SAM HAWKEN is a writer of contemporary crime novels and other fiction, who makes his home near Washington, DC with his wife and son. Current events in Mexico are his preoccupation, and Tequila Sunset is his second novel set in the Ciudad Juárez/ El Paso area.
Praise for The Dead Women of Juárez
“Tense and gripping” Sunday Times
“Unusual and convincing” The Times
“Evokes the dust, decay and death” Metro
“Heartfelt” Guardian
“Haunting” Irish Times
“Powerful and shocking” Dreda Say Mitchell
A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request
The right of Sam Hawken to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright © 2012 Sam Hawken
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2012 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
www.serpentstail.com
ISBN 978 1 84668 853 9
eISBN 978 1 84765 826 5
Designed and typeset by sue@lambledesign.demon.co.uk
Printed by Clays, Bungay, Suffolk
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For those who fight the good fight
The city of El Paso, Texas is the safest city in the United States.
Across the border, in Mexico, Ciudad Juárez is one of the most
violent cities in the world, with over 7,500 killed since 2006.
IN THE SUMMER IT WAS HOT, IN THE WINTER it was cold and all year round the halls and cells of Coffield Unit were busy with the business of incarceration. This day it was not so bad, teetering between two extremes. The ceiling-mounted fans did not turn and the big heating units that blew and blew, but did little to chase away the chill, were silent.
Flip lined up with the convicts, dressed in their white cotton uniforms, waiting for the COs to open the door and let them out onto the yard. Barred windows let in sunshine to compete with sallow fluorescents. It would be good to be outside.
When the door opened the COs counted them off. Already they had been counted before getting into line and they would be counted again when it was time to go back inside. Counting was a constant and if ever the numbers didn’t jibe everything stopped.
They went out mixed, but as the cons distributed into the yard they broke into their component parts. White boys congregated by the weight pile, blacks by the half-court basketball blacktop and the Latinos by the handball court. Within each division were individual cliques, but the most important grouping was by race. The colors approached one another’s domains only when certain dictates had been observed. In this way the facilities could be shared without it coming to blows.
Flip was not the youngest Latino on the yard. That honor went to Rafael Perez, eighteen years old, doing four for sexual assault on a child. He was shunned, and when anyone took notice of him it was bad news. The other Latinos didn’t even let him find a corner to hide in; he was forced to stand away from the walls in the no man’s land between handball and basketball courts, exposed to everyone. He seemed smaller now than when he came.
Today Flip stood with Javier who was doing thirty-five and Omar who wasn’t ever getting out. Both men were old enough to be his father. They kept close and they let no one touch him, not on the yard or on the inside, because he was one of them. Flip was an Azteca. They called each other Indians.
Javier was tattooed from his navel to his collarbone and on his arms, too. The marks showed on his wrists where his cuffs pulled back. He had his initials over his left eyebrow. Many of his pieces he had done on himself. He did good work. Flip hadn’t ever gotten anything from Javier, though Javier offered more than once. None of Javier’s marks were a gang patch and he didn’t do gang patches. They were Aztecas, but no one could prove it. That’s how they all stayed out of Administrative Segregation, where gang members went and never surfaced again.
If anyone asked, they were all just good friends. Old-timers watched out for new fish and new fish did favors for the old-timers. There was nothing the COs could say about that. No Indian would give up another Indian. From time to time one of them would be picked off, sent to Ad Seg, but that was just bad luck.
In all there were two hundred and fifty men out of four thousand in Coffield on the yard. They were watched on the ground and from the towers. Double rows of thirty-foot cyclone fencing and yards and yards of densely coiled razor wire stood between them and a tall concrete wall. There were flatlands beyond. It was two hundred yards from the wall to the first tree and the COs in the tower were excellent shots.
Enrique Garcia was one of the last out. He’d been in the hole for sixty days and now he was free of the belly chain and ankle cuffs. His size was intimidating though his waist was thick. The COs were careful watching him when he came on the yard because there was trouble before and there could be trouble again. In the time Flip had known him, Enrique spent more days in the hole than out.
The sun reflected off his bald head. When he came close to the others he smiled from under a mustache that made him look like a bandito. He rapped knuckles with Javier and Omar and Rafael and César and all the other Aztecas. And Flip, too. His fingers were tattooed. Under his shirt he had ink of an Aztec warrior in full headdress and a bare-breasted maiden beside him. Flip had seen it once. A scorpion crawled up his neck. That one didn’t stand for anything.
“What’s the word?” Enrique asked.
“Nada, jefe,” Omar said. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be seen. Flip, ¿cómo estás?”
“I’m doing my time,” Flip said.
“Not much longer, right?”
“Another week.”
“A week? So soon.” Enrique looked up at the sky and let the rays of the sun fall on his face. He breathed in the cool air like he was thirsty for it. Flip had never been in the hole, but he could understand.
A group of convicts took over the handball court and broke out in pairs. They did not mix with the Aztecas because they were La Eme. There was longtime peace between their cliques because Enrique had brokered it. Flip stepped off the corner of the court to give them all the space they needed. Before long they were playing, the echoes of the ball bouncing around their corner of the yard.
“How’s that motherfucker Danbury?” Enrique asked.
