The Governor's wife

by Mark Gimenez

  "What for?"

  "Because, Eddie, it's time to use your skill set to solve that particularly unpleasant problem for me."

  "Which one-the drug lord or the doctor?"

  Dr. Jesse Rincon touched his nurse's sanitized hand.

  "I am afraid for you. Lindsay, you should go home until this passes."

  "You mean, until El Diablo kills Bode?"

  "I do not want that to happen."

  "I know."

  "But El Diablo, he will not stop."

  "I know that, too."

  "Lindsay, you must go home."

  "This is my home."

  "It is no longer safe for you here."

  "I'm safer than I would be in Austin. I'm hiding in plain sight."

  "Plain sight?"

  "Yes. In Austin, everyone knows me. Here, no one knows me. No one knows I'm the governor's wife. Not even Inez."

  Inez Quintanilla strolled the sidewalks of the San Agustin Plaza in downtown Laredo that Sunday morning in early September as freely as an American citizen. Of course, she was not. She was a Mexican national residing illegally in the U.S., just like every other resident of the colonias. So she seldom ventured beyond the wall. She never came into town. But she was desperate to get out, to live beyond the wall, to have a life in Laredo. So she had ventured beyond the wall that day.

  Not for a better life, but to pick up her kid brother. He had gotten into trouble the night before; Inez did not ask for the details. She did not want to know. He ran with a bad group of boys who fancied themselves gangsters. They desired the fast cars and faster girls that the drug money bought. But it also brought trouble. He had called that morning and asked her to come into Laredo and pick him up in the plaza at noon. So she had borrowed the neighbor's beat-up pickup truck and driven through the gate in the wall-the Border Patrol did not patrol on Sundays, so the doctor gave her the key code-and carefully into town. She had arrived early and decided to walk the plaza. Laredo seemed like heaven compared to the colonia. She dreamed of one day living this life, going to restaurants and nightclubs, buying nice clothes from the stores, becoming a wife and a mother, perhaps even obtaining a green card and working in a Wal-Mart and having a good life like She stopped.

  Something had caught her eye.

  A photo in a newspaper displayed on the newsstand.

  A color photo of the governor of Texas. And the governor's wife. At a funeral. She wore a black dress and a black veil over her face. Her face was concealed but not her left hand when she had reached up to adjust the veil. And on one finger she wore an unusual ring. Two bands, one silver, one gold, twisted together at the end to form a lovers' knot. A wedding ring.

  A wedding ring Inez Quintanilla had seen before.

  "So, to summarize, we have killed two Texas Rangers, a college coed, the governor's mistress, and five innocents on the Double V Ranch-but we cannot seem to kill the governor. Why is that, Hector?"

  The summer sun stood high in the sky and baked the earth brown. But the border was always brown. The land and the people. Enrique and Hector stood on the balcony overlooking the Rio Bravo. Julio's piano notes drifted through the open courtyard windows. Chopin. Hector had returned to Nuevo Laredo because security around the governor in Austin had been increased to presidential levels and the Border Patrol had locked down the border. Apparently their attempts to assassinate the governor had proved an embarrassment to the gringos. So Hector needed to lay low for a while and allow things to die down, so to speak. Fortunately, Enrique de la Garza was a patient man. But justice and venganza would soon be his.

  "The governor," Hector said, "he is a very lucky man."

  "His good luck will soon turn bad."

  " Si, jefe. "

  "Hector, did we also kill those people on the ranch where the governor murdered Jesus?"

  "No. Manuel Moreno did."

  "The ranch foreman?"

  " Si."

  Enrique held up the Laredo newspaper.

  "But they blame me."

  He sighed.

  "So it was an employment matter?"

  " Si. "

  "Good. That was unnecessary."

  "But I am afraid we also have an employment matter."

  "Another termination?"

  "I am afraid so."

  Enrique walked inside and removed the machete from the wall rack.

