Do They Know I'm Running? Part 34

"I guess we're heading out."

"Come here, please."

He approached the bed and she opened her arms, he leaned down for what he thought would be a hug but she took his face in her hands, kissed him drily, tenderly on the lips. "I have loved you with all my heart, Lyndell, but never so much as today."

It felt like she'd stabbed him with a knife. "You're not gonna do something foolish."

"Not foolish, no."

"Audrey, please."

"You do love me, don't you, Lyndell."

He was trembling all over. His voice left him, then came back, a whisper. "Good G.o.d, woman."

She put her fingers to his lips. "Go do what you need to. You know I'd come with you if I could. I'll be here when you get back, don't fear that, all right?"

"Promise me."

"Lyndell, one of these days and soon, too, you're going to have to say-"

"No. Promise me."

"I love you, Lyndell. You are the best man I have ever known.

That day, you remember? Easter Sunday, over at the Murrays' place-my G.o.d, you were so d.a.m.n good-looking. So humble, so shy, so rough. Luckiest day of my life."

"Don't talk like this."

"I'll talk as I please, mister. I've earned that much."

"I can't leave you here, not like this."

"You have to leave me here. And yes, just like this. Now go."

"Promise me."

"I promise. Go."

He didn't dare search her eyes, fearing the lie he would find there. But she was stronger than him and he knew the only thing talk would accomplish would be the wasting of more time. He needed to spare her conscience. He needed to get those two kids somewhere far away.

"I'll be back soon as I'm able."

"You come back as soon as it's right."

He leaned down, kissed her again, lingered-she closed her eyes, the lids webbed with thin blue veins-then left hurriedly, not looking back. Out in the garage he pulled open the roll-up door and squinted against the light, then eased behind the wheel of the station wagon. "My brother-in-law runs this motel near the airfield in Tucson." He cranked the ignition, tugged the gears.h.i.+ft into drive. "You'll be safe there till your aunt comes."

"TOLD YOU," IRETON SAID, TAPPING HIS PEN AGAINST THE STEERING wheel. His other hand held the binoculars. "And it didn't take long."

They were hidden from view, parked on a rise, nestled in a shallow red-rock gulley scruffed with mesquite and cholla. Lattimore watched as the station wagon clipped past on the two-lane road below, heading north toward Tucson.

"Someone in the pa.s.senger seat too," Ireton said, "not the wife. A man or boy. Plus a third person, lying down in back. Learn more when we pull them over."

Lattimore tracked the path of the car, thinking: a boy. Most likely the kid brother, Roque. Somehow he'd survived, made it over. With a girl in tow.

They'd found Happy's body yesterday outside Naco, sprawled below a scarp of rock, like somebody'd shot him out of the sky. The coyotes didn't improve things. Lattimore had tried to keep a handle on himself, project a stern remove as the Mexican forensics crew waved off the flies, probing the corpse for its secrets, but he remembered the edgy young man who couldn't get down even a mouthful of soup in the Vietnamese restaurant that rainy day. Probably the worst CI ever, he thought, which was a kind of testament, snitches being what they are. He thought as well of the woman, elida-Lucha, her family called her, tough old bird, had to admire that. Just a few days ago, she'd had a family. Now, maybe, she had a nephew. And his fate was hardly enviable.

As for the girl, she was a singer, or so McIlvaine said, one last tip, surprisingly low-key. He seemed rankled by the unG.o.dly spin the Mexicans were putting on Samir's death-terrorist my a.s.s, words to that effect-but like the bureau, he and the Banneret group, whoever the h.e.l.l they were, saw no percentage in exposing the sideshow for what it was. Let it go, he told himself, walk away, everyone involved in this mess had an angle. The world as it is. The things you don't know about what happened the past few weeks would no doubt fill a very fat book.

Exhibit A: Andy McIlvaine. He'd predictably gone cagey as to where or how he'd come across his info on the girl but she was some sort of tribute from the Salvadoran mareros mareros to Don Pato, the gangster who ran this stretch of the Arizona line. Which meant Roque was a marked man. Killers are sentimental. They remember the gifts they've been promised, none more so than the ones that never show up. to Don Pato, the gangster who ran this stretch of the Arizona line. Which meant Roque was a marked man. Killers are sentimental. They remember the gifts they've been promised, none more so than the ones that never show up.

There was just one last thing to take care of then. Lattimore wished he could find some way to feel better about it.

They'd done a net-worth a.n.a.lysis on all the agents out of the Douglas Station. Ireton's ex-wife had inexplicably come into some very valuable property around Lake Havasu. Interesting thing about ex-wives, even the ones still friendly. Forced into a corner, they tended to talk.

