A Girl Apart

by Russell Blake

  Uriel allowed Patricia to finish and then held up a finger and translated for Leah. “She says he is a rich gringo, and he’s into some horrible things. That she lives in fear that he will return to the club.”

  “Why fear?”

  Another halting exchange, and Uriel stiffened as she finished. “She says her friend Erica went out with him and his friends somewhere and was never seen again. There are rumors of parties where…where people die. They come to Mexico because life is cheap and they can buy off the police.”

  Leah suddenly felt queasy. “Will she go on record with this? I can keep her anonymous. Protect her identity.”

  Uriel made the offer, and Patricia shook her head violently and made to stand. Leah tried to reassure her with a gesture, but Patricia backed away from the bed, saying, “No, no, y no!”

  “Ask her to calm down. Apologize.”

  Uriel tried, but it had little effect. Patricia rattled off something in Spanish that was far too fast for Leah to make out, and Uriel nodded and rose. “She’s done talking. She says she doesn’t have anything more to say. She’s frightened for her life. Says she has two children she’s supporting and can’t afford any problems. She wants us to leave her alone.”

  Leah chewed her lip in frustration, but ultimately had no choice but to agree. “Okay. But see if you can get her phone number or something so my editor can verify the account.”

  Uriel translated, but Patricia shook her head again. She growled something at the two of them and then moved to the door, twisted the knob, and bolted from the room as fast as her heels would carry her.

  “She’s terrified,” Uriel said.

  “Maybe. I didn’t get the feeling she was telling us everything. Something was off about it, but I don’t know what.”

  “You think she’s exaggerating or inventing it?”

  “I can’t be sure. If she is, she’s a skilled liar.”

  Uriel walked to the door and looked back at Leah. “In this business, they learn that on day one.”

  Chapter 22

  The trip back downstairs was anticlimactic. Both Leah and Uriel took the steps in silence, the horrific account having sucked the life out of the atmosphere. Leah tried to imagine what it must be like to have to live in terror and sell your body so your family could survive, and shivered reflexively. She would remember this meeting for a long time, and whenever she thought she had it rough, she’d remember that only a quarter mile from her apartment, women like Patricia had it much, much tougher.

  Uriel was subdued as they made their way to the club entrance. Patricia was nowhere to be seen. Leah looked to where Sergio was cleaning a glass and he averted his gaze, sending another shiver down her spine. The bordello suddenly felt more dangerous than when they’d entered, and she was aware of all eyes following them as they neared the door, as though the jungle drums had signaled a threat, warning everybody of their presence.

  The doorman, his brow thick with scar tissue, stared blankly at them as Uriel escorted Leah past. Once out on the sidewalk, Leah breathed a sigh of relief. The smoggy night air felt like ambrosia after the club’s oppressive atmosphere.

  Uriel had a worried expression as he looked along the deserted street. “This isn’t good. No traffic.”

  “Maybe we can have the club call us a taxi?”

  Uriel frowned. “I didn’t get the sense that we were welcome anymore.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “There’s a major street two blocks down that way. We should be able to pick up a cab there.”

  Leah appeared doubtful. “Can’t you call one?”

  “I don’t have any numbers. Remember I’m not from around here.”

  “There’s no 411 in Mexico?”

  Uriel shook his head. “Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll be safe.”

  He set off at a fast pace, and Leah had to strain to keep up, his frame athletic compared to hers, which was more accustomed to sitting at her desk all day rather than rock climbing and whatever else he did. The lights of the club receded behind them, and the street’s still shadows stretched dark toward the night sky, their footsteps the only sound.

  A loud flapping of wings from a tree to her right startled Leah, and she gasped as an owl lifted into the gloom. She drew closer to Uriel, who was turning to say something to her when two figures appeared in front of them, barring their path.

  The snick of a switchblade flipping echoed along the street, and Uriel pushed her behind him as he faced the pair – the two lowlifes from the market, now eager to replenish their coffers at Uriel and Leah’s expense.

  “Your money,” the one with the knife barked in Spanish. “Now.”

  Leah didn’t need a translation to understand, and she gripped Uriel’s arm. “What do we do?” she whispered.

  “Hand them our cash. It’s not worth dying over a few pesos,” Uriel said. He slowly reached for his wallet. “Okay,” he said in Spanish. “Take it easy. We don’t want any trouble. You can have our money. Just don’t hurt us.”

  Leah fumbled her wallet out, withdrew the seventy dollars in it, and slipped it to Uriel. “You think they’ll leave us alone?” she hissed.

  Uriel ignored her and palmed her money. He held out his hand with the bills and watched the men’s eyes, dimly visible in the gloom. “Here’s everything we’ve got, okay? I’ll put it on the ground, and we’ll just keep moving, all right?”

  The man with the knife grinned wolfishly. “She’s American, isn’t she?”

  “You can have our money. Let us go,” Uriel repeated.

  “Always wondered what a gringa might be like,” the knife wielder said to his accomplice.

  Uriel’s tone hardened. “If you don’t let us go without any trouble, you’re going to have to go through me to get to her,” he said.

  “Yeah?” the second man snapped. “You going to take us both on, hero boy?”

