by Mark Dawson
“The girl who died?”
“That’s the coincidental part. Her name was Delores. Poor little thing. I knew I recognised her when they were wheeling her out. I found her a month ago on Avenue Azucenas. Half undressed and beside herself with panic. She was a worker in the maquiladoras. She’d been abducted and raped but she managed to get away.”
“You think that had something to do with it?”
He shrugged. “Looks to me like she was there to talk to Caterina. Tell her story, maybe. I don’t know––maybe that’s why they got shot.”
“Why would Caterina want to talk to her?”
Milton knew that the information was confidential but, after just a moment of reluctance, Plato shrugged and said, “She’s a journalist. This isn’t a safe place to write about the news. The cartels don’t like to read about themselves. The dead guy was another writer.”
“Newspaper?”
“No,” Plato said, shaking his head. “They’re online––they call it Blog del Borderland. It’s started to be a pretty big deal, not just here but over the border, too. There was a piece in the El Paso Times just last week, all about them, and someone told me they’ve got a book coming out, too. The cartels are all they write about. The shootings, the abductions. It’s like an obsession. Most papers won’t touch that stuff, or, if they do, they don’t write about it truthfully. It’s all under control, there’s nothing to worry about, you know the sort of thing. These kids are different. They’ve had writers go missing and get murdered before but it hasn’t stopped them yet. This time, though? I don’t know, maybe they’ll listen now.”
“What would you do––if you were her?”
“I’d try and get over the border. But that won’t be easy. As far as I can make out she doesn’t have any family here. No ties. She doesn’t have a job. She’s not the kind of person who gets a visa. As far as I know, no journalist has ever been given one. And I doubt she’d even get a border crossing card. They’ll say the chances of her staying over there illegally are too great.”
“So?”
“Join the dots. If she’s going to get across, she’ll have to do it the other way.”
Milton finished the burrito, screwed up the paper and dropped it into the bin. “That doctor––?”
“Who knows. My guess? He was someone they sent to finish her off and you got here just in time.”
“You didn’t recognise him?”
“No. No reason why I would.”
“Why was she unguarded?”
He frowned. “You’d have to ask my captain that.”
“But you’re still here.”
“How can I leave her on her own?” he said helplessly. “I’ve got daughters.”
“I’ll stay with her.”
Plato finished his burrito and wiped his hands with a napkin. “Why would you want to do a thing like that?”
“Like you say––how can we leave her on her own. I’m guessing you boys will have to leave her as soon as they discharge her, right?”
“Right.”
“And how long do you reckon she’ll last without any protection at all? Christ, they almost got her when she was supposed to be guarded. She won’t last five minutes and you know it.”
Plato exhaled wearily. “What’s your story?––really?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“You need to give me a reason to let you stay.”
“I can help. Come on––you know I can. You saw what I can do. You know I could be useful. That’s why you told me where to find her.”
“Maybe it was. And maybe I shouldn’t’ve done that, putting you in harm’s way as well as her.”
“I can look after myself.”
“They’ll come back again. What makes you think you can stop them?”
“Because I’m not afraid of them, Lieutenant.”
* * *
24.
THE GIRL was awake. She had shuffled back in bed so that she was resting against the headboard, her knees bent beneath the sheet. Her black hair fanned out behind her, long strands running across her shoulders and across the pastel blue hospital pyjamas and the white of the bandage on her right shoulder. She was staring at Milton through the window. He got up from the chair, knocked on the door and went inside.
“Hello,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Smith.”
“Have we met?”
“Not really.”
She looked at him. “No. I recognise you. You were there last night. You work in the restaurant, don’t you?”
“I did. Doubt there’s a job for me there any more.”
“You helped us.”
“I did my best.”
The conversation tailed off. She was nervous and Milton felt awkward about it. He pointed to the armchair next to the bed. “Do you mind?” She shrugged. Her right hand tensed and gripped the edge of the sheet. He could see the tendons moving in her wrist.
He moved the pillow out of the way and sat down. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just got shot in the shoulder.”
“You were lucky––it could’ve been much worse.”
A bitter laugh. “Lucky? I wouldn’t call that luck. And my friends––”
“Yes. They were very unlucky. I’m sorry about them.”
Her chin quivered a little. She controlled it, a frown furrowing her brow. He turned his head and looked at her. She was slender and well put together. He saw that her nails were trimmed and painted. She had an intelligent face, sensitive, but her smoky eyes looked weary.
“Do you have any next of kin I could call?” he said.
“No. My parents are dead. I had a brother, but he’s dead, too.”
“Husband? Boyfriend?”
Her lip quivered again. “I’m not married. And my boyfriend––my boyfriend got shot last night.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She went quiet again. She stared out into the corridor and blinked, like she was about to cry. Like she was ready for it all to come out. Milton found that he was holding his breath. He didn’t know what he would do if she started to cry. He wasn’t particularly good with things like that.
