William nodded warily. “Not much,” Ellen said.
“Bueno.” He bowed slightly, walked past the two guards, and descended the stairs.
Ellen closed the door. She tried the lock but it didn’t work. She turned and looked at William. “Well, isn’t this a pickle,” she said.
—
The room was hideous. It was clearly decorated by a man for a woman—or, more likely, women, Ellen thought—with gold-plated everything, from the gilt on the large canopied bed to the faucets and lamps. Ellen took her shoes off and her feet sank into the thick white shag carpet. How nice it felt to get those shoes off. A painting of a menacing jaguar took up most of the wall next to the bed. A dresser was covered with designer perfumes, powders, and a hand mirror and hairbrush covered in pearls.
“Gross,” William said.
“It sure is,” Ellen answered. And it was. Like some kind of man’s fantasy of what a woman desired, a man whose taste was informed by bad eighties TV dramas. And with no windows, and the loud hum of the air conditioner, it felt like a prison. Which, despite its frivolous furnishings, it was. And who had the room been put here for? And where had the previous tenant gone? Ellen picked up the hairbrush. A wisp of blond hair was caught in the bristles. She dropped the brush and shuddered.
William sat on the bed. “What are we going to do, Mom?”
Ellen sat next to him. Pulled down the blanket. Red satin sheets. Yuck. It got worse the more she looked. “I don’t know, kiddo,” she said. “But we’re getting out of here the first chance we get.”
“Good. I want to get back to Ray. And I don’t trust that guy.”
She shook her head. “Me, neither.”
William leaned against her. She hugged him. “They took my watch,” he whispered. “Before I got to use it.” His emergency distress beacon.
“Mine, too,” she said. “But they didn’t take these.” She pointed to her silver stud earrings.
William brightened. He nodded. “Really?” he whispered.
She winked. The tiny locators in them were supposed to work, but she didn’t know their range, only that it was shorter than their confiscated watches. She hoped Ray had gotten away and reached Mantu and the Brotherhood. If so, they’d be looking for them right now. Maybe even on their way. Which she had to believe, because breaking out of this fortress looked damn near impossible. “And we’ll do the exercises. The weird stuff Mantu taught us. Remember? The reaching out thing.”
William’s eyes widened.
“I know. It’s silly, but we might as well do it. I don’t believe they work, either.”
William shook his head. “They do work. All that stuff he showed us—reaching out, sending for help. It’s real.”
Ellen waited for him to continue, but he grew quiet. “How do you know it works?”
He still wouldn’t look at her. “I’d rather not talk about it now. I’m too tired.” He pointed across the room. “Can I watch TV? It looks like he has cable.”
Ellen wanted to say no. But why? The kid was still a kid, after all. And she was completely wiped. She could rest, just for a bit. Not sleep—her nerves were still jangling. But rest. She could do that. On top of the covers.
“Okay. Just nothing with naked ladies.”
William sighed.
—
Ray awoke feeling like someone was stepping on his head. He moaned. What time was it? All the lights were off except for a lamp in the corner of the room, but even its muted light felt like knives in his eyeballs.
Mantu was in the computer room with the door shut. Ray heard his voice rising in anger but couldn’t make out the words.
He stumbled to a water cooler and took several long drinks out of a tiny plastic cup. It felt like his head had been sitting under a heat lamp all night. Why had he drank so much? It was never a good idea to finish off an entire bottle of liquor, even with a friend, but two bottles? Had they even stopped at two? He couldn’t remember. Christ. His life was becoming one long chain of bad decisions.
They were leaving today. Off to the place everyone called Eleusis, where the big kahunas of the Brotherhood coordinated their political skullduggery and did their weird ESP research. And where they wanted him—had been begging him, in fact—to stay. To help them in their attempts to talk to angels. Mantu had called them angels with a straight face.
He wanted nothing to do with it. How could he explain that to Ellen? Oh, honey, I’m sorry, but I have to leave you and William wherever you are to go help a bunch of lunatics talk to angels. Seriously—angels? She’d laugh in his face.
