How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,34

asked him.

Trey shrugged.

“I am nobody's woman,” Michelle said. “Nobody cares about me.” She was pale and her hands trembled.

“She is beautiful,” the Pathan said.

Trey put his arm around Michelle and began to knead the muscles in her neck, but stopped suddenly when he saw how the Pathan was looking at her. It was a look he had seen on the faces in the bazaar.

Rudy touched his arm. “We should be pushing on, chum.”

They thanked the man, who assured them that he was always at their service. He was a merchant, a broker of commodities, and if they should require anything, anything at all, during their stay in Landi Kotal …

To Trey he offered the advice that you did not display a jewel in the bazaar unless you intended to sell it. Then he looked again at Michelle.

They saw Rudy off a few hours later. The taxi stand at the edge of the bazaar had a fleet of fifties Chevys, which rattled off over the Khyber Pass once a sufficient number of passengers had presented themselves. A taxi was nearly ready to leave when they arrived. The driver had seven fares in the cab itself and intended to put four more in the trunk. Four of the passengers were Caucasian. A woman with matted blond hair and dirt in the creases of her face was leaning out the rear window, moaning, the man beside her holding her hair back behind her neck. While Rudy dickered with the driver, she vomited. “That's the way,” the man said, “that's the way.” Someone else was telling a story about a guy from Ohio who had his balls cut off when the border guards found a ball of hash taped underneath his scrotum. A Pathan with an automatic rifle over his shoulder was securing a canvas bag to the pile of luggage on the roof.

“Well, that's it,” Rudy said after he'd paid the driver. “I've got a seat on the observation deck.” He indicated the trunk, then turned to Michelle and opened his arms. “How about a kiss for the soldier going off to the wars?”

She allowed herself to be embraced, and kissed him on the cheek.

Rudy hugged Trey and said, “You take care of that lady. That's your only job.”

Trey nodded and tried to smile. He was suddenly very nervous. He felt there was something they were forgetting. They'd been planning this for weeks, but now he didn't like the idea of splitting up. The blond girl leaning out of the cab heaved again, and Trey felt his own stomach shrink in on itself. “You'll be back in a few days?” he said.

“A few days, maybe a week. Just as soon as I can.”

Rudy had done this before. He liked to buy direct from the tribes in Afghanistan because it was cheaper and the hash was better than anything that came into Landi Kotal. He had a third of the money in his boot heel. Trey was holding the rest. Rudy would catch a bus from the border to Kabul, hire a guide into the hills, arrange the buy and make a down payment. He would come back through customs clean, and they would wait for the Afghanis, who did not believe in borders, to bring the stuff over the mountains. That was their plan.

The taxi driver told Rudy they were ready to go, and he climbed into the trunk and settled himself next to three old men in pink turbans. A cloud of smoke engulfed the rear of the car as the driver gunned the engine. When he popped the clutch, the car lurched violently and died.

More than an hour later, the driver still hadn't managed to get the car running again. Trey and Michelle had waited with Rudy as the sun dropped through the cloudless sky toward the jagged ridge of mountains to the west. He could feel the dry rasp of high-altitude sunlight on his face even as he was slapping his arms and chest for warmth, and Michelle claimed she was freezing to death. Rudy said they shouldn't bother to wait.

“I've been thinking,” Trey said. “Why don't you stick around another day, get a fresh start tomorrow.” It seemed to him that the signs were not auspicious—the near riot in the bazaar, the sick blond girl, the taxi breaking down. And he was not eager to see his friend leave.

Rudy went to talk to the driver, who had climbed in behind the wheel. When the engine turned over, sputtered and