  That night, Bode Bonner sat on the couch in the family living quarters of the Governor's Mansion watching Shrek with the kids. They were laughing because Becca had changed the language to Spanish. Bode couldn't understand the movie, but it didn't matter. He was thinking about his life. About the people left in his life. Each day, there seemed to be fewer. For the last eight years, he had thought politics and power defined his life, but he now understood that his life was defined by the people in his life. These kids. His daughter. His wife. He wanted her back. Becca leaned into him.

  "Daddy, call her. Get her to come back. Beg her if you have to. If you won't beg her for yourself, beg her for me."

  He kissed her on the forehead then pushed himself up. He went down the hall to his bedroom and called his wife.

  "Hello."

  "It's Bode."

  "I have caller ID."

  "And you still answered."

  "How's Becca?"

  "She's good. We're watching Shrek with the kids."

  "You're watching movies with the Mexican kids?"

  "Movie night."

  "How are they?"

  "Better."

  "How are you?"

  "Better."

  "I liked your speech at the governors' conference."

  "You watched?"

  "Of course."

  "I did a lot of thinking out at the ranch. About the old times. The way we were. The way I want us to be again. Come home, Lindsay. You don't have to come home to me. Come home to Becca. Just come home."

  "Bode, these people here, they need me."

  "We need you, too. And you're not safe on the border."

  "No one here knows I'm the governor's wife."

  "Your doctor knows. And if your true identity ever gets out…"

  "It won't."

  "Just so you know, we're going to fully fund the K through twelve budget."

  "For me?"

  "For the kids."

  "Do you still love him?"

  "I'll always love him."

  "And me? Will you ever love me?"

  "I already do."

  They were on the back porch. The night air was warm, but the breeze off the desert made Jesse's arm around her shoulders feel good.

  "One woman in love with two men," he said. "That usually does not have a happy ending."

  THAT DAY

  THIRTY-NINE

  Lindsay slung her satchel over her shoulder. She had stocked it with medicine, supplies, and hard candy for the children. She would make her morning rounds before the summer heat set in. It would top 115 degrees that day outside and even hotter inside if Jesse was unable to repair the generator. Early September, but it was still summer on the border. Inez had not yet arrived, so Jesse came to her and kissed her, like a husband kissing his wife goodbye for the day. She felt like a married woman and she was; she was just married to another man.

  "You look beautiful," Jesse said.

  She wore a white lab coat over a bright yellow peasant dress and pink Crocs. She draped a stethoscope around her neck. She tucked her red hair under a green scarf then pushed the wide-brimmed straw hat down on her head, to conceal her identity and her light complexion from the sun's rays.

  "I will be out back working on the generator," Jesse said. "Inez should be here soon."

  Inez Quintanilla woke at seven. She had dreamed vividly of life beyond the wall. It was a colorful and wonderful life with pretty things and nice people. She had so enjoyed the dream that she closed her eyes and lay there a few minutes longer trying to recapture the moment. But she could not. The moment was gone. So she climbed out of bed. It was a work day.

&nb
sp; She and her brother lived in a converted travel trailer. The wheels had been removed, so the trailer sat flat on the ground. Well, almost flat. Anything dropped on the floor would roll to one corner, but at least she knew where to find things. She had the small bedroom to herself; Roberto slept on the couch since he always came home late. She washed her face in the bathroom with the bottled water and applied her make-up carefully in case the television cameras came that day for the doctor. Two work outfits hung in the closet. She decided on the one she had not worn the day before. Once dressed, she would have Cheerios without milk for breakfast and then walk to the clinic.

  She opened the thin metal door quietly so as not to wake her brother. She stepped out and froze. Her brother was not sound asleep on the couch as he usually was at that time. He was sitting and staring up at three men standing over him. Two held big guns. The man in the middle held a machete. The door behind them was open to the outside. The morning breeze blew hot and dusty.

  "What is happening here?"

