The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“My friends here are disappointed,” said Agent Portillo, “because there is no girl in your residence, even though there is an extensive selection of makeup and perfume. They want me to arrest you for abduction, and obstruction of justice, and probably ten or twelve other things. But I would be asking myself: why? Why should this young taxpayer with a steady job want to have his life ruined? What I’m thinking is: there must be another story. A better story. The flighty girl ran off, and she spent the last two weeks in a convent. It was just an impulse thing for her. She got frightened and upset by America, and then she came back to her people. Everything diplomatic.”

“That’s diplomacy?”

“Diplomacy is the art of avoiding extensive unpleasantness for all the parties concerned. The united coalition, as it were.”

“They’ll chop her hands off and beat her like a dog!”

“Well, that would depend, Mr. Hernandez. That would depend entirely on whether the girl herself tells that story. Somebody would have to get her up to speed on all that. A trusted friend. You see?”

***

After the departure of the three security men, Felix thought through his situation. He realized there was nothing whatsoever in it for him but shame, humiliation, impotence, and a crushing and lasting unhappiness. He then fetched up the reposado tequila from beneath his sink.

Sometime later he felt the dulled stinging of a series of slaps to his head. When she saw that she had his attention, she poured the tequila onto the floor, accenting this gesture with an eye-opening Persian harangue. Felix staggered to the bathroom, threw up, and returned to find a fresh cup of coffee. She had raised the volume and was still going strong.

He’d never had her pick a lovers’ quarrel with him, though he’d always known it was in her somewhere. It was magnificent. It was washing over him in a musical torrent of absolute nonsense. It was operatic, and he found it quite beautiful. Like sitting through a rainstorm without getting wet: trees straining, leaves flying, dark, windy, torrential. Majestic.

Her idea of coffee was basically wet grounds, so it brought him around in short order. “You’re right, I’m wrong, and I’m sorry,” he admitted tangentially, knowing she didn’t understand a word, “so come on and help me,” and he opened the sink cabinet, where he had hidden all his bottles when he’d noticed the earlier disapproving glances. He then decanted them down the drain: vodka, Southern Comfort, the gin, the party jug of tequila, even the last two inches of his favorite single-malt. Moslems didn’t drink, and really, how wrong could any billion people be? He gulped a couple of aspirin and picked up the phone.

“The police were here. They know about us. I got upset. I drank too much.”

“Did they beat you?”

“Uh, no. They’re not big fans of beating over here, they’ve got better methods They’ll be back. We are in big trouble.”

She folded her arms. “Then we’ll run away.”

“You know, we have a proverb for that in America. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

“Darling, I love your poetry, but when the police come to the house, it’s serious.”

“Yes. It’s very serious, it’s serious as cancer. You’ve got no I.D. You have no passport. You can’t get on any plane to get away. Even the trains and lousy bus stations have facial recognition. My car is useless too. They’d read my license plate a hundred times before we hit city limits. I can’t rent another car without leaving credit records. The cops have got my number.”

“We’ll steal a fast car and go very fast.”

“You can’t outrun them! That is not possible! They’ve all got phones like we do, so they’re always ahead of us, waiting.”

“I’m a rebel! I’ll never surrender!” She lifted her chin. “Let’s get married.”

“I’d love to, but we can’t. We have no license. We have no blood test.”

“Then we’ll marry in some place where they have all the blood they want. Beirut, that would be good.” She placed her free hand against her chest. “We were married in my heart, the first time we ever made love.”

This artless confession blew through him like a summer breeze. “They do have rings for cash at a pawnbroker’s… But I’m a Catholic. There must be somebody who does this sort of thing… Maybe some heretic mullah. Maybe a Santeria guy?”

“If we’re husband and wife, what can they do to us? We haven’t done anything wrong! I’ll get a Green Card. I’ll beg them! I’ll beg for mercy. I’ll beg political asylum.”

Agent Portillo conspicuously cleared his throat. “Mr. Hernandez, please! This would not be the conversation you two need to be having.”

“I forgot to mention the worst part,” Felix said. “They know about our phones.”

“Miss Kadivar, can you also understand me?”

“Who are you? I hate you. Get off this line and let me talk to him.”