Jumper_ Griffin's Story Part 6

I had my eleventh birthday, and then my twelfth.

Pretty much I kept the rules. I didn't jump near Alejandra's house or anywhere near people. If I wanted to practice, I'd take my boat out at sunrise and sail to the Isla la Montosa, a rocky island east, out from TangolundaBay. I could usually get in an hour before the dive boats showed up with the tourists.

I was being careful.

So I really resented it when they still found me.

Chapter Five.

Going to Ground I had ten minutes' warningan enormous amount of time, really. Didn't even have to jump. Not immediately. I was at the translation agency, Significado Claro, answering phones for Alejandra while she attended a real estate purchase at the lawyer's office down the block. An American couple were buying property for their retirement.

They had a bit of espahol but wisely wanted to be absolutely clear on everything they were signing.

Our dentist, the elderly Dr. Andres Ortega, called and asked for Alejandra. I explained she was out and offered to take a message. He asked for me, that is, Guillermo Losada.

"Esyo, Doctor."

He spoke rapidly in Spanish. "Some foreign men were just here with an agent of the AFI. They had dental records. Your dental records." The AFI was the Agencia Federal de Investigationthe Mexican equivalent of the United States' FBI. "They were American records and they had a different name on them... Guillermo." He paused. "I had to give them your address. They just left here."

My heart began pounding like waves cras.h.i.+ng into the sh.o.r.e after a storm. Kathud. Kathud.

Traitor teeth. I'd had two fillings eight months before. See what not flossing will do?

"Do they have the address of Alejandra's agency?"

"No it wasn't in your records. I didn't show them hers."

"Thank you, Doctor. Thank you very much."

I hung up. My impulse was to jump away, to Sam's, but Dr. Ortega's office was in Santa Cruz, the next village over. It would take them at least ten minutes to get into La Crucecita and then they would be going to the house.

So I jumped to the house first. I kept my money in a Oaxacan black pottery hexagonal box, the lid decorated with cutout triangles. I think I liked the box better than the money.

I dropped it in the middle of my bed, on the light spread.

Then the contents of my dresser, grabbing the drawers, dumping them on the spread, and sticking them back in the dresser. It took three armloads to strip the books off my two shelves.

I took the corners of the blankets and pulled them together. The bundle was almost as big as me but it still came with me when I jumped it to Sam's brokendown stable in California. I jumped back and grabbed the sheets and the raincoat hanging behind the door and the corkboard that held a few drawings, some snaps of Alejandra, a picture of Rodrigo with one of his girlfriends, and a picture of me sailing my boat. These, too, went into Sam's stable. Then I was back, pulling the sketches off the walls, tearing out the corners where they were tacked up. I carefully put these in Sam's stable, on the pile.

They'd taken all my pictures last time, when they killed Mum and Dad.

When I jumped back, the room looked weirduninhabited. I wished I could put dust all over it, so they'd think it was abandoned months before, but I didn't know how to manage that.

I used the house phone to call Alejandra at the lawyer's office.

"Bueno?" she said when they called her to the phone.

"Te amo." I'd never said it before, but I did. As if she were Mom, or a sister.

"Guillermo, que estas loco?"

"No estoy loco. Veniron y deboir."

She switched to English. She wasn't understanding me but it wasn't the words, it was the situation. "Who has come? Why must youoh. Oh, no!" She'd got it. ";Ve rapido!"

"Don't go home. They'll be watching." I hung up the phone and walked out the back door.

Five minutes later I was on the patio of the Hotel Villa Blanca when they pulled up. I had a newspaper covering my face, and I'd ordered a limonada to justify my presence. The paper shook in my hands and I had to brace my elbows against the table to stop the movement.

They drove by in two cars, one after the other, eyeing the house casually. One car parked up the street, the other pulled into the hotel's drive, not forty feet from where I sat.

It was all I could do not to jump away, but I realized they were there for the same reason I wasyou could watch the house from here. The plates were Oaxacan and it was not a rental. The driver, a man in a rumpled white suit, looked Mexican. His pa.s.senger wasn't.

I'd last seen him in San Diego, the night the flat blew up.

