Blood of My Brother

by James Lepore

“No, senor, come on Wednesday morning. Our priest will be there for a funeral. He will help us persuade Isabel to go with you.”

  “Is she staying with you, Sister?”

  “No, senor. She is in the mountains. She has promised to call me tomorrow. I will persuade her to come down. The funeral is for Sister Adelina, who Isabel loved. It is the only way.”

  Herman did not reply immediately. As Josefina waited for him to speak, she glanced over at the schoolgirls. They had dunked their whole heads into the fountain, sunglasses and all, and, laughing, were wiping the water from their faces and their black, Mexican hair, which was shimmering in the bright sunlight.

  “Yes, Sister, that is a good plan,” said Santaria finally. “I will meet you there at nine on Wednesday. Is there only one church in the town?”

  “Yes, the Church of the Precious Blood of Christ, on the plaza.”

  “Bueno. Sister?”

  “Yes?”

  “I will bring you a check for your troubles. For the parish.”

  “Oh, no, senor . . .”

  “I insist. One more thing, Sister.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you seen these so-called documents?”

  “No, senor. They are locked in a suitcase which she guards with her life.”

  “Bueno, Sister. I will see you on Wednesday.”

  57.

  6:00 PM, December 27, 2004, Santiago Ixtayutla, Mexico

  “Who did you speak to?”

  “Your friend, Angelo.”

  “Was he at Victor’s?”

  “No, they went next door to get him.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “Yes, I told him the things you said.”

  “And?”

  “He said he would contact Frank. He said to tell you they’re on their way.”

  Jay and Sister Josefina were sitting in Sister’s kitchen, drinking lemonade as yellow shafts of late-day sunlight crossed between them over the top of her scarred but sturdy little table. In the morning he had given her Bryce Powers’s satchel-full of documents and tapes to bring to the nearest FedEx office in Oaxaca City to send to Linda Marshall. He had taped the business card Linda gave him at the Spanish Tavern to the top document, Powers’s meticulous twenty-page list of money laundering transactions going back to 1982. He had given Josefina the money for this plus additional cash to buy a prepaid cell phone to use to make her two calls.

  “Did you throw the phone away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you use a phony name?”

  “Of course, as you told me. But they did not ask me for identification.”

  “When will the package arrive?”

  “Tomorrow morning, as you requested.”

  Josefina rose. Her refrigerator, a Frigidaire from the fifties, had started clanking and rattling from somewhere deep in its dying innards. She kicked it swiftly and hard on its left flank and the noise stopped. Opening it, she pulled out the half full plastic pitcher of lemonade and brought it to the table.

  “And the other call?” Jay asked.

  “Yes, I made that, too.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “It went well. He is meeting me here at the church on Wednesday morning at nine.”

  Jay looked at his watch. Could Dunn and Angelo get here in thirty-six hours? Would it matter?

  “Tell me what you said and what he said.”

  “As we discussed, I told him Isabel had contacted me with a crazy story about murder and drugs and documents. And incest. That she seemed out of her head. That I didn’t know who to call except him. I begged him for his help. He asked several times for her exact location, as we suspected he would. I told him I thought it would be best if he met me here and I brought him to her. That she was in a very fragile state. He agreed finally.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “I have made a discovery: I am a good liar.”

  “When you have to be.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  “De nada . . . Jay?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is your head?”

  “Getting better.”

  “And your heart?”

  “My heart?”

  “Do you love Isabel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about your parents.”

  “My parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re both dead.”

  “Yes, Isabel told me. But tell me about them. Do you miss them?”

  Jay did not answer. He looked straight at Sister Josefina, through her black-rimmed soda-bottle glasses into her dark brown eyes. Do I miss them?

  “Sister . . .” he said, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

  “You must honor them by thinking about them and talking about them. They are waiting for you to do that. Their death has brought you here, to Isabel, to me. I will pray for them for the rest of my life.”

  Before Jay could answer, the small house’s front door swung open and Isabel entered. She was carrying garments—one black, one white—which she laid over the back of an empty chair. In her free hand she had a manila folder, which she placed on the table before sitting down herself.

