The Dead Women of Juárez

by Sam Hawken

  “It’s no imposition. How about Wednesday morning? I can arrange for a tee time after breakfast. You can be my guest.”

  Once again Sevilla made a show of considering the idea though his mind was already made up. He paused to take some of the coffee. It was as hot, strong and licorice-tasting as Madrigal promised. Sevilla hated it. “All right,” he said. “You can reach me at my hotel.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Hotel Lucerna.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll give you my private room number,” Sevilla said in a voice as indifferent as he could muster. This happened every day. Men of power and influence were always his friends. A hotel like the Lucerna was the minimum of luxury. “You can call me any time.”

  “Then it’s done.”

  After that they parted ways. Sevilla paid his check in cash, though the other men settled their debts with credit cards, and though he was ready to explain why he didn’t carry such things there were no questions. He spoke the language of the wealthy, showed no fear. They liked the cut of his suit and the Persol sunglasses he wore outside the restaurant.

  The maître d’ called a cab for Sevilla. Madrigal insisted on waiting with him. One by one Sevilla said goodbye to the others as the valet brought their cars: Mercedes, BMW, Bentley. Sevilla was glad when the cab finally came and he could shake hands with Madrigal and go on his way. He did not shake with Sebastián.

  SIX

  ENRIQUE STOPPED AT THE OFFICE for his messages and because he felt he should at least pretend he was still working. He checked his email and made replies. It was midafternoon and most of the men were on their break. Garcia approached quietly. Enrique only noticed him when his shadow fell across the desk.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  The door to Garcia’s office had been closed before. Enrique assumed Garcia was away on a long lunch that might last until the end of business. Now the door stood open. “Captain,” Enrique said, but he could think of nothing else.

  “I’ve been calling you,” Garcia said. He had one cuff unbuttoned, his right sleeve rolled up. He liked to do this when he spent hours playing card games on the internet or otherwise wasting time in his office. At no time had Enrique ever seen the man fill out a report or type an email.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been taking care of some… family problems. My uncle is sick. I’ll take care of the paperwork before I leave.”

  Garcia leaned across the desk until Enrique couldn’t see the bank of windows beyond him. He turned Enrique’s monitor and glanced at it. “Is that what you’re telling everyone? That your uncle is sick?”

  The thought crossed Enrique’s mind that when he tailed Ortíz he hadn’t watched his own mirrors or kept track of who appeared and might reappear in his wake. He hadn’t checked at Ortíz’s stops to see if anyone was looking out for someone looking in. Enrique smelled Garcia and these things came rushing in.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You know I’ve never liked you,” Garcia said. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re good enough to get the job done, but I know when a man’s heart isn’t in his work. You’re a pussy.”

  Enrique didn’t argue. He wanted to shrink back into his chair, but he made himself sit straight. Instead of looking into Garcia’s eyes, he stared at the man’s eyebrow. It twitched whenever Garcia spoke.

  “I knew as soon as Salazar got stuck that you’d be on the phone crying for sick days. ‘Oh, poor Estéban Salazar.’ Am I right?”

  “No,” Enrique managed. His head twitched when he meant to shake it. “My uncle, he has a problem with his heart. You can check if you want.”

  Immediately Enrique felt stupid for saying so. If Garcia did call, he would learn that Enrique’s uncle was not sick at all. But he couldn’t be sure whether Garcia would call, or whether he would simply opt to escort Enrique to an interview room. He would do it. He had done it before.

  “I don’t have time to chase after you and wipe your ass,” Garcia said. “I’m busy. Haven’t you heard? We have narcos tearing the whole goddamned city apart. The Americans are complaining, businesses are moving away… it’s no time to feel sorry for some sister-raping puto. Do you understand me?”

  Enrique nodded only slightly. “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m glad you understand.” Garcia straightened up and the sun came back to Enrique’s desk. Then he swept the folders and pen cup and blotter from it with his hand. “Pick up all of that and then go check on your goddamned uncle. He better be feeling all right by tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Enrique said.

