by AJ Adams
She was hurting, and still her instinct was to help. An amazing woman, the bruja.
“I’m fine,” I lied, “and you stay on your feet. You need a check-up and some meds.”
“The girl in black—is that your ex?”
I just didn’t know what to say. Natalia was totally calm, but it’s never a good thing to talk to one woman about another. Tina used to have jealous fits about my exes, even the ones I had when I was a kid.
I was wondering how to get past this without the screaming, but the bruja had consulted her demons and was way ahead of me.
“A wife,” she mused. “Messy divorce?”
“How the hell did you work that out?”
She sat down and smiled at me. “No ring, but you’re domestic. Also, you’ve got that look. I had it, too, when I split from Frank. It’s that feeling of failure, that somehow it’s your fault. That you’re not good enough.”
“She’s got someone else.”
It just came out, and I was wishing it unsaid when Natalia just nodded as if she’d already known.
“Ran around on you, did she?” She was thoughtful. “Is that why you were so upset when your friends came round? Does everyone know?”
“Yes.”
Again, I had no idea why I was admitting to it.
“And they’re spreading poison, I gather.” Natalia put a hand on my knee. “We’ll fix the buggers, don’t you worry.”
“I don’t know how.”
Another first, admitting defeat, and to a woman! For a moment I wondered if I’d lost my mind, my balls, or both.
“I do. Nasty reviews kill restaurants, so learning how to deal with that kind of thing is part of business.” Natalia was matter of fact. “Tell me what they’re saying.”
I just couldn’t tell her what freaked me out, but I could tell her what everyone was hearing. “They say I’m a pussy because I knew Tina ran around on me, and I didn’t stop her.”
“Charming!” Natalia snapped. “What were you supposed to do? Beat her and chain her to a wall?”
Her fury cheered me up. “It’s kind of the standard response.”
“Bloody typical!”
Her eyes were stormy and her voice clipped. I recognised the signs. The bruja was squaring up for a fight.
The sight of her, ready and raging on my behalf, really got to me. It was nuts, I mean, she was black and blue, completely without resources, pulled half way round the world and in a place she knew nothing about—what could she possibly do? But to have her fire up for me made me feel good all over.
“Bad reviews are there to stay, so don’t try and remove them,” Natalia instructed me. First, you never engage directly. Never feed the trolls.”
“What?” I’d never heard the expression before.
“You never respond,” she told me. “It’s the first rule of online public relations.”
“Look, bruja, I know you mean well, but this is the cartel, not TripAdvisor.”
“People are people, and if it’s one thing I do well, it’s managing an image.”
“But you don’t even know them!”
“It doesn’t matter. All groups work the same way.” The bruja was taking over. “Stop fussing, Quique, and listen to me.”
“I was listening! You want me to just take his shit?”
“You don’t take it, exactly. You let it be known that it’s so ridiculous, you can’t even think of a response.”
“Do nothing? Well, the boss will like that!”
I was being sarcastic, but she ignored that. “Good, then he'll help you with step two: promoting your own strengths.”
“What? Act like some pinche chiflado and tell people how great I am?” I was not liking it at all. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that!”
“You don’t boast about yourself, bozo! You work your team! When there’s one bad review and twenty good ones, nobody takes the one star seriously.”
That was true.
Natalia put me in my place. “This is just a single person giving you a bad review, love. As soon as people put it in perspective, they’ll ignore him. You don’t fix what he’s saying; you just make people blind to it.”
“Aye, bruja! You think so?” Actually, it did make sense.
“You prep your boss, your cousins and good friends to remember all the good things you’ve done. Tonight we go to your local watering hole, and I start the ball rolling.”
I had a vision of Natalia in Heaven or one of the other cathouses. I wasn’t sure if she’d close it down or take over, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Everyone will come here. In a few hours we’ll have plenty of visitors.”
“Good. That brings us to point three, which is you not noticing what little people are wittering about because you’re too busy building a better future. You need a big project you can talk about. Like a promotion.”
