He then turned and made his way gloomily along. And before he got to the gym he met Constable Fey.
“Ven, Ángel—quiero hablar contigo,” he said.
Come here, Ángel—I want to speak to you.
Fey told him that the ballistics on the gun he had carried had come back. Ángel looked at him, perplexed, not understanding.
“It has all come back,” Fey said, somewhat angrily, as if something was Ángel’s fault. But he was upset at himself—at the charade he was forced to play with the woman in the cell and the people he took orders from.
Because of little Victor, Ángel had taken the world on thinking he was engaged in a noble thing for noble people—but now this all seemed to be changing in just three or four days. He stared in perplexity, his brave open face shadowed, and the moonlight casting down into the white levels of dirt.
It is the gun that killed your father, Constable Fey did not say—he would not tell Ángel this until DeRolfo and Hernández were arrested. But he did say:
“It was used in a bad crime and they gave it to you to kill someone else—so you know who these people are now.”
Constable Fey paused. Then he said:
“They wanted to blame Victor’s death on you—”
“On me?” Ángel asked.
“Oh—they wanted to put the blame on your shoulders—if the boy had not made it into Mary Cyr’s villa, they would have—Señor DeRolfo would have, without batting an eye—they would have blamed a murder on you. Maybe two murders. You would be in jail—and no one would care for you either.”
“¡No te creo!”
I don’t believe you.
“That is what they intended—so you could have been in that cell, and she could be back home in Canada—it was all the same to them. But that policeman from Canada, John Delano, has known this is what they intended now for three weeks. And he can prove it, because of the blood outside the villa—he says to me—es sangre que ha fumigado, de alguien tratando de respirar—”
It is blood that has sprayed from someone trying to breathe.
“Mary Cyr could never have the force to pick someone up like that—so our Canadian policeman is very smart.”
Ángel looked at him. Then he looked behind him—down toward the jail far away. Then he looked at Fey again.
“¿La mujer es inocente?” Ángel asked, looking toward the cell again.
The woman is innocent?
“Sí,” Fey said nonchalantly. “She has done nothing—nothing at all.”
So why was she in jail?
But Fey did not answer.
“I told you what I told you—and I was not supposed to tell you this yet—but I did.”
Ángel watched Fey get into his car and drive away. Then he looked toward the cell. It seemed even from this distance, over three hundred yards he could still make out Mary Cyr’s beautiful eyes staring right at him.
He continued on, in a daze.
That woman’s innocence meant that everything in his life was about to change—and all his plans were ended. Just like that.
¡Todo lo que había oído de Hulk Hernández era una mentira!
Everything he had heard from Hulk Hernández was a lie!
12.
ALL THAT NIGHT ÁNGEL AND GABRIELLA AND PRINCIPIA SAT UP, wondering what to do. They believed, and quite appropriately, that they would be killed if they told about the toy truck.
“What if they are at fault—what if they are?” Ángel said. “What will happen?”
“So if it means the end, it means the end,” Gabriella said, quietly, to Ángel Gloton. She was saying there was a sacrifice a soul must be prepared to make. And she added:
“If it is true, then maybe they didn’t want me to go to university—maybe they are working for other people. Maybe Papá found out and something terrible happened to him.” For Gabriella had heard the rumour that something terrible had happened.
Then thinking this about her sister, Lucretia, Principia shuddered.
That is, when just two days ago they could not move, they were paralyzed with fear lest they say something—all of them now knew they must speak. It was like a Pentecost came over them this week, and strangely it was the week of the Pentecost.
Perhaps this lick of flame came over him when Ángel had watched Mary Cyr trying to make it up those steps, jostled by the crowd. How could they sneer at such a delicate child of God? He had thought of her this way since the night before.
And it did not matter any more how powerful the DeRolfos were.
“Decir la verdad y el diablo de la vergüenza,” little Gabriella finally said.
Tell the truth and shame the devil.
* * *
—
Far away, in Mexico City at the office of Mr. Bara, there was another tape. A more deadly one, which Alfonso Bara listened to as the day grew dark and night fell, and the buildings were lit along the square, and cars and trucks flew past, and the sound of music could be heard from their radios. It was the tape recorded from the conversations in the SUV.
He had turned the tape on a hundred times in the past two months. There was talk of prostitution, of marijuana exports, between Hernández and an unknown person—who had turned out to be Erappo Pole. Then there was talk about Carlos and Gidgit DeRolfo and how best to deal with them, because they were both greedy and untrustworthy—the idea of the mine was discussed, the idea of taking money from the sale of coal to make up for some kind of loss—the idea of pleasing someone, who must be pleased over a girl she saw named Gabriella, and the DeRolfos could be used in that regard. There were four tapes that he had, of these rather obscure conversations, the topics, many of them inconsequential.
Then Hernández took a trip—almost three weeks ago. They thought he was going to his summer house up the coast. (So he had his SUV tuned up. This is what John saw when he passed the garage. They put a better microphone inside the dashboard.)
