by Sam Hawken
‘Where are you, Jack?’
‘In the same place. I’m losing my mind here.’
‘You mustn’t be seen out in the city,’ Gonzalo said. ‘Don’t leave.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I am at home. I just returned from a meeting with Captain Alvares.’
‘Alvares? What did he want?’
‘To tell me Guadalupe and Fregoso are dead.’
Jack breathed. Then he said, ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him nothing. As far as Alvares is concerned, águila is responsible for their deaths.’
‘Then that’s good,’ Jack said.
‘Only until águila is found dead. How will that be explained away?’
Jack was in Bernardo’s bedroom and he stood looking out the dirty window at the alley. As he watched, a rat scurried from the dented trashcans of a neighbor and vanished out of sight. At night the cats went hunting and he heard them calling to one another and fighting. The alley was the same as the city. ‘By the time anyone figures out what’s happened, Marina and I will be across the bridge.’
‘And when they come to ask Patricia Sigala how she came to return home? What will she tell them? That some helpful narcos killed the man who took her before carrying out a rescue? You have to think, Jack.’
‘Don’t tell me I can’t do this. If you don’t want to go the rest of the way, then I’ll understand. I can do it alone,’ Jack said.
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Then are you in?’
‘I could walk away, Jack. I could. They’re dangling my job in front of me. All I have to do is reach out and take it. Then I can go back to the way things were. Before all of this.’
‘You know the way things were was shit.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have to know, Gonzalo. I have to know you’re in this. I can’t make plans if you’re halfway out the door. I need a partner.’
Gonzalo sighed deeply and for a moment Jack thought the call was ended. ‘If I don’t come with you, you’ll die,’ Gonzalo said. ‘I can’t let that happen.’
Jack felt relief he hadn’t expected. For the first time he felt as though he could take a real breath and his lips were not dry. ‘I told you: we’re going to make this work.’
‘There is one other thing, Jack.’
‘What?’
‘What if we do not find what we are looking for?’
Jack felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. ‘You mean what if they’re dead,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘They aren’t dead. This all means something. They’re alive.’
‘All right. I believe you. Tomorrow we’ll meet,’ Gonzalo said. ‘We’ll see águila together.’
‘Thank you, Gonzalo.’
‘De nada. Rest now. We’ll talk again in the morning.’
‘Goodbye.’
He held the quiet phone in his hand and for a long time he stood in the square of light from the window without moving or thinking or hearing anything but the sound of his own breathing. Jack was elsewhere, on a city street in front of a cantina with no name.
When the daydream passed and he was back again, he sat on the edge of the bed and dialed a number from memory. It rang and rang and finally it went to voicemail. Silently Jack was relieved. ‘Lidia,’ he said, ‘it’s me. I wanted to talk to you one more time, but I guess you’re not answering your phone. That’s okay because I have a lot to say and I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere if we just go around and around.
‘I need you to listen to me. I know I’ve been real bad about explaining why I’m here and what I’m doing, but you have to trust me when I say it’s the only way. And it’s not about me being a hero like I said before. It’s about me being a father. And I don’t care what anyone else says, I am your father and I’m Marina’s father, too. Fathers have to do things sometimes.
‘Tomorrow I’m gonna talk to a man who’s gonna tell me where Marina and Patricia are. He’s gonna tell me whether he wants to or not. But I’m not gonna lie to you and say it won’t be dangerous, because it is.
‘If I don’t… if I don’t make it back, I want you to know that I love you. I have a will and you and Marina are entitled to everything I have, including the house. I got a life insurance policy after your mother died. That’s all yours, too. I don’t know how the state’s going to handle things if you don’t have any mother or father, but I do know that you’ll be taken care of. You’re a smart girl and you’ll make it through all right.’
Jack paused then and he took a few deep breaths to quash the tears that threatened to rise up and take him over. He would not cry. When he hung up it would be different, but he wouldn’t have Lidia hear him cry.
‘I have to go now. I wish I could see you again, but you’re safer where you are. Just promise me that you’ll look after yourself no matter what happens and don’t forget that I love you like you were my own. You and Marina both. Never forget. Goodbye.’
He ended the call and put his face in his hands and cried then. His body shuddered with aching sobs and for a wild moment he thought of leaving this place and driving away, away, over the bridge and back to the home he shared with Marina and Lidia, but that thought did not last long. He drowned it in tears, and when he surfaced again he was empty of everything but the belief that he would not cross the river again until he had Marina with him.
‘I’m sorry, honey,’ he said to the deserted bedroom. ‘God knows I’m sorry.’
EIGHTEEN
GONZALO HAD PASSED THE CHURCH many times, but he had never gone inside. He had been raised Catholic and so he had a fear of God in the great spaces inside God’s houses, but when he was grown he found the fear did not call him to worship anymore, but drove him away instead. The last church he had entered had been the little one his mother had attended in the years after his father died, and then only to see her away to the graveyard herself. He hadn’t known any of the people who introduced themselves to him, and the priest who said the mass seemed interested only in doing what needed to be done as quickly as possible.
