“I’m sorry for your loss, but that doesn’t change the situation. Let my daughter go.”
He waited before responding. “We will discuss that later.”
“Let her go. Now. She has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Have you ever been to the bullfights, Sheriff?”
“No.”
“A pity, it is the truest form of sport.” He paused. “When I was young, between beatings, my father took me to the arenas. It is the only art form in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”
“I’d likely root for the bull.”
“Anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it.”
“Did you just come in here to quote me Hemingway?”
He slowly smiled and then changed the subject. “How much money do you have, Sheriff?”
It took me a moment to put together what he was asking. “Excuse me?”
“In liquid assets, how much do you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Four million, two hundred and eighty-two thousand, four hundred American dollars and sixty-two cents.” He turned his head to look at me. “Inherited mostly from your grandfather I would assume, a little from your parents, which is mostly tied up in a ranch where you do not live, and then your meager savings from a lifetime of public service.”
I took another sip of water. “More than I thought, but I’m sure you’re right.”
“How much would you give to buy your daughter’s freedom?”
“All.”
“All of it?” He cocked his head. “Perhaps you will soon have the chance.” He slowly stood, sighing deeply. “I have learned one thing in my lifetime, Sheriff. Power is everything, anything else is simply a means to power.” He stopped and looked around the room. “From this perspective you might not agree, but this is the true land of opportunity. At first, I simply came here to hide out, but the prospects that presented themselves were more than I could resist.” He looked down at me. “Have you never wanted to reinvent yourself, Sheriff—to start anew?”
“Not like this.”
“With great opportunities come great risks.”
“So you’ve moved up from the protection racket to management.” My turn to look around. “I’m not impressed, and it’s not the risks that bother me, it’s the immorality.”
“What about the immorality of what you do? Are you not in the protection racket, as you call it, yourself? You protect the assets of the people of your county, their money, their homes, and their families. Do you see that as being so different from what you perceive that I do?”
“I don’t sell poison, and I don’t kill people to do it.”
“But you do, you have, and for so very little. The difference is that I get paid a great deal more, Sheriff.”
“What I do, I do for the common good.”
“Call me a privateer then.” He took a step toward the door. “You must be lonely, down here by yourself.”
He started to go, but I stopped him. “One more thing.”
He paused. “Certainly.”
“Why?”
He looked momentarily confused. “Why?”
I gestured around, the manacles a clanking emphasis to the question. “You could’ve killed me, hired someone to kill me . . .” I pulled the postcard from my shirt pocket, the one he had sent. “But instead you did all this—why?”
He leaned against the door and sighed. “I have led a varied life and have found myself pitted against many men, bad men, greedy men, hard men, shrewd men. . . . You are one of the very few truly good men whom I have ever encountered.”
“Let my daughter go.”
“You will be making that decision yourself.” He glanced around once more. “I do worry about you spending your time here alone, so I have made arrangements for your company.” Stepping through the doorway, he picked up something draped in a plastic shopping bag and placed it on the chair.
He pulled the bag away to reveal a soccer ball smeared with blood and with Adan Martínez’s skinned face stitched to it, the empty eye sockets dark, his mouth an open gash.
* * *
—
I stared at Adan’s face through most of the night.
Thinking about the man I had called a friend, I tried to remember every detail of him that I knew. Henry Standing Bear says that the greatest thing you can do to respect the dead is to remember them, to keep them in your mind so that they do not slip away into that cold, dark infinity that awaits all of us.
The risks he had taken to accompany me weighed heavy on my heart. I owed Adan Martínez a debt I could never pay, and the only thing I could do was make his sacrifice worthwhile.
I flexed my fingers and could still feel the stiffness in the index finger of my right hand. Then I reached up and pulled the bandages from my eye—the worse I looked, the better. I had ugly work to do, and the clearer they saw me, the fairer it would be. I wondered strategically whether they had found the weapons cache I’d covered with rocks on the other side of the wall.
Bidarte’s men came and got me relatively early, taking Adan’s face away first, and then quickly returning to unlock me from the wall, one of them on each side and another standing in the hallway through the open door with an AK pointed at my stomach.
Marching me through the hall in handcuffs, they took me up the stairs and into the plaza, my eyes blinking in the unaccustomed light. I stood there for a moment squinting in the morning sun, before the one with the gun nudged me forward toward a fountain at the center of the stone-paved plaza.
The place was trashed with beer and liquor bottles, napkins, articles of clothing, and confetti scattered everywhere. Even a few crepe paper floats had been thrown in the walkways of the monastery, the giant marionettes looking like oversized skeletons sleeping off the night’s revelries.
As they poked me forward, I could see someone holding a rifle and smoking a cigarette standing at the other end of the plaza beside some sort of wooden structure.