  He got down on his hands and knees and picked up his things. Garcia watched him for a little while until he was bored. Enrique didn’t come away from the floor until he heard the door to Garcia’s office catch. He didn’t dare look, because he knew La Bestia’s eye was on him through the glass.

  SEVEN

  “HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?” Enrique asked Sevilla from the main room of the suite.

  “You don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.”

  After lunch with Madrigal, Sevilla went shopping. The first thing he bought was a set of titanium golf clubs. They looked as though they had never been used, but the bag was clearly secondhand. Another stop garnered a replacement that, like Sevilla’s new suits, bespoke money. He practiced his swing near a long wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in the bedroom overlooking the Hotel Lucerna’s lagoon-like swimming area.

  Enrique joined him. “How does playing golf help?”

  “I don’t know,” Sevilla said. “But it’s an in.”

  “So you believe there is something wrong with Señor Madrigal?”

  “I believe there is something out of place.”

  Children and women were playing in the pool. Sevilla’s suite was on the top floor so only the vaguest details could be seen. The city sprawled out in front of them. The American consulate was close enough to be hit with a driven golf ball and the river was not far beyond it. Complimentary shuttles carried guests from the hotel to the industrial parks and the maquilas owned by 3M, Electrolux, Lear. The language most often heard in the hallways was English.

  “You believe there is something wrong, but not with Señor Madrigal?”

  Sevilla interrupted a swing. His shoulder felt sore already. In two days he would be on the green with Madrigal. “Why do you think I am doing this, Enrique? These clothes, this suit, these… goddamned golf clubs? Of course there’s something wrong. Everything we learn about Ortíz tells me there is no reason for him to move in the circles of someone like Rafa Madrigal. That alone says something. But I don’t know what.”

  Enrique opened his mouth to say something.

  “You don’t know what,” Sevilla said.

  Enrique paced the bedroom. Without trying to, Sevilla found himself noting all the things about the young cop that didn’t fit with the place. The way he moved, the way he dressed and the simple cut of his hair. If he noticed these things, then creatures of wealth like the men at Misión Guadalupe would be attuned to them like day and night. Sevilla marveled that they hadn’t seen through him, that they shared their table and their time with him.

  “Have you considered what this will cost us if there’s nothing to learn?” asked Sevilla. “You have Garcia pushing you, but even my superiors don’t pay me to play dress-up and chase rich men around a golf course. We are committed to this, right or wrong.”

  “I know. I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” Sevilla practiced his swing again. He could not remember the last time he’d played the game, but some part of it was beginning to surface. “This is the answer. It must be. And I don’t like the look of Madrigal’s son.”

  “He is Madrigal’s second son?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You sound sorry for Señor Madrigal.”

  Another swing. It felt different this time, better. “I feel sorry for any man who loses a child. Did you know his wife died last year? Cancer
. Very sudden. He has no other children, no grandchildren… only Sebastián. That kind of loneliness could make a man overlook many things, even terrible things.”

  Everything in the suite belonged to Juan Villalobos Sanchez: the underwear in the dresser and the suits in the closet. The only thing that belonged to Rafael Sevilla was the picture of Ana and Ofelia from his daughter’s bedside. He’d thought not once or twice but many times about leaving it where it belonged, but in the end it came along.

  Out of the corner of his eye Sevilla saw Enrique was looking down from the windows to the pool many stories below. He didn’t blame him; the view was hypnotic, the little miniature shapes swirling around an hourglass of pristine blue under a sky of the same shade. On his first morning in the suite, Sevilla sat for an hour just watching and then he cried.

  Enrique broke the quiet. “I’ve never seen Ortíz meet with anyone in Madrigal’s family.”

  “How can you be certain? I found a photo of Sebastián on the internet. I printed it out. Look in the office, by the computer.”

  The titanium driver slid easily into place among the other clubs. Sevilla let his fingers drift over their heads. This one for distance, this one for accuracy, this one for traps. When he reached for the right club he would have to do so without thinking, as if this was natural for him. He must make Madrigal believe in Juan Villalobos again.