On the morning of the day, Gonzalo dressed as if he were having an audience with the commander of the police force. Everything was pressed and clean and still held the heat of the iron when he put it on. He put his badge and identification in his inside pocket where it belonged. He put on the ankle holster that held his gun.
He bought breakfast at a little restaurant near his apartment even though he wasn’t at all hungry. The tip he left behind was generous. His plan was to drive straight to Bernardo Sigala’s house to meet Jack, but he had passed the church and before he had time to think about it he had circled around and found a place to park near by.
No doubt there were bigger and more impressive churches to be found. The city had its own cathedral, its central pillar a tower of stained glass surmounted by a great white cross. It must have been very majestic in there. By contrast this church had the feel of something old, with the dingy elegance of a thing left neglected for a long time, but never quite abandoned. Gold paint had been allowed to dull. Here and there he spotted cobwebs someone had missed.
There was a place for supplicants to light votive candles and say a prayer and Gonzalo gravitated there, but when he was kneeling and the long match was lit he could think of no words to speak inwardly or outwardly. He buried the burning head of the match in a little trough of sand.
‘Welcome.’
Gonzalo turned from the candles and saw a slender young man in black watching him. A touch of white at the throat told Gonzalo this was a priest, but the man looked barely old enough to shave.
‘If I’m interrupting, I’m sorry,’ the priest said. ‘It’s only that we don’t get too many people in here at this time of the morning.’
‘I was just going,’ Gonzalo said, and he stood to leave.
‘Please don’t,’ the priest said. ‘I mean, feel free to go if you like, but as long as I’m here and you’re here, why don’t we talk a little?’
Gonzalo glanced at the exit, then back to the priest. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Come and have a seat.’
They sat down together at a pew. The priest held a small, leather-bound Bible that looked well loved. He rested it on his knee. ‘I’m Father Salamón,’ he said.
‘No offense, Father, but how old are you?’
Father Salamón laughed. ‘I’m not the senior man here, if that’s what you’re thinking. Father Anselmo is probably more of what you’re looking for: gray-haired, full of wrinkles. But he’s also not as much fun.’
‘I should tell you: I’m not religious.’
‘I don’t presume to judge.’
Gonzalo put his hands together, fingertip to fingertip, and molded them with each other as if he had his troubles caught in a net to be closed up within them. ‘I will ask you this,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Is it always possible to find forgiveness, even if one does a terrible thing?’
Father Salamón looked serious. ‘You are not the first person in your position to ask me that question.’
‘What position?’
‘I shouldn’t say. We are in the house of God and accusations have no place there.’
Gonzalo sat up straight. ‘You think I am a narco?’
‘Are you not?’
Now it was Gonzalo’s turn to laugh. He reached inside his jacket and brought out his identification. ‘I’m a police officer,’ he said. ‘An inspector.’
Father Salamón flushed. ‘I’m sorry. When you asked me… I assumed.’
‘You don’t need to apologize.’
‘I feel awful.’
‘I know sometimes the people of this city don’t make a distinction between the narcos and the police. And they have every right to that. We have not done much to earn their respect.’
‘Then I must ask: if you are a policeman, what terrible thing could you possibly have done?’
The laughter passed from Gonzalo and he looked down again. ‘That’s not so easy to answer.’
‘I’m here to listen.’
‘I have been party to acts that are not in keeping with my commitments. Some of these things I have had to live with for a long time.’
‘What is your name?’ Father Salamón asked.
‘Gonzalo.’
‘Gonzalo, did you come here looking for absolution?’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’
‘Has it been some time since you last confessed?’
‘A lifetime ago.’
‘Would you like to now?’
Gonzalo met Father Salamón’s searching look. ‘No.’
‘Then what can I do for you? It doesn’t feel right letting you carry your burden alone. My job is very important to me.’
‘If I tell you something, will you keep it between us?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘There are some who say that what we discuss right now is subject to the Seal of the Confessional even if we do not perform the rite.’
‘And that means you can’t tell anyone? No matter what?’
Father Salamón nodded slowly, but Gonzalo could see the doubt in his eyes.
‘A few days ago I stood by while two men were murdered. And today a third man will die. I will not do anything. I will even help.’
‘Who were these men you saw killed?’
‘Bad ones.’
‘And what they did deserved death?’
‘I don’t know,’ Gonzalo said. ‘But I do know that no one will mourn them.’
‘And this third man. Does he deserve death?’
‘If what we have been told is true… yes.’
Father Salamón sat back in the pew with the Bible held between his hands, his thumbs rubbing insistently at the worn leather. Gonzalo saw a muscle in his jaw working. ‘They don’t teach you how to answer these kinds of questions in seminary,’ he said at last.
‘I should go.’
‘No, please give me a chance.’
Gonzalo looked at his watch. ‘I have time.’
‘You’re a policeman,’ Father Salamón said with hesitation. ‘I don’t have to tell you that Mexico is full of evil men who do abominable things. You say the men you saw die were that kind. That this third man is also that kind.’
