“Why, this is our home.” Miss Ruby shook her head. “We need to stay here.”
“Yes ma’am, it is. But those men were from a drug cartel, and you two were extremely lucky. Even though y’all took care of them, there might be more.”
“But we don’t want to leave.”
“You aren’t safe in this house right now. They underestimated you, but that won’t happen again. Whatever the reason they were here, I’m afraid it’ll bring them back. Ranger Hawke wants us to take you to another town.”
Miss Harriet shook her head. “Who’ll watch the cats while we’re gone?”
“Don’t you have a cat door?”
“Well, yes.”
“We can put plenty of food and water out for them, and I’ll arrange for someone to come in to check on them every day.”
Perry Hale was listening and keeping an eye on the empty street. They’d parked around the corner. He stiffened when a police car pulled up in front and a Hispanic officer stepped out and glanced around. He strode toward the door with purpose, holding a box from a local donut shop, looking up and down the street a second time.
“Yoli. Police.”
Yolanda frowned and bit her lip.
A knock came and Perry Hale thought for a moment. He decided to go on the offensive by yanking the door open. Startled, the Del Rio officer froze at the sight of a stranger who looked tough enough to eat nails. He seemed indecisive, something that made Perry Hale’s neck prickle.
The officer who didn’t have a name badge on his uniform shirt looked down at the box he was holding like he wasn’t sure where it’d come from. “Who’re you?”
“Friend of the family. I’m Perry Hale, officer . . . I think you’ve lost your name badge.”
The policeman started to reach toward the empty spot on his shirt, but stopped. “Yeah. The name’s Hernandez. I’m here to check on the ladies.”
Perry Hale stepped back. “They’re in here.”
Quickly taking Perry Hale’s measure, Hernandez moved past him and into the living room. Hernandez paid little attention to the sisters waiting for him to speak. “You a friend, too?”
“Yes.” Standing in front of the kitchen door, Yolanda smiled, deepening the dimples in the corner of her mouth. “We’re here checking on them.”
Perry Hale’s alarm system jangled so loud he expected someone to comment on the noise.
The officer hesitated, indecisive, shifting from foot to foot. He kept cutting his eyes around the room, at the same time balancing the flat donut box in his left hand as if it contained a cake or pie, instead of donuts. Hernandez finally addressed the ladies. “Is there anyone else here I should know about?”
Miss Ruby shook her head, the crochet needles in her hands stayed busy. “Nope. Just us.”
Miss Harriet spoke up. “They’re Texas Rangers. We haven’t seen you since all this started. They send you to stay with us?”
The officer straightened. “Rangers? You don’t look like Rangers.” He held the box closer to his body.
Yolanda shrugged. “She misunderstood us. We told her Ranger Hawke sent us to take them somewhere for a couple of days . . . for safety sake.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m here to watch out for them.” He held the box slightly higher. “I brought donuts.”
“Cops and donuts.” As soon as it was out of his mouth, Perry Hale wondered if the officer would take offense. “That’s funny.”
Hernandez didn’t smile. In fact, he looked nervous.
“I’ll put them in the kitchen.” Yolanda held out her hands and he backed up.
“No. I want the two of you to stand over there.” He pointed with his free hand. “I need to check out your story. Why would a Ranger send civilians to take them somewhere?”
Perry Hale stayed where he was. “He’s concerned for their safety, like she said.”
Tension radiated off Hernandez. “That doesn’t make sense. Show me some I.D.”
“You being so nervous doesn’t make sense.” Perry Hale spread his hands. “We’re just trying to do our job.”
The officer licked his lips. “Do you ladies even know who these people are?” Now holding the donut box with two hands, Hernandez angled himself so he could see the entire room.
Miss Ruby shook her head. “Why no, we just met them, but I believe Ranger Hawke sent them, just like they said. He came by and was worried about us.”
