Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [22]
I take an envelope from the bag. Inside: the ID and credit cards of John Peter Carlyle, a man who never was. The custom-made identity I came to Mexico with. I won’t be able to travel in Mexico as the man I’ve been for two years, not while the cops are looking into Mickey’s death. My real name isn’t an option. But I might be able to get away with being Carlyle again. I flip open the passport, look at the photo. I’m twenty pounds heavier now, an even two hundred, bulked up through the shoulders and chest from all the swimming, but with a little roll of rice and beans around the middle. The hair that was buzzed and bleached in this photo is now a sun-lightened brown and collar length. Once clean-shaven, I now have a short beard. And the tattoos. Tattoos scattered across my chest and down my arms, tattoos that were meant to help hide me, but have become a way of marking the passage of time. I don’t look anything like this photo. I can cut my hair and shave so I look more like Carlyle, but I will also look more like the man I was, the man wanted for murder. Fuck it, the passport’s date of issue is years old, there’s no reason I shouldn’t look different. I stuff it and the rest of Carlyle back into his envelope and set him aside. There’s only one piece of paper left in the Ziploc.
United Flight #84
12/20/00
Depart: New York JFK 8:25 AM
Arrive: Oakland 11:47 AM
A ticket home, old and out of date. It had been meant to get me there for Christmas. I didn’t make it that time, maybe this time I will. It burns quickly.
I FILL out the International Airway Bill, stopping for a moment when I get to the boxes where I’m supposed to write in the total value for carriage and customs. If I value this thing at less then two hundred bucks, it may very well zip past customs with nary a look. Then again, in the U.S.A.’s current state of heightened security, some clever boy could notice that a guy in Mexico has paid more to ship this box than the stated value of the contents. And that is an invitation to have this thing ripped open by people wearing yellow biohazard suits. Option two: value it at a couple grand, fill out all the supporting documentation, have it go through customs the old-fashioned way. Of course, this involves someone picking it up at a post office in the destination city to pay the duty fees. A great way to get ambushed by Feds. Tricky. This is why I’m at the Pakmail in Cancún, talking to Mercedes. She is going to help me ship four million dollars to America via FedEx.
I finish the Airway Bill, putting the value at two thousand and listing the contents as books. I take a piece of paper from my wallet. It lists the titles of a number of difficult-to-find to semi-rare Mexican art and history books I’ve been collecting. The titles, that is, not the books. I write those titles on the Pro Forma Invoice. To make things extra special tidy, I also have a Certificate of Origin that I had notarized earlier when I stopped by my bank to pick up a few things.
I lift the box onto the scale and Mercedes makes a little woof sound when it tips in at over sixty kilos. She makes the sound again when I hand her the Airway Bill and she sees the destination. Like most service workers in Cancún, her English is good. She says everything with a little song. I like it.
—Lotta money.
I sing back at her.
—Lotta money. You got that right.
She giggles, smoothes the various shipping labels onto the box, hands me my copies, and rings me up for something more than two thousand pesos. I pay in dollars. No big deal in Cancún. She takes another look at the invoice.
—Your friend likes to read.
—I don’t know, he just bought ’em from me.
—eBay?
—Yeah.
—I love eBay. Bought these on eBay.
She’s pointing at her earrings. I bend down to get a closer look. They’re little Miami Dolphins dolphins, leaping through the air, wearing tiny football helmets.
—Fins. Alright. Hell of a year, huh?
—Oh sure, but now . . .
—Yeah, I know, late season, but they look good with Taylor.
—Oh!
She jumps up and down a little.
—Miles! I love him! He’s so