The Jaguar ch-5

by T. Jefferson Parker

“We just killed a whole bunch of men,” she said.

  “Zetas,” said Fidel. “We have helped Armenta even though he’s our enemy.”

  “I feel lucky,” said Bradley. “I feel the big luck coming.”

  It had been a long time since he’d felt the good luck that had so effortlessly accompanied him through the first twenty years of his life. Maybe it’s all changing for the good, he thought. Luck. And that means Erin is okay and I’m going to get her out of here alive and the baby will be born.

  Some miles down the road their second SUV took the lead because Eduardo knew the area. Fidel followed him onto a narrow asphalt road, past an eco-lodge and a mini-super. The asphalt soon gave way to the pale white soil of the Yucatan. Deep in the tall twisted ceibas they stopped and dug five graves, taking turns, the labor utterly punishing in the heat and the mosquitoes and the sudden absence of adrenaline. The earth was sandy and loose and the graves soon filled with groundwater and remained shallow and without dignity. The digging went quickly because of the soft ground and the folding camp shovel carried in each SUV for this exact purpose, Bradley guessed. Carrying the bodies to the graves was exhausting and spirit-killing.

  An hour later they were back on the road. Bradley looked out the window for new danger. The Love 32, butt retracted for storage and transport, was under his thigh again. He was suddenly spent, every bit of energy gone. Luck and hope were gone, too, two coins lost somewhere back along this road he had taken. He listened to the hum of the engine and the rasp of the tires on the highway. In the cab was only silence and the stink of mud and human fear.

  23

  Erin sat in the leather chair facing the window. The post-storm evening was gray and cool and the tattered fronds hissed on the breeze. She wore the white nightgown buttoned to her neck and a pair of heavy white socks that Atlas had smuggled in for her and an embroidered Nahuatl blanket around her shoulders.

  Nearly three days had passed since Saturnino’s attack and she still could not get warm or comfortable, or more than a few hours of nightmare-curdled sleep. Her rump was bruised and her back was scraped and she was torn and burning with pain where he had pulled out her hair. Since walking back here that night, wobbling and nearly senseless, supported on either side by Father Ciel and Benjamin Armenta, she had kept rolled-up tissue in her ear canals, hoping to stem the aural memories of the awful event. It worked only partially.

  For almost three days she slept and roamed the room, the eyes looking back at her from the mirrors dull with fear. The life growing inside her was plainly afraid too-thrashing and kicking violently for minutes, then utterly still and possibly lifeless for hours. She kept waiting for the catastrophic evidence to appear, for that feeling of intimate death to come over her, as it had come before. Then she slept and slept more.

  Erin looked at her body in profile several times a day and she could see it clearly now, and she knew they must see it too, and she didn’t know why it seemed so important that they not know. Would they not skin a pregnant woman? What would that matter? Maybe Saturnino would delight in it more. Did he have special skinning tools? Did they soak you in brine like a turkey? Would he rape her first? Of course he would. That was what savages did. She pulled the blanket tighter. She adjusted the earplugs. Please don’t let go, little man, she thought. I’ll take care of you. Her hands trembled and her feet were cold as a statue’s and when the tears started up she slapped her face hard to make them stop but they did not.

  When she couldn’t sleep she picked up the Garcia Marquez book and continued where she had left off. Anything to escape those thoughts. The book was perfect for that, as intoxicating as anything she had ever experienced. She lost herself in the story of Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles, bitten by the dog and waiting for the symptoms of rabies to strike her. But Erin couldn’t see how the story could end happily, because rabies was always fatal back in the strange and superstitious Caribbean world of the eighteenth century. She liked the crazy colonial viceroys and Inquisitors and the decaying nobility and pirates, but the canopy of viral doom overhanging the tale wouldn’t allow her to truly enjoy it. The priest was going to be disgraced by his love for her and Servia Maria was going to die. Horribly. In her dreams Erin grew the same hair that Servia Maria grew after her death-sixty feet of splendid copper-colored waves. Had Armenta left the book here as a message? Then why this book, of the hundreds of thousands of them on Earth? And what was the damned message, anyway?

  Later Atlas set the serving tray on the table and put out a glass of red wine and a plate of cheeses and fruit. He set a small package beside the food. He looked at her gravely as he worked the plastic wrap off the plate.

  “Were you here when I performed?” she asked.

  “Was I where?”

  “Here. In my room.”

  “No. I was there when you sang. You were fabulous.”

  “When I got back I thought someone had been in here.”

  “Maybe you were mistaked. You must have been extremely…infeliz.”

  “Unhappy? Yes, I was.”

  “Benjamin will be here in one hour for you,” he said in his sweet high voice. “He would like you to be nicely dressed for dinner and have the Hummingbird in its case.”

  “I’ll dress how I want to dress.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. McKenna.”

  “I hate this fucking place.”

  “You will be free in three days. It is planned. The money will arrive and you will be released. I’m not supposed to know this but I do. The servants all know, but some don’t believe. They are betting on what will be the outcome. And Benjamin has ordered that the tigers not be fed. It is not difficult to add together what this means.”