“He got out of the infirmary, took protective custody,” Javier said. “Ain’t nobody seen him since.”
Enrique showed his teeth. “Teach those negros to talk shit. He shows his face again, it’ll be his ass. ¿Sabes lo que quiero decir?”
Flip looked across the open ground to the basketball court where the blacks held together. They were watching Enrique and talking among themselves. There was no peace between the Aztecas and them. There could be no peace. They had Danbury to answer for and Danbury to avenge and there was no easy way to work that through. Flip was glad he would be out of it soon.
“Flip,” Enrique said and his put his hand on Flip’s shoulder. “The first thing I did when I got out, I made some calls for you. When you get home, you’re gonna be looked after. Everybody will know your name.”
“Gracias, jefe,” Flip said.
“It’s nothing. Blood don’t stop at the gates. José, he’s my boy, he’ll watch over you like I would. You got no worries.”
The blacks weren’t looking their way anymore. Some of them shot hoops.
“No worries,” Flip said.
Enrique squeezed Flip’s shoulder, shook him gently. “No worries.”
“NUMBER TEN!” THE CO CALLED. FLIP GOT out of his bunk. He had the top, Daniel the bottom. When Flip was gone, arrangements would change. Flip’s things were in a white cloth bag with a string tie.
“Time’s up,” Daniel said.
“Adiós,” Flip said. “See you on the outside.”
“Not if I see you first.”
They laughed.
The CO stopped at the cell door. He was one of the new ones and Flip didn’t know his name. “Number ten, open up!” he yelled down the line and somewhere a buzzer went off. The CO put his key in the lock, turned and pulled. “Step out.”
Outside the row of cells there was a yellow line painted on the concrete. Flip grabbed his bag and walked over the line, stood facing the wall while the cell was locked up again. When he felt the CO’s touch on his elbow, he turned and marched, the CO at his back.
The convicts in their cells called out to him. See you, man. Hasta la vista. Good luck, hermano. Flip raised his hand to them until they came to the end of the line.
“One prisoner coming out,” the CO said.
Danny Mascorro worked the gate. He buzzed the lock and the CO used his key to get them through. Now they were in a dead zone between gates, Mascorro behind reinforced glass. They were under the eye of closed-circuit cameras. Flip nodded to Mascorro and Mascorro nodded back.
After the second gate they proceeded down a long hall with no windows. At the end was a steel door. A CO peered through a slot at them and there were more buzzers and more locks.
They left Flip in a big cell with benches along three walls. He was in there for a long time, until finally another CO he didn’t recognize came to get him. The CO took him down a passageway to another, smaller cell adjoining a large room with desks and computers. Women in TDCJ uniforms were at work there, clicking away on keyboards, and they ignored him. Flip sat down and waited.
There was a window in the room beyond his cell and through that window he could see a tree. He didn’t know if he was looking at something beyond the walls or if there was a garden spot just past the glass. In his imagination it was a yard with concrete benches and flower beds and a flagpole flying the American and Texas banners. Maybe there was a little plaque dedicating the space to somebody or the other. Quiet and peaceful.
He was daydreaming when one of the women called his name. “Huh?” he said.
“Felipe Morales?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s get you out of there.”
Flip waited until a CO could come and unlock the cell, and then the woman had him sit in a plastic chair by her desk. She was black and had extra long nails. Her hair was straightened and braided.
“I’m going to do your release processing,” the woman said. “There are a lot of questions, but we’ll do them just as quick as we can so you can be on your way.”
“Okay.”
“All right, let’s get started…”
The whole interview took an hour and a half. The woman gave him an envelope with bus fare and a few extra dollars besides. He had to sign his parole certificates. After that Flip had to go back into the cell again for another hour. He could see a clock from where he sat. It made time go more slowly, the sweep hand going round and round, and the minute hand edging forward. His palms itched and he wanted to be out of there, but everything in prison took time, even getting out.
A CO brought him a bag and pushed it through the bars. When Flip opened it up, he saw the clothes he wore on the day he went inside. He hardly recognized them. No one looked as he changed out of his uniform. The clothes fit loosely on him because he was leaner now. He folded up the uniform and set it on the bench beside him. The CO did not come back to collect it.
“Felipe? It’s time,” the woman said at last. “Kurt, could you take him? The van’s out there.”
The CO, Kurt, let Flip out of the cell and walked him out of the room. They passed through two short hallways and into a broad area with rows and rows of plastic chairs locked together, lots of fake wood paneling and a big counter. On one side there was a security station set up with a metal detector and a table for searching bags. Two women were going through the process right then. In the plastic chairs there were more women and a few men and a bunch of kids, from babies on up.
On Flip’s side there was just a velour rope like the kind that closed off the line at a movie theater. Kurt unhooked it from the stanchion and let Flip through.
They moved past the rows of plastic chairs into a relatively narrow foyer. When Kurt opened the door for Flip a blinding crash of sunlight rolled over him and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The sky was cloudless and pale blue and the sun was like an unblinking eye.
