The Scared Stiff

49

No news on Monday, not a sound. “Arturo,” I said, when he came back from cabbing that evening, “I can’t stand this. I’m going nuts here. I feel like I’m nailed to the floor.”

He shook his head, sympathetic. “It is takin’ awhile,” he agreed.

“We have to call her,” I said.

“Why?” he asked me. “If she had news, she’d call us. She said, Today she’s askin’ a lotta questions, the insurance company, all them people. They got to get back to her, right? Maybe the check is lost in the mail. Maybe your post office isn’t so much better than ours.”

“It isn’t,” I said. “Tomorrow, Arturo. If we don’t hear from her by five o’clock tomorrow, we call her. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed.

Four-twenty Tuesday, and Arturo came thudding up the outside stairs, yawning and scratching his belly. He came in and saw me sitting there in that low armchair, and he said, “No call, hermano?”

“Time to phone Lola,” I said.

“Okay. Just lemme get a beer.”

He did, and came back, and made the call. I watched his face, and saw him look confused. I said, “Arturo?”

Without a word, he extended the phone toward me. I took it, and listened, and heard a recorded announcement: “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed — (five) (five) (five) (nine) (five) (nine) (five) — is no longer in service. There is no forwarding number. We’re sorry, the number you have—”

I pushed it back at him as though it were a snake. I said, “Arturo, she turned the phone off!”

“Oh, man,” he said.

“I’ve got — I don’t have any other way to get in touch with her, to find out what the hell is going on.”

“Hermano—”

“Let me think let me think let me think.”

Had she left me? That was inconceivable, but had the inconceivable happened? We were a tribe of two, we were each other’s net, it was us against the world, we were inseparable.

But we were separated. For four weeks, we’d been apart.

“Arturo,” I said, “I’ve got to get up there. I’ve got to find out what’s going on.” I was pacing again. “Listen,” I said. “Do you need a visa between Guerrera and Colombia?”

“What? No,” he said, scoffing at the idea. “People go back and forth all the time, man. But Rafez won’t let you cross the border. He’ll know if you try to do that.”

“I’ll find a way,” I insisted. “Carlos can smuggle me across, he’ll be glad to get rid of me. Then, in Colombia, I take a plane to New York.”

“And do what, hermano?” he asked, curiously bland.

I looked at him, and he was watching me with amiable curiosity, head cocked to one side. Hmm. I had to remember this was Lola’s brother, after all. I could feel loyalties shifting like tectonic plates.

“Arturo,” I said, “I don’t believe Lola’s left me.”

“Good,” he said.

“I don’t believe we can leave each other,” I said, “not really. But what explanations do I have here? The phone is turned off. You see what I mean? The phone is turned off.”

“It’s a problem,” he agreed.

“Okay,” I said. “Now, it’s possible somebody else knew about the money, and they waited until she got the check and cashed it, and then they killed her and buried her in the basement. And turned off our phone?”

“Mmm,” Arturo said.

“Or,” I said, “it’s possible she put the money in our checking account, and somebody’s holding her prisoner, making her write checks, and they turned off the phone so she couldn’t call for help. Except I don’t believe that, Arturo, and neither do you. All they have to do is leave the answering machine on.”

“Oh, man,” he said.

“In fact,” I said, “come to think of it, that’s all anybody had to do. I mean, let’s say — let’s just for an argument here say that Lola found some other guy. She didn’t, but we’re saying.”

“Sure,” Arturo said.

“So they’ve got all this money,” I said, “and they want to get away before I come looking for them, so they go to California or London or Rio or who knows where, and what do they want?”

“I dunno,” he said.

“Time,” I said. “The longest lead time possible. So do they turn off the phone? Of course not. Why don’t they just leave the answering machine on? That way, I’ll just dick around here another two — three days, maybe even another week, while they’re gone and lost for good. Why turn off the phone, Arturo?”

“Save a couple siapas,” he suggested.

“Arturo,” I said, “they’ve got one billion two hundred million siapas.”

“Well, that’s true,” he said.

I paced. I paced. I stopped. I said, “There’s only one reason to turn off the phone.”

He looked interested. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lola knows I’m waiting for her to call. She knows if she doesn’t call me, I’ll call her. She turns off the phone. Can’t you see why?”

“No,” he said.

“Because she is in trouble,” I said, “some kind of trouble, and this is the only way she can send me a message.”

“She turns the phone off to send you a message?”

“I know, I know,” I said, “usually it’s the other way around. But not this time.”

“But what’s the message?”

“That she’s in some kind of trouble,” I said.

“So why not call? Call on the phone? Why turn it off?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” I paced some more. I stopped. I said, “What if somebody’s got her in a motel room?”

He looked at me.

“No,” I said, “not for fucking. To hold her there until the money comes in. Let’s think about this, hold on here. Somebody finds out what’s going on. They know the money’s coming in; they say, Give me half, or whatever. Or they’ll turn her in, she’ll go to jail.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“And they make her go move to a motel,” I said, “or someplace where you can’t make a long-distance call, so she can’t warn me or get me to help her. Or someplace where there’d be a record of the call if she did, and this person would see the call and turn her in.”

“Okay,” he said.

“But a call to your phone company business office,” I said, “isn’t charged. It doesn’t even show up on your bill or any records.”

“Jeez, man,” he said.

I said, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I’ll tell you the truth, hermano. I wasn’t gonna, but now I will. When I first heard them announcements on the phone, I figure that’s it, she found some other guy, and I guess I’m stuck with this one here, meaning you, hermano, until either Rafez puts you in jail or Manfredo and them from Tapitepe kill you. No offense, man.”

No offense? I didn’t have time to think about that. I said, “Lola didn’t leave me. Lola sent me a message. And that means there’s only one thing I can do.”

He looked interested. “Yeah? You got something you can do? What’s that?”

“Turn myself in,” I said.