  "Ah," the man in the middle with the machete said. "You must be Inez, the sister?"

  Inez nodded.

  "Well, Inez, your brother violated the code. I am here to dispense justice."

  "Who are you?"

  "I am Enrique de la Garza."

  "I do not know you."

  "Ah. Perhaps you know me as the world knows me-El Diablo."

  Inez recoiled and sucked in air. She turned to her brother. He was crying.

  "You work for him? You are a narcotraficante? "

  "Yes, Inez," El Diablo said. "He works for me. Or he did. I have come to terminate his employment."

  "You have come to kill my brother? Personally?"

  "Yes. I always terminate employees personally. It is company policy."

  "Why? What crime did Roberto commit?"

  El Diablo turned to her brother. "Tell her, Roberto. Tell your sister how you disgraced God and your family."

  "I did nothing!"

  "But you did." To Inez: "Your brother gave heroin to a woman, a Mexicana."

  "So?"

  "So our code does not allow that. We do not push the filthy drug habit on our own people."

  "That is a deed punishable by death?"

  "She is a married woman. He gave her the heroin, and while she was under the influence, he raped her."

  "No!"

  "Yes."

  "Roberto, is that true? Did you rape a woman?"

  "No! She wanted sex with me."

  "Her husband demands justice," El Diablo said. "So Roberto must give him justice." He turned to her brother. "Roberto Quintanilla, you have not lived a life with honor. Will you now die with honor?"

  "No!"

  The two men grabbed Roberto and held his arms back and pushed his head down. El Diablo raised the machete above her brother's head. Without conscious thought, Inez jumped between the blade and her brother.

  "No! Please! He is my only brother!"

  El Diablo paused in midair.

  "I am sorry, Inez. But I must dispense justice. It is my duty. Please, stand aside."

  Inez Quintanilla's mind raced, trying to find hope for her brother. Where she found her only hope- and it was her only hope — made her sad. But she had no choice.

  "I can give you what you want most in life."

  El Diablo lowered the blade, and Inez breathed a momentary sigh of relief. He looked her up and down and smiled as her father had once smiled at her when she was just a small child. When her parents were still alive.

  "I can have pretty girls like you anytime I want. I can have you if I want. But I do not want you. And you should not offer yourself to a man, Inez, before marriage, in the church."

  "I do not mean me."

  "Then what do you propose to give to me?"

  "What you want more than anything in this world."

  "What I want most in this world." He thought a moment, and his eyes seemed to grow dark with his thoughts. "Well, Inez, can you give me the governor of Texas?"

  Everyone in the colonias knew that the governor of Texas had killed El Diablo's son and that El Diablo had attempted several times to kill the governor. Such news did not come from the newspapers or the television, but from word of mouth.

  "No."

  "Then you have nothing I want. Stand aside. Please."

  He again raised the machete, and her heart grabbed at her chest.

  "But I can give you something almost as good."

  He stopped.

  "And what is that?"

  " La esposa del gobernador. I can give you the governor's wife."

  He again lowered the blade, and she felt the relief again.

  "Can you now?"

  "Yes. I can."

  "How? How can you, little Inez Quintanilla living in this broken-down trailer in this colonia on the banks of the Rio Bravo give to me the wife of the governor of Texas? Tell me, please, how can you do that?"

  "I can tell you where to find her."

  El Diablo laughed in a way that made her afraid, as if she had taken something away from him. His voice became louder.

  "Hector here can tell me where to find her. I do not want her. I want the governor."

  "But if you have her, he will come for her. He will come to you."

  El Diablo nodded. "That is true, Inez. But it would be difficult to kidnap her in Austin and smuggle her across the river. Guns and cash we smuggle south every day, quite easily, but the governor's wife, that would be very difficult. The border is locked down."

  "She is not in Austin."

  "Then where is she?"

  "She is here."

  "Where?"

  "I will tell you where, if you will spare my brother's life."

