by Manuel Ramos
“Yeah, he took care of us. He never knew what was going on between Raymond and me. I guess we fooled him. If only he had been able to fool me just as well.”
23
Moonlight filtered through the dirty windows of the shop creating a series of yellow-white, sharply angled squares on the worn floor. I sat at my makeshift desk playing with the computer, waiting for . . . I didn’t know what.
I clicked open the Channel 4 website and almost choked on the headline.
“Catholic Church Says Virgin Mary’s Image Never Stolen.”
I watched the video feed of an announcement by the Archbishop of Mexico City and laughed at what had to be a cruel joke played on Christians and gangsters alike. The archbishop addressed a crowd of church officials and reporters on the front steps of a beautiful cathedral.
“Unfortunately, ever since September 11, 2001, there has been an escalation in the war between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness. This war, always present in one form or another, has new potential for worldwide violence and terror. The Holy Father, in concert with his advisers, other world leaders and holy men and women from all faiths, recognized the need for the Church to take steps to preserve its history and artifacts against instruments of hate. Beginning in 2003, he authorized strong measures to ensure the safety of Church institutions, significant historical treasures and other sanctified symbols and relics of our faith.”
I waited for the punch line.
“Recently, the Church and millions of believers were victimized by men who have no understanding of common human decency. Men who have no understanding of how they have harmed and punished the millions of innocent followers of Christ who daily pray to the Blessed Virgin and her Son. But today we can help to alleviate some of the pain that has been inflicted on the innocent. Today, we can clear the air to some degree.”
He paused and surveyed his audience from behind wireless bifocals. “We are tardy in making this announcement. We wanted to take care of this immediately after the attack on the basilica. But, we waited for word from the Holy Father, who urged patience in such an important matter. He, in turn, sought the counsel of wise men and women from around the world of the Church. Although it has taken us several days, we are now in full agreement and the Holy Father has authorized me to address the situation of the venerable tilma.” The crowd stirred, anticipating the importance of the Archbishop’s words. “The sacred vestment is too holy, too valuable to the beliefs of millions to be kept where it could be at risk, as was demonstrated by the vicious assault and robbery of the basilica. Although it pains my heart to admit this, our beloved Mexico has become too violent to take unnecessary chances with sacred objects, writings and teachings.”
He sure had that right.
“The men who attacked the basilica, who attacked the Blessed Virgin, who attacked the Holy Mother Church, only managed to steal a copy of the tilma. The actual icon was never out of the control of the pope and his ministers. The tilma was never in the hands of the murderers and gangsters who have soiled Mexico’s reputation forever.”
I roused myself and stretched my arms. My mind struggled to wrap around the full implications of the archbishop’s announcement.
The phone rang. I shut the laptop.
“Gus?” I recognized Misti Ortiz’s voice immediately.
“Yeah?”
“I’m outside, down the street. I wanted to be sure you were there, and that you’ll talk with me. About Lorenzo, and . . . and what happened.”
“I don’t want anything more to do with your crazy brother, or with you. You people almost killed me. Not to mention what you’ve done to my family and friends. Stay away.”
She sobbed into the phone. “I understand.” The phone clicked off.
I hung up. I shook my head and cursed at myself. Without any more thinking I made my way to the door, opened it and stepped out into the night. I looked up and down the street. I saw her silhouette at the corner. Her shoulders hunched together, her slim figure more like a shadow than a person. I waved at her. She walked toward me and she moved with difficulty. She was hurt.
Cars were parked along the curb but there was no traffic. Lorenzo Ortiz could have been anywhere in the area.
I stepped back into the shop and waited.
Soft perfume preceded her. She took small steps into the light. Her face was bruised and swollen. A stained bandage covered the spot where the silver ring with a turquoise dot had hung from her eyebrow. She clutched a bulky plastic shopping bag close to her heart.
“Lorenzo?” I said.