On the yard there was some grass, but it was patchy and mostly trod away to dirt. Out here there were two squares of neat green bracketing a concrete walk. Here was the flagpole with the banners waving and here was a wrought iron fence that could keep in no one and an open gate. A tan van with the TDCJ logo stamped on the passenger door waited on the asphalt roundabout.
The driver was an older man. He came around and hauled open the van’s cargo door. The windows had metal mesh on the inside. “Hop on in,” the driver said.
“Good luck,” Kurt said and he offered Flip his hand. They shook.
Flip climbed in the back of the van. There was more metal mesh between the seats and the front of the cabin. The cargo door locked from the outside.
“Next stop, Palestine,” the driver said.
“Where’s that?” Flip asked.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t be seeing much of it.”
The van carried Flip fifteen minutes through greened country until they reached a scattering of houses along the little highway. They passed a sign that said TENNESSEE COLONY, POP. 300. They passed a simple white church with a mobile home next to it. The letter board out front read: PASTOR ON VACATION. GOD ON DUTY!
They found a bigger road and even some traffic. Flip just watched the miles slip by. Palestine seemed to grow up right out of the countryside, a busy small town with broad streets and clean buildings. The driver navigated without pause. He had done this a thousand times before.
“Bus station,” the driver said and they slowed to the curb. The building was compact and had a Greyhound-logo sign on the front, benches for people to wait out of the sun and a snack machine.
The cargo door was pulled aside and Flip stepped out onto the sidewalk. The driver shut the van up behind him. “And that’s it. Get your ticket inside. You’re headed to El Paso?”
“That’s right.”
“Long haul.”
“I’ll be all right.”
The driver produced a little clipboard the size of an open hand. “Just sign off. Here’s a pen.”
Flip put his signature to a green form and got a yellow receipt back. He crumpled it up and put it in his pocket.
“Stay out of trouble.”
“No problem.”
The driver got into the van and pulled away. Flip stood on the curb with his bag and watched him go. When the van was out of sight, he went into the ticket office. No one looked at him strangely at all.
THE SUN WAS DOWN AND THE STREETLIGHTS were on. El Paso after dark. Cristina Salas sat behind the wheel with Robinson in the passenger seat. Sodium light splashed across the windshield and reflected off the dash, making half-strength images in the glass. If anyone looked their way, the glare would make them invisible.
They looked along a row of detached houses with little fences and enclosed yards. Beside the car, a broad wall was painted with a mural depicting a group of children playing ball in a sunny green field. There was a dog, too.
A scattering of trucks and cars were parked along the curbs on both sides all the way down the street. People were coming home from work, gathering around tables, watching television. The border was just a few miles south.
Cristina’s eye was on one house in particular, painted sky blue and fronted with hip-high hurricane fencing. There were two steps up from the street and a gate to the high yard. Five figures, Latino boys, clustered around the steps, one with a basketball that from time to time he bounced off the sidewalk and the side of a parked car. Thirty yards away, Cristina and Robinson let the clock tick.
“You want my permission to do something?” Robinson asked.
“Give it a minute.”
Of the two of them, Robinson was the older by twenty years, his dark hair gone gray and his mustache, too. Cristina knew that sitting for a long time made his back sore and they’d been here half an hour. Two empty Big Gulps stood between them in the cup holders and Cristina wondered if maybe Robinson had to take a leak. Old guys were like that.
Cristina caught sight of herself in the rear view mirror and plucked at her hair.
“Jesus Christ,” Robinson said.
“All right, if you want to go, let’s go.”
“I’m just saying they’re not moving on, so if you want to bust ’em then let’s bust ’em. If not, just call patrol and let them do it.”
“Cokley will wonder what we were doing all this time,” Cristina said.
Robinson frowned. “We were fooling around.”
“Okay, come on.”
Cristina got out of the car. Down the street, the boys were in their own world. She was too far away to hear them talking. Robinson clambered out of his seat and torqued his back. The night was cooling down fast from the seventies at the height of the day. Cristina thought of putting on her jacket.
Walking abreast Cristina only came up to Robinson’s shoulder. They crossed the street and came up the sidewalk on the boys’ side. Cristina had her badge on a chain around her neck. She pulled it out of her shirt, let it dangle onto her chest.
They were inside ten yards when the first boy noticed them. He didn’t have to look a second time; he pushed the kid with the basketball hard on the shoulder and then ran. The basketball fell out into the street.
Cristina and Robinson rushed forward. They yelled “Police!” at the same time. Three of the boys put their hands up without taking a step.
Basketball made a move between cars to get his ball back. Robinson snared him by the back of his jersey and brought him around so hard the boy fell to the sidewalk. Cristina sprinted past the others, picking up speed after the runaway.
The boy made it to the corner and nearly tripped off the curb. Cristina closed the distance between them, spun hard on the balls of her feet at the end of the sidewalk and came up from behind.
He broke for the far side of the street but Cristina stepped on his heel. The runner’s shoe went flying and he fell over, skinned his palms on the asphalt, lost his cap. Cristina caught him by the wrist and the elbow and levered him onto his feet. “What are you, an idiot?” Cristina asked. “You don’t run from the cops.”
“Damn, man, what did I do?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute.”
“Can I get my shoe?”
