by Ryan Schow
He was not an unattractive man.
“Two things,” he said. “But first, take off the hat. I want to see your eyes.”
“Why?”
“They’re going to tell me a story.”
She turned and looked at him, hat still on. Her eyes found his while using the brim for cover. In a flash, he snatched the hat off. It happened so fast she could hardly catch her breath.
“Fix your hair,” he said, calm.
Flared nostrils, scared, she looked at this guy with an American accent and the eyes of a predator.
“Go on,” he said, looking at the top of her head. “Fix it.”
She fixed her hair as best as she could and he put the hat down on the bar between them.
“First thing,” he said, going back to his drink, “you can’t hide your beauty from me.”
Her beauty. The family curse. Her father once went so far as to say he regretted having sex with Eliana’s mother. When she got the courage to ask why that was, he told her it was because men always wanted something from a beautiful woman, and other women almost always hated these beautiful women out of jealousy. Beauty was the curse that kept on giving.
“Was it that bad for my mother?” she asked her father.
“It was that bad for me,” he answered.
Her mother killed herself when Eliana was ten. She couldn’t take the violent, unstable life in Guatemala. She’d overdosed on black tar heroin.
“Beauty is a subjective thing,” she told the stranger at the bar. “Where I’m from, it will get you killed, or worse.” She was afraid to look at him, even though he was not yet a threat to her. “And the second thing?”
“Your eyes told me an intriguing story.”
“And what do they say?” she asked, finally looking at the man, allowing herself to take in his rugged looks. He was handsome, but in an arrogant way. Typical. He had longish hair hanging low in his face, heavy eyebrows over eyes too cold and too empty to tell her anything. He wore a heavy beard, maybe two month’s worth of growth, but it was well kept. When he spoke, she looked at his lips, wondered who she would be had her father let her fall in love with a boy. Now she sat before a man feeling like a child. Completely unschooled in the art of conversation.
“Where are you going?” he asked, changing course.
“None of your business.”
“The second you started asking about Manuel Robles, you put yourself on the radar of about three guys in here.”
“Meaning?”
“You can’t hide now.”
“I’m not trying to hide,” she stated.
“That’s what your eyes tell me. They say you are out of your element, but exactly where you want to be. They also tell me you’ve seen things, done things, that you are a woman interested in the activities of men, of sick men. Let me see that picture.”
Reluctantly, she handed it over. He looked at it for a long time before handing it back.
“She’s an attractive child.”
“Don’t remind me.”
He raised an eyebrow, his face an unasked question.
“Beauty is a curse, I get it,” he said.
“I have a father who has resented me for my mother’s looks all my life.”
He looked at the hat, nudged it her way.
She put it back on.
“Where are you going, chica?”
“I already told you.” She sipped her beer, then turned and looked him dead in the eye. “What’s your name?”
“Isadoro. And yours?”
“If I’m right, I think I’ll be heading to Chicago,” she said, opting to answer only one of the two questions he had asked.
“You tell me your destination, but not your name?” he mused, a sly smile on his face.
“You don’t need to know me.”
“I couldn’t care less about you. But you have cash on you and you are indeed out of your element. If you’re not careful, you’ll disappear. Or catch a case.”
“Catch a case?”
“Get arrested, thrown in jail, then swallowed into the system. You’re after something larger than you can imagine. On your own, you’ll find a few facilitators—taxi drivers, hotel operators, labor brokers—but they are bottom feeders. This is Juarez, not some crap town in wherever country your dirty ass came from.”
“Guatemala City.”
He opened his palms in a gesture that said she’d just proven his point.
“These guys you’re looking for, this information, you don’t want to mess around with them because you don’t know what hell really feels like until you’re pulled into the heart of it. And mark my words, this is the heart of it. The first thing they’ll do is pass you around a pimp circle, turn you out in the worst way, then you’ll get hooked on whatever the worst drug it is they’re slinging. Fentanyl laced heroin is my best guess. Your life will basically be over. You’ll want to kill yourself every single second of every single day.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“I just do.”
Without intending to, Eliana pursed her lips and hardened her eyes.
“You want to find your niece,” he continued, “but you want to make them pay for taking her, right?”
“Of course.”
“You are a fluffy white rabbit stepping into an alligator’s den the likes of which a nice, pretty piece of meat like you could never understand, indecent as you may be.”
“Don’t patronize me. I can handle myself just fine.”
“I think I can get you in,” he said, “but it will be a waste, seeing you in this life, or worse, seeing you dead with nothing to show for your efforts.”
“You won’t change my mind,” she said.
“I can see that,” he mused, smoothing down his beard. “The people I work with are interested in only one thing. Profit. Lots of it. If you have any hope of getting in to see them, it’s with the promise of sex and the willingness to work. And that’s only if you clean up well.”
“You can help me?” she asked. “You really know these men?”
“If you’re half as good looking as I think you are, your looks will be your ticket in. If you’re serious about this, you’ll need to meet me tomorrow evening, but you will have to do exactly what I say, deal?”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Let’s just say I want to see how hard you can kick this hornet’s nest.”
