by Неизвестный
I finished cleaning him up and stood back, then lowered myself until I could look him straight in the eye. Recognition came very slowly, as though he was forcing himself backward in time, year by year, but just hadn't quite imagined he'd have to go that far back.
“Kauwanyauma?”
“Yes.”
“Butterfly? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“I forget. . . what's your other name?”
“Laura.”
“My god. Did they arrest you too?”
“No, Jonathan. I found out you were here, I came to see you.”
“Bad move. You'll never get out of here once they find out who you are.”
“They won't find out. I told them I was an immigrant legal aid lawyer from Tucson. Told them I was making a tour of Sonoran jails to talk to American prisoners. Actually, I don't think they cared about that. I bribed my way in here.”
“Leave. Now. Before he comes.”
“Who?”
“One of those guards is calling him now.”
“Who?”
“Don't know his name. A man from Mexico City.”
He tried to sit up straighter and grimaced with pain, grasping his ribs.
“I think they broke something in here. Do you know why I'm in here?”
“For smuggling. That's what I thought.”
“Smuggling? I don't do drugs, I don't smuggle drugs.”
“Women.”
“I've helped a few women. Basta Ya has sent some women into safety with the sanctuary movement. Is that why you think I'm in here?”
“Yes.”
He smiled to himself.
“Well. I'm glad some of them made it across. Got out. Got free.”
“You don't know about LUNA?”
“Luna? The moon? Is that a code word I'm supposed to know?”
“The chat rooms? You don't know about that.”
The steel bar on the other side of the door crashed back. The deadbolts were unlocked. One of the guards stuck his head inside.
“You got a few minutes, gringita. Then watch your ass. He's coming.”
“Who?”
The door slammed shut.
“Listen. Jonathan.” I took out the photo of Spider. “Where is she?”
“That's why you came here?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
He croaked with laughter, one of his lips splitting open as he tried to grin.
“Turn.” Licking blood from his lip, grimacing. “Turn picture over. Date?”
“It just says 22nd birthday. No date. Two addresses.”
“Two years ago, I think. No. Three. Somewhere in LA, I think.”
“West Hollywood and Pasadena.”
“Oh. Yeah. I went there. West Hollywood. Lots of Russian immigrants.”
“You know about the smuggled Albanian women?”
“Yeah. Helped them, I think. Hard to think back that far.”
I took out my Palm Pilot.
“You don't talk in chat rooms?”
“What's that? Some computer thing?”
“You're not LUNA?”
“You keep asking me if I'm the moon. I'm not. Just. . . I'm just. . . ”
The door flew back with a crash, and Hector Garza entered, arms akimbo, dressed in full military cammies and wearing a visored hat with the insignia of the Mexican National Police.
“You're a fool,” he said to me. “Come.”
“Jonathan!”
The guards pulled me toward the door.
“How do you know this man?” Garza said to me.
“Sanctuary,” I answered.
“Fools. Smugglers of dissatisfied women. Come out of there.”
“Jonathan!” I cried again, but the guards wrenched me through the door and one of them slammed it shut and locked it.
“He's an assassin,” Garza said. “Are you here to get him out?”
“Yes.”
“Not possible. Not with the charges against him.”
“What charges?”
“That's Señor Johnny. Basta Ya. That stupid fool, he put out a bounty on the drug cartel. Payment of ten thousand dollars to anyone who killed a cartel leader.”
“Which drug cartel? I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Any cartel. There are three here in Nogales.”
“He'd never do that, never pay for somebody to be killed.”
Garza waved to the guards to release me. Placing a hand firmly on my upper left arm, he steered me out of the jail onto the dusty street. A white Chevy Suburban with heavily tinted windows was parked at the curb, the motor idling to keep the aircon going. A uniformed officer opened the rear door, and Garza motioned me inside.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You won't be harmed.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“If I arrested you, if I threw you into one of our jails like that man in there, how would you ever find the money for Señora Medina?”
“Then where are we going?”
“To school. Get in.”
“I don't want to get in.”
“Don't beg for your life, woman. Just get in.”
“My life? You want me to get into a car with you and you're talking about my life? I won't go.”
I tried to kick him, but he swerved aside effortlessly, struck my extended leg, and knocked me to the ground, and in the same fluid motion bent to offer a hand to help me get off the dirty sidewalk.
“Get in. It's time for a learning experience.”
We climbed into the Suburban and settled on the middle row of seats. Behind me another uniformed officer sat next to a terrified Mexican woman, a handcuff on one wrist with the other end of the handcuffs locked onto a metal D-ring bolted to the floor.
“Where are we going? What school?”
As we pulled away from the curb, I saw Rey on the motorcycle, arguing with a women selling snow cones from a pushcart.
We drove into a huge dump.
Mounds of trash, with people picking through everything. The Suburban drove to the far end of the dump, where a bulldozer was covering trash with dirt. Nobody was there. The bulldozer moved back and forth, creating a shallow depression about fifteen feet long and the width of the dozer blade.