Ireton put the binoculars down. "Let's wrap this up." He reached for the gears.h.i.+ft.

Lattimore, getting there first, lodged it in place. "Tell you the truth," he said, "I'm a lot more interested in this call you got from across the border than I am in following that wagon."

THEY RODE IN SILENCE, NOTHING BUT THE RUMBLE OF THE MOTOR AND the hum of the tires against the pavement, the crush of the desert wind. Lyndell's eye traveled from the road to the speedometer to his mirrors, making sure he did nothing to encourage a restless cop hoping for a pull-over. Occasionally the boy, Roque, glanced over his shoulder at the girl and a couple times he reached out his hand, she took it, and they rode like that for a while, no words between them.

Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, Lyndell caught the boy's expression and saw such devotion there, he felt humbled. His mother, his uncle, his cousin the bada.s.s, his brother the war hero-the boy had lost them all. And yet look at him. Maybe that was the key. Was there a way to know love, he wondered, before you understood death? So much of life seemed like a rush to get elsewhere. He felt small-only now, with Audrey so near the end, did he really get it. How much time did I waste, he wondered, because I thought there was a way out?

Out of nowhere, the boy said, "Your wife, she reminds me of my aunt." He sat with that a second, studying the desert. "I owe her, my aunt I mean. Same way I owe you and your wife."

Lyndell spotted a red-tailed hawk soaring low over the sunlit bluffs. A feeling like envy came over him: to be free like that, to fly. "Forget about owing us anything."

"I won't forget." Again, he reached back for the girl's hand. "I'm not just saying that."

AT THE MOTEL IN TUCSON, LYNDELL SPOKE BRIEFLY WITH CHET, Audrey's sister's husband. The place was timeworn but clean, a pre-freeway relic used mostly now by families visiting someone at the air force base. Chet had inherited the motel from his mother's people. He was a soft pale man with an ample face ruined by drink then reclaimed by Jesus. He'd already gotten a call from Audrey, knew the situation. "Don't know what's gotten into you two." He said it in a whisper though no one was there to overhear, handing over the room key. "But if somebody's gonna call the law, ain't gonna be me. Too d.a.m.n old to find new kin."

"They won't be trouble," Lyndell said. "They'll stay in the room till the aunt shows up, should be late tomorrow. I'd stick around myself, make sure it all goes okay, but I want to get back." He had a hard time getting that last bit out. He breathed in deep, then added, "You know."

Chet shook his head, his eyes a sorrow in themselves. "I can't hardly imagine."

"Yeah. Well." Lyndell coughed into his fist. "The girl out there in the car, she's not in too good shape, neither."

"What if she needs doctoring?"

Lyndell shook his head. "She should be okay. If not, it's not your problem, go ahead and call 911. Only so much you can do."

Chet glanced up at the TV perched over the reception desk. "Roger that."

Lyndell returned to the car, helped the boy get the girl up and out of the backseat, let them into their room. The door was pitted from years of windblown sand. Inside, the raw ammonia smell hung like a pall. The girl walked as though the pain was holding her up and plowed straight for the bed, collapsed onto the edge, then shamefacedly refused to lie down, sitting there, panting, eyes closed. Proud. The boy stood there, waiting for her to say something, tell him what she needed. Look at us, Lyndell thought, two men, a lifetime between us, both so d.a.m.n helpless.

He stirred himself into motion. "Lie low till your aunt gets here," he told Roque, turning on the bedside lamp, fussing the curtains closed. "You'll get no trouble from Chet." He found it hard to look at the girl, too much like looking at Audrey. "There's a market just up the road, get yourself some food or drinks. But I'd stay inside as much as possible, I were you." He stood there a moment, feeling weighed down, then: "I need to get back."

The boy walked him out to the car. Lyndell had nothing more to say and hoped the boy didn't, either. You don't need to repay me d.a.m.n it, he wanted to say, but why be rude?

Finally the boy cleared his throat and started in again on how he'd never forget their kindness, Lyndell only half listening. It felt like his whole insides were tangled up in nettles. A sixteen-wheeler rumbled past and screamed to a hissing stop at the traffic signal but the boy just raised his voice and kept on talking and despite a kind of weary grace what Lyndell saw in his eyes was fear. To love is to be afraid, he thought, then suddenly the boy was pumping his hand and he turned back and disappeared inside the room, at which point Lyndell found himself just standing there, his mind as blank as a wall of chalk.

