Half the Day Is Night Read Online Free Page B

off.”
    â€œHijo de la chingada,” he said. “Son of a bitch.” Except that no one but an anglo would use it that way. When Tim swore in Spanish he sounded even more like a foreign gabacho than he normally did.
    He would be gone in a month, she told herself. A month, at the most. As soon as David was ready to take over.
    *   *   *
    When she told David that he would be driving that morning he looked uncomfortable. He came out to the kitchen to get a coffee cup—unlike Tim he used the coffee maker in his rooms. He was dressed but his hair was still wet and slicked back from the shower.
    â€œYou don’t have to unless you feel ready,” she said. “Tim can drive me.”
    â€œOh,” he said. Which wasn’t really an answer. It was hard to be sure how good his English was. He spoke pretty well but sometimes she got the feeling he was nodding without understanding. But he didn’t say he wouldn’t drive and he was waiting in the kitchen when she was finished getting ready.
    He drove cautiously and he seemed to regard stop signs as little time outs. He got to the intersection at the end of her street, stopped the car and sighed, then carefully looked around and drove on. She wanted to turn on the news but felt that if she moved she would distract him, so she decided to wait until they were on automatic. He was all white knuckles getting onto the beltway until he could reach forward and punch 2 on the automatic guidance—preprogrammed for the bank. Then he sighed again.
    The news was still talking about mandatory sterilization for incorrigibles and what a wonderful idea it was and how it would work to break the cycle of poverty. That was the only thing she had read in the newspaper this morning so she half-listened and half-watched traffic. At least David’s silence was language-related, not directed at her.
    â€œâ€”Danny Tumipamba, an executive in a subsidiary of Marincite Corp.,” the news said. The name snagged her. “Although there is no confirmation from Marine Security, it is widely believed that radical extremists are behind the killing. If so, Tumipamba would be the seventh Marincite executive to fall victim in the last nine months.”
    â€œI know him,” she said, startled into speaking out loud.
    â€œI am sorry?” David said, not having heard her. Or maybe not having understood.
    â€œShhh!” she said, but they were talking about someone named Ybarra who’d been killed ten weeks ago. “I know him,” she said. “The man in the news. I am working with him on a bank deal.” Her Marincite deal, a very big bank deal.
    â€œHe was arrested?” David asked.
    â€œNo,” she said, “He’s dead. He was murdered.” Murdered. It seemed melodramatic when she said it. Tumipamba was murdered. She knew someone who had been murdered. Had anybody at the bank heard?
    â€œHe was a friend of yours?”
    â€œNo,” she said. Not a friend at all. Danny Tumipamba had a broad Mayan face and hook nose; a face like the Olmec man. He was hard to work with because she never knew where she stood with him, or what he thought of either her or the bank. And now he was dead. A bomb? she wondered, or shooting? She should have been paying attention.
    â€œI’m sorry,” David said uncertainly, but the car was slowing down to come off the beltway and his attention was taken by the intricacies of driving.
    She didn’t have the deal yet, they had still been courting. No papers signed. And now he was dead. Another dead executive in Marincite City, Christos, was it open season on executives over there?
    She tried to think of how she felt. Murdered. Dead. Tumipamba was dead.
    Dead was something that she didn’t understand when someone told her. It was like when her Gram had died, it was the little habits of thought that made her understand Gram was dead. Like thinking that she had to call Gram,