The Jaguar

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Hood tossed him the key and the man caught it and opened the lock, unzipped the main compartment and flipped over the top.

  The other man stood in front of the door with his hands crossed contritely in front of him.

  Hood watched the first man rummage through the bundles of cash. He pulled some out, then picked up the whole suitcase and dumped the rest of the money onto the bed. He took a packet of fifties, cut through the plastic with a switchblade and extracted a thin stack of bills. These he fanned with a thumb, closely watching the play of the paper in his hands. When he was done he dropped the fifties into the pile and looked at Hood. “Your phone.”

  Hood popped it from his hip and tossed it. The man dialed and waited a moment, then motioned Hood over to take it.

  Hood held it up to his ear and waited. Erin’s voice was thin and trembling.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Are you okay?”

  “I’ve seen the most terrible things.”

  “Have they hurt you?”

  “They fed a man to leopards and I fainted. I can’t lock the door to my room and I can’t get out and this man says he’ll rape me when he wants to. There’s a priest who wears a gun and young acolytes following him around and I don’t know where I am or what these people are going to do to me. I’m afraid, Charlie. I’m trying to be strong but I’m just damned afraid I’m going to lose everything, even what’s inside me.”

  “Have they hurt you, Erin?”

  “I’m okay, Charlie. Where is Bradley? We only have a few more days. Have you heard from him? Why isn’t he here? No! Wait—”

  As in Tijuana one of the men claimed Hood’s old phone and gave him a new one, another prepaid model, another car charger wrapped around it. The other man handed him a plastic shopping bag containing two Mexico license plates issued apparently by the state of Yucatán. On Armenta’s gulf, thought Hood.

  “Reynosa in one day. You will be called there. Drive through Texas. It is faster than Mexico and more safe. As soon as you cross into Mexico, change the license plates.”

  “I have something for you,” said Hood. He reached for his duffel and both men drew down on him. Hood raised his hands and they nodded and he moved very slowly, working two of the small photo albums from his duffel. He slipped a one-hundred-dollar bill into each before handing one to each of the narcos.

  They looked at Hood blankly, then opened the booklets.

  “Do you know him? Have you seen him?”

  The men flipped patiently through the pictures. One looked up at Hood with an amused smile. The other went through the photos twice.

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Keep them. Show them to the men you work with. Show them to whoever you want. I’ve got a thousand dollars for anyone who can tell me where he is. My numbers are on the last page. Call collect if you want.”

  “Reynosa in one day.”

  When the men were gone Hood called Bradley on the satellite phone. “She’s okay. I just talked to her. She’s scared but she’s okay.”

  “Tell me everything she said.”

  Hood did. When he was finished he listened to the silence at the other end. “Where are you, my friend?” asked Hood.

  “On my way to Veracruz.”

  “Who aimed you there?”

  “Carlos’s people. The bad guys always know where the other bad guys are.”

  “Do you know where they’re keeping her?”

  “Somewhere on the Yucatán peninsula. Trust me, Hood—when I know where she is, you will too. But I suspect you’ll find out long before I do. If I do.”

  “Do you trust Herredia?”

  “I have to. I’m lost down here without him.”

  “I’m guarding this money with my life. I’m doing my job, Bradley.”

  “Tell me everything she said. Please. One more time.”

  Dear Beth

  I hope you are okay and that Daisy has been good company. I’m in Mexico helping some associates who are in a tight spot. It’s a long story and I won’t burden you with it, although I remember you asking me to share my burdens. I’m still learning how to do that. I wish I could blather, warble and yap, as you describe your own talents. I don’t know why I seem to think my burdens are too special, or maybe not special enough, to share. I miss you very much, the hope in your eyes and the sweetness of your breath and the way your hair falls over your forehead and when I lift it back into place it falls again. Lots more than that too.

