Underground Airlines

She looked bad. She looked half out of her mind with weariness and confusion. There were, at least, no bruises on her face, no blood at the corners of her lips. Her eyes were dark and panicky, roving back and forth between Morris and Cook, Cook and me.

God, that girl should have run. She should have run from me in Indianapolis; in Green Hollow, Alabama; at Garments of the Greater South; she should have run. She should have run from me a million different times.

“I don’t understand this,” I said to Cook. “What is happening? What is she doing here?”

He blew a bubble, destroyed it with his teeth. “Did you forget?”

“What?”

“Your leash, son. Father Barton’s laptop, tapping into your tracker, keeping tabs.” It was the same laptop on the table in front of him, next to the gun.

“I didn’t forget,” I said. “But it was my understanding that when I had the lost package in hand, I would return directly to Indianapolis and give it to Father Barton.”

“Yep. That was indeed the plan.”

Questions were struggling to the surface of my mind, one by one, then all together, like animals emerging from mud. Had they known the whole time that I was planning to double-cross them, to turn this goddamn envelope over to the marshals? Was it just Officer Cook who had been on to me, or was it Barton also? And what about Morris, who, Cook had told me, knew nothing about his Airlines service—what was he doing running these kinds of errands, not to mention how? How had Morris come by the authority to get a man sprung from the bowels of a megaplantation?

The only question I said aloud, though, was my first one again. “What is she doing here?”

“She’s insurance,” said Cook. “To make sure we get what we need.” He pivoted in his chair, pointed at Martha. “Tell him, honey.”

“They’ve got him,” she said, her voice coming like from under water. “They’ve got Lionel.”

I turned back to Cook, caught him poking his tongue through his gum, stretching it into a thin pink membrane. “Why?” I said. “Why?”

“Settle down, boy,” said Morris, shifting his pistol from Martha to me. “You settle down.”

Martha stood, hands clenched at her sides, and Morris brought the gun back to her. “You, too.”

“Please,” I said to Martha. Trying to calm her down. Calm myself, too. Whatever was going on, I didn’t think these guys were kidding. “Please. Sit.”

This now, for Martha, on top of everything. What she had learned only hours ago, about Samson, and now this. Martha sat on the edge of the bed and tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, and the moonlight coming unevenly through the blinds washed the side of her face and made her look old and sad.

“I was bringing it to you,” I said to Cook. There was a fresh dark feeling blooming in my stomach, filling me up like internal bleeding, and I heard that darkness come into my voice. “I was going to bring it to you all.”

“Sure you were,” he said. “Sure.” And then, new subject—oh, just by the way: “You know, I don’t think you ever told me what your man’s name is. Your agent, I mean. In the marshals.”

Oh, Martha, I thought. Oh, Martha. This on top of everything.

“Bridge,” I said quietly. “Louis Bridge.”

“Oh. Huh.” Cook snapped his gum. “I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if I had the same guy?”

There it was. An answer. A lot of answers, actually, all arriving together, all at once.

“Actually, my man’s a lady,” Cook added. “Deputy United States Marshal Shawna Lawler. I never met her, but she sounds sexy as hell on the phone. If you’re into white women.”

He flicked his eyes toward Martha.

“I don’t…” she said. “I don’t…” She stood up again, and Morris said, “Sit,” and she said, “What does he mean?”

“Me and your boyfriend here, Jim, or Victor, or—what’d you call him? Brother. I like that. Me and Brother, we’re just the same. Same little secret.” He stood up solemnly from that wobbly motel table, pointed a finger at me, slow, and intoned: “Nigger stealer. Soul catcher. Government man.” He lowered the finger, sat back down. “Just like me.”

I waited for Martha to say something else, anything else, but she didn’t. She might have said, I don’t believe you; she might have said, It can’t be true; but from that corner of the room there was nothing.

I didn’t look at her again. I couldn’t look at her anymore.

Cook was done smiling, at least. All the winking and smirking, all the wiseass man-of-the-world business had fallen away in an instant. Without that smile, he looked like a different human being. He sat rigid in the chair, and his face became tired, closed, with sadness behind his eyes, like the shadowy water just visible under the surface of the sea.

I wondered what I looked like now, when at last I wasn’t trying—not pretending anything. I wondered what I was looking like in that small room, alone with Cook’s revelation, with the truth of what I was at last filtering out into the world.

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