by Jeff Miller
“What did you say?”
“After reading the Scripture, I looked out to the packed house. I was nervous, so it took me a while to start, and I could feel them become restless and uncomfortable. I cleared my throat, and I told them plainly that our church had become corrupt, and that there was a rottenness that needed to be purged. I told them about how Father Tisch had molested me five times a week in his office. I said I suspected that I was not the only boy who had been molested in the church, and I called upon others who had been molested to seek me out.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine Diego’s voice carrying across a packed cathedral, saying these things. She couldn’t, however, imagine the reaction. “How was it received?”
“They call it the year I ruined Easter. But twelve boys came to talk to me the following week. Over the next two years, I built an organization in Texas that helped boys in similar situations. We exposed and removed thirty-eight priests.”
“That’s great.”
“It earned me a transfer to Dayton, Ohio.”
“You were punished for your troubles.”
“They told me there was a growing Hispanic population in Ohio, and that my talents were needed there. But yes.”
It was an extraordinary and sad story. “The speech you gave on Easter . . . was that the reason you went back to the church and entered the priesthood? To be able to give that speech?”
“It was part of it, but not all of it. The church can be a wonderful institution, providing community and support, but it had become rotten at its core. The only way to fix it, I figured, was from the inside. I wish someone at church had been there for me when I was being molested. I thought maybe I could be there for the next kid.”
The sacrifice seemed enormous. “You gave up a lot to go back to the church.”
“Not really. I was in a bad place. Caught up with the wrong people, alone in a big city. No assets, no home. When I came back to the church, I was giving up only misery.”
“And a chance for love.”
Diego shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been very good at that, anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
He blushed at this. “I didn’t go to Bilford because I wanted to help the immigrant community. I went because I was running from a problem.”
“What problem?”
He sighed. “Her name was Katrina.”
“Not the hurricane?”
He laughed. “She might as well have been.”
“You loved her?”
“I did.”
“That’s a problem for a priest.”
“An even bigger one for a nun.”
“Katrina was a nun?”
“She was a novice then.” Dagny didn’t know what that meant, and he clarified before she could ask. “A nun in training. She left the convent when we fell in love.”
“Did she want you to leave the church?”
“I would have in an instant, to be with her. But she didn’t want me to leave the church. The church was too important to her. And that’s why I had to leave her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I realized it gave her a joy and a purpose that I couldn’t. So I broke it off and moved to Bilford. I told the elders that I was doing it to help the community there. My departure was abrupt, and I broke many commitments. The congregation was upset. But my hope was that Katrina would return to the convent and that it would be worth it.”
“Did she return?”
“She did.”
“But you loved her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
He paused. “I do.”
It was a lot of sacrifice for a man who didn’t fully believe in God, Dagny thought. “That’s a sad story, Diego.”
“I’m a sad man.”
The statement hung in the air. Tomorrow, he’d be trusting her with his life. Today, he was trusting her with his life story. When someone shares secrets like this, it’s only fair to share back.
“When I was in high school, I developed issues with food,” Dagny said. “No, that’s the cowardly way of saying it. I became anorexic. It’s a difficult word for me to say. Anorexia. It’s so difficult, I don’t even think the word in my head. That’s how messed up I am. Anyway, in high school, I began to starve myself. It got worse in college, and I had to go to a treatment facility. Again, that’s a coward’s way of saying it. I went to a mental hospital. And I got better, and I thought I was done with it. But it started up again at law school. I got better, and then relapsed when I was a lawyer in New York. I’ve relapsed a couple of more times at the Bureau. Now I’m thirty-five, and I realize that this is who I will always be. There’s no cure. I won’t grow out of it. All I can do is cope with it.”
He leaned toward her and touched her arm. Some people knew how to touch a person in a way that signals compassion. Dagny didn’t, but he did.
“I didn’t realize,” he said. “How are you coping?”
“I’m in therapy for it, against my will. As a condition of my employment. I hate it.”
“Why?”
“Because I know I can’t be fixed, so all it does is remind me that I’m broken.” She was being as emotionally honest and open as she had ever been.
“But now you’re eating, right? I mean, I’ve seen you—”
“I’ve trained myself to think of food as fuel. But I have no ability to judge whether my tank is full, so I rely on, of all things, Weight Watchers. It tells me I need a certain number of points each day to maintain my weight, and I tally up my points to make sure I get them.”
“And it works?”
“It works okay. I eat a lot of junk food late in the day to make my target.”
His hand left her arm. He probably wasn’t even aware of it, but Dagny was. “How do you feel when you’re eating?” he asked.
“If I think about it, I feel shame and disgust, mostly. So I try hard not to think about it. If you see me eating a cheeseburger, my mind is trying its hardest to imagine it’s at a gas pump.”
“Are you ever happy?” It was the kind of question most people wouldn’t understand to ask.
