“I believed that I was special and that my father’s love was unconditional. His love was. His affections were not. I had finally disappointed my father so profoundly that he could not forgive me. Instead of forgiveness, he taught me a lesson. I could live a life with nothing, or I could have a life with rules. He married me off to a pig of a drug dealer half a world away. Seven months later, you were born.”
Eduardo knew this. She had told him before, when she had told him that his father would not be returning from Mexico.
“I was cold to you because I didn’t want you to believe that you were too special for the rules of the world.”
Elodia regarded her son coolly.
“Why are you telling me this again?”
“Because there are times that I wish I had taken nothing,” she said.
“Sir,” called the driver in a quiet voice that said he was doing his damnedest not to listen to a word of their conversation. “We’ve arrived at your first destination.”
“I’m getting married, Eddie,” said Elodia. She was smiling. Not beaming like before, but smiling. “Married for real this time.”
“Congratulations. You and The Count can make lots of babies and be happy.”
Elodia’s eyes fell to the floor. Eduardo regretted saying it immediately, but did not apologize.
“You and I made a pact, didn’t we, Eddie? A long time ago.”
“You told me The Count was rich.”
“He is well off, but I will not go empty handed. I won’t be that woman again.”
“Doesn’t he love you?”
“This isn’t about him. This is about you and me.”
Eduardo got out of the car and strode into the second-floor office in his prison clothes. The lawyer was taken aback by his appearance.
“Mister Mendes…I was not expecting you,” said the lawyer from the small firm of Holden, Glanton, and Brown.
“Well, here I am,” said Eduardo. The old man was examining him.
“Are you okay?” the old lawyer asked.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“I…I don’t know…if there is…”
“Something you can do? Yes, there is. I left a package in your care some time ago. Please fetch it for me.”
Fetch it. He loved the way that came out of his mouth. He hadn’t even planned it. Like riding a bicycle, Eduardo thought. The befuddled old man stammered a bit, then came to his senses and left the room. When he returned, he had a sealed manila envelope in his hand.
“Forgive me, Mister Mendes. I was quite surprised to find you here.”
“The important thing is that you were exactly where I expected to find you.” With that, Eduardo turned to walk back to the elevator. He was at the receptionist’s desk when he heard the lawyer calling for him.
“Sir, you don’t plan to go to the bank dressed like that?”
“I certainly do,” he said.
***
“Your father is gone,” she had announced when he came home from school. It was Christmas break. He was wearing a St. Paul’s jacket. All the guys wore their jackets home then.
“Gone where?” he had asked. He was embarrassed he had said that. Not immediately, but as the years passed and he had time to reflect on that day, he’d become more and more embarrassed at his naïveté. When his mother didn’t answer, and he’d begun to realize what she meant, he asked what had happened.
“The phone rang,” she said. She lit a cigarette. She only smoked on the balcony, and the smoke never clung to her. It was on her breath, but the wind took the rest.
“He was told to go to Mexico for a meeting. He went to the meeting, and he never returned.”
Eduardo thought about this for a while. He wondered if there wasn’t something being kept from him. “Could he maybe just be in hiding?”
Elodia’s glance was both dismissive and withering. He never forgot it.
“No, Eduardo,” she said. “He is never coming back.”
His father had lost all of his money. He had invested profits into the stock market, and after profits, he had invested operating capital. When he had invested the capital, he had invested money that was still owed. When the unbeatable market finally burst, his father’s wealth burst with it. His father had spent a lifetime illegally accumulating money and possessions that were beyond his reach, and in just months, legally, it was all gone.
He cried. He sobbed and ran from her and discovered half of the home’s possessions had been sold already. When she found him, she stroked the crown of his head and told him they would be fine. She also told him she was leaving to begin again. She told him who his father wasn’t.
“You’re better than this, Eddie,” she said in her ancient, old world accent. “You’re better bred.”
***
Inside the bank, the guard eyed him suspiciously. Eduardo waited for him to leave before opening the box. He saw money. He saw stacks of hard work and sweat he detested. He saw stacks of things he did without for years. He saw a past he thought was behind him.
He saw a pile of money that he couldn’t carry out in his arms. Eduardo realized that he had neglected to bring a bag or a box or any sort of container. Grabbing one green stack, he went behind the tellers’ counter and scanned their feet, until his eyes landed on it.
“I like your bag,” Eduardo said to the unsuspecting teller. “Louis Vuitton.”
“It’s fake,” said the teller, very surprised.
“It’s perfect,” said Eduardo. “I want it.”
At first, she said it wasn’t for sale. It was her bag and she needed it, but her eyes widened as he tore off the first bill, and then another before she could react. By the time he had laid down the third bill, she blurted out, “That’s enough to get a real Louis bag!”
“Almost,” he said, picking it up and dumping the contents onto the ground.
He realized then that he had two deposits to make, and one bag wouldn’t be enough. He looked around the inside of the tellers’ counter, seeing nothing that suited hm.
“Tell me something,” Eduardo asked. “Did you bring your lunch?”