And the thing he had seen come through in Blackwater on that terrible night was definitely not an angel—not even close. Unless you counted the fallen ones.
—
Mantu opened the door. He was sweating and his jaw was set tight.
“You okay?” Ray asked.
“My head feels like you cracked it open and pissed inside it,” he answered. “I’ve been shaking since I woke up and my mouth still tastes like puke. Yeah, other than that, I’m fine.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “But, hangover or not, we gotta get on the road. Jeremy wants us back right away.”
“Did he say anything about Ellen and William?”
Mantu nodded. “They’re doing a sweep. By helicopter. No signal yet, but they’re widening the scope. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Unless that plane took them to somewhere way out of range. Like Russia. Or back to fucking West Virginia. Or if whoever took them found their locators and threw them in the bottom of a lake.”
Mantu sighed. “We’ll find them.”
“Yeah. You’d better. Because I’m not playing any talk-to-the-angel games with your Brothers until you do. I mean it.”
“Get yourself cleaned up. There isn’t a shower, but you can use the sink. We’re rolling out in twenty minutes.”
Ray stood and felt the room tilt. “That’s the last time I drink with you.”
Mantu snickered. “Shit. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that before.”
Chapter Four
William splashed in the pool while Ellen sat trying to read an eight-month-old Spanish-language issue of Vanity Fair. In spite of the heat she was wrapped in a white terry cloth robe. No way was she going to let the creep see her in a bathing suit. He’d had an entire wardrobe delivered to their room—all designer labels, or maybe they were knockoffs. Having spent her adult life wearing her waitress outfit supplemented with clothes on sale at Walmart, she certainly couldn’t tell the difference between the real stuff and the fake anyway. But she recognized the names on the labels: Versace, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, stuff she had seen only in magazines. Jeans, tops, six pairs of shoes, and, most unsettling of all, a black nightgown that was what her mother would have called, with a blush, an “intimate.” She’d put on pink shorts and a T-shirt before wrapping herself in the robe, and now she was soaking the terry cloth with her sweat.
Across the pool were the most bizarre features of the compound—a miniature zoo and, next to it, a life-size statue of a skeletal woman in a black robe holding a scythe in one hand, like a lady Grim Reaper, and clutching a globe in the other. The gruesome statue was surrounded by burned-down stubs of candles, bottles of liquor, coins and bills, cigars and hand-rolled cigarettes, and colorful candies. They’d seen similar shrines in their travels through Mexico, with the skeletal woman in various colors of clothing—even a wedding dress—but nothing quite this big or elaborate. Or as creepy. The bones looked too real, and Ellen didn’t like to imagine that they were.
A skinny black panther paced in a cage in the tiny zoo, and next to it a pair of peacocks huddled in a spot of shade. In another cage an alligator lazed in a pool of greenish water that looked far too small for it. She felt profoundly sad looking at them, especially the big cat. Its eyes were as lifeless and glassy as those of the brutish guards who were always wandering around. And like the cat, she and William were prisoners behind El Varón’s compound walls. O
r the newest animals in his zoo.
William looked like a tiny water bug doing laps in the pool. She wanted to hold him tightly against her, and not let him out of her sight, but it didn’t make sense to frighten him any worse than he already was. When he was swimming or floating on the pink and green raft he looked almost carefree and normal. Either that or he was good at hiding what was going on inside. After three days of this, she was worried that things were becoming too routine for him. They needed to stay sharp.
El Varón stepped through the doorway. He wore a tiny bathing suit—a banana hammock, Ray called them, the kind only European or Central American men would dare to wear. He was well built, if slender and a bit hairy, but Ellen struggled not to recoil as he sat down in a pool chair next to her. Better to not show her fear. Or disgust. He was smiling, though his eyes were hidden by what was undoubtedly a very expensive pair of sunglasses. And he didn’t look well at all, as if he hadn’t slept for days—his skin was almost gray. Probably jacked up on whatever illegal product he was selling, she guessed. He leaned his head back in the sunlight.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he asked. His teeth were so white they looked like they’d been soaking all day in phosphorescent bleach.
