The Ultimate Good Luck

14

THE VISITATION SMELLED like it had been scrubbed with piss. It was prisoners’ work, and the prisoners liked tricks. Half the ceiling lights had been turned off, and the cafeteria was cool and damp and crowded with American visitors, hippies whispering and smirking over the metal tables and the rest moms and dads in bright clothes, sitting erect, being cheerful and not noticing the smell while they chatted. It was the day for people without connections. Extra guards were at either end. Rae kept taking deep breaths.

They had waited an hour in an anteroom while Bernhardt entered the document of release and paid the alcaide two hundred dollars to keep his mouth shut until the judge could be paid. Rae had been searched, and when she came out of the room her mouth was closed tight, and she kept blinking as if the light was bright.

“My college degree isn’t much good to me here, is it Harry?” she said to him, her hands tightly clasped on the metal table while they waited. She had brought two copies of the Sporting News. She kept her hands weighted on them.

“Try to smile,” he said.

“Am I supposed to lead cheers?” she said. She had put on her tinted glasses and her hair looked darker in the bad light. No one was paying attention to them.

The Sporting News had a color picture of Hank Aaron holding a lot of bats. The values were all too harsh. It wasn’t like life. “He’ll be fucked up,” Quinn said. “Just tell him not to do that. We don’t want him hospitalized.”

Sonny was let in the yellow door at the end of the room, searched, then released. His expression was different. It was as if he was thinner. Something wasn’t quite right.

Rae began smiling when she saw him and kept smiling. When Sonny got close she reached across the table and tried to touch his hands, but he hid his hands in his pockets. “I’m fucking cut,” he said and sat down.

“Oh Jesus,” Rae said, leaning on the table still trying to touch him.

“Fucking shit, man.” Sonny jerked his head angrily so his pony-tail jerked.

“Just a second now,” Quinn said. Sonny wasn’t popped. His eyes were small and pencil-pointed. “Just wait a second.” He was trying to put some ideas in front of Sonny to keep him calm. Rae looked as if someone had hit her face. She seemed to want to speak but couldn’t. Quinn wanted her out, but there wasn’t any way for it now. “How bad are you?” he said. He wanted to see a cut to be sure. This was something not to happen. He glanced at the picture of Hank Aaron with his arms surrounding the bats, smiling. It pronounced a malediction on everything.

“I’m all right,” Sonny said in a soft voice. “I didn’t go upstairs with it.”

“Who did it?” He wished Bernhardt were there and Rae was gone. He could hear her breathing too hard.

“A fucking spic grease-ball. Cut me with a Sidra bottle,” Sonny said, staring down. He was furious and terrified.

“Where?” Rae said. She had begun to sweat on her hairline.

“My thigh,” Sonny said. He swallowed. He was scared but he wouldn’t panic yet. He would panic later, but not now.

“Did you fuck with him?” Quinn said.

Sonny looked up fiercely. “I don’t fuck with anybody in here, man. I’m getting out, so I don’t fuck with anybody.” He looked at Rae as if he wanted something to hurt her feelings.

“It’s filthy in here,” she said and looked urgent.

Quinn still wasn’t sure if he should believe it, but he didn’t have any visible choice. “Can it keep?” he said.

“Maybe,” Sonny said.

“Was it anybody you knew?”

Sonny shook his head. “Forastero,” he said. “You know?” He looked at both of them blankly. He meant Deats.

“Just forget that now,” Quinn said. “Just forget that.” Sonny looked at him coldly with an expression of betrayal. It was an expression he had seen on Rae’s face, but on Sonny it meant nothing to him. Americans at another table stood up and began embracing the skinny kid who had foot-fucked the Mexican girl. He still had on his “Try God” T-shirt, and his mother was crying and people were staring at her. Sonny glanced at her a moment and then looked back, uninterested. “Can you stay in one place?” Quinn said.

“Just so long. I gotta get the fuck out of here, you understand that. You don’t hide in here.”

