, see the Toyota behind me jump the intersection as the light turns red, see it get snarled in a mess of squealing brakes and curses. I’m on the ramp, merging into traffic and on my way north.

I CAN tune in Westwood One on the old AM/FM in this piece of crap. They’re broadcasting the Oakland vs. Denver game and I’m able to get updates on the Dolphins, which is as good as anything. Or, as it turns out, as bad as anything.

By the time the game ends, Miles Taylor’s backup has stumbled to six yards rushing and three lost fumbles, two of which were taken back for touchdowns. Going into the game, Coach had not been overly concerned about his wounded secondary because Detroit has the worst passing attack in the NFL. He decided to load the line to stop Chester Dallas, their massive Pro Bowl fullback. Detroit focused completely on the air game, where they had three touchdowns and over three hundred yards at the half, while Coach kept eight in the box to stuff the nonexistent running game. DET 48, MIA 9 FINAL. Meanwhile, the Packers have decided this is the day to lose a December game at home for the first time since the Dark Ages, handing the Jets a one-game division lead over Miami. I turn off the radio and concentrate on not dying in this crappy car.

I manage to get it up and over the Grapevine. I gas up at an Exxon, buy a hot dog, a soda, and some Benson & Hedges in the convenience store, and get back on the road. About four more hours and I should be home.

The I-5 is the highway that the Baja 1 aspires to be: long, straight, impeccably maintained, and running through similarly featureless terrain. Endless rolling hills line the valley, all of them dirt brown year-round, except for a few brief moments in late fall and early spring. Orchards and cattle ranches offer an occasional break from the usual scenery, which consists of dead grass. There are the anomalous palm trees, the abandoned farm equipment, and the massive rest stops, but other than that, it’s a long haul with nothing to look at but the other cars and the assortment of Oakland Raiders paraphernalia they sport.

With one hand I twist the cap off my water bottle and take a swig. I try to fiddle the cap back onto the bottle and it drops between my thighs. I feel around for it and my foot comes off the gas a little. The motor home behind me makes a move to pass me. I look down at my lap, find the cap, and put it back on the bottle as the motor home leaves the right lane and starts to slowly pass me on the left. Behind the motor home I see a black car coming on way too fast to stop. The motor home tries to get out of its way by ducking back into my lane. The huge RV veers at me, horn blaring. I push the brake, the motor home creeps farther into my lane. I stick my foot into the brake, the BMW skidding slightly as I try to steer onto the shoulder.

I drop back behind the motor home just as it swerves sharply into my lane and barely misses hacking off my front bumper. And now I see that the speeding black car has driven half onto the left shoulder to pass the motor home while it was passing me. I also see that the black car is not a black car at all, but a black Toyota pickup. Then I’m pulling to a stop on the side of the road, watching Danny and his friends as they speed up the highway. Fucking hell. What is this, Deliverance?

I LET Danny get farther up the road before I pull out. Around Coalinga I see a black pickup across the meridian, headed south. Could be them giving up, or driving back to scan the northbound traffic. I don’t know.

It’s after dark when I see my exit. By now my eyes keep dropping shut and I’ve lost most of the sense of forward motion; the road just seems to be reeling toward me as I stay in one place. I hit the blinkers and turn off.

God, I forgot what Christmas is like in the suburbs. It’s still a couple weeks away, but lights are dribbling down from the eaves, reindeer are on the rooftops, forests of giant candy canes are growing from the lawns. We used to do that thing; drive around all the different neighborhoods looking at the lights. Christmas. I should have got them something. I park a few blocks away, rather than leaving a strange car in front of their house for the neighbors to see. Then I sit behind the wheel, trying to get my shit together. Maybe I should have called.

AS SOON as I knock on the door, the dogs start barking. The same dogs. I can hear her inside, coming into the hall, telling them to shush, and them not listening at all, just barking like crazy. A lock snaps open. They never used to lock the door, but I guess they’ve had reason enough the last few years. The door swings open just enough for her to look out and still keep it blocked with her body so that neither of the dogs can squirt out around her.

She looks at me.

Mom is a tiny woman. She likes to claim she’s five foot two, but the truth is she’s just a shade over five. At least she used to be. It’s been several years and she looks a bit smaller now. And older. Much older. I did that to her. She looks at me, the guy on her porch with the deep tan, short beard, and long hair. She looks at the nose, crunched and bent, the extra twenty pounds of weight, the tattoos dribbling out the tugged-up sleeves of my shirt and down my forearms. There is no beat, no pause or halt, just instant recognition and the sudden escape of air from her mouth.

I push the door open, catch her as her knees give out beneath her. I hold her shaking body up and kick the door closed with the heel of my foot. She gasps for air and I give her a little squeeze and a shake and a huge gob of snot and phlegm flies out of her nose and plasters the front of my shirt and she starts to breathe again. I hold her tight and she shivers and sobs and pounds on my back and shoulders with her tiny fists and curses at me and tells me she loves me while the old dogs run around in circles, barking at me.