Mario was putting paper into the printer when he saw me come in. He smiled and said, “Oh, man, you really stink today.”
“I think some of the meat got spoiled,” I said, trying not to look at the logbooks on the ledge behind his desk.
“At least they’re not feeding it to you,” Mario said.
He had told me on a previous visit how happy the people in Fort Stockton were when the U.S. government accepted their bid to turn the old school into a detention center. The revenue from the lease payments would keep the town afloat. But the best part was the thirty or so jobs for the residents of the town.
“It was going to be the army for me until this came along,” he’d confided.
“You have an air conditioner?” I said, pretending I had never noticed it before.
“I know. It gets hot in that gym at night, doesn’t it?”
“May I?” I put my arms in front of me and raised my hands as if to better receive the flow of cool air.
Mario looked around briefly and then said, “Sure, be my guest.”
“How cold can you make it?” I said, standing in front of it. I moved the whale to my side. The binder for last week was the last one in the row of binders. It was about six feet to the right of the air conditioner.
“It can go pretty cold.” Mario left the printer and leaned over the controls of the air conditioner. I stepped back to make room for him and with my left hand toppled the paper cup with hot coffee that was on the edge of the desk.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just a little coffee. No big deal. I’ll get some paper towels.”
There was a bathroom with a toilet and a sink at the other end of the room. As soon as Mario went in, I grabbed the visitors’ logbook for last week and stashed it under a mountain of potato peels.
“Let me do it,” I said, taking the paper towels from Mario’s hands.
But Mario insisted on cleaning the spilled coffee himself.
“You’re a good man,” I said to him when I left.
“Not all that good,” he responded sadly, and I had a feeling that he was referring to his work at the detention center.
I rolled the whale quickly down the corridor past Mello’s office. I didn’t look in his direction, but I heard his voice still on the phone. My heart was racing a hundred miles an hour. It was going to take a while for the adrenaline to wear itself out, but I didn’t care. Out by the dumpster I would tear out the page with my father’s name and address and then tomorrow I’d return the binder to its place. I had taken away the only means that Mello had for finding Emiliano. I had done something for my brother.
Emiliano was safe and that made me happy.
Next morning, I stayed in bed until the footsteps above me stopped. Then when I was getting dressed, I heard the buzz-buzz of my phone. It took me a few moments to remember that the phone was under my pillow. I knew it was Yoya, because who else knew my number? She started talking as soon as I said hello.
“We’re getting someplace,” she said. “Remember I told you about the e-mail to Mello from the sheriff in Alpine with Lester’s confession? Remember the sheriff’s e-mail was titled ‘per your request’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now I know that Mello specifically requested the report and we know why he requested it. I found an older e-mail in Mello’s computer. It was an e-mail from someone calling himself furryfox. When I opened the e-mail, I knew I had struck gold. The message said:
“Lester sang. Get the papers from sheriff in Alpine. The girl’s brother has the phone. The incident report could help us find him.
“So, bingo, right?”
Yoya was going so fast, I had the impression that she had been up for hours eating doughnuts and drinking Cokes.
“I don’t follow. Who is furryfox?”
“Here’s where it gets interesting. I remembered that in Lester’s confession, he said he was following the orders of a certain Marko Lisica. That rang a big bell in my little brain because, guess what.”
“What?” I wished Yoya would stop asking me to guess and just spell out the bad news for me. I had the uneasy feeling that the more she discovered, the worse it was for Sara.
“Lisica is the Croatian word for ‘fox.’ So the furryfox of the e-mail has got to be Marko Lisica. Marko Lisica orders Lester and another man to attack you and Sara in the desert. Then he orders Mello to get the incident report hoping that the report will lead them to you and the phone.”
“Mello is …”
“Mello is working for Lisica either through bribes or threats. I did some digging on Lisica. He owns the Odessa Agricultural Cooperative. He’s served time in prison for raping his own wife. He’s a nasty guy, but he’s not the kind of major player that would be interested in protecting the names in that phone. The person who wants that phone so desperately is someone with a lot more status and influence and connections. Someone who has much more to lose than a relatively small crook in Odessa. Lisica is taking orders from someone and that’s the person we need to find. Big Shot.”
All the pieces were beginning to fall into place, and it did not look good. The bad guys had found out where Sara was. They knew the phone could not be with her. That left me. But there was no way they could find out where I was from Lester’s confession. They could only get at me through Sara. That thought froze me and filled me with fearful energy all at once. “If Mello is working with Lisica, then Sara’s in danger. We have to do something.”
“They want you, not her. The people who run these human trafficking rings, which I think is what we are dealing with here, are very wary of any kind of attention. They will carry out criminal acts, but they will do so very discreetly. I guess that’s the right word. Your sister has visitors, right?”