We stopped. Everybody got out. Garza held a handkerchief over his nose.
The other woman was led twenty feet away from the Suburban, next to the bulldozer. Without any warning, the officer holding her arm drew his pistol and blew off the back of her head. She fell gracelessly into the rubble. The bulldozer operator maneuvered his machine behind her, hooked a chain from the back of the dozer, and wrapped it around her legs. He dragged the body into the bottom of the depression, streaking the rubble and desert sand with a wide swath of blackening blood. Unhooking the chain from her legs, he ran the dozer out of the depression and immediately began covering her body with dirt and trash.
“School's over,” Garza said.
We got back into the Suburban and left the dump. Halfway through a slum area, I could hear a motorcycle revving its engine, but couldn't see if it was Rey. In ten minutes we were back near the jail. The officer got out and opened my door.
“You're not finding the money,” Garza said. “You're down here in Nogales, you're visiting some American, but you're not at your computer. Finding the money. Who is that American, by the way? That Señor Johnny, is he DEA? Some kind of secret agent, down here to expose corruption?”
They all laughed.
“Or does he just run that silly little workers' group so he gets all the women he needs. Mestizos, Indians, foreigners. You'd think a man would have better women on his mind, but as they say, once your cock is inside where it's wet and you're going to come, you don't really care who you're fucking.”
“Why did you kill that woman?”
“A learning experience.”
“Who was she?”
“She assembled printed circuit boards. For high definition television sets.”
>
“You killed her for that?”
“Get out.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Call this number at midnight tonight. Tell whoever answers that you've found some of the money. Or tomorrow, we'll find you, and we'll go back to school. Comprende, señorita?”
I sat on the broken concrete curb, sobbing. A man came down the street, leading a donkey and carrying an old Speed Graphic camera.
“Souvenir pictures,” he cried. “Memories of Nogales.”
Passing me, he stopped and leaned over to me.
“Twenty minutes, walk two blocks down, look for the place where they sell bread. Go inside, go out the back door. Your friend is waiting there.”
“What friend?”
“The one on the old police bike.”
29
“Bobby. Donald, Don, what the hell do I call you?”
“Why are you calling, Laura?”
“Don. That's what Mari calls you, isn't it?”
“Don is fine.”
“I need serious help.”
“Wait, just wait a minute.”
“Money and information.”
“Laura, slow down, listen to me for a minute.”
“I've got no time to listen.”
“Mari is dying.”
“For Christ's sake, I know she's dying, I just saw her yesterday and she was going in to the hospital to get a bone marrow transplant so she could stop dying.”
“No,” Don said very carefully. “Listen to me. She never got the transplant. She's in a coma. She'll probably not last another day.”
Rey caught me as I swayed at the pay phone. He lowered me to the concrete sidewalk. I could hear Don's voice shouting in the phone, but the shock was too great, and my guilt even greater. I didn't care so much that Mari was really dying. I cared more that she couldn't help me. Rey didn't know what to do, but he recognized my panic attack and laid me on the ground. He picked up the phone, told Don I'd just fainted because of whatever he had told me, what the Christ did he say, anyhow, how could he goddam well say something that threw me into shock.
“Don't hang up,” I screamed.
Rey froze, his hand on the phone, inches from the cutoff plate. He listened, shook his head.
“He's there.”
“Help me up. No. Just hand me the phone.”
“Where are you?” Don said with alarm. “Ah, I see the trace. Nogales? Mexico?”
“About Mari,” I said. “Is there any way I can talk with her?”
“Yeah. I know what you're feeling. But no. She's in the operating room. They don't expect to be able to do anything for her. Did an MRI yesterday and found tumors all over her body.”
“Can't they operate?”
“No. Today, they're trying exploratory surgery, but the lead doctor told me that they'd probably just close her up without doing anything. I need to find Alex.”
“I'll call her. Tell her to contact you.”
“No. Have her call the hospital,” he said urgently and gave me a number.
“What do I do now? Please help me, Don.”
“We take down the score.”
“Don, believe me. I don't even know who the clients are any more.”
“So keep it simple. One thing at a time. What do you need from me?”
“How much money can I get?”
“How much do you have, wherever you have it? I mean, I can transfer funds from your bank account to Nogales.”
“Doesn't Mari have some? I mean, can't you do what you always do, get money to me from Mari's accounts?”
“She closed them all two days ago.”
“What?”
“She must have known. About the cancer. How little time she had.”
“Where did all her money go?” I said.
“Actually, she's been draining off her accounts steadily in the past six months. Some of it is in an irrevocable account. Trust fund for Alex. The rest, I can't trace it. Have no idea what she did. A guess, I'd say, she's transferred almost four hundred thousand dollars that I have no information about.”
“Where? For who?”
“Can't say. Back to the basics, Laura. First things first. I looked in your main Tucson bank account. You've got sixty-five thousand dollars. If you need it immediately, you'll have to cross back over the border. No Mexican bank can quickly process that much money.”
“Okay, okay. I'll come to Tucson.”