‘Yes,’ Gonzalo said.
‘I know parishioners who have lost family members in this city and elsewhere,’ Father Salamón said. ‘They are good people who only want to live their lives, worship God and be at peace. But I cannot give them peace. No matter how many communions I give, no matter how many homilies, I must stand by while the police and the army and the narcos do battle in the streets. I am powerless. Though God gives me strength, it is not the kind of strength that can stop a single bullet.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Father Salamón waved the comment away. ‘What I’m saying is this: if I had it within my power to put a stop to things, I would. And God forgive me for saying so, but if it meant that some of these evil men had to die to bring that about, I would not lose a minute’s sleep.’
‘The commandment says “thou shall not kill,”’ Gonzalo said.
‘Did you know that in the Hebrew it says “thou shall not murder”?’ Father Salamón asked.
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Something tells me you know the difference already.’
Gonzalo thought, and then he said, ‘You thought I was a narco. Would you say the same things to me then?’
‘I’m required to extend God’s grace to all who pass through those doors, sinner and saint alike. That doesn’t mean I have to approve of everything they do. I will make jokes with them and when they ask for absolution I give it, but there is a difference between what God offers and what Man can provide. That is my failing as a priest, and I think it’s likely that I’ll struggle with it for as long as I wear the collar.’
‘You’re young,’ Gonzalo said.
‘You are not so old,’ Father Salamón replied.
‘I feel old. I feel very old.’
‘Then why go through with it? If it pains you so much, is it worth it?’
Gonzalo inclined his head. ‘You want to give your parishioners peace? There’s a man who will have no peace until this is done. No matter what I think, I have to do this. For him. And maybe for me. I can’t explain.’
‘I can give you my blessing, but unless you ask to be absolved of your sins, I can’t do that for you,’ Father Salamón said.
‘You’d give your blessing to a killer?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘It sounds as though you need it more than anyone.’
‘Then I’ll take it.’
‘Kneel here.’
Gonzalo lowered himself to the bare wooden kneeler and Father Salamón stood over him. The priest placed a hand on Gonzalo’s head and he invoked the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He pleaded for God’s mercy. He asked for God’s grace. Gonzalo kept his eyes tightly closed, though he did not pray. In the dark parts of his mind he was reminded of his mother, of endless masses, of women with their hair covered and many sad, drawn faces.
‘You’re welcome to stay,’ Father Salamón said when it was done. ‘A church is not just a place of worship, but a sanctuary from the evils of the world. You can let this dark cloud go past.’
‘I told you, I can’t do that.’
Father Salamón shrugged and attempted to smile, but his face wouldn’t obey. ‘I had to try.’
Gonzalo rose from the kneeler. He brushed at his jacket and the folds fell out smoothly. ‘I appreciate everything you’ve said,’ he told Father Salamón. ‘I’m sorry it was a waste of your time.’
Father Salamón followed him to the doors in the narthex. ‘It wasn’t a waste. Don’t go away thinking that.’
‘Goodbye, Father,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Goodbye, Gonzalo. Come back when you can.’
‘I may do that,’ Gonzalo said, and he went out into the sun.
On the front steps of the church h
e stopped and brought out his phone. A yellow Post-it note was stuck to the back. He dialed the number there. There were three rings at the other end and someone answered whom Gonzalo didn’t recognize.
‘My name is Inspector Gonzalo Soler. I’d like to speak with Captain Alvares, please,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Captain Alvares is not available.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘I can’t give out that information.’
Gonzalo cursed under his breath. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘listen to me, then. Write this down. It’s important. Be sure Alvares sees it right away.’
‘What’s your message?’
Gonzalo told him.
NINETEEN
JACK COULD NOT BE CONVINCED TO RIDE with Gonzalo to the cantina. ‘I need to be able to move when we find out where Marina is,’ he told Gonzalo. ‘We can’t get across the border in your car.’
He could see Gonzalo in his rear-view mirror, keeping close as they passed through the city. This time Jack knew where he was going and a block away he found a place to park and waited until Gonzalo had settled in, too, before stepping out of the truck. They would walk the rest of the way.
It was not terribly hot, but Jack was sweating as though it was. He knew it was nervous sweat and he knew that when it came down to it he would get it done. Maybe it would be clean, like Fregoso, or maybe it would be dirty, like Guadalupe, but he would get it done.
Gonzalo was dressed as if he were headed to a formal review. Even if Jack did not already know, he would have spotted Gonzalo as a cop at first glance. There was nothing to be done about it now. An American and a cop. Neither of them belonged.
Jack saw Gonzalo watching him, and he spoke before Gonzalo could: ‘Don’t tell me we can walk away. We can’t.’
They walked side by side along the sidewalk toward the cantina. The entire block looked shabby and the few cars parked here and there were old and rusty and full of dents. No tourist ever walked this street.
‘Do you see?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘See what?’
‘Across the street. A man in a car, watching.’
Jack looked and saw the man sitting behind the wheel of a slightly newer vehicle, the windows down. His eyes were on them. Jack averted his gaze.