“Wes Morgan, her attorney. Sandy Morgan.”
“Mello will be careful, then. He knows people would miss her and ask about her if anything happened to her. I don’t think you need to worry about her. They may ask her about you, but I don’t think they will torture her to get at you.”
The word torture made me laugh. It was crazy to even think of that possibility. This was the United States. “I want to call her lawyer and tell him he has to move Sara out of that facility.”
“I don’t advise it, Emiliano. They may have tapped his phone, waiting for you to call.”
“So what good is the burner phone?” I said, irritated.
“I understand your frustration. The best way to help Sara and you is to find out who is behind all this, who is Lisica’s boss? There must be something in Lisica’s e-mails that will lead us to him.”
“What about Hinojosa’s cell phone? Do you have someone here in Chicago who can open it?”
“That’s more complicated. We need to make sure that what’s in that phone can be used by law enforcement people. Let me work on that a little more. We’re making good progress, Emiliano. I’ll get back to you soon.”
And just like that, Yoya was gone.
I wanted so much to talk to Sara. But the only way to talk to someone in the facility was to call, leave a message, and wait for them to call you back. Now, after what Yoya told me, calling her was impossible. But I decided that I would call Wes Morgan despite Yoya’s advice not to. He had to know that Sara was in danger. He had to be seen visiting her. If possible, he needed to get her into another detention center, away from Mello. I found my father’s business card at the bottom of my knapsack.
“It’s me,” I said when he answered.
“Emiliano?”
“I need the telephone number for Sara’s lawyer.”
“Hold on. I’m driving now. I’m pulling into a parking lot.” There was silence for a few moments. Then, “Why do you need his number? Is something happening with Sara?”
“No. I don’t know. I need to check on her, but I don’t want to call her directly. I don’t want them coming after me.”
“I have Wes Morgan’s number in my contacts.”
“Wait a second.” I ran upstairs and found a pencil on the kitchen table where Nancy Gropper did all her work. “Okay.”
“Here we go: 432-555-3304. Wesley F. Morgan, Attorney at Law.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what are you going to do this morning?”
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I’m going to be worrying and thinking about Sara.
“Emiliano? You still there?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be there when Trevor comes home, right?”
“Yes.”
“Around two?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call Sara from the office.”
I thought of Mello waiting for a call for Sara that would lead them to me. “Maybe you should hold off on calling her from your phone or your office. ICE might be listening and then they’ll come after me.”
“Oh. I never thought about that.”
“You need to get a phone like mine—with prepaid minutes. It will be safer to call Sara that way. Good-bye.”
I didn’t mean to be rude, but I had to save the minutes on the burner phone for talking to Yoya.
I went downstairs, got dressed, and called Wes Morgan. Five rings and then voice mail. I left a long message for him, telling him that Sara was in danger from the people who attacked us in the desert. He had to get her out of that detention center or at least visit her often so that people would see she was protected. Then I went upstairs again and looked at the clock in the microwave. It was 8:30 a.m. I found the cereal and the milk and sat down to eat. What was I going to do? I looked around and knew that I could not stay inside all day long. When Trevor came home, we’d go to the park. But until then? I had to find some kind of occupation, some activity that would keep me from going crazy. When I finished the cereal, I cleaned the bowl and spoon and then grabbed the key to the house that Nancy had left for me, and I went out the kitchen door.
During my walk with Trevor to the park, I had noticed that many houses had paint that was peeling. I thought they must have been damaged in the snow and rain and cold weather. Now, as I walked, I wondered if maybe there was a way to keep myself busy while waiting for Yoya to call. I needed to move because only by moving could I keep the dark thoughts away. Getting tired by doing something useful had saved me in Mexico, so why not in the U.S. as well? Work had always filled my days with a kind of simple joy. And I liked making money. Like Bob Gropper. Maybe the apple did not fall far from the tree.
I decided to start with the house next door. A man in a gray suit, a very well-pressed blue shirt, and a yellow tie was getting into a brown car.
“Good morning,” I shouted from the sidewalk. The one thing I knew about business is that you need to be bold. You need to just put yourself out there and state clearly what you want and what you can offer in return.
The man in the suit froze, his hand on the car’s door handle. He looked like a man about to be robbed or killed. I suddenly remembered I was wearing the same cowboy shirt, jeans, and hiking boots I had worn for the past three days. I had not counted on people being afraid of me.
“Yes?” the man said tentatively.
“I saw the wood trim on your house. The paint is coming off. I can paint it for you.”
“Where did you come from?” The man’s eyes went down the street and then up the other way. He gave me the impression that he was looking for the rest of the gang to come out of hiding and jump him.
How was that question to be answered? I could say I came from Mexico, crossed the Rio Grande undocumented and quite illegally twelve days ago. I decided to answer more narrowly. I pointed at Bob’s house.
