Stalking Moon

by Неизвестный

  I didn't want to drive along 4th Avenue to see if Meg was still running the restaurant, thinking that by now Taá had alerted Dance and Nasso, and they'd have people all over Meg. Instead, I drove along Broadway to the El Con mall. Parking in the front strip, I checked the ID packets and picked one, sliding the rest of the envelopes underneath the bench seat. Making sure that the pickup door actually locked, I went inside the Radio Shack, took out my new credit card, and ordered a cell phone account.

  “Mary Stanley,” the clerk said. “I've got a niece, same name, but spells it with an ie at the end. She pronounces it Mary, everybody wants to call her Marie. I'll need to see your driver's license, or some kind of ED.”

  I handed him the Arizona State driver's license.

  “Pick out what kind of phone you want, and what kind of service. We've got some Nokias, plus the new StarTac digital. You want digital? Sprint?”

  “Sure. Give me that top-of-the-line Nokia. Just put it on the card.”

  “Gee, you know what? I just realized, my niece is named Cherie, not Marie.” He spelled Marie to himself. “Whoa, I think I'd better spend a little more time with the family. This job is turning into a twenty-four seven since I agreed to be the manager.”

  “Do you sell Palm Pilots?”

  “Got to survive, got to carry what people are buying. Which model?”

  “Wireless.”

  “Palm V. Um, that's a different wireless service. You want a contract with them also? Email, instant messaging, web browsing.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see these kids in the malls, they've got a cell phone with an earpiece, they're talking on it while they've got their Palm out, they're fingering the keypad. I kept wondering what they had so much to talk about.”

  He punched in my credit card number and started the activation process for both wireless services.

  “Went up behind two girls, each talking on a cell phone. You know what they were talking about?”

  “No. How much longer?”

  “ 'I'm in front of The Gap. Where are you?' Meaningless. Guess you've got to be a teenager to understand them. You got any kids?”

  When he finally realized I wasn't going to talk, he concentrated on processing the wireless services. It took him fifteen minutes to activate the cell phone, then another five to activate the Palm.

  I drove up to Speedway and headed east until I saw a taco truck on a side street. He apologized for how long it took to heat up a bean burrito and a chile relleno over his small sterno flame. I drove another two blocks, parked, left a message on Meg's voice mail, and ate while I opened the FedEx envelope.

  A single sheet of paper with the address of an Internet website.

  I drove back to the Radio Shack.

  “Listen,” I said to the clerk, “I just heard from my boss. The first call I got on my new cell phone, and it's my boss, chewing my ass because I haven't done something for him. Is there any chance you've got a computer in here I can use?”

  “Not really. I can sell you a computer.” “I just need to look up a website. That's all.” He looked around the empty store and yawned. “Sure. Why not. Keep me awake. Long as you don't mind if I sit at the computer and type in the address. That way, it's kosher all around.”

  Leading me into the back office, he sat at a keyboard and dialed up an ISP, shielding the keyboard as he typed in a user ID and password. He opened the Microsoft browser, looked at the sheet of paper from the FedEx envelope, and typed the URL.

  www.moneytochihuahua.com

  The website had only one page and simply asked for a user ID and a password.

  “Do you have any idea what this means?” he said.

  “Money. Mexico. I don't have a clue. Do you?”

  “A guess, that's about it. You want to look at this website any more?”

  “No. What's your guess?”

  “Well,” he said as shut down the computer. “Lots of these illegals send money back home. Really pisses me off. They come up here, get paid in cash, pay zero tax dollars, and then send a lot of the money home to their families.”

  “Through the Internet?”

  “Mostly by Western Union. They're getting smarter. Used to be, they didn't trust any gringo banks or companies like Western Union. They go to money merchants, they'd pay twenty, thirty percent of their money just to get it sent to Mexico. Now, they just pay the standard Western Union wire charges. This website, could be somebody's found a new way to send that money.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  I sat in the El Con parking lot until Meg called and told me to meet her at Nonie.

