“Two weeks ago, I had a massive cash bail and was doing federal time. I’m walking out the door on fifty grand.”
“These are the services you’ve retained me to provide, Mister Mendes.”
“I would like to know.”
“When you were a child, did you ever see a magician?”
“No.”
“They never reveal their tricks.”
“I insist.”
Flan could see that it was useless.
“The judge and I enjoy having a drink together from time to time.”
“You’re banging the judge?” Eduardo laughed. Too loudly, it seemed, because Flan’s eyes searched the hall.
“Not at all. We’re friends. I know her well. I know the clerk. I know the magistrate. I know the secretaries who assign which cases to which courtroom. And I knew enough about the prosecutor to get what I wanted. The prosecutor has a reputation for a short temper and a quick tongue, and both turned out to be true. It was easy to get her to say something to fire up the judge.”
“How?”
“If you had demanded this sort of detail from everyone in your service, you might not have needed me today,” said Flan.
“How?”
The lawyer sighed.
“Judge Granary comes from a very modest background. Her father was executed forty years ago for gunning down a police officer. She has always been quite sensitive about the stigma attached to a thing like that.”
“Ah,” said Eduardo, remembering the prosecutor bringing up his father, and being more glad than ever that his mother was there to hear it. “So that was the trick?”
“The trick, Mister Mendes, is getting the right people into the room at the right time.”
Tobias Flan had a red nose with red varicose veins perched upon it. The deep red veins looked ready to burst. Eduardo reminded himself that he had a phone call to make.
“And how did you do it? How did you get them all into the same room?”
“I asked,” said Flan simply.
“You asked?” scoffed Eduardo. Eduardo didn’t ask. Neither did his mother. They told people what to do. Flan licked his lips and showed his canine teeth again. It was his version of a smile.
“People like me, Mister Mendes.”
***
Odalys’s heart exploded when she saw the flowers. Her eyes instantly became wet. A sound came from her lips, and it was a gasp of deep and genuine surprise, from the very bottom of her heart, where wishes she’d given up on had suddenly come true. Eduardo had sent her flowers.
It was a spectacular bouquet of bluebonnets with white roses. They weren’t pristine. They were vibrant and messy and colorful and alive and perfect. She reached out for them.
The delivery man punched her in the stomach. She landed on her backside with the air sucked from her lungs. She saw blood on her hands and bubbling from her belly.
Angel calmly closed the door behind him. He dropped the flowers on the ground. He took Odalys by the neck so she couldn’t scream and dragged her into another room.
Odalys’ last rational thoughts, before being overwhelmed by pain and horror, were of Eduardo Mendes. She thought of how Eduardo would eventually find this man and kill him for what he had done to her.
***
A heavy gold crucifix dangled from the border guard’s neck as he leaned over his station. Curtis thought of his St. Michael medallion. He had held it in his hand while getting dressed and asked himself if the patron saint of police officers would really be watching over their errand into Mexico. He doubted it, but he shoved it into his pocket anyway. His fingers touched the handcuff key, and he remembered: for things you can change, and for those you can’t.
“Be careful down there,” said the guard. “Mexico ain’t like home.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” said Curtis.
The guard waved the beaten down Jeep through the gate where they were clear to merge with the highway. Virgil exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath.
“I thought you were supposed to be the cool, calm, and collected one,” said Curtis.
He saw the sign as they approached. “Mexico Only. No Return USA,” it read. They went right under it.
***
There were two phones on Walter Curtis’ kitchen table. One was set to ring, but no one had called it. The other was set to vibrate, and every time a call came in, the whole table shook lightly. They had started out next to one another, but were now on opposite sides of the table. Curtis’ phone buzzed impatiently, then buzzed again and toppled on to the floor.
Angel barely seemed to notice. He moved silently amongst Curtis’ things. He took no notice of the files or the printed e-mails or hand-written notes. His eyes glanced over the map of Mexico covered with red ink. Finally, he focused on a small framed photograph. This interested Angel very much.
It was a picture of Curtis and Marc Virgil. They were in a bar and laughing. It was a few years old, but it would do.
Chapter Six
Ordo – Nuevo Leon, MX
Ordo Beltran was on a private lake talking to a man whose hands were nailed to an Adirondack chair. Ordo had never seen a chair like this, and it had been perfect for his needs. He had demanded that the man tell him what it was called and grown impatient when the man only cried.
The Russian plodded over in just his shorts. Blood was spattered across his torso. The Russian had told him to take his clothes off, but Ordo hadn’t listened. He would stop by this man’s closet in the main house before they left. Ordo’s phone began to ring. He knew the voice immediately.
“I just took a call from a man with TS. Do you know who I mean?”
Ordo did. Texas Syndicate was a necessary evil. Men had to know that they weren’t safe anywhere.
“He says he needs some work done.”
“No problem.”
“On an American.”
“Here or there?”
“Here. You have someone who can handle this immediately?”
Ordo looked at the Russian.
“How important is this?” He was busy with Laredo.
Ordo cupped the receiver again. The man in the chair had begun wailing, and he couldn’t hear the phone. He indicated to the Russian that he no longer needed this man.