She marched him back to the others. Robinson had them sitting on the sidewalk with their hands on the backs of their heads and their legs crossed in front of them. He held the basketball. Cristina sat the runner down.
“How old are you?” she asked the first kid in line.
“Eighteen?”
“How about you?” she asked the next.
“Seventeen.”
Cristina went down the line. One was underage and two were nineteen. She saw the basketball player’s jersey had a 21 on it.
Cristina had a Mini Maglite in her back pocket. She twisted it on and played the beam over the boys on the ground. Robinson stepped up. “Let me see your arms. Front and back,” he said.
“You,” Cristina said to Basketball. “Let’s see your arms. Lift up your shirts. What kind of ink do you have?”
“Cris, take a look at this,” Robinson said. He had a nineteen-year-old by the wrist and shone his own light on the kid’s hand.
Cristina looked. Inked between thumb and forefinger were the letters BA. “You’re going to jail,” she told the kid.
“For what?”
“For being obvious. You, too, 21,” she said to the basketball player.
“What about us?” said one of the underagers.
“Go home.”
Robinson stood over his kid and Cristina kept a hand on hers. They called for patrol to come pick up.
“I still don’t understand what’s going on,” the basketball player said.
“You’re gathering in a public place and displaying gang markers, stupid,” Cristina said. “That’s jail time and a fine. Didn’t you hear? Segundo Barrio doesn’t like your kind around anymore.”
“Lady, I’m not in no gang.”
“Your shirt tells me different. Now shut up.”
In ten minutes there was a car on the scene and the kids were cuffed and stuffed into the back seat. Cristina saw them talk to each other for the first time, getting stories straight. By the time they were back at the house, they would be well-rehearsed.
The patrolman was named Alvarez. He took notes, got names. “You let the other ones walk?” he said.
“Didn’t seem to be much point in keeping them,” Robinson said.
“Your call.”
They finished with Alvarez and waited until he drove off with their boys before heading back to their car. Cristina punched Robinson in the arm. “Two down,” she said.
“It’s getting harder to find them. Pretty soon they’re not going to need us anymore.”
“They’re still plenty around. You just have to listen to your partner when she says she sees something she doesn’t like.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What’s the problem now?”
“I need to find a bathroom.”
“Old man.”
BACK AT THE HOUSE THEY WROTE UP THE arrest sheets. They had Alvarez’s booking forms in front of them, with pictures of the two kids staring into the camera. “Get this,” Cristina said, “our 21 has priors for assault and misdemeanor possession. And then he goes around parading his number where he knows we’re looking.”
“Nobody said Aztecas were smart,” Robinson said.
“Got that right.”
Cristina saw Cokley first, emerging from his office at the far end of the room, cruising past empty desks to land right on the spot. He looked over Robinson’s shoulder, then Cristina’s. His face was sour. “I got two members of the gang unit sitting on a bunch of kids any patrol car could have rousted?” he asked. “Is that it?”
“It’s my fault,” Cristina said. “I spotted them, I thought we should bust them.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was Bob because he knows better.”
“Thanks, boss,” Robinson said.
“Not so fast. You’re supposed to keep each other from fucking up.”
“It’s not so bad. We got two.”
“Two. And you have how many cases pending?”
Cristina had nothing to say to that and Robinson was quiet. She turned back to the arrest sheet, tapped out the last two fields and clicked SUBMIT. The printout of Alvarez’s booking form went into her out box. Cokley was still looking at her, but she didn’t glance up.
Cokley sighed. “Next time just call a car and let them handle it,” he said. “Okay?”
“Okay, boss,” Robinson said.
“Now go home.”
The captain went. Robinson and Cristina looked at each other from across their desks. “I’m sorry,” Cristina said.
“Forget about it. It’s done.”
Cristina put on her jacket and gathered up her things. “I’m running late. My sitter’s going to want to know what’s up.”
“I’m looking at cold dinner,” Robinson said.
They rapped knuckles before they headed for the door. “Tomorrow,” Cristina said.
“Tomorrow is another day.”
In the parking lot they went separate ways. The temperature was down in the low fifties now. Cristina was glad when her car’s heater warmed up and took the chill off. Winter was struggling with spring and they were still in a desert.
Robinson drove north, away from the border, to get home. Cristina turned south, back into Segundo Barrio. At this hour she was twenty minutes away in a little place on South Campbell Street across from a vacant lot. She found a place along the curb and walked a hundred yards to the house. The porch light was on and there was a yellow glow through drawn blinds in the front window.
Ashlee unlocked the door before Cristina could turn her key. The girl was twenty-one and she’d been waiting in the living room. Lamplight picked up strands of blonde hair and gave her a halo. “Hi, Ms. Salas,” she said.
“Hi, Ashlee, sorry I’m late.”
“It’s okay. Freddie’s doing his thing.”
The house was small and the living room was small, but there was room enough for a couch, a TV and a compact desk. Freddie sat with his back to the door staring into a computer screen. The television was on and low. Freddie’s computer game made little noise.
“Let me get my checkbook,” Cristina said.
“You don’t need to pay me tonight. Just wait until Friday.”
“Oh? Okay. If that’s all right.”
“Sure.”