My hands, for some bizarre reason, stopped shaking.

I s.h.i.+fted my chair slightly, letting me see through the archway to the registration desk. I couldn't hear them but Martin, the desk clerk, was shaking his head. The man in the white suit took his wallet out of his jacket and flipped it open, showing the clerk something. I saw Martin's eyes widen and then he picked up the phone and spoke into it.

Senor Heras, the manager, joined them from the office. After another moment's discussion, Vidal, the bellman, was summoned. They unloaded the trunk, only three pieces of luggage, but one piece the man from San Diego grabbed out of the trunk as Vidal reached for it.

"I'll get that," he said, loud enough that I heard it across the lobby. "Fragile." He still had that Bristol accent. I wanted to jump, away, mostly, but I remembered the night they killed the police officer in the street by the flat. They'd seemed to know when I jumped without seeing me.

I watched them take the stairs up while Vidal rolled his cart back to the freight lift. When they were out of sight I wandered back to the front of the hotel. Standing just inside the door, I could see the other car down the street, parked on the other side, where they could watch the front of Alejandra's house.

Vidal came back after a minute. "How did they tip?" I asked him in Spanish, rubbing my fingertips.

He made a face. "Los mezquinos." Cheapskates.

"What side are they on?"

He jerked his thumb to the left, toward Alejandra's. "En la planta tercera. Alfondo." He pointed to west. "l?or que preguntas?"

"Because they are looking for me." As I said it, I felt my face twist and I knew I was on the verge of tears. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. "So, you don't know me, okay? I'm leaving but we don't want them to hurt Alejandra, right?"

"Claro que si!"

Everyone who knew her thought highly of Alejandra.

"I owe you."

He jerked his chin up and grinned. "Claro que si." At the edge of the beach park, vendors had tables selling Oaxacan souvenirs to the touristsblack pottery, Guatemalan clothes, painted wooden carvings made with tropical hardwoods. I found a small hand mirror set in painted copal wood for twenty dollars Americano. I paid for it without haggling.

Vidal unlocked the back stairs of the hotel for me, to access the roof. It was a popular place for the employees when the resorts over at TangolundaBay did fireworks, so I'd been there before, but I didn't jump.

I didn't want to jump around themnot until I left for good.

The roof was gravel over tar and I took my time moving across. I didn't think they'd be able to hear me through the roof, but all the rooms had balconies and if they were out there, or had the sliding door open, they might.

As I approached the concrete parapet that edged the roof I heard them talking. From the sound, they weren't on the balcony but they must've opened the door.

My Bristolaccented friend spoke: "'e won't be the owner'e's just a kid. We should find out who owns the house, and all of 'em that lives there." He groaned, surprising me.

"Your stomach, still? It happens sometimes, to foreigners. Different bacteria, they say." Mexicanaccented English. Probably the man from the Agencia Federal de Investigation.

"b.u.g.g.e.r the bacteria."

"I will ask downstairs who owns the house."

"No! They're neighbors. You ask questions, they might answer, but they also might pick up the phone, comprende ? There must be records you can check more discreetly."

The agent of the AFI said, "Yes, there are records. Over the phone is not so good, though. With my badge in their face, the results are better. You will not need me directly?"

"No. It's a waiting game now. Call me." I heard the door open, but before it closed I heard him add, "And please get me some PeptoBismol." It was a strain. This man clearly wasn't accustomed to saying please.

"Of course, Sehor Kemp. And some more bottled water?"

"Good of ya."

The door closed.

"s.h.i.+te!" I heard himKemp?groan again and then move. His footsteps changed, echoed.

He's in the bathroom.

I heard his belted pants dropping to the floor and the unmistakable sounds of gastric distress.

Impulsively I shoved the mirror into my back pocket and swung over the parapet. It wasn't a hard climb at all. The divisions between the balconies were honeycombed bricks providing good foot and hand holds. Heights didn't bother me, since I could always "jump" to safety. I was on the balcony before he flushed the toilet. I knelt in the corner and silently edged one of the chairs back to partially hide me.

There were footsteps and he came to the edge of the doorway, binoculars held to his face. He was scanning the house, Alejandra's house, my house.