  El Diablo's jaws clenched. His patience was running out.

  "Inez, my child, it is not wise to toy with me, not about the governor of Texas. He murdered my son, and I intend to kill him. Between me and the governor is a dangerous place to stand. Now tell me what you know."

  "No. Not so you can then cut off my brother's head."

  For a moment, she thought El Diablo might slap her. Inez trembled like a leaf in the wind. But he blew out a breath and calmed.

  "All right, Inez. I will not cut off your brother's head if you will tell me where the governor's wife is."

  "You promise?"

  "Yes. I promise."

  Inez knew she had pushed him as far as she dared.

  "She is here… in the colonia. "

  " Here? In Colonia Angeles? "

  " Si. "

  "But that is not possible. I would have known. There is only one Anglo in this colonia, the-"

  His eyes got wide with the knowledge.

  "The Anglo nurse. Of course. I knew that she seemed familiar. She has the red hair, like the governor's wife."

  "She is the governor's wife."

  "But they said she was Irish."

  "She pretends. Sometimes she forgets, and her voice is different."

  "Thank you, Inez. You have made me a very happy man." He turned to the man named Hector and said, "Shoot him."

  "Wait! You promised not to kill him!"

  "No. I promised not to cut his head off."

  The man named Hector raised a gun and shot her brother in his head. The bullet blew blood and brains out the back of his head. Hector shot him again in his heart. Her ears burned with the noise and her nostrils with the stench of the gunpowder, and her brother lay on the couch, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, the teardrops still resting on his brown cheeks. Her only brother was dead. Inez Quintanilla was now alone in this harsh world.

  "Now, where is the governor's wife? At the clinic?"

  Inez stared at her brother's bloody face a moment longer, then she bolted out the open door and ran down the dirt road toward the clinic. She must warn the senora. She must save the senora's life as she had failed to save her brother's. She heard the men yelling behind her and the loud engines of their trucks come to life. Coming after her. She cut between houses a
nd under clothes hanging on lines and around morning cook fires until she finally arrived at the clinic. She burst through the door only to find the clinic vacant. The doctor's truck sat outside, but neither he nor the senora were there. She must be on rounds. Her body teemed with adrenaline. She had never before felt so alive, perhaps because she was certain she would soon be dead. She ran down the dirt road and screamed, "?Senora!?Senora! "

  But there was no answer.

  Of every woman and child she encountered, she asked, "Have you seen the nurse?"

  One woman pointed down the road. Inez ran faster, calling out, "?Senora!?Senora! "

  Finally she heard the senora's voice.

  "In here."

  Inez pulled the blanket door aside and stepped into the home. The senora was kneeling on the dirt floor tending to a child.

  " Senora, you must run away! You must hide!"

  Inez tried to catch her breath. She felt the panic on her face.

  "Why?"

  "They come for you!"

  "Who?"

  "El Diablo! And his hombres."

  FORTY

  Lindsay Bonner fought not to panic-because what she did in the next few moments would determine whether she lived or died.

  Think, Lindsay, think!

  A few minutes later, she had hidden her cell phone, and she stood alone, waiting for them to come for her and take her across the river and into Nuevo Laredo-and praying her husband would. She had not gone to him when he had needed her. Would he come now that she needed him?

  Yes.

  Bode Bonner would come for her. They no longer shared their lives, but he would give his life for hers. She knew that. And at that moment, she realized how much that meant-to know that he would always come for her. She heard the trucks stop outside and the sound of heavy boots on the ground. The blanket door was thrown aside, and a man now stood there. He held a black machete. He was tall and lean with jet-black hair and a goatee. He was the same man she had seen in the clinic that day.

  El Diablo.

  She knelt before him, her body trembling, and recited the Lord's Prayer.

  "I am also Catholic," he said. "I am not going to kill you."

  She stopped praying and looked up.

  "Then what do you want with me? I am just a nurse."