The Russian pulled the hand axe from one of the small bodies in the sand and headed toward the Adirondack. The wailing grew louder.
“Who do I need to kill?” asked Ordo.
The answer was immediate.
“An American named Eduardo Mendes.”
***
Juan Dossantos Diaz was his Christian name, but everyone at work called him Juan Two Saints. He was thirty years old, married, and had two little boys. Juan was a state policeman in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He had become a police officer because he wanted to believe in something greater than himself. Lately, Juan Two Saints had been having trouble holding on to that principle, and the main reason was sitting next to him.
Jefe smelled even worse than usual. It was a toxic combination of oniony food, old sweat, stifling heat, and body odor. Jefe sweated like other men breathed.
“Do you know where we got this truck?” Jefe asked.
They were sitting in a black Ford Expedition with smoked out windows, crouched just off the highway behind a grove of shrubby trees. Juan knew where the truck came from. He knew, because Jefe had told him a hundred times.
“The government of the United States bought this truck for us,” Jefe said with a beaming smile. “International narcotics interdiction.”
Jefe stood six foot four, though he preferred to sit. He was well over three hundred pounds, and when he did stand, his belt disappeared under his belly, with only his sidearm poking out desperately at the side. Drips and stains of food from days past decorated his uniform shirt, and the pits of his shirts were permanently soaked. He managed to appear for work unshaven every single night, his beard extending down the huge flaps of skin under his jaw.
To Juan’s knowledge, Jef
e was the only full-fledged gringo in the Nuevo Leon police force, which was why, Juan supposed, Jefe had been so excited to learn that he was fluent in English.
When he was a boy, there was a police officer in his town who everyone called Don Fernando. It was Don Fernando who had made him want to be a police officer. They had never spoken, but it was his demeanor. Don Fernando was cool and tall and impeccably well dressed. Don Fernando, in hindsight, never seemed to do much in the way of police work, but he was always around. Since nothing ever happened in his town, around was enough. Juan Two Saints told Jefe that story one night after he had been transferred to the task force. Jefe howled with laughter. The next night, he had made Juan his driver.
Jefe made Juan sit in the truck with the windows rolled up, trapping him with his stink. He made Juan handle money from shops and garages that never seemed to open, handed to him by men whose rough lives were written on their faces. A man who was missing the tips of two fingers once passed him a stack of bills. Juan imagined they had been chopped off at some point. He certainly didn’t ask.
Fast moving blue lights lit up the highway. That would be Dejo. Jefe smiled.
“Looks like we’re in business,” he said.
Dejo had a blue work van stopped going North. He pulled his shotgun from the cruiser and walked up to the window. He held it crossed in front of his chest in the most confrontational manner possible. Juan stood in the back. A small young man climbed out from behind the steering wheel.
“Hola, Santos. Que pasa?” asked Jefe.
“Nothing,” said the nervous man.
He was in his early twenties. Juan had seen him before on the highway. He was small and wiry and in the day time had an obvious athleticism about him. Tonight, he just looked scared.
“How many friends you got in there?” he asked.
“Ten,” said Santos, and Juan exhaled a tiny bit.
“Any pretty girls?” asked Jefe.
The question had surprised Santos. It didn’t surprise Juan, whose stomach was clenching on him. “No,” was Santos’ answer.
Jefe had been chewing on an unlit cigar. He took it from his mouth, inspected it, and then slid it into his shirt pocket.
“Can I meet your friends?” asked Jefe.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt, Jefe.“
“Why would someone get hurt?”
Santos didn’t respond. Dejo was suddenly at the back with the keys in his hands and sprung open the lock. He threw open both doors.
“Oh, look at this,” Dejo shouted dramatically.
Juan hated Dejo. In the back of the van were ten men and women. More men than women. They were young and old and middle aged. One woman held a child.
“I thought you told me there were no pretty girls back here,” said Jefe.
Santos shrugged.
“You’re not a faggot, are you?” asked Jefe.
At that, Santos stiffened. Dejo laughed loudly. Santos was dwarfed by the huge man, and the huge man was the law. His anger had risen to his face and looked to be creeping up his throat. Santos swallowed hard and held it.
“Get them out,” said Jefe.
They lined the whole group up on the side of the road in the blast radius of the headlights. The boy caught his eye. He was older than Juan’s boys. His eyes were large and scared.
“What do you say about her?” asked Jefe.
There was no doubt as to who he was talking about. The woman held on to the boy’s shoulders. She looked tired and terrified. She wore lipstick but no other makeup. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Jefe’s eyes climbed all over her. She had the slightest bulge in her tummy, and he could see clearly this boy was hers. His wife’s body had been the same after she’d had their boys. He loved that little tummy on her. He loved his wife. He wished he were home with her, and not here.
“She looks good, Jefe,” said Santos. He said it flatly, and with defeat.
“What’s he got on him?”
Dejo went straight to the pockets and then to the waist band. He checked Santos’ groin and shoes. When he was done, he held out a wad of green bills.