“You work for these people, don’t you?” she asked. He neither blinked nor looked away. She said, “What do you do for them?”
“I’m a garbage man.”
“Their janitor?”
“In a way.”
“You’re too pretty to be a janitor,” she said, not meaning to pay him a compliment, even a backhanded one at that.
“Now who’s patronizing who?”
“What I meant to say was that you’re too fast to be someone who picks up their old rubbers and beer cans.”
His eyes roamed the remaining patrons. Not looking at her, he said, “I’m not a janitor in that capacity.”
“Human garbage?” she asked.
He nodded.
Eyes back on her.
“A sicario?” she asked, flabbergasted. Then: “A hitman?”
Now Isadoro made an indifferent face, slightly rocking his head left then right, smiling in a thin acknowledgement of sorts.
“What’s to say you won’t kill me tonight?”
“I might.”
“Is there a reason you wouldn’t kill me?”
“If my employer catches you and asks me to kill you, then I will kill you no matter how lovely you look.”
“And if he doesn’t? If you can get me in clean and I can…do what I need to do?”
“Then you live.”
“You are a strange man, Isadoro. Not what I’d expect out of a hitman.”
“You will never meet another like me.”
He gave her a time, said he’d pick her up then. The conversation clearly over, he left a
few bills on the bar, then stood and walked off. On the television above, as she finished her beer, Eliana was seeing pictures of New York, Chicago and El Paso with dozens of drones in the sky above the cities.
In Spanish, the headline read: MYSTERY DRONES PART OF DOMESTIC TRAINING EXCERCISE? US MILITARY SAYS NO.
In smaller lettering, the ticker tape line at the bottom of the screen read: MULTIPLE CITIES ARE REPORTING UNUSUAL DRONE ACTIVITY, INCLUDING RANDOM “MALFUNCTIONS” OF THE NEWER, MORE ADVANCED HARDWARE.
“Do you know about this?” she asked the bartender while pointing at the television.
“No. But you know American TV, there is no such thing as truth anymore.”
“Will you change the channel, please?”
He obliged her. She nursed the rest of her drink, took her time. Anyone interested in her was long gone by the time she made good on the tab with the barkeep.
When the barkeep said, “My memory is clear now,” she looked back and said, “Thanks, but I got all I needed here.”
Chapter Four
Three different hotels refused to take Eliana’s money and give her a room, but a fourth establishment took a healthy bribe in exchange for an overpriced room. She grabbed a disposable razor and a small can of shaving cream from a travel aisle and said, “This included.”
Begrudgingly, the manager nodded.
Eliana’s only condition had been that her room have a hot shower and that she could borrow an electric razor. The manager promised her both.
Before she showered, she flipped out the flat blade of the electric razor and trimmed her pubic region, feeling better already. After that she got in the shower, shaved her legs and stomach then washed her hair and soaped down her body. To her delight, there was still some hot water left, so she stood under the stream until it ran cold.
Refreshed, she towel-dried her hair, used an old hair dryer under the sink to blow it out, then put it in a ponytail and went to bed. The next morning came too soon. She was not ready to get up just yet, but the sun was cutting through the drapes and prying at her eyes. She put on her old clothes, went downstairs and returned the razor.
“Where can a girl get some makeup nearby?” she asked then concierge. He was looking at her funny, clearly taken aback by the change in her appearance.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I had no idea you were this…striking,” he said, nearly breathless.
“You will only see this once,” she said. “Now about that makeup.”
She bought enough makeup for the evening, and then she went to a store that sold women’s clothes where she bought something simple yet elegant. Back at her hotel room, she did her hair, her makeup and put on her new dress and heels. She did not feel like herself. Her father would pull out his gun and shoot her if he saw the clothes she was wearing, or the paint on her face.
A soft knock on the door startled her.
She drew her gun, then went to answer it. When she cracked it open, she saw Isadoro. She pulled the door open and invited him in. At first he seemed surprised by her appearance, but he quickly concealed his emotions.
That was fast.
“You look quite beautiful for a dead girl,” he finally said.
“I’m not even close to dead,” she replied.
“So I have a way in, but if you survive, you’re going to have to get yourself out,” he told her. She started to speak, but then he said, “You are my virgin cousin, an offering from me in return for the promise of more work.”
“Do you need more work?”
He gave her a dismissive wave, then asked, “Can you fight?”
She started to answer just as he threw a punch right at her nose. She backed up an inch, instinctively checked his hand, then turned her gun on him.
Smiling, he had a gun on her, too.
“You just might be alright,” he said. She had the feeling he was impressed, but he wasn’t about to say so. Instead, he put his gun away, then took in her less-than-humble digs.
“Are you sure you can get me in?” she asked.
“Yes, but you can’t continue to be my virginal cousin if what you want is information. You might have to give him some of yourself, specifically your virginity.”
“It won’t be a problem,” she said, her voice weaker sounding than she wanted. Her stomach was in her throat at the thought of being naked in front of yet another stranger.
