River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053)

by Bertsch, David Riley

  Her mother couldn’t see it so clearly. They’d never divorced; instead, they dragged out the troubled alliance. He came and went, bringing joy on arrival and leaving a trail of emotional destruction behind him. He sometimes disappeared for months at a time.

  Esma and her mother had an unspoken rule. Papa was never mentioned, though she could hear in her mother’s voice whether he was around. Manic or morose, never even-keeled.

  Which is why it was such a shock when Arturo the Terrible opened the door. Her mother had given no hint over the phone that he might be around. Esma didn’t see it coming. Her initial impulse was to curl up in a ball, submit. But she was better than that now, though it took a little forced moxie.

  “Señor.” She nodded her head and squeezed past him, holding her breath. He smelled of tequila and Te Amo cigars. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed a crooked smile. He was happy to see her squirm.

  Leticia. Mamá. The poor soul. Still beautiful at sixty-six, she was in the kitchen looking flustered.

  Mother and daughter exchanged a short embrace. Esma wanted to look into Letty’s eyes, search for any insight into why she still tortured herself. But Mamá was too smart for that. She eluded eye contact, muttering something about dinner.

  Arturo had wandered into the cocina, bumping and brushing the relics hanging on the adobe arch. He fumbled with a bottled of off-color liquor. When it was opened, he poured an ample portion into a dingy cup and held it out for his daughter.

  She didn’t acknowledge the gesture.

  “Try it.” Leticia spoke in Spanish. “He makes it himself.”

  “Quite the accomplishment.” English in return. An insult. Her parents didn’t understand the words, but Arturo laughed, getting the gist. His teeth were as yellow as his eyes. They glowed against his puffy brown face.

  “I thought we would go to church after dinner.” Spanish again.

  Esma responded to her mother in like tongue. “To repent for our sins?” Another laugh from Arturo. “I’m going to settle in.”

  The small house had a second story that had been added after the initial construction. The ceilings were low, and the floors were sloped and creaky.

  Her childhood room remained much the same, aside from a few extra knickknacks that were being stored.

  She could hear her father downstairs growling at her mother. “She’s always been a bitch! She didn’t even say hello! She can’t stay in a hotel with all that money?”

  Dios mío. Esma sat on her old twin bed and cried. She missed J.P. now. Arturo’s reappearance put J.P.’s faults into perspective. She wanted out, and she had been there only for half an hour. Poor Mamá. Esma knew her presence was going to fuel Arturo’s rage to rare heights. The grumbling from the kitchen had already turned into shouting and tears.

  Esma wiped her eyes and opened the front zipper of her roller case. She took out her checkbook and emptied her modest savings in her mother’s name.

  “Dinner!” Her mother shouted from the bottom of the stairs. She could hear the fake cheerfulness. Feigned normalcy. A perfect family dinner.

  Esma took her luggage and went back downstairs. Her mother did not look surprised.

  Arturo was pouring another drink, wearing a shit-eating grin.

  Esma handed her mother the check and turned to her father. “Keep it up. I hope it kills you.” English.

  Never again, she promised herself on her way through the door.

  * * *

  Boarding the bus, she felt ashamed. She had abandoned her homeland and the woman who raised her. But what solution was there? Arturo had plagued her mother for forty years, despite Esma’s best efforts. She knew if she stayed, she would only make things worse.

  * * *

  Esma tried to make small talk with the other passengers, working-­class women in their thirties and forties, but they were wary of her. Maybe her accent had changed over the years, giving away her Americanness. Or maybe it was her J.Crew slacks, peppered with the red dirt from the yard where she had once played as a child.

  Executive Housekeeper. Esma loved that they added the “executive” to make it seem as though she were something other than the head of housekeeping. But the hotel was fancy—five stars—and it was, on its face, a good job: $45,000 a year, plus benefits. What more could a girl from the outskirts of Tlaxcala ask for?

