“How nice, María Paz, you really love skiing!” Rose ventured, suspecting that her hyperactivity was just a camouflage for the riptides that were forcefully flowing inside her. “Really, congratulations, it’s amazing how fast you have learned.”
“Yes,” she responded. “I have the whole shit down.”
The cyber-coyote, meanwhile, has come to the conclusion that this María Paz was a quarrelsome, unbearable, and unpredictable client, more annoying than a poorly tuned piano. He retaliated by charging her exorbitant fees every time he had to change the details of the border crossing, and let her know that he was gathering his current group somewhere near Sunland Park, New Mexico, en route to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. She would need to go there very soon, as soon as she got the signal from him. She would make the crossing along with other outlaws and fugitives like her, and like almost anyone else who was smuggled across the border not from south to north, but from north to south.
“What do you really know about this guy the cyber-coyote?” Rose asked María Paz.
“Really know?” she replied. “Almost nothing. That he is an evangelist and owns a Blackberry.”
“But yet you are putting your fate in his hands.”
You had to be a good deal two-faced to say that last sentence aloud. What did Rose know about Bubba, on whom he had placed his complete trust? Nothing, or worse than nothing: he knew all the bad parts, that he was a devious and timorous scoundrel who would do anything for money. And that he had not shown up for any of their recent meetings. Something very weird must be happening. Deeply concerned, Rose began to lose sleep and his appetite, became sullen, silent, and irritable. Because she had thrown herself headlong into the physical aspects of her new sport, María Paz did not register the subtle changes in his mood, but the dogs noticed, and they grew restless. They scrutinized their master with long looks and licked his hands as if to console him: they also sniffed that something was horribly wrong. Rose returned to the pool hall, and again nothing. The following morning, after hours of insomnia, he remembered that he had not erased Sleepy Joe’s e-mail message. This was an unforgivable mistake, to leave such incriminating evidence floating in cyberspace. How could he have been so neglectful? Without even waiting for the sun to come up, he threw on some clothes over his pajamas and hurried to the business office, to remove the body of the crime-to-be with a tap of a key. After logging in to the account, he found there was a second message from Sleepy Joe. He hesitated a few seconds, letting his heart quiet down, finally daring to look. This time it was only an image. In a fuzzy snapshot, a stack of tires around a post is aflame. The fire is just a little flash of light, the flames leaning left from the wind, but the smoke that rises from it is thick and black and distorts most of the rest of the picture, forcing Rose to put on his reading glasses and move closer to the screen. Tied to the stake and in the middle of the tires, Rose discerned the figure of a naked man, half-burned, perhaps still alive.
Rose managed to figure out the mouse well enough to enlarge the image. The blackened and blistered skin had disfigured the features of the face, but there was no doubt that this was Bubba. The ritual had taken place in the backyard of his house. On a piece of wood nailed to the post about one quarter of the way up above the head of the figure, the initials INRI are visible.
A rush of fever bathed Rose in sweat. Sleepy Joe was alive. Not only was he alive, now he was very well informed about who was trying to kill him. Just thinking about the magnitude of the disaster that he himself had unleashed, Rose sank inside his own body. His eyes clouded over, the blood dropped from his brain, and his whole body weakened. I’m going to die, he thought, and that feeling flooded him with lethargy, a momentary sense of relief. But he did not die; he remained suspended and conscious in that intolerable moment. The extreme suffering of the dying man became an alarm that Rose felt would burst his ears. Rose sensed Bubba burning like mustard gas on every one of his nerve endings. The guilt overpowered him. Any logical thought escaped him, knowing he was responsible for the horror that occurred, and the horror to come. Blinded by stupidity, naive as a child, he had been waving a red cloth at the beast, gibing it, and now the beast responded. Rose covered his face with his hands not to see: he needed to save himself from his own anguish. But the martyrdom of Bubba had made its way inside and now took the form of others—those in line waiting their turn. That girl Violeta would be next. And María Paz. And Rose himself, although this last possibility did not bother him.
It’s the others. The girls. Because of Rose, they had been exposed, and now he needed to make a superhuman effort to think, to think well and thoroughly, and then act, trying to prevent the chain of atrocities he had set off. But how, when he couldn’t even regain control of himself? He couldn’t even get up from that chair. He could not even digest and expel that calcified being inside him that radiated with an unbearable intensity, forcing Rose to cross the limits of his own endurance. The sacrificial victim was raw, in the flesh, poisonous and contagious. And it wasn’t the wretched Bubba incarnated inside him. Now it was Cleve, crowned with thorns, stuck to the inner membrane of Rose’s eyelids, preventing him from opening them. A fog blanketed his thoughts before they could rise.
“I have to think,” he said aloud, and the phrase reached him from afar, as if an echo. “I have to think,” he said again, but he was sure he was falling asleep.
