by Sam Hawken
There were four bottles. Jack took one. ‘This is my last,’ he told Bernardo.
‘Está bien. I will have the rest.’
Jack drank and Bernardo drank and a silence deepened between them. A truck ground past beyond the wall, jouncing in the potholes and making the shocks protest.
It was Bernardo who spoke first: ‘I hear construction is not so good in Texas right now.’
‘Not really,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve been doing renovation work, mostly. Keeps the lights on.’
‘It’s the same here. No one wants to buy bricks because no one’s building anymore. Some days I make no sales at all. I had to let one of my men go.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It happens. He understood.’
Jack rolled the cold bottle between his hands, considering. ‘I had a good guy working for me a couple of days last week. His name was Eugenio. Came up from Anáhuac, crossed over looking for work.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘La migra,’ Jack said. ‘Came by and plucked him right out of my truck. Tried to put the fear of God into me, too. But they know how it is: when I need help, I have to go where I can find it.’
‘They’ll deport him,’ Bernardo said.
‘Probably.’
‘You know, the buses with los deportados come right into the city. They drop them off at the plaza and leave them there with whatever they had with them when they were caught. Some of them have nothing at all: no money, no nothing. Where do they go? I wonder that when I see them.’
‘Back to the border,’ Jack said.
‘Back to the border,’ Bernardo agreed. ‘In twenty-four hours they are back. Or less. No one is going to stop them because they have nothing to lose. But they have to look out: Los Zetas are always watching. If one of the Zetas catches them, they have to pay and if they can’t pay, their family must pay. And if the family cannot pay… it does not go well for them. Bad enough that they have their money taken on the way north, but to be squeezed again…’
‘Someday it’ll get put right,’ said Jack.
‘I like to think so. It can’t go on forever like this.’
Jack heard the scuff of a shoe and looked over his shoulder. Marina was there. ‘Everything’s cleaned up. You guys doing all right out here?’
‘Fine,’ Jack said.
‘I was going to go out shopping with Patricia. Is that all right?’
Jack turned to Bernardo. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
Bernardo shrugged. ‘The shopping district is patrolled. Lots of police and army. They should be fine.’
‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘But stick to places Patricia knows. Don’t go wandering off somewhere.’
‘We won’t,’ Marina said, and she kissed Jack on the cheek before vanishing.
Jack sighed. ‘You sure it’s safe?’
‘As safe as anything is these days.’
Bernardo finished his second beer and took up the third bottle. The golden liquid caught the light and Jack found himself thirsty. ‘I’m going to grab something to wet my whistle,’ he told Bernardo.
‘Of course. I’ll keep your seat, don’t worry.’
In the front room he bumped into Marina and Patricia as they headed for the door. ‘Heading out,’ Marina said.
‘How long will you be?’
‘A couple of hours.’
‘All right. Remember what I said.’
‘She is safe with me,’ Patricia told Jack.
‘I’ll hold you to that. Have fun.’
Reina was in the kitchen, seated at the big table with a book open in front of her. She still had her apron on. She looked up. They spoke in Spanish. Bernardo and Patricia could converse in English as well as anyone and the little ones had some command, but Reina had never learned. ‘Hello, Jack. Is everything all right?’
‘I just wondered if you had a little limonada or something. It’s dry out there.’
‘Of course.’
Their refrigerator was short and looked old. Reina brought out a plastic pitcher and poured a measure of lemonade into a jar that served as a glass. Jack was not afraid of what was in it. To him, Mexican water was the same as from his own tap. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Is Bernardo getting drunk yet?’ Reina asked.
‘Maybe a little,’ Jack said.
‘I tell him he should be more like you and watch what he drinks. But he never listens.’
‘It’s different for him than it was for me,’ Jack said.
‘Jack, anyone who suffered as you did could take the same path.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You were strong and you got better.’ Reina came to Jack and put a hand on his arm. She was a small woman and he towered over her, but she had an unbending air about her that made her seem larger, stronger. ‘You would never let the girls down. I never told you, but I believed it. I thank God every time I see you and the girls that He sent you to Vilma. You are always in my prayers.’
He felt his face flush, but he did not pull away from her. ‘I’m glad someone’s praying for me,’ he said finally. ‘I need all the help I can get.’
Perhaps she saw it in his face, or sensed it from her touch. Reina lifted her hand from his arm and stepped away. ‘It’s always good when you come, Jack,’ she said.
There were echoes of Vilma here, in word and touch, and Jack found he missed Vilma in that moment more than he had in a long while. He pushed it away, and said, ‘I like it, too.’
‘Tell my husband no más cervezas when he’s finished with those.’
‘I will.’
Bernardo’s bottles were empty when Jack returned. He watched a moth fluttering around on the border between light and shadow, confusedly weaving back and forth. The courtyard seemed very small just then and Jack wondered what it would have been like if Marina and Lidia had come to live here instead of with him. How different would they be? It was impossible to know. They were American girls raised the American way, but they always had one foot in Mexico. That much Jack promised Vilma and days like today were his payment.
