The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  The old woman says, “It started in Michoacán. But a few similar groups popped up around the country in different states. There are more regular citizens than there are cartel members. But the cartel has a lot of money, and they have a lot of weapons, which makes it difficult for a town such as ours to fight back.”

  There’s a silence. The only sounds are the continued sobbing out in the town square and the cat purring on Yolanda’s lap.

  The old woman watches me. For a moment, it feels like Gabriela isn’t even in the room with us, that the cat isn’t even there, and it’s just Yolanda and myself.

  The woman says, “I wonder when it will happen again.”

  “When what will happen again?”

  “When Morales will feel the need to prove a point. When he will send more men to kill the people of this town. Tonight is not the first time it has happened, and it most certainly will not be the last. I wonder when it will happen again. I wonder … I wonder how many people will die next time.”

  Twenty-Eight

  I drive us back to the city.

  Gabriela is too shaken to drive. At least, that’s the impression I get. She doesn’t say it so much as displays it with her actions. Her hand trembled when she gave me her keys, and when she slipped inside the car she slumped down in her seat and stared out her window and didn’t say anything.

  A half hour has passed since we left La Miserias and it’s at least another half hour to go before we hit the city.

  I clear my throat.

  “How do you feel?”

  Gabriela doesn’t answer.

  I let it go for another minute, just driving, trying to figure out what I can possibly say to the girl to get her to come around.

  But then she shifts in her seat and looks at me.

  “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  Her voice is so soft I can barely hear it over the tires humming on the highway.

  “You don’t think you can do what anymore?”

  “Just … this.”

  She motions at the car’s dashboard, as if that explains everything. Which in a way it does. I know exactly what she means, but I want to hear her say the words.

  “What’s this?”

  She takes a heavy breath, staring hard at me now.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I thought I could do it—I’d done it for months already without any problems—but after tonight …”

  She shakes her head as her voice fades away. She leans back in her seat, places her head against the headrest. Doesn’t say anything else.

  I check the rearview mirror once again to make sure we’re not being followed.

  “Earlier today teenagers with guns came at us. Do you not remember that happening?”

  She issues a soft, desperate laugh.

  “Of course I remember that happening. And that was scary, but this …”

  She lifts her hand, wobbling it back and forth, as if the missing words will somehow appear in her palm. Then she drops the hand and sighs.

  “Before it didn’t seem real. I mean, I know it was real—I was right there when it happened, saw everything with my own eyes—but for some reason it just didn’t feel real. But tonight … I thought those men were going to kill us.”

  She shakes her head suddenly, sitting up in her seat.

  “No, I thought they were going to rape us before they killed us. And that … that realization somehow made it all the more real. All the more worse. Stupid teenagers with guns are one thing. But corrupt cops …”

  She shakes her head again.

  “I sound so weak, don’t I?”

  I don’t answer at first. I’m not sure what to tell Gabriela. The fact is I don’t know her very well. She seems tough, seems dedicated, but sometimes those things can be simple facades. The people who act the strongest are sometimes those who are the weakest. They hide behind bravado so long they soon start believing their own bullshit.

  “Do you think Ramon and Carlos are corrupt?”

  She shrugs, staring out her window.

  “I don’t know. Probably not. It’s impossible to say who in law enforcement is corrupt. And maybe they wouldn’t have raped and killed us—maybe they would have just taken us to jail—but once the idea entered my mind …”

  She shakes her head again and turns to look at me.

  “Do you think I should stop?”

  “I have no clue. If you don’t want to keep doing this, then stop doing it. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  In the flash of headlights from a passing car I see her eyes tearing up.

  She says, “Don’t you ever get scared?”

  “All the time.”

  “How do you deal with it?”

  The question gives me pause.

  “I’m not sure. The truth is, I’ve never thought about it much. I guess I just live my life day by day. I don’t worry about next year. Or next month. Or even tomorrow.”

  “But don’t you … have dreams? Like to someday get married and have children?”

  “Honestly? It’s never really appealed to me.”

  “But haven’t you ever been in love?”

  I say nothing to this. Of course I’ve been in love. And just my luck, the guy I loved turned out to be one massive douche who faked his death along with my father and then came back, years later, to try to kill me.

  My silence is enough to give Gabriela the hint. She slumps in her seat again and stares out her window. When she speaks next, her voice is just above a whisper.

  “I’ve been in love too many times to count. It sounds silly, I know, and maybe it’s because I’m so young. But every time I go out with a guy I instantly fall in love with him. It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? I don’t come on too strong—that’s not what I mean—but in my heart I instantly see myself living the rest of my life with whoever I’m out with at that moment. I think it’s because I want to get married some day, have children, all of that. I want to move away from Culiacán. I want to move to the United States where it’s safe. Where you can raise a family and not worry about getting killed in your sleep.”