He slipped behind the station wagon's wheel, then couldn't bring himself to start the motor. He thought about what she'd said, so humble so shy so rough, luckiest day of her life. I have loved you with all my heart but never so much as today. He knew what was waiting for him back at the house, he'd been secretly picturing it the entire time while trying to think of anything but. He wished with all his heart there was some other way home.

GOING HUMBLY.

An Ear for Tone I grew up in central Ohio, a fairly provincial and racially segregated backwater at the time, despite the presence of the state-house and one of the country's largest universities, Ohio State. Before I left, this was changing; African Americans were gaining ground politically, economically and socially, the university's international draw in both students and faculty was quite literally changing the face of the local community, and Columbus was growing into the major metropolis it has become. But I saw firsthand, at times within my own home, the sometimes subtle and other times quite blatant transformation of small-town rect.i.tude and middle-American conformity into racist fear and anger and contempt.

The word "n.i.g.g.e.r" was a constant drumbeat among the working-cla.s.s white guys I hung out with, so much so that by the time I made my first black friend-his name was Adrian Bennett, we were both fourteen, working together as volunteers at the Center for Science and Industry-I was startled by how "normal," how like myself, he was.

I felt embarra.s.sed by this reaction and still do. Although I was not paralyzed by white guilt, I realized I was by no means innocent. I bore the emotional and conceptual baggage of my place and time and no amount of feel-good hipness could cure me completely.

In a way racism is not unlike alcoholism. The tendency cannot be escaped, merely controlled, and the control requires insight, honesty and discipline. Put differently, it requires one to become more fully human. And like an alcoholic, I very much wish I did not have the thoughts and feelings and impulses I still sometimes observe within myself. I wish I was color-blind, race-blind. Instead, I have tried to become insightful and conscientious, I've learned to question and control my impulses, I've learned to listen and observe.

Much has changed. I now live in a very mixed community in a California neighborhood so diverse I once reflected, during our yearly Nationwide Night Out get-together, that I and my neighbors looked like we'd been transplanted from a Jonathan Demme movie-white, blacks, Latinos, Filipinos, all intermingling effortlessly with genuine warmth and fondness. We look out for one another and involve ourselves in one another's lives.

It's the twenty-first century. All is well, no?

When I first came to California in the mid-seventies, I worked briefly at a Los Angeles restaurant with a largely Mexican staff. I was supervised by a waiter named Ramon, who asked me to help him learn French, in return for his help in teaching me Spanish. But Ramon was not merely generous and curious. He was also proud, world-wise and reserved. He knew that I, as an Anglo, might easily replace him as head waiter if the Caucasian owners saw fit or if customers groused. The other Mexican waiters also treated me with a mix of helpfulness and detachment; one actually picked a fight with me in the dressing room. And though none of the other waiters who were there came to my defense, none of them jumped in to help my adversary either. The fight was between me and him; we could fend for ourselves.

What is strange to me upon reflection of these incidents is how different in character my feelings were at the time than the racism I'd known growing up. There were clearly tensions between us-and those tensions were the result of our being of different color and cla.s.s and culture-but there was also an awareness of one another as human. I'd known no Latinos in central Ohio; the Great Brown Threat had yet to register on our radar. I had not been indoctrinated in community-wide resentment and fear. Latin Americans were not the Other, to be feared and mistrusted, controlled and repelled. Not yet, anyway.

But I remain very much attuned to tone. I have a pretty good radar for bigotry, due to my own struggles with it. It's for that reason that I've grown increasingly disturbed at the poisonous distortions that too often overwhelm the immigration debate. I detect in the shrillness that old familiar fear and guilt and anger, with its gloss of righteous indignation and "common sense" and its rhetoric of protection-defense of our borders, our laws, our culture, our way of life.

One of the most frequent things one hears is the epithet "illegal immigrant," with the underlying insinuation that the undoc.u.mented are intrinsically criminals, since their very existence in this country is testimony to their violating our immigration statutes. And criminals deserve no compa.s.sion, no respect, no "amnesty."

I see the situation somewhat differently. When my wife was dying of cancer, she was once in such extreme pain that, as I drove her to the emergency room, I ran two stop signs and a red light, driving over eighty miles per hour in twenty-five-miles-per-hour zones. She later thanked me, even though what I did was clearly against the law. I would do it again.

The "crime" attributed to undoc.u.mented immigrants in crossing the border is a.n.a.logous-and much less dangerous to everyone but themselves. They do what they must for the sake of the well-being of their loved ones. If this is the moral outrage immigration opponents make it out to be, show me the innocent. Are we to champion as virtuous the heartless, the indifferent, the scared, the ones willing to just sit there and watch their families suffer under the oppressive weight of corruption, poverty and crime that increasingly characterize Mexico and Central America-conditions for which the United States, though not entirely at fault, is nonetheless far from blameless?