When he climbed back into the Town Car, he saw his mother’s quizzical look at the small pink Hello Kitty lunch bag that was in his hand. It was zippered tight and still bulging. “This is for you,” he said, handing her the brown leather bag covered in little intercrossed counterfeit gold LV’s. His mother took it from him as if it smelled bad.
“It’s fake,” she said.
“I know,” replied Eduardo. “I can’t wait to see you wearing it.”
Curtis – Monterrey, MX
They entered the city of Monterrey surrounded by towers of glass. The city was modern and clean, and everything was painted white. There were new buildings and old churches, and most looked more like they belonged in Europe instead of Mexico. They drove past the great plaza, over a spectacular blue canal, and then found themselves by a sea of green grass. Wherever they went, the mountains loomed over them.
“That’s the Bishop’s Palace,” said Curtis almost absentmindedly. “That’s the Gran Plaza.”
Virgil was barely listening. He looked on with amazement.
“I had no idea,” muttered Virgil.
“No idea about what?”
“I pictured Mexico differently,” he said. “I pictured shacks and dirt roads. Tin roofs and kids with no shoes. Not this.”
“I can find some poor people if you want.”
“No. This is fine,” said Virgil. In the distance, the city ended abruptly, and the mountains rose out of the earth. “A man could get lost down here,” he said.
***
Eduardo liked Puro because they had Asians. He liked Asians because they were cleaner than Mexicans. Mexicans, of course, were in plentiful supply down here, and could be hired dirt cheap, so Eduardo appreciated the effort Puro made to find Asians to scrub him and clean him.
“Welcome back, Eduardo,” said the manager in her deep whisper. He didn’t care for the fa
miliarity. “Will Miss Odalys be joining you today?”
“No,” he said. “We’re not together any longer.”
“Well,” said the manager, with a smile he didn’t care for. “Perhaps you will be again.”
Eduardo wondered if there was a spa where he could have a blood transfusion. He wanted to use his own blood, but from before.
“I want to be scrubbed,” said Eduardo.
“We have a wonderful coconut scrub that you should definitely experience.”
“I want to begin with something harsh,” he said.
“We have a dry brushing therapy that may suit you. We could combine it with a citrus blend exfoliant.“
“What do you use to scrub the floors?” asked Eduardo.
She was briefly taken aback, but composed herself. He could see her thinking of how to proceed, so he placed the lunch bag filled with money on the desk. His expression made it clear that he was completely serious.
“There was a woman here before. She said her name was Lily, but I know it wasn’t. Is she here?”
He read her hesitation and her nervousness. She said yes anyway.
“I want her to scrub me.”
“Very good.”
“And another thing.”
She looked unsure of what would come next.
“I want to know her real name.”
Lily appeared dutifully with a bucket and a bottle of cleaning product from the closet. She said her name was Qiao, and Eduardo repeated it twice, making her do the same, until he had the pronunciation correct. Then he made her scrub.
He liked the clear wrapper, discarded on the floor, from which she had drawn the thick yellow sponge. He liked new things used on him. The cleaning fluid had a lemon scent, and the texture of a light oil. Qiao had immediately grasped what it was he wanted and used force on him. He tried not to wince.
He soaped and showered as she waited, and he eventually took the manager’s suggestion of the coconut body scrub. It was delightful, and he didn’t want it to end. Qiao suggested the detailed parafango treatment, which was pure wonder, followed by a coconut mini-facial, which rotated cool smooth stones and hot towels against the skin of his face. It was the Vichy shower that he wanted though, and the Vichy that had brought him here. It felt like a storm, controlled, and compressed just onto him. Warm rain ran over him and through him, and once again, Eduardo felt like the reigns of his life were back in his own hands.
Qiao laid a fresh dry towel over his body and told him softly that his delivery had arrived and was waiting for him in his private room once he was ready. Eduardo rolled over and let the towel fall to the floor. He watched Qiao’s eyes fall on his body. Her face showed neither shock nor apprehension. It was disappointment mixed with equal amounts of resignation. Eduardo knew that she didn’t want anything to do with this. That made it so much better for him.
***
There was one dry spot on the floor below the sink, and that was where he stood, barefoot. Everywhere else in the bathroom was a flood of piss or dirty water or both or worse.
It was a discount gas station so cheap that it had no name. The lights on the sign faded and flickered, and so did the lights in the bathroom. That didn’t bother Angel.
Tufts of black hair fell to his feet. Whiskers landed in the puddles. He was nude and had hair all over his body, which he shook and padded off of himself. With scissors, he cut his hair short. With a comb and water, he neatened it.
He dressed in plain khaki pants and a plain white shirt. His shoes were brown and used. On his wrist, he wore a watch that was worth almost as much as a house. It had a tiny device on the inside of it that spun and twirled miraculously. It was called a tourbillon, though he paid it no notice. He pulled a sport coat over his shirt. It was a deep brown and made of a material called vicuna. It had once belonged to Eduardo Mendes. He left everything else in the trash.
