The Missing

worthy told steve to come visit San Sal for a few days. Why San Sal? Because I live in San Sal, Worthy told him.

Worthy told Steve what airline to fly. United. And where to connect. Houston. Worthy told him to forget his Delta miles, forget Atlanta. Take United. Go through Houston.

Worthy told Steve wild stories about El Salvador. Bus rides up chuckholed alleys into ghettos where even police were afraid to go because gangs controlled that territory; that San Salvador was the murder capital of the world, no matter what claims were made by Kabul or Baghdad or Tegucigalpa. Worthy talked about getting drunk on something called coco loco. And girls dancing in clubs where the Salvadoran Geddy Lee played bass with one hand and keys with the other. And girls dancing in clubs who were on the hunt for American men, for the green card, but were often left behind in San Salvador if pregnant, and there was little recourse for a woman of that kind. Over the phone Worthy told him about girls dancing in a nudie bar called Lips that had a taco bar next door that was also called Lips. Worthy was persuasive. Even the plastic bags filled with soft, slimy cheese called queso fresco that Worthy bought on the street, even that sounded attractive when Worthy talked about it. Even when the Mrs. grabbed the phone and told Worthy that if anything bad happened to Steve she’d know who to hold responsible.

Do you understand? the Mrs. told Worthy. If he doesn’t come back, I will come down there and fuck you up.

The Mrs. told Steve about all the ways it was stupid to go. He had a family to think about. I’m thirty-five weeks, the Mrs. told him.

You’ll do what you want anyway, the Mrs. told him, but at least try and be smart about it. What’s it prove going there for the weekend? Isn’t there enough to worry about here?

You don’t belong in El Salvador, the Mrs. told him.

That’s why Steve had to go.

Worthy told him to look for a Subaru Outback at the airport after he cleared customs. He was supposed to tell customs that he was staying at the apartment complex where Worthy lived with other doctors, where foreign diplomats lived. But the customs agent at the airport had never heard of Dr. Worthy. The customs agent wanted to be told an address. The name of a hotel. Steve had nothing to tell the customs agent. Worthy hadn’t passed on this information. All Steve could do was hand over his passport and shrug. He didn’t speak Spanish and was in the wrong line because the gringo line was backed up with missionaries from Evansville and Dallas–Fort Worth. The customs agent’s supervisor came over. She wore a yellow blazer that was big on her.

My friend Worthy is coming to pick me up, Steve told the supervisor. I’m going to stay at his apartment. In San Sal.

The customs agent and the supervisor discussed between themselves and agreed it was fine for Steve to enter. This is you, they told him, pointing to his passport, to the photo he’d taken nine years before, when his skin was smoother, his hair thicker, his chin more distinctly there. He had ten dollars American to buy a visa. That was good enough.

That’s how it goes, Worthy told him once he was outside the airport and buckled up in Worthy’s Subaru Outback and the air conditioning was blowing.

Sometimes they don’t ask where you’re going, Worthy told him. They just want the ten.

Once they got to the apartment, Worthy told Steve they’d go to the mountains the next day.

In the morning they drove out into the country.

They burn their garbage, Worthy said to explain the smell, thumbing out the window at smoggy fires shack-dwelling locals tended near the road.

It did smell bad. Steve thought it smelled like the trash can he put dirty diapers in...