The Manuscript Read Free Page B

line and she’d be good from now on. The man ignored her, tired of the never-ending drama that was part and parcel with the fiery passion that had first attracted him. It was always the same. Too much to drink, too many drugs, the wrong look at the wrong woman and suddenly, chaos.
    The woman screamed his name as he reached his car, screamed at him to stop, to come back, to give her one more chance. He ignored her, slipping behind the wheel and closing the door to her histrionics and crazed yelling. He took a deep breath to calm himself and vowed never again. This was the last time; he was finished with her and her craziness; the weird child-woman antics would be forever banished from his life – and good riddance.
    The car blew apart in a fireball, seeming to draw in a breath as first it crumpled and then erupted up and out, the blossom of flame blinding the woman as the heat from the blast seared her skin. She watched in horrified amazement as the driver’s side door flipped endlessly through the air, then came down to earth with a crash as it landed in the large circular fountain that was the showpiece of the faux-Tuscan entryway.
     
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    The cleaning crew worked methodically from one end of the restaurant dining room, the hunched woman mopping as two young men washed and wiped down the table tops. They chatted in animated Spanish, laughing their way through the mundane drudgery of scrubbing and spraying.
    At the far end of the vacant area, the cashier went over the night’s receipts with the owner, a Caucasian man in his early fifties. It had been a good night following a remarkably good year. Even though the country was impoverished and the average peasant barely made a subsidence-level income, the burgeoning new middle class was prospering and spending freely. After years of war had punished the region and the death squads had disappeared into the night, a new period of peace had taken root and the focus had shifted from executions to capitalism.
    The restaurant was a typical example of the success that could be had, of using one’s wits versus bullets. A popular American southwest franchise, it was cheerfully incongruent with the dense jungle and dirt roads only a stone’s throw away, outside the city’s limits. But inside, it could have been Anywhere, U.S.A. and the menu was faithful to the original franchise concept. Even in San Salvador, families liked fajitas or half-pound cheeseburgers served by perky, uniformed female staff. On most weekends, the place was awash with milkshakes and root beer and blended margaritas.
    Once the armed conflict had ended and the civil warriors had laid down their guns, a fair number of the Americans who had come on behalf of shadowy clandestine groups decided to stay – comfortable after years, or even decades, in the region. Many had local girlfriends or wives and had become accustomed to the local beat, so they chose to remain to build a promising future in the brave new world.
    For those like the owner, the thought of returning to his native Michigan after thirteen years in-country held no appeal. Instead, he’d imported a little slice of American apple pie for local consumption. The result was an instant hit. Hotel traffic was building, and many Gringo franchises flourished as the population, hungry to play catch-up to the rest of the continent, embraced the U.S. consumer culture that it both feared and envied. Even the poor, as they trudged to their laborer jobs on muddy dirt tracks from shanty-towns, were as likely to be wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt as native garb.
    The night’s take accounted for, the owner went into his office and deposited the cash into his floor safe, in readiness for a trip to the bank the next morning. An armed security guard would remain on duty throughout the night and be replaced by another armed guard during business hours. Even in the capital city of El Salvador, San Salvador, the rule of the gun outweighed the rule of law,