Disappeared

by Francisco X. Stork

  They walk to the awning where the bikes are kept. Perla Rubi is right. Since Emiliano’s father abandoned them, he’s been filled with a wanting that’s a lot like anger. Every month when he and Sara sit at the kitchen table to pay the bills, he wants more and more to be rich. He wants a nice house for his mother, the kind of house his father was planning to buy before he left for the United States. He wants a motorcycle so he can get Sara to and from work safely. He wants to give his family and himself all that his father promised to give but didn’t. This wanting became more intense after he met Perla Rubi.

  Emiliano rolls out his old bike with the trailer attached. “Got to go. Duty calls,” he says.

  “Whenever I see you on your bike, you remind me of a knight and his horse.”

  “That’s it,” he says, mounting the bike. “I’m the knight off to kill the dragon and you’re the princess. My princess. Princess Perla Rubi de la Esmeralda.”

  She grins. “Go slay the dragon, my knight, Don Emiliano de la Zapata. I’ll be here waiting.”

  Sara gets a call from Lupita, the secretary who Felipe and Juana share. “The big bad boss wants to see you. Like now.”

  When Sara gets to Felipe’s office, he is, as usual, doing three things at once: talking to the staff photographer, Elias; holding a phone to his ear; and typing on his keyboard. “You’re on with the Boy Scouts article. Wednesday’s edition,” he tells Sara. “Elias will take pictures.”

  “What?”

  “He means the Jiparis,” Elias says.

  “Wednesday? This coming Wednesday?” Sara says.

  “A week from this coming Wednesday. So we got time to do some deep, undercover, investigative research together.” Elias waggles his eyebrows at her. “He wants us to go on an overnight trip with the group. We’ll have to share a tent.”

  “In your dreams.” Sara says. “Oh, I think I may need some pictures for the article I’m writing on the new city buses.”

  “Anything for you,” Elias says.

  Sara rolls her eyes. Why should Elias be any different today? Back at her desk, she looks at the business card that Juana gave her. Enrique Cortázar. She doesn’t recognize the name. A rich developer willing to advertise in El Sol. How can interviewing someone about a mall be more important than investigating the disappearance of young girls?

  Every job has its bad parts. She opens her top drawer and places the card in there. First she has to write the Jipari article. On the group’s website, she finds a piece about how the Jiparis got started. The name Jipari comes from the Tarahumara, an indigenous people in the western part of Chihuahua. The Tarahumaras played a game called rarájipari with a wooden ball. Teams of four kicked the ball over many miles, and when one got tired, the person running behind him continued the game. The Jiparis try to support one another in that same fashion.

  Sara knows she needs a specific example of how the Jiparis changed the lives of one of their members. Emiliano’s story would be perfect. Two years ago, after their father left, he was caught shoplifting an expensive video camera from an electronics store. He would have gone to jail if Brother Patricio had not intervened. A week later, Brother Patricio took Emiliano on a hiking trip to the Sierra Tarahumara. Emiliano has never talked about that trip, but something important happened there, because when he returned, the shoplifting and petty theft were over and he and Brother Patricio founded the Jiparis. There’s no better Jipari story than that.

  But she would need to get Emiliano’s consent to write about him, and there’s no way he would agree. The delinquent period in his life is not something her brother likes to talk about. Maybe she can interview his friend Javier. Emiliano told her that Brother Patricio found Javier in a juvenile detention center where he was sent for stealing to support a heroin addiction. It was Emiliano who discovered Javier’s talent for making paper piñatas and all kinds of papier-mâché animals. Now Emiliano sells his sculptures in folk art stores around Juárez, and Javier helps support his mother and three sisters while going to school. Javier lives in one of Juárez’s worst slums, so a photograph of Javier in front of his house would be good. She stands to walk over to Elias’s desk, but then sees Ernesto and Guillermo, one of the senior reporters at El Sol, talking to each other. Guillermo motions for her to come over.

  “Sara, can you believe this guy is not coming to my daughter’s quinceañera tonight? Tell him that’s not acceptable,” Guillermo says.