  Erin eyed him over the blanket. “If you know so much, then where is Charlie Bravo? Is he close to us? Did he make it through the hurricane?”

  “This I do not know. Charlie Bravo brings the money?”

  “He’d better bring the money or Saturnino will skin me alive.”

  “Saturnino will burn in hell.”

  “He looked pretty bad off the other night.”

  Atlas didn’t answer for a long moment. “Saturnino does not recognize his father. Or others. He has not spoken one word of Spanish but he now speaks some language no one knows but him. He sleeps greatly. He wakes up for a few minutes and he stares at people without comprehension and he eats. They say he eats gigantic amounts. Then he prays in the language that no one knows. Then he falls back asleep for hours and hours more.”

  “Something tells me he’ll steer out of it. Has he skinned many people?”

  Atlas did not look up to face her.

  “Oh, God,” she said.

  “Would you like a Bible to read?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “It is a dependable comfort.”

  “A friend of mine had a seizure at the Guadalajara airport. She was coming home from a vacation in Zihuatanejo. In the hospital they did a scan and when the doctor came in to tell her the results he said he was not sure how to interpret the scan. He told my friend to have a more advanced test when she got home to the United States. And he gave her a Bible in English, with a page marked and a passage underlined about how you can face death with God and He will be your comfort. And this terrified her worse than anything she had ever read. I do not want a Bible.”

  “But the Bible also says you can face life with God and He will be your guide. And I thought you might do this because…”

  “Because what?”

  She caught him looking at her reflection in the full-length mirror.

  “Because you have two lives that need to be guided.”

  She looked away from the mirror to the mournful gray sky outside. She wanted to cry and she wanted to kill Saturnino. Maybe Armenta too. It feels like my skin is off already, she thought. They can all get to me but I can’t get away. They all know me but I don’t know them. They all see the baby g
rowing inside me but I see nothing in them but this hell on Earth.

  “I don’t want a Bible.”

  “I brought you one anyway.”

  “What’s in that package you put on the table?”

  “A gift from Owens. I deliver it only. I don’t know what it is.”

  Atlas popped the cotton napkin and folded it into his trademark scallop before setting it at her place. From the serving tray he took the Bible and set this beside the napkin. Then he took the tray in one hand and walked over to Erin. He held out his other hand in a fist and she put down the book and held out her open hand.

  He dropped something small and light into her palm, then he bowed slightly, smiled shyly and left the room.

  She knew what it was without looking. She could feel the encapsulated drama of it, right there in the palm of her hand: the winds of Ivana and her pestilential rains, the softness of the bird’s feathers as he labored through the heavens on nothing but his own slight wings, the movement of Bradley’s pen across the fabric.

  She opened the tiny canister and worked out the patch and read the words. Read it once. Twice. Three, four, five times. Got it, she thought. Yes, I know how to find that place. I think I do.

  She placed it between her mattress and the box springs, deep toward the center of the bed, undetectable and difficult to find unless you knew right where to look.

  She stood, short of breath. He’ll be here the day after tomorrow, she thought. Tuesday! One day before Charlie brings the money. Blessed Tuesday. Fat Tuesday. I’ll be at the cenote. We’ll get there. The baby and I will get there and we will be waiting for you.

  The day after tomorrow!

  She went to the table and opened the package. It was a plastic shopping bag with the name and logo of a Chetumal market on it, its handles tied neatly into a bow. Inside she found a freshly laundered white dress and one of the sheer white rebozos the lepers wore.

  She walked behind Armenta down the hallway toward the elevator. She wore a long dress and a light shawl over her shoulders and the dress rubbed on her abraded back but at least her legs were free. She had taped the Cowboy Defender to her upper calf and she knew without a doubt that she could use it. Violence has set me free to use violence, she thought, like this country, like the world.

  Armenta carried the Hummingbird in its case. She could smell the soap and shampoo on him. He wore a black-and-white paneled bowling shirt and raw silk trousers and the broad mesh of his huaraches shone with polish. The satellite phone and others hung from his belt. His face was cleanly shaven though the lines in it were deep and dark as always. He had attempted to tame his hair, which showed some comb tracks and patches of aromatic product, but was still a thatch. They rode the elevator looking straight ahead in silence.

  He opened the door of the recording studio and stepped in ahead of her and turned on the lights. Erin walked in and felt the cool and the heavy hush that lightened her heart a small degree.

  Armenta leaned the guitar case against one of the gear racks and waved her to follow. At the far wall he opened a closet door. Erin saw the mikes hanging on their dowels.

  “Here,” he said. “Look at the selection in the mic locker.”

  She looked down at the Neumanns and AKGs and Sennheisers. She was a longtime fan of the cheap Shure 58 for stage, but there was no such budget equipment here.

  “Which microphone do you like?” he asked.

  “I don’t need a microphone,” she said.

  “If you record with me.”

  “I won’t record with you.”

  “But if you did record with me, which mic would it be?”

  “You can’t beat the 251.”

  He took down one of the ELAM 251s and closed the closet door. He went back and took up the Hummingbird case and walked into the tracking room.

