Illegal

by Francisco X. Stork

  * * *

  I was awake the following morning when I heard noises in the kitchen. I knew it was Bob getting ready to go to work. I walked upstairs and saw him at the kitchen table. The digital clock under the microwave told me it was 5:00 a.m.

  “Emiliano, what are you doing up so early?”

  I didn’t tell him that I had stayed up all night calling Wes Morgan every hour. I didn’t tell my father about the certainty I had that something bad was going to happen to Sara.

  “Did you get the burner phone so that you could call Sara?” I demanded to know.

  “Oh, God. I totally forgot. Did you call her lawyer?”

  “Yes, but he hasn’t returned my call.”

  “If there was bad news, I’m sure he would have called you. Look, from what I understand, asylum petitions can drag on for weeks, months even. We need to be patient.” Bob stuck the ham and cheese sandwich he had just made into a small plastic bag. He looked stressed, but I didn’t think it was about Sara.

  “Can you buy a phone and call her this morning?”

  “Why don’t you call her? You have a phone.” He sounded annoyed. Then, quickly, in a softer voice, “I’m sorry. I’m … It’s been so busy at work. Catching up on the week I was away. Then the hot days we had last week reminded people that summer was coming and the orders for cooling systems have started to come in. I’m working on a bid for a couple of city buildings which, if we get, we’ll probably need to hire ten more technicians. Abe is going crazy with all that needs to get done. Today, I have a meeting with the regional manager for Safeway. If we get their maintenance account, it will be big. It could—”

  “I can’t call her,” I said, interrupting. “I don’t want people in the facility to know that Sara has a brother who is in this country illegally. It could hurt her case. Or immigration could come looking for me.”

  Bob placed his sandwich into a square, black briefcase that looked as if it were made out of cardboard. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Sara has to be a priority for you. What happens to her has to be important to you.”

  “It is. You don’t think it is?”

  “No.”

  “Look,” Bob said, serious. “When your mother called … I didn’t care how much work I had or how worried Nancy was about the cartels or about bringing you and Sara to live with us. We thought it was going to be the two of you. Abe thought I was breaking all kinds of laws. I didn’t care. I left everything and went to get you and Sara.”

  “You finally decided to act like a father.”

  Bob closed the mayonnaise jar with an angry twist. He went to the sink and rinsed the knife he was using. I recognized the tightening of the jaws, the biting of the lips. It was what he did when he tried to control the anger. Finally, he said, looking at me, “Give me a break, okay? Just give me a break.”

  At first, I thought he was asking for a freno, a brake that would keep him from sliding into an explosion of anger. But if anger was coming, then let it come. An angry Bob would be more real than the strange person he’d become.

  Bob sat and pointed to the stool across the island, but I remained standing. He exhaled and looked at me with sad eyes. He was searching for words but couldn’t find any. He finally said, “Whatever you have to say to me, just say it. Get it out of your system. About me not being a father or being a bad father. Whatever. Just go ahead and say it.”

  I felt a rush of raw energy through my body. It was an energy like hatred and it was also like love and it was all I could do to keep my fists from striking his face.

  “You need to keep calling Sara,” I shouted before walking out.

  I got dressed and set off for the park. I sat on a swing and saw kids on the way to school. I tried Yoya again. When she did not answer, I did not bother leaving a message. I stood and made a motion as if to throw the damn burner phone as far as I could. Then I remembered Mrs. C. I regretted taking on that job. But then, maybe moving a paint brush up and down would keep me from totally losing it. I put the phone in my pocket and headed to Mrs. C’s house. There was a note on the door. It was written with a shaky hand.

  This is an old house. Paint it with love.

  The following morning when I knocked on Mello’s door and asked if I could come in to empty his wastebasket, he motioned me in.

  “Sit down, Sara,” he said, using my name for the first time.

  When I was seated across from him, he closed the brown folder on his desk and looked straight into my eyes.

  “Your brother. He crossed with you into the United States, didn’t he? Where did he go?”

  I felt the blood drain to my feet. My mind was blank. I had no words.

  Mello pushed himself up from his chair and moved the whale out of the way so he could close the door. He came back to his desk and sat down. His tone was conversational, like two friends chatting over a cup of coffee.

  “You and your brother were attacked in Big Bend National Park. Your brother and one of the attackers struggled. Well, you know the rest of the story. So the question is, Where is your brother now? Emiliano. That’s his name, isn’t it?”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Why what?” Mello crossed his hands over his belly and leaned back in his chair. He was getting comfortable.

  “Why do you want to know where he is?” I was slowly recovering my senses. Stay calm, Sara. Don’t let him intimidate you. He’s just another puchi guy.

  “I want to enforce the laws of this country. I’m doing my duty as a citizen.”

  “And with all that you have to do as a citizen with a busy job, with all the people coming into the U.S. every day, you are worried about my brother?”

  Mello shrugged. “That’s correct.”

  But I did not believe him. Everything in my body told me that Mello was corrupt. There was a chill that went through my body when I realized that Hinojosa’s power had reached even here. It was strange, but just then I felt some of my strength return.