“Sometimes,” she said. “When I’m running, sometimes I feel joy. Sometimes when I sail. Always when we crack a case.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“The rest of the time, I’m trying to ignore how sad I feel.” She was telling a priest she barely knew things she couldn’t say in therapy or to her closest friend. “I’m at that age where, if you want to have kids, time is running out. Especially if you have no prospects. I don’t know that I even want kids, Diego. I guess I’m mostly sad that I don’t know what I want, because I was supposed to know by now. Men have it easy—they can have kids in their fifties, without having to wade through statistics about the odds of birth defects. After thirty-five years, I’m as lost as I’ve ever been. The only thing I understand is my job, and it’s not enough to make me happy.” As she heard the words come out, she realized how silly they seemed in comparison to his story and laughed. “I feel ridiculous, Diego. You went through actual hardship, and I’m complaining that I haven’t grown out of teen angst.”
He took her hand with his left and cupped it with his right. “Listen, I’ve heard enough confession to know that everyone carries around their own kind of pain, and that none of it is loftier than anyone else’s.” He released her hand. “We’re all lost, looking for purpose. That’s why tomorrow is so important to me. When I went to Bilford, I said I was going to help people. I didn’t give the people of Bilford what I had promised, and now I have to make up for that. I have to make things right.”
He stood and walked to the door. “We should try to sleep now,” he said.
Diego might waver in his faith, she thought, but he was unquestionably the most priestly man she had ever met. She walked over to the door and opened it for him. He turned toward her and looked at her. The intensity of his gaze almost drove her away, but she stayed foc
used on him.
“I feel a lot better, Dagny. Thank you,” he said. He cupped the back of her neck with his hand and pulled her slowly toward him.
The kiss was gentle and deep and long. When he released her, she studied his face, trying to find some explanation of what had just happened.
He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It felt right. Good night.”
Dagny closed the door behind him, turned out the light, and lay in bed thinking about what had just happened.
CHAPTER 54
The Rio Grande wiggled and zigzagged such that there were parts of Mexico directly north of parts of Texas. Only the random path of the river determined where taxes were paid, whose law applied, and what lives were had. The land was the same kind of land, and the weather was the same kind of weather, but everything else was different.
In Brownsville, for example, there were lines on the roads that designated lanes, cars stayed within those lanes, and drivers signaled when they wished to switch between them. In Matamoros, Mexico, the lines had all faded, and no one tried to abide by them. Drivers plodded and pushed along wherever they liked, without much regard for order. And while there were lots of reasons for this, Dagny thought, the biggest was that the Rio Grande bent a certain way.
She plodded and pushed with the best of them, and Diego grimaced and yelped with each jerk and screech. The GPS called out directions and took them to the Mini Super El Rey, a bright-yellow food mart that advertised Corona Extra and Tecate Light. Dagny turned the corner, pulled into a grassy, brick-walled lot behind the store, and parked next to the unmarked white van McGilligan had left for them. Diego hopped out of the car and pulled the solid gate closed. Feeling under the rear right-tire well of the van, Dagny found a magnetic key holder. She withdrew the key and used it to open the rear doors of the van. Diego popped the trunk of their rented Chevy Impala, pulled out a large duffel bag, and tossed it in the back of McGilligan’s vehicle. They climbed inside, closed the doors, and turned on the overhead light.
There was a hard-shell black briefcase on the floor, locked by combination. She rolled the numbers to 7-8-3, opened the case, and pulled out a monitor (which she placed on the passenger seat), a watch (which she gave to Diego), and a Glock 23 and shoulder holster (which she fastened to herself).
“That’s a big gun,” he said.
“I like big guns,” she said. “And I cannot lie.”
When he smiled at the joke, she figured it might be the only smile of the day.
Diego opened the duffel, pulled out grubbier attire—moderately tattered and dirty clothes that he could have plausibly worn on a trek through Mexico to the border—and changed into them. It gave her another glimpse at his scorpion tattoo on his back, and she tried to imagine a fifteen-year-old version of the man before her.
She wired him up and gave him $2,215 in varied, wrinkled bills. It was likely—perhaps certain—that Diablo Rico would take this money from him while sending him out to gather more. If this were the Bureau’s money, this wouldn’t have hurt, but it was hers, so it did. On a government salary, $2,215 was a lot of money. Then again, if all they lost was the money, they’d be lucky.
Diego closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.” He opened the van doors, hopped down, and opened the gate. She backed out of the lot, and he jumped back in the van. McGilligan had programmed the GPS with recommended directions, and she followed them.
The plan was to park on an abandoned, gated lot on the other side of town. Most lots in Matamoros were gated, it seemed. Diego would leave the van and meander along a predetermined path until he came to a bar called El Gallo Rojo. Upon entering, he would engage the bartender, who was known to refer clients to Diablo Rico.
They drove in silence under the weight of the prior night’s revelations and the subsequent confusing kiss. A mission conceived by acquaintances was now being executed by close friends, or something more. She wanted him to back out of the mission but couldn’t ask this of him. He had to pull out of his own accord, and she knew he wouldn’t.