She gave me a half-smile that was so out of place my heart skipped a beat. “Who else?”
“He found out you tried to help us?”
“Maybe. He didn’t really explain why he beat me up. He never explains.”
“Where is he?” I wanted her to say that he was in Mexico, on the run.
“I don’t know. When I had a chance I ran.”
“So, he’s here, in Denver?”
“Of course, where else would he be?”
“I don’t know. I thought he . . . it doesn’t matter.”
“He’s been hiding, and waiting. It’s been too hot for him to show his face. He doesn’t have anything left of his business. He blames you. You know that he’ll come after you. You do know that, right?”
I didn’t want to think about it. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m going back home, to Mexico. I wanted to tell you something first.”
She set down her bag.
I didn’t know where the gun came from. Maybe a pocket in her multicolored coat. Before I realized what she was doing, she held the handgun and pointed it at me.
“What . . . ?”
“This is Lorenzo’s. One of his guns. I’m giving it to you. He’s used it to kill at least four men, and that’s just here in Denver. The police should be able to do something with this gun, to do something to Lorenzo. Have him arrested, at least. It has to be used by the police.”
The gun was useless as evidence. There was no way to prove that it belonged to Lorenzo. I was sure he had never owned the gun legally, and the most it would show was that it had been shot in a murder. But there was no connection to Lorenzo except for her unsubstantiated accusation. I took the gun from her shaking hand and put it on my desk.
She picked up her bag.
I moved a chair into the light and motioned for her to sit down. When she finally stopped fidgeting in the chair she again dropped her bag and lit up a cigarette.
“How will you leave? Lorenzo will have to stop you.”
“I have money. A lot of money. Money was never a problem, not even with Lorenzo. I have friends. Enemies of Lorenzo. There are people in our family who would kill Lorenzo if they could. They’ll help me. I’m not worried about where I’m going or what I’ll do when I get there. I never had the courage to leave before. Now, I don’t care what happens.” She stuttered and her final words came out in whispers.
“What are you worried about?”
She inhaled her smoke and held it for a second. “Only, only that I won’t move fast enough. Lorenzo is already looking for me. I can’t think like I should, can’t do what I need to do as quickly as I need to do it. I’m giving Lorenzo too much time to find me. By tomorrow I’ll be gone. I have to make it through tonight.”
The actual motive for her visit became obvious. The gun was a pretext. She needed a place to hide, at least for one night. She wanted me to protect her.
“You think you’re safe with me? You could be putting yourself at more risk just by being here.”
“There isn’t anywhere else, Gus. Not tonight. I need a few hours. Get some sleep, then I’m gone and away from him, forever.”
Her eyes closed. She finally sounded like a teenager. Afraid and alone, on the run, the hardcore woman of the streets had regressed. She looked too young to be where she had ended up.
“This is a mistake,” I said. “You should run from here as fast as you can.”<
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She ignored me. Her eyes were still shut.
“Come on, then. You can sleep upstairs. I’ll stay down here and try to watch out for . . . for whatever.”
I carried my cot up the old stairs. I cleared junk from one of the corners and swept the dust into a pile. Then I fixed up the cot for Misti Ortiz. She was exhausted and some of her cuts and bruises looked like they could burst open from the slightest touch. She stashed her bag and coat under the cot and then collapsed on the thin blankets. I covered her with another blanket and left her to her dreams and nightmares.
I sat in a chair in the back room with my spine twisted and a hard piece of wood jammed against my ribs. The gun rested in my hands. My eyes burned with fatigue and the accumulated stress. Periodically, my legs jerked under a worn blanket. My head throbbed.
“Damn,” I said aloud. “These people won’t let go.”
I called Jerome and got his voicemail. I left a message. “Something’s up. Call me, right away.”
I considered the cops but didn’t follow through.
