by Ann Aguirre
In morning light, Calle Jacarandas looked a little shabby. Doubtless it would look worse to someone accustomed to sanitized American cities. In addition to all the bars and grates, the adobe and stucco buildings held grime, though people fought it with flamboyant paint. On my street alone, you saw azure, mandarin, golden-rod, sienna, violet, and rose hued houses.
But there were more trees and flowers here too. Mexico City was one of the greenest urban sprawls I’d ever seen. My neighbor had a garden I envied: a huge noche buena tree with big glorious red flowers, native frangipani, rosebushes, hydrangea, and a wall full of bougainvillea. As we walked, I tried to see my life through Chance’s eyes and eventually gave up as I clambered into the SUV.
We were quiet as we drove. I guess he was thinking about what waited for us in Laredo, but to my surprise, he didn’t need directions to find the periférico or to get back on the federal highway that led north to Monterrey. I brought my map, just in case, because I hadn’t explored the city much beyond the barrio where I wound up.
He shrugged, correctly interpreting my astonishment. “I drove around here a bit, looking for you.”
I didn’t ask how he’d found me. Using his gift, he’d have stumbled on someone who knew about my shop. That was how it worked... and why he didn’t use it lightly. An unscrupulous person would turn such strange luck to any number of bad ends, but Chance had always used his power over coincidence with great care. I felt a flicker of remorse that I intended to warp it in pursuit of my mama’s killers, but not enough to change my course.
Chance bitched beneath his breath at the other drivers while we got out of the city. Maybe I should’ve warned him people here considered a red light a suggestion and that they thought nothing of turning left from the far right lane. Still, the Suburban meant he had a lot of weight to back up his vehicular threats and most folks gave way.
The demarcation from city to country came sharply, and the wide open spaces carried a remoteness you find nowhere in the U.S. Even the likes of Montana and Wyoming don’t compare to the vast empty stretches on the way to Monterrey, which sits on the southwestern Texas border. Laredo is about two more hours away from Monterrey, and I hoped he didn’t intend to try to do it all in one day. My ass protested the thought.
The mountains are starkly beautiful, but you can go a hundred miles between gas stations with a grazing goat as the only sign of life. Tequila farms lay here and there along the highway, and far off the road, I imagined I saw smoke rising from a distant chimney.
Driving from Mexico state to Nuevo León on the carretera nacional covered a lot of territory. Earlier this year, I read how a dispute between two Tzótzil Indian families over a pothole escalated into a full-blown shoot-out, resulting in four fatalities. It isn’t rare for guns to settle arguments, particularly in poorly policed indigenous areas; the modern world with a deputy parked behind every road sign to catch you speeding doesn’t exist out here.
“It’s a little scary, isn’t it?”
I exhaled, remembering making this drive by myself. Even so, I’d been glad to leave the border towns. “Yeah. Anything could happen out here.”
Though I didn’t say so, anything could happen when we reached Laredo as well. Adjoining Nuevo Laredo via International Bridge, the town is a shithole, and I wished Chance hadn’t let Min join him there. Then again, he probably didn’t know about the warring cartels turning the place into a charnel house. Thanks to their private war over the I-35 route, which exploded at the intersection of Paseo Colón and Avenida Reforma, the murder rates there rivaled those in DC.
It took the intervention of the Mexican army to break up that fight, but I doubted this was common knowledge for the average American. I knew of it only because an overly informative U-Haul agent offered the news when I passed through, along with a warning to get my ass out of town. And this was where his mother disappeared.
I smelled something burning.
On the Road Again
For once, it wasn’t merely my nose for trouble.
After Chance pulled off to the side of the road to investigate the reason for the dashboard light coming on, I climbed out to stretch my legs. I wandered around while he tried to figure out how to open the hood. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but trees and mountains narrowly cut by the well-kept highway. Hard to believe we were only an hour out of the city. For about a minute, I managed to hold my tongue and then my sense of humor got the best of me.