  “You may get me with the knife, but I’ll break enough on both of you that you’ll regret it. Take the money and get out of here, or find out you bit off more than you bargained for,” Uriel growled, the menace in his voice clear. He squared his shoulders as he finished and turned slightly so he was presenting them with his side, his fists clenched, his eyes hard.

  Something about his stance gave the man with the knife pause, and he sounded less certain when he next spoke. “Wad up the money and toss it over here. You move, and I’ll slit you ear to ear.”

  Uriel complied, moving slowly, his stare unwavering as he balled the bills with a squeeze of his hand and underhanded them to where the mugger stood. His companion knelt and scooped up the cash, and then the pair hesitated as though considering rushing him.

  Uriel tensed in preparation for the assault, but instead of attacking, the men backed away and took off at a sprint. Leah waited by Uriel’s side until their footfalls faded, and then exhaled loudly as she clutched his arm. He took her hand and pulled her forward. “Come on. Let’s run the rest of the way. It was stupid not to in the first place.”

  “They would have still jumped us,” she said.

  “Let’s move,” he replied, and they dashed toward the faint light of the distant boulevard, their breathing a rasp in the silence of the night.

  When they reached the main street, they were both panting, and Uriel slowed as they neared a Pemex station. “We should be safe here,” he said as he drew to a stop.

  “But now we’re broke.”

  “I have more money at the hotel.” He squinted at the oncoming headlights. “Do you see any taxis?”

  Leah shook her head. “Not really.”

  Uriel felt for his cell phone.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m a fool. I have the hotel’s number in my cell memory. I’m going to do what we should have back there – call them and have them send a taxi.”

  Leah accompanied him to where the Pemex attendants were lounging in their olive green coveralls. Uriel had a short exchange with one of the
m and then held his phone to his ear. The hotel answered, and he hurriedly explained the situation and gave them the address of the station. When he hung up, he looked relieved.

  “They’ll have a car here shortly,” he said.

  Leah studied his face. “What did they say when you offered the money? It looked like they…like they were going to fight you.”

  He looked at his shoes. “It was nothing. They’re barrio trash. All bark, isn’t that the saying?”

  “You seemed to know what you were doing,” she said.

  “I wasn’t always an architect. Remember I grew up here. Some things you don’t forget.”

  “You would have really taken them both on?”

  “A guy with a knife? It wasn’t my first choice.”

  The taxi took almost half an hour to arrive, and Leah felt drained sitting in the backseat beside Uriel as it drove to the hotel. When they arrived, she waited in the cab and he went to his room to get some money. When he returned, he paid the driver and gave him a generous tip. Leah got out of the car and made a face. “This was an expensive night for both of us, wasn’t it? I’m sorry I dragged you along, Uriel.”

  He smiled. “You didn’t drag me anywhere, Leah. Besides, it took my mind off worrying about my sister, which is my big problem right now.” He checked the time. “It’s going to be hard to sleep after all this. Can I convince you to join me for a drink? The hotel bar will still be open.”

  Leah looked into his eyes and hesitated and then nodded. “What the hell – why not? But something Mexican. And strong.”

  “I think I can arrange that.”

  They entered the hotel and walked to the bar, a small affair with only four tables. They were the only ones besides a bored bartender who was watching soccer on a flat-screen TV. Seeing them enter, he reluctantly tore his attention from the game and brought them a bowl of mixed nuts and a drink menu. Uriel waved it away and gave the man his order, pointing at Leah and then himself, and the man nodded and hurried off.

  “What did you ask for?”

  “You wanted a strong Mexican drink. I hope you like a Cadillac margarita.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”

  “You would remember if you had. 1800 tequila, Controy, and Grand Marnier, with some fresh lime juice, over ice.”

  “After a day like today, I could use it.”

  The bartender returned with a pair of large tumblers filled to the rim with amber nectar, three ice cubes bobbing in each. Uriel raised his glass and toasted her. “Salud.”

  She clinked the salted rim of her drink against his and took a cautious sip. Her eyes widened and she licked salt from her lips. “Wow. That definitely packs a wallop.”

  He nodded and took another small taste. “It could use more tequila.” He signaled to the bartender and called out in Spanish, holding up two fingers. Moments later the man brought over a pair of tall shot glasses of toffee-colored liquid. Leah raised an eyebrow as he emptied his into his glass and smiled at her. “Try it. It really will taste better.”

  “When in Juárez…” Leah said, and mirrored his maneuver. She slurped the drink and returned his smile. “You’re right. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to walk after I’m done.”

  “Nonsense. Tequila is good for you.”

  “Then this is purely medicinal,” she said, toasting him again and taking a longer pull. She felt the drink’s warmth spread through her chest and into her stomach and decided maybe Uriel’s cure wasn’t so bad after all.

  When the drinks were half gone, Uriel ran his fingers through his thick hair and appraised her. “So how did you wind up a star reporter?”

  “Hardly a star,” she said, blushing. “I wanted to do this ever since I was in high school – no, probably even before – and I just…I got lucky, worked hard, and here I am.” She laughed. “But it’s not all as glamorous as it might seem from today.”

