The Jaguar ch-5

by T. Jefferson Parker

  The stairway to the third story began in a small walled-off patio. The entrance to the patio was through a white plaster archway featuring an elaborate gate made of stainless steel. In the middle of the gate a steel sun either rose or set, the slats of its light fanning up and out to the edges of the frame.

  “At first the gate, it was made of black iron. They did not like it. They wanted the hope of light, not the darkness they live in. So I had this made. It reflects sunlight even on a day of clouds. It turns moonlight into sunlight.”

  “Are they contagious?”

  “They are treated by a very good doctor. He is here once a week. They are not contagious. But do not go close to them.”

  “Why?”

  “It is offensive to them. They are proud. They do not want to be near us. It is not true that pieces of their bodies fall off. That is a popular myth. But sometimes there are amputations.”

  Armenta opened the gate with a conventional key, not a plastic card. He slowly pulled it open, the hinges creaking and the stainless steel sun flashing dully in the low light of evening. He waited.

  She entered the patio and stood on the cobalt blue tiles and looked at the clean white plaster of the archway, and at the steps leading up to the third floor. The steps were limestone, thick and wide, the slabs fitting together so tightly that the entire stairway appeared to have been chiseled from one piece of stone. They looked like they had been worn smooth by the centuries and would be worn smoother by many more.

  “The stairway once was part of a Mayan ruin near Kohunlich,” said Armenta. “It is believed to have been an observatory. The man who built this castle discovered it buried in the jungle. He had the stairway collected and reassembled here. It was built in approximately twelve hundred, A.D.”

  “Interesting history,” she said.

  “We are interesting history also. That is why I want you to put us in music. So we will be remembered.”

  “I will not write music about you.”

  “Would you write music about hating me?”

  “Hate can’t write music.”

  “Fearing me?”

  “Fear can’t write music either.”

  “You are wrong. Music is our protest against hate and fear. You must protest. You must write music about the horrors you have endured here in what you call hell. How else will the world know?”

  “Your words only make sense on the outside.”

  “Will you write music about Felix and the leopards? Who will remember him if you don’t?”

  “Stop. You’re just adding confusion to savagery.”

  He looked at her evenly, nodding. He shut the gate and the lock clicked into place. He pointed to the west-facing wall and Erin saw the scores of small dark geckos. They looked like commas but they moved every few seconds as they took the mosquitoes.

  Erin climbed the steps behind Armenta. They stood at an arched wooden door with wrought-iron straps and a speakeasy with its bars festooned with fanciful copper butterflies. “They will only open the door for the doctors, nurses, one teacher, and for me. No one else.”

  “Can they go to other floors?”

  “They do not use other floors.”

  “Are they allowed?”

  “Have you seen them on other floors?”

  Armenta knocked. A long moment later the panel behind the butterflies slid open and Erin could see the twinkle of eyes watching them from the darkness inside.

  — Benjamin. Give us a few moments.

  — You have all the time you need. We will wait.

  The panel slid shut.

  “They need to prepare for us. The temperature will be cold for you. Because they wear the long clothes. They do not like having their faces and bodies visible to themselves or other people.”

  “Why do they wear only white?”

  “Black made them look like demons.”

  A long minute later a latch bolt slid from its strike plate, then a deadbolt, and another. The door opened and Erin was standing face-to-face with a woman wearing a loose white dress, her face hidden beneath a gauzy white rebozo. Recessed in the folds was a healthy looking young face but the hand that held open the door had only a gnarled foreshortened stump of thumb.

  Armenta spoke in rapid Spanish.

  — Good evening, Nestra. This woman is my guest. I want to show her some of my accomplishments.

  — We’re always happy to see you, Benjamin. We heard that Erin McKenna would be coming and now, look, it is true.

  She smiled and told Erin how much she had enjoyed her songs with Los Jaguars and of course the ones she performed solo also.