“I’m second in command to the boss. The only way to get a better position is to shoot him.”
“I guess that would be extreme.” Natalia was grinning at me. “And by the look of him, the bugger is probably bullet-proof.”
“He’s also Tina’s cousin. Antonio is the cousin of the jefe, the big boss.”
“Antonio is the ass-wipe she’s boffing?” She’s got a great way with words, Natalia. “Right, well, if there’s no promotion, then we go for the classic move, which is that you’re not bothered about your ex or her dickhead, because you have someone new. I’m going to be all over you.”
That made me laugh. “Nobody will believe that!”
“Why not?”
“Because I told them all about you giving me hell over the watch and the property!”
“That just proves you’re the only man tough enough to take me on.”
“Yeah, but that cabron says you’ve got me whipped, because I had only you all the time I was in England.” I suppressed the memory of the chupita in Oxford.
“Oh,” she was taken aback. “Really? Just me?”
My mouth was off without consulting my brain. “Yeah, well at first I was too busy for hos, and then when I had time they just didn’t seem as much fun as you.”
Que pendejo, right? Jesus! For a second I thought she might brain me, but the bruja is always different. She stared at me for a long second, and then she was killing herself laughing, which was a bad thing, because her ribs were hurting her.
“Ow-ow-ow,” she moaned. “Oh Quique, you poor mutt, no wonder you’re up shit creek!”
“I love the delicate way you express yourself.”
Grey eyes were still smiling at me. “So your giving me a pass and having a fling played right into their hands.”
“Yeah, it’s all your fault.”
It was weird. I was sitting there, talking to her and kidding like she was a man, and not just any man but like the boss or a fellow Kaibil. Also, I hadn’t even had a drink, and I’ve never been the type to share unless I’m bombed.
"I have dreams," I heard myself say, "about a dog I used to have."
As if possessed, I told her about Hernan.
Natalia was holding my hands. "Dear God, what a cruel test," she whispered. "Oh poor Quique! But you didn't do it."
"I know. Fate stepped in, and Hernan died. At the time I felt like I was lucky that I didn't have to do it, but now I'm thinking maybe I'm not really a Kaibil. Maybe I'm an imposter."
Her eyes were fierce. "You twit! You're the toughest man I know! Ironman is a wimp compared to you! After I saw you in action, I began calling you the one-man army!" She made me feel better.
"It might be guilt. I can't be around dogs anymore. I still think of Hernan every time I see one, and it guts me."
"That's because you're a man but not a monster." The bruja was putting me in my place. “There’s something else, something you’re afraid of,” Natalia was consulting her pet demon. “What aren’t you telling me, love?”
My throat squeezed shut.
“You’d better tell me,” Natalia said.
I sat there, s
weating cobs. My body was shaking, but I couldn’t run as my knees had turned to water. The bruja looked at me, her eyes narrowed. Then she glanced at the kitchen window where the Marias were laughing together.
Natalia sighed and took my hand. “When I kicked Frank out, he told me he’d given me the clap,” she said. “Whatever Tina said, don’t take it at face value.”
Fuck! “I’m not diseased!” But I just couldn’t tell her the truth. Part of me wanted to believe Tina had lied, but we’d been trying for a baby for too long. No, Tina had told the truth. I should’ve said something, anything, but I couldn’t get the words out.
“Never mind.” Natalia was worried for me. “It’s okay, love.”
You know, just having her on my side made me feel better.
“Whatever it is, don’t worry,” Natalia said softly. “We’ll see them off.”
Right, and she was sweating with the pain of her sides.
“First things first,” I told her. “We go to the clinic and get you fixed up.”
Of course she put up a fight. “I don’t have concussion, and those ribs are just bruised, not cracked. There’s no need.”
“There is.”
“I’ve no money, and it’s not serious.”
“I have money, and you’re going.”
“They’ll just give me an aspirin and tell me to rest.”
“Bruja, do it for me, okay?”
Amazingly, the personal appeal worked.