When Lorenzo Ortiz made his appearance, I was more asleep than awake. He slammed open the door and rushed in from the alley, knocked me out of the chair, kicked me in the stomach and waited while I rolled and gagged on the floor. Then he picked me up, slugged me on the chin and sent me flying backwards into the chair.
“Where is she?”
I groaned and pretended that he had knocked me silly, which wasn’t too much of a stretch. I tasted blood. I tried to calm myself but I couldn’t steady my ragged breathing.
He raised his fist. I said, “Wait, wait. If you mean Misti—she was here, but she left. She . . . ”
Lorenzo lifted me from the chair.
“Cabrón. Where is she?”
“No, she did leave. Out the back . . . ”
He tossed me back on the chair.
“I’ll find her. She’s here. No way that whore is leaving me.”
He grabbed me and bent my arm behind my back. He kept me in front of him and pushed his way through my room. His ugly breath poisoned the air and his clammy hands gripped like a man holding on for life. When he saw the door to the stairs I cringed. He jerked open the door and made me lead the way.
We methodically climbed each step into the trapped smothering heat. Lorenzo’s breathing sounded heavy and tired. I smelled dust and decay. We reached the top of the stairs and Lorenzo held back for a minute. My eyes strained to make out details. The only sounds came from Lorenzo’s rough gulps of air.
He pushed me forward.
Although I had cleaned a space for Misti’s cot, the rest of the room was as filthy as always. The balcony windows let in dim light that created a haze in the upper part of the room. I couldn’t see the boxes, junk and swollen plastic bags strewn across the floor and I tripped more than once, only to be kept upright by Lorenzo’s strong grip.
“I told you, she’s gone. She’s not here. Why would I lie to you? I don’t owe her anything.”
He thumped the back of my head. “Shut up! She’s here and when I find her . . . ”
He tripped on a mannequin’s arm, his grip slipped and I wrenched free. We both went off-balance and I felt myself swaying back toward the stairs.
The floor creaked in the northwest corner of the large room. Lorenzo jumped and turned to the noise. I took my chance. I grabbed him and started punching his face. He pushed me away and I landed on the dirty floor. When I looked up I saw only the barrel of the gun Misti had given me earlier.
I closed my eyes and waited for the end. The sound of the shot snapped my head but Lorenzo hadn’t pulled the trigger. My ears rang and the sulfur smell of the gun’s explosion replaced the musty odor of the room. Lorenzo cried out. He started to fall and I rolled out of his way. He landed hard and dropped his gun. I pounced on it. I stood and held the gun on him.
Misti Ortiz emerged from the darkness into a halo of moonlight from the windows. Lorenzo twisted into an ugly knot. He clutched his left knee. Misti’s bullet had smashed his kneecap and blood flowed like an open faucet down his pants and onto the floor.
She walked slow and steady to us. She kept the gun pointed at her brother. I didn’t believe it at first, but when my eyes adapted to the darkness and dim light I saw that she wore the torn and threadbare tilma across her shoulders like a cape.
The vague image of the brown Virgin Mary flapped around her torso and back.
“Give me the gun,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “He’s done. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
In the shadows and dust of the room I thought I saw her smile.
“He can’t hurt me anymore? Is that what you said? You don’t know, Gus. You don’t know.”
She held the gun only inches from Lorenzo’s head.
“Well, brother,” she said in Spanish. “This is it. I always said we would end up like this. How many times did I tell you that I would kill you one day?”
“Misti, no. You can’t.” Lorenzo choked out his words. “You won’t. Not to me. We both know that. Help me out of here. The money’s all yours. The tilma, keep it. It won’t do me any good. The thing has cursed my life.”
She drew the gun back. She caressed the worn, ancient-looking material that draped her neck. She looked at her brother as though she were examining an injured dog.
“The tilma? You still don’t know? What craziness! You never read a newspaper, you pay no attention to anything going on in the world. You and your gang ripped off a fake, a copy that the church hung in the basilica for the tourists. The real one is safe. You really are a fool, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo’s eyes opened as wide as they could. He winced in pain and rolled on his side. “What? How could that be?” He saw the cloak. “What is that? What . . . ?”