  “How did it go?” she said, looking first at Sister and then at Jay.

  “Well,” Josefina said. “He will be here on Wednesday morning at nine.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “I lied well, Isabelita,” Sister said.

  “Bueno,” said Isabel. Then, nudging the folder on the table toward Josefina, she said, “My will is in there.”

  “Your will?” Jay asked.

  “Yes, I wrote it while Esperanza was sewing.”

  “You are not going to die,” Josefina said.

  “I will if Herman brings federal troops.”

  “I will pray that he comes alone.”

  “Or a small bodyguard,” said Jay. “We can handle that.”

  “Bueno, I will pray for a small bodyguard only.”

  Josefina was in deadly earnest as she said this, as if she were already formulating the prayer in her mind—how best to approach the Lord with a request that Herman Santaria’s entourage be small enough to be easily killed when the shooting started on Wednesday? But Jay could not help smiling, and neither, he saw, could Isabel. What else was there to do? The dice had been thrown. No more running.

  58.

  9:00 AM, December 29, 2004, Santiago Ixtayutla

  Herman Santaria did not think that Sister Josefina was setting a trap for him. The idiot Jake Decker’s plane had been found some eighty miles away from Santiago Ixtayutla. It would make sense that Isabel would make her way to Sister Josefina. Perhaps Cassio was still with her, perhaps not. He had called the Dominican Provincialate in Mexico City and learned that Sister Josefina de los Angeles had indeed been posted to Santiago Ixtayutla for the last five years and that Sister Adelina de la Croce had retired, at the age of eighty-one, two years ago, and had been given dispensation to live in the State of Oaxaca with her family. An online search of the obituaries in Oaxacan newspapers yielded nothing concerning Sister Adelina’s death, but in those dirt-floor valley and mountain villages there were no such things as newspapers, let alone printed obituaries.

  The Feria brothers had gone missing. This was perplexing, but he had two new panthers with him, Paulo and Diego, picked out of the same Mexico City garbage dump as the Ferias, as well as his driver and personal bodyguard, the giant-sized but extremely mobile and lethal Stefan. If Cassio was nearby, they could easily deal with him. Chances were both he and Isabel had been injured in the plane crash and were licking their wounds somewhere they thought was safe.

  They had arrived early and driven slowly through Santiago Ixtayutla as the sun was rising and saw nothing suspicious. Indeed, gazing intently through the tinted windows of Herman’s Cadillac Escalade, they saw nothing at all in the fifteen seconds it took them to pass in and out of the village, which consisted of a small square with no fountain
or adornment of any kind, a decrepit church, and a group of a few hundred mud or wooden huts creeping up the hillside behind the square.

  Now, at eight fifty, the square was still empty, as was the small, dusty, hardpan courtyard in front of the Precious Blood church. Stefan parked crosswise to the gate in the stucco wall, blocking access and egress with the big black American car. No one bothered to look up or they might have seen Juanito’s head pop up for a second above the old church’s crumbling stucco parapet and then quickly disappear.

  “Stay here,” Herman said to Stefan. “We won’t be long.”

  The two panthers, dressed in black, their hands in their jackets, pushed the heavy wooden doors open and stood adjusting their eyes to an interior lit only by the morning sunlight filtering weakly through the wooden shutters that covered the small church’s four open-air windows. Herman looked intently as well. Kneeling in a front pew, in a white habit and headdress, was Sister. In the aisle next to her was a raw wooden casket on a draped dolly. At the altar, a young priest with thick, dark hair, his back to them, was laying out a chipped chalice and water bowl and lighting candles at either end of a small table covered in white cloth.

  Herman nudged his panthers to the side—“Stay close,” he said to them, “but not too close, we are not here to frighten anyone,”—and made his way up the short, narrow aisle. As he got to within a few feet of the nun, the church’s bells began ringing, their clanging booms abruptly filling the small space and causing Herman to stop for a second. Continuing, he reached the first pew and tapped Sister on the shoulder. She rose and turned toward him, a pistol in her right hand aimed at his chest. “Good-bye, Herman,” Isabel said, and then he was flat on his back, a searing pain where he knew his heart was.

