“I think I’m going to stick around the city a little bit longer,” Jack said, raising his beer. “But it means I’m going to need work. You don’t need any help at your place, do you, José?”
José’s wife caught José’s eye, as though she wanted to alert him of something he couldn’t have thought of on his own. José cleared his throat.
“I think we could find you something,” José said, gesturing vaguely toward the photograph of Tio Angelo. “I think you could be of help to all of us.”
Chapter Ten
José told Jack that he could get started right away. “It’s mostly deliveries,” he explained the following early morning, his eyes tinged red and yellow from his hangover. Jack felt okay, but he hadn’t drunk as much as José, and he’d spent all night drinking water and hyping himself up. He was buzzing with too much adrenaline and coffee to get tired. José handed over the keys for the delivery truck without asking to see Jack’s license.
“Wait,” José said as they cut out through the back of the furniture store to find the delivery truck. “I just realized something awful. Something I can’t come back from.”
Jack’s heart pounded with terror. Had José realized who he was and what he wanted?
José winced. He looked like he might throw up any minute. “I don’t know your name,” he confessed.
Jack erupted with laughter. Did anyone know Jack’s name? That was a better question. But he stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Scott because it was the first name that came to him. José smiled. “Welcome to the team, Scott.”
That first week, Jack stuck to what José told him to do. He delivered furniture to addresses all over Mexico City, whichrequired him to get a new phone and SIM card with a Mexican phone number. He carried sofas, dressers, and cribs up and down stairs. He often met couples in the midst of arguments about how to decorate their new spaces. Sometimes he was instrumental in talking them out of breaking up. If he weren’t so fixated on returning to his family and stopping Tio Angelo from ruining his life, he might have found a way to appreciate this beautiful career change. He might have found a way to feel that gorgeous Mexican sun, taste these wonderful Mexican foods, and love the people around him.
At the end of the first week, José told Jack that they were pleased with his work. It meant that they trusted him and wanted to push what he could do. Jack had no interest in doing any more criminal activity and told himself that the minute he noticed any drugs or strange products being loaded onto the truck, he’d do what he could to get out of it. But he never noticed a thing. He guessed that things were being loaded on and off, and he was being used as a puppet in some capacity. But he continued to deliver furniture, take cash payments, and endear himself to José and his anonymous crew.
Sometimes when Jack had had one too many tequilas with José, he found himself at one of the only pay phones that remained in the city, dropping pesos into the belly of the machine and dialing Addison’s phone number. He wanted to tell her that he was all right and he was preparing to get back to her. But maybe because the number was foreign, Addison never answered. He considered texting her from his new cell phone number, but he didn’t want her to give it to the police. He didn’t want them to do any digging that might suggest he wasn’t who he said he was.
Sometimes Jack got so down on himself and his situation that he considered abandoning his past and living in Mexico Cityfor the rest of his life. Starting over. It was just the way his father had spoken about things. It was so easy to get too tired to go on.
How on earth would he ever get close enough to Tio Angelo to make sense of things? How on earth would he bridge the divide between them and free himself—and Seth Green?
But about two and a half months into his work as a delivery driver, Jack joined José at that same bar where they’d first watched the soccer game and learned that their “big boss” was so pleased with Jack’s work that he wanted to meet Jack in person.
“Scott, man,” José said, slamming the counter with his hand, “meeting you was such a win for us. It’s hard to get good work these days. And it’s even harder to make friends. Especially as a man and at our age. In this country and probably everywhere.”
It was a touching speech. Jack let his eyes flutter to the ground, thinking that, in fact, he did feel emotionally close to José. José had been his only contact over the past months, his only emotional connection. It was hard to fathom that he’d only met José because Ricki was a cousin of his.
“The boss says we’ll have a meeting this weekend,” José explained. “He keeps to himself and isn’t usually involved with day-to-day operations. It’s easier for me that way, what with his temper and everything. But we’ll meet at my place. He loves my little kids. He’s really good with them. He makes them laugh and laugh. You’ll see.”
Jack grinned so hard that his cheeks ached. He was suddenly terrified. “Sounds great,” he said, raising his glass.
The day before Jack was set to meet his uncle for the first time in years, he stayed in his hotel room and tried to imagine what would happen next. Now that he knew a bit more about Tio Angelo’s illegal operations here in Mexico, did he have enough fodder against Angelo to blackmail him? Could he blackmail a blackmailer? He wished that José had clued him into more of the business side of things, but each time Jack had tried to digdeeper, José had changed the subject. It seemed that Angelo had trained him well.
The night before their meeting, Jack tried again to call Addison, but her phone rang and rang and then cut out. He’d been gone for months, which meant that he’d missed the kids’ summer vacation; he’d missed countless swimming hours and dinners out at their favorite Hawaiian barbecue place and cuddles with his wife and movies at the cheap little theater down the block. He’d missed chunks of life with his family. He hated it.
Jack couldn’t sleep that night. For good measure, he decided to put all his cash back under his clothes, along with his passport and other documents. He planned to leave enough money in the room to pay for this week at the hotel, as he didn’t know if he’d make it back. He prayed that he would be on a plane back to Hawaii within a day or two. He imagined the Hawaiian sun on his cheeks and the waves at his feet.Addison, he thought all the way across Mexico and the Pacific Ocean to her,I’m coming back soon.
The meeting at José’s place was set for six that evening. Jack spent the hours roaming the streets of Mexico City, trying to calm his heartbeat. He forced himself to eat enough to keep his head. In front of a beautiful cathedral, he watched a street performer do magic, making bouncy red balls disappear. Jack thought back to his father, who’d made the identities of both Benjamin and Jack Whitmore disappear. But they were still here, as were the red rubber balls. Somewhere.
An hour before his meeting with Angelo and José, Jack stopped at the same bar where José always went for a beer to calm his nerves. He watched soccer, ate peanuts, and sipped slowly. The heat of the day had dimmed slightly, and the sweat on his brow dried to a salty slick.
“Pretty brutal out there today, wasn’t it?” the bartender asked, wiping down the counter.
“It really was,” Jack said.
It was then that a letter flickered down to the counter before him. It seemed to come from nowhere. Jack twisted left and right, searching for who had put it there, but no one else was in the bar. He raised the letter to the bartender and asked, “Did you put this down?”
The bartender looked at him like he was crazy.
“Did you see who did it?” Jack asked, shooting to his feet.
“There was a guy in here a second ago,” the bartender said. “I asked if he wanted anything, but he looked at the menu and left. I didn’t see him drop anything in front of you.” He began to look worried.