The way the man’s eyes kept darting around caused Perry Hale’s stomach to clench. And the way Hernandez held that donut box was bothering him, too. He caught Yolanda’s eye and volumes of information passed between them.
“Look, Hawke’s out of pocket right now. Why don’t you radio in and get your supervisor to call the Ranger headquarters in Austin and ask for Major Parker. He’ll tell you about Ranger Hawke and us.” Perry Hale was playing long odds with the suggestion.
His gamble paid off. Hernandez reached toward the Push to Talk radio in his ear, then hesitated. His thumb worried at the box lid, raising it slightly “No. I want you to do what I said and move over there right now.” His voice quivered with tension, and Perry Hale knew why.
“Did you radio in you were here? We’ll talk with your supervisor.”
“Quit talking and move now.” Right hand free again, the officer rested it on the butt of the Glock for half a second, then removed it like it was hot.
“You’re awful indecisive.” Perry Hale hung his thumb in his front pocket, only inches from the slender Colt 1911 in the IWB holster under his untucked shirt. “Look. We’re taking these ladies with us in a minute so you don’t have to worry about them. You can tell your C.O. that you don’t need to stay. Why don’t you call in right now and let’s all relax.”
Breathing hard, Hernandez’s focus shifted back and forth between Perry Hale and Yolanda.
She crossed both arms under her breasts and spoke softly. “I know. You can’t leave now, and you can’t let us go, either, because we’ve seen you.”
His thumb lifted the lid and while his attention was on Yolanda, Perry Hale’s voice rang out sharp in the room. “Don’t!”
Hernandez’s head snapped around to see the .45 in Perry Hale’s hand, pointed at his abdomen. “Don’t open that box or I’ll shoot you deader’n hell.”
“Young man!” Miss Ruby’s voice was just as sharp. “This is a police officer.”
“Yes ma’am, he is, but he’s not here on official orders.”
Yolanda drew her Glock and stepped forward, slapping the box from Hernandez’s hand in an explosion of donuts. A worn revolver with a duct taped handle thumped on the handmade rag rug at his feet. She kicked it out of reach with her boot.
Hernandez’s face quickly changed from stunned to frightened and then sadness. His demeanor crumbled, and he swayed as if in a high wind.
“Oh, my lord!” Miss Harriet put her hands to her cheeks.
Perry Hale remained rooted where he was. “Take the pistol from your holster with your left hand and give it to her.”
“I can’t do it with my left. The holster won’t release.”
Perry Hale hadn’t thought of that. “Fine. Hands behind your back. Yolanda, cuff him.”
Hernandez made no move to resist, and seconds later he was in his own cuffs and unarmed. Head low, he swayed like a tree in the wind before dropping to one knee. “You’ve killed me and my family.”
Miss Ruby struggled to push herself to the edge of her seat. “What’s happening?”
Tucking the Glock 43 back under her shirt, Yolanda moved over to Miss Ruby and patted her shoulder. “He came to kill you.”
“What? No. He’s a policeman.”
“Yes ma’am,” Perry Hale said, tucking his own pistol back out of sight. “The cartel got to you, didn’t they?”
The devastated police officer nodded. “A year ago.”
“You aren’t the first.”
Hernandez blinked tears from his eyes. “Would you let me call my wife and tell her to get the
kids? Maybe they can disappear if they get gone fast enough. It’s the only thing I can do now.”
“You did this to yourself.” Perry Hale’s voice crackled with disgust.
“I know. I messed up and needed money. They got to me and ordered me here.”
“Who’s they?”
“A man named Incencio. That’s all I know. I thought I could do this to stay on their good side and not get us all killed, but believe me, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.”
“You could have fooled me.” While Hernandez watched, Yolanda took out her cellphone and tapped at the screen. “I just contacted the sheriff in Ballard. We know we can trust him. He’ll call back in a few minutes and we can get the ball rolling for you. I don’t trust anyone else right now.”
He nodded. “You shouldn’t.”