  The panthers had been looking up, annoyed by the booming bells, when Isabel shot Herman. The sound of the bells was so loud that the first they knew of a problem was when Herman stumbled backward into Paulo before falling to the stone floor. As Paulo and Diego were drawing their guns, Jay—the priest—and Angelo and Dunn—emerging swiftly from nearby confessionals—were upon them, shooting each in the chest several times at point-blank range. The bells stopped—Juanito’s arms must have gotten tired—and at the same moment the church’s doors swung open again and Chris Markey and Ted Stevens burst in and strode toward them. Juanito also appeared, and was tugging at Isabel’s habit.

  “What the fuck?” Markey said, looking at the carnage on the floor.

  “Hay un gigante afuera!” Juanito was saying. “Hay un gigante afuera!”

  “What’s he saying?” said Markey.

  “He says there is a giant outside,” said Isabel.

  “Tell him the giant’s in handcuffs,” said Markey.

  Isabel translated this for Juanito, holding his shoulder and pushing him gently toward Sister Josefina, who had emerged from the sacristy when the shooting stopped and was approaching the group. “Come with me, Juanito,” Sister said when she arrived, taking the boy’s hand and leading him away from the three dead men on the floor.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Frank Dunn said to Markey, when Josefina was gone.

  “Yes, just in time to charge you with murder,” Markey replied.

  “They drew on us,” said Dunn, looking down at the automatic pistols lying next to Diego and Paulo on the floor. “Besides, you don’t have any jurisdiction here.”

  “Put these people under arrest,” Markey said to Stevens, but before Stevens could move, Angelo had his gun out and was pointing it at Stevens. Dunn did the same, training his on Markey.

  “Listen, Markey,” Angelo said, “I’ve had enough of you threatening people. If you or your puppy here makes a move I’ll shoot your kneecaps off. This is between us and the Mexican authorities. I don’t know how you found us but I’m glad you did. I’m putting you under arrest, you little prick, and then we’re calling the local police and we’ll see whose story holds up.”

  “I’m with him,” said Dunn, gesturing toward Angelo and smiling. “By the way, I made some calls recently to old friends. They say the rumor is you’re tapping phones illegally all over the place, and setting up innocent people to die for some jihad you’re supposed to be on. That’s another thing we’ll have to sort out when we get back to the States.”

  Before Markey could answer, the front doors swung open a third time, and Jack Voynik strode quickly into the church.

  “Chris,” he said when he reached the group in the aisle, “you won’t believe this. Lazaro Santaria’s committed suicide. Rafael de Leon’s under arrest.”

  “What?”

  “A story broke late last night over the Internet. Lazaro and Herman and de Leon have been running drugs and laundering money for the cartels for twenty years. It’s all over the wires. The Star-Ledger printed photographs, Swiss bank accounts, transcripts of tapes, a shitload. The president of Mexico is on television and radio right now, giving a news conference.”

  “And Herman Santaria’s dead,” said Jay, nudging Herman’s corpse with his foot.

  “Yes, and may he burn in hell,” said Isabel, who had taken off her headpiece and was standing straight and tall, her blue eyes shining clear and unburdened for the first time in thirteen years.

  Epilogue

  3:00 PM, February 5, 2005, Miami

  The brass band that Angelo had hired was on a break. Their instruments lay gleaming on wooden chairs in a semicircle at the back of the large terra-cotta-tiled patio that Sam had added to the rear of El Pulpo. The band members were mingling with the thirty or so guests at and around the tables under the latticed arbor that covered the patio, above which spread South Florida’s bright blue winter sky. Via new sliding glass doors, people were going into and coming out of the dining room where the buffet table and bar were set up, drinks and plates of food in hand. When the band stopped playing, Sam had put on a loop that he had told Jay he made for the occasion. Sinatra, Édith Piaf, Aaron Neville, Patsy Cline.

