Latitude 38 Page 4

  Cutbirth took a step toward Sam. “You think my face looks funny?”

  “I meant no disrespect,” Sam said, sounding like a man about to shit his pants.

  Adriana leaned over and whispered in Diego’s ear. “I think we should leave. Just get up and get the hell out of—”

  “What was that?” Cutbirth blurted, looking at Adriana.

  “Nothing, Mr. Cutbirth,” Adriana replied in a respectful voice. She squeezed Diego’s hand tighter.

  “I don’t like secrets. It makes me paranoid,” Cutbirth said. “It makes me think there are moles in our midst.”

  “We’re not moles,” Diego said.

  “We’ll find out soon enough if you’re moles.” Cutbirth turned back to Sam. “You any relation to that jazz singer, that Billie Holiday? I got some of her music. I like her stuff.”

  Sam Holiday had been looking at the floor. He glanced up with a shake of his head. “No relation. There must be thousands of Holidays in the—”

  “I’m fucking with you, Sam,” Cutbirth said. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m unemployed at the moment.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I was a government clerk.”

  “Yeah, and what’d you clerk?”

  “I was assigned to the Department of Morals, Pornography Division.”

  “What, you sat around watching dirty movies all day?”

  “I monitored citizen complaints.” Sam continued to tinker with his red scarf.

  “Uh-huh. And if someone received too many complaints, you’d drop the hammer, right?”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, sometimes.”

  “You get fired?”

  “No. I mean yes,” he added quickly. “I had a dispute with my supervisor.”

  “Go on.”

  “He claimed the stage play Anna’s Lover was pornographic.”

  “The play about some old bastard falling in love with his granddaughter?”

  “Yes, that’s the one, but I didn’t find it objectionable,” Sam said. “Therefore, I couldn’t rate it as pornographic.”

  Cutbirth scowled. “You don’t think an old man banging his granddaughter is obscene?”

  Sam squirmed. In little more than a whisper he said, “I suppose it depends on your point of view. It was consensual sex, and she was eighteen.”

  Cutbirth flashed a simian-like grin toward Yong. “Who’s your homie, Sam?”

  “Yong and I are brothers,” Sam said.

  Sam had made the announcement with such little self-assurance that Diego thought everybody in the room would burst out laughing. No one did.

  Cutbirth looked at Yong Kim and then at Sam Holiday, a frown creasing his massive brow. In a strangely even tone, he asked, “You wouldn’t shuck me now, would you, Sam?”

  “Half-brothers, actually,” Sam said, his Adam’s apple unsure of whether it wanted to go up or down. “Same mother. Different fathers.”

  “That’s right,” Yong confirmed promptly. “Same mother. Different fathers.”

  Sam said, “After my father died—”

  “Share your family history with someone who cares,” Cutbirth growled. “Which of you two dandies is wearing perfume?”

  “I’m wearing after-shave cologne,” Sam said in a quiet voice.

  “I don’t want to smell it again,” Cutbirth said. “It screws up my nose.” He snorted again.

  “Sure, not a problem.” Sam had twisted the end of his scarf into a knot.

  4

  Cutbirth peered into the dark corner where the white-haired man sat. “You!”

  “My name is Ryan Strunk,” the man said. “I’m 64. I own a health-food store on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland.” He was tapping his foot.

  “Business bad, Strunk?”

  “No, but it would be if the Department of Agriculture had its way,” Ryan said. “Some flunky from the Retail Division demanded that I buy all of my fresh produce from the Laiwu Corporate Farms. Their prices are astronomical and I refused. I was arrested, tried, and found guilty.”

  “And…?” Cutbirth pressed.

  “And I go for sentencing Friday,” Strunk said. “I don’t have a prayer. Five years at hard labor…at a Laiwu farm, for crying out loud. I’ll probably die there.” He continued to tap his foot.

  “Anything else you’d like to share?” Cutbirth smirked. “My sixth sense tells me you’re holding out on me. Something about the patronizing tone of your voice. The tapping of your foot….”

  Ryan’s foot came to rest. “I don’t have all the money, but I’ll have it in another day or two.”

  “I don’t think I heard you right. My hearing must be bad.”

  “Perhaps I could pay a late fee,” Ryan appealed. “I would be more than happy to pay a late fee of, oh, let’s say 10,000.”

  Cutbirth turned slightly and pointed one thick finger toward the door. The look and skew of Cutbirth’s eel-shaped finger reminded Diego of God’s finger as seen in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. In a calm voice, finger still pointed, Cutbirth said, “Get out, Strunk. I don’t have time for maybes or promises.”

