Sufficient Ransom

by Sylvia Sarno

  Tijuana was a far cry from the clean streets of La Jolla, with its beautiful beaches, sweeping ocean vistas, and wild flowers. Everywhere, she saw graffiti-covered buildings, warehouse-style architecture, and pitted roads. Past the concrete jungle at the border crossing, she made her way along Avenida Revolución, the tourist center of the city. The palm trees swaying in the light wind looked sadly out of place amid the gaudy, colored signs and all the stuff—painted clay dogs and pigs and roosters, crudely woven ponchos, rusting garden ornaments—laid out on the sidewalks. She tried to keep herself upbeat with hopeful thoughts of Max Ruiz helping her get Travis back. But the ugliness all around her deepened her depression.

  GPS in hand, Ann headed away from the grimy taco stands and the dusty littered streets. From the map, Ruiz’s factory looked to be about five miles from the city center, in the midst of an area thick with smaller roads clustered around a few major thoroughfares. She hoped the bridge where the bodies were recently found was not on the way.

  Walking down the street, away from the tourist areas, Ann felt self-conscious. Tijuana residents—men and women alike—were staring at her. She had briefly considered hailing a taxicab, but dismissed the idea. Kidnapping was rampant in Mexico; she had no way of knowing whether a taxi was legitimate or not. Besides, she was in good shape from all the swimming and walking she did. Five miles wasn’t far to go.

  Ann stopped in the shade of a gutted structure to catch her breath and to remove her jacket. The sun was already high in the sky. She was about to resume her journey when a foul odor reached her nose. A raspy voice hissed in her ear. She spun around.

  The being standing before Ann was every bit as frightening as her senses had suggested. Leaning on a stout, waist-high stick the man—she realized that’s what he was—wore a filthy rag wrapped around his head to his wiry eyebrows. Beneath the unsightly headdress, greasy gray locks hung to his stooped shoulders. The rest of him was covered in a dark coat patched over with peeling duct tape. The same kind of tape, in better condition, was wound around what appeared to be his sneakers. An empty eye socket was sewn shut. His one good eye ogled Ann hungrily. Without warning, his claw of a hand sprang from his side toward her hair.

  She pulled back, her arms to her chest in a defensive position. “What do you want?”

  The bum’s manner became instantly obsequious. “Señorita, please a poor man. A few dollars. Please.” His English was surprisingly good. She caught his one gleaming eye staring at the bulge in her jeans’ pocket partly obscured by the jacket tied around her waist. Instinctively, she dropped her arms close to her sides.

  The beggar’s smile was malicious. He hobbled forward whining, “A few dollars, Señorita. All I ask. A few.”

  Ann stepped backward, her hands out. “Stay back!” Panicked, she glanced around. There was no one about; cars passing swiftly on the four-lane road paid them no heed. She figured if she gave the beggar some money, he might leave her alone. If she didn’t, he could very well follow her until she did. She looked him over carefully. Though hunched over, his shoulders looked wide and strong. His blackened fingers around the stick he carried were thick, his wrist sinewy. She remembered Richard’s warning her of Tijuana’s myriad dangers. The beggar’s frailty could be a pretense. If she gave him nothing, he might get angry and try to hurt her.

  Her next thought—that she was wasting valuable time to talking to the beggar—decided her actions. Ann turned away, so he couldn’t see what she was doing, and reached into her front pocket. Fumbling with the higher denomination bills, she managed to extricate a five and a ten. The rest of the wad, she shoved deep into her pocket.

  The skin on Ann’s arms erupted in goose bumps. The foul smell was closer. Hugging the money to her chest she glanced fearfully over her shoulder. The beggar was standing inches from her, smiling triumphantly. He must have seen her bundle thick with hundreds. Angry that she should be caught in this stupid situation, Ann thrust the money at him. “Take this and go!”

  The beggar’s claw grazed the palm of her hand as he took the money. His other hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, snapping her head back. Ann tried to twist away, but the beggar held her tightly. His rotten breath oozing from a mouthful of blackened teeth made her want to throw up. She felt his other hand reaching into her pocket. She elbowed him hard in the gut. As soon as he let go of her, she was off running.