Perry Hale backed against a wall to keep an eye on the disgraced officer and punched at the screen on his own cell phone. Sonny’s dad answered. “Herman?”
“Go ahead, Perry.”
“We need you to come pick up a couple of ladies who need to get gone for a little while.” He gave him the address and town.
“I’m on my way. Where do you want me to take ’em?”
“Someplace safe, that we don’t know about.”
“I’ll be there directly.”
“Fine.” Perry Hale hung up and dialed again, listening to Sonny Hawke’s number ringing, unanswered.
Chapter 20
The Devil Woman glanced up from the laptop computer angled on the end table beside the sofa and picked up her satellite phone. She quickly punched in a number and waited for the linkup.
Incencio Aguierre answered. “Sí.”
“I just watched your drone feed.”
“You saw what happened.”
“Yes. They are very good. I’m sad that Esteban won’t get to gut Oaxaca like a fish now, but I truly wanted that esa espino y cranio.”
“Who would you like to pick up the bodies?”
“Leave them for the aves carroneras. Find those people and kill them all, but bring me the body of the anglo in the colorful shirt. He interests me. Kill Alejandro.”
“You recognized him?”
“I’ve paid that policia plenty of money through the years, and now he betrays me.”
“I think he has other business besides us. Maybe he’s working a case outside of Ciudad Acuna.”
“It doesn’t matter. He killed one of ours.”
“But señorita, you were going to have him killed anyway.”
“Yes, but that was under my orders. No one kills my people but me. No one denies me pleasure.”
“Sí, señorita. What about the woman?”
“Ella no es mas que una puta.” The Devil Woman had no compassion for women who didn’t attempt to rise above their birth station in life and only survived by submitting to men. “She is nothing.”
She ended the call and watched the video again, enjoying the way Alejandro and the norteamericano dropped some of her best men like they were amateurs. Those two were very good.
She hoped Incencio would send men equal to the task.
But it didn’t matter. If those he sent were killed, well, it fulfilled what she’d learned at El Paso High School, survival of the fittest. If her weakest soldiers died, better men would rise to take their places.
Picking up a sweating glass of fresh squeezed lemonade, she padded barefoot across the cool deep red Mexican tiles and stopped at a wide picture window, studying the landscaped grounds. Living there was a huge step up from the tiny eight-hundred-square-foot frame house she’d grown up in back in El Paso.
Being a pocho, a slang term for a Mexican born in the U.S., still bothered her, and she was determined to overcome her past. She’d done that by working her way up until she could buy her way into the narco government of Coahuilia. Now they depended on the pipeline of American cash that flowed through her hands and into their pockets.
It was good to be La Jefa, the boss.
Chapter 21
We passed acres of Coahuila blackberry fields before rolling into the surprisingly pretty little town of El Cruce late in the afternoon. Instead of the dusty little desert community I’d envisioned, it was green and cool with trees, palms, and a beautiful view of the distant mountains forming a semicircle around the flat valley floor.
The square full of manicured trees and a pale-yellow three-story bell tower rose over a butter-colored church. On the opposite side of the square, Fosfora pointed to a small, brick building standing alone at one corner. “There.”
I squinted through the dirty windshield. “What’s that?”
“Here you will meet the one who called you.”
“He’s in there?”
“No. You will wait until he comes.”
“When will that be?”
“Who knows?”
That answer told me for sure that we were operating on Mexican time. Not living by the ticking of a clock, their culture operated at a more sedate pace. Businesses often opened whenever the owner unlocked the door, rather than at a posted time. If someone said they’d be there first thing in the morning, their “first thing” might be nearly noon.
Alejandro pulled up against a wall running the length of the street and ending at the corner of the building. He looked pained. “I had no idea we were going to be gone this long. I will have people questioning my whereabouts.”
“We’ll deadhead back after I talk with this guy. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” From our angle at the curb, I translated a neat, hand-painted sign above the door. Articulos para el hogar. “Housewares?”