“Let me guess. You didn’t check the fluids before we left?”
His head jerked up, his outraged look priceless. Chance did not see to such things. He paid people to see to such things, but he would’ve had a hard time making himself understood at a service station, so I popped the hood myself. Some steam billowed out, verifying there was a problem, but damned if I knew what it was.
The radiator looked intact, and it was beyond me to examine anything else. If we were just low on water, I could walk to one of the roadside spigots, but if the truck needed replacement parts, we were in a world of trouble. I didn’t bother checking my cell; the mountains fucked with reception out here and who would I call anyway? We’d be lucky if a truck driver picked us up within a couple hours.
“Don’t turn off the engine,” I told him. “Let it cool off while it idles. I’ll walk back a ways and get some water. You stay with the Suburban and check the back to see if you have any spare coolant.”
“You want me to make you a sandwich too?”
“Turkey on rye,” I said over my shoulder. “Lettuce and tomato, no onion.”
I found an empty container and set off, grateful we hadn’t gone too far past the last water stop. Highly ill advised to drink from the highway taps, but for a vehicle in trouble, they were a godsend. Chance startled me by laughing, audible a hundred feet away. I turned and gave him a quizzical look.
“You’re so great,” he said. “I’d forgotten that too.”
What could I say? I just kept walking. I sweated, the sun beating down on my head as I reflected how blue the sky is so far from civilization. Later I tried to refill the engine’s water reservoir. Let’s just say Chance didn’t think I was so great when I cracked the engine block.
To his credit, he didn’t rant, just pulled his backpack out of the truck. I had the good sense not to say anything since I’d teased him about not checking the vehicle. It seemed like we were even on catastrophes. So we leaned against the Suburban in silence, tired and thirsty, waiting for a ride, as we’d done for the last two hours.
Finally, someone stopped for us, but his cab was crowded and I rode for several hours on Chance’s lap. If he’d made a comment about his legs going numb, I would’ve clubbed him with my straw handbag. The trucker took us as far as San Luis Potosí, where we arranged for the rental company to reclaim the Suburban. I didn’t want to bitch, but we’d wasted an astonishing amount of time, and we were only around halfway to Monterrey.
So a few hours on the road, a few hours beside the road, and another few hours on Chance’s lap. It was well into the afternoon by the time we sorted out another ride. This time Chance got a Toyota with precious few amenities, looking pained as he slid his credit card across the counter. Mostly, I hoped the vehicle was reliable.
Before departing, we ate at the Holiday Inn there, a nice Brazilian-style place where they laid side dishes in a buffet and then brought to the table skewered cuts of meat for us to choose from. I had the beer-braised chicken and a nice cucumber salad. While he enjoyed a cup of excellent coffee and I pondered having some flan, I heard a familiar voice.
“Chance, is that you?”
There it was again—his luck. If we hadn’t broken down, we’d never have stopped here. What earthly reason could Tanya have to be in San Luis? Yet here she was. He waved her over, smiling. She was one of his acquaintances, and I’d never liked her, rich and useless to say the least. Of course, I might have liked her better if she didn’t seize every possible opportunity to remind me I didn’t belong with
him.
When she reached our table, she stared at me as if I were something she’d found sticking to the sole of her shoe. In the end, she decided not to dignify my existence with a comment. Maybe she hoped I’d disappear if she clicked her ruby slippers together (though they were bisque and bronze) and wished hard enough.
“I tried to get in touch with you before I left the country,” she said to him. “But nobody seemed to know where you’d gone. I have your money. Daddy finally coughed up my allowance because I’m doing something useful these days. I’m a patron of native crafts and culture.” Her tone disparaged the art she purported to patronize, but Tanya chattered on, oblivious to our silence. “So odd we’d run into each other here of all places, but then it is the only decent restaurant in town. We’d probably die of dysentery if we chanced one of those tavernas or taco stands.”