“We got the document,” he said quickly. “It’s in the alcaide’s office. A day now, all right? The money’s here. Everything’s here. You just have to stay still, you understand me?” The look of betrayal measured a state of shock, and that was all right if it didn’t get worse. Sonny could suck it in if he wanted to. He just had to want to. “Kiss your brother,” he said to Rae.

She looked surprised. “What?” she said.

“Kiss him, God damn it, let’s go,” he said, standing.

Rae put out her arms and tried to bury her face in Sonny’s shoulder, leaning over the table awkwardly to do it. One of her tinted lenses fell out on the table, and Sonny let his arms hang. He hadn’t said hello to Rae. It seemed like he wasn’t sure what was happening.

“I’m sorry,” Rae said. “Jesus, I’m so sorry.”

“So fucking do something,” Sonny said. He looked at Quinn and smiled strangely, as though somebody had said something complimentary to him. “You’re not in here, fucker,” he said, and the smile disappeared. “I am. You know? I’m the one that’s fucking in here.”

“Just be cool,” Quinn said. He touched Rae’s arm. “Go now.”

“We’ll get you out of here, hon,” Rae said.

Sonny gazed at her vaguely.

Quinn pushed across the two copies of the Sporting News. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said, and led Rae down the row of tables.

The sky outside was pale, as if a dead ocean lay hidden behind the mountains. Bernhardt stood beside the Mercedes in the gravel lot wearing a white cotton shirt in the breezy sunlight. “No troubles, correct,” he said. He opened the car door to get in.

“Somebody stabbed him,” Quinn said, when he got close.

Bernhardt stood up, squinting in the bright light. He looked as if he hadn’t heard just right. “Who did?” he said.

“Deats,” Quinn said. He looked at Rae, then came closer to Bernhardt. “This is getting real dicey, Carlos. You were supposed to see about this asshole, you know?” He didn’t like having Rae hear this, but she was in it now, and there was nothing he could do.

“Is he all right?” Bernhardt said.

“He won’t be very fucking all right long.” Quinn lowered his voice. Some women vendors began to drift toward the car from around the prison gate. They had huaraches and pottery beads and stopped at a polite distance to hold up what they had. “I don’t like the outlook,” Quinn said. He looked at the vendors quickly. Rae was staring at them as if they had called her name. “I can get somebody else, but it’s too late for that. You see that, don’t you, Carlos?”

“Other people are involved now,” Bernhardt said apologetically. “It has gotten complicated.”

“Are you bailing out? Is that how complicated it is?”

“No,” Bernhardt said gravely. His eyes snapped at the vendors, who were trying to strike up a conversation with Rae. They all said “trinkets” over and over and rattled their merchandise. “It will be settled tonight.”

“That’s what you said last night,” Quinn said.

“You need patience,” Bernhardt said and tried to smile.

“The man doesn’t have time for patience,” he said emphatically and pointed at the prison fence. “Somebody’s cutting on him, see?”

Bernhardt’s eyes flickered toward the prison. “At three today arrangements will be made.”

“Not now?” Quinn said.

“It is not certain. But it will be.”

“He didn’t do it, you know that. He didn’t skim anybody’s shit.” That seemed important to say. He wasn’t sure why that mattered, but it seemed to.

“It’s possible,” Bernhardt said. He moved toward the car now.

“No. It’s not possible.” He took Bernhardt’s bare arm. “He didn’t do it, and I don’t want him sliced like that kid you trotted out last night.”

“I understand,” Bernhardt said softly. “It will be done right.”

“I need that, Carlos. I really fucking need that now.”

Bernhardt looked away, out beyond Animas Trujano, where a circle of light illuminated the scorched valley floor as if somewhere someone was holding a magnifying glass to the sun. The light was almost pure white. He seemed embarrassed at being touched.

The vendors were smiling and holding out their Japanese crap as if they couldn’t stand to have it near them another minute. “Let’s just get out of here,” Rae said. “They give me the bads.”

“I’m not sure he understands it,” Quinn said.

“He understands,” Rae said. “You made it real clear.”

Bernhardt began getting back in the car.