He wasn’t quite sure how he managed, but he was at the door of his chalet, holding the key in his hand. He was about to go on, but didn’t have the strength. The dogs soon sensed his presence and started going crazy, scraping the door. They wanted to go for a walk, but Rose didn’t dare. He had to warn María Paz, but wasn’t sure how. It’s my fault, he thought. That’s all he could think about, the fault he bore. What happened had happened because of him. Not just that, also what would happen. He had to prevent it, go back to Vermont right now to protect the girl. But before this, he had to face María Paz, show her the picture of the man burned, confess everything; she needed to know. But how could Rose confess something as unmentionable as his plot to murder Sleepy Joe behind her back? And to cap it off, relate to her how the murderer failed? He would have to admit his mistakes in pursuing the plot, his systematic deception, his selfish machinations, his grand stupidity, his poor old fool’s ignorance, his despicable uselessness, his pulp fiction avenger charade woefully mocked.
Sleepy Joe did not know the whereabouts of María Paz; as ardently as he searched for her to kill her, it would be a while before he found her, if he found her at all. But Violeta was a fish in a barrel within easy reach of his claws. They should be leaving for Vermont at that very moment, but Rose’s legs were leaden, his will deadened, his soul entombed. The dogs were going to destroy the door with their clawing, and Rose pushed it ajar. They stampeded out and jumped up to greet him. Then they stopped, all three at the same time, dazzled by the sheer whiteness that had blanketed the countryside. Then, slowly, they moved away, each on his own, sniffing and peeing here and there. Rose closed the door without going inside. He leaned against the wall, took in the divergent lines of the paw prints left behind in the snow as the dogs moved away from each other, then crossed.
“Sometimes you do things,” Rose tells me. “When you’re at a loss, you do funny things. I remember overhearing María Paz inside the chalet finishing in the shower. Then I heard her moving around on the creaky wooden floor. I should have gone in and faced her. And yet I walked away. I took refuge in the laundry room, practically hid between machines. I sat on the floor next to a running dryer. I still remember feeling the heat and vibration against my forearm. I thought of nothing, or only of Effexor pills. I had stopped taking them a long time ago, but at that moment I would have taken two, three, the whole bottle.”
Rose managed to emerge out of his well of anguish and return to the chalet, but there was no one there. The dog-care service left a note informing him that it had the dogs, and María Paz had left wi
th all her ski gear. Already on the slopes? It couldn’t be; they weren’t even open yet. He went searching in the dining room and found her there, but she was having breakfast with some friends she had made, and Rose did not dare interrupt. As much of a hurry as there was, it wasn’t smart to make a fuss. Stay under the radar, and keep the police at bay. Rose decided to wait for María Paz to come out of the dining room. He would take her by the arm, and tell her what had happened, or maybe not everything, not now. Only the essentials: he would inform her that something very serious had happened and explain the details later. For the moment, they had to fly out of there. They had ten minutes to gather all their things, pay the hotel bill, and hit the road.
At the far end of the dining room, María Paz laughed with her new friends, ignorant of everything. Rose observed how she drank her orange juice, smeared butter on her bread, and brought the fork to her mouth. Suddenly she stood and walked toward the buffet. This is it, Rose thought, and prepared to move, but her friends followed her and were with her at once. María Paz served herself a bowl of granola and milk and returned to the table. This is taking way too long, thought Rose. Jesus Christ, the horrors that could unfold while this woman finished a bowl of granola. He could make better use of this time, he decided, and went looking for the concierge to ask about his dogs.
“Not to worry, sir, they’ll have them back by noon,” he was told. “Today they were taken mushing.”
“Taken what?”
“Mushing, sir.”
“Mushing?”
“It’s a sled sport, sir.”
“They make my dogs pull sleds.”
“No sir, how you can say such a thing? They go running alongside.”
While Rose was trying to find out where his dogs were, María Paz finished breakfast and left the dining room with her new friends, catching the shuttle that took them to the slopes. Rose got there just as it left and chased it in vain: the minibus moving up the road and out of sight.
Rose returned to the chalet. He was not concerned at all about his unshaven face, his putrid breath, or the fact that his pajamas were poking out from under his clothes. He just needed to switch his shoes for boots, get his wallet, car keys, identification documents, and fill their bags with their things. He bolted to the reception desk. He wanted to check out, he begged a methodical receptionist. An urgent matter had come up and it was imperative that he settled his account, he told her. “Please, miss, if you can hurry, this is urgent.” Because he didn’t cancel in advance, she charged an extra day. He paid without protest and returned the keys. He loaded the Toyota with the suitcases, stacking them in whichever way, and was about to take off when he remembered Ming’s gun. He had hidden it in the chalet, on top of one of the rafters in the ceiling. He went back to the reception desk, asked for the key, waited an eternity for it, got the gun, and then headed for the slopes lost in thought. He would pick up María Paz, do a drive-by to get the dogs, then retrace the marathon journey that got them here, but in reverse. The only difference would be that before they had the luxury of devoting five days to the trip, and now the days were numbered minutes.
Rose hurried to Los Amigos Bar and got a table on the deck. From there, he had an ample view of the slopes, and he would be able to locate María Paz. But the minutes passed and she was nowhere to be seen. The one who appeared was the waiter, brandishing a menu.
“Nothing, thank you,” Rose said, trying to dismiss him.
“Sorry, sir, if you don’t order something, you can’t sit at these tables.”