  “I don’t believe in quinceañeras,” Ernesto says to Sara. “It’s ridiculous to spend all that money on dresses and hairdos. Why? Just so his daughter can boast that her party was better than some other girl’s. He should put the money into a savings account for college.”

  Sara happens to agree with Ernesto, but she knows how much Guillermo loves Aracelis, his only daughter. “I think the quinceañera obviously means a lot to Aracelis,” she says, “and we should respect Guillermo’s wishes to make her happy.”

  Ernesto gives her one of those I expected more from you looks. “That’s why we never get anywhere in this country. Sentimental crap.”

  “You have a computer chip for a heart,” Guillermo says.

  “And you have a sponge for a brain.”

  “Why do we have to work with people like him?” Guillermo asks Sara.

  “You know I’m right, even if you don’t admit it,” Ernesto tells him.

  “You’re coming, right, Sara?” Guillermo says to her.

  “Yes, I wouldn’t miss it. And thanks for letting me bring my mother as my date. Ernesto, you should come. Even if you dislike quinceañeras on principle, Guillermo is your best friend here at work. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ernesto says. “Hey, do you have a few minutes, Sara? I have something for you.”

  “Yes.” Ernesto starts walking toward the stairs. Sara says to Guillermo, “Don’t mind him. He only pretends to be a jerk.”

  Guillermo waves. “Don’t worry, I know he’s a teddy bear deep down. Way deep down.”

  “See you tonight,” Sara says, laughing.

  The IT department is one floor below the main newsroom in a windowless space that is always cold. When Sara started working at El Sol as an intern, the only empty desk she could find was in that room, and she learned to love the quiet and the air-conditioning. Now, whenever she has trouble writing something, she goes down there to work, away from the noisy telephone conversations and heat of the news floor. Unlike the IT room, which needs an air conditioner to keep the servers from overheating, the news floor is kept “cool” during the hot summer months by a dozen or so floor fans that whir and clang like the propellers on early planes.

  Ernesto sits at his desk and clicks on the screen. Then he begins to type.

  “Damn place,” he says, noticing Sara. He seems to have forgotten that he asked her to come down. “Juana wants me to revise my budget proposal. Year after year I ask for new computers and year after year I get shot down.” He hits the side of his computer screen. “This equipment is so old the company that makes the computers doesn’t exist anymore. How are we supposed to do our work driving cars from The Flintstones when the rest of the world is zipping around in BMWs?” He stands and pushes his black thick-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “What’s up?”

  “You said you had something for me. Maybe the e-mail I gave you? Did the Jaqueros find anything on it?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He looks around like he’s making sure no one else is near. “We weren’t able to trace the e-mail fully, but the person who sent it”—he peers down at his screen—“jeremias28@gmx.at, is no dummy. The methodology used to hide its origin is super sophisticated, like I told you. Jeremias is probably not a guy but a moniker for an organization.”

  “If that’s the case,” Sara says, “whoever sent the message must know it wouldn’t take us long to find that out.”

  Ernesto grins. “Glad to see someone around here has some actual brains! Yes, you can say that with this e-mail, the medium is
the message.”

  “The sender wants us to be aware of his power.”

  “Or her power. Why do women always assume that evil is masculine?”

  She gives him her best get real face.

  “Yeah. Okay. He may have wanted you to know generally of his clout, but I don’t think he meant for you to find out where he was clouting from.”

  Sara feels her heart rate pick up. “So you found out where it came from?”

  “Not precisely. But Tovar, one of our best Jaqueros, recognized the encryption method from a corruption case he investigated a few years back. The same foreign bounce points used to hide the source of those e-mails were used with this one.”

  “What kind of case?”

  Ernesto lowers his voice and glances at the door. “He was investigating some e-mails from cartel members, and he found communications between the cartel and the State Police.”

