“We are closed, eh. Cerrado. Girls gone home.” If she remembered him from his last visit, she was trying to keep it from him. But he knew she knew. There was a flinty intelligence in her black eyes. It had made an impression on him during his last visit, and it gave him hope for coming back now.
“I ’ m not here for that, Marta.”
“No hablo — ”
“Yes, you do.”
“It ’ s late. I go to bed.”
“Wait. Finish your cigarette.” She stared up at him with malice. He supposed in that moment that he was every man that had made her a commodity in her day and currently did so to all the girls in her charge.
“What you want?”
“I need the password to enter the rancho, ” he said. Now she glared at him outright. He saw genuine fear behind the expression she was trying to mask with the anger.
“They look for you,” she said. “They gon ’ kill you.”
“Who?”
She made a tsk sound with her teeth that told him she would probably die before telling him that.
“Then give me the password.”
“No.”
A moment of quiet passed.
“Come inside,” she offered.
“No thanks,” Behr said. She was five feet tall, but Behr was reluctant to share a space with her where she undoubtedly had a weapon.
“It won ’ t come back on you,” he went on. “Others must know it. Plenty of others.”
“Go ask them,” she said.
“I ’ m asking you.”
“Nothing here is for free. You know?”
“I know.” Behr dug the ground with the ball of his foot. “I have very little money to pay you, and I don ’ t guess you take credit cards.”
She squared up with him for the negotiation. He looked at her. She flicked her cigarette away and crossed her arms. Her hard eyes shone back at him, black and cold as the night.
THIRTY-NINE
When the darkness goes away, along with the cold of the night, and all is thick with heat and quiet, like now, he dreams of touching his mother ’ s face. He isn ’ t sure how old he is anymore. A long time has passed. His birthday has as well. At least one, he is sure. But he remembers her face well. The soft, thin skin of her cheeks…the slight circles under her eyes…of pressing on her full lips with his fingertips…of knocking his forehead against hers as he did when he was a child, the code for their love when he felt he had grown too old to speak it. It is a dream of peace out of reach. The dream visits him almost every time he sleeps. It haunts him, and drives him to try to run. Even though he doesn ’ t know where he is — only that he thinks it may be called Cuando Tiempo, for those are the words he hears most often. And even though he doesn ’ t know how far, he knows it is a great distance from anyplace else. They have taken his shoes. It is their practice to do this. He has been left alone for a long time, but he feels that something is about to change. His visits from the guards are more frequent now, their checks on his condition more focused. They had given him more food for a time, the occasional Coca-Cola, but not so much recently. He looks out the window and sees the cactus just outside. Low, flat plants with clusters of spines that shine in the sun lay around the building in every direction as far as he can see. He has seen others from time to time. And then not for a while and he knows they are dead. Like the one who was inside the van ’ s well with him, cloth sacks over their heads. Chris Something. The other had said a last name, but he can no longer remember it. He only recalls the moment when he knew Chris Something had died, lying heavy on top of him, the smell building up in the small space as the van drove.
FORTY
Paul must have fallen asleep because when he lifted his head the pink of morning was in the sky and Behr ’ s boots filled his eyes. He glanced up to see Behr crouched below the ridgeline, peering down on the compound.
“You get the password?” Paul asked.
“I got it,” Behr answered.
The brief fresh cool of morning burned off minute by minute, and by the time it was ten o ’ clock, the sun was high and striking down on them like molten lava.
“We don ’ t know what to expect during daylight hours,” Behr had said. “The high-percentage play would be to do it late night, when we know the routine. But I sure don ’ t feel good about going in there when it ’ s dark. Do you? We ’ ll keep on with the recon, go around dusk.”
Paul nodded.
“We go in there, there ’ s no guarantee of our safety. If it comes to it, can you shoot?” Behr asked.
“Yes,” Paul answered. They said no more.
They retired back to the car in shifts for shade and water but didn ’ t want to risk the sound of running the engine for air-conditioning, so if anything the car was even hotter than the outside air. The water, too, was warm and oily and tasted of plastic, but they drank it because they knew they needed it. By noon they ’ d eaten the last of the beef jerky and the other snacks they ’ d bought at gas stations on their way. Sweat rolled down their faces and stung their eyes, and even though they covered their heads and arms with extra shirts, they felt their skin burning. Their eyeballs ached and their heads were splitting, and while several men had left early in the day, and for a time only the Bronco was parked below them, they had yet to see any further sign of what went on inside. Later on, well after noon, a pickup with a canvas over a payload entered, but it pulled in behind one of the buildings out of their sight.
Don Ramon Ponceterra took great care in dressing, as he always did, although he was moving more quickly than usual. This day was unusual in the extreme, but he was loath to abandon his habits. He had gotten the phone call from Esteban that Victor Colon had been located and that surely there would be something learned within an hour or two. Don Ramon had said that he would meet them out at the rancho. Then he set about choosing a white linen shirt, cream-colored trousers, fine socks, and light tan suede shoes. Lastly, he tied a short silk scarf around his throat, for though he wore a sturdy twill shooting jacket, he always made allowances, regardless of his dress, for at least one piece of silk against his skin. As Plato taught, “all physical objects are mere shadows of their ideal forms.” Except for silk. Silk was the apotheosis of fabric, in Ponceterra ’ s considered opinion.
A light coating of Bay Rum on his smooth cheeks, the citrus scent pleasantly piquant in his nostrils, and he was ready. He went outside to where his Cadillac Eldorado had been pulled around. He ’ d be driving himself today. It was not something he liked to do, but there was good reason for it, as Esteban was otherwise occupied. He got into the well-kept car, the interior cool enough from being parked inside the carriage house that he needed only to keep the fan turned low. He pulled out of his property and made his way to the ruta.
There had been screams. They began after lunch and seem to go on and on. They belong to a grown man, not a boy, though at times they resemble those of an animal. Something is happening. Something different. There has been a sense of waiting. It has gone on for so long it has given way to deadness. He dreads the visits from the Fancy Man. Though the man never touches him beyond a pat on the leg, the back, a hand on the cheek, there is a feeling that something is coming, and not knowing what is the worst thing he ’ s ever tasted. The Fancy Man wears suits that smell like mothballs underneath the odor of flowery aftershave.
There is a lull in the screaming and he hears the sound of a car arriving. This is strange, it being so early, and also because a small truck has arrived already and has pulled around the far side of the building, where he cannot see it. Now he goes and peers out from behind the vinyl shade that covers the small window, too small for him to