No. Not my house, not my home. Not anymore.

Maybe I could push him off the balcony.

He checked the street; he checked the windows of the house. He took something from his pocket and, still looking through the binoculars, he spoke into it.

"Anything?"

There was an answering voice, crackling with static, low volume. "No. Not since earlier, when we were driving over here from the dentist. Felt maybe seven jumps in a minute."

"You've got better range than meI only felt two of those, at the edge of town. I sent Ortiz out to find out who owns the house. Keep your eyes open, right? I can't watch continuously."

The response was too low for me to hear, but this side of the conversation was loud and clear: " 'Cause the b.l.o.o.d.y toilet is not line of sight with the target, okay?" He put the radio back in his pocket and, groaning, turned back to the bathroom.

I'd been right to climb down.

Range. Varying range. One of them could sense me from, say, Dr. Ortega's office, five kilometers away, but Kemp couldn't. But, say he felt my last two jumps right before I called Alejandra; they could've been in La Crucecita, within one or two kilometers, but still taking five minutes to find their way.

He'd certainly feel it if I jumped while on the balcony. Then the realization came. Range. They could sense jumps but they couldn't have been practicing on me alone. They had experience sensing jumps. Other jumps. Not mine.

Mon Dieu, there are other jumpers!

Kemp groaned again, the sound echoing off the bathroom tiles. I remembered that time I was sick shortly after arriving in Oaxaca and wished I could just die and get it over with. I hoped he suffered for weeks.

I used the mirror then, when it was clear he was still on the toilet, scooting to the edge of the doorway and tilting it, low, to peer into the room. Their suitcases were in the closet, just sticking out, but that briefcase he hadn't let Vidal carry was on the bed. Wonder what it contained.

Well, why not find out?

It was just a step inside, on the carpet, silent, but I think the light was dimmed very slightly as I went through the door. Even sick as he was, Kemp noticed. I heard him scramble for his pants but I had my hand on the case before he cleared the bathroom door. He was trying to point something at me, something bigger than a gun, bringing it up, but I jumped.

Dad's voiceDon't let anyone even point a weapon at you.

No, Dad. Do my best.

Didn't go far.

Couldn't. If they weren't chasing me, they'd turn their attention on Alejandra. So I wanted them to chase me.

I went to the island in the next bay over, the Isla la Montosa, a rocky bit slightly less than three hundred meters across, only a few hundred meters off the east headland of TangolundaBay. It had a tiny spit of land extending toward the mainland that sheltered a bit of beach less than fifty meters long. The rest of the island was big waves on rock sh.o.r.e with a raised brushy interior.

It was only four kilometers from the hotel.

They should have felt it.

Felt, but could they track it? Did they feel the direction?

Would they come?

The briefcase had two threedigit combination locks and they were engaged. Two sets of a thousand possible combinations, solvable, I suppose, with enough time and patience. Just start at 000 and work your way up to 999.

I sat on the little beach and hit the locks with a rock, which not only opened it eventually, but greatly relieved the tension while I waited, especially when I screamed as I did it.

Every few minutes I'd take a break and jump to the four quarters of the compa.s.s, the east, north, south, and west sh.o.r.es of the island, to see if they were coming yet, and with the jumping, let them know I was still here.

The suitcase popped open eventually but it flared bright and hot and I had to throw it away from myself. I was surprised I hadn't set it off earlier, with all the banging, but it was only meant to selfdestruct, not designed to kill, clearly, or I'd be dead.

The contents were ash and melted plastic and blackened metal. There was a charred corner of a pa.s.sport, but it was the most recognizable thing I found. The flare had been really bright and the afterimage floated in my field of vision.

Magnesium, maybe. That had been one of the more memorable homeschool science experimentsthe thin ribbon of metal that went right on burning after Mum dropped it in the water.

They came in two boatsone that went directly to the beach, avoiding the rocks that dotted the mouth of the cove, and another that tried to do something on the seaward side. They could have landed a swimmer but it would've meant writing off the boat to come any closer to the jagged lava. The waves would've smashed it into the cliff. In the end, that boat, too, circled the island and put in at the cove.