Caterina sat down heavily on the bed.

Milton stood at the window, parted the curtains a little and looked out through them at the courtyard outside. A few cars, lots of empty spaces, plastic rubbish and newspaper snagged in the branches of sickly creosote bushes. He ran things over in his mind. He got two glasses of water from the bathroom and came back and went to the window again. He took a sip and set the water on the cheap bedside table. Halfway there, he thought.

Caterina slumped back on the bed. “This is crazy. I can’t hide here forever.”

“Just for a few days.”

“So you can do what?”

“I know someone who’ll be able to help you get across the border.”

“In exchange for what? I told you I don’t have any money.”

“He has a problem I can help him with. And there’s no harm in you staying here until I can do that, is there?”

She shook her head and stared straight up at the stippled ceiling. “I don’t suppose so. I know I can’t go home.”

“Is there anything you need?”

“Nothing we can’t get in New Mexico.”

“Sure?”

“There is something — we’ve got another couple of writers. I have to get word to them.”

“Call them?”

“Their details are on my laptop. I need that, then I can mail them.”

“Where is it?”

“In my apartment.”

“Alright — I’ll get it. Write down your address.”

She did, writing it on a page that she tore from the Gideon’s bible in the drawer. Milton closed the curtains.

“You’re not just a cook, are you?”

“No.”

“You were a soldier.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of soldier?”

He thought about what to say. He had a sudden urge to be completely truthful but he knew that might not be the best policy with her: good for him, bad for her, so he evaded the question a little. “I was in the special forces for a while. And then I was transferred to work for a special detail. I can’t really tell you very much about that.”

“You were good at it?”

“Very good,” he said.

“Have you’ve killed people before?”

“I have.”

She fell silent.

He found the TV remote and tossed it across to the bed. “Try and get some sleep,” he said. “And I know you’re not stupid, but lock and chain the door and don’t open it to anybody but me. Alright?”

“You’re going now?”

“There are some things I need to get, too. I might be back late. Maybe this evening. Alright?”

She said that she was.

“Don’t open the door.”

27

Milton took a taxi to the border and then got out and walked. The Paso del Norte bridge spanned the Rio Bravo, and he took his place in the queue of people waiting to cross. He paid three pesos at the kiosk and pushed through the turnstile. A couple of hundred strides to reach the middle, where Mexico ended and the United States began. He paused there and looked down. The floodplain stretched beneath him, the Rio Bravo a pathetic trickle, slithering between stands of Carrizo cane. A chain link fence on either side, tall guard-posts with guards toting rifles, spotlights and CCTV.

The American gatepost was worse, bristling with security. He walked towards it and joined the queue. Well-to-do housewives chatted about the shopping they were going to do. Bored children bounced. Kids slung book bags over their shoulders, waiting to pass through to their Methodist schools. Vendors hawked hamburgers, cones of fried nuts and bottles of water. A woman in a white dress with a guitar sang folk songs, a handful of change scattered in the torn-off cardboard box at her feet.

It took an hour for Milton to get to the front.

“Hello, sir,” the wary border guard said. “Your passport, please.”

Milton took out the fake American passport that he had been using since he arrived in South America. He handed it to her.

“Mr. Smith,” she said, comparing him with the photograph. “You’ve been away for a while, sir.”

“Travelling.”

She stamped the passport. “Welcome home, sir.”

He walked through into America. There was a McDonalds near the border, a hub of customs agents, girls laden with huge packets of diapers, Mexican businessmen and Mexican ladies on their way to clean American toilets. The mumbling homeless gathered outside, pushing their belongings in supermarket carts.

Milton had a fifteen minute cab ride to get to where he was going. He fished out his phone from his pocket and took the scrap of paper that the man in the hospital had given to him from out of his wallet. He dialled the number and put the phone to his ear.

“Baxter?”

“Who’s this.”

“John Smith.”

“Mr. Smith. How are you, sir?”

“Our friend — how much is he worth to you?”

“He’s worth plenty — why? You ready to help?”

“If you help me — then perhaps.”

“How much do you want?”

“Nothing. No money. I need you to do me a favour.”

“I’m listening.”

“Those Italians you work for — I’m guessing it’s a reasonably simple thing for them to bring someone across the border?”

“Sure. I’ve got to get our mutual friend across, and I’m damn sure I ain’t taking him over the bridge. I don’t reckon it’d be any great shakes to add another to the trip. Who do you got in mind?”

“The girl.”

“Makes sense. Yeah — I reckon I could do that. Anything else?”

“A new life for her on the other side. Legitimate papers in a different name. Away from El Paso. Somewhere where they’ll never find her.”

“That’s a bit more demanding. But maybe.”

“What would you have to do?”

“Make a couple of calls. You on this number all day?”

Milton said that he was.

“I’ll call you later.”

The taxi had arrived. Milton put the telephone away, paid the driver, and got out.

The El Paso gun show was held every Saturday at the El Maida Shrine Centre at 6331 Alabama Street. A sign outside the venue advertised roller derbies, pet adoption fairs and home and garden shows, but it was obvious that guns were the big draw. He paid sixteen bucks at the entrance and went inside, passing a row of ATMs, an NRA information booth where two bored teenagers were smoking and lazily handing out leaflets, ice cream and Mexican food stands and two emphatic sandwich boards requiring visitors to unload their weapons. A banner above the entrance to the hall said that YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS GUARANTEE ALL THE OTHERS.

Milton passed beneath it and went inside.

He had seen the show advertised in El Diario, a whole page advert that promised that every gun that he could imagine would be available to buy. Milton could imagine a lot of guns but, after just five minutes, he saw the claim wasn’t fanciful. The place was like a bazaar. Several long aisles had been formed by tables arranged swap-meet style, dozens of vendors on one side of them and several hundred people on the other. Milton recognised the hunters, but there were plenty of people buying for other reasons, too. He watched with a detached sense of professional interest as a rotund and cheerful white-bearded man, easily in his seventies, walked past with an ArmaLite and attached bayonet slung casually over his shoulder. A blue-rinsed lady of similar age negotiated hard for extra ammunition for the Smith & Wesson she was purchasing. Other shoppers were pushing hand carts of ammunition out to their trucks. Apart from the guns and ammo, there was surplus military apparel; first aid supplies; kippered beef in flavours like Whiskey BBQ and Dragon Breath; war movies; badger pelts; replica uniforms and flags from the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and Nazi Germany; knives, brass knuckles and katana swords; cougar skulls; crates of canned meat with expiration dates years into the future, ‘perfect for bunkers’; remote-controlled helicopters.

Milton sauntered along the aisle, looking for the right kind of seller. It didn’t take long to find one: the man had a table, covered in blue felt, with a selection of weapons sitting on their carry cases, a handwritten sign on the table reading PRIVATE SELLER/NO PAPER. The slogan on the man’s black wifebeater read “When All Else Fails, Vote From the Rooftops!” and revealed sleeves of tattoos up both arms. He wore a baseball cap with a camouflage design.