And Bara had that tape as well. In fact as soon as the SUV was started, the tape was turned on in Fey’s office, and these tapes were sent to him, Bara.
“There is going to be nothing here,” he said when he received it.
And then, at exactly the seventeenth minute of the tape, a voice—sharp and clear, but musical and proud:
“Quiero saber no errores como la última vez.”
The tone very matter of fact, very concise.
I want no mistakes like last time.
“Como estaba con los niños.”
As there was with those children.
So, someone knew about those children. And it was a woman’s voice.
Oh, he knew it was her voice. It could be no one else’s. Little Boots Baron.
“Those two sicken me,” she said.
And he believed she was talking about the DeRolfos.
Whose deaths they were talking about now, Bara could not determine—but it became clear that Little Boots Baron was ordering something.
It was probably the deaths of Gidgit and Carlos DeRolfo. In fact, he was certain that was what was being discussed.
Often Bara listened to this tape just to hear her voice—knowing every word that was said. In fact for the first week that he had this tape, Bara did not tell anyone—frightened lest he be wrong and worried about who he could trust. Now, however, with a new government in office, he realized he could bring this forward and order the arrests of at least six people.
What he was so furious about is that Little Boots, who always wore a certain amount of makeup, had delicate crèmas applied by a private masseuse to ensure her youth, was responsible for forty-three murders, mainly of men and children. Not one accusation had ever stuck, because supposedly she was a housewife who did designs and drew pictures for birthday celebrations.
Mary Cyr, who had done nothing, had been taken to jail in chains. Ms. Baron, the black widow, was aware of this, and completely fine with it.
There was one more thing: the video security camera at the resort Mary Cyr stayed at, which Fey
had sent to him instead of sending it to Tallagonga a month ago, showed someone throwing Victor Sonora out of a sky-blue Mercedes.
13.
IN THAT JAIL MARY CYR SAT.
Sometimes it was dark; then a car drove by. There was shouting, or laughter—then silence. Or sometimes the wall was illuminated, or a shade passed over it; or sometimes almost, it seemed as if she was being lifted up, and held in her mother’s arms. They were in Spain, and she was a child, and the water was clear and cold. Her mother lifted her on her shoulder, and they both dove into the sea.
She was so frail now it would not take very much to lift her. She remembered how she had been talked into investing money in a crème that was manufactured to make women look young. It did not seem to matter much at the moment.
“No soy culpable,” she whispered.
Again and Again, and Again.
And then:
“I am going to die—strange that it will end like this.”
Dawn might come, but so too would a terrible storm. It would knock out wires and transponders and lights—it would wash away sins, supposedly.
Mary lay in silence. She did not know that three people, Ángel and Gabriella and Principia Gloton, had listened to those charges at the courthouse, and were now determined to say something.
The three met Constable Fey and a man called John Delano. They began to speak all at once. John Delano had been ordered out of the country or he was to be charged with accessory to murder. But he did not go. This made Constable Fey like him even more—and though Constable Fey had been given authority to arrest him if he chose, he had not done so.
“Necesito mostrar,” little Gabriella said.
I need to show.
Then she ran the four dusty blocks to her apartamento, and came back, out of breath.
“Attend.” Gabriella said. And she took the tape recorder out of her school bag and handed it over.
“Escucha,” she whispered.
“Listen,” Ángel said. He looked at Fey and Delano. He knew his father was dead—and that he had been murdered. That was Ángel Gloton’s biggest crime—the crime his ambition had almost—almost allowed him to make. The crime of allowing his ambition to negate the truth. It was like this: His father travelled with thirteen young women north to see how they would be treated. And he was murdered because he wanted to tell people in Oathoa what actually happened to those girls. And Ángel knew this would have happened as well to Gabriella. This is why he now looked ashamed. It was something that Gabriella would never know. No one would ever tell her. But he, Ángel, at seventeen would put a stop to it.
Everything he had ever wanted, hoped and dreamed of was destroyed by that
TINK TINK TINK.
That is why for a long time he pretended not to know.
“Escucha,” Ángel said.
They went back to Fey’s office. He set the tape recorder down, and pushed Play. At first there was garbled talk, and much static. And then there was Carlos DeRolfo speaking. You could hear that in the distance. Then a siren. Then there was some machinery being moved. Fey kept looking at the tape, ready to say what in hell is this, when suddenly he heard absolutely clearly.
Tink tink tink tink
And again.
Tink Tink Tink Tink
It was from someone somewhere beneath their feet. A kind of prayer. That was it; it was a kind of prayer.
Fey’s face turned white—even more so than John’s at that moment. Because the real truth was this should have been known weeks ago, and the rescue attempt should have continued. Now he realized they had died in agony, while the hole above was covered over.
“That’s nothing. Nada,” Erappo Pole said, looking around at them disgustedly. And then he appealed to Fey:
“Amigo.”
His face in the light of the afternoon was course and his lips were grey, his belly was huge and his hands were thick. Once he was a child, and even now, there was a moment where Erappo Pole had a childlike look, where he stood like a boy in a schoolyard.