  “The State Police?” Sara sits down. She remembers the State Police officer telling Mrs. Fuentes that Linda was probably having a drink with a boy. The lack of sympathy, the repugnant smirk on his face. How many times has she gone to the State Police headquarters to ask if they have any news about Linda, only to wait for hours on those hard orange chairs while officers come and go? They laugh and talk about where to go for lunch, not giving a damn about the missing girls. Their unconcern is one thing, but this direct involvement is quite another. It is the worst fear of the mothers of missing girls coming true.

  She thinks. “There’s no way of finding out who in the State Police is involved exactly? Or where?”

  “These people are good, technologically speaking. Tovar thinks someone detected his search this morning.”

  “Oh. Is that dangerous?”

  “They’re good, but we’re better. The thing is, these people are very bad people. You should see some of the e-mails they’ve sent the Jaqueros.”

  “So you’ve taken this as far as it can go,” Sara says.

  “We’ll keep going if you want us to,” Ernesto answers. “But the more we dig, the more you and your family are in danger. This is not your run-of-the-mill threat. They already know we’re up to something, and soon they’ll figure out you’re with us. We’ll stop if you tell us.”

  “Thank you,” Sara manages to say. She stands and walks back to the newsroom, dazed. If Ernesto can find the source of the e-mail, that might lead to an actual person involved in the abduction of the girls. Investigating that person might take them to Linda. She finally has a lead on the people responsible for the Desaparecidas and maybe even on Linda’s whereabouts. It’s a tenuous lead, but a lead nevertheless.

  She sits at her desk and takes out the picture of Linda that she keeps in the middle drawer. Linda was beautiful. Five feet seven, slim, long black hair, big hazel eyes. But more than that, she had a pulsating sun of happiness inside her that shone day or night. Sara doesn’t remember ever seeing her sad or moody. In the picture, she’s laughing, reaching out for the dangling string of a purple helium balloon that has just escaped her grasp.

  Sara goes over Ernesto’s words. There’s no doubt that they are dealing with people who would kill her in the blink of an eye. She’s done too many stories about dead girls not to be afraid, not to know what these people are capable of doing. But this is Linda. Her best friend. And even if she wasn’t Sara’s best friend, she’s a human being. Sara thinks of all the suffering people who pray that they are not forgotten, that there are others brave enough to keep believing every human life matters.

  She opens a new e-mail and directs it to Ernesto. Then she types “Linda Fuentes” on the subject line. Below that she writes:

  Proceed.

  Emiliano takes Calle Ignacio Mejía toward Zaragoza Boulevard. The sky is pale blue and cloudless. It’s perfect weather to bike the twenty or so miles he’ll need to cover today. He rings the bell on the old bike a couple of times and waves at Cristobal, who is coming back from the corner store with a soda.

  “I’ll take good care of Perlita,” Cristobal yells after him.

  Emiliano picks up speed going downhill and a cool breeze brushes his face. He’s got to hurry if he wants to get to Taurus in time to see Armando. He could head there first, but Javier’s neighborhood is closer. Javier will have at least three piñatas. Maybe his sister Rosario will have made something like the mask she made last week. But it is Doña Pepa’s beaded purse that will bring in the big money today. The last time she made one, he got nine hundred pesos for her.

  He turns right on Avenida Juárez, staying as close to the side of the road as he can. Even so, he can feel the cars whizzing by, inches away from him. Some sick people think it’s fun to come as close as they can to his trailer and bike. He ignores them. Life’s too short to waste valuable energy on imbeciles. Anger is energy, and energy needs to be carefully preserved, like water on a three-day desert hike. He slows down. Of all the things he’s learned from the desert, knowing how to pace himself is probably the most important one. “Slow and steady, lads,” as Brother Patricio likes to say. “Do not haste but do not waste.”

  Emiliano prefers to go to Javier’s house in the early morning when most of the residents are sleeping. Last month, two guys about Sara’s age stopped him on the dirt road and pointed pistols at him. He’s alive only because he had cash to give them and they were in a rush to get their next fix. But what can he do? Javier is one of the best contributors to Emiliano’s business. The smaller the papier-mâché object, the harder it is to make, and Javier’s miniature piñatas are incredibly popular with American buyers. Lalo sells them to airport shops in Houston and Austin.