“You idiot. Men like you are so easy—they’ll do anything for a little bit more money, or sex, or to inflict more pain. They all have a price. It wasn’t that hard for me to get my hands on your precious shawl. I only had to get to one of the chilangos. I had to pay him, in ways I will never do again, but at the end he did what I wanted. Only today I learned that it isn’t the real one. The last laugh is on you.”
Large tears rolled down Lorenzo’s cheeks. “Misti, please. I need some help. I’m dying here.”
“No, Lorenzo. You are not dying. Not yet.”
I watched it happen and I didn’t do anything to stop her.
Lorenzo’s skull exploded. Blood and gore sprayed the floor and Misti, and the tilma. I felt warm drops of blood splatter against my left side. She shot him again, in the heart. She aimed the gun at herself and I finally managed to move. I knocked her down and jerked the gun away from her. She didn’t struggle or defend herself. She clutched my hand and squeezed like she was falling off a cliff. I thought she said “madre santa” before she passed out.
The smell nauseated me and I had to sit down. The smell came from death and betrayal and fear and other things that I could never know, just as Misti had said. I didn’t know.
24
Isat on the wooden bench outside the courtroom waiting for the clerk to call my case. A film of sweat wrapped around my neck and I told myself it was the lack of adequate air circulation, but that was a lie. I swept my hand across my freshly shaved head and regretted that I hadn’t brought in a bottle of water. The wait provided a good time to think about my situation, about the last several weeks and about my luck or fate or destiny or whatever it’s called, I was never sure. But then, on second thought, I realized that I would have plenty of time to think about it, over and over again.
That morning, Corrine drove me into downtown. On the way we listened to Max’s long-promised demo CD. The Rakers did the best they could with a Jim Pepper song. Not quite the jazz fusion I expected, and certainly not Bitches Brew, but the band sounded good. Max’s voice conquered the intensity of the instruments and gave new life to the old lyrics:
water spirit feelin’
springin’ round my head
makes me feel glad
that I’m not dead
whoa rah neeko, whoa rah neeko
I couldn’t have said it better.
To anyone watching me, my predicament might have looked bad, not that I wanted pity or anything like that. I was a convicted felon waiting for sentencing, facing several years of prison time. This turn of events had piled on my otherwise weak existence—working for my ex-wife in her second-hand junk store; no future to speak of; and only a few months before I had been the target of killers who made my life even more miserable. My sister and friends had been kidnapped, threatened with death, and generally under attack because, and only because, they knew me. One of my best friends had vowed to never speak to me again. I had watched men die bloody, violent deaths, and an abused young woman break into a hundred shattered pieces. And yet, the person watching me would have been perplexed, perhaps mystified, because I sat with a smile on my face. A sweaty smile, to be sure, with maybe a hint of a nervous tic, but still a smile.
Luis Móntez had done all right by me, although Corrine and Max had a different opinion, which they expressed out loud and often seeing as how I was their only brother. Corrine had another interest in making sure Móntez did his best. She and Sylvia were covering the lawyer’s bill. I guaranteed that I would pay them back, even though it might take a while.
Móntez was worth it. Considering the bodies scattered all over Denver, and that I had played a central role in the events that caused the bodies, I could handle a three-year sentence for the offense of possession of an illegal weapon. Móntez said I should have to do only about nine months with good behavior, time served and prison overcrowding. Not too bad, when all was said and done.
I sat up when Detectives Reese and Robbins headed my way. They were dressed for court, Robbins as spiffy as ever, Reese a little better than his usual used car salesman look. Robbins passed me and I heard him sniff, like something rotten polluted the air, but he didn’t stop to chat. On the other hand, Reese sauntered directly to me, stood with his arms folded across his chest and glared. He shook his head.
