He buried his face in my neck and stiffened, releasing into me. He groaned again and again, then he was done.
He whispered my name. “Drawing fire can get you killed. There is no world without you in it. Nothing. I’m not talking about despair. I’ve lost people. This isn’t me being a child. There is one universe. Just one. And it’s between us. If you destroy that universe, you destroy me. Do you understand what I’m saying? You cannot do that again. Ever. For me.”
“I was scared,” I whispered. I could barely hear myself over the cicadas.
“I know.” He dragged his lips over my cheek and to my throat.
“I was scared you were gone. That you’d be hit while I couldn’t reach you.”
“I know.” He picked his head up and looked me in the eye. “I don’t want you to be scared ever again. I’m going to teach you how to survive without me.”
I pushed his chest so I could look him in the eye. “Enough of that.”
I took his hair in my fists, I was so angry at him. How could he even consider that nonsense? Some idea that he was mentoring me for a life of misery?
Cars had been blowing past us sporadically, so the presence of another car on the highway didn’t surprise me until it slowed down, and a car door slammed.
“Oh, crap,” I said, pulling myself away.
Antonio picked his head up while holding me down. “Stay.”
“I’m naked.”
“That’s why I’m staying here.”
I heard the crunch of footsteps outside, and my door opened. Upside down, the man in the dark brown shirt looked ten feet tall, with a cowboy hat and a silver star like a sheriff in the old west.
Just above me, the underside of Antonio’s chin cut a triangle into my view of the night sky.
“Spinelli,” the Tijuana cop said with a tinge of annoyance.
“Oscar.”
“Hotel rooms too expensive for you?”
“We couldn’t find parking.”
“Get dressed, fucking gringos.”
He slammed the door, and Antonio and I wiggled back into our clothes.
“You know him?” I looked behind us. Looked like that cop and another, shorter guy.
“His daughter.”
I stopped what I was doing and looked at him.
“She got into trouble with a guy.” He buttoned his pants. “Some drugs. The guy ran to LA, and I brought him back to TJ.”
I jerked my legs through my jeans. “So he owes you?”
He buttoned the last button of his shirt. “Why?” A smile stretched across his face as if he knew what I thought but let me meet him there.
“How fast does this thing go?”
“In fourth gear all the way? Even this shit American car can hit a hundred fifty.”
I made the rest of the journey in my imagination. He’d start the car and take off. We’d be followed for a time so the cop could say he did his best, but they’d give up, report us, and move on. We’d have nowhere to go. No passports. No way back. Then for sure we’d never get back to Jonathan.
Antonio caught my train of thought. “I don’t think he’ll chase us far.”
I put my hand on his knee. “I have a better idea. There’re no passports coming, right? If the forger sold us out? There’s only one way out of here.”
***
When we got out of the car, Oscar held out his hand to shake Antonio’s. Oscar looked older, early fifties, when I was right side up, and his deputy looked to be a couple of decades younger. We made introductions in the middle of the desert, the afternoon wind forcing us to shout.
“You’re in the shit, my friend,” Oscar said.
“Keeps life interesting.”
“Okay, I get it, but letting you walk’s gonna cost you. You get outta LA with any cash?”
“I did,” I interjected. I had a few hundreds in my pocket and no more. “But not to let us walk. We need to get back over.”
Oscar looked at his deputy, then at Antonio. Tipping his head to me, he said, “Live one you got here. She know she’s jumping into the lion’s mouth?”
“You can do it.” Antonio waved as if it was nothing. “You got a badge. You can do anything.”
Oscar laughed. “How? Tell them not to look at you?”