Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett Page B

case the
norteños
don’t pack off to Sonoma all peaceful.”
    “Vasco, listen. I mean it, Godo’s damaged, way more than you know. He can’t remember dick one moment to the next, his mind wanders, he makes shit up—”
    “Okay,” Vasco cut in, leaning forward, his voice a whisper, “now it’s time you listen to me,
chero
. Godo comes in, gives the boys some weapons training, some tactics for protection, you hear where I’m going. Or be my guest, shop this can of worms around. Because you know and I know that anybody who bites is going to bitch you down to five points at best, or just push you aside altogether, maybe worse, when the thing is up and running. Here, you got a history. Nobody’s gonna turn you out. But there’s a price to that, right? Godo comes on board. This is not negotiable. I’m not so stupid I don’t know you brought this here first because this is where you wanna be. I don’t blame you. I’m grateful, matter of fact. And I’m not saying Godo steps up and pitches in somehow, helps us lean on anybody. Unless, of course, he’s okay with that. But the guys respect him, he knows things we don’t. So that’s the way it is, or yeah, I’m gonna pass. And I’m not handing thirty grand to nobody till I meet a real live human being, not just you, who can vouch that this isn’t a jar of smoke. The guy who owns this warehouse you talked about, maybe.”
    Happy suddenly found himself wondering what Vasco’s stint in Folsom had been like, how many nights he’d suffered through the kind of thing the
mareros
had inflicted amid the mayonnaise jars in the cell at Mariona. “I can try to arrange a meet. Probably not with the warehouse guy, not until you’re in. But somebody.”
    “If this thing is real, you can make it happen.”
    “As for Godo—”
    “You can make that happen too.”
    “I need some time to think about it.”
    Vasco lit another smoke with the end of his last. He was smiling. The smile said: Now who gets to ride, who gets ridden?
    Happy said, “Problem is, we don’t
have
time.”
    “Your problem. Not mine. Not yet, anyway.”
    “If anything happens, to Godo I mean—”
    “Like what?”
    “He has a meltdown. He freaks out. He almost shot two agents during a raid at the trailer park.”
    “I heard.” Vasco chuckled. “I like that, actually.”
    “You weren’t there. Way it got told to me, it was fucking spooky.”
    “Godo scares people. I don’t see the problem. Now what’s it going to be?”
    “Like I said, I need time.”
    Again, that smile. Stop worrying, it said. Thank your luck. “But,
chero
, you said it yourself. You don’t
have
time.”
    Happy pictured it then, Vasco face flat on the concrete floor, held down by the others, a rag stuffed in his mouth as one by one they took him, shamed him, made him their punk. “If anything happens to Godo, I hold you to account.”
    Vasco waved him off. He propped his boots on his desk, ankles crossed. “Since when are you two so close? Don’t remember you guys having one good thing to say about each other.”
    Happy got up to go. Glancing back at the foul-smelling panda, he said, “Ever think of washing that thing? Can’t be good for the girl, way it is.”
    Vasco looked at him like he’d just proposed the absurd. “What, you get your ass deported to El Salvador, you come back an expert on kids?”

ROQUE HAD TO TELL HIMSELF: STOP STARING. IT WASN’T JUST the bruise—strange how, even with the plum-colored swelling and the gash across her cheek, the girl somehow remained stunning—or the fact that, from time to time, her uneasy eyes met his. She was a prisoner. Pity wouldn’t free her.
    He’d been in El Salvador a total of four hours, arriving at the airport in Comalapa before dawn. He’d skated through customs, not so much as a glance inside his knapsack, then ventured out into the soft green heat of daybreak outside the terminal—the sidewalk jammed with well-wishers greeting friends and relatives back