Ellen nodded.
He waved to William, who ignored him and dove beneath the water. “I know you do not trust me, Señora. And I do not blame you. But I hope the hospitality I have shown you has proven I am not your enemy.”
Ellen wrapped her robe tighter across her chest. “If you’re not our enemy, then you should let us go. That’s what a real gentleman would do.”
El Varón took off his sunglasses. His eyes were bloodshot. “I have explained this to you, but I will do so again—I am protecting you and William and will keep you here as long as you are in danger.” Ellen hated when he spoke her boy’s name. He always seemed to stretch it out too far: Weel-yam. “If I were to let you go, you would not have a chance. You would be found within days. No matter where you go. She was already very close to finding you.”
Ellen straightened up. “So why are you protecting us? If she wants us so badly, I’m sure she’ll pay you whatever you want. So why are you keeping us here?”
El Varón nodded. “You are a very smart woman. Muy perceptivo. I have not met many women like you, Ellen.”
I’ll bet you haven’t, you hairy asshole. “So who are you? Like, what do you do? If we’re stuck here, I want to know who I’m stuck with.”
He put his sunglasses back on. “I am a man of industry.”
She wiped her brow. She was burning up inside the robe. “A man of industry who needs giant walls around his house? And guards? What, exactly, is your industry?”
“Business is different in our part of the world.”
“Sure it is. I’ll bet you’re not selling candy bars. Or diapers. Or car parts.”
El Varón laughed. “No. I sell an excellent product, for a fair market value.”
Ellen was tired of his dissembling. “Is your product a white powder, by chance?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean like the white powders you can buy in your farmacia? Yes. A white powder. Just like your aspirin. Or the pills you pay the drug company a hundred dollars a bottle for to make your life more easy. Different medicines for different problemas.”
Now Ellen laughed. “We don’t call it medicine where I come from.”
“No?” El Varón’s smile tightened. “You call it drogas? Well, let me explain something to you, Ellen. My people have been using our medicines since before your people arrived in their boats with their crosses and their smallpox. We honor the spirits of the plants that give us their medicinas. And then the white men took our medicines, bled them of their spirits, turned them into powders, and sold them to your people. And then you started killing each other because of your greed for them.”
She had rankled him, and it felt good.
“And what does your government do? It blames us.” The muscles in his jaws clenched. “I am helping my people. Giving them jobs. Putting food in the mouths of their children. Building schools for them. And providing your people with something they desire.”
“And they’re killing each other for it. You said it yourself. So your…product…is also leaving dead bodies all over my country. And look at this place. With walls and guards and guns. You live in a jail.”
He was silent. William had flopped on top of the raft and was floating on his back, his eyes closed.
“My life is not easy,” El Varón said after a long silence. “But neither are the lives of your policia. Or your president and your congressmen. They live behind fences. They are surrounded by men with guns.”
“But they’re not shooting each other in the streets.”
He laughed. “No, they let others do all the dirty work while they take all the money. And do you know where all the guns come from? Your country makes them and sells them to my people.”
Ellen couldn’t argue.
“It is no matter to you how I make my living, Ellen. If it was not for me, there would be twenty other men to take my place. I have worked very hard, and given up very much, to be where I am. It should not matter to you how I conduct my business. It only matters that I am keeping you safe.”
“Why?” she said, loud enough that William lifted his head to look at her. “You keep avoiding my question. You still haven’t told me why you’re keeping us away from her. What good does it do you?”
“I have no love for that woman.” He looked away. “She wanted you and William as much as she wanted your boyfriend—who many people from your country are looking for, as you know. But a woman and a young boy? What use could she have for you? So when I found you—when my employees found you—I felt I had no choice. Had my men seen your boyfriend, he would be here with us, too. That was a stupid mistake.”