Ashlee collected her things while Cristina waited. They said their good-byes at the door. Cristina closed and locked it behind the girl. She took off her jacket and hung it on a rack. “Hey, Freddie,” she called.
Freddie didn’t move. He was little for ten years old and the swivel chair he sat in was too big for him. Cristina came closer so she could see what he saw: little colored men made of virtual plastic bricks in a world made of more bricks. He was building something – a car, maybe – and the only sound he made was the click of the mouse.
Cristina kissed Freddie on the top of his head. “Hey, peanut. Mom’s home.”
“Hi, Mom,” Freddie said without looking away from the screen.
“Did you eat your dinner?”
Nothing. Just clicking.
“Freddie,” Cristina said more firmly, “did you eat your dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You’ve got twenty more minutes and then it’s time for bed. Hear me? Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes.”
She went to the back bedroom where she slept. The bed was unmade and there were dirty clothes on the floor. She kicked those aside and sat down. On the second shelf of the nightstand was a metal box. Cristina wore the key on a cord around her neck.
The key went to the lock box and her pistol went inside. When she had the weapon secured, she went to the kitchen. Ashlee had set aside a plate of macaroni and cheese, corn and chicken tenders. A minute in the microwave and it was fit to eat. Cristina ate at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, until twenty minutes were up.
The dish went in the sink to be rinsed later. In the living room, Freddie was still playing his game. If she left him alone he would play it for hours, nonstop, with barely a break to visit the bathroom, until he could not keep his eyes open any longer. Interrupting him took work because the first try never took.
“Time for bed. Save your game.”
“I’m doing something.”
“It’s bedtime. Save it and come on.”
Freddie turned from the game reluctantly and left the desk. He allowed Cristina to escort him to his bedroom and help him get his clothes off. His pajamas he could put on without assistance.
“We need to brush your teeth,” Cristina said.
“No toothpaste.”
“Yes, toothpaste. I won’t use very much.”
She brought the Winnie the Pooh electric toothbrush into his room and brushed his teeth for him while he was in bed, taking special care to get the ones in the back. He had decay there before that took a hospital visit and dentistry under anesthetic to address. Cristina did not want to go through that again.
“Okay,” she said when she came back. “Time for the lights to go out.”
“Will you stay with me until I sleep?”
“Sure.”
Cristina turned off the bedside lamp and the room went dark. She sat on the edge of his bed with her hand resting on top of the covers, feeling his little hip through the material, as he turned on his side to sleep. She did not have to wait long before she heard his breathing turn deep and regular and then she rose as carefully as she could. When she closed his door, she left it part of the way open so she could hear him in the night.
The dish was still waiting in the kitchen and she washed it off before putting it in the dishwasher. There was beer in the refrigerator. She took one to the television with her, switched the channel to something mindless and put her feet up.
She was more tired than she realized and the beer let her relax into it. The show changed to something else and she barely noticed, just letting the pictures and the sound wash over her in a continuous wave of babble. If she thought of anything, she thought of the two junior gang-bangers they had busted. That street was only four blocks away.
Cristina did not live in the Second Ward, El Segundo Barrio, just because she worked there. This house had been her parents’ and when they moved to San Antonio it had become hers. Freddie’s room was once her room, with the same bed and the same furniture. She changed the mattress, but she slept where her parents had slept.
There were newer, nicer places to live even in Segundo Barrio. The developers moved in five years before and put up condos, but most of the place remained the same. Moving didn’t occur to her, and because she saw the changes on the street, she felt safer here than before. Today was an aberration; now the gangs were underground.
She let the clock mark the time until it was almost midnight and then she turned off the television and put the beer bottle in a recycling bin in the kitchen. She turned off all the lights, went to her bedroom in the dark to undress. Freddie had not stirred.
The alarm was set for six in the morning. Cristina crawled under the sheets and fell asleep before she realized it was happening.
HIS PHONE WAS RINGING AND MATÍAS SEGURA struggled up from sleep. He saw from the bedside clock it was three in the morning. He had been asleep five hours.
“¿Bueno?” he answered.
“Matías? It’s Felix.”
“Felix, it’s the middle of the night.”
“I’m sorry, but we need you right now.”
Matías sat up in the bed. Elvira was still asleep by some chance, but she stirred when he moved. He spoke on the phone in whispers. “What’s the problem?”
“Shooting. Six bodies.”
“Is there no one else?”
“You know better than to ask that.”
He left the bed and went to the bathroom. After he closed the door he turned on the light. It was blinding. “Where?” Felix told him. “Give me thirty minutes. No, forty-five.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
Matías washed his face and felt the bristles on his cheeks. In the mirror the skin under his eyes were heavy from lack of sleep. He brushed his hair to bring it under control and scrubbed his teeth. Then he shut off the light and crept back into the bedroom.
Elvira still did not wake as Matías put on his clothes. His gun was on the bed-stand. Again careful not to make a sound, he crept from the room and shut the door behind him.
He made a cup of coffee in a travel mug and took it with him out of the apartment. Down on the street it was deserted. When he got on the road he was only one of a few cars. Mostly there were trucks at this hour, trundling through the abandoned streets of Ciudad Juárez on their way north to the border.