I steamed quietly, as I’d eaten in my share of those places and never suffered any ill effects. Chance made an effort to be civil, though I could tell his patience was stretched to the breaking point. We’d be lucky to get there by midnight at this rate, and I’d give myself a lobotomy if he invited Tanya along.
With precise motions, he wiped his mouth on the blue linen napkin and then laid it across his coffee cup. “I wish I could spend more time catching up, but we need to go. If you want to give me a check while we’re here, though, that will be fine.”
Her expression as she got out her checkbook said he’d been rude. I think she had expected to make some social headway with him but I could have warned her that Chance never fucked anyone who borrowed money from him. He was fastidious in that regard; he mingled, wore the right clothes to intrigue twats like Tanya, but he’d never be one of them.
Though he wasn’t a shark with a goon squad that broke legs for him, Chance often made high interest, short term loans to privileged idiots who overspent their trust funds, and I was how he’d earned the capital to do so. Still, the number of zeroes on the check she made out to him in U.S. dollars made my eyes widen.
“Good luck with your art show,” I said to her in saccharine tones.
As we waited for the valet to bring our car around (in Mexico even Burger King has valet parking), he murmured, “That came at a good time.” He paused, as if weighing whether to tell me more. “Things were running a bit lean, and we’re going to need that money before we’re through.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell me again why you don’t play the lottery.”
“It would be wrong.” Giving me an inscrutable look, he tipped the man holding his door and got into the piss yellow Camry.
“Right,” I said. “We’re the good guys.”
Occupied with heading back toward the highway, he didn’t respond. I grinned as he stopped at a PEMEX and had the fluids topped off; we were taking no chances with the Toyota. We bought bottles of water there as well, just to be safe. However, studying him once we got under way, I decided something beneath his impeccable tailoring suggested a hero keeping dark forces at bay.
The sun was setting by that point, blazing fire over the Sierra Madre. Slate and charcoal clouds gathered over the mountains in the distance. The highway uncoiled before us like a dark, patient snake. We had another four hours to go, and most of the driving would be after dark. I considered offering to spell him, but he’d just sigh and shift in the passenger seat. Chance didn’t like being driven—another control issue.
The vastness between towns had a way of making me feel small, like nobody would notice anything that went down out here except to hose off the road. Headlights shining in the rearview mirror made me feel uneasy. The feeling passed, but the car never did. It kept pace with us for miles.
I tried to dismiss it as paranoia, but I still remembered the way Kel Ferguson had stared at me as the bailiffs led him away. Unlike other cons, he hadn’t sworn vengeance or screamed that he knew people on the outside. His eyes did all the talking, and what they said still woke me up at night.
“Do you ever think about them?” I asked after the silence started to get to me.
“About who?” He didn’t look at me.
I traced a protective symbol against the car window, like that would help. “The guys we put away.”
“I’m glad they’re off the street,” he said. “And no, I don’t worry about them getting out. We have enough law abiding citizens after us to make me wary of borrowed trouble.”
We’d run afoul of lawmen more than once. In Terre Haute, they’d all but run us out of town on a rail. I sighed. “You got that right.”
After that, we didn’t talk much as we headed north along 57. If we were so inclined, we could follow the highway all the way to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, but our business took us onto 40 instead, marking the last miles to Monterrey. Over nine hours in the car so far, not counting the time we spent waiting for rescue.
Since November ranged toward the end of rainy season, the sky didn’t open up until well after full dark. The rain splattered on the windshield as if by the bucket, and Chance leaned forward, slowing to a crawl as we approached the lights of Monterrey. After replaying what he’d said about needing money, it occurred to me then that maybe he knew more than he’d told me, but I wasn’t dumb enough to pick a fight in the middle of a storm.
He had to be tense, worrying about his mother, and this marked our tenth hour in a car. More like fourteen since we left my apartment this morning, so it was a wonder we hadn’t killed each other yet. Unerringly, I found the spot at the base of his skull with my thumb and forefinger, pressed so that he let out a moan.
