HE BEGAN WITH HER FATHER SENDING HER HOME, TELLING them the facts, sparing what detail he could. Here and there, the men interrupted with questions—serious questions about the timing of the trip and the places he’d been, and lighter questions about the things they simply didn’t understand.
“Never heard of a nutria,” Connelly said.
“Neither have I,” Gonzalez echoed.
“Maybe Texas doesn’t have ’em.” Jonah was weary. They’d brought him a glass of water and he slugged some, cold and numbing.
“I wouldn’t know,” Connelly said. “I’m from New York.”
“New Mexico.” Gonzalez shrugged.
“People hate them, but they’re not bad,” Jonah said. “You think about them long enough and you start to feel bad for them.”
“The nutria?”
“It ain’t their fault where they are.”
“Sounds to me,” Connelly answered, “like that’s got nothing to do with it.”
Jonah looked at the man, then lowered his eyes. With a fingertip he traced a line on the metal tabletop. A smudge of condensation spreading. He wiped the heel of his palm across it, but the smudge remained.
A while later, Connelly went to take a leak. Jonah pressed his thumbs into his eyes until he saw stars. He leaned over the table. An impression of himself reflected in the metal, striated with the residue of some kind of cleaning product.
Gonzalez suddenly spoke. “Your oldest brother, where was he in Afghanistan?”
Something clenched and twisted in Jonah’s chest, but the feeling had no temperature and it didn’t hurt. It was a rote reaction, one that reminded him, as always, of how he used to stare at his sneakers and try to imagine the places Bill walked. All the videos on the Internet Jonah had watched, hoping to discover something, some answer. Jonah folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them: “I never could remember the name of the place.”
“He was there in oh-two?”
“Yeah.”
“He must have been one of the earliest guys we lost.”
Jonah shrugged.
“I was there,” Gonzalez said, “in oh-three. Less than a hundred dead by that point, I think.”
“How many by now?”
“I don’t know. A lot more.”
The door swung open and Connelly reentered, buckling his belt. “So,” he said, “tell me about this drug-dealing pal of yours, Colby. Why’d he need to get to Mexico?”
“He’s just my friend. He’s got nothing to do with any of this.”
“The drug dealer doesn’t matter?”
“He’s not here. He’s never been here. He’s a kid in New Orleans who doesn’t know about any of this.”
“I promise you,” Connelly said, “he connects. Maybe not directly, and not in a way that matters to us in this moment. He’s probably got no idea, but I promise you he’s connected in some way to everything that’s happening south of the border. Where else you think that shit he’s selling comes from?” Connelly looked at Gonzalez and seemed to be searching for something. “What do they call it?”
Gonzalez raised his eyebrows.
“Degrees of separation.” Connelly snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Anyway, go on, Mr. McBee.”
Jonah sighed and kept talking.