  23

  “This is the last time you'll see me,” Xochitl said. “I'm leaving today.”

  We sat in Nonie, the Cajun and Creole restaurant on Grant, the place where Xochitl worked. The restaurant was closed, but Xochitl let me in at the back door. She quickly introduced me to the owners, Chris Leonard and his wife Suzy, and we left them preparing pots of gumbo and jambalaya. When I asked if I could order something, Suzy brought me a bowl of each, plus some red beans and rice.

  “Why are you leaving?” I asked.

  “Because of Francisco Zamora. I saw you at Hacienda del Sol.”

  “And I saw Zamora put his hand on your shoulder, and right after that you quickly left by taxi. What were you doing there?”

  “Serving. I make good money by working catered parties. Chris lets me have a night off here if I can provide a sub. He knows I need the money from catered jobs. But I didn't think Zamora would come up to Tucson, so I am leaving. Today. Chris and Suzy know that, they will miss me, but it cannot be helped. I have their love, support. I owe them much. You know me as Xochitl Gálvez. Not my name, not important to tell you my name. Not safe. Even you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “But aren't you already free?”

  Opening her handbag, she took out a newspaper clipping. A photograph from a Mexican newspaper. Seven people gathered around Zamora, who posed with one foot on a shovel.

  “I can't read Spanish. What is this?”

  “The groundbreaking ceremony for Zamora's maquiladora. Look at the women.”

  Pinau stood to Zamora's left, with a shorter haircut of streaked blond hair, but still recognizable. On the far right, a young woman's body was obscured by the man in front of her, but I thought I recognized the face.

  “Ileanna. She was Zamora's bookkeeper. Veraslava, she was bookkeeper for another maquiladora. My friends.”

  “Those are the names on that videotape. The two murdered women.”

  “They had no faces, one news report said. Dragged through the cactus until the skin was ripped off most of their bodies. Off of their faces. That is a warning.”

  “To who?”

  “Me. We did a foolish thing one night. We were working late one night. Zamora went outside for a cigarette. We made copies of some papers in his safe. His account books. For twenty minutes we copied papers. The next day, all three of us walked through the water tunnels to Arizona.”

  I had a sudden thought.

  “Were you brought across by a coyote?”

  “Everybody knows about the tunnels. We went by ourselves.”

  “This is important,” I said. “Do you know of a coyote called the water man?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Never mind. How did you know those two women?”

  “We were all accountants in Zamora's maquiladora. We made staplers, uh, no, staple guns. That's not important. How we got to Mexico, how we got to Nogales, that is what's important.”

  “You were smuggled into Mexico from Albania.”

  “Two years ago. The three of us, we paid thirty thousand United States dollars. In Albania, we also did accounting. For banks. When the Albanian mafia took over our banks, they replaced us with their own people. So. What future? What hope? America. But when we got off the boat in Vera Cruz, we had been promised identity papers, travel visas, passports
, everything promised to us to come across the border safely. Instead, we were locked in a house. We are young women, we are all beautiful, we were raped over and over for three weeks. Instead of freedom, we were told that we'd been auctioned to a brothel in Las Vegas. That's the only way you'll get across the border, we were told. As whores. The next day, another man came. This one.”

  She pointed at another face in the newspaper photograph, almost hidden by Pinau. I could see it was Hector Garza. The King Kong man, the ape who'd been in the immigrant detention center with Pinau Medina.

  “He needed three women to be accountants.”

  “Why did he want women?”

  Xochitl shrugged.

  “We are cheaper. We keep secrets. We are women. Who knows why? We didn't care. That afternoon we are riding in a Mercedes Benz to Nogales. We are given ten thousand pesos each and a house for the three of us.”

  “So if you had good jobs. . . I don't follow, why give them up?”

  “Ileanna was the smartest of us three. The best bookkeeper, the best, how shall I say it, she had the best conscience. She started making a diary of how the women workers were being abused and underpaid. In Nogales, nobody of power is far away from knowing someone in the drug cartels. For people who learn secrets, a life of promise is quickly jeopardized. Assassins are cheap, easy to find. The three of us, we decided to get out. We contacted a friend in Basta Ya.”