“Bob and Nancy? You’re staying with them?”
“Yes.”
The man grinned. “No.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t want you to paint my house.”
The man opened the car door and slid in. He drove away without looking at me.
The next two houses did not open the door for me even though I could hear the television inside. I was about to try one block over when I heard the wail of a police siren coming closer and closer. I ran back to Bob’s house and, from the kitchen window, saw the police cruiser drive by slowly. I felt a little of what Sara must have felt in that detention center. She was behind barbed wire and I was behind an invisible fence. I knew it was risky to step outside that fence, but it was either that or be eaten alive by worrisome thoughts.
That afternoon, when Nancy had gone upstairs to nurse her headache, I had a conversation with Trevor.
“I need your help.”
What is it about asking a child for help that makes them instantly pay attention to you?
“I need to get a job. It will take time to find a real good one that pays lots of money. I can’t stay inside the house all day. I will go, how you say, honkers.”
“You mean bonkers?”
“Yes. Bonkers. I will explode. Bonk!”
Trevor imitated the movement of my hands pulling away from the top of my head, fingers opening. “Bonk.” He laughed.
“In the meantime, so I don’t go bonk, I can paint some of the houses around here. I can paint in the mornings until you get home and then we can do stuff.”
“I want to get the Death Star 75159. It has four thousand pieces. It costs four hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. I currently have four hundred and fifty.”
“The thing is worth four hundred and ninety-nine dollars?”
“And ninety-nine cents.”
“Four hundred and ninety-nine dollars! In Mexico, a family can live on that for a year.”
Trevor didn’t know what to say.
“Okay, okay. If you help me, I’ll give you the rest of what you need.” Assuming I first found a paying job.
I made Trevor put on a jacket because it was cold and then we went out to knock on doors.
“Do you know anyone around here?” I asked Trevor.
“No.”
“How about kids from your school? Any of them live around here?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen any.”
“Older kids that babysit for you?”
“My mommy calls an agency and they send someone. Usually, an old lady.”
There was a dog barking in the backyard of one of the houses. I saw through the gate in the fence that it was the same dog with the green sweater I saw when I first arrived. “Let’s try this house,” I said. “Someone who worries about their dog getting cold can’t be all bad.”
“What?”
“Hold my hand and try to look like a little kid.”
“I am a little kid.”
“Just let me do the talking.”
The lady who opened the door was in her seventies or eighties. She had on a blue dress that reminded me of the one my mother wore to church every Sunday. Her initial frown turned into a smile when she saw Trevor. My plan was working.
“Good afternoon! I noticed that the trim of your house had paint that was flaking. I could paint it for you, if you wish.”
“And is this your little helper?” She looked at Trevor, who had put on an angelic smile. He was about to say something, but I squeezed his hand.
“Ouchy.”
“Be quiet, Dagwood!” the lady said to the dog, who was going crazy barking.
“I’m not going to help him paint,” Trevor said in a loud voice. “I’m only here to help him get the job.”
I knew I couldn’t trust the boy to keep his mouth shut. But the old lady found Trevor’s statement very funny. She laughed and started to cough so hard I thought she was going to choke.
Trevor waited until she had pulled herself together and then said, “We live down the street. My name is Trevor Gropper.”
“Gropper? Ahh. I know your grandfather.” Then, at me: “How much do you charge?”
I should have been prepared for that question, but I wasn’t. I stepped back. It was a two-story brick house with yellow wooden trim that had not
been painted in a good ten years. I figured it would take me about three days to paint. Three sounded like a good number. “Three hundred dollars?” I didn’t mean it to sound like a question.
The old lady raised her eyebrows in surprise. Did she think my price was too low or too high? But then she said, “Three hundred dollars but that includes all the trim and all the windows and the back porch.”
I looked up and saw the three windows on the top floor facing the street. They had wooden frames, and the glass panes were separated with thin strips of woods. This was detailed, careful work that would take hours. But then, what else did I have to do?
“All right,” I said.
“Good.” The old lady grinned. “I have a ladder. I’ll buy the brushes and the paint. Come by tomorrow morning.”
“He can only work until two p.m. and then he has to come home to be with me. I don’t need anyone to take care of me, but my mommy and daddy don’t want me to be alone.”
“Is that right?” the woman asked.
I nodded.
“Fine.” She closed the door and then opened it. “Your name?”
“Emiliano Zapata.”
“What?”
“Emee-lee-ano,” Trevor told her.
“Okay, Emiliano. My name is Irene Costelo, but people call me Mrs. C. See you tomorrow.”
On my way out, I glanced at the side of the house and saw eight windows and in the backyard I could see a large wooden porch. I had a feeling that the sweet-looking Irene Costelo, or Mrs. C, as people called her, had just outsmarted me.
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