The drive was not long and he got there ahead of his forty-five minute deadline. First he saw the blue and red lights flashing, then the spectacular white of portable floodlights, as if a star were giving birth. There were municipal and federal police vehicles present. An officer armed with an M4 carbine stopped him fifty meters away. Matías showed him his identification and drove on.
Matías looked around the neighborhood. There were no streetlights and it was inky black beyond the crime scene. He saw an auto shop across the street from a gaily painted brick building depicting a rising sun. There was a scrap yard a few meters beyond that and not a structure above a single story.
Felix Rivera met him at the perimeter. The man also looked tired, hunched down in his black jacket marked POLICÍA FEDERAL. He wore a .45 openly on his hip while other cops around him carried automatic weapons. Matías was even more underdressed, without body armor and his gun tucked away underneath his arm. “Welcome,” Felix said.
The bodies were scattered in front of the sun-painted building as if tossed by a powerful storm. Blood streaked and pooled on the dirty asphalt and two of the corpses were soaked in it. There were weapons, too. A pair of dead men still had a hold on their pistols.
A shower of spent shell casings spread out across the street, but were thickest close to Matías’ feet. Looking more closely at the building, he could see the façade was pockmarked in a dozen or more places. The steel door to the building was perforated.
“It’s an after-hours club,” Felix explained. “Salvadorans come here. There’s drink, drugs, women… everything you need.”
Matías stepped out into the ring of light, careful not to slip on the discarded brass. He approached the closest body, a thickchested man with tattoos up and down both bare arms. A bullet had passed through his forearm. Another three crossed his stomach and chest.
Kneeling close, Matías examined the tattoos. A naked woman. A gun. Another gun. A fan of playing cards. “Any of the bodies have gang ink?”
“Two. There and there.”
“MS?”
“Sí.”
“What about the rest?”
“We’ll have to wait until the coroner examines them.”
“Or maybe they were just unlucky.”
“Maybe.”
“Where is everyone?”
“We’re keeping them inside. Most were already gone by the time the locals made it to the scene. We have a few girls and employees, some drunks too messed up to run.”
Matías stood up. “Did anyone see the shooters?”
“One woman saw them roll up. A pick-up truck with four men in the back. They opened fire.”
“Did they say anything?”
“Not that she told us.”
“I want to talk to the witnesses.”
“Let’s step inside.”
The club was meant to be dark, so it was a revelation with its overhead lights on. What seemed murkily inviting during business hours was stripped to the bare, black walls. All the spots on the pool table where the felt had worn through were exposed. The floor was filthy, as if it had not been swept in a year. On one wall was an undersized bar, chipped and scratched.
They had managed to round up an even dozen and they were corralled at the back of the bar in battered, used-up booths with torn vinyl upholstery. Stained foam stuffing bulged out here and there.
“Which one saw the shooters?” Matías asked.
“That one.”
Matías found a fat woman in tight clothes sitting alone under the guard of two armed policemen. She had fake-blonde hair that would also look better under dark lighting. Her face was not pretty.
He slid into the booth across from her, put his notebook on the table. “My name is Matías Segura,” he told the woman. “What’s your name?”
“Elena,” the woman said. “You are another policeman?”
“I am.”
“I already told that one what I know,” she said and pointed at Felix.
“I’d like you to tell me again.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes when we tell a story more than once, we remember more each time we tell it.”
“I want to go home.”
“I think we would all like that,” Matías said softly. “Now… tell me what you saw.”
CRISTINA WAS UP BEFORE THE SUN AND turned off her alarm before it had a chance to sound. The house was very still. When she moved, she moved lightly.
In the kitchen she got things ready for Freddie’s breakfast. He liked chocolate-chip pancakes made in the microwave and drank chocolate milk. It was all bad for his teeth, but Cristina favored peace over battles in the early morning.
Then she packed his lunch bag. Lots of carbs, like fruit and pretzels and chicken for protein. He was always happy when she gave him Oreos, but she had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, when he ate them he spent the day with a circle of black crumbs around his mouth that he never thought to wipe away.
At the appointed time she went to his room and rapped on the door. “Freddie,” she said softly. “Freddie, it’s time to wake up.”
She put on the bedside lamp and Freddie curled up into a tight ball under the covers. Cristina put her hand on his back and rubbed it. “It’s time to get up now,” she said.
The boy was slow to rouse and when he sat up his hair stuck up crazily on his head. Cristina helped him out of his pajamas and lay his clothes out for him at the foot of the bed, always in the same order: underpants, pants, shirt, socks.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Cristina said. She would wait five and come back to see if he’d managed to dress himself. Sometimes he needed help with this, too.
Today he put on his clothes himself, though he left his pajamas on the floor. Cristina dropped them in the hamper without scolding him and followed him into the kitchen.
“Chocolate-chip pancakes?” he asked because he always asked.
“Of course. Sit down.”
“I want to play Roblox.”
“Food first, then game. And you have to take your capsule.”
The pancakes came out first. Cristina cut them up for Freddie and gave him the plate at the table. She went back to make his milk. Along with the powder, he had a crushed pill mixed in. He drank through a bendy straw.
“Drink all that up.”
She microwaved hot water for tea and toasted an English muffin. From time to time she checked the clock and Freddie’s progress with his breakfast. He was quick this morning.