“But what’s in it for you?”
El Varón’s teeth appeared again between his lips. “I have yet to know,” he said quietly. “But she wants you, so I will keep you from her. If she wants you so badly, there must be something about you that is muy importante.” His eyes were shadowy holes beneath the dark lenses. “If a rich man wants to pay a million dollars for an ugly, ordinary piece of furniture, do you not start to wonder if that furniture might be worth a million dollars?” He laughed. “I do not worry about what makes something valuable. Value is value to the bank, not in what I think. Comprende?”
“No. I don’t. And we’re not pieces of furniture. We’re just a mother and her son.”
“Ah, Ellen. Not just any mother and son. Clearly, the two of you are much more than that.” He moved his face closer. “And from what I can gather, as much as she wants you and your boyfriend,” he lowered his voice, “she wants him.” He nodded to the pool.
Ellen suddenly felt like she was encased in ice. William spun in circles, his tiny body like a toy on the oversized plastic raft, his arms and legs like sticks.
She shuddered. “Why does she want him?”
El Varón shook his head. “Only she knows.”
—
Ramón drove the VW van while Ray and Mantu sat in the back. Neither was in much of a mood to talk, thanks to their brain-splitting hangovers, and the fleshy appliances glued to Ray’s face weren’t helping him feel any better. The makeup was damn good and surprisingly effective at changing his appearance, but he hated wearing it—it was hot and itchy and made it hard for him to speak properly. And with a hangover, it felt like all of his self-loathing had been pasted on his face.
They were driving to a small airport in the coastal Honduran city of Tela, where a Brotherhood plane would be waiting. Mantu was still mum about the exact location of Eleusis, explaining that it was for Ray’s safety that he was keeping it secret. He kept asking Mantu to call in and see if Ellen and William had been located, but Mantu refused. “No radio. Not even satellite. After we get in the air I can check in with Jeremy. So just sleep off that mezcal. I know you have your makeup on but you still look aw
ful.”
Ray laughed and winced at the pain in his head. “Mantu, just for once, I’d like to hear you say I looked nice.”
“Well, then, you should start trying to look nice. Right now you look like the beat-up Jesus in that Mel Gibson movie.”
“My mother said if you don’t have something nice to say—”
“Your momma had a lot of nice things to say about me. She wrote them all on a truck stop bathroom wall.”
The van hit a bump and Ray’s head clunked against the side of the vehicle. “Ouch.”
“You don’t want to get me started on the ‘your momma’ game, Ray. I was a big, mean-looking black boy running around the streets of South Philly drinking forties and stealing Hustlers from the corner store and throwing down ‘yo mommas’ like a champ when you were sitting in your candy-ass suburban living room drinking glasses of milk and watching Leave It to Beaver reruns.”
Ray laughed again. “You’re an asshole. A funny asshole, but still an asshole.”
Mantu harrumphed. “I was a stand-up comedian. For real. Back before all this shit.”
“No way.”
“I swear on your momma’s dildo collection,” he said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Then tell me. Go on. Spill it.”
Mantu shook his head. “Not now. It’s a long story. But we’ll have plenty of time soon. Right now I’m gonna drive for a while.” He yelled to Ramón to pull over. When the driver turned off the engine Mantu opened a cooler. He handed Ray a bottle of mineral water. “Stay hydrated. It’ll help that puffiness in your eyes. Probably not those black bags, though.”
“Thanks, doc.” Ray opened the bottle and took a deep drink.
“And we ain’t got no more agua, Ramón. Quieres jugo de naranja?”
Ramón nodded. Mantu handed him a plastic container of orange juice. “You can finish that off, amigo. Hop in back and talk to pretty boy Ray for a while.”
“My pleasure,” Ramón said. “He looks like my ex-wife.”
“Will you two shut up?” Ray said, but then he started laughing. “You’re making my head hurt.”
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