The Latino Patriots Something else was happening while the anti-immigrant backlash was building: Latinos were joining the military in unprecedented numbers. Not just that-their casualties in the Iraq war were disproportionately higher than their representation in the armed services as a whole (11% compared to 9%).

Interestingly, the reasons Latino recruits gave for enlisting was not just the expedited path to full citizens.h.i.+p put into effect by Congress at the request of the Bush administration, though that did frequently remain a motivating factor. A Rand National Defense Research Inst.i.tute study revealed that in post-enlistment surveys Latino recruits listed "patriotism" and "service to country" as the top two reasons for joining the service, followed by "duty" and "honor." Many soldiers noted that their families were proud of them, even if they disagreed with the Iraq war.

Despite this, legislation was drafted in the House of Representatives that would make being an undoc.u.mented immigrant a felony, forever barring a path to citizens.h.i.+p or even legal status. And attempts to provide a means to citizens.h.i.+p for the children of undoc.u.mented workers, many of whom arrived as infants and know no other country than the U.S., were sabotaged by the anti-immigrant bloc in Congress.

To paraphrase the father of a Latino U.S. marine killed in Iraq: On the one hand they're recruiting the young men to fight and die, while on the other they're kicking the parents and children out of the country.

Who Do I Think I Am?

Outrage is a luxury. Writers write, and I felt a particular need to contribute something, to bark back at the distorting invective. I felt it particularly important that Anglos chime in on the side of Latinos out of a sense of justice and simple decency. Silence was not an option.

But I'm a novelist, not a pundit. And what right does an American mutt like me, a white boy from the very heart of Middle America, have to depict in fiction the life of a Latino family?

The old arguments against white authors imagining the lives of people of color addressed power, maintaining that the servant always understood the master, if only out of bald necessity and naked survival, but the master was intrinsically self-deluded about the servant. Such reasoning, with its colonial baggage, elevated the term "insensitivity" to a cultural death sentence. The d.a.m.ning reception inflicted on William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner The Confessions of Nat Turner, in which the author tried to mine the inner lives of African slaves, would be hard to replicate today, and that's a good thing. No work of art deserves to be strangled in its crib. But that doesn't mean we've all somehow become sensitive.

I studied math and music, both arguably universal languages. And though I came to Latino culture first through fiction-Borges, Amado, Cortazar-I gained my greatest appreciation of it through music, perhaps its most accessible art form. Also, being raised Catholic, I felt a special fascination with the manner in which religion took hold in the southerly Americas, both Gothic and primitive, awake to suffering, fiercely immediate. From where I sat, Latin culture in general and its music in particular possessed a vibrancy, a pa.s.sion, a sense of both the tragic and the absurd I found mesmerizing and too often lacking in what I saw and heard around me here in the States. Steely Dan was a hip act but Santana could blister your soul. And Santana led me to t.i.to Puente, who led me to Ray Barretto, who led me to Poncho Sanchez and on and on: Willie Bobo to Eric Bobo to Los Lobos to Celso Pina to Control Machete to Julieta Venegas to Ana Gabriel to Pescozada ... The chain hasn't stopped in thirty years. I pray to G.o.d it never does.

Admiring a culture, though, doesn't grant me a right to depict it in my own work. Artists steal from one another at will, musicians especially; it's almost lazy not to. But can fiction writers get away with it?

All artists are outsiders to the extent they observe more than they partic.i.p.ate, but everyone joins in to some degree, just as we all reflect. Rather, the crucial question seems to be at what point does observation fail us, i.e., when do we begin to imagine, and why?

I began with my third novel, Blood of Paradise Blood of Paradise, because I felt a need to address the current state of affairs in El Salvador, a country whose current political, social and economic life was significantly affected by U.S. policy, and which I saw being alarmingly misrepresented by those who wished to propose a "Salvador Option" in Iraq. I also had Salvadoran friends who introduced me to their country, and felt an obligation to portray it as they saw it.