  “The Indian women's worker group? How could they help?”

  “Many of them had worked with political prisoners from El Salvador and Nicaragua. Some of the escape routes into the US were still in place. There are still groups in Arizona that give sanctuary, give a new life.”

  “Does Basta Ya charge money?”

  “No. If you have some, they will take it. But only to help others. So two months ago, the three of us copied Zamora's papers, and then we came across the border.”

  “Did you know anything about the papers you copied?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Were they suspicious? Why did you copy them?”

  “We thought he was connected to Garza, and if we left, Garza would come after us. So we copied the papers, thinking there might be something of value in them that we could trade for our safety. Something connected to the smuggling rings.”

  “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. There are two smuggling cartels. The first brings women in from Albania. The second helps you escape the first.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And which one talks to you in the chat rooms.”

  “Basta Ya.”

  “Can you connect to them right now?”

  “Yes, but. . . they wouldn't talk to you. Why do you want to do this?”

  “I know one of the people working for Basta Ya.”

  “Who?”

  “Jonathan Begay.”

  “Ah! Señor Johnny.”

  “He's my ex-husband. I haven't seen him for twenty years. Can you. . . do you have your Palm Pilot? Can you ask LUNA13 if I can contact Jonathan?”

  Digging the last spoonfuls of gumbo from my cup, I avoided looking at her. She fidgeted in her chair. Chris abruptly turned off the cumbia music on the sound system, and I could hear Xochitl breathing. I kept avoiding her until she reached into her bag and took out the Palm. With relief, I saw it was the same model and color as the one I'd just bought. Licking my lips at the last of the gumbo, I wiped my hands on my napkin and picked up my bag from the floor, rooting through it as though I was looking for tissues or makeup.

  “We will do this,” Xochitl said. “I will contact them, but I won't say you are here. I will ask about Señor Begay. Is that what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  Removing the Palm pointer, she worked it rapidly through a series of screens.

  “I am in the chat room.”

  She leaned sideways, holding the Palm between us so that I could read the tiny screen. The chat room user names were incredibly revealing.

  LUNA13: > you are gone from Tucson?

  LUNA5: > not yet

  LUNA13: > this is no time to be foolish

  If Xochitl was LUNA5, then LUNA was a network, not a single person.

  LUNA13: > you have the money, the id package?

  LUNA5: > i have everything

  LUNA13: > kansas. . . it is a long ways off, my sister

  LUNA5: > you are always in my heart.

  LUNA13: > so. . . why are you not gone?

  LUNA5: > senor johnny, i hear he is in jail

  A long, long pause, the cursor blinking.

  LUNA13: > i didn't know that

  LUNA5: > can you find out where?

  LUNA13: > maybe. . . do you know when he was taken?

  Xochitl's eyebrows raised with the question. I shook my head.

  LUNA5: > no

  LUNA13: > we were wondering why his radio news has been the same tape msg for the last 4 days, so that must have been when it happened, 4 days ago

  LUNA5: > see what you can find out

  LUNA13: > yes, but you leave NOW

  LUNA5: > agree to leave, but please find out which jail

  LUNA13: > contact us when you get to kansas, dorothy

  LUNA5: > i have my ruby slippers

  Xochitl punched at the screen with the Palm pointer and logged out of the chat room. She slipped the Palm into its case and started to put it back in her bag.

  “Can I see that?” She hesitated. “I've never used one of them.”

  She handed it to me. I knocked hard enough against the empty gumbo bowl to send it flying off the table. Her eyes followed the bowl's trajectory until it shattered on the floor. In that moment, I dropped her Palm into my lap and picked up the one I'd just bought and slipped it into her case.

  “Everything all right?” Suzy said.

  “I'm so clumsy,” I said.

  “Not a problem.”

  “Here,” I said to Xochitl, handing her the Palm. “Take this before I break it too.”