  Through the window she watched him take the mic to the vocal booth and set the guitar outside an instrument booth. He waved her in. She stepped into the shimmering aural brightness of the tuned room. She could tell that this space had been designed to use the reflections and peaks of sound to best effect. She suspected that even a spoken voice would sound beautiful here and she could not restrain herself.

  “I have to hear this room,” she said. Her words came out with dimension and specificity. Uncluttered, she thought. Bottom, top, middle. No noise. Then the room closed around them and they were gone.

  “You must hear it with music.”

  “It’s as good as the rooms in L.A.”

  “I have stood in the Boston Symphony Hall.”

  “My old church in Austin had really good acoustics.”

  “I designed this room myself. I used mathematics and a computer program that is a room peak calculator. You cannot have a tracking room that peaks or builds up in the frequency. These result in key and pitch and this you do not want. What is incorrect must be tuned out and what is ideal must remain. There are materials and designs that are to reflect. And some that are to diffuse and some to absorb. But the goal is not to create death.”

  “I think you mean deadness.”

  “Yes, deadness. You want the correct reflections. And the correct sonics. You must approximate…deadness. But not to create deadness total.”

  She went to the Yamaha and brushed the keyboard lid with her fingers but did not lift it. An elaborate and beautiful accordion sat on the bench, gleaming ivory-and-black enamel with mother-of-pearl and gold inlays, and black straps of intricately tooled leather.

  “Play only one note,” said Armenta.

  She lifted the lid and struck middle C and listened to the note shimmer, then sustain and fade.

  “I want you to write a song about me,” said Armenta. “I want you to describe the life of poverty that becomes wealth. By using the bravery and the hard work.”

  “A narcocorrido.”

  “The greatest narcocorrido ever written, Veracruzana style!”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you serious? Why?”

  “Yes. Serious in this.”

  “I’ve been kidnapped by you and half raped by your son. My husband has been beaten and you’re stealing a lot of our money. I’m pregnant and I’m terrified of you people. All of you. I won’t write for you. Terror does not write songs.”

  He looked at her morosely. He walked to the accordion and laid a hand on it. “We make music to defeat terror.”

  “We make music to express joy.”

  “A life without joy needs music also.”

  “I’m sorry for your life but I won’t write a song about it.”

  “But I am not sorry. I do not regret. I want my life to be told. I want them to know who I was. And what this time was. And this place.”

  “I won’t write for you.” She heard her words held fast by the fine acoustics of the tracking room, and she heard the fear and anger in them.

  “You have strong convictions and these I understand,” he said softly.

  “I’m glad you understand.”

  He eyed her with a cagey expression. “The studio would of course be yours if you wanted it. You can compose in your room or here. You may use the Hummingbird or the piano or both of them. You are to choose. I have pens and paper. Do you like the sheets with the staffs for composing? I have several small digital and tape recorders. If you would like a different guitar, you tell me what it is. I have some very old Martins that have magical properties, and some nice Gretsch hollow-bodies, and some exquisite Kirk Sand guitars from California. I have expensive five-string electrics for the open tunings of Keith, and I have a genuine Monteleone arch-top guitar. They would be very honored to be played. You know how they enjoy it. How only then are they alive. Perhaps you would be more happy here in the studio. It reminds you of other studios and the pleasures of music. It does not remind you of being a prisoner.”

  “You don’t understand. You pretend to, but you refuse to, and this is an insult.”

  “I understand but I try to persuade.”


  “You can’t persuade me to write about you.”

  “I will continue to try. For you to write about me you must be…encantada.”

  “Enchanted? You do not enchant me. I’m the opposite of enchanted by you.”

  “Not by me. By my accomplishments. You must have a great impression by them.”

  “I am not impressed by hell.”

  “Hell?”

  “You. Saturnino. This whole place.”

  He regarded her with a long stare. She saw no guile in it and no anger, but something stonier and less negotiable. Will? Nature? Character? Then he looked down at the accordion and touched it thoughtfully.

  “Then this I will do. Enchant and impress. You will now please come with me.”

  He nodded and motioned her back into the control room with some urgency. She walked out of the tracking room and turned when he had closed the heavy door behind him.

  “Where?”

  “I want you to see my accomplishments. The third floor.”

  “That’s where the lepers live.”

  “They appreciate my accomplishments. That is why they live there.”

  “Accomplishments? I don’t understand.”

  “What I have achieved.”

  “They must be special if the elevator doesn’t even stop there. And if there’s no landing on the inside stairway.”

  His look contained small amounts of joy and conspiracy. “So we take the elevator to the ground floor and we use the outside stairs, yes okay?”

  24

  The outside air was weighted and cool but the breeze felt good against her skin. She hadn’t been outside since the attack, nearly three days ago. She saw no remnants of the Thursday night party, nothing of the stage or canopy, not a beer can or a roach or a cigarette butt. Small songbirds splashed in a pool of rainwater and a pig lay on its side in a wallow of hurricane mud. She glanced off toward the clearing where the vehicles had been parked that night and where no policeman or politician or reporter would help her. She saw Saturnino’s face on the rising glass of the SUV and felt a cold front shudder down her body.