Half the Day Is Night (37 page)

“I already know her,” David said.

“Yeah?” Santos said.

David walked over to the table, because he didn't know what else to do. Mayla was sitting with Patel, eating, and she didn't look up, didn't see him. Still, she had to be here looking for him, unless she was here because of a loan? No, he couldn't believe she would be here to make a loan.

He stopped, trying to decide; if she was here because of a loan, then the best thing to do would be avoid her. Just because she was here didn't mean that the police knew where he was.

Then she looked up at him.

So he had to walk over.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

“Sit down,” Patel said. Patel had never acted like she even remembered stripping him in the locker, but he remembered and it always made him flush.

“How are you?” Mayla asked.

“I'm fine.”

“You look good,” she said.

“You know Kim?” Patel said.

“Did you come looking for me?” he asked.

Mayla shook her head and her hair swung. “I got a job. I'm working as a jock.”

He didn't know what to say to that.

“I lost my job at the bank,” she said. “There was a takeover, Marincite Corp. bought out First Hawaiian.”

“Are you working in the accounting, here?” What would she be doing, running the accounting department here? But that would not be a very good job for someone like her, would it?

“No,” she said, impatient. “I'm working as a fish jock. But I need to talk to you about some things.”

“This is crazy,” he said.

“I needed a job,” she said, with peculiar emphasis. “And I needed a job like you have. I
needed
to do what you did. I
needed
to get away from the bank and everything. You remember all the trouble.” She said it as if he should understand something, but he didn't.

Patel started out of her seat, “I need to look for my husband—”

“No,” David said. “We'll get together, after lunch.” He needed to get away, before she called him David. “I'll talk to you then. But I have to eat in a hurry, then get some things done, okay?”

He needed to think.

She nodded. “That's okay,” she said.

*   *   *

He expected to talk to Mayla, but MacKenzie, the foreman, found him and told him Naranji wanted him in the lab. Working in the lab meant an eight-hour shift, with no time after lunch to talk.

He spent the morning helping Naranji dismantle the freshwater recyc system for the salmon project. Naranji joked about how they were doing engineering instead of chemistry. In the U.S., where he got his education, someone else would have done this.

David wondered if it was safe to go to Port Authority and buy a ticket to Miami. He could head up to Virginia, to his aunt and uncle in Blacksburg and they would loan him the money to get home to France. He would be safe. Or maybe he could stay in the U.S. for awhile. They would sponsor him, he could get a job. But with Mayla here, could the police be far behind? He'd probably be arrested.

If he could just get out of this country. This little trap of a country.

Should he quit and try to hide in the city? He could leave Meph, he thought the cat would be okay. But he didn't know when he could catch the sub back to Julia and he was afraid to ask Naranji how often the subs left. It sounded like such a suspicious question. The fish farm had seemed perfect, because it was isolated. He should have thought that it was like the city, only one way in and one way out.

Usually he and Naranji waited until after the jocks ate to get lunch, when it wasn't so crowded, but he needed to get to Mayla. “I need to talk to one of the jocks,” he told Naranji.

“You want to eat now?” Naranji said. “Okay.”

The dining hall was loud and busy, he could hear the noise as he walked down the hall. It would be too crowded to talk. He wouldn't find out anything. But he could tell her he was working until 5:00, that he'd see her after dinner. Maybe he would be arrested by then, he would see what her expression was when he told her. See if he should run.

He didn't see her for a long moment, then he did, in tunic and tights, like all the jocks. She was sitting with Patel again.

“Mayla,” he said, and she looked up from her food.

“Hi,” she said, tired-sounding. Her hair was wet from the shower and she looked drawn from the morning's dive. It was then that he realized she really was working as a jock. Which made no sense as far as he could see.

“I'm working in the lab today,” he said. “I can't meet you until after dinner.”

“They told me out at the site,” she said.

Had she called him David? She had to have, she wouldn't know to call him Kim. His stomach clenched. He would have to leave, have to get out of here. People would be wondering, it wasn't good when people wondered.

“How are you,” he said lamely.

“Tired,” she said and smiled. “I feel like I've already worked a whole day and it's not even half over.”

He nodded. Why? Why are you doing this? But he couldn't ask, not in front of Patel. He didn't know what she had told people.

“I'll see you after dinner,” he said.

He got a tray and went to sit with Santos.

“Hey, Kim,” Santos said, “how well you know her?”

David shrugged.

Santos and the jocks around him grinned.

“I worked with her, before,” David said.

“Yeah?” Santos said. “She work good?” Everybody laughed.

“I don't know,” David said.

His stomach ached. He couldn't taste his lunch. Maybe he would go back to the lab and tell Naranji that he didn't feel well, but then what would he do for the afternoon, lie in his bunk? After lunch the jocks would all be back, he could talk to Mayla.

Why was she working as a fish jock? He couldn't understand.

He went back to the lab.

*   *   *

She was running, like him. He wanted to scream at her. She was telling him what she did the day she left. “I slept behind a dumpster,” Mayla said. She looked ragged after her dive, washed out and exhausted. She had slept before dinner (new jocks always slept between second shift and dinner) but she still looked drained.

“Why do you become a fish jock?” he asked.

“Because it's safe,” she said.

He laughed, a sharp bark. “There is nothing safe here,” he said. “People get hurt, get killed. Pyroxin is bad for you.”

“I didn't mean safe that way, I meant that they haven't found you.”

He shouldn't have called her. He had done it, regretted he'd done it, then put it out of his mind.

“So now you are here because you think we can both hide?” he said.

She nodded, “I had to get away, and I knew you had.”

“So you are Mayla Ling, here? You use your own name?”