  We went outside, where Luis Cabrera waited beside his pickup, his eyes anxiously quartering the neighborhood.

  “If somebody is watching,” I said to Xochitl, “he'll never see them.”

  “I know that. He doesn't, but he feels better because he's protecting me.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “How far is Kansas?”

  “With ruby slippers, an instant away.”

  “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  She smiled, frowned, burst into tears, and hugged me fiercely.

  “Goodbye, Ishmaela,” I said.

  “I am no longer Albanian. I am Dorothy America.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I hope you find Señor Johnny. I hope you find whatever you seek from him.”

  “If I go to Nogales,” I asked, “is there anybody I can talk to? About the Basta Ya people who smuggle women out? About the maquiladoras?”

  She hesitated a long, long time.

  “Watch out for the man who drives the water truck.”

  That cryptic remark was the only thing she said. They drove away, headed west on Grant to US 10. I watched the traffic on Grant for ten minutes, but finally realized that I had no idea if anybody was following them.

  Too late, I realized that the phrase had two meanings. Watch out could mean Look out, be careful, don't go near him. But for somebody whose English was a second language, it could also mean Find the man with the water truck. I'd only know if I went to Nogales.

  I called Meg and got no answer. Checking the voice mail box on my cell phone, I found a message from her telling me to go to Phoenix, to a safe house she operated in Scottsdale. She promised to bring Mari and Alex.

  Working my way through heavy traffic on Grant, out to US 10, I went over everything she'd said and realized I'd overlooked something vital.

  The water man must be a man with a water truck.

  No connection to the water tunnels? I didn't know, but I'd have to see them.

  24

  At the Casa G
rande junction, US 10 traffic slowed to a crawl and finally to stop and go. I could see bubblegum lights flashing a mile ahead, probably an accident. I tried calling Meg's cell phone again, but got no answer.

  Twenty minutes later I'd barely gone a mile, but finally drew abreast of the accident scene. A brand new Saturn had been tailgated and crumpled. Nobody seemed injured, but a Casa Grande fire truck was parked across the right lane, and fireman were working with the Jaws of Life to open the passenger side door.

  A tall, slim Hispanic woman strode back and forth beside the Saturn, yammering on a cell phone at the top of her voice. She'd obviously been the driver and was obviously angry. Tottering on her four-inch platform heels, with a head of riotous red hair and large breasts clamped tightly in a Julia Roberts Erin Brockovich Wonder Bra, she slowed every male driver in my lane. I passed the Saturn just as the firemen pulled the male passenger out of the car. He also didn't seem to be injured, but seeing him the redhead stretched out both her arms in anger and started berating him for switching the radio from salsa to country.

  “But Sandy,” I heard him start to complain.

  I rolled up both pickup windows and turned the air-conditioning on full blast to drown out all the noise. Traffic picked up rapidly, and in no time I was back up to eighty miles an hour and pulling into the outskirts of Phoenix just as my cell rang.

  “Laura,” Meg said. “Don't go where I told you. Instead, go through Tempe and take the 101 loop north. Get off at Indian School and go west to Scottsdale. Turn right, make a quick turn right, park anywhere, and meet us in the atrium outside the Marriott Suites restaurant.”

  “Jesus, Laura,” Meg said, sipping from a tall, very narrow and squarish glass. “You've got so much heat around you, I'm not sure how much I can see you.”

  We sat in the shade, although with the temperature nearly one hundred degrees, combined with the high humidity in Scottsdale, everybody was sweating. Mari slumped in her chair. Alex held Mari's hands, rubbing them briskly to warm them up.

  “You've been seeing too many movies,” Mari said.

  We both were waiting for her to gather enough energy to talk.

  “Oh yeah,” Alex said enthusiastically. “That scene from Heat. You two are like Pacino and DeNiro, where they have coffee and talk over their macho lives. If the heat is around the corner, you've got to be ready to drop everything in thirty seconds and move on to a whole new life. Bullshit boys, that's all they are.”