  Erin thanked her in Spanish and the woman held open the door and stepped back to let them in.

  The foyer was cool and penumbral, with the late evening light slanting in from a high casement window. The floor was of ceramic tile, white-blossomed roses on blue backgrounds. The woman shut the door behind them, turned the latch bolt and slid the two deadbolts back into place.

  Erin could smell faint bleach and lemons. The acoustics eddied sharply here, suggesting high ceilings and open rooms beyond. They went down a hallway lit by electric sconces. Nestra walked ahead of them, then turned to Armenta and nodded and pushed through a wooden door. Erin could see past her to a short hall that opened to a spacious room with walls made of dull green bricks. The door closed and Nestra was gone.

  “Thirteen adults and eight children live here,” said Armenta. “A teacher for the children comes. The doctors and nurses. When I was hidden by the lepers they kept me for one week. The only safe way for me to leave was by the ocean. I was placed on a banana boat returning to Salvador with a load of corn and oranges. I slept on deck and was bitten by a bat, but I did not get sick. An eyelash viper hidden in the bananas bit me on the finger, but I did not die. I had pain. The water made me sick. I stayed in Salvador for almost a year. Eleven months, thirteen days. You never forget such things. Anya. I thought only of her, but I did what I had to do to survive. I had no children then. I made friends there and these friends had hundreds of American guns left over from their civil war. The military was disbanded out of fear they would try to rule the country. Thousands of guns. And these, of course, were badly needed in Mexico. In those days there was no Gulf Cartel. We were young and we had very little money. But I was able to buy the guns on credit from my friends. Because of trust. I repaid them very generously.”

  “Rags to riches.”

  “Rags? I don’t understand.”

  “From poverty to riches.”

  “That should be part of what you write about me.”

  “Except that I won’t.”

  “No. Sadly.” He ran a hand through his tangle of gray-black hair and looked at her with that beaten expression. But she caught the mischief in his eyes and she wanted to strike him.

  They stepped into the great room. It had the high ceiling that Erin had sensed from the foyer, and a large open fireplace filled not with flames but with a display of cut tropical flowers. An enormous chandelier with electric candles hung from the center of a domed ceiling ringed with life-sized paintings of the Saints, each peering down from his or her own bower.

  Erin felt observed. She saw that two of the walls were made of the same unattractive dull green bricks she’d seen in Nestra’s suite and she realized they were not walls at all but bundles of cash stacked against the walls. Ten feet high, she guessed. Twelve?

  Next to the fireplace was a very large-screen television playing Mexican futbol. There were three men watching the game and when they sensed that visitors had entered the room they pulled their white balaclavas over their heads then turned to look at them. They rose crookedly and bowed to Armenta and he to them.

  — How are our Red Wolves doing?

  — It is tied at two, answered one of them.

  — Please relax. I will be showing Mrs. McKenna some of what I have collected.

  — Nice to meet you.

  — It is my pleasure to meet you, she said.

>   — I am a fan of your music. I know no English. Can you write some songs in Spanish?

  She sensed Armenta’s gaze but refused to return it.

  — I have written in Spanish, but not recorded.

  — Can you record them for us who do not understand English?

  — Do not ask the artist to work, said Armenta. She came here on pleasure, not business. But perhaps she will consider to write in Spanish someday soon.

  “Pleasure?” With this she gave Armenta the most withering look she owned, borne of the Celtic blood and passion that ran through her, a look that Bradley called “The Firing Squad.” It was utterly sincere. She thought, not for the first time in the last few minutes, of the Cowboy Defender taped uncomfortably on her upper left calf. So easily retrieved. So easily operated. Armenta’s moment of surprise would be the last moment of his life. Firing squad is right.

  — Or perhaps not, said Armenta. Enjoy the game.

