Border Crossings

by Michael Lee Weems

  “She didn’t tell us anything,” said Evelyn. “I swear Miss Lydia, not a single word.”

  “Even if she didn’t, someone here still knows where she went. Who?”

  Nobody said anything. Silvia had an idea of where Yesenia might have gone, as did Evelyn. They’d seen the way Armando had been looking at her and heard their whispers on the dark. They also knew what would likely happen to Armando and Yesenia if Miss Lydia found them. “I don’t know,” said Evelyn.

  Miss Lydia glared at her. “Hot box! All of them!” And Jose and Hector herded the girls towards the hot box.

  “This is such shit!” said Imelda. “I don’t even live in the same house as her! How would I know where she went?”

  “Well, maybe you’ll figure it out after you spend a while thinking about it,” said Miss Lydia. “Maybe you can talk to your little friends here because someone is lying. Someone knows.”

  After the girls were locked in the hot box Miss Lydia had a meeting with the men. “I can’t believe you let this happen,” she scolded them. “What do I pay you for if you can’t keep an eye on these girls?”

  “What are we going to do, Mama?” asked Jose. “She knows what happened to that police officer.”

  “And whose fault is that, too? Eh? It’s your fault. You two idiots got pulled over. And you were the one who shot him and you’re the one who just slept away while that girl waltzed out of here. I’ve told you time and time again to take shifts. Someone has to be awake all the times around here. You know that. Who was supposed to be awake?”

  “I was awake,” said Hector. “But it was raining this morning, so I was inside.”

  She hit him on the head. “Idiota!”

  “Should I search the woods again?” asked Arnulfo. “She might be hiding out there somewhere.”

  “Yes, go look again,” she told him.

  But after he left, she told Jose and Hector, “If that girl goes to the police, we’re all finished. Not just you. We’ve had a good thing going here and made lots of money, but she could ruin it all.”

  “What do you want us to do, Mama?” asked Jose.

  “I want you to find that girl. That boy she was with last night, he seemed taken with her. I knew it was a mistake letting him keep picking her. He was too smitten by her, to vulnerable to that girl’s charms. It’s got to be him.”

  “What can we do if she did? We don’t know where he lives or how to find him.”

  “We know some,” she told him. Miss Lydia had sharp eyes and noticed even small details about people, including the community college parking sticker on the boy’s truck when he pulled in.

  “But how can we find them?”

  “Leave it to me,” she told them. “I think I might know a way.”

  “Then what?” asked Hector.

  “If I can find him, I want you to follow him and see if she’s with him.”

  “And if she is?” asked Jose.

  She seemed to think some more. “Get rid of her,” she finally decided. “She’s too much of a risk to keep around here. She’ll just keep trying to run away and we can’t risk her ruining everything.”

  “And the guy?”

  “If she’s with him, then get rid of him, too.” She waved her hand is she tried to think through the possible consequences. “I don’t like all this killing business. It might raise far too much attention, but we can’t risk everything. If they’re together, then she might have told him too much.” She looked at Jose and then patted his head like he was Chico. “You have to listen to Mama this time and do as she tells you. If you find her with him, make it look like he walked in on a burglar. Don’t leave any sign that she was ever with him. I want you to take her out to a field somewhere and do what must be done. Then burn her remains so there’s nothing left to recognize. She won’t have any fingerprints or dental records, so we don’t have to worry about such things. Just make sure about that young man she’s with. There can’t be any link between him and us. Everyone has to believe he walked in on a robber.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s clean up this mess and be done with it.”

  “Okay, Mama,” said Jose like a good little son.

  Matt stood upon the balcony looking out at the ocean. It was another clear day and he enjoyed the view. Three stories directly below him were a couple tanning themselves by the pool. He watched the man get up and dive into the deep end of the pool. For a split second, he wondered if he could jump from the balcony into the deep end. I’d probably miss and break my neck, he mused to himself.

  Julio sat on the bed unwrapping his leg as Catherine had shown him. He’d been told to replace the bandage three times a day. Matt came back in the room and sat next to him, watching the cartoons the boy had turned on in amusement. He was getting a kick out of listening to Hank Hill talk in Spanish. “Aye, Bobby! Que hace?”