“Then a coffee.” The waiter was standing in front of him, blocking his view.
“Would you like something to eat with that?”
“Anything.”
“The chorizo quesadilla like before?”
“Fine.”
“With red sauce?”
“Perfect.”
The ribbon of skiers glided down the mountain rhythmically, weightless and silent, a gentle, lunar undulation. Then they sat in the chairlift, went up in the air, and came back down, because it was not a linear ribbon but a Mobius strip, and they all advanced within it in an eternal procession. All but María Paz, who at some point had exited the circuit and did not appear. Soon it was ten thirty.
“I was dehydrated with anguish,” Rose tells me. “I felt I was losing weight every minute. I rejected any plan to contact the authorities or to go out and search for her with dogs, and paramedics on snowmobiles, because I didn’t want to draw any attention to her. So far, we had slipped by completely clean, no evidence or even suspicion that we were being trailed, and it was essential that it remain that way. On the other hand, every hour that I let pass could be fatal.”
Rose decided to figure out how long it took to go up in the chairlift and ski back down. He zeroed in on one specific lady, clearly a beginner, wearing a particularly bright orange suit. He would time her and use her to set parameters. The woman in orange passed by him, turned at the end of the slope, took the chairlift, disappeared at the top, and in exactly twelve minutes came into Rose’s view again. She went back up, this time reappearing in less time than before. Rose averaged the times and estimated that in the time he had been waiting, María Paz should have passed by him five or six times. Yet nothing. There must have been an explanation, and Rose could only imagine the worst. What if she had broken a leg and been taken to the hospital? What if she had smashed against a tree and cracked her skull? Or if the police had found her and stopped her! Take it easy, Rose told himself, or at least breathe, and try to keep a smidgen of calm. First of all, he couldn’t despair, even if the situation was pretty desperate.
To quiet the machine inside his head that predicted disasters, he spread open a napkin, took out a pen, and sketched a makeshift map as he tried to concentrate on planning a whirlwind trip to reach Violeta. They were about two thousand miles from Montpelier, Vermont: thirty-six hours behind the wheel. María Paz was a horrible driver, as Rose had already seen, and if the highway patrol stopped them and asked for a driver’s license, they were fucked. But they would have to take turns. Eight hours each, while the other rested and slept. He had to schedule in stops for going to the bathroom, refueling, grabbing a few strong shots of espresso, and letting the dogs stretch out a bit. Rose plotted pit stops of one or two hours, in such places as Winona, Kansas; Topeka, Kansas; Caseyville, Illinois; Dayton, Ohio; Harborcreek, Pennsylvania. And one last one in Wells, New York. And yet, pushing it to the limits, assuming no problems arose, it would take them two days and nights. Or three, if at any time they were overcome with exhaustion. He didn’t even want to think of all that could happen to Violeta in two or three days and long nights. They couldn’t take such a risk. What if María Paz took a plane? She would have to present documents to fly. What if Rose just went ahead? No good either, he couldn’t abandon María Paz and his dogs like that.
Because María Paz was still nowhere to be seen, Rose made a decision. It was reckless, but at least it was a decision: he would call the police, notify them of the danger, and say that a serial killer was headed for Montpelier. He would ask them to put the school under surveillance around the clock and tell them about Violeta, a sick and very vulnerable girl who was in mortal danger. Violeta who? That’s the first thing they would want to know. And Rose didn’t even know her last name, not to mention everything he would have to remain quiet about, or justify, if they were to interrogate him. But above all, who was going to listen? Why would they believe him? And if they did believe him, it would be even worse, the area swarming with police, so María Paz could not even get close to her sister.
Have you not learned your lesson, you fuck? Rose chided himself. Under no circumstance should he continue to make decisions on his own, at his own discretion, veering this way and that without consulting her. That’s just how he had been doing it, and the result had been disastrous, criminal, unforgivable. No, he decided he could not make such a move behind María P
az’s back, particularly one on this scale, which could save them, but could also just as likely doom them. At that moment, the waiter approached the table again. He butted into the scene so often, Rose thought, that by this point he had earned a supporting actor role. This time, he brought Rose a copy of the New York Times, which he knew Rose liked to read, although in that area of Colorado, the editions were always a day behind. Rose, who was certainly in no mood to read anything, pretended to peruse the outdated paper, more than anything as a gesture of good will to the good man who was insistent on offering top-notch service, and who now asked if Rose would like some more coffee.
“No,” Rose said. “I’m good, nothing else.”
And that’s when he saw one of the headlines. “Prominent Lawyer Brutally Slain in Brooklyn.” From a picture spread across two columns, Pro Bono looked him straight in the eyes, still very much alive and with a dandyish air. It was not a crime-scene picture, but a studio shot, taken years before, cropped so he appeared only from the neck up. Nobody would guess that he was a hunchback, Rose thought as he gazed at a white, empty point in the distance and the woman in orange passed by once, then a second time, and a third, and perhaps a fourth time before Rose emerged from the depth, breaking the ice that sealed him in his reverie, and dried his tears with the napkin on which he had drawn the map. Good-bye, my elegant friend.
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