“I spoke to Lieutenant Plato,” he said.
“Does he think I killed her?”
“Who?”
“Delores––the girl––it’s my fault she’s dead.”
“How could it be your fault?”
“She was safe as long as she kept out of the way.”
“Of course it isn’t your fault.”
“I persuaded her to come and talk to me. I went on and on and on at her. Because of that, now she’s dead.”
Milton didn’t know what to say to that. He started to mumble something that he hoped might be reassuring but she cut him off.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you’re not safe, Caterina.”
“I can look after myself,” she said, her eyes shining fiercely.
“They came back this morning. A man pretending to be a doctor. I saw him off, but it’ll get worse as soon as they discharge you.”
“Then I’ll hide,” she said angrily. “I’ve managed until now.”
“I’m sure you have.”
He watched her. She was pretty, and her fieriness made her even more attractive.
“Caterina––I want to help.”
“You’re wasting your time. I don’t have any money and, even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
“I don’t want money.”
“Then what?”
“I help people who need it.”
“Like some sort of charity?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“And I do? Need help?”
“The odds are against you. I can even the odds. That’s what I do.”
“You know what the cartel is capable of. You saw it. Last night was just them being playful. If they really want to come after me there won’t be anything th
at anyone can do about it. I’m sorry, Señor Smith, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer and I don’t want to be rude, but, at the end of the day, you work in a kitchen.”
He let that settle for a moment. And then he said, staring at her evenly, “I did other things before that.”
* * *
25.
BEAU’S SNAKESKIN cowboy boots clipped and clopped as he stepped out of the red Jeep Cherokee and walked across the pavement and into the hospital. There was a florist in the reception––a pathetic display of flowers, most of them half-dead and fading away in the broil of the early morning sun––but he found a halfway decent bunch of Bougainvillea, then went to the shop and supplemented it with a bag of withered and juiceless grapes. He went to the desk and, putting on his friendliest smile, said he was looking for the girl who had survived the shooting at the restaurant last night, said he was her brother. The nurse looked down to the bouquet, bright colours against the blue of the suit, looked up at the warm smile, bought the story all the way and told him that he could find her on the sixth floor, towards the back of the building, and that he hoped he had a nice day. Beau thanked her most kindly and made his way to the elevator.
He got in and pressed the button for the sixth floor. The doors closed and the elevator ascended. He stood with his back to the wall, looked down at the toe of his boot, lifted his leg and passed the toe against the back of his jeans to clean it off. The lights for each passing floor glowed on the display until the elevator reached the sixth. The doors opened. He reached inside his jacket, his fingers brushing against the inlaid handle of the revolver that was holstered to his belt, and stepped out.
The place smelt of hospitals: detergent, and, beneath that, rot. The girl was in a room at the end of a corridor. Beau walked easily down towards it, his heels striking the floor noisily. As he approached, a man who had been leaning against the door jamb, just out of sight, peeled off the wall and stepped out into the corridor. He took a step forwards and blocked the way.
“Who are you?” the man said.
“Beau Baxter. Who are you?”
“Smith.”
Beau grinned. “Mr. Smith––?”
The man smiled, or, at least, his taut, thin lips rose a little at the edges. “John Smith. What do you do, Mr. Baxter?”
Beau looked him over. Not much to him, really, at least on the surface: a little taller than average, a little slimmer than average for someone his size, running two hundred, maybe two ten. Caucasian, a nasty scar on his face. Salt and pepper hair. Heavy, untidy beard. Around forty, maybe. The kind of man who’d be swallowed up by the crowd. He knew that sort. He was anonymous, at least until you looked a little harder. His eyes were different; they were cold and dark, enough to give a man a moment of reflection, a chance to think about things.
Beau shrugged. “I’m thinking you know what I do. Me and you, I’m guessing we’re in the same line of work.”
“I doubt that. Let me put it a different way: what are you doing here?”
He held up the wilting bouquet. “I brought the girl some flowers.”
“She doesn’t want them.”
“I want to speak to her.”
“I don’t think so. Not while I’m here.”
They both looked through the dirty window into the room. Caterina was sitting up in bed as a doctor examined the wound on her shoulder.
“You’re the cook, right? I heard what you did.”
“And how would you know about that?”
“My line of business, it pays me to know people who know things.”
“Police?”
“Sure––among others.”
“What do you want?”
“She had any visitors? Unexpected ones?”
Milton looked at him. He didn’t answer.
“Let me describe him for you, tell me how close I am: he’s in his forties, his hair is perfectly black, plain skin, smiles a lot but there’s something going on beneath the smile that you don’t feel too comfortable about. How am I doing?”
“Close enough.”
“Thought so––can we talk about him?”
“Talk, then.”
“When was it?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“And what happened?”