Angel walked the last quarter mile to the border, where he crossed unnoticed into Mexico.
Chapter Seven
Virgil – Monterrey, MX
Curtis’ ridiculous yellow shirt lit up like a beacon. It was a short sleeve yellow button up Hawaiian shirt that hung past his waist. “It covers my gun,” Curtis had said when he felt Virgil’s dismay. The shirt had little hula girls dancing with a guitar before a red flame. The girls were all shaking their bottoms either left or right, one after another, all across the shirt.
“Are you under the impression that they have hula girls in Mexico?”
“When the task force goes to Mexico, they don’t want to look like cops. They want to look like tourists. They want to blend in.”
“You think that shirt blends in?”
“I think I look like someone who came to Mexico to have a good time.”
Virgil kept his head low and his voice low. Curtis was staring into his binoculars.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Curtis. Nothing was good.
Before them lay the grand white house they had envisioned. It was a large home, but not by modern American standards. It was not ostentatious. It was rectangular, with four solid corners and no additions. The roof was red tile. There was a short staircase to the first floor, with tiny windows just above ground level.
“A basement!” Curtis had exclaimed. Inside Virgil, the nervousness grew. Most importantly, and the only thing which made him feel better, was that as the sun sank lower in the sky, the windows in the house remained dark.
“Any sign of the old man?”
“No,” said Curtis. “No sign at all.”
The big house wasn’t the only structure on the property, but it stood in contrast to everything else. There was a huge old barn a few hundred feet from the house. In the light, it looked much older than the house. When they had arrived in the late afternoon, they could see its paint was faded and peeling. Like the house, it was two stories, but the roof was in need of repair. Its two main doors could open wide enough to accommodate a tractor or a wagon, but had been barred from the outside by a wooden beam. No real farming was done here anymore, save for in the vineyard, and the forest had been allowed to encroach behind the barn.
The vineyard was the one thing they hadn’t expected. It was situated in a triangle from the house and the barn. When they had first arrived, they could see a little old man walking amongst the stalks, clutching tools or a watering can. He went back and forth between the vines and a small shack with a tin roof off to the side of the vineyard. They had taken it for a tool shed until the old man went in and didn’t come out. As the sun dipped, they saw a light in the window.
“What do you suppose he’s doing here?”
Curtis shrugged in the dark.
“He’s the caretaker. Some old man living rent free. Gives the place character.”
“He wasn’t part of our plan.”
“He isn’t screwing it up either.”
“How is he not?”
“Some company owns this place as a retreat. The old man takes care of it and lives free. I used to audit companies that did stuff like this all the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. The Boston Police Department doesn’t have a corporate retreat in Italy or Lake Tahoe, but lots of successful companies do. They send their clients away for the weekend to wine and dine them. Come January, they write the whole thing off in taxes.”
“Companies do this?”
“It’s commonplace.”
Virgil scanned the property with the binoculars. It was dark now. This was countryside dark, and totally unlike night in the city. There was no escape from this kind of night. He watched the house, the vineyard, the shack, and the barn. As he went to repeat the cycle, his mind clicked, and it took a moment for his eyes to register the change. It was the shack. Curtis saw it too, without binoculars.
The lights went out.
***
Eduardo had had a fine suit delivered to the spa, and he wore it now as he walked over the bridge into Mexico. He sp
otted a man standing by a black Navigator. He was dressed formally, like a character from an old Hollywood film, and his clothes were very well pressed. His hair was smooth, and he wore a goatee. Eduardo saw immediately that it was meant to cover the deep scar on his lip. He looked like a man from another time who didn’t belong where he was.
“Mister Mendes,” said Strauss.
Without another word, Strauss took the pouch from Eduardo’s hands. Then he opened the door.
***
The truck was clean, and almost unused, save for the coffee mug in the center console. From time to time, Strauss sipped from it, and paid Eduardo no attention at all.
“The man you sent…what is his name?”
Strauss didn’t answer immediately.
“The less you know about him, the better.”
“I understand that. All the same, I would like to know.”
“His name is Angel.”
“Angel fucked up.”
“It was a short notice.”
“I needed a person dead, and they are still alive.”
“For now.”
“He is still a danger to me.”
“If you like, I can arrange a meeting between you and Angel, and you can voice your complaints directly.”
Eduardo glared at him. The words themselves were polite enough, as was the tone, but he understood their meaning. Strauss sipped his coffee.
“You knew me. Didn’t you?” he said to Strauss.
“I did.”
“How? We’ve never met.”
“You’ve never met me, is what you mean.”
“Have you followed me?”
“Mister Mendes,” said Strauss. “When we’re done here, do you want me talking about what we’re about to do?”
“I would think not.”
“I show all my clients the same courtesy,” he said quietly.
Eduardo thought about that. He thought of Colon.
“Did you know him?” Eduardo asked.
“Did I know who?”
“You know who I mean,” said Eduardo.
He nodded.
“What did you think of him?” Eduardo asked.
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