“No,” he said, like a child. “NO no, no, no—” Hoping that the more he shook his head, the more emphatic the denial would seem.
But at that moment, Principia took out what John knew must have existed and could not find.
The toy truck.
Ángel looked at them, looked at John, then answered Erappo quietly:
“Déjame oír esto otra vez.”
Let’s hear it again.
And so they did.
* * *
—
Then of course there was this story—the third story—the third part of the story, maybe. It involved when these things that were known would be made known.
Bara had known about all of this and more for a number of days. Though he did not know how the men had died underground, he suspected why the search for those men had been suspended. And he suspected much more. That is, he suspected where Florin had been taken, and was about to have the body removed. He knew his source—that is, the man who planted the microphones in the SUV was Pedro Sonora’s cousin—and the thought of those little children dying, especially when people like Hernández still hugged him and patted him on the back, was destroying him.
But Bara needed all of his ducks in order. He felt he should wait one more day—or two at the most, he said. Even a Canadian girl can last in jail another day or two. Besides, we have given her, her own bigger cell, her fridge, and allowed her money. When we make the arrests, we will get the body of the child and she will be set free—with an apology, to boot.
“But,” Fey said, “why not release her now? Everything has been proven or can be within a day—I feel and so does the Canadian police officer—that the longer she sits in jail the more dangerous the situation might become.”
“First, you cannot without a court injunction—and another appearance before the judge. Second, I want to pick up Hernández and offer him a deal—I want Ms. Baron—all of this other stuff happened out of the blue. It is really secondary to my primary concern!”
And of course the third thing was this: he wanted to prepare a story for the press, which showed that parallel to Tallagonga’s investigation was his own, more thorough one—one that did not rely on hysteria (he felt he could use this in Tallagonga’s case) but on the simple, immaculate jurisprudence and adherence to the law—and that did sound very good. Besides, he deserved it. He had worked in Mexico City, in one of the endless number of judicial departments, looked upon as a provincial—but now was his oportunidad and he would maximize it for his own benefit. He would be able to make a case, without being self-indulgent, that the case against Cyr was begun because of her name and wealth and not because of the wealth of evidence against her. That Tallagonga’s duty should have been to investigate vigorously, and not to vigorously impede an investigation.
But Bara did do something. And so Sharon DeRolfo’s cell phone rang—the little country-and-western ditty she had put on it—and she picked it up, thinking that it must be New York or Toronto—two places where calls were supposed to be coming in from in the next hour—and she heard her old boyfriend’s voice—the man who had married her cousin instead—the man she supposed now disliked her.
“Shar-on,” he said. “¿Cómo está, mi amiga—” he said. “Tengo una historia para ti, que te hará famosa.”
I have a story for you, one that will make you famous.
Sharon would be like so many: when fame came, it came in such a devastating way it was no longer welcomed or wanted.
14.
EARLIER THE VERY NEXT DAY THE CLOUDS FORMED, AND A great storm was coming. Everyone was waiting for it, and as so happens, not a sign of wind for two hours, and the mugginess and heat clung to the sides of the buildings and the dark alleys. Motor scooters sat abandoned in front of buildings that seemed closed. Portals were drawn shut. Upstairs apartamentos faced the sea with a kind of belligerence and resilience. All was quiet. The donkey lay down in the dirt; its ears were low. Mary Cyr lay down upon her
cot and tried to sleep.
She dreamed then of winter apples, the snowdrifts white, and apple seeds falling into the white powdered snow. And she held an apple in her snowy mitten, two bites taken all at once.
And then there was a small sound, far away—a church bell it sounded like.
Once she went to university. (She wrote in her diary.) She took English and history and psychology 101. One day they gave a test to students—mainly in fun—and she wrote in her diary: “I am not a psychopath.”
All the questions were pretty standard—it wouldn’t have taken much for any really good psychopath to fool the examiner. A definite yes gave you five points.
“Would you be sorry if your mother or father died?”
“Would you protect your brother or cousin if someone lied about them?”
“Would you care for a child?”
“Would you give up your life for a child?”
“Would you feel sad if you saw a dog tortured?”
“I am so happy I am not a psychopath—it is one less thing I have to worry about,” she wrote.
She was drifting away, to see her father, and her mother.
A great storm seemed to be coming outside—the walls of some building seemed to crumble, or was that in her mind? Then it became terribly dark, like a certain biliousness in the waving trees of mid-summer. Or was she dreaming? She did not know anymore. Then there was a gigantic crack, from somewhere. Hailstones began to fall, and all the power went out.
“Hermana, te amo,” she heard the woman she bought the bus ticket for say. But that was two days ago, or a week, she did not remember quite when. The thing about starvation—is that it would be almost impossible for her to eat now.
Then all the lights flickered and went out.
The little guard came to her cell, and spoke. She was quite worried, but tried to pretend she was not, and Mary knew this.
The police had gone because of an emergency at the hospital out on the highway; the soldiers who were at the coal mine had been called somewhere as well, and left in a truck. So they were suddenly alone, except for her, a little female guard and Erappo Pole.
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