  They walked along the stacks of cash. She could see that the bills were all American and the denominations ranged from five dollars to one hundred. Each brick was approximately three inches thick, neat, and bound by three rubber bands, left, right and center. Up this close she could smell the money through the bleach and lemons. Bradley liked the smell of cash and had more than once joked of making a cologne of it. A crazy wave of homesickness broke over her, because these bills had been printed and earned and spent in the place she so badly wanted to return to, and because she might not see again her deceitful, money-loving husband who so loved the smell of them.

  From the periphery of her vision Erin caught the three lepers looking at them. One arranged his balaclava to more completely hide his face. The futbol announcer spoke in full-auto bursts and the TV crowd roared and the lepers turned back to the action.

  “It is difficult to protect money in Mexico,” Armenta said. “For this you need the cooperation of banks and our banks are not trustworthy. In ten years, maybe. Twenty. I have friends in banking and when they become influential, things will change. Grand Cayman, yes, is good now. Switzerland, maybe. It is best to keep the money near you. In the names of others I have purchased land and homes and businesses. Farms and ranches, aircraft and boats. Government employees and many politicians, of course. But mostly, I keep it here. No one here in the Castillo has seen this except for you and the lepers. Everyone else thinks they can get leprosy just by breathing the air of the third floor. Mexicans are very superstitious. I can protect my money in banks, or with guns, or with superstition. So I use the most economical. In this room there are fourteen millions of American dollars. There are exactly eighty million more dollars throughout this level and buried beneath the tiger and lions in the zoo. And millions of pesos, of course, and Colombian currency and yen and euros and English pounds. I have other properties in Mexico with much more money hidden in them. It is best not to have all the eggs in the one basket.”

  He studied the stacks of cash for a long moment. “They are not interesting or beautiful to look at.”

  “But you’ll skin me alive for a million more?”

  He looked at her with strangely distant eyes and she was suddenly frightened even more than before, more than she ever thought she could be. His tone of voice, which had always been resonant and heartfelt, even when endorsing ugliness and violence, now sounded detached, impersonal, fated. “The million dollars is a gesture of respect from your husband. We are all in this world together and he must know how to cooperate in it. The money is not what I want most. The money represents my power. And yes, I must let Saturnino skin you, as promised to you and your husband, or my power is false and my words are nothing. For the same reason the reporter must be given to the leopards. It is justice as a form of nature.”

  “And the pain you cause?”

  “I would pray that Charlie Bravo is successful.”

  “You would pray, or I should?”

  “You must. My prayers would be only an abomination. But I have made peace with this.”

  “If you have so much power, fly me home. You don’t need the money from me. The rest of what you say is just macho bullshit.”

  He looked at her and a smile brushed his face. “Do you know this courier? Charlie Bravo?”

  “No.”

  “I suspect that is not his name. I suspect also that he may be an agent of the ATF. I suspect that he might be one of the ATF agents who murdered Gustavo. I have very good sources, all over Mexico.”

  Openly suspicious, he studied her reaction. Without taking his eyes off her he pulled a cell phone from his belt. He had to look away to push the buttons. He handed it to her, and she saw the poor resolution picture of Charlie Hood getting into a vehicle in what looked like a parking lot. She recognized the Tijuana Jai Alai Palace in the background. She handed it back to him.

  “Nope. Sorry. This is the man my life depends upon now?”

  “The courier. From your husband. You don’t know him?”

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life. Answer me, Senor Armenta: are you going to fly me home?”

  “If the money arrives on time I will fly you home. And if it does not, then all is as I promised.”

  “If I asked for mercy would you give it to me?”

  “I will accept the one million dollars and nothing else.”

  Erin felt the gun taped to her leg. So be it, she thought. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “You were in your room only minutes ago.”

  “Please?”

  “Of course, Mrs. McKenna.”