“What information do you need?” he asked.
“Everything on these names. Pinau Beltrán de Medina. Office of the Mexican Attorney General. Hector Garza. Colonel of Federal Mexican Policia and also works for Medina as her chief investigator. Michael Dance. Assistant US Attorney for Arizona. Jake Nasso. US Marshal. And while you're at that, look up Taá Wheatley. Another US Marshal.”
“I'll get on it right away. But I can't promise how quick I can get background.”
“There's a guy, a score Mari set up two years ago. Belgian. Opium smuggling.”
“I remember. He flipped, gave us major resources.”
“Look back through his file, Don. He gave us a name, somebody in Guatemala or Nicaragua, somewhere in Central America. Had files on all top Mexican officials.”
“I'm on that. What else?”
“Francisco Angel Zamora. Runs a large maquiladora down here in Nogales. Find out his US connections, what product lines he does, the size of his NAFTA contracts, if there's any complaints logged against him.”
“Got it.”
“Xochitl Gálvez. This is purely a hunch. I don't think that's her real name, and I'm not even sure she's using Xochitl any more. On her way to Kansas, so you might strike out with her. Oh, and run two addresses in California. 12 La Pintoresca, Pasadena. 4488 Lexington Avenue, West Hollywood.”
“Am I looking for an Albania connection?”
“No,” I said without explaining. “The addresses are personal.”
“What else?”
“One last thing. Try to find out where Mari's money went.”
“I promised her I'd never do anything like that.”
“Do it. For her.”
“Will it help you take down her score?”
“How the hell do I know, Don!”
I was shouting into the phone, and Rey put a hand on my shoulder, trying to steady me, trying to get me to move back from my anxiety attack.
“I'm assuming I can't call you?”
“No. If you can believe it, I gave my cell phone to Mari's daughter.”
“Why didn't you tell me that when I just asked you how to find her?”
“I'm really confused, Don. It's a bad, bad time down here.”
“So. Where is Alex?”
“Safe.” I gave him the cell number. “Out of the action.”
“Not if I know Alex. When are you coming back across the border?”
“There's something I have to do here.”
“Laura, when you call me remember our phone code number?”
From my refrigerator magnet.
“Use this code. Minus six. Plus five. I'm dumping all my cell numbers. This line may not even be safe. My scanners are showing intense traffic trying to read my encrypted stuff. I may have to move somewhere.”
“Don't leave me hanging, Don.”
“If I move, you'll be able to get me with absolutely no delay.”
“Why are you talking about moving?”
“Tell you later. Let me get cranking on these names.”
He hung up. Rey wrapped an arm around me and led me to the Harley.
“Let's go back to my place,” he said. “Let's just get you away from all of this.”
“No!”
“Well, at least let's get out of the center of town.”
We sat outside a Pizza Hut on the southern edge of Nogales. I'd gone through three Diet Cokes but had barely touched the pizza. My shoulders ached, my back was on fire, so I'd made Rey take me to a pharmacia where I bought a hundred tablets of Vicodin and another hundred Percosets. I'd now swallowed tw
o of each, but my body vibrated like piano wires, wrapped too tight, and I couldn't feel any buzz from the pills.
“You're sure the woman died.”
“He shot her. She fell. The bulldozer started to bury her.”
“Could have been staged.”
I hadn't thought of that possibility, considered it, nodded.
“Death squads. Americans have been hearing about them for decades. Sure. It could've been, except. . . no. Dead. The chains. Remember the video? On CNN? Death by dragging across the desert? I'm telling you, Rey, when that bulldozer dragged the woman's body into that hole, it left this—this—Jesus, it was a bloody streak.”
“So are you saying that the videotapes were made by Garza?”
“Maybe. But why?”
“He works for the Medina woman. What do they gain by murder?”
“Not just murder, Rey. The publicity. Videotapes of the murder.”
“Warnings, okay, sure. But warning who? And why?”
“I don't know.”
“So. Please. Let's go back to my place.”
I took out my money pouch and spread the bills on the stained plastic table.
“Laura. People can see what you're doing.”
A quick count. I had almost fifteen thousand dollars left.
“I've got to go back to the jail. I've got to get Jonathan out of there. Do you think this is enough money to buy his way out?”
“Those guards, they're probably terrified of Garza.”
“With this kind of money, Rey, they could walk away from their lives here. They could just go somewhere else in Mexico.”
“Garza would find them.”
“I don't care if Garza finds them. I don't care if he kills them tomorrow morning. By then we'll have Jonathan out of the jail.”
“No room for three on the Harley,” Rey said.
“Dump it. Trade it for an old pickup truck, the older the better.”
“Could do that.”
“We'll take Jonathan back to your place. Give him the pickup, tell him to disappear into Mexico. Then we'll take the Humvee back to Tucson.
“Gotta do one more thing before we get Jonathan.”
“There's no time.”
“Trust me, Rey. There's one thing we can do that may unravel all of this.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “What are we going to do?”
“We've got to find the water man.”