  “What?” Ryan leaned out of the shadows and into the light.

  Lowering his finger, Cutbirth said, “You heard me the first time.”

  “But I have 30,000. I’ll have the rest by tomorrow,” Ryan pleaded. “Friday at the latest. Good God, man, have a heart.”

  Through the stark shadows, Cutbirth glared at Ryan Strunk, murder in his eyes. It was such a vicious stare that it made Diego squirm, even though it wasn’t trained on him. Cutbirth said, “You have ten seconds to get the hell out of my sight. If you don’t, something very bad will happen to you.”

  Strunk ran a bony hand through his shock of white hair, then got to his feet and left.

  Cutbirth turned to the other side of the room, his caveman eyes finding Rosie.

  “Rosie Montoya,” the woman said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I’m 39.”

  “You a Mojado?”

  “A what?”

  “An illegal! A wetback!”

  “No,” Rosie protested. “I’ve lived in this country all of my life. I don’t even speak Spanish. I was born in—”

  “Yeah, fine,” Cutbirth interrupted. “What’s your gig?”

  “My gig?”

  “How do you make a living, Mojado?”

  “Oh, well, at the moment I’m working as a nanny.”

  “You up to a long hike?”

  Rosie nodded. “I think I can manage.”

  “You’re fat. Fat people are slow. I don’t want you slowing us down.”

  “I won’t,” Rosie said. “If I do, you can leave me.”

  “And I will,” Cutbirth confirmed. “The National Police will nab your ass and you’ll spend the next two decades in the pen in McAlester, Oklahoma. Twenty years is mandatory for attempted border crossings. I’m sure every sex-starved dyke at McAlester will love making your acquaintance.”

  “Twenty years. Yes, I know,” Rosie said in a hushed voice.

  Cutbirth nodded at the young woman with the neck tattoo. “You!”

  “Sissy Frost. I’m…I’m 29,” Sissy stammered. “At the moment, I work at the Thousand Wa- Wa- Waves Spa on Hillside Boulevard.”

  “What kind of tattoo is that on your neck?” Cutbirth leaned in for a better look.

  “It’s a hum- hummingbird,” Sissy said, out of breath. “I love hummingbirds. I was a hum- hummingbird in my former life.” An awkward smile hovered on her lips.

  “Oh, that’s just swell,” Cutbirth frowned. “I’m guiding a dizzy broad who thinks she’s a hummingbird across the most dangerous border in the world.”

  “No, no, I don’t think I’m a hummingbird now,” Sissy countered, gaining control of her voice. “In my former life.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging. What do you do at Thousand Waves, Hummingbird?”

  “I’m a massage therapist. A real massage therapist. Not the kind you find down on Fremont Street
.” She glanced at the other people in the room as if to gauge their reaction.

  Cutbirth said, “Are you telling me that if I came in for a massage—the kind they give down on Fremont Street—you wouldn’t accommodate me?”

  “No,” Sissy said, leaving no doubt.

  “Damn shame.”

  “Sorry.”

  Cutbirth directed his menacing glare toward Diego and Adriana.

  “We’re Diego and Adriana Sanchez,” Diego said, trying his damndest to maintain eye contact with the man standing before him. It wasn’t easy. “I’m 43. I’m the creative director at Boyd Communications, a San Francisco advertising agency. My wife is an archaeology professor.”

  Cutbirth looked at Adriana.

  “I’m a tenured archaeology professor at UC-Berkeley. I’m 38 and have lived in San Francisco all my life.”

  “Uh-huh. And you want to go north because you think they made a mistake when they mapped the border. You think San Francisco should be north of the border, not south.” His eyes twinkled with malice. “Am I right?”

  “That has nothing to do with it,” Adriana said.

  “Maybe you’re unhappy that they’re making movies these days in Birmingham, Alabama, not L.A. Maybe you long for the good old days,” Cutbirth argued. “Am I striking a nerve, Little Mother?”

  “Hardly,” Adriana said. “We haven’t been to the movies in years.”

  Cutbirth shifted his eyes back to Diego. “What kind of trench coat is that you’re wearing?”

  “It’s a Burberry.”

  “It looks expensive.”

  Diego nodded. “It is.”

  “You don’t look like the type of man who has spent much time outdoors, Ad Man,” Cutbirth said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I’ve been camping, if that’s what you mean.” Diego didn’t like the sound of his own voice. It sounded like the voice of someone who was easily intimidated.