  Still, she knew what the management thought of her. Pretty? Yep, the men even think I’m “sexy.” Hardworking? Of course, like all beaners are.

  And she could speak Spanish! The only thing that really mattered. Was she smart? A good person? They had no idea; they’d never bothered to find out.

  She spent the night at a little motel in Miguel Ahumada with five other women from the bus, who had slowly warmed up to her. She would cross the border in the morning, legally and with all the right papers. She knew that wouldn’t be the case for some of the passengers.

  Esma could sense their nerves, smell their anxiousness. But they wouldn’t turn back; they were all headed to the States because they needed money, and not for trivial reasons. Most of the passengers were immigrating to the States to provide medical care and food for their families back home.

  At about 1 a.m., some young men from the bus kicked in the door to their motel room, drunk on tequila. They woke the women up, laughing, propositioning them.

  Esma wasn’t afraid. She could see weakness in their faces and in the way they moved. As far as threats went, she’d faced much worse.

  When one of the men grabbed her and tried to lead her away she hissed sharply in his ear in Spanish. You don’t have to do this. Your mother and father would be ashamed.

  The man slapped her hard across the face and called the rest of the gang out of the room. The other women quietly nodded at Esma, thanking her. Esma dabbed the blood from her nose in front of the bathroom mirror, half wishing her skin were another color. Then she lay down on the mildewed floor of the crowded room. From the bed above, someone tossed her a sheet and a pillow.

  “Gracias.” Her accent sounded unfamiliar, even to herself.

  In the morning, the passengers from the bus went in different directions to rendezvous with their coyotes, the smugglers who would help them into the States, if all went well. More often than not, aspiring immigrants weren’t successful; they either got ripped off or were detained shortly after crossing the border. There were stories of women being kidnapped, force-fed heroin, and sold as sex slaves. All this after they’d handed over their life savings to fellow countrymen who had promised to help.

  * * *

  The border agent glanced up to see a striking young woman in a slightly dirty pantsuit standing in front of his window.

  “You can’t walk through this line; motor vehicles only.” He gave her a confused look. Something about her confidence, her resolve, was off-putting. Behind her, a line of a dozen cars honked, their drivers agitated. She paid them no mind.

  She looked bedraggled, but her beauty couldn’t be disguised by things as relatively dull as dust and grime. She said nothing in response to the agent, just handed him a neatly paper-clipped stack of papers.

  He looked them over, then reclipped them and handed them back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” A gust rolled through the checkpoint, blowing sand across Esma’s face. She didn’t flinch. The agent slid his door shut momentarily to protect himself.

  When he opened it, he spoke again. “You’ve gotta be careful out here. A woman who looks like you, I mean.”

  Esma huffed. “Am I free to go?” She tucked a few disheveled strands of black silky hair behind her ear, still staring squarely at him.

  “Where are you going? For how long?”

  “Home,” she said obstinately.

  He looked around to make sure a supervisor wasn’t watching and then swiped his hand through the air, left to right, from Mexico to the St
ates.

  “Be careful.”

  Esma shuffled through the checkpoint, catching a few curious stares from the contraband-search team as she passed. A man on the team whispered to his female coworker, who snickered. Esma kept walking fast, afraid to look back. She had no desire to be questioned or detained.

  In a few minutes she was a quarter mile past the border. Here she turned around and found no one following her. She took a deep breath and stuck her thumb in the air. She’d left herself only a few dollars, giving the rest to her mother.

  It wasn’t long until a recent-model Volvo station wagon pulled over. The family took her as far as Santa Fe. They pulled into the plaza and offered to buy her dinner, but she declined. For a moment, she stood in front of the luxury hotel and watched the man and his wife check in, while the kids ran around the lobby, looking for a swimming pool or vending machine.

  Life must be good.

  The pueblo-style plaza, while mostly authentic, looked like a mockery to Esma in the fading evening light. The plaza here featured tourists and expensive German cars parked in valet lots. That familiar conflict arose within Esma—irritation at the vanity of the American lifestyle versus the urge to indulge in it.

