In Desperation

Ruiz put a twenty, a ten and a five on the counter.

“Would you like a receipt?”

“No.”

“Have a nice day.”

As Ruiz exited the store, he heard the tall cop’s radio going again but could not make out the message, only that the tone seemed urgent. Ruiz just needed to get to his car. The officer paid for his food, then followed him out the door, watching him, suddenly noticing something about the white Ford sedan.

Alfredo saw concern in the cop’s face as Ruiz got in the car.

Eyeing Ruiz and the car, the tall officer set his food on the ground and walked directly toward them. In a heartbeat, Ruiz turned the key, started the engine.

“Excuse me,” the officer said as his partner got out of his car to see.

Ruiz’s mind raced as he gripped the transmission shifter.

“Hold on there, sir!”

The officer was almost at the car. Alfredo whispered to Ruiz to pull out as Ruiz dropped his hand between his legs to feel the grip of his gun under the seat.

“Don’t move!” the officer said, going toward the trunk.

“Jesus. Just go!” Alfredo cursed Ruiz, who sat calmly, watching the officer reach above the trunk, then step to the driver’s window.

He held up the gas cap.

“You forgot this.”

“Oh.” Ruiz smiled. “Thank you.”

“We wouldn’t want you spilling gas all over the highway.” The cop replaced the cap, tapped the trunk to signal all clear. “Drive safely.”

DAY 4

33

Juarez, Mexico / El Paso, Texas

At 5:00 a.m., at the edge of Juarez, in a squalid house on a hilly dirt street of decaying adobes, burned-out cars and yapping dogs, Angel Quinterra lay in bed, waiting in the stillness.

He had not slept.

Again, as with every night, he was visited by the faces of the dead, telling him that death was coming for him.

Last night, two soldiers from the cartel had picked him up in an SUV near Lago de Rosas and brought him to this place.

“Sleep here,” they’d told him. “You will be called at 5:00 a.m. with instructions.”

When he’d arrived, the nervous man and woman who lived in the house had said little. Angel was told to refer to the couple as his “uncle and aunt,” and they gave him a small room with a bed. Above it was an ornate crucifix and a rosary draping the framed photograph of a smiling woman in her twenties.

Angel had no idea who she was and didn’t care.

This run-down shack was a far cry from the palatial ranch-the safe house-where Angel had been staying. As the cartel’s top sicario, he had grown accustomed to luxury while waiting between jobs. The cartel had placed him in the mansions of drug lords in Mexico or South America. Sometimes he took trips to Las Vegas, New York, Rio de Janeiro, or London. Always first class and the best hotels. Once he went to Barcelona to watch bull-fights, then to Monte Carlo to see a Formula One race, where he stayed on a private yacht.

At twenty, Angel had enjoyed his life as a cartel assassin.

But he knew it would end and was secretly working on his exit strategy with the priest.

His cell phone vibrated with a call. It was 5:09 a.m.

“Si.”

“Are you ready for work?” Thirty asked.

They never used names. Thirty was Deltrano, the number two man in the Norte Cartel. He was Angel’s main contact. The head of the cartel, Samson, was known as Twenty-five.

“Si.”

“You will be a student today, are you ready for school?”

“Si, I’m ready.”

“Twenty-five says you will take a school trip into the United States.”

“Where?”

“First, go to your new school in El Paso. Don’t forget the backpack your uncle has prepared for you. Everything you need for this trip is inside. Now listen to my instructions…”

Afterward, in keeping with cartel practice, Angel destroyed his cell phone. In most cases, they were only used for one call. Then the woman made him breakfast. The man explained that he and his wife worked as janitors in the U.S. Consulate and had access to government forms. The cartel had murdered one daughter and threatened to kill the rest of the family if they didn’t pass blank government papers to their people, for them to make official documents.

The man gave Angel a backpack containing a new cell phone, T-shirt, jeans, a forged student visa and other records. The records confirmed Angel was registered as a new student at Azure Sky Academy, the private religious school in El Paso. Several hundred students from Juarez crossed the bridge to attend it every day. As the sun rose, the man showed him where to catch the school bus to the border.

Angel started walking to the stop.

As dawn painted the barrio in gold, he was reminded of how people here were forced to live. The smell of sewage hung in the air. The dirty faces of children picking through garbage were an outrage.

Where was God?

It was understandable to him that the young people saw the narcos as righteous rebels, exposing corrupt politicians and police, refusing to be exploited in the U.S.-run factories, battling oppression, injustice and rising above poverty. To many, the narcos were heroes.

At the bus stop, Angel saw his reflection in the store-front glass between its security bars just as he boarded the bus. He showed the driver his papers and took a seat, still seeing his reflection through the window as the bus rolled and memory pulled him back through his life to the time he was ten years old…

They are living in a ramshackle shanty near the dump. His mother works in a maquiladora. His father, a security guard, has lost his job to drinking. He spends his days sifting through trash, seething at his life and polishing his gun.

He beats Angel and his mother every day. At supper he’s raging at Angel’s mother. “You stupid bitch! You and the boy are holding me down.” She’s serving him beans. “These beans are cold, bitch!” Before Angel’s eyes he pulls out his gun and shoots her in the head.

She falls dead on the table, eyes wide, staring at Angel, who turns to face the muzzle now aimed at him. The barrel shakes. Angel waits for the bullet, glaring at his father. His boiling hate eclipses any fear as Angel’s fingers tighten on his knife.

“Kill me, too!” Angel screams at his father, whose face dissolves into tears, and in one swift move he thrusts the gun into his own mouth, pulls the trigger, splattering his brains on his mother’s picture of the Blessed Virgin.

Where is God?

Angel’s bus drove through Juarez, picking up students. As it filled, it buzzed with chatter in Spanish and English. No one noticed him. He was alone, as he’d been in the days after his mother’s murder.