“Make sure you drink all your chocolate milk,” Cristina reminded him.
When he was finished, Freddie got up from the table. “Can I play Roblox now?”
“Capsule first.”
The capsule was small, yellow and white, and could not be crushed. Freddie did not know how to put a pill on his tongue and wash it down with water so this morning, as on all mornings, he opened his mouth wide and stuck out his tongue. Cristina put the capsule halfway back and then flicked it to the back of his throat. She didn’t understand how he managed to swallow and not gag.
“Now?”
“Now.”
Freddie went to the living room. Cristina steeped a tea bag in a cup and put butter and jelly on her English muffin. There was still plenty of time.
She ate her food and followed Freddie out. He was deeply engrossed in the game, playing with virtual plastic bricks. Lots of other people played at the same time, making buildings and statues and everything else a person could make out of such things, showing off for each other. Freddie informed her that he was making an elevator.
“We have to get ready soon,” Cristina said, though they had another fifteen minutes. “You have five minutes to play. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Cristina gathered his things by the door. Shoes, book bag, lunch bag, jacket. She ran the checklist in her mind. Pills all taken? Yes. Breakfast all done? Yes. Was there anything special Freddie needed for school? She couldn’t think of anything and it was probably too late already as it was.
She let ten minutes pass before she interceded at the computer. “The bus is coming,” she said. “Come and get your jacket on.”
Freddie was prepped to leave when Cristina realized she hadn’t brushed his hair. She rushed to the bathroom for a brush and did her best to bring it under control. They had to hurry out the door and down to the corner, time used up to the last minute.
The bus was late. Freddie fidgeted by the STOP sign. “Is there no school today?” he asked.
“No, there’s school today. The bus is just late.”
“I don’t want to ride the bus.”
“Well, you’re riding it.” A patch of yellow appeared three blocks down and quickly sized up into a small bus. “See? There it is.”
The bus pulled up to the corner and Cristina ushered him aboard. She said good morning to the bus driver and waved to Freddie when the bus pulled away. He did not wave back. He didn’t even notice her.
THE BUS TRIP TOOK SIXTEEN HOURS AND passed through Abilene, Midland and Odessa on the way west. Flip spent most of that time dozing. There was little to see driving through the heart of Texas and the bus did not stop for sights, anyway. He had learned through long practice the art of sleeping when he wasn’t tired, as a weapon against boredom. When Coffield was locked down and there was nothing to do, nothing to read, there was always sleep.
It was ten in the morning when the Greyhound bus reached the El Paso terminal. Flip unloaded with the other passengers and fetched his bag from underneath the belly of the bus. He went inside and bought a candy bar from a snack machine. It was the first thing he’d eaten since leaving Coffield.
He made a call from the pay phones but his mother wasn’t at home. She knew to expect him, but not when, and he regretted not calling ahead once he learned the schedule. There was enough money left in his envelope to get him home, but he imagined himself sitting on the front step waiting. In the end he supposed it didn’t matter; he could not hang out all day at the bus station.
A taxi carried him the rest of the way. Flip didn’t have money enough to tip the driver and he knew the guy was mad, but all he could say was, “I’m sorry,” and he got out of the car.
His mother’s house was on a quiet street with other houses that looked exactly the same. Hers was a coral pink with white bars on all the windows and doors. The driveway was empty, a naked basketball hoop without a net hanging over the car park. Flip looked both ways up and down the street and there was no one around. At least no one would stare.
He put his bag on the front step by the door and circled around to the back yard. His dog, Nacho, was dead now four years but the yard still showed signs of the holes he’d dug. Flip peered through the windows into the house, knowing he wouldn’t see anyone but doing it anyway. He saw empty rooms that looked the same as they had when he left: the same furniture, the same pictures on the walls, the same everything.
Flip returned to the front in time to see his mother’s old Impala turning into the drive. She waved excitedly from behind the wheel and he raised a hand. He wanted to smile, but time inside had quashed that instinct.
“Felipe!” his mother exclaimed as she got out of the car. “Oh, Felipe, have you been here very long?”
“Not long, Mamá.”
Flip’s mother was short and very round and she had to raise her arms above her head to embrace him around the shoulders. She squeezed hard. “I’m so sorry you had to wait. You should have called!”
“I did call.”
“Not the house, my cell phone! I would have hurried at the store! Help me with the bags.”
They unloaded the trunk of the car and Flip’s mother let them in. The house’s smell returned to him immediately: the odor of cooking and scrupulous cleaning. The floors were hardwood and they shone. There was not a bit of dust in Silvia Morales’ home.
Flip put the grocery bags on the kitchen table. At first he thought he should sit down while his mother put away her purchases, but then he felt strangely uncomfortable and chose to stand. If he had been back at Coffield, he would have retreated to his cell when this feeling came over him, or to some isolated table in the day room.
“I have everything you like,” his mother told him. “We’re going to have a big meal and your aunts and uncles are coming. We’ll do it on Saturday. Tonight it’s just you and me. Is that all right, Felipe?”
“It’s fine, Mamá.”
“Where are your things?”
“I left them outside.”