  “I don’t recognize him,” Enrique said when he returned.

  “But now you’ve seen his face. Watch for him.”

  “You want me to follow Ortíz again? What’s the point?”

  The bedroom had a wet bar. Sevilla went to it and served himself seltzer with a twist of lemon. He felt Enrique watching him and smiled to himself when he came away from the bar without so much as touching the whisky.

  “The point is we must know what Ortíz is doing. He’s the link between the Madrigals and Kelly and from Kelly to Paloma and Estéban. This is police work, Enrique: watching and waiting. If something happens, it will happen with Ortíz.”

  “While you eat fine food and play games with rich people.”

  Sevilla sipped from his tumbler. He frowned. “Yes, that.”

  By some unspoken command they both drifted back to the windows and looked down upon the pool. Once Sevilla thought he might have heard a child’s high-pitched squeal of delight, but he knew it was just his imagination.

  EIGHT

  SEVILLA RENTED A BLACK LEXUS from an agency in the hotel. It came equipped with a GPS in the dashboard and gave him turn-by-turn directions out of the busy arena of Ciudad Juárez and into the country.

  There was no place in the wilds gnawing at Juárez’s edge that was beautiful. There were places that were greener than others, more populated with trees than others, but most of it was fit only for cactus and rocks and the twisted, alien mesquite tree. Sometimes the landscape exploded into strange, unexpected bloom, displaying the flowers of the purple aster and sand verbena as if daring naysayers to underestimate desert beauty again.

  He found Los Campos as Enrique described it, first by its long march of iron fencing to the gate and its armed guards. The men had an earth-colored Hummer with emergency lights on the top like a police vehicle, but it had no markings. Sevilla thought he might have recognized one of the gate guards from the ranks of the city police, but the man didn’t seem to recognize him in return and Sevilla let the notion pass.

  They called Madrigal’s security from the gate and confirmed Sevilla’s entry. It was still early enough that dawn colors bled across the eastern horizon, washing the live oaks beyond in warm orange and the faintest red. Sevilla relaxed behind the wheel. He was dressed lightly for morning golf. The clubs were in the trunk.

  “Good morning, señor,” the lead guard told Sevilla when he was done on the phone. The gates slowly parted. The road beyond was perfect and black and smooth without blemish, as if the asphalt were laid just the day before. In the city there were potholes large enough to swallow whole cars. “Please drive ahead. Do you know the way?”

  “Please tell me,” Sevilla answered, and the guard presented him with a printed map. He marked Sevilla’s route with a green marker. When the Lexus passed through, the gate swung shut behind him. Sevilla was inside.

  The flawless road wound up into the hills, skirting a broad fairway festooned with jetting underground sprinklers. The sunrise caught water droplets in midair, froze them and made the sprinklers seem like trees with silver branches and white leaves. And then Sevilla was past them.

  Some of the driveways of the estates within were gated themselves with more armed guards standing sentry. Kidnapping was a way of life for most of Mexico and even sometimes across the border. Children of the wealthy were the worst affected, trapped into fixed schedules to and from school, and though they were often protected by a phalanx of bodyguards, they were still taken. Sevilla remembered years before when he first heard the term “kidnapping insurance.” He laughed then. He laughed at it no more.

  The side road to the Madrigal home was not gated, but Sevilla saw cameras among the trees marking his progress as he wound left, right and left again up an incline to the main drive. There were no straight roads here and no unbroken curves; it was more difficult for an intruder’s vehicle to get in and out that way.

  The house itself was set among the trees perfectly, a green lawn spread out on three sides and marked with beds of brilliant flowers. The architect chose the chalky white stone of the surrounding hills and stately pillars for accent. As he slowed to a stop, Sevilla saw someone watching him through a broad window at the front, but by the time he was close enough to see the figure was gone.

  A servant and two bodyguards emerged. One took the clubs from the trunk and the other offered to park the car. Sevilla felt almost certain it would be searched, but they wouldn’t find anything; his gun was in the hotel safe and even the rental papers were kept somewhere else.

