Mule (10 page)

"Tell me how you're feeling."

"Nervous and ready at the exact same time."

He gave me a number, a 530 NorCal area code. When I Skyped it, a man with a western drawl picked up.

"This James?"

"Billy?"

"Nice to meet you on the phone. Listen, all is well, all is well. I'm heading down to Sacramento, laying up in a hotel tonight."

"Where are we going to meet?"

"I'll sit at an exit south of the airport. Call me when you land and we'll hash it out. Remember to keep it simple on the phone. How you feeling? Feeling all right? Darren says you're a first-time dude."

"I'm feeling as good as I can, I guess."

"All is well, all is well. That's the way it's supposed to be."

There was nothing left to do but figure out how to hide the money. I set the stack on the edge of the bed. Kate and I looked at it. Then Kate handed me the baby. She said, "Spend some time with her already. Don't you know you've been an absolute madman for three straight days?"

I looked at my daughter and she looked at me. When I smiled, so did she.

Kate winked and said, "Tightie-whities? I'd be happy to run to the store and get you some."

I told her, "I'd rather quit the whole fucking thing."

We looked at the money, the money looked back at us. "Pantyhose," we said at the very same time.

She grabbed a pair from the suitcase she was living out of and took the baby from me. I stripped off my jeans, rolled on the hose. They were too tight, too short, but they were clearly going to work. I pulled them off, grabbed scissors from the kitchen, cut them off at the knees. Then I rolled them on again. I separated out the cash into four thin stacks, slid the stacks into the pantyhose at the tops of my thighs. The hose held the money against me like my very own skin.

That was it, everything was figured out. Tomorrow I would go to the airport and discover my fate. But right now it was time to be with my wife.

We lay in bed in the dark, our baby between us. Then I kissed the baby, put her down in her crib. Finally Kate and I were alone.

"Are you worried?" I asked her.

"I just want you to be okay."

"Everything's going to be okay. No matter what happens to me, everything's always going to be okay."

"I don't want to have to raise these babies alone."

"You're not going to have to."

"What if something happens to you?"

"I promise nothing will."

"Call me every chance you get, okay?"

"Be patient while I'm driving."

"If anything feels wrong out there, I want you to walk away."

"You know I will."

We made love once, twice. I lay awake the rest of the night, holding her as close to me as I could.

 

I showered, shaved off my beard patches, dressed in my lucky flannel jacket and jeans. Underneath my jeans were the pantyhose, the money tight against my skin. At the airport, Kate gave me JoJo Bear. I checked in at the counter and we went up the escalator to security.

"I have to leave now," Kate told me once we got there. "There's no way I can watch this, you know?"

We kissed, I kissed the baby, then I stared after them as they went down the escalator. Kate's back was to me, her long black hair. Would I ever see them again? I turned away, joined the security line. When it was my turn to show my driver's license, the agent, an older guy, looked at it and said, "Texas, huh? Don't mess with Texas."

I took off my shoes, belt, jacket, put everything in a bin. My backpack full of boxer shorts I tossed on the conveyor belt, too. All that was left to do was walk through the metal detector. A TSA agent was waiting at the other end. He was big and bald, looked like a bouncer. He beckoned me forward. I knew my face looked calm, nothing at all like the inside of me. Suddenly the money began to itch against my skin as much as my heart was pounding. I stepped into the metal detector like I was making a leap of faith.

"Come through, sir."

It didn't make a sound. I picked up my things from the conveyor belt like nothing had happened. I texted Kate—"made it"—as I put on my shoes at the bench afterward. She texted back: "love u."

The first flights went fine; I felt calm; I wasn't doing anything yet. In Phoenix, I went to a men's room in the terminal, took off the pantyhose, transferred the money to my backpack, and tossed the hose in the garbage.

When I landed in Sacramento at three, I called Billy. "Del Paso Road," he told me. "The lot at the In-N-Out Burger."

I took the courtesy bus to the rental car plaza, gave the Sikh at the counter my reservation and credit card. Soon enough he handed me a set of keys. It was cool and windy when I walked onto the lot, a Northern California winter day. I'd been traveling for eleven hours; I felt dizzy. My car was a Chevy Cobalt with California plates. Three cars down the line was a Mustang from Wyoming; two cars after that was an Aveo from Texas. Texas plates? What if I could get that car? I went back in and saw the Sikh.