“Bring them in! Your room is ready for you.”
Flip gathered his bag from the front step and brought it to his room. It was the second largest of three bedrooms, the smallest a sewing room for his mother. He was glad to see that she had painted the walls and left them bare. The front rooms were an assault of family pictures and artwork. He was not ready for all of that in his space.
His bed awaited, neatly made with a quilt on top. Sunlight from the side of the house slanted through the window, cut into slices by the burglar bars.
He had a desk that was clear of objects except for a pad and pen. Maybe his mother expected him to write letters to his people back at Coffield, or maybe it was just an innocent thing. His red chest of drawers was the same.
His things were mostly books and he arranged them on top of the chest of drawers. He had notebooks filled with scribbles and thoughts. These he put away in the desk where no one would see. When he was done he sat on the edge of the bed and let the hush sink in. It was never quiet in prison.
“Felipe!” his mother called and broke the silence. “Do you want something to eat now?”
“Okay, Mamá,” Flip yelled back.
“I will make you something. Did you have breakfast?”
“No, Mamá.”
“Then you’ll have breakfast now.”
Before long there was the scent of browning chorizo, distinct even from here. Flip slipped off his shoes and lay down on the bed, watching the ceiling. Despite himself, his stomach rumbled.
He wished he could say that being here did not seem real, but it was real enough. The feel of the mattress underneath his body, the smells, the walls… all of these told him he was here now and not dreaming it. Soon he would sit down to eggs and sausage and a cup of dark coffee. His mother would ask him many questions and he would do his best to answer them without frightening her. Maybe to her the years in Coffield would be like something seen through a haze, but it was fresh in his mind and he did not foresee a time when it would not be.
Flip closed his eyes, listened until he could hear the clink of cooking utensils and his mother muttering to herself as she cooked. He felt the warmth of the sun falling on his leg. As he did on the bus, he zoned into another place, letting time compress and speed past him. It wasn’t until his mother called to him again that he came back to this room, this bed, this body.
“Coffee is ready!”
“I’m coming, Mamá.”
CRISTINA SPENT THE MORNING AT HOME reading an FBI document about cross-border trafficking and related gang activity. The language was clinically dry and made her eyes roll into the back of her head, but she forced herself through all one hundred and twenty pages. In the end she felt she could sum it up in one sentence: business as usual along the border.
In El Paso they had gangs and in Ciudad Juárez there were gangs. They traded with one other and helped one another and the common denominator was cash. On the US side they caught kids as young as eighteen with guns stashed in the dashboards of their cars. On the Mexican side it was the same, only it was marijuana and meth heading north.
These were small-time deals, just a few gang-bangers looking to earn some money. The big fish swam in deeper waters, where a hundred kilos could ship without anyone batting an eye and dozens of factory-fresh AK-47s shipped south into eager hands. In Texas it was hard to get dope, but easy to get guns. In Mexico it was just the opposite.
Cristina and Robinson did not handle the big fish. FBI and DEA were both in El Paso and they took care of the big-money deals, the heavy weight, the traffic in guns. Customs and Border Protection, too. Cristina had even met two agents of the ATF once, looking into weapons trafficking through the city. All eyes were focused on El Paso and its companion across the river, Juárez.
She had an early lunch and drove to work. Robinson was already at his desk reading the daily reports. He had a big cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee on hand. “Afternoon,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“Not much. We’re the safest city in the US, you know.”
“Are we?”
“That’s what they say right here.”
“Well, good for us.”
Robinson passed the sheets over and Cristina scanned them. One of them touted the results of “an independent study” that showed El Paso’s overall crime rate was down one percent. In Central Regional Command, which was their domain, it was down five percent.
“Safest city in the US,” Cristina remarked.
“Yep.”
“I guess I ought to just go home, then. No bad guys to catch.”
“We should be so lucky.”
Captain Cokley approached them with paperwork in hand. “How are the fearless crimebusters this morning?” he asked.
“Getting by,” Robinson said.
“Well, I’ve got something for you. Grocery store on 4th. Gang tags and possible protection racket. I want you to go out there, talk to the guy, see what you can dig up.”
“We’re on it.”
“And don’t stop for any juvenile delinquents on the way. You have real work to do.”
Robinson drove. They pulled up into a yellow zone and put a police placard in the front window. Cristina had a view of the long side wall of the little family-owned grocery and she could see the graffiti from the car. “You got the camera?” she asked.
“Right here.”
First they took pictures of the gang tags. They were easy to read: the tagger’s signature, the neighborhood and the gang stamp: 21. “Aztecas,” Cristina said. Robinson took pictures.
They went inside. The place had a peculiar aroma, of closeness and age, that wasn’t totally off-putting. This grocery store had been in the neighborhood forty years and it lacked the stark, almost antiseptic feel of a chain store. Fresh produce was displayed just inside the front door, still smelling of the earth.
A teenaged girl stood at the register. Cristina showed her ID and asked for the manager.
“The owner is here.”
“That’ll work, too.”
The girl disappeared for a while and returned with an old man in his late sixties, balding on top and widening in the middle. He nodded at their badges and shook both of their hands. “I am Ruben Delgado,” he said. “Mucho gusto.”