  Emiliano dismounts his bike to climb the hill to Javier’s house. He maneuvers around the potholes that fill the dirt street and holds his breath when the smell of a sewer becomes unbearable. Javier’s house, like most of the dwellings in this barrio, is really more of a shack, made from discarded construction materials like chipped cinder blocks and cracked bricks, as well as rusty pieces of tin and used plywood. Despite this, it’s still one of the most carefully constructed houses in the whole place. Where most of them look as if a desert wind will blow them down, Javier’s home is sturdy, built with the same care as his piñatas.

  Emiliano knocks gently on the plywood board that serves as a door. The littlest girl, Nieves, sticks her head out and smiles shyly.

  “Is your brother home?”

  She shakes her head. The door opens fully. “Emiliano! Come in, come in!” says Mrs. Robles, her face lighting up. She would look not much older than Sara if it weren’t for the tired, dark circles under her eyes and the white streaks in her hair. “Javier had to go to the store to buy supplies. He left three piñatas for you. Come in.”

  “Thank you, but I have to get going. I got a late start today.”

  “Still, sit down for a moment. Have a glass of water. You look hot. The girls want to show you something.” Emiliano steps inside. It took him thirty-five minutes of pedaling and breathing diesel smoke to get here, not to mention the climb up the hill. He can sit for a moment. “Rosario, can you put the fan on for Emiliano?”

  Rosario, Javier’s older sister, rises slowly from a cot in the corner where she’s been sitting. “Hello, Emiliano,” she says warmly. “I made something for you.” She bends down to get something from under the cot.

  “The fan first, girl. You can show him later after he’s cooled down.”

  “I’ll get the fan.” It’s so dark in the shack that Emiliano did not see Javier’s middle sister, Marta, sitting on another cot. She reaches for a small electric fan on top of the only dresser in the room and brings it to the table, her arm shaking. She climbs up on a chair and tries to plug the fan’s cord into the outlet with the room’s only lightbulb. Every person in the room, it seems, holds their breath until the fan starts to whir. Mrs. Robles leads Emiliano to a chair in front of the fan.

  “Look.” Rosario presents him with a rag doll dressed like a Mayan princess. The doll has a white dress with purple embroidered flo
wers on the hem and a white blouse with intricate pink designs on the sleeves. The head is covered with a scarf lined with tiny blue stars. The doll’s face is primitive looking but friendly, warm.

  “I didn’t know you made dolls,” Emiliano says, admiring it. “I really liked that jaguar mask you made. This is pretty amazing.”

  “You think someone will buy it?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Emiliano says, squeezing the doll. He imagines a little girl hugging it for comfort.

  Mrs. Robles takes a jar from a plastic cooler on the floor and fills a glass with water. “It’s good water,” she assures him. “We always boil it first.”

  “I’m making stuff too,” Marta says. “Javier’s teaching me to make papier-mâché animals. Want to see?”

  “Let’s not bother Emiliano with all our handiwork,” Mrs. Robles says. Then to Emiliano, “The girls enjoy making things for you.” Nieves, standing next to Mrs. Robles, pulls at her mother’s dress. “What is it, little one?”

  “I made something,” Nieves whispers to her mother.

  Before Emiliano can say anything, Marta drops some kind of multicolored creature on his lap. “A leopard,” she tells him. “Only the spots are different colors.”

  “It’s different,” Emiliano says. Something’s not right with the leopard, but he doesn’t know what.

  “It’s the tail. The tail’s too short. And he doesn’t have any ears,” Rosario says, reading his mind.

  Marta sticks her tongue out at Rosario, even though the words were said with kindness. “If the tail was longer it could be a rat. And he does have ears. He’s a baby leopard, so his ears haven’t grown.”

  Now Nieves is tentatively presenting him with an ordinary piece of cardboard. She turns it over. Bottle caps have been glued on to form a picture. “Wow, you did this?” Emiliano asks her, taking the cardboard from her hands. She nods and hides behind her mother.