  Esma walked several miles along the highway, almost to Española, before she got picked up again. This time, her company was more country music than country club. Esma didn’t mind; she just wanted to get back to J.P.—to get back home.

  The Dodge pickup truck had recently been washed. Its black glitter coat, complete with chrome trim accents, reflected the harsh lights from the run-down roadside casinos. The two gringo men were quiet well into Colorado. The only thing they had asked was Where to? The driver’s response worried Esma a bit: “Jackson? Us too.”

  What are the chances?

  Esma tried not to think about the coincidence. She was happy to be escaping Tlaxcala.

  She awoke at 5 a.m., surprised that she’d been able to fall asleep. The driver and the rear-seat passenger had swapped spots sometime during the night. Her new partner in the backseat was staring at her with a wry smile.

  “Morning, chica.” His breath reeked of wintergreen chewing tobacco, his teeth brown.

  The man’s hair was short, blond, and unevenly cut. The right side of his head bore a long scar where no hair grew.

  Before Esma could look away, the man acknowledged her stare.

  “Name’s Ax.”

  Jesus, Esma thought.

  She concentrated her attention out the window so as not to stir up any more unwanted information.

  A roadside sign read: BAGGS, WY—41 MI.

  Well, that’s a relief. The vessel, despite its dubious crew, appeared to be going in the right direction.

  She drifted back to sleep.

  * * *

  Esma woke up to her ears popping from altitude and loud country music. She looked out the window, trying to figure out how much progress they’d made during her slumber.

  Verdant, groomed fields dominated the landscape—potatoes and barley, not hay. At the junction of the highway and a small dirt road, she saw a familiar sign: GRUPO MODELO BREWING. She knew she was in neither Mexico nor Wyoming. They were somewhere in Bumfuck, Idaho, where the brewery owned massive tracts of land.

  What the hell?

  She closed her eyes again so she wouldn’t attract attention. Over the music, she heard one of the men say, “Twenty grand, man! What the hell would we do with her anyway?”

  5

  WASHINGTON, DC. OCTOBER 17.

  8:30 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME.

  Pounding on Jake’s bedroom door. He bolted awake. The early morning hours had been miserable, and he had just drifted to sleep, finally comfortable. He mumbled something resembling C’mon in.

  Divya entered carrying a silver tray, upon which stood a ­silver carafe, two small mugs, and a ceramic kettle. Tea-party-sized cream and sugar vessels in her left hand. She fumbled finding room for the platter on the bedside table, and Jake moved the alarm clock and lamp to the floor.

  “That wasn’t as graceful as I imagined. Tea or espresso?”

  “Wow.” Jake’s compliment came out more like a groan. He cleared his throat. “The coffee, please.”

  She poured him a cup, then motioned to the cream and sugar, which he declined. “You look like shit.”

  Divya was wearing a violet silk nightgown that was sheer enough to reveal every detail of her breasts. As always, she smelled like something wonderful and exotic. Clove and fenugreek and sweet mango.

  “Guess I overdid it last night.” Jake sipped his coffee. It was strong and bitter—expensive, no doubt.

  “You kinda wandered off to bed.” She sat down on the bed and started pouring herself a cup of tea. “I was disappointed.”

  Jake smiled accommodatingly and took another sip. Anyone else and he might have wondered if she was referring to something sexual, but with Divya, he had no doubt. Sure enough, she pushed the hair gently from his forehead and felt for a fever with the back of her hand.

  What a flirt.

  “Do hangovers come with a fever?”

  She took her hand back. “Guess not.” She stood up. “I’m gonna get in the shower.” Again the innuendo. Jake ignored it, though he might have been tempted if his stomach didn’t feel as if he’d been at sea for six weeks.