“Christ, that’s good. Stop while I’m driving, though. I don’t want to run off the road.”
Funny how he had the power to take me back in time with a handful of words. In my mind’s eye, I saw all the other occasions where he’d tipped his head back in bliss beneath my hand. My chest felt tight; I didn’t want to remember the good times. I’d blocked them because it’s next to impossible to leave someone you really like.
“Head for Diego Rivera,” I said as we came into the city. The buildings took some force out of the rain, though the other cars made driving difficult. Here, the streets flooded easily, and some wiseass in a taxi tried to splash standing water through my cracked window. “It’s in the financial district.”
So maybe I wanted to show off. I’d spent one night at the gorgeous Quinta Real, a colonial hotel of marble sandstone that looked like a palace. Inside it was more of the same, impossibly sumptuous with a staff that knew service. No pool, but the in-room Jacuzzi more than made up for it—and Tanya’s check said he could afford a grand class suite. I sighed, remembering that I’d stayed there alone. Still, a room that contained fine tapestries and sculptures, beautiful paintings with lavish gilt frames, decorative inlaid marble in the baths, and an imperial bed with golden columns could make anyone feel like royalty for a night. There were advantages to knowing a man’s weaknesses.
I was desperate to avoid driving farther tonight.
Chasing Geese
I’d like to claim that Chance took one look at the hotel and fell upon his knees, declaring his undying devotion. I’d like to say he apologized for everything that went wrong between us and promised he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to me. But if I did, you probably wouldn’t believe another word I said, especially with regard to Chance.
Instead he offered a smoldering look. “Trying to tempt me?”
“Absolutely. The weather is rotten and we won’t be able to see anyone about the purse until morning anyway.”
He sighed and tapped the steering wheel. His answer came when he swung into the well-manicured drive and gave the keys over to the valet attendant. We stepped out of the driving rain and into another world, one filled with lavish service and utter opulence. Assessing the foyer in a glance, he said softly, “It’s like one of the grand old hotels in Europe. Can I get a masseuse in the room?”
“I expect so. You can get just about anything here, as long as you can pay for it. They’ll even do yo
ur shopping, although the mall across the street is closed right now.”
He nodded like that was good to know, and I helped him with check-in. I’ve noticed most service people speak enough English to do business in major commercial cities, but they think better of you if you speak enough Spanish to do it that way; it’s an almost intangible shift, a near smile and a lightening in the eyes.
Once upstairs, I left Chance in the hands of a masseuse who looked as though she wouldn’t mind relaxing him in ways that were only permitted in the zona de tolerancia in Nuevo Laredo. He was sound asleep when I finally crawled out of the sunken marble tub, pink and wrinkled like a newborn. I stood for a moment, wrapped in my plush hotel bathrobe, and watched him sleep. Somehow he always looked innocent in repose, a ridiculous premise if you knew him at all.
As I turned, I heard him whisper, “No, don’t go.”
I didn’t hesitate because he wasn’t alive in the moment with me but remembering in dreams, perhaps remembering someone else as well. In a remote corner of my mind, I wondered whether he had spoken those words aloud as the door closed behind me. Could I believe he’d loved me once?
I couldn’t answer that as I lay down on the couch, wrapping myself up in spare blankets. However, I did know it would be a bad idea to sleep with Chance again, even to lay in the same bed, because I had a history of finding it hard to tell him no. I didn’t want to repeat old mistakes, just get through the search with as much grace as possible.
We breakfasted en suite, fruit and yogurt for him, chilaquiles for me. This morning, he looked remote and well-tailored in dove gray trousers paired with a mist and mauve striped button-down. To look at him, you’d almost swear he was gay, too pretty to like girls.
I put on a long skirt and a peasant blouse and kept a green cardigan out just in case it turned cool, one of those long retro sweaters with a belt. All told, I possessed a delightful hippie chic, and I took pleasure in the way Chance squinched up his eyes.