“Okay, but we keep accounts, and I pay you back.”
“Of course!” Typical, Natalia didn’t even consider her beating was my fault. “I’m cheap, so I’ll count every cent.”
“Bloody liar,” Natalia said cheerfully. “But I’m keeping tabs.”
I took her to see Bautista; he’s ones of the best doctors in Nuevo Laredo, actually in the Americas, I think.
“London made a mistake: these ribs are bruised, not cracked,” he informed us cheerfully. “You went into shock because of the beating, but you’re bouncing back nicely. Give it two weeks, and you’ll be fine.”
Tina would’ve demanded a private room and round-the-clock nurses, but Natalia was nodding. “I told Quique he was fussing over nothing.”
Then he prescribed painkillers and rest. I avoided Natalia’s knowing grin and her gleeful, “Told you so!” She can’t help it, the bruja.
As we drove back to the house, I was noticing my surroundings in a way I hadn’t done before.
Nuevo Laredo is a typical Mexican border town with its own community, but we also sell cheap booze, clothes, souvenirs and sex to gringo tourists. In the last ten years or so, business has suffered because of the war between us Zetas and the Gulf cartel. Now, after being in London for weeks, it suddenly struck me that we needed a boost—of the commercial, not cocaine type.
“That was an eye-opener.” Natalia was echoing my thoughts as we left the clinic. “I’ve never had an armed escort or gone to a hospital and not waited around. Or been treated without signing tonnes of paperwork.”
“We’ve got an account here.”
“I guessed that.” Natalia was edging carefully into the car. “Quique, if your cousins and friends are coming round tonight, I’d like to prepare something special.”
“They’d kill for your lasagne, and I’d love some poppers.” I headed out of town. “You can make both next week, when you can breathe again. Let the Marias deal with the kitchen for now.”
I won that argument easily, because Natalia’s mind was somewhere else. I discovered what she’d been busy with when we got back to the house and found my cousin Juanita and her husband Chucho sitting on the veranda while their kids Mina and Juanjo were splashing about in the pool.
“Good,” Natalia sighed. “Let’s get cracking on burying that bad review.”
She was rearing to go, but I thought we’d be in for a world of shit, because I was convinced the family would see Natalia as a marriage-wrecker. Totally untrue, of course, but with me leaving as a married man and coming back wanting a divorce and with Natalia in tow... Well, you can see what they’d think.
The men don’t care who’s doing who, because having a bit on the side is normal. I mean, we’re cartel, right? We’re not fucking angels! But you do the decent thing and keep your chupitas away from your family. You especially don’t take them anywhere you might meet your wife, sister, cousin or their friends. They know, but they can pretend they don’t as long as nobody shoves evidence in their faces.
So I was certain Natalia was in for a rough ride, but before I could say anything, Juanita was all over me. “Quique, it’s been too long, querido!” She hugged me, kissed me and then looked over at Natalia, her eyes narrowing. “So it’s true,” she said. “You’ve got someone else.”
I’ll kick down a door and go in, gun blazing, but screaming women scare me to death.
Luckily, Natalia was all over it. “Quique rescued me,” she said calmly. “As you can see, I had some trouble.”
Juanita looked her over. “And so you had to get out of London,” she remarked dryly, “but did you have to come here?”
“There’s a gang war,” Natalia explained. “When they went for me, I killed someone.” At that point, the bruja had everyone’s attention. “Actually, it started with Quique rescuing my thirteen-year-old niece from gang rape.”
“Pinche cabrones!” Juanita’s a mother, so she was all over it in an instant. “What monster would hurt a child?”
Natalia told the story as if I were a superhero. “Quique’s a one-man army” and “You know he’s totally fearless,” laying it on so thick that I was convinced not even Mina, Juanita’s three-year-old, would believe it.
To my surprise, Juanita was nodding. “He’s always been that way. He was a Kaibil, you know.”
“He’s a hero!” Natalia said it without a blink.