Do They Know I'm Running? was simply a continuation of that trajectory, an attempt to depict, as best I could, the effect on Latino families of current immigration policy; the predation on migrants by organized crime and street gangs who now control the underground railroad that transports not just drugs and guns but human beings into the U.S.; and the various ills befalling Mexico and Central America. I was moved because I see these effects all around me in people I know and interact with daily or have met in my travels, some of whom are not just acquaintances but colleagues, neighbors, friends-people for whom in many cases I feel not just fondness but admiration, and whose lives I felt deserved a more fair and honest representation than they were too often getting in the media. was simply a continuation of that trajectory, an attempt to depict, as best I could, the effect on Latino families of current immigration policy; the predation on migrants by organized crime and street gangs who now control the underground railroad that transports not just drugs and guns but human beings into the U.S.; and the various ills befalling Mexico and Central America. I was moved because I see these effects all around me in people I know and interact with daily or have met in my travels, some of whom are not just acquaintances but colleagues, neighbors, friends-people for whom in many cases I feel not just fondness but admiration, and whose lives I felt deserved a more fair and honest representation than they were too often getting in the media.

Roque was partially inspired by a number of young Latino musicians I have met and befriended during performances at various Bay Area venues, some of whom reminded me of my own musical career with its hopes and hards.h.i.+p, the disillusion, the resilience.

G.o.do was partially conceived after reading accounts of real Latino servicemen who returned from Iraq, with further inspiration provided by my encounters with Latino-American men and women in uniform at the U.S. Southern Command and the Western Hemisphere Inst.i.tute for Security Cooperation.

Tia Lucha was based on a number of Salvadoran immigrants I have met, including a single divorcee I know who lost her job as office manager for a German construction firm in San Salvador after the 2002 earthquake and was forced to emigrate to find work, leaving her aging mother behind with the hope of building a better future for her children here in the States.

Happy came to me as a patchwork, pieced together from traits observed in various young men I know, one a photographer who supports himself by managing the best taco wagon in my home town, another who works as a paramedic, tending the injured and saving lives while constantly worrying about being deported.

Tio Faustino was a fusion of my own father, who drove a truck to put himself through college and sometimes dreamed of running his own trucking firm; a handful of port truck drivers to whom I was introduced by Ron Carver of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and some of the interviewees of doc.u.mentary filmmaker Don North, who returned to Guazapa Volcano after twenty years to talk to the survivors of the civil war offensive that took place there.

The gang members depicted in the book were modeled after real young men (and their families and friends) whom I met in my travels to Central America or while working as a private investigator, in the latter case when I was entrusted with protecting their rights, their freedom, sometimes even their lives.

But in all these cases I blended the true with the imagined, what I knew with what I felt the story required. And taking that additional step, that leap of imagination, is an act of presumption, yes, but also an act of love. In a way we imagine one another every day. So simple an act as reading a facial expression, whether that of a stranger or an old friend, requires innumerable acts of interpretation we make unconsciously-"interpretation" being the guise imagination a.s.sumes to appear more reliable. And as we imagine others, so they imagine us. Are we to believe we never really know the difference, cannot know the difference, between when we're loved and when we're misunderstood-or worse, getting used?

John Coltrane once remarked that when there is something we do not understand we must go humbly to it. That humility is the test of our honesty. Our art will demonstrate not just our understanding-our sensitivity sensitivity, or lack thereof-but how honest we allow ourselves to be, not just about our subject matter, but ourselves.

If we sense sloppiness or laziness or sentimentality, or even a bigoted indifference disguised as a well-meaning advocacy, we can justifiably criticize the result, regardless of who the artist is or what the work portrays. This is a question not just of execution, however, but of motive, and all such inquiries are slippery. We can hardly accuse an artist of botching something he doesn't understand by attributing to him motives we cannot possibly know. The inner life of the artist is no less inscrutable than the soul of the vato vato.

But if the era of ident.i.ty politics is coming to a close, the craving for authenticity is as strong as ever-thus the popularity of so-called reality programming on TV. Everybody wants the real dope, even the person who wouldn't recognize it if it sat on his head. But the authentic is an illusion, we never possess the truth, we approach it-not just with our eyes but our imaginations. And, if we are wise like Coltrane, we do so humbly. We do so in a spirit of love, not empowerment. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know the difference.

DAVID CORBETT is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: The Devil's Redhead, Done for a Dime The Devil's Redhead, Done for a Dime (a (a New York Times New York Times Notable Book), and Notable Book), and Blood of Paradise Blood of Paradise-nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, and named one of the Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers of 2007 by the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post and a and a San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book. His short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and his story "Pretty Little Parasite," from Notable Book. His short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and his story "Pretty Little Parasite," from Las Vegas Noir Las Vegas Noir, was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2009 Best American Mystery Stories 2009. For more, go to www.davidcorbett.com.

ALSO BY DAVID CORBETT.

BLOOD OF PARADISE.