  Gabriela falls silent, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  I ask, “Do you have much interaction with the cops around Culiacán?”

  “Not really. I know of them, but I don’t know them.”

  “Do you know where Ramon lives?”

  This makes her pause. She watches me in the dark for a long time, studying the side of my face.

  I say, “Relax. I’m not going to kill him.”

  “Then why are you asking where he lives?”

  “After what happened tonight with Ramon and his partner and those government men, I want to assure Ramon that I’m not the enemy.”

  “Ramon is policía, so his information won’t be easy to find, but I’ll email the publisher of La Baliza. Maybe he’ll be able to track it down.”

  “Also see if he can find Ramon’s phone number.”

  She nods, already typing away on her cell phone. After a long moment, she hits a final button and sets the phone in her lap.

  “Done.”

  “Thanks. Now, about your story.”

  Her voice becomes all at once guarded.

  “What about my story?”

  “Are you going to write it?”

  Gabriela hesitates a beat.

  “I might.”

  “I think you should. And I think you should sleep on your decision to stop doing what you do. Like you said, if you don’t do it, who else will?”

  Gabriela leans back in her seat, stares out her window as she answers in a soft voice.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Ten minutes later, just as we see the city lights ahead of us, Gabriela’s cell phone dings.

  I ask, “The publisher?”

  She nods, reading the screen. Then she smiles at me.

  “He found it.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Ramon winced at the touch of the rubbing alcohol.

 
; His wife said, “Hold still. Don’t be a baby.”

  “But it stings.”

  They were in the kitchen, just the two of them, his daughter already in her crib and sound asleep.

  His wife took her time as she dabbed the cloth soaked with rubbing alcohol on the side of his head. That was where Samantha Lu—or whoever she was—had kicked him.

  “Were you there?”

  His wife didn’t meet his eye as she asked the question.

  “Was I where?”

  She leaned back, inspecting the side of his face, and then tossed the cloth into the sink. Without a word she stood up and went to the sink and started washing her hands. Ramon watched her for a long moment, his beautiful wife, the woman he had known since school. As a nurse she spent her days dealing with people who needed their wounds stitched up, and now here she was at home doing it for her husband.

  She rarely asked about his job. She had decided long ago that she didn’t want to know, that she didn’t want to face this reality. But now she had asked if he was there, and of course he knew what she meant. Not at La Miserias—she already knew he had been there earlier tonight—but at that abandoned brick building with the three charred bodies.

  “I was, yes.”

  She turned back to him, her face all at once pinched.

  “What was it like?”

  He had to actually think about it for a moment. Until then, he hadn’t really had a chance to process it.

  “It was terrible.”

  “But you’ve surely seen worse before, haven’t you?”

  He had. Of course he had. Being an investigator in Culiacán presented him with awful things on a daily basis. He’d seen children lying dead in the streets. A man who had been skinned alive. A woman’s headless body propped in the doorway of a church.

  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

  “This was different somehow.”

  She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just … just the idea that it might be the work of the Devil”—Ramon shook his head—“I had a chill when I first saw the bodies.”

  “And it was really her?”

  Ramon nodded.

  “Yes. I mean, it has to be her. She would have been the only woman in the house before it was attacked. Her and the children. Besides, the call that came in said as much.”

  Her voice trembled as she asked the next question.

  “He called?”

  “Yes. He told the police where to find the bodies. I don’t think anybody took it seriously. We’ve gotten crank calls like that before. People who say they know who the Devil is and want the reward or people confessing to be the Devil because they’re crazy. But this … this was different.”

  “How is Geraldo taking it?”

  “How would you think he’s taking it? He came out to the site briefly, but that was it. I haven’t seen him since.”

  His wife placed her hand to her mouth, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes turned glassy as she started to tear up.

  “I’m so sorry for him.”

  “Me too. I don’t expect he’ll be in tomorrow. But maybe he will be. You know how those two didn’t have the best relationship.”

  “Ramon, that doesn’t matter. She was his daughter. So what if they hadn’t spoken to each other in years? So what if they were estranged? She was his daughter.”

  He leaned forward and took her hands in his, squeezed them tight. Leaned forward even farther and kissed her on the lips.

  “I know. I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

  She wiped at her eyes as she stood up from the chair.

  “I’ve had a long day. And I need to be there first thing in the morning. I should go to bed.”

  He helped her clean up the kitchen and then followed her to the bedroom. He paused and entered the nursery. His baby daughter was asleep in her crib. He studied her precious face for a moment before he turned and exited the room.

  His wife was already undressing in the bedroom. He had barely walked in when the phone rang.