  The sidewalk ending abruptly, Ann sprinted onto the road. The road turned into a bridge. Below the bridge, cars streaked by. She could hear the beggar’s stick pounding the pavement behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw him limping rapidly toward her, his face contorted with malicious rage.

  Her arms working hard, Ann leaped past a wide, empty lot and more warehouse-type structures. It occurred to her that maybe she should try to seek help from someone in one of these buildings. She thought better of it when she realized that she would be putting herself in the hands of yet more strangers, who also might want to hurt her. Still running, she pulled her phone from her pocket, glad she had the map to Ruiz’s factory. From the street signs whipping by, she estimated she had roughly two more miles to go before turning onto the road that led to her final destination.

  The beggar was shouting, “Stop, Señorita! I want to talk to you. Please stop!”

  Yeah. Fool me once... Looking back, Ann saw that her pursuer was breathing hard. The look of determination on his face made her run even faster. If he caught her, there was no telling what he would do.

  After a mile or so, the wide thoroughfare she had been following curved upward. The landscape was changing. The road narrowed. The buildings were closer together. Sidewalks reappeared. She passed a small grocery store. A gas station. A flower shop.

  Ann slowed her pace to catch her breath and get her bearings. According to her phone, the street she had just passed, Avenida Pamplona, was a short distance away from the road that led to Ruiz’s factory. Looking over her shoulders she saw that the beggar had fallen back. With a burst of energy she shot ahead.

  The road that led up to Ruiz’s factory was steep. Ann’s heart pounded in her ears. Sweat trickled down her neck. Hope of finding her son propelled her forward in spite of her exhaustion. Finally, she reached her destination. Max Ruiz’s factory was on the other side of the chain link fence.

  Breathing hard, Ann wrapped her fingers around the cool metal and held tightly to the fence that enclosed the hilltop site. She looked over her shoulder to see if the beggar was behind her. Thank goodness he wasn’t. She pressed her face to the fence, trying to catch her breath. After casting another furtive glance back, she closed her eyes. Her breath came in fewer starts. The steep hill she had just climbed must have been too much for her pursuer.

  All morning a dumb determination had kept Ann moving toward her goal of finding Max Ruiz. But what if he won’t see me? The thought sent a chill down her spine. Her hands pressed to the chain-link, she chased her negative thoughts away with positive ones. He is here. He will help me.

  Ruiz’s sprawling factory dominated the top of the hill where Ann stood, its concrete faded to a whitish gray from the hot sun that pounded the city most days of the year. A few dusty windows punctuated a cracked façade. Several smokestacks, some leaning precariously, others made of patched metal, dotted the flat roof. Open sky beyond. She could feel the rumbling of heavy machinery through the ground. The smell of chemicals carried by a warm wind bit her nostrils.

  Inside the fence, in a paved lot that fronted the factory, several 1980’s-style cars and a few dusty pick-ups were parked in neat rows. A shiny black Hummer with tinted windows, parked at an angle, looked out of place. It occurred to Ann that maybe the expensive truck belonged to Max Ruiz. She wondered why no one was around.

  A small structure, apparently a guard shack, stood by the gated entrance to the factory, thirty yards away. Ann headed for it. “Is anyone there?”

  A man dressed in stained, gray overalls stepped out. “Qué pasa?”

  “I’
m looking for Max Ruiz.”

  The guard’s gaze moved from Ann’s face to her neck, and down from there.

  She crossed her arms to her chest. “I’m here to speak to Max Ruiz. Please call him for me.”

  The tone in her voice snapped the guard out of his reverie. He smiled, embarrassed. “Señor Ruiz is not here.”

  The hint of a headache brought Ann’s fingers to her temple. “I came all the way from San Diego to see him. Where is he?”

  The guard shrugged. “I call supervisor. Señor Sanz. Maybe he help you.” He ducked into the shack. A minute later, the guard returned, smiling. “Señor Sanz coming soon.”

  Nodding her thanks, Ann turned away to nurse her thoughts. She took comfort in the fact that Kika was not likely to hurt Travis. The social worker had seemed genuinely concerned for Travis’s safety. But then again, she thought, with a stab of fear, unbalanced people were unpredictable. What if Kika hurts Travis? What if—?