‘Reina thinks you’re out here getting drunk,’ Jack said when he sat down.
‘Nonsense. It would take much more than that to get me drunk. She doesn’t know me at all.’
Somewhere far away a police siren suddenly piped up and was almost immediately silenced. Automatically Jack thought of Marina. He considered calling her on her phone just to make sure everything was okay, but she would only laugh and poke fun at him for worrying.
As if he had read Jack’s mind, Bernardo said, ‘It’s nothing. If there was real trouble there would be many sirens. The police gather like locusts.’
‘Force of habit,’ Jack said, and he tried to smile.
‘In this city we learn all the sounds by heart. That was probably someone being pulled over for a ticket. That’s one thing la policía like to do: hand out tickets. If they were half as good at catching narcos as they are about giving parking fines, we would be out of this mess tomorrow.’
‘It’s the same all over,’ Jack said, though it wasn’t true.
THIRTEEN
THE LANES HEADED NORTH WERE NO less packed at the end of the day than they had been hours earlier. Jack could not ever recall a time when the port of entry wasn’t packed with vehicles leaving Mexico: trucks hauling goods, Mexicans traveling and Americans caught in the mix. They were behind a tall truck with a fruit logo painted across the back doors. It blocked out all view of the road ahead.
Jack put the radio on quietly just to have something playing. The girls were quiet. The air conditioner occasionally spat tiny droplets of condensation from the vents.
‘Jack,’ Marina said.
‘Yeah?’
‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Sure, what?’
‘I was talking with Patricia today and she said there’s going to be a concert in a couple of weeks. She can get tickets for us if I want to go. It’s supposed to be a good band.’
�
��A concert? You mean across the bridge?’
‘Yeah. It’s not too far from Tío Bernardo’s house. Patricia says she has some friends going and I’m invited, too.’
Jack glanced toward Marina and saw her watching him intently. Already his mind was grinding through what to say. ‘I don’t know,’ he offered. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There’s no problem,’ Marina said. ‘It’ll be me and Patricia and three or four other girls. It’s just that it’s at night on a Friday.’
‘A nighttime concert?’ Jack asked. ‘No way. Maybe if it was during the day we could talk about it, but you’re not going across the bridge at night.’
‘Seriously, Jack, it’s no big deal. We’ll be in a big group. And it’s not late. The sun will probably still be up half the time.’
‘It’s not the sun I’m worried about. You know what’s going on over there.’
‘Tío Bernardo’s doing fine.’
Jack drummed the steering wheel. ‘Bernardo’s careful and everybody in the family is careful. They don’t go around taking big risks. That’s how you stay out of trouble. I’m not letting you go to some concert at night. It’s too dangerous.’
Marina sat back heavily in her seat. ‘I knew you’d say no. I told her you would.’
‘It’s not like I want to say no. I just have to be smart about things. You’re seventeen and you shouldn’t be out on your own in the city.’
‘But I wouldn’t be on my own, that’s the whole point. Patricia would be with me the whole time. And she’s an adult.’
‘Barely.’
‘But she is still an adult.’
Jack caught sight of Lidia in the back seat pretending not to listen. He found himself willing the truck in front of him to move so they could be across the bridge and to the customs booths before he had to say anything else. The feeling of irritation emanating from Marina was like radiant heat.
Marina went on. ‘I’m just saying it’s not like I’d be out partying. I’d go to Tío Bernardo’s, pick up Patricia and go to the concert. Afterwards we’d grab something to eat and then I’m right back at Tío Bernardo’s for the night. I wouldn’t even try to come back until morning.’
‘Marina—’
‘There’ll be plenty of cops around! You should have seen all of them today. Cops. Army guys. If we have any problems, we’ll go right to the police.’
‘I don’t know about this,’ Jack said.
‘Come on, Jack, it’s just one concert. As soon as I go back to school there won’t be time for anything. I never ask you for stuff!’
‘You can’t even cross the border without a notarized permission slip from me,’ Jack said.
‘Then we’ll get that. They notarize stuff at the shipping place by the mall.’
‘It’s just that easy, huh?’ Jack asked.
‘It doesn’t have to be hard.’
‘Don’t you understand that they’ve got a war going on over there? There’s a reason they have all those police and army guys around. What you’re asking… it’s not just about a concert.’
‘You trust me, don’t you?’
‘It’s not about trust, either. I know you won’t put a foot wrong.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
Jack tried hard not to glare, but he felt his face screwing up despite himself. The truck in front of them inched forward barely. ‘Goddamn it,’ he said out loud.
‘I swear I won’t ask you for anything else this year,’ Marina said. ‘Honest, I won’t. You can ground me for a month if I do.’
‘You promise me you’ll do exactly what you told me?’ Jack asked. ‘No detours, no “oops, I forgot,” but exactly what you said you would do?’
‘I promise. Cross my heart.’
‘I must be out of my mind,’ Jack said. ‘You know, your mother wouldn’t have let you do something like this. I can hear her right now telling me it’s crazy to even think about it.’