Stumbling across the stones, I pulled up and stopped, looking between a few buildings and down the main road that curved out of sight, choked with vehicles and more trash.
Culpepper turned to look at me. “Sleep well?”
“Well enough.”
“I heard you had company.”
I stared at him for a good long while. “You know, I didn’t think it was possible for me to regret not killing you more than I already had.”
He smirked.
“Before this is all over, I may be making a stronger effort on your behalf.”
He moved his free hand like a puppet. “Bark, bark, big dog—we’re about to put a collar on you.” He gestured at the heavy wood structure he leaned against. “This thing was here when we set up operations—can you believe that? I guess if the monks got out of hand they threw them in these and calmed ’em down. What do they call these things?”
“Stocks. They were used in medieval times and even in colonial America—the earliest reference, though, is in the Book of Acts in the Bible; Paul and Silas were arrested and put in them.”
“Well, you’re following good company then, huh?” He patted the worn-smooth grain of the ironwood. “The last guy that we stuck out here for three days, he croaked, but then nobody brought him water or food.”
I stared at him.
He flipped a few clasps and pulled away a locking rod. “Just sit your big ass on that stone and stick your legs through the holes, if you would.”
“And if I don’t?”
He rested the butt of the M16 on his hip and puffed his cigarette. “I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”
“I don’t think Bidarte would like that.”
He sighed. “Well, I
can at least smash the rest of your face in until you do what I say.” He looked bored. “Get in the thing, will you?”
The gunsel with the KalishniKov nudged me in the back, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting what happened next, as I slipped sideways, bringing my left elbow into the side of his head and snatching the automatic rifle as he fell, catching himself on his hands and knees. Bringing the stock down on the back of his skull, I watched as he dropped face-first and didn’t move.
I turned back and carefully tossed the AK to one of the stunned men standing a step away. “Consider that an object lesson.” Luckily, he caught it, and I stared at Culpepper. “Shoot and save your life.”
“I’m tempted.” He smiled, one blue eye peering at me from over the gun sight as he motioned with the muzzle toward the stocks. “Do us all a favor and get in.”
I did as he said, sitting on a large block of stone about the size of a mini-refrigerator, and rested my legs into the holes as he and the other two men lowered the top and locked me in with padlocks that looked old enough to have held Ambrose Bierce.
“Just so you know, things get a little crazy out here leading up to the party tonight, and it’s not unusual for people to throw garbage, spit, or do other horrible things to whoever happens to be in here.”
I leaned back, locking my elbows for support.
He plucked my hat from my head and placed it on his own where it wobbled like a clapper in too large of a bell and kicked the still unconscious man lying on the stones, finally flipping his cigarette at him. “You still didn’t kill him, so I’m not all that impressed.”
* * *
—
I ate the beans, rice, eggs, and tortillas; Alexia rested my metal cup on the thick slab of wood that held my legs. Watching as she poured me more coffee from the beat-up percolator, I studied the square, where the few people who were moving studiously ignored us. “Is everyone sleeping in?”
She set the pot down. “They are sleeping in preparation for later today and tonight.”
“Have you spoken with Cady?”
She nodded. “Just long enough to bring her the breakfast.” Alexia leaned in close. “And give her back the star.” She glanced around, but we were alone. “She wants to know if you have lost the mind.”
“I figured that would be the response.”
“She is very angry with you, but she says to tell you that she loves you very much.”
I couldn’t help but smile and nodded. “Okay.”
“I lie to her and tell her help is on way.”
“Good.”
“No one is on way?”
“No. Well . . . Eventually, but they’ve got to find us, and it’s the federal government so they’ve got satellites, global positioning and all that . . .”
“They not find us.”
“No, probably not.” I sipped more coffee, trying to avoid the cuts in my mouth and my broken nose, and practiced focusing my sore eye. “I’m still trying to figure it out. I mean, Lowery allowed me to contact the States, the FBI for goodness sake, and for the life of me I can’t figure why they would take a chance like that.”
“Mr. Lowery is nice man.”
I rattled my legs to remind her. “He ratted us out.” She looked at me blankly. “Told on us.”
She shrugged. “Mr. Culpepper, he is the one responsible for the death of my nephew—I would like to see him dead, along with Mr. Bidarte.”
“Well, I think we can all agree on that.”
“They kill your friend?”
“Yes.”
“I am so sorry.”
Anxious to change the subject, I cleared my throat. “How are you?”
She shrugged, sitting on the short stone wall that surrounded the plaza. “This evil place, it is bruto, crazy, they kill the people for breathing.” She watched as I reached out and flipped the padlock that held me, a bulky and corroded beast that had no pity. “But they have not harmed Miss Cady in any way.”
I wondered for how much longer. “That’s good.”
Someone yelled in Spanish, and we both turned to see a man standing near the monastery, waving for Alexia to come, at least I assumed it was her in that I was temporarily indisposed.