  Ann remembered Agent Julian Fox questioning whether Kika had taken her son. Detective Long too had floated the idea that it could have been someone else. But Travis’s situation was different from that of the other missing children. Kika had actually said, “you’re about to lose your child.” Two days later, Travis disappeared.

  Ann’s teeth ripped into a hangnail. She pulled her finger from her mouth. A drop of blood pooled in the crevice above her nail. She wiped her finger on her jeans. What’s taking him so long? Somewhere behind her, a man cleared his throat. Ann whirled around ready to defend herself.

  “Señor Sanz, here.” He looked to be about sixty, stocky, with a brown, deeply lined face. He spoke in heavily accented English. “How can I help you?”

  Ann’s shoulders sagged with relief. “I’m looking for Max Ruiz. The guard said you could help me.”

  Señor Sanz squinted against the bright sun. “Please Señora, who are you?”

  Part of her knew that it was unwise to share her theory with a stranger, but Ann was so desperate for information she ignored the voice of caution. “I’m Ann Olson. My son was kidnapped from our home in La Jolla two days ago. Look. It’s a long story. Max Ruiz will know what I’m talking about. He knows me. He came to my art gallery. Please, just tell him I’m here.”

  Señor Sanz spread his hands in a questioning gesture. “Surely, the police in San Diego are handling this.”

  “Please understand, Señor Sanz,” Ann said. “I need to speak to Señor Ruiz. It’s an emergency.”

  Señor Sanz’s face was grave. “Señor Ruiz is not here. He’s busy dealing with a family matter. Señora, yours is an American problem, not a Mexican one.”

  Under ordinary circumstances Ann would never think of making demands of people, but these were not ordinary times. “I just want to talk to Señor Ruiz for a few minutes. Please. Where can I find him?”

  Señor Sanz glanced nervously back at the black Hummer inside the gate. His voice was low. “It would be best if you returned to San Diego, Señora.”

  Returning home was not an option—not after all the trouble she had getting here. “Where is Max Ruiz?” Ann repeated, a little more forcefully.

  Señor Sanz flipped open his phone, and spoke in urgent Spanish.

  Within moments, two large men came through the gates. They took Ann by the elbows and marched her down the hill. She could hear Señor Sanz calling after her, “Go back to San Diego, Señora!”

  1:00 P.M.

  Ann kicked the dirt. Señor Sanz couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He kept looking back at the Hummer. It did look out of place in that dusty lot. Maybe it belongs to Ruiz. Maybe he was really at the factory and gave his men orders to turn me away. She decided to wait at the bottom of the hill for the Hummer. She would flag it down. If the businessman was not in the vehicle, maybe the driver could tell her his whereabouts.

  Determined to carry out her plan, Ann hurried past a small building with a corrugated metal roof. A series of shacks followed. All the way down, these makeshift structures were tightly packed in, each built from mishmash of cinderblocks, metal, wood, glass, and even cardboard. Clothing lines, heavy with white laundry, stretched between sticks and trees. She heard the faint cries of a baby somewhere in the distance.

  Dizzy with exhaustion and dehydration, Ann sank under a leafy tree at the bottom of the hill to wait for the truck. Her legs sprawled out on the pavement, she closed her eyes, thankful for the shade.

  Ann heard steps. Her eyes snapped open. The beggar. The steps were getting closer. She scrambled to her feet. There was nowhere to hide. A woman rounded the corner. Laden with grocery bags in each hand, she started up the hill. The long folds of her colorful dress resembled a butterfly fluttering in the wind. When the woman glanced back, Ann smiled feebly knowing the Mexican must think her a crazy gringa sitting in the dirt in the middle of this godforsaken place.

  The thought of others impugning her judgment reminded Ann of her husband. He had called earlier, but she didn’t answer. Richard was probably worried sick about her. She pulled her phone from her jeans and called home. When her husband came on the line his voice was strained. “Where the hell are you?”

  Though Ann held out hope that Travis had returned home while she was away, her husband’s words confirmed her fears. She tried to tell him about her visit with Señor Sanz, the beggar, and the Hummer, but he wasn’t interested. “Get out of there and come home!” he said.

  Ann knew she was making things worse for her husband, but she couldn’t afford to let his doubts derail her, not after having come all this way. “I have to go now, Richard. Don’t forget that I love you.” She turned her phone off.