  “He’s got great taste in music, your brother,” Jay said to Angelo.

  “You wouldn’t know it with that crooked nose and cauliflower ear of his.”

  “How many fights did he have?”

  “Twenty-one in the ring.”

  “And out?”

  “A couple. He’s calmed down now.”

  They were standing near the band instruments, next to one of the sturdy white-painted wooden posts holding up the arbor.

  “How did it go up north?” Angelo asked.

  “Good. I made a deal with the young guy who was running my practice. Don Jacobs.”

  “Are you taking the bar down here?”

  “Maybe. I’m keeping my options open.”

  “You’re married now,” said Frank Dunn. “You have no options.” Dunn had gone inside for a fresh drink and had just rejoined them.

  Dunn and Angelo followed Jay’s gaze across the patio to the small lawn that bordered it, where Isabel was having her picture taken with Maria. Jay had been following her movements for the last few minutes, taken by her beauty as if he had never seen her before today. She was wearing Maria’s mother’s wedding dress. Maria had cried throughout the ceremony at nearby St. Philomena’s Church, but was smiling broadly now, hugging Isabel and then stepping back to admire the dress, while Victor Ponce snapped away with his bulky Nikon. Watching them, waiting to get their picture taken, were Linda Marshall and Cheryl Stone, Jay’s secretary.

  “What’s Cheryl going to do,” Dunn asked.

  “She’s working for Jacobs.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And Linda will get her Pulitzer,” said Dunn.

  “She deserves it,” said Jay.

  “I talked to Sid Ironson,” Dunn said. “He says it’s a lock.”

  “She’s running a story tomorrow,” Jay said, “about the confiscation of the Powers assets under the federal forfeiture act.”

  “The daughters will have to find jobs,” said Dunn.

  Jay and Dunn both smiled, thinking of Marcy and Meliss
a facing the loss of all those millions and wondering where their next Hermes bag would come from.

  “I noticed you didn’t invite Agent Markey,” said Angelo.

  Jay smiled, thinking of Angelo calling Markey a little prick and threatening to shoot off his kneecaps—and of the events that had since transpired, including the lawsuit that Victor Ponce had filed after a repairman discovered the illegal tap on his phone and traced it to Markey. This lawsuit, coupled with the revelations of the agent’s illegal and embarrassing law enforcement activities in Mexico, had forced Markey to retire in disgrace. Then Jay thought of Markey’s daughter going down in a plane and he stopped smiling.

  “Maybe I should have,” he said. “We’re all off the hook.”

  “Yeah,” said Angelo, “thanks to Bryce Powers.”

  The day after returning from Mexico, they had all “lawyered up” as Frank Dunn put it. Their lawyers had immediately teamed up with the Star-Ledger’s lawyers to negotiate a deal with the US Attorneys in New Jersey and Florida; the paper would give up Bryce Powers’s treasure trove in return for immunity for Linda, Jay, Isabel, Frank, Angelo, and Maria. And most important, for a guarantee that Isabel would not be extradited to Mexico.

  On the lawn, Linda and Cheryl were now standing on either side of Isabel, their arms around her, while Victor did his thing. Waiting their turn were Sister Josefina, Juanito, and Esperanza, all eating wedding cake from plastic plates. All smiling big smiles.

  “Actually,” said Jay, “Isabel’s lawyer called this morning. “The new Mexican AG wants her to testify down there. They want to put de Leon away for a long time. If she does, she’ll get complete immunity from them.”

  “What did she say?” Frank asked.

  “She said she’d do it. And while she’s there she’ll help Sister Josefina start her bank.” Isabel had not hesitated, Jay remembered, even though it meant looking Rafael de Leon in the eye. I want to be able to go to Mexico when I please, she had said. There are things I want to do there.

  Lorrie Cohen had now joined the group taking pictures with Isabel. She was smoking a cigarette and drinking a Corona, doing some kind of a dance—the twist, perhaps—with Juanito, a salsa tune now playing on Sam’s tape.