  “Where is your brother?” Mello asked again.

  You can’t give up now. Fight. Fight for Emiliano.

  “My brother went back to Mexico.” I was looking at Mello when I said this, and my words were full of anger.

  Mello’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to see inside my head.

  “He went back to Mexico?”

  “Yes. He never wanted to come to the United States in the first place. It was me who was being persecuted in Mexico.”

  “Sure.” Mello did not believe me.

  I don’t care what happens to me or what they do to me. That is all I will say. I will not give up Emiliano.

  “What was your plan? What were you planning to do before you were attacked? Where were you and your brother headed?”

  I sat straight in my chair and faced Mello again. I found that there was enough courage still left in me. “I would like to talk to my attorney. I am not going to answer any questions without him.”

  “I have to ask you these questions,” Mello said. He sounded as if he regretted having to do it. “Asking them is my duty.”

  I tried to swallow, but there was no saliva in my mouth. I could feel my racing pulse in my throat and in my temples.

  Do not cry! Do not let these people see any tears. Think of Mami. The strength she had in letting me and Emiliano come. How she held back her tears when we said good-bye to her so that we would not see her sorrow.

  “I am not going to tell you where you can find Emiliano. You can keep asking all you want. It is not going to happen.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Did you really think I was going to tell you?”

  “I was hoping,” he said, smiling. He picked up his phone and pushed a button. “We’re ready.”

  A few moments later, La Treinta Y Cuatro entered Mello’s office.

  “I think we need to put Ms. Zapata in isolation for her own protection.”

  La Treinta Y Cuatro grabbed my arm and began to lift me out of my chair.
She led me out the front door and to the side of the gym where three new cement block units had been constructed. These were the solitary confinement rooms where detainees were taken for their own security or for violation of a detention center rule. La Treinta Y Cuatro punched a code into a panel next to one of the doors.

  “I have a right to tell my lawyer that you are putting me in here,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

  La Treinta Y Cuatro shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t have any rights. You are worse than a criminal. They have more rights than you do. We can keep you here as long as we want.”

  “Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “My attorney filed a complaint when you didn’t let him see me. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you put me here for no reason?”

  “But we do have a reason,” she said, a satisfied smirk on her face. “We are putting you here for your own safety. We received information that two Guatemalan women want to hurt you. I guess they resent you for being so special. You are asking us to put you in here so you won’t get hurt.”

  “But that’s not true.”

  “We have women in the pods who tell us what is going on. They’ve signed affidavits spelling out that they have heard threats against you. So”—La Treinta Y Cuatro waved at the empty room—“your stay here is per ICE regulations. Perfectly legal. For as long as it’s needed. Know what I mean?”

  Before I could say anything, she put her hand on my back and pushed me into the room.

  Then I heard the door close behind me.

  There was a combination sink and toilet and a cement platform with a blue foam mat for a bed and a green blanket for a pillow. The door had a vertical-looking glass window and there were four narrow windows near the ceiling. They were so high up that they could be opened or closed only with some kind of pole. A fluorescent light flickered on the ceiling. There was no sound. No sound. I fell to my knees. I would find a way to be strong again somehow. I would start thinking and fighting and hoping again, somehow.

  But just then I had to let myself fall.

  “Emiliano.” Mrs. C was calling my name through a window below me. “Remember to put a plastic tarp on the ground when you’re scraping. Otherwise the paint drops will kill my plants.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I have one down there now, but I forgot to move it.” It was my third day painting Mrs. C’s house and so far, not a single drop of paint had fallen on her plants.

  “I know it. That’s why I’m reminding you. Will you be done today?”

  “Yes. I have only this window left.”

  “Make sure you pick up any flakes on the ground and then call me so I can pay you.”

  “Yes, Mrs. C.”

  I finished with the trim on the window and started down the ladder. People in the United States worried about so many things that no one in Mexico cared about. Like the insurance regulations that made Bob risk falling asleep at the wheel rather than let me drive. Nancy’s list of products containing peanuts was three pages long. The list did not include just food but all manner of things. Who knew that laxatives or shaving cream could have deadly peanut oil? I now knew not to mess with Trevor’s bowel movements or his shaving routine.

  When I was halfway down the ladder, I felt a buzz in my pocket. It took me a few moments to realize that the burner phone was vibrating. It was a call. Finally. I hurried down the ladder and flipped the phone open without looking at the number of the caller. It could have been only one of two people: Yoya or Wes Morgan, and I was desperate to speak to either one of them.

  “Emiliano?” It was the voice of a man. It wasn’t Gustaf’s voice and the voice sounded too young to be that of Wes Morgan. My first impulse was to hang up. What if Big Shot found me?

  “Yes. This is Emiliano,” I stammered. “Who’s this?”

  “You don’t know me. My name … You can call me Louie. I … work with Yoya. She asked me to call you.”

  “Where’s Yoya?”

  “Yoya had to go underground for a while.”

  “Underground?”

  “She’s hiding. We’re not letting her talk to anyone right now. She escaped a few moments before her apartment was raided.”

  “Who?”

  “We don’t know, exactly. Homeland Security, NSA.”

