Chapter Twenty-nine
WHEN THE LOVE of your life insists he’s going off with his one-time FBI mentor to find his demonic worst enemy in “the murder capital of the world,” a city that boasted almost five thousand murders last year alone, and you will damn well stay home safe in Las Vegas, what’s a modern woman to do?
Argue herself pink, purple, and puce to no avail, and then say, “Yes, dear.”
So he soaks up the supersteamy farewell sex while you soak up his mushy vows of love and a swift, safe return.
Then you check his cell phone and email in the middle of the night when he’s sleeping sounder than an exhausted sultan after you gave him his third orgasm.
And then . . . you wait a few hours after he heads for the airport, take your hundred-and-fifty-pound wolf-mix dog and ex-reporter savvy, and follow the cocky son-of-a-gun right on down to Mexico and Door Number Three, the murder capital of the world, Ciudad Juarez.
Just for the record, and I know where to find hard facts, Las Vegas averages fewer homicides in one year than the City of Juarez averages in one month.
I MADE THE twelve-hour drive on Highway 93 and I-10 to El Paso in ten hours flat.
No way was Quicksilver shipping in the belly of an airplane. Besides, he was great company on a road trip and loved riding shotgun.
And no way was I leaving my Cadillac Eldorado convertible parked at the border, so I found Dolly a good long-term garage in El Paso for the duration and stored Quick’s car-riding sunglasses in the glove compartment.
Before moving on, I tipped the garage attendant royally. I trusted Vegas’s valet parking demons more than the usual humans, but Quicksilver had shown this guy the size of his shark-worthy fangs.
His friendly parting grin had turned the Anglo attendant a whiter shade of pale. He definitely got the message about what would happen if we came back to find Dolly violated in any way, including a joyride.
Twilight was stretching long shadows even longer as we walked the mile to the border. I hated splitting with Quick a couple blocks from the international bridge. I’d have to walk over the Rio Grande River alone.
“Sorry, boy,” I knelt to tell him. “It’s swim or confiscation.”
For the first time ever, I unbuckled the black leather collar he’d been wearing when I’d adopted him at a shelter event in Vegas’s Sunset Park so soon after arriving in town that I didn’t even have an apartment yet. The volunteers had me when they said such a large dog was so tough to place he was slated for so-called euthanasia right after the event.
Quick was a major reason I’d accepted Nightwine’s offer to live in the Enchanted Cottage on his estate. I couldn’t rent anywhere else with a big dog in the package.
As I slipped off Quicksilver’s collar, he growled, the first time ever at me. My fingertips polished the silver moons that circled the wide black leather.
“I don’t want that death-ridden river tainting your lucky charms,
Quicksilver arfed eager doggie agreement to my scheme, narrowing his eyes at the stream of cars and pedestrians crossing the bridge. Being mostly gray with touches of beige, I knew he’d blend into the water in the fading light. I hoped my copped ID would also pass better muster at twilight.
“Ric was right. We’re both taking a big risk being here,” I whispered into Quick’s wolfish perked ear. “You don’t have to go with me. Ric and you came into my life on the same day, and I couldn’t forgive myself if harm came to either of you through me.”
Yeah, dogs don’t talk, but they do sense more than we can know.
Quicksilver was not a smoochy dog, but he answered by head-butting my shoulder and taking off at a trot, losing himself in the throng of people, heading right for the banks of Rio Grande . . . Rio Bravo to the natives on the other side.
Too late for me to get cold tootsies. Besides, that was hard to do in the cut-down ankle cowboy boots I’d bought to look touristy-fashionable and harmless. They’d still protect my legs from the brush I expected to encounter. I’d stuffed denim jeggings into them, tough enough for a tromp in the desert but not as hot as heavy- duty jeans in this heat-and-dust soaked climate.
In ten minutes I was filing forward in a line of tourists wearing shorts and sandals, visiting Juarez no matter the death toll and time of day, drawn by cheap prices on Mexican tooled leather, sterling silver, and dentistry.
My silver familiar had tarted itself up as a cuff bracelet inset with lurid blue glass ‘stones’ instead of turquoise . . . nothing anyone would want to steal, but useful proof of presumed previous jaunts to Juarez.
I slung my backpack over one shoulder like a hobo bag and clutched the laminated key to the city in my right hand. My tan-shy white skin wore an air-brushed patina of bronze. Gray contact lenses hid my vivid blue eyes.
With my thick black hair, I looked Latina on first glance, which was important not only for general undercover purposes, but because I held the passport of a Poxx TV News researcher named Ashley Martinez.
An American crew fresh from Juarez had been purging their minds of the horrors they’d seen there in a dim El Paso hotel bar. An ex-reporter like me could blend in and ask questions.
“Plan on paying
“My crew’s already in Juarez, but this is my first trip down. Delilah Street, WTCH-TV, Wichita.” We shook hands.
“I’m Louise Dietz,” she said. “So
“The drug lords’ smuggling routes cut through the heartland, and so do the addiction and gun-running problems these days.”
“That’s for sure.” She sipped a spiked lemonade. “That’s another thing: buy bottled water or canned pop and drink only that.”
I pulled an Aqua Fina bottle out of the backpack at my feet, which was loaded with high-protein energy bars and foil-packaged dog food.
“You look prepared,” she admitted. “I’ve been doing news for more years than you’ve known how to write your pretty first name, Delilah. I anchored in Santa Fe in my glory days, but I like hard news reporting better. I live to expose the bad guys. You’re not driving in?”
“No. Walking the bridge.”
“So you’re meeting the crew muscle right on the other side?”
“That’s the plan.” News crews on dangerous turf hire locals as guides-cum-bodyguards. Quicksilver didn’t speak Spanish but he sure spoke intimidation, and he was waiting outside the bar.
“You’re lucky your dark hair passes around here. Still, I wouldn’t send a woman crew member on foot alone across the street in Juarez,” Louise said. “If the pollution from the burning tires and junker cars don’t get you, the crazy traffic or the kidnappers will. You’ve got nerve.”
“I’ve got a mission. Like you say, there’s a lot of pollution in Juarez that needs to be exposed. And stopped.”
She was silent for a moment, measuring me. “Most of it’s human. Or are you one of these New Agers that think a bit of the unhuman is messing in our world since the Millennium?”
“I think bad is bad, whatever its origin.”
“Look for it at every step, in every face, and you’ll do all right down there, kid.”
Meanwhile, I’d been watching a young Latina woman about my size who’d been flirting with the beach-boy handsome videographer.
“Thanks for the tips,” I told Louise in good-bye, in pursuit of my oblivious prey.
I followed her into the ladies’ room.
Señorita Martinez had closed her eyes to reapply Urban Decay Zero eyeliner to her lids, a faux decadent beauty product line so appropriate to this time and place. I was heading into the Zero Zone all right. Zero safety. Zero protection. Zero humanity. First I had to get in, so I slipped the tourist card out of the passport in her