When they parked, Dagny grabbed a cane from the duffel and handed it to Diego. “Right foot,” she said, reminding him where his limp would be. He nodded. “I’ll be watching your location on the monitor. Swing your wrist every once in a while to make sure the signal is strong.” The watch, provided by McGilligan, was outfitted with a secret GPS transmitter that let her keep tabs on Diego’s whereabouts. “Remember, I haven’t spoken any Spanish since high school, so I’m not going to be able to follow much of what you say. I’ll record it, so we can decode it later, but that’s not going to help you in a jam. If you need me, the safe word is—”
“Cincinnati.”
“And not just once, but a few times, in case there is a transmission problem. The mic is in your belt buckle, so try not to obstruct it.”
“Okay.”
Diego grabbed a worn backpack from the duffel, slung it over his shoulder, and opened the back door of the van. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back for a hug. “You’ll be fine,” she said, thankful that the embrace had placed her tears out of his vision.
CHAPTER 55
As Diego limped away from the van, he felt like an astronaut drifting from the space station. “What have I gotten myself into?” he muttered, and then, remembering that Dagny could hear him, added, “Just kidding, just kidding,” to calm nerves. He wasn’t kidding, though. He was scared.
Despite his Mexican lineage, this was his first time in Mexico. There was no excuse for this. When he lived in Corpus Christi, it would have been easy to take a day trip to the border. He never did, not even when others from the church invited him to join them on their own excursions. He didn’t know why he always turned them down. Maybe he was afraid of Mexico. Not afraid of crime or danger or anything like Diablo Rico. He was afraid, perhaps, of knowledge. Knowledge of conditions. Knowledge of the arbitrariness of circumstance. Knowledge of how lucky he was, no matter how difficult his life had been.
He took a deep breath and plunged forward, walking a predetermined path past the dilapidated homes and businesses he’d seen on Google Street View earlier that morning. A small, pink one-story building with a flat roof had vinyl sideboard tacked to the front wall that read IGLESIA CRISTO EVANGELICA BIBLICAL DEL ESP. SANTO. It was a church, every bit as holy as the grand cathedrals he knew well, and perhaps more so. There was a window air-conditioning unit that jutted out from the front of the church; like everything else of value in Matamoros, it was encased in steel bars to prevent its theft.
A mother was walking her young son on the sidewalk toward Diego. She was carrying two canvas sacks filled with groceries, and the kid was untethered. He was maybe six and had a mop of hair down to his eyes. In his hand, he held a small rubber ball, which he bounced and caught off the sidewalk in metered time. As they passed, the ball hit a crack and careened into the street as a delivery truck turned onto the road. Diego dropped his cane and grabbed the boy’s arm, preventing him from darting into the street. The truck screeched to a halt, and Diego let the boy go. The boy grabbed the ball and continued walking with his mother. Neither said a word about the encounter. Diego picked up his cane and continued limping along his trek.
“A boy darted into the street, and a truck hit the brakes,” he said for Dagny’s benefit. “Everyone is all right.” He wished she had the ability to talk back.
El Gallo Rojo had a five-foot-tall, painted-wood rooster on its flat roof. The rooster was missing its head, and Diego wondered how long it had been missing. He took a deep breath and pulled open the dented, metal front door.
It was dark inside the bar—so much so that Diego waited for his eyes to adjust in order to make sense of the place. Once it came into focus, the bar was bigger than he expected. There were a dozen folding tables, each surrounded by four or six chairs, and almost all of them were filled by rough men who paused midconversation to stare at him. He nodded to them in return but did not smile as he hobbled past them on his way to
the bar.
The bartender looked him up and down and said in gruff Spanish, “I don’t know you.”
“Let me buy a drink, and you will. I’ll have a Mahou.” It was a popular Spanish beer that he had no intention of actually drinking.
“Twenty pesos.”
Diego reached into his pocket and slid a Mexican bill across the bar. The bartender took the money, pulled a bottle from a cooler, and popped the top. “Why are you here?”
Diego scanned the faces of the patrons of the bar, who had all gone back to conversation, and then whispered, “I heard that you can help make connections.”
“You heard that?”
“Yes,” he said softly.
The bartender placed both palms on the bar and leaned forward. “Who do you want to know?”
“I want to travel north, and I need the best escort I can get. I only want to make the trip one time.”
The bartender looked him up and down. “You don’t look like you could afford the best.”
“I have been saving for this,” Diego said. “I heard there is a group called Diablo Rico.”
The bartender laughed, which drew some looks from the crowd. “Now I know you can’t afford it,” he said.
Diego waited for the patrons to turn away their attention, grabbed a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket, and tucked it discreetly into the bartender’s hand. “Perhaps you underestimate how much my travels mean to me.”
The bartender peeked at the American bill and nodded. “Okay, you’re serious. Give me another one of these, and I’ll help you.”
He knew he had to provide the right amount of nervous protest to sell his role. “Another? This should be more than enough.”
“The first one got my attention. Now, you want a meeting or not?”
Diego dug his hand back into his pocket and pulled out another hundred dollars. He opened his hand so the bartender could see it, then closed his fingers around it. “I’ll give it to you when you arrange my meeting.”