‘Mom would be totally cool with it,’ Marina said.
‘That’s what you think, huh?’
‘Jack, I just really want to go. It’ll be fun and I get to have a little adventure on my own.’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘No adventure. This is the opposite of an adventure. You’re going out, you’re coming back. And if I find out you went out someplace drinking or something like that you can forget about ever having an adventure.’
‘I completely understand.’
Jack eyed her in her seat. She bit her lip the way Vilma did. They were so much the same. ‘I’m saying maybe. I’m not saying yes. You got how long? A couple of weeks, you said?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘I’ll think it over and I’ll talk to Bernardo and if we figure you’ll be safe to go then I’ll make my decision. But if I say no then that’s it. We won’t argue about it anymore.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Jack.’
‘Don’t thank me yet.’
FOURTEEN
JACK WORKED BY HIMSELF FOR MOST OF a week in the lawyer’s house. He avoided the Home Depot studiously. Every time he drove past he redirected his gaze away from the long sidewalk that fronted the lot lest he spot Eugenio among the men gathered there for work.
On another afternoon he went to the shipping place by the mall and got the guy on duty to notarize a typewritten note that gave Marina permission to cross the border into Mexico on the specified date. Marina gave Jack a hug and a kiss after that. Jack tried not to worry about what he’d done.
New calls were coming in from people wanting renovation work done. Jack had jobs scheduled out for three months, which was good. Steady work meant steady money. One day the jobs would come less and less often and then he’d have to lean on whatever savings he’d managed to put together over the years since Vilma’s death. He was still paying on some of her medical bills.
He enjoyed his evening beers and went to bed and woke up according to schedule. The calendar checked off days toward the start of school. Already they’d gotten a supply list in the mail and Jack spent a couple of hours at Walmart gathering all the little things Marina and Lidia needed for their year. Once upon a time the school had paid for all these things itself, but those times were long past. Now they scrambled for every dollar, like all those anxious men gathered in the parking lot of Home Depot.
Marina bought a new dress with money she earned from her job. Jack thought it showed off too much shoulder and too much leg, but Marina laughed at Jack’s concerns. Maybe he was getting to be like an old man, after all, worrying about things that didn’t matter. When she told him she was going to wear it to the concert, his only suggestion was that she wear a light sweater just to cover up a little bit. Of course she wouldn’t. Even if he put the sweater on her himself.
FIFTEEN
THE PHONE ON GONZALO’S DESK RANG twice. He answered. ‘Soler,’ he said.
‘Is this Inspector Gonzalo Soler?’ asked a man whose voice Gonzalo did not recognize.
‘Yes. Who is this?’
‘Valdez. I work La Zona.’
‘What can I do for you, Officer Valdez?’
‘I think you had better come here.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘It’s better if you see for yourself.’
Only Pepito was near when Gonzalo left his desk. ‘I’ll be right back,’ Gonzalo told him. ‘I have to go to La Zona.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Good luck.’
It did not take long to drive there and this time Gonzalo drove through the gates of Boy’s Town itself to park near the police station. A pair of uniformed officers waited outside and they waved to him as if expecting his arrival. When he climbed out, one came to him and offered his hand. ‘Herminio Valdez.’
‘Gonzalo Soler. What’s going on?’
‘Do you know a man named Tomás Contreras?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Come with me, then.’
Valdez led Gonzalo up the Circunvalación Casanova to a place Gonzalo recognized immediately, only now there was an ambulance in the street and two more policemen, accompanied by a pair of medics in bright yellow jackets. Gonzalo knew what he would see before he saw it: the body of Tomás Contreras lying in a pool of blood with one hand clawed in front of him as if to catch the bullets.
A police unit was there and Gonzalo saw there was someone in the back. By the open door of unit number nine, Iris Contreras stood with a blanket around her shoulders. Both of her eyes were beaten black and they were thick with tears. A policeman interviewed her.
‘What the hell happened?’ Gonzalo demanded of Valdez.
‘From what the girl says, her father was shot down by the killer we have in custody,’ Valdez replied. ‘She says that her father came to her crib to bring her home and met up with Enrique Guerrero. He’s the girl’s pimp. The men fought and Guerrero threw Contreras out on the street. When Contreras wouldn’t leave, Guerrero came out and shot him.’
‘Witnesses?’
‘The Contreras girl herself. She says she’ll offer a full statement to the prosecution.’
One of the medics brought out a black, rubberized canvas body bag and laid it on the ground beside Tomás Contreras’s body. With the help of the other, the corpse was handled into the bag and the yawning mouth of the thing zipped up.
‘May I speak to the girl?’
‘Of course. We’re going to throw this whole case to you once we have the scene wrapped up. The Contreras girl gave us your name.’
‘Thank you,’ Gonzalo said, and he left Valdez behind.
When he reached Iris, he asked for privacy and the policeman went away. Now there were only the two of them. Iris looked markedly thinner than she had when they last met, though it had not been long. The bruises on her face were appalling and dark.
Gonzalo could ask no other question. ‘Why did you come back?’