  “Señor Madrigal is waiting for you,” the servant told Sevilla. He wore a jacket despite the promised heat of the day. Inside it was chilly enough to be uncomfortable and Sevilla almost regretted the short pants he’d chosen for the game.

  Madrigal and Sebastián waited in a sunroom off a restaurant-sized kitchen. The glass was angled to catch the worst glare of the rising sun without sparing any of the dawning light. Fruit and toast and meat were laid out on china and silver for Sevilla’s delectation. Orange juice, grapefruit juice and coffee were offered. He took the coffee.

  “If there’s something you want that you don’t see, Arturo will be happy to prepare it for you,” Madrigal said. He indicated the servant, who poured Sevilla’s coffee and even added the sugar to his taste.

  “This is more than enough,” Sevilla said.

  “I always believe in a big breakfast,” said Madrigal. “A big breakfast, a big lunch and just something to tide me over for the night. Some people obsess about dinner. I’m not one of those people.”

  “Which do you prefer, Señor Villalobos?” Sebastián asked in a tone of voice that suggested he was not interested in the answer at all.

  Sevilla dipped toast in fresh egg brought by Arturo. “Breakfast suits me very well, thank you.”

  “My son is just learning the benefits of breakfast,” Madrigal said. He cast a sidelong look at Sebastián that needed no translation. A closer look at the younger Madrigal revealed circles beneath the eyes nearly hidden by the deep tan. Sebastián turned his head away.

  “That’s the way it is with young people. I remember a time when I could work all night and still have energy enough to keep going until lunchtime,” Sevilla said. “These days I take siesta very seriously.”

  “A dying tradition,” said Madrigal.

  Sevilla considered trying to draw Sebastián into the conversation, but it seemed it would do no good. Sebastián looked out the windows now on a perfect square of green back lawn. A long, narrow rectangle of swimming pool was set within the square, surrounded by a scattering of tables and chairs and shady trees designed f
or lazy afternoons whiling away the worst heat. The grass was unnaturally robust and Sevilla wondered how many thousands of pesos were spent making it look just so.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Sebastián said abruptly. He dropped his napkin on his plate and left the table without further word. Sevilla watched him go, and when he turned back to Madrigal he saw nothing but contempt in the man’s expression.

  “You have to forgive my son for being stupid,” Madrigal said.

  “I don’t think he’s stupid,” Sevilla soothed. “He’s—”

  “He’s stupid. What is that expression? ‘An heir and a spare’? That’s what I had, only my heir is gone and my spare is a willful disappointment to me.”

  “Willful?”

  “Yes. As if he has nothing better to do than waste my money and my time.”

  Sevilla wasn’t sure how to address that. He turned closer attention to his plate and his coffee. Outside on the lawn, a gardener with a broad straw peasant hat and loose-fitting white uniform used a roller to create unnaturally flawless stripes in the grass. Such a treatment might not even last an entire day, but the effect was striking.

  “Do you have children, Juan?”

  “No. I’m afraid my wife and I were never blessed.”

  Madrigal made a gesture with his hand that seemed wistful, as if he were drawing back a curtain on something. In his other hand a glass of grapefruit juice was poised, but he didn’t drink from it. He spoke looking out at the grass and not at Sevilla. “Gabriel was my eldest. Manners? His were impeccable. Work ethic? He did more to monitor our business than I did.”

  Now Madrigal fixed Sevilla with his gaze. “It was the drugs. He was working so hard, he started using them to stay up later, do more. And then they ate him alive. By the time he went to the States, he wasn’t my Gabriel anymore. He was someone else. Someone I didn’t know.”

  “Drugs are killing Mexico,” Sevilla said. He no longer had stomach for breakfast, but he couldn’t think of anything to do with his hands. If he did nothing, he would look the fool, so he continued to eat as if he had the appetite of two men. He watched the glass of grapefruit juice suspended above the table in Madrigal’s hand, unmoving. “All along the border. They come for the American market.”