  Her knees to her chest, Ann prayed that her son was not hurt, that he wasn’t afraid. She hoped that ultimately Kika would realize the only place for Travis was his home. A car was approaching. Ann slid out from under the tree in time to see the Hummer barreling down the hill. She waved her arms frantically trying to get the driver’s attention from behind the darkened windows.

  The truck careened to a stop. The front passenger window came down. The leering, half-smiling eyes of a young man stared at Ann. He had dark triangle-shaped eyebrows and slick skin. The driver, dark skinned and sweaty too, craned his neck to get a look at her.

  She cringed. Both men looked as if they hadn’t seen a woman in weeks. “I wanted to talk to—” she started to say, but then she remembered Richard’s warning that there was little respect for the law in Tijuana. A sudden pang of revulsion at her cowardice felt like a punch in the face. Ann’s voice grew stronger. “I’m looking for Max Ruiz.”

  Her words wiped the grins off the men’s faces. The passenger’s triangle eyebrows came down in a straight line. He put his finger to his temple and made a circular gesture.

  Triangle Eyebrows nudged the driver. The driver was staring at her, mouth agape. A rapid exchange in Spanish ensued. Ann caught the words, loca, gringa.

  When the men turned back to her, Ann knew their answer before they uttered it. “My son was kidnapped,” she said in her most reasonable voice, knowing all the while that she really did sound crazy. “Señor Ruiz knows the woman who took him. I saw your truck parked at his factory. You must know where he is. Please take me to him.”

  The window started to close. Before Ann had a chance to react, the Hummer pulled away with a screech.

  2:30 P.M.

  Richard Olson faced Tom Long in the family room. The detective shook his head. “You’re right. We didn’t tell your wife she had to stay in San Diego. It’s just that Tijuana’s a scary place these days.”

  Pulling at his shirt collar, Richard debated whether he should tell the detective the truth about Ann’s trip south, or not. He couldn’t remember the last time he told a lie. Finally he said, “She went there to talk to Max Ruiz. Things were moving too slowly for her. You see, she blames herself for what’s happened. She has this need to prove she’s not a bad mother. Which of course she isn’t. But you can’t tell her that.”

  “You didn’t try to talk her ou
t of it?” Tom asked.

  “Sure I tried, but she wouldn’t listen,” Richard said. She never does. “When I got back from the grocery store she was gone.”

  Tom Long’s gray eyes appraised Richard for a long moment. “I don’t have kids of my own. But I tell you, if my kid disappeared I might’ve done the same.”

  Richard was not expecting to hear the detective approve his wife’s foolhardy trip. “Frankly, I’m not sure that’s what I wanted to hear. You said yourself the FBI’s working on Max Ruiz. Ann has no business in a place like Tijuana. The conversation with Agent Fox is was set her off. She felt he was accusing us of having something to do with this.”

  “Julian’s a bit of a hard ass,” Tom said nodding. “I should’ve warned you.”

  “Look,” Richard said. “Before you arrived, I was reading about Kika online. Trying to figure out her thought process. I was also reading about the other missing children. You haven’t said much about them.”

  “Are you as sure as your wife that Ms. Garcia took your son?” Tom asked.

  Standing up, Richard ran his fingers through his hair debating how to respond. “No. I’m not as certain as she is.”

  “You’re a scientist, aren’t you?” Tom asked.

  Richard nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I would think that your training would make you more skeptical.”

  “I guess. Well, what about you?” Richard said. “Are you sure?”

  “The fact that Ms. Garcia’s missing in action bodes badly for her,” Tom replied. “But remember, three other children have disappeared.”

  Richard sat on the sofa facing the detective. “Tell me about them.”

  Tom Long leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Pedro Valdez, age six, was reported missing on March 5. He was last seen playing in the street, around the corner from the house he shares with his parents and siblings. Two brothers, and a sister. Apparently a leaking fire hydrant kept the neighborhood kids entertained that afternoon with water games. According to a child witness, Pedro threw water on a man who was passing by. Apparently the guy was a well-dressed Latino. He demanded to know who had done the deed. Pedro admitted it was him. The man shouted a string of obscenities at the kids who were all laughing at him, and then he stormed off.”