  When Julio had all the dressing removed Matt leaned over and took a peek at the wound. It was healing nicely. “That’s going to be a good one,” he told Julio, who looked at him as though still unsure of the man. He’d been a little leery of Matt ever since Catherine had introduced him the day before. After Catherine had told him more about Kelly ’s murder, Juan’s murder, the attempt on both Julio and Catherine’s life, all Matt had said was, “You should have called me sooner,” as though disappointed.

  “Here, check this one out,” Matt rolled up his pant leg revealing a quarter-sized scar on his calf muscle. “AK-47,” he told Julio. “Went right through.” He showed him the other side of his leg, which had a twin scar. “Got that in a coca field in Colombia a while back. It’s actually pretty nice down there except for all the gangs and drugs.”

  “Same here,” said Julio seriously.

  That made Matt laugh. “There was this little old lady pulling weeds at dawn, just the most innocent looking old granny you ever saw. I was hiking out of the area and accidentally ran into her. I didn’t think twice about her, which was my mistake. I just told her to be quiet and went on my way, but the next thing I knew she picked up an AK she had stashed nearby and took some shots at me. I took off running but she got me right here.”

  Julio looked at the scar. “Did it hurt?”

  “Did yours?” asked Matt. Julio nodded his head. “Well there ya go. Feels like a hot poker held against your skin, even hours later, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it really hurts.” He saw another scar on Matt’s leg, a long burn mark. “What happened there?” he asked.

  “Oh, that,” said Matt, a little embarrassed. “Well, speaking of burning,” he was almost laughing. “I was camping on a beach in Saipan and had a little too much to drink. I accidentally tripped and fell in the campfire.” He touched the rubbery scar with his finger. “Smelled like chicken.” Julio wasn’t sure whether or not it was okay to laugh, but when Matt smiled he did, too. “People taste like chicken, ya know?” Matt told him. “If you cook’em right.” Julio’s smile disappeared in an instant and Matt let out a laugh, “I’m just messin’ with ya, kid,” and he ruffled Julio’s head.

  Julio smiled again. Mr. Matt, as he’d been told to call Matt, was funny, but in a morbid sort of way that still made Julio a little uncomfortable. “You’ve been a lot of places, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, “quite a few.”

  “How come you go so many places?”

  “Well, that’s my job. I travel around a lot.”

  “What do you do?” Julio asked.

  Matt thought about it a few seconds. “I teach people how to keep themselves safe.”

  “Oh,” said Julio. “So that’s why she called you. I guess that’s good, then. She’s done a pretty good job so far, though.”

  “Yes,” said Matt, “I think so, too.”

  “When is Miss Catherine going to come back?”

  “Oh, probably tomorrow.” Matt got up and retrieved a beer from the little fridge. He’d removed all the hotel’s sodas and little liquor bottles and replaced them with beer, sandwiches, and some of his own sodas from the store
. “You want one?” he asked Julio.

  The boy looked at him skeptically, but curiously, “Okay.” Matt tossed him a beer. “Is it any good?” Julio asked.

  “Try and see.”

  Julio cracked open the beer and took a sip, his face squinting in uncertainty. “Have they gone bad?” he asked.

  “Why?” asked Matt, chuckling.

  “This tastes like something I’d find in a dumpster after it’s gone bad,” he told him.

  Matt just laughed some more. “Well, maybe you should give it some time. Beer’s like girls. You might not like them now, but in a few years you’ll constantly be trying to get your hands on one or the other.” He walked back to fridge and retrieved a Dr. Pepper, which Julio traded for the beer.

  A knock came at the door and Ceci opened it. It was the little girl from the caseta. “There’s a call for you senora,” she told her.

  “For me? Did they say who it is?”

  “She said to tell you it was your sister.” The little girl disappeared down the hall and ran back down the stairs.

  Yesenia? “Humberto,” she called to her brother-in-law. “I have a phone call. Can you watch the kids?”

  “Fine,” he said. “But be quick. Alisa and I want to go out for a bite.”

  “I will.” She walked down the stairs and to the caseta where a woman gestured to the receiver sitting on the counter. “Hola?”

  “Ceci?”

  “Yesenia? Yesenia! How are you!?”

  “Ceci, listen to me very carefully. You have to leave your apartment.”

  “What? Yesenia, where are you? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m in Texas, but listen to me, Ceci. You have to leave quickly. It was all a big trick.”

  “Texas? Where are you living? Are you working?”

  “Ceci, listen to me!” cried Yesenia. “You have to leave.”

  “Leave? What are you talking about?”