“You would not speak so lightly of this had you already seen this man,” Isadoro said with concern in his voice. “The very sight of him is a drying sensation, if you catch my drift.”
She took a deep breath, steadied herself. The two men who tried to rape her and the kids at the first checkpoint elicited a drying sensation, too.
You can do this.
“Just get me in,” she said.
He handed her a long metal hairpin. “He loves a girl with her hair pulled up. It sets off the jawline just right. Plus, this one’s a biter. He’ll want to nibble on your neck before he marks you.”
She studied the hairpin, saw its use as a short dagger. She already knew where she would cut the man.
“If this man is your employer, why are you allowing me to kill him?”
“Do you know the saying, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’”
“He’s your enemy?”
“You will be getting me an audience before a man I have been trying to meet for a very long time.”
“So you used me?”
“We all use each other in this city,” he said without an ounce of pretense. “It is the nature of greed and corruption.”
“So you’re okay if I kill him once I’m done with him?”
“If you don’t do it, I will.”
“Why?”
“Because I loathe this city. It is a hungry dog that cannot stop feeding on itself. Its appetite is unrelenting and it gorges itself on those who were once kind, good and decent. Beyond that, there are more compelling reasons for my intended departure. Nothing I will share with you though, so please don’t ask again.”
“What will you do?” she asked.
“Go home.”
“Where is home?”
“Not here.”
“Fair enough,” she said, a hollow feeling in her gut. “I’m ready now.”
Isadoro’s boss’s gigantic mansion sat deep in a lovely but somewhat bleak property behind two layers of security and a reinforced border wall. The guards showed no interest in Eliana, which had her doubting herself.
Isadoro saw this and said, “They are paid not to see what they see. If they think you are attractive, they will never tell you. You’ll never know. Try not to take it personal.”
“Have you ever been here before?” she asked.
“This will be the first time.”
They were escorted into the gigantic estate one could only describe as lavishly overdone. It appeared the owner was trying to make a point of saying he could have everything he ever wanted, good taste notwithstanding. Surprisingly, for the most part, the man did have good taste.
Then again, she could hardly breathe, it was so beautiful.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her gaze drawn to the glass dome in the center of the home—the cupola.
“Don’t act like that,” Isadoro warned with a fair amount of prudence.
The splendor of the foyer’s centerpiece alone—the dome—left her open-mouthed and speechless. What shocked her most, however, was her ability to be surprised at anything, much less moved to such emotion. She was sure any sense of wonderment or delight had long ago been routed out of her.
“Close your mouth,” Isadoro hissed.
She shut her mouth and restrained her awe while trying to ignore the ridiculous levels of opulence and rich trappings associated with upward mobility and the ultra elite. In a large cage, under the glass dome, was a black panther. This she could not ignore. The panther sat in the middle of this cage, eyes lazily watching Eliana.
“How cliché,” Isadoro said under his breath.
Eliana couldn’t help wondering what kind of a narcissist kept a black panther in a cage that large in the middle of their home. She hated this man already for his profession, but now her animosity for him reached all new levels.
Seeing this breathtaking creature—her eyes meeting its eyes—she felt a profound sorrow in her heart for it. Like her, this was another creature put in a cage, punished for its beauty.
She saw several servant women moving about the house with purpose; their faces were as passive as any good servant’s face should be. She recognized something of herself in these women. They acted uninterested to see her. They acted afraid. Or did they know she would either be turned out or dead sometime in the next twenty minutes?
If things went wrong, that was both the risk and the retribution.
Eliana’s heart climbed into her throat, threatened to choke her. A sheen of perspiration broke over her forehead, but she dared not wipe it away for fear of ruining the makeup she had so judiciously applied only hours ago.
Isadoro snuck a glance at her, saw the sweat, then crinkled his brow and said, “Jesus kid, get it together. And no reckless eyeballing when you get inside. Eyes on him. Smile like you can’t wait to have him abuse you. That’s how you mitigate his concerns. And mine.”
She drew a breath in her nose, let it slowly out of her mouth and thought about all the ways her father taught her to kill. She thought about this and lamented her inability to kill the old man when she finally surpassed him in speed and agility. She could have killed her father in their last days of training; instead she injured him little by little until he didn’t stand a chance against her.
When she walked past two guards at the door, they frisked her, leaving nothing left of her modesty intact.
I am just meat to them, she thought. I am profit. A commodity.
Disgusting.
Isadoro introduced himself to Pablo “Las Hacha” Cubidero. The hatchet. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry so she stopped trying.
She wondered if this pig of a man killed people with a hatchet.
Was that how he got his nickname?
“Well this is certainly a nice surprise…” Cubidero said to Isadoro.
He was looking right at Eliana with longing in his eyes, or perhaps need. Cubidero opened his arms in invitation to her and she walked right into them. He kissed her on the lips, this grotesque sow with sweaty fingers and greasy lips; she smiled, acted like his attention was not only welcome but appreciated.