Jefe looked at the bills. Then he looked at Juan Two Saints. His meaning was clear. Juan knew what was expected of him. He wanted to ignore it. He wanted to get back in the car to go home and see his family. He would lie on the floor between his sons’ beds and listen to them sleep. He should take his uniform off, hang it in his closet, and never wear it again. Instead, he took the money.
“Count it up for me,” Jefe said in an offhand way, as if distracted. Juan knew he wasn’t distracted at all.
“You were crossing this group tonight. Why are you trying to run bodies over the border without doing the right thing?”
Santos shrugged. Jefe grinned.
“Juan Two Saints,” Jefe called. “How much is it?”
He gave Jefe the count. Jefe didn’t respond. Instead, he walked his huge frame over to the woman.
“Come with me,” he said.
The woman clutched the child even tighter. “Your boy will be fine,” said Jefe.
He never touched her. He didn’t have to. She went with him, and twice she looked over her shoulder, as they walked behind the scrub trees. Her eyes were pleading. None of her group moved. Santos looked at the ground. Dejo laughed. Juan Two Saints pretended to count the money again.
When they came back, she walked ahead of Jefe and walked quickly. Juan didn’t look at her directly, but in his peripheral vision, he saw her hug the boy to her chest. Jefe told them all to get back in the van. Then he addressed Santos.
“I asked the pretty girl if she wanted to go to jail or go north. She chose north, so this ride is on the house. Are we going to have a problem with you holding out on me in the future?”
Santos shook his head.
“No what?” said the big man.
“No, Jefe.”
When they got back in the car, Juan could feel Jefe’s eyes on him. The big man had a way of leaning sideways in the truck to watch him. Juan hated every second of it, and it went on and on.
“You have my money,” Jefe said.
Juan passed it to him, glad to be rid of it. It disappeared somewhere inside Jefe’s clothes.
“I gave her a choice,” he said as he lit up his cigar. His stubble filled face was illuminated for seconds. “We all have a choice.”
***
Curtis had driven this road many times before. The landscape went from green to tan to dusty before green gradually began to poke through once again. There were signs of civilization. They passed homes that seemed beautiful at seventy miles per hour, and they passed shacks that remained shacks at any speed. The big mountain was looming over them when Curtis pulled off the road.
“It’s better that we eat now instead of later, when we’re closer.”
“I don’t think Mexican food is what I need.”
“I don’t think you know what Mexican food really is,” said Curtis.
They pulled into a gas station that had a large empty lot next to it. There was a trailer with an open window. Curtis was excited when he found out what they were serving. He said it was liebre pozole, but wouldn’t tell Virgil what was in it. It was a thick, red stew filled with a shredded meat that he couldn’t identify. Each spoonful he dug out had a small vegetable that appeared to be corn. He started to ask one more question before Curtis yelled at him to shut up and eat it. When Virgil finished, he demanded to know what liebre was.
“Bunny rabbit,” said Curtis. “Everything here is fresh catch or fresh kill.”
Virgil licked what little meat was left on his spoon.
“This was not what I expected,” he said.
Eduardo – Austin, TX
“Te amo,” said Elodia into the phone. She was talking to a man. A man from another place who spoke a language he didn’t know was spending time with his mother in Hamburg. Finally, she hung up, put the phone into a Hermes handbag, and looked at her son for the first time in years.
“I met a man, Eddie,” Elodia gushed. She looked thirty years younger when she said it.
“What’s this man’s name? Where’s he from?”
She looked self-consciously into her hands.
“His name is Laszlo. He’s from Vienna.”
“Does he import cocaine?”
“No, Eddie. He’s a count.”
“A count! I love it. Does he live in a castle?”
“He lives in a very well appointed condominium in downtown Vienna. It’s very European. I think you’d like it. You can see the Opera House from our apartment.”
“Our apartment,” Eduardo repeated. “Can you hear the opera too? You wouldn’t have to buy tickets. You could open your windows and listen for free.”
“Very funny, Eddie,” she said, showing the girlish smile again. It was a smile Eduardo had never seen growing up in her house. “Laszlo was well provided for, and he’s managed his accounts well. He can take me to the opera if I want to go.”
“Do you?” Eduardo asked.
“When the right people are there,” said Elodia. She regarded him for a moment, then reached out to touch his face. Eduardo pulled away from her.
“I’m not clean,” he said.
“You’re still my boy.” She reached again. He reached out and stopped her.
“I mean it.” He did, and she saw that. She was silent for a long time as they drove. When she finally spoke, she was serious, and the girl in her was gone.
“Did you think I was cold, Eddie? When you were a child?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Eduardo.
“I was for a reason,” she said.
Eduardo didn’t respond. He didn’t know what there was to say.
“When I was young, I thought I was special. I thought I had things because I had a right to them. I was entitled to the things that were mine. I behaved as if rules didn’t apply to me. “
He found himself looking at the knees of the orange jumpsuit he was still wearing.
“I did whatever I felt, and I flaunted it. That is what entitlement will do to you. I thought that there were no consequences for me, because I was above consequences. I was wrong.
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