She stood with the pot, and I handed her the empty plate while palming the fork and keeping the tin cup just in case my plan with the fork didn’t work out. She glanced around, looking for the fork, so I showed it to her; she nodded and turned without another word and walked toward the monastery.
If she wasn’t used to the game, she was picking it up quick.
It was a cheap fork and bent readily. I twisted the tines back and forth until they finally succumbed to metal fatigue, and I was left with a roughly fashioned lock-picking tool. I tried the lock and discovered the tool was too thick to fit in the hole, so I reached down and began scraping the metal against the stone on which I sat.
As I ground the thing down, I watched the people starting to populate the square as if I were in some park back home. There was an old man who appeared with a wooden push broom and began driving the detritus toward the fountain at the center of the square, finally plucking a garbage bag from his pocket and slowly filling it.
A few others crossed the plaza in a hurry to go someplace else, and a few more wandered out into the open, obviously still inebriated from the previous night. Some congregated in the shade of the monastery and glanced my way, but they didn’t come close.
I checked my pick but could see it was still too thick and began grinding it again.
After about forty minutes, the drummers and a couple of trombone players showed up in full mariachi garb and started to set up right behind me. “Oh no, get the hell out of here.”
They stared at me.
“Look, sticking me in this damn thing is bad enough—I’m not going to have you guys pounding in my head all day and night.” Gesturing, I used one of the words from my limited vocabulary again. “Vámanos!”
They laughed, I guess thinking I was joking or else they thought there was little I could do about it, but their minds changed when I picked up the tin of coffee.
Either concerned with what I might do to their elaborate costumes or whether I’d bounce the heavy tin cup off one of their heads, they moved away, grumbling and making gestures toward me.
I turned back and began grinding the pick again, sipping my now cold coffee and watching them set up near the fountain. The sun was getting high, and I was beginning to regret not having my hat as time passed and more people poured into the plaza.
The drummers began beating away in the same rhythm I’d heard yesterday and most of the night, and the elongated trombones and trumpets began emphasizing the beat; before long even more people began showing up for party day two. The majority still had on the masks, makeup, and period costumes from the night before, some looking a little worse for wear. There were also a few new celebrants, dressed to the nueve, swaying to what passed for music.
Half-cut barrels were rolled out from the archways of the monastery, filled with ice and bottles of beer and wine, while whole barrels were set up in a couple of locations with planks laid across as a makeshift bar, crates of hard liquor underneath.
Reaching down, I fit the tine into the lock and felt around for the tumblers. I pushed a bit but could feel the tine bending.
“What did you do?”
I turned to see one of the revelers looking at me questioningly through the eye holes of his papier-mâché mask, reminding me for all the world of Adan’s skinned face. My head slouched on my shoulders. “I killed somebody who kept asking me questions.”
His own head kicked sideways and the top hat almost fell from his crown. “You should be nice, the last guy they had in there? Everybody brought him drinks, so much so that he died.”
I picked up my cup again. “Scram, before I bounce this off your head.
”
He took another sip of his beer, gave me the finger, and moved back toward the group. “Stay thirsty, my friend.”
Watching him go, my eyes dropped to the cup in my hands, the watery coffee barely covering the bottom. Setting it down, I wiped the sweat from my face with a shirtsleeve and wished I’d asked the most interesting man in the world for his hat.
Working a different angle with the fork, I got frustrated and jammed the thing in in an attempt to get some kind of response from the lock and was rewarded with a slight metallic sound and watched as the faux pick slipped from the mechanism and fell onto the stone street with a diminutive tink.
* * *
—
The party was in full swing with a few gunshots going off at the far end of the square, but the only thing I cared about was that the sun had dropped behind the monastery, the long shadows stretching across the plaza having finally found me, the darker shadows of the tail end of the volcanic massifs leading into the desert like the final scene of a bad dream. A faded ochre- and umber-colored plain seemed to stretch forever into the distance, past the manmade mess below with open doorways caped in shower curtains where doors should’ve been. I was struck by the thought that the world might well be better off without people.
The square was full of dancers and drunks, the demarcation not so easy to discern as the crowd moved in one throbbing mass. There was still a little space between me and the mob, but I figured it was only a question of time before things would get out of control. A few celebrants had shot me hard glances and a few articles of trash had been thrown in my direction, or maybe at the drunk who lay on the steps behind me.
I turned and looked at the man, half on the steps and half on the ground. He’d been wearing a sombrero that had fallen off and now lay between us. Stretching a bit, I was able to get the tips of my fingers on the brim and edged it toward me. I picked it up and placed it on my head, and to my fortune the guy had a big one and it almost fit. I crossed my arms and rested my chin on my chest. I tried to doze a bit, but the position was uncomfortable and the noise was too much.
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