  Down here it’s another world, Beth. Juarez is devastated by the murders of the women, and the cartels have added another two thousand or so bodies of their own in the last two years. Whole neighborhoods are deserted now, mostly the more prosperous ones because the better–off people have left. Anyone who can afford to leave has gone. The mayor lives in the United States because he fears for his life. I recount these horrors not to impress you with my bravery (or foolishness) but as a way to measure my own puzzlement over why I choose to work along this border of sorrows. I remember you told me how you enjoyed the challenge of treating cancer patients. How you loved the idea that you could win. So I think you must understand what draws me here. I could go back to L.A. anytime. I could get back my patrol in Antelope Valley–you know how I like the desert. But I stay close to Mexico. Why? I believe that I’m needed here though I can’t prove that my actions and sacrifices, or those of the brave men and women I work with, some of which have been far deeper than my own, have accomplished even one tiny bit of good in this lawless place so immune to good fortune. I wonder if a man’s soul can grow used to defeat, and if so, can the soul of a place?

  There are many beauties in this world but none of them touch the beauty that I see in you.

  Your Missing Man,

  Charlie

  13

  “THAT IS NOT VERACRUZ,” said Bradley, poking his finger against the window glass of the Chinook. The air was spotted with turbulence and the ride was rough. “It’s Guadalajara.”

  “There has been a change,” said Fidel. He had piloted the craft for nearly seven hours. They had gotten a late start from El Dorado, which had greatly angered Bradley. “We will stop near Guadalajara.”

  “But Carlos has a safe strip for us in Veracruz.”

  “We need to see some people.”

  “We need to get Erin off the Yucatán. We’re eleven hundred miles from the Yucatán, Fidel. You start late. You make changes. You’re making me angrier.”

  “I am so sorry for that. But we have new information. The man I told you about. The one we were questioning.”

  “We’ve been in the air all day.”

  “It came yesterday.”

  “This is bullshit and I don’t like it. Carlos won’t, either. He recruited you to help me, not to risk Erin’s life.”

  Fidel gave him a dark look that encompassed Erin within his own history. Bradley saw that his quest to save Erin was only a part of Fidel’s quest, a subordinate fragment of the dream that was to avenge his wife and family, and he felt the nearly blind fury stirring inside again. It was always right there, up near the surface, invisible and powerful.

  “Would you like to fly us to Veracruz, Bradley?”

  “I can’t fly this thing.”

  “No, of course not. Then you be a good soldier and do what I tell you to do.”

  Someone pushed into the flight deck. Bradley heard the roar of the motor and rotors when the bulkhead door opened and he turned to see Caroline Vega glaring down at him.

  “You only missed Veracruz by six hundred miles.”

  “I was just explaining that to Fidel,” said Bradley.

  “And I was just explaining to Jones that we have a change of plans,” said Fidel.

  “Like what kind of change?” asked Vega.

  “We need fuel.”

  “What are all those drums of fuel in the back for? I kicked one of them. It wasn’t empty.”

  “You can never have too much fuel,” said Fidel. He turned and sm
iled up at her. “So now we stop for fuel.”

  “Who’s in charge here, Bradley? Is it you or him?”

  “I will let you two decide who is in charge,” said Fidel.

  With this he clicked off his shoulder restraint, stood and left the cockpit.

  “Can you fly this, Brad?”

  “No. You?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  Vega worked her way into the pilot seat and surveyed the instruments before her and reached out her hands but wasn’t sure where to put them. She looked helplessly at Bradley.

  He felt the big machine groaning along but it felt different to him, as if a great weight was climbing onto its back. There was a hesitation and a dreamy yaw that brought his stomach up into his throat.

  “Do something, Brad.”

  He climbed from the copilot seat and clambered out of the flight deck with his hands on the bulkhead for balance and support. He looked back into the huge cargo and passenger bay, where the four black Yukons waited and most of the twenty men napped on litters. Most of the men wore the tan camo fatigues and shirts and desert boots of their leader, but two had changed into navy pants and light blue shirts with white oval patches over the left breast. Fidel was about to open a bottle of Bohemia and sit down with them.