Fosfora shrugged and scanned the square. “That is what I was told.”
In the square beside us, a handful of people milling under the cool shade trees paused to study our car. The air was filled with the fragrance of spices, cooking meat, and wood smoke from push cart vendors selling street food, or antojitos, until the vendors completed their transactions and everyone faded away.
The hair prickled on the back of my neck once again.
I nudged Alejandro. “They’re gone.”
“This is a cartel town. They don’t recognize this truck. It is better to leave than to stay and be accused of association with strangers.”
“I stick out like a sore thumb. I guess they don’t take kindly to strangers.”
“Huh?”
“An old western movie joke.”
“I like John Wayne.”
“So do I. A lady told me not too long ago that he was the source of all toxic masculinity.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means she didn’t want men to be real men.”
“Ah. That’s one of the problems with your country. When it comes to machismo, it is no longer honored or desired as it is in my culture.”
“My wife would disagree with that.”
Alejandro opened his door. “I’ll go in with you.” He rounded the front of the pickup and joined me on the passenger side, opposite the square.
A head-high stone wall stretched the length of the sidewalk. Missing chunks at the top made it look as if an angry T-Rex had taken a bite here and there. Head high, the openings allowed me to peer over into a wide, manicured courtyard the size of a city block that looked like the parade ground in an old frontier fort. An ancient, roofless stone building squatted right out in the middle. Doors and windows long gone, the dark gray color reminded me of mausoleums I’d seen in old New England cemeteries.
“I’m staying here.” Fosfora shifted over to the middle of the back seat and stretched out, resting what the Old Man would have called cotton patch feet on the console.
Leaving her behind, we pushed through the corner store’s peeling front door that opened with a low squeal from the worn hinges. The doorknob and hardware looked to be as old as the church we’d just seen.
Throwing one last look at the empty square, I followed him inside. “Looks like they don’t carry oil.”
Inside, it was a far cry from a houseware store in the states. Bare bulbs dangled on frayed lines from the cracked ceiling, their low wattage barely supplementing the sunlight filtering through dirty windows overlooking the street corner.
Narrow aisles sagged with dusty boxes on bare wooden shelves. Still in their shipping containers, most of the writing and advertisements were in Spanish, but I recognized a surprising number of logos.
A short, nervous-looking man with big ears and thinning hair rose to his feet behind a plywood counter when we entered. His eyes went flat and skipped off my face to settle on Alejandro. “Puedo ayudarte?”
The guy probably couldn’t speak any English at all. Alejandro answered and they took off again at warp speed in their native language. There were no other shoppers. Instead of standing there rocking back and forth on my toes and grinning like an idiot, I wandered away and strolled through the cluttered aisles, more to make sure we were alone than anything else.
Tall windows on two of the four cinderblock walls allowed me to keep an eye on the town. I crossed the store, not paying attention to what Alejandro and the owner were doing by the front door. The first set of windows looked down the street where we’d parked the Dodge. I checked out what I could see of the empty, shady plaza.
The owner ignored me, talking in earnest to Alejandro. I crossed to the opposite side of the store. The street was empty. Satisfied, I had one more place to check out. A single door leading out back into the courtyard was closed. Turning a metal knob, I peeked outside into the large, tree-lined lot.
Back home I’d’a said it was the biggest backyard I’d ever seen.
What I’d originally thought was the ruins of a mausoleum was actually a small mission or convento, probably part of the original Spanish settlement in that area. Hundreds of years old, it once had a pole and wood roof that was long gone. Crumbling arched walls defined what was left of a small plaza surrounding the tiny structure.
About to turn back inside, movement in the single entrance caught my attention.
Tensing, I scanned the big courtyard even closer than before. It offered little in the way of cover, except for what was provided by the small building’s crumbling walls smack dab in the middle of the open space. A man stepped into view in the convento’s doorway. Once he was sure I’d seen him, he disappeared back inside.
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