  I remembered Yoya telling me that she thought she was being watched.

  “Was it in connection to what she was working on with me?” I asked, afraid of the answer I would get.

  “We were doing so many investigations, it’s hard to know. We must have triggered some warning system or other. But I need to be quick now and tell you what Yoya wanted me to tell you.”

  I walked to the back of Mrs. C’s house and sat on the porch steps. “Go ahead.”

  “Yoya intercepted an e-mail from Lisica to Mello. I’ll read it to you. It said: ‘We got the father’s business card from the lawyer (attached). Talk to the girl, see if you can make it go down easy. We’ll handle it on the Chicago end.’ ”

  “The business card? My father’s business card? Wes Morgan gave it to Lisica?”

  “Ahh, I don’t think Wes Morgan gave it to him, exactly. Yoya checked the sheriff’s crime report in Alpine—Wes Morgan was killed during a burglary of his home.”

  “Ay! No! That was Sara’s … Sara has no protection now.” I said the first thing that came to mind. “It was Lisica who killed Wes Morgan. The police have to know. And Sara needs help.”

  “Whoever did it covered their tracks. They made it look like a burglary gone bad. Morgan’s antique guns were taken. No fingerprints. No witnesses. But listen, Yoya thinks that the rest of the message means that they’re going to try to get Sara to convince you to return the cell phone you are carrying.”

  “Return it?”

  “Yoya thinks that’s your best bet right now. Just give them back the phone when your sister asks you for it. To save yourself and your sister. These people are smooth and sophisticated. Our guess is they’ll try to do everything aboveboard, at first anyway, but keep in mind that they kill when they need to. Give them back the phone. Yoya thinks that they are just waiting for you to charge it and turn it on so they can track you down. They are that good. Okay, that’s all I have to say. Be careful.”

  “Wait! Please. Yoya … she was going to help us find the women who are slaves. The phone is the only way.”

  “As soon as the heat dies down, we’ll continue investigating Lisica. We know he works for someone else.”

  “Big Shot.”

  “Yeah. This Big Shot is the puppeteer. He coordinates with Mexico for the women, distributes them to … influential men here in the U.S. He protects these men. That’s why they want things done quietly, legally if possible. That’s what we’ve come up with so far. When things cool down, we’ll continue monitoring Lisica. He’ll lead us to Big Shot. In the meantime—it would be better if you returned the phone.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I don’t know. Find someone in law enforcement you can trust.”

  “Find someone in law enforcement I can trust,” I repeated, incredulous. “Where …”

  There was a click and then the signal that the call had ended. And what I felt inside me was similar to that flatline signal. It was as if something had died inside me.

  “Sounds like you’re in some kind of trouble,” I heard Mrs. C say behind me. She was sitting in a wicker rocking chair on the porch. She had heard my whole conversation. “Sorry. It sounded important. I didn’t want to intrude but I knew that if I moved, it would disturb you. You want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. What would talking accomplish? I had just lost the reason why I came to Chicago. Yoya had been my hope. I felt alone. I tried to remember the exact words in the e-mail message that Louie had read. See if you can make it go down easy. I did not understand them. They could have been spoken in a foreign language. They were spoken in a foreign language: English.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll finish the
last window.”

  I stood and was about to go to the front of the house when Mrs. C spoke. “I am a good judge of character, Emiliano, and I can tell you’re a good person. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in, but I know it’s not because you are a bad person. Am I right?”

  I nodded. It felt reassuring to have Mrs. C recognize that I was a good person.

  “Well, then. I want to tell you something. When I was very young, before I met Alfred, I dated a young man. We were very serious, but then he went to Vietnam and things were … different when he came back. We didn’t see each other anymore. I married Alfred and, after a while, this young man got himself together and found a lovely woman to marry. He joined the Chicago Police Department. I know all this because I ran into him once at the courthouse. I don’t know where he lives, but if you go to St. Hyacinth Basilica in Chicago and ask anyone for Stanislaw Kaluza, they’ll tell you. He’s retired by now, I’m sure. I don’t think he died because I read the obituaries religiously and his name hasn’t popped up. He’s a bit rough around the edges, but he’s got a good heart. Just tell him Irene Costelo sent you. I bet he’ll help you. You can trust him.”

  I climbed the steps again and helped Mrs. C out of the rocking chair. She held on to my hand as I led her into the house. “Stay here,” she said. A few minutes later, she came back with four one-hundred-dollar bills. On top of them was a sticky note with the words:

  Stan Kaluza—St. Hyacinth Basilica

  “This is more than three hundred,” I said.

  She waved me away. “It’s still less than what’s fair for all you did. Now excuse me, I have to go nap. All this thinking has exhausted me. Put the paint and brushes in the shed after you finish.” Mrs. C closed the screen door behind me when I left, and then opened it again. “Oh, Emiliano. I forgot to tell you. Don’t talk to Abe Gropper about the things we talked about. I know he’s your family, but he’s … well, he’s a dishonest man. He installed the gas furnace in this house and a week later it exploded. Alfred had to sue him to get it fixed. A word to the wise.”