  Bradley approached. “You made your point.”

  The men looked at him with boredom or contempt.

  “Good,” said Fidel. “In another twenty seconds you would have been too late and we would all soon die.”

  “And I have a point to make also, Fidel.” He swung the barrel of his AirLite flush up against Fidel’s forehead, cocking back the hammer mid-swing. “If you’re not on your way to the cockpit in five seconds I’ll pull. I’m sure one of these guys can fly this thing. I will not wait six seconds, Fidel. I simply will not wait. And we are not stopping until we get to Veracruz. So now, five, four, three…”

  Bradley counted fast and on “one,” Fidel shrugged away from the pistol and started for the cockpit. Bradley fell in behind him, gun still up and ready, scanning the hostile eyes of the men as he walked. “Remain clear on who’s running this show, shitbird. And everything will be cool.”

  14

  SHE AWOKE TO SUNLIGHT DASHING through the open window shutters and a symphony of birdsong in the trees outside. A tangle of melodies, she thought. The sun looked in from the eastern sky like a big red face. The palm fronds lifted and dropped and lifted again.

  She lay on her back in the bed with both hands spread over her belly and she silently told her son that everything was good now, everything was good. She thought of Bradley and wondered where he was and what he was doing. She thought of Felix the reporter and banished the memory, and she thought of Saturnino and banished that memory too, and she remembered waking up in this bed, with Armenta and Owens looking down at her as if she were a curiosity or something newly hatched.

  The boy with the golden pompadour brought her coffee and breakfast. He said his name was Atlas. As he arranged her meal he asked her in good English if she had played the Gibson Hummingbird yet.

  “I haven’t touched it,” she lied. It seemed mandatory.

  “Mr. Armenta would be pleased if you did.”

  “Well, isn’t that just dandy.”

  He looked at her and smiled shyly. “Dandy?”

  “What I meant was, I don’t care if I please that monster or not.”

  With a furrowed look he rearranged the cream and the coffeepot. He snapped the napkin in the air and folded it into a fan and set it to the left of the plate. “He is not a monster. The natives call him yaguareté, with respect. It is good to please him. This is his world and he rules over it.”

  “Will he feed me to the leopards if I don’t play his guitar?”

  “It is your guitar. When something appears in your room it means that Mr. Armenta has given it to you. My casita is filled with treasures. I have beautiful clothes. I have Rosetta Stone for English. I have a smart phone. But I cannot use it here for reasons of security.”

  “I don’t want the guitar. I have plenty of them at home.”

  He looked at her and seemed about to speak but did not. He collected his tray and stand and carried them to the door and got his key from his pocket. “Mr. Armenta will be here at twelve o’clock noon, and he will wish you to perform.”

  “Perform?”

  “On the Hummingbird.”

  “Piss on him. Piss on his Hummingbird too.”

  Atlas’s smooth fair face flushed pink and his breath caught. He smiled very slightly and his eyes held both mirth and shame at the mirth, and he backed through the door with tray and stand and was gone.

  Armenta stood formally beside the handsome leather armchair. His back was to the window and the shaded sunlight. His hair was a neglected heap and the lines of his face looked like they had been powdered with ashes. He wore a white Guayabera that called attention to the grayness. He was barefoot. He stood a long while in silence and no birds sang.

  Erin sat at the head of the table watching him. She felt some fear but mostly anger and helplessness. She wondered what would happen to her and her unborn son if she killed Armenta right now. A quick trip to the bathroom would give her the means. She wasn’t sure she could do it but she thought she might. But then what, kill Saturnino too? Then all the Gulf Cartel?

  “What is just is not always popular,” he finally said. “And what is popular is not always just.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry for what you saw.”

  “But not for what you did?”

  “No. What I did was just.”

  “I’ll never agree with you.”

  “Justice is nature and I have been just.”