  “Oh, so you’ve been camping, eh?”

  Diego nodded. He had been camping—once. When he was ten and a Cub Scout living in Seattle. It was the most miserable experience of his life and he vowed never to do it again. “Lots of times,” Diego lied. “I know my way around a tent.”

  Adriana stifled an edgy laugh that was bubbling up inside her. A piece of it slipped through her fingers, which she had placed over her mouth.

  Cutbirth locked eyes with Diego. “Your wife thinks that’s funny.”

  “Yes, well, my wife is easily amused.”

  Cutbirth sneered. “I’m not laughing.”

  “I can see that.”

  Cutbirth looked around the room. “Everyone bring their money?”

  Everyone confirmed they had brought the $40,000 fee, and Cutbirth kicked the gym bag toward Sam, who immediately dropped several banded bundles of cash into it. The bag made its way around the room, each person making a deposit. When the bag got to Diego he dropped the water-stained manila envelope containing $80,000 into it, and then slid the bag across the floor to where Cutbirth stood. He zipped the bag closed.

  More silence.

  “Point number four,” Cutbirth said. “No communication devices of any kind, including cell phones. And no luggage. The only belongings you bring are in a backpack. One backpack. If you don’t have one, go out and buy one. The biggest you can find. No handbags, suitcases, purses or briefcases.” Cutbirth looked at Henry. “Understand?”

  “No briefcases,” Henry said, folding both arms around the briefcase on his lap.

  “Make sure your backpack is waterproof, made of heavy canvas, and floats. Leave enough room in your pack for a few little goodies I plan to provide each of you.”

  “So what’s the plan, Cutbirth?” Diego asked.

  “Relax, Ad Man,” Cutbirth urged. “You in a hurry to get yourself killed?”

  Diego shook his head. “No.”

  Cutbirth allowed for another dramatic pause, smiled—it was an inscrutable smile and Diego couldn’t tell if it was cheerful or fiendish—then said, “At the urging of Ad Man, I’ll give you a tease. The day after tomorrow—that would be Friday—I’ll meet all of you behind a deserted Wal-Mart Supercenter on Interstate 5, six miles south of Modesto. I’ll be parked in back by the loading docks. I’ll be in a rather large yellow vehicle. You can’t miss it. Be there precisely at noon. You’ll leave everything you own except for what you can carry in your backpack. You’ll also abandon your vehicles at the Supercenter,” Cutbirth said. “And bring your government ID cards. You’re not going anywhere without the proper identification. And don’t forget your Travel Passes. I would suggest you go to the nearest Bureau of Travel office tomorrow and get one.”

  Cutbirth made another strange blowing sound through his wide nose, then said, “Don’t anybody be late Friday because I’m not waiting. We leave at noon. Not five-to. Not five after. And bring a change of warm clothes.”

  “Warm clothes?” Yong said. “Hell, man, it’s the middle of summer. San Francisco set another heat record today.”

  “I know what season it is, Yong,” Cutbirth said. “Wear hiking boots, shorts, and T-shirts, but fill your backpacks with warm clothes. Coveralls. Long johns. Wool shirts. Gloves. Put them in your backpack, the one that floats.”

  Although it sounded insane, Diego made a mental note of the items he and Adriana would need to cross the border.

  Henry said, “How do we know we’ll see you again after tonight? After all, you have our money.” Diego had taken an instant disliking to the little man—he seemed pompous, aloof—but he had to give Henry an “Attaboy!” for his question.

  Cutbirth’s enigmatic smile was on full display. “Yes, I do, and I have plans for that money. I have places to go. People to see. Things to do.”

  “And just what makes you the guru of border crossings?” Yong asked.

  “Oh, I get it. Yong Kim is a wise-ass,” Cutbirth said. “A troublemaker. He resents authority. His mommy didn’t potty train him ’til he was ten.”

  “I don’t resent—”

  “Anybody here know what Moon Milk is?” Cutbirth blurted, his deep-set eyes finding each of them. When there was no response, he said, “How about a Bachman’s Knot? Take your time. I’ve got all night.” Again, there was no reply, and he said, “Anyone ever see water run uphill?”

  “What’s your point, Cutbirth?” Diego asked.

  “My point is I have the knowledge of the subtle nuances that it takes to get us across the border. You don’t,” Cutbirth said. “Any more questions?”

  “Which direction will we be going?” Sissy asked.

  “Which way is the border, Hummingbird?”