“My workcard has my name on it—oh,” she rubbed her face with her hands. “It's not my regular workcard, that was destroyed with the house. They can't just read everything off it. So they just fill in some information and wait for the real workcard to come through, only I'll never get the real workcard.”

“So they report your name to the government, for air tax and income tax and then the blue and whites come knocking, eh?” he said.

“The government is too big, it's too much of a mess,” she said, “they'll never connect it.” But she sounded uncertain.

He did not say anything. She would get more frightened the more she thought about it, and then they would have to leave. Maybe Santos could suggest another job? No, better not, Santos talked too much, always talking. Santos would tell someone.

It had been stupid luck that he had found this, how would he find something else? Maybe they should go to another city? To Del Sud? But that would mean Port Authority.

“How did you get this job without a workcard? Or do you have a fake workcard?”

“No,” he said. “They pay me off the books.”

“What do you think we should do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I think you should have stayed at your grandfather's.”

“I didn't want to go to jail,” she said.

“You have money, you could get a lawyer. You could get away.”

“They turned down my request to go to Miami,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She told him about trying to get permission to leave. He didn't know what to make of that.

“Still,” he said. “You didn't know.”

“You didn't know when you ran away,” she said.

“So, I was wrong.”

It was strange to be her equal.

“You are here now,” he said. “We have to think.”

She chewed on her lip.

“We need different jobs. Or maybe not a job,” he said, “maybe we should just hide. I have some money, you have some money.”

“We need to get out of Caribe,” she said.

“Is there another way?”

“We need documents,” she said.

He sighed.

“No,” she said, “we need documents. Is there someone here who might know someone who could get us documents?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so.” He thought about Lopez, who sold contraband beer. Lopez wasn't exactly a criminal, but would he know someone? It was not safe to ask.

“I know someone,” she said.

“Who?” he said.

“I have to think about it,” she said.

*   *   *

The next morning David waited for Mayla at the lunar pool. She had been here for a whole day. He felt that there was a clock ticking, the longer she was here, the more dangerous everything got. Time to go. He sat with his legs in the water so the pyroxin wouldn't make him too hot.

He knew her the moment he saw her, she was as tall as MacKenzie, and her diver's suit was too big around the waist. It bunched around her weight belt. He felt himself curiously glad to see her.

“How can you stand that?” she asked.

“What?” he asked.

“Sitting in the water that way?”

“You don't want to get too hot,” he said.

“Oh, right,” she said, sarcastic. “Big problem. God, this sucks.” She sat down next to him but didn't put her legs in the water.

Was she taking pyroxin? Maybe nobody had told her. If Santos hadn't told him, he wouldn't know. He thought about getting into that water without it and shuddered.

“If you're cold, get out,” she said. “We've got a few minutes.”

“I'm okay,” he said. “Did anyone talk to you about, eh, keeping warm?”

“Not specifically,” she said. “What?”

He looked around, there were other people coming to get on shift. He felt funny talking about it in front of people. “I'll tell you later.”

“Okay,” she said.

He watched her at the site. She was awkward with tools. He would be better off if he took off without her. An anglo and an oriental, they would be obvious. Foolish to think they could disappear together. Maybe it was foolish to think he could disappear at all.

It would be easier not to be alone, though.

He would have to find out how she thought she might be able to get them documents. This was her home, she had been pretty well connected.

Maybe she could get them out. Maybe he could go home.

*   *   *

Mayla found David in the bunkroom after dinner.

Women were allowed in the men's bunkroom until ten, men were never allowed in the women's bunkroom. But there was no sense trying to talk in the bunkroom. There was no way that they could have talked in the dining hall during dinner, either.

Santos said, “Hi.” Friendly, a little respectful. His face was carefully neutral. Meeting some guy's girlfriend.

Mayla said hello. “You still have Mephistofeles,” she said. She fondled the cat's ears. Meph sniffed at her fingers curiously and David couldn't tell if the kitten remembered her or not. It had not been that long ago, really. Just weeks since the house was blown up. It seemed like a long time, that was all.

“After all the trouble you went to,” Mayla said, “I guess I shouldn't be surprised.” She smiled, making the connection between them.

Santos looked interested. Shit, there would be questions later. “Come on,” David said.

He took her down to the dining hall. It was too bright, brighter it seemed because it was nearly empty after dinner except for some jocks playing cards. The chairs were loud when they pulled them out.

She sat across the table from him, leaning on her arms. “You said you can get documents?” he said.

“I don't know,” she said. “I know someone to try, but you may not like it.”

“Who?” he said.

“Saad Shamsi.”

It took him a moment. “The guy with the slave bracelets? In Marincite?” he asked. He remembered the partner, the crazy man on drugs. And the girl.

She nodded.

“That's crazy,” he said. “He is a crook.”

“Who do you think is going to sell us documents?” she asked. “A nun?”

“You would not work with him,” he said. “He will not want to work with you now.”

“Money is money,” she said. “He wants money to immigrate to the U.S.”

No. No, no, no. Craziness. “We don't have enough money for him to immigrate. And he is in Marincite, are you going to call him? You think in Marincite they don't record every call?”

“I wasn't going to call him,” she said. “I could go there.”

“Right,” David said. “Go to Port Authority, buy a ticket for Marincite.”

“You can pay cash for Marincite,” she said. “Go the way we did, second class. They don't care what your name is, they don't even ask if you buy your ticket at the terminal. It's like taking a bus.”

Too crazy. Marincite, the spider web. He didn't like it, remembered the sullen security force. Like going to a military base when you are on the run from the police, stupid. “There are people here that I can try. Let me try first.”