Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [33]
LEO STAYS unconscious as we put him into the passenger seat of the buggy. I get behind the wheel and fire it up. Rolf slaps me on the shoulder. He’s holding the revolver and has Morales’s 9 mm dangling out of his hip pocket.
—Just turn north when you hit the highway and pull into the trees. I’ll be there in a few.
He walks back into the bar. The town is dead silent, motionless except for one painfully skinny stray dog that limps across the park. I pull onto the road out of town. Behind me I might or might not hear gunshots. It’s hard to tell over the roar of the buggy’s engine.
Back on the 261, I pull into the trees where Rolf told me to. I get out, grab my pack, and hoist it onto my shoulders. It should be about twenty kilometers from here to Campeche. If I stay near the highway I can walk and be there in several hours. Or maybe I’ll take a chance and stick my thumb out. If Morales and Candito were working alone no one will be looking for me. If not, they’ll find me soon enough. I lick my fingers and rub a little blood from Leo’s forehead, but there’s nothing I can do for him. I check his pulse again, still strong, and put my face close to his.
—I’m sorry, my friend.
And it’s time to get moving again before anyone else gets hurt.
I HITCH a ride with a family from Cancún that are on their way to Campeche to stay with relatives for Christmas. I sit in the back seat of their Jeep, between their two small sons. The boys are quiet for the first couple miles, but get over their shyness and are soon pointing at their own body parts and at things in the car, asking me to tell them what they are called in English.
—Ashtray. Headrest. Ankle. Gearshift. Eyebrow. Toenail. Booger.
They giggle after every word and try to repeat them back to me. Their parents sit quietly in the front seats, holding hands, seemingly happy just to have a break from entertaining the kids. They drop me off in the middle of the city and I take a cab to the airport.
Campeche is a state capital and a tourist destination; the airport has everything I need. I go to the departures board and find a flight. I call Aeromexico from a pay phone and get transferred to an English-speaking agent. She says I can’t make a reservation without a credit card number, but assures me there is room on the flight and tells me how much it will cost. At the American Express counter I get about ten thousand pesos worth of traveler’s checks.
I have to make a decision here about which identity to sign the checks with because that’s who I’ll be flying as. I’m about to give the guy at the counter the Carlyle passport when I remember that all it has is a three-year-old entry stamp and no visas. Not a problem with AmEx, but it will be a problem if anyone in a uniform needs to see it.
I give him the passport I’ve been using for the last two years. Of course there is a problem there as well. When Morales’s and Candito’s bodies turn up, the Federales will look into their recent cases and start asking questions. Soon, they will find that I have disappeared. After that they’ll be looking for this identity. Of course if Rolf didn’t get Candito, all of this is moot. Because Candito will be coming after me, the real me. And all this is just too confusing anyway; too many variables and too few options for a guy who needs to get the fuck out of Mexico. I sign the checks and walk over to the Aeromexico counter.
Buying a one-way ticket with cash is just as big a no-no in Mexico as it is in the States, the kind of tip-off that screams SMUGGLER OR TERRORIST! to any well-trained airline agent and has them buzzing security. That’s why I’m using the traveler’s checks and buying a round-trip ticket. It also helps that I’m flying nowhere near the border.
The airline man finds me an aisle seat on the flight and announces the total.
—Siete mil y cinco cien.
I sign a bunch of checks and slide them over along with my passport. He checks the signatures and prints up my ticket to Cabo.
THE FLIGHT gets in around one in the morning. I walk out of the airport, get mobbed