The Scared Stiff

29

What do they call it, the law of unintended consequences? You think you’re so smart, you think you’re so clever. You scheme and scam and think you’ve got it all doped out, and there’s always some other angle you didn’t take into account.

So what had I done this time? I thought what I was doing was scamming an insurance company, which was already scary enough, but it turns out what I actually did was put a six-hundred-thousand-dollar price on my head. And then I marooned myself in a place full of people anxious to collect, where I didn’t have any resources of my own and where, it now turned out, I didn’t even have any allies. Not when push, you know, came to shove.

All of a sudden, I didn’t want any more beer. More beer would just muddy my head, and if we’d reached the point where Arturo contemplated feeding me to Madonna, I could not afford a muddy head.

I put down my beer. I said, “Maybe...”

They all looked at me. They were very interested in what I had to say. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to say. I’d been thinking, Maybe I could get the American visa now and leave Guerrera right away, but in the first place it wouldn’t be right away, and in the second place I shouldn’t call attention to myself while insurance investigators were wandering around Sabanon. So I didn’t have anything to say after all.

Arturo said, “Listen, could you be an American?”

He was sounding friendly again, as though he was on my side. I said, “What do you mean?”

“Mamá,” he said, “we still got some of the Barry Lee stuff, don’t we?”

“Oh, sure,” she said.

I said, “Some of my old things are still here?”

“Lola had her own stuff to carry,” he explained. “She took some of yours, left some. One suitcase. We got it downstairs, under the house.”

I hadn’t noticed it. I said, “What do you mean, be an American?”

“It’s not workin’, you bein’ Guerreran,” he said, “because you can’t talk.”

“It’s driving me nuts,” I admitted.

“So what if you put on American clothes,” he said, “and went somewhere Americans go, and be an American for a while?”

I said, “How do I do that?”

“You don’t know how to be an American?”

“Not without a passport,” I told him. “Not without credit cards. Even if I had the cash, and I don’t, nobody expects cash from an American. What do you want me to do, go to some hotel? Hi, I’m an American, I’ll pay you in siapas? And the hotel always asks to see the passport. They’ve got some police form to fill out.”

“That’s right, dammit,” Arturo said. “But it would be so perfect, you know? An American is something you could play.”

Mamá said, “Dulce.”

Arturo turned to her, frowning. He thought about it. Slowly he nodded. “Son of a gun,” he said. “She might do it. Only whadda we tell her?”

I said, “Her?”

Instead of answering, he said, “You’re an American, right? And you gotta hide out. Only not for the reason you really got to, for some other reason. What’s the reason?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“A reason for you to hide out,” he explained, “that makes you a sympathetic guy for a friend of mine.”

“You mean noncriminal,” I said. “Like I’m hiding from my ex-wife.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Why you hidin’ from your ex-wife?”

“She’s trying to serve me papers,” I said. “It’s a financial settlement, and she’s vindictive, and she wants it all. And there’s a deadline. If I can keep out of sight for a month I’ll be okay.”

Slowly he nodded. “That might do it,” he said. “Let me make a phone call.”

“To Dulce,” I suggested. “Who is she?”

“Let’s just see if this works,” he said. “You go get your suitcase; I’ll make the call.”

I said, “This is just a ploy to get me down there with Madonna.”

He laughed. “Not a bad idea. If the phone call don’t work, I’ll tell you, Take the suitcase back down again; here, I’ll come with you.”

“Please don’t joke, Arturo,” I said. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

“Lemme call,” he said.

So I went downstairs and Madonna snorted. You again?

“Don’t mind me,” I told her. “Carry on.” I looked around, and there was my green vinyl bag with all the zippers. “I won’t be bothering you again, I hope,” I told Madonna, and carried the bag upstairs.

Arturo was still on the phone. Mamá smiled at me: it’s working out.

I carried the vinyl bag into the bedroom and put it on the bed next to the ratty cardboard suitcase I’d been lugging around. Boy. Already you could tell these were two different guys, and you didn’t even have to look inside the luggage.

I opened the vinyl bag, and here were a lot of old friends. My Reeboks: great. I’d never been really comfortable in those peon shoes. A nice variety of touristy clothes. Underwear. My toilet kit. Fantastic. Wow, I’d missed all this gear.

“Okay,” Arturo said, in the doorway.

I looked at him. “Okay? I’ve got a place to stay?”

“Put on some American stuff,” he told me, “and let’s go.”

“Sure.” I pulled out tan chinos, a light blue LaCoste pullover. “Where we going?”

“I tell you in the car,” he said. “We gotta get outa here, man. Leave that other stuff behind.”

“Right,” I said.