‘Tres Santos may not look like much, but it offers a variety of attractions for the casual tourist. Of course the main attraction is . . .’ He performed a florid gesture, as though presenting himself to an audience. ‘Me. People come from all over to ask for my advice. I counsel them, and sometimes I put on a little show. An entertainment. It’s only an exercise routine, but I’m told it’s unique.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Snow gulped down coffee. ‘Wish I had the time.’
Without warning, the man hauled Snow’s pack over to his side of the table.
‘Hey!’ Snow made a grab for the pack, but the man fended him off. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Having a peek inside.’
The man unzipped the top of the pack and began to inspect the contents.
Snow froze – then, thinking a lack of response would lend substance to the man’s suspicion that he, Snow, knew more than he had admitted, he reached for the pack again. The man caught his wrist and squeezed until the bones ground together, causing Snow to cry out. He struggled to break free, but the man’s grip was irresistible.
‘Please don’t do that again,’ the man said, letting him go.
Snow put pressure on his wrist to quell the pain and gazed out into the street. The gray sky and reddish mud, the puddles, the houses and the portion of the hillside framed by the doorway seemed to flutter, as if all the air and every object within view were made of the same inconstant stuff and troubled by a single disturbance. He was in deep shit, now. A thrill passed through a nerve in his jaw.
The man riffled through Snow’s passport. ‘Snow,’ he said, and repeated the word a couple of times, as if amused by it. ‘George Snow.’
‘Craig,’ said Snow, speaking out of reflex.
‘It says here, George.’
‘I don’t like George. My middle name is Craig. That’s what I go by.’
‘I think George is better for you,’ said the man indifferently.
He pulled out a filthy work shirt from the pack, deposited it on the floor, and extricated a pair of jeans.
‘It’s just dirty laundry,’ Snow said, and rubbed his wrist.
‘So it would appear.’ The man searched the pockets of the jeans. ‘What’s this?’
He fingered out a pill bottle, opened it, and shook three blue capsules out into his palm. ‘These aren’t prescription, are they?’
Alarmed, first by the fact that he had brought the pills through customs unawares, and secondly because he feared the man would force him to take them, Snow finally said, ‘A woman gave them to me in Miami. I didn’t realize I had the bottle with me.’
‘It’s contraband? Drugs? Are they any good?’
‘If you like to hallucinate.’
he man studied the pills and then popped them into his mouth. After a swift internal debate, realizing that if the man felt he had been poisoned he might punish him, Snow elected to err on the side of caution.
‘If I were you I’d bring those things back up quick,’ he said. ‘The woman who gave me them, she said not to do more than one.’
The man shook out two more pills and gulped them down.
‘Jesus! You need to stick a finger down your throat. Trust me, that shit will fuck with your head!’
‘Don’t be alarmed. Nothing will happen to me.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve done a shitload of drugs and one of those pills messed me up for a more than a day.’
The man seemed to take offense at this statement and said defiantly, ‘I have a strong resistance to drugs. I could swallow them all and it wouldn’t hurt me.’
Despite the man’s confidence, Snow was unconvinced, but there was nothing for it other than to hope he knew what he was doing.
‘If they don’t affect you,’ Snow asked, ‘why take them?’
‘Sometimes they affect me – they just don’t harm me.’ The man lost interest in the pack, pushing it aside with his foot. ‘Your coffee must be getting cold. Would you care for more?’
Anything to delay, thought Snow. He needed time to think how to deal with this teensy fucker. He said he would and held up his cup to attract Itzel’s attention.
‘I have better coffee at my place.’ The man scraped back his chair. ‘Bring your pack. I’ll have someone wash your clothes.’
Hoping for guidance, Snow glanced at Itzel once again, but her eyes were glued to the countertop . . . perhaps a message in itself. He thought about taking a swing at the man, catching him by surprise, but doubted that would end well. Despite his stature, the man’s strength hinted at extreme physical competence, so running was probably out of the question.
The man preceded him into the empty street and established a brisk pace, heading for the pink building, but stopped abruptly and, putting a hand on Snow’s chest, said, ‘You know who I am. Don’t deny it.’
Snow believed that if he admitted to any knowledge, it would be a fatal misstep. He could feel his heart beating against the man’s palm. ‘I’ve never laid eyes on you before today.’
The man struck him in the face – it was a light slap of the kind used to wake someone up, but his hand felt like solid bone and the blow twisted Snow’s head around and made him take a backward step.
‘I think you have,’ said the man.