  He frowned at his wife.

  “Are you expecting a call?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. And even if it was work, they’d call my cell phone.”

  The phone rang again. It was the landline, and the only extension was in the kitchen.

  His wife said, “Answer it before it wakes the baby.”

  He hurried out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen. The phone was about to ring a fourth time when he snatched it off the wall and placed it to his ear.

  “Yes?”

  Samantha Lu asked, “How does your face feel?”

  Thirty

  For a long moment there’s silence, and I think Ramon has hung up the phone. But no—I can hear him on his end, breathing quietly. I’m tempted to ask another question when he speaks.

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About what happened tonight.”

  “I think it’s pretty clear what happened. You assaulted law enforcement.”

  “Sorry about that. But to be fair, I did warn you.”

  “Who are you, really?”

  “I told you—I’m a tourist.”

  “I initially bought your story about driving along the road and seeing the smoke. It seemed plausible that’s how you ended up at the murder scene. Now, I know you were full of shit.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m not going to waste my time going over everything that happened today. Why did you call me?”

  “Because I want to make it clear I’m not your enemy.”

  This answer clearly isn’t what he had expected, causing him to chuckle.

  “You certainly have an interesting way of showing it.”

  “Again, Ramon, I am not the enemy. In fact, I’d like to think I could be your friend.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “From what I can tell we both have the same objective.”

  He’s quiet for a long moment, letting this sink in, before he clears his throat.

  “Are you talking about the Devil?”

  “Right now I want to find this guy just as much as you do. You seem like a straight shooter, Ramon. Which makes me think you play by the rules. You want to catch this guy, but you also need to follow the law. But me … I don’t give a shit about that.”

  Again he’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks.

  “Why were you at La Miserias tonight?”

  “From what I heard the shooting was retribution for Ernesto Diaz’s death.”

  The mere mention of Ernesto Diaz causes him to pause.

  “How do you know about Ernesto Diaz?”

  “Word travels fast. Is it true?”

  He’s quiet for another beat, and then sighs.

  “As far as we can tell, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “Why was the town targeted for retribution? They clearly had nothing to do with Diaz’s death.”

  Ramon snorts a derisive laugh.

  “Why is the sky blue? Why do bad things happen to good people? That’s just the way it is. Fernando Morales is a bully. He likes to pick on people weaker than him. For some reason he felt Diaz’s death needed payback, but he clearly didn’t know who was responsible. So he took it out on the town. Why do you care, anyway?”

  I don’t answer. I’m picturing the town square. Those twenty-eight dead bodies. The bride’s dress soaked dark with blood.

  Ramon says, “What were you looking for earlier today?”

  I blink, the question catching me off guard.

  “What?”

  “At the murder scene. After we had spoken. Before I told you you could leave. What were you looking for down on the beach?”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything.”

  “Whatever it is you were looking for, we will find
it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But just remember what I told you—I’m not the enemy.”

  “That still doesn’t excuse what happened tonight.”

  “I guess it doesn’t.”

  “You took my partner’s gun.”

  “Yes.”

  “You need to give it back.”

  “Maybe one of these days.”

  “If my partner or I see you again, we’ll have no choice but to arrest you.”

  “Then let’s hope you don’t see me again. Good night, Ramon.”

  From where I am on the roof of the building across the street, I have a clear view of Ramon standing in his kitchen. He waits there for a moment, holding the phone away from his head like he isn’t sure the conversation we just had was real. Then he sets the phone in the receiver and wanders out of view.

  I stay on the roof for another couple minutes. Until all the lights go out in the house. Until it’s clear that everybody is in bed asleep.

  I stay there another half hour, watching the street, making sure nobody else is watching the house, before I decide it’s time to head back to Gabriela’s. I’m exhausted, but I’m not sure yet I want to sleep. With the smell of those three charred bodies still fresh in my memory, I’m worried what nightmares will come.

  Thirty-One

  Just over one thousand kilometers south of Culiacán, in the southern region of Mexico known as Tierra Caliente, or the Hot Land, the morning sun had just begun to peek up over the horizon.

  Horacio barely noticed. He kept his focus on the road illuminated by the SUV’s headlights, though what lay before him could barely be called a proper road. None of it was paved, and much of it was bumpy. He followed the SUV ahead of him, every couple seconds checking the rearview mirror to make sure the third SUV was behind them. The three vehicles had been driving now for nearly an hour. And they would keep driving if need be, all the way out of Tierra Caliente, all the way past Michoacán. That was their task, what they had been ordered to do.

  The man beside him kept his focus out his window. Surveying the hills and trees on his side of the vehicle. Just as the two men in the back watched out their windows for any sign of danger.