  “You don’t believe that. Your face betrays you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Explain my face to me.”

  “It looks like something death brought with him in his suitcase.”

  He studied her. “I loved Warren Zevon. I miss his music. Please. Play one of his songs for me on the Hummingbird. Do you know ‘Keep Me in Your Heart’?”

  “I know that song.”

  “When he writes that he is tied to her like the buttons on her blouse. Oh. Perhaps the last song he wrote and he knew this was to be the last. Valentia. To create while he is dying.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  A small twinkle came to Armenta’s depleted eyes. “Yes. And what bravery it is.”

  “The reporter was struggling bravely when the leopards dragged him off.”

  She looked away from him and out a window to where the palm fronds lifted and rode the steady breeze. A cursed beauty, she thought. Two pigeons sat upon the railings of her balcony outside looking down on the coop as if awaiting an invitation. She saw two men dressed in white with white balaclavas covering their heads and faces walking slowly up a path toward the castle. The breeze rippled their garments and they looked insubstantial, she thought, like ghosts.

  “Who are the people in white?” she asked.

  “The lepers.”

  “Why are they the only ones who go to the third floor?”

  “It is theirs.”

  “Why are they here?”

  “Their colonia was destroyed by a hurricane so I brought them here. Once, many years ago, I was pursued by killers. I ran until I was exhausted. My friends were all dead. I had a gun but no bullets. I ran to a leper camp. I did not think my enemies would pursue me but they did. The lepers hid me. I buried myself in a leper’s bed that stunk with the smells of his disease. Men with guns poked the blankets but not me. I told you I am loyal and do not lack compassion.”

  She was aware Armenta had not taken his eyes off her. “So you murder reporters but comfort the sick?”

  “The lepers are loyal and grateful. The reporter was not.”

  “You aren’t God.”

  “I do not want to be.”

  She stood and walked into the bathroom and locked the door. She r
an the faucet and found the derringer at the bottom of the flush box and pulled it out and let it drain over the bowl. It was a heavy little thing with a curved rosewood grip and a stainless-steel body and a funny name—the Cowboy Defender or the Texas Slayer or something like that. It fit easily within the span of her hand. The barrels were “over and under,” as Bradley had said, and it fired two different and powerful charges but she couldn’t remember what they were. He said if she shot at somebody from less than ten feet she’d probably hit her target. More than fifteen feet away just forget it. Head if you can, heart if you can’t. Squeeze the trigger, never yank it.

  Shoot him, then what? she thought. Easy: dress in new designer fashions. Use his key to leave the room. Outrun Saturnino and all of the Gulf Cartel gunmen, dodge the loyal servants and the gun-toting padre and the lepers and vanish into the jungle. Live on roots and bugs and dew collected in palm fronds. Move by night. Find a village. Use the cash to get a car or boat to the nearest airport. Done. One blast of the Cowboy Exploder and I’m home free with my son safe and sound inside.

  She looked down at the thing, its barrels gaping like the nostrils of a pig, then she ran faucet water and quietly set the gun back down in the tank. She thought: I’ll kill someone when it will do me some good. Yes. Her hands trembled badly as she splashed water onto her face and dried it and when she went back into the room Armenta was watching her with his lugubrious eyes.

  He held the Hummingbird toward her with both hands. “Please now perform.”

  She took the instrument because her nature was to play it and because playing gave her strength. She heard the faint harmonics of the box and strings brushing through the air as she walked across the room. She sat down on one of the dining room chairs and played the first few phrases of Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart.”

  The guitar had a beautiful tone, rich and detailed and seemingly derived from more than just six strings and a hollow body. The smell of the instrument coming through the hole was a quiet thrill for her, as always. Different smells for different guitars, of course, different woods and glues and finishes. But her hands and voice were afraid and unsteady and she couldn’t get them to care. She tried to lose herself in the song anyway but failed, and the failure brought her back to who and where she was. Her voice fell and cracked and she let it lay there.