  Another sip steadied the flutter in her stomach. Having drinks in an exotic foreign bar with a handsome stranger wasn’t her usual Friday night, and her companion was making her as nervous as a teenager. She snuck a look at Uriel and decided that he was indeed handsome in a shopworn, academic way.

  Leah instantly felt bad at the thought. As hard as her day had been, his last couple had been far worse – she hadn’t had her father gunned down and had to bury him, nor had her sister been arrested for murder only hours before. If it had been Leah, she’d have fallen apart. So maybe not shopworn. Just…worked over by recent circumstance.

  Uriel ate a few nuts and studied her. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking. You’ve been through the wringer, and to top it off, we get robbed. Pretty lousy day, I’d say.”

  He held up his glass and eyed the remaining inch of his drink, and then nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve had better ones.” He drained the rest and set the glass down. “But at least this part is good.”

  The bartender approached with two more drinks, and Leah shook her head. “No…”

  The man grinned. “Happy hour till close,” he said in English. “Two for one.” He winked. “Double trouble, si?”

  Uriel sat back. “It would be rude to decline.”

  Leah’s face felt warm, but a sip of the second drink restored her calm. “These are addictive.”

  “They are good, aren’t they?”

  The bartender reappeared with the two extra shots, and Leah groaned. “Oh, God…”

  “The universe heard you and delivered. Enjoy,” Uriel said.

  The second margarita flooded Leah with an odd tranquility, and although part of her reasoned that she was feeling slightly hammered, another part didn’t care. It was Friday, her job was on the rocks, and she had just cracked her big story wide open with Patricia’s account. Tequila seemed like just what the doctor ordered.

  “So you were in school and just decided one day you wanted to be a journalist?” Uriel asked.

  Leah smirked, her lips slightly numb. “Hardly. It was when I worked for the high school paper. I realized I’d finally found something I could relate to, you know? I’m not sure how it is in Mexico, but in the States high school was all about which group you belonged to. There were the cheerleaders, the stoners, the geeks…but I never felt like I fit in with any of them. It was like I was just putting in time, watching someone else in my body go through the motions. I had no real friends or anything, so I was kind of a loner – I always romanticized it, I guess. I didn’t think of it as being a loser or anything. More like it was something special, like someone from an Edwardian novel. I even had a name for it: I was the heroine of my private teen drama – a girl apart. Not a misfit, really, but…I just didn’t fit in any of the pigeonholes.” She took a long sip of her margarita. “This is seriously good, Uriel.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “So then you did the paper, and it all fell into place?”

  “Sort of. I mean, I wasn’t going to be on the cheerleading squad, and the punk and goth things didn’t have much appeal for me, so I didn’t have a lot of hope of socializing or anything. But when I started reporting for the paper, I discovered I really enjoyed the research, the interviewing people, trying to tell the story in as few words as possible but with all the information. I always liked computers for the same reason – it was like, writing code is a lot like writing an article. The more efficient you can be with the number of characters, the better.” She made another face. “It sounds dumb when I put it like that.”

  “Not at all. It’s much the same in architecture. There’s a certain symmetry to simplicity. An elegance to getting the lines right with as few unnecessary flourishes as possible. That’s the hardest thing to teach – that appreciation of simplicity. There’s a…a poetry to it when you get it perfect, without a single extraneous detail. That’s the word, right? Extraneous?”

  She nodded. “Your English is very good. And I know exactly what you mean.”

  “You’ve always worked in El Paso?” Uriel asked after another swallow.

&n
bsp; “No. I escaped for a while. But things didn’t work out, so now I’m starting over.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sighed. “I landed a job in New York. A dream job. I moved there, everything was great, and then…I messed up. So now I’m back in Texas for good.”

  “I find it hard to imagine you…messing up.”

  “I wrote a piece I was told not to pursue. It got me into hot water, and ultimately, I was blackballed. I should have known better, but I thought the truth would protect me. It didn’t.”

  “What was it about?”

  She looked at a point a thousand miles left of his shoulder. “Sex. Or rather, sexual harassment. One of the editors that I worked with was a total predator. He came on to me and I shot him down. So then he got pushy about it, started making my life miserable. I did some digging, and it turned out he had a history of doing it. So I wrote a story about it and slipped it through when nobody was paying any attention – I won’t brag about how I did it, but let’s just say that it wasn’t smart. Anyway, the next day it was like a nuke went off at the paper, and they fired me for getting the story into print without following proper procedure.”

  “But it was true, right? Couldn’t you sue them?”

  “No. I mean, I was guilty of gaming the system to get it run, so they had me fair and square on that. I figured they’d overlook it once it was out there – the guy was caught dead to rights. But what I didn’t bank on was his uncle, who sits on the board of the paper. Apparently he didn’t take well to having his nephew called out, so my career stopped cold and nobody in the business would hire me. And I mean nobody. I had to crawl back to my old job in El Paso and beg for a chance.”

  They took their time over the remainder of their drinks, Leah questioning him about his growing up in Juárez, and then the bartender reappeared with the check. Uriel signed for it and got to his feet. Leah joined him and grabbed his arm for support, her head spinning. “Whoa. That’s not good,” she said, blinking rapidly.