  “Ready in thirty minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  Jake dawdled for a bit, a little unsure if he could go through with it the way he was feeling. Get it together, man. It’s just a hangover. He tried to drink more coffee to wake up, but its effect on his stomach offset any bump gained in energy.

  The shower turned on, and the sound made Jake regret his decision. His former relationship with Divya had been passionate, to say the least. Most of their dates had started with sex—they couldn’t help it—then moved on to dinner, a show, whatever, punctuated by sex again when they got home. Their split had had nothing to do with lack of desire.

  Still feeling familiar enough, Jake opened the door to the master bathroom and hung a dress shirt on the towel rack to lose its travel wrinkles. He saw his ex-lover’s curves and color through the frosted glass.

  “Just putting a shirt in here for a minute.”

  She turned toward him, still mostly obscured by the shower door, but now the dark circles of her nipples were visible, if blurred.

  “There’s an iron in my bedroom.”

  “This’ll be fine.”

  He retreated to his room and pulled on socks and gray pants, found a white T-shirt in his bag and threw that on too. He looked in the mirror above the dresser. Thankfully, his hair was still short enough that a shower wasn’t required to wrestle it into submission. He opened his mouth wide and stretched his face. Divya was right—he looked like shit.

  The water stopped and Divya came in, wearing only a towel, with Jake’s dress shirt. He thanked her and turned away before she could make any more out of it.

  “Gimme fifteen more minutes. The car’s not gonna be here till nine fifteen.”

  “I can drive,” Jake replied toward the bedroom that she’d withdrawn to. “Got the rental.”

  “It’s already arranged.”

  He buttoned his shirt, gave himself one last look, and then headed to the foggy bathroom to brush his teeth. Next, to the kitchen, stopping at the front door to grab the Washington Post on the way.

  He mixed a little bit of orange juice with cold water, hoping to rehydrate himself and spark a little energy. The concoction went down much easier than the coffee. Standing, he read the paper at the counter. There wasn’t much going on: murder in the ghettos, bickering on the Hill, Capitals on an early six-game losing streak. No mention of the GPSN issue.

  Divya came down at exactly 9:15 looking gorgeous. This was how Jake remembered her: scrambled, frenetic, yet elegant. Strangely self-assured,
at least on the surface.

  They walked out to the curb and loaded into the black town car. It was early but already humid, and the air conditioner was pumping inside.

  “Oh,” Divya said.

  “What?”

  “I was gonna ask you for your jacket, but I just realized you’re not wearing one.”

  Classic Divya. “You said everything was going to be informal.”

  “It’s fine.” She put her hand on his wrist and left it there, as if she were some debutante with her suitor.

  The car came to a stop outside an all-glass building behind the United States Botanic Garden. A slick brass sign read OLSEN WILLIAMS LAW.

  “Running with the big dogs again,” Jake muttered.

  “Oh, shhh! You ready for this?”

  “Hey, I was born ready,” Jake said, putting on his professional face, then a smile. Divya laughed.

  “It’s not like that, I told you!”

  “But I should have worn a suit?”

  Divya sighed, and Jake opened the door. They walked into the lobby toward the security console, where Divya signed in. The click-a-clack of dress shoes on a marble floor took Jake back to various courtrooms. A disturbing rhythm.

  In the elevator, the occupants were checking their watches and iPhones, tapping their feet. Dreading whatever was in store for them at the office. Jake looked at their faces. The deportment of joy was missing from each one, muted by something deemed more pressing.

  They got off on the eleventh floor. Jake followed as Divya walked purposefully through a glass door and checked in at another security desk. When they got to the conference room, a murmuring crowd of suits awaited them. On Divya’s arrival, people shuffled around and found seats.

  She began to speak.

  “First of all, thanks to everyone for coming. This is the first time we’ve had all the major players together, so let’s start at the beginning. Welcome to the For a Free America campaign. Our goal is to inform lawmakers and the American public about the dangers of Senator Canart’s human-tracking proposals.”