  Armenta walked her to a guest bath down the hall that Nestra had used. Erin turned on the light and locked the door and ran the tap and hiked her left foot onto the marble countertop. She unwrapped the Cowboy Defender and stood and thought: now you have to stand on your own two feet, girl. The gun was small and heavy and the rounded butt fit easily in her hand. She pushed it halfway into a shallow pocket in her dress, draped the shawl to cover it, and pulled it out and worked it back in again and wiggled it back and forth to make sure it would stay put as she walked. If the hammer was caught snug up under the pocket hem then it seemed okay. But what if it cocked itself and went off? She made sure the shawl covered it. Just barely. Where should she aim? Head if you can, heart if you can’t.

  She took a deep breath and knelt down and vomited into the toilet. Then again. She felt sick all the way to her soul. When the retching stopped she wadded the medical tape in a ball and wrapped it in toilet paper and put it in the trashcan. In the mirror she saw her face, pale and glistening, her pupils black pits.

  25

  Armenta was waiting for her when she came out. She forced herself to look at him and noticed that he had tried to comb his hair.

  “Come see some of my other accomplishments.” He turned to lead the way and she followed with her hands folded in front of her, inches from the gun, but this was an awkward way to walk and she couldn’t shoot him in the back anyway. You didn’t do that. She had just let her hands swing free to walk naturally when he turned around and looked at her. He had a suspicious expression on his face, but said nothing.

  He led her through a spacious kitchen where two white-clad women were preparing a meal. She wondered if, dressed like they were, she could pass as one of them, just long enough to make it from the Castle to the cenote. What if she found one of them on the path? Wouldn’t she have to stop, and speak, then be discovered? Here in the kitchen their faces were almost hidden by their gauzy rebozos but their eyes smiled at Armenta as he paused to lift a pot lid and peruse the simmering chicken. Erin thought she might get sick again so she focused her attention on the chains of garlic cloves that hung in the opening of a pass-through. Garlic, she thought, save me.

  She followed him down a short cool hallway to another room. Through the shawl she touched the gun but could not draw it. He turned on the lights and Erin stepped in. The lights were fluorescent, jittery and sharp, and the smell of marijuana was clear. The room was large but unfurnished except for several large t
ables that were piled with larger bricks of several colors. Beneath the tables were more stacks. Against the walls still more. These bundles were roughly the size of shoeboxes and they were wrapped in different colors of plastic.

  “Are you sick?” he asked.

  “I feel good.”

  “You are white and perspiring.”

  “I am pregnant and feeling it.”

  “My wife was sick every day with Saturnino.”

  She denied the nausea. “I’m sorry he turned into a monster. No, that’s none of my business. I’m sorry. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “He has visions now. The curandera gave him scorpion poison mixed with chocolate and goat’s milk. To make the visions stop.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “Edema of the brain. He ate one entire box of children’s cereal this morning, soaked in tequila.”

  “I’m sorry, but…well, I thank you too. For saving me from him.”

  He looked at her uncertainly and pointed to a table. “Here, look and see this.”

  Erin looked down on a pallet-sized mountain of bundles wrapped in blue plastic with lightning bolts on them. There were bundles in yellow plastic with bumblebee designs and the word “BUZZ” on them. Beside these were blue packs with Homer Simpson’s face and below his face it said, in Spanish, “I’m Getting Smuggled-What of It, Man?” The next bundles were packed in clear plastic and she could see the swirls of green herb compressed within.

  There was another, smaller great room in this part of the flat and Erin saw the hooded children sitting on the floor by the big TV watching a Disney video, and the women just now bringing plates of food to the dining table. This room too had a dramatic chandelier and a high ceiling but the paintings were not of saints but of Mayans and jaguars and birds and snakes. They walked past two men playing chess, and in their white hoods and loose white clothing they looked like ghosts or angels but when one of them looked at her, Erin saw that his nose and lips were gone and only some of his bottom teeth remained, staunch as headstones. She felt herself rising as if levitated and she knew she was fainting. One foot in front of the other. I will be there, Bradley. I will be there. Touch the Cowboy Defender. Saint Cowboy Defender.