“We heard you gave Quique a bad time.” Chucho was giving me a sideways look. “Actually, he told everyone you were on his case.”
“True,” Natalia admitted. “I was terrified for Delicia, and so I was a bitch on wheels. Lucky for me, Quique understood.” She grinned at Chucho. “He was inches away from throttling me. I’m way over the top when I’m freaked.”
“Yes,” Chucho sighed. “Juanita’s the same.”
Juanita laughed and slapped his arm playfully, but she wasn’t taking her eye off the ball. “And the man you killed?”
“My fault,” I told her.
“I might have guessed,” Juanita sniffed.
“They knew Quique was my friend,” Natalia said carefully, “so they went for me instead of tackling him, the cowards.”
Juanita was torn between sympathy and distrust. “What are your plans?”
“Quique says he’ll fix it in a few weeks, so I won’t be staying,” Natalia said firmly.
“Oh.” Juanita was uncertain. “We thought—”
“I know Quique’s divorcing, and as I’m divorced myself, I get that it’s a vulnerable time. I’m in the spare room.” That had everyone staring. “I’m going to make a tremendous play for him, though,” Natalia continued cheerfully. “As soon as I’m clear of this murder charge, and he’s a free man, I’m going to do my best to grab him.”
Juanita was frowning, but there wasn’t anything she could say, at least, nothing reasonable. “Why are you divorced?”
I thought the bruja would tell Juanita to mind her own business, but she just shrugged. “My ex beat the hell out of me.”
The reaction was instinctive. “Pobrecita!”
“Well, I am difficult to live with, but you’ll understand that I have a special appreciation for men who can control their temper.”
“Absolutely!”
“Quique is a real man,” Natalia was talking me up again, “so you see why I like him.” She sighed. “You should’ve seen him take out those men who had Delicia. He was so brave!”
Juanita melted. Then she was all over me, “Quique, you’re a hero!”
And then Chucho was te
lling stories. “He jumped out of a chopper once, a hundred feet up, on a dare!”
“Typical!”
Natalia was all set to demand details, but all the hero shit was making me nauseated. “Enough!” I told them. “I’ve been away for weeks; tell me the news! What’s been going on with you?”
I couldn’t tell what effect Natalia’s strategy had from the way Chucho acted, because he’s always been a little careful around me. He’s manager for one of our tortilla factories, so he’s a Zeta, but he works for us because we’re the biggest employers in northern Mexico. If he were in the US, he’d be with Kraft.
Chucho is a good man and a good husband to Juanita, so I approve of him, but he’s nervous around me, because he’s really a corporate man at heart, whereas I’m the type of Zeta who’ll blow you away.
So I had no idea if it was working, but when cousin Carlos and his wife Rosa turned up, and Natalia did it again, and then with Gordo, Rafa and Chumillo, and finally with Pedro Rojo and his wife Diana, I was amazed to see them go down like ninepins. She had Gordo and Chumillo telling tall tales, and even Juanita joined in.
It was excruciatingly embarrassing. I was hot and cold all over. “Joder, cut it out!” I told them. But there was no doubt about it; her approach was working. I could feel the change. There were no sideways looks, no subtle pauses. Natalia’s plan was the real deal, all right. She was clearing the cloud from my rep faster than Storm in X-Men, but it was also draining her. Natalia was pale with fatigue.
“Bed,” I told her. “It’s time for your meds, and you need to rest.”
For once she went without arguing. “See you in the morning,” she said, and the second she went in, Juanita was approving of her. “A good woman,” she said. “Not at all what we thought.”
As Natalia would say, I was gobsmacked.
“Yes, she’s sensible,” Rosa agreed.
“Nice legs,” Chumillo mused, “and she likes you, Quique.”
“She’s properly grateful,” Juanita corrected him, “and considering some people’s attitude, it’s about time.”
Her obscure reference didn’t pass anyone by.
“That pendejo Antonio,” Gordo snarled. “He can hardly handle a street patrol of halcones, and he has the balls to trash-talk a Kaibil!”