“I scared him off.”
“I doubt that. He’s a bad man.”
“There are a lot of bad men.”
“Not like him. He’s one of a kind.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“I can get him out of the way.”
“You think I can’t do that myself?”
“I doubt it. You don’t know what you’re up against.”
“And you don’t know who I am.”
“I know you ain’t no cook.” He smiled at him. “Okay. What do you know about him?”
The man didn’t answer.
“You speak Spanish?”
“Enough.”
“They call him Santa Muerte. Know what that means?”
“Saint Death.”
“That’s right: Saint Death. Bit grandiose, I’ll give you that, but, believe me, this dude, my word, he backs it up. This is not a man you want to know. Those people he takes a personal interest in, they tend not to be around for long after he’s introduced himself, you know what I mean?”
“I’ve met people like that before. I’m still here.”
He held Beau’s gaze without flinching. It was rare to meet a man like this. It didn’t look as if he had an ounce of fright in him. He was either brave or he had no idea what he was dealing with. “You’re a long way from home, bro. That accent––English, right?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, then, old partner. Let me just lay it out for you. Imagine living in a place where you can kill anyone you want and nothing happens except they drop down dead. You won’t get arrested. Your name won’t get in the papers. You can just carry on with things like nothing has happened. You can kill again, too, just keep on going, and nothing will be different. Look at your friend in there––you can take a woman, anyone you want, and you can rape her for days and nothing will happen. And, once you’re done with her, you can kill her, too. Nothing will happen. That kind of place? You’re in it. That’s Juárez, through and through.”
“Sounds awful.”
He stripped the good humour from his voice. “You need to pay attention, Mr. Smith. This man, Santa Muerte, even in a place as fucked up as this, he’s the worst of the worse. Top of the food chain. What you’d call the apex predator. And you have his attention now. Undivided. All of it. I know what you did in the restaurant. I know what you did here, too, sending him away. And now he’s not going to stop. Men like him, they survive because of their reputations. People start to think he’s lost his edge, maybe they start getting brave, maybe someone who bears a grudge decides now’s the time to get their revenge and stamp his ticket for him. Reputation, man. He has to kill you now. And there’s nothing you can do to stop him short of putting a bullet in his head.”
“What does this have to do with you?”
“I can help you. My line of work: I find people, I settle accounts, I solve problems. And my employers––this group of Italians, not men you’d want to cross––these men, well, see, they have good reason to speak to him. They had a business arrangement with the organisation he works for. Didn’t go to plan. He sent them a video, one of theirs hung upside down from a tree while he sawed off his head with a machete. They’re paying me to bring him back to the States. They’d prefer him alive, but that don’t really matter, not really, they’ll take him dead if that’s the only way I can get him to them. And I will get him eventually. The only question is whether it’s after he’s killed you and your friend in there or before. I don’t have any reason to protect you but I will, if you help me out.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Beau stood up and straightened out the fall of his trousers. “I don’t know why, but he wants the girl. He�
�ll drop out of sight now. You won’t be able to find him. He’ll bide his time, and then he’ll come after her. And that’s when you’ll need me.” He took a pen from his pocket and, tearing off a square of the brown paper sheaf that was wrapped around the flowers, he wrote down a number. He handed it to the man. “This is me. When you’re ready to start thinking about how to get her out of the almighty motherfucking mess she’s got herself into, you give me a call, alright?”
“What’s his name?”
“His real name? I’ve heard lots of possibilities but I don’t know for sure.”
“You’re sure I can’t find him?”
“Have you been listening to me? You don’t find him, man. He finds you.”
* * *
26.
THEY DISCHARGED Caterina a little before midday. The doctor said that she would be fine; there were no vascular injuries, no bones had been clipped, it was all just flesh. They had performed a quick fasciotomy while she was out cold and had cleared away the fabric from her shirt that had been sucked into the wound, removed the dead tissue. The doctor checked the sutures were holding, gave her a tetanus shot, told her to take it easy, and sent her on her way. Milton led her to the elevator, shielding her as they stepped out into the lobby downstairs.
Lieutenant Plato was waiting for them.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her.
“Better now. Thank you.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“A hotel.”
“I was going to ask you,” Milton said to him. “What would be a good hotel?”
Plato chuckled. “You know all the hotels get booked?”
“By who?”
“The narcos own them,” Caterina answered. “They book the room but no-one ever stays. Perfect way to launder all their money.”
“There is a place,” Plato said. “La Playa Consulado, up by the border. You should be able to get in there.”
“Thanks.”
“And then?”
“New Mexico. Señor Smith says he’s going to help me. Doesn’t seem I have much choice in the matter.”
“Alright, then. You keep your head down. If I need to speak to you about what happened––the investigation, and what have you––I’ll be in touch.” He reached out a hand and she took it. “Good luck, Caterina.”