"I don't really dig Cobalts. You think I could have that little Aveo?"

"I'll check the availability," he said. A minute later, he handed me the Aveo's keys.

I adjusted the mirrors and the seat, figured out the signals and wipers, got comfortable in that little cockpit. I drove off the lot, turned south on I-5. The Del Paso Road exit was on me in minutes.

The traffic was heavy here, the beginning of rush hour. After several stoplights and strip malls, I saw the In-N-Out Burger. A towheaded man in a Carhartt work jacket stood smoking beside a beautifully restored blue Ford pickup from the seventies with a camper shell on the back, looking at the evening sky. He was lanky, older, early forties maybe, seemed like a hick down from the mountains. He pulled a cell phone out of his jacket pocket when I called.

"James?"

"Looking right at you."

"Texas plates?"

"That's me."

"How'd you get those plates?"

"I saw them in the line and asked for them."

"Great fucking job on those plates," he said.

He hopped in his truck and I followed him out of the lot. We drove on Del Paso for a few more lights, ended up at the side of a Rite Aid away from the road, next to an empty field of weeds. There was no one around. Still, it felt way too exposed. We stepped out of our vehicles, shook hands. He was taller than me, crow's feet around his eyes, a scar across his chin like he'd been cut. His hands were rough and thick; they were a farmer's hands. Was he the one who grew it?

"You have to peel that car," Billy told me, pointing to the bar code stickers in the corners of the back windows. "Dead giveaway it's a rental. Don't do it here. Do it tonight when you stop. Stash the stickers somewhere safe. Put them back on at the end."

I had so many questions, didn't know where to start. Instead he said to me, "You want to try your stuff?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Some people smoke the whole way," he said. "Pop the hatch."

I hit the button on the clicker. Billy ducked into the cab of his truck, took out a huge black duffel bag, unzipped it for me to see: it was full of packaged weed. Then he zipped it shut, tossed it in the back of the Aveo, slammed the hatch down. It didn't take three seconds.

"Money," Billy said.

I handed him the backpack. He leaned into the cab of his truck with it, then came and returned it to me. "Don't want your underwear, dude. All is well, all is well. Everything is vacuum-sealed—I wouldn't open any of it. Don't get pulled over in that rental. You waived your right to refuse a search when you signed the agreement."

I hadn't thought of that.

Billy went around, hopped in his truck. "Drive fast and swerve a lot," he said and waved from the window. Wait! I wanted to shout. But he peeled out and was gone.

What about the sit-down? What about all the information he was supposed to explain to me? I got in the Aveo, drove away from that place. Had anyone seen the exchange? I looked into the rearview, scanned the traffic. Was that a cop? Was that a cop? My knuckles were white, my heart was pounding. I started coughing. I didn't want to do this anymore.

"Fucking breathe," I told myself. "Just drive the fucking car. You can't get pulled over. You can't get pulled over."

I turned into the parking lot of a Wendy's, went inside, washed my face. The bathroom was small and empty. I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was blanched, my hands shaking. Should I call Darren, fucking yell at him? But I knew there was nothing more he could tell me that would make this any easier. If I wanted the money, this is what I had to do. I said to myself, "You're just another guy on the road, all right? Cut it out already."

Back in the car, I sat in the parking lot with the engine off, took some deep breaths. I was in a rental and couldn't refuse a search. Of course that was true. Why was I such an idiot? I'd have to have my story ready in case I got pulled over: I'd flown out for an interview, had time on my hands, wanted to drive home one way and see the country. I didn't have a family or anything like that, was stopping here and there to visit old friends. Then I shook my head at the thought of it. What a stupid story.

What if they called for a dog? What if they popped the hatch? JoJo Bear was in the passenger seat; I pressed his belly and he said, "I love you." I took another deep breath, turned on the engine, checked around for cops. There was nothing left to do but do it. I got on the road.