  On the other end of the line Yesenia was sitting on the bed trying to make her sister understand. “The flier,” she told her, “That man, Ortiz, all of it. You were right. It was all a big trick! They sent me to a whorehouse.”

  “A whorehouse!? Oh my God, Yesenia, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m okay. I ran away, but you have to listen to me, Ceci. Mr. Ortiz made me give him your name and address, same with Mama and Nana. I didn’t know what it was for, I swear. He said it was in case something happened to me and after we never heard from Sergio after he came here, I thought it made sense. I don’t know what he’s going to do when he finds out I ran away. He might send people to your apartment or something.”

  “To my house? What for? Why would he want to know where I live?”

  “I don’t know,” said Yesenia. “I’m just scared for you is all. He said it costs three thousand dollars for me to come to America, but when I got here they tried to make me into a prostitute.”

  “Did they make you do anything?” asked Ceci.

  Yesenia was quiet for a moment. “Yes,” she told her sister. “They beat me and locked me in a big metal box where a man raped me.”

  Ceci held her hand to her mouth in shock. “He raped you!?” she cried. The woman behind the counter of the caseta spun around with eyes wide but Ceci paid no attention. “Yesenia, where are you? You should call the police right now.”

  “I can’t call the police. You don’t know what these people are like. They’re dangerous people, Ceci. Please, I think you need to leave your apartment. Go soon, all of you, and don’t leave a forwarding address.”

  Ceci was horrified at what she was hearing. “Yesenia, what have you gotten yourself into? What have you gotten us all into? Are these people going to come after me and Roberto for the three thousand dollars?”

  Yesenia already felt guilt and shame for all that had happened, and to hear the fear in Ceci’s voice made it that much worse. “I don’t know, Ceci. They’re bad people.” And in her heart she knew what the truth was. “Yes, Ceci. I think they will. Please, just leave that apartment. As fast as you can.”

  “What about you? Yesenia, what will you do? If you can’t call the police, then where will you go?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m safe. I met someone who is letting me stay with him.”

  “Who? A man?”

  “It’s okay. He’s a nice guy, your age. I’m much safer here than where I was, I promise. But Ceci, there’s something else I have to tell you.” Armando had helped her reach her sister, but then he excused himself to the living room so she might have some privacy. Yesenia worried he might be listening in, though, so she cupped her hand over the phone and whispered. “I saw the men who brought me here kill someone. A police man.”

  “What!?” said Ceci. “Oh, Yesenia! Are you sure?”

  “Yes, we got pulled over and they shot him in the street.”

  “Oh my God,” exclaimed Ceci. “Yesenia, call the police.”

  “I know, but it’s just not safe right now. The police might arrest me for being there. I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “Well, you have to tell someone.”

  “I will. I’ve figure it out, but you need to leave, Ceci. Promise me.”

  Ceci thought of her children and what her husband would think of all this. She knew Yesenia was right, though. Nothing might happen if she stayed, but if something did, she couldn’t risk people like the ones Yesenia was talking about hurting her family. “I will. I’m going to go home right now and tell everyone.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Yesenia. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “It’s okay,” said Ceci. “Roberto’s going to have fits, but I’ll worry about him. You just take care of yourself. You come back home if you can, Yesenia. I’ll send word to Margret back home where we go so you can find us.” Margret was one of Ceci’s best friends who still lived in Santa Rosanna. “And if you think you’re in danger, you call the police. Don’t you wait until it’s too late.”

  “I will,” she said. “And I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Ceci told her, though she wasn’t truly sure of that herself. “Just be careful.”

  “I will,” she said again. “Take care, too. I’d better go now.”

  “Okay.”

  As Ceci hung up the phone the woman behind the counter asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” said Ceci. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” asked the woman. “Should I call the police?” She hadn’t heard everything but she had heard that someone had been assaulted.

  “No, thank you, I think they’re already on their way,” she lied. Ceci started out the caseta but then a thought crossed her mind. “There is one thing you could do that would help a lot, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s that?” asked the woman.

  “Bad men may come here looking for us. Coyotes that’ve hurt people. If anyone comes asking about us, will you tell them we moved to Cuernavaca. And please, don’t mention to anyone I had a phone call.”

  The woman looked a little disturbed by such a request, but she’d known Ceci and her family for years. “Okay,” she promised. “I will tell anyone who asks that you all moved to Cuernavaca and if they ask, you never had a phone call today.”