 

Rita was waiting for me when I knocked on her door with the duffel bag thirty minutes later. She yelled at her boys to go upstairs as she let me in. We stared at the thirteen big packages of weed as I unloaded them one by one onto her kitchen table. It was a mountain of marijuana, more than a hundred thousand dollars in street value.

"What's the name?" she asked as she sorted through the bags.

"I didn't ask."

"Some of it looks even better than the last stuff you had."

She picked out her bag. The buds in it were thick as pinecones, pale green, the color of money. She gave me a rumpled envelope. "It's only four grand," she said. "We're short a G for now."

"Rita, are you kidding? Why would you do this to me?"

She put up her hands. "We did the best we could! You know we'll get you the rest as soon as we can."

Had I ever felt so angry? I noticed her boys in their pajamas peeking around the corner from the staircase. I shook my head. What could I do? I had to get moving. Even if Rita stiffed us what she owed, I'd still made $1,500 on the pound she'd taken. I hurried out to the car, popped the hatch, tossed in the duffel, got back on the road.

Five hours later I was in a Motel 6 in Bakersfield; my heart hadn't settled down at all. In a dark area of the parking lot I peeled the bar code stickers off the car with my fingernail, stuck them far under the dashboard for safekeeping. When I went to the room, I spread the packages out on the bed like loaves of bread. So much weed! Mason would be happy, Deveny would be happy. I parted the drapes to look at the lot. What if anyone knew?

The next night I was in Tucumcari, New Mexico. A thousand miles in a day—I'd broken my rule and driven until midnight; I wanted the trip to be done. The night after that, at Mason's, I was shaken, burnt out. Of course I hadn't eaten. Of course I hadn't slept. Wherever I stopped, I hadn't been able to say anything more to Kate than "Everything's okay, everything's okay. Just fucking let me drive, all right?"

When I dumped out the weed on their living room floor, Mason's and Emma's mouths dropped open. Mason owed me $5,000. Of course he didn't have it. Three thousand dollars would have to do for now, everything he did have. "You're not upset, are you, James?" Mason asked. Goddamn stoners! What could I do but sigh it away? He had a six-pack of cold Lone Stars waiting for me in the fridge; I poured bottle after bottle into my face. Out on the porch as we smoked cigarettes, Mason said, "I want to do it, too, man."

I shook my head, told him, "Believe me, you don't."

"That bad?"

"Oh yeah."

"So you aren't going to want to do it again?"

"Hell fucking no, Mason!"

The car was looking ragged. In Houston, in the morning, I pulled into a self-service car wash and scrubbed off all the accumulated dust and bugs. In the evening, I crossed into the Florida panhandle, stopped at De Funiak Springs. Tallahassee was only an hour away, but driving through Louisiana had been terrifying. I knew too much about the state's draconian laws, the insane sentences that could put me away for as long as thirty years. And then there had been those minutes in Sulphur, the most terrible of the trip.

I had seen plenty of cops along the way: a couple CHPs in the Mojave, a half-dozen troopers in forested Arizona, three black-and-tans through New Mexico's Navajo territory, a dozen on patrol in Texas. They were mostly hidden in speed traps, seen only at the last heart-stopping instant, but a few zoomed up on me from out of nowhere, then hurried by to bust someone else. But nothing was like Sulphur. I knew going in that the town's interdiction point was one of the toughest in the country; it lived up to its reputation. There was a trooper hidden after the crest of every rise, troopers parked in the median in SUVs. Some of the SUVs had
K-9
on them, and they all bristled with antennas. I knew they were profiling each car as it passed, calling in suspects to be pulled over down the road.

And people really were pulled over, blacks, Hispanics, beat-up cars, new. Every single vehicle had out-of-state plates: New York, Georgia, Oregon, New Jersey. And they were popping trunks. I held the steering wheel, maintained my even breathing, talked to JoJo Bear the whole way.

And then a cruiser came up on me. He rode me a mile or two, came so close that I could see him in the rearview. He was square-jawed, clean-shaven, in his crisp uniform and wide-brimmed hat. Behind him was the cage he wanted to put me in. I left the car on cruise control, let it drive itself. When the cop finally swung around and alongside me, we looked at each other a moment. Did he have a family? Children at home? Then he gunned it up the road like a jet.